“A confidential investigation by Los Angeles police and child welfare officials concluded earlier this year that allegations Michael Jackson sexually abused a cancer-stricken boy were “unfounded,” according to an internal government memo obtained by The Smoking Gun.”

After my conversations at Casa De Bonner last night I am terribly excited that my first foray to the Arclight is going to be for the ass numbing all day Lord of the Rings fest on the 17th. A bunch of my friends and myself have tickets for the event of the year. They’re showing the first two films in the extended versions following up with the premier of Return of the King. This is going to be so fun in a total geek/dork way I can’t even imagine. One of my friends already sold his tickets because he’s a greedy bastard and they’re going for a few hundred bucks on ebay. I on the other hand have kept an extra seat open in the front row because I’m ever hopeful that I can find someone cool to accompany me. I’ve had friends tell me I should do an Elimidate kind of contest to fill the seat or hold drawings and a bunch of other ways to find the one ass to fill them all. All being the seat but I was trying to be clever. Shaddup. I know it sucked. Anyway I’m hunting for ideas on how to find the one worthy ass to fill the seat on the 17th in the front row at the Arclight. Anyone?

While Margaret Cho does not have an RSS feed, she did have my phone. Thanks for returning it, Moraaaaaaaaan! May you be blessed with a thousand polyphonic ringtones. And if you have no idea that I’m even talking about you right now, then I guess that’s your loss. Do more egosurfing, why don’t ya?

Margaret Cho has a blog, but where’s her RSS feed?

Has anybody seen my cell phone? It’s about yay wide, yay long, and yay gone. If you do find it, please call… oh, shit. Nevermind. I think I left it back in SF, but only Tony Bennett knows for sure. Boring conversation anyway… Luke, we’re gonna have company!

So back on Thanksgiving day, my sister — who is a masters’ team swimmer, and a super leet athlete — dragged my blogging ass out of bed at the crack of 10AM and said, “We’re going to bootcamp.” Why, I asked? “Three words, Xeni: sweet potato pie.” She took me to this joint on La Cienega near Sunset called Barry’s Bootcamp — a small gym in the middle of a WeHo strip mall where that offers nothing but these really intense, tough classes designed to feel sort of like military workouts. Yeah, sure, it’s a LOT like the military — the military where everyone is either a really handsome gay man, or a blonde, silicone-enhanced, anorexic AMW (actress/model/whatever). Fair amount of star-spotting there, too, if you’re into that sort of thing (snort). Snark aside, it totally kicked my ass for an hour and $11, and I’ll be back. Best thing about this place: you know those little rubber foamy mat things you have to use in gym classes? The ones that everyone else in the gym also uses and sweats all over? OK, this place actually CLEANS them. Like, between EACH CLASS. That alone — freedom from cooties — is worth $11 a pop. I’m thinking real bootcamp is probably not like that.

Blogger and MSNBC combat correspondent Kevin Sites posted a final dispatch from Iraq before returning home to Southern California for a brief break. He returns to Iraq shortly after the holidays.

It is the eve of Eid or the end of the Ramadan and the end of the month long dawn to dusk fasting for many Muslims. It is a time of celebration on par with Christmas for Christians. But the night has begun with a bang. Literally. An IED (improvised explosive device) has exploded just outside the north gate of the 4th Infantry Division’s headquarters. I hop in the back of Bressette’s Humvee as the patrol heads out to investigate. Bressette gets on his two-way and in the guise of a flight attendant giving the pre-flight briefing, tells the squad the plan. (…)

I videotape Bressette as he walks back to his Humvee with the 1-22′s commanding officer Lt. Col. Steve Russell. They at the curb to discuss what’s next, when Bressette looks down. He sees something strange; wires sticking out of a concrete block. Suddenly this inert object is filled with potential energy.

“Sir, we better back up,” Bressette says, already doing the moonwalk away from the block. “We’re standing next to an IED!” The Humvee shoots forward away from the bomb, while the rest of back away. The concrete block has been hollowed out and is packed with enough plastic explosives to kill us. Bressette just shakes his head, still in disbelief that all of us, the Colonel, Bressette and his squad, myself and reporter named Betsy Heil from the Pittsburgh Tribune, were all standing next to a device that could’ve taken our lives within a fraction of a second.

Link

Variety just launched its very own porn blog. Huh? Anyway: The Porning Report: Coverage of the Porn Industry’s Move to Mainstream — the scribe is Frank Meyer, who’s also the Online Associate Editor of AVN. (thanks, Invisible Cowgirl)

Getting off the freeway in hacienda heights, you can make a right hand turn and head off to one of the larger buddhist temples in southern california. Its pretty majestic and rad. Super clean too and why not, what else do all the monks have to do all day besides learn martial arts and find new vegetarian dishes to cook.

But if you make a left off the exit, there’s a donut shop…and an unusual amount of accupressure offices (are they really called offices?) around. But what is accupressure, it sure sounds less painful than accupuncture. The latter sticks needles in your skin and the former, I guess, their big thumb. But what. All the monks down the street can’t take the pain? Don’t they have like tattoo’s of dragons and tigers on their wrist (I use to watch david carradine in kung fu, thats the real deal!). So what gives.

