Personal Geographies

Personal Geographies.

I have never been able to root myself down to one place in it's entirety. I was adopted from a foreign country, lived and moved all over the city of Chicago, and moved to Milwaukee. Nothing seems to stick because I cannot wait to leave the place I am in now. I have traveled, and I enjoy the nouveau and freshness that comes from such a nomadic lifestyle. I like to be lost, to feel like for once it isn't boring. Everything is fresh. I crave that newness.

Milwaukee for me became a prime example of this feeling I rebel against so vehemently. I can get into any bar here, I can walk from one end to the other in a day, I have started a business and conquered my own corner of the entertainment industry here. Although these accomplishments seem great to some people, that feeling of establishment feels like death. It feels like I can no longer have any adventures. I am afraid of the routine. I have lived on every part of the city, Bayview, East Side and The UWM campus area. I can gladly say I know, for the most part, my way around. I couldn't tell you street names (those never come easily to me), but I could navigate my way around. I  miss getting lost and just enjoying the feeling of being small.

I think the desire to feel small is why I could only ever live in a large city (Milwaukee to me being far too small). Cities that are big (like London or Chicago, both of which I have been to) are the places that someone is always out, about, the feel alive. they have this pulse that resonates through them and allows for the fun to never stop. I don't feel so alone. There is always a bar open, a restaurant, someone out on the street. there is an overwhelming feeling of potential. I think that's what a City means to me, potential. Cities bring that out in people. The allow for all types, shapes, walks of life to have a forum through which they can work, survive and thrive together. I cannot even explain about how many times I have made a friend on the train, or gone to the same bar 100 times and still have never seen a regular. When I go out in milwaukee, I can probably bet that everyone I have met at least once or they know me. It gets so draining. It becomes a chore to find fun, rather than an exciting prospect. The choices are so limited here. It just isn't filling my metropolitan worldly requirement.

I hope to one day go back to Chicago, and I plan to do so soon. I want to make it so that I have lived in every major neighborhood in the city proper. I have so far lived in Pilsen, Rodger's Park, Wrigley, Lincoln Park and Logan Square. These are areas that I can say I am confident in, and there are still so many I do not know well. I could also do Berlin, London, perhaps go as far as Tokyo, or Australia. I need that movement. I think that there is something to be said about people who crave adventure. We tend to be very quick witted, malleable, like little chameleon that can fit in anywhere. We are often more excited, more personable. We understand how to navigate just places, but life and relationships well. I find that this need to see and grow drives people to great things. So often I read about how just changing your space can change how you feel. that being pushed and driven to become something new really can make one find them selves. Getting lost is the only way to really find something. Authors like Chuck Palahniuk do a great job exploring those things. I also find books that describe dystopian societies also describe routine as the enemy of the people. Aldous Huxley does this well. I think I feel like those characters so often, fighting to get out of something. Being trapped. I make it my life mission to never be that way.

Exploration doesn't just have to be done through physical activities either. Exploration can be done through constantly educating yourself, moving across mind-scapes and finding places that challenge you mentally. Go live a little in fear. Challenge and question emotional security. Those are other ways to use the constant desire to rove in a positive way. I know I would like nothing more that to always be a little scared. I think that uncertainty is what keeps us alive and a little more human. Comfort is a curse I reject. I think I always will.

Part DEUX

 continued....


