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 |   The only blog that will put hair on your chest... |
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** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Turning from the Dark Side ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** < This is where I'll insert a cool new blog description. Someday. > |
| So Jodi thought she'd be soooooo funny posting this: http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1248301663 Well, I fully deny that's me being elfish. In fact, here is the real me getting down with my elfy self: http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1250343504 And as we always suspected, Hello Kitty has a thing for Robert Waltz  ...http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1250525175 |
| becke is back, and with a vengeance... In four days he will once again lead the ninjas out of the shadows to overrun Writing.com, spreading fear and carnage and making grown men soil themselves. As his chief ninja recruiter, I am once again opening the ninja clan roster for one day only. Signups begin now! Revel in the glory of the Ninja!
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| Now because I'm an international superstar, with adoring fans all across the globe, I decided to show a little more culture in this blog. I decided to connect with some of my diverse worshipers. Unfortunately I'm too lazy to learn about their respective nations and cultures, so you'll have to settle for some candid shots of yours truly sporting attire from around the globe. It's all courtesy of my visit to Disney's Epcot World Showcase. Let's begin with Darth Wang, my Chinese alter-ego. As usual, my lightsaber is huge. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Next I pay tribute to all my Scandinavian fans as Darth Magnus Ver Magnusson. Remember that Icelander who won the World's Strongest Man Competition 4 times? Yeah, he stole his name from me because I'm so badass in a viking helmet. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Here's a fez from Morocco. I don't think I have any fans there, and a fez is pretty wimpy, but I still make it look awesome. It almost makes you want to dropkick a punk ass. It also proves that the Shriners have succumbed to the dark side. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Finally, last but certainly not least, you may call me El Darth Bandito! When I'm not illegally crossing the border, consuming copious amounts of tequila, or offending Mexicans with my offensive stereotypes, I'm laying waste to the myth that big, fancy sombreros make men look like little girls. Move over, Three Amigos, there's a new hombre in town! ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| Jodi and I got back from Florida a couple hours ago. I just went through my 46 emails, but I'm too tired to catch up on all the blogs right now. In truth I need a vacation from my vacation. Please drop me a line and let me know if any of you actually wrote something interesting that's worth combing through 11 days of blog entries. If I hear nothing, I'll have to assume you didn't. I have plenty of blog fodder from our trip, but the reality is I'll probably be too lazy to write about it and eventually won't bother. That's my usual MO. I did want to share one tidbit though, one machismo-oozing detail that will no doubt leave the ladies fanning themselves and the men cowing in terror. For those few of you who don't already recognize my status as the ultimate alpha male, I am about to unfold a tale that will no doubt put hair on your ass just by reading it. The last day of our glorious Florida vacation, we visited Disney World's Animal Kingdom. Part of said theme park involves walking through various animal exihibits, something akin to a a visit to the zoo. Oh wait! Back up! I'm forgetting something! Before I go into my tale of unparalleled testosterone, I'd like to mention that Animal Kingdom provided me the outlet for achieving one of my lifelong dreams. That is of course seeing the Yeti. I braved the heights of the Forbidden Mountain and bitch-slapped one badass Yeti, guardian of the mountain. Granted he was animatronic, but it was still the closest I'll likely get to a Yeti considering how they tend to run at the mere scent of me. Unless you count that freakish guy I saw at the mall, who was clearly a sasquatch or the missing link, and therefore perhaps both. For those of you who don't believe in the Yeti, consider this if you will. Legends of an erect ape-like man have sprouted up in cultures all over the world, long before modern technology provided the lines of communication for spreading said legends. The yeti, the sasquatch, the bigfoot, the wendigo, Andre the Giant... each legend describes a similar half-man, half-ape monstrosity with little difference save the name. Coincidence? I think not. So when you come face to face with the sasquatch, don't say I didn't warn you. And try to remember that I could most definitely kick that bigfoot's punk ass. Now back to my story, a factual tale so awesome it will make you want to punch a baby. Having stared down the Yeti and made it piss itself, I made my way to the silverback gorilla pen. The gorilla pen, stocked with three or four hulking brutes, stood on a slight incline, separated from my viewing station only be a deep moat. I leaned over the fence and watched the alpha male gorilla make his way down the incline and seat himself at the very edge of the moat. I'd guess about fifteen feet separated us. He watched the gaggle of tourists snapping photos and seemed perfectly content to bask in the Florida sun. That is, of course, until he caught sight of me out of the corner of his eye. As young children continued to point and annoying tourists continued to snap photos, the silverback locked eyes on me. Though facing partly away from me, he stared me down from the corner of his eyes. A flash of movement elsewhere would divert his attention now and again, but only for an instant before he swiveled those black pupils in my direction. A stare down is of course a trial of dominance and an extremely dangerous way to provoke a gorilla (which I learned from that movie "Congo"), so I did what anyone would do: I stared him down. For several minutes we poised there amid a mob of whiny rugrats, each glaring at the other, unblinking and refusing to give in. Finally the silverback shifted his weight and turned to stare at me directly. His full face came into view. He furrowed his great brow and hunched his shoulders, boring a hole into me with that vicious stare. My mother and sister actually gasped and took a step back. They told me to look away; he was getting really pissed. Ever the sensible one I refused. And we glared at each other across that moat. At this point my family began speculating that he picked me out as a challenger because of my obvious resemblance to a fellow gorilla. I knew that wasn't the case though. He could smell my musk, my man scent filling his nostrils like a testosterone-pumping beacon. He knew the dominant male across the moat just as I had known him on his side of the moat. Two awesome powers coming together to establish the true alpha male. There could be only one. And it wasn't going to be him. "Why don't you pump your chest?" my brother asked. So I did. I stared at my dark competitor and pumped one fist, then two, then three, against my chest, declaring my rightful place as the alpha. Even before my threatening fists stopped pumping, the silverback lowered his head, his shoulders relaxing, and he turned and shuffled away. I had won. That gorilla had stared into my eyes and seen its own destruction, its own pitiful attempt at power. He recognized its better and hobbled away, defeated and broken. Without ever even landing a blow, I had cowed a fierce beast with a simple glare and threatening gesture. I had brought nature to its knees and declared myself king of the jungle with little more than a cold, blue stare. And the women did weep, and the children did tremble, and the skies did rain fire. The earth parted before me, and a thousand virgins threw themselves at my feet. And all was right with the world. |