Well, I wanna do what the monks do. I know some martial arts. I like vegetables. I can’t wear orange but I’m willing to do other things too…like check out an accupressure place. Not being able to find these “accupressure” places on the internet, I decided to pick a place a random. Wow, they must have a nice clientelle cuz there’s some really nice cars parked outside. Walking into the lobby, the lady behind the counter shows me into a small room with a bed and small table with a lamp. A few minutes later, this woman with nice make up and a ross dress for less dress comes in and asks if this is my first time. Yea I replied. So she tells me to take off my clothes and lay on the bed. And than she starts walking on me. Wow. This is so cool…just like in enter the dragon when kelly and roper get accompanied by the girls on the island of han. And than 20 minutes later, the lights get dimmed and oh man! this really is like enter the dragon when kelly and roper get accompanied by the girls on the island of han. I’m feeling pretty good…all i know is some angry guy with a metal hand better not bust in through that door – cuz my kung fu is really just from taking classes at the park across the street from my house and watching a lot of bruce lee movies. But fortunately that wasn’t the case. It was very relaxing.

The last few times I’ve taken that freeway, I didn’t make the right to the monestary. Instead, I make that left. Into the donut shop. Who wants to be a monk anyway? I really can’t wear orange.

10. The locked-out workers lingering near the doors say nothing as you pass; they simply stare
9. There are only six other shoppers in the store, four over the age of 75, one of whom leans on his walker staring at the gourds, another who talks to herself near the polenta
8. There are no pyramids of produce
7. There are no snow peas
6. The refrigerated meat and poultry area features packages one-deep so it looks as though there are many to choose from; there are not
5. The fish department is empty and dark
4. There are bags of Doritos where the bagels and English muffins are suppose to be
3. The cashier cannot figure out how to get the scanner to weigh
2. The bagging boy looks like the kid on the porch in ìDeliveranceî
1. The groceries cost more than theyíve been costing at fancy-schmancy Gelsonís

This lot just rumbled past my house. For more info on the toy run click here.

Ran some errands and ended up at the Starbucks on Larchmont this morning, just in time to see this lady raising hell. I’m in the place all of 15 seconds before she gets up from her table and starts yelling at the guy behind the counter, and in this god awful voice that I could never explain via the written word…

bitch: HEY YOU!
barista: Yes Maam?
bitch: CAN YOU TURN DOWN THE AIR?
barista: You want it turned down?
bitch: YES! EVERYONE IS FREEZING!

Before we go on I should probably explain that outside of her screaming she was kind of hard to miss due to way-too-tight-sweatpant-jacket-half-shirt-combo-thing that accentuated and showed off way more fat than anyone outside of her house ever needed to see. I drew this picture to give you a better idea. Anyway she’s got that whole thing going on and at this point I look around and no one seems to be agreeing with her, in fact there’s several people in shorts, t-shirts and they all look really comfortable. Anyway…

barista: Oh you want it warmer?
bitch: YES!!! TURN THE AIR DOWN, EVERYONE IS COMPLAINING!!!
Read the rest of this entry →

I don’t know if everyone sees this but the main page of this site has ads for Madame Alexander Dolls and I’m not sure why. I’ll be adding these folks to the blacklist in the morning. Sorry for the trouble. The Florida (Recount) update they did has had some very unusual consequences.

So my friend from Chicago is in town and after a fine meal at In & Out (even tho the food is laced with Christian propaganda. Except the fries which is a good thing… Satan fries give balance to the meal.) we went to Hollywood Billiards. A fine establishment for the most part. Or at least it used to be. They have a great set of pool tables and a great jukebox along with a fine selection of lagers and spirits. We generally engage in a sport known as juke-blocking where we put in enough songs to cover our entire stay so we don’t get any crap like Michael Jackson or Yanni. Well tonight we were stopped dead in our tracks when, after about half of our paid tenure on said box of juke came to a screeching halt when “Billy Jean” emanated through the hall of pool. After a brief chit chat with our bar wenchie (who also prescribes the practice of juke-blocking) we were told that we were S.O.L. and that they now have a (very shitty and inexperienced chick) D.J. on Saturdays and that our cash was forfiet. Crap we cried! Bullshit shouted the people! We were placated with 1 beer knocked off our tab and a firm “behave” slap from the man. Crappity crap crap. Hollywood Billiards (not linked here because we doth protest) used to be a haven of all that is good and right in the world. Namely pool and hooch but not so much the hoochies. But be forewarned that all ye who enter shall abandon their musical taste at the door and be subjected to endless tunes by that filthy child toucher. Statement or not I do not want to be subjected to that crap when I’m on the money shot. So we cleansed out palates with a screening of the Pirates of the Carribean DVD at our brother Tim Gore’s place. I had not seen the film so imagine my surprise when it pretty much ruled the oceans. I’m still pretty FUCKING (yeah that’s for our heckler) giddy from it. Never has the word “PIRATE” evoked such joy. My best friend is a pirate so I hear it often but he has been bested by the Deppster. Please don’t let any enterprising software geek write a Deppster client for P2P (Pirate to Pirate) communication. Although it may be kinda novel. Off to bed to listen to Snow Crash (I love my audible.com subscription) and dream of a better LA where a Man can play pool like a Man and not be subjected to 80′s child toucher tunes.

My pal and former college roommate, Chris Hardwick, is a pretty prolific fellow. When he’s not doing stand-up comedy, performing a Rock Opera based on the classic film Tron, or leading the band Rodeohead (a bluegrass Radiohand tribute band) he finds time to host The Magic Missile A/V Club every Sunday night.

It’s totally worth the drive to the dreaded 310, and there’s a 3d20 + 10 % chance that you’ll get to see me do something entertaining if you come out.