Murderous Masses,

What the hell is wrong with my fingers anyway. I mean, they work properly all throughout the day, except of course, when I get down to writing something in my diary. Then all of a sudden they don’t know how to get the stuff floating around inside my brain to the blog connected to the bitter end of my keyboard.

Anyone else out there having this problem?

Of everything I’ve read lately about how to become a better writer, there have been few consistencies, but the one thing that resonates throughout all of them is to actually sit down and write everyday.

Writing more helps one become better at writing. Who’d a thunk it?

And deep down, I know it’s true. I have to write something every day otherwise I am not going to get any better.

In fact, almost every bit of advise that I give my nephews and niece revolve around that very premise.

Example:

“Uncle Zombie, if I start practicing magic again, do you think I’ll get better at it? Because my Dad says that I lost it and I should forget about it.”

to which I respond,

“Dude, if you practice something with enough consistency, you’ll always get better at it. No fucking doubt about it. If you do magic tricks all the time, you’ll become a better magician. And keep in mind, there’s nothing better for getting chicks than a little slight-of-hand. heh.”

Hey, there’s nothing wrong with a little *wink, wink, nudge, nudge. say no more.*

At twelve, I started playing guitar every day, and in short order I became a better guitar player. I’ve based my life on the principle that, regardless of the task, if I practice it enough, I can become become proficient in it.

I walk around the world everyday with certain notions about how humans should do shit. Upon examination, it reveals itself as arrogance, I’ve no illusions there.

But the question is this- Do I have a right to be arrogant?

Geez, see what happens when I write. I get all questiony…

–Obvious

…[Keyboard solo to 'Call Me']… zzzzzz … snore …["Jet! Woo ooh ooh Woo ooh ooh']… zzzz zzz … drool …[Ashley Simpson]… !! Alright, alright!! I’m up!

Jeez!

Fucking JACK FM.

Today is my ‘reuniting’ anniversary! Marking four years since the glorious day that Eve and I re-teamed as the super-loving, hard-rockin’, geek-metal, couple of the century! A match born of the synchronous fires of fate!

I love you, Evie! Happy Anniversary!

Read Eve’s awesome entry about our reconnection here.

Souless Brain-suckers,

So, I was watching Celebrity Fit Club the other day, and I saw that Turturro guy on it. Not the famous one, the NYPD blue one. Jeff… no, Nick, I think. Anyway, he gets on the scale and does the whole self-reflection thing, and it turns out the he and I are the same height and the same weight. We’re both medium build dudes, and we’re around the same age too.

It did not make me happy that somebody so similar to myself felt the appropriate next step in his life was to go on a ‘Fat’ show!

The only thing holding me together was the fact that thanks to the J23ix2, I’ve been on the road to a healthier me for two and half weeks, and that me and Eve both agreed that he didn’t look that bad.

Still, it gives me pause.

Sixteen days in, if nothing else, I can easily say I’ve been consistent. My body hurts a bit, but it’s that good hurt which usually means stuff is getting stronger.

Please let it mean that stuff is getting stronger.

-Zombie

Dear Lame Saint,

I have Laryngitis.

Imagine that, a zombie who can’t speak. That’s a silly thought, now isn’t it. I mean, how are people going to know I’m a zombie if I can’t say stuff like ‘Braaaiiiinnss’ and shit??

Lucky me, though. I have my trusty fembot (in a wet t-shirt) at the bottom of every entry just waiting around to speak what I write. Now if I only had something interesting to say today, we’d be all set here.

O.k. got it, we could get all updated on week one of the J23Ix2, shall we? Ja!

My eating this week was quite good. No binges, no purges, no brains (well, I am a Vegan zombie). Everything I consumed was colorful, purposeful, guilt-free, and tasty good!

In the mind-food department, I made with the reading. In fact, I read a heck of a lot… of, um… O.K., O.K.!! I read about a hundred comic books. Well, it may not be exactly what I had in mind when I promised myself I’d read more, but at least I’m all caught up on D.C.’s 52 and Marvel’s Civil War. I’m having a hard time deciding which series I’m enjoying more, but I can easily say that I am enjoying reading them both.