When I reached Milwaukee, I was lost. I knew that The Rave/Eagles Club was a large, often trafficked concert hall, but the lack of dancers, and well known DJs visiting said establishments was close to nil. There was also no places for me to dance. I felt very lost. I began slowly meeting people by a tending the few and far between concerts that i could, going to clubs, herring local top 40s djs and slowly I began to find my people again. These people brought me into the party scene of the city, the behind closed doors, the up and coming music I had never really been privy to. The struggling artists who held down more than one job to support their love of the scene. Those people I began to cling to because they wanted so badly to contribute to the very scene I had been riding along for a living. I was hooked. I began to dance for raves. Small, events thrown by a few djs, a fledgling production company, illegal in some cases, and more fun than anything I had ever known. I was giving back more to the music that had given so much to me. I began organizing, helping to throw, doing the business end of everything in order to have my hand in this. I continue, to this day, and have well established myself as a dancer, designer of rave clothing and a friend to the most talented musicians in the industry. You see, the fact is, the big names ride pom the waves of their success, these people get no recognition, no real pay. I now can truly say I am watching stars rise. I am helping those who want so badly to just play a show so someone hears their talent. This is the sort of witness I am. I am giving whatever I can to now allow for someone else to experience that rush. To let someone pretend that for and evening they are Tiesto, even if they play only to their own friends in a dingy bar in a dingy town.
Because of my desire to bring this experience to others, I not only began making rave wear, I now own a small business doing it. I also have begun to run my own GoGo dancing company. I want to find the next best girl for the job. It is so important for me to be present. I don't need to record, write down, photograph or document these events. I have found that this world is about each personal momentary experience. There is no way to capture emotion in a bottle. Music is what feelings sound like. and every night we continue to pack our selves into these places because we are chancing that high. I will dance until my knees crumble, and then I will design until the style is old and I can proudly say that I knew Von Foil, Marcus J, Decode, Swamppkatt and other names that you will never see on a bill for The Congress Theatre. But I was there, and that is more than enough. I can only hope to bring more people in, but you can't take anything away from it but the images that play inside your head.
Witness, for EDM, is a split second. And then the memories remain. You can't explain your heart syncing up to a bass beat, sweat forming on your skin as they build up before the drop. You can't explain how you can hug a total stranger, hold them and sing along to "Raise Your Weapon" and leave a concert hall with a new best friend and not know their real name. Or maybe it's the time that you walked up to Theo from Designer Drugs (a NY dj duo) and told him, not asked, that you were going to hang out with them after the show. I did, we still call each other. I have his number in my phone, he's studying to be a doctor. Von Foil works for MPS, he is a child psychologist, he parties harder than anyone I have ever met, 7 nights a week. He is one of the most beloved and prolific djs I have ever met. And all he asks for a night to play is $200 dollars. These feeling and emotions are so precious to me. That is what bearing witness is, it is being present. It is being there. It is sharing a moment with a room full of people all dancing to the same tune, or talking to a world famous dj about his dreams of being a surgeon, and then making sure he calls to let you know he landed safe in Japan. It's the one day you spend finding the individuality in the desire to come together. For that I am proud.

My thoughts on the EDM community and my recent life dancing...Part 1

Through my experiences, I have been to, and seen, many musicians rise and fall with popularity. I have seen the washing in and out of different genres and have met some of the greatest names in the Electronic Dance Music scene. It became important to me to always stay a little ahead of the curve, to try and find a place that expression has always been honored. The one place for me where I cold meld my business oriented mind with my love to creativity and self awareness was through becoming a GoGo dancer in Chicago. While always fighting and clawing from gig to gig, I eventually picked up a job at Spybar, one of the best and most recognized bars int he entire city. having always loved EDM, I had attended concerts for years, always seeing the biggest and brightest shining stars on stage. When working the club industry, you begin to see another side of the industry. The work that goes into putting a show together, hiring talent, performers. I got to see what the smaller names were like, meet the people that strive and actually push the entire industry through. No matter how many concur halls you fill up as a producer or DJ, you, single-handedly, cannot drive the entire genera. the people, the fans, the small time people, they are the ones who push from the bottom, truly supporting the great weight of the industry. 
Working at Spybar taught me that. I loved seeing acts like Bingo Players, Deadmau5, Skrillex, the names that are so highly recognized today. I saw many of them before the crashing weight of popularity or pop-recognition took hold. I saw many artists who were one-hit-wonders or who had long since passed their prime and yet still had a following. I decided that no matter what happened to me, i would never abandon this scene and I would cling to it with every fiber of my being. Dancing was my way of giving back to the music that emotionally brought me joy, that through the pilgrimages I often make to shows, concerts, festivals and massives I had found my place and a feeling of belonging that many turn to religion for. I found a place where everyone can embrace their inner child, wear their brightest colors or hide behind a mask. Where there is safety and security in the self, whatever you choose that to be. It's carnivale everyday in EDM, It's halloween and mardi gras. It is your birthday and new years eve. I love that, and by dancing, I performed for these people. I helped to give them the experience of a lifetime, night after night. When I moved to Wisconsin, I feared that I would lose this world I had found, I would lose this connection, and for a time, I did.

To be continued tomorrow.....

An interview with GoGo dancers

I feel I should introduce myself with an old interview I did about the basics of GoGo dancing and what it is all about, I can't wait to get more in depth, but this is an awesome icebreaker, I hope to hear some feedback so I can delve further into the beauty and pain of being paid for your looks and the strength and power it requires....


Interview: While girls and guys were asking questions online to us about our hopes for the future and our company, a DJ read them and asked us some of his own questions. It really made me happy to answer them and explain myself, who I am, and what I believe for the future. 
What do you plan to do to help go-go dancers gain a more respected image in the scene?
K: Doing things like REQUIRING contracts on ALL jobs. No one may work for free, ever. Not allowing substance use or abuse while working. Making it so that everything is regulated and watched over, Checking up on how girls act when we are not present, helping girls to book good gigs with promoters, djs, event coordinators and other people we know and trust. There will be a whole system in place for safety, security and reliability put into place. I want this to become an opportunity for performers to do just that, perform and get paid, recognized and appreciated for their real talents. Also to support each other and keep the cat-fighting and other catty actions out of the system...basically to BUILD a system here in Milwaukee and bring this out of the dark ages!
P: We are going to be working under signed contracts written for each event. We are not going to work for free (EVER). & Because we don't work for free we will have more awesome and better matching outfits! Also the girls wont be falling off stage trashed because you need to work sober! We are going to revolutionize the way people look at gogo dancers - even if we work underground raves and events like that, we will show up and do our job and be professional. There are too many girls who work for free or work for drugs and thats not a good image.
K: Paige, we share a brain. it's so lovely.
P: I know!
K: Also things like ONLY allowing girls who are of age to work 21+ events. No more back door bartering for gigs. Everything will be LEGAL and by the books!

