NoNeighbors.com

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At one point, NoNeighbors actually existed at NoNeighbors.com, but I stopped paying for the addy. I was tired of the stupid banner at the bottom and, well, that's that. If there is a banner at the bottom, go to my mirror site at https://www.angelfire.com/emo/affpics/index.html to get rid of it.

Also, check out my new site at www.19daze.com


*Be sure to hit "refresh" in order to update the page.

Special Site update: I have moved the "Photoshop" contests to their own page. They're funny, but they take up too much space.
Click here to see them.


4-7-03

Funny picture of the day:

This is Spencer Hamrick Jr., a Virginia bank exec, grinning for a magazine photo shoot.

The guy at the counter behind him? He's robbing the place. I'm serious. Here's the link.

4-4-03

Killing "Sims"

I found a message thread about the video game The Sims, which, if you don't know, is a spin-off of the hugely popular series of SimCity video games where you build a city and try to keep your people happy. The Sims focuses on the actual people living in the city, people you customize and "build" over time, buying them possessions, giving them jobs, and so on. Kind of like those "virtual pets" that became really popular a few years ago, only The Sims is much more involved. It's supposed to be a pretty cool game, although I've never played it, and supposedly it's especially popular among females, which isn't surprising since The Sims is basically a high-tech version of "playing house."

Anyway, in this message thread that I found, people were talking about an article online that described ways to kill your Sims, and it's hilarious. I picked out some of the best personal anecdotes that people posted about killing their sims and put them on a separate page, because I didn't want it to take up space here on the main page.

It's pretty funny... and sadistic. Stuff like throwing a pool party and then selling the pool ladder so your Sims can't get out, and so on. Click here to see it.

4-1-03

Internet Epiphany

So I'm online tonight and I'm chatting with this girl. Things are going fine and we've been talking for like half-an-hour. I have a couple of Oreo cookies and a glass of skim milk in front of me and I'm just lounging, taking it easy, about to sign off and go to bed.

Note: I've had a cold for a couple of days and it's made me extremely clumsy, even more so than normal.

So, smooth-talking conversationalist that I am, I go to ask this girl if she's tried the new Mint Oreo Cookies, and while I'm typing this, I dump my entire glass of milk in my lap.

I haven't made a mess like this since I was like 5. Milk is everywhere and it's cold and there's this brief moment where I don't even know what to do about it and I almost start to panic because when I was 5 there were other people there, namely my parents, to clean this stuff up for me, so I'm sitting there in this mess, dumbfounded like a lone environmentalist sent to clean up an oil spill with a Dustbuster and a Swiffer mop, when I am suddenly overcome by this ocean of relief that the girl I'm talking to can't see me.

God Bless Al Gore for inventing the Internet.

3-29-03

Lance Cpl. Smith froze with fear. He had always assumed that the deadly
"Flaming Camel" was just another crazy Iraqi urban legend.

On the lookout for more Flaming Camels. It's the ones you can't see that you
have to worry about.

British commandos debate over whether they should engage a horde of Flaming
Camels, or just go around them.

"No way! I'm not stickin' my hand down there to pull out hidden Iraqi ammo!"
"Well I'm not doing it either!"
"Well... get Mikey. Mikey'll do it. Mikey'll do anything."
"Hey, Mikey! We got somethin' for ya!"

Smoke-filled horizons. Flaming Camels. The imagery was too much. Corporal
Johnson could no longer resist the urge to have a smoke.

He had been on the beaches of Normandy. He'd been at Iwo Jima. He was a legend,
and the soldiers of the Marines 1st Battalion, 5th Regiment, 1st Marine Division
refused to go into battle without their lucky goat, Skippy.

3-25-03

What's that, Flipper?
Saddam put mines in the lagoon???

Job Searching
I came across this job posting for a writer who has completed a script and needs someone to help him with the rewrite. I have highlighted his errors in red:

"I have a script which is been completed, but i think i need to rewrite certain parts. Therefore, I am looking to hire a writer to shape my script. salary should be discussed depending on the work that have to be done."

If this post is an accurate display of this guy's writing skills, I'd say the script needs a major rewrite. Maybe he was just in a hurry, though...

