Mark Richt, head coach of the Georgia Bulldogs, recalls Halloweens past when he dressed as Batman. So does NBA great and UGA alum Dominique Wilkins. So does current NBA superstar LeBron James. I guess I'm in pretty good company.

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Hell, it's my blog I can bitch if I want to. And it's Friday the 13th, so I'll kill someone with a machete while wearing a hockey mask if I want to, too.

PayPal really knows how to get my goat. One month ago tomorrow, I shipped a 24 pound package via USPS Economy Parcel Post to Argentina. (The contents were some Masters of the Universe figures I sold for a friend on eBay.) The buyer has grown impatient after a mere 3 weeks of waiting for an international Economy Parcel Post (read as "slow boat") package and has earlier this week opened a dispute with PayPal for the cost of the item. Of course, this means that PayPal has put a "temporary hold" on my account in the amount of the payment. If this were a $29.50 item, that's be no big deal. But it's not. It's a $295.00 item.

So now, my Paypal account is essentially useless to me until PayPal realizes that I did ship the item, the buyer is just being incredibly impatient, and I'm in the clear. My past experience with Paypal tells me that this will take about 90 days. Meanwhile, PayPal will be hassling me to pay them what I "owe" them (HA!) and I will be unable to take eBay payments through PayPal. As anyone who sells on eBay knows, this means that it is pointless to try to sell anything on eBay. Therefore, no income for me for 3 months.

Once again, let me say to you people out there: PayPal sucks. If you use it, learn to enjoy the sensation of someone grabbing you by the balls and squeezing while ramming a Louisville Slugger up your ass. Fuck you, PayPal.

(Granted, I am well aware that the problem in this case is not actually PayPal, but the dipshit who decided that economy international postage should arrive on his doorstep within 3 weeks of shipping. But since I'm not currently in the mood to travel to Argentina to avenge this disruption in my life, I'm attacking the messenger. PayPal doesn't care.)

On a completely unrelated note, why do MLB and the NFL have Breast Cancer Awareness Months? Exactly how many players in either of those leagues are female? In 2002, only 3,000 more women in the U.S. were killed by accidents than died from killer breasts. (That's less than 10 a day in a country with 300 million people.) When was the last time you heard of an Accident Awareness Campaign? Breast cancer isn't even the largest killer of women in America. It doesn't even make the top 5. Alzheimer's Disease is credited with killing more women than breast cancer. (However, a Alzheimer's Awareness Month wouldn't make much of an impression, as everyone who cared to promote it would forget about it by the time it arrived.) I suggest that breast cancer is so widely championed these days simply because it is the only one of the top ten killers of women that doesn't also kill large numbers of men.

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There's a brief bit of dialogue in the movie Clerks that goes something like this:

Dante: You hate people!
Randal: But I love gatherings. Isn't it ironic?

I feel that way about the Independence Day holiday. It's my favorite holiday of the year but I hate parades and fireworks. What I love is watching people gather to watch parades and fireworks. (Of course, I hate to actually be in the gathering crowds. I prefer strictly hands-off voyeurism, exactly the sort of thing for which cars, tall buildings, and television sets were made.) I'm reminded of the stories of the crowds of sightseers that gathered to watch the first battle of Manassas. Apparently, people will gather anywhere at the prospect of witnessing goose stepping and explosions.

On a related note, I've always wondered why we celebrate Independence Day on July 4. The Continental Congress approved independence from Britain on July 2 (it was this date that John Adams expected to be the one eternally celebrated), and the document itself wasn't actually signed until a month later. What we celebrate on July 4 is merely the voted approval of the document itself. Wouldn't that be a bit like deciding to remember Pearl Harbor Day on December 8, the day that the U.S. declared war with Japan, instead of on December 7, the day of the actual attack?

But never mind me. I got my panties in a bind when we celebrated the "new millennium" on New Year's Eve in 1999. (I "celebrated" with dinner in a now-defunct Shoney's Restaurant. Alas, poor Big Boy.)

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May Day! May Day! May Day!

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I just discovered through Google that there is another online Wriphe who is over in the UK. (At least I think it's the UK. He likes cars, especially BMWs. That Wriphe even says "Cheers" at the end of his postings, so I know it's not me.) I think that's kind of cool. It's like a Mirror, Mirror thing. I hope he has a goatee.

