Month: May 2004

 

Wash away the pain

So I went over Andy’s house about 3 or 4 hours ago…. It’s the first time I’ve been there since last September and from the outside the house looked incredible. Still a work in progress, but it still was incredible and I was proud of how well it was set up.

Then I got inside.

There was a vibe — I LIKE the house, I like how he’s constructed it, but there was a vibe… A bad vibe. Everything from yesterday just seemed to hang on the air. Animosity? Oppression? Disdain? Sadness? Anger? Torment? Abuse? Things like that just hung around the house.

Me and the majority of my family along with Andy’s best friend Adam went ahead and cleaned the house, and going through all of this — you could feel this bad vibe on all the dirt and grime of the house. Underneath it there was this feeling of love — a tormented feeling at that, like it was maligned by forces….

We got through everything and the house felt better — like we spread some good Karma in there. I am not one of those new-age people when you hear me saying stuff like vibes and karma, but things just felt more unified… Like we healed the spirit inside his house a little. I don’t know… Maybe it was just me?

Hopefully that good karma carries over for my brother and for my family and gets my brother through his time of heartache.

Manipulative…

I’ve bitched about people close to me — now I need to rant about someone close to someone else in my family who has truly shown herself to be a manipulative bitch…

Andrew – my younger brother — was accused yesterday of striking his girlfriends child. My younger brother would not raise his hand in anger, would not threaten the kids that he loves immensely. The only evidence on the GF’s side his her emotionally disabled (bi-polar and more) 4 year old son who ran off and got himself a bloody nose. She accused my younger brother and sided with a kid who doesn’t know right from wrong (I can vouch for this). She called the cops on Andrew…

And all I can say is that manipulative bitch

I could rant here but it gets too personal and I don’t want to go into that. I feel my brothers pain and feel a lot of anger for this situation he is in, from a girl who has always rubbed me the wrong way and now proven herself with false accusations to be the trash I always thought of her.

Transition Game

While I am a bit distracted with things going on in my life, though it’s not like I don’t have time to blog. I’m still trying to figure out just where and what I am going to take the Stonegauge to with regards to blogging…

Keep ranting about personal stuff? Take it more pop culture with entertainment things that I can’t always speak for when it’s current? (My Adaptation review was an old post, I comment on old songs, previously released movies, published books, etc) Political rants which are done better on other blogs and are the norm on the blogshere, and certain people I’ve met with Boltsmag talk about local issues pretty well….

Then we have the fact I do talk about sports here and there — Boltsmag is a success just because I really timed this shit well :smile. There’s writing stories I could give but those are about failure. Medical stories I could tell but those seem irrelevant…

This is the personal homepage of John Fontana but then again? I want the Stonegauge to be a place to stop by and have something worth looking into, commenting on or discussing. Not the garbage I’ve had lately. My April entry spurt was brought on by a certain someone who does a real good job of showing up when she needs a crutch, but avoids really well when things don’t fit her current schedule, which includes friendship..

I want to give “a better ‘Gauge on things” but damnit – I want it to be relevant in some way shape or form. It isn’t at this rate.

Nice Domain name…

As I continue to be distracted along with sorta lost what to gear the Stonegauge toward in my writing…

Lets just say this is not only an original domain name but it speaketh the Truth :biggrin

First Hand

“I killed innocent People for our government.”

This is why I am anti-Iraq. This is why others are like me… This is why chickenhawks remain pro-war: They’ve never experienced this first hand, they’ve always been locked up in boardrooms or have done a good job at avoiding military service.

I've said ti before and I'll say it again.

Ya gotta love The Instigator

The Following is an Advertisement…

The following is a post helping a friend achieve her goal:

Kayla is in love with Ben and wants the world to know

I’ve done my part to help her achieve that goal. :p 🙂

Play it out in your head.

I had daydreamed maybe Saturday while my room was getting a new wood floor… Or maybe it was Sunday when I was sitting idle…. I don’t know for sure but sometimes when I can play out instances in my head – scenes of stories or what-ifs, I can translate them into written works without much of a problem. Not when I force the issue (as I continue to do with the story I make reference to as “Peters Problem — 74 manuscript pages long) but when I let it play out naturally in my head with what one character would say and someone’s response.

And that has me writing again… Writing about a long abandoned story I hoped wouldn’t come true in one extent or another, but has….

I’m happy to report that I have ideas how to edit these stories together and how to edit the original concept of the story in order to make it a better narrative but… I need drive with that. Hopefully this second piece that I have been writing since Saturday Night will be that drive.