The War
Something occurred to me today while I was reading an article about Australia warning their citizens to keep their kids away from the antiwar protests taking place in Sydney today, due to fears that the protests will turn violent. Antiwar protesters complain that Iraqi civilians are being harmed in the Allied liberation of Iraq. Supporters for the war counter that civilian casualties are the exception in this war, and not the norm, and that the cause of Iraqi liberation is worth the loss of a few innocent Iraqi lives. According to reports coming from inside Iraq, this view is also shared by many Iraqis.

What's interesting is that antiwar protesters know their protests will probably turn violent. And, to be fair, like Iraqi civilian casualties, violent protesters are the exception in "peace" marches, and not the norm. However, protest organizers know that these extremists are out there and they know that they'll damage property, owned by innocent fellow Americans, and probably put themselves and innocent bystanders, including police officers, at risk of physical harm. So, following their own logic, if no cause is worth harming innocents, why don't the protest organizers cancel their demonstrations?

3-24-03


Despite 12 years of UN sanctions and the current Allied invasion, business was still
good at Mohammed al Bling-bing's harem on the outskirts of Baghdad.

Ahmak Ded Alredy and Mohammed al Soonntubeeded led the crowd
in a boisterous cheer as they pumped their fists and counted along
with the voice emanating from the cockpit of the downed American
Apache Helicopter: "...3! ...2! ...1! ..."

"Rambo?" Said Akmed Ramil, standing guard over a minefield in Northern
Iraq. "Rambo wussa sissy."

Wong (right) always felt like Manny was compensating for something.

3-22-03

Shaq and Awe

Other pictures from the war:

Leading the war pics that I've found on the web is this one of surrendering Iraqis that I
really wish I'd taken. Notice not only the destruction in the foreground, but the form
of Iraqis standing in line that is duplicated in the rows of rebar coming out of the
smashed concrete below them.

Both pics are of missile launches from sea. The one on the right is from a submarine,
taken through the pariscope.

Another one I wish I'd taken, except that it would mean I would have to be
in Iraq to take it. The smoke in the background was reportedly from U.S.
bombing.

Iraqi roller coaster enthusiasts.

3-20-03

Finally, an update. I just got my high speed Internet hooked up at my new place, so here we go...

For today, a couple of e-mails that I wrote and sent out to friends and family recently:

Dateline March 1, 2003 - British "Human Shields" leave Iraq, claiming (and I'm not making this up) that the situation is "too dangerous." Other brilliant epiphanies that led to their departure:

1. "Dude, they don't have Cheetos here?"
2. Their French counterparts decided to stay home and act as "Human Shields les Virtual" over the Internet.
3. "Oh, crap, we really are going to war. Alright, people, back on the bus!"
4. A Drum Circle has never won a showdown with a Daisy Cutter.
5. Even CNN is considering leaving this time.
6. "Bro, they confiscated my Phish CDs."
7. Chants of "Yankee go home!" were replaced by "Yankee go home and take us with you!"
8. Acitivists were tired of cute little village children asking "Can I have your watch when you are dead?"
9. Curiously, Iraqi Republican Guardsmen, mobile missile batteries and unmarked transport trucks accompanied by decontamination trailers followed them everywhere they went.
10. "For serious, they really don't have Cheetos here?"
11. "The Iraqi's told us which sites we could protect and which ones we couldn't. Can you believe that? Iraq telling foreigners where they can and cannot go. I just NEVER saw that coming..."
12. Female activists found that their resrictive burquas made flashing the foreign press more trouble than it was worth.
13. Since learning that possession of drugs is a capital offense in most Arab countries, the "Not In Our Name" crowd finally sobered up. Said one activist as he climbed back onto his double-decker bus, shaking from withdrawals, "Baghdad? How did I get here? I thought we were going to Burning Man..."

Operation Kuwaiti Field Chicken

The following is in response to the US Army's most recent plans to deal with biological warfare in the impending assault on Iraq. Dubbed "Operation Kuwaiti Field Chicken" (or Operation KFC -- I'm not making this up) chickens will accompany Humvees into the desert as early-warning devices incase of biological attacks, like the canary in the coal mine.

