Variety is the Spice of Life. It's also a Movie-plugging, Word-coining Magazine.

It seems like each time I get back into the groove [ed. note: that is, posting here more than once every two months], I'm back apologizing to you for my unexplained, sometimes unjustified absence. That said, I will never apologize again. To anyone. For anything.

Ever.

Regardless, as a token of my appreciation for your continued reading patronage... and instead of just calling the three of you personally, I present to you this: the variety show of blog posts.

This post will cover a variety of topics (fancy that), that have occurred over the last few months in a variety (fancy that) of facets of my life, and in a variety (okay, I'll fuck off) of fashions. So, without further ado, the variety show of blog posts.

Carol Burnett would be pround [ed. note: she'd also be proud... gotta love those typos].





Episode 1: Show of Hands - All in Favour of Carnies?

So I'm minding my own business and bartending at my usual breakneck pace, flingin' drinks up and down the bar with a finesse and that makes it look like Tom Cruise's first day in Cocktail, and suddenly the circus shows up.

I say "the circus shows up" and some people think I'm just trying to be cute; I do, however, assure you that I'm just cute on my own, and that the circus actually did show up for a round of booze.

Or six.

Now, collectively we're thinking:


COLLECTIVELY: Six drinks? I have that with breakfast.


But when each drink is a thirty-ounce "schooner" of beer (equal to three bottled-beer a piece) and the intake duration hovers somewhere around four hours, you become one thing and one thing only - drunk as fuck.

[ed. note - this was a draft of a post I started writing in either late July or early August... and obviously didn't get around to finishing. Don't take it personally though, I still love you; and probably more than your parents do.]




Episode 2: Life is a Highway... of Fruit.

So I've left the service industry... moved away from home, started, quit, and started a new job, and tried a new piece of fruit.

Firstly, the fruit.

Whilst perusing my local market with Vegetarian Girlfriend and Vegetarian Girlfriend's Non-Vegetarian Friend, I stumbled [ed. note: with the help of Vegetarian Girlfriend's Non-Vegetarian Friend, it must be noted] upon what can only be described as the equivalent to the second coming of fruit: the Grapple. It's better than all the other fruit now that it's here, but noone's really sure if it ever existed before now despite the fact that some religious scholars insist it did.

Too far?.... Moving on.

A Grapple looks entirely like an empire apple. The skin feels a tad more waxy than a regular apple, but that's probably to facilitate the point of the anomaly itself.

It smells and tastes like a grape.

Yep. A grape.

It must be said that the smell is nothing short of intoxicating. The taste leaves a little to be desired, however, if not only because you can still taste apple amidst the grape flavouring. The colour's the same as any other apple, but the end result is outstanding. Pick up a Grapple today.

Anyway, I've moved from my Dairy Capital to a place less familiar but not without its milk. In order to do so, I had to quit my bartending job.

I was fine with that.

I'd found another.

In order to support myself, however, I needed a bartending job that's end result was somewhat similar to the first job's end result. That is, I needed to be making some money.

Sadly, I was not, and so have left that job and instead went unemployed for a ballpark month. Hooray! I figure it was sound logic, anyway.

Alas, I am back with yet another job to make me some Christmas currency before the bomb drops. Thank God for That.

Ok it's time for lunch.

Who am I kidding? It's time for Grapple!!




Episode 3: The Osmonds Can Go Fuck Themselves

Donnie Osmond is a piece of shit. In fact, the whole Osmond "clan" is a rancid pile of regurgitated feces.

Just tell me you think otherwise. I'm begging you.

Anyone who won't man up to being sick and tired of the Osmond family's collective assholish boo-hooing deserves the eternity of Donnie & Marie that they've probably already pre-programmed for themselves on their Tivos.

Every time I turn around someone is shitting themselves [ed note: mostly other lame-ass shit-eating TV personalities] over the problems that the Osmonds have overcome in the last two or three decades, but guess what?

Nobody actually gives a shit.

Got a drug addiction? Know what? That's your own damn fault. Going through a messy divorce? Guess what. So is half the world.

Every time I turn on the television after dinner, it's Entertainment Tonight; and, unfortunately, every time it's Entertainment Tonight, it's Donnie-fucking-Osmond to the rescue of every man, woman and child, begging on bloody knees to know if Marie, his beloved sister, is still being a useless ham-sandwich on Dancing with the Stars.

