Cool LOTR movie pic. It's not a painting. You can really see that the artists from all the LOTR calenders they used to put out have an influence in the movie design.

Here's a site with a bunch of them.

Whoa! JimS., I forgot about Bob and Pete. (The Roaches in Fat City) In reality we didn't just have two roaches, one named Bob and one named Pete. Roaches don't actually come in pairs like that of course. There were hundreds of those cute little guys. We just called anyone we saw that was lean and mean, Pete, and the fat and slower ones, Bob. Since John and I both slept on the floor, it was easier to handle their presence by pretending they were pets. You'd wake up in the middle of the night and see right in front of your eye this big roach with long antennae feeling all around and instead of screaming, you'd say, "Hey Bob!", with a loving smile. Then one would dart across your toes and you'd say, "My, my, aren't we fiesty tonight Pete... Goodnight boys, gotta big day tomorrow so I have to try to go back to sleep. Have fun!"

JimS.- I realize you said take these facts with a grain, but just for interest's sake I believe the fourth closest star is Banard's Star and it's only about 6 light years away, meaning you would only see 6 years into Earth's past. I think. I love the facts spread though. I've always wanted to know the speed stuff, but never got around to looking it up. Cool. I love that shit.

John - What can I say? I think of you often. Happy Birhtday, my friend!!! Let's see here, I've already told the story about how we met in the restroom at highschool and you introduced yourself by playing your drumsticks on the urinal while I was taking a pee and you asked me to join your band with Dale Bryant. I thought you were a freak then, and I still do now. I should be able to come up with some John story I haven't told a million times.

There's a bunch of police stories I know, like drunkenly falling down the escalator in front of the policeman, and drunk driving a van across a golf course with a bunch of police cars chasing you at an amazing 15 mph until you drove into a sand trap, and losing your job at the carwash when you forgot to lift a lever and knocked the cherries of a police car... Well, I digress. There are too many of those kind of stories to tell and besides, that's all behind you.

There's plenty of drunken stories like, Fat city brawls, the gay nightclub in West Palm, the hot tub incident in Carmel... nevermind... I can't do that to you. ...and you might resort to an eye for an eye.

How about a few good locational memories? The kitchen in Fat City where The Great Condiment War started, where the linoleum drunken water slide was created, where we hung all of our cool artwork.
The band room in Muncie, where you slept with your head on the pillow in your bass drum, where we finally realized the extent of Jimmy's morning grumpiness when he visited once, where we played Revolution for Lisa McMullen, where we had countless parties and wrote many songs.

O.K. all that was just for John's memory, but here's a story about John. Don't worry John it's not about the cancer/jockitch mix-up that you went to the hospital for either.

Actually it's not a ha ha story. It's not even a single event story. It's kinda sappy sentiment. It's an observation about John that changed my life completely. I was always concerned throughout my young adulthood about whether I was good enough to be friends with this or that person or were they good enough to be hanging around me. I had this whole level system going through my head. I used to watch John hang around and have serious discussions with people I considered trash. I saw it as a huge flaw of John's. I didn't realize what emotion I was perpetuating constantly about these people. It was hate. I never bothered actually talking to people to find out about their true character. As time went on and I had more and more life lessons of my own, I discovered that John had always been a saint with strangers. He just seemed to learn that hate wasn't worth it very early on in his life. My level system has almost, but not completely, dissolved by now and it's been a liberating concept for me. I have to say that observing John's empathetic behavior towards others throughout my lifetime has made me a much better person. Thank you John.

P.S. If any gorgeous women got all choked up about that last paragraph, my e-mail is mindevol@hotmail.com. I would love to get together and discuss it in person.

Amy - I just explored your links and took a look at your friend Melissa's blog and she says she's dreaming about throwing things around, breaking things, and hanging out with you. With you dreaming about earthquakes, maybe you two share a common situation that has slipped into both of your subconsiousness.

This weekend I was at Chris's throwing the football (american) around and a Limey named Ian actually went to that so often talked about place that I've defended in my mind a million times over. The American Football Player is a wimp for wearing pads thing. It went something like this.

Ian : "Have you ever heard about or seen English Rugby?"

Ben: "Yeah, but I haven't seen it much on T.V since I've been here. Is it out of season?"

Ian : "Yeah, Cricket is being played alot now on T.V. Rugby is a little like American Football, but it's a little rougher of a game. They don't wear pads like in American football."