| Ugh, what's with everyone explaining the whole Halloween thing? So it's Samhaim, All Hallow's Eve, whatever. Yeah, yeah, pagans and Wiccans and holiday-stealing Catholics. Harvests and seasons. Blah blah blah. That's all well and good, but who really cares? Everyone is missing the point anyway. Yes, Halloween is a great holiday, the greatest in fact. The only day of the year I look perfectly normal in my Darth Vader mask. Also the only day of the year children ring the doorbells on random houses and take candy from strangers. It's the only time AMC runs the "Halloween" movie marathon, which in and of itself is nothing short of spectacular. In fact I'm missing "Halloween IV: The Curse of Michael Myers" right now. Stores sells bags of assorted miniature candy, and fake blood can be bought by the gallons. Frankly it makes Christmas look like Flag Day. So if Halloween is so awesome in its current form, why do we insist on bludgeoning it with the cold hammer of boring facts? Why do we persist in wrapping it in the stranglehold of annoying religion? Halloween has transformed into a piss-your-pants, slap-your-grandma, spew-your-milk, hide-your-undies kind of holiday. Despite that Utopian achievement, some people would have us remember Halloween as some wussy farmer's holiday, some dirty hippie pagan nonsense, some boring religious amalgamation, and other stuff supported by offensive adjectives. Not me though; oh no, I embrace Halloween for what it has become, in all its glory. I've been dragged off to catechism when I asserted that Christmas celebrated the birth of Santa Clause, but I won't be so usually swayed when it comes to the most righteous day of Halloween! In fact, I'll tell you the real meaning of Halloween, folks. Halloween, or Samhain if you will, is the day Jesus turned bread into candy corn, and the day the Goddess battled Michael Myers for rule of Halloween Town. It's a day to celebrate the tradition of making small children wet themselves in terror and to welcome the Great Pumpkin into our hearts. It's a time for us to reflect on our lives and express that profound reflection in the form of egging houses. It is the end of a season and the beginning of another, a day to let us know JCPenney will have a big sale on shorts and T-shirts. It's a day to celebrate our heritage and make the pilgrimage to Spencer Gifts where we can worship the bleeding skull centerpiece and the big-breasted French maid costume. But most of all, besides all the heartfelt meanings of Halloween, October 31st is the last day before my 11 day Florida vacation. Woohooooooo! See ya in 11 days, bitches! |
| Halloween is easily my favorite holiday, and I could probably write something so totally awesome about Halloween that you would have an orgasm just reading it. I won't though because with our Halloween party already over, it seems the most macabre of holidays is already past. So instead I leave the following for those of you doing your last minute pumpkin carving: http://www.extremepumpkins.com If you don't carve pumpkins like that, you're a wuss. |
| No one reads my blog anymore apparently, but they're still reading everyone else's. I can almost forgive that since I hardly ever blog anymore, even though that entry about badgers a little while back is Pulitzer Prize material. Truth be told I'm still a Writing.com force to be reckoned with, mostly pulling strings behind the scenes. Like Demandred, I always preferred working through proxies. (GPs to anyone who can identify that reference and who first said it.) I'm still around, still checking up on everyone, still wishing you people could find something exciting to write about at least once or two in the past four years. I'm actually writing again, just not in my blog. Most every night I crank out 500-1500 words of my novel, whilst sipping Twinings Earl Grey tea with just a pinch of sugar. It's become my nightly ritual. And after this entry is done, I'll get back to exactly that. I'm writing this entry because Kendra  tagged me. I'm not going to explain that because 1) you've seen it already unless you're living under a cyber rock and 2) I'm pretty darn lazy. I'm supposed to put the rules or something in here and then tag 8 other people. The truth is I read dozens of blogs and journals, and I've seen it in most of them already. Also, I'm too lazy to find untagged people, and no one is really worth that effort anyway. I'm curious who came up with this tagging thing in the first place. It is pretty much the embodiment of lame. (The fact that I'm participating speaks volumes about my own lamess and current state of boredom.) The principle behind the thing could be interesting if it wasn't so... well, lame. Tagging people and taking it for granted that they'll accept whatever challenge you've given them is an old tactic. Miraculously it still works and could make for some interesting entries if this particular tagging wasn't so... well, lame. You tag someone and they have to blog a list of eight things about him or herself? I reiterate: lame. Why didn't the person who invented this particular "tag" at least come up with something a little controversial or intriguing, two words which incidentally are almost synonymous. No, instead we have to list 8 items about ourselves. Ooooooh, so cutting edge, so taboo. I know, let's just fill out some lameass survey in our blog, huh? If I had come up with this tag, the tagee (I just invented that word because I'm cool like that; the only thing I have in common with that fairy Bill Shakespeare) would have to do something totally awesome, something so mind-boggling and death-defying that you would piss your pants just thinking about it. Everyone would drop to their knees and chant "I am not worthy." It would be something so awesome someone would make a YouTube video of it and appear on Access Hollywood. In fact, I have an idea for such a height of awesomeness right now. Alas, I cannot divulge said idea because the sheer mention of it would compel swimsuit models to tear off their bikinis and dry hump me. Since I'm a happily married man, I can't risk that. So I'll just play along with this lame-o tag. Here's eight things you may or may not have known about me: 1) I once killed a man just to watch him die. 2) I then healed his ass all Jesus-style so I could kill him again. 3) I have to take all my pants and shorts to a seamstress to stitch in a leg-length sling for my genitalia. 4) I sang Neil Diamond karaoke once. It was recorded and now plays at all his concerts, so Neil can lip-sink to it. 5) A la Ricky Bobby, I piss excellence. I have also been known to shit perfection. 6) The movie "Big Trouble in Little China" is loosely based on my life. 7) I invented the Internet. More importantly I invented Internet porn and P2P software for downloading it. 8) The greatest trick I ever played was convincing the world I didn't exist. |
