fringles

Out of the wilderness

2007-01-26T09:25:00.000-08:00

It has been a long time since writing here. Writing anywhere really.
No creative outlet for the time being except games, and while that'a wonderful short term fix, the reality is there's no improvement of me as a person in any tangible sense. I'm better than most at some games, which in the grand scheme of things is a completely useless skill.
I always loved to hacky sack, too.

I made a resolution to myself to go onstage 40 times this year; a very acheivable goal. I don't know how much improvement I'll see unless I write more, however, so there's a sub-goal here.
Write more jokes!

I figure I have to document my stage time somewhere, so it may as well be here.

01/25/2007 -- 1 of 40

Pressure Billiards and Cafe. This is on the north side of Chicago, near Devon Ave. Devon, for those NOT in this fair city, is home of all the Indian and Pakistani food you could want.
I'll make this a regular open mic stop, as I forsee a ritual of "eat at Henna's Kitchen, write set list, go to coffee shop, potentially bomb".
I think I'm going to eat it a few more times there.
My performance was mediocre, none of the new jokes I like hit, and some of my sure-fire jokes died to most of the crowd as well.
I have to retire 2 bits, but I kinda figured that was the case. I'm not in fighting shape right now so I should really only be using the big guns.
Or completely new. Old and mediocre ain't really worth revisiting.

P.S.

2006-03-13T17:23:00.000-08:00

I like the show Lost, too. And I'm caught up again so I don't have to live in a pop-culture vacuum where I'm terrified of anyone telling me anything and potentially spoiling the show for me. Particularly since the writers are doing a helluva job spoiling it anyway.
Make more than one thing happen every two weeks, for fuck's sake.
The Long Con was a great episode, though. I think Sawyer's a pretty neat character.

My army's complete as well, barring a Carnifex purchase.

And I really need to read good writers more often. I'm (finally) reading Chuck Klosterman and once again I'm obsessed with writing again. Which is a very good thing for me. For the two poor bastards who have me on RSS feed, not so much.

Notice given

2006-03-13T17:15:00.000-08:00

I gave notice at work last night late via email. It felt great.
I've returned to independent contracting with a job in the Chicago area, and I'm keeping the idea of permanent work in the back of my head as well. I read some post on slashdot where a guy was talking about actuarial work and the ridiculous salaries they make.

And the fact that you have to use a lot of computers.

And I thought, hey, I'm good at math. And computers.
AND I kind of hate what I do now. But don't want to make $20,000 a year writing for a living. Maybe I do, actually. I don't know. I can't make up my mind for shit.

Hell, it took me 2 years to really give up el dopa, even though I'd come to the conclusion two years ago it wasn't getting me anywhere.
But it was a lot of fun to beat drug tests. I could see smoking up a few weeks prior to any drug test I take just for shits and giggles. It's a sick little obsession with hating authority and needing to prove I'm smarter then everybody. Bad combination, particularly since I'm too weak to do without authority and I'm not smarter than anyone. But I do outsmart myself on a regular basis. So I'm smarter than one guy, at least.

If anyone in Columbus was wondering why the rain was starting and stopping today, it's because I was going in and out of my car. My power as the anti-Chris is growing, and soon mortals will tremble. Particularly if they're named Chris.
(apologies to the writers of Weeds for lifting the joke. I'm only stunningly original when attempting to focus on one topic instead of just shitting all over my keyboard)

Lost? That'll cost ya!

2006-03-13T16:55:00.000-08:00

I actually wrote this almost 10 days ago, but forgot to post it last week.

Ever since falling off the wagon and falling back into tabletop gaming, I've been finding myself out in the Chicago western suburbs a ton. Downer's Grove has the Battle Bunker, which is the hub of Games Workshop gaming. That's not the hard part. I can basically find my way there from anywhere, provided anywhere is my house. Once it's no longer my house, or something near my house, I tend to get a little confused.

Incidentally I think it drives my girlfriend nuts. I always take the route I know, not necessarily the fastest/most efficient route anywhere. Why? Because I'm kind of stupid.

Regardless, I had to take the lovely lady to the airport. She was flying someplace glamorous. On the way up the Dan Ryan she said, "you're so great for taking me to the airport!"

I flexed my chestal muscles and bicepuli, and said, "Why of course it's great. I'M great!" Or something like that. I thought she was just totally impressed by my driving, weaving in and out of traffic in quasi-legal maneuvers in order to get her to the airport 3 minutes early.
She said, "Look at your return drive! You're awesome!". I ceased my Andretti style performance a second and glanced across the freeway to see . . . a dead stop. Nothing's moving headed south. I stopped making moves as I wished to track this developing situation. And it got no better for miles. OK, 2 miles. Technically, still miles. Either way, my ride home was going to suck.

I made some off the cuff comment about "road head" and chuckle a bit, while crossing my fingers that she'll say "hell yeah!" and go to town. That only works in pornography films, apparently. Same with the whole slap the face with your dick thing. Only porn, fellas, only porn.

I developed plan B while driving her to the airport. Instead of going home and, say, cleaning stuff, I'd go to Downer's Grove, avoiding all of the traffic on the Dan Ryan, buy some new miniatures, and assemble them in the store. Brilliant! The only major problem with this plan is this: O'Hare is not my house. Therefore, I had no clue on how to get to Downer's Grove. I had ideas . . . I planned on taking 294 because I end up on that road at some point when I leave from My House. I'd just take it the opposite direction and will be fine. And I was fine for about 10 minutes. But then the signs began. The big one that caused me the greatest consternation was the one labelled 88. I thought, "I have to get on that maybe." But I wasn't really sure. See, the exit I normally take from My House is labelled 294 AND 88. I never really paid much attention on which one I end up on. It's the one on the left. That's all I know. How is that all I know? I'm kind of stupid.

The biggest problem is I was doing about 75 MPH trying to figure all this out, and the first sign I had to start thinking about it was 1 mile out. Normally 60 seconds is PLENTY of time, but my CD had just ended and I had to prioritize. And I've never been good at that. Ask my boss(es). So the 60 seconds I had was roughly 15, and I was in the wrong lane to make any moves anyway. I waved goodbye to the sign 88 and figured maybe I'm not too badly off. I'd just get off at the next. . . toll plaza? But I already paid two of these! Bang, another $.80. Naturally, this precluded turning around and paying another toll immediately. I would forge through the wilderness to Downers Grove, like a mountain man or Davy Crockett. Or his partner, Tubbs.

I got off on an exit for Comack Boulevard or something. Maybe it was another street. Frankly, I don't remember. Whenever I get lost I enter this haze and never remember any turn I make until I actually get into the gas station, wherever I am, crying, and beg the attendant to give me directions to wherever the hell I was going. In this case, my avoidance of 1 toll lost me 45 minutes, and I had to pay two tolls to get to where I was trying to go. That's efficiency.

My big beef about this is twofold - first of all, Chicago officials lied to us. Maybe it was Illinois officials, who happen to live in Chicago. Either way, originally 294 was going to be a toll road until it had paid for its own construction, at which time the tolls were going to be taken away and it would be a plain ol' highway. I suppose we should have known that was a lie from the get-go. Now they're using the money to build more toll roads. Chicago's aspirations aren't to be New York, it turns out, but New Jersey. Hooray.

My second beef with the whole thing is simple - it's damned expensive to get lost! One wrong turn, and you're paying at least another $.80 and more likely $1.60 bare minimum. I think they've grifted me out of about $10 in the last 2 months. That's unfair. They already tax stupid people with the lottery. Why do they need to tax us again with the tolls! That, my friends, is double taxation. And rich people tell me that's bad.

Curse you Marriot

2006-02-21T18:09:00.000-08:00

I don't understand why, but what channels you get in hotels are a complete crapshoot. A Marriot Courtyard in, say, Ohio doesn't have Comedy Central, while the exact same hotel in Denver does. Damnit.
I'm unsure about the Residence Inn across the street but I'd like to know. I like RIs better anyway. They have a whole stove that I don't ever use.
Well, I haven't posted in a heckuva long time I think. Maybe 2 weeks? CRR has floundered up off the ground a bit, but is now in danger due to the whole lack of Comedy Central out here in the Styx. Incidentally, that's the appropriate terminology. I hate it when I read people stating "out here in the sticks" as if that makes sense. Those friggin jackholes.
Worst case is I'll update the site once a week with diatribes about the week. Just a few changes to the Tivo and I'm good to go.

On the "real world" front, I'm still looking for jobs like crazy. It's still like dating only the spam is different. Instead of penis enlargement and V14Gr4 For CHEEP! ads I'm seeing "Entrepeneurs for Entrepeneurs in Laos" and crap like that. Same scams, essentially, but playing on greed rather than shame. Or maybe they're playing on shame. I'm not really sure. All I'm sure of is that George Bush is a giant prick.
No reason for the vitriol against our Douchebag-in-Chief, I just felt like saying it. And I hadn't in, like, 48 hours so I was way past due.