A mix of inspiration and perspiration… Not too shabby.

I don’t think this thing will linger into a huge tome but you never know….

Powell wants Outrage — and yet he doesn't realize he has it

Talk about hypocritical bullshit.

Colin Powell is pissed off at Arab leaders for not showing more outrage towards the videotaped beheading of Nick Berg – US citizen – by Al Qaeda operatives in Iraq

:rolleyes

I apologize for rolling my eyes over that to Nick Berg’s family and those who are outraged and disgusted by Nick Berg’s death. What I do not apologize for is the fact that Colin Powell is part of an administration that has caused mass death in Iraq through an unjustified war and the destruction of basic things in the name of conquest (not ridding Iraq of WMD’s, not trying to liberate the Iraqi people – conquest). Tens of thousands of deaths, not to mention the disgust of the entire world at the pomposity of the US administration with it’s cavalier attitude…

And you express disgust over insufficient outrage over one death?

What is the world supposed to show to you, Mr. Colin Powell? You’ve dyed yourself in disrespect through your loyalty to one of the most corrupt administrations in US history and have pushed forward false pretense for war and you expect outrage over one death? No, Colin, after all the Arab deaths you’ve caused — you need to express outrage towards innocents killed through war from both sides of the fray. Moreso the Arab deaths which have been routinely underplayed in the US and by the US Administration which doesn’t even TRACK these deaths. You’re the one that needs to express more disdain and sympathy towards the Arab people. Why? Because, as Kerryfuck so eloquently stated, you and your boss “fucked it up.” You fucked up allegiance in the war on Terror in the Middle East by invading a country that has nothing to do with it.

Powell requesting outrage for Nick Berg is Stalin requesting outrage if a officer in one of his detention centers is killed by a inmate who is being held against his will. It’s like George Steinbrennner requesting outrage because a team with a lower payroll beat his Yankees. It’s like King George of England requesting outrage because John Hancock had the audacity to sign his name big on the Declaration of Independence (“the Treasonous swine! He shall pay!”)

It’s bullshit, Colin, when you are causing outrage every day in every other nation with the murders that are committed, with the depreciation US Soldiers (the select few — not all of them) commit. Why aren’t you expressing more outrage, Colin, at the other sides losses? Why isn’t the President doing the same? Or Rummy? Or Condi? Or Tricky Dick Cheney?

The Flock of Seagulls knows no bounds… :rolleyes.

Kerry needs to put person in front of Politics

I like to joke in private that the turning point of John Kerry’s campaign – while he was being blasted and left for dead by Howard Dean before the presidential primaries — was his “Kerryfuck” scandal. John Kerry said during an interview with Rolling Stone Magazine, “Did I expect George Bush to fuck it up (Iraq) as badly as he did? I don’t think anybody did.”

Kerryfuck was born. Not just that, but it got me cracking jokes about his need to be obscene to get any press…. Well, I think Kerryfuck actually might be part of what John needs to get back into the press.

I looked in the St. Petersburg Times Perspective section today and like every other Sunday it is chock full of Bush talk… How bad Bush is doing, how Bush wouldn’t have chose this war if he served in one, how Bush this and Bush that… In each article there is brief mention of John Kerry as his opponent in November’s election and I have to wonder how much this is hurting John Kerry’s campaign.

Not only is John Kerry hurting his own campaign by not embracing the art of the Kerryfuck, the media is hurting Kerry’s campaign by focusing squarely on Boy Blunder and how bad things are going. Maybe it’s because Boy George comes off more like a human in screwed up circumstances than John Kerry? Kerry — a decorated war veteran and a Junior Senator from Massachusetts — comes off like a politician in his campaigning. He looks like the candidate who will kiss babies and then steal their lollipops in the future and not like the every-man he needs to be. He has that aristocrat flair of fictitious candidates / Presidents of the past — but does he have what it takes to seem less like a caricature and more like a human? Would John Kerry be willing to, say, show up at a Red Sox game, or perchance make an appearance at a Stanley Cup playoff game? That would certainly make him seem more human (he’s a big sports fan – that’s why I mention these things). Would he profit by making campaign stops, or by making TV appearances on Letterman, Leno, Kimmel, O’Brien and Kilborne (not to mention Jon Stewart which might trump all of the aforementioned talk shows)? By going shopping in a public place instead of having another dinner affair with chieftain fundraisers?

He’s got to generate interest in his campaign once again… For both the sake of getting media attention and for getting people’s attention. He needs to show the world that Kerryfuck – the relaxed and the more human side of John Kerry — exists and not the pompous asshole who campaigns and makes speeches and uses botox to not seem so old. He needs to get back to beating George W. Bush and not sitting back and wait9ing for Bush to beat himself.

