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Sep. 29th, 2006 @ 03:31 pm Get Biblical with my grundle.
Current Mood: Broke
Current Music: The Smiths - Cemetary Gates
Florida Rep. Mark Foley's resignation came just hours after ABC News questioned the congressman about a series of sexually explicit instant messages involving congressional pages, young men who are under 18 years of age.

In Congress, Rep. Foley (R-FL) was part of the Republican leadership and the chairman of the House caucus on missing and exploited children.

He crusaded for tough laws against those who used the Internet for sexual exploitation of children.

But, according to several former congressional pages, the congressman used the Internet to engage in sexually explicit exchanges.

They say he used the screen name Maf54 on these messages provided to ABC News.

Maf54: You in your boxers, too?
Teen: Nope, just got home. I had a college interview that went late.
Maf54: Well, strip down and get relaxed.

Another message:

Maf54: What ya wearing?
Teen: tshirt and shorts
Maf54: Love to slip them off of you.

And this one:

Maf54: Do I make you a little horny?
Teen: A little.
Maf54: Cool.

Oh and this one:

Maf54: I've got a pearing knife against my grundle.
Teen: What's a grundle?
Maf54: Doesn't matter, want to lick it? Want to lick government grundle?

The language gets much more graphic, too graphic to be broadcast, and at one point the congressman appears to be describing Internet sex.

Like here:

Maf54: 'Sex' or sexual intercourse is the act by which congressmen reproduce.
Teen: OH! Okay, I know I've heard of it.
Maf54: Now lick my grundle, biznatch!

Federal authorities say such messages could result in Foley's prosecution, under some of the same laws he helped to enact.

Maf54: I was thinking about enacting some laws.
Teen: Oh yeah? Like what?
Maf54: You know, like congressmen shouldn't have cybersex with kids, children shouldn't be allowed on the internet, McDonalds should give free fries with every order.
Teen: Wow, like ten commandments type stuff huh.
Maf54: Yeah, now get biblical with my grundle.
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Pensive
Mar. 22nd, 2006 @ 05:04 am House of Leaves
Current Mood: sleepy
Current Music: it stopped
Yeah, everyone has something to say about it, sure. I don't care. It's horror, perfectly captured. The difference between horror and terror, which was brilliantly explained but I can't remember by who, as "Terror is what you experience on a roller coaster, horror is what you experience when it suddenly flies off the track."

For me at least, House of Leaves is a work of horror. It contains something that should be horrific to everyone, whether in the Navidson Record, Zampano's desperate interperetation/creation of it, Truant's interperatation of that, or Truant's own personal story. Somewhere in one of the levels of the book is something that resonates with the primordial fear of humanity, to use a device from the book, it echoes it.

The act of interpereting the book itself is just another level to be explored, and I won't give in to that, because I already understand the essense of it, and the exploration itself is what provides that understanding.

The greatest work of horror I've ever experienced, and I feel violated by it.

For me it wasn't the House, or the Record, or the Labyrith of footnotes, end notes, appendices, or the relative humanity of everything therein; it wasn't the idea of oblivion, the mystery of the unknown, the descent into insanity, the loss of loved ones, the futility of scientific pursuit, the essential hopelessness or opposing existance of hope... It the futile desperation of the letters to Johnny from his mother that did me in. I couldn't finish reading them.

Fucking hell. It's funny too, because I can identify a solid fear and responding courage with most of the concepts presented. The thing that finally ruined me about that book was the incredibly human aspect of those letters.
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Jan. 22nd, 2006 @ 03:41 am The Zombies
Current Mood: amused
Current Music: The Zombies - Hung up on a Dream
Strange thing how the world works.

A few months ago, I get this weird bug to listen to some oldies. I flick on the local station, low tech fm radio, no podcast, no NPR, just a local commercial radio station running the same oldies format they must have run since 1979. Anyway, I hear this song, 'She's not There', by the Zombies. I remember hearing it in my childhood, I remember hearing it in movies, on television, somewhere nostalgic, who cares. The point is, this time I actually listened to the song, and something clicked, all of a sudden I had the zombies discography running on my playlist, thier songs migrated into my car, into my workout, insinuated my life. I kind of dug that, because it was like my own little music secret.

