Once More, With Feeling: January 2005

Johnny Carson: October 23, 1925 - January 23, 2005

Yesterday, Sunday January 23, 2005 was a very sad day indeed. Johnny Carson, the king of late night television, died at the age of 79. He is said to have died peacefully in the morning, surrounded by his family. He died of complications from emphysema. He reigned as the late night king for thirty years entertaining America night after night, where his show was the jumping ground for many of today's successful comedians and provided many laughs with the animal antics that frequented the Tonight Show.

''When he reads the paper in the morning, he can think of five jokes right off the bat that he wishes he had an outlet for,'' Peter Lassally, one of Carson's former producers, said last week.

He would send a joke occasionally to Letterman, who lost the battle for ''Tonight'' but remained a Carson friend. Some bits made it into Letterman's monologue.

''Johnny gets a big kick out of that,'' Lassally said. Read More...

He will be missed.

To lighten things up a little, click here to read an exclusive article written by the amazingly fantastical Lemony Snicket.

Listening to: Silence...how boring

EDIT: I stupidly forgot to mention that the quote that is the title of this post was one given by David Letterman when he was talking about Johnnie Carson.

Saturday, January 22, 2005

The DaVinci Code

So this book, The Da Vinci Code, has swept the country, and the world. Not surprisingly, it is going to be turned into a movie which is scheduled to be released May 19 of 2006. I think things like this are a huge gamble. Naturally, they are going to be huge box office hits just because of the pre-determined popularity, but will they be done well? For instance, there has been the massive sweep of Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter series. Personally, I feel the Harry Potter movies were crap compared to the books and left out way too many elements that even effected some of the themes and lessons trying to be conveyed. Lord of the Rings, although obviously stuff had to be cut out because of length, I feel the main points and such were still there and they were quite amazing cinematic events. Without reading the book I guess I can't say a whole lot about The Da Vinci Code (although it is on my list of things to hopefully read this summer), I must say this article made me quite excited about the movie. I think it definitely seems like maybe this could be an uber-high-quality film. We shall see though, shan't we?

Listening to: Crazy people outside my window

Friday, January 21, 2005

Eng 112

Just a quick note that I forgot to mention in both of my posts yesterday...my english 112 class has an assignment involving starting a blog, so I now have two of these hum dingers. The other one can be found here. I don't know how exciting it will be, because I'm not entirely sure what it entails yet, but there it is. Peace and love.

Thursday, January 20, 2005

Wimps

Who would've thunk that there would be such a big change going from Michigan to Ohio? I think people here really think they are in the deep south sometimes. There is two, maybe two and a half inches of snow on the ground. Not in the streets, not on the sidewalks, just on the regular ground area. It's not particularly extra cold. A HUGE number of school districts are closed. Tomorrow. Yea...tomorrow. Ohio, I shall never understand thee. I can't imagine EVER getting off school under such circumstances. There needed to be at least a foot of snow for there to even be a chance of getting off school, coupled with absolutely horrible temperatures, and the roads need to be solid ice. Then, more likely than not, we'll still have school. I can't imagine a year when it didn't happen that we would be on the bus and it would get stuck in a tremendous snow drift and need to be pulled out by a tow truck 45 mins later or that we would be stuck on ice and go zooming through red lights at intersections and almost be killed. That was all fine and dandy. Senior year when we were allowed to drive to school...now that was scary. We weren't protected by the overly large metal twinkie. No, I was out there in my little purple people eater/lilacer with little protection. And NEVER EVER EVER was school cancelled the night before...Dr. Sergeant canceling school the night before?? She would to have had to of been on crack...or ex...or something (yes, I am fully aware of the awkwardness of that sentence). Silly silly ohio-ans. You're not in the south. You should know about snow by now. And that's my beef. What's for dinner?

Listening to: My new-found love, WOXY radio

Word of the Day: Freedom

There is so much to say, and I just know I'm going to be screwing at least something up.

First off, I am a tad bit disappointed at the turn out of my story, I was hoping people would like such wonderful work by an eight year old, but oh well, maybe next time. Yes, that's right. I am going to continue posting those stories. I just think they're fun.

