As an award-winning author myself, I often drew inspiration from other much better writers than I. Essentially, I had five poets (Edgar Allen Poe, Maya Angelou, Leonard Cohen, Dorothy Parker & Ai) and five novelists (Chuck Palahniuk, Stephen King, Bret Easton Ellis, Hunter S. Thompson & Agatha Christie), from whom I drew the most inspiration.
Well, how cool would it be then, for me, a huge fan of the infamous hellraiser, to one day be able to go on a writer's retreat to Hunter S. Thompson's famous Owl Farm in Colorado? It'd be even cooler, as I stroll through the private museum that his widow Anita Thompson is planning on building there, to know that a few of my hard-earned dollars are going to help support the farm where one of my muses' funerals took place and featured the good doctor’s ashes being fired from a rocket launcher mounted with a towering two-thumbed fist whose palm held a giant peyote button. You can't make this $#!+ up, this was always Gonzo's life! He was too weird to live and too rare to die!
Now, for the modern-day life "weird" part...
How does Anita plan to pay for this project? By cloning and selling the famed writer's personal weed and hash stashes. Since Colorado is one of only eight U.S. states, plus the District of Columbia, where adult recreational use of marijuana has been legalized in some form, she went ahead and figured out a legal method to extract his DNA from the stashes she's saved for the past 12-15 years.
In her own words: "I am in the process of making the strains available to those who would like to enjoy the authentic Gonzo strains in legal states ... I am looking forward to making the authentic strains available in legal states to support the farm and the scholarships."
I won't be indulging in the drug aspects of the visit because I ain't about that life -- sorry, folks, not all writers smoke! -- but I, being of sober body and mind, would still definitely like to walk through the Owl Farm taking in all of the history of one of my ten go-to writing icons. To me, that'd be like what Graceland is to Elvis fans, a must-see when I'm in the Aspen area.
You folks my age -- the ones who grew up in the '80s wearing bright neon colors, using pay phones and playing 8-bit video games -- won't believe what is happening in the world of video games right now. Nintendo recently re-released the famed console that we grew up with, the Nintendo Entertainment System, to these youngins in Generation Z! All the fun we poked at them for having zero creativity and therefore having to steal all the movie and T.V. show ideas my generation created apparently didn't sink in because now they've gone and stolen our old video game standard, too!
However, to their credit, they did tweak it just a smidge. Their bright ideas? Shrink it to the size of one's open hand, price it at the retro price of $59.99, re-name it just a tad ("NES Classic Edition") and pre-load the system with 30 of the most famous retro games ever, including The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Bros., Galaga, Metroid, Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Punch-Out!, Kirby's Adventure, etc.
How do I know all this? Because my sister wants me to purchase one as a Christmas present for my niece and nephew, and I can't find the darn thing anywhere. It apparently sold out very quickly when they released it on November 11th, so I'm just thinking of re-packaging my old one -- which I've still got, for some odd reason -- and hoping they won't notice. What do you all think?
People are really shelling out $25 grand for a game they admit is terrible and almost unplayable? (Click.) What the heck is wrong with these humans?!
Dudes, if you want to blow your money all in one place, I've got a wedding and a honeymoon that I will gladly allow you to help fund. It's better than blowing it all on a boring game that you've zero desire to even play!
As the future wifey and I move ever-closer to our wedding date, things are slowly and gradually getting scratched from our "To Do List."
This weekend, we picked out our rings. The only one that looked manly on my ring finger is the one we decided on for me -- Tungsten Carbide.
Ever the curious one, I of course had to look up what the heck "Tungsten Carbide" even is because I had to know what I'd be rocking on my finger for evermore...
Tungsten carbide (chemical formula: WC) is a chemical compound (specifically, a carbide) containing equal parts of tungsten and carbon atoms. In its most basic form, tungsten carbide is a fine gray powder, but it can be pressed and formed into shapes for use in industrial machinery, cutting tools, abrasives, armor-piercing rounds, other tools and instruments, and jewelry.