Last month I went back to New York, hanging out with Rubin around the Lower East Side. A friend, Rob, is DJing, and he's running through his ipods, just playing great shit all night. He starts off with Bloc Party, drifts through the Yeah Yeah Yeahs into Interpol, stops by the cure for a minute and plows straight through the rest of my typical evening playlist into the fucking shocker, the fucking zombies.

I had to leave the bar, I was bugged out. I mean, it's great to roll into a DJ that has the same taste in music as you, but the exact same, down to the music secret... The next week, I see a write up about the Zombies in some magazine. Who the fuck has listened to the zombies in years?

At first I thought it was a blow to my sense of individuality or some such high school bullshit; but then I realized it actually was, just not in that egotistical high school way, but in the philosophical free will kind of way. I'll keep it terse, I was suddenly and inexplicably a statistic of the universe.
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Jan. 17th, 2006 @ 12:33 pm (sp?)!!!!
Current Mood: predatory
Current Music: Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Maps
Okay, seriously, people are broken.

Orphasis

Go ahead, google it.
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Pensive
Dec. 5th, 2005 @ 10:21 pm The Newest Fight Club
Current Mood: Pedagogical
Current Music: The Police - Synchronicity
Alright, after months of exploration, I've finally settled on Wing Chun Kung Fu. It's a good balance of internal and external, it allows me to take advantage of my significant physical strength without relying on it, and it's cerebral enough to keep me interested for the next five years or so.

For those who aren't familiar with it, here's what I've learned:

Wing Chun is a martial art with uncertain origins. Some claim it was invented just over two hundred years ago by a nun in a shaolin temple in order to train a large military force in a short amount of time. At this particularly turbulent point in China's history, the ruling class had outlawed the practice of kung fu except in the service of the empire. The Shaolin were exempt from this rule, and remained fairly autonomous. A large percentage of the population considered the Ming family to be an oppressive regime, and those who wished to rebel, along with unsanctioned martial artists and other fugitives, found solace in the monastaries of shaolin. The temples became secret headquarters for the rebellion, and in order to train the rebels to be effective in a short amount of time, a new form of kung fu was designed based on the movements of the human body (as opposed to mimicking the movements of animals, as was traditional), and other forms of kung fu were reduced to only their most effective techniques and incorporated. The temples were eventually burned and the monks were scattered, but continued teaching in secret, preserving the art of Wing Chun.

Although the general consensus in the martial arts community is that this story is complete bullshit, no one doubts the effectiveness of the art.

The art itself is based on the 'center line principle' which essentially promotes attacking an opponents balance while retaining your mobility. Wing Chun practicioners fight at a very close range, attempting to get inside the defenses of their opponents while limiting their opponents effectiveness. Fast and precise hand movements are concerned with 'locking up' your opponent's weapons (hands, feet) while providing openings to strike vital areas. The basic function of wing chun is to 'pour your strength into your opponents weakness', and uses the following methodology:

Every attack provides an opportunity for attack. Every block provides an opportunity for attack.

Wing Chun stylists are not 'comitted' to movements in the way that other fighters would be. For example when someone kicks, even just in that instant, they're balanced on one leg. A wing chun stylist is taught to take advantage of that moment to force his opponent off balance. Wing Chun focuses on interrupting attacks, and combining offense and defense into single fluid movements. They nearly always attack and block at the same time, utilizing an effeciency of movement that provides very few opportunities for counter attack.

The use of Chi Sau as a training technique develops tactile sensitivity, and once contact is initiated, wing chun stylists rely on this sense to predict the movements of their opponents. This tactic cuts reaction time and is central to the development of the artist.

Wing Chun is considered a fluid, feminine art.

The alternative was Hung Gar, which is quite the opposite of wing chun. Hung Gar relies on massive full body movements that concentrate the intense force of momentum into precise strikes, usually involving two different simultaneous strikes. A Hung Gar stylist is like a speeding car, each strike hits with the full momentum of the entire body behind it. It's pretty brutal.

