And we're back

N and I made it back from Florida with nary a scratch or a religious conversion. We came close though with our semiannual trip to Murph's, the single greatest bar in Florida (and that's what we call damning with faint praise), to see Singin' Bill. It was not as raucous an event as last time, it being xmas eve and all, but boy did we have fun. Some folks had a crazier xmas, but ours was still pert near perfect. Being told that you're wise beyond your years by a man who knows Hank Williams' entire oeuvre is pretty much the best xmas present evar. Hope your holidaze were good, too.

More to come in 2006.

"The officer suffered minor injuries, including bites to his ankle..." [Spaceeba, Kevin!]

Another reason to love Willie Nelson

Happy Fuck You, NY: Rikers to shut gay and transgender dorm

Pull down your bloomers and slide on the ice

Well well well, here we are with the eve of the Sure-to-Be-Doomed Airline Travel Which Will Commence XMas 2005: Trail of Tears Edition. For those of you sent here from Hanasiana, I'm so glad you came, and your wait time will only be...8 days. I'm sorry. It's this time of year, and the dread and cost and anxiety, that make me clam up like my clam is, um, superglued.

Much love, hope youse have excellent holidays, and look for my return sometime before New Years. Maybe there will be photos? Hm, food for thought!

And now, I welcome my guest bloggers, penis enlargement pills and texas holdem. Take it away, boys.

New York Hack gives the lowdown on the frustrating (to cabbies and fares alike!), hard-to-understand-and-enforce zone system

BREAKING! Jessica Alba staying at fleabag motel mere blocks from my house!

Stalin's half-man, half-ape super-warriors: Quite possibly the best idea ever [Thanks, Tom]

The Raft of the Medusa, Or, My Morning Commute

Heh. Can you imagine how excited all the NYC bloggers are right now? We all have Something Important to Blog About. This, my friends, offers the opportunity for real heroes to step up to the plate.

As far as public transit-less commuting goes, the only thing separating me and my place of work is a river and 34 blocks. Last night, I told my superiors that I would be "telecommuting," thinking it a reasonable solution. No dice. The email from on high read: "It is incumbent upon every member of the company workforce to be present and accounted for. We have set up cots in the gym for those of you who cannot, otherwise, make it to work."

Ms. Subways Weighs In on the Strike

Newley has inexplicably allowed me to participate in his roundup of luminary bloggers' favorite books of 2005

Truly heartwarming: Let the Aryans know it's Christmastime [Thanks, Sam!]

List of films ordered by uses of the word "fuck"

The SF Gate strains for credulity on the topic of JT Le Roy; Greil Marcus and Margaret Cho just miss the point [Thanks, Maud!]

Congrats, Texas, on reaching a new level of moral turpitude

Not quite as good as "Headless Body Found in Topless Bar," but...

How, exactly, does one go about stealing an 11-foot bronze sculpture?

As pointed out on the dust congress this week, the Silver Jews are touring, quite possibly the most incredible news ever, barring Syd Barrett and Roky Ericson announcing a double-header stadium tour

krimur's back from Savannah with proof that my favorite bar hasn't changed

New Orleans prisoners left to die [Via]

Your Queens Apt for our East London Flat: We're hoping that your apartment will be situated in a large multi-building complex (LeFrak perhaps?), and have at least 30% of the tenants on some form of welfare. [Thanks T!]

A moment of silence, please, for Gordo

Oh, like everyone isn't turned on by chimps? What.

I Hate a Roman Named Uncle Grambo

2005:
The year of the woman wino

Maud Newton drops science on Caitlin Flanagan

The plot thickens in the school-president-bankrobber story

From the County Seat of Bah Humbug

Well, only one xmas package lost in transit...that's something! Most of the presents were for N. I had to describe all the items--ordered off of Amazon--to the DHL customer service rep. In a magnificent stroke of synchronicity, it turns out her 13-year-old son likes the same things he does, and that all of my unknown-whereabouts purchases come *highly* recommended.

