Turn your back forever on what you mean to me

Whoa.

P.S. Kings 101, 76ers 99, hahahahaha woo.

The past is filled with silent joys and broken toys

And with the Chris Webber era, so goes my printer.

It's an Epson Stylus Color 600. I got it in 1998, before USB peripherals even existed. It still uses a parallel-to-USB cable. It's beige. It's big. It's ugly. It's freakishly loud. It's served me in four apartments in three states. My ceiling caved in on it once, and I still find plaster chunks in it from time to time, but it never completely wussed out on me ... until now.

I don't think there's ever even been a proper OSX driver for this thing, but I could always rely on the good graces of open source drivers. They're just not doing it anymore. The old thing prints, but ever soooo faintly. More often I just get "printer not responding' or "printer busy" errors. It hasn't cranked out anything remotely professional-looking in months -- my resumes came out looking like Designer Republic posters, and not in a good way -- but if you needed something printed out, it got the job done. Not anymore.

I had to print out a return label the other day and it took five tries and extreme contrast noodling in Photoshop to get the thing to look like something other than a big gray wash. Now I'm trying to get some name-change documents filled out and printed with a copy of my marriage license (I still have an active NYC bank account with actual cash in it, like I figured it would magically close itself and send me my money sometime in the last two years) but hahahaha, no. I could send these things to TDR and they'd proclaim me Graphic Designer of the Future. They're completely illegible and I can't keep wasting paper on stuff I can't use.

I probably would have gone ahead and splurged on a new printer ages ago but I love this crappy old mess. Look at all the stickers on it! You can't even see the secret hidden *NSYNC stickers on the inside. I've printed out glorious job resignation letters on this thing. Ten-page-long e-mails from the boyfriend who is now the husband. A letter to Eliot Spitzer ratting out my former place of employment for its illegal COBRA procedures. We've been through too much together. My heart can't let it go.

But being able to print things again, that'd be pretty nice. Sigh. I fear the time has come, and I must move on.

Don't think sorry's easily said

This doesn't just give me The Rage, this gives me The Rage: Carrie 2.

ESPN.com - NBA - Kings ready to end Webber era with 76ers deal:

The Sixers would send Kenny Thomas, Corliss Williamson and Brian Skinner to the Kings in exchange for Webber, Matt Barnes and Michael Bradley.

I don't understand how, if Peja and Webber are having a problem, you get rid of the one who's actually producing, even if he only has one leg. And Matt Barnes?! You've gotta be kidding me?! He's practically awesome. I don't even know what reasoning they could give that could make me feel good about that.

Are there gonna be riots? I imagine there are gonna be riots.

Well, at least now C-Webb will be closer to J-O-D. Hahahahaha. Ohhh nonononono. :'(

For Good Times

and Great Oldies

... Oh Man This Sucks

But y'are, Blanche. Y'are.

It's been really irritating me, how on "Passions" they decide to put yet another character (Theresa`````) in a wheelchair, because we all remember how fun it was when Ivy was driving herself around for two years, right?

It's also been bugging me how Theresa would name her magic baby Jane (much to the justified dismay of the Janest), when it seemed much more Theresa-like to name her after one of Gwen's favorite dead aunts or something.

You know what's coming. Baby Jane. Wheelchair. Duh.

I can't believe it took me this long to realize it. Theresa: Joan Crawford, Gwen: Bette Davis. Better still, they'd put revenge-crazed Rebecca in there instead, because you know she's good with crazy lady makeup.

Between the "bad Bette Davis movie" line and the Mommie Dearest reference in the last week, I can't possibly be wrong. Unless they're trying to make me wrong. Which just seems like the kind of thing "Passions" would to do me these days. Ugh.

Breathe in, breathe out.

And no one ... is gonna be safe.

Every so often, a movie comes along that is so astoundingly inept that you cannot help but be wowed and enthralled by its incompetence. Ladies and gentlemen, this is one of those movies.

In the Kingdom of the Blind, the Man With One Eye Is King (1995): Oh. My. God. I hope William Petersen was paid a trillion dollars to be in this movie, otherwise he got ripped off. Anyway, I was like "oh hey" when I saw this in the cable guide because I knew it was one of those Petersen deep cuts that I would have no chance of seeing or bothering to see without stumbling upon it by chance. I would call this the Cobra of crappy Reservoir Dogs ripoffs, but it is undeserving of such praise.