Nextly, the President of the United States was inaugurated today. I was able to watch about the last thirty minutes while waiting at Shriver between my engineering and art history class. I just feel like I am continually disappointed. I can't say that John Kerry would make a better president, but I really do feel like he would be the lesser of two evils. Yea, I know, but I really feel like President Bush can be just downright evil in certain aspects, and that is hard to respect sometimes. I don't want to get into this too much, because afterall, what do I know? But I just found some of what he said as pretty strange. From the bit that I say, I could probably split what he was saying into two different categories. Hypocritical bull shit, and filler bull shit. These aren't by any means direct quotes or anything (psh...are you kidding? I'm not that dedicated), but here it is. He seemed to talk lots and lots and lots about freedom, and along with that equality and getting rid of racism. I'm sorry, but some of the things that he wants passed and what he approves of so highly can be considered pretty darn racist. He says wants to protect minorities, but a lot of his actions go against this. He said that everyone should be allowed to exercise their rights, now if that doesn't go against almost everything he's done in office, I don't know what does. And then there was the other b.s. The times when he would sit there and stare out at the crowd, his cue that he was expecting people to clap for him so they would. But when you take a second to think about what you just heard him say leading to these claps, I found myself asking, WTF, mate? He didn't actually say anything. He threw a bunch of fancy words together and said something that had some kind of impressive value, but didn't actually say anything. Way to go.

Bush, who begins his second term with the lowest approval rating of a returning president since Richard Nixon, said in his inaugural address, "We have known divisions, which must be healed to move forward in great purposes, and I will strive in good faith to heal them." Read More...

Because I can, and I've deprived you long enough, more news to fill that "drive"

MILAN (Reuters) - He shouldn't be hard to spot.

Police are searching for a pistol-wielding robber who stole female leather bondage gear and an inflatable sex doll from an erotica store in Milan Wednesday.

The clerk at the "Night Shop" speculated that the kinky crook might have been unsatisfied with the payout of his hold-up, which only yielded him about 60 euros ($78).

"There was just a little cash," the clerk, who declined to be named, told Reuters by telephone.

"Then he took some stuff ... an inflatable doll and a leather outfit for a woman," he said.

At least he has the decency to dress his doll while parading her down the street.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Antwerp will dim the bright new lights along the Belgian port city's waterfront after prostitutes complained they were putting off potential clients.

"We had some remarks from the prostitutes that there was too much light, both for them and the clients," city council spokesman Jorn Verbeeck said. "We are investigating the possibility of lowering the light there."

Prostitutes complained to city and police officials that the lights installed in December did not give them enough privacy and hurt business, he said.

The port, which tolerates prostitutes in a select few streets near the waterfront, will next week test an electric system to dim the lights, Verbeeck said.

If the test gets the thumbs-up from the city's sex workers, the system will be rolled out across the red light district.

I don't even know where to begin with this one. It's good to know that political spending can be determined by sex workers.

BRASILIA, Brazil (Reuters) - Brazil, one of the Latin American countries hardest hit by the AIDS epidemic, will hand out a record 11 million condoms to prevent the spread of the disease during its erotically charged Carnival festival when casual sex rises.

With the pre-Lenten celebrations two weeks away, the "Dress Yourself" campaign is to remind revelers a condom should be part of their outfit, no matter how little they wear to parades and parties renowned for semi-nude, hip-thrusting dancers.

Millions of Brazilians and foreigners flock to cities such as Rio de Janeiro, Salvador and Recife for the Feb. 4 to Feb. 9 festival. Crammed streets and close contact in tropical heat intensifies sexual relations, health authorities said.

The safe-sex campaign hits Brazilian television screens next week showing grinning celebrities waving condoms as they dance to popular Carnival samba tune, "What will you wear?"

Brazil's AIDS program uses free distribution of condoms and a cocktail of free drugs to prevent the spread of the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, which causes the disease.

Brazil, a country of 180 million people, uses around 1.2 billion condoms a year. The government wants to boost that number to 3 billion by 2008 through free distribution and manufacture of cheaper domestic products.

You can expect my absence the first two weeks of February.

