Saturday, December 24, 2005

happy birthday baby ...

A little blast from the past on this, the day of your birth. May all your birthday wishes come true. *smooch*
Originally posted Oct. 1999

nose of the minx

she knows how I feel about her nose
how I love its shape and sensual form
from where it starts between her eyes
to where it ends above entrancing lips
the Lord knows I love her nose
and often dream about licking along
its wondrous length taking in every
single little nook and cranny becoming
intimate with every bit of skin wrapped
around the cartilege that defines it
is it such a no-no to know her nose?



christmases past ...

At Christmas is when I really miss my family the most. What I miss, though, when I think about it, is the sense of family, really — not the individual members.

I can't, for the life of me, remember a bad Christmas growing up, when all of us were together. I know that makes me really lucky, especially after hearing some stories from other people about what it was like for them growing up.

We were never rich; hell, we weren't even well off. Sergeants in the Air Force don't make a ton of money, and my mom didn't work a full-time job until I was in junior high school. But you could never tell that on Christmas at my house. We always had gifts. True, we didn't get a shitload of presents or the really high-end stuff, but we got good, quality gifts. Usually, it was something small, a stocking full of goodies, and then a bigger present.

And my parents always made sure we kids had a few bucks to buy presents too, though we had to earn it via chores and what not.

I loved Christmas time as a kid. It meant family time together, putting up the tree and decorating it. It meant helping mom in the kitchen with the baking. It meant watching my dad turn those old computer punch cards into Christmas wreaths to be hung on the door.

In fact, a lot of my Christmas memories involve my dad. I remember how one year he didn't put the bikes together for me and my brother James ... but not because he got them late or was too lazy to do it before Christmas morning. It was so he could help us put them together.

I remember the few times when he actually went out and got my mom something without her knowing about it. He'd just pop into the bedroom: "Wrap this for your mother."

I remember all the wonderful Christmas brunches he would cook. Eggs how you liked them. Bacon. Sausage. His famous fried rice. French toast, pancakes or waffles — sometimes a couple of them.

I remember him helping his grandkids open presents, and watching him play with them, thinking that must have been how he was with us when I we were that age, his hazel eyes sparkling with laughter and delight.

I remember when I starting working full time and was able to get nice presents for everyone. My dad was always hard to shop for because his attitude was: "Don't waste your money on me." He was the ultimate giver. He always made sure everyone else was taken care of before he saw to his own needs.

I remember the year I got him a recliner, because I knew how much he liked them and because he hadn't had one in years.

I remember the year I got him the huge TV to replace the old, breaking down one. I hauled it into the living room and put it by the tree a good four days before Christmas. "This is your present, but you can't open it till Christmas," I told him. It stayed in the box till Christmas morning.

I remember the first Christmas after he died.

It's the first memory I have of a bad Christmas.

Merry Christmas, Pop. And thanks for all the great Christmases you made sure we had.

Friday, December 23, 2005

christmas eve or christmas day?

So what is your Christmas tradition, when it comes to the opening of presents? Are you a Christmas Eve unwrapper? Or the more traditional Christmas morning opener?

I grew up as a Roman Catholic, and thus we went to Midnight Mass.

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Side note: What the heck has happend to Midnight Mass? Nowadays, it's held at 9, 10 or 11 p.m. It's almost IMPOSSIBLE to find a Midnight Mass at midnight!

I know it's late. I know half the children dragged there are asleep, sleepy or cranky. But c'mon ... it's called MIDNIGHT Mass for a reason!

-End interior rant-


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Personally, I think my parents took us to Midnight Mass in an effort to get us so tired, and to bed so late, that we wouldn't be waking them up at 4 a.m., asking them if Santa came yet. LOL

When we were living on Guam, even if we were living ALL the way in the northern part of the island (distance becomes VERY relative when living here. A place that's 20 miles away is a LONG way away LOL), our parish was Nuestra Señora de las Aguas, or our Lady of the Waters, in Mongmong, one of the central villages of Guam, which also was the home village of the George family, where my dad and aunts and uncles grew up, for the most part.

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Side note 2: The Mongmong Church is named after the Virgin Mary. Legend has it that a statue of Mary — made out of ironwood, which is so dense it doesn't float — floated into the bay of Merizo (a southern Guam village), about 300 years ago, escorted by two crabs that had lit votive candles on their backs. A fisherman tried to get it several times, but it kept floating away, until he fully clothed himself (cute, huh? LOL). It was kept in a shed for Chamorro canoes (proas), which is called a Camarin. So on Guam she's known as Our Lady of Camarin, or Santa Marian Kamalen in the Chamorro.

