Feh.

What in the wide wide world of sports is wrong with my website? Apparently somebody needs to go back and get a shitload of dimes.

Someday I'll be able to write funny things again.

You would be proud of me. The other day I actually used, in actual conversation, the phrase "bodacious ta-ta's". It's been ten long years
since I last heard that phrase. I was so proud, but damned if I wasn't lauded as a master of verbal vomit.

Southpark last week had Cartman make a $20 bet with Kyle. The bet was that Cartman could shove food up his butt and shit out of his mouth. The entire school spent 5 minutes watching Cartman kneel at a toilet, "huuugh.....huuugh.....hughhhh." He was eventually successful.

The Battle of the Bed continues. Ronda now occupies approximately 76% of the available surface area, having recently taken over the much contested southwest corner of the bed. Little does she know that if I can tuck the sheets real tight, I can use them as a hammock. I'll use that as a last resort.

Feh, it's like I get the website to where I can simply update it, but then I can't find the time. Is there such thing as Premature Aging?

Honestly, I'm not sure anybody even reads this page anymore. I haven't had a signature in my guestbook since the Clinton administration.

Better get this out now: Saw Attack of the Clones 11 times. The first time dressed as Yoda with my wife more than a dozen of my other friends, being interviewed on News 8 Austin. Best part about that was the fact that my interview had my voice talking about how much I liked Star Wars while the screen showed clips from the movie. One of my interviews (the one right before walking in the door) was based on the premise that I was actually Yoda. My quote: "Much booty will I kick."

The last time I saw Episode 2 was with several people from the first group, including Ronda, up in Dallas at Texas' only theater with Digital Projection. I won't bore you with all of the details of what digital projection is, or why it's a big deal. Let's just say it made the 10 previous viewings of the movie look like I saw them through a fog.....digital projection is that good.

I'm sure some of you out there are wondering what I do with all of my time, since it obviously isn't being spent updating the website. Work has gotten incredibly busy, with me raising statistical hell down upon those who can't copy numbers correctly....of course, it's more technical than that, but that's basically what it boils down to. Warcraft III came out several weeks ago. After many attempts at playing online, I've determined that, given the means, I would personally like to hunt down every living soul who has ever played against me in that game. Of course, giving them credit as being living souls is misleading. I completely believe that 99% of the people on Battle.net are soulless devourers of all that is good. Evil beings bent on spitting and defiling normal, humane acts of decency into oblivion. And all of these people use Huntresses. Every. Single. One.

Of course, if you don't play the game, you can't possibly know of the joy of which I speak. Makes me want to go play my Gamecube on my new TV.

Sorry. Went into the future there. I don't have a TV yet. But plans have been set in motion. Plans the likes of which have yet to be seen by human eyes. Plans which, once revealed decades from now, historians will publish tomes of literature regarding how, in the unlikeliest of unlikelyhoods, Tony Smith was able to convince his wife Ronda that they not only desperately needed, but could afford, a 34" 16:9 Widescreen High Definition Television (yes, it must be capitalized).

Indeed, "Project: Digital Goodness" is not some quick, simple scheme...but an elaborate, in situ torrent of suggestions. Nuggets of well placed info timed with the very same accuracy that landed Man on the moon. Comments placed over the entire course of 2001-2002. Some would think environmental engineering, dealing with the statistics of rivers, bays, estuaries, and the like would equate to some pretty tough calculations. But the level of calculation involved in "Project: Digital Goodness" makes mathematical models of chaos theory pale in comparison. Seriously, how much information do you think is out there regarding how long 7 pair of boxer shorts can be made to last, and the subsequent money saved that can be put towards the purchase of digital bliss? I'm not a husband looking for the latest and greatest gadget, I'm a pioneer.

If successful (thus far my informants suggest a probability of success of 53%), I plan on publishing my work. I knew things were going well when, at Fry's several weeks ago, a Panasonic salesman gave Ronda two, count 'em two, Beanie-Baby Dalmations. You just can't plan that kind of luck.

Well, we're camping out for Star Wars Episode 2 as of 12:30 p.m. Monday, May 13, 2002. We are the third group in line, with the two groups before us consisting of 4-5 people each, so we're actually about the 10th people in line.

