Friends

e_ticket

04:02 am - YESTERDAY'S TWEETS

16:45 RTKL flook.it/c/31WbHLD Innovative architecture & design firm in Downtown LA -- creators of LA Live

19:24 Dinner @ CiUDAD flook.it/c/31WbHN1 Unique Latin-American fusion... if you're a fan of mussels, try the Shellfish Diablo

abillings

12:03 am - A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Veal

I was desperate for a good meal. I was desperate for any meal. You can really only eat Popeye’s so many times before something foreign begins to formulate in your intestines. And so when my best friend Ginger told me she had a man that was interested in taking me out to dinner to a restaurant where I didn’t have to order my food into a clown’s mouth, I jumped.

“What’s he like?” I asked.

“He’s really smart and really funny.”

“Is he cute?”

She paused.

“He’s really smart and really funny.”

“What the hell’s wrong with him, Ginger?” I asked pointedly.

“He’s just…he’s taking you out isn’t he?”

“If this guy looks like Soupy Sales, I’m kicking you in the face. Really hard.”

I got dressed, slapped on my best face and waited for 7:30. His name was Rich and he was taking me to the Playboy Club in Chicago. I was in my mid twenties at the time so getting ready back then was about some lip gloss and a swig of Listerine. Now I need a tool box and a small midget.

He was on time, which gave him huge points already. I answered the door already wearing my coat. It was Chicago after all, and it was winter, and even opening the door in December can freeze a boob off. This I certainly couldn’t afford to fix.

“Hi.” I said with a smile.

He actually wasn’t bad looking at all. He was very tall, had red hair, a few little freckles, and really beautiful green eyes. He was dressed nicely (which always counts with me), and his shoes were new. I notice people’s shoes. I don’t know why, it’s actually something I still do.

“Hi.” He said in a deep, very male, very cold voice. “I’m Rich. And you’re Al-Al-Al-Alex.”

I assumed he was shivering from the cold.

“I am. Chilly, huh?”

“Yup. Su-su-su-sure is. Shall we g-g-go?”

“Sure.”

I was starving. The only thing we had in the fridge back then were some cans of macaroni and cheese and something green and pink that my roommate was growing in the lettuce crisper.

We got into his car, and sped off into the frigid night.

“So..how do you know Ginger?” I asked warming up finally.

“Oh. Sh-sh-she and I used to work at s-s-s-s-ame restaurant.”

The cold thing was still surrounding him apparently.

“Oh that’s right, she told me that. What do you do now?”

“I’m an ac-ac-ac-ac-countant. I love m-m-m-money.”

“Who doesn’t?” I smirked.

He laughed.

And when I tell you he laughed I don’t meant to say he politely grinned and chuckled under his breath…this guy threw his head back, and cackled like a horny hen. It was certainly the strangest thing I’d ever heard come out of a human being in a very long time. And it kept going on. It went on and on and on and on. It went on until I finally screamed out another question:

“Do you like Chicago?” I yelled over the strange gurgling cackles coming from his red freckled face.

“Oh yeah…I L-l-love Chicago. I really like being an ac-c-c-c-ountant though. I don’t re-e-e-ally have to d-d-d-d-eal with a lot of p-p-p-people. You prolly haven’t noticed, but I have a sl-sl-sl-slight stutter.”

“A stutter? You do? No, I hadn’t noticed.”

Honestly. What was I going to say?

“M-m-most people don’t know. I k-k-keep it pretty well h-h-h-h-hid.”

“Smooth as glass.” I said back.

We arrived at the club, parked the car and headed to the upstairs dining room. It wasn’t really the stutter that bothered me. Once I got used to it, I just learned to listen longer.
We sat down, and one of the Bunnies hopped over to us, and threw her chest in my face.

“Hi!” she said loudly and in a squeaky Minnie Mouse voice. “I’m Candi. Ya know….WITH AN I!”

I wasn’t sure why she emphasized the spelling of her name, but she did, and Rich burst out into cackling hysterics.

I must’ve missed the punch line.

“Um…can we have some menus please?” I asked..over the cackling.

