at a social gathering last weekend, unbeknownst to me, one corner of the room spent several minutes of their life trying to figure out why i looked different.

one person said i looked thinner. another explained that was not because i lost weight but because i seemed to have not gotten my hair cut for a month and because of this it only appeared as though i was wearing a batter's helmet and therefore skinnier through the body.

another guessed that it was the clothes i was wearing and that the best they could tell i was attempting to pay some sort of homage to bill bixby from the hulk given my tattered, tight jean shorts, super baggy, mostly unbuttoned shirt and drifter necklace (bomber's words).

upon hearing of this discussion i asked one of the participants if my ensemble smacked of bixby before he became the hulk or ferigino as the hulk or bixby, post hulk after waking up in a landfill. bomber said i was definitely sportin' the post hulked out look. this was not a promising opinion in that i certainly wasn't trying to look like a person who had recently turned into a wild, green, oversized mutant and tore to shreds every last thing on his body.

i'm thinking we may need invest in one of those mirrors that hang on the back of the door.

ok. so we have two of those already. maybe i just need to have my wife ok my outfits before leaving the house.

i'm not happy that it's come to this.

even though there's a gob of movies out i'm jonsin' to see (comedian, bowling for columbine, fat greek wedding, auto focus), i've been drawn into two that weren't on my list. first i went to red dragon with elove b/c he wanted to catch it before it left the theaters. as a rule i dislike remakes of movies i like and i've been a longtime fan of the original manhunter (starring to live and die in la's, william peterson) so was suspect of this treatment. but, red dragon is what a remake is supposed to be about. mix it up. make it different. respect the original. dragon handled all of this quite splendidly. kudos.

the second film i didn't really think i'd catch, in the theater at least, is jackass. bomber convinced me to go with about two hours notice, on a weeknight, with he and King. not having the cable i've seen approximately seven minutes of this show so knew the basic premise but am not a closet fan or anything. and surprisingly to all i tell as well as myself, after all the antics these guys went through, the one that sent me scrambling over people's knees and out of the theater was their bit with intentional paper cuts. aaaahhhhh! my back tenses and cramps uncontrollably even thinking back to it. i couldn't cope. the guy drinking his own urine in the form of a snow cone came close, but could not touch paper cuts in the corners of one's mouth. damn. Damn! DAMN!

and the four guys sitting behind us said "oh man, that boy's trippin'" approximately 46 times.

just in case anyone hasn't yet heard about this guy at the Calgary hockey game who stripped naked and jumped on the ice, slipped and knocked himself out, i thought i'd share the following photo from the event.

it is possibly one of the best shots of this ilk i've seen in some time, capturing the mood of a moment. the range of expressions from the people looking on is astounding. and how the supports for the glass obstruct the guys package is also perfect.

i've also included an account from someone who was supposedly sitting next to the guy.

thanks for the forward bomber.

I have been asked when I was going to post a retraction about my earlier rip on the lord of the rings movie (11.05.2001) in that I've since admitted to liking it. So I guess I may as well get this second serving of crow, potter being the first, out of the way so I may return to my strict diet of never admitting I'm wrong when it comes to affairs of the cine.

I liked the film, I liked it a lot. My favorite part was the first 15 minutes. My least favorite was the last 15 minutes. Everything in between was well above average and proved to be a very visually entertaining film, which did the book a great or respectful service. In fact, potter and rings are probably two of the better movie adaptations I can remember seeing. Kudos to both teams and for any who haven't yet seen them, go see them. but, don't mess up and see titantic on accident because I'm still championing that boycott and am accepting new recruits even today. Be strong and rent a better movie, like corey feldman's Rock 'n' Roll High School Forever. And, tell them troy sent ya. You and they will not be sorry.

I received the following page the other day in reference to my 09.25.2001 post: Friends don't let other friends pummel this friend.

I started watching Party of Five in its second to last season. Soon after, I made the immense error in judgment of telling some guys that I had a romantic dream involving Claudia Salinger (Lacey Chabert). At the time I was watching the show, she was getting ready to go off for college. What I didn't realize was that for many true fans who have been with the show from the start, these guys included, Claud started as a precocious whelp of like 6 who used to sleep in a tent in the living room. They mentioned this to me amidst guffaws but the actual import of their mockery didn't hit until I caught a rerun where she was in this tent-phase. I immediately grasped the felonious appearance of my tale and immediately sought them out to retract and explain away my earlier confession hence putting the legend to rest. But being friends of mine and possessing a wicked sense of humor, years later I opened a wedding card to find the following memento inside.