What it came down to was Hung Gar takes about fifteen years to master. Wing Chun can be effectively employed after a year, and mastered in five. That leaves plenty of room with my remaining ten years to learn another martial art, probably eagle claw or something for grappling situations, before I get sucked back in time and have to train a handful of dark age soldiers to battle an army of the undead that I accidentally summoned by mispronouncing the protective ritual that guarded the book which had the power to send me home.
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Nov. 22nd, 2005 @ 11:23 am Best Spam Ever
Hello,

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whether its E - D- that you j need or tram a doll, Value ims
or even XX anan all is here.


Copy the below website and paste in your browser:

[removed for live journal]


EDWARDS: They are doing all they can to take the campaign for the highest office in the land down the lowest possible road..
3.
I didn't love dancing for two hours..
That computer programmer isn't enjoying swimming behind the post office right at this time.
I'm not enjoying fighting over there..
The janitor doesn't generally like praying..
I am not enjoying skiing among the trees at the moment..
The librarians don't remember skiing for more than an hour..
Did Debbie love jumping in front of the restaurant?.
I didn't hate dancing last night at eleven..
Don't those singers dislike playing carelessly?.
EDWARDS: They are doing all they can to take the campaign for the highest office in the land down the lowest possible road..
Those janitors aren't missing sleeping right now.. Regards,
Fabian Schmidt
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Nov. 15th, 2005 @ 02:29 am A poem the length of a smoke, before bed.
Current Mood: tired as fuck
I alwayes hated writing on a deadline. Okay, fucking thing's lit:

Welcome to the new built wall,
Standing between now and morning,
Distance makes it seem too tall,
Up close, seconds from dawning,
Half-hearted, the clawing crawl,
Shuddering above chasmic yawning;

With all the strength for will to call,
An outstretched grasp finds safe hold,
A brazen breaking from the fall,
Despite exhaustion and the cold,
Shaking loose the trails of pall,
A new maze laid out to behold;

From this loft the view is lacking,
Theres something to be said for slacking.
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Morbid
Nov. 12th, 2005 @ 10:54 pm Judas Car
My Car is 70 miles away from me right now, and it's not getting any closer. Damn you, car!
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Nov. 12th, 2005 @ 03:20 am The Irony Thing
Current Music: none
I remember when adapting the trends of the mainstream in a mocking fashion was a tool of the countercultural elite to strike a poingiant but unnapreciated blow against the trendmakers in advertising. I don't necessarily believe that it was at all effective in that respect, but it has become a very powerful marketing tool. The use of irony as a weapon among a handful of clever iconoclasts was an ill-fated enterprise, and its doom is now the ubiquity which we must now endure.

What's amusing about it, is how ironic it all is.

At one point, wearing a thrift store t-shirt from an obscure metal band from the mid seventies was a way to say "I'm not participating in your market research survey", a confident denial of the pop culture being leveled at us through the sights of an advertising sniper rifle. Of course, as with all counter-cultural trends, this soon became a fad, which became a phenomenon, which became the norm. There was a brief period of time where obscure t-shirts were rival in demand/price to high fashion designer clothing; in los angeles, a dokken t-shirt would sell for over two hundred dollars.

You can buy a dokken t-shirt at walmart now. Still cool?

The failure of countercultural movements is the accessability of trend. Marketing agencies employ surgical teams of Coolhunters to accumulate data and track burgeoning trends so that manufacturers can prepare to meet the demand of a suddenly emerging market, and advertising can modify it's delivery to use that information to more effectively market existing products. I remember when lawn gnomes first started appearing in television commercials. It was about the same time I was graduating college, my advertising degree freshly etched into my resume. Somone from my generation was already in the concept design department, finding icons of my formative years to interest me in airfare and car rentals.

The tragedy of the subjugation of irony is that even when it becomes 'uncool' it still can never again be used ironically, because it's forever a victim of its own pasee. In fact, it's not even safe to rail against the mainstream, because it has been so ingeniously expanded to encompass any potential new trend that even an overt resistance will appear as an effort to fit in.