Candi with an I plopped two menus down in front of us and began to tell us the evening’s specials. This was obviously very important to Candi with an I, because every time she began a new sentence, she heaved her breasts up to a higher altitude. All of them had weird, sexually charged words attached to them, like: Veal Tramp-o-lini. Or: Up The Skirt Steak, or some such nonsense. I thought it was repulsive and refused to pay an attention to her, or her chest, which was by now, bobbing up and down over the front of my menu.

“I’ll be right back with your DRINKS!” she yelled.

I leapt out of my seat.

Apparently, screaming out the last word of her sentences was a habit for ole Candi with an I. And then she hopped away.

“Sh-sh-she s-s-s-seemed nice.”

“Yeah. Like a garlic sandwich.”

“GWA GWA GWA GWAAAA SKA AH HAHAHAAAA!” he cackled.

“Uh…Rich. Rich. Listen…” I said trying to calm him down. By now, every time he began to make that sound, people were turning their heads in alarm. As if someone left the barn door open. “…I was just wondering if we couldn’t eat downstairs or something, There’s a real draft in here. Do you feel it?”

It really was a bit cold for me, and I hate eating in the cold. Everything jiggles. And not in a good way. But truly, I was embarrassed and it was the only kind way I could think of to get us both out of the public’s attention. And ditching Candi with an I would have simply been a bonus.

“It is c-c-c-cold, isn’t it? I should be c-c-c-c-c-areful., I just got over a b-b-b-ad flu.”

“Oh I’m sorry. Well maybe we…”

Before I could finish, Rich went into the pocket of pants, and pulled out 3 or 4 bottles and sprayers. He was furiously popping pills like Janis Joplin and shoving things up his nose.

“I have to be r-r-r-really careful. I’m su-su-su-su-susceptible.”

“Hi guys. I’m BACK!” Candi with an I screamed.

She set our drinks in front of us as Rich blew his nose into his napkin. Loudly. And for a very, very long time.

“I’ll have the filet. Medium rare.” I said over the continuation of Snot Falls.

“Oh really, really good choice. The filet is always PERFECT!”

I wanted to sock one of her implants out.

“And you SIR?!” she belted out.

Rich, with the napkin to his face and an inhaler half sticking out of his nose said:

“I’ll have the c-c-c-c-c-cod.”

“Okay folks. Thanks so much, Be back in a minute with YOUR ORDER!!!”

And she hopped away, again.

“I hate her.”

When the food finally arrived I ate like a truck driver. Candi with an I was right, the food really was PERFECT!

As we were half way through, actually enjoying each other’s company (aside from the occasional cackle and nose blow) I happened to see Candi out of the corner of my eye carrying a tray filled with food that was obviously far too big and too full for her. She was struggling to stay in her bunny suit and wobbling on those massive stilts they forced her to wear.

“Oh God, Rich. I smell a disaster. Look.”

“Ooh. Candi. OOOhh.” Rich squealed.

And then, as if in some kind of slo-motion, Rich got up, and attempted to cross the room. Unfortunately, as he did, Candi attempted to put her tray down on the table behind us. The nose spray he had carefully curled up in his right hand dropped, and as it did, he tripped, fell into her, she bolted forward, and the couple sitting at the table were instantly covered in white alfredo sauce and some kind of runny, gooey meat cheese thing. The woman screamed, the guy cursed, Candi wept, and Rich…well…Rich for some unexplainable and brilliant reason threw his head back sitting in the middle of the Playboy Club with splatters’ of white and red on his suit, cackled like I’d never heard him cackle all night. It was the most glorious thing I’d ever seen.

I stood up (as if that was going to make some kind of difference), and laughed along with him. Unfortunately, he and I were the only ones laughing.

We were escorted out (quietly), and as we left the restaurant, Candi with an I approached us.

Angrily.

“Hey! Hey!” she shouted as we were half way out into the street.

“I have something to say to you, you stuttering asshole! You have no idea what you just did TO ME! You humiliated me in front of an entire room of people! Do you know that! You’re a stupid, read headed, JERK! And now I just got FIRED!”