Marvel has a distinct advantage, with there being countless tie-in’s to nibble on while piecing together the entire picture. And I’ve particularly enjoying the X-Factor, Wolverine and Luke Cage arc’s, but I’m thinking that the Elongated Man story-line in 52 might be the most engrossing for me.

As the world of fitness turns: Starting on Monday, I alternately ran and biked four miles each day, and rested on Saturday. So far I’m feeling pretty good about it. By Friday I started to feel my runner’s breathing return, so I was able to push it to six miles. I paid for it the next morning, but it was worth knowing that I could still do it. I’ll take it down a notch this week and let myself progress naturally.

Saturday, I got together with my family and we celebrated my oldest sister’s birthday. I brought my X-box and the Karaoke Revolution Party games that are to me and Eve what Crack is to Whitney Houston, and we all had a great time singing and laughing. Eve and I sang our heads off, but since I lost my voice completely, I’m gonna put forth that I may have overdid it. We won the Diamond Duet Trophy though, so I’m gonna call it a fair trade.

My nephew’s X-box was broken, so like any good Uncle would do, I ran out to Best Buy and bought an X-box 360…. for myself, and I let him keep my hella old, creepy, X-box regular. But when I got home the next day and hooked that bad boy up, I found out that none of my old games work on it. And I ask you,

What The Fuck???

None of them???

What the hell kind of backward compatibility do you call that???

On Nintendo’s Game Boy Advance (GBA), every single freaking regular old GameBoy game works on it. Now that is what I call backward compatible. The 360, on the other hand, makes you go through this whole shit-ass routine of telling you that the game is not compatible with the new system, but if you get online with it, you may be able to download an update that will make it work. So I got through the painfully slow process of signing up for an X-box live account, it begins to download all these ‘necessary’ updates, which, even though I’m sporting a 30mbps broadband connection, took fucking forever to finish its business.

And when all is said, done, and updated, nothing worked. And I became very sad. I don’t know what I am gonna do about it, but as Evie so eloquently said yesterday,

“That thing really is a 360, cause it’s gonna be circling right back to the store.”

As it turns out, there is a backward compatibility team at Microsoft that is sloooowwwwly creating a separate emulator for each and every X-box game (what a shitty solution, b.t.w.), starting with their ‘most popular’ and working their way down the line. I don’t know where Karaoke Revolution Party stands on that list, but I’m guessing pretty fucking far down. So, I emailed the Microsoft X-box Backward Compatibility team and asked them if they could give me a time-frame for when my particular games would be updated. If they don’t answer me by the end of the week, back to the store it goes.

And Finally, we finished off the weekend by seeing Lady in the Water and Clerks 2. I’m not going to go in-depth here, but if you want my quick opinion, Lady in the Water was a slow, moody film, that I grew to enjoy, with Paul Giamatti once again proving to me that he is one hell of an actor. But unfortunately, I can never, never, ever recommend this film to anyone, ever! It was just far to inconsistent and idiosyncratic for me to lay my reputation on the line and give it the nod. Sorry, M. Night, but you’ve been on Notice ever since that crapfest with the fake monsters in the fake amish village, buddy! That’s it your gone from my life for cereal. You can go hang out with that other dude whose movies I will never watch again– Oliver Stone!

P.S. Oliver Stone, go fuck yourself!

On the other hand, Clerks 2 was Pure! Freaking! Genius! There is so much to love about this movie. It was funny, intellectual, gross, intriguing, boundary-pushing, and as Joel Siegel will never know, heart-warming. As a sequel, it completely did the right thing. The script stayed true to the realism of the two working-class New Jersey dudes we saw in the original movie. Kevin Smith added a necessary complexity to the main character’s relationship— a complexity that was only hinted at in the first movie. And this ultimately made the film very endearing and believable.

Sorry, Joel Siegal, but you are an unprofessional douche. And Kevin Smith is my new B.F.F.L.!

Shit, I guess I did go a little in-depth there.

Anyway, so far as I can tell, the only thing I failed to fit into my self-imposed J23Ix2 schedule was a bit of guitar practice.

Sorry, Guitar! You know I love you. We’ll get together a bit this week, I promise.

-Draconian Devil