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.