Overlord Complex

How To Build A Homemade Turkey Shrapnel Bomb:

2010-05-21T17:00:00.000-07:00

1. Wait till your sister and her husband cook a whole turkey in a glass pan.
2. Wait will your sister and her husband place the cooked turkey on the stove top and leave.
3. Decide to heat up water on the stove top in order to cook some cup of noodles.
4. Screw up and turn on the wrong burner. (The one directly under the turkey.)
5. KABOOM! The glass pan shatters in an outward direction before you can react and remove it from the heated burner.
6. Turkey and glass go flying end every direction.
7. TaDa! You have created a Turkey Shrapnel Bomb.
(Yes… I made the mistake of doing this a few nights ago. I was showered in a spray of turkey and glass in an instant.)

America is so retarded.

2009-05-01T16:06:00.000-07:00

Here I sit in the middle of this “Swine Flu” pandemic and panic. And I all I can think is, “Oh come one! It’s a flu. It’s just a freaking flu.”. Yesterday the DM of the company I work for called and demanded that my Shift Manager go to the local grocery store and buy copious bottles of hand sanitizer.

The whole time she was away buying those bottles I kept thinking, “It’s just the fucking flu.”.

I was also told today that they actually renamed the “Swine Flu” to the “H1N1 Virus”. This was due to people killing farm pigs because the name of this “horrid epidemic” going around. I also read in the papers today that tons of schools were closing due to the “global threat”. And thus I’ve realized just how stupid the majority of humans are. It’s not the Super Flu. It’s just another strand of the flu. Why the hell is everyone freaking out so much?

I had two great conversations with people at work in the past few days about this all. And here they are.

Yesterday:

Me: Those hand sanitizer bottles around the store are mandatory. The DM called and made Amy buy them. She’s (The DM) is worried about protecting us and our customers from the infamous Swine Flu.

Em: You mean “The Flu” right? It’s just a fucking flu! The only people who have died from it are people with compromised immune systems. And that happens every year!

Me: I mean “The Flu” and yes everyone is freaking out way too much.

Em: The people they have stopped in airports with signs of this “Swine Flu” are always hungover.

Me: Em…. I know and think that this whole thing is beyond retarded. It’s also sad.

The next day I had a brief conversation with my manager about it all.

Mgr: Remember to keep the hand sanitizers at all the locations they need to be at.

Me: You know this is really stupid, right? It’s just the flu.

Mgr: I understand. But it’s so fast spreading. And it’s a threat to the elderly and small kids.

Me: Good! Let it weed them all out. Those bastards are taking up space and air. The less of them there are the less I have to worry about when I take over the world!

Mgr: *slight laughter* OMG Stan!... *Then a moment of silence*

Me: It’s just the fucking flu. There’s hundreds of strains of it. This is just a new name. Yeah it’s meaner than most… but it does the same thing as the rest.

ULCERIFIC!

2009-03-26T14:46:00.000-07:00

And that’s how I can describe my life at the moment. Both financially and physically.
Seems as though my wallet/bank account just can’t stop bleeding money out. Bills, gas, food, emergency matters; I just can’t staunch the flow. But that’s life I guess.
And with that said we now head into the best of this post.

Friday March 20th 2009 I woke up at 9:30 AM to get ready for work. I was bright and bushy tailed. Ready to take the world on and do my best at my place of employment. And that is a lie. I woke up at 9:30 AM vomiting blood. Over and over again I orally ejected a mixture of bile, stomach acid, and blood. At some point I began throwing up so hard that my nose began bleeding non-stop. It went something like this:
Spray of blood from the mouth
Gush of blood from the nose
Spray of blood from the mouth
Gush of blood from the nose
Spray of blood from the mouth
Gush of blood from the nose

It was an exciting time, boys and girls. At around 10:50 AM I finally called my manager to tell her that I wasn’t making it in to work. The conversation went something like this:

Susan: This is Susan speaking. How may I help you.
Me: Hi Susan. This is Stan. I’m not going to make it in to work today. I’m about to head out to the hospital. I’ve been throwing up blood and my nose has been bleeding for the past hour. I’m trying to get someone to cover my shift.
Susan: Would you like me to help?
Me: If possible… please.
Susan: Ok. But please call me after you get out of the hospital.

With that I was treated to hearing my manager worriedly saying, “Oh my god!”, as she hung up the phone. With that done I managed to drag my bloody puking self to the hospital. Waiting in the emergency room was a real chore. As per the norm the nurse was extremely indifferent towards the blood spattered on my face, shirt, and pants. With a pen and forms pushed in front of me her job was done for the moment.

Once I finally got to see the doctor it was then that my atrocious appearance garnered an actual “human” response. With a start the doctor immediately ushered me to sit. I could tell he was thinking, “What the fuck happened to this guy?!”. Blood was drawn, test were done, questions asked, and finally after hours the doctor let me know what was my ailment. “Mr. Walker,” he said plainly while staring me in the eye. His dead eyed stare sent me into a spiral of apprehension. My head swam with a myriad of ideas of what could be wrong. Of course the worse of the ideas sat on the top of the thick stew of thoughts. Much like large globules of grease and fat. “Mr. Walker you have an ulcer,” he finally stated. With that I was given a prescription and released. Afterwards paid my co-pay. (Look! My wallet is hemorrhaging again!) Before I left the doctor told me that I had to be very careful with my diet. No spicy foods, no alcohol, and no coffee. It was the coffee thing that hurt the most. I work in a damn coffee shop! Telling me not to drink coffee is like throwing a chastity belt on a nymphomaniac who works in a brothel.

So that’s what I’ve been up to lately. And now I leave you with this:

So I guess it’s about time for an update, eh?

2009-01-29T15:53:00.000-08:00

I apologize for not having posted anything in a while…. actually…. No. No I’m not. I do what I want!

I’d like to tell you all that I’ve been on a hiatus, a vacation, or some fantastic soul searching trek around the world. But I haven’t. I’ve been working and sleeping. I mainly work at Caribou Coffee from 5 AM to 12 PM. Meaning I’ve been getting up at 3:30 every morning. And now you may be wondering why I don’t get online and at least blog or chat a bit at work.

After work I sometimes take a nap. But I mostly lay on the couch and watch daytime television. By that I mean that I watch non-cable television. (Cable be expensive when you be poor.) Don’t worry. I don’t watch just anything that pops on the tube. I’m very selective in the trash I rot my brain on. My viewing selection is that of The Maury Show, Jerry Springer, and The Steve Wilkos Show. That’s right. It’s the cream of the crop in the realm of trash TV for me. It’s actually become a bit of an addiction. Now I know you’re asking yourself, “Why? Why are you doing this to yourself?!”. Please understand that there’s a reason for this. I really can’t say that it’s a good reason.

You see, every time I watch those shows and their “guests”; I feel a little better about myself and my life as down in the dumps as it is. Four hours (because Maury plays two shows back to back) of watching some of the most disgusting, degenerate, criminal, and useless human beings walking the earth…. and I feel AMAZING afterwards. I can proudly strut around because I know that I AM NOT THE FATHER, I’m not living in a trailer park jobless cheating on my one toothed ecliptic hooker girlfriend with her mom, and I don’t have a bald guy yelling at me telling me that I am unfit to sit on his stage. Sometimes it’s a relief to see how the creepier half lives. Other times it’s damn amusing.

MONDAY MONDAY MONDAY!!
Monday night was quite interesting for me. My sister Brittany summoned me from the dark dwellings of my basement. (That’s where my computer is.) Once I ascended to the stark blinding lights of the living room she dropped surprise on me. Here’s a little back story. Just a little…

When I was 18 my mother informed me that I had a younger half sister the same age as Brittany. I was also told that she lived in Maryland. Her name is Megan. My mother told me that the reason we didn’t know of her was because my father made a deal with Megan’s mother not to contact her. And thus I came across the assumption that I would never meet her.

On Monday my father received a call at work. On the line was a young woman who told him that she was his daughter Megan. She had been searching for him since she was 15 years old. Once my father got her information and got off the phone with her he immediately contacted Brittany. You see, Brittany had been searching for our half sister for a while. Once she got the news she informed me that night. And there was much happiness and dances of joy.

(I will not demonstrate this dance for you due to the fact that most of you are unworthy of seeing my moves. But if you happen to be a hot chick over the age of 21 I might do my “Dance of Seduction”. Let me know if you are.)

We became even more excited when Megan told us that she planned to come to Maryland, and wanted to meet all of us.

Wednesday
Wednesday was of the suck.
Monday my manager went on and on about how it was going to snow on Tuesday and how much she loved snow. I reminded her that I don’t work on Tuesday. Her reply was, “Good. Now you can sit by your window and watch the pretty snow fall.” And to that I informed her that:
1. Guys usually don’t do that.
2. Dark Overlords definitely don’t do that!
3. I HATE SNOW!

Well, Tuesday rolled around and there was snow. I stood by the window for a quick second and cursed the snow in all of its cold fluffiness. After a bit of channel surfing and more cursing of the snow I came across the news. The weather forecast explained that there would be freezing rain Tuesday night and it wouldn’t let up until Wednesday afternoon. Again I cursed the snow.

3:30 AM on Wednesday I rolled out of bed, got ready for work, opened the front door, and viewed a winter wasteland. Everything was iced over with a compacted layer of snow beneath. The ice in the streets was so thick it wouldn’t give way beneath the weight of cars and trucks. If it did, it just compressed it more, and the freezing rain made sure to fill in the gaps. I thought to myself as how best to get to work. My brain plotted a course that seemed sane and safe. “Why the hell were you trying to go to work in that weather?!” you may ask. Because I’m poor. And when you’re poor you will go to work when it’s raining hellfire. You need that paycheck to be as full as it can be.

It was slow going making my way out of parking lot. I got a good ways away and was making progress towards a main street that I knew would be free and clear. I nearly made it to Liberty Road when my car slows and I hear the wheels spinning. When the car came to a complete stop I let off the gas. You see the street I was driving up was a side street with a hill. Hooray for hills! I threw the car in reverse and let it drift back while steering to the side of the street. With sigh I put it in park, put on the parking break, turned the wheel to angle the car towards the grass if it started to drift, lit a cigarette, got out, and walked 30 minutes in the freezing rain back to my house. I called the shift supervisor who was to open with me and informed him that my car was stuck. He told me that he couldn’t make it in either. His court was covered in ice.

I managed to make it into work today but my parking lot is still a slushy icy mess. No salt trucks or plows came through. I can’t really blame the state of Maryland for this. They actually did their job and made sure all the main and public roads were clear. The problem here is that the community I live in is a private community. The so called “Housing Committee” here is supposed to take care of salting, plowing, and street maintenance. We pay them money for a mandatory membership. And they’re oh so quick to jump on your ass if they think your grass is too long or you can’t paint your house a certain color. But in dire situations they’re dead-sloth-slow to do what they’re supposed to do. And to that I’d like to give the super special “F-U” award to my housing committee. I’d also like to give that award to the morons who walk on the icy streets with vehicular traffic around because they don’t want to get their shoes wet in the snow on the grass.

People are stupid assholes.

"With great power comes great responsability"

2009-01-06T19:18:00.000-08:00

And with no power comes Stan blogging on his cel phone. That's right, there is no power on my block at the moment. I am currently sitting here in the dark, blogging on my Blackberry Curve, wondering why it's going to take BGE (Baltimore Gas and Electric) till 10 pm to get everything running again, and listening through the walls to my neighbor yell at his kids. BTW, I'd like to mention that I hate MD and BGE with passion. Hopefully the power comes on soon so that I can make a proper blog post.

Last night

2008-12-04T12:41:00.000-08:00

Last night’s post was brought to you by the lovely and generous “PINT OF RUM!”.
I’ll have something a bit better in a few……. Maybe.

What is up with Stan right now........

2008-12-03T16:33:00.000-08:00

It’s been a long hard road out of hell. And I’m not even sure if I’ve crossed the border out of the infamous hot zone. What I do know is that things are a bit easier going lately. Not as smooth sailing as a year ago but much smoother than a few months ago.

For those who don’t know I was unemployed for three months. “Feh! Three months is nothing.”, you may say. Yeah well, I was unemployed for three months with whopping 300 dollars in pocket, debt collectors screaming for my blood, and the all too human need to eat…. sleep…. have a home…. blah blah blah. In the end it was just horrid timing and bad planning on my part.

So, during that time I sold all my gaming consoles, sold all my games, and sold a massive chunk of my movie collection. This allowed me to float until I found a job. And find a job I did. In fact I found two. I now work part time at Caribou Coffee and GameStop. I absolutely love working at Caribou, but it’s hit or miss each day with GameStop.

I have lurked, loomed, slunk, and hung out at the Caribou in Owings Mills since it first opened. Due to that I have come to meet many of the company’s locals. And come to love them. In fact I dated one of the managers. During the first three years I would offer my help during closing. Such as, mopping the floors, cleaning counters… so on and so forth. During my stint of unemployment it really didn’t surprise me that I landed a job there. What really surprised me was I got a job at GameStop beforehand. I really hadn’t expected that. The GameStop job came first with the promise of $6.55 and hour and then two days later came Caribou with the promise of a bit more.

So I work both jobs right now. I won’t say which job “nets” me more money. But I will say that Caribou is my most fave job right now.

BTW!..... Even though I’m new to the “Coffee Server” scene…. I’m already bitter to those who insist on ordering the super-elaborate-extravagant-complicated-psychotic coffee drinks. So if you’re the super crazed “Half Calf-more decaf than caff- half soy mixed with half 2%- with a touch of 2%- and maybe a dash of fat free chocolate” lady….. I am so ready to beat your face in!!! ORDER A REGULAR FUCKING DRINK!

That’s it for tonight. Maybe I’ll have something sober and sane for you tomorrow.

I'm still alive.

2008-11-14T19:21:00.001-08:00

Life has taken a stressful turn.
I was unemployed for about a month and a half. It's taken me a while to find a new job (actually it's just two part time jobs). So basically I devoted my time to sleeping, eating, and job searching.
(I actually got a lot of really good sleep in.)

Currently I work for both GameStop and Caribou Coffee.

I'll go in depth about the rigors of me being unemployed in a later post.

America has got to be bored

2008-08-12T20:28:00.000-07:00

Did you know that there is a sport called Speed Stacking?
It's a sport that involves stacking cups. No really I'm serious... cup... stacking.. in high speed.
While watching it it seems amazing, but at the same time I have to wonder how fucking bored America must be.
Well we have football, basketball, baseball, hockey, lacrosse, blah blah blah... Oh I know.. Lets see how fast someone can stack cups!
Don't believe me? Well here it is!

Oh keep watching and you'll see the next epic Olympic event!

Webcomic

2008-08-10T20:09:00.000-07:00

Seems that I created a semi sorta kinda maybe almost webcomic/blog. I'm not sure what the hell I'm going to do with it, but there's content at least.
Check it out and tell me what you think.

Herniated Sanity

Now back to your irregularly scheduled programming.

2008-07-17T14:17:00.000-07:00

The post titled "Coasting" has been moved.
Not like anyone reads this thing.

Crank Cases and The Right Of Way

2008-05-05T14:47:00.000-07:00

One of these little guys would really come in handy at work.

So here I am in my second week of the new job.

Currently my job title is Utility Engineer. Which is a very nice way of saying, “High Priced Janitor”. But the truth is that I do a myriad of things. I sweep, mop, clean, do the yard work, and I even get to help the guys in the compression building while they work on the epic sized engines. The compression building has its name because it houses 12 GIANT engines which compress natural gas and send it on its way up the pipeline along the east coast.

So far here is what I’ve learned while on the job.

1. There are many machines that start automatically without warning. It’s best not to have your hands on or near the moving parts when they kick on. In fact… don’t touch a damn thing.

2. No matter what you do you will get dirty. No, really. You can sit in an office all day and somehow end up with engine spooge on you.

3. Everyone and their freaking mother will get in your way and drive 10 under the speed limit when you’re trying to drive to work.

4. The gas powered lawn trimmer is not toy. It is a weapon. (insert evil laughter here.)

5. The leaf blower is safe. WRONG! It too is a wonderful weapon.

6. There are large fans in the roof over the compression building. There are also stupid birds that nest near them. This will result in headless birds from time to time.

7. No one bothers you when you’re wielding gas powered lawn tools.

8. The brooms and mops do not start automatically.

9. When you work with old guys you’re going to have to hear “advice” and stories of their family. Whether you want it or not.

10. There are warning signs for a reason. Don’t touch them. They may start automatically without warning.

11. Sometimes in order to repair a machine you’ll need a very large wrench. And in order to operate that very large wrench you’ll need another machine to lift and operate it. Don’t touch that machine! Please see #1 for reference.

And all that was learned on my first day.

Friday they decided to throw me a loop and made me “take a walk”. This meant that they were going to make me walk the “Right of Way” for a flame ionization test. This required a group of us walking the pipeline for a while with machines meant to detect if there are gas leaks in the pipeline. This means that we get to walk VERY long strip of land through people’s back yards. The area we walked Friday was through the neighborhoods and lawns of the rich. I’m sure it’s very unsettling to mow your lawn and find 4 men in yellow hazard vests waiving detection wands as they stroll through your yard. Here’s a nice conversation that I had on my walk.

Me: Morning sir.

Guy: Good morning. What are you doing on my property?

Me: I’m doing a flame ionization test. There is a pipeline of natural gas that runs from the gulf of Mexico up the east coast. We periodically check the pipeline to make sure there aren’t any leaks.

Guy: There’s a pipeline of gas under my back yard?

Me: Actually this area we’re searching belongs to the pipeline company. This little stretch isn’t part of your land.

Guy: Well shit! I guess I can stop mowing your lawn then.

Walking the pipeline isn’t as leisurely as you’d think it would be. There’s many obstacles to overcome as you stroll. Fences, hills, unyielding traffic, dogs, ponds, and marshes. There’s also the expectable unexpected things. Such as stepping on the leg of a deer corpse or into a groundhog hole. And then there’s the shit. After a while of walking I began to keep track of the different piles my foot fell into. It was if my boots became a crap magnet.

