Brand New Section!

This part is going to updated on Sundays from now on, but here's an advance look at your upcoming week. It's always good to know what to expect.

http://wreckmanacwhoreoscope.blogspot.com/

I haven't gone to sleep; it's still Tuesday.

The only update for today is in the music section, but more is on tap for tomorrow in to the weekend. Your patience, interest, and understanding are appreciated. The Celtics have been getting more sleep, so maybe I should as well. There you go, update in sports tonight, too. The Celtics went to a sleep therapist and were told to skip afternoon shoot arounds in the interest of getting 7-9 hours of sleep per night. They'll be able to focus better throughout games, and also achieve a higher free throw percentage. It's worked so far tonight (in replay).

Go read the thing on music and bug me tomorrow about more updates. The to do list on here is growing by the keystroke, so we'll see what I can do on another rainy day tomorrow. Hamjoy.  

Wreckmanac getting bigger, wife doesn't notice.

I don't even know if anyone has read any of this, but for those that are, things are expanding/changing here at Wreckmanac. New subsections are evolving, each with their own blog page. In other words, if you're looking for a blog in a specific category, scroll to the bottom of this page and look for it in the page footer. Food, sports, music, and video sections have been built, but some with more content than others. To be honest, Sports is the only one with an actual post on it, the rest have clever fillers for now. Within a short period of time, each page will have more and more. Stay tuned, and keep your comments coming. Actually, start commenting!

Themes, continued

Since one of the earlier posts was about dogs and cats living together (or had it in the title), and I featured work by my dog in a later one, I have to put up pictures of the cat that's currently living in my apartment. My girlfriend and I are fostering him until his respiratory infection goes away. At least, that's the story I got up front. I really only agreed to bring him in because he's so young (about 8 months), would likely be euthanized if returned to isolation care for treatment, and, his name is Bruin. Any luck I can provide for the Boston Bruins is no problem. The cat's on thin ice, though, the B's are 5-4-1 through ten games. That and my dog Aggie doesn't seem interested in sharing the apartment. Regardless, here's Mr. B.

And just so this post isn't all cutesy and "awwwww" inspiring, here's    
       something for the kids:

There will likely be a late night post tonight. I'll be working at the bar tonight, with a Yankee game on one TV and the Giants on the other, so I'm thinking I'll have something to say when I get home.I really hope they bought a new iPod dock for the bar; I'll need all the sanity I can get.

GO ANGELS!
GO EDIT iTUNES PLAYLIST!

Like making only two seasons of an amazing TV show, mankind has got to know his limitations.

            I never knew how those Jingle Heimer Schmidt guys felt until today. Sure, I could have walked in to their law firm and asked, but I never felt the need. Today, after I had consumed a 32oz. Gatorade and eaten an omelet in hopes of chasing away my hangover, I saw on a friend’s Facebook page that someone named Ryan Stevens had made a comment on her status.
“I didn’t make comments on peoples’ pages at four in the morning when I came home drunk; that’s not my picture.”

            After several exchanged messages, it turns out that this, strange, doppelganger Ryan is not so Bizzaro after all. He loves the Red Sox, plays music, and recognized the Megadeth quote when I said, “Hello, me, it’s me again.” Also, he, like me, or himself, or whatever, was hungover. It’s pretty weird stuff. Of course, I’ve looked up my name on Google before, seen other Ryan Stevenseses, like these folks:

            







but the feeling that there were more of me out there than I thought never really settled in until I exchanged instant messages with myself; it was a whole new way of talking to myself. That’s what I was doing anyway, as I spent most of the afternoon searching for the proper html codes to make this blog look the way it does. It sounds easy, but it’s not. Ask my Doppler, he’ll tell you how much it sucked. By process of elimination, you can tell the Ryan Stevens with whom I spoke is not the black lady in her car, and is thankfully not the gentlemen wearing the neon banana hammock, either. He's not the Ryan Stevens with the guitar, either, but his yearbook must have rocked! He looks like a Metallica fan vacationing in the Los Lobos islands.