| Saturday was the annual Halloween party. Those who have read my blog for a long while have seen mention of it before. We were going to skip it this year because all the planning that went into our pirate wedding was enough preparatory celebration for one year. Everyone was asking for the Halloween party though, so we had to appease our admiring fans. We made a pact not to spend any money on more decorations this year, but after seeing a Halloween outlet store during a weekend getaway, Jodi and I came home with $500 worth of merchandise. The whole thing cost me another $1000 this year. It seems I just can't finance the annual party without getting bigger and better every year. But that's not the topic of this entry. As usual, after the various scares and mingling, the booze flowed like... well, like booze. Somehow I even ended up more than a little buzzed. I vaguely remember stumbling out from beneath the table housing the coffin of our morbid funereal service from whence I grabbed the feet of unsuspecting people paying their respects. As I steadied my now asleep and tequila-leaden legs by leaning against a chair, I realized I had an eggplant in my hand. A buddy of mine, who was clearly three sheets to the wind, had come to the coffin a second time and pushed the eggplant under the table when I was grabbing at feet. Apparently in his inebriated bliss he thought an eggplant down by his feet would make me think I was grabbing someone's dong. A one foot midget or a porn star with a leg-length penis I guess. He said he was hoping for a big salami, but all we had was an eggplant. He explained this in between the half dozen "I thought it would be funny to slide an eggplant down there." The videotape of the event revealed the effort and much teehee'ing that he put into this clearly ingenious endeavor. It's funny what genius can be born from copious amounts of rum and Coke. Jodi was pretty shit-faced too, or as she put it: "I smoke." Apparently Scorpion Bowls eliminate the existence of contractions and past tense. In one night she managed to announce a portion of our sex life to an entire room, create a Blair Witch-esque video tape because she didn't know how to operate the camera, barf a half pound of spinach dip into my parents' bathroom sink, call my much older cousin's wife hot on multiple occasions, and make prank phone calls to another phone in the same house. Giggling all the while of course. She also provided a monologue on the greatness of boobs and proceeded to grab those of two young women. I missed that part, and it wasn't caught on tape. Damn. I sobered up enough to check her on as she passed out on my sister's bed. She felt better after throwing up and drifted into slumberland, which provided me the opportunity to pursue my own level of drunkenness. My brother, as usual, was the live entertainment. He came as Sleazy Steve the Clown, a dirty clown with a bad liver and a substance abuse problem. He opted for the name Sleazy Steve after waffling between that and Slapnut the Clown. He went around the house with a jar asking for clean urine samples. This of course because he just got out of prison and was on parole. Apparently it's illegal for clowns to sleep with their clients. That's the last time he does a Sweet 16 party. We felt bad for him and hired him to do our party because he was late on child support. His "entertainment" mostly involved collapsing on the kitchen floor, pissing himself, downing the whole contents of pill bottles, and getting in a fistfight with the animatronic butler. He was brown-bagging it of course, and I'm not sure how many times he reloaded, but ironically he was the most sober of all of us. Though he and I did do some shots together. My mom, in her traditional one day of the year alcohol poisoning, downed an alleged two pitchers of Scorpion Bowls, which she vehemently denied the day after. I didn't know she was drunk until she spotted her witch hat on the floor, snatched it up, screamed, and flung it across the room. Then she yanked the alien baby puppet off the bed covered in costumes and ran out into the party to introduce the world to her grandson. After sufficiently creeping everyone out with an infant that bore a striking resemblance to the Bat Boy of tabloid fame, she announced in a high-pitched voice "He was a hit!" and proceeded to stare at me with wide eyes and and an open mouth for an interminable and uncomfortable amount of time. I guess when the dummy in the corner "gave [her] some lip" we should have cut her off. The rest of her night involved her husband and children holding her head over a bowl and forcing more water down her throat. When my father told her to sit up, she said in almost incoherent babble "ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh noooooooooooooooooooooo," which of course made my father laugh and demand we get the video camera. We made her watch the tape the next morning. Ah, the love of family. Now don't get the wrong idea. We're not a bunch of alcoholics. There's just something about the annual Halloween party that induces a drunken stupor. And it always leaves us with wonderful stories to embarrass everyone with later. If we were always drunk, the idiocy would lack that special something. Next year I think we need to get some Bacardi rum 151. Oh and if you're wondering about my costume, I was of course Darth Vader (or Darth Fatter as Sleazy Steve put it), complete with light saber. Maybe I'll post a photo eventually. |
