rivercityvibe   “Puerile, smutty, schoolboy nonsense” – My Mom

It is a staple of the crime and punishment debate that prison holds no fear for some, negating its supposed deterrent effect. I am sure that you, like me, welcome the efforts of a criminal court judge in Australia to rectify this and increase the fear factor of a custodial sentence among young people. In issuing a formal warning to a young, persistent offender, Reuters reports that Magistrate Brian Maloney said,

“You’ll find big, ugly, hairy strong men (in jail) who’ve got faces only a mother could love that will pay a lot of attention to you — and your anatomy,”

and that breaching any of the conditions set for the teenagers release would see him,

“showering with the gorillas in the mist down at Long Bay jail.”

He's goin' to get him some......

It gives you faith, doesn’t it? I have never been to Australia but on the strength of this, I’d like to. Apparently it is not anything like you’ve been led to expect through Crocodile Dundee movies. One of my buddies came back and described it as:

“Surprisingly as you’d imagine 1940’s Britain…..”

Surprisingly, the marriage of Verne Troyer (known best as Mini Me, from Austin Powers), to 5’6″ Playboy model Genevieve Gallen was not entirely a bed of roses. On the upside, there was a lot of creative sex

She recalls: “I would dress up in my sexiest lingerie every day and try all sorts of role-play games. Sometimes I dressed as a prostitute, other times a cheerleader—and even a schoolgirl.

“I once put on a dark wig, some sexy lingerie and put on a Russian accent so he would think I was a high class call girl.

On the downside, his pad was very small:

…….she felt like Alice in Wonderland when she first went back to Verne’s place . . . a SHED at the the end of his manager’s garden. “It was a little off-putting because everything was so small,” says Genevieve.

“There was a miniature futon and a miniature refrigerator and bed. The light switches were all down at the level of my knee and the toilet was no bigger than a child’s potty.”

Conjures up downright WEIRD images......

The News of the World also reports that Troyer’s drink problem turned him into Doctor Evil and spelled the end for the fairytale marriage (see what I did there?):

Gernevieve claims the star would knock back up to a litre of vodka and a 12-pack of Budweiser in a single day. It soon affected their sex life.

“Soon after I met him he almost drank himself to death. I heard he was in hospital and when I got there he was lying in bed covered in vomit and diarrhoea,” says Genevieve.

Not ideal. The Lollipop Guild were pissed. He’s ruining it for all aspiring little people who want some Playboy strange.

I note that the former Yugolsav nation of Croatia has joined the rivercityvibe community. Dobro došli, y’all!

In celebration, here is the lovely Nikolina Pisek:

Croatia is our NATO ally, these days. Result!

As you may know, I am a big fan of craft beers, particularly traditional beers from the British Isles.

Beer that has not been ruined by the (German) lagering process, basically.

That’s why I am delighted to read that a bar franchise in Britain has announced that it will beat the recession by reducing the price of its beer to “99 Pence” a pint. Apparently, a pence is like a cent, and this works out at  today’s exchange rate at $1.43 or thereabouts. Not bad, when one considers the last time I was in London, a pint cost me close to seven bucks.

But the thing that makes this a real winner for English drinkers is the fact that “a pint” over there is 20 ozs, compared with 16 ozs here. Check out the usual source.

The pint is an English unit of volume or capacity in the imperial system and United States Customary Units. The imperial version is 20 imperial fluid ounces and is equivalent to 568 mL, while the U.S. version is 16 U.S. fluid ounces and is equivalent to 473 mL.

(Not many people know that.  Welcome to the ranks of the cognoscenti….)

Like beer, but about ten times better

Also, you only have to be eighteen to drink over there. Which avoids our own ludicrous situation whereby you can be a marine sniper engaged in combat operations in Iraq,  and be arrested for having a beer to celebrate your safe return home…….

I am occasionally asked (mainly by the women in my life) why rivercityvibe loves Lindsay Lohan so much. I hate answering this ridiculous question (it gives me a pain), so have devised a game to lessen the boredom for me. I drew my inspiration from Boggle. In this case, I replace letters with words and you must unscramble them to get the answer. Seriously, it’s like “Word Boggle”, for idiots.

