I posted something here that I thought was funny. Then I read it a few hours later and it just didn't seem as funny. In lieu of anything originally produced, I give you FuckYouPenguin.blogspot.com:

You know, there was once an ugly duckling who got picked on all of the time by the other ducks, who couldn't understand why the duckling was so ugly. But then it turned out that duckling wasn't really a duck at all, but was in fact a TOTAL FUCKING DICK.

Take this world-class douche, for example. Everyone is just hanging out, having a good time, and Mr. "My wingspan is bigger than yours" decides to unload on the scene. Even his swan friend is embarrassed. He probably does it all the fucking time because let's be honest: that's just what swans do. Me personally, I wouldn't be caught dead with a fucking swan.

So De mentioned something a while back about buying a handgun. I feel like I have a lot to say (Oho, suprise there), and I wanted to create a post around it.

First things first. If you've never owned a gun before, or didn't grow up around them (hunting, shooting, Beirut) I suggest making friends with people who did. Given the 38-40% gun ownership rate across the US, most of us know some responsible gun owners. Given De's location, if she didn't grow up around guns, she knows some people who did. There's a certain way responsible people act around guns, and it's a behavior that should be ingrained.

Me personally? I'm fairly cautious. The safety is not off, nor is a magazine in my gun, unless I'm actively aiming and shooting. When I carry the gun, even to the range, it's in a SERPA holster. Granted, this isn't really secure should someone with half a brain try to take the gun off my person; but generally people with half a brain don't try to take a gun off your person.

As for gun choice, that really depends on two things - learning curve, and how something feels in your hands. I started out with a 9mm, because I wanted to be able to fire hundreds (thousands?) of target rounds. 9mm rounds are fairly cheap. I can usually buy 50 target rounds for $16. The downside is that many enthusiasts will tell you 9mm rounds don't have any stopping power. As far as I'm concerned, some crackhead who's breaking into my house to steal a TV or DVD player is going to experience a moment of clarity as soon as I start shooting at their face. It doesn't matter if I have a .22, a 12-gauge, or an assault rifle. Being shot at does that to people.

Now on to feel. I have big hands with large knuckles, and as much as I liked the look and style of the compact tactical weapons, they just didn't fit. Some of the plastic ones felt top heavy, the grips felt small, etc. I ended up choosing a fairly run-of-the-mill Beretta 92. Turns out, this is the standard weapon of various police forces; so it's also fairly common if you're looking for parts and accesories.

But in all honesty, you should pic a caliber you want, and then pick something in that caliber that fits your hand. You'll know it when you pick it up at the store.

On to supplies. Of course, you're going to need ammo. Unless you have experience firing a handgun, you're going to have a steep learning curve. The shorter barrel means there's much more sensitivity to your sights, which is one of the reasons why many people choose a shotgun for home defense. Because of the steep learning curve, I suggest buying cheaper target rounds for practice, and then some ballistic rounds for the uninvited guests. Alluding to the earlier discussion regarding the "pant shitting" factor of being shot at,: being shot at with something that will put a hole the size of a coffee saucer in the back of your skull as it exits increases this factor by exponents. I recommend keepeing seperate, loaded clips of both. Since my gun never has a clip in it, I can grab and go for whatever purpose is neccesary.

Thankfully, I've never had to grab and go on ballistic rounds. That would generally mean having to pay someone to replace the carpet; and that shit is expensive.

Then there are supplies. One pretty basic cleaning kit (less than $20) will get you going. I usually clean after every time I go shoot, but that's because I generally fire close to 50 rounds every time I go. Renting a lane is fairly cheap, and there's usually no time limit. Make sure you get regular with one of the local retailers though; they'll usually throw stuff like targets or 10% discounts at you if you're regular.

When I bought my first gun, the shop owner threw me a 10% discount next time I came to the store. So when I came back, I bought 75 rounds, a cleaning kit and a holster. The guy threw thirty shooting targets my way.

Here's a photo of everything. The gun is top left, chamber open. Empty clip to the right, loaded clips just below with ther respective rounds. MagTech target rounds on the right, and the ballistic rounds on the left in the darker jackets. Below these the targets are rolled up, and below them you'll see the cleaning kit.

The second photo shows the SERPA holster. It's made from hard PVC plastic, and features a passive lock that prevents accidental release. You can see from the finger positioning that it is in a natural position if you're drawing, but if someone wanted to run by and grab the gun, they'd have a little trouble. Like I said, it works for idiots and not for smart people; but generally smart people don't try to grab a gun as it sits on your hip.

My (great)Uncle Johnny used to have this expression that he used, assumedly, as a catch all. Johnny new just about everything about everything. Growing vegetables, cleaning your sidearm, rebuilding a carbureator; all of it. He was an airplance mechanic in DubDub Two before there ever was an Air Force. I guess back then they were just known as The Badasses With A Set Of Sparkplug Sockets.

Anyways, whenever you would say something like "I planted grapes last year and I've still got nothin'."

Uncle Johnny used to go "mm-HM", and then fold his arms sort of thoughtfully. See, he knew that only those scrapply old Muscodines grow in the southeast. It would've been impolite for him to tell you that you're a dumbass. So he'd say "mm-HM" and after briefly scratching his stubbly chin with his thick calloused fingers, he'd steer you off to where you ought to be.

When Jen said that Bane had gone, I felt like saying "mm-HM." Bane used to comment a lot around here, and I could've sworn we did a "How Many Beers" with him, but I googled with no success. Add it to the list of things I should've done while I could've. Goddammit. "mm-HM" was where Bane existed on the spectrum of human emotion. While we were all chewing pseudointellectual cud and choking on diplomacy, he was spitting bullets and breathing fire. He actually said (blogged, wrote, whatever) aloud what we were all thinking while we were going "mm-HM."

Passion without a filter. A 527 in a Gremlin running with an open header. He was caustic, but you couldn't deny his drawing power.

Well Bane, if you're in Heaven - I hope they've got a shooting range. On the off chance you end up in Hell, call up one or two of your old favorites and shoot your way out. But try not to crack a smile while you do it. That might piss 'em off.

Here's to hoping you're looking out for us all. We could definitely use a gaurdian angel rocking a bandalero.

So where I work, we have an set of ATM's in the food court. We're having this surprise lunch for one of the people in my office suite, so I went down there to get $20 to throw in for the take-out tab.

As I'm waiting for the machine to spit out my crisply-minted fiat currency, I realize that someone is approaching me. Maybe it's just me, but having someone walk up to you at the ATM is awkward. Is it just me? I mean, if it's a friend or something, then it doesn't; but this was an obscure acquaintance. I say 'obscure' because it's someone with whom I've had a, and I mean a single, brief, conversation; but we don't know each other by name.

Anyways, this person is mumbling, and I'm looking back and forth between them and the machine as I go about my business. I can't quite make out what they're saying, but they're definitely trying to communicate specifically to me:
"sdfa, sthsg ugurowelo, kljh?"
Hmm. What is it Lassie? What is it girl?
"weui, rtr wertllyurt a dollar..."
Oh. A twinge of sympathy. We wade deeper into awkwardness.
"...sdpog ritiwe bakesale?"
Oh you've got to be kidding me.

I finally figure out that this person is asking me for a dollar, so she can buy something at the charity bakesale that's set up on a table adjacent to the ATM.

Don't get me wrong, I do have feelings. And at first I felt bad for this person who had to beg people for money while they went to the ATM. At least it was a good tactic, hit 'em when they're going to the source. But the act stumbles in the prestige, right where it should be hitting me full force. A dollar? Motherfucker, I'm at the ATM. I have no money, and in a few moments when I do have money, I am not going to have any dollar bills.

So you want a dollar (first nail in the coffin) and you want it for...the bakesale? You want my money so you can spend it on something nonessential. Yeeaah.

No.

I'm sitting here at the kitchen table. It's a perfectly breezy evening. Around here, we get this 4 or 6 week window of time sandwiched between the sweltering humidity of summer and the crisp dryness of winter. The windows are open, and the slight evening sun does it's best to glaze through the puffy cloud cover; but after 3:30 or so it's ambient lighting at best. It's probably in the mid or high seventies during the day, and low sixties at night. The breeze blows almost all day long, and if you can stand the noise of the crickets, frogs, and birds; you can sleep with the windows open. Nature's air conditioning.

I'm thinking of all that's happened in the recent past, and how it belies the place I find myself in, here at the kitchen table. There was Ike, who kicked the shit out of Texas. Towns absolutely wiped off the map, people without power and water for what may be weeks; and worse. But where is that on my local nightly newscast? The talking heads are going on about our problem with rabid cats, or that a cement company wants to build a plant. WTF.

And then there's the economic news. It seems to me that the gloom-and-doomers have been heralding this day for at least a year. Stock markets climb a wall of worry. Americans are sitting on a sinkhole of debt. It's time to pay the piper. Well, believe it or not, somehow this bit of new became blurbworthy on my local innocuous newscast. Crammed for a few seconds between a peice on a reopened murder case and some guy who builds shrimping trawlers by hand.

And there's also the election. I won't go into specifics, but suffice to say I hope everyone's doing their homework; and I mean real digging. Read the sites you don't usually read, ferret out the partisan shit, and read the factual stuff. You'd be amazed what's lying under the facade of these candidates; and it seems we do really have to pick the lesser of two evils. I've decided not to talk politics with friends anymore, because there's one candidate I simply can't stand. The sad part is that the other one just makes me feel 'sort of' like I won't have to fear my government. This is making the local newscast. We're just enjoying the weather, I guess. Shit, the weather makes the news a couple times a day.

Where's all the in depth analysis? Report on the issues. Then report on the people and events driving the issues. Where are they why's? I don't give a fuck that the weather's going to be awesome tomorrow; I give a fuck about the stuff that really matters. How come I have to look that shit up, and you; as a news agency, the informers; only have to bring me rabid cats, cement plants, and the fucking weather?

Okay, so it looks like I will have to craft a serious response for De. Of course, I'm sure she probably knows as much about weathering a hurricane as I or anyone else who lives in a hurricane prone area.

For anyone reading this who may have actually come here looking for real tips on how to survive a hurricane: 1. You're absolutely fucked. 2. I would provide a link, but I'm a Darwinian and if this page is all you could dig up on the web; then your genes must perish for the sake of the herd.

Granted, the storm De's currently referring to is a mere blip on the screen. The only thing she really needs to do is get a party hat on and head down to the corner bar. But I figured I might as well put up a good surivial list that will help you get through most any medium term power outage. Anything beyond a week or more, and your best bet is to hunker down with some ammo and await fixed wing and artillery support.

Without further ado, the Hurricane Survival Kit:

1. Beer, ice, and water. There's no point in stockpiling liquor, as you won't want to waste ice keeping mixers cool. Just a giant cooler or four filled with these three key ingredients. The beer is for survival, and the water and ice are to keep it cold. Warm beer is a recipe for depression, and we all know that survival requires a Positive Mental Attitude.
2. Toilet Paper. Pretty self explanatory. Shit-covered hands are no good at helping you drink beer.
3. For food, you're going to need to stick to canned goods and things you can grill; which means you'll need a can opener and some propane/charcoal/firewood. I suggest a mix of both propane and firewood; because of the entertainment value of a roaring fire. Especially when it's on someone else.
4. Which brings me to the last item you'll need: a few other people, I recommend good friends.

Some people have suggested including boardgames and the like. I have to respectfully disagree, and here's why. The only kind of person who's going to include a boardgame on their survival list is a hopeless fucking dork. Which is not to say we're trying to rule them out of your group of friends, Lord knows we've all got a dorky friend or two. You're just going to have to ask them not to bring the game. You see, these are the kind of people who will bring some nerdy game that they love, but which everyone else is kind of 'Meh' about. Like say, Risk. Of course, everyone else in the group will play a round or two of the game; but when Dorky McLosernut's beer supply begins to run low (and everyone knows goddamn well that he only brought good beer because he knew it would grease the wheels of a thirty-fucking-six hour Risk marathon); resentment will set in. Discord is a real pain in the ass in survival situations, because it usually results in killing. Killing is serious business, and you're not going to have the right tools in a survival situation to cover your tracks properly. If you want to have a form of amusement (besides fire, nature's television) I would recommend something like horseshoes, bocci ball, or the like. They're entertaining, but mindless enough to keep people from wanting to gut each other.

If you've got other neccesities that you'd recommend go ahead and share.

So I was giving De a hard time about her lack of Dollyblogging. I knew she was down in TX somewhere, but I failed to notice that she was in fact out of the storm's path. That minor detail aside, she assured me that I would be the first person she'd contact should she find herself in the midst of an apocalypse.

I wonder how that convo would go:

shank is at home, watching TV and eating a bag of microwave popcorn on the couch. A phone rings.

shank: Yalla'.

De (static, screams, crashes in the background): SHANK!? IS THAT YOU?

shank(pulls phone away from ear, grimacing): Jesus Christ. Yeah? Who the hell is this?

De (continued static, glass breaking, sirens. The connection cuts in and out): THI- IS DE. -OOK, I'M IN A BIT -- A SPOT, -ERE. I NE-D -OME ADVICE ON -OW -- SURVIVE AN APOCALYPSE.

shank: Well, first things first. Do you have any personal lubricant?

De (white noise continues, thunder claps can be heard, horns honk): I'M -ORRY, BUT -ID YOU JU-- SAY '-ERSONA- LUBR--ANT'!?

shank: Yep! Make sure you've got a good supply on hand, as it were, so that you've got something to do when the power goes out and eternity sets in. If you make it past the four horsemen and what not. What's going on down there?

De (background noise reaches a crescendo, waves can be heard crashing, donkeys braying): WELL, IT -EEMS THAT THE END IS NIGH. THERE'S THIS -EVEN HEADED --ING MAKING ITS WA- THROU-- TOWN FROM -HE OCEA-. WHAT --OULD I -O?

shank: Um. How flexible are you?

De (wind roaring, dogs barking, cattle lowing): WHAT!?

shank: Flexible! How FLEXIBLE are you?

De (the sound of fast footsteps, muffled distortions, chickens being put in a blender): I'M -KAY, I GUESS.

shank: Good! All you need to do is bend over and kiss your ass goodbye!

shank (Hangs up the phone, and shovels a fistful of popcorn at his gaping maw.): Bitches always on my jock, yo. Can't even peep a movie up in this motherfucker.

So The Wife and I have lived in our new neighborhood for about six months now, and we're really glad we chose to buy here. And no, we didn't get an ARM or finance more than we can afford or anything like that; so you won't be paying our mortgage with your tax dollars anytime soon. One of the reasons we like it so much is because we live on a cul-de-sac, and we've made some really good friends with all the neighbors.

Anyways, so I'm walking out of the garage yesterday evening and B, the guy who lives across the street, waves me over. "Come on around back, M and E are over with the baby. We're just sitting on the porch." So I head over and he says, "Just give us a holler when you're about to come through the gate. M's dogs are over, and we'll have to hold them so they don't make a break for it." I hadn't yet met M's wife E, or the new baby; so I figured what the hey.