| I'm really frickin' bored right now. I could be reading, watching manly stuff on Spike, or even working on my epic novel. In fact, I should be doing the latter, but I'm having a hard time getting my mojo going. In my attempts to shake this monotony I've resorted to scouring the Internet for stuff to do when you're bored. Did you know there's actually a site www.bored.com? I thought maybe it would be a place to cure boredom, but based on its uber lameness I can only guess it's actually a site for sadomasochists that get their jollies from mental torture that slowly wears them down into EMO Internet addicts that spout garbage like IDK and BFF and TTYL. It turns out there is very little to actually do online. That's made obvious any time I'm so bored that MySpace seems interesting. Ever check out the polls and surveys and bulletins on there? Try to do it sometime without gouging your eyes out. (That's a paradox by the way.) According to what I just saw moments ago, if I don't repost "I smoked with a hottie because I'm sexy like that" I won't have any more relations. Frankly, if my wife decides I'm not worth it because I don't smoke with hotties all sexy like, clearly I'm not destined for any "relations" anyway. And uh oh, it looks like my 3 minutes and 69 seconds to repost it has passed by! (Did anyone notice 69 seconds is another minute and 9 seconds? Who's the douchebag who comes up with these things?) No more relations for me. Does that mean my cousins will magically disappear? Is there a MySpace bulletin that will make my penis grow too? So anyway, I couldn't find anything to occupy my time, so I started thinking about all those crappy surveys you see in people's blogs. I absolutely adore the ones that require you to answer as "yes" or "no." Monosyllables are always useful when trying to get to know someone. Sometimes though you see ones that require a little more thought, like what kind of animal would you be. I got to thinking about that, and I have finally figured it out. I'd be a badger. Why you ask? Because badgers are friggin' badass. They have sharp teeth and long claws and waddle around killing animals half their size. They even chase off coyotes if they're contesting for the same prey. They growl and hiss and strike fear in the hearts of other woodland creatures. They dig holes, burying themselves in the ground, and tear up half the earth with lightning speed to sink their teeth into a woodchuck. They're some bad mofos. Oh yeah there are bigger and more ferocious animals, but picking a sabre-tooth tiger or tyrannosaurus rex is hardly original. And only some snot-nosed little third grade assclown would try to pick an extinct species. That would be like when you're a kid and you think you're all cool because you resort to the wussy ass "nuh uh, infinity to the infinity power." When my little brother pulled that shit, I punched him in the back of the face, which of course involves ripping his face off Hannibal style, punching the backside of it repeatedly with a closed fist, and then slapping it back on all crooked. That's just how awesome I am. And that's how awesome badgers are too! Sure, tigers and bears are bigger and stronger, and sure cobras kill with a single bite, but those animals were engineered that way. They evolved to be at the top of their respective food chains. Badgers are out there every day busting their ass to kill that family of baby rabbits before the annoying fucking coyote comes along. They have to work to survive. Everything is stacked against them and yet still they totally kick ass. Not convinced yet? How about we consider some close relatives of the badger? How about the wolverine eh? That's a freakin' badger on steroids. Actually that's just a common misconception. In fact, as totally bad ass as a wolverine is, badgers kick just as much ass but don't get the recognition. Wolverines are the badger family's crazy cousin that they kicked out on his ass because he yelled at his other personalities and wacked off to some nude shots of a weasel. We'd put one of our fucked up kin into a home somewhere and pay their medical bills, but badgers kick 'em to the curb. They ain't got time for that shit. That's why you hear about the wolverines though, and not the badgers. Badgers just get the job done, quick and dirty like, no craziness like the wolverine. Personally I think the guy in X-Man should have been named Badger, not Wolverine. Maybe then he would have gotten a real haircut. Besides, a badger would never need an adamantium skeleton. Other members of the badger family? How about the Tazmanian devil? Well actually that's a marsupial, but it wishes it could be a badger. They suffer an extreme case of badger envy. Sometimes Tazmanian devils ask badgers how they rock so much. That's when the badgers bite their heads off. If Tazmanian devils had graves, the badgers would piss on them. At the peak of badgerdom is the excruciatingly wonky badger, which is a topic for another day. |
| As I mentioned in my last blog entry, Saturday was a day from hell. After wreaking havoc in HomeGoods, I then lost my wallet somewhere between checking out and lugging the suit of armor to my van. I had no cash in the wallet, but I did have 3 credit cards, my debit card with $8000 in the bank, my driver's license, and my social security card. Anyone who found it could spend all my money and then steal my identity. We rushed home, and I closed all my accounts. In the process of closing my last credit card we got a call from HomeGoods. They had found my wallet right after we left. I figured when I got back to HomeGoods they would say they checked the surveillance tape and saw how I demolished one of their rear displays and demand retribution. Of course I wouldn't have any money to give them because I just had closed down all my accounts and wouldn't be able to access my bank account until Monday. Because they took so long to call me back. Bastards. Fortunately that didn't happen, but what followed was much much worse than losing $139 or all my money and my identity. After visiting some websites about vintage merchandise the night before, Jodi got it in her head to visit the Goodwill store. We don't have any thrift shops around here, so she figured that was the closest thing to one. I've never been to a Goodwill store and I don't want to be. It's supposed to be for poor people. It's not like we had any cash anyway. Jodi insisted they take cards too, but I suspect she meant those food stamps cards they give out now. I felt like I'd be stealing from the less fortunate. What could a Goodwill store have that we'd want anyway? I called my mom and told her where we were going, and she laughed hysterically in my ear. "That's where your cousin Peter shops!" she said. Meanwhile if you've seen the "National Lampoon Vacation" movies, our cousin Peter is a dead ringer for cousin Eddie. He even drove around in a mildew-stained Winnebago one summer. My mom described the scenario I was already living over and over in my head. Just as we walked into the Goodwill, someone I knew would drive by and honk and the horn and wave to us. Then, as they sped away, they'd whisper to each other "Oh my, things must be really tough for Ernie right now!" She described the scenario with a cackle. Thanks, Mom. Fortunately I didn't have to worry about anyone seeing us going into Goodwill, since I was able to hide behind all the cars. Believe it or not, the parking lot was almost full, and the cars weren't even dented Fords and rusted Mercurys. I even saw a SAAB with a New York state license plate. Apparently we weren't going to be the only middle class assholes buying stuff at welfare prices. Unless of course those people were just donating stuff. Reluctantly I walked into the store, half wondering if I should have gotten that Tetanus booster first. The place wasn't as bad as I thought though; it was actually worse. It was like going to the shittiest yard sale ever, the kind where you'd do a "drive-by" and yell for the driver to stomp on it shortly after they slowed down and you spotted all the crap. The store consisted almost entirely of long racks of used clothes and plastic shelves with knick knack