.

Might I just throw in this quick entry to say how happy I am that Andrew Slafta’s Xanga has been updated again — two whole days in a row. Reading that thing was really how I kept from getting too homesick during this past year.

Hey, buddy — it’s good to hear that you’re doing well post-surgery. Solid foods will come. And if they don’t come, we’ll have to force them. I say you, me, and a plate of nachos.

EDIT (7/2/05) - In an extremely inconsiderate (and retarded) move… I did, in fact, offer Andrew Slafta a plate of nachos yesterday. Oh, the fucking genius that I am.

Just as my Matt Hardy entry was finally gone off the main page (which gives first-time visitors a much better impression of me — strangely enough, professional wrestling is not considered very normal among many social circles), I decide it’s time to write another professional wrestling-related entry.

Thank you, World Wrestling Entertainment — for putting on ECW One Night Stand June 12th at the Manhattan Center. Although, at the time, I thought ticket prices were kind of steep ($100 tickets were the cheap seats), now that I’ve seen the event I realize they were a bargain. One Night Stand showed the world what professional wrestling can and should be. Aside from pure shock value and absolute brutality (which, don’t get me wrong, were parts of the show), the ECW product was shown to be one with exceptional mat-based wrestling and interaction with the fans. It was by far the best wrestling show I’ve seen in years (and, yes, I attended WrestleMania XX at the Garden). I’ve got my fingers crossed for another PPV of the same caliber.

Congrats!

Reading Gabe Toro’s blog lately has made me think back upon my days as a slave for the evil empire that is Loews Cineplex Entertainment.
(( I don’t even want to go into my personal opinions on the merger between Loews and AMC (except for the fact that I don’t like it) ))
In honor of Gabe sharing these personal experiences with the internet, I was compelled to share one of my old entries from my Xanga concerning the Cineplex… but I figured that that already has its share of space out there on the internet. Instead, I’ll throw in some fresh content, a cartoon that I drew satirizing a typical day of work. This is from a session hanging around with Evan and Blake after filming some scenes from Warlock of Death way back when…

And now, thanks to more pictures being sent by Derek Noel, more of The Real Inspector Hound!
(( With absolutely no consideration for bandwidth, whatsoever!))
How I miss everybody…

I was just sent this from Derek Noel, and it made me miss the Academy even more.

I really need to track down all the Hound pictures. ((Including the ones I’m not so proud of))

So, I apologize to the United States Postal Service. I have learned that the delay in the delivery of the ‘2nd year letter’ is not the fault of our governmentally funded mail delivery service.

Apparently, the rumors that I had heard of jury duty causing delays in the selection process are true. The letters will not even be sent out until some time in the beginning of July — weeks after they were supposed to be.

So, in short — the reason that I don’t have my letter yet is because of that goddamned constitutional guarantee of a trial with a jury of your peers.

Screw you, judicial branch of the American government!

In conclusion, there are many names that have now been added to my list of “people to kill,” including Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Rutledge, Ben Franklin, and all those other pricks who included the 6th Amendment in the Constitution. Bastards!

And so, on my quest to learn how to cook this summer, I decided that I would make my family dinner tonight — Penne alla Vodka. I found a decent recipe on Epicurious.com, which I’ll also post here:

Salt
One 35-ounce can Italian plum tomatoes (preferably San Marzano) with their liquid
1 pound penne
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
10 cloves garlic, peeled
Crushed hot red pepper
1/4 cup vodka
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons unsalted butter or olive oil for finishing the sauce, if you like
2 to 3 tablespoons chopped fresh Italian parsley
3/4 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, plus more for passing if you like

Bring 6 quarts of salted water to a boil in an 8-quart pot over high heat.
Pour the tomatoes and their liquid into the work bowl of a food processor. Using quick on/off pulses, process the tomatoes just until they are finely chopped. (Longer processing will aerate the tomatoes, turning them pink.)

