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

Okay, I am establishing a new category, which I am calling Planet Florida (genius, non?).

Not for nothing does the rest of the country look on Florida as the home of eccentrics, weirdos and old folk. The see us (that’s you and me) as deeply alien. Like Tusken Raiders. Or the Borg. We in North Florida are insulated to a point, from the worst of the craziness, but it seeps in sometimes. Last night, for example, we had a crazy ol’lady who lives near us dodge the claymores and fixed line machine guns that protect Bones’ Hideout and accuse me of reporting her to ‘The Government”. For what was never established. I advised her to sling her hook before I set the dogs on her. Nicely, of course. She’s old and clearly “from Florida”.

Anyway, to ease us in to the craziness, CCTV footage has emerged that shows some cops conducting a drug raid in Polk County. Tampa Bay Online sets the scene:

With guns drawn and flashlights cutting through darkened rooms, Polk County undercover drug investigators stormed the home of convicted drug dealer Michael Difalco near Lakeland in March…..

Then the cops stop everything and set about a nine hour bowling session with the suspect’s Nintendo Wii:

Click HERE for the Huffington Post’s take and the video.

I know. It’s awesome. Take me to you leader.

We’ve been going a year (more, actually) and we have published some seriously funny shit. We need a recap for new readers. Here it is.

My personal favorite so far was the Where the Wild Things are vs. Wild Things post, but people tell me all the time  “it’s shit”. I disagree. If I may quote Harry Smith, who taught me English Literature (and why I should love it):“It may not have you rolling in the aisles, but if it does not have you chuckling quietly to yourselves…. there’s something wrong with your sense of humor…!”

Harry was (as no doubt you’ve guessed), referring to Thomas Middleton’s 1613 crowd-pleaser, A Chaste Maid in Cheapside, but the sentiment applies here. Random celebrity tongue follows:

by my reckoning, these are the most popular posts so far on rivercityvibe.com

Thanksgiving 2007

Wildlife Notes for Foreign Readers

Rush Limbaugh: A Man of Appetites

An Introduction to Schadenfreude

America’s Next Top Model (numerous entries)

“Charles. Get out the rifle. We’re being fucked.”

There is a school of thought that the tale of the German Base Jumper should be here, but I have run out of time. Use the search function.

Thanks as always to the rivercityvibe faithful.… You’ve been real….

Some more borderline lookers with sweet Dungeons and Dragons skills. The previous Dragon*Con post has proved very popular.

You pervs.

I like what you're doing here. Nice one.

This one meets the required standard. No doubt.

Ooooh, cheeky.......

One of the 3 dozen dressed like this. This one was very pleasant....

So that’s it. I am drawing a line under this. We are back to lifestyle optimization, mocking the pompous and celebrity gossip. From now.

Well, after this:

I seem to remember the zombies were slimmer in the original. Did you spot the professional dancers at the front, the Burger King and the one guy with a galvanized bucket on his head? It’s like Where’s Waldo? (SciFi Edition).

The mighty University of Florida ‘Gators take on the boringly-named University of Tennessee Volunteers today at home.

The Vols coach, Lane Kiffin, has been talking big. Basically he has been claiming that UT will take UF down – take them down to China town!

It seems unlikely, to be honest. I don’t know how Lane Kiffin stacks up as a prognosticator, seer, or soothsayer (or even as a coach). As a selector of Life Partners, however, he pretty much dominates college football.

Here is his spouse, the delectable Layla Kiffin:

It’s important to note, I think, that Layla is a UF grad and her father an All-American quarterback for UF (and later as UF coach). She claims she’s all about the Vols these days, but it’s the Gator Nation we’re talking about here, so I doubt it. We can claim her.

She’s ours.

I am about to make a big, big call. Here it is:

The video below is the funniest thing I have seen this year.

It hits me in that special place – you know, the comedy schwerpunkt, where your “funny neurons” jostle with your God-Given-DNA* to create unique receptors in the brain. When comedy signals are received these receptors scan them for an identical match. Finding one triggers a crazy alarm  which cramps your stomach, sets tears streaming down your face and sends you into the nearest corner to rock slowly backwards and forwards in paroxysms of laughter that seem as though they will last forever.

Told you. A BIG call. This song is called Cry Tunes:

The one guy responsible is a Canadian (as opposed to a “Canadian” – he’s not gay, just from Canada), called Donnie Dumphy. I once lurked in a very cold ditch waiting for some bad guys with a man called Dumphy. We were there a long, long time, and, (surprise!) the bad guys never turned up**. I don’t think it’s the same Dumphy, though one would assume there aren’t that many of them. Anyway, let’s dwell on the lyrics:

Beer, cold beer, don’t you ever worry,

I am right here…

I could never live without you…

You don’t care what I amount to…..

If that is not lyrical genius, I don’t know what is.

* Not mutually exclusive, America.

** We got them later.

As I said in my previous post, the ladies of Dragon*Con made up, in some ways for the men. Many were dressed scantily. Some were passable. Some, as you would imagine, were not. We’re not going to think about this latter group. We are going to concentrate only on the ones who looked good in costume. Or had enormous racks. Here they are in the first of two posts. Don’t judge me:

Well done you!