junk not fit for the crazy old cat lady in the retirement complex. We ignored the clothes. I've not above wearing hand-me-downs, especially not at a buck a piece for a pair of jeans... well, wait, actually yes, I am above it. But even so it wasn't jean day, so they were getting an exorbitant $3-$5 a pair! Were they charging extra for the bacteria? I suppose it's a still a good deal though, a lot better than the $40+ you pay for those pre-cut, worn and faded jeans. We perused the shelves of garage sale fodder, looking for "vintage" items that Jodi could turn into masterpieces or resell on eBay for a profit. I don't know if I felt dirty for exploiting the poor or by being in an indoor yard sale. Either way, I needed a shower afterwards. I noticed a lone margarita glass, and I stopped a moment to ponder what kind of person donates a vessel for alcohol to the needy. The good samaritan in me was suddenly inspired to donate a carton of smokes and a 40 in a brown paper bag. Even so, being the budding alcoholic that I am, I picked up the glass only to discover it was in fact plastic, a blasphemy to margaritas everywhere. No wonder they donated it. Being by itself though, I had to wonder if the rest of the set had already been sold. I turned it over and saw a sticker reading $1.79. A buck eighty for a used, plastic margarita cup?! I can buy a brand spanking new margarita glass for two bucks, and I don't even have to go to Wal*Mart to do it. I started checking the other prices of all this crap, and I came to a shocking realization. Goodwill isn't just a craptacular indoor yard sale, it's also an overpriced yardsale. I saw a 20 year old camera, too old to be useful and not old enough to be antique, for $20. Then there was the tiny wooden something for $5. And the particleboard computer stand for $40 that I can buy brand new at Staples for the same price. The list went on and on. No wonder the poor need food stamps; Goodwill is sticking it to 'em. We made our way to the back, which I instantly regretted when the odor hit me like a lead pipe. Now I have a weak sense of smell, and I rarely pick up on foul odors, a fact which makes living with myself possible, but this reek sent me reeling. You've all smelled something musty I'm sure, but imagine walking into a nursing home without all the cleaning chemicals and flowers and God knows what else. Imagine sitting in a room with no windows and doors and nothing with you except a bunch of naked, unwashed, elderly people sitting around waiting for death to come. Imagine their shriveled bodies sagging and jiggling as they jostle on the leather seats for comfort. Imagine their wrinkled and dry privates rubbing against you as you try to find escape from the folds of sagging skin beneath their armpits. Imagine them all sitting around playing checkers under 20,000 heat lamps, whilst you rub the corns on their feet and count their liver spots. If a smell could be a picture that's what it would have looked like. I think I gagged. Twice. When I stumbled through the stench zone, we came upon a rack of plates, tea cups, and various pottery paraphernalia. A snooty looking bastard in a dinner jacket, with either a trophy wife or his assistant mistress on his arm, was perusing the teacups and shaking his head in disgust. "It's not real china," he said with a sneer, clearly disappointed that the Goodwill didn't meet his standards. "You can tell by this ridiculously fake gold foil around the edges." He threw his chin in the air and stormed out. I think he was headed for the homeless shelter next to find a butler. "See?" Jodi said. "This is what people do. They look for treasures in here." Needless to say, we left without buying anything |
| Well, I don't technically have a free minute right now, but I need a break from the code I'm working on. I have a post-it note on the side of my monitor where I keep track of blog ideas. The list keeps getting longer and this blog doesn't, so I'm going to knock one off right now. It's not often I have an eventful weekend, so I might as well share it when I do. Saturday we went shopping for props for the upcoming Halloween party. Those who read my blog know that's a big deal for my family. At HomeGoods we found a 5 foot mock suit of armor. Now besides the obvious kick ass coolness of having a suit of armor in our apartment, we figured it would make a good haunted mansion prop, so we stood it in the cart. Lo and behold in the back of the store we spotted an even larger suit of armor. That's where the trouble began. It stood even higher than I did, but I was skeptical about the color and pose. I also noticed that the visor was cocked at an odd angle. I had to see if it would straighten. So I put one foot on the platform where the armor resided and strained to reach the knight's visor. All hell broke loose. Apparently the HomeGoods employees keep their merchandise standing simply by packing things so tightly there's no room to wobble. This time they failed. I barely grazed the visor of the helmet and the suit of armor began to fall backwards. My cat-like reflexes kicked in and I caught the suit of armor with my hand against its back, but not before the wobbling statue fired off a chain reaction, a domino effect of discount furniture and home goods. A table toppled, then an easel, than a cabinet, and on and on around the 6 foot square platform. Though I moved like a ninja, gracefully catching each object and righting it even as the next began to topple, my Go Go Gadget arms did not engage, and furniture toppled off the platform. A series of varying crashes broke the sound of milling customers much like the sound effects on a bad Batman episode. As the last piece of discount wood rattled against the linoleum floor, silence fell across the store, all eyes settling on my acrobat display of strength and balance. Jodi stood by in shock and fear. Or perhaps she was just awestruck by my sheer manliness. Either way, she was frozen where she stood. A customer or two came to my aid, helping to right some of the capsized inventory. No store employees did though. In fact one walked right on by as I tried in vain to right an easel with one hand and balance its painting in the other. I surveyed the destruction, crunching numbers in my head and fearing for my bank account. Fortunately I saw nothing broken. And then I saw the table leg lying on the platform. The end table it belonged to lay a foot away, on its side, the base of its leg snapped off. I hoisted the table, searching for the tag. $139. I could deal with that at least. I looked around, waiting for some employee to appear and tell me I just bought a busted end table. No one appeared though, so I slid the table back onto the platform and set the broken leg beside it. I pushed a cart away from the platform, whistling and otherwise looking inconspicuous. I expected to follow Jodi to the checkout line, but instead she wandered to another section of the store and began perusing the shelves. "Honey, what are you doing?!" "Oh, I haven't looked over here yet. Is that okay?" I wiped sweat from my brow and tried to shrivel into my own pocket. "Uh yeah, okay." "Do you want that other suit of armor?" WTF?! Oh, but that was only the beginning of my horrible Saturday. The rest is yet to come. |