1. In the face of this new chick-nological revolution in warfare, Tariq Aziz has finally admitted that the future of the Iraqi military looks beak.
2. US soldiers have been warned not to go off half-cocked during sensitive situations. They have also been warned against ruffling feathers, causing a flap, and running around like a Biological Warfare Detection System with its head cut off.
3. The US Army has banned rubber chickens for fear of false alarms.
4. Kuwaiti McDonald's have added a new item to their menu to commemorate this momentous advance in modern warfare, tentatively called the Chicken McJihad, although market survey results from the region have not yet been analyzed.
5. Colonel Sanders has finally been promoted to Brigadier General.
6. When word reached Tony Blair that the Americans would be strapping chickens to the roofs of their Humvees and M1 tanks, he personally phoned President Bush to congratulate him on finally finding a way to include the French in the war effort.
7. PETA has lobbied to have slow roasted, deep fried, plucked, basted, breaded, grilled, rotisseried, flame-broiled, and filleted added to the list of practices outlawed by the Geneva Convention. There is also a separate PETA movement to have chickens listed as non-combatants, but this has been thwarted by rumors of their illegal participation in the Iraqi Ballistic Missile Program. And finally...
8. Special flyers have been airdropped over Baghdad to ensure that any Iraqi military personnel who encounter chickens on the battlefield will know how to surrender to them. Iraqi soldiers have also been informed that if the chicken to whom they have surrendered claims the sky is falling, it's probably right.

3-10-03

Finally! An update! I just got high-speed Internet hooked up again at my place in L.A., so here we go... All that I really have to say today is that I hate the "Num Lock" key on my computer. More specifically, I hate the indicator light that tells me that "Num Lock" is engaged. I'm not even sure what "Num Lock" does. I just know I don't like it.

11-25-02

So I guess the theme for the week is the homeless, since this is the second post in-a-row that deals with it. There's a guy who roams around Tempe. We'll call him Bob. You can see Bob almost everytime you go downtown. He looks like he's in his late twenties/early thirties, unshaven, with long greasy brown hair and a very skinny build. He never has a shirt on and he's always "going somewhere". I'm moving the last of my stuff out of the house in Arizona this week and today I went to a local thrift store to drop some things off. While I was there I found a cool office chair for $30 and decided to get it. I ended up in line behind Bob.

Things seem to be looking up for Bob. He was fully clothed, with Diamondbacks hat and a hooded pull-over sweater, which is good because it was cold today. He appeared to be with a group, apparently from some local clinic of some kind. He was buying a little stuffed animal, about the size of a Beanie Baby. I looked at it closer and realized it was the winged junk dealer from Star Wars: Episode I. Suddenly I had this window into a life that was infinitely more complex than I would have imagined. As much as he was struggling, who was he buying this toy for? Was there someone special in his life? A little boy or girl? He seemed self-conscious standing there in line, which seemed like an eternity anyway because the old ladies working the register like to take their time.

Finally, someone from his group nicely asked him who the toy was for. He turned to her and in a sharp, angry tone, exclaimed "Me!"

Well OK then. That'll be 25-cents see ya later.

11-19-02

At the Promenade on 3rd Street in Santa Monica, CA, an unusual amount of transients play musical instruments for money. Some play guitar. One person plays the sax. A couple of guys, curiously, play the drums, and I wonder what they do with their drum sets at night. Supposedly there is even the "human jukebox", who, for a handout, will sing any song that you can think of.

On a piece of cardboard held by a scruffy looking panhandler at the end of the street. "No talent. Just need money." He's the one who got my spare change.

However, I am torn between wanting to help and not wanting to support the freeloading lifestyle. There are some people who are there because they're sick and lack a support system to keep them off of the streets. However, there are others there who are where they are because they choose to be, or at one point chose the path that led them there. There are the anti-capitalist "punks", teens revolting against their parents, who don't want a job because it supports a "greedy" society that they despise, yet they have no problem leaching off of this society, which makes them hypocrites, and lazy ones at that. Give them a dollar so they can feed their mangy dog, score another tattoo or piercing, and get wasted tonight, again. No thanks. Even the truly despondent, the drug addicts, have trouble earning my sympathy. They're drug addicts because at some point, when they still had a choice, they picked the lifestyle that landed them on the sidewalk outside Gap. I judge people by my own standards, and I don't use drugs, thus I won't end up on the street begging for change so I can get high. Why should they receive special treatment?

Mostly, though, what people on the street need is CHANGE, and I'm not referring to currency. Money only supports them in their current state. It doesn't help them to better themselves or to turn their life around. Handing them free money only takes away their incentive to turn things around.