Come on, Kerry, don’t further “fuck it up”… That’s George W’s Job…. America needs to get it’s head out of it’s ass and that will not happen with continued elitist arrogance from the Bush regime.

Thanks to my Friends

A couple of weeks old but thanks to Danielle (Finnaula), Melanie, Terra, Kari, Keith and others. You helped me through a tough spot and even though I’m still in that tough spot – I’ve got my eyes open now.

I could go into detail but that’s devoting more thought into a subject than the subject deserves. I”ve drowned my pains on that thought and if I use it again it’ll just be something in writing.

Lackadaisical

Oh sure there is plenty for me to post about in here– or more like RANT about — but I’m busy right now…

Most of my posts are being devoted to Boltsmag right now and that means my rants on Rummy, movies (The Last Samurai was good – though I can spoil it and say “…because it’s Tom Cruise” ), the weather, walking, furniture, flooring, etc…

As for now, digging up news on the Lightning and making the Boltsmag site more accommodating is where I’m focused…. Well, that and trying to rehab.

How is Chuck LaMar still Tampa Bay GM?

Would someone care to explain to me how this assclown still has a job?

Charles M. LaMar the worst General Manager in Baseball and one of the worst in pro sports in general, has not been held accountable for years upon years of sub-mediocre play by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. How many times do people have to point out LaMar needs to be held accountable? John Romano did it years ago. David Egbert has done it several times and in different places. Of course, I have done it more than once, on here. In the Times and elsewhere. And of course, even the message boards get into it — I mean you can even find stuff on FanHome quite easily…. over, and over, and over again.

And what do Rays fans get? They get LaMar for another two years thanks to him refurbishing the team with a new set of mediocre players.

What’s even worse? The assclown even blames himself for the team being abysmal. It’s like he’s mocking those who don’t like him or how he’s run this team. “Yup, I’m to blame but there is absolutely shit you can do. Nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah!”

I have followed Tampa Bay’s quest for a baseball team, I have had high hopes when the team came together and how LaMar was doing at the beginning…. but year after year, mistake after mistake – LaMar wore me down, he’s ruined my love for baseball by being the idiot who has been in charge of architecture of the league’s 30th franchise. He’s made me lose the pride I have in this area with a mockery of players that are also-rans, has-beens or never-will-be’s… And of course, when he does find a diamond in the rough – the player is assured to be traded for more questionables.

Yes, you can tell me that this is baseball and there is no such thing as a sure thing in this game… but after 8 years of LaMar at the helm of the Rays, 8 years of blunders, 8 years of mistakes, 8 years of zero accountability – it’s time to pull the plug and end this farce once and for all.

Fire LaMar. Fire LaMar now and declare this season over – as it has been since Opening Day for the Devil Rays.

What is the Purpose?

“I know why you’re here, Neo. I know what you’ve been doing… why you hardly sleep, why you live alone, and why night after night, you sit by your computer. You’re looking for him. I know because I was once looking for the same thing. And when he found me, he told me I wasn’t really looking for him. I was looking for an answer. It’s the question, Neo. It’s the question that drives us. It’s the question that brought you here. You know the question, just as I did. ”

“What is the Matrix?”

“The answer is out there, Neo, and it’s looking for you, and it will find you if you want it to.”

Night after night? Check. Hardly sleeping? Sorta check… Living alone? No but feeling alone? Check….

Searching for Him? Who Him? It? Her? Possibly…

What is the Purpose is the question that I am asking… and I honestly don’t know.

Just when you thought it was safe….

Just when you didn’t run into Full House repeats every night….
Just when you weren’t coming across their cheesy movies on TV when channel surfing….

Get ready for Olsen Twins porn! Coming soon!

Eating my words…

Blah blah blah… 107 million dollar opening…. blah blah blah

Now if the movie continues to be a hit for a couple of weeks, then I will truly have put my foot in my mouth… I still think the flick looks dumb.

Denial and Dehumanization

Saturday, letters were published in the St. Petersburg Times trying to justify mistreatment of those detained at the Abu Ghraib prison. They tended to be immature, at best, and evidence of how Americans will see only what they want to see.

One letter writer thinks “I’ll take a leash without any close compared to” being dragged through the streets and hung and burned. Of course, everyone is going to chose humiliation over death, but the letter writer neglects to bring up the sodomy and other mistreatment of prisoners, nor the duration of how long these people were exposed to such treatments. Death over long term humiliation is a tougher choice to make. The fact an exact date hasn’t been put on photos showing also factors in.

