dogs i don't like:

1. chihuahua on the north side of my house that barks all the time.
2. beagle on the west side of my house that barks all the time.
3. large and frequently-unleashed rottweiler across the street.
4. very large and apparently free-ranging neighborhood poodle.
   
5. marmaduke.
   

birth announcement

drinking and listening to alkaline trio

man, this is high school all over again.

skullduggery and adventure on the high seas (lake?)

my girlfriend invited some friends and me to her cottage in michigan a few weeks ago. from a conventional viewpoint, the weather was terrible-- overcast skies and chilly winds were interspersed with booming thunderstorms for much of the weekend. but rather unexpectedly, the shit weather made things really fun.

saturday morning brought a torrential downpour that lasted into early afternoon, after which we finally spent some time on the beach. the storm spawned big rolling waves, colossal by lake michigan standards... which means coastal folks would have found them cute and quaint, but they were badass for a prairie-dwelling midwesterner who's only once set foot in an ocean.

the water was frigid and the waves large enough that i constantly felt off-balance. occasionally, i would fall and attempt to surface directly into another oncoming wave, inhaling bunch of lake water (probably best that i don't think about how gross that is) and likely looking rather foolish.

for a few seconds each time, the world was dark and cold and weightless and i had no control over anything. i imagine it was a bit like drowning but not scary because i wasn't in any real danger... so it was kind of fun. i wanted to stay longer but everyone else was cold, so we left.

the next day's weather was more summery, charring my ghoulish pallor to a shade nearly within standard parameters for healthy human beings.* we found an small sailboat with no sail partially buried in the wet sand near the water's edge. it was clearly abandoned, so we decided to try our luck with a little voyage.

while we were digging it out, i kept thinking "this is heavy as hell and it's filled with shitloads of wet sand, there's no way we're going to actually get it into the water." after we were paddling around in the boat, i kept thinking "there's no way this is going to stay afloat, there are huge cracks in the bottom." after a lot of bailing and brief, implausible thoughts about rigging a rudimentary bilge pump, i kept thinking "we're pretty far out, i hope i don't wind up as one of those newspaper stories about idiots who do something stupid and hurt themselves." but we didn't and it was fun. my two shipmates were true swashbucklers, to be sure.

after a while, we realized we had drifted pretty far south and decided to turn back. we tried to leave the boat where we came ashore, but some lady in a folding chair yelled at us. she was cranky as hell for someone who had her own private beach, so we kept walking. eventually we dumped the boat where we found it along the tideline. within seconds, the waves were reburying it with wet sand.


* at least on my forearms and the back of my neck.

bizarre e-mails, #4

i'm sincerely hoping this one is someone playing a rather uncool prank on a friend...

unfortunately, it's probably more likely someone's asshole ex-boyfriend causing trouble.

*EDIT: i should add... i blacked out what appeared to be someone's real first and last name and address, down to the person's apartment number.

clownin' around

a bit too busy today for a real post, so here's a picture of a poster i saw at my favorite deli:

i googled it and i think it's an old wine label. i just thought it looked sweet.

also, is it just me or does that clown look extremely sinister? like imagine if he were standing on top of a pile of skulls instead of bunches of grapes.

a few pictures i've been meaning to upload

the aftermath of the pride parade from my friend's apartment.

i have no idea what this means, but it seems like some very poor phrasing in the lower right.

i think this place went out of business because it wasn't clear enough that they sold food.

bumper sticker archives, #1

i think bumper stickers are a rather fascinating form of self-expression. you have this tiny rectangle with just a few words to sum up a piece of what you're all about and broadcast for all the world to see.

a lot of them are boring (i.e. political affiliation, alma mater, trade union) or tasteless/stupid (i.e. "i do what the voices in my head tell me" or "my other ride is your mom") but i see some real gems from time to time in my neighborhood.

for example:



this truck belongs to a guy on my block. the "i <3 violence" sticker alone is absurd enough to qualify as noteworthy, but there's more to it. not only is the owner a chicago cop, he put a sticker proclaiming his love of violence direclty next to his fraternal order of police sticker.

if i were a cop in a city with as many ugly memories of police brutality as chicago, i probably wouldn't go out of my way to reinforce that perception. i dunno, maybe he just really likes ultimate fighting or something.

do any vegetables actually grow on trees?

if you follow political blogs at all, chances are you've come across this video:



yes, this lady looks very foolish... but as someone who had the misfortune of listening to hours of concerned citizen monologues during my journalism days, she's pretty standard in terms of rambling imbeciles at government meetings.

if you attend meetings at any city government/school board, you eventually WILL encounter someone as ignorant and poorly prepared and terrible at speaking as santa cruz lady. if you're particularly unlucky, that person will be a board member.

in fact, the santa cruz lady isn't even all that bad. she was boring and didn't make any sense, but you just tune that out when you realize it's not going anywhere.

far worse are the people leading quixotic crusades about local issues or against certain board members. i always found it really ironic that even if people had valid beef with the board, probably 95 percent of them doomed themselves just by stepping up to the microphone. adults who speak like inarticulate third-graders don't get taken seriously.

i remember this one guy who called himself "dr. drainage." giving dr. drainage my phone number was easily one the biggest mistakes of my journalism career.

every single week, he'd be at the city council meeting droning on and on about sewers and storm water and retention ponds and god knows what else. to be fair, he wasn't a standard "village meeting idiot" because he was actually quite bright- just abysmal at presenting his ideas.

i guess the reason i find this video so odd is santa cruz lady is basically just like sarah palin in terms of incoherency and ineptitude at presenting ideas, yet millions of people wanted palin to became our vice president. i think this is probably my favorite takedown yet of palin's gibberish speeches.

guerilla tactics at the movies

sunday was one of those sticky-humid days best spent in an air-conditioned room, so some friends and i went to see harry potter and the half-blood prince. wanton spendthrift that i am, i indulged in a $5 medium fountain drink to celebrate my first 2009 summer blockbuster movie experience. livin' large, baby!

the movie was way more badass than i expected and i was really enjoying it. i'm a very casual HP fan, so i didn't care about it diverting from the book's plot. frankly, i don't even remember the book very well.

apparently, people also complained there wasn't any explanation of what happened earlier in the series, which seems slightly ridiculous to me. harry potter is one of western civilization's most phenomenally successful and ubiquitous book/movie/video game/unintentional sex-toy series. if the hogwarts crew has been quidditching under your radar for the past decade and you finally decide to see what all the hubbub's about by going in cold to the sixth movie... well, you probably deserve to be lost.

unfortunately, my aforementioned diet coke splurge meant i had to get up in the middle of the movie. nothing kills the mood like using crowded theater bathroom. during my whole trip, i kept thinking about how bad real life sucks compared to movies and how i'd rather be blasting shit with magic.

real life continued to suck once i returned to my seat. some churl kept throwing chewed-up candy. it seemed like he was targeting the girls directly behind me but i was catching collateral damage. after the third time i was struck, i decided to pull some rambo shit and go on the offensive.

i grabbed a bag of discarded popcorn from a garbage can in the lobby, then reentered my theater through a different door and found a seat way in back where i could see everyone. as soon as that little fucker threw something, i'd be on him like an hawk. i was planning to whip the whole bag at his head once i found him. or, if he was someone who could possibly beat me up, i would just throw stuff at the back of his head from the cover of darkness in a bit of poetic justice.

unfortunately, i was robbed of sweet vengeance because i never actually caught anyone in the act of throwing anything. i'm pretty sure it was this one douchey suburbanite teenager. he definitely would have been the "whole bag at the back of the head" scenario.

when a man loves a machine...