By the way, the above counts as your Random Guam Fact Of the Day!

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My favorite aunt lived in Mongmong, within walking distance of the church. I loved her house and spent a large part of my childhood growing up there. Most of the George family fiestas were held there, and like I said we went to church there whenever we lived on Guam.

So wherever on Guam we were living, we would drive to my aunt's house around 10 p.m., dressed in our best Sunday church wear. My auntie would always have some food for us to nibble on. Around 11:30, we'd head to church to make sure we'd have a pew for the family — back then, people really flocked to Midnight Mass; it was always packed full.

The Mass feautured the Mongmong Men's Choir, and to date my thoughts of how certain carols should be sung are based on how they did it. If you could sleep through their rendition of "Gloria in Exelcius Deo," you were TIRED! LOL

Afterward, we'd go to my auntie's house, where we'd indulge in boñelos dagu (yam donuts) dipped in maple syrup. The adults would chat a bit and then it was home, for our Christmas present tradition: We could open one small present after coming home from Midnight Mass; the rest were opened on Christmas Day.

So what about you? What's your tradition?

couple of things ...

OK, here's how out of it that feast had me today. As I mentioned, after lunch I left the office to do a few errands, which meant I had to take my truck, since the post office is several miles away.

I come back, write the piece below, write the edit, do some more office work and about 2-1/2 to 3 hours later, I'm ready to leave.

Only I can't. Why? Because I can't find my keys. Fuck!!

I look all over my desk. In my desk. I look in all the places in the office I'd been since getting back: the conference room; a co-worker's desk; the bathroom. Zilch. Zippo. Nada. Taya keys!

So I figure I either must have dropped my keys somewhere between my parking space and the back office door, or inside my truck. Or, like a true nonthinking dumbass, maybe I even left then in the ignition.

Of course it was the latter. But it's even worse than that — THE FUCKING TRUCK WAS RUNNING IN IDLE THE WHOLE FUCKING TIME!

LMAO @ my stupid fucking ass!!

I was already low on gas earlier in the day. I was perilously below the empty line on my gas meter. Luckily, there's a gas station a stone's throw from the office, even though I had to drive a little further because of the median and traffic lights and all. I pull up to the pump and, before I can turn off the ignition, my truck dies. Right there.

*whew*

Thank you God, Jesus, Allah, Buddha, Karma or whoever or whatever let me get to the gas station. LOL

And now for something completely cool ...
OK, I have always thought that my blog kicks ass. I have had the feeling that some of my loyal readers (9.5 and climbing fast! LOL) sometimes feel that my blog sometimes kicks ass (one can never be sure when surmising). But now, it's official.

I've been reviewed by JStrap and Charlie on their blog, The Journal Of JStrap II?. JStrap reviewed DZER's Diatribe. His conclusion?

Sweet!

Charlie, in turn, reviewed DZEROTICA. She used very flattering words, calling me a wordsmith (one of my favorite words), that I "ooze passion" — and yes, I do ooze other stuff ;) — and also noted that my erotica "certainly made (her) a little damp down there." Yay, me! LOL ... Her official comment:

And yes, I'm quite aware that this has basically been self-pimpage of my blog, which you already are here reading. But I am a ham; that's a well known fact. I'm also something of a ... *hangs head in shame and mumbles* ... bragger.

There. I said it. :oP

Random Guam Fact Of The Day:
• Yikes! Two days till Santa comes to Guam!

Thursday, December 22, 2005

sooooooo bloated ....

Advertising's Christmas Lunch/Feast/Gorge-fest was today. Two hours later and I'm still at that bloated and useless phase. Thank God I got most of my daily work done early. Still have to write the edit and that's it.

But I need to be clear and coherent for that. I'm struggling to write this.

I went out to check mail — sorry grainne, it's still not here, but there are two days left to check it! LOL — and took a short walk, which also gave me a chance to take some great pics (I hope) that will be up on the picture page later. Neither did much for me. Taking a big dump helped a little bit, but I think I need to walk a little more — maybe a few times up and down the stairs will help.

What? The food? Are you sure? OK ...

