Well shock me shock me New England Patriots with your narrow margin win in the Super Bowl. I thought for sure the Rams had that game in the bag, tell the dropped it like a bunch of bitches. Unbelievable, to be on that much of a grove all year, only getting better as the season progresses, then fuck up everything in then end.
Glad I didn't make any bets on the money cause I would have so lost a bundle. Though I would bet money that Turtle Guy is practicaly creaming his jeans over his home town team whiping the the Rams and being fourteen under dogs going into the game.
Oh well, I don't really give a shit since none of the teams I was hoping to go either didn't make it or crapped out in the playoffs. Thought for sure the Bucanners with Brad Johnson as there new quarter back would go far, but team chemistry not balancing out and no one to balance Keyshawn Johnson on the other side, it just wasn't meant to be. Thought for sure the Titans would do better, and they started doing better by the second half of the regular seasons. To little to late though. Eddie George having the worse year of his career, and what I thought would be there terrible twosome, Kevin Carter and Jevon "The Freak" Kearse as defense ends, would make a big impact on defense. Once again I was so wrong.
Now one time I do like did go well tell they reached the playoffs. Grand Bay Packers with Bret Favre as the quarter back, a arm so strong he is known to leave bruises over the bodies of his recivers and has managed to dislocate all but one of Antonio Freeman's fingers with how hard he throws that ball. Unfortunetly, Bret seemed to have a extremely off game against the Rams, I think he was intimidated by the Rams defense, especially after two Aenies Willams interceptions.
Ok, I have rambled on enough about football. All I got left to say is I'm predicting the Colts with Paton Manning, Edgren James, Marvin Harrisson, and now new head couch Tony Dungy will be prime candidates for Super Bowl bound in the next season. Potent offense with a new head couch known for developing a killer defense.
Nuff' said.
Well I got a nifty new desk lamp befitting my name here. Its a bit fifties "futuristic" nostalgia lamp. Which does sound a bit like an oxymoron saying futuristic nostalgia. I mean, how can you be nostalgic about the future, but since I'm talking about a style not the actual future, that sentence works in proper english.....technicaly.
So the base looks like a shallow dished bowl turned upside down, with a little black on/off switch and a flexiable next cranning out the back. The lamp shade is coned shape with little holes on top of the hole to add ventilation. Its completely made of illuminum so it gives it this nifty chrome look. See the tie in with my name there.
Fine, let me make it even more clearer for you.
Do you see it now? The word chrome underlined, me being Chrome Magnum Man *points out spiffy banner at top*
Jesus...its like talking to monkeys with A.D.D. here I swear.
Ok, I'm never going to be excused of being TO normal.
Well, I must admit I'm a bit bummed to find out that Stephen King is retiring from writting. Five more books and he says he is done. By his own words he has said he doesn't want to start recycling his writting which he has been seeing he has been doing in his last few books.
For example, a new book thats coming out, From a Buick 8, he knows that readers will imediately think "Christine" since its a book about a car with problems.
Now I can see what he is talking about, I'm sad to see him go, but I do agree leaving on a high note is better then fading out of existance as he just rewrites old books.
What I'm truelly thankfull to find out is, three of the last five books will be the final books in his Dark Tower series, which I have been dying for him to finish for more then ten years now. Personally Roland is one of my favorite characters of his, and from what I heard in a interview, its one of his most favored characters he has written.
Despite what so many naysayers think, I still think is stories are still compelling and well written stories. Noboy quite writes a book like him, even if it isn't horror it is still good to me and I will miss the days of waiting for a new King book.
The Dark Tower books are inspired by a poem written by Robert Browning that King stumbled across in College then wrote his thesis paper on. Thanks to a friend of mine, I have said poem and am going to post on this site in honor of Robert Browning and what I think is the best Stephen King books, the Dark Tower series. Be full warn its extremely long, so if you don't want to read it, don't worry there is nothing else you are going to miss at the end of my diary if you don't read it.
"CHILDE ROLAND TO THE DARK TOWER CAME"by Robert Browning
I
My first thought was, he lied in every word,
That hoary cripple, with malicious eye
Askance to watch the workings of his lie
On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford
Suppression of the glee, that pursed and scored
Its edge, at one more victim gained thereby.