11-9-02

Welcome, new visitors, to my site. I know that I just sent this addy out to a lot of people, so thanks for dropping by. There's an explanation for why the date is currently one day ahead, since I'm actually adding this on the 8th, but I don't feel like going into it.

The only thing that I have to say today is go see "Igby Goes Down". It's out in limited release, but find a theater that's showing it and go see it. Hands down the best film out right now.

11-8-02

Last night, my friend Celia and I spontaneously decided to go see Pauly Shore at the Tempe Improv. We decided this at 7:40 PM, with the show starting at 8 PM sharp, but there were a couple of opening acts so we didn't miss anything. Pauly was funny, of course, and I was a teenager through his biggest movie years (Son In Law!!!), so it was really cool to see him. My point is this:

After the show, he was signing autographs in the lobby. Now, I have a modest collection of autographs, and I've met a modest number of celebrities-- about as many as most other people have, probably. So why can't I think of anything cool to say to them? EVER? It's not enough to just say "Hey, man, thanks a lot. I really liked your show." And walk away. No, I can't say that. That's too simple. They've heard it all a million times, anyway, right? Who cares? So, no, I end up walking up like a dork, I don't say ANYTHING, because if you can't say something creative to a famous person, don't say anything at all-- that's my motto. So I feel like an ass but I got my little hastily scribbled, Sharpy-penned autograph to show to all of my friends so they can see how cool I am, which is ironic considering how uncool I was to get it. So that's one of the great questions of my life. What do you say when you meet famous people? Another great mystery is why the lower-case l's (el's) and upper-case I's (eye's) look the same in this font.

11-7-02

The elections. I have to get a few things off my chest.

To quote Churchill: "If you're 20 and not a liberal, you have no heart. If you're 30 and not a conservative, you have no brain."

I agree with a lot of Liberal ideologies and side with the left on many issues. I've taken tests to see which side of the aisle I sit on, and the last one that I took put me right between Democrat and Authoritarian. Whatever. My point is, I could NEVER, EVER consider myself a Democrat, simply because I despise every single one of their leaders. There's also a smug, elitist air to liberals-- a sort of (unwarranted) intellectual vanity that turns me off. Let me list some liberal ideals for you:

"We hate war. People who want war must love it." --Yeah, that's intelligent. Sounds pretty simplistic to me. To just throw your hands up and say "I hate war" is the equivalent of sticking your head in the sand because a problem is too difficult for you to deal with. Our leaders have to answer to us. They have to make the tough decisions and take accountability ("accountability" being Clintonian-Democrat Kryptonite) for the fallout. Clinton should thank his lucky stars that he wasn't in office to answer for September 11th. What was done after the Cole bombing? NOTHING. The embassy bombings? Two missile attacks which showed ZERO commitment to defend ourselves. The first attack on the WTC? A couple of guys rotting away in prison. Webster's should change the definition of "Paper Tiger" so that it simply reads 'America in the 1990's'. People, "terrorists," with an agenda far more sinister than the noble goal of simply "freeing their people" from American Imperialism, see inaction by their rivals, viewed by Liberals as mercy, for what it really is: a sign of weakness. We don't live in this flowery, happy, smiling utopia of peace and goodwill that Liberals are constantly, and valiantly, striving for. One day maybe. But not now. Not in the REAL world. Let's suppose that we don't take military action in Iraq. We hand a small band of inspectors the impossible task of dismantling the WMD in a country that doesn't want it dismantled. A year from now, terrorists smuggle an Iraqi-made or Iraqi-funded nuclear device into Israel, or London, or Paris, or New York, and detonate it. You don't think the American people will wonder why the hell Bush didn't do something about it when he could?

"Bush is stupid because he has mediocre public speaking skills." --As opposed to our last president who used his smooth talking to take advantage of UGLY women. Seriously, though, that is such a juvenile thing to say. I'll admit that there are a lot of moronic politicians who get to where they are because they surround themselves with really smart people (a mark of good management skills), but you don't get to where he is by being an idiot.

"He wasn't elected, he was selected." --A decision made by the supreme court, one of the three branches of government, which Democrats had 8 straight years to influence. And it's not like they flipped a coin. This one really bugs me. YOUR, meaning you liberals out there, system of government decided the election. It was in place long before 2000. And Gore did everything he could to stop the military absentee ballots from counting in Florida, among other things, because everyone knows that most of our men and women in uniform despised Clinton/Gore, so this crap about Bush "stealing" the election is total BS and you know it.