Dog: That’s a given. Walking through yards you’re bound to hit a steaming fresh pile of 20.

Cat: It happens from time to time. Walking the pipeline means you’ll hit areas that feral cats frequent.

Deer: You’ll hit a few wooded areas. And where there are woods there might be deer… and deer shit… and deer ticks. (we’ll go into the ticks later.)

Duck: And um gross.

Goose: Goose droppings are extremely nasty. And it seems to be EVERYWHERE.

Rabbit: You don’t really step in it but on it. No harm no foul.

Unknown: There were a few lumps that I just couldn’t match. Perhaps a bear? Or a squirrel with IBS?

You also learn that you should be wearing rubber boots. Sloshing about in mud and muck there’s no way to keep your shoes or pant legs clean and dry without the protective powers of rubber. Needless to say, I was ill equipped and the crew didn’t think to key the new guy in.

So far the new job has been interesting and surprisingly fun.

I leave you now with…..

Yes... That is cheese. CHEESE!

The End of Days

2008-04-25T11:34:00.001-07:00

Well here we are at the last day. The end of days.

For those of you who don’t know. This is my last day working as a sales rep for a games distributor. I’d like to say that I made the decision to move on to greener pastures or something like that. But no. I was actually canned. Fired. Terminated. Asked to get the hell out. But they did it in a nice manner in which they asked for my two weeks. In turn I managed to finagle till the 30^th of June. The stipulation was that if I found employment elsewhere before that date I would submit my notice.

That elsewhere employment I found was working for Williams Pipeline. We’ll go into that on another day in another post.

Yes. Here we are on the last day as a sales rep at a desk job.

I’m sure I don’t have to explain to you that there’s a surreal feeling that comes over an employee on their last day. A feeling of odd empowerment in which you can do anything.

I started the day with a check list of things I wanted to get done before the end of my last day. It started out with noble intentions. But with all things I put my mind to it became a bit warped. I’ve managed to complete all the tasks on my list and have begun doing other things which I haven’t added to the list yet. So far here is what we have:

Action	Status	Outcome
Clean out the office:	DONE	Clean office
Give unwanted items as gifts to coworkers:	DONE	Bewildered coworkers
Read over all the funny emails:	DONE	Maniacal laughter
Stroll aimlessly through the offices:	DONE	n/a
Call all customers and let them know you're leaving:	DONE	Many well wishes from people who hate you
Send out a mass email to everyone in the company:	DONE	Many well wishes from people who hate you
Dance up and down the hallways:	DONE	Instant 30 min. dance party
Laugh maniacally at random:	DONE	Scared coworkers
Grind crotch on office chairs and desks:	DONE	People afraid to touch things
Punch a coworker:	DONE	Laughter of many. Hurt chest of one.
Use the term "Fuck your face" continuously:	DONE	Riotous laughter and some bewilderment.
Loom over people as they work:	DONE	Wary coworkers
Glare at anyone who makes eye contact:	DONE	Scared coworkers
Hiss at anyone who talks to you:	DONE	Scared coworkers
Make lewd comments to coworkers:	DONE	Giggles
Proposition people for sexual acts:	DONE	No takers. (Thank goodness)

I need a smoke… and a towel.

2008-03-14T07:20:00.000-07:00

Kansas... my birth state.... home of the WTF!

By no means will I defend the state of Kansas or its inhabitants. And even though I have just admitted that I was born in Kansas I will adamantly deny it if you confront me about it.

Well, I guess Kansas can actually be a nice place despite the tornadoes, crappy winters, lack of anything interesting to do, and various other things. I mean if you’re the type of person who wants to sit on the shitter for 2 years straight without someone hassling you, then Kansas is the place for you.

A little too far maybe?

Jeez! They went all sorts of ballistic on this kid. It was a bag of candy!

I wonder if there were headlines in the school news paper about a young vice president caught in the illicit act of contraband candy purchasing.

“Skittles was quoted in saying that it had to take the ‘bus’ to meet up with ‘Student 9’ in class.”

Really.. School authorities need to calm the hell down!

And this part gets me too – “The New Haven school system banned candy sales in 2003 as part of a districtwide school wellness policy, school spokeswoman Catherine Sullivan-DeCarlo said.”

What the hell?! Yes I know Americans are becoming notoriously unhealthy and obese. But damn! It almost seems like one step closer towards ditching that whole “land of the free” part.

Listen up kiddies! You eat what we tell you eat!

When humans can’t… an animal will.

This doesn’t really surprise me all that much. Humans seem notoriously inept at aiding wildlife. I’m betting it went something like this.

Dolphin: Hey, how’s it going? You guys alright?

Whales: Oh hey! I’m sure glad to see you. We’re a bit lost. The humans seem to be trying to help but they’re just screwing us up. You know what they say, road to hell… good intentions and all that.

Dolphin: Heh, yeah. The humans are a bit “slow”. Just follow me.

Whales: Thanks! Oh look. The stupid humans are watching and waving.

Dolphin: Ugh. Humans are retarded.

Whales: Heh. Stupid humans.

And that is how a dolphin would “Free Willy”. (Sorry. You had to have seen that one coming.)

What?! No jail for fat people?!

Well would you look at that!

It seems that as the average size for humans is increasing, the average size for prison cells is not. You have no idea how happy this makes me. Morbid obesity seems to be a get out of jail card! I can commit atrocities against mankind and not do jail time so long as I manage to become ecliptic by the time they find and arrest me.

Police: Well damn! That’s one fat bastard! I don’t even think we can transport him without a forklift. Eh… just leave him at home.

I can has prostitute?

I know you’ve already heard about this. You’re most likely tired of hearing and reading about it. But I’d like to take the time talk about this.

Honestly, I don’t blame the guy. I mean look at her! She’s freaking hot! Hell I’d pay for that. I’d probably kill one of my family members for some of that. I’d definitely kill one of your family members for that.

And it says that she had a MySpace account too. I have a MySpace account! If I had known that I would have sent her so many friend invites! We would have become great friends in no time. And next thing you know I’m getting discounted rates on services. But no.

Maybe I should I go into politics.

Remember:

Politics = Hookers!.... or candy.

Now if you don’t mind I need a smoke… and a towel.

Look out! It's Random Man!

2008-03-07T11:50:00.000-08:00

This is mainly randomness here.

Today sports guy comes to me and tells me that he keeps hearing a knocking at his window and doesn’t know what it is. My first assumption was, “It’s probably a bird attacking its reflection. Birds are dumb like that”. And I would be right. Moments later sports guy returns raving about how it’s a cardinal. Again and again sports guy returns to tell me about the knocking cardinal. I believe it was a total of 5 times he told me about it. And if I count the times he’s told each and ever coworker individually I’ve heard the story a total of 14 times. So sports guy gets the bright idea of doing something to make sure the cardinal doesn’t return. He recalled how his parents would put plastic owl statues in their windows to keep birds away. His magnificent idea is to put an action figure on the window sill outside. I’ve heard this part of the story a total of 6 times now. He’s even pulled me into his office to show me his achievement. I haven’t the heart to tell him that I couldn’t care less about the damn bird knocking or the action figure deterrent. But at least he’s not talking to me about sports today. Small favors I guess.

I think that the bird wasn’t actually attacking its reflection. I believe it was actually trying to get to sports guy. But being that birds are notoriously dumb it was going the hard way about it, through the glass. Eventually the killer cardinal will catch on to sports guy’s plan. One day sports guy will find his action figure pooped on and when he steps outside the cardinal will carry out its insidious assassination plot. Look out sports guy! Cardinals are red for a reason!

And now I will entertain you with pictures of my car accident from years back. (I was speeding down a road called Red Run Blvd. And now I know why it’s called that.) I don’t really remember much from it but I do remember how simple my thought processes became during the ordeal.

“Oh man! I’m headed for the curb. It’ll be alright. It might mess the car up a little.”

“World go spinning?” (this was when the car hit the curb and began to roll like a log. I was told that it rolled 4 times before coming to rest on its top.)

“I need a nap. Here good.” (This is when I woke up upside down, undid my seatbelt, crawled half way out of the car, and settled in for a nice nap in the grass.)

I woke up as people were rushing about asking me questions. There was a man with the thickest mustache I have ever seen cradling my head and smiling down on me. It was comforting and creepy all at the same time. So I learned that people hit you with a barrage of questions that seem simple to answer normally but after an accident you end up stumbling like a one legged mentally disabled kid in a dark room filled with awkwardly placed furniture with the promise of pudding at the end. I also learned that after you answer their questions they won’t answer yours. I don’t know how many times I asked “what happened?” and got silence as a reply. That just makes everything worse. Especially when you try to get up and they instantly freak and keep you pinned. For an hour or so I thought maybe I had lost a leg or I was horribly mutilated from the waist down. My mother and sister arrived shortly after I was loaded into a helicopter to be air lifted to a hospital. (How awesome is that?!) Mom discovered that she could outrun my sister if she needed to. The roads had been blocked off a ways away from the scene and without hesitation my mother broke into a crazed sprint. My sister confessed later that she had a hard time keeping up with my mother. (I’d like to state that at the time my sister was in high school and playing soccer. She was and is a very physically fit person. Mom was in her late 40’s and not very physically fit. Adrenaline does wonderful things.)

You can find some of the hospital incident here. It’s located in the rant about hospitals, doctors, and underwear.

So anyway… here’s the few photos we have from the incident.

But wait! There's more random stuff!

This is a picture of my rabbit Skitters when she was just a wee baby.
I'm actually just putting this hear so someone can look at it and say, "Awwww so cute!".
Skitters is a little sweetheart who seems to have developed an identity crisis. She believes that she's a puppy. The little fuzz-bit gets terribly excited when people are around, follows you through a room, and licks hands. Yes, you read that correctly. She licks hands to show affection.

Want to see my oubliette?

2008-03-05T13:39:00.000-08:00

(The title of this post is not a sexual advance.... unless you're female..... and it worked.)

Sometimes I don’t have anything funny to rant about.

Sometimes all I have is trough of murky depression. I’d ignore or forget about these things but unfortunately they won’t ignore or forget me. They follow me, plague me, hound me, call out my name endlessly like obnoxious children, and poke me while I try to sleep. These wearisome moments weigh on me. The easiest way for me to dispel or deal with them is to write them down. Share them with the world. Like a small child pointing at his first “big kid” poop in the potty. Except no one is smiling and we’re all thinking the same thing, “shit!”.

But rather than clutter up this blog with sad sack prattling and miserablities, I’ve decided to toss them somewhere else. I’ve created an oubliette for my ennui. A veritable glory hole for when my cup runneth over. A mass grave for my failings, self depredations, and self deprivations. Sure I could post them on Overlord Complex with a comical twist to them. But sometimes the effort to make something so depressing into something funny is just too much. And the easiest way to say “I’m miserable” is to say “A coma sounds nice right now”. Life isn’t always funshine. And when it’s not I have….. (drum roll or some such silliness)………

An Oubliette for my Ennui

Don't worry kiddies. Overlord Complex is my main blog which I will be posting on most of the time. The other is well... a dump...

With great power comes great “reeshponsuhbiluhtay”

2008-02-29T13:25:00.000-08:00

I was once asked why I only read the odd and bizarre news.

The reason is because the standard news is nothing but politics and things that make me want to eat a brick.

There’s no real blog today. Just random ranting. (most of it unfounded because I couldn’t be arsed to actually research and backup my opinions. Deal with it!)

I can has alty-mate-ums?.....

Honestly I believe that this is a great tool/idea that could go horribly wrong.

In the words of a good friend, “sites like MySpace and Facebook are nothing but places to whore yourself out”. And I believe him. Because I have a MySpace page… and I’m a whore. I should probably go touch up my MySpace photos with a few fresh “shirtless in the bathroom” pics.

Ok, I’m not really a whore, but for the right price… and you’re a hot chick….. (What?! I’m in need of the cash and I could use a little play too.)

While this addition to Facebook would be a great addition for activists and people looking to do some good in the world, I think it will ultimately be wasted. Lets face it. The majority of the people on Facebook (and MySpace) are of the “lolcats” variety, children, morons, or webcam wenches. (I’m probably one of those…. Or all of them. I’m not sure. And I’m whore also.) Think about it. Their main motivators for having these accounts are to whore themselves out, regurgitate the latest internet meme, and try to get laid. Now imagine giving them this potentially useful tool. Sure some of you out there (probably not me) would use this nifty “Ultimatum” tool for the betterment of the world. Or at least you’d use it intelligently (once again… not me). But then there’s the drooling masses. Place this tool in their grimy hands and you know it will only be used for drama and lolcats. With ultimatums like, “if enough people sway in my favor then the action is that all the hot chicks on my friend list have hot steamy sex with me. If they sway in the other direction then the action is that three of them get with me”. (That’s actually not a bad idea. But how to implement it? I know! I’ll start a Facebook account and use that Ultimatum thingie!)

Just remember kiddies. With great power comes great “reeshponsuhbiluhtay”.

Proof that the past will haunt you….

Holy crap! It’s like the Butterfly Effect in real life!

But really folks, the guy is 71. There’s not much you’re going to get out of him at this point. Now I have to make sure that the chicken nugget I threw away at lunch time doesn’t somehow land me in jail fifty years from now. (by the way, there’s a sequel to the aforementioned movie that I’m avoiding like the plague. If you’ve seen it let me know how it is.)

How freaking big are the poop chutes in India?!....

Ok, I may not be a doctor… but my dad is an ObGyn, which makes me an expert by proxy. All I have to say is, “What the hell happened to the umbilical chord?!”.

This will turn into one of those odd baby stories the parents tell the boyfriend or fiancé. “Yeah, we found her on the train tracks… after she fell in the toilet.”

I can’t really fault the mother though. The baby was 3 months premature. That and every time I have Indian food things slide right out of me too.

Japan is so freaking cool… and scary at the same time…

I don’t have much to say about this one. You can laugh if you want to but think about your mom. Think about the times when you were a kid where she seemed like an unstoppable force of your impending doom. Think about the times where sweet lovable mom scared the shit out of you. Now put boxing gloves on that.

Yeah, moms are scary.

SAY MY NAME!!

2008-02-27T13:38:00.001-08:00

Heh!.. I drew this
I thought it was funny.
Therefore it is here.

First some strange news!

Hey kids! We screwed up… and you’re going to eat it. EAT IT ALL!

Well damn! I wish my elementary school had done a “traditional school lunch week”. But nooo! The best I got was what we unlovingly referred to as “roadkill pizza”. Rectangle slabs of cheese, pepperoni shavings, and sauce on top of crust that had a patterning beneath that strangely resembled tire treads.

By the way... can anyone tell me why the school lunch gravy always had that vague greenish tinge to it?

I’s in yo yard! Eatenz all ur dawgz!

I’ll have to admit that I laughed while reading this. By no means am I dog hater. Well except for Chihuahuas. I can’t stand the yappy little ankle nippers. They’re the physical embodiment of Napoleonic Syndrome. Anyway… Read through this and you’ll see many things that I laughed at. The majority of them are cases of human stupidity.

Large beastie stalking your pet for days and you do nothing…. STUPID

You find the big bastard in your pet’s bed and do nothing…. STUPID

Flinging plastic chairs at 110 lbs. of crushing death…. STUPID

Owning a tiny yapping rat of a dog…. STUPID (but that’s just my personal view there.)

But really, I do feel bad for that pup. Well actually only half of it. The terrier half. The other half can rot in Chihuahua hell for all I care.

I also feel bad for the kids that saw it happen. That’s going to screw them up for a while. What a really messed up way to see the beloved family pet go out. Although if you play it right it could be something absolutely bad ass! It’s all in the way you retell the story later on in life. A little embellishment here and there and next thing you know Mr. Scampers is a freaking hero sacrificing himself in order to defend you and your family from a rampaging python. Hells yes!

Adults are morons…..

I don’t have much to say on this one.

Parent = MORON

School Administrator = MORON

It mentions that the child’s choice in hairstyle was a distraction to his classmates. Well duh! They’re in kindergarten! Everything is a freaking distraction to little kids.

I really feel bad for this kid. All he wants to do is rock a Mohawk but all the adults around him are morons.

Sorry kid. Maybe if you wait till highschool where you’re under the delusion that you can do what you want. Fight the power, damn the man, blah blah blah….

I’ve just noticed that not too long ago I had made some sort of promise to deliver a movie “review” for every blog post. (WTF is up with that? I must have been drunk or something.) And it seems I have not been living up to that promise. To this all I have to say is, “Shut Up!.. in fact.. STFU!”.

Yes I still have no life. Yes I still watch at least one movie a night. Yes if I so felt like it I could write up some sort of review. But you know what? This is my damn blog. I will do what I want when I want. I’ll tell you what I want when I want. YOU’LL READ WHAT I WANT YOU TO READ! (A translation of that would be, “I was too lazy to type up a review.”)

It’s occurred to me that a number of people I have known for years believe me to be a Jr. (junior). Granted my name does have the suffix of “II” at the end of it. But this in no way makes me “junior”. I asked my father about that years ago and his reply was, “because I didn’t want people calling you Junior. I hate that. So I purposefully put a roman numeral 2 on your birth certificate.”. And to that I thank my father. I’ve known many a “Junior” who tend to dislike being called by that moniker. (By the way, if you ever want to piss my father off, call me Junior in front of him. It’s hilarious.)

It doesn’t really anger me when people refer to me as Junior, but I will correct them on the spot. What angers me is when they reply with, “yeah! That means Junior”.

No! No you dimwit! By no means does a roman numeral 2 mean Junior. It’s the 2^nd! THE 2^nd! Jr. means Junior! And I am not a junior because nowhere in my damn name does it say “jr.”! You’re fired! Clean off your desk, go home, and shoot yourself in the face!

And this brings us to my name in use at the workplace. It was brought to my attention a while back that people I’ve been working with closely for the past 6 years still don’t know my name. Please take a moment to look on the right side of the screen. There you should see my name. Yeah there you go… right there… under the “About Me” section. See it? That’s right, my name is Stanford. Just like the university, and just like my dad. (because I was named after him… duh.)

