I want, you know this, to spend all day slacking. I want to go downtown a bit and sit in a park and read. I want to hang out with friends and go to the Strand and drink too much coffee and find a good burger. I want to curl up in bed, the fan pulling cool air over me, wrapped comfortably in a blanket, and read. I want to play with the cat and watch him sleep next to me as the pages constantly turn. I want to watch a bunch of movies and make popcorn and play board games and maybe find a swing set even.

Can you tell I should be writing?

Yeah. Back to work.

By now most of you have seen this Keith Olbermann clip:

I include it here just in case you haven’t seen it or you wish to enjoy it again and again. Of course, a lot of people started saying how Olbermann reminds them of Edward R. Murrow.

He’d be one of my heroes. The man who said:

“Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn’t mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar.” Which everyone on the intardweb should memorize and take to heart.

“We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.”

“We cannot make good news out of bad practice.”

“When the politicians complain that TV turns the proceedings into a circus, it should be made clear that the circus was already there, and that TV has merely demonstrated that not all the performers are well trained.”

“If we were to do the Second Coming of Christ in color for a full hour, there would be a considerable number of stations which would decline to carry it on the grounds that a Western or a quiz show would be more profitable.”

“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it.”

“No one man can terrorize a whole nation unless we are all his accomplices.”

A little while ago, Clooney made a movie called Good Night, and Good Luck, named, of course, after Murrow’s famous sign off. It is a fantastic film and in it they reproduce, slightly cut (click here for a full transcript of the speech), Murrow’s speech to the Radio Television News Directors Association convention in ‘58. Here is the movie version of the speech:

Anyway. Is Olbermann the “new Murrow”? Not yet. Will he be? Time will tell. Certainly he has studied Murrow. His timing, delivery and cadence all attest to that. And hey, if you are going to pattern yourself after someone, there are far worse choices to make.

Take “Closer to God” by NIN. Watch Superman II. And well.. you end up here:

You make me violate you, you make me desecrate you
You make me fly right at you, you make me complicate you
Help me
I broke apart the phantom zone
Help me
I’ve got no Nod to tell
Help me
Be the thing that kneels before me
Help me
Get me away from Damn Jor-El
I want to kill you like the House of El
I want to see all of your insides
I want to kill you like the House of El
Your whole existence is flawed
You will kneel before Zod
You can have my isolation, you can have the hate that El brings
You can have Hoostan’s damn city states, you can have my everything
Help me
Tear down Old Jor-El
Help me
It’s his kin I can smell
Help me
This sun makes me perfect
Help me
Conquer somebody else
I want to kill you like the House of El
I want to see all of your insides
I want to kill you like the House of El
Your whole existence is flawed
You will kneel before Zod

Original idea for “Closer to Zod” by Ariana

So what’s been up? Well I’ve still been sick, so not a hell of a lot. Isn’t that just exciting? I know it is, my pretties, I know that it is. Still, you must contain yourselves.

Past that little speed bump, life continues apace. Projects I can’t discuss yet because they are too up in the air to talk about still. Ideas that haven’t come to fruition. Things that need to be written. You know the score, by now.

Still, the weather turns toward fall and the temperature drops slowly. The air gets crisper and kinder and the sky darkens earlier and earlier. I always did like fall.

Sometimes I wish I could just babble on about stuff. But that stuff is always in the air when I want to talk about it, and I end up feeling like a little kid told not to shake presents. Damn it! Yeah I’m a bit rambly today.

However, in regards to yesterday’s Dustin Diamond news, I have created a short “film” for your use:

Hey, Liz, wanna do it?

Ew, Screech! No!

Don’t call me that! My name is Dustin. So, come on, why can’t we do it? You’re easy, I’m desperate… it all works.

All right, but nothing strange and no filming it! And I’m not gonna touch… it.

Not gonna touch what?

Little Screech.

Well this’ll be awkward, but whatever.

… I said no filming!

I’m not!

Then what’s that?

A prop. It isn’t real! Could I afford a real camera? If I could, wouldn’t I be able to afford a real date, too and not be here with you?
Point. All right, fine, Screech. I guess you can fuck me.

I… I uhhh… have been

Wow you must be tiny.

Actually, my huge cock is legendary. You’re just that loose.

Yeah, whatever. You sure you aren’t filming this?

Promise.

All right. Well you just stay back there so I don’t have to look at you.

Oh, hey, Liz?

What?