"Iraq is just about oil." --Duh. Well, it's also about national security and world stability, a world that isn't half as stable as some of you would like to think... but I digress. That's why we aren't bombing North Korea right now. North Korea isn't posing a threat to the world's most important supply of natural resources. So what? Oh, that's right, Liberals, once again, are living in their dream utopia where no one drives cars, heats their homes, flies in planes... Liberals are apparently all Amish. So what if some oil execs get a huge payoff in the end? Oh, that's right... there aren't any rich Liberals either. They're all poor... and Amish.

"The economy sucks" --But Liberals don't have any solutions except to blame the current administration, who is somehow responsible for the decade of corporate corruption that occurred on Clinton's watch while he and the rest of his party took credit for the good times, good times that started to take a dive before Clinton even left office. By pointing out all of our nation's current problems and following them up with NO solutions of their own, Democrats proved that they don't have what it takes right now to lead, and that's why they got their asses kicked this week. You have to STAND for something, not just stand in the way of what the other guy is doing.

Anyway, I could go on and on but I really don't care that much. Most politicians are corrupt and it doesn't matter what side of the aisle they're on. Just don't let outsiders push us around and don't ever tell me what I can and cannot say/do/think, as long as I'm not hurting anyone.

And remember, the American people voted last Tuesday and this is what THEY chose. Nothing was hijacked, snatched, or stolen. To shrug this off and counter that the American people are just stupid and don't really know what they want would be, well... very liberal.

11-4-02

An update, finally. It's been a while, so here are a few quick observations from the past month to get things going again:

1. I think it's interesting that we have one word to describe the twelve hours from midnight to noon (morning) and three words to describe the twelve hours from noon to midnight (afternoon, evening, night). I don't know what this means.

2. There a lot of really, really, really crazy people out there --genuinely crazy-- but most of them seem perfectly normal most of the time. For most of them, you have to catch them at a really strange time or set them off somehow by finding that one topic of conversation that gets them started. And that's a good thing because it keeps us from knowing just how many lunatics we encounter, at work, in line at the store, in traffic, on a daily basis and that helps me sleep at night. If you need a reminder of this, check this site out: http://educate-yourself.org/cn/

3. One car with a flat tire on the side of the highway = 3 hour wait in traffic to get out of L.A.

4. Kennedy was shot by a dart fired from an umbrella wielded by a CIA agent. The dart dissolved immediately and paralyzed the president while the gunmen shot him. Probably one of the most interesting theories that I've heard yet for a crime that will never be solved, so it doesn't really matter anyway, I guess, but, whatever. If you're into this stuff and you have a free afternoon, check out: http://www.ratical.com/ratville/JFK/GoD.html#IMG21

5. There are some things that shouldn't be left unsaid.

6. What if God was one of us? Catchiest freaking song EVER.

10-1-02

Just a quick life update to anyone who happens across this page this week:

I am heading to CA this weekend to look for apartments in Los Angeles, thus missing the ASU/North Carolina football game here in Tempe on Saturday, which will haunt me for the rest of the year if ASU loses. I'm also editing two things right now: my latest short film and a TV pilot that I filmed back in August. I'm also doing some copywriting for a brochure for the Chi Institute, a "New Age" health treatment company in CA. Last week I took a temp job unloading a Maytag warehouse. And ALL of this beats sitting in an office from 9-5. Beats it with a stick.

9-24-02

Below is an excerpt from a feature script that I've been working on. Honestly, it isn't that great, yet, but I haven't posted anything in a while and this shows that I have actually been working... :)

In this scene, Rob and Dirk have kidnapped Stephen and the three of them have just arrived at a motel in the middle of the Arizona desert. After an odd encounter with the motel clerk in the parking lot, Kimberly, a young maid at the motel, appears and Rob and Dirk proceed to stare at her, frozen in fear. She is distraught over the breakup of her current relationship and is interrupted by a call on her cell phone from her ex-boyfriend...

KIMBERLY: Hello?

Kimberly walks away with her cell phone in hand.

ROB: (clinched teeth) She saw us. Go get her.

Dirk jumps into action. He reaches into the car and pulls out the gun. Stephen freaks out.