Red rice (Chamorro fiesta specialty). Potatoes in some kind of white sauce. Baked potatoes. Rolls. Corn and flour tortillas. A huge roast pig, with the skin mostly nice and crispy and the meat succulent and tasty.

Uuuuuuuurp. That really helped. Sorry, I felt the need to type out that belch I just had, mostly because it started two co-workers. Heh. The DZER is a burp-meister.

Damn. There's that third-person thing again.

Where was I? Oh yes. Baked ham, glazed. Steamboat (think giant roast beef). Turkey. Roast chicken. Several kinds of salad. Lumpia (egg rolls). Four, count 'em four, kinds of kelaguen — beef (my fave!), chicken, oyster (yes, dammit, oyster!) and shrimp. The best Chamorro potato salad I've had in forever!

Desert table: Pies of several varieties. Cookies of several varieties. Cakes. Fudge ... omigod fuuuuuuuuuudge. *happy DZER dance, though not as perky because of the bloatedness*. Jell-O cups that looked suspiciously like Jell-O shots. Cinnamon rolls from this bakery that makes GREAT cinnamon rolls.

I focused mostly on pig, turkey, steamboat and beef kelaguen. With red rice, tortillas and potato salad.

Despite being bloated, I'm somewhat hungry again. LOL

Thank the lord this is the LAST holiday party. The entire newspaper is mostly logy and zombie-ish right now. Pretty much have been for the last three days.

OK ... I'm going to take an alka-seltzer or tums or something and get back to work ... or at least try to make it look like I'm working ... heh.

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

DZERette alert!!!

Umm ... OK ... umm ...

well, it's like this ...

... there was a GAP in the DZERette code. So all of you who cut and pasted it to your blogs now have all kinds of additional, unforseen links back to DZER's Diatribe.

LOL.

Oops.

The code has now been fixed. Go to the new, fixed DZERette code page, located HERE. Copy the code there, go to your blog's template changing page, delete the old code, and replace it with the FIXED code.

My apologies, my lovely DZERettes ... I will make it up to you all somehow ... promise ;)

HELP!!
btw ... I still need help getting my sidebar on the side for everyone! LOL

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SAVED!!!
• As you can all see, my sidebar is now fixed, thanks to the lovely and ever-so-talented and brilliant Chrissie! Yay!! I *heart* her sooooo much! :oD

P.S. ... Chrissie, grainne was sure that once you woke up you would save me LOL

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christmas candy and the early hnt from guam ...

One of the things that, to me, is synonymous with Christmas is homemade candy.

My mom is one of those midwest/southern type old-school moms, which means she can cook and bake like nobody's business. The holidays are all about food for my family, and baking is a big part of that — homemade bread, cakes, pies, and a ton of different cookies — peanut butter, chocolate chip, macademia nut, snickerdoodles, sugar cookies (omigod those rocked!), gingersnaps to DIE for ... not to mention a whole bunch of other things like snicker cookie bars and what not.

But it also was the time when my mom MADE candy. At home. Fuuuuuuuuuck.

If you've never had homemade candy, damn you've missed out. Seriously. My mom rocked the candy-making. At halloween, she'd make caramel apples. Ten times better than anything store bought, though someone once sent me some killer gourmet caramel and candy apples once.

Anyway, mom had two super specialties.

The first is peanut brittle. Man this stuff is soooooooo good! Hard and crunchy and crispty and peanutty. How do you beat that? Today a box came in from mom, her Christmas present to me. She sent me some pistachios, because she knows those are one of my faves, as well as some honey roasted peanuts. PLUS ... two clear plastic boxes FILLED with peanut brittle! wooooohoooo!! I am a happy son! I will bring some into the office to hook up a few select friends.

The second is fudge. God I love fudge. It's the ultimate in chocolate, as far as I'm concerned. It's so very rich and decadent and delightful and dreamy and ... *sigh* ... mom didn't send any fudge this Christmas. It is a bit of a bitch to mail from the states, because it takes so long to get here and tends not to do well in heat. But damn ... fudgeless ... will need to score some somewhere! LOL

The early HNT from Guam...
OK ... so I got a little over-enthusiastic with the shaving cream. It's what happens when you need to shave the ENTIRE head. LOL

Random Guam Fact Of The Day:
One of the Christmas traditions on Guam is the making, and eating, of boñelos dagu — yam donuts. The yams are actually very caustic when raw, they can really irritate skin when they're being ground down to go into the batter; many people wear rubber gloves while doing it. They're dropped into hot, hot oil in little blobs and come out in an orb shapes. Once cooled down, they are dipped into little saucers that hold maple syrup. Yummy!!