What about girls who show up to events dressed like go-go's and aren't working?
P: If some random girls want to jump on stage - hopefully the people running the event will realize who the hired girls are and respect that by kicking them off stage. however this will not always be the case. WE are still getting paid no matter what because of the contract so if some silly girl wants to jump on stage and do it for free thats her loss. Personally I think that is offensive and disrespectful of girls to jump on stage when there is obviously hired girls working the gig. Just my opinion.

K: Every event attendee is allowed to dress as they please. That is beyond out control. Things like coming to MY company and having custom made one-of-a-kind rave wear makes a difference. Initiating in things like uniformity with outfits. Girls can wear whatever they want, and I truly support that. I am taking steps like buying PROFESSIONAL go go boots to distinguish myself for those on the floor and who belongs on stage. There is nothing we can do about others personal choices, but we can only make out selves stand out better.t is also HIGHLY dangerous when a girl does that. She can either hurt a professional dancer, or herself. If you have never danced on a 7 foot speaker its terrifying. There will be heightened security of the stage as much as possible. and that will be our job to enforce with the promoters until they understand these things. A fellow dancer and I came up with a phrase the other day to help unite Go Go Dancers, “Off the stage unless you’re paid”. It sounds harsh but actually means a better world for both professional performers and those who want to be. Let me explain: if you wish to join the ranks of performer’s like myself, hopping up on stage at any chance you get is a, dangerous, b, disrespectful and c, damaging. Dangerous because a fall from speakers or a stage (I have danced on 7 foot stacks before) can lead to serious injury. Or if you’re grabbing to get up can cause a performer to fall. it is disrespectful because you are taking the attention away from the dancer who is paid to be there, and more often than not, you need to impress that performer to get hired for a gig. Troops like mine would NEVER consider hiring a girl or guy who was pushing to get up on stage. You wanna show off your moves? talk to promoters, DJs, The dancer’s themselves. Make a video. A website. Start from the bottom like we did before you hop up on stage for free. Which leads me to my last point: It is DAMAGING. As a dancer I live, that’s right, live, pay bills eat and pay for school all on a dancer’s salary. It is not regular since I am not currently a resident dancer anymore and am not getting paid an hourly wage. What I make determines what I eat, how I spend, how well I sleep at night. When you are willing to get up on stage for free or some some ridiculously reduced rate (like getting paid in drugs or liquor) it undercuts the standard for treatment and payment in the industry, making my job harder, making me resentful, making me hate you, making it harder to consider Go Go dancing a legitimate business venture or job. So please, Ladies, Gentlemen, try to go through legitimate means to be able to be seen and dance. because a job well done with respect is worth so much more than the rush of cheers from a bunch of fucked up kids. This is my profession, I am a professional. Please be one to and one day I could hire you.


P: If these things sound good to you, we highly recommend people coming to the tryouts to make sure that you can help hustle in this change for the good of all performers.



This is an amazingly intelligent thread. Good job Kat and Paige.

 Makes me reflect how many times I get up on stage for free in order to network and further my self. Wish I could always get paid. I make a lot of sacrifices in order to do so, i can only hope one day they pay off (other than the intrinsic value). I totally agree that making sure you are contracted and paid raises the standard for the entire region, forcing promoters to actually have to work, raising the level of competition for musicians so things like pay2play and brostep are a thing of the past.

A rebirth!

I've had some time to think about it, and I finally have a fresh, new direction.

I'm going to get a new contributor.  Please give her a big welcome when she gets here.

Wait...

That's how you end a blog.

End of an Era

I've changed my mind.  I've got nothing.  I had my fun with the blog for a while but I think it's time to pull the plug on it.  The last two years were especially bad.  Maybe in the future I'll be back but I think it's time to move on to another internet thingie.

I still have a youtube account and twitter if you want to reach me.

Congrats, L.A. Kings

I was pulling for the Devils before the series, but I thought the Kings had a championship due to Gretzky.  In fact, the Devils had three championships and the Kings had none.  And I can't imagine what it's like to watch your team lose four straight in the Stanley Cup Finals after being up 3-0. 

Hey, if the Kings can win a Stanley Cup, maybe...

