Here are some truly exciting photos from my recent vacation with the parents down in overcast Florida. It was a good time, lots of eating, lots of sleeping. Now sit back and share in my exitement as I share with you just a small taste of the expansive photo record of the many beach dwelling species of Florida bird...
here I is, enjoying "downtown" Disney with the great emancipator himself: Abraham Lincoln, who (apparently) is too cool for New Salem.
The amazing 'brown dancing bird', I wanted to capture one but I just didn't have the heart to cage him and and make him dance for my pleasure, hours on end until his tiny bird legs collapse.
I call this one "I'm about to kick the bird into the ocean"
Aaawww, more peaceful birds! Ca-caw! Ca-Caw! TOOKIE TOOKIE!!!!!!
Oh CRAP. RUN.
Here's my favorite, it's very impressionisticly depressing.
The fabulous OUTRIGGER beach resort! Home of suburban swingers for over fifty years!
Our hotel room, recently and surperbly cleaned by one of the many Dominicanos.
^Enlarged for your desktop wallpapering pleasure. 
This was about as sunny as it got...but then I remembered how FREAKING COLD it is here, and I was fine.
These birds were planning their break in for later that night. They were positive little timmy had more french fries.
It's so cute, they think I don't know what they're up to.
Very national-geographic-ish.
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And for your bonus pleasure...Another LIST!!!
According to Clint, there was no "pop" music in the 90's, so this is the Top 15 'Best Songs Constantly Played on the Radio During the 90's' list...
1. One - U2 (1991)
2. Get What You Give - New Radicals (1998)
3. Bittersweet Symphony - The Verve (1997)
4. Iris - Goo Goo Dolls (1998)
5. 1979 - Smashing Pumpkins (1995)
6. Wonderwall - Oasis (1995)
7. Kiss From a Rose - Seal (1994)
8. I Don't Wanna Wait - Paula Cole (1996)9. Walking in Memphis - Marc Cohn (1991)
10. Under the Bridge - Red Hot Chili Peppers (1991)11. Desert Rose - Sting (1999)12. Ironic - Alanis Morissette (1995)
13. Crash Into Me - Dave Matthews Band (1996)
14. Ray of Light - Madonna (1998)15. No Rain - Blind Melon (1992)
Aaaand that's it. If you want me to explain my choices, just send cash or check for $25.00 payable to whosinthenews and you will recieve a nifty two page booklet in 2-8 weeks. Goodnight kids.
Heyyyyyyyyyyyyy, Just got back from Florida and have plenty of stuff to write about, BUT, when I got home today I noticed that my computer suddenly decided not to boot anymore, I guess the hardrive is dead, or something.
UPDATE
mmm aye, it'll probably be a while till I post anything, my computer needs a good kicking...something or other, but it's broke and I don't like using this computer, so, I might be back in a week or so.
I'll just give a VERY quick little review of King Kong and Chronicles of Narnia here...
Both of these holiday season blockbusters have quite a bit in common; they both have sub-par, cartoonish CGI and they both go nowhere fast. Yeah, this is my super trite, cranky review but I just didn't like these movies. I'm not sure what it is but I just wasn't in the mood for these films that came across as really rushed and substanceless. It was like watching someone play a videogame for 3 hours. The Chronicles of Narnia...uuuuh, first of all I was not expecting another Lord of the Rings, so that's not the problem...The problem is that this film is just a total snooze fest, and not an artsy, deep and relaxing Fellowship of the Ring snoozefest. I honestly couldn't have cared any less about the characters or what was even going on; the battle was lame, the characters were forgettable and the CGI was bad. Overall it's not a terrible film, but definitely not good, it's just...forgettable, a lot like Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and in my opinion there's nothing worse than an average, vanilla movie. At least really crappy movies (Batman and Robin) still get talked about, evoking some emotion...even if it is mostly hatred.
And that's all it is, a very disappointing, meh. And the best part is that it will probably make enough money to warrant the making of the other three relavent books, "Last Battle" and the other one I can't remember, BUT fortunately no one forces me to go the theater!
King Kong on the other hand isn't nearly as mediocre. It at least had some action to keep things rolling and was able to keep my attention until just before they capture Kong and bring him back to New York. After that it seems to just flop to the end. In the last 45 or so minutes we get more "love" scenes between Naomi Watts and Kong that simply repeat the same thing that was shown in about five other scenes earlier in the film. And there's almost no resolution or learned lesson except for Jack Black's brilliantly delivered line "it was beauty that killed the beast" ...mmm great, sooooo, and? I'll admit that Peter Jackson really fleshed out an otherwise one dimensional story about a Monkey, yes, there are underlying themes and messages about greed and understanding "monsters", but the movie is just too 'busy' for any of those things to truly work or sink in. I felt like I was like watching the Temple of Doom but with a deep "profound" message trying desperately to work to the surface, but it never does and we end up with a slightly fancier version of Congo.