| My best friend sent me an email this morning with a link and a brief note. I read it in shock and horror. I sat there for several moments, simply speechless, waiting not so patiently as www.dragonmount.com tried to load. It timed out a few times before finally connecting, no doubt because thousands, if not millions, around the world were doing the same. My friend's note gave me the news, but as someone who experiences loss is wont to do, I tried to deny it at first. Finally the site loaded and confirmed what he had told me. Robert Jordan, the author of the Wheel of Time series and several other novels, finally succumbed to a prolonged illness yesterday afternoon. I'm am truly and utterly saddened. I'm not ashamed to admit I'm crying. No doubt some would wonder why the death of an author I never even met would make me cry, especially one whose writing was so frequently criticized. But for each of Jordan's naysayers, there are a dozen fans like myself who are equally distraught. Jordan did not just write a successful series of fantasy novels. In fact he managed to create a massive cult following, a whole world of online communities dedicated to his work, a work which after 11 lengthy books and a handful of accompanying tales remains unfinished. I found "Eye of the World," the first book in "The Wheel of Time," round about freshman or sophomore year of high school. I was instantly absorbed. I remember vividly where I was the first time I read about Rand and Mat arriving in Caemlyn. I remember finishing the book and flipping to the back pages to see what other books in the series were already in print. I remember asking for each of them at Christmas time. I introduced the series to my skeptical high school buddies who quickly became as absorbed in it as I was and even read through faster than I did. We would chat for hours, discussing our theories about what would happen next. We graduated high school and took these chats to instant messengers, debating WOT plot from hundreds of miles apart at college campuses. We found online sites where thousands of readers just like us debated every day. We studied Jordan's Old Tongue, for which I eventually scoured every book to create a dictionary and grammar guide. We pre-ordered every new book in hardcover since the fifth book, re-reading the series (or part of it) every time the new one came out, scavenging for clues and refreshing our memories of the plot. For more than a decade, Wheel of Time was a part of my life and the lives of countless fans. I realized quite a while ago that Wheel of Time is more to me than a simple series of novels. I've read many great books in recent years, but to me they are simply that: books. But Wheel of Time is part of my life. I grew up with Rand and Perrin and Mat. As I changed from a boy into a man so too did they, and with each new book that came out, often a year or more apart, I relived those years of my life over and over. It represented a tie to my youth and an entry to beyond. The series became real to me inasmuch as a fictional story could be. Knowing the ending eventually approached, I became saddened. I realized that although we all wanted to know the final ending, the coveted final scene which Jordan hatched more than a decade ago, in my heart of hearts I never really wanted it to end. I would have been content to simply read a new novel each new year until I was old and gray, all the while complaining that Jordan was just stretching it out. You see the end of the series meant an end to that piece of my life. It meant finally bringing closure to years I had enjoyed. The comradery of Wheel of time, the debates with friends about the ending, this facet of our lives would cease to exist. The books have touched me in a way no written word ever has and reminds me of what once was. To Robert Jordan I am eternally grateful. He is one my heroes and one of the reasons I ever started to write. He, his work, and more recently his battle with this illness have inspired me in ways nothing else has. Though he worked on the final volume of the series until the very end and even shared all the details with close family so that the book may be finished, I take no consolation in knowing the series will be completed. He and his work meant so much more than that, and no matter how masterfully written, it cannot possibly be the same. His vision was unique, and the world of written fantasy has lost one of its greatest. He will be missed by his family and friends and the masses he has touched. Rest in peace, RJ. "May the Dragon ride again on the winds of time." |
| I do, I have to poop. Not just like it's brewing down there, but like it's really close. I'm squishing my ass cheeks together and contracting my butt muscles, hoping against hope that a little won't sneak out like a turtle head. That inevitably results in a faded chocolate stain, and I'm not wearing colored undies right now. It's so bad that I have to pee too. I've got my legs pressed together, but even so a little might ooze out and dot the front of my shorts. That's the reason I had to give up going commando. Underwear hides that first layer of trickling piss so no one notices that I actually peed my pants. At least not until after the smell radiates the room, which thankfully takes time and whole lot of piss. Un-thankfully though I have ample supply of both. Oh crap, I just had a muscle spasm and farted. I've got my ass pressed into this faux leather office chair, smothering any fecal pokeage, so that fart rippled a blast of air right up my backside. I think my T-shirt just flapped a little. Son of a bitch was probably juicy too. I'm going to end up hiding another pair of underwear before Jodi gets home, I can just feel it. Oh boy, I'm getting that sensation of pressure followed by needles in my package now. I'm either going to tinkle a little pee into my shorts or I'm going to induce kidney failure trying to hold it. Don't worry though, I'm not dumb enough to endanger my health. Wal*mart has a ready supply of underwear, but I doubt if they have a rack for kidney donors. Ah yes, there it is. You just have to let enough out to relieve the pressure. That trickle there will get me another 5 minutes. And that hardening log creeping out my southern exit has a good 20 minutes to go before I can't take it anymore. Don't try this at home though, kids! This expulsion suppression has been years in the making. Lots of practice, folks, lots of practice. By now you're probably wondering why on earth I don't just go to the bathroom and get this nasty shit out of my system, quite literally. Well, besides the obvious and noble reasons (and the lesser known fact that suppressed fecal matter hardens and comes out in a single piece thus saving huge moolah on toilet paper), I simply don't have the time. I have a few free minutes right now, and that my friends is a luxury of late. I haven't been around much lately as you apparently haven't noticed (feel the love). In August that was due to the wedding, which was awesome by the way, but even now I'm damn busy. This new job doesn't allow me the spare time to converse with all you wackjobs during the day. It pays better and it's cool work, but that is the one drawback. I've also discovered that after working on this computer all day long, the last thing I want to do is play on it at night or on the weekends. I need to get away from it. I'm suffering from some sort of Net fatigue or computer fatigue. Even so, I have some blessed free moments right now, and so I'm using them to write a quick blog entry. I refuse to waste these minutes on the crapper, no matter how soothing that might be. It's been over a month since I blogged, and so much has happened since then, not the least of which is this gold hunk of metal on my finger that I'm trying to get used to. There's so much to tell, and so many PC ways to tell it. I intend to catch up on it all very soon. The infamous PC is coming back. For right now though, I need to get into the bathroom; that 20 minute estimate didn't factor in the buffalo sauce I just had for lunch. |