So for 6 years three particular coworkers insisted on calling me Stanley. To which I promptly verbally corrected them. I even gave them options other than my full formal first name. Six years of saying, “It’s Stanford. Just call me Stan,” every morning is pretty aggravating. One in particular would be a fellow sales rep who felt the need to announce my presence every time I passed by his office. In a shout he would call out “Stanley!”. He would even go so far as to put emphasis on the “ley” by pronouncing it in a higher shrill octave. It was a triple insult. Wrong name screamed in a shrill painful tone with an emphasis on the part of the name that makes it wrong. I was always torn between correcting him or running away before he could produce that obnoxious noise again.

After a while I decided to implement “Project: Say My Name!”. This project was designed to get my three coworkers acclimated to my actual name. It went a little something like this:

Stage1: Signing interoffice documents.

I began signing all interoffice documents and emails with my full name. (Complete with roman numeral 2 suffix.) It soon turned out that no one reads an email further than the body. They don’t care about your signature at the bottom.

Stage 2: Wear a name tag.

This one died the day it was implemented. Coworkers have an aversion to reading any text located on the body. This is due to fear of sexual harassment charges or having another coworker think that you harbor feelings for them. For the whole day people would refuse to look lower than my neck. A whole day of having people look me in the eyes when they talked. (And I swear if they had smiled at the same time I would have taken it as an act of aggression and probably attacked them.) It was a really bizarre feeling. I kept thinking, “I’m a guy! I don’t have breasts. It’s alright for you to look at my chest. I really don’t mind. I even wore a name tag welcoming you to look”. All in all at the end of the day I felt it was a failed attempt. (That and everyone’s refusal to look at anything other than my face made me feel very unattractive.)

Stage 3: Do unto others!

This one lasted a whopping 3 days. I spent three days responding to these three people by calling them by random names. It resulted in them thinking that I was crazy. (Which in itself has its benefits…. but not many.)

Stage 4: Resignation.

That’s right, I gave in. I’m sorry dad, but my new name is Stanley Junior. And I guess by default your name is Stanley Senior.

It’s easier this way. People will think what they want and call you what they want. Even if they’re wrong. There’s no use in correcting them because the wrong info has ingrained itself and will never fade. Your name will forever be Stanley.

Stage 5: (Work In Progress)

This stage is still in the planning process. It involves a lead pipe, bricks, and a bit of pain. I figure that it’ll be hard for someone to call you anything at all if they no longer posses the ability to form words. I just have to find a way to implement it without the police showing up. They tend to ruin everything… with their guns and batons……

I’ll be mulling this over while I eat my “traditional dinner” tonight.

Yes I drew this one too.

Can I have a blanket?

2008-02-22T13:01:00.000-08:00

I spent my whole work day being productive!...... reading odd news articles. Because that’s my job. Really I swear. Oh just shut up and keep reading.

This has got to be one of the most drastic and interesting breakups I’ve ever heard about.

We smokers may be silly for killing ourselves ever so slowly, but some non smokers are just psychotically crazed.

The future is watching you.

This thing is hella cool and creepy at the same time. I want one. (Mainly so that I’ll have someone/something that will pay attention to me.)

I wonder if it’s a one size fits all type deal.

Sweden is so freaking awesome, their hospitals give you underwear to wear! My stays in US hospitals have always been sans underwear and wrapped in that flimsy napkin they call a hospital gown. It’s always disturbing how you suddenly end up naked whenever you go into a hospital. It has to be some strange medicinal voodoo they learn while in medical school.

Doc: What seems to be the problem Mr. Walker?

Me: My throat has been bothering me lately.

Doc: Lets take a look.

Me: Ok.

Doc: Abra-ca-nudie I sees yo booty!

Me: GAH! Where the hell are my clothes?!

And then there’s the time I rolled my car 4 times and ended up in shock trauma. There was at least some forewarning in that one. But even still, I ended up on a table with my goods exposed to the elements. Good thing they had me doped up. That just made everything alright… for the time being.

Doc: Ok Stan. We’re going to have to cut your clothes off.

Me: huh? Ok… but I just bought these jeans.

Doc: *snippity snip*

Me: Am I naked now?

Doc: Yes you are. (he was stifling a chuckle at this point. I was told later that I was quite comical while doped up and suffering from a concussion.)

Me: Can I have a blanket?

Doc: No, not yet.

Me: I don’t like this.

Doc: Now we have to roll you onto your side to check you for internal bleeding.

Me: I don’t like you now!

My recent experience was just before my hernia operation. I was standing in the post op area with my mother, once again garbed in the flimsy napkin, and staring at my surgeon as he went over the notes just before putting me under and cutting me open. Without warning the doctor whipped up my gown to take a look at the areas he needed to fix. I’m not going to go into great detail of the incident. But I will say, if it hadn’t been for my mother’s lightning fast ninja reflexes she would have gotten an eye full of my junk. And that’s something I don’t want to live with. Imagine sitting at family dinners staring across the table at your mother in silence and thinking, “You’ve seen my goods… and that’s not good.”. (Yes I know she changed my diapers and whatnot when I was a baby. I know that she has seen me nude before. But that was back when I was a small child. A lot of things have changed since then, and some of them a mother should not be privy too.) I do love how the doctor maintained an apathetic stare as he poked at my stomach. Meanwhile the nurses and my mother have heads turned away almost to the point of breaking their own neck, and I proved that a black man can blush.

US hospitals are sinister and full of nude people. I have a feeling it’s some sort of incognito porn recruitment center. I’m sure there’s some sort of manual the doctors refer to. I’ll ask my dad.

He’s a doctor you know….

Probably why I have so many siblings…..

I think I’m going to go into the medical field…..

To help people……. Really…..

So in short (which wasn’t so short because I talk too much and will go off on rants, tangents, and run on sentences.) if I don’t make it in the medical field I’m going to pack up and move to Sweden. Because their hospitals give you underwear to wear. And that’s just freaking awesome beyond belief. Don’t believe me? Go have an extended stay in a hospital and see how much you beg for undies. If not for you, then for the creepy old lady who shuffles down the hall past your doorway.

Shake it grandma, shake it. Just somewhere else.

I'll snake YOUR drain!...

2008-02-13T14:21:00.000-08:00

I’d like to take a little time today to rant about where I live. Because that’s what I do. Live… and rant. Now I’m not the type of guy who would bad mouth a person or company blatantly. No no, I’m the type of guy who will bad mouth a person or company and not name them. Finger pointing sans the fingers (well maybe the middle one).

Monday I had to call out sick from work. Turned out that I caught some flu bug going around. Which resulted in me laying in bed achy nauseous and dizzy. I hate calling out sick from work. As bizarre as it sounds, I need to go to work. If not I’ll eventually get bored... very bored… dangerously bored. Needless to say, when I’m home sick I end up laying in bed bored and unable to do anything. (Funny thing about that though. No matter how tired and dizzy I am, somehow I manage to summon enough energy and focus to sprint to the bathroom when the stomach commands.)

Around 7 on Monday night I had begun feeling well enough to hazard eating some soup. When I got up I began to hear the familiar sounds of thumping. For any who don’t own rabbits, thumping is a way for rabbits to warn others that danger is nearby. I tend to ignore them because the fuzzy town criers go off at the slightest thing. Although they also warn me when the kitchen ninja makes an appearance. So as I stumbled into my kitchen I saw what they were trying to warn me of. It was yeti! Not really. But I believe a yeti would have been more preferable at the moment.

As it turned out, the kitchen sink was also feeling ill. Gallons upon gallons of murky dank water bubbled up from the drain, filled the sink, and spilled over the edge. Within a matter of seconds my kitchen was an aquatic wonderland. I lie. It was a disgusting swamp of ground down discarded food particles. And the sink persisted in its gurgling eruptions. I then realized that it wasn’t just a swamp of garbage disposal upchuck. It was in fact a swamp of garbage disposal upchuck that had been sitting in the pipes for a very long time. The stench was the type that sends you instantly into a frantic frenzy to either escape it or nullify it. That and when the smell hit me I realized that I was standing ankle deep in it… barefoot. When moments like these happen it’s usually best to move away from me.

Freak out mode was almost instantaneously initiated. Once the WTF switch was hit I went from Sickly Smurf to Enraged Psychopath in less than .0005 seconds. It was quite an exhilarating trip complete with stomping, yelling, hitting things, and death threats to no one in particular. After the 30 minutes of rampage while watching the sink spew more filth in defiance I resigned myself to my fate… vomiting.

Once the sink had ceased I found my mop, bucket, and bleach. With skank water covering my little piggies I mopped and seethed. (It’s like multitasking. I’m awesome that way.) At one point I called the maintenance department requesting their aid in unclogging my sink. (Yes I was seething then too.) During my conversation with them I heard the upstairs neighbors start running water (dishwasher) which lead to me muttering, “I don’t think that’s good.”. And like a pissed off-modern-day-barefoot-slop-covered Nostradamus I was CORRECT! And once again ankle deep in the unknown spewing curses almost as fast as the sink was. The maintenance department was delightfully fast in arriving and undelightfully fast in making a stupid comment. “Yep, you have a backed up drain.” (I withheld my "No shit Sherlock”.)

At that point the gentleman deduced that the clog was somewhere after my drainage line. (And he managed to do that without a pipe or violin.) During that time he explained that all the sink drainages in the apartments directly above mine lead to one main line which goes down into the ground and out. And this is the reason why ground level apartments flood due to clogs and the upper levels do not. (If you’re a smart monkey you’ll have figured out that I’m ground level. AKA the Break In Level. BTW I do have weaponry and a lack of morals or hesitation in case you want to make a surprise/emergency visit.)

While my delightful maintenance detective was surmising the reasons and whys of the flooding the sink began to do its thing again. This time non-food particles began to float to the surface. As remnants of tea bags began to float to the surface I caught a nasty glance from the maintenance guy. “I don’t drink tea,” was my instant response. Then chunks of sponges of various colors. Once again a nasty glance. “Why the fuck would I grind sponges in the garbage disposal?!” was my instant response. And then came the clencher. The proof needed to show that I’m not a disposal abusing bastard. A few (and I mean more than 3) remains of tampons were spotted swimming around in the sink like albino gold fish. At this point I was expecting condoms and a few chopped up hooker bits to come up too. After fishing one of them out the maintenance man looked at me and said, “I’m going to snake the drain and then have a talk with your neighbors.”

For the 45 minutes it took him to clear the drain I sat and listened to the snake moving through the pipes. It was like hearing a rat the size of a large dog moving through the walls. Once everything was said and done I returned to the kitchen to mop. I threw up again. Mopped that up. Took a shower and went back to bed. You stop wanting food after you’ve seen the week old stuff float past you. Besides… I was soaking in it for an hour or more. I figure I got all I needed for the day.

(I would have made this one funnier. But really… it wasn’t funny.)

Today I woke up to cold. Not just any cold. I mean testicles retracted into your abdomen, nipples cutting diamonds, I can’t feel my legs type of cold. At some point during the night my heating unit decided to take a day off of work. So when I sat up in bed and saw my breath I pretty much expected to see a little kid tell me that he sees dead people. Actually I think that would have been more comforting or entertaining.

I took the fastest and coldest shower I had ever had in my life. (By the way ladies, I really don’t know what you see in us guys. When women are cold they become a little more “attractive”. When guys are cold, we become…. “ineffective”.) Is it me or does it seem as though soap really doesn’t want to rinse off when the water is cold? After a while I was resorting to acts of pure desperation to get the soap off of me and out of the cold water. And into the cold air. (hooray!)

After getting to work I called the business office of my apartment complex to report my lazy heating unit. There was no answer. I didn’t sweat it too much. It was 8:32 in the AM and the office opened at 8:30. Whoever was there was most likely trying to finish up on their opening procedures.

9:30 I gave another ring. No answer.

10:00 Called again. No answer.

11:30 Called again. No answer. Pissed.

12:00 Called again. No answer. Livid.

12:02 Called again.

12:05 Called again.

12:06 And again.

12:07 Called the leasing office. Was told to call the business office again.

About this time I had had enough. The leasing office has informed me that there were quite a few people working in the business office and someone should be answering. Cue the Overlord Complex.

12:15 Called the business office. No answer.

12:16 Called the leasing office. That went something like this.

Me= me (duh)

LOP= Leasing Office Person

Me: I tried calling the business office several times and no one answers.

LOP: Sir, I’m sure if you call them now someone will answer.

Me: You’re sure?

LOP: I’m positive, sir.

12:20 Called the business office. No answer. (cue cursing and yelling)

12:23 Called the leasing office.

Me: You are going to go tell someone in the business office to answer the phone.

LOP: Sir I’m sure if you give them some time…

Me: I’ve given them time. Now go tell them to answer the phone.

LOP: Sir we’re in a different building than…

Me: No you’re not! I’m a tenant. I’ve seen the building. The leasing office is under the business office. Now you either GET UP and go upstairs or you call upstairs and TELL them answer the phone.

*CLICK* (That would be them hanging up on me.)

12:30 Called the business office. Someone answers.

Me=me (again)

Ass= Business Office Person

Me: Hello. I live at (insert address here) and I’d like to report that my heating unit has stopped running. I would like for someone to have that repaired and/or replaced. (see that? I totally omitted the fact that I had to call billions of times to get them to answer.)

Ass: Alright sir. I’ll have the request posted. We’ll have it done by Friday.

Me: You mean A.S.A.N.

Ass: Sir?

Me: As Soon As Now.

Ass: Sir these things take time.

Me: According to your policy and the lease plumbing, AC, Electrical, Gas, and Heating problems are considered emergency situations and handled immediately.

Ass: Sir we will have it fixed as soon as we can.

*CLICK* (That is, yet again, me being hung up on.)

12:40 Called the Maintenance Department directly. They answered immediately.

Me= (do I really have to tell you?)

AGIM= Awesome Guy In Maintenance.

Me: Hi. I live at (address). My heating unit stopped working last night and I need it fixed as soon as possible.

AGIM: Ok. Not a problem. Just let me talk to the business office about it first.

Me: I spoke to them earlier. The kinda ran me circles and said something about Friday.

Me: I’ve already talked to them. They ran me circles and said something about Friday.

AGIM: That sounds like them. Since they already know I’ll just head on over then.

Me: Thanks!

It took nearly 5 hours of phone tag and business office douche baggery to get someone to look at my heating unit. I never realized I lived in a lesser level of hell until someone pointed out the demons and lake of fire. No wait, I'm wrong. Hell is warmer than my apartment.

I really do need to move.

What have we learned here?

1. Just because you give them money doesn’t mean they give a shit about you.

2. People in offices are deathly afraid of the phone.

3. When they say “sir” or “ma’am” they’re actually calling you an asshole.

4. Going through improper channels usually gets things done faster.

5. Douche Baggery is not just a state of mind. It’s a workplace lifestyle.

6. I pay too much for my crappy apartment.

Pirates, Ninjas, and Lagomorphs

2008-02-06T13:25:00.001-08:00

So I was thinking. I should definitely become a cop. After the run in with a K9 Unit I toyed with the idea of becoming a person of authority. I could found the Lepus Unit. No seriously. Horses are employed for their speed. Dogs, because of their keen sense of smell. Well why not rabbits? Their superior sense of hearing and danger could be of great use.

Can you imagine stepping out of your home to come face to face with a officer who has a pissed off lop ear at their side? Hollywood would eat it up! They’d make heartwarming family movies about a hard edged grizzled cop forcibly teamed up with an adorable fuzzy bunny. Of course it’s rough in the beginning as cop is a cold heartless man who’s seen more than his fair share of crime, brutality, and victims. Meanwhile bunny is.. well disgustingly cute but also trained to be the ULTIMATE police sidekick. Eventually through comical antics and life savings abounds cop’s heart warms up to bunny and they become an unstoppable team for JUSTICE! Toss in a love interest and maybe a kid or two. I’m thinking Christopher Walken, Denzel Washington, Chrisitan Bale, or Bruce Willis to play the part of ‘cop’.

Of course there would be a lot of training and probably steroids involved. And I’m not talking about using your run of the mill mini puffball bunny. I’m talking about of these big guys:

Hell, throw a saddle on that bastard and you can replace the police horse. Look at that! I just created the US Mounted Lepus Force. Of course people will joke around and call them “Hoppies” or “Hoppers”. But not after they get a dose of teeth gnashing giant rabbit rage.

(Can you tell I’m really bored?)

Last night I had settled down to watch the third and last movie in the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy. Of course beer and boredom was involved. I’d have a whole write up and list of Life Lessons for you but I was interrupted with.. (Drum Roll)….. THE RETURN OF THE KITCHEN NINJA!

During the movie the rabbits began thumping trying to alert everyone of impending danger. (See! Helpful bunnies.) When I went to see what was so threatening to them I spied the infamous Kitchen Ninja as he deftly ducked for cover. So with 4 beers in me I deemed it necessary to dispose of him. That night was pretty much spent in a drunken rampage flinging furniture around as I tried to catch and eradicate him. But before that I actually had to round up rabbits and return them to their homes. Then the rampage. (I did not succeed in the eradication.)

Quote of the night: “Dammit rabbit! You’re 10 times his size! Stop running from him and just kick his ass!”

(Sometimes my life is just plain sad.)

There goes the neighborhood....

2008-02-05T14:12:00.001-08:00

There’s something surreally sobering when I realized that the doggy and jogger combo I saw this morning in my apartment complex was actually a K9 Unit. It was a moment where I thought to myself, “The police are always in the neighborhood. They patrol a lot. (That should mean something right there.) It’s not the best neighborhood in the world but this is normal. And yet I’m disturbed that this man is on foot…. With a dog… Something must have gone down. And now they are obviously looking for something. Probably something bad…really bad. I should probably just go home and call out from work”. I really couldn’t help but stop and wonder if the two were searching for illegal drugs, a corpse, an armed felon sneaking through the neighborhood (which could be pretty much anyone in the neighborhood), a doctor, or all of the above. Honestly I think I’d feel much better if they were actually hunting down the little shits that keep discharging the fire extinguishers in the buildings.