R.I.P.
my computer
august, 2003 - july, 2009

take solace in knowing i never again shall subject you to the rigors of a maximum-size map game of civilization iv on high graphics settings. farewell, old friend, and let this ballad usher you into the unknown.

i can't agree with his decision to stop at taco bell instead of somewhere good, but...

perhaps it's just my love for burritos, but i find this article oddly poignant:

Chase ends after suspect stops for 'last burrito'

May 14, 2009

Officials say a suspected drug dealer who led police on a 90 mph chase in northern Indiana was arrested after he stopped suddenly at a Taco Bell parking lot.

The reason? Jermaine Cooper told police he "knew he was going to jail for a while" and wanted to get one last burrito, Fort Wayne, Ind., police Sgt. Mark Walters said.

Cooper, 36, of Fort Wayne, was held without bail on four counts of dealing cocaine and other charges after the chase from Fort Wayne to nearby Decatur.

And he never got the burrito he craved.

AP

fight me, you fools!

if you dare...

http://party-fowl.mybrute.com

what would prof. sprout think?

now that's what i call herbology.

high level humor at the southside irish parade

i've been way busy lately, so i'm still trying to catch up with stuff that happened over the past month.

my cousin came to visit for the southside parade last month. we met up with some friends and had a pretty good time, in spite of the droves of drunken teenagers with shamefully horrible brogues and "fuck me, i'm irish!" t-shirts.

the weather was surprisingly warm and sunny for chicago in mid-march (i wasn't even wearing a coat), which was pretty nice... except that i was fairly sunburned from my trip to california, and the unusually clement weather exacerbated the situation.

we were waiting at a bathroom line when my cousin waved and said he had to tell me something. i asked what he wanted, and he kept telling me to come closer.

given our long, long history of inflicting physical/psychological discomfort on each other for entertainment, this should have been my first clue that something was wrong. unfortunately, it had been a long night/day and i went over anyway.

"what the hell is it?" i asked.

"i just wanted to tell you that now you're standing in puke," he said.

delightful.

after a brief hiatus...

ok, i'm back now. here's something that happened a few weeks ago:

i was at a party at my friend steve's apartment in wicker park, boozing it up with some bros.

we were down in his basement drinking and i saw an older lady, probably late 50's, wandering around the place. she had this weird hat that looked kind of like a beret and a massive canvas bag clutched tight to her chest. she looked for all the world like an older hippie who refused to age gracefully, vainly attempting to "hang" with the "kids."

after watching her for a bit, i realized i was only half-right; she most likely was an aging hippie, but she didn't seem to care much for hanging out. true to the enterprising entrepreneurship that made america great, she was circulating around the party selling homemade pumpkin muffins laced with (gasp) marijuana. it was like a real-life episode of "weeds."

she eventually made her way over to me, and said "you want one?"

i responded: "what do you have?"
old lady: (snorts) "what do you think?"
me: "i dunno, a bag."
old lady: "are you a cop?"
me: "what do you think?"
old lady: "they're drug muffins. five dollars each."
me: "i see..."

i casually pulled my coat aside and gave her quick glimpse of my shirt, which happened to have something that looked like a police star on the upper left part of my chest.

she was pretty old and she looked like she was about to have a heart attack when i did that, so i only strung her along for a few seconds. but it's nice when you can still make someone's eyes bug out with terror after so many years.

goodbye career, hello sex offender registration

i used to work at a newspaper a while back. my friend casey wound up covering my old school district beat and i occasionally enjoy checking up on what's going on there, particularly with that rogues' gallery they call a school board. he broke this rather disturbing story today: Rich South teacher accused of having sex with student.

i can't decide which aspect of this story i find more unsettling; that the teacher in question happens to be the boys' cross country coach or that she bought the student a bottle of cologne.

you win again, britain

why can't we have sweet stamps like these? the dragon is obviously awesome, but i also really like the pixie riding the snail because it reminds me of "the neverending story."

i almost never mail physical letters, but i think i might be more inclined to do so if the U.S. postal service would let me use stamps with pictures of a gorgon or a hippogriff or something sweet instead of all that lame ass shit they use now.

i actually came across that one on neil gaiman's blog. i really like his stuff and would recommend him to anyone who likes reading in general. i'm reading "sandman" right now and it's incredible. i haven't read too many graphic novels, but there's some amazing stuff out there and you're depriving yourself if you think they're just crappy comic books.

i've also read "neverwhere" and "good omens" (which was co-written by terry pratchett, another of my favorites.), both of which i thought were great.

plus "coraline" in 3-d was incredibly cool and honestly quite creepy. god help all the parents who brought their kids to that thinking it was going to be like "nightmare before christmas."

BOOOOOOO!

well, there goes yet another fun thing that is never going to happen again.

R.I.P. southside irish parade.

buy me bonestorm, or go to hell!

apparently, the person who wrote this terrible piece about controversial video games thinks "little big planet" is more controversial than "night trap" and "thrill kill."

for non-video game players, that means "night trap," which was pulled from the shelves due to misguided hysteria over its content, and "thrill kill," a game so absurdly violent for its time that EA refused to release it mere weeks before its launch date, were somehow less controversial than "little big planet," a puzzle game about a smiling rag doll whose "controversy" was that a song in the game happened to contain verses from the quran... which was pulled and it made its scheduled release.

granted, this is probably just some horseshit fluff piece designed to give "resident evil 5" more attnetion... but shame on you either way, yahoo! games.

a fridge too far

behold the myriad varieties of mayonnaise and miracle whip (none of which are mine because i hate that crap) in our refrigerator:


apparently they've started spawning, as i recently found a brand new member had joined our little mayo flock:

enter the dragon

i finally set it up so i can transfer pictures from my phone to my computer. here's a picture of that five-headed dragon incense burner i was talking about the other day:

it's even better than you thought, right?

quis custodiet ipsos nerds?

i went to see "watchmen" the other day. i thought it was pretty good overall. here's a great piece of bathroom graffiti i found at a borders in san diego:

(it's tough to read, but one person wrote "who watches the watchmen?" and some wiseacre drew an arrow pointing to the quote and wrote "nerds")

i loved the novel and the movie is a pretty faithful interpretation, but it definitely has its low points. i hate ham-handed symbolism (i.e. "argh! the comedian was right! life IS just a joke!") and the movie had more than its share of that. plus, malin akerman and matthew goode certainly aren't going to win any oscars for their roles, but i don't think they're as bad as some people say.

despite my generally positive impressions, i left the theater with the feeling that i would have been confused had i not read the book. but mostly because people in the theater kept talking/laughing/making noise and i couldn't hear. we went to a matinee at a mildly crappy theater and the crowd wasn't exactly respectful.

the movie's high ratio of male-to-female nudity provoked quite a bit of snickering amongst the audience. i can understand a brief chuckle at seeing dr. manhattan in all his luminous blue glory for the first time, or at nite owl's relative flabbiness for a superhero... but it's pathetic when adults are still giggling at a completely nonsexual image of a naked person after seeing it for the sixth or seventh time.

i think my worst "inappropriate laughing at a theater" experience was "the fellowship of the ring." i'm a big LoTR fan (shocking, right?) and i had been following the production of that movie for like three years.

i saw it on opening night in a packed theater and i was spellbound, up until the scene where boromir gets shot by a bunch of arrows. a group of people somewhere in the back of the theater started laughing uproariously and i have no idea why... looking at it objectively, there isn't anything funny about the scene; no goofy facial expressions or weird groans or anything.

i was livid at them ruining that scene for me. to this day, i still have nagging memories of those boorish assholes whenever i watch it.

warp speed, mr. data!

man, i'm downloading something right now at 600 kb/s. if you would have told me i'd someday be doing that back when i was downloading starcraft maps on a 56k modem, i'd have thought you were a crazy person.

travelogues: san diego, #1 -- tales from the whale's vagina

as i said yesterday, i recently went on a vacation to san diego. it was my first time on a plane. and, come to think of it, my first time inside an airport.

