Big Couch Cushions...

... contain big amounts of change. Not feeling as if the selling of my bodily fluids would get me through the week, I finally decided to get rid of all of the change I've been collecting in my apartment. When I get home at the end of the day I usually just dump the change from my pockets either on the table, the floor or somewhere in my closet. Well, kiddies, last night I collected it all into a large mason jar and a Zip-Lock bag and this afternoon took it to Commerce Bank where they have this nifty little Penny Arcade. I returned just under three thousand coins for a grand total of $158.42.

All I can say is: I'm in the money! I'm in the money!

Cash Poor, Blood Rich

Right now I am cash poor. Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm not broke. I have plenty of money. I have a few checks on deposit, an approved loan that is stuck in paperwork and thousands of dollars of credit on my Visa card. Which is all fine and good for big things, like a computer or a sofa or a night at Sushi Samba. It's not OK for things like, oh, lunch which generally requires cash. Fortuantely for me, shortly before lunchtime I received a very important phone call from a guy in an immunology lab downstairs. You see, for certain scientific studies you need your cells to be fresh. Very fresh. And when I say very fresh, I mean straight out of the vein fresh. And fortunately for me, I got nice veins. Veins that earn $4 per 10 cc. And I don't mind getting stuck every now and then.

So suffice it to say, I will be able to eat lunch today. And maybe even dinner. And maybe breakfast tomorrow. And maybe, just maybe, by that time one of my checks will have cleared because I'm feeling a bit lightheaded....

Wildhorn's Latest Suck-Fest

I've been wanting to see the new musical, Dracula, for some time now, mainly because it stars Tom Hewitt and Melissa Errico. Although I haven't been paying much attention to theater news of late so I had no idea that it was a Frank Wildhorn show. I was wondering what he was up to after that major suck-fest, "The Civil War." Apparently making a bigger suck-fest. As Ben Brantley puts it:

Expectations were exceedingly low for this latest offering from the unstoppable Mr. Wildhorn — the composer of the expensively dressed clunkers "Jekyll and Hyde," "The Scarlet Pimpernel" and "The Civil War" — and expectations have not been disappointed. So go ahead. Take your shots. Say something, if you must, about toothlessness or bloodlessness or the kindness of hammering stakes into the hearts of undead shows. Think of every appropriate variation you can involving the verbs to bite and to suck.

It definitely makes me wish I'd appreciated "Dance of the Vampires" more. A pop-song writer (Jim Steineman, of "Total Eclipse of the Heart" fame) making a cheezy musical about vampires is much more appealing than a cheezy musical writer making a boring serious musical about vampires set to pop-songs.

Cock-A-Doodle-Doo

My friend was visiting from England this week, after having finished his work teaching soccer at a camp in New Hampshire for pre-teen Jewish girls. For the purposes of this tale we'll call him Dickie, mainly because that's his name. So Dickie, Timmy, the boy and I all went out last night for a rockin' good time. At least that's what Dickie wanted. We headed down to the Village for some beer and, um, a rockin' good time. After going to a couple of places, Dickie began to get bummed (i.e. whingy and mopey) because, I believe, the bar we were currently at was clearing out. This was not surprising because this was a Thursday night and contrary to popular belief not everyone in New York has nothing to do on a Friday morning. Granted you can always find a party at any hour, but at 2 am even the Village begins to empty. You need to know where to go to find the action. Now, of course, I knew where to go, but I wasn't about to suggest it. We needed to stumble on it.

So off we went to walk up Avenue A in an attempt to find a decent scene. Dickie continued to whinge that we were walking too far and what was wrong with all the places we'd passed. Of course, if Dickie had looked into any of them he would have seen that they were as empty (if not more so) than the bar we'd just left. (Of course, I must now point out that none of these places were really empty by any measure of the word; they just weren't wall to wall people).