And each and every time it's Entertainment Tonight and Donnie-fucking-Osmond to the rescue, I want to stab myself in every orifice in my head with a number 2 pencil.

Simply put, the man is a twat.

To elaborate, his whole family are twats.


But listen.

You lost your mom and dad. I understand. The world understands. Collectively, the whole planet has lost a lot more mom and dads than the Osmonds [ed. note: though it is actually too close to tell if this statistic is true or not], and yet somehow we prevail; however, when our careers plummet as a result or in the midst of these losses, we don't get on national/international television and bitch and moan and play sad, coy puppydog with the already fully aware public.

Marie being on dancing with the stars was a slight novelty. So was having a racecar driver, a soap star, a spice girl, and a sultry model. It was interesting that once a week we got to see such a mish-mash of has-beens, currently-beings, and coming-backs perform a task of which none of them are known for - like, say, watching Britney Spears rear two human children. Marie appealing to the public on live television to vote for her because she's had a "rough week" in which both her father died and her son was committed to rehab is a shameless, embarassing joke of a ploy to get people to feel sorry for her.

Disgusting.

Furthermore, Donnie Osmond "teasing" us with an ever-increasing convincedness of his own increasing convincingness every ET commercial break with "stay tuned to find out what Marie had for dinner after the show, and why it's helping her dry-fuck the air a little harder," is not a compelling, interesting, or altogether reward-worthy activity.

Is Donnie Osmond getting paid for being on ET?

You bet your teen-idol ass he is.

But why?

How is the world embracing this asshole and his apocryphal family? How can any self-respecting, and currently self-appointed "celebrity" be so publicly shameless?


ME: So, Donald, who do you think is going to win Dancing?
DONNIE: (annoying laugh) Call me Donnie.
ME: What? Why? Donnie is a little boy's name.
DONNIE: (annoying laugh) Call me Donnie.
ME: (staring) O..okay... whatever. Who's going to win Dancing, Donnie?
DONNIE: What? Marie!! There is noone else good enough!!!!!1!!11 (annoying laugh)
ME: What's with the "1"s in there?
DONNIE: I'm just so excited! Marie has this locked!!
ME: Fuck, seriously, just go die somewhere.
DONNIE: (serious face) I actually don't have a soul.
ME: Well, that's honestly not at all a surprise.
DONNIE: (annoying laugh)


This is what happens to you when you're a 'teen idol' for, well, all of your teen years. This is what you're left with decades after embracing a child-then-teen who, by all accounts, was not a lot more than annoying in the same way a bees nest is. This is what happens, 1970's.

Shame on you, 1970's.


What's worse is that, finally, it seems at least a small division of the world is also sharing this disgust for the Osmonds and making a point to try and tarnish their reputations.


NEWS REPORTER: Reports from an unknown source tell us that there is a mystery 'man' behind Marie Osmond that has appeared at every Dancing taping in the shadows and secretly fed her hand-written lines so as to enhance Marie's wit and unabashed cuteness. Reports also indicate that her faint may have been staged!!!11!1!!


Sigh.

Bang-up job, Frank, you really put the nail in Marie Osmond's coffin.

Seriously, Holy Christ. Is this an honest attempt to tarnish a woman's image, or a blithering child practicing words while finger-painting with lead based paint on the front-fucking-door?

I hate the Osmonds. That's a fact. However, I in no way fathom that anyone could fake an on-stage faint, whilst in the middle of all this turmoil, simply to boost ratings and voting support.

That type of action is no less appropriate than genocide.

So, while this report is about as fruity as the seven-dwarf nature of the brothers, if there is any credence to it I stand firmly and say proudly that the Osmonds are no better than Nazi Germany.

As for the 7-dwarf comment, here's the rundown. The Osmond brothers are made up of a guy with a small face/big head, a guy that looks like Louie Anderson [ed. note: ugly as sin], Santa Clause, and a few others that noone remembers. Take a look.


I guess our boy Donnie needed a neck-brace for the induction ceremony.

Jesus, don't even get me started.




Episode 4: That's the Game.

So that's all she [ed. note: "he"] wrote. Keep in touch, Carol.

Not you, Osmonds.