Ben: I wanted to smile, nod my head, and politely say, "yeah...yeah... So I've heard." but what instead came out of my mouth was. "Yeah, I'd like to see what would happen if an average American 350 lbs defensive guard met an average 180 lbs English Rugby player in an ally."

Ian : "Then the American Football player would definitely need his pads."

Ben : "I think the pads are used in American Football because the players would die if they hit each other with the force that they do. I guess frolicking around on the grassy field with your pretty colored, pulled up socks and your shiny silk shorts is enough to protect you from an English Rugby hit."

Ian : He said something that everyone laughed at after that, but it didn't matter to me because I didn't hear it. I was already reveling over my cleverness in a dream-like trance of pride. So, I might have lost the arguement. I don't know, but at least I convinced myself that American Football is rougher than English Rugby.

I don't even watch sports. I have no idea what I was trying to accomplish.

Welcome Brad and Mitch! Enjoy the Blogging experience and be sure to discover Tanque.org. These are the folks that most of our dialog is with. If either of you like to do any creative writing, I've tried to keep it a theme of the Drunkenfish. Currently there are only three projects in the queue. 1. The Mars Blog - Create your own character in the year 2066 and keep a journal of this person's activities in a martian colony. 2. The DrunkenBattleBlog - whenever the urge strikes you to write in a drunken state, you can have at it. It has become more recently used for the day after, but there are no rules. 3. Stories on the main Drunkenfish page - Currently it's just pieces of my stories, but this is the oldest running project and the one closest to my heart. I'd like to take down some of my stories that have hit deadends, but in order to keep the idea up, I'm leaving them there until others write some stories. If any of these projects interest you or if you want to create a new project, just let me know at mindevol@hotmail.com

My best wishes are with Carrie and Shari on their journey back to academia. In accordance with what Ned said, I almost wish sometimes I was taking classes, almost. By the way Carrie, I always favored merchandise with anything to do with Grover from Sesame Street, but I'm sure you probably have different tastes.

I've not broken a single bone my entire life, except my skull.

1. Age 3: My brothers dropped an airgun from the roof of a fort on stilts onto my head in which led to me running around the back yard with blood spurting from my head like chicken on Sunday morning. Stitches on that one. Not sure how many.

2. Age 10 - Rock fight! Alot of bleeding from the head, but I don't think my skull was in too bad of shape.

3. Age 21 - On a tab, my friends decided to lock me in my room for my own protection, but instead I decided to escape out of my bedroom window, which didn't lead outside directly. It lead to the basement stairs. I got out to the basement stairs ok, but the door to go outside from there opened into the stairs and my friends came around to stop me from escape. Well, the door opened and I went backwards down the stairs on my back and through 5 pane glass windows which were laid against the wall at the bottom of the steps. I remember lying there looking up at a silhouette at the top of the stairs that said, "Is he dead?" I'm pretty sure I wasn't.

4. Age 26 - Clay told me the damn rope swing was safe and that they used to swing on it all last summer. I grabbed the broom stick through the knot on the rope and swung over the very large chasm only to hear "snap". Next thing I remember was what seemed like an hour long ride down the hill on my back using my head as a battering ram to clear the path. I climbed back up the hill afterwards with bloody head and face and was offered a fifth of scotch by loving brother Clay, not to tell his wife. I accepted.

All in all though, I think I'm just fine.

Dave - No, I don't have anything but memories of my grandfather. I do remember reading through a book called "The Bluebook Project" and reading a testimony by Jimmy Carter about a UFO sighting and looking up to see my Grandfather smile at me. I thought he was going to take it away from me, but he wasn't concerned. I was about 7 years old I think. That's about it though on the UFO thing.

Clay, you ignorant slut - I didn't mean to trash the reputation of a great man. I just thought it was kooky and entertaining that when I typed his name into google, I got all this UFO stuff. I only quoted that article, because that was the only article I found that had something to quote besides his name listed and the photograph. Personally, I'm not ashamed that he was a founder of the NICAP, but I suppose you and Dad disagree with me. So there! THpbbbphhht! P.S. I've removed the quote, but not the page.

I've never met you, but I'm always learning new words from your blogs. Happy Birthday Jim Robinson!

Wow, my grandfather was one of the Real Men in Black. I did a search on google for him and it came up with a bunch of pages on UFO's. His name is Col. Robert B. Emerson. He was one of the founders of the NICAP. I told my Dad, but I think he doesn't want his father to be remembered for that. I think it's cool.