But lo! What's that we see across the street? Loud music and a bunch of people heading in to a darkened bar. I ask Dickie if he wants to check it out. He readily agrees because at that moment a tall, leggy blonde woman whose ass was hanging out of her thong was going in and Dickie said he definitely wanted to check that out. Well, at least he thought it was woman. I'm not saying that I knew Dickie had just suggested that we go into a notoriously seedy gay bar called The Cock and I'm not saying that I didn't know. All I will say is that Dickie is the one who wanted to go in. It's not my fault he was chasing transvestite tail.

Suffice it to say that the look on Dickie's face was priceless when he realized, which didn't take him very long. I'm not sure if it was the snogging men in the corner, the butt-ugly trannies or the man masturbating in nothing but a jock-strap on stage.

I would also like to take this opportunity to point out that Dickie is the nephew of a very high-ranking official with British Intelligence, so if you happen to be a sleezy tabloid I'm willing to sell. Dickie doesn't know this, but I have pictures of him dangerous close to a penis.

Why Are You Here?

One of my favorite things that I like to do with my blog is find out how people get here. I don't get a significant amount of traffic because most of my loyal readers are my friends and I don't employ any rouse to get people to surf on over. But I do have the luxury of looking at referring pages, including what Google searches get people to come on over to my neck of the woods.

Apparently most people who randomly stumble onto this blog via search engines are looking for pictures of the Gotti boys, information on Ed Heeney or for Charisma Carpenter's e-mail address. However, my personal fav is that I am Google's number one match for "doll's head ingestion".

So, if you got here looking for Hotti Gotti pics, homo-nausea or Cordelia Chase, I'm sorry to dissappoint but I hope you stay awhile and poke around here at ThirdoftheMonth. Make yourself at home; we enjoy the company. But if you came looking for some good ol' fashioned anal autoerotic gratification, well then according to Google you've come to the right place.

It doesn't matter why you're here, really, or even how you got here. But since you made it, throw on some plaid, grab a moist towelette and revel in the beauty that is you. Because here, every day is the Third of the Month.

Highfalutin Panhandling

This one goes under the category of "Only In New York"...

So it's about 1:00 am on Sunday night / Monday morning. I've got some friends in town so we're still out, chilling at the Auction House, surprised that we aren't the only people who apparently have nothing to do the next morning. We're standing outside for a smoke (frickin' ban) when this panhandler comes up to us, about the third one all night. Usually they want spare change or a spare fag. Or, if they want to sell you something it's usually magazines or batteries. But not this one. No, this one asks us if we like books. Books! At 1 am. Turns out the man is selling books out of his knapsack in the middle of the night. And not just any books, mind you. No, these are books for a special audience. He was selling Beowulf. And a book on the ancient Chinese art of foot-binding. And a few other titles in that vein. In the middle of night. Now granted, we were at a bar called the Auction House. And we almost actually did by Beowulf but it wasn't a good translation.

Fat and Hippies

So I just got back from Ithaca where I was at a "retreat". Well, a retreat in the scientific sense whereby you go to some remote local with some sort of "nature" (hence the Ithaca) and stay inside, in the dark, all day listening to people talk in excrutiating detail about excrutiatingly detailed topics. The retreat was on the molecular biophysics of signal transduction which means that the topics ranged from lipids to proteins in lipids to proteins modified by lipids to proteins that sense lipids to proteins that make lipids. And phase diagrams.

We did get to stay in the Statler hotel, however, which is staffed by gays and Mormons. They also make the best cheesecake in the world. Not so much with the pastries.

They did let us out for an afternoon which was exciting because I got to see my friend Amy who never comes to visit me in the City because she's a dirty hippy who lives in a co-op with a three-legged cat and tree-huggers with names like "Grasshopper" and will probably write something nasty in my comment box because I've insulted her fragile sensibility and collarbone. She did, however, take me and Deirdre on a hike around Six Mile Creek. "Oh, it's just a short walk," she says. Um, yeah. Anyway, for those of you who don't know Ithaca very well, it is all up-hill. I know this sounds physically impossible but trust me; I walked everywhere and never went down.