Whoa. Surge (along with minithins) is the only reason I was able to finish my thesis. If you drink enough of it, it comes out of you looking exactly as it did when it went in. [Via]

This may well be my favorite news story of the year

Someone give Vidiot Maureen Dowd's job, but, like, don't make him wear high heels and red lipstick

Yes, God, I'm doin' my job

Work--work-work, not my daylong perusal of RSS feeds, for which, I might add, I am totally undercompensated--has been kicking my ass this week. Look for a little something in the near future. It will have jeweled eyes.

In the meantime, a bagatelle pour vous: Let's Just Fuck for Christmas, by Bantam Rooster.

Syriana has its own Wikipedia entry, which almost explains what was going on half the time [Via]

WFMU weighs in on the "Germs" show on Saturday

All those "gay cowboy" naysayers should go read Annie Proulx's short story, Brokeback Mountain

"There appears to be an element of white supremacists," said Captain Obvious

Why is everything this guy writes better than mine?

Is there such a thing as monkey gender roles?

As someone who's never forgiven her for Godfather III, I'm pleased to note that someone else out there thinks Sofia Coppola's a hack

Sweet Meats

This weekend I was cycling manic and thus, at 5 pm Saturday, I decided I would make the Swedish Ginger Snaps from the Times' "Style" supplement, which should really be called "An Assemblage of Articles So Fatuous They Make the Sunday Styles Section Look Like Foreign Policy Review."

Why did I make these cookies? Because of their secret ingredient: bacon grease. I love that a recipe calling for 3/4 cup of rendered fat can coexist mere pages from Scarlett Johanssen and Her Fabulous Rack. I was inspired because just that morning, I made bacon and eggs for breakfast. So I decided to save the grease.

"And the Satanic ritual abuse culminated in my being sodomized with ice cream and Oreos."

At STI clinics in SF, a discovery that the popular oral HIV test is wildly inaccurate

Sony repents! Now, onto those darned lyrics sites

Huh. This would explain why Gawker isn't as grammati-cally crippled and intellectually impaired as usual

Although the wording of this post borders on gibberish, it appears that Gothamist has returned to their oh-so-tasteful Law & Order fantasies

Please to be havening good weekend

We have a complicated relationship with our super, Jeff. On the one hand, he is generally nice to us, joking with us in his determinedly broken English (which, of course, we mock so often that it's hard for me not to lapse into Jeffspeak when I'm around him). He especially likes N, who once helped him carry a fridge to the curb. Sometimes they talk about soccer. Jeff calls him "buddy." On the other hand, my relationship with Jeff is fraught with the sexual politics one might expect to encounter with a suspected Serbian war criminal.

WE WILL MAKE YOU LOOK SUPER MODEL!

How to up your chances of snagging an upgrade while flying this holiday season

And now I know how Joan of Arc felt...

You know what sucks? Like, okay, you have some really big dreams, which you manage to quash by a) taking every drug you can get your hands on and b) not being very talented, but that doesn't stop you from deciding: "I am going to have a Five-Year Plan, and at the end of those five years, I am going to go out in such a spectacular fashion that no one will forget me."

And so then, the fabled day arrives. And believing that (as Don McClean sang) the world was never meant for one as beautiful as you, you cook up and inject the motherlode of all fixes, and ascend to the Golden Shooting Parlor in the Sky. Your status as Punk Rock God is cemented!

And then, the next day, the goddamned Millionaire Jesus of Hippies has to go and get himself killed.

And poof! Like that, the acme of your Five-Year Plan is destroyed.

I hereby declare December 8 to be National It-Sucks-To-Be-Darby-Crash Day.

Anyhow, I'm sure you've heard about this Darby Crash biopic that's been in postpostpostproduction for about two years now called What We Do Is Secret, which I think is a sadly ironic choice for a title, given that what the Germs did was suck and it weren't no big secret. If I had to employ the Song Title Nomenclature Rule, I would've chosen "Throw It Away," but that's why I'm not a filmmaker. Starring as Darby Crash is one Shane West, who you might know from his role as Doctor Goatee on ER. Apparently Shane had fake buck teeth affixed to his own for the role. Such is Shane's devotion to his craft.