STEPHEN: What are you doing?

DIRK: She saw us.

STEPHEN: But the hotel clerk saw us too!

ROB: That was different. The maid is a female. They remember everything.

Rob marches off in Kimberly’s direction, leaving Dirk and Stephen standing by the car.

9-14-02

Here's a cool quote that I found today: Beware the fool, because one day he becomes wise.

I have no idea who said it, but, hey pal, whoever you are, way to go.

Also, Bush had a great soundbite after his speech to the U.N. about Iraq earlier this week, but I find it interesting that none of the major networks are running it:

"Democrats waiting for the UN to act? I can't imagine an elected member of the United States Senate or House of Representatives saying, 'I think I'm going to wait for the United Nations to make a decision.' It seems like to me that if you're representing the United States, you ought to be making a decision on what's best for the United States."

9-13-02

First, I highly recommend reading this article about My Week on the Avril Lavigne E-Team. It's really funny. I wish that I'd written it.

Second, editing of my latest short film could begin as early as this Monday, the 16th, so I'm really stoked about that.

And third, I'm probably just talking to myself here, but it is my sincere hope that if anyone does visit this page, that they will appreciate the shiny new buttons that I added at the top. I made them in Photoshop.

9-10-02

First let me just give a shout-out and thank you to girls who go grocery shopping in their pajamas. I don't know what possesses you to go out in public like that, but thank you, thank you, thank you, and welcome back for the fall, 2002 semester.

Second, IN THE NEWS TODAY:

With Sept. 11th tomorrow, Iraq has taken the opportunity to promote retalliatory attacks on U.S. interests if-and-when we attack Iraq, which is scheduled to begin sometime between this afternoon and November.

Memo from Iraq to terrorist cells:

"Please feel free to use the biological and chemical weapons that we have supplied to you in attacks on the U.S. and her allies in retalliation for a U.S. war waged over our denial of possessing and distributing said biological and chemical weapons. Thank you."

Finally, Mike's HEADLINE OF THE DAY, from Ventura, CA :

"City Eliminates Cat Problem Now Has Rat, Squirrel Problem" - duh.

8-7-02

Weezer!!!

I went to the Weezer concert tonight at Cricket Pavillion in northwest Phoenix. It was my 5th time seeing Weezer in concert and it was by far the best show that I've seen them put on yet. They totally rocked. In fact, it was the best concert that I've been to since the U2 Pop-Mart concert at Sun Devil Stadium in 1997, which says A LOT.

We had FREE box seats, so the six of us got our own chairs (although we stood while Weezer played, of course) with a table and a waitress, without the crush of being in the pit. We also had access to the VIP lounge, which was great because it was totally un-crowded, with misters and nicer bathrooms.

It was a total blast. Rivers, the lead singer for those of you un-hipsters out there, was in a shirt-and-tie and had this whole southern evangelist theme going throughout the show, with plenty of "praise the lords" and "jesus lives" with outstretched arms and, at one point, a descent into the depths of hell with smoke and red lights that led up to the song Buddy Holly. He's grown better at relating to the crowd over the years. Gone are the days of simply focusing on the songs with little-to-no conversation in-between.

Weezer has also improved technically, TONS, although they've always put on a good show, and they seem to have figured out the large arena/amphitheater venue. You can tell when a band gets big and they haven't quite adapted to the switch from bars and clubs to huge concerts with 1000's and 1000's of people (case-in-point: tonight Dashboard Confessional opened and they sounded decent, but seemed a lot more comfortable when I saw them at a small club in Tempe a few months ago), but Weezer has finally done it. What a show. It will be a long time before anyone tops tonight. It was well worth the $0 that I spent... although I did buy a Dashboard Confessional t-shirt since their label let me use their music in my first short film this year.

=w=

7-30-02

I updated my site tonight but I don't really have much else to say at the moment. I've been writing all evening so, what the hell, here's a short excerpt from my latest "book":

--...Trig sped his mother's Ford Taurus sedan down the dark winding country road, spiraling deep into the unnervingly desolate canyon, with teenaged reckless abandon, his large friend, Robert, at his side. Loren and Sandy sat together in the back seat, a pair of six-by-nine speakers behind their heads blasting New Found Glory or The Ataris or some other pop-punk CD that Trig had somehow smuggled through the "Iron Curtain", as he put it, that was formed by the 300-mile radius of near-radio-deadness that separated their small town from modern Americana. The closest thing they'd had to an alternative music station, Sandy had explained while they were loading Loren's bike into the trunk, had switched over to country music a year ago, joining the six other country music stations in Montezuma and surrounding counties. Outside of that, Top-40 and censored Hip Hop on the shelves of Wal-Mart were the only options afforded the population of Cortez, Colorado, most of whom were too indifferent to search out music beyond MTV and VH1 anyway.