jackie and i woke up around 4:30 a.m. on a sunday and left for o'hare right away. as it happened, it was the first day of daylight savings time, so it was actually 3:30. that's usually about when i'm going to bed on saturday night/sunday mornings, so i was pretty disoriented.

o'hare is huge and labyrinthine and complicated. it's kind of amazing that people can design and operate something on such a large scale and make it work within reasonably acceptable margins. especially when you consider people also do things like this.

i've heard so many horror stories about aiport security that i was braced for the worst, but it was surprisingly painless. the whole thing took maybe 15 minutes, likely due to the ungodly hour at which we were passing through.

the real horror was the airport starbucks, where a medium chai tea and a blueberry scone somehow cost $9.

we walked around for a while before boarding. i browsed an airport shop and found precisely zero items i wanted to read on the plane (other than "twilight" *swoon*). also, i never realized pornos are actually sold at airports. i always thought that was just a joke and it seems really unfunny and sad now that i know it's true.

i'd be lying if i said i wasn't a little nervous while the plane maneuvered toward the runway before taking off. but i found the tremendous speed of taking off and the weird feeling when the front of the plane lifted from the ground to be kind of exhilarating.

it was extremely cloudy when we took off and all i could see was just heavy, opaque whiteness. it felt oddly claustrophobic considering that in reality there was nothing there except open sky. i really liked looking out the window once things cleared up... it gives you an interesting sense of perspective and scope when you can see how things are laid out.

even so, flying was a weird experience. you're inside a relatively fragile aluminum tube 35,000 feet above the ground traveling at 600 miles per hour. the idea that some minor thing could go wrong and send me plummeting to a fiery and inescapable death was often in the back of my mind... but it's difficult to feel nervous when small children are calmly coloring right behind you, so i was ok.

that being said, the scariest part of the flight by far was when an older man sitting in the aisle seat reached over to shake jackie's hand and introduce himself as "don."

"what the hell is he doing?" i thought. "is it normal for people to introduce themselves on planes?"

i then noticed don was wearing a baseball cap that said "JESUS is my boss." my eyes moved down to his bright green t-shirt, which was stretched tight across his huge pot belly and had a bastardized sprite logo that said something about the holy spirit. one would think copyright infringement is a sin, but whatever.

"oh no... oh fuck..." i thought, as don turned his attention toward me. "is he going to try to talk to us? is he going to proseltyze to me for the entire four hour flight?! i'll throw myself out the hatch."

my listless handshake and frigid greeting must have broadcast that i didn't want conversation. i immediately shrank away, put on my ipod and buried my face in my book.

fortunately, don seemed unperturbed and occupied himself with the in-flight presentation of the keanu reeves version of "the day the earth stood still" and an entire box of cheez-its. i didn't hear from him for the rest of the flight, but he apparently kept stealing jackie's arm rest.

bizarre e-mails, #3

ok... i know i just said i was going to do work today, but i received this gem a bit ago and couldn't resist:


that's it. no greeting, no signature, no context whatsoever. and i know it's a bit hard to read, but the e-mail address does say "bigmeatbabe."

i don't have even the slightest clue about what this person is asking considering i've never had anything whatsoever to do with awarding any type of scholarship... with the possible exception of periodically doling out my "star of the masquerade" awards.

but i can take a guess about one aspect of applying for scholarships: using an e-mail address that contains the phrase "bigmeatbabe" probably does not help one's chances.

i'm back, baby!

hey dudes, sorry i haven't updated much. i've had a pretty crazy (in the good way) week and a half or so, and i have some fun pictures from my trip to san diego. but right now i have tons of catching up to do at work, so enjoy this in the meantime:

i'll give you a blister in the sun, wayne coyne...

wayne coyne has been spouting off this insane nonsense about arcade fire. apparently, he wants me to strongly consider punching him in the face.

the power of the five-headed dragon god burns within this post

man, i have a ton of stuff i want to write about. i now have a new phone that can actually take pictures, so i have a bunch of uplifting photos to broaden your horizons and embiggen your souls... like this weird brand of christian bread i found at the grocery store and this awesome mystical five-headed dragon god incense burner where the fucking smoke comes out of his gaping, fanged mouths.

i think i kind of sidestepped "teaser" and went straight to "spoiler" with that one, but oh well.

BUT! my blogging hands are presently rather loosely tied because i still don't have the internet at home (thanks to a certain pink-haired idiot with whom i live) and i don't really like doing this at work.

plus i leave for vacation on sunday. it will be a trip of many firsts for me... my first time on the west coast, my first actual vacation as an adult, and (i know this is odd for someone my age) my first time on a plane.

i'm actually kind of disappointed about finally going on a plane. that was always my surefire statement when playing "never have i ever" that would force 99 percent of people to drink. ah well...

in other news, battlestar galactica is still amazing. if season 3's big crazy-ass conclusion hadn't been prematurely spoiled for me, i think i would have had to be hospitalized for shock. as it was, i was still totally blown away.

just like columbus, i get the bloodlust

nate showed this to me the other night and i think it's hilarious and awesome:

smart public transportation moments, #1

this one surprised me.. i was on the brown line and some guy was amusing his friends by asking geography questions. the only one i can remember was "which country is largest: equatorial new guinea, chile or puerto rico?"

who wants to guess?!

**edit:

ok, i should have said "equatorial guinea." i heard this on a fucking train like two weeks ago, cut me some slack. and as for puerto rico being a commonwealth rather than a country, let's just classify them as "geographical areas" for the sake of the post.

incommunicado

hey dudes, i won't be able to update for a little bit. our cable and internet are going to be off for a little while... a situation that threatens to tax my natural good humor and docile disposition to the very brink of rudeness.

i've already been lax with the blogging because i've been desperately trying to catch up on battlestar galactica so i can watch the series finale on TV with everyone else. i think i watched like six episodes in a row on sunday, all of which blew me away. i never watch tv dramas, so i'm always totally shocked by the plot twists... i keep thinking terrible things that happen are going to turn out to be dreams or something and all the characters will be fine at the end of the episode.

here's a quick story:

saturday night, i went out with my friend molly. our friend was at kit kat lounge for her birthday party and we wanted to go hang out with her. we headed there, paid $10 for two miller lites and didn't see our friend.

i immediately noticed i was the ugliest man there, which was fine. kit kat lounge is a fancy boystown bar full of fancy people, and i'm not about to compete with those accustomed to luxuries such as drink menus and bathroom stalls with doors.

molly disagreed and said i was only the worst-dressed man there, not the ugliest. i'm not sure if that was supposed to make me feel better or worse. but molly also didn't realize there were like 40 drag queens there, so what does she know?

so anyway molly wanted to meet up with her sister and her sister's friend for a quick drink, so they came to pick us up in a cab. i got in the front seat when they arrived and had to twist around and stick my hand through the little cab driver window to make introductions.

my grip in this awkward position must not have been bone-crushing enough for the visibly drunk friend, as she immediately slurred that i had a "lil' faggot handshake." i think she must have been skipped the seminar on first impressions at finishing school.

i responded by saying i couldn't really shake hands because of my avian bone syndrome and no one laughed.

the republican party is fresh and dope

michele bachmann tells michael steele "you da man."

yeah all right

haha, ok that's pretty funny.