QUESTION ...
How many of you guys are seeing my sidebar all the way down at the bottom? besides E.N. and grainne? And what OS and browser are you using?

I see it fine on the side, in Safari, Netscape and Explorer, but I guess that's not the case with everyone.

Also ... if you do see it on the bottom and know anything about html coding, can you take a look at my source code and tell me what's fucked up? LOL

grainne seems to think it's something to do with the DZERette button I added, but the code seems OK to me ... at least it does now. LOL

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

goin' a bit post crazy

Wow. six posts in two days, not including this one (it makes seven ... heh) ... and that doesn't include updates on the other two blogs.

Guess it's a bit much for most of you to read and comment on, especially considering this is Christmas week and thus probably mega-crazy. Then again, I guess I'm just a needy bitch and a bit of a comment whore. LOL ... C'est la vie.

Anyway ...

• The DZERette program will continue — check the sidebar for details or to join the club. :)

• Make sure you check out gigi's guest erotica up on DZEROTICA. It's fuckin' hot!

Random Guam Fact Of The Day:
• Guam residents don't technically pay federal income tax — well, we pay it, but all of it is returned to the local government. Bleah. That one sucked. LOL

learning a little more about DZER ...

OK, I’ve seen this on several blogs — notably those of Sabledawn and amazinggrace — and I decided to appropriate it for myself.

So, here’s a little bit more information about the DZER that you might not have known. Please don’t use it against me. ;)

UNIQUE
• Nervous habits: I am a nail biter. I also have a tendency toward panic attacks now and then that involve chest pain that half-convinces me I’m having a heart attack. Yeah; I know. Fun, fun, fun.

• Are you double jointed? No, but I have extra-elastic ligaments, which allow my fingers to bend to weird degrees … and also resulted in chronic shoulder dislocation for years.

• Can you roll your tongue? Yes. I can also pulse it.

• Can you raise one eyebrow at a time? *arches a brow* Yes.

• Can you blow spit bubbles? Who can’t? I can also burp on command.

• Can you cross your eyes? Uh-huh.

• Tattoos? Four so far — punisher skull on upper left arm, mermaid Minx on upper right arm, kokopelli on upper right arm, tribal gecko on upper back.

• Piercing? Three, all in ears — two in left ear, one in right.

• Do you make your bed daily? Hell, I don’t even bother with sheets anymore. The joys of being single and alone and not having women over to the house

CLOTHES
• Which shoe goes on first? Usually the right, but sometimes the left.

• Speaking of shoes, have you ever thrown one at anyone? Yes.

• On the average, how much money do you carry? Anywhere from none to several hundred.

• What jewelry do you wear 24/7? There isn’t anything I wear all the time.

• Favorite piece of clothing? A pair of black panties given to me by a beautiful woman. I wear them on my head now and then.

FOOD
• Do you twirl your spaghetti or cut it . I mostly swirl.

• Have you ever eaten Spam? Tons of it. It’s the national food of Guam.

• Do you use extra salt on your food? Sometimes.

• How many cereals in your cabinet? None. I keep it in my fridge to keep it away from the roaches.

• What's your favorite beverage? Coffee. And Assam Black Tea (iced).

• What's your favorite fast food restaurant? That I can get to — Burger King. But I love me some Jack in the Box!!

• Do you cook? Yes — a wide variety of dishes.

GROOMING
• How often do you brush your teeth? At least once a day, usually twice.

• Hair drying method? No hair to dry. I towel-dry my shaved head.

• Have you ever colored/highlighted your hair? I did … once … spectacular failure LOL.

• Do you swear? Fuck yeah I fucking swear! Shit!

• Do you ever spit. I’m a man. We all spit.

FAVORITE
• Animal: Cheetah.

• Food: Chamorro fiesta food.

• Month: December — it’s Christmas time, baby!

• Day: Sunday, the day of sleeping in, brunch, golf and matinee movies.

• Cartoon: Bugs Bunny. I’m old school that way.

• Shoe brand: Anything I can squeeze onto my monster-sized feet. Adidas.

• Subject in school: Any of them. I was made for school. I should have been a professional student.

• Color: Black.