So, anyway, we're walking along, getting attacked by dragonflies (I hate bugs, but dragonflies are the worst! They are ugly and nasty and I haven't figured out what they are useful for yet), when Amy realizes she took us a different way than she was planning and we might have to do a "bit of climbing." Um, yeah. Suffice it to say we did manage to scale the cliff we needed to scale in order to get to the naked man. I actually don't know why this 60 year old man was lying naked on a rock, balls to the wind, reading The Nanny Diaries, nor do I know why he gave us a dirty look when we walked by his naked ass. It wasn't like by lying naked he'd laid claim to that rock or anything, like that guy who licks the car door handle in that Volkswagen commercial. I don't know, maybe he didn't want us looking at his dick. Whatever. It's Ithaca. On our way back to campus (up-hill, of course) we passed a guy in his boxers climbing through the second-floor window of his apartment, which of course makes perfect sense. I mean, where are you going to carry your keys if all you're wearing is your underwear?

I was happy to get back to the City, though, even if the boy made me start running this morning. Thirty minutes and eighteen leg cramps later I still felt like crap. Endorphins, my buttocks. But at least I've found a good use for my $100 pair of running shoes. Violently kicking my boyfriend in the ass.

Don't Hate the Player...

... hate boring, pedestrian "scripties"! Reality TV is where it's at! Still!

First, there's The Player, which premiered last night on the UPN. Now, you may ask, what is so original about twenty guys living in a house and trying to win a date with a hot woman via a series of eliminations? What makes The Player different? Well, these guys aren't your average reality TV show contestents; these guys are all Players! That is to say they are overly quaffed and overly muscled and overly full of themselves, some of them to the point where they could jump into a pool fully clothed and their hair wouldn't move. If you can get through the many various urban accents of Dawn (the prize) and the over used "Don't hate the player, hate the game" that is sure to be the next office cooler catch-phrase, check out The Player, if only for my fav playah, J.J., the gotta-be-gay wigger from the West Side (of Phoenix).

And speaking of gotta-be-gay, if you haven't checked out the new season of The Joe Schmo Show on Spike TV then you haven't lived. Instead of a Big Brother-like show, this time they're duping both a man and a woman into believing they're on a reality dating show called "Last Chance For Love" where there are many challenges and "Falcon Twists". The two hour finale is next week. Watch it. And while you're at it, rent the first season which is out on DVD now.

Lastly, since it appears as though every other cable network has a reality show featuring the life of a celebrity, why not A&E? Growing Up Gotti has got to be the biggest disappointment in celebrity reality television. First of all Victoria Gotti is not crazy, a la Anna Nicole; she's kinda just normal. If I wanted to see an ugly middle aged celebrity deal with their job, family and oversensitiveness to their own wacky existence I'd watch Family Business because at least that has titties. The one upside is she's got three hot teenaged boys, if by hot you mean over-tanned, over-gelled and overly bitchy Long Island man-whores. But if all you want to do is ogle underaged spoiled brats, save yourself the trouble of watching the show and check out Hotti Gotti where you can go for all your Gotti boy-toy screensavers. You know you want to....

So remember, just when you thought reality television was dead, the networks (all the networks) have managed to scrap the bottom of the barrel to bring you more of what you crave: man-sluts.

Except I'm serious about Joe Schmo 2. Check that shit out. Like now.

Oh Those Silly Californians...

According to a wonderful article in Slate this week, apparently most SUVs are banned on residential streets in California, due to the fact that they weigh more than 6 tons. Now, I'm torn by this. On the one hand, I hate government involvement in my life. On the other hand, I loathe SUVs, probably because I lived across the street from Kappa Kappa Gamma, where I believe ownership of one was manditory for membership (along with leather high heal knee-high boots which were oh so useful in the New Hampshire winter). And since I don't own one, and never plan to, the government isn't actually involving itself in my life with this one.