II
What else should he be set for, with his staff?
What, save to waylay with his lies, ensnare
All travellers who might find him posted there,
And ask the road? I guessed what skull-like laugh
Would break, what crutch 'gin write my epitaph
For pastime in the dusty thoroughfare.
III
If at his counsel I should turn aside
Into that ominous tract which, all agree,
Hides the Dark Tower. Yet acquiescingly
I did turn as he pointed, neither pride
Now hope rekindling at the end descried,
So much as gladness that some end might be.
IV
For, what with my whole world-wide wandering,
What with my search drawn out through years, my hope
Dwindled into a ghost not fit to cope
With that obstreperous joy success would bring,
I hardly tried now to rebuke the spring
My heart made, finding failure in its scope.
V
As when a sick man very near to death
Seems dead indeed, and feels begin and end
The tears and takes the farewell of each friend,
And hears one bit the other go, draw breath
Freelier outside, ('since all is o'er,' he saith
And the blow fallen no grieving can amend;')
VI
When some discuss if near the other graves
be room enough for this, and when a day
Suits best for carrying the corpse away,
With care about the banners, scarves and staves
And still the man hears all, and only craves
He may not shame such tender love and stay.
VII
Thus, I had so long suffered in this quest,
Heard failure prophesied so oft, been writ
So many times among 'The Band' to wit,
The knights who to the Dark Tower's search addressed
Their steps - that just to fail as they, seemed best,
And all the doubt was now - should I be fit?
VIII
So, quiet as despair I turned from him,
That hateful cripple, out of his highway
Into the path he pointed. All the day
Had been a dreary one at best, and dim
Was settling to its close, yet shot one grim
Red leer to see the plain catch its estray.
IX
For mark! No sooner was I fairly found
Pledged to the plain, after a pace or two,
Than, pausing to throw backwards a last view
O'er the safe road, 'twas gone; grey plain all round;
Nothing but plain to the horizon's bound.
I might go on, naught else remained to do.
X
So on I went. I think I never saw
Such starved ignoble nature; nothing throve:
For flowers - as well expect a cedar grove!
But cockle, spurge, according to their law
Might propagate their kind with none to awe,
You'd think; a burr had been a treasure trove.
XI
No! penury, inertness and grimace,
In some strange sort, were the land's portion. 'See
'Or shut your eyes,' said Nature peevishly,
'It nothing skills: I cannot help my case:
''Tis the Last Judgement's fire must cure this place
'Calcine its clods and set my prisoners free.'
XII
If there pushed any ragged thistle-stalk
Above its mates, the head was chopped, the bents
Were jealous else. What made those holes and rents
In the dock's harsh swarth leaves, bruised as to baulk
All hope of greenness? Tis a brute must walk
Pashing their life out, with a brute's intents.
XIII
As for the grass, it grew as scant as hair
In leprosy; thin dry blades pricked the mud
Which underneath looked kneaded up with blood.
One stiff blind horse, his every bone a-stare,
Stood stupified, however he came there:
Thrust out past service from the devil's stud!
XIV
Alive? he might be dead for aught I knew,
With that red gaunt and colloped neck a-strain.
And shut eyes underneath the rusty mane;
Seldom went such grotesqueness with such woe;
I never saw a brute I hated so;
He must be wicked to deserve such pain.
XV
I shut my eyes and turned them on my heart,
As a man calls for wine before he fights,
I asked one draught of earlier, happier sights,
Ere fitly I could hope to play my part.
Think first, fight afterwards, the soldier's art:
One taste of the old time sets all to rights.
XVI
Not it! I fancied Cuthbert's reddening face
Beneath its garniture of curly gold,
Dear fellow, till I almost felt him fold
An arm to mine to fix me to the place,
The way he used. Alas, one night's disgrace!
Out went my heart's new fire and left it cold.
XVII
Giles then, the soul of honour - there he stands
Frank as ten years ago when knighted first,
What honest man should dare (he said) he durst.
Good - but the scene shifts - faugh! what hangman hands
Pin to his breast a parchment? His own bands
Read it. Poor traitor, spit upon and curst!
XVIII
Better this present than a past like that:
Back therefore to my darkening path again!
No sound, no sight as far as eye could strain.
Will the night send a howlet or a bat?