My wife Ronda and I (I love saying that) went up late Saturday night and spoke with the first two people in line, Phil and Adrian. Phil is a movie critic www.PhilipsFilmReviews.com and has been in line with his girlfriend Adrian since last Wednesday, May 8. They finished class May 8th, and do not have jobs lined up yet. Once again (see my Episode 1 story in the letters archives), the homeless and retired have beaten me in line. It is a testament that I do consider homelessness and retirement viable options for getting a better spot in line for Episode 3. Anyway, Phil's friend Drew is a civil engineering student, who currently lives in Chicago, and made the trip down to see it here in Austin with Phil and their other friend Brian. Needless to say I intend to start a civil engineering company specializing in all things Star Wars with Drew as soon as he graduates. Look for a Darth Vader Wastewater Treatment Plant coming to a city near you.

My brother Todd is making this all possible, keeping our spot in line while I work. Todd came down from Tyler last night so we could get this party started. Turns out the second group in line, right in front of us, is the group from Aint It Cool News. You may have heard of the website's Harry Knowles, the large red-headed man from Austin who was shown on news channels all over the nation for being the first person, outside of Lucasfilm, to see Episode 2, alone in a hotel room with two mysterious people who wanted him to spread the word that the movie was good. I'm unsure if Harry is actually a part of the group that will see the movie or not.

Of course, it hasn't gone un-noticed that besides Todd and I, the rest of the people in line do this stuff for a living. Blame this all on my parents.

We are at the Metropolitan Theater in South Austin. Funny story: The line at the Gateway Theater in north Austin has been going for about 3 weeks now. They had a big, lifesize cardboard cutout of Jar Jar Binks with the quote "Weesa Back" standing at the front of their line. Apparently a few nights ago a few of those in line woke up about 2 a.m., to the sound of screeching tires. They only saw a white Ford Bronco speeding away and heard somebody yell, "Jar Jar is ours!!!" Needless to say they are currently petitioning online for a massive manhunt of the stolen Jar Jar. So if anybody sees O.J. with a Jar Jar cutout, he be guilty.

I'll continue to update here when I can get my hands on a computer. Those of you reading this that live in Austin, feel free to drop by the Metropolitan Theater any night between now and Wednesday to say hi, as we will probably be in dire need of entertainment. Any donations or temporary loans of Mountain Dew, burgers, candy, laptops, and Gameboys would be appreciated.

Well, Ronda and I raced over to the Metropolitan theater just a few minutes ago...look what we got (for ourselves and a few...eh, a lot of friends):

For those of you that know me, you know I'm giddy. Now the debate is whether to dress as Yoda or Pimp Lando.

Nothing I ever do is normal. And even though I know that whatever I'm likely to do will be abnormal, it usually ends up being more abnormal than I ever intended it to be. Such is the tale I am about to tell.

Last Thursday I had my wisdom teeth removed. Always a pleasurable experience. Doping myself up on vicatin, for the entire weekend I lumbered about consuming massive quantities of Chicken Noodle O's and Malt-O-Meal. I seriously thought I was slowly turning into pudding.

As Sunday approached, I began to regain consciousness, remembering that Star Wars Episode 2 toys were to go on sale Monday night at midnight. Only three Toys R Us stores in Texas were going to open at midnight for the big sale, and one just happened to be five minutes from our apartment. The event is called Midnight Madness, and not without reason. Basically, when the first movie came out three years ago, nobody was prepared for the throngs of twenty-something grown men willing to claw, scratch, and beat their ways into stores across the nation in search of new Star Wars toys, hence the name Midnight Madness.

So this time Toys R Us prepared (I wonder if at the Toys R Us headquarters they have a backwards "R" key on their keyboards). Starting Monday morning at 9:30 a.m., they would begin handing out tickets starting at 1 and going to 200. Then, Monday night at midnight they would let the first 25 people into the store to shop leisurely for about 15 minutes, then let the next 25, and so on. Essentially, this just shifted the line waiting from Monday night to Monday morning. However, this also meant that if you wanted to be sure you got your pick of what you wanted, you better be in that first group of 25. Ronda and I made a plan.

Basically, starting Sunday we would go by TRU (Toys R Us) every 3-4 hours to see if a line had started. It would be every 3-4 hours because that's how long it would take for my medications to wear off (can't drive when you're high on the vicatin). Whenever a line started, we'd just jump in wherever we caught it, hopefully before the 25th person. So I went to TRU about noon, and nobody was there. When I went back at 2:30, nobody was there, and it was such a nice day I figured it be fun to camp in the car, thus we'd be there whenever the line started. So Sunday, at about 2:30 p.m. I started camping out in front of the TRU, in the back of our Ford Explorer. I went in and talked with the staff, asking questions about how everything will be set up (for Episode 1 there were big kiddy pools filled with toys, with morons diving over each other trying to get everything they wanted), will there be security etc... Ronda was concerned about staying in a desolate parking lot all night in front of a Toys R Us, something to do with bowling ball thugs I imagined.