My “surreally sobering” moment suddenly turned all too “real” and all too “worrying” when the fuzzy officer stopped searching and just started staring at me. Now don’t get me wrong. I like dogs. (With the exception of the tiny yappy things with Napoleonic Syndrome.) My family in NY has a long haired German Shepherd who is absolutely my buddy. But this dog dripped with cruel intentions. He had a gleam in his eyes that said, “one move. One tiny move and your balls become a squeaky chew toy!”. I’m sure he was trained that way, but my balls and myself only cared about not being near him. (I’m serious. It was that hardened “I done time in the slammer” type of stare that makes your ass clench and your junk retreat into your abdominal cavity.) Actually I think it was the fact that the pooch took a notice of me that incited my onset of awkward and unwarranted paranoia. (I hadn’t done anything wrong. What was I worrying about?)

Well of course since the pup noticed me the human officer decides to speak to me. (by the way, I say pup but he was a full grown German Shepherd….. on steroids… super steroids… from space.) The exchange went like this.

Officer: Good morning sir.

Me: Good morning sir. (You always say “Sir” to an officer. Because they have batons and GUNS)

Officer: We’re just doing a routine check here. We’ve been told that kids like to hang out in the park area, do some underage drinking, and other things. There were also reports of drug use.

Me: Oh. Yeah I’ve seen them at the park late at night. I really didn’t think much of it. They just looked like noisy teenagers.

Officer: Have you noticed anything odd in your neighborhood lately?

Me: Honestly sir, I go to work and then come straight home. I generally keep to myself. (Internally I thought, “Aw crap. That’s going to land me on some sort of ‘watch this guy’ list.”)

Officer: You should be a little more aware of the happenings in the neighborhood, sir. We don’t know if something is happening until you tell us.

And with that they left. My butt unclenched, my genitals slowly came out of hiding, and I was able to move along.

I really need to move.

100 Things you most likely don’t want to know…… about me.

2008-01-31T09:06:00.000-08:00

Figured I'd do it too.....

1. I was born on December 25^th 1977. This was the exact day that Charlie Chaplin died. Every year I check to see which celebrities or important people died on my birthday. The most notable and recent was James Brown.

2. It is a common practice for me to withhold my “Merry Christmas” wishes to my family until they say “Happy Birthday” first. Being that I was born on a holiday people tend to forget that I’m even there. This includes my own father sometimes.

3. I am a geek through and through. I’ll never deny my geekhood. But for the sake of at least getting a girlfriend I do not revel in it. (Because no one loves a geek. So stop it!)

4. I have collected and viewed copious amounts of anime and foreign films. At one point I had a spreadsheet documenting it all.

5. An artist I be.

6. I still consider all my ex-girlfriends as good friends.

7. I can often be found haunting coffee shops. Very rarely will it be a mainstream shop. The smaller and locally owned shops are my favorite. They seem to have a lot more atmosphere and personality.

8. I will do odd jobs for free coffee. At one point I had made friends with the employees of a coffee shop I visited regularly. After a while I would help them in their closing procedures by mopping the floor and cleaning in exchange for a few cups of coffee.

9. I have very long slender fingers. Due to this people say that I should play the piano or guitar. Yet an artist I be.

10. I have been known to collect action figures. I also collect other strange or bizarre odds and ends.

11. I am a straight 30 year old male with four pet rabbits. A lot of people I know think that this is odd. They believe that rabbits are a very un-guy type of pet. Sometimes I agree with them but I’d never give up my bunny buddies. They call me “The Rabbit Whisperer” every now and then.

12. I like to mix up words to create a new one. It’s pretty much a brutal murder of the English language. But I enjoy it so much.

13. Lately (for about the past 4 years) I have a hard time sleeping at night. Even when I’m dead tired I’ll stay up to the wee hours of the morning just thinking.

14. Because of my difficulties sleeping I have started taking melatonin pills. They don’t help much unless I take more than 5.

15. I subsist on caffeine. From energy pills and drinks to coffee.

16. When I was around the age of 21 my friend Tom and I created what we called “Aggressive Coffee”. We took a percolator, brewed a pot of coffee, changed the grounds, and ran the coffee through again. We repeated this process a few more times. The result was us not sleeping and running rampant for about 2 days. I’ll make a pot of “Aggressive Coffee”. Sometimes just to see if someone can drink and stomach it.

17. I can drink a pint of rum (straight) and still be alright.

18. I have a super power in which I can drink (sometimes chug) any alcohol straight from the bottle and not vomit despite the taste.

19. The saying of “Beer before liquor, never been sicker. Liquor before beer, in the clear.” does not apply to me. No matter how the two are mixed I’ll end up either throwing up or passing out.

20. Even though I’m an unrepentant filthy smoker I refuse to smoke around children. Anytime I see a child about to pass me I’ll hold my breath until they pass. Anytime I see an adult carting a child and puffing away at a cigarette I get really pissed.

21. I collect the soundtracks to my favorite anime, movies, or shows.

22. In person I may seem standoffish or “angry”. But in truth I’m actually very friendly and somewhat shy.

23. I’m actually stronger, tougher, and more durable than I look.

24. Sometimes my life can be like an anime. Some of the most bizarre stuff happens to me.

25. When I’m drawing in a public place people will come up and compliment me. Sometimes I hate it. It feels like they’re just placating me or saying something just to talk.

26. Years ago I rolled my car. It flipped 4 times and I came out with a faint scar on my forehead and a new mindset. The type of mindset that would say, “What is, is. What shall be, shall be”. A friend called that Zen Stan. (She actually hated it.) “Zen Stan” comes out during times of extreme stress or unhappiness. Sometimes he helps and others he’s just a nuisance.

27. I have a lot of friends who will come to me for relationship advice. During those times I usually respond with, “Hello! Do you not realize who you’re talking to? I’m the single guy who lives alone!”. Even still, most of their problems and solutions seem to be very evident to me. Most likely because I am outside of the situation.

28. I dream in color. I don’t care what anyone says. I swear I dream in color. Vibrant and beautiful color.

29. All in all I consider myself just “average” in everything I do.

30. I can eat a pound of beef without an issue.

31. When I get drunk I like to cook. And even though I’m drunk I make some kick ass meals.

32. I have a hard time sleeping next to someone. There have only been 3 people in my life that I could sleep next to without an issue.

33. I’m not good with “open ends”. I have a bad habit of wanting closure and will haunt people until I achieve it.

34. I’ve never expected to be loved for who I am even though I believe I deserve to be loved. This stems from a very poor self esteem.

35. I hate it when people chew with their mouth open. I’m not talking about the standard. I mean when someone makes the above necessary smacking noises. This activates a very primitive response in me. My first desires are to start yelling and hitting. I become very volatile. I will glare at that person if I’m in the room. It takes a lot of will power for me to keep from shouting. The louder the sound the more ire is raised. If that person is the type to talk and breathe through their mouth while eating I become even more irate. Also if they start out chewing their mouthful with their mouth closed and end it with loud smacking sounds. (This one gets me because you’ve already shown that you CAN chew with your mouth closed. Therefore when you start with the annoying smacky smacky noises it feels like a challenge.) I also don’t like it when people make those mouth breathing or “mmpph” noises. I don’t know where this comes from.

36. When someone asks me what type of woman I’d prefer to date my usual and most honest answer is, “woman”.

37. I usually eat white rice with a little butter and sugar mixed in.

38. I’m a sucker for meat and potatoes.

39. I show more kindness, compassion, and tolerance for children or animals than I do for adults.

40. The first time I “liked” a girl was when I was in the latter half of the 1^st grade living in Michigan on K.I Sawyer Air force Base. Her name was Jennifer Zukowski (I can't remember if it was an A or a U in her last name). Every now and then on a lark I’ll Google her name just to see what I’ll find.

41. The second girl I liked was in the same area when I was in the 3^rd grade. Her name was Laurie. She used to verbally defend me because I was so soft spoken. We “3^rd grade dated” for about a month before deciding that it was “dumb”.

42. I didn’t kiss a girl on the lips until I was 17.

43. I didn’t lose my virginity until I was 21. (Even though I don’t really think I lost it. I believe I sold it for a pack of cigarettes, or gave it to a girl… or something like that.)

44. From 1992 till 2001 I wore a trench coat or duster all year round. Whenever someone joked around and called me part of the “Trench Coat Mafia” I’d get pissed. I still sport my coat from time to time. And I still get pissed when people mention the TCM.

45. I love boiled potatoes.

46. Some of my favorite animals are as follows (listed in order of my fondness of them): Wolf, Sloth, Rabbit, Squirrel, and the Pika.

47. I can’t stand to watch a foreign film dubbed. It’s got to be subtitled.

48. In a relationship I tend to give 100% even if the other person only gives 25%. This has been my downfall every time. You’d think I’d learn my lesson.. but nooooo. Obviously I’m an idiot.

49. I have been diagnosed with a “mild form” of Manic Depression. This is something that I haven’t even told my mother. (Now don’t you feel special?! You get to know something I haven’t told to many, even my own family.)

50. I get angry when people say “Japanimation”.

51. I will listen to almost any genre of music. My most favorite genre is Techno. My most hated are most Country, Rap, and R&B.

52. Because I’m black people tend automatically think that I like R&B, Rap, or that I’m a “thug”. I’m not.

53. As far as I know I am part African American, Native American, German, French, Spanish, Irish, and Indian. There’s probably more but my family hasn’t researched far enough back. The majority on both sides of my family is African American.

54. I’d pick werewolves over vampires any day.

55. I watch at least one movie every night.

56. I tend to wear all black or dark colors a lot. The moment I started wearing brighter colors or khakis my family and friends made such a big deal out of it that I went back to wearing black most of the time.

57. When I was a kid I watched, re-watched, and LOVED Berry Gordy’s “The Last Dragon”. That film had a profound affect on me as a child. I’m still trying to obtain “the glow”. In fact if you mention the movie to me I’ll grin and become very giddy.

58. I have personal space issues. The larger the crowd I’m in the bigger my personal space bubble becomes. This does not apply to my friends.

59. I am arachnophobic to the point of violence. If I see a spider inside my home I will hunt it until I kill it. The larger the spider the deader I make it. I have been known to victory dance on the corpse of a spider for a few minutes. (There was a time at my mother’s house where I was confronted by a spider as large as my hand. It looked like a wolf spider which I suspect came from the woods behind my mother’s house. The freakishly large thing took a phone book to the face and lived. I literally had to punch it to death. That’s no joke. I went feral and pounded the goliath into the carpet.)

60. I think that guys in pink polo shirts look stupid. That’s just my point of view. I’m sure there are people out there that think it’s great. I’m not one of those people.

61. The madder I get the quieter I get. This builds until I explode. It’s probably not healthy… but I do give warnings.

62. For some reason I can’t stand it when people walk around with the collar to their polo shirts flipped up.

63. Face talkers piss me off. The type of person that has to get in your face and way to close when you’re holding a normal conversation. That drives me nuts. I really don’t need to smell your breath in order to comprehend what you’re saying. This definitely applies to my friends. The only time you’re getting that close to my face is if we’re making out.

64. My family moved around quite a bit when I was younger. I’m originally from Kansas. (You can keep the Wizard of Oz jokes to yourself. I’ve heard enough of them.)

65. My travels have gone as follows: Kansas – Missouri – Maryland – Michigan – Kansas – Missouri – Maryland – New York – Maryland.

66. The last two moves I’ve made were because my mother (In Maryland) kicked me out and sent me to live with my father in New York. My father was unable to deal with me (I suffered from depression and whatnot) and sent me back to Maryland to live with my mother again.

67. When I lived in Missouri for the second time I was in the “All County Chorus” at the elementary school I went to (6^th grade).

68. I was the only black kid in my entire grade. It turned out that it was the same for my younger brother at the same school.

69. While I was in All County Chorus my music teacher had us sing “Dixie”. During that time she singled me out and asked me if I knew who wrote the song. When I said I didn’t know she said that because I’m black I should know. I went home later and told my father. He was not pleased and went to the school to have some very not pleased words with her. (By the way. Can anyone explain to me why the color of my skin should dictate that I should know who wrote what song?)

70. I started school when I was 4 (We lived in Maryland at the time and starting at that age was normal). When my family moved back to Kansas I ended up being younger than all the kids in my class (because they started at 5).

71. When I graduated the 5^th grade (we lived in Kansas at the time) I didn’t do so well. I barely scraped by. My family then moved to Missouri where my parents had the bright idea of having me repeat the 5^th grade instead of going to the 6^th. That pissed me off. And it still does.

72. Because of my parent’s deciding to have me repeat the 5^th grade I ended up older than all the kids in my class from then till I graduated high school.

73. Maryland is not particularly my most favorite place. It’s not horrible. But it’s not my favorite.

74. I can drink any type or brand of liquor till it makes me vomit, then go back and drink it the next day. For some reason that whole psychosomatic issue that tends to affect others doesn’t work on me. I’ve been told this is a gift. (Or I’m just a dirty booze hound.)

75. I am the Dark Overlord Of All.

76. Not too long ago I was shaving my head using electric clippers. I had slipped and shaved off my right eyebrow. At that point I decided to shave off the other.

77. Most people didn’t notice the missing eyebrows right away. They’d stare at me and say I looked different. Once I pointed out the eyebrows (or lack thereof) they would stare in utter shock and disbelief.

78. Secretly I loved the way people gawked at stared when they noticed the lack of eyebrows.

79. My eyebrows have grown back in and I am glad.

80. Sometimes I contemplate shaving them off again.

81. The song played during the very last fight scene in “The Last Dragon” still makes me giddy.

82. I try to live my life with no regrets. But there are still a few things that I really do regret. (No I’m not going to list them for you.)

83. I am a Community College dropout. Turns out that you really can’t major in “cafeteria”.

84. While attending community college in New York I joined the RPG/Anime club. While in this club I dressed in “garb”, participated in “larps”, and learned how to make “boffer swords” at an intermediate level. I can craft a weapon out of PVC pipe, foam, and duct tape. If I were in the Ultra Geek Scouts I’d already have my badge in crafting semi harmless archaic weapons.

85. I’ve never gone to work drunk.

86. But there have been times where I’ve been so hung over it hurts to think. Those are called “Your voice murders my soul and your stares burn my flesh. Don’t even consider looking at me or else I’ll disembowel you and lynch you with your own intestines” times.

87. I’m at number 87 and I’ve really been digging deep and desperate for things to list since number 29.

88. When I’m bored I will draw really odd pictures with captions that I refer to as the “Little Did You Know” series or odd pictures known as the “Herniated Sanity” series. Here are a few examples: LITTLE DID YOU KNOW and then HERNIATED SANITY

89. I have a younger half sister who I have never met. She is one year older than my full sister who is 8 years younger than me.

90. At the age of 28 I had to have a hernia surgery. I had a ruptures in my abdominal wall and my navel ring. I found out later that the type of hernia I had was common amongst pregnant women and body builders. (Through this I learned that working out or being pregnant are detrimental to one’s health.)

91. I actually like the sound of cicadas.

92. I witnessed the last emergence of the magicicada (17 year cicadas) in Maryland. I also hope that I witness the next one. (I also get a bit irritable when people refer to them as locusts. They are not locusts! Locusts look like grasshoppers and cicadas look like… well… freakish alien things.)

93. Whenever a small child asks me why I smoke, my first reply is “Because I’m stupid”. And I absolutely mean it when I say it.

94. I write poetry.

95. On my work email I receive a lot of spam messages regarding “growth” and increasing “size” in a matter of days with pills. I file these away to show the IT department and because I think the phrasing used in them is hilarious. (I found out that everyone at work has been getting the same emails.)

96. I have been accused of “seething”. For more information take a look at the link. (Conveniently posted just before this list.)

97. Can you tell that I’m really reaching now? I mean there’s only so much I can think to list. If this keeps up I’m just going to resort to listing my measurements, weight, and bathroom schedule. I might have to start making things up. Actually… It’s really not difficult trying to find something to list. The difficulty is in figuring out what to list. I’m not about to divulge every single dirty secret in my life for the whole world to see. (Actually I probably could. It’s not like there’s a ton of you guys reading this.)

98. The quickest and easiest ways to send me into an irrational rage are as follows: 1. Child abuse/neglect/murder. 2. Rape. 3. Throwing a spider of any type or size at me. (As long as you can abstain from doing these three things we can be friends. If not… well then I have to force feed you a brick or twenty.)

99. Sometimes I’ll tell stories of my imaginary wife. No really. I’m not kidding. I have an imaginary wife. Of course she’s pretty much useless as far as a domestic partnership is concerned. She doesn’t work or clean. (Well what would you expect?! She’s imaginary! But she’s so pretty… and she’s nice to me too! The way she looks changes from time to time.)

100. HOLY CRAP! It’s #100! So to cap it off… uh…. Um…. I love sushi. I went through a month where all I ate was sushi and miso soup. That was a very delicious and very expensive month. I’d do it again if I could.

So… I’m done now. That was actually really difficult. I might come back to add or edit this later…. Maybe.

Oh! So that's why!

2008-01-31T08:48:00.000-08:00

This is just a funny little conversation I wanted to post. It took place between my buddy Claire and myself over gmail chat.

me: hmm... interesting. We were emailing back and forth about random things and she asked if I had been in contact with (insert ex-girlfriend’s name). When I said no she said that I most likely make her uncomfortable. She says that I'm too nice even when I get hurt and people can still tell that underneath is something upset and seething.
heh... most likely why she never went out with me.
All that underneath seething and such.

Claire: well, there's really no denying that.
you should stop that
it makes people uncomfortable.
* snicker *

me: Didn't know I was "seething" underneath. Maybe I should change to giggling maniacally underneath.

Claire: that would probably make more people uncomfortable.

me: I think it's the "too nice" thing that unsettles people.
You know... they're waiting for something awful to happen.

