The Pandemic Soul

After a long dry-spell this winter (I guess celebrities don’t go outside in the cold?), I’ve started seeing a bunch of celebrities again. Recently, it was Norm from the first Real World in New York, then Hulk Hogan at the airport, and now one of my all-time favorite guys: Nathan Fillion.

Of everyone that I’ve seen in-and-around Los Angeles, this is the one celebrity I wish I had done the uncouth “I’m a geeky fanboy, will you sign my face?!” move for. He’s such a cool guy (reference his filmography!), and I’m a total die-hard Firefly fan. After walking away, I thought of a half-dozen appropriate, “I’m a cool fan” greetings I could have used. Hrmph. I suppose it’s best that I didn’t, though, as we were on a rather stretch of sidewalk that’s highly trafficked, in front of La Poubelle at the corner of Bronson and Franklin in Franklin Village, and it probably would have been completely awkward. I nonetheless feel the need to express my gratitude and geekyness to one of the hunkier gods of sci-fi. If you’re out there Nathan, I’m the guy who was wearing the blue-and-yellow sweatshirt walking the world’s cutest dog! Couldn’t have missed me!

I guess I’m going to have to spend some time making a list of celebrities I would totally approach (probably most of the people from BSG, Star Trek, or Firefly) and prepare appropriate methods of telling them how, if I have the opportunity before they can realize what I’m doing, I’m going to tear their clothes off and weave them into bedsheets and washcloths. That way if this happens again, I won’t be complaining about a missed opportunity.

Although I recently had some problems with my 2004 Volkswagen Passat (I like to tell folks that the doors and wheels fell off after my warranty expired at 50,000 miles), I have to say that it’s the first car that I ever owned and really loved. Before this, I had a 2001 Jeep Cherokee, a 1996 Chevy Corsica, and a 1998 Ford Contour. Nonetheless, my lease was coming to an end in April, 2008, and had been looking around for possible new cars.

Just a few weeks ago, I received a letter in the mail from Livingston Volkswagen, in Woodland Hills near where I work, with three coupons: one for a “pull ahead” program where the last few payments on my lease would be “forgiven,” one for up to $2,500 off a new vehicle, and one for something else which didn’t apply to me.

Excited that I may have the opportunity to get a new vehicle early, I went down to the dealership and made an appointment to speak with a salesman a few days later. On Thursday, 12-6, I went in to the dealership and walked out with a new, 2008 Jetta. Continue Reading »

I’m rather sick of hearing about how the United States is a “Christian Nation.” I’m also sick of hearing about Christ. But more than anything, I’m sick of self-righteous Christians talking to me.

So from now on, any time a Christian even begins to talk about their religion, no matter what the context, I’m going to ask them the questions listed below. I suggest anyone else who is concerned about how religion continues to poison America do the same. Continue Reading »

Once again, I’m underwhelmed by celebrities who make half-hearted attempts at showing the GLB community how open-minded they are without actually doing anything about it. The newest incident comes from J. K. Rowling, as she outs Dumbledore as gay. Continue Reading »

Here’s an idea: why not, instead of letting dead malls turn into decaying urban eyesores, we turn them into parks?

Rip up the concrete parking lots, demolish the buildings, ring the place with a nice 6′ chain-link fence, and create urban greenery right on our main roads and highways. We can reclaim these vestiges of corporate waste for the public good.

Just as an FYI, if you’re reading this via RSS, you’ll no longer be getting Flickr pics that I upload. I’m moving that feed over to the “Linklog.” You can now find all of my available RSS feeds in the header of this site. Here’s what they have:

• Posts: Just the posts from this site.
• Comments: Comments on posts at this site.
• Linklog: This will aggregate the links that I post, my Flickr feed, my Quotelog, new Diggs, and new Twitters.
• Quotelog: Just my new quotes.
• Last.fm: Feed of music I’ve recently listened to.

All images from Walgreens.com.

Let’s talk pits. If personal hygiene makes you queasy, move on dear reader.

So, I’ve always known that I have some sensitivity to deodorants. I’ve never been able to use antiperspirants, and up until a few months ago the only deodorant that didn’t give me a rash was Right Guard. I’ve been using this since high school, and only had problems every now and again, when an itchy rash would appear. I’d have to forgo deodorant for a week or two, but otherwise would be fine. Apparently, not using deodorant is a capital offense from what I’ve heard lately, but no one ever complained to me so either I didn’t smell very bad, or they didn’t notice. Continue Reading »