So I pause at the gate, get the go ahead, and walk through. Now, I'm carrying a beer and a folding chair, so my hands are fairly full. As I close the gate, they open the screen door on the porch, and the dogs come out as I go in. Of course, the dogs are excited because dogs generally get all excited around new people, and they're barking and jumping as we pass eachother. I hold out a palm to them as I'm walking through the screen door, and amidst the canine social niceties I get a solid bite on the ass.

Now, I've never been bitten by a dog, so I'm like. "Son of a ... (they had their kid with them, so I held back the urge to scream BLOODY MOTHERFUCKING BASTARD)! Your dog just bit my butt dude!" I put my chair down, and B's wife L is a nurse, so she's like "Go in the bathroom and have a look to make sure you're not bleeding." M grabs the dog that bit me and chastises him, while the little dog is still running around yelping and shit. I go off to the bathroom to survey the damage to one of humanity's Great Flawless Asses.

Thankfully there were no puncture wounds, but it did leave a raspberry about the size of a silver dollar. Almost as if I'd scraped it in a fall or something. So I go back outside, and of course M, E, B, and L are all as shocked as I am. The dog doesn't have a history of biting, and it's shots are all up to date and what not. So there we are, making awkward conversation and pretending that what just happened was neither hilarious nor painful. I slammed my beer as fast as possible just so I'd have an excuse to get the hell out of there.

I got home and called The Wife, who'd just left for her shift. Now, she's a nurse to; and as soon as I made the mistake of telling her about it, she got all hypochondriac on me. Generally, I dislike going to the doctor. However, I have discovered that for the sake of my marriage (and my own health) it is best to just take my medicine. I ended up going to the local urgent care last night for a tetanus booster and some advice on how to prevent infection. I also had a weird moment with the doc, when he asked me how the hell I got bit on the ass by a dog. The way he said it implied that he thought I was running around the dog park in a banana hammock, trying to lay with the beasts of the field or something. Anyways, he said soak in a bath for a while, wash it with some antibacterial soap, and keep an eye on it.

When I returned from the urgent care, I had a voicemail from M. He said he'd heard I went to have it looked at, and wanted to make sure everything was okay. Needless to say, it's kind of an awkward situation now. Firstly, I haven't been scared of a dog since I don't know when, and now I'm kind of scared of M's dog; and secondly because we don't really now each other that well. The dog didn't growl or posture in any way that made me feel like it was in an aggressive mood. I mean, I understand that animals are animals, and sometimes they bite; but now I'm all thrown off. Maybe it didn't like the color I was wearing. Maybe it was because it was held, then released as I came in; thus putting it in a defensive mindset. Hell, maybe it was just being friendly. I mean, I didn't have to pull myself away from it; the bite was more of a quick release type of nip than a chomp and hold.

I realize that some people would have probably reported the bite to animal control, but I didn't. The dog doesn't have a history, and B &L even kept the dogs for a week while M &E were away and had no problems. I mean, it would only add tension to an already awkward situation. Here I am, embarrassed that I got bit in the damn ass; but I could tell M & E were equally embarrassed that their dog acted like that. If I reported the bite, it would just give them a reason to let their embarrassment turn into resentment. I'd prefer not to have a relationship like that with neighbors, especially people who are as easy to like as M & E seem to be. I figure it'll be socially lame for a little while, but eventually it'll be a funny story.

I ain't going to be hanging around his damn dogs anytime soon though, and you can take that shit to the bank son!

Why is it that nearly all the Brits who make it onto TV shows are raging pricks.

Simon Cowell, a cunting condescender if there ever was one, pretty much makes money coming up with creative ways to tell people they'd be better off shoving that mic up their ass than singing into it.

I'm pretty sure that Gordon Ramsey is really just Simon Cowell in an apron. I mean, he makes money telling people they'd be better off shoving their cooking up their ass than eating it.

What the hell, UK? The only Brits on TV who actually seem like enjoyable people are the guys from Top Gear. I mean, I would actually like to sit in a bar and get drunk with those guys.

Can you imagine what it would be like to get drunk with Simon Cowell? He'd end up getting into a bar brawl with someone over how their shoes look 'shtew-pid' or something. Unfortunately for him, he'd find that outside of American Idol, most people with 'shtew-pid' attire are big enough to kick his cockney ass. And Ramsey? The guy totally strikes me as a grade-a, skeevy letch. He'd probably get drunk and start sizing up anything in the bar with a warm snatch. You can't blame him though. I don't know if you noticed or not, but if you get a close look at his face, it looks like he's been dropping it in deep fryers. Fame is the only thing that's getting him laid, and he's just trying to ride the wave as long as possible.

Jenelle had an interesting morning, thanks to guy who decided that today was the day that he needed to kill his family and himself. She says, "I want to believe there is a Hell at times like these."

I have to say that Hell must exist in instances like these, if only in the mind of the shooter. I simply can't imagine the kind of torment one must be in to think that only way to bring it to an end is to murder your family and yourself.

I mean, I have regular panic attacks about the dumbest shit. I don't know why, but they always seem to revolve around things I personally have no control over (global stability, apocalypse, disaster). I become afraid, frantic to do something to avoid certain doom, to prevent the imminent destruction of everything I take for granted. Quite literally, I become attacked by panic; my mind set upon itself, fear scaling the walls of rationality; horror at the realization of my own powerlessness. But even in the grip of such an irrational tailspin, I've never concluded that the death of myself or anyone I hold dear would bring peace.

So does Hell exist? Well, something tortured him to the point that he had to commit a horrible, senseless crime. I suppose the answer has to be yes, but whether Hell is a result or a punishment remains a mystery.

I gotta say, I've come to understand that I belong in The South, particularly the Southeast, for many reasons. I love the weather, the people (or more appropriately, the lack thereof), and the cultural tapistry. I've lived in many places, but never in a place that felt so much like an integral part of a larger
'place' that stretches across so many states. I walk onto my porch and I could just as easily be in Umatilla, Hiltonia, or my own backyard.

Of course, it's not without its flaws. Like, say, Burmese Pythons. Firstly, the Southwest bit is pretty ridiculous. Burmese pythons are amphibious reptiles that need a constant source of water; and there doesn't seem to be any continuous geography like that in the Southwest.

The Southeast is another story altogether. As a matter of fact, there is already a wild breeding population in the Everglades. I'm sure we all remember the alligator vs. python pictures. That being said, I think if they moved any further north than Charleston, SC or maybe even where I'm at; the longer winter and lack of a consistent swampy wetland would drive them off.

Which is a bittersweet double-edged sword, because they would really help combat the rising population of another regional pest that we refer to as 'Yankee transplants'.

Sure, come visit, have some grits, maybe a little sweet tea; but for the love of God don't stay.

Still working this one out, so put your water wings on and swim at your own risk.

I had a wild one last night. Actually, late this morning. I was at a beachfront hotel/resort with extended family. My wife, brother, his wife, Dad, Mom (!?), uncles, aunts, cousins, grandparents. I was snorkeling with two of my cousins, while the rest of the family ate lunch on a nearby veranda. I also noticed that some good friends from highschool and their kids had joined the party, as well as an old girlfriend and her child. I remember feeling really good, because all of these people were here and getting along. So I got out of the water and walked to the counter to return my rental snorkle equipment. While standing there waiting for the receipt, I notice this huge explosion a couple hundred yards offshore. Me and the rental guy are all "Holy shit!", and then I notice that there's at least one battleship out there, and a giant cruiseliner - the latter of which is steaming directly for the hotel.

I immediately assume that the cruise ship means me no good will, so I start sprinting up the stairs to the front exit with the rental guy in hot pursuit. Some of the guests are doing the same, while some of them simply clap and continue to sip cocktails like they're being ambushed by a dinner theater or something. As I'm running out of the hotel, I hear a swell of panicked shrieks well up behind me, and I shout to my family to head out to the street, putting the hotel building between themselves and the approaching behemoth.

As I'm running across the front patio, I look behind me and see that the cruiseship actually looms taller than the hotel, as its bow smashes through the roof and upper stories of the building. I try to judge where the debris is going to fall, if I should keep running or let it fall in front of me and then just climb over it. I decide to make a mad dash for the street since everyone else already has a headstart on me.

Looking behind me again, I can see the cruise ship backing up with a grinding metal growl. The screaming begins to swell again, as people realize this can only mean a second kamikaze run. I reach the median of the main street, maybe 100 yards from the hotel, which is about 100 yards from the beach, and begin to sweep the scattering crowd for familiar faces. I see my brother, yell at him, then see Mom, Dad, and my aunt and uncle running together. We collect ourselves into a group, and try to figure out what to do next. My brother and I are frantically trying to figure out where our wives are, wondering if maybe they're together, when I wake up. Sweating.

I had the strange sensation when I woke up that I wanted to stay in the dream. I guess to find out where my wife was. Odd.

My Mother told me,
'for she passed away,
said 'Son when I'm gone, don't forget to pray'.
'Cuz there'll be hard times.

Alright, I won't do it anymore. She never was one for fanfare. She wouldn't appreciate it; matter of fact she'd feel downright uncomfortable about the whole goddamn deal. All these people harrassing themselves about something they can't change. They'd be better off just rolling with it and letting the whole damn deal be. But I won't deny that I'm so pissed. Mom, as much as you know I love to tell stories, I never thought the best ones would leave such a sour taste in my mouth.

So, in your memory, and in the only way I can figure how; I celebrate the one and only anniversary. I love ya, I miss ya; always will. But I won't piss myself away over your passing, no matter how much I want to. I know; 'I've got my own life, I'll have my own kids...' You were always that way. Why did you have to be that way. So much better than the rest of us. But I will, for you. I'll raise my kids and tell them about their parents, and their grandparents; and one day. Oh one day. They'll do something and it will remind me of you.

Why couldn't your legacy...
But you were the most...
It's so...
Dammit, you would say that!

The Wife and I closed on our new house last month. I had heard that kind of thing was stressful, but boy did I underestimate the situation. Every day there was some kind of crisis: lost social security cards, inspection punch lists, then the moving began.

Now that we're in, there's a seemingly endless list of projects to take care of. Unfortunately, it sounds like the kind of stuff that will only end in the kind of hijinks a guy like me always gets caught in. So if I ever have any spare time between painting, hanging shelving, tiling backsplashes, and cleaning up all the resulting messes; there might be some new posts here at some point in the future.

So I'm watching Pearl Jam on Storytellers tonight, and it's good. Kind of like visiting an old friend. Until Vedder starts pontificating his egotistical ass off. Jesus Christ, give me a break Eddie. How did this melodramic emo dork make it this far in life without slitting his wrists over all the flies that have died every day of his life?

Seriously, someone in the audience posed the question to him "How do you feel about the fans who have different ideologies than yours?" I paraphrase the question, but the answer is word for word: "Fuck 'em." Vedder then goes on to say that THIS decade is the worst ever; which I find hilarious. Of course this is the worst decade ever, because if you're not here, how could it possibly be a pivotal moment in history? I mean, the good lord wouldn't leave us to our own against the Great Satan without sending us...Eddie Vedder? Piss off. And he goes on to say that we're all going to be a part of the culmination of a revolution, that the fans who have different viewpoints should do research and gain knowledge, basically just get right with the lord. Such egotistical bullshit. We're the band, we're the artists, we're the ones who feel more than anyone else, and we're the ones trying to bring you into the fold. What the hell Vedder? Did you join a church or what? You get ordained cardinal of the First United Church of Bushmongering?

It wouldn't piss me off so much if they hadn't turned into such a bunch of pandering frauds. In the early 90's it really was about being different, about how being a nonconformist can be an expression of creativity. Now he gets up there and refers to himself, and by proxy his band, as the font of knowledge in which those who differ should baptize themselves.

Then I noticed that one of the guys in the front row is bald. And I don't mean "I shave my head" bald, I mean "I'm so old my hair is falling out of my old ass noggin" bald. Dude. These guys are just trying to target the largest segment of the population with the most expendable income - retiring baby boomers.

Suck my farts Pearl Jam. You friggin copouts. We should have known.

I just wrote an awesome post, and the intarweb farted and dropped the entire thing into the techno abyss.

Glenn Reynolds can take his Army of Davids and march it right up his big orange Volunteer State ass. Technolgy is crap! Who's with me!

Real estate agents: Client advocates to be trusted with securing a good deal for you, or money-grubbing bumblefucks who should be kept on a short leash and fed info on a need-to-know basis?

I have no idea, that's why I'm asking you; the educated commentariat.

Michigan who?

During last night's episode of Last Comic Standing, John Reep touched on something that resounds with a lot of people - take the stupid Bluetooth earbud off your head if you're not actually on the phone. His comment was "You look like a tool." I think it's a behavior that deserves, due to its prevalence, a bit more attnetion.

I've never understood it myself, why people do this. It makes about as much sense as taking your steering wheel with you after you park your car. I wondered if maybe it was a status thing, like, "Check me out, I've got a Bluetooth thingie." That theory doesn't hold up though, when you consider the cost of an earbud. What're they, like 50 bucks?

You know what I think it is? I think most people are just plain old morons, and for some reason it makes them feel neato to wear the earbud. Maybe it makes them feel futuristic, like a character in a sci-fi novel; which is about as sad as people who dress up for the Renaissance Fair. Or maybe it makes them feel important, like "People are constantly ringin' my bling, yo. I gots to keep my Bluetoof on G"; which is sadder still, because they're not actually talking on it.

The fact of the matter is, the only time you need to use the stupid thing is if you're on the phone while already doing something with both hands, like making dinner, driving, or beating someone about the head and neck with a Big Bertha Titanium 454. Unfortunately, people use the earbud for no apparent reason all the damn time. They're not even all that convenient when you do have to use them (the volume is lower, they drain your battery, etc), so why the hell would you sit there and use it if your stupid phone is right there in your pocket?

The main takeaway here is that wearing an idle Bluetooth has become a universal signifier; it's the modern equivalent of a dunce cap.

Have any of you finished the last Harry Potter book?

I read it this weekend, and finished last night at the godawful early hours of this morning.

All throughout reading these books, I've noticed that they make fine parables for the current war on terrorism/Islamofascism. I'd be willing to bet, though, that the author's intention (much like Tolkien, I'd imagine) was not to create such a parallel. But I just can't help but see it. Does anyone else? Just figured I'd ask...

Recently, I started bringing some CD's to work so I could listen to tunes in the office. We hired a new analyst a few weeks back, and she heard the music coming from my office the other day. I think it was some Mississippi Delta stuff or some other old southern blues bastardization of gospel music. "OOOOHHhh! That's nice!" Her exuberance was somewhat off-putting.

The next day, I said to her "Hey, I just wanted to let you know that I'm not shutting my door to be rude or anything; I just wouldn't want my music to bother anyone." I figured if no one heard it, they wouldn't be bothering me telling me what they thought of it. I already know it's good, that's why I'm listening to it, please don't interrupt me with your opinion or that epileptic, pathetic, middle-aged cracker ass-shaking of yours.

"Oh, no problem at all. Especially if you keep playing that jazz stuff you had yesterday!"