            Although the new records from Baroness, Keelhaul, and Coalesce have occupied most of my time, I’ve been steadily rotating old favorites in to the mix. A few weeks ago, I gave Helmet’s “Aftertaste” a listen. It’s always good for days like that, which was the kind of day that today was; wet and nasty. It was more humid today, and everything was tensely hanging in the air. It wasn’t an “Oceanic” by Isis day; it wasn’t cold enough and lacked the sing along element I was craving. I felt the urge, as did another one of my friends, apparently, to put on Alice In Chains, first with “Jar of Flies,” then all of their stuff on shuffle. Man I missed them. It was the perfect haunting soundtrack for a sticky, nasty day. It’s kind of like listening to Pantera after not hearing them for awhile, and being dumbstruck at how much Dimebag is missed. Unlike, Dimebag, Layne Staley was likely hopeless in his addictions, but his talents were similarly gone too soon. The two of them should start an all dead Super Group and make a zombie rockumentary. Keith Moon on drums, and maybe Cliff Burton on bass, until someone more qualified dies.

Speaking of things short lived, I finished watching this awesomeness:

If you like Simon Pegg’s humor, this is a mandatory watch, as it’s bloody brilliant. Unfortunately, there aren’t many episodes, only two seasons worth, but each episode is very well crafted. In humor more adult than but similar to “The Simpsons,” this show is great. Disc three in the set is a two hour feature about the show, which is very cool. Yeah bonus features! Maybe write more shows instead.

And speaking of short, I’m off to bed. I can sleep well tonight knowing I finally found myself, and that my head or his head, or whoever’s, isn’t still splitting with pai n.  

My dog knows terrible beer when she sees it.

The dead rising from the grave, dogs and cats living together!

Developing a costume idea for Halloween wasn’t a concern of mine for about a decade. In 1996, I wore a tight fitting track suit and a bike helmet, carried around a glow in the dark Frisbee, and told everyone I was Tron. Nobody knew what the hell Tron was, so I contacted The Programmer and had those unknowing people eliminated from competition. Actually, I instead gave up on Halloween for a few years. Three years later I returned to the scene with my orange one piece prison suit, dressed as a boring prisoner. Yawn. That was my last costume until last year when I donned my Adidas jump suit (not a tight fitting one), a top hat, giant sunglasses, and a wall clock around my neck. Flava Flav hit the town and had a decent amount of fun. I was probably the whitest member in Public Enemy’s history. This year, I have two costumes ready. I’m not telling you what they are; you’ll have to wait for the evidence.        
            The point is: I’m just getting in to this whole Halloween thing. I bought some candy for those little ones seeking candy corns or chicanery, and am actually looking forward to this year’s adventure. The problem with Halloween that I have is with the movies. I’m not so in to the scream-o horror flicks, and can only take Freddy or Jason in small doses, and even then, only the old ones and not the Rob Zombified remixes. I do, however, dig zombie movies. Actually, the zombies do the digging on the way out of their graves; I like zombie flicks. That’s better. Seeing the undead get abused, shot, destroyed, beat up, etc. is plain hilarious. They move so slow you could practically box them to death, even if your arms were wet lasagna noodles. However, this brings me to an even bigger topic, one beyond Halloween.

            Direct TV started an ad campaign years ago where footage from 1982’s “Poltergeist” shows Craig T. Nelson awaking to Heather O’Rourke talking to the TV. Coach then talks about how great Direct TV is, without mention that you can’t watch TV on cloudy days, and that’s that. Direct TV making money of off the deceased, without having to pay the estate of Heather O’Rourke. It’s a very unsettling commercial, indeed.
            Now, it appears that (just in time for Halloween) the dead are once again rising from the grave. Last night I was watching the ALCS (look for that blog back on the main page) and was horrified to see that Direct TV has also posthumously declared the rights to Chris Farley, and that weasel David Spade is in on it, too. In the famous “fat guy in a little coat” scene from “Tommy Boy,” David Spade takes a minute to talk about how great Direct TV is, without mentioning that if your neighbors have it too that your signals may get crossed.
            HOW DARE YOU, SPADE! Chris Farley made you what you are today. Without the genius and physical comedy mastery that Farley possessed, you’d literally be working on an airline telling people, “buh-bye.” I can’t believe he’s collecting endorsement checks from Direct TV on behalf of his more talented, and deceased, sidekick. Hopefully, when Spade dies, they’ll use his likeness to market toilet cleaners, enemas, home suicide kits, and douches. The whole thing is upsetting. Not the dead rising from the grave; that would be kind of fun (kind of). That’s a whole other story, though.
           
            At this time of year, let’s keep our triangle Jack O lantern eyes fixed on the prize; candy and costume contest prizes. Let’s leave the dead be, and not try to make money off of them. If and when we ever undergo a zombie attack, I’m going to help Chris Farley’s corpse find David Spade, whether that little rat is alive or not. Let the dead rest, for peat’s sake. Yes, peat’s. After all, they’re all fertilizers anyway.