--Trig and Robert were yelling at each other in the front seat, not in anger but out of necessity, about the upcoming Warped Tour and whether they could still get tickets and afford the trip to Salt Lake or Denver for the show, but Loren was too preoccupied with the proximity of Sandy's leg to his, a distance that had been steadily shrinking by the minute, to notice. She had wrapped herself in an oversized, red, hooded pull-over for the night, but hadn't bothered to cover up her long bare legs, oh, those legs, which Loren noticed were surprisingly soft and smooth when he had accidentally brushed against them getting into the car. He was trying to get up the nerve to touch one of them again, on purpose this time, but he was torn, wondering if Sandy even noticed that her leg was drifting across the imaginary line running down the center of the car between them, into his space. Loren was still too naïve to realize that everything Sandy had done that evening, from her decision to show up at the junior high parking lot, to her placement in the back seat with Loren five minutes ago, had been carefully calculated, strategized and executed with the skill and confidence of a veteran battlefield general. He was the bunny rabbit and she was the bear, roles that wouldn't reverse for Loren until well into his twenties, and even then only through total macho delusion.

--Somewhere between Sandy's hair blowing into his face for the third time, from the cool, damp, grassy wind blowing through the sedan's open windows, and the moment that their knees finally touched for the first time, briefly, like a peck on the cheek, Loren noticed that the conversation in the front seat had fallen silent. Trig was stealing mischievous glances at him in the rear-view-mirror and elbowing Robert. The game was up. Trig leaned forward and turned the volume on the stereo down and Loren froze. It had occurred to him that afternoon, while unpacking boxes in his room and munching on temperate left-over fries, that Trig and Sandy might be more than just co-workers and friends, or that, at the very least, Trig hoped that they would be more than just co-workers and friends. That fear was laid to rest by what Trig did next.

--"Hey, Loren?" Loren braced himself for whatever Trig was up to. "They ever talk about Skinwalkers up in Denver?"

--Loren had heard several Skinwalker stories, mostly on camp outs with a Boy Scout troop, in which he had shown a short-lived limited interest, a few summers ago. Skinwalkers were Native American spirits --Navajo, usually-- that could change shapes, like into birds and rabbits and deer. They roamed the southwest looking for victims, usually people who uttered their stories on late night expeditions into the wilderness and, most importantly, their stories scared the hell out of young teenage girls like Sandy, especially in dark canyons near the Ute Mountain Ute Reservation on the way to visit a supposedly haunted 120-year-old house in the middle of the night. Trig dove into his first story and Sandy made her move, snuggling her head against Loren's shoulder and grabbing his arm...

7-26-02

I guess I'll finally weigh in on the whole pledge thing with the flag, now that it's a non-issue and most people have forgotten that it even happened. I think the dad should change his bumper sticker so that it reads "My child is an honor student at Blah Blah School... but it doesn't matter because she's going to HELL." That's all I really have to say about that.

7-25-02

"Inactivist" bumper stickers:

1.Visualize me ignoring you. -2.How about "let's not." -3.Don't honk if you can't be bothered. -4.If not now, whenever. -5.No, YOU save the whales. -6.Practice Random Acts of Self-Restraint. -7.Ask Not. -8.Future Site of Political Statement. -9.My child is an honor stu... oh, who cares... -10.I'd vote, but I'd rather stay home and watch 'Simpsons

7-22-02

Favorite moment: 2 AM on any night. My whole world is asleep. I'm listening to KJZZ, the local nightly jazz station, and I'm either writing or painting --usually writing since cleaning oil paint off of paint brushes at 3 o'clock in the morning really sucks. I finish it off by reading a few pages of whatever book I'm into. That's why I'm a night owl; I'm not an insomniac, it's just my favorite time of the day.