• Sport: Football. College and NFL.

• TV shows: The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, all CSIs, Criminal Minds.

OK, Guam doesn’t have these seasons, per se, but I have lived through them in other places, so here goes:
• Thing to do in the spring: Cherry Blossom festival.
• Thing to do in the summer: Go camping and fishing.
• Thing to do in the autumn: Drive around the country and look at the foliage. Also, watch football.
• Thing to do in the winter: Admire the snow from inside a nice warm house.

IN AND AROUND
• In the CD player: Only CD player I have right now is in my eMac. Current disk in there is Diablo II: Lord of Destruction expansion pack.

• Person you talk most on the phone with: Sadly, probably the office.

• Reading: “Silver Bells” by Luanne Rice. Corny; it was an impulse buy.

• Do you regularly check yourself out in store windows/mirrors? God no! Who would want to look at that? LOL

• What color is your bedroom? Stark white. It definitely could use — needs — a paint job.

• Do you use an alarm clock? Yes, but only to make sure I get my ass out of bed when I wake up early and go back to sleep.

• Window seat or aisle? I need aisle, in case I need to get up in the middle of the flight. Plus, there’s a little more leg room at the aisles.

• What's your sleeping position? Usually on left side, semi-reclined; sometimes on back, semi-reclined.

• Even in hot weather do you use a blanket? Yes, because I keep the air conditioner on all the time.

• Do you snore? Yes.

• Do you sleepwalk? Never have.

• Do you talk in your sleep? Yes. It gave my family and friends all kinds of entertainment too.

• Do you sleep with stuffed animals? LMAO.

• Sleep with the light on? No, unless I pass out while watching TV early in the evening.

• Do you fall asleep with the TV or radio on? Yes. I need noise to fall asleep.

• Last interesting person you met: Stripper or non-stripper?

christmas party follow-up ...

OK ... here's the newsroom's tree. Our theme is a 1980s Christmas, so the pics on the tree are photos of staff members that were taken in the '80s.

Here's the main spread, after it's been decimated. There was turkey, ham, sweet-and-sour spareribes, Kahlúa pig, mashed potatoes and gravy, red rice, cucumber-and-daigo spicy salad, lumpia (egg rolls), potato salad, pancit (noodles dish) and a few other dishes I can't remember off-hand.

The dessert table: Pies galore — apple, coconut cream, chocolate mousse, custard, pumpkin — plus cakes and cookies.

The amazing chocolate fountain. Dippables included: fresh pineapple, bananas, marshmallows, graham crackers, pretzels, vanilla wafers.

I forgot that I have no way to edit video and took this vertically, so you get to see it sideways, but I wanted to show off the flow of melted chocolate. Just tilt your head to the left ... LOL


View this clip on Vimeo

office christmas celebrations ...

I’m sitting amidst the frenzy of co-workers getting ready for the department’s Christmas party lunch spectacular.

Yes, I know I’ve regaled you with posts about the company Christmas party. That was the big shindig at a hotel.

But we go above and beyond that.

You see, pretty much every department also has its OWN Christmas party during a workday lunch time. It’s an excuse to feast on food yet again, and for each department to try to one-up the others. Production had theirs last week. They had a steamboat (giant roast beef) on top of a ton of other food — red rice, mashed potatoes, turkey, a variety of chicken dishes, salads of several varieties, etc.

Today, newsroom combines with Administration and Accounting (two small departments). We have ham and turkey, plus a local spareribs dish that has to be tasted to be believed — basically stewed for hours and hours with a bunch of savory ingredients until the meat is falling off the bone. Salads galore, some pasta, tons of desserts (I contributed two pies from a restaurant that makes great pies — a coconut cream and a chocolate mousse pie. Yum!). We also have chocolate fountain, courtesy of one of the assistant editors. Crazy, copious amounts of food.

And Advertising’s fete should be pretty amazing too.

Yep, no shunning Christmas in this office or on this island. I guess a big reason is that the island is about 80 to 85 percent Roman Catholic, and about 99 percent Christian.

So not only will we have these Christmas party feasts, but the departments are competing with each other in a Christmas decorating contest that will be judged Friday. There are Christmas decorations galore all over the place.

Any way … it’s almost time for chow. I will try to post pics later, when I get home.

Updates galore!

Will try to keep this short.