Here's a page.



some other pages I found him on include: http://members.evansville.net/slk/state64.htm
http://www.li.net/~rjcohen/nicap.html
Here's a picture of him, but they named him Ralph B. Emerson by mistake
http://www.nicap.dabsol.co.uk/photo.htm

Ben's Resume

Objectives -

To get as much money as possible for doing a half-ass job until my eye catches something better to do.


College Career -

Two years at Ball State in Music Theory

1 semester at Dekalb Community College to prove that I could read for Georgia State University.

2 semesters at Georgia State University in Music Recording and Production.

2 semesters at Georgia University as an Anthropology Major.

2 semesters remaining at Georgia University as a History Major

2 semesters back at Georgia State University in Political Science

2 semesters back at Georgia University as an English Major.

2 semesters and then graduation with a BA in Geography and a minor in History from Georgia State University.

GPA 3.3/4.0 All D's and F's were removed from my record upon every college transfer.


Work History -

Current Job - Web Designer - Greenforge Consultants Ltd. - Manchester, UK - 7 months and still going strong

Systems Administrator - The Blood Center - New Orleans, LA - 1and a half years - quit

Network Technician - Adeeta - New Orleans - 6 months of contract work

Night Supervisor - Pelican Park - New Orleans, LA - 8 months - quit

Book Store Clerk - Waldenbooks - West Palm Beach, FL - 4 months - quit

Clerk - Texaco - West Palm Beach, FL - 1 month - quit

GIS Programmer/Cartographer - West Palm Beach County Government - West Palm Beach, FL - 2 weeks - never returned from surprise drug test

Photographic Production Engineer - National Enquirer Publications - 2 months - quit

Waiter - Appleby's - West Palm Beach, FL - 2 days - quit

Home Inspector - 5th Avenue Buliding Inspections - West Palm Beach, FL - 1 year - mutually agreed with boss to move on

Home Inspection Report Reviewer - Radon Analytical Laboratories - Indianapolis, IN - 1 year - quit

Laborer - Middle Earth Service Company - Indianapolis, IN - 3 months - quit

GIS Programmer/Cartographer - Gwinnett County Governement - Lawerenceville, GA - 1 year - quit

Enviromental Science Teacher - Outdoor Activity Center - Atlanta, GA - signed up for 6 months, did not sign up for a second term.

((This is where I graduated from College))

To go into my job history before this poiint would be extremely time consuming and insane.

I count close to 40 jobs from what I remember.


Activities -

Garage Bands, T.V., Computer Games, Miscellaneous chemical abuses, Amnesty International, job hunting.

The attitude that I've always expressed with my clothing has been that "I don't care about my clothing." This is a skill that I have dedicated much time and effort to masterfully craft.

The picture on the right also spells a word. The picture on the left is a couple kissing under an arch of grapevine. It took me forever to see the one on the left.

Well my company's site went live today. It's still not finished, but the main framework is done. Still need to add pictures, sounds, and my portfolio, but here it is.

Clay - Happy Birthday tommorrow! I think you're taking your frustrations about your lake out on that poor innocent man, the Governor. If I were you, I'd go over to Jim's, get really drunk, and then spout off your opinions to his neighbor in person. But that's just me I guess.

Jim S. - I think the haze is boredom and the only thought to keep you going is that there must be something better just around the bend. If there isn't anything naturally occurring around the bend, I'm sure you'll create something wonderful anyway.

Hank - I miss ya.

Heidi - You cheeky bird! Are we feeling randy? Are you wishing from all these responses that you didn't even mention the boy crazy thing?

        
Just two pictures that I like. You can see two different things in both of them. The one on the left is a little more difficult to see.

Mon Dieu! It works.... If I could just get blogger to make my first date the right size, I'd be in business. Check out the links. FLASH! Ahhahhhhhhhhh.... Savior of the universe!

My site here is going to be under construction for a while. I'm trying out a few things a little at a time. Maybe in a week or so, I'll have a finished design.

I've been wrapped up in business B.S. for awhile. Things are starting to pan out into a steady work rhythm now, so I hope I can start posting more regularly. I love the new designs I'm seeing. I'm jealous as hell. As soon as I get a free weekend, I'll have to try to keep up with the Jones'.

Sonya - Wow... I absolutely love your artwork.

I can't get over what a talented bunch of people this group is. You guys always surprise the hell out of me as I learn more and more about you.