Stir the penne into the boiling water. Bring the water back to a boil, stirring frequently. Cook the pasta, semi-covered, stirring occasionally, until done, 8 to 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Whack the garlic cloves with the side of a knife and add them to the hot oil. Cook, shaking the skillet, until the garlic is lightly browned, about 3 minutes. Lower the work bowl with the tomatoes close to the skillet and carefully — they will splatter — slide the tomatoes into the pan. Bring to a boil, season lightly with salt and generously with crushed red pepper, and boil 2 minutes. Pour in the vodka, lower the heat so the sauce is at a lively simmer, and simmer until the pasta is ready.

Just before the pasta is done, fish the garlic cloves out of the sauce and pour in the cream. Add the 2 tablespoons butter or oil, if using, and swirl the skillet to incorporate into the sauce. If the skillet is large enough to accommodate the sauce and pasta, fish the pasta out of the boiling water with a large wire skimmer and drop it directly into the sauce in the skillet. If not, drain the pasta, return it to the pot, and pour in the sauce. Bring the sauce and pasta to a boil, stirring to coat the pasta with sauce. Check the seasoning, adding salt and red pepper if necessary. Sprinkle the parsley over the pasta and boil until the sauce is reduced enough to cling to the pasta.

Remove the pot from the heat, sprinkle 3/4 cup of the cheese over the pasta, and toss to mix. Serve immediately, passing additional cheese if you like.

Makes 6 servings.

Anyhow, I followed the recipe exactly… only, let’s just say I was a little too “generous” with the crushed red pepper. As a result, I ended up with (what my mother called) “cajun Penne”. The only thing that sucked was — upon first taste, the penne was great. The red pepper really came out as an aftertaste, ruining an otherwise pleasant dining experience.

I guess I’ll try again later on this week… and I’ll learn from my mistakes.

In other news, I’m fending off getting sick. Damn you Greta Fails!

I’m rather upset with myself. I began the day at 3:20 AM, as previously mentioned, yet still (somehow) ready to tackle the day. In fact, when Craig and my mother returned home from last night’s Project Graduation, I was still unwilling to go to sleep. Instead, I decided to go exercise for a solid hour, returning home to begin reading and cook myself breakfast.

Somehow, something went wrong. After finishing a chapter in America: The Book, I crashed. And hard. I didn’t wake up until just a few minutes ago. Sonofa…

So, to punish myself, I have decided to post something embarrassing.

For years, members of our school district have been baffled by the current generation of students’ inability to write properly. After all, they’ve done everything they could to promote good writing habits in us from a young age. One of these methods was the William O’Schaeffer Publishing Center.

For those out of the loop, the Publishing Center was a normal classroom, staffed with a woman (who, for all I know, was a parent mother doing volunteer work) who would assist children in writing and illustrating their own stories. This was accomplished with a typewriter in the corner of the room, which was used for “printing” the “novel”, and then a combination of bad construction paper and gift wrap (or cheesy wallpaper) to bound the book together in hardcover form. ((Wow… typewriters… that’s hardcore))

Perhaps my class’ inability to gain a mastery on the English language was due to too much television (you’ve got to admit, Nickelodeon was in its prime back then). Perhaps it was the fault of introducing us to computers at such a young age (and therefore teaching us to rely on the computer’s spell check and thesaurus instead of using it to supplement our skills). Perhaps the combined forces of Dr. Babs Blight and Looten Plunder, who’ve always had it in for the entire planet earth, caused this “crisis”. We may never know. But, after reading my first attempt at the world of written literature, I may rest assured that my grade’s mental ineptitude may have been caused by that soccer mom sitting in the Publishing Center.

How the adult in the situation could not attempt to steer any form of logical thought through these stories astounds me. We’re children. We go to school to learn. At the very least, correct the spelling. Please.

It’s a wonder I can write English so good.

Enjoy!