If you would like to play, just make three pairs from these six words:

HAIR. SLIM. RACK. WAIST. LONG. ENORMOUS

(Clue: “Long rack”, “enormous waist” and “slim hair” is not the right answer).

New Year's Eve 2008 - Miami Beach, FL.

Stay tuned for MUCH more of this. Welcome to 2009.

I bow to nobody in my admiration for Dr. Dre, Snoop, Biggie and the rest of my homes, ya feel me? Dre’s song “bitches ain’t shit” is a favorite of mine.

Sometimes, however, it’s nice to go back to a simpler time, when songs went unarmed and hairstyles did not matter. To sum up my feelings this morning, I have dug deep and come up with a timeless classic. Control your ADHD and watch/listen to the whole thing. It will make your day a tiny bit better.

And that is a rivercityvibe guarantee.

No more champagne
And the fireworks are through
Here we are, me and you
Feeling lost and feeling blue
Its the end of the party
And the morning seems so grey
So unlike yesterday
Nows the time for us to say…

Happy new year
Happy new year
May we all have a vision now and then
Of a world where every neighbour is a friend
Happy new year
Happy new year
May we all have our hopes, our will to try
If we dont we might as well lay down and die
You and i

Seems to me now
That the dreams we had before
Are all dead, nothing more
Than confetti on the floor
Its the end of a decade
In another ten years time
Who can say what well find
What lies waiting down the line
In the end of eighty-nine…

Happy new year
Happy new year
May we all have a vision now and then
Of a world where every neighbour is a friend
Happy new year
Happy new year
May we all have our hopes, our will to try
If we dont we might as well lay down and die
You and i

(Oh, and Jacksonville is asking “is that Bobby S. on the right hand side?”)

It’s Amateurs’ Night tonight. The night where people who do not drink in any meaningful way all year, suddenly start talking about how they are going to “see it through ’til dawn” with some Publix Lambrusco.

I am opting out, as usual. I received a case of Highway 12 Sonoma Valley Merlot (1995) this morning, so I may drink one of those bad boys. I am having Pizza, too and will probably watch a couple of episodes of Magnum  on DVD. Perhaps starting with the Season 7 classic, The People vs. Orville Wright – in which Rick is on trial for the murder of a hitman hired to kill Icepick. You know the one……

Whatever happens, I will be in my wigwam by 10 pm. Tomorrow, though is another day and the party starts in earnest.

Tonight:

Tomorrow:

See you in 2009!

The interweb is alive with individuals celebrating the figure of Ms. Kate Perry. I feel our little community should join them, without delay. Check it:

Very good.

Apparently, she is a singer. Judging by this picture alone, I’d say she has a voice like a nightingale. She is going on the Bedside List, immediately.

I have had a number of emails from people claiming that I am a little bit hard on Germans. I am at a loss as to how you should think this – I do pretty much nothing apart from post pics of INSANELY hot women of German extraction. How can that be mean?

It may have been my references to Simon Weisenthal’s “outstanding projects”, mostly resident in South America, which upset most people. Anyway, I am going to make it up to mein Deutsch freunde, by speaking of Tom Cruise’s latest movie Valkyrie. I am going to see it tonight, parking-lot crime permitting, at AMC Orange Park

It tells the story of the plot by members of the German Army (Heer) to assassinate Hitler and bring to an end the Second World War. It should be feel-good for Germans – a WWII movie in which they are the good guys. Ironically, in this one, as history affirms, they lose anyway.  Here’s the trailer:

It looks awesome, but apparently had a less than stellar opening weekend. Some attribute this to the vicious background feud that has been going on between Tom Cruise and Sumner Redstone. You know how you never hear anything good about Tom Cruise these days? That’s Sumner Redstone’s fault. Even stand-out performances like Cruise’s part in Tropic Thunder barely got a positive mention in the press. That’s Sumner Redstone’s sophisticated communications machine manipulating public opinion to knock Cruise’s reputation. I have my own advanced theory on this, and am waiting for only another couple of pieces to fall into place before I reveal it to the world.

As always, y’all will be the first to know.

Tschuss!

Seriously, have a good one. And word to your mother.

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