For some reason I suddenly had a huge protective feeling come over me. Rich, for the first time that evening, stood there. He couldn’t move. He was paralyzed by Candi’s words. I could see the shame over take him. It was like a dark cloud covering his face. The first half of the night was me judging him. Me picking him apart and cursing Ginger about how odd, and how different, and how weird he was. And now…I knew after seeing the joy he got from his Jerry Lewis Outing, that I was in the company of one of the bravest men I’d ever met. Anyone who’s able to find that kind of joy in the middle of that kind of tragedy is my kind of guy. And I suddenly felt like a big jerk for wanting to go downstairs.

I took a breath, and walked up to her.

“Candi. It’s not our fault that you got thrown out of the Playboy Club. It was an accident.”

“Oh screw you. I’ve been thrown out of better places than THIS!”

She turned to walk away, and this is the only time I’ve ever gotten to use this particular line and have it be absolutely appropriate.

I stopped her, turned her around and said:

“You’ve never BEEN in better places than this!”

…and she glared, curled up her fist, tried to swing at me, and slipped on the ice.

“And you have a shitty right hook.” Rich said perfectly clear.

We got in his car, and the two of us went to MacDonald’s, laughing, sneezing and cackling all the way. It was one of the best dates I can remember.

abillings

12:00 am - Video Friday (Peter, Paul, and Mary)

There's always been something arresting in their voices for me. Soothing and yet defiant and personal. I love Mary's head Gesture's. She's constantly making a point and always in the middle of saying something.

The song itself seems terribly and sadly relevant.

What a great team, and what a terrific loss.

moroccomole

09:29 pm - The White Ribbon, as reviewed on The Rotten Tomatoes Show

(thanks to e_ticket for teaching me how to make my iMovie go B&W)

stockykub1973

12:59 am - Saturday at the movies

I really need to make more use of my Cineworld Unlimited Card. I am on night shift till Tuesday morning so have my late afternoon/early evening free. I am tempted to pop up to the Cineworld West India Quay and go see a movie.

My choices are:

NINE
DAYBREAKERS*
IT'S COMPLICATED

Anyone want to go see?

*This is a warning that I am a big scardy cat. That during scary movies there will be flinching, whimpering, yelping, face hiding etc.

allanh

04:02 pm - Private Lives

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

Current Mood: Pleased

moroccomole

01:21 pm

An essay I wrote about Avatar's shot at a Best Picture Oscar is up at MSNBC.com.

news

theljstaff

01:10 pm - State of the Goat 2009

It's been a momentous 12 months here at LiveJournal. We crossed a capital T at Ten years young. And, like most precocious pubescents, we celebrated turning double digits by publishing our first book! Needless to say, we've experienced some major changes, both inside and out. Before we recap, we'd like to thank you for bearing with us as we've struggled through ungainly growth spurts, identity pangs, and, yes, the occasional blemish. We hope you'll continue to stand by us: We're gaining wisdom with maturity.

Stuff you liked

• Back in February, we placed a call for entries for our ten-year anniversary anthology in lj_turns10. In December (less than a year later!), we officially announced the publication of Live Journal: The First Decade. Featuring an inspired collection of writing, photographs, and artwork from the pages of LiveJournal history, the book has been selected by Blurb.com as a top staff pick! We are proud to have played host to so much talent over the years, and we thank our contributors for sharing their extraordinary work.
• We all love quirky surprises, but not when it comes to managing our account settings. This year we streamlined settings into one central account management area. No more pouring through FAQs to figure out how to control privacy settings, modify notifications, adjust mobile settings, or update contact information!
• Being users ourselves, we realize our own mothers couldn't find us on LiveJournal based on our usernames and userpics alone (*heaves heavy sigh of relief*). But since there are times when we actually want to be found, we created a search tool--Find Your Friends--to help locate people by email address (it's in the Friends drop-down menu).
• Spam counter-attack: The war against vicious malware and spambots reigns eternal, but we've been making serious inroads to ensure your online security. We've established new protocols, such as requiring email address validations. We've grown more savvy about ferreting out suspicious behavior. We've added features, like whitelisting, to help you protect your communities. Our valiant (i.e., overworked) spam avengers (a/k/a the LiveJournal ops team) are standing on red alert so you can sleep safely at night.
• After an intensive beta, we launched My Guests at the end of the year, which lets you see who's been hanging around your journal. A number of you have even discovered secret admirers (not all of whom are creepy)!
• Last, but by no means least, we want to thank our volunteers for providing invaluable support and feedback. Their Herculean efforts enable us to answer your questions more efficiently, identify spammers, reduce abuse, and deliver better features (through tireless testing). On behalf of the staff and the larger LiveJournal community, we are truly grateful for their diligence, intelligence, loyalty, and passion.

