If Darth Vader ever got time off (and he must, aren’t the Sith union?) this is the car he’d drive. I believe that this was designed by the same Dutchman who did the Murc. Ver 1.0 Luc Donker-something but I’m not sure. It’s a complete stunner, though. Here’s some stills of the 640 courtesey of Top Gear. Enjoy!

Here’s an easy way to tell how rich (or poor) you are. You just calculate how much you are willing (or can afford) to spend on a thing you’ll eventually or mostly throw away to accomplish a task.

Please. Allow me to expand.

Recently, I was in Acapulco on vacation when a friend broke the zipper on her pants. We searched and searched for a safety pin but alas found none so I went to a convenience store, bought a sewing kit, took out the safety pins and threw the rest away. No big deal, mission accomplished.

Not too long ago I was in Vegas and my cellphone battery died. So I went to a local cellphone joint and bought a new phone and threw the new battery in my phone and tossed the new phone. I don’t exactly recall the price but this was like a hundred and fifty bucks or something. Again no big deal to me, having a phone was worth $150 to me.

I recently went on a business trip and there was a possibility of a freind of mine going, but she couldn’t confirm until the day of the trip. Just to ensure as little hassle as possible I booked two airline tickets in advance to avoid the hassle of trying to book one at the last minute. She ended up not going but the $350 it cost me for the second seat was worth the peace of mind.

All these are examples of buying something I needed as a matter of convenience and ended up throwing away a substantial portion of. I am not in any way the king of this, nor am I very high on the scale. For example there is a famous story of Mike Tyson (before he was insane and broke) getting frustrated at the manual gearbox in his Porsche and pulling over at a Rolls Royce dealership and buying a new car on the spot. There is the example of Mike Millken (before he was a felon and broke) eating at an exclusive restaurant and ordering one of everything on the menu to determine which he liked best and directing that the rest of the entrees be thrown out.

I’m sure when Bill Gates needs to take a wee he stops on the side of the road, buys the nearest house and kicks the residents out so he can piss in peace.

What are YOU willing to spend for the sake of convenience?

So I was digging through my closet dresser the other day (I have one of those huge closet organizer dresser deals, I think the dude I bought my house from was a serious metrosexual, there are like 5,000 drawers in the freakin’ closet!) I mean I have a ton of clothes, but not because I’m fashion man, but because I’m too cheap to throw things away (I still have a ‘Free Kobe’ shirt!) and, anyway, I came upon what can only be called a panty collection.

Now this isn’t something I consciously created, like secretly stealing a pair from each of my conquests, er, romantic liasons, er, booty calls (let’s call them what they are). I guess it sort of got away from me because it was in a bottom drawer on the end. Anyway at some point, you bang a couple of girls at the house and they leave stuff behind. Like knickers.

A lot of knickers.

There must have been ten pairs in there! How many girls do you need to bang to get ten pairs of panties left at your house? Do chicks leave them there on purpose? I’m going to have to start observing, like are these girls leaving them to mark their territory? I looked at the sizes and there are least 6 different sizes. Now do girls wear different sizes of panties? Hmmmn. That means at least 6 women have been to my house, which seems high because I rarely have people over. (Think Rainman with a mortage, don’t ask.) Now I know who one belongs to because I only had one chick over to my house who wore g-strings. The other ones, I have no idea. How do you relate what size a chick’s ass is to what size panties she wears? Wait, the one chick I’ve had over most doesn’t even wear panties so she’s out. Hmmn this is a puzzle.

Anyway…shit five minutes to Jeopardy, gotta go.

So the other night I was watching ‘Road House’.