Jazz my ass. I smoldered a bit on the inside. Who the hell confuses blues rock with jazz? I kept my mouth shut on the grounds that saying a word would make me look like a music snob, or at least just a prick. Can't have people knowing I'm a prick, no sir. I smile weakly at her and pretend I'm busy.

This morning she comes in and gushes, "You like jazz right?"
"Yeah." I try not to imagine what kind of musical selection or conversation is going to follow because I might laugh. Or cry.
"Have you heard the new John Mayer CD?" I fight the tears welling up inside me. "It's so great! I mean, it's all jazz!" The tears begin to give way to disappointment. "I'll have to bring it in, or maybe I can just burn a copy on my computer!" She sounds so excited. Excited like a retard.

I seriously considered telling her that John Mayer isn't jazz, that I'm utterly perplexed at how she came to such a distinction; that he is in fact just shallow, corny, pop pablum formulated to appeal to a specific audience of juveniles who view the world as a simple place with simple problems and equally simple solutions; that jazz is anything but that; and if she brings in a copy of that CD (which I'd graciously have to listen to all the way through at least once, to avoid the prick problem above) it'll just give me a goddamned headache. But I decide that maybe acting like a complete psycho is not a good idea, so I give some kind of non-committal "Heh" or something.

I suppose the real shame is I hear that he's a good musician; and I just can't get past the lyrics. It's like chocolate covered poo. You're all, "Look there's something covered in chocolate! Yay!" Then you bite into it and find yourself somewhat disgusted, probably nauseated, and feeling like "Why would someone do such a cruel thing like that? Why?"

My glasses were getting a little worn recently, so I decided it was time to suck it up and deal with the hassle.

I like the frames I have, but the lenses were getting pretty badly scratched up. Besides, I don't have prescription sunglasses, and I was really looking forward to getting some transitional lenses so I could check out chicks at the beach.

During a break in the middle of my day, I walked across the street to my optometrist's office. It's a local shop, and I've been going there for years since they're so close to my office. After talking with the lady about what I was looking for, we ended up striking a really good deal. I was able to get a package deal if I got the transitional lens and this anti-glare/scratch-resistant coating. I wasn't planning on getting an extra coating since the transitional lenses already said they were scratch resistant, but for the price it didn't make sense to turn it down. I got the whole thing at about 27% off and felt like I was doing pretty damn good; especially since we hadn't crested my insurance cap for eyewear.

"Well then, let me take those frames to the back and trace them for the new lenses."
I had no idea what this entailed, but it seemed logical to me. "Okie dokie," I said to the nice lady who just saved me some dough.

About two minutes later she comes back, sits down at our little table, holds the frames out to me and says, "Did you know these are about to break?" She teeters one of the ear peices back and forth, and sure enough; that sucker is held on by about three molecules of metal - right past the hinge near the front of the frame.

Immediately I can tell this dumbass is trying to take me for a ride. If my glasses were in that state during my walk over to the optometrists or at the point I took them off my head and gave them to her, they would have fallen apart in my hands. It is obivous to anyone sitting at the table who has a preschool diploma that this bitch just broke my shit trying to get the lens out of it. Having had glasses all my life, I am aware that when the optometrist takes your glasses away from you, they are in no way responsible for them if they break. Sounds like bullshit, I know, but it's true. I take mine in for the occasional tweak, and they always tell me that if they break them, they're not at fault. I look back at this dumbfuck with a blank look on my face.

"We might need to order new frames," she says as if it's not patently obvious.
Being a cheap bastard, I know that my frames were inexpensive. "Well, can you order that same frame?"

She calls someone on the phone, yadda-yadda, and says to me, "Okay, here's the deal." My asshole puckers, because I know I'm about to get it. "This frame, in the color you wear, is on backorder. However, they have a brown gunmetal color available." I wonder to myself what the hell kind of color brown gunmetal is. Bronze? Metallic Turd? "So what I'm going to do is overnight the brown gunmetal, we'll call you when it's in and put your current lenses in those. That way you have something to wear. Then, when your lenses get in we'll put them in the brown frames, and switch them into your new frames when they come off backorder." I look at her, then my frames, back to her; and try not to say the word 'Fuck.' "Sound good?"

I think for a moment, lean in and say, "It sounds like a story I once heard. A parable, if you will. See, one day this guy was just going about his routine when he felt some discomfort, and discovered there was a broomstick in his ass. He thought to himself 'My word, this is quite irritating'; so he sought professional help to get the broom removed from his ass. Tragically, during the procedure (indeed, almost near the very end!); this trained professional ended up breaking the broom handle off in the man's ass. He wanted to scream, but he was too astounded at the technical ineptitude of the trained professional. Then the person whom he sought help from proposed something that made the man want to cry and kill at the same time. The person said, 'How about you come back tomorrow, we'll pull the broken-off peice out, stick a thicker broomstick in your ass because that's all we've got right now, then when we get a thinner broomstick in we'll swap the thick one out, then when we've got the tools we need, we'll remove the broomstick altogether. But the tools are on backorder and we don't know when that will be. Oh, and you'll be paying for all this too.' " I lean back, without breaking eye contact, and settle into my chair. It was all very Hannibal Lecter: direct, violent, but spoken in an even tone.

She offered to pay for most of the new frames, gave me a steeper discount on the lenses; and I walked out of that place getting the frames and lenses (with all the options I wanted) for just over $100. I'm still a little miffed because I have to jump through all the hoops, but this cheap bastard has never heard of a deal like that. Goddamn right too, because I've got to wear glasses with tape on them for a day or so.

Fuck.

How is it that a word could mean one thing and it's opposite at the same time? Take the word 'cleave' which has two definitions; the more obvious of which is to cut or split. However, it also has another meaning - to adhere or cling.

This sets up all kinds of confusing situations, and eventually renders the word itself absolutely meaningless and unuseable:
A good writer should cleave himself of ambiguity, and cleave to the pursuit of words that cleave themselves from the mediocre mainstream vocabulary.
See. No one could ever agree or disagree with the above statement, because it's virtually impossible to tell exactly what that statement is. And it sounds retarded.

If you take this a step further and use the word 'uncleave', it opens up a veritable literary wormhole of sorts. Since the word is its own opposite, it's impossible to tell which form of uncleave is being used - the one that means uncut or the one that means unstuck. Silicet:
"I thought you told me you cleaved that."
"Well, that's because I did cleave it."
"I can plainly see that it is most certainly uncleaved."
"That's exactly what I'm saying."
"No, you said cleaved."
"Don't be an ass. It's as cleaved as uncleaved can be."
"Listen to me goddammit. That is not cleaved, and if you want to argue about it, we can go outside and I'll cleave you."
"Now that just doesn't make any sense. How bout you go outside and cleave yourself, mothercleaver."

Essentially, a word that is its own opposite can't possibly have any meaning at all, except in context; and context, being merely the perception of the reader, can fluctuate not only among readers, but among readings by the same reader given any number of external and internal events.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, this is bullshit and somebody better do something about it. Pronto.

We don't leave until Thursday, but I can barely contain myself. I simply can't imagine having to wait another 48 hours to be on vacation.

I reserved my car today. Each time I go to Vegas, I rent a dream car. For a guy like me, Vegas wouldn't be Vegas if I didn't spend some time behind the wheel of a decent car. Decent meaning:
1) The car must be a coupe, hard top or 'vert is irrelevant.
2) The car must be a sports car, not a Mustang, Camaro, Seabring, Solara, or any of the other useless but oxymoronically ubiquitous designs.
3) The car must be rare. Something you don't see everyday, and definitely something you can't rent at your local Rent-A-Wreck.

My choice this time came down to two finalists, a Shelby Cobra and a Lotus Elise. I ended up going with the Lotus for a couple reasons. Firstly, I feel it's going to handle better through Red Rock Canyon better than the Cobra might. The front engine design and overall power to weight ratio of the Shelby is going to make it a little squirrely in the turns. Not to mention it's probably not going to have the balance the Lotus will. So Lotus it is!

Definitely sprung for the extra insurance coverage too.

Dear Neighbors-
Hi! We're the young couple that just moved in down the street. You know, the ugly house. The rental with the patchy lawn and the wrinkled asphalt driveway.

Look, I know what you're going to say; but there's no way in Satan's searing Hell that I'm getting my paper-pushing ass out in the 90-degree heat to walk around behind a fertilizer spreader. Sorry. Besides, it's not like it's killing the property values around here. Don't get me wrong, if it was my own place I'd be out there doing it, because it probably bugs me almost as much as it bugs you. But let's be honest, this place is too goddamned ugly for anyone to actually buy. That's why it's a rental.

Thanks!
The Ugly House People

P.S. Thanks to the folks at 2907 for the pallets! Yeah, we snagged 'em from your garbage pile because they make great fuel for the fire pit in the backyard. If anyone else ever has any, feel free to give us a holler and we'll come pick them up!

I was just at the grocery store and I saw a famous guy. An actor, to be specific. Except I don't know his name.

It's similar to having a song in your head, but not knowing the name of it; except worse, because I can't offer anything up that would describe him to anyone. I'll try though.

He's a medium build guy, short curly hair that's dark, with just a few tinges of gray maybe. He's probably between 40 and 50. He's got square facial features. Not angled like Dolf Lundgren, but maybe more of a Harvey Keitel. The bottom of his face, the jawline and chin; seem wider than the rest of his face. And just a tad younger than harvey.

I can't remember a single movie he's in, but I don't remember seeing him ever smile. He's got a raspy voice, not too gravelly, just kind of a whiskey sort of tone. I've got this flash memory of him being some gritty kind of character who projects a lot of anger. Not crazy, energetic anger; but kind of simmering powerful anger. Can't remember what movie or a scene I saw that in or anything; but he was definitely so pissed he was kind of sweating a little. God, this is horrible isn't it?

Heading back to Vegas the middle of this month. My cousin and some other folks are all turning 30 and they wanted to do it out there. It's going to be good times.

They all want to go eat at one of these fancy tapas bars on Saturday night. Hey, I enjoy great food as much as the next guy; but I don't give a rats ass about exotic garnish and funny-shaped plates. And furthermore, why the hell would someone go to a restraunt that sells you food that other people can eat of your plate? I guess as long as the sangria is flowing we won't have any problems. But I'm not sure, because I've never had sangria. I'm hoping this fruity joint sells PBR or something just in case.

My favorite hole in the wall joint in Vegas is this place called the Stage Door. It's this total dump on Flamingo, nestled in the shadow of the Flamingo Hotel and Casino. You can get a beer and a hotdog for $2.

Go down to the end of the block at Flamingo and Koval and there's Ellis Island. Less divey, but they've got an outdoor barbecue and $7 dinner plates that could feed a small family. They give you like half a chicken and four sides. It's ridiculous. I suggest the ribs.

There's a tond of other places, but I'd hate to give away any real treasures.

So recently the company I work for signed a contract for a large purchase. We spent just under one year shopping vendors, whittling down our top choices, and then negotiating with each one. This afternoon I sat down with 2 other guys from my company and the sales rep for the company we decided to go with. The first thing I notice about the sales rep (and something that has always bugged me about him) was his goddamned dirty fucking fingernails.

Listen asshole, if we're going to make a six million dollar purchase with you, clean your god forsaken fingernails! What the hell is wrong with you? This dipshit is taking home comission on six mils and he doesn't even bother to take a goddamned shower before he shows up? What the ever loving hell is up with that? Fuckin' ell! I make a fraction of what this toady bastard hauls in every year and even I can manage to keep myself clean!

We buy capital fuckin' assets from Pigpen. I'm on the wrong side of the business.

So The Wife came home last Tuesday night dry-heaving and pissing about some serious abdominal pain, "I think I have appendicitis," she groaned. I mean, women can really bitch about the stupidest shit sometimes, and me being your typical sensitive but super-intelligent male; I was like, "You probably just need to fart really bad."
"Just go get my old nursing text and read the part about appendicitis!"
So I read her some shit about abdominal pain in the right lower quadrant, and god knows what else. She's convinced she's going to fucking die; and I'm sitting there calculating the odds that tonight is the night my perfectly healthy counterpart gets stricken with some acute but deadly syndrome. I beg her to shut the fuck up and sleep on it.

Okay, so I have to negotiate this for several minutes, plead, and finally beg for her to come to bed and we'll reconoiter in the AM.

Eventually she went to sleep (thank God, this cracker has to get up early, know what I'm sayin'?). Anyways, she calls me the next morning at about 11am, on the verge of tears, talking about abdominal pain. Now, she's finishing nursing school in about ten days, and she had a test that evening. We rationalized that there was no point in going to see the PMD or an Urgent care center because they wouldn't have the diagnostic capability to tell use if she actually had appendicitis. She goes to the Emergency Department.

Which is nice, because I work at the hospital and I could come check on her every so often. You know, between building the $200 million capital budget that was due the next day. Just a little thing I had going on, and The Wife wants to piss and moan about a fucking fart she can't get rid of.

I want a new car. Not that there's a single thing wrong with my current car (quite the contrary), I just kind of get bitten by this bug every so often.

It all started when my buddy got one of these '07 twin-turbo Beamer coupes. He's crazier about cars than I am, and they had to bring this thing over on a boat direct from Germany. He paid 52 g's for the car and he's already got 12 more in mods planned. Seriously, I don't think I'll ever be rich enough and stupid enough to buy a BMW; but I have to amdmit that thing is retarded.

And then there's the weird trend. A lot of the enthusiasts I hang out with who drive the same model car I do, have all sold their cars and bought an S2000. Like ten or fifteen people I know have done this. I think they're great cars, but I don't see myself taking my kids to school in one.

A nice ancillary twist is that The Wife probably needs a new car before I could ever honestly propose that I get one. Her car has close to 100,000 miles on it and isn't very comfortable (though it's been more cost-effective than my own).

But none of this stops me from dreaming about the TL Type-S, the STi, the EVO, or others. I just can't help it.

If I was a real ass, I'd tell my wife she could drive my car, and I'd get a new car; but she's not dumb. Dammit. Then I wonder if we traded in her car and mine; we could get her something with a low payment and I could drive our beater truck for a year or two. I could save money driving the paid-for beater, and in a while I'd be able to buy something nice at a low payment too. It'd be kind of hard to let go of my car though, but if I knew there was something better waiting for me, it would be worth it.

I keep thinking that saving for retirement is probably not a good idea. In all seriousness; the chances seem high that nuclear holocaust, world war, and/or collapse of the global economy will occur before I ever have the opportunity to see the maturation of such a fund. Honestly, I think I'd be better keeping my spare cash under a fucking mattress if that's the case, because doing so would make me the richest dude on the block.

Everyone else would've lost their ass in the ensuing chaos, stock market crash, etc.; and I'd be the only one with real money. I wouldn't use that money to pilot my way to the top of the miserable heap that humanity had become, though. Doing so would only make me a target, and I don't own any guns or feel like hiring security. I'd take my cash savings, and move the hell out to the country. Buy a big plot of land, raise crops to feed my family. Oddly enough, that sounds really relaxing.