So I have droned on and on long enough and filled you with enough articles to tickle your fancy. Until next time, eat some ice cream. It's mmm mmm good.

Listening to: The President's Inauguration coverage on CNN...why must they insist on making such silly comments?

P.S. hehe...they were just playing the theme from Monty Python's Flying Circus at the inauguration, granted it's a Sousa song, but I still find it funny.

Friday, January 14, 2005

Story 1: Radar and Me

Hello Bloggers! I had said earlier that I would put up some of the stories that I wrote when I was little, and in no particular order, here is one of them, and really the one that stuck out in my mind the most. For the most part, I have left in grammatical errors and stuff like that, just for the fun of it and I wouldn't want to misquote (despite it being my own work...). So huzzah, huzzah- I bring you story number one: Radar and Me.
P.S. If I was really cool I would have actually tried to make this into the book and taken a picture of all the pictures I drew and place them accordingly, and now I'm actually a little sad that I didn't do that, but I no longer have the book seeing as I am no longer home, so for now I only have the two pictures that I took while at home. Maybe if there's any interest I can revise this post with all the pictures once I go home again. I hope you enjoy, and if you don't, too bad...I was a little kid and I loved writing, cut me some slack ;)

Radar and Me
By: Brandon Cirillo, age 8

Once upon a time there was a boy named Johnny. He was interested in space. When he got up on Saturday at 8:00 he asked his mom if he could go to the library when he was done doing his chores. “Okay, but you have to promise to be home at 5:00.” “Okay Mom,” Johnny said. When Johnny got to the library he asked the librarian if they had the book called All About Space. “It sounds familiar,” the librarian said. “Why don’t you look it up?”

Johnny found the book and started looking through it. When he got to the page where it talked about how people launched rockets he suddenly felt dizzy. “What’s happening?” Then all of a sudden he on a launchpad inside the book!

“Come on boy,” he heard a man say. “Hurry up, get in. It’s going to launch soon.” “Cool!” said Johnny, “I’m going to see the stars.” “By the way,” said the man “what’s your name?” “Johnny. What’s your name?” “Harry,” said the man. “Why did you choose me and what am I supposed to do anyway?” said Johnny. “You’re supposed to look closely at the stars and planets and write a report about them.” Johnny suddenly heard and felt a rumble. They were in space! “Johnny,” Harry said, “the captain wants to see you.” “Where is the captain?” asked Johnny. “I’ll show you” said Harry.

When Johnny arrived the captain said, “Johnny I want you to fly this spaceship while I go to a meeting.” “But I don’t know how” said Johnny. “Then I’ll teach you.” said the captain. When Johnny took over the spaceship he fell asleep! The captain felt that something was wrong when the spaceship started bouncing. When he opened the control room door boy was he surprised when he saw that Johnny was asleep! When he looked out the window he saw that they were going to crash into Saturn!
Luckily no one was hurt. When the crew got off they couldn’t find Johnny because he landed on the ring of Saturn!

Johnny noticed that the crew and the spaceship had landed on the main part of Saturn. When Johnny started walking he heard a whistle sound. Then he saw some bushes with horns. The horns started moving. When he walked closer to the bushes he heard a yelp. “What is that?” asked Johnny. “It’s me,” said a voice from the bush. Then a blue, four eyed, alien came out of the bush. The alien asked Johnny where he came from. Johnny answered “Earth, of course.” “I mean how did you get here?” “Well,” said Johnny “I was in a spaceship and it crashed. The rest of my crew is on the main part of the planet. You see I fell out of the spaceship and I landed here.” The alien, whose name was Radar, asked Johnny if he would help him get rid of the bad aliens who were destroying Saturn and planning to take over Earth.

“So how do you get rid of these aliens?” asked Johnny. “I don’t exactly know,” said Radar. “These aliens are well protected and mean. But I have special powers which may help us.” “Do you know where their spaceship is?” “No I don’t” answered Radar. “Then we’ll keep on walking,” said Johnny. Finally they found a golden spaceship.