This is supposed to be a New York mob movie, I guess, which totally explains why people are riding the L.A. Metro, and also why gangsters are seen hanging out in caves. It starts out with Michael Biehn, an apparent "Westie," torturing some dude in a cave and then crucifying him. Yes. On a cross. When your mafia movie touchstone is Duke Mitchell's The Executioner, you are in for a bad time. We know Michael Biehn is a "Westie" because he's all, like, "Why did you go to [obvious Italian gangster name] when you could have come to me, Jackie Ryan, who would give you anything you ask for?" Anyway, it's that whole deal where the guy is spouting all philosophical religiousness like "people who think they are God should know that no man can be God!" for 10 minutes before he kills a guy. THINK ABOUT IT.

And then the screen goes black, ooh. And we never see any of those characters again!

Next we meet our hero, Al. Al is an Italian cop. We know this because when he is greeted by his wife, she calls him "Detective Scarpelli" or whatever. Al is a doughy douchebag with a thinning mullet who looks like a really fat Joe Flaherty. (Apologies to the real Joe Flaherty, whom I actually consider to be kind of hot.) Al comes home to his grand estate filled with roses and a zillion lit candles because you know us bitches don't have anything better to do with our time. He finds a note from his daughters that reads "Have fun, Daddy!" in crayon. I just threw up in my mouth a little. His daughters are his little angels. We know this because there are pictures of his daughters and Botticelli cherubs everywhere. Because they're ITALIAN. The zillions of candles lead Al out to his enormous swimming pool, where we meet his impossibly hot wife, Stephanie Seymour, who is played by Hope from "Days" before she turned into Skeletor. She's in a swimming suit and starts making out with him.

At this point, I speculate the man playing Al (see picture above) must have also written and directed this movie. Did you guess that too? Yes! And hey, you know something? We're absolutely right! We're so smart. If we're so smart, then why are we watching this? I don't know, I'm just mesmerized.

Also, please note that the fat dude who lives in the grand estate with a giant swimming pool and an impossibly hot wife is a cop and he lives in New Jersey. Check.

Now things begin to get foggy as I sink deeper into hypnosis. There's a strip club called "The Classy Lady" and a bunch of leather-jacketed toughs who all appear to have been members of The Blackhearts at one time or another. We learn that one of them is in love with a stripper and wants her to stop living that life because even though he's tough, he feels. But she's too hard, man, too hard to be a happy wife with kids and a white picket fence and dammit, why can't he accept that! And the guy gets enraged and starts a fight with about eight other people and gets tossed out of The Classy Lady, yet his sunglasses remain firmly on his face the entire time. This is the magic of Hollywood.

And then ... the screen goes black. And we never see any of THOSE people again, except for our main three Blackhearts, one of whom is wearing a black leather trenchcoat that is ripped straight from the pages of International Male. And they ride the L.A. Metro to an unknown destination in Manhattanish or Brooklynesque.

Next we are on one of those typical streetcorners where Black People hang out, complete with an ashcan full of burning trash and a fake Boyz II Men singing fake a cappella R&B:

Young at Hea-art
Young at Heart is comin'
Young at Hea-art
Young at Heart is comin' — ooh
Comin' to you
Young at Heart is comin'
Young at Hea-art
Young at Heart is comin'

I'm not even exaggerating, that is a literal transcription and I don't think I will ever forget that song, ever.

Then a limo pulls up and it's pimp Paul Winfield as Mr. Bigg. He says the "n" word so you know he's street. He's got a phone in the the limo that basically looks like someone borrowed their office console for the day and propped it up in the back window. I'm obsessed with it. He sends one of the young streetcorner dudes to give a message to the Italians. Don't worry about the details, because William Petersen will kill the guy in about five minutes. And then ... wait for it ... the screen goes BLACK. (That's racist!) And we NEVER see PAUL WINFIELD ... or our new favorite R&B supergroup YOUNG AT HEART ... AGAIN!

OK, I know this is a lot to take in. Are you with me? So like, all of this stuff, you don't know how any of it relates to the other stuff, and it really doesn't, because, as I pointed out, you will more or less never see any of these people ... AGAIN! But instead of being like, "I am intrigued to discover how all these characters relate to one another," you just simply don't care because, in fact, pretty much none of these characters relate to one another.