They asked when we planned to get in line, and I told them we were already in line, camping out in our car. They were amazed, but very nice to us regardless. So I bought some Mountain Dew, went back outside and kicked back in the rear of my Explorer, reading a book and relaxing. At this time I start evaluating my life. There I was, loaded up on drugs camping out on the streets of Austin, only able to talk out of one side of my mouth, and even that was a barely coherent mumble. I was truly an Austinite, if I could just find a hemp jacket.

Anyway, I'm kicking back, when I see a police car pull up to the exit of the TRU. I figure the employees had called security to let them know that there would be people camping in the parking lot that night. Then, another police car pulled up at the entrance to the building, the cop jumped out and ran inside. I started paying more attention then. Two women walked out of the TRU, one in a nasty looking blue moo-moo with purple flowers, the other in a yellow shirt. The woman in the moo-moo started running. The cop car at the exit turned on its lights, raced over, the officer jumped out, caught the woman, and cuffed her and her friend. The first cop and some TRU employees I had been talking to earlier came out pointing at the lady. The guy in the car next to mine slid down in his seat. That's when I grabbed my video camera!

As one of the other employees told me later, they had caught the women using fake checks. For three hours I watched these police officers take turns holding the checks up to the sun and look for something. I'd have guessed a watermark, but surely there had to be something more to constitute them taking 3 hours to find it. Kids going to TRU that afternoon were thrilled, as each one took a turn screaming "Cops!" and running.

So just about when all this was wrapping up, Ronda drives up with all the smart camping equipment (aka food, or in my case Chicken Noodle O's, pillows, and an electric fan. We giggle at this being our first camping trip together, and every once in a while we would see employees peek out the store windows to look at the married couple camping out for the tickets. At about 8:30 p.m., it began getting dark, and we started settling in. The store had been closed for a while now, and employees were leaking out of the building to go home. One of the employees came out and said that we had been there long enough, and were officially the first ones in line. She said they thought it was great that a cute married couple had beat out all the scalpers.

They gave us our ticket (#1!!!), and said we didn't need to camp out, as long as we were there before midnight! Ronda was ecstatic (she loves Star Wars as much as I do, but wasn't terribly giddy at the thought of sleeping in the back of the Explorer all night, even with me), and we thanked them profusely. We slept very well that night.

So after work Monday evening we went home a napped, and at 10:30 we went up to the TRU. Already there were 150 people in line, and the Austin garrison of the 501st Stormtroopers. These guys had professional costumes (even their voices were electronically synthesized through the helmet).

We were told that a guy doing a fan film was looking for us since we had ticket number 1. He interviewed us both for his movie, then followed us around the store once we went inside. Somebody had a 2 year old dressed up in a perfect replica of a Jawa, and the kid was absolutely great. The entire crowd loved him. He was wondering about looking at the toys, and Ronda bent down and asked him, "what are you looking for?" The kid replied, "I'm looking for my daddy." Cutest thing I've ever seen at a Star Wars gathering, although now Ronda wants to have a child now so that by the time Episode III comes out we'll have a Jawa to dress up of our own, and if we're LUCKY we'd have twins so the other could be an Ewok.

I bought one of everything. Regardless, TRU did not have many of the figures, so Ronda and I went over to Wal Mart as soon as we were done at TRU. Wal Mart was not the same story. Scalpers were everywhere, rude as can be. They were throwing stuff everywhere and grabbing dozens of toys when others had none. They were blocking off areas with their shopping carts. I caught one guy sneaking a royal guard (the rarest by far here in TX) out of another guys basket, but I persuaded the jerk to give the figure back and apologize (down with the Man!)

In all, it was absolutely great. Ronda (this being her first midnight madness) had a blast. We ended up with one of everything, except the Royal Guard.

A happy ending. I called Todd (who lives in Tyler for now) at about 1 in the morning and he said he was basically standing alone in a Wal Mart looking at a thousand toys. Not a soul there with him (not surprising, when I lived in East Texas it was the promised land for finding any toy you wanted). So my brother went through and found 4 royal guards, one for me, one for my wife, and two for his collection.

Well, I've updated the site. I plan on going back and adding some funny stuff, but I wanted to get the guts of it up and running first. For those of you who might not know, a blog is a "web-log". Hence the witty lingo. As always we here at the Electric Mayhem are on the foreskin of technology.

Hi! Just a quick note to show off my new blog (Web-log).