* To cut down on load time for the main blog page, I have provided direct links to the individual pages from here on in. *
Dedication Page - I have no idea what that’s a picture of… any ideas?
Page One - Illustrations ripped from a disturbed eight-year-old sexual psyche (I’m convinced)
Page Two - classic, if only for the “Ti-quando”
Page Three - apparently, you avoid mean people by jumping through a plate-glass window
Page Four - possibly one of my favorite pages
Page Five - I think Catwoman has something wrong with her hand…
Page Six - News Team! Assemble!
Page Seven - The obvious resolution to the conflict
Page Eight - Who is that a drawing of?

The fact that I wrote “To Be Continued…” scares the crap out of me. There was another story of this caliber inside my eight-year-old head?

Hey! Who doesn’t like waking up to be at the High School at 3:30AM so they could cook breakfast for over a hundred recently-graduated high school seniors?

Well, I wouldn’t…

Except we had to be there at 2.

Cooking’s done… and I’m far too awake.

If there’s anything that this experience proves, it’s that procrastination is always the high road. If, instead of making a quick decision that I would volunteer my time (mostly to see my friends in a state of half-consciousness, ready to collapse on the floor) I would have simply danced around the subject for a while before defaulting to the easier choice of inaction, I would be enjoying the benefits of rest right now… instead of incessantly typing at this keyboard.

Ah, the simple joys of life.

I still remember how I felt when I first saw my brother behind the wheel of a car. Frightened, honestly. Not that I felt that my brother was inept and unable to handle the task… but, somewhere in my mind, I was still convinced that he was the very same person that was so easily convinced his bicycle helmet was on backwards (when, obvisously, it wasn’t). So, to know that he was finally graduating high school was a little bit heavier — brought back those same feelings of fear. Craig isn’t that gullable first grader anymore — nor is he the anti-social rebel he was as a Freshman… but a college-bound honor student. Things change fast.

Couple that with the fact about 20 of these graduating seniors were in my first Peer Leadership class. Now, sure — the only one I remember of all of them is Sean Gibney… but, that’s only because I was one shitty Peer Leader. Either way, it’s strange to think that the last time I saw some of them (not sure who they were, but, you get the point) they were Freshmen.

Also, another large group of graduates this year were my friends. I haven’t been as close to them this year as I have in the past two or three, but I still had memories of Jon Kaiman’s first day of school; working late-night shifts at Starbucks and philosophizing about life with AJ; John Alaimo managing to drive and moon people at the same time; and the several-year path littered with destroyed children’s toys and ceramics, blatantly wasted money, board games, Milky Way Midnight Pop’ables, and Homies (among other things) with Andrew Slafta.

It’s strange to think that the high school journey is over for them. What are Hepcat & Acoustic Underground to do without the likes of Jon Kaiman? Can Clinton continue to choreograph in the absence of Carly Gessin? How will the stage crew continue to run without my brother and Chris Tobin? Will TZ Tennis ever get over the loss of Andrew Slafta? Can Battle of the Bands be as fun without the high-pitched screeching noises that emit from Nick Taucher? Is the orchestra going to sound right without Taka? Will every club and organization under the Tappan Zee roof ever fill the void that’s surely to be left by John Alaimo?

The answers to those questions are uncertain. In many ways, it feels as if this graduating class kept the heart of the Dutchmen (which, by the way, is an absolutely terrible name) beating far more than my own. I can honestly say that I was proud of every one of them as they passed through the wall of smiling idiots that is the High School administration, and on to greater things.

I was also proud of Russell Wagoner, for having the sense enough to stick a group of students with Zambito as he sang this year — saving the audience from another completely horrific experience (although, at the same time, it still wasn’t pretty); principal Lynn Trager, for her startling inability to pronounce anyone’s name correctly; almost anyone who gave a speech, for ensuring that the TZ Graduation Ceremony returns to its tradition of boring the crap out of everyone in attendance; the Yale-bound Valedictorian, for inventing words in her parting message (obviously, public speaking was not her “fort”); and, of course, the grandmother of the Seebach household.

In short, congratulations to all the graduating seniors this year. Hopefully, if I haven’t had the chance already, I’ll see all of you this weekend to personally wish you well.