Except for the whole 'civilization plummeting into chaos', 'collapse of global economy', 'nations reduced to warring tribal factions' thing. I just figure if I get far enough into Kansas I'll be alright, because people will forget the midwest even exists.

It's that line of thinking upon which we've based our decision to start a garden in the backyard. Okay, well it wasn't that line of thinking, but I like to imagine it was. We want to grow muskmelons, watermelons, cucumbers, tomatoes, squash/zucchini, peppers, spinach, lettuce, broccoli, carrots, herbs, and an attempt at Muscodine grapes. Yeah, I know. But we both grew up in families that had large gardens, and I come from a decently long line of farmers. I'm not kidding, when I was a kid, we had a 12x30 in the backyard of our suburban home, and my grandfather had one in the front yard of his suburban home that dwarfed ours.

I don't have the nuts to put ours in the front, I'd probably get attacked by these yuppies that live in my neighborhood. Hey, I thought yuppies had died off too; but let me tell you, those motherfuckers are alive and well. Remember the rant from a couple days ago? Friggin' the exact same scenario happend on Saturday night. It's not very often I call 'em blind; and I have to admit I was a little disappointed that things turned out the way they did.

We had some friends over for the night, and we all sat on the porch enjoying the nice weather and the fire burning in the backyard. Apparently, my neighbors were having a little soiree of their own, as we could hear groups of people coming to their back porch for the occasional smoke. Eventually the man of the house hops the fence (which is to say, he damn near busted his drunken ass trying to get through the hedge, climb the fence, and make it to the other side; a fairly quick, graceful motion while sober but a rather palsied and clumsy operation for him), to come over and introduce himself. This is the truth, he fucking walks into my backyard wearing a pair of black, flatfront slacks, shiny black leather shoes, a belt (seriously, who the hell wears a belt on the weekend??), and this collared, button-down shirt that looked like it was made out of satin or something. "Yeah, we're just drinkin' a shitload of wine [I fight to keep from rolling my eyes], hangin' out." He introduces himself as a mortgage lender/writer, hangs for a few minutes, shooting the breeze, and then says, "You guys should totally buy this place." He was a nice enough guy, just totally vacuous. It's fucking Saturday night, 11pm, you're hammered, and you still can't avoid trying to make the sale. How terribly depressing.

It could have been worse though, he could have been a total prick. He was friendly enough, which I must say I'm thankful for. I could be living next to someone more like myself, which would either result in mutual (but unspoken) disregard or monthly fisticuffs.

Firstly, this site reached it's 10,000th comment tonight. May we all wonder at the tidal wave of comment spam; and those of us in hats, tip them to the new revolution. Well, that and the fact that the 10,000th comment probably belonged to me. Becuase I'm a whore.

There's one bus driver on my route from the commuter lot to my stop who insists on playing contemporary Christian tunes. Jesus freaks don't neccesarily bother me or anything; it's just that their music...well, it sucks.

It was this dude softly singing, in this moderately high (and decidedly wimpy) tone; backed up by some generic soft rock-ish band. Not surprising. Being a resident of the Bible Belt, I've been exposed to a decent range (to use the term loosely) of contemporary Christian music; and it's all the same. Musically non-descript and (ironically) devoid of inspiration; this genre is similar to pop in that it's not created out of a love for music or artistic expression. That's what makes it so bland. I've heard a few good bands, but they only sounded good because they were imitating the sound of a more mainstream artist/band.

However, since I was locked inside a moving vehicle this morning, silently enduring the sounds of mediocrity; I decided to listen to the words. I almost burst out laughing. Here's this singer, in near falsetto, repeating the following chorus:
God Cooooome, God Cooooome, God Cooooome...
I smirked on the inside, and continued to listened to the verses.
...I can feel you inside of me...
Wait. Do what?
...Fill me up with your warmth...
Oh come on. I hope I wasn't laughing out loud at this point; because I was either listening to a seriously warped closet case elicit his cry for help, or this band was purposefully trying to mess with people's minds.

The moaning lyrics, about being touched by the spirit/bathed in white/etc with regular returns to the choral plea for God to cooooome; continued nearly the entire ride. Funny, yes. But also disturbing. I mean, I kept picturing people singing along with this kind of stuff, like; what's going through your head when you sing the words "I can feel you inside of me, fill me up with your spirit"? Seriously, if Christina Aguilera was singing that song, the MPAA or Mothers Against Filthy Sluts or somebody would be smashing CD's in the street.

The Wife and I went out and bought our Christmas/promotion gift the other night: a 42" plasma HDTV. It's glorious. I can't wait until the cable guy comes tomorrow and hooks up the digital/HD so that we may worship at the altar, enveloped in the warm glow of millions and millions of pixels.

At the end of the month, I'm going to this convention on my employer's tab. It's to a decent locale, one of my favorites actually. But the material is so specific to my industry/sector, that it's fated to be the most boring three days in recent memory. It's got all the elements too: corny consultant to kick the thing off, garanteed to be full of this empowerment/7 Habits type of shit that people make millions of dollars on simply by regurgitating someone elses schtick every two years; a day of breakaway sessions that have titles like 'Watching the Grass Grow' and 'Underwater Basketweaving', and social breaks mixed in. Those are the worst, the networking sessions. It's like 'Here, have some finger food and join the meat market. You can peddle your business card, or simply whore yourself out to your peers!'

Seriously, my boss was turned down by two other people (more appropriate candidates, IMO) before she asked me. I said yes because 1) I love going to this particular city, 2) I have friends there, and 3) I get to go solo. Under normal circumstances, I'd bring The Wife; but she's got a full schedule during that particular time. Still though, going alone is better than being accompanied by some snivelling ass-kisser from Middle Management No-Man's Land who's way too eager to impress someone. Those types are never ever any fun on these kinds of things.

I guess I'm a little miffed that America didn't somehow manage to lift this tradition from the Euros. I mean, running around town dressed up like an NYC sewer rat on PCP, screaming in the streets and swatting butts with a stick? Jesus, that sounds like a hell of a great way to spread some Yuletide cheer!

Finally, a way to celebrate Christmas that doesn't involve ugly sweaters, tacky family photos, eggnog, fruity caroling, those hideous 'Family Newsletters' people insist on sending, or latently pedophilic icons. What, you're telling me you don't think Santa's just another covertly sexual commercial device hoisted on society by our capitalist overlords?

Just look at the silouette of the sleigh: A long column of reindeer, extending out in front of a man who, of course, totes around his very own giant sack. Oh yeah, and don't forget that he gains entry (in the dark of the night, no less) by plumbing the depths of your chimney with little surprises for your children. "Come here and sit on my lap, little one!" Indeed.

Getting drunk in an airport is impossible. There's just not enough money in the world. My recommendation - mix a half bottle of Coke with some Jack. You'll be three sheets to the wind before your first connection, and the second flight will be a kickass good time. Even if you're sitting next to two middle-aged divorcees from Jersey who're sporting vintage Jellies.

Speed limits were meant to be broken; which is why no one obeys them. Seriously, have you ever known anyone who drove the speed limit? Everyone always goes for five over. I'd stake my reputation on it.

You're a tourist, of course the locals don't like you. Tread lightly but for the love of Pete don't be some kind of pantywaist.

In the next twenty days, I will only spend 6 at work. That's right, it's vacation time bitches!

I leave Thursday afternoon for a snorkeling/camping trip with my big brother. It's his bachelor party, and he wanted to do something with just the guys. I don't see any strippers in our future, but my brother was never really the stripper type, so it's not surprising.

Then I come back for a week, and leave again that weekend for his wedding. That's the long one, almost 10 days. I drive out on a Saturday, and The Wife joins the party the following Wednesday. Uncles, aunts, cousins, and people I'm not sure how I'm related to usually come out of the woodwork for weddings; prompted mostly by an open bar and the chance to make extended family feel "socioeconomically disadvantaged". Well, not all of them; but there are more than enough. I plan on having breakfast on the beach every morning and spending some serious time in the water. I think I'm slates somewhere in there as best man, so I suppose I might have to put a shirt on at some point; but we'll have to play that one by ear.

Of course, all this means I'll probably have a severly limited Christmas vacation. Meh.

I expended a great amount of effort today working up various posts that revloved around making fun of John Kerry. I'd patch together a few ideas, stand back and take a look, then rearrange; eventually deciding to ball it up and start over again. I mean, there were just too many approaches; and I figured the blogosphere was already churning a few of them around. Then I realized that it was just all too obvious, too easy of a target. It's not exactly a ground-breaking revelation that politicians are morons.

The Wife and I have begun showing the apartment to people. We're finally moving into a home in a few weeks, and we've got to find someone to take over our lease. I mean, it's a great little apartment at an insanely competitive price; which is good. But cheap stuff attracts crackheads, and crackheads don't usually pass credit checks.

I can always recognize them when they call too. It sounds shallow, but in truth it only takes a short conversation with someone to figure out if they're mentally there enough to pass a credit check.
"Yeah, I'm calling about the apartment?"
"Great, it's got a blah blah blah, some blah, a blah in the blah..."
"Wow, sounds nice. I really need to find a place too."
"Well, you can come on by and check it out if you want. However, I fell like I should at least tell ya that the management company is going to want to run your credit when you apply. Not that it's anything to worry about, but I don't want to waste your time looking at an apartment if you don't feel comfortable with them running your credit."
"Oh really? Damn, that's crazy. See, cuz in my last apartment, in California before I moved out here; I had this crazy roommate. She actually burned the place down, and that's why I had to move out..."
I usually fall into a trace of "Mm-hmm"s and "Yeeaah"s at this point. Generally my concious mind will come up for air about the same time this person breaks into a story that resembles an episode of 90210 or something.
"...and I've been praying about it lately. You know, I wrote a letter to God and stuck it in the Bible, you know, cuz that's what they say to do..."
Dive! Dive! Dive! And I'm back in REM sleep. I mean, if your last apartment was burned to the ground and you've resorted to telling common strangers that you write letters to God; your credit can't be all that great.

At night, I can recognize a car at a distance; just by the shape of its glowing taillights.

The new iPod commercial, the one with all the dancers holding colored iPods; I'm pretty sure the music playing is DJ QBert. I haven't checked to be sure, but if it's not him then it's someone who's either sampling the same beat or simply being a biter.

I can remember the way things look. Like pages in books, notes, diagrams, photographs, all that stuff. Not only can I remember them, but it's almost like re-seeing them.

The only super power I've ever wanted though, was to have my own soundtrack. Like, everywhere I went I could just pick a song from my head and have it play on the nearest radio/jukebox. If I wanted to though, I wouldn't want it to be automatic. Yeah, that would probably just cause problems.

If you could have any superpower, what would it be?

I walked out to my car yesterday afternoon and was much chagrined to find that some a-hole had parked their BMW about six inches off my port side. Jerk. I purposefully park far away from other people so as to avoid any door dinging. It means I have to park in the very back, but that's okay with me. I have legs.

So as I'm cursing and trying to shoehorn myself into the driver's seat, I look down through this person's window and see an uneopened peice of mail. Aha, gotcha goddamnit! I'm going to get your name off that peice of mail and harbor a silent grudge against you, you fucking prick! So I did, and I do.

But then I saw something sitting next to the envelope that lightened my mood. I felt instantly avenged in my irritation at this person, and even smiled. What could it have been, the simple sighting of which would quench my anger and soothe my ill temper? Why, it was a big ol' box of these.

That's what happens to people who spend their lives irritating others. Fate smiles upon them and says, "Now you shall piss yourself forever more...bitch."

So I was cruising around work the other day, asking people about which doctors they see, which doctors I shouldn't see, etc. I work at a hospital, so there's lots of info available. Well, I go to the Medical Staff Office, and one of my friends is like, "Dude, I can look up the doctor you're going to see, and tell you if he's got priviledges here."
"Well, why does that matter?"
"I guess it doesn't matter as much as it's a safegaurd. Every doctor on staff goes through background checks, reassignment, etc."
"Okay, look up Dr. Fuckface."
So he looks up my doctor and lo and behold; he's not on staff.
"Hey man, this doesn't neccesarily mean your doctors a quack or anything."
"Yeah right. Aren't they all?"
"Well, if he's strictly a family medicine guy then he probably just refers his admits to a doctor on staff because he doesn't want to have to work weekends or call."
"Hmph."
"Check with the AMA. They have a website."

At this point, my shit is starting to squick. The Wife is sending me to some weirdo guy who got his medical degree in Tajiqistan, and probably uses the same needle every day.
I go to the AMA website and look his name up. He's not a member (surprisesurprise). But he is listed. WTF does that mean? He told the AMA he was a doctor, but didn't want to pay the membership fees? He's a fucking doctor! Goddamnit, he can afford to pay the membership fees!

So really the only thing I know for certain about my doctor is that he couldn't pass a preliminary background check or drugscreen, and that the AMA is reluctant to claim him.

It's a good thing I'm documenting all this. If you guys don't hear from me on Friday afternoon, it'll probably be because I've been kidnapped by Dr. Mengele and taken to his secret lab; where he will perform some fucked up experiment or another. Fucking quarter me and try to stich my arms where my legs used to be and vice versa. Fuck!

So, I go to the doctor this week for a check up. I't been widely documented that I don't enjoy going to the doctor. It's not a thing I have against doctors per se, it's just a thing I have about the actual visit. Don't enjoy it. Don't give blood either, don't even know my own blood type; definitely don't like needles. Don't like being examined, don't like being scrutinized, don't like being violated by someone who I can't call by their first name. Hey, if you're gonna be piercing my skin or spelunking my orifices with some kind of scary implement, I should be able to call you whatever the fuck I want. Especially since I have to pay your sick ass for the favor.

I haven't been inside a doctor's office in easily four years. And before that I hadn't been in another few years either - and that was only because I had a broken wrist. I'm not kidding. I don't go to the doctor.

The Wife is a nurse, so she's all hell bent on me getting a checkup. Which means bloodwork.

Oh, let it sink in. In my entire life, I've had blood taken from my body maybe twice. I can't remember if they took blood at the MEPS when I was applying for OCS, but I know I had to have bloodwork done when I was about ten years old. Scared the piss out of me. It didn't help that it was at Quantico, and the guy in front of me had just gotten back from some far-flung deployment and was having several vials drawn. I thought I was going to pass out.

I hate going to the doctor. I try not to be mean to the MD, but I can't help coming off just a tad surly. Seriously, I don't care if I get prostate cancer; you're not putting that, there. I'd at least like to be drunk for something like that. I'd just as soon go under anesthetic and have them remove the damn gland than be conscious for what I can only imagine would be the most traumatising event of my sheltered existence.

Now, I don't know if this clothes thing is something with all women or just The Wife; but I'd be willing to bet it's virtually universal.

For instance, The Wife currently owns seven pairs of flip-flops. I just went around the house and counted them. Of course, this doesn't include any that might be in her car, but we'll get to that later. Seriously, who honestly needs that many pairs of flip-flops? Dude, I own 11 pairs of shoes total, and that includes snowboard boots and 2 pairs of shoes I've worn twice in the past two years.