Rumor has it the most recent Harper's had a front cover of "The Case For Impeachment" but it must be the March issue. Or a total fabrication. I hope that's not the case.
Here's to hoping. While we're at it we should pre-emptively strike and impeach Cheney as well. And I'd like to eat butterscotch for breakfast every day. Failing that, plain old scotch will do.

Back to the job search - I actually comissioned a resume writer type to rework my resume. I'd come to the conclusion that I simply don't know how to structure it appropriately at this stage in my life, and I'm lazy. Seriously hate this sort of crap. Don't know how to sell myself appropriately and resent the fact that I need to do such a thing. People should look at me and be blinded by my sheer genius and beauty, and worship me as the Egyptian God that I am. And if their hearts weigh more than a feather, I feed them to a crocodile!

So, back from the megalomaniacal fantasies of godhood. The resume writing appointment went very well, and I'm pretty confident that this was $300 well spent. The guy I was working with asked a lot of really good questions that really highlighted what I wanted. We'll see the finished product on Friday, but I'm quite excited already.
I'm also getting in touch with all the contacts I have and seeing if any have contracting positions. While I want something permanent, what I want most is to get the hell out of my current firm. I believe I'm about to get hit with a late fee and a credit ding due to my Diner's Club card. That is a bunch of horseshit, since the expense reports that keep getting rejected are from DECEMBER. I already paid out a chunk of my own savings to prevent the hit in January, and I'm still attempting to get them paid. I escalated it as high as I can possibly go today and seemed to get some movement on it.

We'll see. Either way, as soon as I can take another position that will last more than 4 weeks, I'm gone from this gyp joint.
Back to contracting I go. This time, however, I'll be incorporated and my own business, and run QuickBooks or something to track all the expenses. Hell yeah.
I also want to buy a condo and eat butterscotch for breakfast.
Failing that, scotch.
mmmmmm scotch.
I'm so freakishly thirsty.

The Valley of the Dolls

2006-02-02T21:27:00.000-08:00

I'd like to be that guy who's spartan, and minimalist, and unfettered by the trappings of our consumerist society, but it's simply not true. I'm a product of my environment, and buy crap I don't need all the time. My motivations tend to be a little different than my neighbors the Joneses, but the core is the same - exchange green bits of paper for other equally useless things.
Granted, some things purchased have an enormous amount of utility. The Motorola RAZR is a very good phone, and coupled with the BlueTooth headset I can talk without endangering anyone on the highway AND be the envy of nerds everywhere.
The iPod Nano was purchased explicitly because it was a flash-based player and wouldn't run into HD issues like the previous generations.
But my other pursuits. . . ugh.
Everyone has their little downfalls. Your grandmother might collect Hummel Figurines, or collectible coins. Your ex-girlfriend might be shooting for three or four venereal diseases (collect them all!). You might be cultivating spite and hatred of all your ex-girlfriends, and writing about them in derogatory manners. Maybe you spend money on snowboarding equipment or volleyball gear. Maybe you're really into buying mountain-bike stuff even though you never go off-road. Heck, maybe you're just into good ol' DVDs and finally figured out the whole NetFlix + DVD Ripper == unlimited movie collection for $17.99/mo (plus materials).
Me, I seem to be unable to attach to one specific love for very long. But they all have a few things in common:

Mere mortals find them prodigiously expensive or wasteful
The numbers of women in these "hobbies" can be counted on one hand (I don't care WHAT gamer magazines you're reading or what articles you see about "the rise of female Xers" it's moot; 10 girls out of 100 still leaves you in really bad shape when it comes to finding partners in your hobbies
Anyone in these hobbies thought the mere mortals line was gold. The rest of you, not so much.

It started innocently enough. A co-worker wanted to go shopping in the mall nearby but didn't have a rental car. Proffered the choice of dropping her off and returning, or wandering around a temple to consumerism, I chose to wander. There were a couple CDs I was interested in getting, and gigantic malls like this one sometimes have pretty nifty stores. This one was no exception. It's the Denver Mills or somesuch and it's enormous. There's 6, count 'em, 6 "neighborhoods" where you can buy crap, each one spanning about the size of an ordinary mall. It's very similar to Gurnee Mills in Gurnee, IL only it's in Denver. Hence the name, Denver Mills.
I've spent about 40 minutes moving from store to store - they had a Games by Jake store so I went into it looking for my favorite game of all-time, Scotland Yard. I don't know if I have 5 other friends willing to play it, but so far it's been moot as I can't ever find it anywhere. The gist of the game is 5 players are investigators and one is Mister X. Mister X is hidden from the board, only appearing 5 times, and the investigators must create a dragnet to attempt to capture him before he. . . kills again, or parks his car illegally, or shouts fire in a crowded theater. They're unclear on what Mr X (that bastard) is doing. The hapless investigators a limited number of different tickets to utilize, from taxis to bus tickets to underground tickets. They all move different degrees, but the trick is you only have enough for 28 turns or so. Apparently Scotland Yard has a very constrained transportation budget. Mr X hides where he moves by the ticket he uses to move there, so the investigators have a rough idea of what's going on in the couple of turns following one of his appearances. It's a fantastic game and doesn't require the monstrous amounts of setup something like Axis and Allies or Risk does, yet still has some very strategic elements.
Games By Jake didn't have it. Neither did the store for budding ninjas nearby, but they did have some awesome swords. Swords seem easy enough to use ("stick them with the pointy end," said a little girl interested in Needle-work) but not really necessary, since we got rid of the orc menace.
I kept walking and ran into a Games Workshop store. Wow. I haven't been in a Games Workshop store (or retailer who sells the stuff) in almost a decade. I fell into it when I was 16, playing Blood Bowl - a football game played on AstroGranit(tm), using fantastic races like elves, dwarves, and the undead as players. I slid into Space Marine and Adeptus Titanicus as well, both epic science fiction games using a ton of strategy and even more money spent on paint, figures, and brushes. The games on my friend Eric's floor were quite legendary, spanning the course of hours. I eventually found marijuana, and didn't have the money to spend on both. Plus, my painting skills sucked ass. No teacher.
But hey, 10 years later, in a Denver mall, I'm making enough money to be considered an adult, and no pesky marijuana habit to get in the way. . . I'm going in the store to see what's happening with my old friends the space marines. Turns out Warhammer 40k is still alive and kicking, in its 4 edition (I was playing in the second) and new races have been introduced. The genestealers of old have morphed into the Tyranids, the Chaos Marines are alive and kicking (and very dangerous!), and the old stand-bys the Space Marines are still around, painted in glory and fanatical devotion to the Emperor. Latin phrases abound (the space marines are the Adeptus Astartes) and the gods of Chaos are Not Fucking Around. It's a British based wargame, and consequently has both the dry, subtle humor of the Brits and the fearlessness to skewer sacred cows. Ten Commandments don't mean shit to the Brits, and "false gods" are the name of the game. No skittishness here - Sla'anesh the God of Pleasure is a cloying, sickly sweet seducer who's armies willingly degrade and mutilate themselves for her (his?) ends. Khorne, the god of Blood, with the World Eaters armies and the ravenous hordes of those lusting simply for battle. Nurgle, the god of Decay and Rot. T'Zeentch, the dark god of Magic and forbidden power. These guys make our sweet father Lucifer look like some pissant 8th grade bully. Oh how I love them.
So here I am, talking to the manager about the game and the changes, and I feel that stirring in me. Not the loins, you fucks. My heart of darkness. That place in me that wants to spend money on garbage that creates more work than it eliminates. The reverse-Roomba, so to speak. I harken back to my kinder, gentler days in high school with my desk covered in old newspaper. Paint pots line the back of my desk - all old school military modeling paints that are crappy for what I'm doing, but the only ones I could afford. All the dragons I shoplifted from the Hobby Shop up the block, and all the other miniatures I pocketed. My father nearly busted me one time, as my dumb-ass friend called me, the answering machine picked up and he said "hey your brother's going to steal a dragon!" So naturally my father's curious about MY collection of fantastic figurines. . . but he couldn't really tell how many I could have bought. Thank goodness for babysitting money. The perfect cover.
I digress.
The gist of Warhammer 40k is simple. Spend all the money you ever make on little plastic figurines that you glue together, then prime, then paint. Build an army based on points values, then go to the local hobby shop and play other unwashed nerds doing the exact same thing, but probably with a different army. We like to call them figurines. We like to call it Warhammer, and we have all sorts of dark, evil iconography.
The Berserkers of Khorne. The Plaguebearers of Nurgle. The Hive Mind Tyrants, an implacable force of predators from beyond the rim, who only consume. (think H.R. Giger or Aliens) The green-skinned orcs who live only for combat, and reproduce like the trailer people. Only green, and with more teeth. The Dark Eldar, who live in the corrupted Warp Paths that collapsed the once mighty Eldar. The masses of Humanity in its myriad forms, fascistic, fanatical, and a pale shadow of what we are today. The defilement of our values, all in the name of survival. The death of thousands per day to ensure that the God-Emperor lives.
Dark iconogrpahy indeed.
Why?
To hide the fact that we're playing with dolls. In dollhouses. Sure, they're burnt out dollhouses in alien landscapes. But it's not that far off from the little girl who's daddy doll hits mommy doll because she's acting out her darkened family life, oblivious to the fact that it can be better.
Our trauma tends to be different - socially awkward young men (and older men like myself) with odd interests who were singled out in high school and called all the names we wear now like badges of honor: geek, nerd, dork, dweeb.
So we create our valleys of dolls, and enact the god-power of generalship over them, sending them to their inevitable deaths as we attempt to establish a pecking order amongst those lowest in the pecking order we flee from. And with good measure - if they knew we were playing with dolls our torment would graduate from words to actual beatings.
While I disparage the hobby, I do so with love. I'm a geek. Always have been. It used to be a burden, but guess what - I make more money than almost every jock-sucker I went to school with except one. Jake Plummer. That son of a bitch is doing much better than me. Of course, all of Denver doesn't hate me, just a few maids and a couple bartenders. While off-topic, I feel for Jake. His defense couldn't stop the Steelers on their first 4 drives, and all of a sudden JAKE'S the asshole. Typical sports behavior - find the scapegoat and crucify him. The mob hath no mercy. As a final aside, even though I called him a son of a bitch, Jake was a really nice guy and I'm happy he's a success. That prick.
Ok back to the hobby. Chitown is the center of it all in Bangladesh. It has one of the "bunkers", and no less than 14 tables to game on. A robust counterculture of geekery goes on there, and I can enter it as an elder statesman. Sort of. I mean, there are 14 year olds there that are better painters and know the rules better. I hesitate to call them better strategists; I'm an old hand at strategy, with decades of experience. Ok, one decade. And another 4 years. But really, I've been doing wargames longer than some of them have been alive. Which is why I cry when they beat me.
Well, ok, nobody's beat me yet. I'm undefeated! Because I didn't fold until last Thursday, buying the Warhammer 40K 4th edition book and the Citadel Guide to Painting Miniatures. Then I bought the Tyranid Codex 4 days later. It really appeals to me to play a mindless swarm controlled by an overmind. It's very Republican of me, I know. It's beyond fascism . . .it's fascism evolved. In hindsight, it was very stupid of me to go for the Tyranids. They're a swarm army, so I have to buy and paint SHITLOADS of miniatures before I'll field a 1500 point army, the standard force. But gosh, they're cool as hell. I've assembled 20 thus far; the basic troops. I'll prime them some time early tomorrow (I hope! Work may prevent me from getting it done until late afternoon!) and begin painting on Saturday. I can hardly wait; I've decided on a color scheme reminiscent of the orks. I figure they've been absorbing their biomass so long that they've taken on some of the same colors of the menace, and will be going with bone carapaces and green skin. Because, hey, I'm a Michigan State Spartan. And so are the Tyranids.
Ultimately, this is a hobby that will consume a fair amount of time. I'm excited about it for multiple reasons:

It's a creative hobby that isn't writing (I need breaks!)

It's a hobby that is social, even if it's the society of geeks. Better than video games for that purpose.

It's a fucking WARGAME. There's a whole alpha-male streak in me that wants to dominate others like a silverback. And this is my chance. Plus, I've been lifting weights so if any of them makes fun of my tactics, I'll punch them in the face. A fearsome general, indeed.

My girlfriend wants to come out and see it. She says. I don't really buy it; it's geekery writ large and while she likes me a lot, I think she's into me despite the geekery, not because of it. Though she IS a music geek. But she doesn't have little dolls of Alice Cooper and The Streets. I'm rather interested in bringing her, though.
After all - my army might suck.
I might even have a suck painting skill and get mocked for that.
My tactics may be horrid and get pounded continuously by 14 year olds just starting out.
But I'll be the only guy in the place actively avoiding reproduction with a member of the opposite sex, while still practicing the act as much as possible.
And that, good friends, will make me the King.

Oh a nd one more thing

2006-02-01T16:48:00.000-08:00

I've recently discovered BOFH

Nothing new to the IT types who may have come here from /. but perhaps hilarious to those of you wandering in from other places.

Alive and well

2006-02-01T16:35:00.000-08:00

I'm alive and well, no worries. There's a long-ass article that will be going up on Friday probably, but my time's been eaten alive hanging out with friends in Denver. The fuckers finally called me back, 6 weeks later.
So that was nice.

Basically my life this week has consisted of:

A crafts project that I'm writing an article about
Alcohol abuse with my expats from Chitown
Ridiculously insane work requests. End of month close, company shutting down, torch being passed to yours truly and his hideously suspect consulting firm, and some insane wackaloon who's only existing purpose is to assign responsibilities to others and avoid doing anything himself.

So I've got that going for me!
Never fear - article 1 of CRR is done in rough draft form. Article two should be done some time over the next two days.
I'm going to the doctor for a VD screen among other things so I'm sure that will provoke another nasty hate filled article from me as well.
CRR should be unveiled in a very ugly form within 2 weeks, and me and my layout guy (picture of him COMING SOON) will be polishing the heck out of it to make it purty.

So much to do, so little time to do it. I need to quit my job and devote it to writing. But none of you sons of bitches will pay me enough.
Hugs and kisses,
DWW

Update to CRR

2006-01-27T09:12:00.000-08:00

I'm aware that David Cross was on the Colbert Report last night. I haven't seen it, but I was informed by the girlfriend that they pretty much "scooped" my idea.
Well, fuck them.
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead. I bought the domain on Tuesday (prior art bitches!) and I'm still going to make it an ongoing thing.
In fact, our first target is going to be that son of a bitch David Cross.

It is extremely self satisfying to know I've come up with the same idea as Cross, though. That means I'm as talented and pretty as him.

Life Threatening Life Styles

2006-01-27T09:10:00.000-08:00

A hit-man, a nun, lovers. . . .

Once again I'm in the air. This laptop is absolute horseshit; I was connected all day long to a battery, then unplugged to go to the airport. By the time I opened it up (2 hours later) it was down to 50% battery. Ree dick you russ. Whatever. 39 minutes left; long enough to charge my iPod I suppose, and maybe pull off a reasonable post here. Not enough time for article one for the New Project. Since there's no readers here I can basically spill the beans on the New Project:
The Colbert Report Report.
I love the show. It's a spot-on satire of O'Reilly, and Stephen's voice was already cultivated and developed on the Daily Show. He's smoothing out a few bumps, to be sure, but for the most part it's a fantastic show.
But as I was watching it one day, I was struck by lightning. What he needs is a dissenting voice!
And thus the Colbert Report Report was born. After all, there's a MoveOn.org and Michael Moore to counteract the vitriol spewed by Limbaugh and O'Reilly. The funny part, of course, is Moore and MoveOn inevitably degrade into similar methodologies utilized by the Right. They're cruel parodies of each other.
So why not do to them what Colbert is doing to the Right?
Plus it's a really fun project. Watch the Colbert Report every night (which I already do) and then spew vitriol at him. The tough part is his liberal leanings seep through in The Word and a few other segments, so it's going to be tough to actively maintain that "blind spot" that a liberal rag would need to maintain while attacking this Conservative Egomaniac. Ahem. Slipping into character there, apologies.
The part I'm most excited about, frankly, is lampooning the left. See, I'm a liberal. I'm fiscally conservative, but definitely socially liberal. The conservative viewpoint is simply cruel in many ways. Not to say that the liberals aren't flawed; it's just flaws I'm more able to grasp.
So this is going to be a very interesting writing exercise; essentially the devil's advocate of a cause I believe in, AND making it funny.
Thankfully, Colbert will assist in its ease. The more he stays with wacky topics (BEARS!) the easier it is to lambast him without getting too down on the liberals.
Of course, there is the horrifying idea that I'll attract conservatives to the site and build a Drudge-like following. I have a plan B for that, which is similar to the whole UFO-cult mass suicide thing that those Heaven's Gate wackaloons did.

I'll share with you the one idea everyone's shot down because, well, it's basically libel.
Naturally, as I begin attacking Colbert I'm going to want to back it up with "facts". One of the first articles ("The Ts are silent - what else is he hiding?") was going to be a series of horrifyingly inaccurate personal attacks, all citing fictitious articles in the New York Times written by Jason Blair. In fact, I was hoping to use it as a fantastic ongoing joke. . . whenever I need a "fact" just make it up and attribute it to Blair. But all these armchair lawyers I know keep telling me I'll get mauled by the NY Times if the site reaches any sort of audience.
Damn them.
I'm not sure who I'm wishing damnation upon. I just know somebody should pay, and dearly.
Anyway. I'm planinng to keep the site "on message" and not have any articles that would indicate the site is a satire. Or that I'm actually a lib. So when I need to vent about ongoing articles I'll do it here; it'll be a one way link however. Those who know about THIS (or have found me through my writing on other sites such as Askmen.com or slashdot.org) will be "in the know". Don't you guys feel special?
So. Look for the site in about 3 weeks or so; I'm hoping we can keep a pretty strong level of humor on it, and we grow a following. We shall see.