Another letter writer also makes the comparison to security personnel being dragged and hung last month and then claims, “how easily people forget.” The problem is, no one forgot that happened. We, as Americans, are supposed to be better than what has been revealed at the Abu Ghraib prison. Can you so easily justify sinking to an unmoral level?

One last letter writer states that last month’s horrid events in Fallujah need to be placed in front of these horrid events in a time line sense. I believe this is to justify the attacks against prisoners as “an eye for an eye”. Well, L. Paul Bremer stated on Friday that he had heard of abuses in Abu Ghraib by American Soldiers beginning in January… January certainly comes before April.

Don’t try to justify what US Soldiers have done in Iraq. We’re supposed to be better than that as a country. If our soldiers and citizens can justify dehumanizing citizens of the world for selfish reasons, than I want to know what happened to the America I grew up in and the land that I love?

Finally!

Finally! After years of research, our experts have found a word to define WTF in Internet speak!

Interestion!

Yes, Interestion…. A mix of Interesting and questioning all in one… WTF brought this on? A little birdie told me… Chirp, Chirp, Iggy, Iggy, Iggy… Chirp Chirp… :biggrin

interestion
in-tar-est-ion. v. — The art of “WTF”. Interesting and questioning all at once.
Usage: Keith thought things were in a state of interestion when he was banned from the message board for two weeks. :wink

Was I right about Van Helsing?

Maybe it’ll be a popcorn flick that you can’t possibly believe but find entertaining none the less, sorta like The Mummy Returns

But as it stands right now, I’m starting to feel I was right about Van Helsing with the thought it is going to tank. Or at least the reviews are starting to come in and no one is caring for it much besides Harry Knowles and the fan-boy Ain’t It Cool News crowd.

Yet I am sticking to my guns… More marketing than movie making. More play-toy designs than plot. More potential spin-offs than story. Marketing and the big studios is what kills film. You want a good monster movie? Go watch 28 Days Later which doesn’t use too much CGI to instill fear. If you want a good action/Sci Fi movie? Go watch Equilibrium which hasn’t gotten enough attention. Yes, both of those movies re-touch on subjects explored in other movies… But at least they aren’t films devoted to the almighty dollar and marketing before film-making and telling a story.

What is Real? "Linda" Washowski's gender isn't

I’m writing this post, not trying to slander the co-creator of The Matrix… I write it out fo shock from learning about it.

Larry Washowski… Half of the Directing and Creating team that brought you Assasins and The Matrix saga, is having a sex change operation. That’s right — Larry’s becoming Linda.

All I can say is that I am shocked… really… I mean…well, I haven’t ever really known anyone who wanted to make the gender switch. i still don’t but this is the most famous person I know who is going to go through with it…

John is watching 'Friends'

IMO, this might be the worst “comedy” since Seinfeld.

Yet, John is a self described “sap” who is spending tonight watching both the final episode, and tear-jerking retrospective.

What a sissy.

Feel free to flame him mercilessly. >:)

(Hey, I need to get even)

Stonegauge 3 – the search for Font

ARRRRRRRRRRGH!!! :mad

WTF is the Font I used to design the Title of this site?!?!?!?!

Something's Got to Give and Take

It’s late when I write this… Or early if you think of things that way… I guess it’s a “Half-empty”, “Half-full” kinda observation but whatever… That isn’t really the point I am trying to drive home in this post.

What is my point? I haven’t the foggiest. I’m just awake and bored and I have a few moments because I am not trying to write my story that I have been working on (the “Peters Problem” story is now 73 manuscript pages long and I am choking up because I don’t know if I shoudl continue or if the story is worth continuing or what).. That’s my first crux of the moment…. Maybe I am just wrong for writing it at all because it gets lame? Or I feel like it’s lame at least and I just need some input (which I am awaiting from certain people).

Maybe the doubts arose from watching Something’s Got To Give last night? Great movie but I felt like art was imitating life when I saw it. There were so many things that I could identify with from both the main characters…. well, except menopause, wrinkled asses, dating women half your age and of course — being 55+…. But other things, other issues… It was a real shot of deja-vu watching it… Uncanny…

That, or I am drawing too many thoughts from films. That was my initial reaction when I tried to put doubts into my mind. “You read too much into these things John. Stop taking them so seriously!”

But between the story and the movie — i just have doubts and have confusion. I hear the phrase over and over again that everything happens for a reason and I am trying to think of reasons why my life is how it is, why things go as they do. Am I supposed to fail in life? Is that my reasoning?

