Biggest Inside Joke Ever

This movie is going to be remade by Ashton Kutcher in 3...2...1....

Pro tip: Try to avoid doing google searches on the word "hunk." You might also want to avoid searches on "tentacle." Trust me.

Fun Fact: If you google search "centaur penis" you may find this blog for some reason.

Wax On. Wax Off. (Or, There is no mercy in this dojo Mr. Lawrence)

I was getting my drinking out of the way for the week last night with a jagermesiter shooting schoolteacher. Due to a busy holiday seasonish week, I had to efficiently pack in a bunch of beers on Tuesday night. It was my first drinking session since my half a beer last Friday night. Drinking has totally lost its luster since I purchased and absolutely fell in love with an Xbox 360. Throw in a bigger TV that my sister's boyfriend gave me and it's been like Christmas at my apartment since last Saturday. There's no tree or anything, but there is cool shit to play with.

I'm like three gift cards and a case of wine short of finishing Christmas shopping. Things are going relatively well. Plus, my hair is really cooperating. That means a lot in this weather. It's really due to the Bumble & Bumble Sumowax, but I had to learn how to use it. Holy crap. I can't believe I just admitted to using that produck. It costs a fortune for very small amounts, but it lasts forever.

Oh, so the reason I was writing was because some chick that spoke no-English came into the bar while myself and the dudes were playing golf (I was whipping ass) and handed us this flyer for La Jolie Nail Spa. I studied marketing in college and I wouldn't call this a targeted campaign. Unless they are a rub & tug, it really didn't make sense to give it to a bunch of dudes. It's not really the mani pedi crowd. I am a reader, however, so I was reading it between strokes on the game and learned about hands and feet treatments. I found massage add-ons interesting and was disappointed that they didn't have "happy ending" listed. That would be funny.

Now, here is that part that I never knew about, but was curious about. It's the world of waxing. Both location and cost interested me and now I know both kinda. So, eyebrow, lip and chin are ten or fifteen bucks. Ummm. You can have your sideburns waxed for fifteen bucks, too. That creates an awful image in my head, but reminds me of my high school girlfriend. Oh, I mean fiancee. So dumb. She was hairy and had hair that looked like Darth Vader's helmet. She has two kids now. Good Job!

Hey, that's interesting. The boy in an engagement is called the fiance with one "e" and the girl is fiancee with two "e"s. I've been engaged twice and never knew that. I do, however, know that if the dude wears an engagement ring it's hecka gay.

Okay, so. I'm wondering what a "Brazilian-Take-it-all" is. It's $60 and if it's what I think it is, it is awesome. Next is half legs upper and half legs lower. Why would you only get the lower or upper done by themselves? That would be awesome. You're all getting on some chick and you put your hand on her awesome, smooth, hairless lower leg and you move your hand up and it's some atrocious hairy upper leg that feels like when you put your own hands down your pants to adjust your underwear during a work day because underwear is for work and formal events only.

Next is the underarms (armpits) for fifteen bucks. I'd recommend that. In fact, I'd pay for it on some jeans under the dress wearing hippies. There is also full arms and half arms. Again, it's perplexing to think about only getting half the arm done. Or, perhaps, even having half arms. Then, there is chest waxing for thirty five bucks. I'd imagine that is primarily for dudes because chicks with that weird hair on their areola can just pluck them. Yeah, I went there and yes, I've seen it.

Lastly, is the back wax. This is kind of a no brainer. When you hit thirty, you start to find hair in the weirdest places. When I had a girlfriend the few stray upper back, half back and shoulder hairs were sparse and manageable. She would enjoy yanking them out. As our relationship started dissolving she found enjoyment putting rubbing alcohol on all my soccer related burns. I think she liked the way I would scream and tear up when she did that. It is what it is. I think it helped sustain the relationship for a little while longer. Anyway, the main problem that sprouted up has been this weird lower back hair, my half back, if you will. I'm starting to understand spa terminology. The hair starts low and starts moving like ivy up your back. It's not a big deal yet, but you can tell that someday I'm going to have to quit doing yoga with a beard trimmer and either find a girlfriend or life partner or go get waxed. I'm scared that once I'm there I won't be able to stop and I'll just let them have it all. My whole body would look like nylons with no hair, but the idea of it is interesting.

The next hair area that I noticed after 30 was my ears. I found a random long hair sticking out of my ear. Not IN the ear, but there is a fuzz on the outside of my ear. I hate it. I can't even imagine if it was dark and coarse. I would become a recluse and if anyone saw me I would yell "Don't look at me! I'm a monster!"