Then there's the outfits thing. Like, we went on the honeymoon right? So I packed up enough clothes for a week: clean boxers and socks for each day, a couple t-shirts, a couple pairs of shorts, one or two nicer shirts, and a pair of decent jeans. She, on the other hand, packed up like two or three outfits for every day we were gone.
"We're going to an island! We're probably going to spend most of our time in bathing suits." I just didn't get why she needed twice the clothing that I was bringing. Then she encapsulated it for me:
"I just don't know what I'm going to feel like wearing."

My brain is a lock-step logic machine, so when she made this statement I almost passed out. What did she mean 'feel like wearing'? What the hell is that? It's clothes, how can you 'feel' like wearing one thing over the other? How can she 'feel' like wearing anything other than what conditions call for? Does this mean if she 'feels' like wearing a fur coat in July that she truly would? In that case, we'd never get to travel anywhere because we'd 'feel' like bringing her entire wardrobe everywhere. The situation was terribly confusing. She finally crammed whatever she 'felt' like bringing into her suitcase. Yeesh.

I get out to the car to load it up, and what do I see? A fucking closet on wheels. Seriously, there are pairs of shoes (sneakers, boots, heels; and of course, flip-flops), pants, a few blouses, a light sweater, some socks, her lab coat, and a plastic grocery bag of trash. Christ! If she had to make a sudden stop, she'd probably get clubbed over the head with a flying boot or something. What really worries me, is that we're thinking of getting her a larger car when we have kids. We're going to lose the little bastards in there if it's her daily driver! Hell, one of my crumbsnatchers is going to go missing and we'll find him three years later in the back of our mid-size sedan, buried under a mountain of women's apparel and subsisting on remnants dug out of Chinese take-out boxes.

WTF is up with the clothes, woman? And wouldn't you know, if I leave a pair of shoes sitting by the goddamn bed I catch hell for it. It's not my fault she's the only one that trips over them. Maybe if she got rid of all the goddamn flip-flops and wore something that covered her toes, she wouldn't be stubbing the motherfuckers on everything.

There's a lot of blogospheric twittering and rachetjaw regarding what Ahmadinejad will say or do on the 22nd. I'm just glad the 22nd falls after my vacation; at least I'll be relaxed and fresh when I'm ionized by the 'illumination in the sky on the Night of the Sira’a and Miira’aj'. Or whatever.

I suppose from the pragmatic perspective, there's nothing you or I can do to affect the situation. The way I see it, there's really only a couple people in the entire world who could stop any kind of craziness anyways. Unfortunately, these people are all politicians who've become notoriously hamstrung by second guessers and naysayers. Suffice to say, they're not people of action. I mean, if Teddy Roosevelt was president; we'd have answered Ahmadinejad's threats by hurling so many tons of explosives at Iran that it would become the eighth wonder of the world: the only glass bowl visible from space.

In light of these developments, I've begun getting my affairs in order. And by that I mean preparing to do all those things I ever said I would do if the world was ending. Granted, the world may not end; but I'd imagine nuclear warfare would probably mean the end of a lot of fun things for a pretty long time. That being said, I've taken out a huge cash loan under false pretenses (heh, 'small business'). I already spent a tiny chunk of it on a box of Cubans, a rental Ferrari and a week at the Mirage. The rest of it I'm going to gamble away in one roll of the dice. Or maybe a poker tournament, I haven't decided yet. Oh yeah, and I want a flamethrower too, not for anythign specific, just seems like it would be a lot of fun. Of course, all of this unsecured debt combined with my uncannily horrible luck prety much insures that there will be no fireworks. Which I see as a trade off; I mean, my bad luck will be what saved all of humanity. I figure everyone wouldn't mind slipping me a dollar to help pay back the small business loan right? So on the 23rd, do me a favor and hit the tipjar.

Shit. We don't have a tipjar. I should have known.

Do you guys have any plans?

So, I was riding a bus today, and I had an odd experience. I'm kind of a tall guy, so I usually extend my legs underneath the seat in front of me, but i try to keep them out of the aisle. Well, as we pull up to the stop; this hugely obese fuckface in front of me stands up. And plants a hugely obese heel squarely on the toe of my shoe.

It was kind of strange. See, I couldn't move my toe in time to get out of the way, and once the full weight of this behemoth was resting on my foot, it sure as hell wasn't going anywhere. So I had no choice but to sit there for a second until Humongo shifted to the other foot; at which point I pulled my flatted shoe back towards myself.

"Oh. I'm sorry! Was that your toe?"
"Yeah." Yeah it was. Now it's probably more useful as a spatula. But yeah, that was my fucking toe.
"Hmm. I'm sorry dear." She purses her lips and smiles.
"No biggie." I manage to crease a grin across my face.

I looked down at my shoe, the shoes that I shine every weekend, and this woman's fucking heel print is burled into the leather. I get off the bus wondering if that shit's going to come out. I'm thinking probably not.

Okay, so I'm not high. But if I was, at least I'd have an excuse for posting this kind of crap.

I've got a few weekend tradations, one of them is drunk dialing. Drunk dialing is a true artform. It's got a basic structure, but upon this framework the dialer is provided the opportunity to express themselves.

There's only one rule of drunkdialing:
Don't dial unless you're happy drunk. If you're depressed or angry drunk, not only are you a shitty wingman, but you've got no business drunkdialing.

My personal style of drunk dialing is a little more nuanced, I like to think. Usually, I dial long distance. This makes it more of an event, becuase you're calling a friend that you probably don't see that often. Sometimes I'll dial family too, because the family that calls you drunk off their face at two am is the family that loves you. But most of the time I dial non-family folks. Like Jenelle.

Another thing I stick to is weekends. Although there's something to the weeknight drunkdial, it kind of makes you look like a soak if you're not on vacation. Plus, you can be pretty sure that if you drunk dial someone on Saturday night, they're probably not going to be too irritated with you since they don't have to work in the morning.

The length of the conversation is up to you. I tend to talk a long time, mostly because I'm drunk, but also because I'm just a windbag in general. If no one answers, I usually feel obligated to weave an extremely loud, obscenity laced screed that usually climaxes with an insuation that the callee's mother is a loose woman.

The other of my weekend traditions is cooking. Aside from the obvious benefits of cooking (having something to eat, thusly avoiding death by starvation), it's a great way to spend some time with people. With the amount of spare time in the weekends, it also affords one the opportunity to make a stock of leftovers from which to choose for weekday lunches.

This weekend, it's fried chicken. In the South, fried chicken is serious business; so it takes a little time to prepare. I just put it in the fridge for it's buttermilk soak. I have no idea why pepole do that, my grandmother showed it to me so I just do it. well, sort of. I've mutilated her recipe a little by adding hot sauce to the soak; but hey, that's progress for ya.

After soaking, it gets seasoned heavily with a blend of spices, coated lightly in flour, and fried in Crisco. Grandma always said that frying chicken in anything other than shortening was just plain old Yankee bullshit.

After frying, the peices are cooled and served. Grandma also said that eating fried chicken while it's still hot from the fryer is plain old corporate bullshit that KFC came up with to save money. I think it's just as fine either way, but it seems pointless to argue with a former Screven County Women's Baseball League pitcher who's holding ten pounds of cast iron kitchenware in her hands.

Why post about fried chicken and drunk dialing in the same post? Because absolutely nothing soothes a hangover like great fried chicken.

These two co-workers walked into my office today and started speaking spanish to eachother. Normally it wouldn't bother me, but they basically sat at my desk and made themselves at home. Personally, I thought it was pretty damn rude.

So I stabbed them with my letter opener. Just kidding, but I did go over to their desks and 'crop dust' it. If you know what I mean.
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We do people insist on coming to bother you when you're obviously busy? Dude, I'm happy that you're able to get paid a salary for doing nothing of value; but I was not offered that job. So please, go take the trash out or something.
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How frigging hard is it to lay carpet? Why the hell is it taking 3 weeks to recarpet my office? Seriously, I'd be in a much better mood if I could have my door back. Then I wouldn't have to sit out here in this damn cubicle and get bothered by foreigners and lazy, clock-milking layabouts.
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24 days until I go on vacation. 576 hours. 34,560 minutes. 2,073,600 seconds.

And counting.

I've had it with all these health products that are sold as panaceas. Someone I know was talking about how they went on this '30-day cleanse' and lost all kinds of weight. Yeah dude, I had a friend that tried that right after we finished up a 12-day backpacking trip. It's fucking called giardia.

Or the guy on TV selling a book of home cures for everything from high blood pressure to erectile disfunction. Hey, I got an idea I'll sell you: QUIT HAVING A SODA AND A BIGMAC AT EVERY MEAL, YOU WILDEBEEST! Really people; if you're so concerned about your weight or your health; take a look at your shitty lifestyle and maybe cutdown on the bonbon's or something.

Or the pills that are basically ten glasses of juice condensed into a capsule. People go out and buy all this shit that's supposed to be 'natural' or organic or whatever. I mean, if you want to be naturally healthy maybe you should try, I don't know, eating some fruits and vegetables. Maybe a little fish too. "Step away from the SlimJim and no one gets hurt."

And don't get me started on diet sodas. That's like smoking light cigarettes - all the cancer, and only half the fun. If you're going to drink soda every day, just drink theregular shit; because when your adult-onset diabetes develops, at least you can say it tasted good.

People fuckin' baffle me. If you're a lazy fucker who stuffs your face with shitty foods and doesn't exercise; you're gonna get hopelessly fat. Trying to circumvent this by giving yourself a month-long case of the shits or taking a few vitamins isn't going to change the fact that you're a lazy fucker who stuffs your face with shitty foods and doesn't exercise. There's no pill for that.

On some crappy reality show recently they had this obese girl who wanted to be thinner, right? The course of the show is like 40 days or something. I'm not sure what kind of logical association disorder this girl has; but woman, you're not going to drop 150lbs in 40 days. We could put you on an all-crack diet and we wouldn't get those results. To me, even airing the show just reinforces for some people that weight can be dropped easily. Listen, even Jared had to walk to Subway everyday. Let's try and be honest with ourselves, okay?

I'm sorta the king of snap judgments. When I know what I want, I don't want to have to wait for it, or beat around the bush, or be strung along like some fucking halfwitted dunce. Cut the shit, because if this line of shit is your way of telling me my offer isn't acceptable, then counter-offer and let's finish this up.

Like car shopping. I do a lot of preliminary independant research before I go car shopping; so you can beat your bottom dollar I know everything about the car before I ever even show up at the dealership. But car salesmen are the fucking worst people to deal with. Most car salesmen don't know shit except the rules of Frustrating Negotiation. Chances are, the salesman you're talking to has been selling cars for years at all kinds of different dealerships; so when you ask him a question (Is this a totally new model, or was it sold in overseas markets before it came to the US? Does it share a platform with any other model?) he's probably going to be clueless. These people have effectively masterd the art of generalization. I don't even bother talking to them unless I'm buying a used vehicle. When I want something new, I bring in my trade and a couple grand and get the hell out. Oh, but shank, what about incentives? Dude, those are predetermined and they're going to give you every single one you qualify for. Of course, to do that, you'd have to be a senior citizen who's a retired military vet and a teacher with Farmer's Insurance. But most of the time they'll offer about 3 grand in dealer incentives off the price of a car with a 27K or more sticker price. I'm telling you, talking to these people is like talking to Mickey Mouse - they just smile and shake their heads.

My big brother, on the other hand, is the complete opposite. He's got the persistence of a Bangkok watch salesman and the calm perseverance of a kindegarten teacher. I went shopping for trucks with the guy once (on a whim mind you, he wasn't even seriously considering a purchase) for four fucking hours. Four hours! Towards the end I became hungry, which meant I was a scowling little bitch. Our search for the right truck with the right motor and transmission and the right kind of seats and the right kind of bed spanned probably 70-80 miles of driving, three dealerships, and what must have been a parade of these asshole salesmen. One of them was so shitty, we ended up using the damn sales manager as a go between.

Of course, being a snap judger means sometimes I have to acknowledge that I made a mistake, or that I jumped too soon. But that's okay with me, because I figure that's good for a person - gives them a sense of humility. Which a guy like me really needs sometimes since I'm always so goddamn right about everything.

I'm not the kind of guy who gets hung up on convuluted morality or religious doctrine. If you want to stay in bed on the Sabbath instead of...doing...whatever it is any given church might expect you to do, I don't have a problem with that. If you're pro-choice or pro-life, I don't care. And if you don't want to eat unclean animals or drink beer, that's fine too. I mean, you might be missing out on the glory that is an ice cold Bud Light and a handful of spicy pork rinds; but I'm totally cool with that.

However, I hold a special place in my heart for liars and thieves. Understand here, that I'm talking about pure liars and thieves too. Not someone who downloads free music or sneaks into a movie theater. I'm referring to Ken Lay, Micah Wright, anyone who's ever broken into my home (even that bastard that stole my bike when I was like 14), and cheating spouses. Granted, if you're going to cheat on your wife or masquerade as an armed services vet; I'm not neccesarily going to get worked up about it. I will, however, reserve for you the lowest of regards; and may attempt to kick your ass, depending (variably) on proximity and drunkedness.

Why? Because liars and thieves represent the worst outcome of what many consider to be a noble species. Whether you agree with the whole 'noble man' thing is up to you I suppose, considering man's propensity for violence. Considering that though, violence is a somewhat natural and universal horror - all animals are capable of and exhibit it on occasion. Lieing and stealing, on the other hand, decieve with the intent to control or possess - two urges that many animals (with exception to survival of the fittest) have no appetite for. Granted, animals will lure in prey or fight over food supply - but those are survival conditions. In the cases I'm referring to; humans lie, cheat, and steal because they're greedy, manipulative fucks. They're furthering their political agenda, they're attempting to skim millions (in addition to their multi-million dollar salary) from pensions, or they're taking shit just because they can. And that last one is probably the worst reason to do anything. But that's probably a whole 'nother post.

There are times when it becomes painfully obvious to myself that I must look like the biggest child at work. It doesn't help that I'm the youngest by a wide margin, and that I'm one of the only males; but firmly clinching the title of Child in A Man's Body doesn't really bother me too much. I find it funny for the most part.

For instance, my desk is littered with toys. I've got a couple Tanlges, a rubber/bendy thingie, a couple flexible action figures of some cartoon characters, a table-top football setup; and the wall behind my chair is papered with photos from racing events, Vegas trips, and the like.

My wardrobe is probably a joke amongst my co-workers as well. Although I usually where dress shirts and slacks, I only occasioanlly wear a tie or designer shoes; and I only shave like every three or four days. I looked down at my shoes this morning, and as I was coloring in the worn spots on the black leather with a Sharpie I realized that I've had these shoes since I was in college. I mean, I've got a nicer pair of shoes, but I don't want to fuck them up, so I don't wear them every day. If I come to work wearing my Florshiems, a silk tie, and a fresh shave; it means I'm going to be sitting down with the million-dollar club and hashing out strategy. Unfortunately that doesn't happen as often as I'd like; but I'm working to change that.