• First, couple of new posts here, not including the DZERette thing. Learn more about my reading life and take a look at my Christmas rant. LOL

DZEROTICA has its first-ever GUEST AUTHOR! To find out who it is, take yer ass over there and read it!! Heh.

• Also, if you haven't been to DZER's Guam Pics lately, I added a bunch of new photos on Saturday my time.

• Again, don't forget to scroll on down for newish posts that you might not have already seen. Busy bee Deeze. Heh.

merry christmas, for fuck's sake!!

OK, you know what? The rest of us get it. Some of you aren't into Christmas. Some of you don't like it, period. For some of you, it's not your religion. For others, maybe it's just not a celebratory time for you, or it's just this Christmas. Some of you hate it on principal.

And I truly respect your viewpoints, whatever they may be. I get it. I see and understand. It's not your thing and you don't want it to be your thing. It's a lonely, forlorn time for you. It has too many bad memories. Or you're a total asshole in general, and especially during the holidays. You're a Grinch. A Scrooge.

Again — cool. That's you.

But can you get off our backs; the rest of us, the ones who love Christmas, the ones celebrating the season and having fun and being joyful and merry?

Seriously. Just stop harshing our fucking groove.

And yes, I used the phrase "harshing our fucking groove." Get over it.

I'm in a holiday mood. I have the Christmas spirit. I even like the holiday press at the stores, and the crazed shoppers. I'm wishing waiters, servers, gas station attendants, store clerks, cashiers, friends and passersby Happy Holidays. Merry Christmas. Happy New Year.

The whole sha-bang-a-bang.

And you people who are trying to spread your Grinchness, your Scrooge-itude, your anti-Christmas sentiments are pissing me off. All the complaints: Why are the lights up so early? It's over-commercialized! Why start so freaking early? Do I have to hear another Christmas carol?

Do you people make these complaints, or similar ones, at other holidays? Fuck, what's will all the red-white-and-blue for Independence Day? Not ANTOHER fireworks show! Dammit! There's just too much patriotism. Or, why do they sell so many kinds of Halloween candy? If I have to see one more witch costume or jack-o-lantern, I'm gonna hurl! Why the fuck are the so many flowers at Mother's day? Can't these moms eat at home? Why are the crowding our Sunday Brunch place.

I don't expect or want you to get into the spirit or play along or convert or anything.

Just keep it to yourself and your fellow mood-bashers. Leave us the fuck alone.

Oh ... and merry fucking Christmas to you, even if you don't want one!

Argh!

OK ... no one's gonna bring me down. Fa la la la la, bitches!

Monday, December 19, 2005

DZER the reader ...

I’m a voracious reader. I read the newspaper, magazines, online news stories and blogs, as well as books galore. At any given time I’m reading at least one book, and often more.

I stole the idea for this post from AlwaysArousedGirl, who had a great list regarding her reading history, habits, predilections, preferences and other associated reading trivia. So here’s mine.

1. My parents read all the time, and my mom still does (dad passed away a few years ago). So, as a result, all of us kids read, some of us more than others. I remember getting my first library card. It was great, even though I could only take two books home with me at any given time. We went to the public library almost every Saturday, no matter where we lived.

1.5 A big credit for my reading success goes to Sesame Street, Electric Company and Mr. Rogers. Those were — and Sesame Street still is — great for teaching and encouraging kids to read. On top of reading, I also learned about numbers, what the Alligator King got from his sons, and to never walk down stairs carrying 11 ... banana ... cream ... pies ....

2. Like AAG, we also had a children's illustrated vesion of the Bible, which I read all the way through. There were a lot of books, with a lot of stories. As a kid I like the stories about David and Noah the best, and though Lot got a really fucking raw deal. I also really got into the parables of Jesus. When I got a little older, I read the Bible several times — mostly the Catholic version, but also the King James version just to see how/if it was different. There really are some great stories in there.

3. Even in first grade I can remember checking out books meant for older kids or adults. In first grade I kept checking out books on dinosaurs, as they were the coolest thing ever (thanks, Land of the Lost!). I was one of the few 6-year-old who could correctly spell and pronounce words like "Tyrannosaurus Rex," "ankylosaurus" and "bracchiosaurus." Heh.

3.5. I always tested far above my reading grade level on standardized tests. By seventh grade I was at 12th grade level in reading and comprehension. That was me, the guy who finished off the curve. I was Mr. 99.5 percentile. Not bragging, just truth. OK, a little bragging. :oP

4. I totally disagree with both AAG and Edgy Mama... Stephen King is NOT an underrated genius. He is, in fact, and overrated HACK!!. By the way, it's shameful how ignored and underappreciated Mark Twain is.