NANNERPUSS!!! NANNERPUUUUUUUUUUUSSSSSSSSSS!!!

why does everyone keep asking me about that nannerpuss thing?!

and speaking of swedish things...

i went to a swedish restaurant in the city last weekend... i had not realized such places existed before then.

i kind of didn't know what to expect a swedish restaurant to look like... and even if i did, i wouldn't have expected a crazy ass mural on the wall with a bunch of little trolls having a may festival. it looked kind of like this.

i liked it because the food was good, but also because the waitresses actually looked swedish and it made for greater authenticity. they were all tall and blond with blue eyes. it was like feasting in valhalla, but with fewer big scary bearded guys.

one of them looked like how i imagine a valkyrie would. she was honestly two inches taller than me. and she also had a nice profile! a-ha-ha... what a terrible joke.

i figured it was at least trail mix or something

yesterday at the gym, i saw one of the workers sitting at a desk and eating something out of a bag. i walked by him a few times and noticed its brand name was "performance snacks."

after a few more passes, i realized "performance snacks" is a melange of gummi worms, sour patch kids and swedish fish.

line of the year

on sunday morning after ford's party, i woke up and came out to the kitchen to get some water. i saw my friend jay sleeping on some cushion thing on the floor, which i later realized was the dog's bed.

upon waking, jay said it was "not the best or worst dog's bed he's slept in."

well, i'm stimulated

obama's stimulus bill is sounding better and better... according to some lady, the bill is "literally filled with pork." as such, i eagerly look forward to receiving my government-issued breakfast sausage and spare ribs.

sleazy bar stories, #2

i woke up this morning on john's couch with an astronomical hangover. i felt like such shit that my first thought was wondering if i had died during the night and, if so, whether i was in hell and suffering penance for my many evil deeds. the jury's still out on that one. j/k, lolz!

seriously though, last night was fun. we went to delilah's for dan's birthday party. also, it was the maiden expedition of team discovery channel, a high-impact tactical drinking unit composed of john and me.

i'm trying to save money this month, so i decided to pull a classy move... i smuggled in a pint of jack and some diet pepsi, and surreptitiously mixed my own drinks. as testament of my preternatural tolerance for drink, i somehow managed to spend more than $60 on alcohol after i drank the jack. life's funny like that. and by funny, i mean horrible.

things started getting pretty hazy as the night progressed. i was really, really tired before we went out, and i always start to slip a bit when i booze in that state. here are my scattered memories:

some dudes at the bar comment on my high school swimming t-shirt that i bought from a thrift store. we have a boring conversation about their high school, culminating with me lying and saying i have to go to the bathroom to end it.

(darkness)

i'm leaving delilah's. i realize i have no idea what happened over the past half hour or so and think "crap, i'm starting to black out."

(darkness)

i'm at an atm withdrawing money. i dimly recall pledging to myself earlier that i would behave and only spend $60 total for the evening. i say "meh" and get more money.

(darkness)

we're at a white castle. i order some food and think "why am i doing this? i hate white castle." the workers already have food ready, so they hand me my order immediately after i finish signing my credit card receipt. i look at the bag with profound confusion because i don't understand how it was prepared so quickly, resulting in the worker exasperatedly urging me to take it as she repeatedly thrusts the bag toward me.

also, this morning dan told me i consumed my four sliders and fries in literally about 30 seconds.

(darkness)

i'm at a street corner with my friends trying to hail a cab in a heavy snowstorm, but there are none to be found. i briefly wonder if we all will freeze to death at this lonely intersection, the snowfall slowly burying our frostbite-blackened corpses until the spring thaw when the crows feast upon us.

i notice jenna shivering because she's wearing only a hoodie, so i offer to share my coat with her. we huddle together (i'm not pulling any funny business, mind you. i have a girlfriend and i was genuinely just trying to be nice) and i am filled with pride at my own gallantry.

but now that i'm sober and thinking about it, that easily could have come across as quite creepy considering i barely know her. also, i was actually wearing a hoodie under my coat, so i could have just given her one of those... so basically what i thought was a chivalrous gesture was in actuality more like this situation:



(darkness)

we're back at john's apartment listening to music. john and i are sharing one of those tiny bottles of jameson you get on airplanes. why am i drinking more? it's 4 a.m.

(darkness)

then it was morning.

also, within five minutes of waking up, i stepped in cat urine in my socks from john's fat, stupid cat. jada is my always my arch-nemesis whenever i go over there.

shameful bar tabs, #3

delilah's + christina's = ...

$63!

i think this one deserves some extra shameful notoriety because my bar tab was accrued AFTER i drank the pint of whiskey i smuggled into delilah's in my coat pocket.

bizarre e-mails, #2 (update)

i just did some research and ron lastname wasn't messing around. he was arrested for sending threatening letters and packages to city and county officials last week. some of the pieces of mail contained weird powder and shotgun shells.

i wonder if this means i'm not going to get e-mails from him anymore.

bizarre e-mails, #2

about once a month, i get these awesome political e-mails from "ron lastname." i think his real name is ron haddad, but who the hell knows. as usual, i have absolutely no idea how i got on his e-mail list.

mr. lastname seems to see himself as a political crusader who's fighting a never-ending battle against the oil industry, mayor daley and the chicago political machine, corrupt police departments and a litany of other perceived societal evils.

unfortunately for mr. lastname and his muckraking crusade, he is batshit insane.

i was looking through my deleted e-mails from something else and i came across mr. lastname's most recent e-mail, which as from jan. 28. here's an unedited excerpt:

"Illinois Police Departments have recently taken an aggressive stance against me, in perfect timing with my email about "Rods' Home Address" and Big Oil being so effective and getting Governor Rod Blagoiovich (D) out of office and stopping Big Oil from hiking prices anymore. Big Oil is now awaiting word from either patronage whore department (this is not against all cops, just those few especially in high ranks close to politics who corrupt these departments) that "they got Ron Haddad and it is safe for Big Oil to resume price-hikes" which is why Big Oil stopped hiking prices but still will not lower prices since my wonderful targeting of their families and kids almost a month ago when Big Oil went from their lowest price at the pump in five years, back up to just below or above $2.00."

that quote is a pretty accurate microcosm of the entire 36-page e-mail (yes, it really is 36 pages. i copy/pasted it into a word document because i was curious) in terms of general incoherency and delusional ranting. however, that snippet actually contains far less profanity than an average paragraph.

here's another raw and unedited taste of mr. lastname fighting the good fight. i think he's still talking about police officers:

"These pieces of shit know about and don't care about their official and unofficial masters' corrupt and rights-violating deeds and agendas but they preech a whole lot about "accountabilty under the law" for busting someone for $5.00 of weed (weed is illegal) when they can just as easily throw out the weed and warn against it, or making a criminal out of people in some places with retarded weapons laws like a cop canvasing your block over a burglary seeing nunchucks or a blowgun or certain curved or styled knife in your house in states like California. Ever since 100% assassination-deserving insurance companies (corporate fascists) accomplished their goal of using police to make you buy their accident insurance, these police pieces of shit took full advantage of "more reason to pull people over for really no reason" and became even more loyal to these 100% assassination-deserving corporate fascists. These pieces of shit look at WE THE PEOPLE like score-points at a shooting gallery; they only care about making criminals out of as many people as they can and do not give a rats' ass about the individual or his or her story, just any excuse to make this next person another arrest and this is what Big Oil, other corporate fascists, The Daley Machine (D), and other scum bag politicians encourage in these pieces of shit on the street, to so much as dare "to try and show" WE THE PEOPLE that "they" can fuck with us."

one more, then i think that's enough:

"BUSH (R) IS NO LONGER ANYKIND OF A FACTOR, I "TOOK CARE OF BUSH (R)" AS YOU WILL SEE LATER, BELOW. Mayor Daley (D) is the blood-tie that binds George W. Bush (R) and Barack Obama (D) onto the same side, regardless of party difference. Barack Obama having Bush (R) (secretly and hypocratacly) and Daley (D) (very openly) support The Obama Campaign (D) while Bush (R) does absolutely nothing to help John McCain (R) in election 2008. McCain (R) ran for office with only thirteen million dollars, while Obama (D) ran for office with six hundred million dollars as Obama (D) all-out lies that he is against big corporations and hidden interests and that McCain (R) is the big bad Republican getting help from evil corporations and George W. Bush (R)."

ok, i lied. one more:

"As I show in Section 2. about "GOOD NEWS...", Larry Sinclair and Chicago U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald are going to deliver extremely massive blows to Obama (D) that will crush his Presidency before it even really gets started. Larry Sinclair will release a book about himself and Obama (D) that links Obama (D) to the Donald Young Murder and drugs and homosexuality and massive corruption."

there is tons and tons and tons more, but you get the idea. i personally am looking forward to purchasing larry sinclair's upcoming book because i'm sure it's well written and full of factual content.

i guess my biggest question is "who the hell would wear that free t-shirt?"

found this gem in yesterday's paper.

beers. blunts. battlestar galactica.

last night, i got drunk and watched battlestar galactica. it was pretty awesome, but i could have been achieving greater synergy had i utilized this battlestar galactica drinking game... but then i probably would be even more hung over today than i already am. a quandary that would beguile even the tactical genius of cmdr. adama.

i'm almost finished with season 2.5. i was stunned by the death of one of the characters in an episode i saw last night... i think i'm not used to people dying in TV shows because i usually watch comedies.

r.i.p., buddy. so say we all.

also, i found a grape-flavored blunt in my room that i bought from a 7-11 more than three months ago. i've brushed my teeth twice and eaten breakfast since i smoked it last night, yet the taste of stale grape-y tobacco still lingers.

look upon this, and be inspired!

perhaps i have the brainpan of a stagecoach tilter

yesterday, i went to a doctor's appointment right after work. i was alone in the waiting room when a couple in their early 60's entered.

the woman was morbidly obese and looked like a giant, scowling badger walking on its hind legs because of her enormous fur coat and hat. the man was short and limped because of a soft cast on his foot.

the man sat down and the woman put down her purse next to him. she looked directly at me (the only other person in the room), scowled again, audibly instructed the man to watch her purse and stomped off toward the bathroom.

wow, thanks lady. i haven't felt that good since a girl on the el called me "scary."

first of all you old harpy, if i wanted your stupid purse, a decrepit old man with a broken foot certainly (well... let's say "most likely") wouldn't stop me. furthermore, wouldn't you just assume your fucking spouse would watch your purse for you? do you really need to specifically ask him to do so? i bet you're a real pleasure at home.

i've crafted a few hypotheses as to why the bitchy old bat reacted the way she did:

1. she previously was robbed by a different 25-year-old master's student in business casual attire who was waiting to receive his allergy shots, and the sight of me brought these traumatic memories flooding back to her.
   
2. she is a phrenologist and noticed the contours of my skull indicate a base and criminal nature, striking fear into her geriatric heart.
   
3. she's just a bitchy old bat.

at times like this, i can only wonder how my life would have been different if my parents named me "u.s. cellular field"

i guess some asshole named his baby girl "addison n. clark" after the location of wrigley field... though that's still not as bad as naming a baby "ESPN."

do you think it ever occurs to people that children may not appreciate being named as a tribute to a sports team?

or what it's going to be like when she has to suffer through thousands of banal conversations starting with "say! you aren't named after wrigley field, are you? your parents must be pretty big cubs fans!"

or that when the baby grows up, she may not even like baseball?

a dubious culinary experience

i found a big smoked turkey sausage in my freezer the other day and i started cooking it for dinner. i was midway through preparing it when i noticed the package said it expired in june of 2008.

i guess you could say that sausage was a real link to the past. a-ha-ha-ha!

also, i ate it anyway.

SHRIEK!!!

just when i thought i couldn't hate the nadya suleman/octuplets scenario any more, i see this picture.

he's like some sort of non... giving up... school... guy*

i'm watching an episode of "monk" for the first time. monk is at a school board meeting because someone is trying to kill a candidate or something.

they have it all wrong because (1) every person at the meeting on tv is better looking than like 95 percent of the people at real school board meetings, and (2) monk is the only crazy person at the meeting and there should be at least six crazy people.

man, any of you people who are/were reporters know... school board meetings are fucking torture. whenever i'm having a bad day at work, i always think "well, at least i'm not listening to impassioned arguments about whether the board should reduce the number of "spanish I" course offerings from 23 to 20 at 10 p.m. on a wednesday."

somehow, school board meetings always had the least favorable ratio of "boring bullshit" to "time it takes to resolve an average agenda item." plus there was an increased chance of having to overhear stories about people's stupid kids because everyone there is a parent.

i sometimes would get so bored and frustrated that i would start contemplating doing something crazy, like throwing my chair through a window or punching the guy next to me just to break the suffocating tedium of the proceedings.

i think part of it was the people themselves. on the political ladder, the school board members were often a couple rungs below the members of their accompanying municipal governments... but they were just as bad in terms of hugely inflated egos and generally being full of shit. i think it was a lot of them thinking they were these stalwart champions stepping up to defend the children. oh, won't someone please think of the children?!

plus, you feel a juxtapositional sense of disgust when recalling how many of these people are, in far too many cases, choosing to not act in the best interests of the children, i.e. going to expensive conventions and staying in expensive hotels and ordering $70 per-person meals on the district's dime. or doing things that were way worse, like embezzling fucking money.

the only board member i ever liked was this big fat dude. he wasn't cool or anything, he just reminded me of an african-american version of newman from seinfeld.

and the parents... jesus. i hate (and love) to reference the simpsons so much in this post, but that episode where milhouse's dad, kirk, is like "i think the school should start sending out the school's lunch menus in advance. i don't like the idea of milhouse having two spaghetti meals in one day!" -- that's honestly not that much of an exaggeration.

a lot of it is just parents being defensive of their kids, for better or for worse. but i found school districts attract even more civic crusaders who are really passionate about something, like to the point of coming across as being obsessed. again, because they're all "oh, won't someone please think of the children?!"

these people are so fixated on blocking a 0.7% district tax levy increase for new band uniforms during the next election that they start alienating people, even if their point was valid.

gahhh... all these school board meeting memories. i don't care if the chicago public school district starts sacrificing students to some kind of persian snake god, i'm never going to make any contact with a school board member ever again.

*alternate title: simpsons references a-go-go

you're off your case, you stupid chief!

here's a montage of a bunch of loose cannon cops who get results being forced to turn in their guns and badges by a bunch of stupid chiefs. god, i hate stupid chiefs.

oh taco bell, taco bell, product placement with taco bell, enchiritos, nachos, burritos...

i tell you, i love "30 rock" but the product placement in that show really grates on my nerves sometimes.

i know the writers do their best to make the in-show advertising feel like an amusing part of the plot rather than a corporation paying them to plug a product, but i still think it's totally unwelcome and it taints the show. the mcflurry joke in last night's episode was mildly funny and everything but they easily could have produced the same result without talking about fucking mcdonald's for 45 seconds.

one of the reasons i hate product placement is it always reminds me of adam sandler (blargh) hawking subway and popeye's and whatever else in his movies. if you go back and watch "happy gilmore" or "little nicky,"* the pervasive in-movie advertising looks horribly shameless and cheap, even for the gutter-level standards of mass market comedies.

i'm always kind of fearful of stuff like that because it tends to evolve from something that's mildly annoying and employed by only a few people into something that every organization does because they have to stay financially competitive. like how networks now have their logos constantly in the corner of the screen and have short advertisements flash across the bottom of the screen when you're trying to watch a damn movie.

anyway, i don't want "30 rock" to be like an adam sandler movie in that regard. i don't care how much money you get to mention ipods or verizon phones. commercials are the worst part about watching tv, so keep them out of my fucking shows, assholes!


*neither of which are even mediocre movies and i think watching one of them now would be on par with being waterboarded, but the fact remains that most of us enjoyed them when we were younger.

we all had a good chuckle over this one... or at least i did while i was eavesdropping

(it was about 11 a.m. when coworker 1 came in for the day)

coworker 1: good morning! or should i say, good afternoon. when is it technically afternoon?

coworker 2: um... after noon.

bizarre e-mails, #1

about 45 minutes ago, i received this mystifying e-mail from "michael pizza" titled "Michael Pizza and this week's Jelly Bean winner!"