Newest Title

Ok, I had my fun with the last one.  Time to move on.

What should we expect from now on?  Hopefully I'll reveal that soon.

Dinosaur Dracula

The guy behind X-Entertainment has started a new website.  It's can be found here.

I really enjoyed X-Entertainment and I hope this new site is a success.  Heck, I'm kicking myself for not doing something similar to X-E back in the early 00s.  Eh, I would have never gotten it to take off.

Enough about me.  Go to a website by a guy who's good at this kind of thing.

Here, let this video convince you.

"This court must google my name."

I don't think I'll ever get some people.  "Privacy?  What's that!?"

I know he's obviously crazy, but yeesh.

I invented pants

...is not something I would say, because it would be a lie.  And lies hurt other people. 


"I'm good at labels" would be another lie.  Man, what was I thinking?

SpaceX in space

Heh, that sneaked up on me. 

Go Dragon!

Coming to the Xbox 360

Is Boot Hill Heroes, a game that looks like Mother 3.

And I'm going to be an NPC in the game!



Yep, I even get to write my character's dialogue or something.  You may hear me talking about this game a lot in the near future.  It should come out in October for Xbox 360 and Windows.

This space reserved for tears.

Sigh.



Update:  Whatever the feed I'm watching is showing a recap of the Red Sox choking last year.  BIG DEAL!  They've won two championships in the last decade, and we're still dragging out the bloated corpse of Babe Ruth?!?  For frick's sakes!  I'm going to have to put up with Dan Snyder for another forty years.  Nah, I won't live that long, but still.  Even then, I try to keep myself from whining about the Skins because they at least had success at some point.

My point is, don't drag out fricken Boston while I watch the Caps losing a game seven.  I bring up Esa Tikkanen from time to time because that was the closest the Caps got to winning a Stanley Cup Finals game.


Update 2:   Ah, now that's the game seven I'm used to.

Prejudice is bad, but screw the Greeks!

I hate politics, but you'll never hear me yearn for a parliamentary system.  Yeesh.  Just reading about some of the political parties in Greece...  At least in America the political parties have to hide their garbage.


(Dumb post was held for several days because the writer was too busy being a big baby about Game five of the Cap's current series.)

This Month in Entertainment (May 2012)

Pick of the Month:  The Avengers.  I hope this movie does great just for the fact that it took such an ambitious idea to reach it.  Six movies!  This could have collapsed at any point, but here we are.  That reminds me, I still have to see Captain America.

This summer:  Give me five!

By the way, the full name of the movie is apparently "Disney's Marvel's The Avengers."

SpaceX delay

Speaking of heartbreak, SpaceX has delayed its April 30th launching of the first commercially built spaceship.  Darn it.  They haven't said when they'll reschedule yet.

In other news, I made a small pledge to a kickstarter project about another commercially built spacecraft.  Barely made it to its goal, but hopefully we'll hear some good things from their project.







Sometime in my life time, I just want space travel to be so frequent that it becomes boring.

Round 2

This is late, but here's the latest team to break my heart.

Yeah, the Caps have beaten them a couple times during the Ovechkin era, but that doesn't mean anything if the Caps go down 2 games to none after tonight.

I don't want to ...

unfairly group people together, but wrestling fans are freaken morons.

Shouting "WHAT!?" after each draft pick?  Why weren't those idiots beaten to death?!

As the kids would say, "Pwned!"

STUPID KIDS!  I'LL DESTROY THEM BEFORE THEIR GENERATION COMES INTO POW...Oh, but onto my latest embarrassment.

Damn, I just went from celebrating a rare Capitals game 7 victory to being embarrassed by Rosie O'Donnell's sock puppet account.

Oh well. 

Be honest

You totally call Chimera "Ultimate"

Nerd.

Congratulations!  That was a heck of a series

Update

I'll update my whiny hockey rant for when the Caps lose in the semis.

Update to the update:  Oh, what the heck!

Don't even try.

Yikes!

Joel Ward on the right.

Game Winner!

Dude

Ariane Friedrich

Sorry America, but I think I might be rooting for Germany in the Olympics this year. 


What are the Olympics again?

What is this mess?

Blogger just changed how I ... do whatever it is I do with this blog.

I hate that. I just vomit words onto the correct text box and push the publish button without proofreading or asking myself whether what I just wrote would horribly embarrass me or drive people away. I mean, do I really need to post my location? Heck no!

Actually, now that I actually poked around, it's just the same stuff.  Only arranged differently.  Whatever.  It's too white.  Damn you, fright white!  What if I have a headache!?

* - Also

Jaromir Jagr should die of gonorrhea and rot in hell.

Game Seven

I hate this team myself.