Not much going on here... work, work, work.... I'd like to talk about something else, but that's all there seems to be at the moment.

I know, I'll make another trivial differences of England and the States list.

Some good things about England -

1. A jar of peanut butter only costs about 60 cents and really tastes like it uses real peanuts. Soup in a can that says it has meat in it, actually has alot of meat in it.

2. A great deal of the T.V. announcers here have severe lisps. (It cracks me up at least once a week.)

3. After a rain, these giant snails come out everywhere. These things are huge, and look like something out of a Lewis Carroll story. Also, I prefer magpies to crows. Magpie's just seem to have a whole lot of personality. They look just like crows except they are white with black wings and a black head.

4. English documentary's are in my opinion the best in the world, and I get to see alot of them here.

5. I've got hypothyroidism and have to take a pill everyday and go to the doctor's for a blood test once a year. The visits to the doctor and medication for this is free for me here.


Some bad things about England -

1. England closes at 11pm.

2. You have to pay a monthly tax to watch regular airwaves T.V. Also, I pay an $800 city tax (for fire, police, museums, etc...) on top of all my regular taxes. (The English sure do know how to tax.)

3. All the radio stations have the same fucking dance beat 24/7. With my napster now out of reach, I'm in musical hell.

4. A bottle of Jack cost about $50 and a pack of cigs cost about $7. (It's kind of good, I guess, 'cause I've had to quit both.) (wine and beer are the same price as in the States)

5. Tabloids, tabloids, tabloids!!! This country is star gossip crazy!

Well, that's good enough for now. I haven't sat down and actually read through the blogs in awhile. I'll try to catch up on the most recent ones. I hope everyone is doing well. Cheers.

Welcome back Becky.

wow, thanks for the link Ned. The Cave of Time brings back memories. I think I read all of Edward Packard's Choose Your Own Adventures. I even wrote my own in sixth grade. I think I got to about page 200 before I quit. Of course it was complete with my own pencil illustrations. Wish I could find that. It must be somewhere in my parents' attic.

Jim A. - I like swami.

Yeah.... someday I'm gonna own this pathetic little island.

Sean - I like the new look. I almost feel like changing mine now. Don't have that kind of energy at the moment though.

Let me set things right about the Chris thing.... Chris Lea is my boss, cousin, friend, money source. Chris Hill is my friend, Floridian, Navy guy, Jenwei totin' mutherfu... I love them both very much. hope that clears things up.

CHA CHING!!!! I just sold my first website to an insurance company for over a thousand quid! That's about $1,400.00 for you Yanks. Yessssssss! It's not up yet, but I'll link to it once it's in action. Da gears be a rollin', and da money be flowin'. (I'm doing the cabbage patch dance as I say this) Hopefully, Chris didn't name this company Greenforge for nothing. I have our company site up, but I designed it when I first got here so it pretty much sucks. I'll be revamping it sometime this month so I'll give a link then.

Sean, Dave, Phil - I haven't read any sci-fi for a while... ok, I haven't read anything for a while. I'm taking the entire list you guys came up with to the library this weekend and will pick one of them from my impression of the pretty picture on the cover or maybe something intriguing from the back synopsis.

Chris Hu. - First off, to prevent further confusion, I will now refer to Chris Hill as Hank and continue calling you Chris. Secondly, I think it is entirely cruel to make it impossible to back up from your site. Oh yeah, and I love the design, although it makes me doubt my worth or even my existence as a designer. Luckily, I live in England where the standards for a decent site are much lower.

Sonya - Sorry about the confusing CBD (Central Business District) reference. Jim S. says that it is a N'awlins thing, but I could have sworn I've heard that term in other cities. Anyway, I felt that if I went down to the CBD of any large city and wandered around for a while, my mind would have a picture engrained into my visual cortex very much resembling your painting which would then be stored away in the depths of my cerebellum to be brought out when anyone said a word that even slightly hinted at a CBD. Now that you have shown me this painting, I've brought my own version back into conscious thought, put it and your painting into my frontal lobe for comparison and analysis, and after a week or so both will be put back into memory as a new thing. Of course there are emotions attached to these visuallizations and everybody probably feels a little different about this kind of image, but that's the beauty of a picture like that. Being a suburban boy who eventually moved to the big city, several in fact, it represents the cold, harsh reality of a netless adventure.

Hank - I think John and Jen are a myth as well. I went to his wedding and there was this big guy in a tux who was pretending to be John, but the booze was free so I didn't say anything.