However, what I loathe even more than both of those things is people having their cake and eating it too. So, if SUV owners can register their SUVs as trucks, follow different quality regulations than pedestrian vehicles, get tax breaks if they use it for "work" and damage the road just as much as other trucks of that size, why should they be exempt from following traffic regulations other trucks have to? That is, they shouldn't get all the benefits and not have any of the inconveniences.

Of course this also means that those Hummers aren't allowed on the Brooklyn Bridge. I'd love to see that one enforced. No, really, I'd love to see that one enforced. Those fuckers should be inconvenienced. And frequently.

It's the Third of the Month...

... do you know where your moist towelette is?

So, I was in the shower this morning thinking about how long it's been since I've been celebrating this holiday in an official capacity. Believe it or not, the Third of the Month has been around for over six years! That's a lot of moist towelettes! And now, with the Third of the Month online, you can celebrate this noble holiday any day of the week. It's amazing how much we've grown.

I also realized that I've pretty much run out of ways to tell you to be good to yourself and love yourself. Which is fine, because I have other people out there to do it for me. Like NAAFA, the National Association for the Advancement of Fat Acceptance, but not fun fat like PUFAs. They want us to accept actual fat people for who they are and not look down on them, even the fat people who stand in the aisle taking pictures and using their fat ass to block your otherwise perfectly good view of a wedding ceremony. But that's great! Fat people are really discriminated against. Of course, like all activists, NAAFA is craaaazzzzy (and probably financially supported by McDonald's), denying a lot of the negative health consequences of being obese and stuff like that. But at least they're trying to feel good about themselves and isn't that what this day is about? Feeling good about yourself?

So whether you're feeling down and out or your life just couldn't be better, take a moment out of your day, just a moment, and think about all of your good qualities. Think about all of the people that love you. Think about how I love you. And I do. Love you. Each and every one of you crazy monkeys. And sometimes I think about how much I love each and every one of you when I think about how much I love myself. And when I'm thinking about loving myself I think about how one of you may be thinking of loving me at the same time. And then I get this warm fuzzy feeling that leaves me dizzy and panting with self-contentment. And that, my friends, is what this day is all about.

Oh, that, and plaid.

A Sad Day For DNA

Francis Crick has died at age 88. This leaves only James Watson left, to spout out cracked nonsensical ramblings such as his belief that obese people over-produce a hormone that makes you happy, as evidence by fat people being jolly. It is, however, a shame that Crick didn't live to see "The Double Helix The Musical" come to fruition...

A Moment Of Silence...

... for my dear beloved Fido.

He departed today from this earth at approximately 4pm EST, after a week-long struggle with ick. This morning it was touch and go but I had a sinking feeling in my stomach that today was his day. I fed him his breakfast but he would be having none of that. He spent most of the morning under a plant, lying on his side, breathing laboriously. Occassionally he would right himself but only for a moment or two. He'd lost most of his luscious shine and his eyes were puffy and swollen. By mid-afternoon the ick had taken over and my poor Fido was no more.

Sonya and Shobana provided the funeral dirge whilst I spake a brief but poignant eulogy, holding back my tears, as we slowly marched our way down the hallway to the men's room. I went in alone (considering Sonya and Shobana are both of the female persuassion and balked at the idea of entering that most holy of male places) and as I said my final goodbyes gave my dearest Fido a proper burial at sea, a burial he truly, deeply deserved.

Requiescat In Pacem, Fideus

Slipped Under The Radar

In the wake of the failure of the FMA to even get a real debate in the Senate, House Republicans have slipped passed one of the most asinine bills I've ever read, and it hasn't been getting a terrible lot of press. Afraid that a court will strike down the DOMA, they've decided to try to strip those courts of deciding the constitutionality of the DOMA with H.R. 3313, which states:

No court created by Act of Congress shall have any jurisdiction, and the Supreme Court shall have no appellate jurisdiction, to hear or decide any question pertaining to the interpretation of, or the validity under the Constitution of, section 1738C [the Defense of Marriage Act] or this section.