I know you have all been dying to know who won the jelly bean guess at
last week's Michael Pizza show!!!

Well, the winner of two tickets to the next show was Ben Pollack with
a guess of 2,500 jelly beans! There were 2015 jelly beans in the jar.
Congrats Ben Pollack!

Make sure you all come this Friday the 13th and make a guess at
whatever the new guessing game is. Also, there will be a little improv
for those of you who don't like guessing.

Thanks for supporting us,
Michael Pizza

i don't have even the vaguest, foggiest ghost of a clue as to why i received this e-mail or what it could possibly mean.

i don't know who (or what) michael pizza is and i couldn't find anything on the internet about it. i don't recall ever going to a michael pizza show or signing up for any mailing list.

and i can also guarantee with 99.99 percent certainty that never in my life will i participate or express even the most minute level of interest in any manner of jelly bean guessing contest.

here's my only guess as to the nature of this michael pizza character:


can anyone shed some light on this situation?

plastic surgery disasters

my brain just exploded from reading this article.

a change of plans

i think my new career plan is to go to hollywood and start working in the production aspect of movies. i have a few friends who work in movies and tv out there, and i'll use my contacts to start on the ground floor.

eventually, i'll gain enough skill and prestige to become moderately successful. afterwards, i'll carefully maneuver my way into whatever project christian bale is working on at the time and lull him into a false sense of security by quietly and adequately performing my tasks.

then, inexplicably, things on the set will start to go awry. a missing prop here, a loud noise in the middle of a tense scene there... all of which are being perpetrated by me!

eventually, my constant distractions and purposeful missteps will goad bale into another explosive, profanity-strewn, frothing-at-the-mouth public tirade.

meanwhile, i will record the entire thing and then release it on the internet because the last time produced tons of hilarious entertainment for me; the apex of which is, i think, this christian bale profanity soundboard (much thanks to the onion AV club for their tireless coverage of the event).

i genuinely think it will be worth sacrificing my current career for this... and i like my career.

octuple your pleasure

at work today, i was reading a bit about how that woman, nadya suleman, had octuplets. i accidentally said out loud "well, no shit, sherlock" when i read this headline.

on the same topic, this article also came as a huge shock to me.

i think this quote from suleman's mother sums things up pretty well:

"[nadya is] basically normal except for this obsession she's always had with children."

once again; no shit, sherlock. people with weird obsessions ARE basically normal... except that they have weird obsessions, which by definition makes them abnormal.

yeesh.

"teen wolf" redeemed tv for tonight

two things happen every time i go to the 7-11 near my house. the first is the clerks know not to give me plastic bags for anything because i always say i don't want one, which actually sounds kind of weird now that i say it out loud. the second is i forget to hit "i don't want cash back" when i'm at the check-out and i look like a moron.

anyway, i hadn't seen "teen wolf" since i was a kid and it was actually hilarious. michael j. fox is always great and it's such a goofy-ass 80's movie... i love the premise of a werewolf going to high school and using his werewolf strength to play basketball.

alanis morissette would understand

whenever i start watching TV, i'm always amazed by how much it sucks. i'm not made of stone... i mean i'll watch crummy guilty pleasure shows or stupid sunday night movies like "teen wolf" (which i'm watching now). but it still kind of surprises me how little there is that i actually want to watch.

even though i watch lots of shows, i don't watch a lot of actual TV. like i usually download shows or watch them on DVD. even so i still enjoy fipping through the channels maybe once a week and just watching whatever. you know... just to keep my finger on the pulse.

but stupid comcast recently cut off a bunch of sweet channels that i didn't even know were part of our promotional offer. i tell you, it was quite a scene the first night i tried to watch "iron chef" and realized i was cut off from the finer living network. we just have basic cable now, which is so worthless that i'm debating canceling it.

and you know what's ironic? almost every time i watch tv, i look through the comcast channel guide and see a good older movie that i would actually enjoy watching... like "dances with wolves" or "the exorcist." and i always perk up and turn it on, and it turns out to be fucking telemundo. people who don't understand 98 percent of my channels get to watch my top choice and i'm stuck with "the princess diaries 2" and "rock of love."

and speaking of "30 rock"...

what'd you guys think of "the office" and "30 rock" last night?

i thought "the office" was pretty decent... i haven't seen the last two new episodes though. i was really enjoying jim and dwight attempting to plan a party... i think the "IT IS YOUR BIRTHDAY." exchange with the brown and grey balloons was probably my favorite office moment in a long time.

"30 rock" was also good... i really liked liz stealing ideas from the plot of a telenovela to trick that guy from "mad men" into liking her. but as i've said before, i don't like all these celebrity guest stars as much as i like the normal supporting cast. do they even do the sketch comedy show anymore? where are twofer and frank? where is pete hornberger?!

also, the last 10 minutes of "kath and kim" sucked again. big surprise, i know. it was some crap about molly shannon wanting to meet wynonna judd, which i've never even heard of anyone wanting to do ever and i forgot wynonna judd existed.

i never thought anything would turn me against selma blair, but it's happening.

i got your gifted hands right here

this is a day of me catching up on old stuff i meant to write about and john reminded me about this last night.

about a week ago, i saw a commercial for cuba gooding, jr.'s latest project, a made-for-tv movie sponsored by the johnson & johnson corporation called "gifted hands: the ben carson story."

this looks like a fake movie "30 rock" would use to make fun of something. i never thought cuba's career would sink to the point that a movie about him and horatio sanz participating in cheap, tiresome hijinks on a gay cruise ship would seem well-made and engaging by comparison.

also, i have two brief cuba-related anecdotes i'd like to share:

1. several people said they caught one of my friends being moved to tears during the climax of another cuba movie, "radio," which is hilarious enough that i don't even need to elaborate.

2. my friend janssen once watched "boat trip" and said it was the worst movie he'd ever seen. very shortly after he finished, our friend billy came over. janssen convinced billy that "boat trip" was a really funny movie and that they should watch it together.

so, in this bizarre bit of sadomasochistic treachery, janssen watched a double-header of "boat trip" just to trick someone else into seeing its terrible awfulness.

shameful bar tabs, #2

(this one is from saturday, but i'm just getting around to writing it down now)

$62.50!

i questioned whether i should even post this one, considering $20 went toward buying my girlfriend two drinks.*

how "sex and the city" is that?!

in my experience, a $40 bar tab is routine, not shameful. even $60 isn't that bad.

however, i eventually determined that spending $20 to get two glasses of something called a "lemon drop martini" was shameful enough to put it over the edge.


*which were admittedly rather strong, in all fairness.

moral outrage!

i for one am aghast and astounded about the earth-shattering news that michael phelps smoked marijuana.

i don't know about you guys, but i care so deeply about the spirit and integrity of the olympics that it pains me to read stuff like this. i mean, i can't even imagine other professional athletes, like NBA and NFL players, smoking pot.

a few things i'd like to share with you

i own the shirt they're talking about in this article about harpoon, my friend DJ's band. jealous?

speaking of shirts, my friend casey directed me to this site last night. there's some pretty badass-looking clothes on here, with the added perk that they were inspired by the earthbound/mother series.

finally, ever wondered what jamie foxx and dr. phil would look like with reverse moustaches? if so, take a look at my friend bob's web site.

last time, i promise.

also someone in my neighborhood still has their christmas lights up. i want to knock on their door and be like "YOU WANT ME TO GO TRASH YOUR LIGHTS? YOU WANT ME TO FUCKING TRASH 'EM?!"

even the reviled roman emperor commodus gave people free bread. and circuses.

whenever i go to the dominick's near my house, i always have some kind of irritating but really mundane experience. it's starting to make me wonder if it's possible for a person to be incompatible with a building the way some people just don't really get along.

like if i had to hang out with a dude from southern illinois who was really into accesorizing his truck and listening to toby keith. we probably wouldn't beat each other up or anything, but i'm betting neither of us would have a great time.

but in this case, i think it's more like the dominick's is a 53-year-old white guy who drives too slow, complains about minutia at town meetings, and starts conversations about his boring/weird hobby, like collecting antique toy cars.

those kinds of people make me frustrated and annoyed to the point where i just want to end the encounter immediately... and that's what happens every single time i go there.

like one time i went there with my girlfriend and she left her purse in the car. i grabbed some wine and we went to the check-out. the cashier carded me and then tried to card jackie... then got all leery when she had no ID.

