The Falcon: Running Hog Wild in Italy, and soon.

Because I'm lazy, herewith an excerpt of a skype conversation with The Falcon* edited for brevity** and spelling, of course. Read on at your own risk.

The Falcon : Well I never! Drugs? I couldn't even name a drug.
betenoir : ...
The Falcon : Hmm. Cocaine would technically be going buck wild. But I am afraid of cocaine.
betenoir : rock n' roll? starting a band?
The Falcon : ALWAYS ROCK N' ROLL! I am ALWAYS STARTING A BAND!
betenoir : ..can I be in it?
The Falcon : No. Yes. Maybe. I know you can sing, but I want to be lead singer.
betenoir : bitch. I'll be the “occasional, need-a-girl-for-this-song singer”
The Falcon : Goddamn though, you were good in Guys and Dolls. Did I ever tell you that?
betenoir : no. thank you.
The Falcon : You can sing backup.
The Falcon : But you will not be paid.
betenoir : fuck you, I won't sing backup

betenoir : I will be the sex appeal
The Falcon : You'd better! Or learn to play the keytar.
betenoir : I will draw the crowds.
betenoir : I will be Nico
The Falcon : I hate Nico.
betenoir : I will DRAWL in a GERMAN ACCENT!!!

betenoir : it’s fine. We’ll fight on stage. It will play well.
The Falcon : Okay. You can be more like Karen O.
betenoir : Okay
The Falcon : Except backup.
betenoir : screw you! I’ll be backup if I can stand in front!
The Falcon : You will stand to the side and a little back. But you can do arm motions.

betenoir : I’ll learn an instrument
The Falcon : Do arm motions as you play the keytar.
betenoir : bass guitar
The Falcon : No, I play bass.
The Falcon : And during concerts we play recorded tracks of me playing bass.
betenoir : why?
The Falcon : Because my bass is unstoppable...We already have a guitarist.
betenoir : who is our guitarist? why not have more than one?
The Falcon : We already have three if we need them.
The Falcon : Drums. We need a drummer.
betenoir : I can do drums
The Falcon : All right, you're on drums.

The Falcon : But you have to drum slutty.
betenoir : drum slutty?
betenoir : what, like with my boobs hanging out, and my bra strap showing?
The Falcon : You'll figure it out.
betenoir : can we still fight on stage?
The Falcon : Sure, sure.
betenoir : sweet.

* this is what happens when you let people choose their own pseudonyms.
** yes, this is the shorter version.

Facebook and the long-lost Mystery Pal.

People are all about dissing on the facebook at the moment. It's become very fashionable to refer to it as the devil, and refuse to sign up on some sort of tenuous technophobia-luddite moral grounds*. Up to you dude, but I disagree. My name is Betenoir and I'm a facebook addict.

Can I have my cup of coffee and my cookie now***?

Ina any case, Facebook is kind of awesome. It keeps me busy during coffee breaks, allows me to keep in contact with acquaintances without having to write tedious emails ("yes, I'm still at The Job, still single, no news, blah blah waffle parp"), keep an eye on how my buddies are relating to each other, and best of all make contact with people that I thought I'd lost forever. It really gives rise to the whole six-degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon concept, doesn't it? Also the poking makes me feel special. Nothing like rocking up at work to find you've got 23 simultaneous pokes lined up and waiting. It's like an orgy, but without fluids, mess, or Caligula****.

The only problem is that sometimes people find you, just when you thought you'd got rid of them forever. But those people you can block. Or accept. And then block. You know, so they feel the rejection.

With that in mind, it's easy to see that Facebook is a pretty sweet mechanism of the Rad Times.

*some of them get really snotty about it. It's a website dude, not anal fisting**: you're not actually making a stand against the decline of humankind.
** I'm hoping to bump up my "accidental search term confusion" traffic. expect to see more random violence and inexplicable sexual content.
*** I'm assuming everybody's seen the same AA/ Rehab movies I have.
**** without Caligula it's just group sex. See, how I'm doing this? I expect way more traffic tomorrow.

All Your Base Are Belong To Us*.

So. Let's talk about fear, shall we? Blinding, night-sweat, wake- up- in- a- panic- with- a - pounding- heart terror. Some people are afraid of clowns**. Some people are afraid of birds***. Apparently, there are even people with a fear of poetry, which is understandable****. There's a lot of bad poetry out there, people- especially Haikus- and it needs to stop.

I have few fears, and most of them are rational. Cockroaches (they jump on your face!!!), earthworms (they stick to you when boys throw them at you!!!), Death (it's permanent!!!!). But the worst fear I have is, I suppose, kind of...weird. I fear the Gere.

Richard Gere. One dark alleyway away from being one of those smelly pervy molester guys. Piggy eyes. Sneeriness. Aaauauagh. If one more middle-aged woman tells me how much of a "hunk" he is, I will vomit a great deal on her Crocs. I had this nightmare last night that he had had a haircut and was stalking me. Oh, and he was a transvestite. And he wanted me to eat his earwax.