Other stuff - the travel is really beginning to seep in and corrode my life. I've grown to hate it over the last 5 years. The travel's bad enough, but I'm getting the feeling that the company I work for is, in the words of a famous space marine eaten by Aliens, a "chicken shit outfit".
When the only word that can describe coworkers is "incompetent" and the growing discontent of a client that I can do little to appease.... it simply sucks. Couple it with an HR department that COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN to send me any forms during open enrollment, and an expense department that has rejected every single report I've submitted thus far, and you have a formula for one discontent motherfucker.

But the job search . . . . ugh. It's so similar to dating it's ridiculous. I know it's pseudo-hackery to say it as Seinfeld had the whole job interview bit. But fuck him, he left so much meat on the bone a couple of dogs choked to death.
I don't think it's any surprise that HR departments are almost always staffed by beautiful women. There's two conflicting theories I suppose; the dirty old men in charge of hiring will naturally hire hotties into their own department, or the savvy HR directors want people who are callously indifferent to rejecting poor schmucks on any sort of superficial basis.
And to carry the analogy further - the online job market is precisely like online dating. Sure, you don't post a picture. And you can't be all witty to catch someone's eye. The buzzwords are different, but it's the same thing - get noticed amongst a throng of desperate, needy people.
And you get deluged with lies. . . on dating sites it's propositions from Russian "women" and various other tricky enticements to give up a real email address, which is promptly deluged by massive amounts of porn spam and Viagra/Cialis/c1al1s/penis pumps/you name it ads.
Same thing on dating sites but instead of the promise of pussy, it's the promise of a well-paying job in something that is rewarding. That may or may not exist, but the email from a "potential employer" that asks you to fill out another job application at another site isn't leading you closer to it. It's probably just going to get you deluged by massive amounts of porn spam and Viagra/Cialis/c1al1s/penis pumps/you name it ads.

So it's basically the same thing:
Come up with witty intro/cover letter, send dating profile/resume, get rejected by pretty girl who has no idea what you're all about and simply doesn't "get" you. It's the worst in IT because HR doesn't have a clue about technology, so they don't understand the needs. And they're the gatekeepers. There's no dating analogy that would be appropriate. Maybe if your mom set up a profile for you, then rejected all the ladies interested in golden showers because "her little boy couldn't be into that", meanwhile your AIM name is YellowSprinkler33. (because there were 32 others. . . sick huh)

And here's the most fitting parallel - if you're successful in your search you're probably going to get fucked.
Speaking of that - Fuck That Job is a pretty funny site. Sadly funny. It's all sorts of ridiculous job postings on various sites.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss

2006-01-23T16:24:00.000-08:00

I just switched from Verizon to Cingular. I switched out of spite, mostly; I'm eating a $175 cancellation fee to do so. Why?
For starters, 1 week after my year warranty ended the phone started shitting on me like gangbusters. Seriously crapping all over my face and a little got in my mouth. Gross.

Straw one: I place approximately 40 calls on Friday evening, with 2 of them connecting for more than a minute. I also appear to hang up on co-workers multiple times. ("Hello?" "Hi this is your boss, Mr Bossy" *beep* Call Dropped)
Straw two: I find out it's $50 to replace the phone since it's a week out of warranty. Ticks me off a bit, but I remember vaguely something about that when I was buying the insurance. So I can't be too pissed. Naturally, I attempt to work with the technician. He hard resets it so I lose all my data. No matter, I'd expected this or a new phone when I set out that morning so I'd synched about 2 hours ago. Sort of; synch hasn't worked right in about 2 months. But I've always assumed that was my screw-up. (as an aside, I can't believe I bought a Treo. I have owned 2 palms and couldn't even get games I liked working. I'm a nerd but I'm not a Batman-type nerd. I'm more like Saruman or something. You know, magic and shit. And an overwhelming desire for power to see things. Like boobs)
Straw three: After 24 hours of working, it starts dropping calls again. Not as bad so I grin and bear it. But this camel's getting a sore back.
Straw four: I get an email from my client at around noon asking where I am and why my phone's busy. I attempt to make a call, and get a whole "This Verizon customer blah blah" message, and the person's not even a Verizon customer. Now I'm pissed. I'm a sysadmin who walked into a Monday morning where the shit was hitting the fan, and nobody can get ahold of me, thereby spraying the fan shit all over my face. Un-fucking-cool.
Straw five: I'm about 90 minutes into a service call with Verizon. They've managed to lose all service to the network whatsoever. They're playing hot-potato between the Wireless Tech Support and the Data Tech Support, putting me on hold back and forth for about ten minutes at a time, then saying "Deerrrrr we don't know what's wrong but I bet it's THESE guys" My patience is wearing thin after the fifth time I'm explaining the problem. Don't they pass trouble tickets across departments? Don't they reference old tickets? Jesus. What kind of chicken-shit outfit is this? Not only this, they're getting progressively snottier with me. At one point the lady says "What do you mean you haven't turned off your phone? That's probably the problem right there" in a condescsending voice. Newsflash: Treos don't power down. They tell me I'm about to get hard reset again and lose all my data. Which is synched on my home laptop. At home. Where I won't be for two weeks. I tell them that's unacceptable. They make some smart ass comment. I ask what my deposit is, as this camel's back is hurting and without some serious massage/chiropractic work, it will never walk again. Let alone play squash. Do camels play squash?
The final straw: "You don't have a deposit" "Bullshit. I have receipts at home." "Oh maybe it's on your old number. Call back and put in that number and that account." I swear a bit under my breath at their horseshit system and call back. Yes, they do have a deposit, and it's been sitting out there as a credit that they have held onto for 11 months. When were they going to send it to me? My guess is: never. Bam!

The camel's writhing on the ground, screaming. I'm going to shoot it in the face.
I haven't cancelled service as they'll be pricks about it. The number will cancel immediately. I need to have a permanent Bangladesh area code prior to that happening, as currently I have a Colorado number. So I changed my voice mail to state the new temp phone number, and am merrily changing over my numbers from my shitty treo to my sexy, sexy bluetooth enabled RAZR.
You're goddamned right I got a RAZR. It's black and matches my Nano. I am a consumer whore.
I also bought the Warhammer 40k rulebook and plan on starting to paint miniatures again.

Or if I were a girl, I'd say I was building a dollhouse and playing with my tiny little dolls. Only these dolls have guns and Chaos Gods corrupted them long ago, making them slaver for blood and spread disease. Hell yeah.
But it's still a pretty weird hobby. But one you can't be drunk or stoned and do. Right there it beats comedy. (Ok technically I can't be drunk or stoned when performing or I eat it, but I still end up drunk at the end of the night)

Observations from 30,000 feet

2006-01-20T10:02:00.000-08:00

A few random observations as we sit at cruising altitude in a 757, probably somewhere over Iowa.

Driving in snowy weather is scary, taking off in that sort of weather is terrifying. For me, anyway; perhaps the pilot and copilot have no such fears. One little skid, one little wind shear, the wing tip dips a little further than it should and we’re skidding across the runway. Maybe on fire, maybe just sparks flying across the tarmac as everyone screams. I’d try rescuing my iPod, I’m sure, even though taking belongings from a crash is strictly verboten. It’s a nano, I’d explain, it barely even qualifies as a possession.

Not that anyone would pay attention to the obvious rule violation; hell, stewardesses don’t even pay attention to the assholes who push their seats back when they shouldn’t.

Which brings me to the second observation – I think a fair statement about civility and people in general can be made about their behavior on airplanes. I think I understand Hitler and Pol Pot’s vision when I fly planes; there’s always somebody I wish I could wipe from the face of the earth. Sometimes I want to destroy their young as well, to end their line of sullen, selfish genetic material. The lady sitting in front of me right now is one of those. First she throws her stuff down into my seat, then runs to the back of the plane and around to the other side to giggle with someone else she knows on the flight. I stand there looking like a schmoe, unsure of what to do. I decide to move her stuff since it doesn’t seem like she’s coming back any time soon. She gets back to her seat ten minutes (at least!) later, and acts surprised to see her stuff moved. Stupid stupid woman. Had I known what was happening a little later, I would have stolen her cell phone. Or hidden it somewhere; I don’t need her phone I just relish the thought of her inconvenience.

The inevitable de-icing delays and wheels-up time delay occur as O’Hare, an airport who can’t for some reason schedule an appropriate amount of flights, somehow faces delays if

It’s too windy (wow, in Chicago, windy? Who would’ve thunk?)

It’s too rainy

It’s too snowy (this will fuck you in so many ways it’s ridiculous; tarmac waits in O’Hare can span some insects’ life cycles)

It’s too sunny (glare and all)

In fact, I don’t know how you can fly into or out of O’Hare and not get delayed.