Claire: what do you mean.

me: You know... when someone comes up and they're just too damn nice to you... you almost expect them to do something horrible after all that nice.
Didn't think I was "too nice" though.
I thought I'd been quite the rotten bastard as of late.

Claire: maybe she was just trying not to anger you and unleash the power of 'seething'

me: "I'm sorry Stan. I just can't date you. Oh god! Are you seething?!"

Claire: lol
no no, it's "seething"

me: I figure it’d go like this.

Girl1: So I told him that I couldn't date him
Girl2: How did he take that?
Girl1: He took it well. He was really sweet and understanding.
Girl2: Well that’s nice.
Girl1: And then he started “seething”…. Underneath.
Girl2: OMG! Underneath “seething”?! Are you serious?!
Girl1: I was so uncomfortable. He kept smiling and saying it was ok.. but..
Girl2: That “seething”…
Girl1: Yeah.. I could sense it behind his smile.
Girl2: What an ass!
Girl1: I know! Why couldn’t he just punch me in the face and let it go?!

That would be my thinly veiled attempt at comedy after hearing that under the surface I'm a creepy "seething" bastard.
I'm going to have to find a way to utilize this ability.

Claire: LOL
that's awesome.
you should open your eyes all WIDE and SMILE full teeth. see what they think of that.

It's like fairy dust... except not.....

2008-01-25T11:50:00.000-08:00

Sometimes “Reality” needs to remind you that you are its bitch. And I mean in a very prison sort of way. Occasionally I’ll call these “Bambi Moments”. The type of moments where everything is going great and suddenly it all turns on its end, you’re left wandering confused, and some schmuck claiming to be your father shows up and tells you that your mom is dead. (I mean really… I really felt sorry for Bambi. Not just because his mother died. But because his father, the supposed “Great Prince”, seems to be distant family abandoning jerk who’s very first words to the kid were to tell him that his mom’s gone. It’s a good thing that it was a Disney film or else the little guy would have grown up with some serious issues.) These are the types of moments where you don’t know whether to cry, scream, punch someone, or drink yourself into a coma. (Don’t do it Bambi. Don’t turn to the bottle.)

Moments like:

Driving home from a particularly good date and your car suddenly catches fire.

Being dumped while on vacation…. With her… and her friends…. In a beach house… more than a 10 hour drive away from home…. And you didn’t drive!

Finding out that your 50+ year old father is dating someone a year younger than you are. (Well that’s more of a “WTF Moment”)

“Job?... You don’t have it anymore.”

Those are all just examples. I’m sure some of you have more extreme or more tame Bambi Moments. But it doesn’t make them any less or more traumatizing. (Well maybe they do. But this is MY blog and therefore it’s all about ME.)

Fire?!

The reason why I’m bringing up “Bambi Moments” is because I nearly had one the other night. As I was being dropped off after work I noticed three little girls rushing out of my apartment building. Then I noticed the ominous smoke billowing inside of the building. (It has big glass doors for the main entrance.) Instantly I hit that bizarrely calm mindset (which is actually part of “Freak-out-mode”) where I formulated a strategy instantly. Granted it wasn’t the most rational strategy but whatever.

1. Rush into the building and find the fire alarm

2. Pull fire alarm

3. Rush into my apartment

4. Open the patio door.

5. Find the rabbit cages.

6. Carry the rabbits to safety!

7. Go back into what could now be a blazing inferno.

8. Save computer.

9. Call 911 (maybe should do that first?)

10. Watch building burn down into nothing but smoldering ashes.

11. Freak out

Yes I would save my rabbits before bothering to help my neighbors. Why? Because I like my bunnies more than I like my neighbors. I might try to help the elderly and small children. But definitely not the ghetto-licious tramp that stand in the hallway screaming into her cell phone at the wee hours of the morning. (with all that makeup on she’s probably fire retardant anyway. Although… all that pleather will melt and fuse with her skin.)

As I rushed into the building to fulfill step #1 I realized that it in fact was not smoke. It was an airborne powder substance which smelled AWFUL and made it very difficult to breathe. At that point I had the following thoughts race through my head:

“WTF?”

“The smell… it hurts!”

“What is this stuff?”

“It’s a powder but it sure as hell isn’t talcum.”

“Where did three little girls get a hold of so much powder?!”

“I hope this crap isn’t caustic.”

“Naw… there’s no way little kids could get a hold of something deadly so easily.”

“Oh crap!”

At this point I rushed out of the building and my brain quickly prioritized the list. It jumped straight to #9, skipped #10, and rested on #11 for about 30 minutes.

I waited outside of the building warning neighbors for about an hour. (AN HOUR!) When the fire engines with their flashy lights pulled up I was way beyond my freak out mode and standing in the middle of the all too surreal “acceptance mode”.

I’d like to say that ever since my car fire I’ve been very unimpressed with people who call the fire department or 911 and can’t give even semi decent directions on where the chaos is. This has happened to me twice so far. The first time was the car fire in which a gentleman pulled over (turns out he was an off duty firefighter.) and called his department which was right up the street. Unfortunately there was a none too bright onlooker heading down rte. 29 south who phoned in right after. You see where this is a problem right? Being that my car is a blazing inferno on rte. 29 NORTH and the 2^nd caller told them that it was on 29 SOUTH, the truck went in the WRONG direction. (Oh and I also blame the dispatch. I mean who would you believe? The guy who called in first who you KNOW works for your station, or the rubbernecking moron who calls in second and reports it in a different direction?)

Back to the powder story.

Someone had called the fire department after I did and gave them the WRONG address which took the fire truck to the other side of that apartment complex. The driver then spent the remaining time searching until they came across the group standing outside of my building. (Thanks random do gooder who can’t get directions or addresses right. It was VERY cold out there.)

A single man jumps from the fire engine and strolls (casually mind you. Casually strolls as if it’s a sunny day in the park) into the building without saying a word to me. I watch as he looks around half heartedly as if he were in someone’s crappy yard sale. When he emerged from the building he walked directly to me. (Most likely because I flagged him down when he walked out of the building.)

“Would you happen to know what that stuff is?” I asked when he got into ear shot.

“Yeah.” That was it. Just a “yeah”.

I realized that maybe I should be precise in my questioning.

“Could you tell me what it is please?” I wasn’t being a smart ass. I was being concerned. I had been in the building, breathed some of it in, and was at that point coughing up phlegm every 10 minutes.

“It’s extinguisher chemical.” He said plainly and with a “duh! You should know this” look on his face.

You see that word in bold right there? That word by isn’t very frightening. But in the right conversation or situation it scares the crap out of people. My brain did some quick word math and came up with this:

Chemical + Lungs =…. (drum roll)….. -You

(I know that was complicated so let me put it into layman’s terms for you…. DEATH)

“Chemical?” I coughed (alot).

“Sir, you have nothing to worry about. It’ll just take a while for your lungs to clear out.”

I’d like to take this time to also state that I am very unimpressed with most “emergency responders” inability to not act as if someone’s crisis is no more than a minor annoying inconvenience to them. Sure it’s good to keep a calm and level head. But when you hit that point where you come off as nonchalant or apathetic you just seem like an asshole. Even if the situation isn’t dire, a touch of compassion in your voice or face does a lot.

“You’re sure?” I asked, because his blank face really wasn’t convincing me. That and I wonder how often he breathed the stuff in.

“Yes sir. As long as you didn’t breathe in mass amounts you should be fine.”

I had thought about asking him what he considered “mass amounts” were. Hell! to me, one breathe of that stuff was a mass amount. It was definitely more than I wanted. I decided not to ask. At that point I hacked up yet another large lung cookie, pulled a cigarette out, and lit up. It was then that he stared at me in utter disbelief as I stood there hacking batter and smoking.

After the building aired out, the powder settled, and I deemed it to be a non Bambi Moment I went inside and began another movie night. (After showering. That extinguisher powder really coats thing well.) I also verbally reaffirmed with the rabbits that they would be the first I save in a crisis situation….. unless I have a girlfriend. The rabbits visually reaffirmed that they will continue to look cute while being rescued in a crisis situation.

So since there was another movie night that means I’m going to write about. Much to your dismay.

Finding Neverland

This is an excellent movie. I down settled down expecting to see some blah blah boring documentary smothered in the glitz of Hollywood glamour. You know what I’m talking about. The type of stuff you watch and realize it’s a boring dried turd rolled in honey and sprinkled generously with sparkling caustic fairy dust manufactured in some third world sweat shop. (Go figure.. my word processor has no idea how to spell “turd”.) What I found was in fact something sparkling and beautiful and it didn’t smell faintly of poo. (Oh look. It can’t spell “poo” either. Curse you spell check.. CURSE YOU!) The movie essentially is a documentary slathered in Hollywood sauce. But they did a very good job of it.

I had been warned by a friend that the movie was boring. In fact she said that she hated it because she didn’t want or need to know “the back story”. And after watching the film I can say, “Woman! You’ve got no heart, no curiosity, or no sense of imagination. I listen to you no more!”. I’m really glad I didn’t listen to her. This movie was gold to me. The entire cast was excellent and the story (a true one mind you) was great. There were a few parts in there that were meant to be tear jerkers. Scenes meant solely and explicitly to squeeze the heart hard and force the tear ducts to react in urinating down your face. They were easily recognizable scenes to us stone cold bitter bastards. (Ok… so I wept… only a little though. Come one! It was near the end! It was sooooo touching. They were tears of joy… I swear. Shut up! I know what you’re thinking!)

The movie is about Sir James M. Barrie. (You will refer to him as “Sir”!) A playwright who finds himself down and out (I’m sensing a theme in the movies I watch) and lacking inspiration after a play of his flops. On a walk in the park with his dog he happens across a widow and her four young boys, who become his muse and impetus to write the beloved story of (If you haven’t guessed it yet) “Peter Pan”.

(Did you know that Peter Pan was actually where the name “Wendy” began?.... HA! I did… a long time ago. That makes me better than you if you didn’t know. BETTER THAN YOU!)

Of course I learned tons of Life Lessons from this film. But I really think that if I have to point them out to you then you’re beyond dense.

Oh ok… I’ll write a few.

Life Lessons:

1. It’s all about the imagination and magic.

2. Wait for the fairy dust you moron!

3. Kate Winslet and four boys can cure writer’s block.

That’s it for now. If you can’t gather any Life Lessons from this movie then you’re really lame…….. or a zombie.

Sin City

Do I really have to say anything about this movie?!

I swear, if you haven’t seen it then you’ve most likely been living under a rock. (Probably the same I was hiding and boozing under for a couple of years. Well at least I saw this movie when it hit the theaters. What’s your excuse, lame-tard?!...... I’m waiting….. Shut up! Your excuses and bantering mean nothing to me! Go watch this movie now!)

So, this movie is great! I’d give those of you who haven’t seen it a synopsis, but I’m really disappointed in the fact that you haven’t seen it yet.

I have gotten a few Life Lessons from it all. I’m feeling kind enough to post them.

Life Lessons:

1. Punching your partner is probably a bad idea.

2. An old slightly paunchy bastard can still get a hot chick. (You just have to wait.)

3. Even old slightly paunchy bastards can be badasses.

4. You really don’t need makeup to make Mickey Rourke a scary mo-fo. (But it does help to inspire extreme pants soiling.)

5. Killing a hooker may end up in you getting shot. And that’s not good.

6. Can’t kill a man without knowing for sure you ought to.

7. Hot women are in color while everything else is black and white.

8. Make sure that blonde hooker doesn’t have a twin sister, or else you’re gonna get a nasty pistol whipping.

9. An inversed “Charlie Brown” sweater equals an ass kicking.

10. Look out! Evil Frodo is sneaking up on you!

11. Frodo WILL kick your ass.

12. Mickey Rourke+Guard Dog=PETA on your ass!

13. Guard dogs are nothing to Mickey Rourke.

14. Boobs!

15. Goldie worked the clergy.

16. When a large man asks for rubber tubing, razor wire, and gloves…

17. Marv is badass!

18. Beware the phrase, “That there is one damn fine coat you're wearin'.”!

19. A nutjob’s guard dogs can be your friends.

20. The name “Kevin” should make you crap yourself in fear.

21. A hatchet to the nuts is a world of pain. And really not funny except for the guy with the hatchet.

22. Frodo really scares me now.

23. ok really? Boobs!

24. The name Dwight should make you crap yourself.

25. Tar pits and sewers are not your friend.

26. If Josh Hartnet says he loves you…. RUN!

27. Hookers scare me now.

28. It’s a very big mistake not to flush.

29. Pez dispensers can be funny, gross, and scary all the same time.

30. Rescue little girls in trouble. They might turn into Jessica Alba later.

31. You can use quotes from this movie for anything that happens in your life.

There! You happy now?! Go watch the freaking movie!

(I actually had to watch Sin City just to balance myself out after Finding Neverland.)

"Waltzing Matilda" is not dancing with a girl...

2008-01-21T14:12:00.000-08:00

I don’t really have much to say blog-wise at the moment.

Actually I have a lot to say. But I don’t have the proper amount of time to type it all up. I’ll do it later (I be at the werkin place right now). But to keep you guys (the miniscule amount who actually read my blog) happy, I’ve posted another “Movie Night” blah blah blah ranty rant. Yes, last night I sat around and movie gawked again. This one is complete with LIFE LESSONS!

Enjoy… or not. I really couldn’t care less.

Movie Night 01/20/08

Leon: The Professional

This isn’t the first time I’ve seen this movie. I have to admit that it must be around the 30^th time I’ve watched it. This movie is (once again) great! There are a few scenes of “WTF?!” in there, but don’t worry, it all works out in the end.

The movie was written and directed by Luc Besson. The wonderful man who brought us “The Fifth Element”. (I swear if you talk crap about that movie I’ll do something horrible like delivering empty threats and weeping at how you just don’t understand.) With a cast of Jean Reno (a spectacular actor), Danny Aiello, Gary Oldman (HOLY CRAP! Isn’t that just freaking badassed awesomeness?!), a very young Natalie Portman, and a plant (don’t ask me. I didn’t make the film.).

Jean Reno plays a lonely, awkward, and illiterate Italian gentleman living in NYC (Leon). His life is fairly simple as a “cleaner” until he meets a mildly abused and misguided youth played by a very young Natalie Portman (Her character’s name is Mathilda. I swear every time I read or hear that name I instantly think of the song “Waltzing Matilda”. It’s not funny. And at the same time it is. You try watching a action movie while that song plays in your head.). By the way, the plant is played by a plant. During the course of events Leon ends up rescuing her after her craptastic parents are killed by a corrupt cop, played by Gary Oldman (I rank him up there with Christopher Walken. This man is badass at any part he plays. And any villain he plays is of course scary and badass in a beautiful “Oldman-style” mixture of creepy-awesome-disturbing. Did I mention that he’s awesome?). Somehow (most likely due to Hollywood script writing and magic) Mathilda (there’s that damn song in my head again) convinces Leon to aid her in her quest for vengeance.

I did manage to glean some helpful life lessons from this movie.

Live Lessons:

1. If someone with a gun tells you to go back inside… you should probably go back inside.

2. You just can’t deny a young weeping bloody nosed Natalie Portman.

3. I love Mozart! He was Austrian you know?

4. The team up of a tall Italian man and a little girl is heartfelt and dangerous. (seem familiar?)

5. Charades can be uncomfortable and bizarre.

6. Leon is an effing badass character!

7. Love your plant. It will be your best friend.

8. Tall Italian guys aren’t just suave. They can also be creepy and ninja-like stealthy. Try not to piss them off if you can.

9. No women, no children.

10. Milk does a “cleaner” good.

11. Stop saying “OK” all the time.

12. Coughing up you milk gets really annoying after a while.

13. Never get personal. That shit gets you shot. And that’s not fun.

14. Highwaters just aren’t cool. Even on badass people.

15. Never leave a 12 year old girl alone. She’ll talk all sorts of bizarre shit when you’re gone.

16. The ring trick equals a whole lot of hurt feelings!

17. Remember to always saran wrap your money.

18. I haven’t got time for this Mickey Mouse bullshit!

19. Little girls have vicious potty mouths.

20. “Transformers” = “Thoughts of revenge.”

21. Don’t buy presents for little girls. Eventually someone will want to have a word with you.

22. It’s not what you think, sicko!

23. Revenge is not good once you’re done. It’s better you forget. Believe me.

24. “Little Girl Games” are really screwed up!

25. Never piss off a 12 year old girl.

26. Just don’t go shooting out the window.

27. Aim for the heart and lungs.

28. Champagne makes 12 year old girls act like morons. Freaking lightweights!

29. Little girl vs. corrupt cop usually ends in failure.

30. An angry cleaner vs. a swat team always ends in victory.

31. Eric Serra is to Luc Besson as Danny Elfman is to Tim Burton.

32. I bought my little sister that same “popular” choker as a present. Oh wait… it was around the same time this movie came out. Turned out that it was too small. Great! Now I feel old and my sister feels like she’s fat.

33. Never ever confront Gary Oldman in the restroom.

34. Security guards never suspect a little girl working as a delivery person.

35. For some reason, in NYC, Italian food delivery is very suspicious.

36. This is something personal, is it?

37. I’ve had way too many beers to be writing anything coherent.

38. Why are you still reading this?

39. Gary Oldman alone in a room with someone makes me worry for the safety of humanity.

40. (Once again) No women, no kids.

41. I’ve had 6 beers and I can still type without backspacing on every other word!

42. Gary Oldman has a character named “Stan” in this film. My nickname is “Stan”. For some reason this disturbs the shit out of me.

43. Never apprehend little girls for toting guns. Eventually someone shoots you. And that’s not pleasant.

44. Feed your damn plant!

45. Teh womenz = teh hedgames.

46. Afterwards they started liking it. Like cigarettes.

47. You can’t stop love. (Whatever the hell that bullshit means.)

48. 500 feet with a lense.

49. Having a birthday party means you’re going to get the shit beat out of you.

50. Knocking codes come in handy.

How can you go wrong with life lessons like that?