On second thought, I suppose it could be a Fight Club thing. Or maybe a Time Cop thing. You know, it seems that most alternate future/phsycologically destructive alter-ego scenarios have only downsides. Why can't it be a Multiplicity thing? (I wonder if UK Wriphe is sleeping with Andie McDowell?)

Christmas time is stressful. Especially when you live hand-to-mouth and are trying to split your daylight hours between your mother's constantly-redesigned remodeling job-in-progress and puzzling through the legal and financial obstacles hazarding potential small business owners. What I've learned so far: 1) Allow the changes, but charge extra for the time that said changes cause. 2) There is way too much government interference in America's so-called capitalistic industries.

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This holiday season, take some time to review the things that really matter. Ponder the big questions in life: If Jesus had been a postman, would he have been mailed to the cross? Do you ruin Santa's schedule if you put laxative in his milk and cookies? If I dream of a white christmas, will I be considered a racist by Morgan Freeman?

I was watching one of my favorite movies the other day, the 1979 TV pilot for Captain America. It features one of my favorite actors, Reb Brown. Reb's acting was never very good, but his great physique, good natured delivery, and unintentionally comic timing always made his onscreen performances memorable. (He had quite a bit of work for nearly 2 decades beginning in the mid-seventies, everything from Fantasy Island to Flight of the Intruder.)

To get a better sense of Reb's style, take a look at this clip from the movie. (Check out Simon's double-take to Steve's final statement.) If you've never seen the movie, there are a lot of great moments where it seems that scientist and spy Simon is talking to Steve as though Steve were a special education student. It's great. And it has a big part for Lance LeGault, a member of Elvis' Memphis Mafia and prolific actor who played, among other roles, the A-Team's Col. Decker. Don't worry, you'll recognize him as "that guy with the gravelly voice who always plays assholes."

It's a long way from "Do you think this letter on my head stands for France?" but it's a lot of clean, old-fashioned fun anyway.

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I have to admit that I just don't understand America's fascination with midgets and monkeys.

Both are staples of comedy bits on TV from commercials to the Man Show. On the big screen Austin Power's Mini-Me became a cultural phenomenon not too far removed from Clyde in Any Which Way But Loose. (And yes, I know that Clyde, an orangutan which is a member of the ape family, is not actually a monkey. This is really a rant against dressing up primates in human clothing, so maybe I should have said "pygmies and primates" instead of "midgets and monkeys," but you get the general idea here.)

I believe that the reason that these two things are commonly considered humorous is because they are both (to different extents) miniature versions of the human form. Midgets are humans, small humans. Monkeys are hairy, small humanoids with tails. Notice that in both descriptions, the only common word is "small." That's right, to America, small equals fascinating. (Perhaps because we as a culture are now all so ridiculously large ourselves.)

Look at our obsession with iPods, Chihuahuas, cell phones, babies, and Tom Cruise. If a monkey reminds you of a small version of your office companions (which is exactly the point of a recent commercial for a internet job site), then you are likely to find the antics of the monkey funny as you project your office companions' activities and motivations onto the monkey's diminutive form. When Curious George falls into hijinks, we laugh. When Billy Bob Thornton gets into a shootout with Tony Cox in Bad Santa, we laugh. When Homer Simpson skips out on a robbery to watch the drive-in movie Hail to the Chimp, we laugh. (Though when Dunston Checks In comes on cable, we change the channel. We Americans are a fickle bunch.)

Perhaps it is because I don't much like people in the first place that I also don't much care for miniature versions of people. (Note to the Little People lobby: it's not that I'm a midget hater, I just don't find you particularly funny simply because you've got really stubby fingers.) I'm sure that I'm in the minority here, but I'm just damn tired of monkey jokes.

Oh, and happy thanksgiving. Can you guess what we talked about over our ham and potatoes this year? (That's right: a midget football league.)

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Labor Day. Really. I get the day off. (Chuckle.)

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Memorial Day Weekend is over. Back to work. Sigh.

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Happy St. Patty's. I've worn my green robe all day. No one pinched me. Which is a good thing. Unless a cute girl had decided to pinch me playfully but chose not to because of the green robe. Then it is a bad thing.
Thorgils site should be running from the DnD page at long last. Like the Kurse page it is incomplete, but since it is not growing like the Kurse page, I should be able to get all the content online in the next few weeks, schedule permiting.

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