5. I, like AAG, reread books all the time. Some of my favorite stories and books have been read dozens of times. Great authors and great writing keeps it from becoming boring. I love an author who can insert me into their stories, as if I were in the story. Realistic conversation — mixes of serious talk and subjects, fun and humor, teasing and nonsense are a must. I can't read the always-stilted shit. Some of my frequent rereads are: The Lord of the Rings trilogy, almost anything by David Gemmel, the Heralds of Valedemar and associated books by Mercedes Lackey, and almost anything by Raymond E. Feist.

6. I'm not one of those people who can fall asleep reading. I might get tired whilst perusing pages, but I have NEVER fallen asleep with a book in my hands ... unless you count course texts in college ... yawn!!

7. Some of the books that almost destroyed my love of reading: Crime and Punishment. Silas Marner. Any Victorian English novel. Some of the books and stories that saved me: Almost any of the American fables — Paul Bunyan, John Henry, the Headless Horseman, Johnny Appleseed. Anything by Dr. Seuss. Anything by Maurice Sendak. The Lord of the Rings forever made me love books. My favorite genre to date is still high fantasy, though I read Science Fiction, fiction, non-fiction, historical fiction and even a romance novel or three, as long as there is crime and hot sex involved! LOL

8. I learned so much real science theory from comic books that it wasn't even funny. Gamma radiation, mutation, space travel, time travel, black holes, quantum theory — I learned it all from comic books. I also initially learned about the gods of different cultures (thanks to Thor, Wonder Woman and Hercules), which led me to the library to read books on mythology — Greek, Roman, Norse, Native American, Eastern and Indian. I read the translation of the Iliad at about age 10. At 12, I found a translation of The Prose Edda. I still love reading mythological tales.

9. Books I refuse to read: Any of those self-indulgent self-help books by people like Dr. Phil. The only one I've ever liked was Robert Fulghum's "All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten." That was actually a great, light read with uplifting stories.

10. I truly plan to someday write a novel. It will probably be a high fantasy book. I've actually already have a loose outline and story background, along with several characters semi-shaped. Chrissie, whom I've known for close to a decade, keeps telling me that with the kind of erotica I usually produce, that I should write a romance novel. We even came up with a nom de plume for me. I forget exactly what it was. I think it was something like Desiree McCovington. LOL ... I'm pretty sure on the Desiree part ... the last name was supposed to be some high-falutin' sounding name. DuBois. Delacroix. Something like that. LOL

10.5. Besides the erotica and the stories, columns and assorted pieces written for the newspaper and magazines I've worked for, I've also written some short stories, a lot of poetry, and even a fairy tale. I lost most of this non-backed-up material last year when my previous computer fried. Bleah.

Random Guam Fact Of The Day:
• Chamorro was strictly an oral language. There were no written records until the Spanish came, and even they never made any real effort to document or preserve the language. Today's Chamorro is a mix of the ancient language, Spanish, Chinese, Filipino, American English and other dialects and languages, I'm sure.

Sunday, December 18, 2005

a little something for the sexy people ...

OK … this one is for all of my DZERettes out there … LOL

A few of you have used this term and, I must admit, it’s QUITE flattering … LOL So, to recognize the fine, foxy, fabulous femme fatales who consider themselves DZERettes, I have a little present for you:

Snazzy, huh? LOL

If you want to proclaim yourself as an “official DZERette,” you can now add a button to your blog sidebar. Here are the instructions.

Go to your dashboard and select “Change Settings.” Then click on “Template.” Scroll down and place the following code somewhere between your links and archives … or wherever along your sidebar you want it to appear.

<p>
<ul><center>
<a href="http://dzerland.blogspot.com/">
<img src="http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y193/dzerland/dzerette.gif"></a>
</center></ul>
<p>


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addendum note: if things look a little too cramped with the addition of the button, add <p> both before and after the tag. It will give you a little more room above and below it.
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The code includes a link back here to DZER’s Diatribe (because I’m a self-indulgent attention whore of a ham!)

Save the changes to your template and voila! You are now an DZERette!!

the tree ...


View this clip on VimeoIt's a bit dark, but you can see the fiber-optic colors changing.