You got your fix

• We recently debugged a number of the oustanding issues with the rich text editor so your entries look great regardless of whether you know html. You can read more about text editors here.
• In response to user demand, we brought back international voice posting. For more info on voice posting, read here.
• At long last, we revived TxtLJ with Verizon. For more info on TxtLJ, check out the FAQ.

Paid features you enjoyed

• In December, we introduced My Stats, which provides detailed data on who's been viewing your entries as well as statistics on commenting, RSS requests, friending history, and more. Despite a few early glitches, the response has been extremely favorable.
• This year, we launched and improved Notes (i.e., the feature formerly known as Alias), which lets you add private comments on friends and commenters (it's in the Profile drop-down menu). This way you won't be caught red-faced when you strain to remember details about that wonderful LiveJournal friend who sent you a birthday vGift. For more info, read the FAQ.
• When we first announced View friends pages by date, we thought it would be a quiet, minor enhancement. The rave reaction floored us, which made us all very happy. We gave it a fine tuning in February of 2009, so it's even better!
• How embarrassing! It appears pingbacks have gone back to the shop for service. We’ll keep you posted. We didn't know just much you liked pingbacks until it went in for service. It's back and, judging by your irritation when it wasn't available, this is good news. FYI, pingbacks send instant notifications (via screened comments) whenever someone links to one of your entries on LiveJournal. For more info, read this entry in paidmembers or check out the FAQ.

Mixed reviews

• The search is still on. Some of you have reported getting more comprehensive results for keyword searches using the new Yandex search engine and like the ability to search within content categories (like entries or comments). Others have not been satisfied with the relevancy of search results. Please be patient. We're still tweaking this product.
• This past December, we wanted to try out a new holiday promotion. Given the crap economy, we decided to offer our Paid/Permanent users a stack of $10 coupons to send to Basic/Plus users for paid account upgrades. We hoped you would like it. And some of you did, but many were disappointed that we didn't offer Give More as well. We want to thank you so much for letting us know. Your input will help us plan better in the future. Just FYI, Paid/Permanent users can continue to send out coupons through January 15th. Coupons can be redeemed through January 31, 2010.
• We were pretty excited about Your Journal Your Money, which allows Paid/Permanent users to earn extra cash by displaying Google ads to Basic/Plus and logged out users. A number of you tried it. Some of you really like it. Others, not so much. (Just FYI, Paid/Permanent users who do not participate in this program will not view ads on journals. Participants will see ads on their own journal, but won't see them on other journals unless they specifically opt in.) For additional details, visit here.
• We relaunched m.livejournal.com, our mobile app. While it offers a nicer UI and enhanced functionality, some of you think we can do better on load times. Like most of us, it's a work in progress. You can customize your mobile settings here. For more info, please read the FAQ.

Missing Inaction

• We shudder to bring up the neon purple elephant squatting on our heads, but, yes, we didn't give you those a la carte userpics. We've been making radical improvements to our backend in order to support them. But no excuses. We know you want them. We cringe every time you mention them. We're sorry we dropped the ball on this, and we promise to do our best to get them to you in 2010.

