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Me, too! There’s a solution, though, book-lovers. Watch as the Internet solves another one of life’s greatest annoyances! Imagine being able to trade books, movies, albums, video games over the internet for free* with strangers who have similarly awesome taste in media.

Well, it exists. Swap.com, formerly swaptree.com, has taken mom’s book clubs and luncheons and put them online, connecting you with peers that have the media you want. It’s fairly simple. Create an account, post the items you’re willing to trade to your account (easy as typing in an ISBN), make a list of the books, CDs, etc. you want to receive and let the algorithms do the rest for you. You’ll be notified via email when a match is found.

You know what else I hate? Going to the post office. One would think that’s an integral part of using this type of service, but nay, friends. You can pay for your postage and print it out through the site! *This is where the asterisk from the first paragraph is explained. The swapping is free, however you do pay the shipping costs of whatever you mail out (so, no giant hardcover Phaidon books, people, unless you’re getting something equally sweet in return).

Are you amazed? No? Okay, here’s my hard sell…after a year of using Swap.com’s services, my NYPL late fees have amounted to (drum roll)…two dollars and fifty cents! Incredible.

Werner Herzog can read to me anytime…

I like dumb movies. A lot. Probably more than I should. So I’m going to torture you all by lazily posting about them on here from time to time.

Currently streaming on Netflix is The Dungeonmaster, one of many legitimately enjoyable artistic untriumphs by 80s crap-teur Charles Band that star either Richard Moll and/or Tim Thomerson.

As you’ll see from the trailer, The Dungeonmaster really wanted to be all things to all people: something they would like to have titled The Road Warrior Tron New York Ripper Electric Dreams D&D. Also there’s a demon puppet named Rathspit (sp?), some demon limb-chopping, and an EEEVVILLL heavy metal concert where Blackie Lawless slashes the hero with his guitar.

All of which you’d think would add up to one of the most metal movies of all time, except, you know, WASP is in it.

I have recently learned about the genius that is Jim Flora, who was best known for his super awesome record album covers from the 40′s & 50′s.  You can see them here. This one is my favorite one, because I like love cats:

Anyway, I was inspired to make Jim-Floraesque drawings:

Yes! Now I’m going to go eat chocolate and bacon.

Every once and a while a client will offer us a surprise perk, so when we got the email from Charlie (Friar and Executive Director of the Friars Club Film Festival) asking if Veronica and I wanted to attend the Friars Club Roast of Quentin Tarantino we both gave a resounding hell yes we want to go! response.

We met up with our friends at the New York Hilton to get our tickets and after party bracelets then made our way to our table. A couple of folks joined Veronica and I at the table but we had no idea who was really supposed to be there. Just as I learned that the guy across from me was Bill Plympton, Eric, one of the Friars Club Film Festival senior programmers, joined our table and had the unpleasant job of telling Mr. Plympton and two other filmmakers that they were relegated to a table way up on the balcony. As a big animation fan, I was sad to see Mr. Plympton go.

The actual roast was quite raunchy – no gender or race was spared. I knew that the roasts were supposed to be racy but I think I covered my face and uttered oh my god far too many times! I didn’t realize that any one on the main dais was an open target. I just assumed all of the roasters just picked on Quentin Tarantino, but no, they went after each other. The main butt of the non-Quentin Tarantino jokes were Rob Schneider and Kathy Griffin although John Travolta got quite a lot of jokes directed at him even though he wasn’t there to dish it back.

The celebrity roasters mostly did a good job at making us laugh throughout the event. We all agreed the best ones were Whitney Cummings (I had never heard of her before but she was hilarious), Rob Schneider and Eli Roth. We really did enjoy Michael Madsen’s roast I think mostly because we weren’t sure what to make of it! He rambled a bit, would tell some bad jokes and then end up laughing like he had told the best joke ever. I had no idea what he was on – maybe it was just the wine – but he definitely entertained us!

Afterwards, we went to the party at the Friars Club. As we proceeded to enter the club, TMZ was busy asking Steve Buscemi some questions. Eric thought that Veronica and I might be visible on the TMZ broadcast. Who knows? I don’t even know when TMZ airs. Anyway, Mr. Buscemi followed us into the club and I pretty much had to restrain myself from squealing with excitement.

I really wanted to take a bunch of photos during the roast and and at the party but I completely forgot about my camera until Michael Madsen showed up. I just had to have a photo with him – wish I had combed my hair before the photo was taken!

Mr. Blonde!

After the party a bunch of us went to Beauty Bar where I had far too much to drink and stayed out way too late and was pretty much a zombie at the Nickelodeon meeting the next day. It’s a good thing Tammy is an excellent presenter at our client meetings!