By the way, I just finished One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (watched the film too, but was let down as I usually am with film adaptations of great books) and I've started The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, a Pulitzer Prize winning novel by the same author who wrote Wonder Boys, which was later made into an awesome film with Michael Douglas, Frances McDormand, Robert Downey Jr., Katie Holmes and Tobey Maguire, although I guess I probably wouldn't have liked it if I'd read the book first... But I digress... 'Kavalier and Clay is an amazing book so far. I'll be writing a review when I'm finished that probably won't do it justice, but you should check it out anyway.

7-20-02

The killer of Samantha Runnion, the little girl who was kidnapped from the front yard of her Orange County, CA home and murdered, was found and arrested 5 days after she disappeared. Alejandro Avila was taken into custody 4 days after the 5-year-old girl's disappearance and formally arrested on the next day. It is being heralded as text book law enforcement; a classic example of how to run an investigation. In those 5 days, 400 FBI and Orange County investigators fielded the case, logging over 60,000 hours of work.

Q: Would "one of the largest manhunts in Orange County history" have happened if the little girl's last name was Avila?

7-17-02

Wrestling is fake. There. I said it. If there was any doubt in my mind concerning the legitimacy of wrestling, it's gone now. Now I know. But before any of you hardcore fans break a chair across my back, let me tell you how I know. I shot video for a WWF-style (or WWE or WWW or whatever they call themselves now) wrestling match tonight at the Bash on Ash in Tempe, and I could hear the wrestlers giving each other ques. "OK, pile driver" says one sweaty manchild trapped in a painful-looking headlock. "Right side" says his so-called opponent. They're whispering. Their screaming fans don't hear them. But I hear them. Fakers!

After tonight, I know that wrestling is a farce. I know that none of those punches are real. I know all of those lifts and throws and flips are choreographed for hours upon hours before every match, as I always suspected. And after tonight, I know that wrestling is wildly entertaining fun. The fans dug it. The kids dug it. Their parents dug it. And the little white guy behind the camera dug it. You won't catch me in Al Bundy-mode on my couch watching Monday Night Nitro anytime soon (do they still have that?), but I'll see it in-person any day. I'm converted.

Next on my list: a camera set up by the Christmas Tree on December 24th.


7-16-02

Stock Pick of the week: Tucson's Raytheon Missile Systems, who are currently under investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over charges that it gave profit forecasts to stock analysts before telling the public. Stock prices have fallen from their 52-week high just 2 months ago of ~$45 to ~$35 by closing today. The irony? An American president, up to his neck in these financial scandals himself, has the perfect out: invade Iraq. In anticipation, U.S. defense contractors, such as Raytheon, are doubling production on such things as laser-guided munitions. Raytheon alone has already received a supplemental $155 million federal budget appropriation to produce additional weapons to replenish supplies used in Afghanistan. There's no scandal here, but the irony is still intriguing.


7-15-02

Q: How many nihilists does it take to plug in a light bulb?

A: Who the hell cares?


7-14-02

First post EVER at NoNeighbors.com!

So... let's talk about something exciting, like the weather-- This week it rained in Phoenix for the first time in nearly a decade. I'm not kidding. Animals were lining up in twos at the rear bumper of my 1976 Cadillac de Ville. Phoenicians, and their pets, always freak out when stuff falls from the sky. It seems so unnatural. And we drive like morons when the roads are wet. It's not a river, it's a puddle at an intersection. If you can't work up the nerve to drive through it, pull over, contact the DMV, tell them to revoke your license, and have a non-Arizona-native friend or relative pick you up and take you home.

I went to the movies by myself tonight. I saw The Road to Perdition. The lightning and dust storm that preceded this evening's downpour was so severe that it shut down the movie theater while I was watching my movie. For an hour I thought the audio just sucked. It turned out that the theater was getting rocked by power surges until they finally gave up and gave people refunds. I had to come back for the late show, dodging blown-over trees and 25 MPH driving natives, so I could catch the last half of it. It was worth it. Go see it.

This all brings me to my first pet peeve: talking in movie theaters. Turn your phone off and shut the hell up. Enjoy your time away from reality-- you paid for it. The worst is when somebody actually answers their phone and carries on a conversation. Hey, moron-- it's called acoustics. Movie theaters have it, which means we can all hear every single mundane, idiotic, couldn't-this-have-waited-90-more-minutes word that comes out of your mouth, regardless of how low you whisper.

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