I was just happy to see them in the playoffs after this year. Then Holtby had to be incredibly hot. Suddenly it looked like this team had the hot goalie for once. Beating the defending Cup chance would have been the biggest thing the Caps did since, well, the last time they beat the Bruins. In 1998, the Caps won in the first round FOR FREAKIN' ONCE since I've followed them and they were suddenly the top seed because the sixth, seventh, and eight place seeds prevailed. As crushing as it was to watch Esa Tikkanen miss that empty net in the Finals, I was just happy that the Caps just got that far.

I hate game sevens. I'm still scarred by the 1995 playoffs where the Caps got hot thanks partially to their goalie Jim Carey, led the Penguins in the series 3-1, and lost. I was so cocky that I said something like, "Tonight will be the Penguins last game" for three straight games.

I fully expect Wednesday night will be a blow out. Washington will turn its attention to RG3 the next day.

ARR GEE THREE! ARR GEE THREE!

Colts have confirmed that they're going with Luck, so it's time to sell those Redskins RG3 jerseys!


I just wanted an excuse to post this all-time classic youtube video. "OOOOOOOOOOOH NOOOOOOOOOO!"

I found this amusing.

I also found it two months late, but that's pretty fast for me to discover something.

Super Bill

Man, if I can ever get the July Music Video thing started again I'll have to have an all-rap year.

I've got a lot of what it takes to get along!

Look at this picture that just popped up on my dashboard.

Finally, all my hard work has payed off. Once these books sell out I'll be practically retired.

NHL Playoffs start Wednesday night.

Here is the latest team that will break my heart. Jerks.

Pfft, Boston. What kind of sports town is that? Who do they think they are? Acting all cool because they win all the championships! They don't impress me!

Oh sure, you may have this, but you'll never have something that the Washington D.C. area has!

And that is

Some things.

1) Yes, that was probably the dumbest entry of my blog yet. (At least that I'm aware of.)

2) No, I don't read Reddit.

3) Whenever I do something outrageous, I usually chicken out a bit and try to bury it a bit. Hence the google image search for distraction.

4) I'm totally rocking a general's hat.

5) Most of the GIS entries for "distraction" show hot women, which would be in bad taste.

6) People don't actually read this blog, right? I'm just amusing myself, I think.

7) I just remember, this is the internet. Here's something distracting.

New name

Why? Because I'm the real leader behind the War on Women! For you see, I'm one of the founding members of...

The Patriarchy!

I hate girl parts. HATE THEM! Hate them because I lust after them all the time! What is up with them? Do you see lips in front of your nose? Your ears? Do you see lips in front of your mouth!? I think not!

I spend all my time thinking of ways to control them. I'm practicing with this stapler between typing. One day, ONE DAY, I will conquer all yonic kind!

GOOD DRAWINGED!

Just saw this on twitter. Here's a set of MST3k characters. Including Tork Blog favorites like Nick and Sam Casey.

This Week in Entertainment (April 2012)

The Three Stooges movie comes out this week, made by the guy who made Dumb and Dumber. All the hype about the movies seems to focus on a model dressed as a nun, so I'm not expecting much from it. At least it's got to be better than Snow White and the Three Stooges, huh?

These kids today!

I don't like our local wizards and witches running around with lightsabers. What are they teaching these kids?

Playoffs?!

I admit that I kind of rooted against the 2011-2012 Caps early on.  I mean, if I had to watch this team fail miserably in the post-season again... but now that Boudreau is gone and the team has sneaked in, eh, let's have fun with the final 4-7 games of the season.

How about that Ryan Leaf.

He was arrested in Montana AGAIN.

Every time Peyton Manning's career is brought up, this messed-up guy has to be mentioned at some point.


(Why yes, I am nervous about trading up to get RG3.)

Do it for Bill

DO IT YOU -------!

Year Of Manos

First the goodies I'm getting from the Manos Restoration Project.

A pin

T-shirt

Plus my real name on the DVD/Blu Ray being released later this year. 


That's not all.  Today this was announced:

I'm five for five for showing up at Rifftrax Live shows.  I hope to make it six for six.

Mass Effect 3

So there's this space video game and some nerds are upset at the ending.  So they whined like nerds always do resulting in the company giving in to change the ending.

Nerd culture:  The worst culture.  I grew up unpopular but now I want to just wedgie the ---- out of my fellow geeks.  I remember bitching about Chrono Cross but I moved on ... mostly. 


I ask you, video game dorks:  If people accused you of being selfish crybabies, could you prove them wrong?

About Sandra Fluke.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Thanks for being yourself.  I could hug you for the hard work you're doing.

Found this picture

These two men are in charge of the Redskins.

Dan Snyder's body language says he's as comfortable around women as I am.

April 30th

Go SpaceX!

At least Gus Frerotte can't spoil this.

Last time the Skins drafted a Heismann winner, he won a Super Bowl!*   Now we're going to get RG3, and it only cost us three firsts and a second rounder.