So let me get this straight, venerable Representatives: because your attempt to exclude homosexuals from marriage by enshrining it in the Constitution via an amendment failed miserably, you've decided to make it constitutional by not allowing anyone to question whether or not it is. Oh, and because of that little phrase "or this section", no one can question the constitutionality of not letting anyone question the constitutionality of the DOMA. Which is funny, of course, because according to that Constitution, specifically Article 3, Section 2, H.R. 3313 is, um, blatantly unconstitutional.

Way to go guys! This attempt to subvert the constitution and the will of the people, especially future generations, strikes me as, um, what should I call it? Oh, right, legislative activism. Now granted, it all doesn't really matter because this won't make it passed the Senate; I'm just amused at how desparate Congress is acting. Don't they have a war on terror to conduct and a middle eastern nation to rebuild?

Nothing To Say...

I just felt like blogging today but I've been working hard and haven't had much time to be interesting. Well, I did go to Beers of the World yesterday, an annual grad school picnic where I used to stay at for hours, get plastered and wake up drunk the next morning. Didn't this time. I must be getting old. I did get to drink Tecate in cans, however.

Oh, and I've been watching Joss Whedon's "Firefly," even though I swore I would boycott all things Whedon after that Angel finale debacle. It's actually surprisingly good. But I've figured out why it tanked (aside from the insto-death time slot of 8pm Fridays): the title sequence sucks, especially the crappy song. You can't have a successful TV show with a shitty opening. Well, maybe it was ok for "Friends," but still....

If This Is Substantiated...

... it's a big "fuck you" to everyone, especially Michael Moore (who apparently misrepresented and doctored a newspaper editorial for his film (thanks Andrew)). Of course, if it pans out it might mean that Bush will actually gain some more credibility and win the election, and I'm still not sure if I want that to happen.

Go IRT!

The Straphangers just rated the subways and what line do you think got the highest rating? Huh? Huh? Da 6. I love my subway line, even though it sometimes only runs in the downtown direction or not at all. But, to quote Madonna and every angsty emo/punk/pop band on the planet, nobody's perfect.

A Trip To The Movies...

Since it was a rainy, nasty day yesterday, we decided to catch an early showing of Spiderman, which was of course entertaining but didn't show enough shots of Tobey Maguire's cute little, nevermind. Anyway, like most movie experiences on E 86th St., someone managed to royally piss off the audience. (And if you don't know what I'm talking about, try going to that theater to watch the new Blade flick on opening night.)

Now, I'm not about to make any assumptions about the intelligence level of your average theater attendant, but you really don't need to be all that aggressive a thinker to know that letting a five-year-old into a movie theater with a helium balloon is not the greatest idea in the world. You see, as we (and others) were waiting patiently for our $10.25 movie to begin, said child (who managed to get passed the razor-sharp security) lost his grip on said balloon. Now this resulting in two distinct, yet related situations, namely a) a balloon bobbing up and down in front of the movie screen and b) an upset child who had lost said balloon and was making it known to the rest of the theater, loudly, and without much in the way of actual vocabulary.

But our tale of helium woes has just begun. About every ten minutes the balloon, which thankfully prefered to remain close to the ceiling, would make a cameo appearance on-screen. But lo! during a stirring speech by Dr. Octopus the balloon floated closer and closer to the ground, eliciting cries of "grab it! grab it!" from the crowd. A virtuous young lady, heeding those calls, leapt up from her front row seat and snatched the offending balloon and destroying it. She was greeted by much applause. Applause which, unfortunately, had it's own nasty side effects, namely setting off an applause chain reaction, not unlike Doc Ock's self-sustaining fusion reaction which used the unrealistically solid substance of tritium. This audience started clapping at everything! Aw, they kissed. Clap clap clap. Wow, Spiderman did something cool! Clap clap clap. Hey, great use of a classic Hollywood musical score! Clap clap clap.