Anyway, back to the airborne genetic experiment gone horribly awry sitting in front of me. Because we’re in “take-off mode” we can’t use electronic devices. My precious, precious iPod must stay off. And as a consequence, I can’t help but hear (eavesdrop) on the conversation of this walking bag’o’douche in front of me. All I can tell is she’s talking about ranching because her seat partner is wearing a cowboy hat. She’s talking about cows and the dangers of them, and I’m thinking the exact same thing. Her conversation is vapid and annoying, but hey, it’s a flight, I’m stuck, and I’ll bury myself in the Economist and try to ignore it.

Then,. We go airborne. This is where I think a huge judge in a person’s character comes into play – do they lean their seat back or not? I never do. Airline seats are cramped as hell. It’s irrelevant if you’re 5’4” or 6’5”, they suck. Period. The only thing that makes it worse is when the person in front of you decides it’s a good idea to recline. Because, you know, it’s important to get comfortable on a flight.

I’m over 6 foot tall. I should be in Economy Plus, but I fucked up on my travel profile and thought saving companies $40 a flight was more important than my sanity. I’ve since changed my tune, but it’s a little late for the flights in January.

Anyway, the carrier of warped DNA who occupies the seat in front of me, clocking in at 5’4” tops, drops her seat back as far as it goes. She doesn’t let the fact that my knees stop its initial descent stop her, and leans it forward and back one more time quickly. I dodge the second attack, spreading wider than Jenna Jameson to save my patellae. (that’s kneecaps for any fiscally-challenged Republicans who may read this site; seriously, you’re morons)

My laptop is wedged into my belly. The screen is at approximately a 70 degree angle facing inward because I don’t have enough room to extend it fully because of this bird flu candidate in front of me.

And what’s she doing? I’m surrounded by a salesman working on what’s probably work, a girl who’s doing schoolwork, and three people reading. The vacuole in front of me slapped on a pair of headphones and started staring at the TV, eyes glazed. Probably drooling.

The point – if you travel, don’t drop your seat back. Everyone around you is uncomfortable already. Flights suck. The only thing you can do is fuck up the flight even worse for the person sitting behind you. Just say no to reclining, unless it’s just a little bit. For us tall people. Otherwise I’m going to fucking snap one of these days and just start choking you with my big old ham hands. Particularly if I find out you’re involved with children’s advertising. (as an aside, I was writing a short story about a serial killer who was targeting children marketers, but it fizzled because nobody cared and the cops didn’t want to investigate. The market’s just not there for stories about utopias)

Final observation –

I’ve been flying at night lately, and I marvel repeatedly at the landscape as you plunge through the cloud cover. We’ve created our own constellations from above, with thousands of visible stars in all colors and shapes.

And above us, blackness. We’ve blotted out nature’s constellations for our own.

I miss the stars.

ok one more thingie

2006-01-18T20:25:00.000-08:00

Just because ending a post in some pseudo-homophobic epithet (even when ironic, like my intent) is just so uncool.

I'm in a Courtyard by Marriot tonight, in Denver. And a little tipsy on 2 glasses of wine, and tired as hell to boot. See, I haven't had more than 4 consecutive hours of sleep since Sunday night, the last night that the winds were blowing under 50 miles per hour.
See, I was in a Hampton.

They're owned by the Hiltons. I have had nothing but bad experiences in Hilton hotels. Last week I was in Columbus and had a nightmare experience, where the first morning they forgot the breakfast I ordered (and thus I was late for work because a guy's gotsta eat) and the shower was clogged so badly I could only squeeze 5 minutes in before the bathtub was filling up.
These are relatively ordinary problems in a hotel, I'll grant you that. Sure, people fuck up. Hotels aren't staffed by post-doctorate degrees in Hospitality Management. Hell, at Michigan State you only needed a 2.25 to be in the Hospitality program. It was what failed accountants and finance majors went for. And alcoholics, they had classes on wine tasting. (WISH I'D KNOWN THAT THEN!) I would have done it Borat style.

Throw transport down the well, so my people can be free!

Ahem.
Where was I?
Ahhh yes. People fucking up at a hotel and why I should forgive them. Sure, I buy it.
Except this hotel was $300 a night. In Columbus OH.
You know what, if you fuck up at $300 a night, there should be a call girl waiting for you to make it all better that evening, not a plate of cheese and fruit and a hand written note. (which was rather nice but still)
And that was day one. Every day something went wrong in that overpriced shithole. On Wed evening, though, I found the Residence Inn in the area and I'll be staying there from now on. I've been staying at Residence Inns since I began consulting and I have NEVER had a problem in one yet. Ever.

So last night at 3 AM the kazoo starts. Whenever the weather's about to change in Denver the wind picks up. And I'm not talking about some lazy ass "go fly a kite" wind. I'm talking about blowing semis over on the highway sorts of wind; 50 MPH is a good speed and it's not unheard of to hit 100 MPH winds (it was approx. 70 MPH last night). You know, almost hurricane force. I'm on the east side of the hotel and the wind hits my window just right to make it start vibrating quickly, like a kazoo or a clarinet reed. And the sound is similar - a mid pitched buzzing hum that raises in pitch and volume as the wind increases, and lowers in both as it decreases.

Can't sleep, clown will eat me.

I spent an hour trying to cope; I put my iPod headphones on. (they're Shure noise blockers based on hearing aid technology) Not enough so I turn on the iPod and throw in Yo La Tengo. Enough, but I can't sleep because I'm fuming and whenever I turn my head to the side I get scared I'm going to jam the earbud so deep in my ear I'll never get it out.
I try wedging business cards in the crack between the window and the molding. The noise stops!
I'm fucking MacGyver.
I crawl back into bed.
Waoooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
The wind had died down. I am not MacGyver. I am retarded thinking I could solve this problem with a small stack of business cards.
I go back over and attempt to solve it with the business cards again. I recall the old phrase, "If all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail."
And I think, yeah, I should hit the window.
So I do.
Damn that felt good.
I hit the window again.
The sound doesn't stop.
One more time, just for the catharsis. SMASH
The window shatters. At first, I think I've punched a hole THROUGH the entire window. I felt like MacGyver again. All action hero-like. I wanted to yell "Get DOWN!" and leap from an exploding building. But I was tired and had precious little napalm.
Or anyone to yell at/record the whole thing.
And I was rather embarassed about breaking the window. It was only the one pane in a double pane system. Which sucks because you can't pretend a bird or a jabberwocky did it. Unless I punched the OUTSIDE window out too, and I was afraid I'd cut myself. Plus I didn't think of it until just now when I'm writing.
So what the hell could I do?
I packed up all my stuff and checked out. I made it seem like I was checking out because the window was unacceptable. They credited me the night and let me crash in the handicapped room on the first floor for the next 2 hours prior to going into work.

I'm not sure if I feel bad. I'm in a new hotel that's about 10x nicer at the same rate. It's closer to the restaurants in the area, and only 1 more minute from work. Additionally, the gym is open 24 hours and most importantly: it's not another Hilton chain. It's a Marriot. And I have warm fuzzy feelings towards Marriot.
And they have an all you can eat buffet. It costs $8 so I suspect there's real eggs that you can't just shape into a uniform yellow patty the same size as a sausage, as they did in the Hampton Inn.

AND it's a real high speed bandwidth connection, not this bogus 10MBps wireless connection that I needed a hub to use.

So it's very good tonight and I can't wait to stay here next week. Hopefully the itchy legs and sides are from that awful hotel (my suspicion is shitty detergent) and not chiggers.

P.S. I love wine

Thank You Anonymous

2006-01-18T20:20:00.000-08:00

Well, thanks anonymous commenter on my last post. That was nice. Cats do rule. My girlfriend's cat decided to bite me in the nose last weekend. He was chilling out sleeping between us (because the naughty stuff was done ;) ) and I decided to see what he'd do if I started blowing on him gently. For clarity's sake: Blowing ON him. With air. Keep your sicko bestiality fetishes on some other site.
The cat decided to lean over and bite me on the nose. He got one tooth inside the nostril. He was gentle about it, it was more a "hey, I know what you're up to and I'm having none of it" sort of bite. Not a "I think I want nose for dinner" bite.
Which he has also done, because like all cats, he is the spawn of Satan.
Which is mostly why I like cats.
That and it rhymes with pussy.
And who doesn't like pussy?
I'll tell you who: homosexual men.
Those fags.

jizzob hunting

2006-01-17T20:04:00.001-08:00

Nothing to see here. Nobody reads this anyway, but I'm looking for a permanent job in oh, let's say Bangladesh.
My hometown, anyway.
I want a dog.
Or a cat.
Yeah, a cat would be cooler.
I also want to have a normal life where I can commit to crap during the week like comedy, or a writing group.

what would life be without wishful thinking . . .

sometimes the (sushi) bar eats you

2006-01-03T18:16:00.000-08:00

Tuesday night. Colorado. Some random hotel.
The person in the room next door is apparently hard of hearing. His television is loud loud loud.

This is the first day I've done cardio in Denver. I was out here a few weeks in Dec, but stuck with old fashioned resistance training in the craptastic "gym" in the hotel.
Wow, is cardio a bitch in the mile-high city. The air is so thin!