Man, I can't wait until the Skins get back to a Super Bowl NFC Championship Game Playoffs firing the Shanahans.



* -  For the Packers.

Peyton, just retire.

You got your ring.  You don't need to kill yourself just to try to match your lucky younger brother.

And now... Tork's Poetry Corner

Of course this isn't mine.  But it's public domain, so nyeh nyeh.

The Charge of the Light Brigade

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Half a league, half a league,
 Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
 Rode the six hundred.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!
"Charge for the guns!" he said:
Into the valley of Death
 Rode the six hundred.

2.

"Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldier knew
 Someone had blunder'd:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
 Rode the six hundred.

3.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
 Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
 Rode the six hundred.

4.

Flash'd all their sabres bare,
Flash'd as they turn'd in air,
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
 All the world wonder'd:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro' the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel'd from the sabre stroke
 Shatter'd and sunder'd.
Then they rode back, but not
 Not the six hundred.

5.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
 Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
 Left of six hundred.

6.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
 All the world wondered.
Honor the charge they made,
Honor the Light Brigade,
 Noble six hundred.

 There.  Now no one can accuse me of not attempting to class up the joint every once in a while.

Now there's an oxymoron.

High-quality...wiki articles.

Angelique Kent, I am so disappointed in you.

Oh goody, another one of these.

The names are changed to protect the delusional.

To the Citizens of the United States and the United States Government.
We are Buttfart.
In the past few months, our collective has been organizing the operation known as Operation Blackout. Part of the operation’s purpose was to alert the people of the coming bill that was to be called the Stop Online Piracy Act.
This Act would give Congress the power to censor any internet website they wish without consent from the Citizens of the United States. This act would’ve also had the power to jail any person who infringed on its new copyright law for an equivalence of five years. This copyright law would’ve had the power to destroy social networking sites such as Facebook and YouTube. Video gameplay and free movies would cease to exist.
However, Operation Blackout was a success. As a collective, we’ve managed to spread the word and alert the masses. Internet giants such as Google, Wikipedia, and Reddit became hand-in-hand with us as we all managed to make an impact on the decisions of our, “free government”. But as we’ve seen with Megaupload, the government may not need a bill to be passed to get their way. Other operations we’ve conducted over this time period have awaken the people to the nightmare that is the United States Government. Sections 1031 and 1032 of the National Defense Authorization Act have been ratified. Yet we face new threats.
The United States Government is seeking to pass the Cyber Security Act of 2012. This act is as Orwellian as it sounds; it will endanger our collective and we will not stand by and watch while this government of lies prepares to take away our freedoms. The National Security Agency insists on labeling us as a leaderless, terrorist organization. The question is, “who do we terrorize?”. Can it possibly be that the United States government is truly scared of us? Nevertheless, The time for action is now.
Our collective has realized, along with many United States citizens, that the current government is no longer functional. Our economy is unstable, our representatives uncooperative, and our system, destroyed.
We are not calling upon the collective to deface or use a distributed denial of service attack on a United States government agency website or affiliate. We are not calling upon the people to occupy a city or protest in front of a local building. This has not brought on us any legislative change or alternate law. It has only brought us bloodshed and false criticism. For the last 12 years, voting was useless. Corporations and lobbyists are the true leaders of this country and are the ones with the power to control our lives. To rebuild our government, we must first destroy it.
Our time for democracy is here.
Our time for real change is here.
This is America’s time, to have its own revolution.
Therefore, Buttfart has decided to openly declare war on the United States government. This is a call to arms. We call upon the Citizens of the United States to stand beside us in overthrowing this corrupted body and call upon a new era. Our allegiance is to the American people, because they are us, and we are them.
Operation V, engaged.
We are Buttfart.
We are Americans.
We never Forgive.
We never Forget.
To the United States government, it’s too late to expect us.

 You know what I can't get enough of?  Radical ninnies who think they can gather hoi polloi to fight their big, glorious revolutions for them.



Keep wearing those stupid masks, idiots.

Geese are jerks.

Seriously.  Ducks are cool.  Swans are cool.  Seagulls are loud and obnoxious, but I give them a pass.

But geese?  Total jerks.  Such arrogant little suckers, too.

Kaboom.

That's the sound of MSTies heads exploding over this announcement:



Rumors has it that it has something to do with the Manos restoration project.  As someone who expects to get a free Blu-Ray when this project is over, it would be damn cool to also get a Rifftrax built onto the disc.

This Week in Entertainment (Feb 2012)

My pick of the Month is Pac-Man: The Complete First Season.  Like Super Mario Bros Super Show, I'm sure it'll embarrass me as an adult, but I still like to see it again. 

The Saddest Ring

Do you remember the early plot point in Ace Ventura about the AFC/NFC Championship rings?  (The Super Bowl loser gets a runner-up ring.)