Needless to say, it was an enjoyably campy romp through summer blockbuster spendor as seen in the Big City. Go see the movie; it's well worth it. And try to figure out how and why they appear to have taken a quick jaunt to Chi-Town...

It's Good To Be Me

It's a beautiful day in New York today, so I took a two hour lunch. I took some sushi and some Silver Bullet in a brown paper bag and sat outside in the park by Sotheby's (who's Teamsters are picketing, by the way), enjoying the sun and air. And I ain't got no one to answer to. Of course, it's days like today that make it clear I'm never graduating....

All Things Gay

I'm not entirely sure how fitting it is that the FMA was killed before it even got off the ground on Bastille Day. However, I do consider it interesting that Bill O'Reilly didn't mention it once (although I'm not sure when his show is taped), but did mention that residents of Palm Beach successfully sued to get a nativity placed next to the menorah under the heading "Traditionalist Victory" while also reaffirming his boycott of all things French and my dangling participles. I'd like someone to prove that his shampoo was made in France, because you know they all are. My dangling participles, however, are American. Although I think Jon Stewart best summed up the raving hysteria of Rick Sanatorum when he said that sodomy must be a very powerful thing since apparently penis and ass contact must form a super-genetalia that emits a massive culture-eroding ray, causing children to be born out of wedlock...

And speaking of Canada, the Yukon now has gay marriage, which begs the question "There are gay people in the Yukon?" Which of course begs an even bigger question; "There are people in the Yukon?"

Doll's Head "Bezoar"

Oh, yes, that does say doll's head bezoar, a tangled mass of indigestable material made up of a doll's head. You'd think that it would be obvious that a Barbie doll's head would be indigestable. And it was obvious to a 35-year-old man who last year ingested multiple doll's heads. On purpose. Most people won't be able to follow the link, so I've reprinted most of the article from the American Journal of Roentgenology. Pay special attention to the bold (my emphases).

A 35-year-old man presented with severe abdominal pain and distention but normal vital signs. An abdominal radiograph showed multiple rounded objects, some of which projected in the shape of a head with a pointed nose. Suspecting a case of "body packing", we questioned the patient as to whether he had ingested packets filled with illicit drugs for the purpose of smuggling. However, the patient stated that he had ingested multiple heads of a popular children's toy doll over the course of several days. He declared that swallowing dolls' heads was his habit for anal autoerotic gratification. The patient's hospital course was uneventful after surgery for mechanical small-bowel obstruction....

In this case of small-bowel obstruction resulting from craniocervical dissociation of a doll, common search patterns used to detect atlantooccipital distraction injury do not apply. Radiographically, dolls' heads do not show a clear basion–dens interval or posterior axial line. A denslike structure that has a cylindric convexity connects the doll's cranium to the doll's body in a hinge joint. The entire head of the doll, including nose and hair, are radiodense. Familiarity with the radiographic appearance of this famous American doll may help to differentiate the foreign bodies in the bowel of our patient from packages of illicit drugs ingested by body packers.

Motives for ingestion of foreign bodies vary greatly. To our knowledge, ingestion of dolls' heads for anal autoerotic gratification has not been described previously. Most ingested foreign bodies pass the small and large bowels without serious consequence, and patients seek medical help only if the passage is impeded at anatomic narrowings. Body packers smuggle illicit drugs (such as cocaine or heroin) in multiple ingested packages and may present as a toxicologic emergency with life-threatening symptoms caused by a leaking substance from a broken package. Rectal foreign bodies rarely come from ingestion but more commonly are the result of conscious insertion.

Radiographic detection of the characteristic nose and the unique features of the craniocervical junction of famous dolls may serve as a clue to identify the doll radiographically, even if located in the bowel of an individual. This case illustrates how icons of popular culture affect all aspects of life and can present emergently to the radiologist, who should keep in mind that human imagination may not follow clinical algorithms.

Seriously, whatever happened to good old-fashioned auto-erotic asphyxiation?