(at this point i have to grudgingly concede that my girlfriend is youthful looking, but it shouldn't have mattered because i had an ID).

she eventually handed it over, but the whole time i was thinking "mother of god, sell us the stupid wine and stop making such a big deal out of this because if you have any brains you know that i will go to the liquor store that's less than a block away if you don't."

and part of me was really, really insulted that she thought that i would be stupid enough to go into the store and get in line with the underage girl for whom i was buying liquor.

another time was near christmas and i had forgotten something, so i had to run back in after i had already gone to my car. that's my own fault, but while i was there the same salavation army woman asked me for money three times.

i wasn't even annoyed that she was asking me for money. it's that she thought i somehow didn't notice her while she was ringing a bell and shouting "merry christmas" and wearing a bright red vest/santa cap and standing near the main entrance/exit with a giant red kettle that said "SALVATION ARMY." with all that, asking passersby if they want to donate money was the straw that broke the intrusiveness camel's back.

more stuff happened, but i think i've made my point.

so finally tonight i went there and i picked up two loaves of bread from the bakery. they were from earlier in the day and they have stamps that say it's free after 7 p.m. or whatever. they're still perfectly fine and i grab some if any of them look good.

i got in the "express lane," which proved a laughably ironic title considering the cashier was a geriatric woman who kept making mistakes and performed her job at a glacial pace.

and, once again, this was not the part that annoyed me.

i noticed she rang up the loaves of bread and i was like "oh, excuse me, it said they were free after seven."

she scrunched up her face with this look of confusion and suspicion and i fucking knew the moment was about to happen. i wound up bagging my own groceries in the time it took her to call a manager and ask about the dumb bread.

so then she hung up the phone and was like "yeah, you have to pay for those."

me: why?
cashier: because all the bakers are gone for the day.
me: what? (points to bag) there's a stamp on the bag right there that says it's free.
cashier: none of the bakers are here to give it to you though.
me: what does that have to do with anything? they'll just get thrown away and every other cashier lets me take them.
cashier: i'm sorry sir but you have to pay for-
me: gahhhh i don't care anymore get rid of them.

i wanted to be all "WHAT DON'T YOU FUCKING UNDERSTAND?!" but i just paid and left.

this time i'm mad because that bread is really good.

also i think this is pretty funny too

IT'S FUCKING DISTRACTING! OH, GOOD!

hahhahahaahahah... oh my god. i am in tears with laughter. john wins the inaugural "star of the masquerade" award* for being the first person to show me this.

(it's about christian bale freaking the fuck out on some guy on the set of terminator four).

well played, john! enjoy your two complimentary drinks! you truly are the star of the masquerade!



*previously the "outstanding achievement in the field of excellence" award, which john also won for showing me something else really funny

three dimensions... of disappointment

so was it just me, or did anyone else find that the 3-D stuff during the super bowl didn't really work? the only thing that looked any different for me was one time when a character from that new pixar movie was using one of those ball and paddle toys.

considering that i willingly (eagerly, even) suffered the indignity of wearing a pair of cardboard 3-D glasses, it was a huge disappointment when almost nothing happened... kind of like how that CNN "hologram" thing during the election turned out to be really cheesy and silly.

you gotta pay the troll toll

one of the first things i noticed when i moved into my current residence is probably 80 percent of the mail that gets delivered here is either junk or stuff for previous occupants.

we seriously get like 15 pieces of mail per week for one of the people who lived here last year... charles something. i guess roommate 2 tried calling the post office a couple times to tell them to stop delivering charles' stuff here and they ignored him.

and charles is getting some pretty important shit too... i think there were like three of those red light camera traffic tickets and some bank statements and i think once there was a jury duty notice. plus he gets about three pieces of mail per week from the state tollway collection agency.

we didn't really know what to do with all this stuff. i suggested throwing it away because i don't give a shit but i was overruled because it's apparently some kind of crime to throw away someone's mail, and the fucking mail police will dive in through the windows and gun us down the moment we start doing that. so now i'm playing custodian for the mail of some guy i've never met who is too irresponsible to spend five minutes filling out a change-of-address form.

anyhoo, i was sorting through the daily delivery of charles-related mail and junk when i started getting really annoyed and wondering what the hell was in all this stuff. i accidentally opened one of the pieces of mail from the tollway collection agency... and my mind was totally blown.

charles owes more than $3,000 in fines for skipping tolls! $3,000!?! for the love of god charles, how is that even possible? what are you doing to achieve this financial self-immolation?

i accidentally continued reading the letter and it appears charles was just routinely not paying tolls! what kind of mush-headed simpleton thinks he's actually getting away with just driving through the ipass lanes?! did he not see those big, camera-shaped things? christ.

so i guess if you know a guy named charles, tell him to pick up his fucking mail.

fast food is so gross

i swear to god i hate those fucking charmin toilet paper bears. what is the deal with that advertising campaign? the last thing i want to think about is fat cartoon bears crapping and then being too slovenly to... blargh. i'm stopping this now because i'm going to have one blog post this month that doesn't relate to something disgusting.

you know what other ad campaign has really been weirding me out lately? that burger king stuff.

first there was that "whopper virgins" thing which was just really creepy sounding. it was like they would go to remote villages in mountain communities and steppe plains and stuff like that, and offer these really rural people a taste test between a whopper and a big mac or something.

i can't even imagine how some dude from a transylvanian village with a population of 50 people who's been eating homemade bread and venison and shit his whole life would feel after eating a fucking whopper and a big mac for the first time, both of which are loaded with all kinds of preservatives and chemicals and fat.

then after that there was the whole whopper friend sacrifice thing on facebook. i think that only lasted like a week before they shut it down because it was so weird. they had you defriend 10 people on facebook and you got a coupon for a free whopper.

that's pretty insulting... telling someone that they mean less to you than one-tenth of a disgusting fast food hamburger. plus it's a weird leap to go from virgins to sacrifice... what if their next promotion is having you sacrifice 10 actual virgins on some creepy altar in exchange a free whopper but it's really some crazy ass lovecraftian plot to reawaken a chthonic god of destruction from his timeless slumber to wreck havok upon the world of the living? ever think about that shit, man?

so then after that, they had all these ads for that angrygram promotion on facebook. when i went to that site, an animated whopper hopped around and told me that my feet were so moldy they were mistaken for a fifth-grade science project.

dang y'all, whopper just TOLD me. i haven't been burned like that since the gentleman at the improv comedy club described how fat my mama was in a most amusing fashion.

vomit watch: day 2*

well, yesterday's little whodunit has been solved. roommate 1 left an apologetic note and cleaned the remainder of the vomit from the sink. the culprit?!