And then there's my personality: highly informal, colloquial and humorous. I tend to fun around with my higher-ups when most other people wouldn't. Not in a disrespectful manner or anything; some of them just have that open-door type of style and don't mind a little back and forth. Plus, those guys are really funny if you can get them going; so I don't rib them unless they're in that comfortable mode.

So basically when you put all this together, I look like a typical kidployee. I suppose it would strike some people as highly unprofessional behavior - except I tend to produce satisfying results. I get lots of accolades and praise, but part of me wonders if that's just because they don't expect good work from a dude that looks like Shaggy most days. I'm pretty sure the praise is just their way of trying to motivate me to dress more for the office instead of the playground, and for the love of Pete, put the goddamn toys away. Personally? I get a kick out of it.

So, today and tomorrow we have these management training seminars. They're pretty interesting, but they're mostly geared to folks who aren't business school grads; so I spend most of the time passively paying attention. By that I mean I doodle. I'm a really good doodler, to wit (click for bigger):

Hey, everybody's got a gift right? Anyways, I have some serious ADD, so it actually helps me concentrate on the speaker or discussion if I've got something low-level going on in the background. Anyways, I'm into my fifth or sixth hour of this boredom born masterpiece when a woman next to me leans in and whispers "Fill me in the diddle with black." Excuse me? For a second there I'm pretty sure this woman wants something that I can't give her.
"What?" I whisper back, still not paying attention to her.
"Fill in the middle black." I'm still a little confused, then I realize that this nosy wench is trying to tell me how I should doodle.
"Nah. Nothing else is filled in."
"Yeah! Fill it in, make it black."
"Nah, nothing else is black." I try to chuckle, because chuckling when people say something stupid to you usually seems to make them back off. I'm surprised that this woman is so invested in the elements of design; but I refuse to ruin the fruit of my labor.
"Well, do we have another color?" Sweet Jesus woman!
"It wouldn't look right, everything else is lines." She gave up here which is good, because I was fearful that I might have to start explaining positive and negative space to her; and that would just be too much work for a doodle. But I'll be goddamned if someone whom I'm unacquainted with is going to try and critique my doodling. That's just plain rude.

The vast majority of television programming is recockulous. It's worthless shite aimed squarely at a severly retarded audience. I got bit by a shark this weekend, and as a result I've been forced to spend much time on the couch, layed up watching TV*. It's been horrible, but lucky for you; I'm willing to wade into the sewers and bring you back warning of what lies beneath.

The Real World - This show used to be my guilty pleasure, but after watching two or so hours of it on Sunday afternoon, I'm a changed man. All these monkeys do is get fucked up and start arguments with eachother. Every episode was the same damn thing - get money, get drunk, get pissed at a roommate. I mean, these people are supposedly trying to get a business off the ground, but all I ever see them do is get plastered and scream at eachother. At least back in the day, there was a little fucking going on. How the level of programming over there at MTV has slipped. Sigh.

Wife Swap - I finally thought the censors had allowed hardcore porn on TV. Man was I disappointed to see this garbage. Okay, two husbands trade wives for a week or something, and then at the end, the wives get to dole out prize money. First off, what kind of dumbfuck signs up for this? I'm guessing one of these people who's up to their eyeballs in unsecured debt, and whose only recourse is to pimp his wife out to someone he doesn't even know for the entertainment of the American public. At any rate, these women get shipped off and exposed (inevitably) to some strange family that's completely opposite of their own. Madness ensues, tantrums are thrown, the parade of the absolutely pathetic marches on.

Deal or No Deal - No deal. Really Howie, pack your cueball haircut up and move to the gameshow channel you washout. Remember "Bobby's World"? That was the shit man, now look at you.

Reality TV in general is a cancer on society. Half of MTV's lineup is reality TV and each show stars the same lameass, wastes of a twentysomething losers as the next. Not only are they on Real World/Road Rules Challenge 42, but it's the same people that were on the original shows. I think I saw a dude with a cane and a colostomy bag on the last episode. Again, amazingly pathetic. I can make an exception for something like American Gladiators, or it's new incarnation 'Pros vs Joes'; because at least it's pure competition. Don't give me this rehersed, recycled, scripted drama bullshit.

Hell, worthwhile television can only be found on a select few channels:
Discovery Channel - Everything you ever wanted to know, and then some.

History Channel - It's like regular TV drama, except it really happened. Which, you know, makes regular TV look like the History Channel's dorky little brother who's always trying to be like him. God, what a loser.

National Geographic Channel - Watching a Mara River crocodile pick off some unsuspecting wildebeest never gets old. Plus, they air a bunch of shows on everything from weather to UFO's.

Speedvision - Roadracing. Watch, learn, practice on your hometown streets.

Comedy Central - Although I wish they'd bring back a lineup that was heavier on standup comedy, as I regard standup as probably one of the most entertaining artforms; they still have some decent programs. I watched Ron White do his new thing with the Rednecks of Comedy Tour (or whatever), and it was an absolute rip. If I was a comedian I'd be Ron White; which is why I'm glad he's doing it. So I don't have to.

Smut Thursday: The Early Edition

So, apparently this past weekend I ate something that didn't agree with me, and we still haven't come to a compromise. Well, either that or a demon has taken up residence in my GI tract. I've never seen so much sick shit come out of my body, quite literally in some cases.

It all started Monday afternoon. I got back from the beach, and just putzed around the house getting everything in order for the rest of the week. That's when the rumbling started. I spent a goodly portion of the evening expelling fluids. It wasn't too painful for the first 20 minutes or so, and I actually tried to make a game of it; but after that I started getting scared. For a while I wondered if I was going to start deflating or something; but finally the flow slowed to a trickle.

Yesterday I got nothing; it was the complete opposite of the day before. I think if I would have tried to spit or pee, I would've just produced dust. Everything today was fine until the afternoon - when the demon once again began to rumble. Now, as I've told you before, I'm very picky about my bathrooms. This makes using one at work, especially for what I really needed to do, very difficult. Plus, right about the time I was on the verge of bursting; a group of auditors from the state showed up. Seriously, I ran all over my workplace at a dead sprint from about 12:30 until 4:00. I would run down to records, pull the info I needed, sprint back to my office, toss it on the desk and sprint to the bathroom. Then I'd come back from the bathroom, grab the info from my desk, coallate it on the elevator, sprint to the auditors, drop it off, spin right back around and make a beeline for the bathroom. All the while while fighting the incredible instinct to let something foul explode from my face or my ass. It fucking sucked.

The part that really pissed me off was the end of the day. The VP asked me into her office to have one of those chill-down sessions. You know, you and the higher-ups have been busting ass all day and they want to sit down with you and take a load off. Hey, normally I'm all about that shit. Get out the Cubans you rich assholes, let's tell some dirty jokes! But today was not the day. So I'm sitting there trying to get out of the office while these people are all chatting it up. I begin backing away from the group while they're busy yapping; I'm trying not to sweat, pinching the quarter and simultaneously swallowing that massive amount of spit that seems to fill your mouth seconds before you spray your lunch all over someone's wall. I was inching towards the door, but eyeing the trashcan just in case. I really didn't want it to come to me shoving my ass in a trashcan in front of those who would one day vouch for my work experience, but I was wearing a pair of really nice pants and I wasn't about to ruin them. As soon as I passed the office threshold, I was racing down the hall towards the men's room. I distinctly remember unclasping my belt and loosening my pants before I was even in the bathroom. I slammed the door, locked it, and began what I can only describe as the most disgusting, privately humiliating experience of my life. It's a good thing it was late enough that most people had already gone home, because I'm pretty sure the muffled sound coming through the walls would have set someone wretching. Or at least to the nearest phone to call the paramedics or something. It took me like ten minutes to clean the stupid bathroom up. I just hope I have a job in the morning.

Went to the dentist yesterday. I've mentioned before that I hate going to the doctor and being poked, probed, or otherwise...violated. Can't stand it. Now, my teeth are extraordinarily healthy (no fillings, nothing), amazing considering I don't give them much thought between the two brushings they get each day. I'm definitely glad for it though; and I don't normally mind seeing the dentist. Except when the dental hygienist inflicts excruciating pain on me with her implements. Where the do those evil bitches get those fuckers from anyway? Do they shop for supplies in the torture aisle at Home Depot or what? This bitch was scraping my teeth with something roughly the size of a gaff one might use to bring a championship marlin on board. Fucking OW.

So while she's clawing and burrowing at and around my teeth and gums, I'm sitting there trying not to flinch. I mean, I don't want this battle axe thinking I'm some kind of pussy right? Then she scrapes right along the gumline on one of my prize molars. This shudder runs throughout my whole body, everything goes limp, I can even feel the hair on my arms cringing. My body shook itself right out of the chair and onto the floor.
"GEEEEAAWWWWW!" I screamed.
"Oh," she coos, all grandmotherly, "Must've been a little root showing." She titters, giggles almost.
I push myself up off the floor and back into the chair. I'm pretty sure this woman had a tazer in her pocket, because I damn near lost bowel control.
A few minutes later she finishes up, and I rinse. I look down at that bib they put around me, and it's fucking spotted with blood. MY blood. I did a quick check with my tongue to make sure all my teeth were still there, because by the looks of that bib I was probably going to bleed out pretty soon. Did she accidentally stab my jugular? Exactly what the fuck is going on here?

The dentist comes in. Finally, a licensed professional. They lean me back, and this fucker, who must have the easiest job this side of a candybar salesman at fat camp; does little more than touch each tooth with the end of his metal implement. Literally, he spoke seven words to me, waved the sign of the cross with over my yawning mouth, and split. Fuck! Come back here dude, you gotta stitch me up! Fucking nurse Gein over here just tried to turn my mouth into a patchwork quilt! What about the Hippocratic Oath you son of a bitch?!

I didn't know you could get thrown out of a doctor's office. I thought that was only, like, bars and shit. Damn.

Is 'tomorrow' an actual place in time, or simply a concept? I mean, people often will reference 'tomorrow' at 2am when they're actually talking about the very same day. The thing is, this doesn't confuse anyone; which I assume means that there's a conceptual understanding of tomorrow. Tomorrow isn't simply defined as the day following 12am; it's more like, the day that follows my sleep; whenever that may be. Which I kind of like, since I tend to enjoy thinking about time and it's passage as a more conceptual, fluid progression as opposed to a linear model. You know that's one of the reasons why the Navajo language was so effective as a code? Their concept of time is more similar to a woven mat than the European concept of a time line.

And check this out, Tom Cruise's new movie isn't doing so hot. People are saying it's because he's been so openly wingnutting his way through press appearances. I caught this article off Drudge from FoxNews that throws the numbers out on how bad the movie's doing, and how Paramount is pissing its pants over the cash losses. Then I hit this sentance:
And that's the irony here: "M: I3" is a terrific action film. Director J.J. Abrams did a great job, and the entire cast from Cruise right through to the team and various supporting players do a convincing job.
Cruise has several fantastic stunts that will take your breath away. It would be a shame if everyone waited to watch it at home on small screens.
For some reason, after the article had spent some time discussing the suckitude of the film at the box office; this portion just felt odd. Then it dawned on me. Who owns Fox? Hmm...yeah, wait for it; Paramount. Nice ad placement, but I think I'll wait for the DVD. There are just too many reasons to avoid theaters anyways.

The wife and I just bought this digital video camera, and it's one bad mofo too. I'm thinking of rigging up an in-car mount for the camera to record track days from the cockpit perspective. Which is another hobby I think I might start back up with again. I ran a full season of SOLO-II events and won 1st in my class for the region. Haven't hit the track in the past year or so since then though. Maybe I'll start back up. It would give me an excuse to use the cam.

So, I finally finished my MBA. Made my last presentation to the client company on Monday, and they were pleased. The faculty actually congratulated me on earning my MBA on the spot, which gave me the warm fuzzies. Yeah, sometimes I do get the warm fuzzies. Does that make me gay? I don't think so, but I'm no expert. Anyways, I give you the:

You know, every once in a while something comes along that's really irritating. It's so mind-bogglingly vexing, so obviously inane, that it actually causes me physical and mental harm. Some people are so stupid, I'm not sure if we're members of the same species.

So...
The Old Testament is the story of a people who escaped persecution by an absolutist society who branded them as inhuman slaves, because of their religious beliefs.

And the New Testament is the story of an evangelist who's people were branded as fringe moonbats by the pious, because of their religious beliefs.

And yet we (the agnostics, the doubters, the skeptics, the too-cool-for-old-world-philosphy) claim that the Bible is just a collection of stories, parables, for disemenation among the masses - religiously contexted propaganda.

OHO! Yet we fail to see it as a history of human predilection - we believe, therefore we kill. Systems rise, and systems fall - regardless of which system is right, the most powerful wins. But where do WE lie, the United States, with all our gloriously mixed culture and 'Democratic' cries for the acceptance of 'The Other'? God, liberals and their emotions - why don't they ever wake up to the real issues? To the difference between what it means to 'believe' in something, and what it means to make a society work? I dunno, leave that to the pundits I guess.

My thoughts, penny-a-piece as they may be? Welcome to the country. Join and be a part of the amalgamate; because that's what the US is: A motley fucking crew. I just don't get why an outisder would want to be a part of it SO MUCH that they would march on major cities, when the 'rest' of the world is calling us imperialists. Odd, don't you think?

Finished! Finished. The draft for my thesis is complete; thanks in large part to the two gallons of orange juice that were left in the refridgerator from the wedding day (we had breakfast at the church) and those Zep live bootlegs Paul sent me a while back. It was hard to get the ball rolling on this sucker, I totally wasn't into it; but I'm done now. I'm going to go sit on the porch, listen to In My Time of Dying one more time through, and wait for that pot roast to finish up. And for Duke to bring me some beer from the store.

With all due respect buddy, hurry it up.

I should be finishing my thesis right now, but I'd much rather drink a beer on the porch and listen to my Sublime collection. Fucking school's a waste of my time right now anyways. I could pack a shotgun with one of my turds, shoot it at a couple sheets of paper, turn it in, and still graduate. All they want is happy alumni anyways; you know, to pay dues and donate buildings and shit. Liberal academia is obviously smoking way too much homegrown if they think I'm going to be giving them any money in this life. They got my tuition, they got two years of my life; the rest is mine biotches.

I'm convinced my wife's cat is evil. And I'm not talking naturally, blamelessly, I-was-born-this-way evil. I'm talking about that 'I enjoy being a wicked cunt and I'll never go away no matter how many times you throw me over the back fence' kind of evil. Ask anyone, the goddamn beast is straight from hell. I keep hoping she'll wander out to the four lane and get insta-puréed by some fully loaded dump truck doing fifty-five.

She hates being petted. She'll actually crawl up in your shit while you're laying on the couch, shove her head in your hands to be scratched, then fifteen minutes later she'll hiss at you and scamper off. What a fucking bitch eh? And when she hisses all up in your face and shit, it smells absolutley horrible. I don't know how many of you people have been forced (by marriage or other such trickery) into living with a cat, but the food they fucking eat is nasty. It smells like a homeless crackwhore's hatchetwound, and when they hiss in your face it's like the nasty street bitch is sitting on your face. The cat did that hissing in my face thing once. ONCE.