The truth is, irony, like cynicism, is employed when there is no meaninful alternative. The problem that we face as a counter-culture-seeking-former-elite-currently-coopted segment of the self-proclaimed extra-social-anti-populists is that there is no uncorrupted meaningful alternative to the mainstream; and if one exists, it only exists because it's a niche market. Social groups have always been bound by similar tastes, and what is taste other than a preference of consumption?

Let us resist for a moment the urge to distinguish ourselves from everyone else, which has become a desperate persuit for identity, and realize for a moment that it has become so difficult that we are diverting all of our energy away from the pursuit of meaning. Identity comes from meaning, and there's nothing ironic about it.

I propose a simple solution. No preference. Exert no influence without meaning. Make arbitrary purchases. Hit the fucking reset button. Save some money. Look up and notice that there's been a hijacking of our collective awareness. We have to go back to the idea phase, because everything we've constructed in our social theater is built on a flawed equation. We are not impervious to that glorious, overwhelming influence that saturates our universe with endless advertising, we can't be, because we're the ones giving them all the best tools to get to us.

Can you even picture a world with no advertising?
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Pensive
Nov. 8th, 2005 @ 11:30 pm (no subject)
www.finalfu.com

My show, everyone fill out an app. So far we've gotten three Bruce Lee and two Chuck Norris. No jackie chan yet.
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Pensive
Oct. 31st, 2005 @ 02:57 pm "Happiness comes in small doses", Dennis Leary
Current Mood: calm
Current Music: Ambient MTV office noise.
My small dose of happiness came in the form of a Playstation 2 game.

THE WARRIORS
Based on the suddenly unavoidable 1979 cult film about a coney island gang running for their lives from every gang in NY trying to get home from the bronx before they get "wrecked", the PS2/Xbox game of the same name is actually better than the movie. Now, don't get me wrong, the movie was awful, but awful in that good awful way that makes bad movies into favorite movies, however, every aspect of that movie that made you love it has been expounded upon in the game. The linear directness of the movie was expertly translated into a linearly-direct game story that's set 6 months before the movie takes place.

The Warriors game is a phenomenal exploration of the lives of what were originally stereotypical 70s streetpunks and gives each one a depth of character and history, along with a sympathetic quality that allows you to genuinely identify with them.

After becoming thoroughly immersed in the tragic game world for hours, the movie actually becomes better. I found myself suddenly mourning the loss of warriors whom I knew would be killed or arrested during the movie, while I was playing out their origin stories in the game's flashback mode.

Now, I'm not going to go into detail about the gameplay because no one cares; but it's a solid 25+ hours including all the side-stuff. So if you love the warriors, and want to relive everything you loved about it, this game is a great way to do it.

Highlights:
Smashing a cops face into a brick wall, and stabbing him with a broken beer bottle until he dies.
Pushing rival gang members in front of subway trains
Voice acting from some members of the original cast
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Oct. 18th, 2005 @ 10:04 pm Super Human
Current Mood: perpetually winking
Current Music: Smoking Popes - Just Broke Up With My Girlfriend
It takes six hours to back up my music collection to dvd.
I own four hundred pounds of books, 3000 miles away from me.
I have a folder of unfinished writing that's over 1gig in size.
I have no plan for the future.
I am new american man.
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Pensive
Oct. 14th, 2005 @ 07:33 pm Home
Current Mood: I'm A Samurai!
Current Music: The Clash - The Prisoner
Alright,

I've decided to embark on a full-on martial arts oddessy. I start tomorrow with classes in muay thai, vale tudo, kenpo and jujitsu. Sunday I've got Tai-Chi in the park. Wednesday is long fist at the beach. Thursday night, hung gar and drinks in los feliz. The drinks are weird chinese herbal shit, but I might still chase with jameson. Friday is more long fist, and the following saturday its back to kicking and grappling at the house of champions.

I still have to schedule in my Krav Maga and Tang Soo Do, but one is in Watts and the other is in beverly hills. While I'm up in beverly hills I might check out some San Soo kung fu, but that's private instruction and I might have to, ohmygod, pay for it.