Stumbling points

• Back in early August, we experienced outages related to a series of DDoS attacks. We are proud to report that we were down a total of one hour over the course of a few days. We thank our heroic ops guys for getting us up sooner and more consistently than any of our less fortunate social networking friends. We apologize for leaving you temporarily stranded.
• A couple of months back, we offered a free, unrestricted vGift, which induced a snowflake cookie avalanche. This resulted in backed up/delayed notifications, which, in turn, led us to reboot systems, rendering scrapbooks unavailable. It took a while to shovel free. Apologies for the inconvenience. We learned a valuable lesson that should keep us calamity-free in the future (fingers crossed while knocking on wood).
• That darn Best Buy ad. First off, we're sorry about the audio auto-play (we got it turned off as quickly as possible). While it's true that we'll continue to show this type of ad to accounts that normally see them (never to Paid/Permanent accounts), we'll make sure the sound defaults to off moving forward. We promise to do our very best to keep ads to a minimum on LiveJournal, while keeping a roof over Frank's head.

Full steam ahead!

As we plunge headfirst into the next decade, we want to take a moment to look back and thank all of our employees, both past and present, who have worked so hard to create our unique and magical universe. We couldn't have made it this far without you: Your contributions brighten our path everyday. We also want to extend our heartfelt appreciation to each and every one of you. Whether you've been around for ten days or ten years, your humor, intelligence, talent, and creativity are what makes this the most vibrant global community on the Internet (the best place on the Web, in our humble opinion). Here's hoping that 2010 will be the greatest year yet! We thank you for joining us as we embark upon another glorious decade of LiveJournal history!

kingfuraday

12:56 pm - You know about Soft and Hard... But did you know how to use Force?

So I was getting rid of Blackra1n on my iPhone and I figured doing a full reset from the Setting menu would do the trick.  Well, two and a half hours later my phone was still going at it and I had to leave to work.  I did my entire shift without a phone and while I almost panic'd once or twice I actually survived.  In fact, I was forced to interact with people for entertainment far more than usual and I think I might just be leaving my phone in the storeroom more often.  Imagine, actually talking with people at a bar makes them hang out at your station longer.  What a concept!

Anyhow, I got home expecting to be ready to plug and play yaay but instead I got frozen screen oh noo'z.  I went with the tried and true hard reset (home+power) and got that lovely silver apple but then after a minute or so the little anus winky workin' wheel stopped winding it's way around.  So I hard reset again... No dice.  Hmmm.  So I plugged it into my computer and hard reset... No dice...

slight panic

 followed by euphoric moment where I envision *having* to get a 3GS because some mean person at AT&T won't take my jailbroken phone. Yaaay--er, I mean Oh No!

But then I just reminded myself that the Internet, if prayed to correctly in the form of a hail google full of pr0nz, can answer such requests.  Sure enough, I found my answer here.

All I had to do was open iTunes, plug my phone in while holding the home key (alone) and wait for it to pop the plugin screen.  From there I could restore it from a previous backup.  Of course, as usual not all my apps are alive on this restore but I think I can remember most of 'em.

Soooooo, if you ever get a frozen apple on the boot screen repeatedly now you know how to get around it with a forced restore too.

Current Mood: groggy

allanh

11:10 am - Quake.

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

Current Mood: calm

abillings

10:33 am - Brit Hume Quote

"I don't think that faith (Buddhism) offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. So my message to Tiger would be, "Tiger, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world."



-Brit Hume on Fox News

urbear

10:14 am - No longer a virgin

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

e_ticket

04:02 am - YESTERDAY'S TWEETS

12:36 Thinkwell (& AECOM) wins competition for re-imagining of Seoul Grand Park as "Gaia: The Living World" tinyurl.com/yckug74 #fb #in

13:55 Great piece about the Grand Guignolers, naughty puppeteers and hosts of my birthday shindig at the end of Jan: tinyurl.com/yjvlj2v

14:01 Why does Vanity Fair hate the Women of Twitter? bit.ly/5qw1au (via @feliciaday) #fb

18:19 Televise the Trial: Deadline, FRIDAY 9AM! www.couragecampaign.org/TeleviseTheTrial

20:34 COSTCO flook.it/c/31WbHCD AKA "The $200 Store"... also home to a great (and cheap!) hot dog. Only a buck-fifty for a dog and a soda!

