the quantity of BS and entries in my journal here might have clued you into the fact that i'm a scramble of brains and listlessness lately. well, i woke up this morning to see that the arctic circle had bulged to yawning proportions that has apparently encompassed the entire northern hemisphere and has taken a huge white dump on my surroundings, and the boss called in to say there would be no work today.

but there WAS work. i went outside during what turned out to be a lull in the blizzard to clear the accumulation from the parking lot, porches, and sidewalks.

it turns out that this wasn't just snow...this was super-compacted He-Man snow, the kind that Yetis and howling Wendigos tromp through on their way to the flimsy igloo dwellings of their hapless victims. This is the snow that eats people, the kind that forms into an unbreakable morass of pain and death the very second it hits the ground. The Lord Humungous of snowflakes. "JUST WALK AWAY FROM THE SNOWBLOWER!" I realized this as my once-proud snowblowing apparatus bit into an impacted bank and all but seized up from the payload. Then the blizzard resumed, practically refilling the ruts i had carved even as i passed. An hour later, after turning into a mobile snowman myself, i threw in the towel and went inside for a sammich. And still it falls.

so now i'm back in the studio, hunched over the drawing desk, and suffering from mental diarrhea, and now you're reading more of it.

Local advertising of the low-budget variety sucks. On TV and radio. It's like if your Uncle Ron's car dealership (let's say your uncle owns a car dealership) budgets for a cheap camera rig and some blue-screen digital effects, and Ron himself stands in front of a herd of cars while mugging his way through the worst John MacClane impression ever while telling you "At Ron Smith Autos, WE'VE got the TRUCKS!" Maybe big-budget Super Bowl commercials have ruined me for lesser things...i dunno. Local media is weird.

I heard an ad for a weatherproofing solution for your deck or patio that comes with a DVD of the company's storied history.

There's also a revolutionary new diet product. Crap in a hat! At last.

There's a better solution to weight loss. Don't eat like a pig. Or if you must eat like a pig, don't gorge yourself on deep-fried crap. I'm no classical Greek sculpture but i'm not a victim of forces larger than myself commanding me to eat until i'm ready to burst at the seams. Except for the one time when Satan took the form of a Chinese Buffet and commanded me to consume the chicken teriyaki, but those were extenuating circumstances.

There's a pill for everything. Also, apparently one of the greatest threats to our Republic is wrinkles on women's faces. The Kaiser had nothing on crow's feet.

I also heard that Hannah Montana (a.k.a. Cyrus II, Tweenybop Boogaloo) has changed her appearance to fill the jail-bait whore void left by Britney Spears. I have only heard this since I fear that actively researching Hannah Montana will cause me to spontaneously dissolve, but there's hard evidence that attests to the natural evolution of the young girly pop star: Saccharine sweetness, a young fan base, inexplicably chart-topping manufactured "music", and media overexposure. Then the starlet goes for a more "mature" vibe, weaves a coccoon, and emerges as a strange, compulsive beast that exudes cynicism in palpable waves and attempts to mate with boy-band fixtures. They are then followed by writers and photographers drawn to them like nature show hosts to wildebeest migrations. This is all very well documented, ask anybody.

Speaking of manufactured desire, do paparazzi exist because people demand to know about celebrities, or were we told that we like to know about celebrities and followed suit because nothing else was on at the time? I know an awful lot about Britney without ever having made a conscious effort to learn more about her, and there are people losing sleep over her going to a hospital while our country is mired in a war.

The "big picture" side of me recognizes that celebrities and other manufactured priorities are vital parts of mass crowd-control in the civilized world, but practicality mandates that i also point out that if every celebrity were to suddenly contract a star-disease that killed them all instantly, they would be no more deserving of attention and mourning than the thousands of our dead soldiers. Whether or not you believe that American soldiers are making the world a better place, there's still an awful lot of them dead, and in spite of the war in Iraq's 15 minutes of fame being long over, i wish there was more drive to care about our fighting men and women than a stupid, drug-addled post-pop singer's latest trip to rehab. WHY DO I KNOW SHE'S IN REHAB??? ARGH...

Did you know that it's impossible to make a legitimate-sounding argument in favor of marijuana without sounding like a pothead and being immediately dismissed? Meanwhile, behavior-altering prescription drugs get a pass because they're unquestionably legal. Alcohol and tobacco are still rampantly legal, ruin countless lives, and many of the biggest problems with weed come from it being illegal.

"Quit your whining, stupid pothead."
"Fine, alright."
"That stuff's poison. It's a gateway to all kinds of stuff."
"Like what?"
"It'll be all you care about, it'll wreck your relationship with your family, and it'll rot your brain."
"Alright then."
"Okay, now I've got to run across the street and get a 30-pack of Coor's and a carton of smokes."
"Didn't you just buy some the other day?"
"I need to relax. My ex-wife's been callin to bitch at me and those damn kids of mine have been driving me nuts. Plus they're talkin layoffs at the plant."
"Wow."
"Yeah, wow. You remember what I toldja: stay away from that weed."
"For sure."

okay, i'ma shut up about that.

on a lighter note, i made a winner of a sammich today for lunch. it was so good i won't even write about it.

ja, mata.