Now, all that up there? That's about as complex as the story gets, because after this, almost nothing happens. Essentially The Blackhearts killed an important mob guy, and William Petersen is angry about it, and somehow he knows that one of The Blackhearts is Al's brother. Meanwhile, William Petersen and Al have some kind of "past" involving "police corruption" and "dealings" and "tapes of evidence" and "money". So William Petersen decides to send Al to take care of The Blackhearts as revenge for them killing the mob guy, somehow, because ... perhaps someone, somewhere, thought this would be poetic and meaningful.

I'm disappointed we never get to see this important mob guy who gets killed, by the way. At least that cameo appearance would be endemic to the plot. Certainly Ben Gazzara didn't have anything better to do back then.

Oh! And there's some great great dialogue in this movie, like when Al and Hope from "Days" are talking about all that crappy stuff women like to talk about, like their relationship and communication and feelings, there is a beautiful moment:

Al: You're upset. Here, have some more ice cream.
Hope: I don't want more ice cream! [pause, pause, pause]
Me: I want you.
Hope: [pause, pause] I want you.

Then, when William Petersen brings Al into his office (is that a picture of Mussolini on the wall?), they get a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red and proceed to pour what is obviously flat cola. It is dark brown, people. Petersen makes awesome hammy faces while he's drinking it, too. He's a brilliant professional. Anyway, he flies into a rage about what's going to happen when word gets out that the important mob guy got killed, right? And this is basically a reprise of something he's already said earlier, but with a special twist at the end:

Petersen: When [whoever] finds out his brother is dead, people are gonna start getting killed! And no one ... [pause, pause]
Me: ... is gonna be safe.
Petersen: [pause] ... is gonna be safe!

I love William Petersen.

So now the rest of the movie, which goes on for at least another hour, is one long fake Reservoir Dogs complete with guys in matching outfits fighting in a warehouse after pulling a job and oh it went wrong and whose fault is it and Mexican standoffs and "I'm scared" and handcuffings to chairs and beatings and insightful exchanges between characters:

Blackheart 1: It's like a guy's dream t'walk inna strip club and have a stripper fall in love with him.
Blackheart 2: Yeah, but for me, that dream ... [pause]
Me: ... turned int—
Blackheart 2: ... turned into a nightmare!

Once Al shows up at the warehouse to confront The Blackhearts, we get some more insight into why this movie was made in the first place, because all the guys, who are all young and reasonably good looking (for Blackhearts that is) and not fat old douchebags with thinning hair, get tied to chairs to "confess" their crimes, but instead they spend the whole time confessing the sin of envy because oh, they've all been so jealous of Al because Al is so great! All the teachers loved him in school! He's got a hot wife and a great job and a million friends! He's so smart! Mom liked Al best! He was the captain of the football team and everyone thinks he's #1! If only ... oh, if only people could have felt that way about us, The Blackhearts, but no, we were always trapped in the shadow of Al's awesomeness!

I swear, that is the entire rest of the movie, is these guys falling over themselves to praise the greatness of Al and how much they wish they were him and how their lives were ruined because they were not Al, the best guy in the world. I'm not even exaggerating. Then Al kills everyone and dies. The end.

Incidentally, I think the real quote is "In the village of the blind, the man with one eye is king," 'cause, like, if it was a kingdom of the blind, then the king would be blind too, right? Or hmm, maybe that was intentional. THINK ABOUT IT.

I opened and read it, it said they were suckers

Oh hi. So I got an e-mail yesterday from someone somewhere at the company where I used to work. I just wrote "sued to work," hahahaha. Anyway, that's as specific as I can get because other than recognizing the letters and the ".com" that follow the @ sign in the e-mail address, I have no clue where this came from. At all.

This is what it said:

Hey Kim,
Are you still available for some freelance copy editing / writing work?

And then a phone number.

THAT'S IT.

I don't know this person. I've never heard of this person. And the person left no identifying information in the e-mail, like ... what his title is? What department he works for? How he might have acquired my name and e-mail address? Who knows, maybe it's even a LADY. I don't know. There it is, you know about as much as I do.

Besides, "Hey Kim"??? "Hey Kim"?!?!?!? Hello, who are you. Do I know you. What is going on. Is this a joke. Were you raised in a covered wagon. Who do you think you're talking to. I'm probably old enough to be your mother. Etc.

THIS IS A MULTIMILLION-DOLLAR MEDIA COMPANY, people. COMMUNICATIONS. Hello. Hi!

I'm gonna call that number later. It should be good for excitement and hilarity.