| The new job is swell in that I'm into my third week of what is essentially paid vacation. The inherent incompatibility issues of Windows Vista has delayed the arrival of my company PC again and again. That means the actual "work" I can do is minimal at best. So mostly I sit around half-clothed most of the day, surfing the Net, doing some work research, and on occasion flipping on the ol' boob tube, which incidentally needs more boobs. I never expected this seemingly win-win scenario would put me in such peril though. I was sitting here on the couch moments ago, happily plugging away on my laptop. I had even showered and put on shorts. You should know that I am going commando though because I've run out of not-so-tidy whities, and Jodi made me swear not to put dirty underwear back on... again. So after zipping up my shorts without ensnaring the dragon, you'd think I had already avoided the most dangerous part of my day. But it's not that simple. So anyway, there's a pillow next to me on the couch, and naturally I started chewing on it. Like any average Joe that chews on pillows, I was really biting down and tugging. I had it hanging from my teeth and dangling over my shoulder while I was researching the ability of Java to display OLE documents. It's then that I hear the sickening tear. I spun my head just in time to see the pillow fall. It landed on the couch like a tree falling in the forest or some equally dramatic simile. It bounced slightly as my jaw dropped in horror, like some bullet-time scene in The Matrix. And then, like a feather floating down from atop the Empire State Building to kill some unsuspecting bag lady, the wisp of paper-like byproduct drifted down from my gaping maw. The tag on the pillow. It stared up at me like Satan finally reveling in the demise of his antithesis, or like a mind-numbing paragraph of incorrect metaphors. "Under penalty of law this tag not to be removed." I scooped the pillow and tag up and tried in vain to reapply them with a great deal of licking and massaging. (I think Jodi would have envied the tag frankly.) I considered duct tap, bailing twine, and even a laminator. I even tried sticky bodily fluids... well, not really, but the thought had crossed my mind. Somehow though, in one of my occasional moments of heroic brilliance, I accepted my fate and resigned myself to it. I would accept whatever the law and the teeth-weakened tag had in store for me. Once the feds find out about this, you won't see me around much, so let me take this opportunity to bid you adieu, dear readers. It's been real, it's been fun, but it hasn't been real fun. Oh, and can someone please verify for me that they do in fact have conjugal visits in prison? |
| Next month I celebrate my 4th Writing.com birthday. That means I'll get another 5 community recognition points. Is there any way I can refuse them or drop some of my other ones? I really want to preserve my 69. |
| So by now all my faithful readers, all three of them, are likely wondering how my first week at the new job is going. Well, it's not bad really, and it definitely has its perks. In terms of the actual work, I'm thus far bored to tears. There was a shipping delay on my company PC through which I'll connect to the office via VPN. That means I can't get on their network yet, which in turn means I can't get access to the code I'm going to be working on yet. So the past 3.5 days have been spent reading 500 pages of online documentation and staring at hundreds of lines of Java code that are relatively meaningless until I see the rest of the product. The computer is now scheduled to arrive this weekend, so next week, though still very much a learning curve week, should pick up nicely. But now onto the important stuff, ie working from home. I have in fact showered each day, though deodorant, and all its nasty Alzheimer's inducing aluminum components, has gotten dusty sitting on the bathroom shelf. The same could have been said of my toothbrush until yesterday when Jodi could no longer stand my breath. I haven't shaved since Monday, and there are more boogers under the office chair than I'd care to admit. The apartment is turning into a little slice of heaven. The pair of shorts I'm wearing right now is the same pair I've worn all week. And before you ask, no, I haven't washed them yet. I'm also pretty sure I've worn this same t-shirt since Tuesday night, but frankly the last few days have seemed like a drunken stupor so I can't be sure. I'm on the fourth day of the week, and I've worn two pairs of underwear. I'll leave the math to you. I've also taken up using the treadmill on my lunch break, so I have a sweat shirt I wear each day for that. Notice "sweat shirt" is two words. That doesn't mean a sweatshirt but rather a t-shirt that gets worn every day and is drenched in sweat. I'll be damned if I'm going to do extra laundry just to wash out my own sweat. I get up at 7-7:30 now, instead of 5AM, and I get to lounge around before heading into the office. In addition to the extra sleep, this new routine comes with all kinds of perks. For one thing Jodi has to get ready and leave for work, so I get to see her naked every morning. For another I've discovered that FX shows re-runs of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" at 7:00AM. Finally I get to have Cap'n Crunch cereal every morning with little regard for any Crunch bits or milk I might spill. I'm living every guy's wet dream! I may have to take my raise and hire a cheap illegal to clean though. The dishes continue to pile up, especially now that I eat and drink at home. (There's plenty of time to do the extra dishes though, because we're saving so much time on laundry.) Clutter is starting to appear at various break spots, like the couch and the recliner, and my office desk has gotten sticky from food, drink, and sweat. I also have a tendency to unknowingly step in the daily pile of cat puke and smear it into the rug. With bare feet of course. Damn cats. So what have I learned at work this week? Here's a quick list:  I'm going to be working on a pretty cool project, and I'm quite excited about it. Sunrocket, my VoIP business phone provider, has little regard for their 200,000 customers, considering they decided to go belly up Tuesday without telling anyone. Even that Buffy spin-off show "Angel" has eye candy. FHM.com has provocative R-rated photos free of charge. ESPN runs Baseball Tonight during the day. The ants in the kitchen will not carry away full-sized Cap'n Crunch bits that a gremlin made me spill. Cap'n Crunch may have a five second rule, but not a five day rule. Sitting on a hardwood floor in one's underwear is refreshing and cool. Italian restaurants must meet a homosexual waiter quota (my Monday night adventures at a company dinner at a fancy Italian restaurant is a blog entry for another day). The neighbors don't just smoke pot after dark. |
