Rockamaroll.

Wow. It looks like I may be picking up as many as four classes at PSU Fayette next Fall semester! This is most good. I'm guaranteed my usual two, but it's definitely looking more like I'll get three--and there's always a big possibility of four...which means I'll be making some seriously phat cash. Only problem is: if I'm teaching more than two classes, I'll have to postpone squeezing into Duquesne's doctoral program until next Spring--something I really don't want to do, but hey, grad school doesn't pay as much as PSU Fayette right now. If nothing else I'll be able to sock away a substantial amount of cash next Fall to help pay for things. Thanks to PSU's new policy of filling adjunct classes well before the start of the next semester, I should know what I'm getting into by the first of May at the latest, so I'll still have plenty of time to plan accordingly.

Looks like this weekend is going to be a serious blast, too. Yeah, I've got all those papers to grade and shite, but there's also helping siliconedreamer hunt down houses, massive amounts of jamming with the laptops, and who knows what else. To all my musician homies out there: who all wants to get together this Saturday and just have a Ten-Way Crazy-Whack-Funky Monster Jam? I'm going to be seriously armed with samples, technology, and lots of really weird ideas.

I feel like I'm getting a touch of the plague, though--and that better not drop a damper on my rock'n'roll joyride. I don't feel partiocularly bad, though, and there's always Benadryl, so....

More RetarD2tion for you

Get it while it's hot! The second smokin' track from scorching new oldskool funk artist Retar-D2, entitled Robotron 1984, the Last Human Family Mix. This track is guaranteed to be on all the British hit-lists by the Summer of 2196 (hopefully), but--remember--you heard it here first on 90.00111991911, WANG Radio--the station that smacks you upside the head with a big robotic WANG!

Once again, SomethingAwful comes through with the Quote of the Day

These women are paid to kiss each other and they still look like they are trying to lick shit off of a statue of Hitler.

The Horrors of Porn is, by far, my favorite SomethingAwful.com feature of them all--mainly because 1) porn is already funny no matter what you're saying about it; and 2) they always end up writing about completely goofy, surreal Japanese porn, which is already funny no matter what you're saying about it. Sometimes, I'm actually tempted to track these hideous wastes of film down just to watch them for laughs, but then I remember: why watch Supreme Lesbian Steak Fight Vol. 333440 when I can be watching quality Japanese cinema like Ringu or Godzilla vs. MegaPegritz 3000?

Political Graph Paper Fun

According to the Political Compass quiz that alternakittyn pointed out to me, I am:

Economic Left/Right: -4.50
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.21

According to the graph, then, on which the X axis defines one's economic stance and the Y one's social-control stance, this places me squarely in "Libertarian Left" section since, for the most part, my economic stand on many issues is fairly socialistic (mostly in terms of funding health care and the arts), and my political leanings are, obviously, more toward the libertarian. Now, this is accurate to a degree, but also somewhat surprising, since I am such a staunch advocate of meritocracy and benign dictatorship. That's me, though: never too left, never too right, never too up, never too down--I'm always sitting on some kind of weird middle highground which gives me the complete freedom to pick and choose whatever aspects of all political models that will work best for humanity in general.

We all know that were I in any position of great power, I would use that authority with pure impugnity--to demolish all the stupid social constrictions that humanity, in its blind, slackjawed moronity, has seen fit to bind itself down with over the past 2000 years. My one edict: Be excellent to each other, and chill the hell out already. Or I will find you and wipe you off the face of the earth. I see nothing wrong at all with enforcing a regulated open market and a libertarian social state with an iron fist. :)

REVOLTING!

OK. It is wellknown that Mister Pegritz likes the nasty gross movies about zombies eating each others' fingers and stuff...which, naturally, suggests that I have a fairly strong stomach for grue and most forms of nastiness, right? Of course right!

Well, not even I could truly stomach Chuck Palahniuk's new story in Playboy, "Guts."

I first heard about it on the Caitlin R. Kiernan message boards, where it was described as being "the most repulsive thing I've ever read" by one of the phorum regulars. Needless to say, my interest was peaked...and so I actually bought the current issue of Playboy to read it. I haven't bought a copy of Playboy in nearly a decade, and it's kind of amusing that I picked it up not to ogle the fake plastic boobs but to read a story that even the most strongwilled of horror freaks have been calling positively disgusting. Nonetheless, I figured, hell, I will step to the plate and prove my mettle!

My god. I nearly fucking puked.

Oh, it's a very well told tale--it's Chuck Palahniuk, after all--and it's quite original in its own perverse way, but...my gods. It truly is sick. It is loathesome. It is vile. It is positively emetic in its perversity.

It's about a kid who, while trying out some really bizarre underwater wanking ritual, gets a sizable portion of his rectum sucked out. And then has to bite through it in order to escape certain doom.

And guess what, folks? That's not even the nastiest part.

You know something is bad when even I wish I'd never read it. I want to dunk my brain in a vat of Clorox right now and bleach the memories away.

(a few minutes pass)

siliconedreamer, I think you and I should try to make a film of this.

Telecommunications Breakdown!

ARGH. It's bad enough I've been having trouble with the hpl-laboratories.com SMTP server this week, now my useless phone is shorting out, too! illusion_of_joy just called me, and whereas he could hear me perfectly, I could sometimes only make out two or three syllables at a time thanks to breakup.

Weird thing is...some natural-resource company is installing natural gas wells in the woods all around my town here, and it seems as though the troubles with my phone reception began right when they started drilling closer to my house. Now, I know of no possible natural phenomenon related to deep-well drilling that could generate, say, a magnetic field strong enough to jack up a cellphone's reception--but an unnatural phenomenon....? I won't rule that out just yet.

For all I know, the drillers may have accidentally released an ancient alien electromagnetic entity that had been imprisoned deep in earth's crust a few hundred million years ago, and now that it's loose once more it is feeding on my cellphone's transmissions. That's annoying as hell, but if it tries to start feeding off my cable modem connection and interferes with my incessant downloading of goofy eurotrash house music, its joyride will become a hellride!