This movie is also where I was first introduced to the song “Shape of My Heart” by Sting. This is one of my favorite songs. (Shut up! I know what you’re thinking! You shut your filthy whore mouth!)

I’m done now.

If you don’t mind, I’m going to go “waltzing matilda”.

01/17/08 Movie Night!

2008-01-18T12:51:00.000-08:00

I tend to watch at least one movie every night. This is mainly because I have no cable, and for the time being my internet connection is nonexistent. Since it is usually while I attempt to do the typing of the blog thing I tend to want to write or talk about it. (usually write. Heaven forbid I decide to talk about it. Then you might get a phone call at 1 AM while I ramble or rant about it with a few beers in my system and a decidedly psychotic edge in my slightly slurred voice.) With that I’ve decided that I will punish you all with what I have to say about the movies I watch each night.

Yes, I know that I’ll most likely fall through and not post every day about the movie I watched. It’s very difficult keep to a schedule like that. Well it is for me… because I’m LAZY. But I’ll do my best. If there happens to be a day without a “I watched this movie” post then that means that I actually got out of the house to be social (yeah.. right), ended up watching an extremely bad movie and don’t want to relive the shame, passed out while watching the movie, I spent the night trying to kill unicorns, or I’m just a lazy bastard. I’ll most likely also post “Life Lessons” that I caught while watching the film. They’re usually very subtle and take a trained eye to catch. (usually because I’m bored, lonely, and looking for anything to keep me from thinking/realizing that I’m sitting around in my apartment with 4 rabbits and no company watching movies all night.) BTW there will most likely be spoilers.

Unluckily for you Thursday was a double! That’s right. I’m going to rant about 2 movies.

The first is “Man on Fire”. This is a phenomenal film. If you haven’t seen it then I DEMAND that you stop reading, rush out to buy/rent it, and watch it now. No.. I’m not kidding. WATCH IT NOW!

The cast contains Denzel Washington, Dakota Fanning, Marc Anthony, Mickey Rourke, Radha Mitchell, and Christopher Walken. Did you see that?! Christopher Walken! Just from that alone this movie is already platinum! I mean think about it. Christopher Walken and Denzel Washington in the same movie? At last I have a movie I can watch with my mother. She’s a diehard Denzel fan, and I’ll watch anything Walken related. Bonding moments abounds! There’s also an actor in it named Jesus Ochoa. Jesus is in one of my most favorite films! It’s like having Heaven’s blessing. (yes I know that it’s not pronounced the same way but it’s close enough for me.) There’s also some other big namers in there that I may have forgotten. (because it’s all about the Walken-Washington team up!)

So anyway… The movie is about a down and out burned-out alcoholic non-kid-friendly CIA operative named John Creasy, (Not played by Dakota Fanning in case you’re wondering. Although that would make it even more interesting) played by Denzel Washington (My mom loves him and he is awesome). Creasy, as he’s called, ends up finding his old buddy Paul Rayburn who is played by Christopher Walken (TEH AWESOME!). Through his connection with Rayburn, Creasy (who makes up these names?! I would have named him “John Badass-Buttkicker.) lands a job as a personal bodyguard for a nine year old girl named Pita Ramos who is played by Dakota Fanning (happy now?!). Through Hollywood magic and script writing Creasy begins to become more and more human, also closer to little Pita (It’s not what you think you sicko!). That is until the day that Pita is kidnapped. Hell, rage, and vengeance break loose as Creasy hits the warpath to bring Pita home.

The acting, action, and ass kicking are top notch in this film. I also (as you’ve guessed) learned many life lessons. And here they are.

Life Lessons:

1. There is a kidnapping every 60 minutes in Latin America.

2. If you’re the kid of a rich person in Latin America (Mexico) you’ll most likely end up half naked on the highway missing your clothes and one ear.

3. Even when dressed up in a suit, Mickey Rourke is a scary mutha!

4. Naming your kid “Pita” is just stupid. It’s a freaking bread. Who names there kid “bread”?! Oh wait. The actual name is Lupita, which is a far cry better than “Bread”.

5. Dakota Fanning is creepy. With her blue eyes, blonde hair, big smile, and above kid-average intelligence she’s like the perfect kid. And that creeps me out all to hell.

6. Naming your teddy bear after your bodyguard is a bad idea.

7. In certain religions there seems to be a saint for everything. Even business.

8. If you’re not an American it’s probably unwise to marry an American woman. They end up being nothing but demands and trouble.

9. Never vacation in Mexico City. Especially if you’re rich. (See #1 for reason why.)

10. I can vacation in Mexico without worry of kidnapping because I’m poor and my family is too. All you’ll get from me is screaming, crying, and soiled pants.

11. It is unwise to piss off Denzel Washington.

12. “Blue Bayou” may bring back nostalgia, but it will piss you off after a while.

13. Driving in Mexico City seems to be just like driving in NYC. Pack a gun and a bad attitude when in either place.

14. Radha makes pants tight.

15. “Claire de Lune” is a very soothing song. Almost too soothing.

16. Calling your best buddy at the wee hours of the morning about a bad primer is probably a case of poor judgment. Don’t be that guy.

17. Heaven ain’t closed in a place like this…

18. A team up of a big black man and little white girl is heartfelt and dangerous.

19. Forced piano lessons for a little girl are a sentence for terror and kidnapping.

20. The emperor of China had 1000 concubines.

21. Denzel is the perfect swimming coach.

22. Bring it back down, bring it back down tonight….

23. If you wake up bound to your steering wheel it’s ok to crap yourself.

24. Christopher Walken is freaking awesome in any role he plays.

25. Saint Jude is the patron saint of lost causes. (see #7.)

26. You can quit your alcohol problem in one day as long as you have the bible and a little white girl on your side.

27. Marc Anthony is a bastard. Never trust him.

28. Belching really pisses off any pro pianist trying to teach you.

29. Shooting Denzel is not going to keep him from hunting you down and doing horrible things to you.

30. I’m going to kill them. Anyone who was involved, anyone who profited from it, anyone who opens their eyes at me.

31. You kill them all.

32. Never ever ever piss off a mother.

33. Plastic explosives, a timer, a detonator, a pager, duct tape, and a charger can equal up being a world of laughter and fun.

34. A wad of cash and a shotgun will get you into any rave you want.

35. If you’re from Jersey, don’t open a rave in Mexico. Denzel will come for you.

36. “Who’s the boss?!”

37. Living in a protected compound and traveling by motorcade doesn’t save you from vengeance.

38. The church says to forgive. But it’s easier and much more fun to use a bazooka.

39. Having a chronic case of the “ass blasters” is not fun. Yet extremely hilarious.

40. I wish you had more time.

Well that’s all I have for “Man on Fire”. Once again, it is an excellent film!

OMG! It must be Denzel Washington night. My mom would be proud.

Now for the next movie. Which is also a great one. There’s no “Life Lessons” for this one. Mainly because I’m lazy.

Movie number 2 is “Out of Time”.

First I have to say that this movie seems to be chocked full of just enough “SEXY”. With Denzel Washington, Dean Cain, Sanaa Lathan, and Eva Mendes this movie has enough sexy to keep someone hot and bothered for days.

Denzel constantly drips and reeks of “I’m Denzel Washington. I’m a suave sexy mutha! The ladies love my Denzel style”. And this movie has some “Denzel Style” in it. (Shut up! Just because I’m calling a man attractive doesn’t mean anything. I am perfectly comfortable with my sexuality…. Whatever that may be. *I like girls*)

Dean Cain is simply Dean Cain. Men and women alike make with the loving of him. I mean he’s freaking Superman in the Lois and Clark series. And he makes a damn fine super being! (actually I really hated Lois and Clark. Almost as much as I dislike Smallville. So out of spite I’m going to have to revoke Dean’s “sexy” status. He’s still a good actor though.)

Sanaa Lathan and Eva Mendes are just too damn HOT for words. Throughout the whole movie I kept tossing and turning between the two. I was constantly left wondering WWDD? (That means, “Who Would Denzel Do?”) As it turns out… it’s both! And I heartily agree.

The plot of the film is interesting. It has it faults and flaws but it was still a good film. There are a few moments where you’re wondering, “What will Denzel do next?”. Unfortunately those really aren’t the grippers and keepers. The moments that really kept me in this movie are moments where I was thinking, “Holy Crap Eva! You may be hot as all get out, but how dumb can you be?” (granted her character was written that way for the film). There’s too many scenes where everyone and their grandmother knows what’s going on other than poor deliciously sexy Eva. But even still I was enthralled. My kudos to the director and writer for me keeping entertained just enough. I really must say that the movie is a good watch. If you ever get the chance please settle down with a bowl of popcorn, Chex Mix, or kitten heads and take a gander.

You know, I just realized that I didn’t say much about the actual movie. And I don’t really care. (It’s not like I’m being paid for this)

And that is all I have to say for now.

Unemploymentation!!

2008-01-16T05:39:00.000-08:00

2007 brought you great hits like:

Car-b-que on Rte. 29 North

Emission Test Failure

Debt ain’t nothing but a 4 letter word

Converters of the Catalytic Kind

What happens in Vegas gets puked up in the toilet

Crank Sensor Deprivation

I know why the debt collector calls

She turns left and I clip her rear (I wasn’t flirting)

Dumped while stuck in a beach house on vacation with her and her friends

I’m drunk and still the most responsible person here

No money means no gas and electricity

Debt Collectors do it from behind

Seeing Unicorns again (Inside joke)

Well now 2008 starts like a bang with the smash hit:

Unemploymentation!

That’s right kiddies! I get to rock out to the wonderful tune of joblessness. I know you’re jealous. I can see you turning green from here. And what a lovely shade it is. It reminds me of money. That which I will run out of quickly.

At the moment I’m not completely let go. They’ve given me a 5 month “grace” period. My manager was kind enough to give me this time when I told him that my lease on the apartment was up in June. And I repaid his kindness by not freaking out and destroying things.

There’s something sobering and all too “real” when your boss pulls you into his office, closes the door, and says “You might want to take a seat for this”. It seems that I was not performing up to snuff in my duties. Funny thing about that. I had thought I was improving. And as it turns out in the corporate world, no one tells you that you suck until it’s pink slip day. Luckily (and unluckily) for me my manager gave me the option of turning in my resignation.

I can’t really be pissed at anyone other than myself. Somewhere somehow I screwed up. Perhaps more than once. But due to that I’m being canned. (Or being asked for my resignation if you will. You know it’s like being told “You suck so bad we feel sorry for you. We’re going to dump your sorry ass but to make you feel better about yourself we’ll let you beg to be let go. Go ahead, beg. BEG FOR YOUR UNEMPLOYMENT!”) In a really bizarre way I relate it to when I was a kid seeing Bambi for the first time. I felt just about the same emotions when I heard “You’re mother can’t be with you anymore”. Sadness, pain, rage, and oddly enough the urge to drink myself into a coma. (funny how when you’re a little kid you seem to want to drink yourself into a coma when hit with really bad news. Go figure. Little kids are just really screwed up in the head!)

Last night I had a couple of beers and watched King Kong. The Peter Jackson version. I never saw it when it hit the theaters and figured I should watch it when I saw the DVD case at my mom’s house. (Mainly because I have no cable or suitable TV reception at my apartment. I also needed something to keep me occupied after having been told the aforementioned news.) It’s not a horrible movie. It’s got Jack Black in it, and giant gorilla fighting three (not one or two but THREE! Count them! THREE!) T-rexes! I mean who could ask for anything better. I especially love the part at the end where Kong looks at Anne with this look that says “Dammit woman! You’re nothing but trouble!”. There’s also tons of life lessons in this film. Lessons such as:

1. Skull Island is a shitty vacation spot.

2. Natives always pick a blonde haired white girl for sacrifice.

3. When the shit hits the fan the coolest black guy is going to die.

4. Cheap and corny vaudeville acts will soothe or entertain the savage beast.

5. Ultra large centipedes creep the hell out of me!

6. Just because a woman is running around through a prehistoric jungle in nothing but her nightgown doesn’t mean you’ll see boobies or even a nipple.

7. I like big butts and I cannot lie.

8. Screaming in a high pitched shrill tone will summon more T-rexes. But also Kong to your rescue.

9. A group of three T-rex would rather go after a tiny bite of a human rather than a full course meal such as a giant silver back gorilla.

10. Vines are your friend.

11. Giant prehistoric bat things are not your friend.

12. When in trouble and vines are not being very friendly, a giant prehistoric bat thing is your only hope.

13. You other brothers can’t deny.

14. Blondes fall in love with anything large, hairy, loud, and smelly. You just have to defend the blonde from hungry dinosaurs first.

15. Never trust Jack Black.

16. Any sort of gigantic bug creep the hell out of me. Even giant crickets!

17. Where have all the cowboys gone?

18. Punching something that resembles a giant nasty bloodworm or tapeworm is no good.

19. Jack Black can certainly kick much of the giant bug ass!

20. My mother will always call in the middle of the movie for no reason whatsoever.

21. Kong is not impressed by your pathetic CG induced juggling skills.

22. Sleeping in the arms of a giant gorilla while far away from home in a prehistoric wilderness is very comfortable.

23. Monkeys like to climb anything tall. Trees, mountains, or buildings. It’s their thing.

24. Blonde chicks get giant gorillas in trouble.

25. A gigantic silver back gorilla can stomp the crap out of three (once again count it! Three! Freaking 3!) T-rexes, but is prey to old lame and inaccurate guns mounted on a biplane.

With those hidden messages of guidance who could go wrong in their lives?! And now I wait for the King Kong versus Godzilla remake.

Well that’s pretty much all I have at the moment. I’ll probably have more to say later.

Until then, all you blonde girls remember that Kong LOVES you!

(Better stock up on the chloroform ladies.)

Anger muffins and Lead Pipe Lunches

2008-01-11T14:01:00.000-08:00

Monday:

I stopped by mom’s house after work. You just have to love “Mom’s”. It’s the best damn restaurant/grocery store there is. Well because the food is usually free. Well as far as monetary concerns go. My mother, I have to do chores such as mow the lawn, fix something, or lift something heavy. Oh and I also have to wash my dishes. But that’s a small price to pay, well until something gets pulled or strained.

So I was dining happily (on a very delicious salmon) and making good use of mother’s cable connection. My sister and my mother stroll into the room flop on the couch and drop a bomb on me. The type of bomb that makes you drop your fork and stare slack jawed while your brain races at a million miles per hour with different variations of “WTF did they just say?!”. While I’d love to go into detail what family news was unleashed upon me I cannot. It’s not my story to tell. Well at least not yet. But truthfully the confusion starts on Sunday.

My mother had called while I was at Inq’s place. The phone rang 11 AM while we were all still dozing happily in our inebriated slumber. I’m sure you all know that after a night of drinking and 5 hours of sleeping the last thing you want is to be woken by someone calling your cell phone. (BTW I have the same ring tone as the main character from “OldBoy”. I believe the name of the tune is “Cries and Whispers”. For those of you who have seen OldBoy you’ll understand how freaking awesome that is. Anyway…) Unfortunately when mom is on her cell she talks unnecessarily loud. This makes for a very grumpy time in the morning. Not the first conversation you want in the morning. The conversation goes as such (mind you all the mom parts are LOUD):

Me: Hello?

Mom: Hey!

Me: Hi mom.

Mom: Where are you?

Me: I’m at Inq’s place. I crashed here last night.

Mom: Oh, well do you think you could be home in about 30 minutes? There’s something I need to talk to you about.

Me: I doubt it. We went to bed about 5 hours ago, Inq drove me, and he lives more than an hour away.

Mom: Oh. Well nevermind then. We’ll talk about it later.

Me: What’s up? Is something wrong?

Mom: No no. It’s nothing traumatic. It’s not critical we talk today.

Me: No really mom… what’s up? Is something wrong?

Mom: It could be good or bad.. depending on how you look at it. It’s something that will affect you in the future.

Me: What? Just tell me please. You’re freaking me out.

Mom: I’d rather not talk about it on the phone. We’ll talk about it later.

Me: And now I’m worried.

Mom: Don’t worry. We’ll talk about it later. Come over on Monday for dinner. And don’t go trying to question around to find out.

Me: You’re being kinda cryptic and elusive. I don’t like this.

Mom: Monday.

Telling someone not to worry and then not telling them what’s going on is giving them a free plane ticket to Manic-Freak-Out-Land. My family is always like this. If they can’t get you face to face on the spot there’s always sort of cryptic bizarre message. It’s like being related to mystery novel writers. Something goes down and you have nothing but bread crumbs and oddly related clues until you come to the end of their machinations. That’s when you suddenly find out that it was the butler in the bathroom with a toothpick.

There will be more to this later.

Tuesday:

I was at the coffee shop drawing happily when I caught a glimpse of a face I hadn’t seen in a long long time. It was my friend Suzie. She’s a sweet girl who I met when she was 13. I used to work with her older sister, Jenn, at a bookstore called Bibelot. (Bibelot is French for small trinket or treasure. It’s also French slang for testicles.) Jenn was a lot of fun. We were both supervisors. She would bring her sister to work with her a couple of days each week. Those were always awkward days. Suzie is and was a somewhat artistic type. Once she found out that I made with the arts stuffs she would tail me. I’m not talking about having a shadow. I mean it was like having a growth that suddenly sprouted. You’d cut it off but a few times each week it would grow back. And it talked! A million words a minute talking. The type without breathes or pauses about topics you couldn’t care less about. A few times I managed to dump her back into her sister’s care. But sooner or later she ended up standing next to me prattling on and on.

