The Zombieslayer

Dang. I thought I was good at keeping a secret. Well, I don’t think it was me who let the Venezuelans know. Or maybe I had way too much rum when I was there and let them know what we’re up to. If so, sorry about that.

Hugo Chavez, the head of Venezuela, somehow found out that we were just about to invade Venezuela. Yes, right after we wrap things up in Afghanistan and Iraq, we were planning on invading Venezuela and taking their oil.

In Chavez’s visit to Iran, he met with Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (why can’t any of these guys have names that are easy to spell?) and told him “the U.S. empire is going down.” Yeah, we’re an empire all right. Look at all the territory we own outside our borders, like, um, well, I guess we’re protectorates in Puerto Rico and Guam. Wow. We’re an empire all right.

So Chavez fears we’ll attack him. He told Ahmadinejad that prices of oil will double when we attack them.

Then he went on to joke about getting atomic weapons of his own after Iran gets some. “As the imperialist press says, I came to look for an atomic bomb, and I’ve got it here. If anyone should cross me, I’ll fire it.”

Yeah, our press keeps saying over and over again all about your piss ant country building a nuke.  If that’s so, how come more than 90% of Americans couldn’t find Venezuela on a map?

He then went on to assure Ahmadinejad that their two nations are “united like a single fist,” when we attack either of them.

Look, Mr. Chavez. Hate to break it to you, but we simply don’t care to invade you. The only one who will be doing any invading is Bush, and that whole family is done. He’s a lame duck President now, with a popularity rating about equivalent to your I.Q. Yes, it’s that low. No Bush will ever be President again, and America has grown tired of war. Unless attacked, we won’t be invading anyone for a long time. Got it? And if the Democrats weren’t a bunch of pussies, we’d be out of Iraq and Bush would be impeached by now.

Sometimes I wonder if Hugo Chavez is compensating for something. Or maybe, with all those beautiful Venezuelan women (as the resident expert in beautiful women, believe me, Venezuela ranks pretty high), maybe Chavez can’t get it up around them. Someone please send the guy some Viagra and maybe he’ll shut up.  He’s ruining my beer buzz.

Three years ago, we were flat broke. Being used to a good lifestyle, the three of us learned to have fun with no money.

If you need to save money, but still want to have a good time, here are a few tips.

1) Buy a deck of cards. There are dozens of fun games you can do with cards, and each game can last a night. I’ve learned poker, bridge, pinochle, hearts, and spades. When I have nobody to play with, I’ll play free cell by myself. No, not on the computer, but with my deck of cards.

2) Walk everywhere. Walking costs nothing and can be lots of fun. Walking also gives you time to just chill, and eases up stress. It gives me time to think. Walking at a slow pace allows free conversation. I love walking and talking with my family or friends. You know how alcohol loosens up the tongue? Well, walking does too.

I hate jogging. Not only do I not have the knees for it, it’s kind of anti-social, because you can’t really have a good conversation and jog at the same time. Walking is the antithesis of jogging. It’s easy on the knees and you can have the best talks.

3) Learn to cook. Cooking saves a lot of money. We stopped eating out completely when we were broke. Instead, I cooked. We saved so much money that way. I also intentionally cook too much food so we all have leftovers the next day. Saves a lot of money. I often have enough leftovers to share with friends at work. They all think I’m generous. They don’t realize how little I spend because I buy in bulk.

4) Get a library card. My wife and I both read a lot. The library is free as long as you remember to turn the books in on time. For me, I read almost 700 words per minute, so I often read an entire book in a few hours. To tell you the truth, I don’t have a library card. I just read the book there. I also hit the newspapers and magazines at the library as well.

5) Find out where the rich people get rid of their clothes. You’d be surprised. People think I spend a lot on clothes, but I don’t. I get everything from friends or from Salvation Army. I personally own several shirts from Nordstrum worth well over $100 each. I just don’t tell anyone I bought them at Salvation Army for $4 each. They’re in spanking brand new condition too. It’s amazing what rich people get rid of.

6) Find some friends to hike with. Hiking is also free, and it’s fun. You get the benefits of walking and get to see the outdoors. You can birdwatch when you hike too. I used to think that’s an old lady thing to do, but I’ve found it’s quite fun. Junior and I picked up some cheap binoculars and now can identify a bunch of different birds here.

All these things are cheap, or even free. The thing is, you don’t have to spend much money to have fun in this country.

If you have other tips, feel free to share ‘em.

As you may already know, H.I.M. is one of my favorite bands.  I got their newest CD Venus Doom the weekend it hit the stores, own all their CDs,
but missed seeing them at the Projeck: Revolution show.  Luckily, the second time around this tour in San Francisco, I got a chance to see them with fellow pretentious critic Kate and two other beautiful friends of mine from the softer gender.

Bleeding Through opened for them, and they were mostly forgettable except for their keyboardist Marta, who looks like she just put some clothes on after a Penthouse photoshoot.  Wow! She could also play.  But their music was nothing spectacular.  Kate told me she had already seen them this year when she went with fellow pretentious critic Badman to see Marilyn Manson and Slayer.

They played a short set, then left, leaving HIM’s six or seven roadies to design a strange set - rugs and stained glass lanterns, with weird lighting fixtures.  I was thinking it looked tacky until the lights went off and it actually looked pretty good.