Whenever they heard a noise they hid behind a bush. “There are so many guards here!” Johnny said. “How are we going to get in?” “I don’t know,” answered Radar. There has to be some way in,” Johnny said. “There, right there.” “Where?” “See that space over there? Nobody’s guarding it.” “Come on, lets go,” Johnny said. “We’ll fly,” said Radar. So Johnny climbed on Radar’s back and they flew to the spaceship. Then Radar remembered something. “I do know how to defeat them!” “How?” asked Johnny. “There’s a machine inside and if something or someone stands on it they disappear!” “Great!” said Johnny.

The door to get inside was locked and guards were heading towards them! “Here!” said Johnny pointing to a key. Johnny picked it up and unlocked the door. When both of them got in they locked the door behind them and took the key. They started walking through a long hallway. There were at least ten doors. “Which door should we go in?” Johnny asked. “Lets go in that one,” Radar said pointing to the last one on the left. Suddenly Radar made himself shrink.

Johnny opened the door a tiny bit and Radar walked in. After Radar took two steps he ran back out. “What’s wrong?” “Th-th-th-there’s a spa-a-ce c-c-cat in there,” Radar said in a shakey voice. “Then let’s try a different door,” Johnny suggested. “Well, all right” said Radar, “as long as there’s no space cat.” So Radar went in another door. “This is the right one, come on,” he called back. “But they’ll see me.” said Johnny.

“Don’t worry,” said Radar, “I’ll shrink you.” “All right,” said Johnny. So Radar shrunk Johnny and he entered the room. “Where is the machine?” Johnny asked. “Over there,” said Radar. “Oh, I see it. But we have a problem.” “What?” asked Radar. “Since we’re both small we wont be able to push the aliens on the machine. But if we grow bigger then they’ll see us.” “You have a point,” said Radar. After thinking for a few minutes Radar said, “I have a plan. I can freeze them for only ten seconds which will give you time to pull the lever. It’s very easy because it’s loose. Then I’ll get bigger and will push the aliens on the machine.” “All right.” Said Johnny. They both did what they were supposed to do.

It worked! The aliens were gone. Suddenly they heard a rumbling sound.
“Who dares to kill my workers.” They heard a deep voice say. The door came crashing open. They saw a huge robot standing at the door.

Johnny whispered to Radar, “How are we supposed to get rid of him?” “You can distract him and when he’s close to the machine I will push him on. Then you can pull the lever,” suggested Radar. “Great idea!” said Johnny. So they did that and the robot disappeared. After they got out of the golden spaceship Radar flew Johnny to the main part of the planet so he could find his crew. When they arrived, Johnny asked “Why didn’t you fly me here when we met?” Radar answered, “I picked you for my mission because you are the only one who believes in aliens.” “Oh. I see. Well there’s my crew. I guess it’s time to go.”

“Bye Johnny. Thanks for helping me get rid of the aliens.” Johnny climbed aboard his spaceship which was repaired. They started for home and Johnny felt dizzy. He soon found himself back in the library. Johnny walked back to his house. He was an hour late. He and his mom had a long conversation.

P.P.S. That's right, I got an A+ on this crazy piece of work lol.
P.P.P.S. Each of the breaks between lines is where I had started a new page which equals a new illustration, just in case some of the spacing probably doesn't make sense.

Listening to: Incubus - Morning View Album

Wednesday, January 12, 2005

Grey Poupon

So for old times sake, I'm going to take a little stroll down memory lane and bring this blog back up to where it was previously. That's right...sex, sex, sweaty fun, and sex. Oh, so maybe not. I should apologize though, I have been more concerned with what I wanted recently that I forgot to deliver what the public really wants. And, well, its already been determined what they want...
P.S. Hold on to your horsies...this is kind of long, but I figured since it has been a while, maybe you peeps wouldn't mind all that much. Back to your regularly scheduled programming...
P.P.S. Oh wait, before continuing, the picture just happens to be of Ellen DeGeneres winning the People's Choice Award for Favorite Daytime talk show...I would have to concur. How I love that woman of mine. Now let's continue with the regularly scheduled programming...

OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) - Oklahoma highway users wishing to call the state about electronic payment passes were mistakenly directed to a sex hotline.
Oklahoma Transportation Authority spokeswoman Brigette Berglan said the state's turnpike authority had made an error in a letter sent to 41,000 people. One digit was wrong in the telephone number for callers seeking advice on how to deal with toll gate payments.