| Wow, it's my last day here. It's finally sinking in. It's kind of sad really. I'm going to miss all the people here, but alas I'm moving on to bigger and better things. I'm excited and nervous at the same time. It's just a shame I won't see all my friends here anymore. What's that, you thought I was leaving Writing.com? Ah hell no, I'm talking about leaving this job. Monday I start my new work from home job. That means no more washing clothes, no more showering, no more shaving, no more deodorant, etc. I'll be saving so much money! Seriously though, it's bittersweet. My life has come full circle during my time here. Before this job I was a perpetual student, an irresponsible, lonely, geeky degenerate living in his parents' basement. I was plagued by depression and crippling anxiety. I was a recluse and a loner. Now, thanks in no small part to my time at this company (and even moreso to Jodi), I've grown up... well, sort of. I make good money, I've cleaned up my credit, I have a beautiful fiancee, I live on my own, I'm more outgoing, I'm always happy, many of my anxieties have evaporated, and I don't crap my pants nearly as often. I have a lot to be thankful for. I'm going to miss this place. It will always have a spot in my heart I think. The whole turning point in my life happened here, and hopefully with this new job things will get even better. This is also the last time I blog from work. Or at least from this work. I might still use some lunch breaks to throw an entry together though. In the beginning, my time in scroll and on Writing.com in general will diminish, especially during the work day. I've got another big ol' learning curve to overcome, and that will take up most of my time. So if I disappear for days at a time, that's why. Not that anyone would notice or care anyway. I'll get it though, and soon I'll be speeding through work and giving myself W.com time once again. I am going to use this new job to get back to my writing too. My standard workday is supposed to be 8AM to 5PM. I'm already planning to be up at 7AM, which is still 2 hours later than I get up now, so I can get in an hour of writing before I start to work. I might do more on my lunch break as well, whatever I can fit in between lunch, the laundry, the treadmill, and "The Young and the Restless." In the immortal words of Homer Simpson, "See ya later, Stink Town!" (Technically I really like it here, but that's an awesome line, so I had to use it.) |
| On the drive home from work last night I got thinking about how perfect the wedding will be. Even if something were to go wrong, ultimately I get to marry my best friend and my soul mate, and that in and of itself is perfect. I realized there is just one thing missing though. I thought about saying a few words after the ceremony to thank everyone for coming. And that's when I realized that regardless of the guests that make it and those that do not, someone will be missing: my grandfather. My only regret is that I hadn't met Jodi sooner so my grandfather could have met her before he passed away. On the other hand I sometimes wonder if it might have been his guiding hand from the other side directing the coincidence of events that led to meeting her. His last words to me were "good luck," and I have been very lucky indeed. I miss him all the time. Rare is the week that I don't tear up at least once during my commute. And I will especially miss him on August 25th. I'm a man of little faith and I don't quite know what to believe in, but I'd like to think he'll be there with us on that day. I suspect he'll be sucking back some beers, especially since he doesn't have to worry about his sugar anymore. He'll be shaking his head at the idiocy of family, and he'll be making fun of my grandmother. He'll be nodding in approval at the hot babe I'm going to marry, and hopefully he'll be proud of me. My grandmother called me Wednesday to get permission to make a request of the DJ. She wants to request my grandfather's favorite song, some Neil Diamond one I don't think I've heard before. I can't imagine why she thought she needed my permission, but I of course granted it. I had thought about playing a song for him too, but I didn't know a good one. Now I do, I guess. Even before my grandmother made that request, I had wanted to honor him some way. Just in case his spirit really will be there, I want him to know we're thinking of him and that we miss him. At other weddings, I've seen people use a memorial candle to honor lost loved ones. Obviously that doesn't jive with a pirate wedding, nor it is the most original memorial. Besides, that grizzly old legend deserves something a bit manlier. It came to me yesterday on that drive home. A vacant seat will remain next to my grandmother, and at his spot at the table I'm going to put a hand-made pirate hat. The fathers are already wearing gray tricorn hats, and I'm going to make one last hat for my grandfather. I ordered a unfolded gray hat moments ago. This one though has a wider brim, making it bigger and more attention grabbing, which is rather appropriate I think. My father works outdoors, moving from one job to the next, and apparently he's seen a hawk at several jobs since my grandfather died. It often stays for days, simply perched on a branch watching him. Now previously in this area you'd be lucky to see more than one or two hawks a year. My parents also tell me there's at least one hawk that circles over their house every few days. You know where I'm going with this. I don't know if I believe in anything like that, but I'm kind of hoping a hawk circles over when we exchange vows next month. We can count that as his RSVP. |
... so I wrote a story this morning for "The Writer's Cramp"  .
I got an honorable mention because darkin nearly spewed her coffee while reading it. So it might be good for a few laughs. |
I saw the following link in scroll today:
It's a touching eulogy for the author's poor computer. And guess what... yours truly is the antagonist! In the story, it's my stinkbomb that finally obliterates the computer. This from an author I hardly know! My reputation as W.com's hilarious/annoying/offensive bad boy lives on! Woohoo! How cool is it that someone I barely know would insert me into his/her contest entry as the totally bad ass villain?! I'll tell you how cool; totally frickin' wicked ass cool! |
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Tooo rich...Love the tale....Would make a great comic for a local newspaper!!