Very nicely turned out.

Enormous, huge sword......

Conventionally beautiful. The Joe Bones "type"

I’ll post some more over the weekend. I know some of you are getting bored with the Dragon*Con vibe. Me too, to be honest.

Not long now……..

I confess to being disappointed by that one guy, Congressman Joe Wilson, from South Carolina who thought it appropriate to call the President a liar in a school-boy heckle on Thursday. Not only is it disrespectful to the American people who vote the President into office, but it also another piece of evidence that Southern Good Manners are in decline. Wilson’s heckle was graceless, rude, and embarrassing, ergo, he is an assclown. An Assclown of the Week, in fact.

For lessons on how to heckle appropriately, Wilson should go to a certain stoner from Toledo. Wonkette has uncovered a great piece of footage of Mayoral candidate Ben Konop (made-up name) being heckled by someone using a technique known to professionals as “Minimal Effort Disruption System” or “MEDS”.

Watch the whole thing. It is seriously funny:

I was an early adopter when it came to the music of Irish band U2. Their Under a Blood Red Sky album was the incidental music in the screenplay of my life for a couple of scenes. They were WAY COOL, back in the day. I can’t help thinking that something odd has happened to Bono since then. Nowadays, he seems more comfortable hobnobbing with world leaders than with setting a bad example to decadent youth as a man in his position should.

I think this inspired parody about hits the nail on the head. Enjoy.

Oh, this is a good time to introduce you to Bones Rule # 2:

“The self impressed should not be spared (apart from me).”

I want you to close your eyes and imagine yourself in a different place…… A place where every hero and every villain you have ever known, from TV and film, comic books, video games and novels by the likes of Tolkien and Rowling, have come together.

They’re all there, from crowd-pleasers like Spiderman and Wonder Woman, through to obscure characters from the Lord of the Rings. Those crazy aliens from Starship Troopers stand cheek by jowl with Ewoks and terrible baddies.

Like that one guy from X-Men – you know the one.

You’ve done that right? You’re imagining all of those heroes and villains. All of the ones you have ever known, in one place right?

Good.

Now imagine each and every one of them has put on 40 lbs – mainly around the midriff.

That’s Dragon*Con, folks.

Sums it up, really.....

My need to attend this EXTRAORDINARY event had its origins about eight years ago.

At the time, I had some business to attend to in Atlanta’s Peachtree Center. I forget precisely what it was, but I fancy it had something to do with ammunition-carrying mules in Tora Bora.… Anyway, I had turned up for the meeting, as is my habit, very early. I felt a little peckish, so I took the elevator down to the sprawling food court in an attempt to find something edible.

As I stood in line for food, I sensed a certain oddness. At first I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then it hit me. In plain sight, ahead of me in line, were two Gandalfs, an Orc, a sub-species of Gronk, and Ron Weasley.

I really was not prepared for that. For a moment, I thought my frappucino had been spiked….. In actual fact I was merely (merely!) experiencing the very first day of Dragon*Con. The web yields this:

Dragon*Con is the largest multi-media, popular culture convention focusing on science fiction and fantasy, gaming, comics, literature, art, music, and film in the US.

As soon as I realized the truth, I knew that one day, whenever it might be, I simply had to attend myself. That year was this year.

And attend I did. Though I stood in line for two hours on Friday buy 100 bucks worth of ticket, I really needn’t have bothered. There were all the mockery opportunities a man could dream of just wandering around the FOUR downtown hotels (Hyatt, Hilton, Marriott and Sheraton).

I didn’t attend any of the events (they were completely incomprehensible to me anyhow. What, pray, is a Cthulhu? And no, I fucking do not want a “quick game of Munchkin“….)

I wandered around with a couple of carefully selected sidekicks, maintaining my famous edge with Vodka and Red Bull. The other attendees were harmless. Actually quite nice, some of them. But, boy, they were earnest. I would not have thought it possible to take oneself seriously while dressed up as Super Mario, but evidently it is…..

Then there were the Ladies of Dragon Con. Surprisingly, many met the required standard (some, though, decidedly DID NOT). It might be something about their weaponry (fnar fnar……) but the odd one or two kind of rocked in their weird geek way.

I promise to post pictures of the best within the next couple of days. Stand by…….

Okay. The Labor Day Weekend is behind us. I have had an adventure, I can tell you. Before I go into detail about the fuck-show that was DragonCon (I was nearly run through by a +1 broadsword for mocking. Seriously. And I only just dodged a Magic Missile), I want us to look at our core material, namely hot super models in bikinis.

I think of them as guides on our journey toward lifestyle optimization. They fulfill much the same role in my life as the enlightened monks do in the lives of my Buddhist buddies. Here is one. She is a very kind person, so looking at her chest will not affect your karma in any way…..

This is Katrina Darrell. Also known as Bikini Girl. I think I know why.

Stay with us, this week is going to rock on rivercityvibe.