Yeah, sorry for the crankiness tonight. Are they worth seeing? Sure, wait for video though. They'll make nice teusday night popcorn rentals, but start it before 8 pm because they're both unecessarily long.
Chronicles of Narnia - 7.47/10 turkish delights
King Kong - 7.9311/10 Naomi Watts
Ah, Collective Soul, so wise, so true, it is December already and so I feel obliged to post something worthy of their genius, but my brain is completely numb after having just finished a six page paper about ‘how Tim Burton films teach us lessons about how to treat weird people’. I can honestly say I’ve never been so uninspired in my life, sure I love Burton and enjoyed doing the research but I just couldn’t muster up even the tiniest bit of motivation. I focused my thoughts as hard as I could but the wheel inside my brain was just barely screeching along, uuuaagh, c'mon, THINK!!! I laid on the floor and stared at the computer screen, as the hours ticked by, as no thoughts entered my vacant mind. Easily the worst case of writers block I've ever had. But, fortunately for me I went into a bizarre, caffeine induced creative streak...I just kept typing and typing as the sugar rushed through my veins, speaking to me wisdoms and notions of things unseen...until I had six pages worth of lofty sounding words and concepts. I'm not sure if it makes any sense or if it's just total gobbledygook BS...but I think I accomplished most the goals of the paper, for the most part…I hope.
I downloaded this today, Google Earth. This program is a-ma-zing, you can zoom in and out, tilt and pan, wherever, anywhere over the globe. However, some places have clearer satellite photos than others, like TOWANDAAA! If you can figure out these ridiculous coordinates then you might have the once in a lifetime opportunity of seeing my hidden rebel base..."pointer - 40,34,57.63 N 88,52,26.86 W elevation - 768 ft"...right there, 
the house shaped like an M...see, I'm in the driveway...giving you the christian finger. Anyway, this thing is awesome, it makes the world seem so small (I've finally discovered what the elusive country of Portugal looks like), but at the same time so much larger and kind of lonely; here we are, this tiny globe sitting somewhere in infinite space...here I am, out of all the places in the world I could be, in central Illinois...strange...it also makes me sad that the all I've seen of it (outside of the states) is Tijuana, which barely even counts. I want to see the great pyramids!
and I want to taste the delicious burritos in el Ciudad de Panama!
Anyway, Another thing I noticed is that when you look at a regular flat map like you see in books, the oceans look fairly "small", well, a lot less than the 70% of the earth's surface, or whatever it is. But on a realistic looking globe, zooming in and out with the power of Google, you see just how truly enormous they are. I used to wonder why more Cubans don't just swim to the Florida keys...now I know. And Australia...gah! Soooo unbelieveably faaar awaay, sdjfskdfmAB!! It reaffirms my belief that it's just a gigantic Arizona, out there all alone in the middle of the ocean, not a care in the world. And just think if you lived in Perth, you're on the far side of the island, thousands and thousands of miles from the side that has the only four good cities in the entire chunk of land>
>see this beautiful port city? Well it's facing directly west and absolutely NOTHING for a gagillion miles in that direction, but east...LOOK! a crater! and no one even noticed, except the dinosaurs.
Eh, nevermind, I've got a book comin' out sometime that will explain my theories. One day I'm going to visit the Aussies and ask them if what it feels like to live completely separated from the troubles of the world...hmm. It's like heaven, except boring and liberal.
yes, well, my leg hurts, I'm going to go have a tortilla. Goodnight all you lovers in the world.
here I is, enjoying "downtown" Disney with the great emancipator himself: Abraham Lincoln, who (apparently) is too cool for New Salem.
The amazing 'brown dancing bird', I wanted to capture one but I just didn't have the heart to cage him and and make him dance for my pleasure, hours on end until his tiny bird legs collapse.
I call this one "I'm about to kick the bird into the ocean"
Aaawww, more peaceful birds! Ca-caw! Ca-Caw! TOOKIE TOOKIE!!!!!!
Oh CRAP. RUN.
Here's my favorite, it's very impressionisticly depressing.
The fabulous OUTRIGGER beach resort! Home of suburban swingers for over fifty years!
Our hotel room, recently and surperbly cleaned by one of the many Dominicanos.
^Enlarged for your desktop wallpapering pleasure. 
This was about as sunny as it got...but then I remembered how FREAKING COLD it is here, and I was fine.
These birds were planning their break in for later that night. They were positive little timmy had more french fries.
It's so cute, they think I don't know what they're up to.
Very national-geographic-ish.