Here!

Oh my God, Screech! You sick bastard!

Zach’ll totally let me into the club with him and Slater!

This is worse than Showgirls! Oh my God!

*screech laugh* And I have it on tape! Now to ensure the NY Daily News doesn’t get a hold of it.

Via The NY Daily News: He may have played nerdy eighth-grader Samuel (Screech) Powers in the sitcom “Saved by the Bell.” But former TV geek Dustin Diamond can now take his place with Colin Farrell, Tommy Lee and Kid Rock as the star of his very own sex tape.

Everyone who remembers Diamond as a lovable putz is in for a shock once they see a 40-minute video in which he engages in a kinky three-way with two women, sources tell us.

We can’t get too graphic here, but word is that the action includes some bodily functions and an act known as a “Dirty Sanchez.”

For those that do not know what a Dirty Sanchez is, it is… well I’ll let wikipedia tell you: Dirty Sanchez is a noun phrase describing the result of one partner having a “moustache” made primarily of fecal matter, applied by the finger or penis of the other sexual partner.

Got that?

All right. Now let us put together this whole thing and see what we get!

Dustin Diamond + Sex tape + Dirty Sanchez =
Yeah, I mean where is Elizabeth Berkley in all of this?

Red Bull tastes like Welch’s grape soda. Except somehow better. Almost too sweet but not quite. Kinda bite-y but not too much. Oh dear. This is the start of a long slide toward twitching, isn’t it?

Tiny little cans of love. Tiny tiny. Cans of love.

I love you tiny cans. Of love. I do.

No kitty, you can not have my Red Bull! Bad kitty! Bad! MINE! IT’S MY DRINK KITTY!

Remember when you could, maybe possibly, respect Newsweek? Not anymore.

Which one of those covers is different? Could it be the U.S one? Now why would Newsweek be unwilling to do a cover story called Losing Afghanistan in the U.S.? Is afraid the real reason or is a profile on Annie Leibovitz so much more crucially important to Americans than any silly war?

Hey, she takes some great pictures and don’t forget she took the shots of Suri Cruise, right? So… it must just be that Annie Leibovitz is far, far, more important than a tiny little nothing war that the U.S. isn’t even involved in… errr… uhhh… well.

Hmm.

There’s a new iteration of Just the Right Bullets up today. But that’s not all.

This is The Footnote’s biggest update in a while. There’s new stuff by Dustin Grovemiller, D.J. Kirkbride and starting this issue a brand new column by Laszlo Xalieri. Not to mention Bethany Shady, Laura Goodman and Ryan Dilbert. It’s a big, sweet, update. Also - notice the link at top to the forums! Forums!

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So what’s up with me? Well a lot of shit, if you must know. The biggest problem is being sick still. It’s fucking with the writing. Hard to write when I can’t think clearly and keep having coughing fits and so on.

Well, I promised my publisher that a first draft of SA3 would be in his email Friday night. So one way or the other it will be done before I go to bed Friday. Somehow.

You know I was going to keep on talking about some writing shit and deadlines and all that. Then I thought how sad it is that when I talk about my life that is all that really seems to be going on. It isn’t quite true. Joe is watching Farscape. He’s only seen bits and pieces so we’re watching all of it through, a few of us. So really there you go.

Farscape, writing, reading, not sleeping. That’s my life.

But it turns to fall and then winter and soon I start drinking again and being more social in general I hope and I think of people I miss and would like to hang out with and places and things that used to be done.

This is when I start to feel old.

What happens if you take you take Monty Python and the Holy Grail and make it a Star Wars movie? Glad you asked:

Hell if I know. It’s a Friday, isn’t it? I’ve been sick all week, but I’m feeling better now. Just in time for the weekend, which is spiff.

I was going to start posting some original fiction here, chunks of an old story, 1,000 words a week for ten weeks. Then I forgot the file and thought that maybe I don’t want to make that public yet. I’ll decide over the weekend. Chances are I’ll start posting it next week.

Then again, who the hell knows?

So anyway, there we be. Here we are. If you follow my meaning.

It’s a strange old daft world around here. Phone calls in clusters, emails from months ago getting answers all at once, the weather gets colder and the days shorter and everyone gets the fuck back to living. It isn’t that I hate summer and love winter, mind, it’s just that fall and spring seem to be the only times anyone actually thrives anymore. More fall than spring, too, I’ve noticed.

Just a crazy old world.