Holy fucking shit hanging off the cliff-nipple of a monstrous, three-headed Minotaur with a taste for my ass but no respect for the dainty nature of a human being’s sphincter. Is there anything worse than the first fucking week back from a long weekend? The Minotaur and I answer declaratively: no. So thank goodness, it’s Friday. And this is the Weekend Open Bar.

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Hey friends. Today was a rockier commute than usual. The long, long weekend giving way to a long, long drive into Boston. Long, long silences when I tried to drag effort out of my students like poison from a wound. But I can’t blame them, because fuck this semester has been going on for a long, long three months. My head is pounding. My stomach is seething after a day of daring to fill it with food products that are neither slathered in gravy, nor cheese. Still. The Column-Spice must flow.

So.

These — these are the various things I’m looking forward to this week. That I shall latch onto, not unlike a tick. And hopefully suck the life-blood out of, allowing me to not call out sick. Which would follow with me festering under a blanket. Eating my weight in Laffy Taffy. I can do this. You can do this. We can do this.

Welcome to Monday Morning Commute.

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Ain’t no damn time to be on time anymore!

Yeah, you’re lookin’ at the third late MONDAY MORNING COMMUTE in a row. Why’s that, you ask? Well, could be because I’m so goddamn busy. Y’know how it is in this modern condition! Papers to file! Dogs to sic on mailmen! Fistfights to have in grocery store dairy aisles!

Things to do!

But even though I’m chronically tardy, I’m still tryin’ to resist! Tryin’ to brace myself against the crashing waves of responsibility. And that’s why I keep comin’ back to the MMC! I need ideas, folks! Suggestions that’ll keep my head up while I suffer the slings and arrows of the outrageous 9-5 life.

Help me find fun things to do!

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Welcome, friends. This is Monday Morning Commute, the column that details the various music, movies, books, and general chicanery that we as a collective are basking in on a given week. I am currently typing this bad boy from the empty confines of a general writing workshop I run at State University Y. This lovely University that employs me is one of the few actually open in the greater Boston Area after this weekend’s blizzard, which means that I have trekked onto campus for one meager hour (all of my other students cancelled). None the less. What can we do? So I will make use of my time, penning this paean to to the things I dig.

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It’s with a tearful eye and a hyper-extended thumbs-up that I bid farewell to 2012.

The last twelve months have been some of the finest of my entire life. And I’m not exaggerating. Unlike those saccharine slobs who always clamor about the present hour being their finest and the preceding moments nothing more than the bliss-steps to their existence plateaus, I have no illusions about the fact that I’ve chalked up some miserable years. I’ve anguished through entire calendars, burnin’ `em up with fuel of the most incendiary sort.

Self-doubt! Resentment! Apathy! Vitriol! Cynicism! Sally forth towards the mire!

But 2012 was a whole different beast. Sure, there definitely some moments when my nostrils were assailed by the wispy vapors of the aforementioned propellants. But repugnance was ultimately cast aside, overpowered by the surfeit of wonder! It’s almost as though entertainment and art and love formed a giant sword-wieldin’, monster-destroyin’ mech, and I got to pilot the son-of-a-bitch!

If only!

Anyways, it looks as though every crew member of Spaceship OL is delivering their year-end highlights, so I’m going to join the party. But since I’ve garnered a reputation as being the erratic, currently-undiagnosed-but-we’re-working-on-it, hack-writin’ resident of the crew, I’m going to switch things up a bit. Each of my highlights will be paired with an Ultra-Dimensional Portal! By clicking on any UDP, a hole will be punched in space-time, and your consciousness will be projected astrally.

Got it? Okay, here’s one last look at 2012!

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Quickly! With rapidity. This is Monday Morning Commute, churned out on a break from work. There are scant words, so let us speak through Images and not Words or something.

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Want to know how to have a whole mess of fun?

Hide your grandpa’s medicine. Steal it from wherever he keeps it, and then put it somewhere else. Ideally, you’re goin’ to want to go at least two rooms over. After all, geriatric hips are rustier than robot dongs. And remember, you’re aimin’ to maximize your entertainment.

For example, if Grampy’s bottle of pills rests on the bathroom sink, filch that motherfucker and bring it to your kitchen. Once there, turn the bottle upside down and open it up over your dog’s dish. There’s no joy quite like that of besprinkling Alpo with Valtrex. Then, while you’re waiting for your parent’s parent to discover just how badly he’s been goofed, stand guard so as to make sure that Fido doesn’t start snackin’ away.

After all, the dog didn’t do anything.

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Welcome to the Monday Morning Commute! I’m going to show you some of the ways I’ll be keeping myself entertained during the hellish stretch known as the workweek. Then, you hit up the comments section and describe the weapons you’ll be wielding against the 40-Houred Beast of Burden. Yes, this is essentially electronic show-and-tell.

And no, you may not be excused to go to the nurse. Everyone must participate.

C’mon, let’s do this!

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The Brothers Omega have not been strangers in espousing their love for Devin Townsend and his myriad styles. Since Rendar pointed me towards this teaser for Hevy Devy’s latest album, I’ve been riffing on it nonstop. Pop metal that shall strike like a lightning-bolt set of stairs taking you to Valhalla.

Jambo!

After being dead for ten months, it feels amazing to walk the Earth again. To feel the carpet beneath my toes, to bear hug loved ones, to booze in the fellowship of my ka-tet. These are the moments that the universe is pushing us towards, the acknowledgment of those simple pleasures that can only be appreciated when our spirits and minds are where they’re supposed to be.

`Cause let me tell ya, there’s nothing worse than being a poltergeist. I’ve been there. Roaming about, looking for a place to say, nothing more than a broken spirit relegated to brief appearances and disruptive dispositions. I’ve been that figure that people’re surprised to see, and not always pleasantly so.

It might be a perfect way to be dead, but it’s no way to live.

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Welcome to the Monday Morning Commute! I’m going to show you some of the various ways I’ll be entertainin’ myself during the week. After scoping out my wares, it’s your task to make your presence known in the rumble pit known as the comments section. What movies, comics, beverages, albums, and activities are you lookin’ forward to rockin’?

Let’s do this!

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