Yeah, that’s negative… That’s how I’m thinking right now though. Balls-to-the-wall honesty.

And I am also rambling here if you couldn’t guess… Not a clear, coherent entry and… Ah, hell, I just need something interesting and positive right now.

Film Quirks

I emailed my older brother Mike the other night after I came across a piece of movie trivia on IMDB that caught my eye:

(From The Matrix Revolutions
All of the crew members of the Hammer (with the exception of Captain Roland) are named after firearms (i.e. Mauser, Colt, AK)

Now most people won’t understand the quirk but I immediately put two and two together on this and thought of The Dark Tower saga and Stephen King. Roland of Guilead is the last Gunslinger and he is normally associated with guns – hard calibers, so to speak. I just had to pass that along to someone as a possible Dark Tower reference.

Of course, Mike could give a shit but you still gotta love him – for some reason :tongue

I also told Mike (after his “I could care” reply to my note) that I have been noticing another quirk lately7y that has been driving me bonkers just because it’s so obvious and so veiled at the same time. I’ve been thinking of The Godfather when I watch First Wives Club on cable. Diane Keaton yells something about “Uncle Carmine” and there is this weird progression that ties that line into the Godfather and Keaton’s role in it. (“Uncle Carmine” is what Bruno Kirby calls Marlon Brando’s character in The Freshman,. His full name is Carmine Sabatini and the character is a caricature of Don Vito Corleone, the character Brando portrayed in the epic Godfather film).

I don’t know, stuff like that has stuck out a lot with me lately. Anyone else have things like that happen when watching movies? Seeing ties to other movies and such?

"I had a bad day again"

I want to spit on someone or kick someone’s ass

I want to tear my entire house down and just start over.

I want to move

I want to do something… Besides write in the 2-D and accomplish minimum things through electronic impulses.

I want to take pain that people have caused me out on those people — just to see what they think of the shit they pull when it’s finally pulled on them

Yep, I’m having a bad day again…

Dependence

I admit it, I am a junkie. A total, dyed-in-wool junkie…

I want my walker fix, I need my assistive walker fix! If I don’t have my fix, I go crazy! I have a difficult time doing routine things like, well, walking! I need to lean! I want to lean! I want your support walker! UGH!

Seriously though, folks, being a gimp as my medical posts have so often referenced, I’ve been using a walker since last August and I’m starting to get peeved I am still dependent on it. Oh no, it’s not because I physically can’t walk without it any more… It’s that… Well, I can’t LET myself walk without it. It becomes so difficult!

I looked around the Internet and I couldn’t find anything on the psychological dependence patients build towards assistive devices in case they are using them for a long time. I’ve been confident that exists for a very long time after seeing plenty of elderly people, after surgery, insist on continuing to use assistive devices that they no longer need. It’s easier that way. I have to agree with them but at the same time — I’m a 24 year old and walking around as a gimp without something to lean on kills my social life.

Friend: “So, you wanna hang out?”

Me: “Sure, just make sure you drop me off curb side because the pavement is cracked in front of the building. Also help me get to my seat — screw chivalry! — I look like a fool pushing this aluminum walking thing around.”

Fun stuff :rolleyes

SO I gotta try to kick the habit. Be that by upgrading to a cane and making it Swing or by just getting rid of the walker and forcing myself to walk without it. Easier said than don, either way.

Maybe it's a sign

Lately I’ve been writing — that’s for another entry however — and en I finally went to bed at 20 til 2 I was pretty much spent and ready for sleep.

Well, that is until I notice the lightning in my window. I thought nothing of it and thought it was a distant storm, putting on a light show. After all, I had seen clear skies and distant storms that afternoon. Clear skies overhead.,..

Yet as the clock ticked to 2 AM the lightning became more frequent, more intense. I figured it would be a brief storm – they all are after all. .. And instead? I get to witness the most intense Lightning storm I have seen in my 15 years in Florida. Torrential rain? Sure… That went with the storm… Yet the amount of Lightning and thunder had me taken aback! There was a lightning strike EVERY FRIGGIN’ SECOND it seemed and if there was any time in between lightning flashes it was only a short interval of 2 to 3 seconds.

And it went on from just before 2 AM til past 3… It got so bad at one point I had sent Pager messages to my friends Bill, Keith and Michelle. It had woken Michelle up who answered the page I sent. She was up worrying about one of her cats that were still outside…

Mother nature is one raw bitch but she’s magnificent none the else.