I also made a horrible mistake, twofold:

I took someone from Columbus, Ohio's word on a good sushi restaurant
I went to sushi in a suburb

Nasty crap. Their red snapper had that fermented onion/radish shit some sushi places give you; but it was ON the sushi. It looked like roe but tasted like the bottom of a fish monger's shoe.
And that was a good piece.
The salmon was slimy, the tuna looked like 6 pieces of a fish mashed together, and someone had wiped their ass with the eel.

I should have known when the green tea tasted burnt. How the fuck do you burn tea? They did. Anyway, as long as I don't double over with food poisoning tonight I'll be thrilled.
After all, it was on the company's dime. Hooray for expense accounts!

Wish I had more to say tonight, but I'm sort of in a writer's block at the moment. Nothing is striking me as interesting and funny. I'm not an emo kid, and I'm not writing about how depressed I am on a daily basis.
Hell, it's not even true. I just miss my girlfriend. She's in Guatemala running through the jungle. And I'm sitting out here writing her on a daily basis some whack ass "Garsh I miss you" stuff. I wish it was romantic but I reread it.
I should be forced to eat raw fish for that crap. Fortunately, I was one step ahead of myself again.

and then slashdot posts this. . .

2005-12-30T10:58:00.000-08:00

An article on Slashdot's front page: The Makers

I'm part of the nerd zeitgeist. Rock.

furniture update-arino

2005-12-30T09:40:00.000-08:00

I should read the instructions before doing these things.
In Biology class, 9th grade, we had this whole little life lesson about it.
The second to last step says skip all steps but the first, and sign your name.
Something like that. Then my biology teacher's arm was ripped off and blood spurted everywhere.
"That's why you always read directions."

(I like Arrested Development)

I get to step 8, everything's going smoothly, but now I need another person to help. Curse you directions!

So I'm waiting for a neighbor or two to wake up. I could assume that the death metal I was playing, or the hammering on the floor in their bedroom woke them.
But if that's the case, then I need to wait for them to cool off anyway.
I'm an asshole!

I hate furniture

2005-12-30T07:13:00.000-08:00

Seriously. Furniture is such a massive pain in the ass thing.
It ain't like the sims, where you pick a piece from a menu and plop it in where you want it. Oh sure, I pretended that's how it was. I measured the spot in my bedroom where the computer desk/library was going to go. I even took into account wire space and freedom of movement around the area.
It's gonna be awesome.
Then I went to buy it. I had a lot of choices of where. I'm partial to Office Depot for some reason. Can't even tell you why; I bought one of my earliest desks there and I've been a fan ever since. It's cheap shit, sure, but it just needs to get me through like 2 years. (I figure within 2 years I should either be paying a mortage or have a cohesive argument on why I'm not, not just a patchwork of BS excuses. That's ok up until now, but c'mon, I'm thirty. That's old.)
Anyway. Office Depot. But they've changed their delivery policy. It used to be next day service, now it's 3-5 business days but you get to schedule it within a few hours, not a "some time tomorrow" sort of window. I don't know how it's working out for them, but it ain't my style. I need next day service. I'll be a prisoner in my home.

As a blinding flash of the obvious - I should purchase a car big enough to haul this sort of thing. Good idea for the next time I'm 30.

So Office Max was elected because of their next day service.
I go to their website, look through the menus (hey, just like in The Sims!) and pick the piece of furniture. I enter in a credit card number on the weirdly named site I get redirected to, then enter it again in the OfficeMax page. Seriously, they should fix that stuff, it's redundant.

So voila! A new desk/library in my bedroom!
Nope. This ain't the Sims.
It's either prohibitively expensive and high quality (say, Ethan Allen) or it's cheap cheap cheap and you're putting it together. You may be using Elmer's Glue.
The names Sauder, or O'Sullivan may spring to mind.
If you're anything like me, your hand clenches in a sympathy grip. Sort of a VietNam flashback, to the last bookcase you put together.
The one where Part A and B's stickers had fallen off, and you took an extra 15 minutes trying to figure out from the photo which one is right.
Then getting it wrong entirely, putting the whole gorram thing together, and realizing the finish was sticking out on the wrong rucking end (so the top shelf has a nice wood, with an inked in "C" right in the middle), and you have to take the whole gorram thing apart again to flip the top rucking shelf.
Some projects just shouldn't involve marijuana.
I did the same thing in college with my loft that me and my buddy Chris K put together. He had some kind bud. We smoked up, then planned out the most bitchin' loft off-campus. It was sweet. We put it together, and made sure there was enough room under it to house my (Sauder) desk, and my halogen lamp. Brilliant idea, right? Halogen lamp directly underneath a wooden loft?
Fortunately, my stupidity protected me from burning alive. See, we never accounted for how much space I'd need while sleeping. After we'd put it together (a famous line from during the process: "we shouldn't use these nails if we want to take it down" "Why would I take it down before next year? No reason. Use nails, it's quicker") we realized we'd left precisely 7 inches of clearance once the mattress was up there. Kate Moss would have trouble sleeping up there.
It's just staring at me, waiting for the punchline.
I'm a bigger man than that. I don't have to do a Kate Moss in my bed joke.

So to recap the action so far:
My furniture was ordered on Office Max and I'm going to have to put it together
but I skewed off into this tangent about college
where I smoked a lot of pot
and built a loft that was unsleepable in. We need to drop it about a foot. And we used nails to put it together, rendering it nearly impossible to take apart.
Ahhh marijuana. Without you, my problem solving skills would be poorly honed, indeed.

What, dear reader, is the solution?
Power saws. Of course. We sawed off a foot from each 4x4.
You bet your ass it was rickety and uncomfortable.
Anyway, back to my apartment right now.
I waited all day for this furniture to come, and now I have 3 boxes sitting in my apartment, taunting me.
It's O'Sullivan. The last attempt at a desk in this apartment was an O'Sullivan product. It was the worst desk I have ever tried to build. On step 28 of 36, they had you do this thing that needed 2 guys and a midget to pull off. Huge torsional forces on this piece of pressboard. Snapped like a fucking twig. Twice. I ordered another piece because the notes told me to. It snapped the exact same way. I'd even enlisted help to try preventing it. No mas.
So I sent it back to Office Depot.
This piece seems to be a little more stable to build; I hope so. The last 2 months have been characterized as a computer on my kitchen table. Rather unflattering, and it makes the place look messy.
Not that it isn't. But it makes it look messier.

I do dread putting it together, though. I'm waiting until around 11 so I can blast music. This early, none of my neighbors would have any love.

hoho

2005-12-29T13:41:00.000-08:00

I stumbled upon this today.

It's pretty awesome. Both StumbleUpon and the films. Check out

NETLAG

.

The net is moving fast. The original cyberpunk game had a term, technoshock. It was when the technology's rapidity finally overtook your adoption rate; inevitable for any human.
You can see it with grandmas and their rapid email uptake. ;)
I feel like I'm getting there. I'm curmudgeonly about MySpace and Friendster, and abhor LinkedIn. So much that I didn't link any of the three sites.
I reject this new technology!

ad nauseam

2005-12-29T10:13:00.000-08:00

Am I lazy, or just fucked in the head?
That's a question I ask myself on a daily basis. There's a myriad of reasons why.

For starters:
I have a good job. A good job. I get to travel. People rely on me for important things. I'm good at what I do.
The money is fantastic; I was able to look square in the eye of thirty this year and say "I'm doing OK."

Sure, I wanted a girlfriend and a six-pack, but for the most part, life was good.
Life's better now. My apartment is nifty, too.

What I'm saying is the fruits of my labor have been rewarding, as has the labor. Particularly since I'm "working" right now, writing this page.

So this begs the question - why do I hate my job?
Because I really do. It's ok, but I'm not doing what I should be doing right now. I'm shirking. Which squeezes enjoyment out of servitude. It's just a horrible attitude to have. In order to enjoy my job, I must fail to perform in it. It's a question I ask myself every day:
Is it the JOB I hate, or am I just a lazy twat?
I think I'm just lazy! Whenever I commit to writing or comedy, I grow to hate the activity. The process sours. The only time I enjoy updating my blog is during working hours. If it was 6 Pm, I'd be ticked I was writing in it.
That's a sickness.
I think it's simply the expectations of the process that sours me. I want it to be perfect the first time, but writing and comedy are like all art forms - they need to be honed and the garbage early on is going to be just that - garbage.

This seems filled with self-loathing, perhaps. It's not. It's just random observations. Sort of navel-gazing as we roll up on the New Year. A retrospective; where am I and do I like where I'm going?

What I'd like from this year, the goals:
I must begin lifting weights seriously again. I've been bad about this for about a year, lifting in fits and starts. I need a cohesive plan for the upcoming year.
With that in mind, the goals are to do 10 pull-ups by December and to drop 20 lbs of fat by May 1. It won't be easy but it will be acheivable. I want to try rockclimbing this year. Somebody I know is interested in it, so I figure I'll give it a shot. Plus I'd look better nekkid.