I'm getting Qi-gong training on my lunchbreak already, so hopefully i'll be covered on the internal shit. And if the saturday shit works out, I might do some competetions over the winter.

It's a lot of shit to absorb, but hopefully by the new year, I'll have picked a martial art. I still have to make room for the low hard stuff, Tae Kyon and Shotokan; but I'm already kind of turned off to it. I'm fairly sure I'll end up with a kung fu, but the kickboxing is the shit I'm really excited about right now. Once I get the fight out of my system, I'll settle down with a Chuan. I might pick up a weapon, kendo looks enticing.
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Oct. 14th, 2005 @ 03:00 am True Romance was a great fucking movie.
Alabama: I'm gonna go jump in the tub and get all slippery and soapy and then hop in that waterbed and watch X-rated movies 'till you get your ass back in my lovn' arms.
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Pensive
Oct. 11th, 2005 @ 10:30 pm Copyright infringement
Current Mood: I have x's for eyes
Current Music: Guided By Voices - The Goldheart Mountaintop Queen directory
Good evening interweb,

It's 10:30 here in Cali, and that means that while some cities are already in the future, california slacks unhurriedly in yesterday. This is important because the future is precisely what I'm waiting for; so any of you new york people, who have a good three hour head start on us find out about this future thing, call me and let me know.

Here's the thing.

The World as we know it, or as I like to call it, TWAWKI (T'walkee), is about to undergo some drastic changes. Third world countries are preparing to electrify, using coal as a main fuel source; howard stern is moving to satelite radio, martin sheen and gina davis are going to run on the same ticket against Hillary and Condoleza in 2008 who will be forced to combine under the new 'Depublicacrat' party, and there might actually be an american-made hybrid gas/electric S.U.V. conceptualized for potential production somewhere before hummer releases its H9 micro-military all terrain sports coupe.

Fuckers.

I forgot what my point was going to be.

Too late, have to go to the gym. That copyright infringement subject line really doesnt make a lot of sense anymore, but if I change it than this sentance wont make sense, so fuck it. What the fuck am I listening to? No time for spell check, dr. jones.
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Oct. 10th, 2005 @ 10:38 pm As Promised, The new stupid quiz, with my own questions.
Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: Depeche mode - everything counts
Alright, there are a ton of stupid quizzes out there designed to give vain people a way to talk about themselves without seeming vain. Most of the questions are real brain-teasers like 'what is your favorite color?' and 'do you like animals?' I don't really get them, and I definitely don't like them. But in the spirit of being a proactive internet citizen, I have a solution. While still appealing to peoples vanity, i have created a quiz that actually prompts you to think before answering, and may actually have some use to the people you force to read your answers.



1. What is something you're willing to die for (Something specific, not an abstract like love)?

2. You've been alive for a while now, you've had plenty of time to interact with the universe, do you think that there is a reason for it?

3. Is there a reason for your life, and what makes you think that there is/isn't?

4. Play god for a second, assign yourself a reason for existing, based on everything you know about yourself and write it here.

5. How likely are you to fulfill that reason in this lifetime, if not what's stopping you?

6. Why don't people like you? You may think that they do, but really, they dont, why not?

7. Don't you think people would like you more if you actually did do something meaningful with your life?

8. Do you agree that with every accomplishment, some sacrifice must be made?

9. Historically, we find martyrs the most sympathetic characters; people like martyrs because they make their lives mean something by using them in the pursuit of a goal. Which martyr do you like?

10. Wouldn't it be great if you did actually do something meaningful with your life, and everybody remembered you for how great you were and what a wonderful sacrifice you made?

11. What are you waiting for?

12. Seriously, it's really easy, you don't even have to think about it. Just write a quick note describing the thing that you answered question one about, pin it to yourself, and go for it!


Okay, number 12 isn't really a question, it's kind of like a request... (psst... I'm trying to get you to kill yourself)
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Oct. 10th, 2005 @ 07:12 pm Spam-art
Current Mood: Spinning smiley face
Current Music: Bone Thugz and Harmony Feat. Phil Collins - Home
Somebody needs to come up with a name for the weird random shit they stick in spam-mail to beat the filters.