H.I.M came on and the crowd went wild.  They played mostly songs from their newer two albums, neglecting entirely Deep Shadows and Brilliant Highlights, my favorite H.I.M album.

As a band, they were tight and hit all the right notes, but their sound engineer needs to be fired, ASAP! He was horrible, horrible.   This was my fifth concert this year, and of the major acts, H.I.M had the worst sound.  As big as they are (they’re all over the charts in Europe), they should have had bigger sound.  The ladies who went with me agreed, so it wasn’t just me.

The Warfield is a good venue, so that’s not an excuse.  I’ve seen Judas Priest there and they were perfect.

They did play Bleed Well, my favorite song from Venus Doom.  H.I.M knew how hard-core their fans were, so they played a lot of more obscure stuff, non-singles.  It’s always a pleasure to see a band do that.  I get sick of seeing bands play only their singles, and it’s usually their singles I get sick of first anyways.

Besides the sound, ’twas a good show.  Ville Valo has a gorgeous voice and Linde played some sick leads.  Gas is one heck of a drummer as well.  He did things live he doesn’t do in the albums.  They all have wonderful stage presence, and you could tell they liked being there.

After the show, I was in the bathroom and some guy in his 60s (probably a Warfield veteran) asked who the singer was.  I told him Ville Valo from Finland.  He said he had a beautiful voice and that they’ll be around for awhile.  Always a good thing to hear someone you could tell who’s been to hundreds of shows say something like that.

I hear politically correct people all the time brag about how they’re devoid of prejudice. Yeah, whatever. People like that think their doo doo doesn’t stink. In reality, if you removed the b.s., you’d have nothing but skin.

Has anyone ever bothered to look up the word prejudice in the dictionary? Any preconceived opinion or feeling, either favorable or unfavorable.

Well, I’ll be d*mned. You mean, there are favorable prejudices? Why yes, there are. Here are a few of mine.

I love riding in a car with rednecks. No, they’re not necessarily better drivers, it’s just that if the car breaks down, it won’t be me under the hood trying to figure out what the heck happened.

If a black man invites you over for swine, catfish, or crawdads, cancel ANY previous plans you had.

Gay men are pretty freaking good at cutting hair.

Gay women know exactly what’s wrong with your dog.

If I were holding a job interview for a Unix Systems Administrator, and some guy (or gal) walked in with green hair, a Ramones t-shirt, and facial piercings, I’d immediately abandon the interview and give them the job.

If I was looking for an Accountant and saw one with a $2000 suit and driving a Benz, he’d lose the job to the guy with an $150 suit and a Honda Accord.

If I were single and found out a cute girl had a great relationship with her dad, I’d be sold.

My s*** is safe around Christians or Buddhists.

But I love hanging out with Pagan women, for they’re the most likely to show me their hoo hoos.

I’ve always been good friends with bass players, because they don’t have huge egos and are pretty controlled when practicing martial arts.

My Mexican friends always have beer in the fridge.

Filipinos always have tons of food.

So do Hawaiians.

You can always get some sports game going with the Irish.

Democrats get your pop culture references.

Republicans pay the rent on time and don’t trash your house.

When I’m playing football, I’d rather throw it to a black guy because he can catch a pass the way God intended me to throw.

If I’m playing doubles ping pong, I got dibs on that little shy Asian dude with the glasses who always smiles.

Unreal. Just unreal.

I can say I told you so a million times over, but it’s getting old. I’m sick of saying it.

Don’t buy ANYTHING from China. It’s been difficult for us, but we’ve managed to cut Chinese toys and food products completely out of our lives.

If you haven’t heard, some Chinese manufacturer “unknowingly” used the wrong kind of glue, and those cute little Aqua Dots turn into Gamma-Hydroxybutyric Acid, or GHB, when swallowed. For those of you who have never been raving, that, my friends, is the Date Rape drug. No, I’m not kidding. A Chinese manufacturer has been “unknowingly” putting something that turns into the Date Rape drug into children’s toys.

So, enough is enough. Stop buying shit from China.

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Kathleen asked me why I don’t like Bush, knowing I was an economic conservative and gun-lover. Well, Bush is neither an economic conservative nor gun-lover. He pretends to like guns for votes, and is the worst spender we’ve ever had. Ever. He makes Jimmy Carter look responsible.

Bush inherited a budget surplus from Clinton. He turned it into an ungodly deficit. We now owe hundreds of billions of dollars to China. Our debt is in the trillions. Interest on the debt alone is hard to look at. The economy is a mess.

Inflation is just around the corner. Gas prices have skyrocketed. With gas prices going up, so has the cost of food, because food doesn’t magically transport itself.

The Euro, when Clinton was President, was a joke at around 80 cents. Now, it’s smoking us. The freaking Canadian dollar is now worth more than the American dollar. I’m not joking! Yes, the Canadian dollar is worth more than the American dollar.

Bush apologists will try to blame Congress. No. That’s just dumb. Bush has this thing called a Veto and he almost never used it. I’m glad he cut taxes, but with cutting taxes, you HAVE to cut spending. He increased spending to levels we’ve never seen in this country.

And I’m not even talking about real estate or unemployment, outsourcing, or using illegals to undercut the working class, more crap Bush screwed up with. Bush is not a conservative. He’s the farthest thing we’ve ever had from a conservative. Ever. The guy should be working in a circus, not representing our great nation.