What is wrong with the man!!! Can't he just leave me be?


* what. What?!?
** coulrophobia
***Ornithophobia
**** Metrophobia. sounds like fear of subways, but whatev.

Girls Get Pervy For Boys With Scurvy*.

There's nothing quite like getting a package to elevate your mood. Okay, this weekend was a good one due to a combination of rest, fresh air (it was warm enough to open the windows), and cleaning. I scrubbed my floors on Saturday morning, for a full three hours, until they were both sparkling and treacherously slippery. Clean floors down, I attacked the rest of my apartment with vigour. Ah. Cleanliness.

Anyway, the rest of my weekend was a blur of exercise and virtue. I even started painting again**. And on Sunday was Mother's day, all bonding and gossip and possibly too much coffee. And then... my package. All the way from Japan, a long-anticipated mix CD from my friend Mr Flinn. Getting packages is a pleasure that can't be beat, really...It's a gift, but from far away, full of exotic promise and.. stuff. Also... sometimes, in this world of email and Facebook and other binary-based relationships, something solid you can hold in your hands is almost as good as a visit. Sort Of.*** So a good weekend in all, and hopefully, my brain will soon be back on track.


* Don't Ask.
**I'm not a good artist, but I like my own work, so that's grand.
*** Although there were no cookies, and cookies make an package into a care package.

Friends in far-away places.

I have a lot of friends all over the world. Now, that may sound all; glamorous and jet-settery, but. really, it's annoying. and kinda sad. I mean, every time I have great time, I think:"Man I wish Bob/ Peter/ Mary/ Squishy McGee* were here. That would be awesome". And on the days I'm sitting home all sad and lonely and bored and feeling friendless and pathetic, it's cold comfort to remind myself that I'm actually very popular... overseas.

I also spend a lot of time on gmail chat and skype, and emailing people. I'm intrinsically lazy, so that's less fun thatn it should be, especially as everybody gets all pissy if I send out group mails.something about not being special and wanting individual attention yadda yadda. Facebook is cool that way because I can send the occasional poke people's way, and it sort of amounts to meaningful human contact. In a a way. If you squint.

I guess, then that it follows logically that I should start to form bonds with people whose blogs I read and comment on (and vice versa). There is now a little blogging community that communicates almost solely through each other's blogs, which is sort of like having pen pals, I guess. Pen pals that swear a lot. and are sometimes inappropriate. So just like when I was 13, then?

I do miss the actual flesh-and-blood people though. Especially Squishy. He was always good for a laugh.

* not their actual names. it would take too long to type all their names and If I left any out there would be hurt feelings and sulking, for sure.

Our Gmail conversations tend to disintegrate like this

Gmail. this morning. As usual:

E-Poops: so Ladies’ Dan and I spend an awesome evening last Thursday playing drinking HOUSE! with one of the new episodes. (too bad it was the most boring episode ever... except for when house says "rape baby") so Ladies’ Dan, I finally got the other episode to download properly, and watched it with molly on Saturday evening, and I wish you had been there to play "take a drink for every foot of tapeworm house pulls out of the patient" -- it was like 25).

Also, remember when that doctor pulled 25 feet of anal beads out of Bertrude’s mom?

Dr. Esteban: Oh I totally saw that episode!
E-Poops: I liked how they added the following lines to calm people's fears about giant 800 feet tapeworms living inside of them:
Nurse: could I have a tapeworm inside of me?
House: no, you would feel it. The only reason this girl didn't know
she had a tapeworm, is because she can't feel pain.

Also, random fact. The "can't feel pain" disease only has about 35 cases reported in the US, but there are over 300 cases in Japan.
Me: I thought that was the "can't feel empathy" disease?
Dr. Esteban: No, it's Can't Understand Why Everyone Isn't Exactly Like Me disease.
Me: ah, I see where I was confused. I think that goes hand in hand with "claim everything as our invention" disease.
E-Poops: I thought it was the "can't understand why everyone isn't exactly like me, and I am also unable to walk properly and choose attractive clothing" disease
Dr. Esteban: You mean Spontaneous Fashion Barf-o-plosion?
E-Poops: that would be the scientific word.... yes
E-Poops: (oh... sorry... the scientific word for word is term)
Me: what about "my panty hamster gets so hot in winter that I have to flash it even if it's snowing" disease?
Dr. Esteban: Did you just refer to a clunge as a "panty hamster?"
E-Poops: Betenoir is a little confused, because her cooter IS in fact a living breathing, hamster.
Me: it eats seeds.
Dr. Esteban: it eats seed?
Silent disapproval robot: ...
Me: ...and nuts.
Me: don't judge me.
La Chica: I ate some nuts today. Pecans & Cashews. Are you gonna judge me?
Dr. Esteban: Only if you ingested them through your "panty hamster."
E-Poops: Chica’s is a gerbil.

** Names have been changed to protect the identities of those involved in this... incident...