Over the Easter weekend ABC was showing that old time movie favorite, the Ten Commandments with Charleton Heston as Moses. Now, not being big bible movie fans, the wife and I only had it on for back ground noise while we chatted on the sofa. Occasionally we would be drawn into the story but mostly we ignored it. Toward the end of the evening however, I turned to the wife and said, “You know, if I’d been Pharaoh, Moses wouldn’t have had a chance.” I could tell by the look on her face that she desperately did NOT want to ask but just couldn’t help herself. “How’s that?” she asks. I grinned really big. “First time Moses came up and said ‘Let my people go!’ I’d have cut off his head and fed him to the crocodiles. I’m the Pharaoh for cryin’ out loud! You don’t tell me what to do.” The wife just shook her head. “Know what else?” At this point, she has I really don’t want to know written all over her face so I don’t give her a chance to deny me the pleasure of sharing. “If I had been dumb enough to go through all ten plagues, I certainly wouldn’t have let everyone go. At first light, I’d have gathered what was left of my armies, gone down to the Hebrew villages and slaughtered every man, woman and child. Nobody fucks with the Pharaoh’s kid.” My wife just shook her head and replied, “The next time you feel like sharing something like that, don’t.” I couldn’t help grinning.

Being the XBox fan boy that I am, I finally got my hands on a 360 for myself. So far I’ve been highly entertained by it. It’s just about everything I had hoped for and more. Of course, having the new system makes me hunger for new games. Being as picky as I am about the games I play gives me a limited field of choice though. So far, I have only 2 games: Project Gotham 3, which is an excellent racing game. I’ve been having a blast playing. Of course, I don’t have an XBox Live Gold account so I can’t race online. I have a feeling that a year membership for XBox Live Gold will be purchased. I love racing the Solo Career in the game but nothing compares to racing online against real people. My only complaint with PG3 is that it’s not as realistic as it could be. I suppose that’s my own fault because I’ve been playing Forza Motorsport for the past year on the original XBox and it is considered to be a racing simulator. They’ve made sure that driving the car in the game is that same as driving in real life. It makes for an incredibly challenging game but also and incredibly fun one. Now, Forza Motorsport 2 is coming out for the 360 in May so I’ll have a new racing game in not too long. The other game I currently own is a first person shooter called Perfect Dark Zero. This game was evidently the shining example game for the 360 release (think Halo with the original XBox) and I must say it’s pretty impressive. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed playing it, although I haven’t played it all that much. Over all it has gorgeous graphics and the gameplay itself is highly immersive. My only issue with it is that it’s an FPS on a console wich is fairly hard to play. I need a keyboard and mouse for FPS games. Anyway, the 360 is all I hoped for and more. The best feature that I’ve stumbled upon so far is that I can turn the 360 on and off with the wireless controller. I don’t need to get up and walk across the room to do either. It’s incredibly awesome for fat lazy people like me.

Remember how I told you I had a sick and twisted mind? Well, this evening I had a flash of sick and twisted in the Dairy section of the local Price Chopper. So, to set the scene, I walk into the cheese and yoghurt aisle and about half-way down the way is a stocker who’s loading up the yoghurt. As I walk toward him I noticed he had a handy belt-sheath for his box cutter. What happened next made me grin with evil ecstasy. Essentially, an image flashed through my mind. I saw myself stepping up behind this young man, sliding his box cutter out of the sheath, flicking it open, reaching around his head, covering his mouth and slitting his throat from ear to ear. Then I would simply pocket the knife and calmly walk away. Sick, eh?

The funniest part of the whole five second psychotic episode was that once it was finished, I instantly started analyzing the feasability of the action. I found myself scanning the aisle for security cameras, other customers, obstacles that would keep my in the aisle longer than I needed to be, etc. I decided the most important part would be not getting blood on my clothes, which if the? victim was held appropriately, the blood spray would not touch me, and the wiping my prints from the knife. That was the hard part. I couldn’t keep the knife because the police would most likely show up before I left. I couldn’t hide the knife as the police would close the store and tear it apart, eventually finding it. The conclusion I came to was that to effectively clean the knife, I would need to go to the cleaning aisle, open one of the cleaning wipes boxes and wipe down the knife as well as the box. I’d then drop the knife behind the boxes in the row and also clean off the box which I opened. Of course, this leaves me with a wipe to get rid of but that’s easily disposed of in a trash can or even in another shoppers cart. The final piece that would hopefully keep me out of jail would be the pure lack of motive. The only motive for the action would have been the act itself.

So, have I disturbed you yet? You know, sometimes I disturb myself. Anyway, I obviously did not follow through on my imaginings but it did remind me of a story I wrote? a long time ago about a young man who worked in a toy store. The essence of the story was that the young man slaughtered all of his co-workers during the restocking period after the store closed. He did it with a box cutter and was found giggling madly in a pool his co-workers blood. It was a good story and quite disturbing all at the same time. Anyway, it’s possible the flash of imagery in the Dairy section came from the subconcious memory of that story but I really couldn’t say.

Anyway, that’s all for now!

I have a rather sick and twisted mind and sometimes it comes up with the most absurd ideas. Today’s idea was this. Who would you call if you accidentally (or on purpose) killed someone and needed to cover it up? Is there anyone in your life you could trust that much? Is there anyone who wouldn’t bat an eye but would instead calmly ask where you kept the hack saw?

Now this was an interesting concept for me. I thought long and hard on what the answer would be. I have 3 friends who I’ve known since childhood and they are the closest thing to brothers I’ll have ever have. Does that mean I’d call them? At first, I thought, “Absolutely!” They’d have my back. And in the initial stages, I honestly think they would. Each of them would be there with the hacksaw, ready to go. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I probably wouldn’t call any of them. One is too damn honest. In the end I think he’d have to tell the truth. I view this as a strength of his, by the way. Certainly not a weakness. Another would be so torn with guilt that he’d end up telling random strangers until we were all thrown in jail. Again, not a weakness. An active conscience is a good thing. The third is more complicated. I think he’d go along with whatever I needed and I also think he would keep quiet. The problem with him is that I think it would slowly break his sense of self; his sense of purpose; his belief in the innate goodness of man and himself and I just couldn’t be responsible for that. So, in the end, when I accidentally kill someone, I’m pretty much on my own. That was kind of a bummer at first. And then it got me thinking about something else. Would someone call me?

I did an intense internal audit while at the grocery store this evening. Could I live with the guilt of hacking up and disposing of a body? Probably so. It’d take some getting used to but I don’t think it’d be all that horrendous. Could I keep my mouth shut? Absolutely. There are some things you just don’t talk about and that would be one of them. And finally, would it change my own self-worth? Would it change how I view myself? Would it make me feel less of a man? Honestly, I don’t think so. I’ve got a dark side that I accepted a long time ago. One of my best friends said of me once, “Mike, everyone has a dark side. You just acknowledge and embrace yours.” It fits to a tee. I think part of it is that I accept who I am and am not afraid of what I could become.

So, would I be a good person to call in this situation? That just depends on how much I like you.

Like flies to death the birds clouded the lot.
As I approached I saw an injured squirrel.
The birds were eating it alive.

A banshee scream drove back the birds.
They hopped about, waiting to feed,
Only a step away.

The squirrel’s hind quarters
Were a flattened penny
Left on the rails.

My coat, a stretcher
For a careless man’s act.
I tried to be gentle.

The squirrell shredded the coat like leaves
As it struggled
To be free.

I placed him in a bush
Where the fowls could not go.
Safe, but not safe enough.