You also get the long hairs coming out of your nostrils after 30. It's not a big deal, but that nose trimmer that you made fun of in the Sky Mall catalog soon becomes less funny and more necessary. I wonder if they could wax my nostrils. That would hurt and would definitely make you sneeze. Maybe it's like cat's whiskers and humans need their nose hair to find their way in the dark. So, I would get my nose hair waxed and then that night my house would get broken into and I would walk into the hallway in the dark and walk into a door knocking myself out because I didn't have any nose hair to find my way in the dark. That could definitely happen.

Here is a shout out for all the cat lovers. Here is a preview and click that link:

"When you can't own your own cat, Petz Catz 2 is the next best thing. Visit your lovable bundle of fur anytime and enjoy hours of fun with your furry friend. You'll never have to worry about cleaning the litter box or visiting the vet. With more than 40 different breeds to choose from, the only hard part is choosing which one."

Van Halen

I'm fortunate enough that a good friend grabbed me a Van Halen ticket for this Saturday. I've been looking forward to this since 1984. So, I don't even remember how I came across this little gem, but I remember when it came out. Pro tip: don't name your band after a Star Wars reference.

The song is brilliant, though. An homage to the DLR era of Van Halen and not the dark Empire Strikes Back years of Van Halen't. I saw DLR play at the Solano County Fair and it blew doors on anything that Van Hagar ever did. That's including the fucking Crystal Pepsi commercial. And all Diamond Dave had at his disposal was mic stand kung-fu, the bass player of White Lion (James Lomenzo), and apple juice in a whiskey bottle. I heart that man.

Nerf Herder - Van Halen



Oh fuck. I just found this from Oakland in 1981. This is why a time machine needs to be invented. This would be a stop on my time machine tour. This is sick.

This Next Blog Is The First Blog

Cheap Trick at Budokan: The Complete Concert is awesome. Robin Zander is at his peak and has in-between-song banter that isn't written by someone else and is used every night. Rick Nielsen is just tight. He is never over-the-top and is always playing to serve the song. As a whole, the two-cd set is pretty much a primer of how to move a crowd and play a perfect live show.

As for the consumer, it's not so great in the Winter time, but would be great to play while you clean your apartment with the heater turned up real high. This album is perfectly suited for drinking cheap beer while hanging out in someone's backyard in lawn chairs with your shirt off while being accosted by barbecue smoke. Perhaps, it is warranted of the term BBQ Music.

Mistakes Were And Will Continue To Be Made...

So, this weekend while out in public doing research on people in general, I overheard this conversation between a bunch of women. When I say reasearch, by the way, I mean buying coffee, buying new pants and trying to ignore loudtalkers.

"Well, my boyfriend hasn't really been over to my apartment yet because I don't really like it."

Her friend replys, "My boyfriend hasn't even met my cats yet and we've been together for five months."

So, after taking in this new data and feeding it into my calculations of self-worth I realized that it's not so bad being single because it could be worse. For instance, I could have a girlfriend that has not met my cats if I had any. Q: The only thing weirder than cat ladys, by the way? A: Cat men.

Sorry, Pappy. You know better than to take things in the blog personally.

I'm officially writing down "Cat Ladys" on my dealbreakers list. It's not real high on the list because exceptions could be made and cats could be lost. Oh my shit. What if you hooked up with a girl and then things went really well and you both liked each other and you moved in totgether, but she had a cat?

So, in the process of moving her into your place or moving into a way better place, you "accidentally" lose her cat so that you can pursue a much more fruitious (that's right, bitch. fruitious) life down the road. If this happened and you managed to salvage the relationship between you and her after severing the substitutious relationship that was fostered between your girlfriend and her cat, you would get to say "Mistakes were made, but we are going to learn from this and move forward."

"Mistakes were made" is hands-down my favorite phrase right now. I'm using it at work a lot to amuse myself unbeknownst to anyone else. It's like the three months that I used "How we roll" in a business situation and managed to inject it into our workplace vernacular. My boss actually used it in a meeting one time and I had to leave the meeting to go use the restroom and laugh my ass off.

So, it being the holiday season and me being relatively vain. I've come up with the ultimate gift for mother. It's a wallbanger of myself vacuuming or cooking. If you watch sports you have probably seen the commercials for fatheads. Fatheads are for NASCAR, Star Wars, Football, baseball, Hannah "Who the fuck is Hannah..." Montana, etc. Wallbangers are the English version of them that they play on Fox Soccer Channel.

So, anyway, they are giant posters for your wall if you live in the MidWest or are under 14. I really don't see any other place for these. You can, however, get a wallbanger made custom now. So, you can get them of yourself playing sports like team ttf, the queen, becca, or kevin 11 24/7.

So, cool. Those guys are participating in some form of recreational activity. Kevin has some dope sandals on and Becca is doing the robot superaggressively, I think. I can see the merit in getting these made for yourself if you truly think of yourself as awesome.