The cat doesn't really like me. Which is fine by me, because I'm pulling for her to get fucked to death by one of the stray neighborhood tom's. You know, I don't have the heart to kill her myself, and I asked my wife how pissed she'd be if I just threw her cat in the car and drove it up the coast a few hours and tossed it out. She wasn't too enthused, so I'm relegated to wishing death upon the evil little fucker.

Die cat, die.

I suppose I'd rather write this than speak it, because I'm not sure if I have it in me to do so. I guess I'm not exactly the great communicator. Not like that's a secret to anyone though. HA!

Which suck worse:
France/The French

OR

House Cats

You decide in the comments. The team that wins, gets points.

I'm the kind of guy that buys things and milks them for everything they're worth. I've got a 6 year old car with only 44,000 miles on it. The newest pair of jeans I have is a year old; the oldest is 10. I buy shoes maybe once every two years. I've had the same wallet I've had since I was 16. Granted, it's a horrible looking peice of shit, but it just. won't. die.

So I had to go shopping for work clothes today. I mean, it kind of irritates me, because I got some shit for Christmas last year, but it's starting to wear. Normally I wouldn't give a shit, but I feel like I should approach my work attire with a little more tact. Which sucks, because I have very little as it is.

So I walk into Dillards to see if I can scrounge anything from the clearance racks. In my mind, there are only two months in each year that a person should be shopping for clothes: March and September. Grab the shit that's on clearance from the previous season right?

So there I am in shorts, a favorite old t-shirt, and a pair of Rainbows. I'm perusing the labels (Murano, Turnberry, Polo, etc.) and checking sizes. I'm a bit of an odd shape (tall and medium built), so many times the clearance racks are filled with the sizes that most people can't fit but will fit me fine.
"You look a little tall."
"Hm?" The sales lady startled me. She's about the height of a hobbit, and looks oddly like one. "Oh, I'm about a 34-34."
"Well, most of that stuff is down in that section down there." She points and, I swear, she's looking down at me through her glasses. Amazing.
"Actually, there's some right here on this rack."
"That's the clearance rack. You might have more luck right over there," she points again, "This is the designer section."
What a judgemental cockface this woman is. I'm sorry it's 60 fucking degrees outside and I decided to wear shorts today, but I'm pretty sure I can shop wherever the fuck I want. I checked the mirror just to make sure I was still white. I figured maybe I'd entered the fucking Twilight Zone or some shit. I didn't know people really treated eachother like this.
"No, that's fine; I'm looking for work clothes."
"Is it an office environment?"
No bitch, I'm the dancing monkey in a fucking travelling circus. "Oh yeah," I say with a little emphasis. She scuttles off. Probably back to the rock that she lives under. Wicked cunt.

I finish picking out some slacks and shirts, and I guess that pious, crotchety old bag finally resigns herself to the fact the best way to get me out of her designer section is to finish the sale. She comes over to help me and I try my best to ignore her. Then I realize I'm in way over my head - these clothes come in colors and patterns. Fuuuuuuck.

The office attire I have at home is all plain: french blue, grey, white, black, olive, khaki. The shit in this store is striped, herring-boned, criss-cross, sand, brown, green, blue, fucking radiant and crazy. For a second I thought I was on acid. I recognize that I'm going to need this woman's help. Enemies allied. Son of a bitch.

She helps me pick out some shirts to match the pairs of slacks I have. After shopping around, I think the old fucker gains a little bit of respect for me. Probably because I'm holding merchandise in my hands. She's actually helping me find deals, working with the colors I want to wear, etc.

In the end, I walked out of there with a couple of outfits for an outrageously cheap price. Which makes me happy because I know that bitch didn't make shit for comission. Serves her right the (ahem, I'm going to try this one out here) poxy cunt.

So, I used the new Fusion razor tonight by Gillette. I actually didn't cut myself, which is pretty amazing considering the Fusion feels like a weedwacker in my hands compared to teh razors I usually shave with. But it's a nice shave. Don't waste your money on the electric one though. Unless you like being shocked.

I'm working on my thesis this week, going to Vegas this weekend, more thesis work next week, marriage the week after that, then more thesis work. I'll let you know when I get my life back.

Which, given the whole marriage thing, may be never.

So, we're living in this apartment building while we save for a house. It's not that bad - it's dirt cheap; it's in a safe, convenient neighborhood; it's got just enough room - we even got a first floor unit!

Well, it's all good until this bitch, evil whore, moved in upstairs. I swear to Christ she straps her refrigerator to a dolly and brings it down the stairs with her every damn morning on her way to work. CLOMPCLOMPCLOMPCLOMP.

'Course, I'm usually up pretty early for work so it's just a mild annoyance. The fiancee, on the other hand, tends bar til oh-dark-thirty and when that bitch starts dragging her Frigidaire or whatever down three flights of stairs at 7am, the old lady about has a psychotic break. She wants to set up a trip wire. Personally, I think that would be funny:

CLOMPCLOMPCLO[trip]WHAM clompflompblompshompaaaaahghgggaa...BANG!

The last bang being that damn side-by-side landing on the gelatinous pool of tissue and bone fragment that was her body. It's really unneccesary, the clomping. No one else clomps. The fiancee said "Well, the only reason we hear her is because she's obviously wearing some goddamn slutty ass, goldfish tank, platform heels. Skank." Never mess with a tired woman. They'll fuck ya' up.

Don't even make me tell you about the time she called me at work because there were landscapers outside our unit at nine in the morning. She was on the verge of committing war crimes.

I thought it was kinda sexy. All that passion. Hey, at least it's not directed at me this time. "Go ahead, baby! Kill 'em, kill 'em all!"

Okay, so I've been thinking of trading my car in and getting one of these bad boys. Mmm, yeah baby. Come to pa- oh. Sorry. Sometimes I do that.

There's this lady at work, Stella, who's probably old enough to be my mom. Apparently, she's a font of marriage wisdom. I'm not sure what makes her think she qualifies, but maybe it has to do with the fact that she's going through a divorce, and her current boyfriend has been so fleeced by his ex-wife that he sleeps on the floor of a single wide. I mean, between the two of them they have like...almost three marraige-worths of advice to hand out, right?

Anyways, she's constantly...berating me about the things that I absolutely have to do or my marriage won't last. I'm saying - it's like a barrage. She's waving her hands around and her eyes are giant dinner plates bulging behind her bifolcals. She's speaking loudly, emphasizing every other word, she should've been a televangelist.

She told me a few months ago that nothing else mattered, as long as I got a luxurious suite for the honeymoon. And draped rose petals all over the floor. And got the nicest bottle of champagne. It was just complete idiocy.

This morning she starts telling me the following:
"Shank, listen me. NOTHING else you do will matter so much as asking her if you can help her out."
"..."
"Around Christmas time, women feel all this pressure. We have to make cookies. It's stupid, but we just have to make cookies!"
I start making a weird, tight lipped grimace. It's because I can't decide if I want to scream or double over in laughter. My options are to start fucking with her, or just sit through this latest episode.
"If you just ask her 'Hey, is there anything I can do?" Even if there's nothing you can do, she'll appreciate it so much. Because the cookies andthepresentsandthedinnersandthecardsit'sallsostressful!"
I decide to commence the mind fuck. "Stella, you got to lay off the cookies."
"I can't."
"Besides, I'm not good at anything so I never ask to help. Furthermore, I would hate for her to actually say she needed some help, because God knows I'm not interested in helping her."
"But you should ask anyways." God, she so self-absorbed I can't even get her to bite at the sarcastic bait I'm throwing at her. Instead, she launches into this story about how her daughter, sick with a cold or something, asked Stella if she could help make cookies. Apparently, it made her day. Blah blah blah blah blah.

Look, if the secret(s) to maintaining a happy, lasting marriage could be codified and boiled down into a few little pearls of wisdom - your ass wouldn't be divorced. If it's just that fucking simple. Look, I got some advice for you. How 'bout, when shit needs cooking or cleaning, whoever has the time does it. How 'bout, when shit is piling up around the house, you take care of that shit together, ya know as a couple, instead of enabling your obviously lazy husband to sit on the couch and watch you work yourself into some kind of Yultide panice attack.

I mean, fuck. If you hate feeling stressed about the obligations of your role in your marriage, maybe you should try changing that role, instead of giving people advice that directly promotes such restrictive gender boundaries...bitch.

At work, we have an administrative resident. It's basically a position for folks who've just completed gradschool; they work closely with senior leadership on various projects. Similar to an internship, but it lasts for a year and it pays.

So anyways, the resident and I work close, and she kind of identifies with me since we're the same age and all that. She asks me for advice sometimes, since I'm a little more familiar with the unspoken mores of the organization. Today, she came to me complaining about this specific AA who's notorious for trying to throw people under the bus. She's always handing off challenging work to others, playing stupid, and yet somehow manages to enjoy decent job security. I hate this bitch, because she's tried to dump on me several times right in front of her direct report, one of the VP's.

So the resident's like "You're never gonna believe what happened today."
"Shoot."
"The bus driver is making me take minutes at the senior leadership meeting."
"She's not the bus driver, she's the person throwing you in front of the bus. And she shouldn't be making you do a goddamn thing, since she's not superior to you."
"Whatever. She said 'The residents used to do this, but I've been doing it for the past few years. I don't know why, but I'm giving it to you.'"
"Horseshit. The reason the residents quit doing it was probably because it was a waste of their fucking time as future CEO's and shit to take minutes."
"I know."
"So what the fuck does that bitch do for a living now? Answer the phone for 40k/year and full benefits?"
"I know."
"So did you tell her to fuck off?"
"No! Dude, I'm trying to get a job offer out of this gig."
"Well, you fucked yourself. You should always have a busy response."
"A busy response?"
"Yeah. As soon as you realize this bitch is trying to throw you in front of the bus, or get you to do her goddamn job for her that she's been doing for the past few fucking years; you cut her off mid-sentance with your busy response. Like so: 'Yeah look Helen I've got (list several projects here, make some up) the labor reqs to take care of, supply budgets for sixteen units, PAF's to clean up, operational budget variances are stacking up on my desk, and next week the VP of (any department will do, except the one the bitch works in) Strategy and I are presenting some AD/C data to the CEO. Just can't do it. Hey, would you mind chucking something in the interoffice mail for me?'"
"Wow."
"Works everytime. But be sure that what she's actually asking you to do is horseshit. As a matter of fact, you need to get a job offer somewhere else, just so you can someday bask in the pure pleasure of telling her she's full of horseshit."
"Dude. You're the man."
"Fuck, you're the one who got the residency. Now get out there and administrate."

That's me. Fostering educational growth and career expansion. GO TEAM!

Last night we went to this local Asian market because we were cooking Thai with some friends. Apparently, between the leaving the market and getting into our car, the fiancee unknowingly drops her cell. About two hours later, we get ready to leave the house to meet our friends.

"Where's my phone?"
"Iono. Lemme ring your bling." I dial, the phone begins ringing. The fiancee runs hither and thither trying to find it or hear the ringing. Then someone picks up. It was a little weird.
"Heh-ro?" Thick Asian accent.
"Um. Where are you?" The fiancee is giving me the fish eye, she's only hearing my side of the convo, and she wants to know what's up. I'm now having two conversations with one mouth. "Someone has your phone."
Asian stranger: "I have your phone."
Me: "Yeah, um. Are you at the Saigon Market?"
Fiancee: "Who is it? Where are they?"
AS: "No, I have a meeting."
Me: "Can we meet you somewhere to pick up the phone?"
F: "Where will they meet us?"
AS: "What? I have a meeting?"
Me: "She has a meeting or something. I have no clue what she's saying. WE CAN MEET YOU AT THE SAIGON MARKET." I'm beginning to think some village in Korea or maybe on the high steppes of China has lost their idiot; an idiot who has managed to find this particular cell phone. I have an epihpany: When Rube Goldberg died, God made him fate's architect.
F: "What the fuck? She has a meeting? She's got my damn phone! We can meet her at her meeting." We begin speeding through the city streets toward the Asian market, just to see if the owner has it, or anyone said anything to her. I have a hunch it's probably not the owner of the market, but I'm willing to satisfy a little curiosity.
Me: "We can meet you at your meeting. Just tell us how to get there."
AS: "What? I can't hear you. Why do you need to come to my meeting?" She said it pleadingly, like, 'Why are you torturing me?' Almost like she was complaining.
Me: "Because you have our phone. Where can we meet you then?"
F: "She won't meet with us? Jesus! She's stealing my phone."
AS: "I can't meet you tonight. I have a meeting, it's going to be late. Call me tomorrow." She's still complaining, like a kid who wants some candy and you won't give it to them. She hangs up.

I look back at the fiancee and she's ratcheted up somewhere between 'Pissed' and 'Murderous Rage'. "That bitch won't give us the phone? Why the fuck did she answer then?" She's flying around corners, I think we just knocked a delivery boy off his moped. We're driving down the shoulder, straddling the curb. Pedestrians on the sidewalk throw their belongings in the air and dive out of the way. It's complete bedlam.

One of our friends calls me. "Dude, I just called your fiancee's cell, and some weird Chinese woman answered. She started asking me whose phone she was talking on."
Fiancee: "Who's that? Is that the bitch who stole my phone?" We fly through an intersection, narrowly missing a school bus, and pass an ambulance with it's lights flashing.
Me: "Asian."
Friend: "What?"
Me: "Nevermind. Yeah, some lady picked up her celly and now it's like, too much of a pain in her ass to give it back to us. I gotta call you back."
Friend: Laughing. "Ha! What? Well, good luck with that, the Chinese are a hard-bargaining people."
Me: "What?"
My friend hangs up on me. That's two hangups in a row.

We arrive at the Asian market and speak with the owner. She obvisouly doesn't have the phone, and no one said anything about it to her. She wishes us luck. Damn. Back in the car towards our friends' place.

We decide to call back the Asian Stranger who's falsely imprisoning our phone.
"Hi."
"Hello? This your phone?"
"Yeah, look we can meet you anywhere. We've got to have the phone back tonight." I begin to tell her a lie about us getting married tomorrow. I really get myself worked up good. She's ruining our wedding. Our day, you cold hearted beast, you. I imagine myself accepting an Oscar. I cry, I thank Jesus and my children. The music begins playing...
"I can't hear you. Fine. I meet you at ten."
"Okay, well, where at?"
Hangup number three for the evening. I'm having a swell half hour here.

The fiancee has finally peaked, and upon attaining 'Violently Irate', she begins spewing death threats, curses upon future descendants, plagues, and all manner of grotesque physical injuries. I try to call the cell back, but the Asian Stranger has turned the phone off. I mumble something about this newest development and we damn near slam into a telephone pole. The fiancee's anger is now so powerful, that it has become it's own entity. She has become so filled with rage that it begins to manifest itself physically. His name is apparently Vincenze. He calls himself a businessman in a way that makes me think he's a hitman. It's appropriate anyways.