Anyway, I had run in to Suzie and the told me that she worked at the Game Stop a couple of shops down. As it turns out she works with my old friend Yarnell. Yarnell is someone that I knew from high school. He and I used to get along great unlike most of my other high school “peers”. I strolled with Suzie back to her place of employment because Yarnell was working at the time. As I strolled into the store I came across another classmate. I will call him OE (yes those would be initials). I’d like to state that sometimes (most times) I really despise running to into my old high school classmates. The moment I walked in I realized who it was and I remembered my hatred for him instantly. He looked up with glazed over eyes and smiled. There were the usual greetings and handshakes. OE shook my hand and continued to talk as if we used to hang out as the best of friends in high school. (see where I’m going with this?) I guess for some, when they leave the Thunder Dome known as high school they forget things. And some of us don’t forget. (The majority of you I hate. HATE!) OE used to torment and torture me. I was just some chunky art freak and OE was a “jock” on the lacrosse, basketball, and football teams. He was an oversexed muscled up asshole. Day after day he would push, shove, spit on, beat up, or chase anyone smaller than himself, myself included. But now that time has passed he seems to have forgotten those moments. And I must say that perhaps the influences and vices he has caused the lapses in his memory.

OE prattled on and on as if I were not one the kids he harassed and beat back then. Glassy eyed and slurred speech he twitched and scratched his unkempt beard constantly. One thing I did notice was that in high school he was so much bigger and stronger than me. And now I am taller, more toned, and stronger than he is. (I found out the strength issue when I shook his hand. His grip was shaky and weak.) After a while of chatting, me mainly talking to Yarnell, I decided to depart. OE’s twitching and scratching was getting on my nerves. Our parting went like this:

Me: I’m taking off.

Yarnell: Take care man.

Me: You too.

Suzie: Oh… do you have to go? You could come to the club with my boyfriend and me. We’d have a lot of fun! You can crash at our place if you want.

Yarnell: Naughty!

Me: Thanks but I have to get up at the butt crack of dawn. And I am not a club type person. Unless it involves an actual club for which is used to dispense with the beatings profound. I’ll catch you guys later.

OE: *incoherent mumbling* Maybe I’ll see you again.

Me: I hope not.

OE: *scratching and stumbling* What?

Me: I don’t know what you on man, but if you even remotely believed that we were or are friends you are wandering a world of confusion. You treated me like shit in high school. And I despise you. I have a serious fully engorged hate-on for you. And lets face it you never liked me either.

Yarnell: *whispered* The hell?

OE: What? *twitch* I don’t… what?

Me: I’m not glad I ran into you again. Every time I look at you I get angry. Being that I don’t want to be arrested for force feeding you a brick I’d rather not run into you ever again.

(At this point OE shirks away from me and I derive so much pleasure from it. Idle threats go a long way.)

Yarnell: You alright man?

Me: Yarnell lets be honest. The next time I see skeletal ass monkey he’s most likely going to be asking me if I have any change. Then I’ll get angry. Because I saw him and he had the nerve to speak to me. And then comes the brick eating. I do NOT have fond buddy buddy memories of him and would like to go back to forgetting that he exists. And he can go back to rotting away.

(At this point Suzie is staring in disbelief at what is playing out around her.)

I really think that OE actually didn’t remember or know who I am. I was just a familiar face. But at the same time I garnered a delightful amount of pleasure from the incident. (yes I know that picking on a crack head is probably very petty. But dammit! I’ll get my vengeance when and where I can. Don’t you judge me!)

I don’t know what it is about running into assholes from high school. Every time they act as if you were good friends or at least chummy on some level. It’s like they’ve forgotten that they made someone’s life hell for 8 hours a day for 4 years. Maybe they haven’t forgotten. Maybe they’re hoping that their prey from high school doesn’t remember. If so, that’s both insulting and STUPID.

If I had spent 4 years torturing someone and ran into them on the street years later I would NOT go out of my way to speak to them. I would actively avoid them because my sense of self preservation is too strong. And if they saw me I would expect to eat a few bricks. Because I as an ass to them for 4 years. YEARS! The kind of stuff sticks and starts to rot (or it hardens into a nigh indestructible crystalline shell of angst and rage) . It makes for some very bitter memories and potentially volatile reunions. Because they HATE you. They associate your face with that of unhappy times.

Oh your probably thinking, “We’re all human. We all make mistakes. And most times after a few years people forgive and forget”. And I’m thinking that you’re a hopelessly optimistic moron. Sure they might forgive. But they sure don’t forget. (unless blunt trauma to the head or copious amounts of drugs are involved) And what is forgiveness anyway? Some intangible idea that someone is not going to hold your past misdeeds against you? Screw that! You’re going to have to give me some legal documentation stating that you will refrain from serving me lead pipe lunches as a payment for my high school assholery. (I like that. I might have to use that word later.)

Lucky for me I was not the high school bastard. Most people from high school I run into have fond memories of me. Although there are a few people I’ve run into who though weren’t mean to me, they weren’t kind to me. They were pretty apathetic towards my existence and that’s fine. UNTIL they, like most of the others, act as if we were buddies. To that I scream internally, “Mo Fo! You don’t know me! I have 5 good friends from high school and you are not one of them!”

I have a lot of anger muffins (I’ll tell you about it later) I’ve baked for these impromptu reunions and old high school “buddies” I keep discovering for the first time. And for those like OE, I have some lead pipe lunches and delicious brick deserts. Because we were such good friends, I figure it would be a good gesture to treat you to a meal.

Should any of you “buddies” be reading this please note that I will not be signing any documents.

My Weekend: Frozen Geeks and Frightened Rabbits

2008-01-07T17:16:00.000-08:00

First let me start off by warning you that I am a geek. In fact I’m an Omni-Geek.

I am an art geek, anime geek, movie geek, videogame geek, and an RPG geek. No, you are not going to find me slack jawed staring intently at the most recent game magazines, or writing/drawing fan fic/art of anime characters. You’ll most likely find me here drawing. I like it there. It’s were everybody knows my name… and they’re always glad I came. I am more of a reserved geek. Sure I had my moment when I younger where I thoroughly embraced my geekitude and openly expressed it to everyone. Then I realized that it just made me a geek geek. You understand what I mean right? A geek who geeks out about being a geek. And that’s just not right. So I stopped. That and no one loves you when you’re a geek. So cut it out!

The areas of geekdom I refuse to tread in are as follows:

LARPing

When I was younger I did some time running around a park or college campus decked out in some cheaply made medieval getup swinging a boffer sword. That foolishness carried on into bonfires, cookouts, and occasional campouts in someone’s backyard. A time where the men felt free to act as raving lunatics and either hit or hump things. Drunken revelries abounds and hot steamy moments in tents found. (I never had any of those “moments”. Because no one loves a geek, not even other geeks.) Everybody had their “name” and their “rank”. The group I was a part of was a small local group… a small local creepy group. I’d give you a link but I don’t want to scare you (or have to remember or relive all that shame). With so much fun and socializing why did I stop?

One day a little girl looked at me in my “garb” and asked her father, “What’s that man doing?”. To which her father replied, “Acting like a socially retarded asshole.”. Actually I just felt, looked, and acted like a moron. That and I learned a lesson which was, “Even if it’s a foam covered PVC pipe we use as a sword and it was most likely an accident, when you get hit in the face you ARE going to flip out. That crap hurts!”.

So you will not find me flailing a large foam sword, pretending to be a vampire or werewolf, or speaking in crappy Elizabethan. I will visit the Ren Fair every now and then though. Mmmmm turkey leg…..

Miniature Wargaming

I tend to avoid this genre of gaming. I do not have the patience to paint an entire army of miniature soldiers who are ultimately going to do nothing but gather dust on a long forgotten shelf in the back of my closet. Also the games are very tactical. Meaning there is a need for “tact”. Yeah.. that’s not me. I’ll play a few tactical video games. But there’s a difference. If I get pissed off at the game I can rip the game from the console and fling it across the room. There, game over, I won. This is something that I cannot do to my opponent during a tabletop wargame. I’m sure there are laws against me removing someone’s heart. Although it too would be a way to win… a fun one.

Anime or Videogame Cosplay

My daily wardrobe is bad enough as is. And I do believe I already look like a moron most times. I see no need to dress up (or down) in order to make a further spectacle of myself. I do have to say, some of you ladies know what your doing. And then there’s this guy.

Furry Cosplay

You’re most likely thinking that since this is cosplay it should be grouped with the previous listed. But no. This thing is its own entity. And within it is yet another subculture. A frightening anthropomorphic grotesquery representing some people’s desire to be and/or hump their teddy bears or pets. There’s a whole bunch of scary WTF in this geekdom. Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against anthropomorphic cartoons, comics, etc. Hell I grew up on the stuff. From Disney films to things like The Thunder Cats. I loved The Thunder Cats. Except for Snarf. He pissed me off and creeped me out all at the same time. This subculture/mutation of “Furries” is one that seems to garner arousal from dressing as Sparky and getting frisky with someone else in a cracked out mascot costume. I usually see them scattered about at Otakon. Generally harmless as most of them are just the run of the mill Furry Cosplayers. But there are a few out there ready to “yiff” someone. And some don’t care if it’s furry or not. I don’t fault them for having a fetish. But I do fault them for looking at the dog funny. And I also damn you for making Bugs Bunny seem so unwholesome to me.

I’m sure there are few other geekdoms that I avoid. I’ll most likely end up listing them later. Now on with the show.

Saturday:

So now that you’ve been warned of my geekery. On Saturday around 2:00 PM my friend Inq (that’s his nickname. I don’t know how it came about but I think I had a hand in it) picked me up for a fun session of Role Playing Games. (See.. geekery right there.) Well as it turns out Inq lives in the attic of an old two bedroom house out in the middle of nowhere. Do you know what that means? That means the heating in the joint is all sorts of screwed up. That whole scientific deal of heat rising that you learned a while back? Not there. This is the house that defies logic. The basement was warmer than the rest of the house. As you traveled up from the basement it got progressively colder and colder. And then there was Inq’s room were the game session was being held. It was a meat locker. We began congregating in the middle of the room huddling against each other for warmth. Cold stiffened knuckles cracked as we lethargically grasped pencils and dice. The smokers, myself one of them, took more frequent smoke breaks just to be in the warmer basement. (That’s where the smoking room is. It’s the garage connected to the basement.)

It got to a point where we contemplated the following:

1. Who had the most muscle. Did I mention that Inq lives out in vacuous oblivion known as the countryside? That means no one delivers to him, and the closest means for obtaining food is far enough for the driver to die from hypothermia and starvation before ever reaching their destination. (actually I’m kidding. There was a High’s down the street. But that’s not necessarily food. I’m sure all of you think that RPG geeks subsist on junk food. But there are a select few of us who’d rather have something of more substance.)

2. Who was the biggest. This was to decide who was to be gutted so that we could all crawl into their body cavity for warmth.

And then Inq turned on the space heater.

(by the way, sorry about that whole trying to gut you thing, Murray. Yes I know that Murray is not your real name but I can’t remember what it is. And I’m not about to call someone to find out. Because you’re really not all that important and no one loves a geek. Now stop it.)

So with the space heater going the room became delightfully warm. And we realized that we were uncomfortably close to each other.

As the night dragged on we lost more and more gamers to weariness or the need to work the next day. In the end it was Inq, Sharys (that’s her character’s name), and myself. This is basically the norm of our meetings. It ends up with just a few of us sitting around having drinks and shooting the shit. And I have to say we are experts at that. No one shoots the shit like we do. If you should ever need shit shot look us up. We’ll shoot the shit out of that shit. (On a side note. Maybe we could make money that way. Hells yeah! We could have commercials on TV and everything. “Who ya gonna call? Shit Shooters!”. Eh.. maybe not.)

During our evening we began trying to add more detail to our RPG adventure. You see what most of you non-gamers don’t know, and couldn’t care less about, is that a really good RPG session needs plenty of detail. You have to create and flesh out a world or scenario for optimal gamery. (Yes gamery is a word! I thought of it, wrote it, and therefore it is a word!) At some point it came to this:

Inq: Ok.. we need a new term for dignitary or diplomat.

Me: Buttsucker?

Sharys: ew?

Inq: Dip Smack!

Us: What?

Inq: You know… a diplomat.. smack talker… Dip Smack. Ok now one for president.

Me: Happy Homewrecker? (don't ask me where that came from. It had to be the drinks talking.)

*And then there was riotous laughter*

(We were tired and a little tipsy.)

Eventually we all passed out. The next morning I had a wonderful discovery. Inq is not a “pet” person. He tolerates it when his roomies have them. But he himself has no desire to have actual living breathing pets. I believe he makes up for this by turning his room into his pet. I had three sweaters worth of carpet shed all over me. And thus my first words for the day were, “You’re friggin room shed all over me man!”.

Sunday:

We all woke and basically sat around watching movies, eating homemade tacos, and once again shooting the shit. Except sober this time which means our aim was better. Around 8 PM Inq and I jumped in his truck and he drove me home. There I made another interesting, frightening, and hilarious discovery.

I got home to my apartment at around 9 and decided to do laundry so that I could have clean clothes for the week. The washer and dryer are in the laundry room/breakfast nook. (It’s a cheap cheesy apartment and that means all rooms have double use. This one actually serves to house the 4 rabbits I have) When turned on the lights I saw what I thought to be a LARGE grey rat rushing right at me. This incited and entitled me to leap straight up into the air as if the ceiling would reach out and cradle me protectively in its arms. This is not so. I landed on my ass… hard. It was then that I realized that the infamous grey rat was in fact my rabbit Skitters. “How can you mistake a rabbit for a rat?” you may ask. Skitters is fast. Even on tile she’s a speedy behemoth seeming no more than a blur of grey while in motion. And even though she’s a chinchilla grey mini rex breed, Skitters is large. (Well actually fat. Very fat. With a double chin. She’s that large because she overeats, because I feed her too much, because like everyone else in America I feed and feed the ones I love. Feed them until they’re too grossly obese to run away. Or they sue you for feeding them too much tasty food. And being that Skitters is a rabbit I have no fears of being sued.)

So after seeing Skitters make her way to me (after my ass met cold tile floor) I realized that she was terrified. She looked to me with the expression of, “Please help me. I’m lost and scared. Where is my home? Will you take me home?”. The setup of my 4 rabbit cages is two on the floor and the other two stacked atop of them. Skitters’ cage is one of the upper tier homes. It’s like a bunny apartment complex. And then I realized it. When I left on Saturday I fed the rabbits and forgot to close Skitters’ cage. Obviously the cute little dimwit decided to see what was outside and took a flying leap. Then she couldn’t get back up. She had been out of her cage without food or water for the entire time I was gone.

I stood in the room staring down at Skitters for a while. She stared up at me with those big adorable bunny eyes and that twitching nose. Then as if on cue she produced a cloudy yellow puddle about her. I just couldn’t be mad at her for that. I sympathized. If you locked me outside of my apartment for a day and a half I’m sure I’d wet the floor when you came back and just stared at me. Or I’d punch you in the face.

After returning Skitters to her rightful domain and mopping up her puddle of joy/fear, I began to search the apartment for signs of a bunny on the loose. It’s my belief that if I were to let all the rabbits or even one out and leave for a few hours they would have a wild and crazed party. It seems as though I was wrong. As I searched my entire apartment I only found signs of Skitters in the room where the cages are. Seems my bunny isn’t much of a part animal after all.

Hooray! 2007 is finally DEAD

2008-01-04T13:47:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the delay in posting this, but I was hanging back to make sure 2007 was actually dead and gone. Sometimes they surprise you. And you really don't want to get caught in the middle of a bastard year's death throes.

Anyway.. My friend Claire demanded that I fill this thing out.

It's some sort of Year End Meme.

1. What did you do in 2007 that you’d never done before?

I went to Las Vegas for work!

I went on an actual vacation! I spent a week in North Carolina relaxing on the beach and being drunk.

I got dumped WHILE on vacation WITH the woman who dumped me! (and that’s why I was relaxing on the beach being drunk)

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

Well seeing as how my resolution is always “Don’t Die”, I can pretty much say that I did. At least I think so.

Is there something you’re not telling me?

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Being that I’m not in the medical field, people don’t generally give birth while "close" to me. And I'd prefer that they didn't start.

However the lovely Mrs. Grau, who is near and dear to all who know her, gave birth to the wonder bundle known as Bennet

4. Did anyone close to you die?

Ah.. baring your fangs now eh? Ready to lunge for those squishy emotional parts huh?

My grandmother on my father’s side passed away.

5. What countries did you visit?

I am considered an illegal substance in the majority of the countries anyone would want to visit.

Therefore I visited none.

But I’d also like to say that I’m also considered a delicacy the world round.

6. What would you like to have in 2008 that you lacked in 2007?

Everything.

Does that count as a suitable answer? Because in 2007 I had “jack” and “shit”. And jack left town near the beginning of that year.

Deserting bastard. Always running away. THIS IS NOT CONTRIBUTING TO A HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP, JACK!

7. What dates from 2007 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

I don’t so much remember the dates as I remember the horrible life shattering scenarios that played out about me.

I could list them off right now but that would take all the fun out of filling out the rest of this thing.

Besides, I’m really bad with dates. Especially when I’m drunk. And yes, all types.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Not dying!

Isn’t that amazing?! I went through a whole year without dying!

I mean I think that’s just utterly spectacular that I managed to avoid the cold grasping hands of death.

What, you don’t think that it’s all that wonderful?

Screw you! Don’t you rain on my parade! I built all those floats by hand!

9. What was your biggest failure?

Lets not go there. Did you see my answers to previous questions?

That is one serious bucket of worms that we will not be opening.

I’d like to avoid therapy just a bit longer.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

Unless broken hearts count, none.

Do they count? Are we getting points?

11. What was the best thing you bought?

Booze!

What?!

Don’t you judge me!

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

Mine because I kept from flipping out during the scenario of being dumped while on vacation and stuck in the same freaking beach house for a whole week with the woman who dumped me!

My ex. Because she had worked on her communication skills and tried her best to avoid a painful breakup. (guess what… she failed.)

My rabbits! Because they’re rabbits. All cute and fuzzy.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

Oh joy! It’s finger pointing time!

Mine because I should have completely flipped out during the scenario of being dumped while on vacation and stuck in the same freaking beach house for a whole week with the woman who dumped me!

My ex. Because even with the improvement her communication skills are still TEH SUCK! and didn’t avoid a painful breakup.

My rabbits! Because they’re rabbits… gnawing on everything!