I've never seen them before until today.  Look at this thing:

:o(

Then again, I do like this one:

Thurman Thomas probably lost this.

By the way, kiss Rex Grossman's ring:

Speaking of Rex Grossman, kiss Peyton Manning's other ring:

Greatest Pick-six Of All Time

The rings can be found here.

500 Episodes.

How did we let this happen?  I'm sorry I beat those NES Bart vs. games. 

http://www.simpsonschannel.com/2012/02/new-episode-at-long-last-leave/

Bronco? More like Honky Donkey!

That's my Tim Tebow headline.  Give me a job, ESPN!

Jeezey crazey, people of my generation grew up learning about slavery, racism, and Civil Rights in the sixties.  You'd think we would show signs of being free of this stuff, but no, ironic racism is HILARIOUS! 

Tork's the 1 Percent!!!!!!!!

Check out this old TftD reply!

------------------------------------------------

Tork: You're killing me off!!! But I'm the most popular character!!

PM: Actually I did a poll. You rank behind 42, the cow, h_wood, and IamWritersBlock. The "pleh" incident cost you at least a percentage point.

Tork: Leaving me with...?

PM: 1 percent...if you round up...liberally.

Tork: ...1 percent? 1 PERCENT!!! ... All right!! I'm number one! I'm number one!

----------------------------------------------------------------

I knew it! Stop oppressing me oppressor!

Dear PETA,

You know what would happen if I joined a group and all of a sudden, I was constantly having the best sex of my life?

Why, I would go around nagging people about their choices in their life, of course! 


Seriously, PETA, you are a living caricature.  Is there anything about you but stunts?

In C-Three-D-O

Star Wars: Episode 1 made 23 million dollars over the weekend.  Shame on you nerds!  I mean, look at that poster.  It doesn't even show Liam Neeson's character.  His was just as bad as the rest, but at least he was the closest thing in the movie to making anything work.

I just wanted to say that I proudly kept my money away from Lucas and gave it to the Red Letter Media guys for this commentary.   Also, I still have this Rifftrax, and it's one of my favorites.

Remember, there is no substance to this movie.  Lucas fell victim to his own ego.  The only thing good about it is people forever mocking it.

A correction.

In an earlier post, I implied that a Simpsons episode was mocking Bill O'Rielly.  It just occurred to me that Homer's crying was actually a shot at crazy Glen Beck. For some reason I just thought the crying was a shot at John Boehner.

Episode still sucks, but it's important to be accurate, so my apologies. 

I just want to point out two facts.

Ex-Prez Bush was president from 2001-2008.  Current Prez Obama has been the president since 2009. 

Ok, do we have that?  Good.

This guy is a dope.  (I think he may be the guy who named a kid after a Star Wars Prequel Trilogy character.)

Let pull a line out of it.

Chances are you don't even remember these words of Darth Maul: "Fear is my ally."

Maybe I don't remember those words because they were only used in a trailer.  Darth Maul had ONE line in the entire damn movie!

The Prequel Trilogy was awful, including the politics, not in spite of them.  One of my biggest disappointments of the movies was the Galactic Senate itself.  One little planet in trouble?  Let's immediately dump the chancellor.   It was so dumb and useless that OF COURSE it got taken over.  I don't care how sad Natalie Portman looked.  Episode 4 made it seem like a tragedy when it got dissolved off screen, but it was portrayed so laughably in the first three episodes that I can't see how you were supposed to root for it.

Want to convinced me that this trilogy was accurately portraying the Bush years*?  Show an in-universe comedian making a million "Palpatine is dumb!" jokes while Palpatine fails to fight back.  Oh yeah, and maybe have B'll O'R'lly on the holographic F'x N'o'o's' channel called the comedian a galaxy hater, I guess.

* - Which, again, ended without a civil war.

Brandon Jacobs

Ooooh, big man going after the little model woman.  Who was clearly A) emotional, B) defensive, C) being heckled by jerks.

I think he's already apologized but this is such a non-story.  Just like Super Bowl 46!

Sports media sucks.  All media sucks.*  Wake me up when the adults are in charge of things.

(Oh, and we only have 8 more months until the NFL is back.)



* -   Except my blog, of course.

20-30 dollars

That's the cost of each crow the Catholic Church is going to eat for supporting the prez during PPACA.

No really.  20-30 dollars a pill.  And if you suggest to a woman that she pay for it herself, she'll act like you're raping her.

Whatever.


Edit:  It's not that I'm implying that stupid, selfish, childish people should stop forcing Catholics to buy them stuff.  It's that stupid, selfish, childish people should stop forcing anybody to buy them stuff.  But they can't help it.  The core of their politics are:  "F--- you, pay for mine."

GameFAQS just added a wiki option.

Sure, why not?  Throw in a TV Tropes option so a black hole of terrible can form.