... roommate 1's friend!

the note went on to say that roommate 1's friend had apparently gotten sick in our sink and then said he cleaned it up. but did not.

i guess it's possible, but i don't really buy it. that doesn't really make a lot of sense considering the vomit was in our only bathroom for more than a full day and i would think she'd have to see it and i know she was home yesterday morning before i left for work. also i didn't hear or see anyone come in and you can easily hear doors open in our place.

more importantly, i don't want to believe her. this is because i can't imagine how much more cynical and world-weary it would make me to learn there's a strata of society in which "vomiting in a sink and leaving it for an extended period" is an acceptable social norm.

given that i recently witnessed my roommate perform that very feat, that would mean one of her friends also thinks it's ok to puke in a public place and leave it there. which means their other friends might also think thusly... and their friends... and so on. hence, i prefer to think she's just a repeat offender who's embarrassed now that she's been caught.

anyway, i didn't really give a shit anymore. the sink is clean, so i thought this whole situation was resolved to a degree with which i was comfortable. i really didn't want to talk about it anymore because i did not wan to reopen the subject of what i hope is the last time i have to deal with someone throwing up in my sink and not cleaning it up.

(though realistically, given the stupid, stupid route i've chosen to take on this winding road of life, this was probably like the third- or fourth-to-last-time.)

BUT! as i was shaving this evening, i noticed the sink was not draining. i stopped and watched for a second and realized it was draining, but extremely slowly. it is clogged with, what i can only imagine, are the bilious and partially digested remains of a digiorno pepperoni pizza, expelled from the esophagus of an indeterminate individual.

at this point i have no idea what's going on anymore. things stopped making sense the first time there was puke in one of my sinks.

by the way, i'm sorry these last few entries have been so centered around grossness. i just seem to be in a gross phase. or rather a phase in which grossness is being unwillingly inflicted on me.

*alternate title: "the glamour and level of sophistication in my post-college life never ceases to amaze me."

an opportunity for growth*

for the past several months, i've been living with two people i met over the internet because i didn't know anyone who wanted to live in this area. one of the greatest joys of living with people who i had never met before is the exciting opportunities for personal growth that come hand-in-hand with embarking on these new interpersonal relationships.

we should savor those flickers of surprise when initially confronted with someone's quirks... then the richness of the journey of attempting to make sense of these oddities and idiosyncrasies... and finally the moment of transcendent enlightenment in which one learns to appreciate, rather than judge, the patchwork of intangible qualities that form our utterly unique, beautifully flawed and indelibly human souls.

i myself experienced one such quirk when i went downstairs to get ready for work this morning and noticed our bathroom sink was filled with vomit. i stood quietly for a moment and took in the situation, the sour stench of bile emanating from where i usually shave and brush my teeth.

what a charming eccentricity! someone with whom i have signed a lease evidently thinks leaving vomit in the sink of our house's only bathroom is acceptable behavior!

once again employing my goren-esque deductive skills, i almost immediately determined it was roommate 1.

1. the vomit was dry, so it must have happened several hours ago, which doesn't fit roommate 2's schedule.

2. its color and consistency (i'll spare you the details) appear to match roommate 1's dinner last night, which was a frozen pizza. i know this because the box, cardboard cutting surface, plastic wrapping and dirty pizza cutter were still on the counter.

3. the vomiter chose to use the sink instead of the toilet (which is less than six inches to the right and is far easier to clean), and roommate 1 is exactly the kind of stupid fucking shit-for-brains who would do something like that.

4. and, most tellingly, i was standing in our kitchen a few months ago and personally witnessed roommate 1 vomit into our kitchen sink and leave for work without cleaning it up... so there's some precedent involved, but that's a story for another day.

BUT! i decided not to jump to conclusions and fly into a rage as i once might have done. as i drove to work, my fetid morning breath fogging my windows because i was too grossed out to brush my teeth, i reflected on what i had seen.

roommate 1 may have been gravely ill and had to be rushed to the hospital. but then she wouldn't have been sleeping on the living room couch with the cartoon network blaring at her unhearing ears.

maybe roommate 1 is an avant-garde provocateur, who last night delivered a biting commentary on society's notions of hygiene and challenged me to confront the ludicrousness of humanity's attempts to sterilize the world. take that, establishment!

perhaps roommate 1 had been reading up on natural cleaning agents. is it such a stretch to think she attempted to use her powerful stomach acid to scour our sink clean of the accumulation of dried toothpaste scum and weeks-old purple hair dye that she herself left there?

but when all is said and done, i suppose i'm just thankful roommate 1 was thoughtful enough to share this part of herself with me. i can't wait to talk about this with her in person. that's another funny quirk of hers; she never answers her phone whenever she does something a less enlightened person would characterize as "mind-numbingly stupid and disgustingly inconsiderate."

* alternate title: VomitOnMySink, an homage to my pal jessica.

when it's time to party...

over the weekend, i saw this dude use his library card to crush up a xanax and a ritalin. he then mixed them together and started doing lines.

badass!

a case of the mondays

i was half-assedly watching the SAG awards last night... what a snoozefest. anyway, i happened to see david duchovny and thought about how it's kind of weird that he admitted being a sex addict while he was playing character who's a sex addict on "californication."

then i suddenly remembered this crappy song i heard in high school:



see, the irony is david duchovny probably would have loved bree sharp (physically at least) because he compulsively seeks sex! get it?!

sleazy bar stories, #1

i just want to say before i begin that this story honestly makes me feel extremely... i guess "unclean" is the word. i hate it and wish i could forget it but it grossed me out so much i felt like i had to share it.

last weekend, i went to meet some friends at the bar at which they always hang out. we were having some drinks and it was a pretty good time.

then people started noticing the stench.

i personally didn't notice anything at first, but everyone else had that weird, screwed-up "what's that god-awful smell?" face.

then sam rolled his eyes and pointed to someone who was sitting at the bar behind me and was like "oh, it's grandpa joe." or something, i don't remember his fucking name. the person did indeed look old and grandfatherly, so i was like "whatever, it's some old guy who doesn't care about smelling bad in front of people anymore." i had no idea how right i really was.

so i stopped caring about it and the night progressed. then maybe like 45 minutes later, i finally caught this overpoweringly filthy, wet, heavy odor... like the smell of a nursing home on a hot day.

this was seriously hardcore... like it was so bad i had to walk away for a bit. you probably see where this is going by now but i still didn't really think much of it, aside from "man, those guys weren't kidding."

a little bit after that i was talking to my friends karl and annie. i went to sit down next to them and they were just like "no... no, no no! that's grandpa joe's chair." i assumed they meant because he was coming back and had just gotten up for a second.

i left soon after that and the realization suddenly struck me while i was driving home -- karl and annie were trying to warn me not to sit there because that fucking old man had shit himself!

BLAAARGH!!! the pieces all fit! how fucking revolting! i seriously think i was subconsciously trying to block myself from understanding what was going on because of how grossed out i would have been (and still am almost a week later).

aghast, i told a couple people from the area that i suspected some guy shit himself at the bar after i got home. and they were like "right, grandpa joe. big deal, it happens all the time."

WHAT THE FUCK?! i couldn't believe everyone was so blase about this. i was blown away.

so... employing my goren-esque deductive skills, here's what i make of the situation:

1. no one was surprised the old guy soiled himself (other than myself... and not only was i surprised, i was also horrified and incredibly grossed out). in fact, people knew who i was talking about without needing any specifics beyond "some guy at the bar shit himself."
2. so the old guy spends enough time there that the other patrons know his nickname and behavior.
3. a grown man soiling himself at a bar is a significant deviation from normative behavior. since other regular patrons knew his behavior and were not surprised by it, this is likely a routine occurrence.
4. so this man is shitting himself in a public place, and most likely does not sit in the same chair each time he's there. even if he does attempt to sit in the same general area, people in bars move stuff around all the time so it is unlikely he sits in the same seat.
5. given the general condition of the bar, most notably the men's bathroom, the employees likely do not disinfect the barstools.
6. because the old guy routinely shits himself and sits in different stools, every barstool is potentially contaminated with fecal matter.
7. ipso facto, i'm never sitting down at a stool there again... otherwise, i might inadvertently be sitting in stool! ah-ha ha ha!

blargh, i'm still too grossed out and unhappy to think that was funny. i'm sorry my first sleazy bar story is so unpleasant.