Instead, they found themselves calling a sex line where they could speak with "exciting people," such as lonely housewives, students and fantasy girls for $2.99 a minute.

"We're not that exciting here at the authority. We prefer to think of ourselves as helpful," Berglan said.
Those who received the incorrect notice were sent a postcard with the correct number.

You have to admire Berglan's sense of honesty,"we're not that exciting here..." I hope her boyfriend/husband/girlfriend/eighth cousin fifteen times removed/any combination thereof didn't hear her say that.*

BERLIN (Reuters) - A German brothel owner has been so moved by the plight of survivors from Asia's tsunami disaster that she is donating part of her takings from clients.
"It's not every day you can make a charitable gesture by going to a brothel," said Mercedes Mueller, who is giving five euros ($6.60) of the 39-euro ($51) entrance charge clients pay.

"It's so terrible what happened there and I wanted to do something," said Mueller, who owns the Happy FKK Club in the western city of Dortmund.

Mueller said clients, prostitutes and the public had all responded with great enthusiasm to her gesture, and that about 1,300 euros ($1,700) had been raised so far.
"We have as much of a right to raise money as any other business," she said. "We all have a heart too. I hope it will serve as an example to others."

Oh, don't worry, I already did the math. That's roughly 258 people...er, clients. Must be a slow month.

LONDON (Reuters) - A Conservative party association in the small Welsh town of Delyn is trying to buy back its Web site domain name after it was taken over by pornographers.
The site once promoted the activities of the local Conservative association, offering news about area councilors and useful contact numbers.

Now users are confronted with offers to buy hardcore movies featuring group, lesbian and anal sex, as well a raft of explicit images of naked women.

A spokesman for Welsh Conservatives -- who stressed he had not seen the offending site -- said the problem arose when the Delyn conservatives took on a new Internet address but forgot to renew their ownership of the old name, which was subsequently snapped up by a pornographer.

"It was brought to our attention by a student from Oxford University who was logging onto the site to do some research," he added.

The association is hoping to buy the domain name back and in the meantime all links from Conservative party Web sites to the hard-core Delyn site have been erased.
Delyn is a Labour dominated constituency, which up until 1992 was held by Conservatives.

Now what I wonder about is what exactly did this political party name their site that it needed to be "snapped up by a pornographer" so quickly. As dearly as I like the man, it would be fun to see Clinton involved with this...just for shits and giggles.

Listening to: The Remnants - American Idle Album (an incredibly funny, talented, and fun Miami University men's singing group)

*I have no knowledge whatsoever of this Ms. Brigette Berglan and am not trying to imply anything whatsoever...wouldn't that be fun though?

Monday, January 10, 2005

The Tail needs to be Found

Another semester has started, this will be my second one here at Miami University, and if things went anything like last semester, it shall probably be my last one here at Miami. I can only hope that things will get better though...I was feeling very hopeful right before coming back, but now that I'm here it really doesn't feel like anything is going to be changing. Also being back here, it doesn't feel like I ever left. Break wasn't entirely fulfilling. It definitely had its fun moments, but overall, it wasn't at all what I was hoping it to be. I guess you could say there was a lot that needed to be done, and not very much of it was accomplished. Sigh. Let's hope this semester is better. I just need to be powerfully motivated again hardcore style.

So I did the driving back to school and we got here incredibly quickly...I easily cut an hour off the normal drive. A 6am wake up call followed by 4.5 hours of driving made for a very tired Brandon, and upon arrival and after my parents had left to go back home, naturally, I realized that I had forgotten my pillow and one of my CD's in my mom's car. Oh deer. At least I didn't forget anything vital...I don't think.

I must also say I don't entirely approve of this get-here-in-the-afternoon-and-have-a-new-semester-of-classes-the-next-day thing. It's not really working for me. I really think a little bit of readjustment and organizational time would have done splendidly.

Yes, I am quite a bit bitter about a lot of aspects of my winter break still. Compared to the rest of the world, I'm sure I have little to complain about, after all I did get to spend time with my closest friend, but, there were quite a few things I am just feeling bitter about and I can't really help that. I do apologize.