I want to be more concerted about my writing, and less into the video games. A coworker said something to me the other day:
"Do you want to be a bush or a tree?"
Do I want to reach for the stars with one trunk, or dabble in 100 different things?
I think I want to be a tree. That means dropping the games; might mean dropping the comedy.
I want to focus on the writing, as I'd be more than happy to lose half of my salary just to do this all day.

Aww yeah.
I say it and already despise the process. I need help.

My final hope is that the girlfriend and I stick together, and keep on growing what we've got. That's so gay I should have said boyfriend, but it's the truth.
Me likey.

UH uh uh

2005-12-28T06:58:00.000-08:00

long time no see, compadres.
Wow, I just channeled Jim Anchower.
Sort of. I mean, I haven't been in between menial blue collar jobs that I have little hope of keeping. I have a white collar job I have little hope of losing.
It's not too horrible; I'm sort of at work as we speak. Just hanging out, a little marijuana and coffee, and writing you, the masses.
You're probably not masses yet, frankly. There's probably 4 of you, and one of you only reads me looking for a lawsuit.
So what happened lately:
It's the holidays. The holidays for me are unhappy but that's the way the cookie crumbles. I got through the tough parts and New Year's is coming around the corner.
Kyle Kinane used to have a great joke about New Year's. He's in LA making pretty people laugh. I miss going to dive country bars with him.

I'm not sure if there's been a withdrawal of people in my life lately, or if I've withdrawn. To some extent, I've gone missing; work has me travelling to Colorado at the moment and weekends are spent with the girlfriend. But more than that, I feel like nobody's returning my calls. It's not the closest circles of friends I have, but the closest in proximity. (most of my close friends are scattered all over the US. Sometimes the gypsy side of my life sucks)

I'm not getting all emo on y'all; I'm not about to wail plaintively "I'm all alone in the world" and start cutting my arms for attention. I have friends, they're just not the people I expected. And perhaps it's a nothing statement. Perhaps that's life and has nothing to do with personality defects, flaws of character, or just good ol' fashioned prejudice.
Maybe I want to add value to an otherwise worthless facet of human interaction.
But after the holidays I thought about it.
Because it was the people I called on Christmas that was the most telling; who I chose to spend time with. Family made it into the call list, but I didn't spend it with them. (that honor went to the sometimes reader of this page, Andrea)

Here's the funniest part about celebrating Christmas - I'm an atheist. Well, not an atheist, per se; more like a non-Christian. I think it's hokum. All the Judaic rooted religions are bunk.
I like Buddhism OK, but I haven't dveoted one inch of my life towards it other than learning what it's all about "on paper".
But, I celebrate Christmas in true American consumerist fashion: going to the mall and purchasing things for people close to me. I keep it really close to me; I'm not even a cards type of guy. But why bother celebrating it at all?
For a lot of reasons.
First off:

Christianity ain't the first religion on the block to co-opt the solstice
It's a cultural tradition that is sharable without the iconography of religion; Santa Claus doesn't even raise a bad taste in Osama's mouth. Ok, fine, it probably does. He's a jerk. But most everyone else is ok with his bowlful of jelly! (Santa's. I think Osama has a bowlful of dialysis)

Ok there were only two reasons. Not quite a lot.
That and I'm inertially bound to celebrate it at least one more year. Just takes time to slow that freight train down.

Anyway. Happy holidays mofos.
Be safe on New Year's; it's easy to do so and the police state we've evolved into is going to be on the lookout with dogs, roadblocks, and paddy wagons.
"Vere are your papers?"

Wow. I went everywhere and nowhere. In summary:
Ricky Carmona is a mother fucker and needs to call me back
Holidays are sad, but I ended up with a subscription to the Economist so I'll sound smart all year long
Don't drink and drive on New Year's. Wait until January second when all the cops are relaxed again.

self editing

2005-11-28T21:00:00.000-08:00

frustration.
Ancient civilizations were right on the money about the power of words.
Some things, simply by uttering them, become self prophecying.

Things that aren't true, merely by voicing your fears about them, become true.
Don't believe me?
Drunk and stoned one night in 1998 I said "what would be fucked up is if the CIA took over, and Bush got his kid elected!"
It was a crazy tinfoil hat wearing night, where another buddy asserted that the Mormons found a way to control the Jews through math. It was fucked up.
But here we are, 7 years later.
I've always asserted if you've been the real leader of the "free world" (aka the director of the CIA) then you shouldn't be allowed to be the figurehead (president) too.
But I only say that when I haven't been taking my pills. (marinol, thanks for asking)

Anyway, I'm going through that right now.
5 emails have been deleted, because after the self editing and attempts to avoid self-fulfilling prophecy they become cryptic messes that shouldn't be sent.

iTunes party shuffle just spat out "Float On" by Modest Mouse. Eerie. (A good Scrabble word by the way. Fantastic vowel dump)
Heinlein, in Stranger In a Strange Land talks about Martian cities becoming "choked with memories" and unlivable. So Martians simply move on.
Float On is a song that makes me grok martian cities.
And ties back to my fears of today.

Inconstant. Life and me, I guess.
I quit comedy.
I wrote a great joke and I must go up.
I quit smoking.
I broke up with a girl and started again.
But quit because it's killing me.
Well, so is dating.

music

2005-11-23T09:37:00.000-08:00

One hell of a box.
I have a station called Thievery Corporation and one called Stinkfist. I tainted Stinkfist's music selections by saying I liked Iron Maiden early on. Which I do, but now it thinks I must like Metal Church and just maybe the Grim Reaper. And Korn came on as well. Korn. Oy vay.
So I'll be sorting out the dross a lot more there I think.
The Thievery Corp one seems ok tho. Lots of bass/hi hat stuff which is at heart why I like Black Sabbath. It's sort of like coming to a pinnacle of musical taste from a completely different slope. Anyway.
Let's listen to this wacky stuff and play a little bit of Civ 4.
It snowed and I ain't going to Michigan in the snow if I can help it. (plus it's one less day there and one more day in my beautifully filthy apartment)

wtf is a fringle??

2005-11-23T07:03:00.001-08:00

Really. A week or two has gone by and I haven't said a damn thing about what a fringle is or why we should be interested in them.
The simple answer is I don't know.
Really. No freakin' clue. I wanted the blog name Lunatic Fringe. I tried a few different ways to get it. . . Lunatic-Fringe, Lunatic_fringe. Maybe some other stuff.
I think TheFringe was on the list.
I quit smoking 6 weeks ago (maybe 10 weeks, dependent upon measurement). Not quite the non-sequitur you'd imagine, dear reader. Quitting smoking leaves you with a shitload of nervous energy that previously was burnt through smoking cigs. It also leaves you with a craving for something (a cig, duh) but not wanting to satisfy it. I wanted pretzels. Or potato chips.
Mmmmm Pringles.
Hey I bet Fringles isn't taken. It's not even a word.

And it wasn't.
Fitting, in a sense. I have no idea what this is going to end up as. Lunatic Fringe was a good idea if I was going all wacky political, but I just don't have the fucking patience. The fact that Bush got 51% of the vote. . . whew. That's a lot of fucking idiots. Some of them are plain ol' rich pricks, too. They I understand. Enlightened self interest moves their vote, and I would vote the same were I a rich prick. Maybe. I mean, how much money do you really need? (My current answer is $1.6 million. Just a working figure, I can adjust upwards if a venture capitalist is interested in running an "experiment")
Anything over say, $10 million though. . . you're just being greedy, jerks*.
The rest of everyone else who voted for Bush, though. Man.
I
just
don't
understand
you.
I mean, we're not going to elect some perfect man of character, that is a granted. Politics is a dirty business and even the pure of heart get a little dirty after a while. That's the nature of the game, and people as a rule are fucking animals who will scream "killl Piggy!" and charge at you with a walking stick.
Regardless, there shouldn't be a complete abdication of any thought of character. Sure, dirty's dirty but. . . Bush is a fucking fascist. And not in a good way. The bad kind of fascist. Secret Prisons, for starters.
I could rattle off lists of links about cronyism (and its horrible consequences with Katrina) the Orwellian doublespeak (Clean Air Act), etc. But you could get it better from Al Franken.
The bottom line is that this guy makes Clinton look like a saint. And while I liked the C-dawg a lot, his meetings with the Chinese were a touch suspect. But the Republicans were too concerned about the blowjob. Swing and a miss.

Anyway. I get worked up and the problem is this: anyone who honestly cares, and can critically think, is probably not a fan of Bush. The only ones who do support Bush seem to be bare on facts. They're doing what they ironically accuse liberals of doing - voting with their emotions. Bleeding-heart conservatives, siding with their team through thick and thin. Ugh.

See? Nothing Lunatic nor Fringe-y about my statements made above. Just another voice in the echo-chamber of the blog-o-sphere. Wow that was such a lame sentence. blog-o-sphere. Wow. That word's so lame Jesus couldn't fix it.
I do have some wackaloon viewpoints but I don't want to focus a blog around it. I don't even want to venture too much into politics. It's just frustrating and partisan nowadays, with the moderates drowned out by the Scylla named Moore and the Charybdis known as Coulter.
(that said, I'd rather read Moore. He's funny. Coulter's just shrill and venomous.)