I asked: when something on the dismal flat
Came to arrest my thoughts and change their train.
XIX
A sudden little river crossed my path
As unexpected as a serpent comes.
No sluggish tide congenial to the glooms;
This, as it frothed by, might have been a bath
For the fiend's glowing hoof - to see the wrath
Of its black eddy bespate with flakes and spumes.
XX
So petty yet so spiteful! All along,
Low scrubby alders kneeled down over it;
Drenched willows flung them headlong in a fit
Of mute despair, a suicidal throng:
The river which had done them all the wrong,
Whate'er that was, rolled by, deterred no whit.
XXI
Which, while I forded - good saints, how I feared
To set my foot upon a dead man's cheek,
Each step, of feel the spear I thrust to seek
For hollows, tangled in his hair or beard!
- It may have been a water-rat I speared,
But, ugh! it sounded like a baby's shriek.
XXII
Glad was I when I reached the other bank.
Now for a better country. Vain presage!
Who were the strugglers, what war did they wage,
Whose savage trample thus could pad the dank
soil to a plash? Toads in a poisoned tank
Or wild cats in a red-hot iron cage -
XXIII
The fight must so have seemed in that fell cirque,
What penned them there, with all the plain to choose?
No footprint leading to that horrid mews,
None out of it. Mad brewage set to work
Their brains, no doubt, like galley-slaves the Turk
Pits for his pastime, Christians against Jews.
XXIV
And more than that - a furlong on - why, there!
What bad use was that engine for, that wheel,
Or brake, not wheel - that harrow fit to reel
Men's bodies out like silk? With all the air
Of Tophet's tool, on earth left unaware
Or brought to sharpen its rusty teeth of steel.
XXV
Then came a bit of stubbed ground, once a wood,
Next a marsh it would seem, and now mere earth
Desperate and done with; (so a fool finds mirth,
Makes a thing and then mars it, till his mood
Changes and off he goes!) within a rood -
Bog, clay and rubble, sand, and stark black dearth.
XXVI
Now blotches rankling, coloured gay and grim,
Now patches where some leanness of the soil's
Broke into moss, or substances like boils;
Then came some palsied oak, a cleft in him
Like a distorted mouth that splits its rim
Gaping at death, and dies while it recoils.
XXVII
And just as far as ever from the end!
Naught in the distance but the evening, naught
To point my footstep further! At the thought,
A great black bird, Apollyon's bosom friend,
Sailed past, not best his wide wing dragon-penned
That brushed my cap - perchance the guide I sought.
XXVIII
For, looking up, aware I somehow grew,
'Spite of the dusk, the plain had given place
All round to mountains - with such name to grace
Mere ugly heights and heaps now stolen in view.
How thus they had surprised me - solve it, you!
How to get from them was no clearer case.
XXIX
Yet half I seemed to recognise some trick
Of mischief happened to me, God knows when -
In a bad dream perhaps. Here ended, then
Progress this way. When, in the very nick
Of giving up, one time more, came a click
As when a trap shuts - you're inside the den.
XXX
Burningly it came on me all at once,
This was the place! those two hills on the right,
Crouched like two bulls locked horn in horn in fight;
While to the left a tall scalped mountain ... Dunce,
Dotard, a-dozing at the very nonce,
After a life spent training for the sight!
XXXI
What in the midst lay but the Tower itself?
The round squat turret, blind as the fool's heart,
Built of brown stone, without a counterpart
In the whole world. The tempest's mocking elf
Points to the shipman thus the unseen shelf
He strikes on, only when the timbers start.
XXXII
Not see? because of night perhaps? - why day
Came back again for that! before it left
The dying sunset kindled through a cleft:
The hills, like giants at a hunting, lay,
Chin upon hand, to see the game at bay, -
'Now stab and end the creature - to the heft!'
XXXIII
Not hear? When noise was everywhere! it tolled
Increasing like a bell. Names in my ears
Of all the lost adventurers, my peers -
How such a one was strong, and such was bold,
And such was fortunate, yet each of old
Lost, lost! one moment knelled the woe of years.
XXXIV
There they stood, ranged along the hillsides, met
To view the last of me, a living frame
For one more picture! In a sheet of flame
I saw them and I knew them all. And yet
Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set,
And blew. 'Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came.'