Tungsten carbide is approximately two times stiffer than steel, with a Young's modulus of approximately 530–700 GPa (77,000 to 102,000 ksi), and is double the density of steel—nearly midway between that of lead and gold. It is comparable with corundum in hardness and can only be polished and finished with abrasives of superior hardness such as cubic boron nitride and diamond powder, wheels, and compounds.
So come July 2017, one of the toughest and darkest metals on Earth will be residing on my finger...
Take that, Captain America with your Vibranium shield and Wolverine with your Adamantium skeleton and claws!
Well, I obviously spoke too soon yesterday, but it's not like I was the one running the stats, so don't get mad at me for it. Non-partisan pollsters flubbed the 2016 presidential election in seismic fashion! How and why that happened is explained right here.
Either way, congrats to President Trump!
Still, my original reaction stands unchanged. Same thing I said when I thought Hillary had won this thing, I'll repeat now that I know Trump has: a really good third-party candidate needs to rise from the ashes of this horrible election and steal the White House in 2020!
I have a cute story to share today... on Election Day. Yesterday, I went to go pick my nephew up at school, and the little bugger had an "I voted!" sticker pasted on his chest. Now, keep in mind, my nephew's still in elementary school, so he couldn't really have voted. Therefore, I asked him, "so buddy, I see you voted -- who or what did you vote for?" He responded with: "Oh, they had us vote in school over which we liked better: apples, oranges or carrots?" I asked and he answered that, yes, they had a single voting booth set up in the back of the class from which everyone cast their vote. With an uncle's curiosity, I continued, "so, which food item did you vote for?" He replied, "carrots." Then, he followed that up with, "and I was the only person in the whole class to do so." I couldn't be prouder as an uncle because my nephew is apparently a third-party voter who won't allow himself to be swayed by the pushes and pulls of society. In case you want to know, apples apparently beat out oranges by a hair. Seems like a fun way for a teacher to teach the election process, if you ask me!
As for the real elections, all the non-partisan polling that I've seen pretty much confirms that the orange team will be losing there, as well. It looks like Hillary's going to become our first female president by about 100 electoral votes (give or take a few). However, she'd better savor that victory while she can, because with Republicans certain to retain the House of Representatives, and probably no fewer than 49 votes in the 100-member Senate, her prospects of passing any consequential legislation doesn't look too good. Also, House Republicans appear poised to begin fresh investigations on her before she even takes the oath of office, and with her low public popularity, the next four years appear like they'll be quite the bumpy ride. Congratulations, Mrs. Clinton, a female presidency has been long overdue, I just wish it could be a more cohesive event than it's projecting to be!
I also hope that some third-party candidate who's worth his or her weight rises up from the ashes of this horrible election to steal the White House in 2020 because if it's going to be incumbent Clinton vs. another deplorable human being (because those are the only kinds of people who would allow themselves to join this electoral circus and have their entire past vetted and scrutinized every step of the way to the point where they'll almost be federally indicted for such BS reasons as the e-mail server they've chosen to use, etc.), I just can't do this "lesser of two evils" crap anymore! And frankly, if ever there was a shot for a third-party candidate to succeed, here it is presented to you on a silver platter. Just please, this time, don't blow it by presenting us with another brain-dead Gary Johnson-type who can't name a single foreign leader or even tell you where Aleppo is, or even worse, a Jill Stein-type who sits there jeopardizing American security by worshipping the likes of Julian Assange, a wanted rapist and sexual assaulter who publishes top-secret American documents all the time via his WikiLeaks organization.
If you all give us just one GOOD third-party candidate, then maybe 2020 can finally be the year we blow up this two-party sideshow that our elections have become, and can finally start moving toward some REAL change in Washington, D.C.!
As one of the greatest bands in history once sang, "What better place than here?! What better time than now?!"
Signed,
An Independent Voter with an Independent Nephew
PS: For the first time ever, I ALMOST made it through the whole election process without posting this. So close, yet so far! Maybe 2020 will be the year... lol.