We call periodically over the next few hours, just to see if maybe the Asian Stranger has gotten out of her meeting early. It's straight to the voicemail every time. We never hear back from the Asian Stranger.

We eventually went to the Cingular store this evening, having given up on ever seeing our little lost celly again. She got one of the Razor V3's. It's frickin' awesome, and I am highly jealous. I can't get an upgrade until January, maybe the fiancee will let me borrow hers until then. I promise to give it back.

I'll just tuck this in the extended entry, because it's not a happy thing.

I've had one of those past couple days that was not the greatest. I mean, it didn't suck per se; I still have my health, but there's someone in my immediate family that doesn't even have that. It's kind of surreal at this point, but at the same time very real. It's one of those things that 'never happens to you', but in the end it happens to everyone. We should kind of expect it, but we're never ready for it. We're never really ready to hear that someone's got a 6% chance of living through the next 12 months. We're never going to have the flexibility to work it into our schedules. There's never a good time to die. But we all know it's coming. So we just take our lumps, and we know that the things that really matter will always be there.

Responding to death by saying "That's tragic" is simply releasing vocal filler into the air. And the next time somebody says that within earshot of myself, I will stab them with their own sword and say "No. That's tragic." I mean, I don't expect people to express sympathy or empathy, because I don't even know how to express it. I don't expect people to say shit really, because I don't even know what to say yet; still processing. But I can't just not say anything; I'm not going to pretend it's not happening. So when I say "My Mom is dying" don't feel obligated to utter the traditional "I'm so sorry for you." I know what people are feeling when I tell them that. So just give me a hug, and then go home and give your family a hug.

In the extended entry is her recipe for turkey stock. I, of course, took liberties with it and made it my own. Cuz nothing's ever good enough for me when it comes to food.

Work has been crazy. Like trying to drink from a fire hose. I can't complain, because the 60% pay raise (insert screaming, cheering, dancing, heavy tipping of the bartender here) is pretty nice to me; but damn do I hate working. Absolutely.

My best friend in the whole wide world is in town tonight. He woulda been my best man if he wasn't trying to live in Costa Rica, Texas, and North Carolina at the same time. Makes him a little hard to get ahold of. But he's in town for the holidays, so I've dutifully put a twelver of Corona on ice, sliced the lime, and put on some music. It'll be a nice way to start my Thanksgiving holiday extravaganza.

Much Like Paul stated below, our Turkey Day revolves not so much around the food. We like to play poker, drink whiskey, and then make fun of eachother when we get drunk and someone's wife starts giving them the stink eye. One year, we were forced to play in the garage. Which was okay with my Uncle Jay, because that put him closer to the deepsink - it's easier for him to throw up in. I swear, second to the poker/whiskey, that's Jay's way of celebrating a family get together. What a louse that guy is.

Then there was the year my younger cousin lost his ass (a sum total of maybe $5 in change, we play high stakes donchaknow) in the game, got pissed; and would only calm down if Grandma promised to have a shot of whiskey with him. She must really love that boy, or at least the Maker's Mark, because she 'took a hit for the team'. That was the same year I got so shitty I had a nervous breakdown and damn near spent the night in my car. My own poor mother had to bring me inside.

The good news at the end of all this mindless drivel is that you probably won't hear from me for the next few days. But you already know what I'm going to be up to, so it's not like you're missing out.

Yay! First post!

Anyways...
I quit my job today. Well, that's inaccurate. I positioned myself to take advantage of a rapid exit strategy. How you like those words? Learned 'em during my MBA studies. But yeah, never thought I'd actually use them outside of a blue book - that just goes to show you how valuable continuing education is. Besides, getting fired is too reactionary of a strategy, as an MBA I need to be anticipatory, proactive, controlling my own destiny. So I decided to position myself. See, you just learned all kinds of MBA horseshit without the tuition, reading, homework, and pontificating faculty.

I just finished my exam for this Management Strategy class I'm taking. It's so retarded, anyone who's been through business school or an MBA program has taken at least six classes like this one. It's mainly a creative writing course filled with case studies. What's the best way to manage X change? Where should this company go? Innovation, the 'Blue Ocean', Steve Case, the 3 C's, 3 I's, 3 U's, Lewin's 3 Step Model, Anticipatory Management, countless BusinessWeek articles, two guest speakers, the five components of a Future Focused© organization, and of course; a book written by the professor.

The exam was basically a case analysis, wherein the student is challenged to drop as many buzzwords from the professor's text as possible; the end goal being to send said professor into such a fervent bout of narcissism that the academe is left spent, splayed out on his office floor, stretched and pulled like a peice of chewed taffy amidst a deluge of similarly written papers. The satiated ego in post-coital repose. What a jackass this guy is.

He actually told us once that he doesn't like the phrase 'proactive management' because it's so ubiquitous. Apparently, if too many people say it, it's beneath this guy's vocabulary, it's too bourgeois - so he prefers we use 'anticipatory management'. Well, I think too many folks use the word 'Professor', so I'm going to start using 'Captain Asshat, High Ruler of the Type-A Quarter Pinchers'. Dillhole.

The best part is he gave us from 6-7:30 for the exam, so I get to finish typing this and head back to class for another hour and a half of mind-numbing, self-glorifying lecture and presumably idiotic mental exercise in 'Re-engineering'. How blessed am I, grateful even.

A while back I promised I'd post a photo up of myself. I'm not exactly willing to do so, but I said I would, so I will. One of the people in the following photo is me.

The early morning is my favorite part of the day. Don't get me wrong, I can appreciate a summer afternoon or a really exciting late night; but the morning is by far the best.

I was coming home from a friend's house yesterday morning about 7am. The air was that brisk, clean temperature; maybe 50 degrees. Windows down, sunroof open, just getting the wind in my hair.

There's hardly anyone out on the roads at that time of the morning on a Saturday. It's almost like you get to enjoy the city before it's swarmed by humanity. Before the intersections are chocked with cars, honking horns and trudging down the streets like a herd of braying cattle.

The sunshine on a cloudless morning is amazing too. It just sprays out onto the world, it almost makes a sound. The low angle at that hour of the day also allows the light to come crashing through windows and doors, the brightness splashing into the corners of houses that only see sunlight once a day.

Last night, at like 3:30am, my stomach started killing me. It was that gassy type of pain, really sharp and burning, right about your navel. God, I thought that fucking critter from Alien was going to pop out of my stomach.
"Aarrrarraaaa!"
"Jesus, and I thought it was just a 48-hour bug..."
"Argrawr? Raaaawwawrrrr..."
"Sweetheart, will you go get the Raid? I think the strain has mutated..."

Yeah, so there I am, praying for death or explosive diarreah or anything to relieve the stabbing pain in my abdomen; and it happens. I mean, it was the most amazing event of its kind that I've ever been a party to, or even heard of. I floated one of the most amazing air biscuits in the history of air biscuitry. I'm no stranger to farting, as I come from a long and voluminous line of Norweigan farters and burpers. But this thing was amazing. It sounded like 5.1 Dolby Surround, I mean, I could swear someone had plugged a subwoofer jack into my asshole and turned that mother up to '11'.

BRRRRRRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEERRRRRRRRP.

The window panes shook in their frames, the bedspread flapped, the touch-lamp on the bedside table went through two three-stage cycles. The fiancee stirs: "Who the fuck is knocking on our door?"
"No one babe; but you just ripped horrendous ass." Evil grin.

Then the stench hit. No, it...swallowed us with the sorce of a tsunami. Smell 'o vision on steroids. Like so much landfill acreage, raw sewage, that sour smell of dead animals, the burning smell of propane, bad eggs, and spoiled bean soup. It was horrible, but totally amazing. I thought the woman was going to cry; I was doing all I could to keep from laughing (it would have given me away).

I woke up this morning feeling like a new man. I think The Fart was just the virus's death rattle. Not nearly deadly, but much more than a rattle; I can assure you that.

I woke up at about 3am covered in sweat. Had to go towel off, then change the damn sheets. The fiancee and I took the soiled sheets off, and she went to go get some more. She came back with a fitted sheet that, ironically, did not fit. Mildly exasperated, she went to fetch another. As it turns out, we own only one set of sheets that fits our bed. Great. So we grabbed a flat sheet and just made do. Talk about a pair of grumpy people.

I got up about 30 minutes ago and made myself a cup of tea. I decided to crush one of my Men's One-A-Day's into it. I don't know why, it just seems bettr than regular old tea. Well, the reason that shit is in pill form is because it tastes horrible. This sucks. When will it end? What if I have the avian flu or something? I'll be the first blogger to blog my death. Stay tuned.

I just threw up last night's buffalo wings. I'd like to mention that Frank's Redhot is actually spicier coming up than it is going down. Halfway through the barfing, my nose got so congested that I could only breathe through my mouth. So there I was barfing and gasping for air. It was quite the scene. My uvula is a swollen, burning mass in the back of my throat, reminding me every time I swallow that existence is pain.

So we have a closet at work; well, it's a small room; that we keep office supplies in. It also houses our refrigerator, coffee maker and associated items, and boxes of...shit I guess. I have no idea what's in them.

In this closet, peculiarly, is a telephone. I'm not talking stored, I'm saying the phone is plugged into the wall and gets a dialtone. Now, I've never seen anyone answer it, or check the voice mailbox; but occasionally the fucker will ring. Of course, me being a curious little monkey, I'm always tempted to answer it:
"Hello, you've reached the closet."
Or maybe:
"This is shank, I'm in the closet. How may I help you?"
I've asked people if it used to be someone's office or something; but the consensus is that the space has in fact been utilized as a closet since the beginning of time. I mean, if it's always been a closet, it seems odd for a phone to be there; hence the intense curiosity about who may be on the other side of the ring.

Maybe it's God; and he just wants to say he loves us. Maybe it's the Commissioner, looking for Batman but accidentally transposing a few numbers. Maybe it's the internal complaint line. Me personally? I think it's a portal in and out of the Matrix. One day, when I have my affairs in order and I'm ready to take the red pill, I will answer the phone and bravely plunge myself into the truth. I hope I get to be The One.

I don't get personal too often, but I'm going to now.
(I shortened this up, because it was more than I wanted to share)

All you motherfuckers that gave my family shit over the years; can suck my dick. Look where we're at now, and look at you; you fucking broken, dispicable, shams of families. Fucking facades is all you are. And you had the gall to tell us we were doing shit wrong!

We did it our own way, with honesty, and arguing, and ultimately LOVE. You fuckers spent your time and money on keeping up appearances and coddling delinquents. Fuck you. I'm so glad that I can now; freely and without rebuke say to you "Fuck. Off." It's the American dream bitches, and I'm living it.

Don't you hate it when people bother you about shit that doesn't matter? My mom sends me this little notice saying maybe I should be taking in more iodine. It's good for my thyroid.

Firstly, my thyroid is fine. I'll start worrying when I get a goiter or something. Is that even what happens; or is that the pituitary? See - it doesn't matter, because if I woke up without the fucker tomorrow, I wouldn't even know.

Secondly, I've had plenty of iodine in my day. I'm old enough that when I was a kid, people put iodine drops on your fucking scrapes. God, it was like being branded. The pain from iodine was all the encouragement a kid needed to wear skateboard pads. Furthermore, I used it to sterilize water on many a long-term backpacking trip. You'd put a few drops in a bottle of stream water, let it sit in the sun for a few hours, and wa-la; no micro-organisms would be waiting in your water to give you a two-week long bout of the shits. The downside to that is that iodine tastes like 80 different kinds of ass.

Thirdly, before iodine deficiency rots my thyroid away (to some unknown/not-cared-about consequence) I'm sure I will have drank my liver into oblivion, smoked my lungs blacker than tar, been hit by a drunk driver, had my body devoured by some form of cancer, been shot by a lunatic, and maybe - maybe - eaten by a shark. I don't know what the top ten killers in America are, but I bet none of them is a crapped out thyroid.

So Ma, I appreciate the concern, but my dick is going to fall off from beating it too much before my thyroid shits out because I'm not eating enough iodine.

Shank out.

Yesterday, while sitting through a meeting that I can only describe as a boredom marathon, I had an epiphany.

There was a time not long ago that I could spit out posts like nobody’s business. I don’t mean links or bullshit posts where you talk about having nothing. I mean posts that had a beginning, middle and an end. That had pacing and theme. Posts that told a story.

It would seem they’ve dried up. Maybe I’ve gone to the well too many times. Maybe it’s the fact that most of my stuff revolved around my interaction with other people, which I have been forced to limit, in order to preserve my sanity.

Or maybe my luck has improved. I haven’t scalded the shit out of my mouth with hot napalm-like pizza lately, I haven’t shit myself in a long time…no wonder I’ve got nothing. Today I’ve got a headache. There’s nothing funny about a headache. I’ve got nothing to play off of. It’s not like cramps and the running shits—that’s good stuff. My whole schtick revolved around embarrassment and I’ve had nothing since the underwear incident.

I miss my old ways. Once I was driving down the freeway and I noticed a wasp was in the car. Now I’m a man and all, but there was a fucking wasp in the car. So I rolled down a window to blow it out, but instead of it going out it blew over to my side, and before I knew it the bastard was on my neck and I was swerving all over the road (in a man-like, controlled manner). There was a lot of swatting and wriggling on my part and I’m pretty sure I was screaming pretty loud too before I got the bastard out.

You see, that’s funny, even though it was emotionally stressful at the time. As far as I was concerned I was fighting a fucking dragon…it’s all the same to me. One may be smaller but they’re both trying to kill me.

And speaking of stress, someone needs to explain what pleasure is derived from going to haunted houses/scare fests around Halloween. I’ve done my share as a younger man and I failed to see the charm. You pay money to walk around in the dark while a bunch of assholes wait until you’re most vulnerable and then jump out screaming and scare the living shit out of you. I don’t find that type of anticipation pleasurable. I find it fucking stressful. I’m a nervous wreck after that shit. I also don’t like people yelling in my ear. My natural tendency is to attack someone that yells in my ear, and that tendency is hard to restrain. And often is not. Fear is the mother of violence. If you scare me, I will usually attack you.

I have no idea how to end this travesty. Mordieux…what has become of me?

I never tire of reading this post.

This is your opportunity to complain about the new design and any problems you're having seeing things.

One thing I'll tweak more later is the font situation, but not until I know that everybody can read the blog title and description up there at the top.

Also, Shank and Paul need to decide what they want in the sidebars...I'll make any changes or additions you want.

I spend lots of time at work on the Internet.
I left early today, and I'm not going back tomorrow.
People tell me I do good work, and I don't know why. It's easy.
I'm drinking now, I might stay and close the bar tonight. Tomorrow I sleep like the dead.
I don't like most people. They tend to suck the life out of me.
That's why I like the web. I can talk when I want.
I mainly posted this because I like symmetry.

It's like poetry for people who can't read. No. No it's not. That is stupid. It's like...fuckit; I'll stick to poetry for blind people. Just take it at face value and roll with it. Has anyone seen Bill? He's not really dead is he?