14. Where did most of your money go?

I’d like to think that an industrious good hearted gnome or elf hides my money away from me. Hording it until it is a mountain of fortune. Then he will return it to me. (and if I ever find him I’m going to backhand him. That’s right.. “bitch betta have my money!”)

But no. I know exactly where it goes. It goes to everything other than making me happy. My car, and it’s newly formed penchant for dying, ate a lot of it.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Going to Las Vegas!

Going on vacation! (and then I stopped being excited.)

16. What song will always remind you of 2007?

All of the songs I listened to. Although I think someone of them came before 2007.

You’re not going to deduct points are you? Why are you keeping points on this?

17. Compared to this time last year, are you: a) happier or sadder?  b) thinner or fatter?  c) richer or poorer?

1. Apathetic

2. Fluctuating

3. Did you not see the answer to #14? POOOOOORRRRRRRREEEEEERRRRRR

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

Being motivated

Not being poor

Not getting dumped

Eating

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Being lazy

Being poor

Getting dumped

Not eating

(notice how I can just take answers from the first one and add a word to make answers for the second. Yeah! That’s called skill right there. Either that or being a lazy ass. I can never remember which one.)

20. How will you be spending Christmas?

I spent it with my siblings who live in NY.

We’ll not go into details or else I won’t have a blog post for later.

21. Did you fall in love in 2007?

With things, people or ideas? How about I answer them all!

Things: Booze, not my car, my gaming consoles (it’s an on again off again relationship), and probably a whole bunch of things I can’t think of right now.

People: Keep pushing my buttons and see what happens! Ok.. well there’s the rabbits. But how couldn’t you fall in love with them? They’re freaking bunnies! And YES they do count as people.

Ideas: All the horrid little ones floating around on my head.

22. How many one-night stands?

I don’t have a night stand. Are you going to give me one?

23. What was your favorite TV program?

You should put an “S” at the end of that so it can be plural.

Heroes

Journey Man

And a few others that escape my mind at the time. Maybe I’ll come back and add them in when I remember them.

Most likely not. I be lazy.

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

Surprisingly it’s not my ex girlfriend.

25. What was the best book you read?

Do comic books count?

I have a tendency to re-read books that I already have. So it’s continually the following:

Real Ultimate Power

Neverwhere

Stardust

Watership Down

Of Mice and Men

Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah (too lazy to think and list the others but not too lazy to type a bunch of “blah”. I am a mystery.)

26. What was your greatest musical discovery?

AFI, Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance

(DON’T YOU JUDGE ME!)

27. What did you want and get?

A year of me not dying.

Maintaining what minimal sanity I have.

A Nintendo DS. (I bought it for myself)

28. What did you want and not get?

Way too much and way too lazy to list!

29. What was your favorite film of this year?

300 (aka “The movie of fantastic abs”. Ha! I bet you thought I was going to do something like “THIS IS SPARTA!”… aw crap… I just did.)

Transformers

30 Days of Night

DEFINITELY NOT Ghost Rider!

30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I was in NY visiting my siblings up there. If you haven’t guessed my birthday is Christmas day.

So I spent the day watching them open presents and being somewhat disappointed that no one said happy birthday to me until sometime after 4 PM.

Oh and I turned 30. Yes the magical Three-Oh-Crap-I’m-Not-In-My-Twenties-Anymore!

31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Please re-read my answers for the this. Remove all the negative or unhappy moments I listed.

There.. that would have made my year immeasurably satisfying.

Oh and while you’re at it.. 8 trillion in USD would help too.

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2007?

Personal fashion what?

I guess it would be, “I have clothes… I put them on… I am wearing clothes!”

My coworkers found their year to be immeasurably satisfying when I learned the concept of “wearing” pants.

33. What kept you sane?

My rabbits and my friends.

Nope.. no smartass remark for this one.

34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Myself. I fancy myself all the time.

Especially when I’m wearing that tight leather outfit I love so much.

35. What political issue stirred you the most?

I’m allergic to political issues. They make me break out utter distrust for my fellow man.

36. Who did you miss?

Everyone who managed to dodge.

(smartassery abounds!)

37. Who was the best new person you met?

Captain Morgan?

38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2007.

I’m not dead yet.

39. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

I don’t think 2007 produced too many songs with lyrics pertaining to my car catching fire, being dumped while on vacation, more car incidents, and having everything fall apart.

Wait.. I might be wrong. There’s probably a country song or 50 out there with that and much more in the lyrics.

I’m not looking them up for you.

Snack Time Terror filler material

2007-12-26T18:59:00.000-08:00

I bought a "Slim Jim" from 7-11 today for lunch.
Just a little something snack on around 3 or 4 when I'm feeling restless and in that snacky mood.

Well I've commenced the snacking and realized something very WRONG with my choice in munchies.

I've been chewing on the same first bite of this so-called snack for about 3 minutes now. I'm hesitant to attempt to actually ingest this thing as it still seems to have plenty of vigor left. It's very resistant to the continual grinding and brutalizing it is suffering between my molars. What is this thing?! Did I somehow end up with the Bizzaro World snack item? Did I mistakenly pickup an underworld 20th level of hell version?

How long do I have to fight this accursed devil stick before I can actually consume it?

It's like chewing on faux meat flavored gum. Except chewier and with less satisfaction.

Is this what a cow goes through when it chews its cud?
This is quite disturbing... yet I persist.

I may give up in a few moments. I may pull the slobbery still intact remains of whatnot from my displeased maw. I may even toss it over the cubicle wall at my coworkers. I mean what repercussions could they deliver upon me? I don't think much (beyond using fecal matter or inappropriate body parts) could best having processed/re-processed chewed on not even meat nastiness soar through the air, strike you in the face, and then stick there until removed. See scenario below:

Me- Hey John!
John- What's up man?
Me- I've got a present for you!
John- It's not a kick in the junk is it?
Me- Nope. That was last week.
John- ok
Me- Here ya go!
*THWACK!* (note that it's a thwack and not a splat due to the fact that this thing is still somewhat solid in substance)
John- NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! why? WHY?!
Me- *maniacal laughter of the damned*
John- You have dishonored me, and my entire family. In order to regain my honor I will have to commit ritual suicide!
Me- Holy crap! Are you serious?!
John- Yes.. it is the only way.
Me- Want to borrow my pocketknife?
John- That would be nice.. Thanks. You're a good friend.
Me- Less chat more cut.
John- Hold on I have to prep.
Me- blah blah blah.. Hurry up and make with the shanking!

And there you have it. I believe I've proven my case with that. And the whole time I've still been chewing on the same chunk of immortal slim jim!

There are two things that I chew on for this long.
1. Gum... actual gum
2. The flesh of my freshly slain enemies.... you HAVE to savor that stuff.

My first real blog post. It's a little late but whatever...

2007-12-20T21:04:00.000-08:00

I rolled into the office early to get some overdue work done before my official work day started. (Ok ok… I was there early because my ride had to drop me off 3 hours before I needed to be there.) During my early hours of working (surfing the internet for the most frivolous things ever) one of the warehouse employees passed through the sales office to gather the paper trash from the office. This is actually part of his job description and not due to the sheer laziness of the sales reps at my company. No really I swear! If I bag up my own trash this certain employee becomes quite irate.

So as I'm "working" I hear Shuffles moving his way through the offices and cubicles.

DIGRESSION!:

(Being that this could be considered my first "actual" blog post let me explain a few things. "Shuffles" is an employee of my company who works in the warehouse. In fact he's worked for my company and sister companies longer than I've been able to drink. Throughout his stint at my company he's had many nicknames. Whopps or Whoppers due to the fact that he vaguely… very vaguely.. resembles the beloved and infamous "King" of a very famous fast food restaurant, and JC due to his initials. Those are just a few. Here I will refer to him as "Shuffles". Why? Because the man is LARGE and shuffles when he walks. I didn't give him this nickname to make fun of him. It's just the easiest way for me to remember him.)

End of digression:

While Shuffles is moving through the offices I realize that he's humming. Well not really humming. Shuffles is huffing, humming "Winter Wonderland", and well… making what I can only describe as a motorboat on turrets impersonation. I so wish I had a audio clip for all of you to listen to! It was like listening to a skipping CD of "Winter Wonderland" through a whale's bladder while under water, with multiple choking motors, and rabid lamprey-wolverine-hybrids trying to chew their way through your brain. I was dumbfounding at first. But after a while you end up humming something along the lines of "Walking in a Wint-brrr-brrr-crap-brrrrrrrrrt-hrgh-gasp-hrasp-frrrt-mmmmm-hrk-hrk-blarg-grrr-brrr Wond-drrrr-errrr-argh-frrrr-lonnnn-derrrrrrrrrr-Ngh *Gasp wheeze*".

I’m not exactly sure as to why Shuffles makes motor boat noises. What I do know is that it’s somewhat disturbing to hear a large 40+ year old man making the same spitty flappy lipped noise that you’d hear from a 4 month old baby.

More things about about Shuffles to follow!

I was sent the most wonderful link ever! (I'm kidding of course).

The end is nigh! http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/11785.html

(Go ahead… take a peek at the link. I’ll wait for you to get back.)

Which resulted in the following conversation with two coworkers:

Me: Mr. T don't need no Singleton to direct an A-Team movie!
Mr. T can direct the movie himself.
Don't you be givin me no jibba jabba! T is directing/acting genius!
Mr. T studied at Cambridge!
I pity the fool who don't see T's movie!

CW1: There is something not right about you! This just means they are reaching… really reaching… but what are they going to do without a writer?

Me: The usual thing Hollywood does when they have no plot or actual script. Explosions and gratuitous nudity. I think they should do some role swapping as Hollywood is apt to do. You know.. like have a white guy play B.A. Baracus and the rest of the crew is black.

CW2: I wouldn't mind having Face be played by Jessica Biel... yummy.

Me: You're a genius! An all female crew for the A-Team! Brilliant!

And some stuff for you to read!

I believe that managers have a special unwritten job description to be annoying. Also to make annoying demands subtly guised as “requests”. Things like the following.

“Please limit your smoke breaks for the day”

“Please use the internet for work related projects only.”

“Please take a reasonable lunch break.”

“Please try to refrain from using inappropriate language in the office.”

“Please do not talk smack about the upper management.”

“Please stop browsing porn sites on the company’s time and internet connection.”

“Please stop looking at me like that.”

“Please take your hand out of your pants.”

“No really, please stop looking at me like that.”

“OMG! Please don’t point that at me!”

Blah blah blah….

Now my manager has found new, interesting, and most personal way to be annoyingly demanding. “What is it?” you’re asking. Well my manager in his sick and twisted insight has found a way to get his “demands” met with merely music. It’s only useful during this time of year. You know, the “Holiday” time of year. The time of year where everything becomes sickly sweet and disgustingly full of “cheer”. No not the laundry detergent. I’m talking about the weak and fake “joy to the world” spirit that fills everyone and makes them act WAY outside of their norm during “that time of year”. It’s like a seasonal PMS that affects every ass who wants to pretend they’re a good person around the Christmas/Hanukah/Kwanza time of year. (Did I miss a season or holiday?)

Anyway, during this particular time of year my manager CRANKS the holiday music. It is, what I have to admit, a genius surgical strike. He seems to wait until we are full and fed up with “holiday cheer” to start his assault. At that point he calls us into his office for a short conference. And that conference is chocked full of holiday music cranked at nearly ear bleeding volume. At that point we reps are usually dying to either have him shut up or to get away from the “music”. I swear this is a brilliant tactic. Every time this happens I end up doing what he wants just to escape the audio holiday cheer suppression of his office.

BTW:

If I have to hear one more of (insert random pseudo-famous really not all that great music artist)'s rendition of a tired played out holiday season related tune… THINGS WILL BE DESTROYED!

I'm serious!

Everywhere you turn they're blaring regurgitated faux holiday cheer in audio format.

And it's the same damn songs!

This version is slower.

This version has a "punk" feel to it.

This one the "artist" decided to extend your agony by inserting 10 minutes of them attempting really bad scat singing in the middle of the song. (COME ON!! Whoever that was I caught a snippet of the other day seriously needs to ski ba bop ba dop the hell up!)

It's like having someone vomit partially digested candy canes and eggnog in your ear… all day!

I'm not saying that Christmas music in general needs to stop. But use some moderation people! And how many different versions of Rudolph do you have to hear back to back?!

Screw your winter wonderland.

Hark the herald angels can SHUT IT!

And go jingle your bells somewhere else.

I have to listen to something angry and very non-holiday cheery.

Have a holly jolly BRICK TO YOUR SKULL!!!

End of BTW:

Random crap:

My co-worker “K” does this weird humming thing that I can only describe as "The Grandma Hum". It reminds me of some old (maybe southern) grandmother humming (not really a song at all, just humming) to herself. The sound resonates through the sales office. It's a bizarre sound. It lingers and has this fluctuating tone. Kinda makes me think of a southern Baptist church woman humming. Makes me want to slap the shit out of K every time I hear it.

He's challenging me basically. I know he’s challenging me!

Either that or he's possessed by the malignant soul of a southern Baptist grandma who needs me to exorcise her from K’s body by beating the ever loving shit out of him.

"The power of pain compels thee!"

THWACK!!!

(rinse and repeat… a lot!)

End of Random crap:

Let us begin...

2007-12-13T19:35:00.000-08:00

Why did I start this blog?

It’s a therapy thing mostly.

You see throughout this year I had quite a few “interesting” moments. The type of moments that leave you damn close to weeping or going on a murderous rampage. Hell, who am I kidding? My whole life has been full of WTF, with a generous portion of surreal, and dash of lime for seasoning.

I had been reading my friend’s blog, "Your biting sarcasm wounds me, Madam...", for a while. You should check it out. She’s quite feisty. So while I was reading her blog I realized that I wanted to start my own blog. To post all the odd and quirky things I’ve been through, yet use it for therapy. To write about all the things plaguing me without all the “woe is me” crap you’ll find in some over privileged emo kid’s MySpace blog. (By the way I have one of those… a MySpace blog.. full of woe is me crap. It came with an emo kid instructional video on how to blog as if everything in my life was catastrophic. I don’t use it much, because I realized that I’m a bit too old to blog about how my parents don’t understand me or how I’m crushing on a girl who doesn’t know I exist.) so I figured out that I didn’t want to do a blog that was nothing but weepy sad sack prattling. I decided that I wanted to take the epically shitacular scenes in my life and just outright make fun of them. Why? Well because it’s my form of therapy. That and whenever I tell my “friends” about these scenarios they end up laughing. And I’m not talking about chuckling. I mean fall the floor, soil yourself, can’t breathe, most likely going to herniated everything style laughter. But before you get all sorts of critical and say that maybe my friends aren’t such good friends, laughing at how my girlfriend dumped me while we were on vacation together for a week, I’d like to add that I don’t blame them for laughing. Because I’m funny! I’m freaking hilarious! Admit it! Your mom thinks I’m hilarious. (oohhh… 5th grade humor right there. That’s how comedic I am.) “Only in bed.” (Oh snap! I added a 6th grade humor come back for you. Yeah, I’m that damn funny.)

So you’ve most likely noticed the name of this blog, Overlord Complex. I’m betting you’re wondering why I named it that. Well it’s simple, and I’m not about to explain it to you. Because the sooner you realize that I’m your overlord and you are all my minions the better off we’ll all be. Go ahead and begin bathing me in your worship and abhorrence…. Uh.. I mean adoration. Yes, adoration, because everyone loves me. Love me or else I will smite you all! (Eh… maybe I’ll explain the reason for the name later.)

Throughout this wonderful excursion we’ll call my blog you’ll find many grammatical mistakes. Some of them are accidental and some on purpose. You’ll wonder why. And my answer is, “Because I’m so much more intelligent than you, you’ll never understand why!”. Actually it’s because Grammar and I aren’t getting along. I hurt Grammar. I slap Grammar around and make it my dirty bitch. I do things to Grammar that make it feel dirty and used. I do terrible unmentionable things to Grammar. When I walk into the room with 40 oz. of cheep beer in hand, decked out in my wife-beater, Grammar cowers in the corner and wets itself uncontrollably. Because Grammar knows what’s in store for it. If it weren’t for my word processor’s protective services Grammar would most likely be face down in a shallow grave by now.

Actually Grammar is my evil angry bitch of a wife. It busts my balls and wrings me dry every chance it gets. So if you ever see any grammatical mistakes feel free to let me know. I’ll take anything to keep Grammar from kicking me in the ass and telling me about how much of a lazy bastard I am.

So with that all said feel free to send me emails. Questions, comments, or whatever. I welcome them all. Hell, send me hate mail. I love that stuff. It’s like the toffee filling to my chocolate coated kitten heads!

No no.. I kid. I’d never eat toffee filled chocolate coated kitten heads. The toffee and chocolate coating are just too fattening. Mmmm kitten heads. Well anyway, here’s my e-mail address…

Complex.Overlord@gmail.com

Look forward to more from me.

Overlord Complex

How To Build A Homemade Turkey Shrapnel Bomb:

America is so retarded.

ULCERIFIC!

So I guess it’s about time for an update, eh?

"With great power comes great responsability"

Last night

What is up with Stan right now........

I'm still alive.

America has got to be bored

Webcomic

Now back to your irregularly scheduled programming.

Crank Cases and The Right Of Way

The End of Days

I need a smoke… and a towel.

Look out! It's Random Man!

Want to see my oubliette?

With great power comes great “reeshponsuhbiluhtay”

SAY MY NAME!!

Can I have a blanket?

I'll snake YOUR drain!...

Pirates, Ninjas, and Lagomorphs

There goes the neighborhood....

100 Things you most likely don’t want to know…… about me.

Oh! So that's why!

It's like fairy dust... except not.....

"Waltzing Matilda" is not dancing with a girl...

01/17/08 Movie Night!

Unemploymentation!!

Anger muffins and Lead Pipe Lunches

My Weekend: Frozen Geeks and Frightened Rabbits

Hooray! 2007 is finally DEAD

Snack Time Terror *filler material*

My first real blog post. It's a little late but whatever...

Let us begin...

Snack Time Terror filler material