Oh, heh, by the way, the "Germs" are playing this weekend at the Continental. Wanna know who's singing? Doctor Goatee himself.

Some would think that the real Darby Crash is spinning in his grave, but I think that he's absolutely delighted to be portrayed by such a hot piece of ass.

"With You Always" [Via popbitch]

Whatcha gonna do with all that ass ?

Black Eyed Peas' “My Humps” has somehow crossed my radar. It seems there's something of an on-line kerfuffle about the song. First I was pointed toward this piece from Coke Machine Glow; someone else later brought up this one from Slate.

"Anyway, this evening I noticed, amongst the plethora of options for stealing wireless internet and downloading Luther Vandross from limewire, a new internet connection. This one is named 'The Stabbin' Cabin.'"

But with names like Tres Pasitos and Chinese Chalk I only want to use them more

Prison-rape jokes: The Anti-Drug [Um, thanks]

"There was definitely a problem within the family." Jesus, ya think?

The Department of Homeland Security detains over 200K noncitizens a year for merely immigration violations, so it shouldn't be a surprise that they allow them to drop dead while they're imprisoned, should it

You gotta live the life you sing about in your songs

Hey, I know how to party. At the bar last night was none other than Seth Mnookin, and goddamn if THAT isn't an exciting sighting.

Speaking of sightings: Today I saw two little people within a block of each other. One of them was really tiny. Is it good luck? (Not for them to be little, but for me to see them.) I like to take these things as good omens. Because I don't want them to be bad omens. Because I'm already superstitious and paranoid enough. Someone has to worry. Otherwise bad things happen.

I've been trying all day to read this article about the "opt-out revolution" but I can't get past this sentence: The first item in a section about goods "that no stay-at-home mom should do without" is a big bottle of Rodney Strong Chardonnay.

Hitchens laments the rogue journalists of yore, perhaps not realizing that today's journalists remain portly chainsmokers with bad hygiene

The zipless fuck you

Recently a man squished me within an inch of my life on the uptown Lexington local. At least 6 feet tall and probably a suit-size 46 (my vestigial retail talents...), he was made even bigger by a 3/4-length shearling coat that I'm certain was composed of no fewer than 16 sheep. It lent him a certain ancient Magyar air.

Mapping Margery Kempe [Via]

"It does not have the multiethnic charm of the No. 7, the iPod-hipster bustle of the L": The Indignity of the G

Excellent assemblage Iron and Wine/Calexico mp3s recorded at the 930 Club

"Any problems people have, money magnifies it so much, it's unbelievable."

From the shitty news department: Roderick Johnson, who tried unsuccessfully to sue the Texas prison system for failing to protect him from being repeatedly raped is now going back to jail for violating parole

This girl likes her pie as much as I do

Very, very neato [Thanks, Russell!]

"You've Never Heard of This Band I Love" and 42 More Top Web Hits: Now That's What I Call Blogging! [Via, natch]

Dominique-a-neeka-um, what?

Flickr is Magic

N somehow managed to stumble across the following Flickr set: Pam's BoobJob.

Pam's bio reads: I enjoy going bra-less, and wearing see-thru tops to show off my Boob-Job. I also enjoy sharing my self and photos with others. Besides being an aerobics instructor, I am some what of an exhibitionist.

In addition, Pam is apparently a time traveler from the year 1983. I marvel at all the things we can learn from her.

Pam swims! Pam rides ATVs! Pam has a camper! And Pam posts her boobjob photos everywhere! Pam also has a blog. A blog that consists primarily of photos of her boobjob.

How much do you want to bet that Pam has no fucking clue that her photos are all over the internet?

Hey, look who else ignored World AIDS Day! I guess internet addiction is better front-page material than the 40.3 million HIV+ worldwide

Swaziland--where 38% of all adults are HIV positive--has cancelled events to mark World AIDS Day

Dinos Chapman, AKA the guy who makes sculptures of penis-faced children has so eloquently called BS on yesterday's reports of the link between teh sexay, teh crazay, and teh art

The BBC's World AIDS Day coverage

It's hipper in Helsinki