Obligatory Crammage 2008

There was a time last year when things around this House were slightly shamblish, and we've just gone through a similar period this year. Must be a bit of an October bug that we unsuspectingly catch, but we've managed to restore things, if only temporarily, long enough to put together a collection post. We've got a lot of ground to cover, so jump into the can and help us root around for what's been going on while the House was vacated.

Tradition Tuesday



Had Old No. 7 not left the iron on last Monday, our "office" might not've burned down, and we would've been available to pretend to update you on the state of the AFC West. This actually leaves us feeling lucky because it's not good, and by "not good," I mean a total fucking gay-rodeo embarrassment. Yes, the gloriousness of a week in which the Oakland Raiders are the only victorious team remains undefinable. It really does. Via a handful of 86-yard Sebastien Janikowski last-minute field goals, Oakland was able to beat the Jets at the Meadowlands. San Diego was also in New York, but they preferred to have a serving of Buffalo Billwursts delivered straight to their damn-near-killed-ems, a 23-14 loss. And then, then there were the Chiefs and Broncos. Let's just say these two clubs were in solitary for a week, and the Patriots and Titans were the woman-deprived prison guards in charge of "bringing them bread and water." In a cumulative HoG effort, they were outscored 75-17, which in most competitive types of measuring standards, is a few notches below not good. Nevertheless, we must move onward, Crispin Glover, whoever in the hell that is.

We Are Hot Chicks Wednesday

If I had remembered to pay the electric bill last week, we would've had some juice to put together our midweek feature, and it may or may not've included the following examples of talent:

Stephanie Strong



Jessica Canizales



Carolina Ardohain



Ariadne Artiles



Alley Baggett



Thursday ThumbTubes & YouNails

This one I gotta hang on Cecil. We left him in charge of waiting around for the locksmith, which he did, but then forgot to collect the new sets of keys for each of us, so he's now footing the bill for keys and the flu shots we had to get after spending the night in a wet-and-chilly dumpster. Had we not've been under the weather, we might've been like:



Whoa, dude. Check it out: Kevin Smith's got a new movie coming out and it has hockey in it. No. Way. Or, we might've been like:

Hey, look: Stolen bases in the World Series = free tacos.



Suh-weet! Or, we might've linked to a post with lots of cheerleaders representing the two World Series teams.

We could've even linked to Free Darko, who has pretty much spent the entire month of October previewing every single NBA game for the 2008 season.



No kidding.

But most likely, we would've taken advantage of the opportunity to make fun of Emmitt Smith trying to say the phrase "rite of passage":



Friday Fiction Fix

When the end of the week rolled around, we had cleared considerable smoke damage, had the power restored, gotten semi-healthy, and had new sets of keys made and distributed. But it was Friday, so we did what every slackingly irresponsible American should do on a Friday: get drunk. Had we maintained some sense of moderacy, we might've been able to put together some Friday fiction, like say some Charles Bukowski for good measure. That would've ruled, and it might've gone a little something like this:

Bukowski lived to be 73 years old and I've never studied a ton about him, but if his writings are any indication of how he lived his life, then it is amazing that his body held out that long. He was born in Germany and his folks moved to the states around the time of the end of World War I, living in Baltimore, then L.A. If two things are to be remembered about his life, they are these: 1) He wrote perhaps more prolificly than anyone in the last century, ultimately generating upwards of 110 published pieces of work. 2) He was not afraid to write about anything, ever.

Now, the presidential election happens in one week, so fittingly, our selection comes from a story of Bukowski's called "Politics is Like Trying to Screw a Cat in the Ass." On this particular occasion, this story comes from the collection The Most Beautiful Woman in Town & Other Stories, originally published in 1967 by City Lights Books. It can be purchased here.

I'm well aware of the fact that it is 2008 and not 1967, but oh the timelessness of literature...

"are there good guys and bad guys? some that always lie, some that never lie? are there good governments and bad governments? no, there are only bad governments



and worse governments.



will there be the flash of light and heat that rips us apart one night while we are screwing or crapping or reading the comic strips or pasting blue-chip stamps into a book? instant death is nothing new, nor is mass instant death new. but we've improved the product; we've had these centuries of knowledge and culture and discovery to work with; the libraries are fat and crawling and overcrowded with books; great paintings sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars; medical science is transplanting the human heart; you can't tell a madman from a sane one upon the streets, and suddenly we find our lives, again (Editor's Note: Hopefully not, of course.), in the hands of the idiots.



the bombs may never drop; the bombs might drop. eeney, meeney, miney, mo.....

now if you'll forgive me, dear readers, I'll get back to the whores and the horses and the booze, while there's time. if these contain certain death, then, to me, it seems far less offensive to be responsible for your own death than the other kind which is brought to you fringed with phrases of Freedom and Democracy and Humanity and/or any or all of that Bullshit."

The ultimate Bukowski checklist can be found here.