Madonna?

Really?

Really?

REALLY?????????

At least the legacy of the Pac-Man/Ms. Pac Man Wedding will be safe

I've had a HD TV since the summer.

And today is the first day I figured out how to get HD channels.  How about that.

Digital channels are weird.  I mean, you go your whole life with whole numbers (and maybe A vs B sides) but now I have to learn about hyphenated number channels?  Yeesh.

Anyway, there was nothing but news to watch on the big five networks* so I ended up watching Zee TV, which is some network with Indian** programming.  The first soap opera was in love with the 360 camera trick (which must be awkward for the actors to just stand there waiting for the camera man to finish.)  It was called Dictator Didi or General Didi or Ambassador Didi or something.  I don't know, I didn't watch much but despite its title it just seemed to be about regular soap stuff.  "Will so-and-so blah blah blah?  Tune in!"   Then it immediately went to a second soap about a worried woman facing off against the devil.  The devil looked like an ordinary man, so I was a little loss.  If I only watch the first few minutes I'd be making a joke about how Indian people have special powers apparently.  The devils fireballs are negated by red powder, and then the Hindu top god (I'm guessing) takes the body of a smug woman and talks him into repenting his sins, while the worried woman resurrects her husband from death.  Lots of crying and family politics at the end.

Is it odd that I can't watch American soaps but can watch foreign ones? 

After that there were some Indian music videos.  I obviously don't watch a lot of Indian media but what little I see of it (especially anything marked as Bollywood) makes me wonder if India is going through what the U.S. did during the Golden Age.  And remember that took place during a freaken depression and a war.  Everybody's happy and there's no sense of irony that I have yet to see.

A few commercials reminded me of my experiences with Indian food.  I mean, even when I went to a vegetarian restaurant the food was still ridiculously spicy.  I can't even eat a spicy chicken sandwich without suffering a little.  I think one of the things they were advertising was called Hot Spicy, but I can't look it up because I don't trust Google.***

There was also an ad for Indian Mail Order Brides.  Hmmm, could I go vegetarian?**** 


I like India.  I hope they win the inevitable nuclear war with Pakistan.




* -  I have no idea why I consider The CW a big network, other than I guess I used to root for UPN and The WB in their first years.

** -  I mean India the country, not Indians the natives in America.

*** -  Oh, and another thing about Indian food that has nothing to do with watching Zee TV.  India, you guys need to get more sugar in your diets.  You call THOSE sweets?  We in America will show you sweets!  And...a few more pounds on your bodies...

**** - Nah.


More:  General Didi is the first show's name, but it was originally called Hitler Didi.  Buh?  There doesn't even seem to be a character named Didi. 

Also weird?  No sitcoms.  Come on!  I've watched several episodes of that Mexican school sitcom.  (You hear about the one that got in trouble a year or so ago for BLATANT racism?  Yeah, that one.  I was surprised it was still on.  I swear its been on as long as I even knew about Univision and Telemundo.)  At least give us a game show or something.

Oh My Goodness

Someone got us a PS3 for Christmas.  So I've been catching up on the last two Mortal Kombats lately. 

But looky what I saw announced for PlayStation Network (and Xbox Live Arcade):

Oh heck's yeah.  The best Simpsons game, with the possible exception of Hit & Run.  It includes a survivor mode (see how far you can get on one life) and the unlockable Japanese mode.

Available Feb 3rd (Xbox 360) and Feb 7th (PS3).

Congrats, Komen Foundation

You win this week's coveted Annoy Everybody:  Satisfy Nobody Award!

Now go back to doing whatever it is you pretend to do so Planned Parenthood can hide behind you. 

Laugh-O-Meter: The Simpsons S23E10

Welcome to a new feature of Tork Blog!  Here, I watch an episode of a sitcom and record my honest reactions to it.  Today's subject is "Politically Inept with Homer Simpson", which I whined about in an earlier post.


Laugh Total:

2 laughs.
1 smile.
1 almost laugh.  You know when your face muscles start to move but don't quite reach a smile?  Yeah, that.


The almost laugh came during Homer's dumb Bill O'Rielly show parody when he accidentally screams "Death to America."  The two laughs came during the segment with James Madison trying to teach Homer about...something.  Yeah, it was suppose to be about democracy, but honestly the whole episode was so toothless and vague.  I forget what the smile was about, but it came during the last two acts.

Other than "Death to America", the first two acts were dreadful.  The Fox News Ticker thing was especially lame.  And Ted Nugent was chosen because...I don't know.  Like I said, the episode was toothless.


(By the way, I would love to hear Lisa give an essay about why repealing the Seventeenth Amendment is a bad thing.  Come on, let's hear Lisa's smartness for once instead of constantly hearing about it.)

Finally, a candidate I can endorse.

Go SMOD!