Here's the best one I've gotten so far.

We've even been to the marvelous Land of Oz--haven't we, Dorothy?--so we don't much care what the Country of the Gargoyles is like , Jim, and whatever happens we'll make the best of it I hope you'll enjoy yourself The other Turks raised their comrade to his feet, and the three stared at one another in surprise, being unable to understand how a bound prisoner could so effectually defend himself
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Oct. 9th, 2005 @ 03:10 am It just needed to be said.
Current Mood: complacent
Current Music: Sea and the Rythm - Iron and Wine
Oh, then, I see queen Mab hath been with you.
She is the fairies’ midwife; and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate stone
On the fore-finger of an alderman
Drawn with a team of little atomies
Athwart men’s noses as they lie asleep;
Her wagon-spokes made of long spinner’s legs;
The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers;
The traces, of the smallest spider’s web;
The collars, of the moonshine’s watery beams;
Her whip, of cricket’s bone; the lash, of film;
Her wagoner, a small grey coated gnat,
Not half so big as a round little worm
Prickt from the lazy finger of a maid;
Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut,
Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,
Time out o’mind the faries coachmakers.
And in this state she gallops night by night
Through lovers’ brains, and then they dream of love;
Straight o’er courtiers’ knees that dream on court’sies
O’er lawyers’ fingers, who straight dream on fees
O’er ladies’ lips, who straight on kisses dream.-
Which oft the angry mab with blisters plagues,
Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are:
Sometime she gallops o’er a courtier’s nose,
And then dreams he of smelling out a suit;
And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig’s tail
Then dreams he of another benefice:
Sometime she driveth o’er a soldier’s neck,
And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats.
Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,
Of healths five-fathom deep, and then anon
Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes;
And, being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two,
And sleeps again. This is that very mab
That plats the manes of horses in the night:
And bakes the elf-locks in foul sluttish hairs;
Which once untagled, much misfortune bodes:
This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,
That presses them, and learns them first to bear,
Making them women of good carriage,
This is she-
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Pensive
Oct. 9th, 2005 @ 02:32 am Knowing People
Current Mood: contemplative
Current Music: Genesis - The Brazillian
Knowing people.

There are a shitload of people out there; most of them are the extras... those people in the background of the restaurant having conversations you can't quite make out, they're not real, but I guess they count towards the total. Lately though it seems as if everyone around me is collecting people. Some kind of perverse variation of the high school popularity contest, where everyone measures their worth by the number of people they can call and ask 'so, what have you been up to?' as if they weren't just waiting to say 'oh yeah, that's great, well I've been....'

I was thinking about the infinity gauntlet, what if half the world suddenly died, totally randomly. World leaders, missionaries, porn theater ushers, celebrities, car salesmen... What the fuck kind of crazy newspaper would have to be printed for all those obituaries?

Yeah, so, it's late, and I spent my night evenly distributed between working on a screenplay and gambling on-line. If I sell the screenplay, i'll break even.

I have to find a few hapkido stylists for this tv show I'm working on; martial arts styles against each other to see which one is really the best. The producer is a hapkido guy, so it's kind of important to get good ones. These muay thai guys are insane though, all they do is fight and train. Some of the martial artists are serious competetors, but the safe money in the office is on muay thai right now. That's a little depressing, because as far as we've seen, the kickboxers are really just soldiers, whereas the kung fu guys and the karate guys are the ones who put the art in martial art. I've seen some pretty crazy demonstrations of physical ability in the last few days that would make those cirque people's jaws drop.

I guess I know all those guys now. I can add that to my collection.

Oh, and...

"Well, well, well. If it isn't the serious, elusive, Leroy Green. I've been waiting a long time for this Leroy. I am sick and tired of hearing these bullshit Superman stories about the wassss-ahhh legendary Bruce Leroy catching bullets with his teeth. Catches bullets with his teeth? Nigga please."
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Oct. 5th, 2005 @ 06:19 pm (no subject)
I prayed for the death of Heather Chandler many times and I felt bad everytime I did it but I kept doing it anyway. Now I know you understood everything. Praise Jesus, Hallelujah.
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Pensive