20:49 Uhhh, sorry 'bout that last Tweet. I *know* y'all know about Costco hot dogs already... *duh*. I'm just trying out Flook: flook.it/

allanh

10:32 pm - Most oxymoronic profile line of the week.

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

Current Mood: amused and horrified

stockykub1973

03:25 am - New York So Good They named It Twice

newyork 026.jpg, originally uploaded by stockycub1973.

After an absence of 5 and a bit years I will be making my first visit to NYC this month. I am flying out on January 26th and back to London on February 1st. I'm flying on Continental for the first time (hoorah for them joining Star Alliance. Finally a direct flight to NYC where I can get status miles) and also my first time into Newark. So I get to ride the NJ Transit into Penn station.

I am keeping my fingers crossed that some of the security restrictions will be relaxed by the time that I fly. The "Flying Security Circus" is something that I would like to avoid. I don't mind showing up a bit early. I will accept only being allowed one item of luggage as carry on grudgingly. However I will piss and moan if my flight is delayed by over two hours (as hapened to someone I know on Monday) for pat downs etc. Plus you better make sure that I get a sealed security bag to put my bottle of water I buy post security check. Rather than expecting me to give it up in the 2nd security check at the gate.

So what to do whilst i am in town. I am not sure what my plans are. However if anyone wants to hang let me know.

stockykub1973

03:09 am - Spectacles

03/01/2010, originally uploaded by stockycub1973.

Got a bit silly the other day whilst having coffee on Sunday. Started swapping round each others specs. So this is what I look like with my housemate Tony's. They are Bench and I have to say that I think I look quite dashing.

stockykub1973

02:59 am - Hanging withe homies

01/01/2010, originally uploaded by stockycub1973.

A quick snap from Hogmanay this year. Before the rest of the boys popped along to XXL and I headed home to my bed and sleep.

stockykub1973

02:57 am - My Opinion On "Sherlock Holmes"

I popped along to see Sherlock Holmes on Saturday. I thought I would make use of my Cineworld Unlimited card to see it. Since for £16.99 a month you get to see as many films as you like at any Cineworld. So it doesn't cost me anything extra even if it is a bit crap.

I was trying to overlook the fact it was a Guy Ritchie film and give it a fair go. Certainly from the trailer it looked interesting. After watching it though I was forced to give my considered opinion as "Meh....s'ok". Robert Downey Jr is as good as always and Jude Law manages not to annoy. The cgi is certainly impressive but that is about it. However the plot is as thin as onion skin paper. Even I was able to spot the overly telegraphed denoument coming a mile off.

So if you go to your Multiplex and there is nothing else that you want to see then go see it. If there is anything else on that you fancy go see that instead.

stockykub1973

02:47 am - On A Queer Day You Can See Forever

04/01/2010, originally uploaded by stockycub1973.

Was going through some of my old t shirts. Not sure they will ever fit again but I am awfully fond of them.

This I bought in 1991 at the Glasgow Film Theatre. I don't know for certain but I think it was for the LLGFF on Tour. A still of Rock Hudson colour tinted. I have no idea what the film was though.

stockykub1973

01:51 am - Would I even get a prize?

Just listening to some music on my iTunes whilst I am at work. Got "The Kitchens Of Distinction" on right now. Singing "Prize". The song really sums up (with a fair splash of Erasure & communards/Bronski Beat) who I was in my teens.

PRIZE

Well we were talking and we were drinking

Letting the fat flow go

And we were asking and we were thinking

In the belly of a bar.



It was easy almost indifferent

Until my heckles rise.

What's that you're asking if I remember?

The pub walls are dissolving.



The guilt was thin then, his hair long.

Brown to match his eyes.

It's none of your business what his name was

Would I even get a prize?



There's been a hundred and that's not boasting

Just the ways of this world.

How dare he even ask this?

These pub walls are drowning.



Your glass is empty just like your heard.

It's these times I don't know you.

And how about you can you remember?

You shake your head and say "Drunk."



It's a small thing why am I angry?

These words are signs of warning

Because behind them there's the implication...

The pub is burning down.



So do I get a prize for remembering that first time,

Do I get a prize for remembering his name?