Personally I blame booze, insomnia and the fact that I lost the Tivo remote and because of the first two I was too lazy to find it, so I just sat there watching ‘Road House’. If you are not familiar with this screen gem (and really how can you not be, if you are a girl of a certain age I’m sure your first sexual awakening was to Patrick Swayze in ‘Dirty Dancing’ and if you are a guy of a certain age the first time you stole second base without being thrown out by the catcher was DURING ‘Dirty Dancing’). Anyway ‘Road House’ was Swayze’s follow up to ‘Dirty Dancing’. I suspect he didn’t wan’t to be typecast as a tight pants wearing twinkle-toes pedo, so he though playing a tight pants wearing tai-chi doing bouncer would scruffy up his career.

R-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-ght.

Incidentally this film marks the first appearance of monster truck Bigfoot on the silver screen.

So where was I?

Oh, well it’s no secret that Brad Pitt is the 90’s answer to Patrick Swayze. I would argue, then, that ‘Fight Club’ is Brad Pitt’s ‘Road House’. By the time the film came around he’d had a few roles where he’d ripped his shirt off and pranced around in slow motion ‘para los mujeres’ as they say and he wanted something to make him look tough. So…’Fight Club’.

Don’t get me wrong. I really like ‘Fight Club’. A lot. But you have to ask yourself, how long is going to be before ‘Fight Club’ looks as silly as ‘Road House’? I mean the whole basis for ‘Fight Club’ seems to be those clubs where married ’straight’ men get together to suck each others’ cocks but claim they aren’t gay, just ‘on the low’ as R-Kelly would say. I’ve got news for you, if your cock touches another guy and it’s NOT an accident and you DON’T apologize profusely…you’re total homo.

Anyway a quick comparison of these two immortal classics:

In RH Dalton says, “I want you to be nice until it’s time to not be nice.”
In FC Tyler says, “I want you to hit me as hard as you can.”

In RH Dr. Clay (Kelly Lynch) says, “How’d a guy like you end up a bouncer?”
In FC Marla Singer (Helena B. Carter) says, “I want to have your abortion.”

How long will it be until ‘Fight Club’ is as big a piece of stinky cheese as ‘Road House’?

So, one day about a year ago I decided that this internet thing isn’t going anywhere. Which is good for me because I’m having a blast. Anyway when I made that decision I decided that it would be a good idea to buy something tangible with the money I’m making.

So I went out and bought a car.

Then my accountant mentioned that expensive cars are a bad investment. Doh!

So I went out and bought a bigger house. Which, I am reliably informed , IS a good investment. So after a few months I sold my tiny house and moved all my shit into my huge house. By huge I don’t mean Bill Gates huge but it’s like 6500 square feet which is a good size for a single guy with very little furniture. Especially for a single guy with very little furniture who is moving from a 1200 square foot house. Now I’m not great at math but I’d have to say that the new place is a whole lot bigger than the small one. Therein lies the problem.

I never wondered what it’d be like to have Alzheimer’s until now. Because now I know. You see in my small house I never misplaced things or lost things. If you have a decent amount of stuff and you live in a small space everything needs a place and that’s where it goes. You take it out, you put it back. if you lose something, well the first place you look is where it goes, its home and you’ll probably find it. The problem comes when you take 1200 square feet of stuff and speard it around 6500 square feet of space. Suddenly it’s not that important that everything go in its place. Basically you can leave stuff anywhere and it won’t really be in the way.

Of course when you need it you’ll have no idea where it is. Probably the thing I spend most of my life on these days is walking around the house muttering to myself, “Where the fuck is/are my [pen, shirt, hat, flashlight, allen wrench, vaccuum cleaner, car keys, dinner]” In fact this has become so bad that in the last month I’ve literally given up on finding things and just gone out and bought new ones in the hope that having two of them rattling around the house will increase my chances of finding at least one when I need it. I had a nice set of T-handled allen wrenches and I lost the 5mm. So I went right back to the dealer and bought a second set. Two days later and now I’ve lost two 5mm allen wrenches.

Fortunately I also lost the tripod who’s legs require a 5mm allen wrench so I’m good for now. Hopefully I’ll find the wrenches before the tripod.