Listening to: A CD consisting of my high school's instrumental music program and show choir ...good times, good times hehe

Wednesday, January 05, 2005

A Short Sigh

So I do realize that this blog has seemingly gone into hibernation for the winter months, but I promise you that I have actually been spending quite a bit of time on this. I must truly apologize for the complete lack of sex and news though, there has been a hiatus from such things after all. I have been working behind the scenes seeing movies to review and working on re-typing all my old stories and taking pictures and such things so that this can now also seemingly become a place of nostalgia on my own behalf of my childhood.

Michigan is quite silly I must admit, but I enjoy it more than I thought I did. There are so many quirky things about Michigan that I never really realized until really actually moving away. Yes, it is true that I have traveled quite extensively, but that is still quite different

from actually living somewhere else, despite the fact it is only one state over. Michiganders are pretty crazy. What really brought this up though is the weather. Every year, without fail, you will hear starting around Thanksgiving, "Why can't it just snow for Christmas and all be melted by New Years?" or something along that effect. Naturally, this has never happened. There has been the Christmas where there was no snow and then the day after snowed non-stop until the day after New Years, and then there has been all the Christmas' where it will start snowing in November

and not stop until March, either way, there has always been lots and lots of snow around this time of year and New Years has always been miserable weather-wise. Well, Michigan with it's infinitely improbably weather system of intermingling sunburn and frostbite into any given week has performed a miracle. That's right. There was snow for Christmas. The following day it melted, remained incredibly warm for over a week, and now, today, January the Fifth, is our first real snow of the season/year. Well...except for all the snow we got at Thanksgiving, but we can try to forget about that. Granted, it was only about two inches and grass was still slightly poking out its little stemmy heads, but there has been a little bit of snow nonetheless. Michigan, you never cease to amaze me.

So I promise I am working on getting my stories on my computer, pictures of my lovely works, and another article massively filled with massive movie reviews. Whew.

I think soon I need to get in some snow-frolicking. Time to bring out the snowpants.

Listening to: Yellowcard - Ocean Avenue album

Saturday, January 01, 2005

Welcome to 2005

I realize I haven't updated in a while, but that's because I have been working on a post which will have to be quite long to accommodate everything that it will need to cover with any kind of semi-decent fashion. And truthfully, I just haven't been in the mood to deal with that lately. So look forward to that post. Also, while being home I have had the joy and luck to find my old stories I wrote when I was just a wee one attending elementary school and thoroughly enjoyed writing (so much so I always told people I was going to be an author when I grew up) and I do believe that in the spirit of giving, I should not horde them to myself, but rather occasionally post one of those stories randomly here. You should definitely look forward to that...they are high quality lol. Maybe I'll even post some of the pictures we were forced to include with them. But only if you're really really lucky.

It was New Years Eve yesterday. Woot? This was MY year (you know...the whole class of 2004 thing and whatnot) and now it is over. I think maybe that's a good thing...looking back one year ago my life was dramatically different in so many different ways, and it wasn't always fun. Of course, if the rest of this year is anything like how it started or how this previous year has ended, then this one also needs to hurry up and pass me by. But I digress. Happy 2005. May it bring you truth, light, happiness, and the thing to make it all happen, love.

Once More, With Feeling

Monday, January 31, 2005

A Goddess Nominee

Thursday, January 27, 2005

2nd Posting of the Day

Compliments?

Wednesday, January 26, 2005

Chicken Livers

Monday, January 24, 2005

"He was the best, a star and a gentleman"

Saturday, January 22, 2005

The DaVinci Code

Friday, January 21, 2005

Eng 112

Thursday, January 20, 2005

Wimps

Word of the Day: Freedom

Friday, January 14, 2005

Story 1: Radar and Me

Wednesday, January 12, 2005

Grey Poupon

Monday, January 10, 2005

The Tail needs to be Found

Wednesday, January 05, 2005

A Short Sigh

Saturday, January 01, 2005

Welcome to 2005

about me

get up in my grill

i'm a good stalker

places to visit

who i listened to last week

the sweet smell of literature

into the days of yore

tag! you're it