So I'll probably stick with nonsense. That may or may not be violent. For those of you who are wondering, gym cow will get her revenge on the Cunning Boyscout, in violent fashion.
Happy Thanksgiving, jerkfaced losers.

*naturally, I am not referring to any VC as a jerk. Your money is different. It is a noble and lofty cause you support, and the Gatsbys of the world salute you. Please fund me.

Something arty

2005-11-18T09:30:00.000-08:00

My buddy sent me this link.
Pretty nifty stuff.

Yesterday was a very good day. My life is ravaged by optimism. And my place is clean.

Oldie but a goodie.

2005-11-15T07:02:00.000-08:00

I'm lazy. I don't want to write too much new today, and instead play Civ IV all day and take care of some bills and paperwork. Real paperwork, not just a euphemism for taking a crap.
But I'm ALSO trying to pretend I have a stable (any) readership to feed the urge to write more. So I'll publish a quick blurb with a long story I wrote a couple years ago. I wouldn't say I still agree with all of it any more. Perspective changes and all of that.
But it's still funny and adds content to an otherwise bare site.

June 28, 2003

Mmmmm strippers . . .

I'm sitting in my basement (technically my brother's room or my mom's basement, but who's keeping score?) and putting off going to the gym until 2-3 PM.

Why?

Because my gym is nestled between about 6 strip clubs, and I figure the strippers are all waking up around 1-2 and getting to the gym around 2-3.

Naturally, I assume every woman with a really hot bod at the gym COULD BE a stripper. It makes working out fun.

Some of you may think this is a symptom of objectification of women and indicates my inability to carry on a meaningful relationship.

I must disagree.

See, I hate strip clubs. Honest. They depress the hell out of me. There's a little part of me that understands that money is an aphrodisiac for most women. This little part of me
also understands that a lack of money is a major turn-off to everyone but college students. (And then my age becomes a factor. I'm getting tired of asking girls on campus, "Hey do you miss your dad?" to know if I have a shot.)
BUT strip clubs (pardon the upcoming pun) strip away all of the facade of polite society and make the statement "no money, no attention". Not to mention that lots of the girls have the look of the "broken". Their eyes . . . like a doll's eyes. Thanks Quinn.

That ruins it for me. I have two warring ideas in my head:

I want a nice girl who appreciates me for me.

I want a total whore who could wreck my life.

The first idea is a nice one in theory, like communism or nihilism. Maybe it even has a really neat -ism sounding name for the condition. Loveism, or maybe idealism.
The grim reality is that these girls may or may not exist. However, stable women with the attitude that would be necessary to carry on that kind of relationship are thoroughly unimpressed by a guy who's thrown away a
perfectly good career to pursue the one in a million shot of a dream job. Plus they always say "don't do drugs" and "you drink too much" and "stop looking at my stripper sister".

Broke, unemployed, potentially addicted, and expressing to the world a desire to date really bad girls does not make you a "catch". It makes you an undatable asshole.

Girls love to say they want the following things from guys (I know because I'm on the Onion Personals all day long instead of Monster.com):

Passion for their work

A great sense of humor

Romantic

Spontaneity

someone who's there when you want him to be, not there when you don't, but you don't have to tell him. (or as I like to call it, telepathic)

Now it's totally possible I'm missing the boat because I'm not telepathic, but I'm suspecting that girls are just liars. What they really want is probably more along the lines of this:

Money

A great bod

Telepathy

A smidgen of jerk, and a touch of asshole

Money

All other traits are negotiable. Mostly they are used to fake depth and a lack of superficiality.

Guys do this too. We say we want a whole bunch of stuff but what we go for is:

Nice boobs

A vagina

Thin body encasing attributes 1 and 2.

Which brings me all the way back to the original point, which is justifying my desire to date a stripper.

Why a stripper? Why would I want to date someone who is going to be pawed by strangers every night, works odd hours, and continuously comes into contact with guys who make more money than me,
dress better than me, and are there more often than me?

Rest assured, it's not some self-deception that makes me think "I can handle it." I know I would not be comfortable. Or stable. Or happy.

But man-o-man . . . the sex has gotta be out of this world.

Essentially it's one of those cases of physical vs emotional intimacy. When rejected based on purely physical intimacy, it's easy to handle.

"She never got to know the real me."

When you actually open up, and the two of you become entwined in something bigger than just sex, the rejection is a rejection of the whole.

That's painful. Incredibly painful.

Horrible internal thoughts.

Fuck that. I'm trying to date strippers, have naughty sex, get broken badly on the shoals of lust, and avoid the internal struggles associated with rejection.

Diary of a Marijuana Smoker

2005-11-14T14:34:00.000-08:00

This is the funniest page I've been to in a week.

The page in its entirety:
Hey man I just wanted to create this diary of me smoking weed and my life in general. I dont want to make things too specific and I want to remain anonymous but I will try to tell things as accurate as possible. Im not high now I smoked some weed earlier this morning and then some more in the afternoon but I havent have time to smoke some more yet. Maybe after I finish messing around with this blog thingy. I read about weblogs somewhere so I decided to check it out. Anyways I'll keep you informed.

Freaking hilarious.

Spring Break!!

2005-11-14T08:24:00.000-08:00

Sadly, Arrested Development is looking to get the axe. Story here.

Seriously awful move on Fox's part. NBC picking it up would be a freakin' coup. Digg had this to say about it.

Fox is so dumb. They would have cancelled Seinfeld, I bet.

In other news, I was in Key West over the weekend. What a blast. Garden of Eden was this clothing optional bar there. Pretty cool. Some freaky people in there. Bartender was a girl named Talia. What fantastic ta-tas. I think that's where she got her name.
There was a scavenger hunt. Pretty fun time, I'd recommend it for large parties of drinkers. You hit up a lot of the local bars. I got yanked on-stage and forced to chug two Guinesses; one in 5 seconds and a second in 6 seconds, after spilling part of the first on my shirt. That won me a t-shirt, a round of shots (which we never got), and the admiration and respect of dozens of alcoholics from all over the country. I was regularly approached the rest of the day by people who congratulated me on my self-destructive accomplishment.
It also guaranteed I'd be the first one down for the night. I made it until midnight. Some of my friends crashed at the crack of dawn.
I'd also like to thank the club Teasers for taking hundreds of dollars from me at a bachelor party. I'd like to say it was because the drinks were so expensive (they weren't) or I bought the bachelor five or more lap dances (I only bought him one) but it was because I'm a total sucker for pretty women. Naked pretty women that will let you finally feel a fake breast? I'd buy that for a dollar!

The good times are killing me. . .

Craptastic Spectacular

2005-11-09T21:11:00.000-08:00

Blogging.
This is the second attempt at a blog. The first failed miserably for two reasons:

I didn't want to do standup comedy so much any more
I told my parents about it.

Number 1 is just a thing. I like comedy, but it is a pretty major commitment for a marginal payoff unless you're absolutely gifted. I don't think I am. It's more fun just being a funny guy at parties. Less stress, and no ass kissing! I still get up on occasion, but I've come to the conclusion that as long as there's a creative outlet I'll be ok. It's when that goes away that life gets all sad.

Number 2 was the death knell.
You just self-censor (ironic as this is an edit) so much more when your parents are looking on. The stories can never end "and then I punched her in the face and took her money". Which maybe no story should end that way, but I'm not going to know until I try.
No drug use, casual sex, any other dangerous behavior. No fun
And even when I published pared-down stuff I got the emails from Mom.
Sheesh.

Hello Dere

2005-10-27T18:20:00.000-07:00

I forgot that when listening to music loudly people can still hear YOU. I burped very loudly in the gym. Girls pointed and laughed. Well, women. And they teased me. I cried, hit one in the face with a 15 lb dumbbell (I was doing tricep kickbacks, piss off) and yelled "WHO'S LAUGHING NOW BITCH!"

She writhed around on the floor bleeding, and I flexed my buttocks over her.
Right, left! Right, left! Right, LEFT!
Then she punched me in the nuts.
I fell over, weeping like a widow. She started getting up, and picked up a dumbell plate. It looked like 10 but felt like 50 when she dropped it down onto my spine.
I groaned and collapsed, fetal. This was merely a ploy, however. She came up to spit on me, and that's when I had her! I grabbed her by the leg and did a one legged takedown I learned in wrestling (who says all you learn is homoeroticism and cauliflower ears!?) then swiftly grabbed the cable attached to one of the pulleys.
I wrapped it quickly around her left boob, then flipped it around her neck, then around her right boob. I would have copped a feel or two (hey, cans are cans!) but she was biting me the whole time so I had to act fast!
After I get the boobage wrap done, it was time to drop the bomb. I throw the pin in at 120, yank back as hard as I can, and LET GO. Milk sprays EVERYWHERE!

Cunning boyscout: 1
Gym cow: 0