Atomictumor

Tomorrow night one of the best comedies on television, the Venture Brothers, premiers the first episode of its second season.  Yes, its a cartoon.  Yes, its on Adult Swim, along with homicidial mice, talking balls of meat with street cred, and an assload of anime, but don’t hold that against it, because its one of the funniest shows I’ve ever seen.

Adult Swim is giving webbish people a sneak preview of this episode tonight through the magic of streaming video, and you’d be doing yourself a favor to watch it.

Its not going to cost you anything, don’t be a sissy!

Hey guys,

About 45 minutes ago, a truck knocked over a telephone pole at the corner of Emory Valley and whatever road that other one is.  It has resulted in a spectacular loss of power at the building I am in.  On the fourth floor.  Without AC.  The temp has been rising steadily, despite efforts to close all of the blinds, shut off computers, turn off lights, etc.  The other building (bet you can guess where I work now …. shh) has been evacuated.  We, however, are too important, which makes my heart burst with pride, adding another degree to the heat in here. 

I’m pretending I’m a little Malaisian kid working in a sweat shop, just without the crippling hunger pains. 

Its fun!

This is another “GAC’s family sucks” post, so if you’re not interested, keep on scrolling…

*sigh* My brother. 40 years old. Living with my parents. Also living with my parents: his 26 year old girlfriend.
He works a factory/installation type job, bringing in $350/week according to my dad. Which my parents haven’t seen a dime of. He buys 40s, cigarettes and horrible dvds, but doesn’t cough up money for rent or food. He’s not saving any of this money, either. Where is it going? My guess is up his nose. My parents just bought him a new cell phone, even though they recently had to pay a $700 cell phone bill for him. He doesn’t have a car, or driver’s license (recently revoked for god knows what), so my dad has to wake up at 6 am to drive him to work every day.
His girlfriend doesn’t work. She doesn’t talk, either. My grandmother tries to make small-talk with her, and she will pointedly look away and ignore my grandmother. My grandmother is on some serious pills for schizophrenia and anxiety (I wonder sometimes how she keeps from drooling) and is easily upset by girlfriend. So upset that she went to stay with my aunt. Girlfriend has said all of 10 words to me, which I practically had to pry out of her. She has two children, around the ages of my own, but she doesn’t have custody of them.
One time her kids came to visit her at my parents house, and $120 went missing from my mom’s room. They aren’t allowed over there again.
In the same breath, my mom will bitch about how girlfriend and brother eat all her food and drink all their liquor and then make excuses, saying “Well, she does clean around the house a lot.” When I go shopping with my mom (which is rare), we have to invite girlfriend so as not to hurt her feelings. Girlfriend always comes, never buys anything, never talks to us and never thanks us for taking her out.
My parents are suckers. I think that’s what it basically boils down to. My parents think it would be a mortal sin to not help out their kids when they’re in trouble. The problem is, my siblings never learn. They’re always in trouble. My brother is/has been an alcoholic, may or may not be on drugs (mom recently mentioned that she’s missing some of her perscription narcotics), is in and out of jail and/or prison, is a know-it-all despite not knowing anything, and is one of the most unappreciative people I’ve ever known.
If he were your child, would you pamper him? I’ve asked myself that. Should my children turn out like my brother or sister, would I humor them? Would I loan them hundreds of dollars, knowing deep down I’d never see it again? Would I put them up in my house even though they’ve stolen my things in the past and sold them, like my brother sold my mom’s car while she was on vacation?

I don’t think I would. I know AT wouldn’t. But at what point do you give up on your kids?

Do you think that if we did start that pub we’ve been discussing, we could talk Oak Ridge into giving us a $250,000 loan?  I can personally guarantee that all employees would be Oak Ridge citizens, if thats what it takes, and I can also see into giving OR residents a discount…

some restrictions apply…

A while back I reported on The Robot Ate Me, an band (guy, Ryland Bouchard) out of Oregon, touring and coming to Nashville (no linky, because I’m lazy). Well, he came, and went, and we ended up not being able to go, although when I emailed him he said he was trying to book the Pilot Light, but they were busy that day. Yep, he’s so cool that he answers emails. He also handles all of the orders himself, shipping the merchandise and sticking little goodies in the box like posters and stickers.

But I’m getting ahead of myself again.

Yesterday, a surprise package I ordered for GAC (and that she found out about as soon as I ordered it, so it really wasn’t much of a suprise. I’m lousy with suprises) arrived from Swim Slowly records, containing one of their earlier CDs, On Vacation, of which we had almost all the music from the intarweb (gasp), but this band being one of those situations where they need the money more than I do (I do Whirlwind Heat the same way), and their newest record, Good World.

Now, The Robot Ate Me is a damn hard band to pin down. Ryland sings with the voice of a 4 year old in a post-pubescent body. He has used somewhat unconventional means to create the music (circular saws, in one song), to great effect. This new record, recorded using an old 80’s drum machine, and whats either a clarinet or bassoon, is a bit of a departure from the previous records, not only because of the concept (some kind of spider monster, and owl god, and some other things. I don’t know) but because the music was boppy and great. We listened to the record twice in a row, on account of being so good.

But like I was saying above, its great seeing a talented artist that’ll email you back.