There is a dark underbelly to this product, though. There are the people that get wallbangers of their cats. For instance, meet Trouble. Trouble fills that hole of loneliness and despair that his owner feels late at night while she watches seasons of Sex and the City and thinks about how she is never going to meet a guy like McDreamy from Grey's Anatomy. Then, we have Gizmo. Gizmo was pulled from a fight with a raccoon at 3:00 A.M by his owner and inadvertently caused the owner to have to get a rabies shot. Immediately following that altercation, the owner had to pay $1200 for emergency cat pancreatic surgery. Yeah, cat people. You made the list.

Holy crap. I just saw a wallbanger in the gallery of someone's truck. Cat people, I'm taking it back and you guys are getting moved up a peg to make room for car people. My apologies.

Please check out the wallbanger gallery.

This is a late entry, but OMG, this is the best one hands down. The kid's name is Beetle and he has a shirt on that says American Cornhole. That sounds like a Kid Rock album. I thnk he is throwing bean bags. This kid just made my day.

TMI (Totally Maladjusted Individual)

I haven't been blogging, duh. I've been regrouping. To be completely honest, I was losing my way a bit...for like the hundredth time. It was still better than last year at this time, which was better than the previous year, etc.. So, here's what's been going down.

I went to the Big Game last weekend and never made it past the tailgate phase due to weather and the Civil War. I wanted to catch the end of the Oregon game and I was also contemplating setting a trash can on fire (Hobo Heater) at the tailgate. So, my hetero companion and I ended up at our bar that we go to after soccer games. It was warm, there was beer, and the games were on. It was pretty nice. I was supposed to go to my company holiday party at 7:30 that night and was persuaded out of it by about 7 people. I felt loved. Then I felt loaded. We got home pretty early and I tucked my hetero companion into couch. Technically, he passed out and I threw a blanket on him as I went to bed. Would that be called chivalry? Is there gay chivalry?

Anyway, Sunday blew donkey balls and I spent most of it on the couch catching up on soccer games from the day before and getting a little bit of work done. Jesus, my day makes church kind of look exciting. At least you get to get dressed up at church and interact with people. I realized at the end of the day on Sunday as I went to bed that I had not said a word all day. That's creepy. I hadn't even made a sound. Not even a grunt of pain as I wracked my toe against the corner of the coffee table.

Monday came. Tuesday came and I had a doctor's appointment. It was a dermatologist for a seasonal affected scalp irritation. That's right ladies; he's single. I've sat on this blog entry for two days now and decided that the main rule of this blog is unabridged honesty as long as it is entertaining and artistic exclusion to protect those acquaintances of mine that don't need to be dragged through my mud. So, this is embarrassing, but it's part of the deal. Let the chips fall where they may when it's about me.

So, I'm at the dermatologist and he checks out the scalp and gives me some shampoo. He then asks if there is anything else and I tell him that I should probably get my yearly STD test with it being Christmas time and everything. I think my last one was right around Thanksgiving so it was time. It had been an interesting year. Plus, due to recent events I was considering the peace of mind that a clean slate would be.

So, next thing I know, a man has my penis in his hand. It was kind of funny as I stood up while he put on his gloves and I said "What do I do?"

He looked back at me and just said "Drop 'em."

Now, to a relatively young heterosexual male, lab coat or not, getting a professional HJ from a man is uncomfortable. It gets even more uncomfortable when he asks you if you participate in Receptive Anal Sexual Activity. I'll spare the reader a wikipedia link there.

I looked back and said "Well, you know I experimented in college...No, dude."

So, we finished the hands-on exam and I got to go give blood and urine. See? This is the part where I am awesome. I knew I would have to give urine so I didn't use the restroom when I got to the office. This solves two problems. No pee dribbles on your undergarments and you have pee to put in the bottle. This dude is smart and seasoned. Plus, I couldn't even imagine this happening, but a spontaneous eighth grade chalkboard erection would make all parties uncomfortable during an exam and having a full tank helps this out.

Before I get to blood and urine, I would just like to point out that I'm disgusting and twisted for even writing about this, but it's happened to everyone. I swear.

So, I sign the HIV consent form saying that if they blow it I won't blame them. It's a scary form to sign for sure. I went into the lab and let the extern (I'm not sure what this means) tap a vein. I'm very vascular and she brought over three other phlebotomists to help her choose which one to poke. I guess I have the veins that phlebotomists like. She handed me a little squeezeball and then jabbed me. She did something wrong because nothing was coming out. My first thought was that this was the part where everyone finds out that I had actually been dead and no longer had blood, but I could feel it pulling. It fucking hurt bad. The oldest one came over and tweaked it a bit and the pressure let off and I gave them some blood.

The last part is the best. She handed me a biohazard bag and the bottle. She made a small mark with a Sharpie to set my goal and went and did my business. As I walked back from the bathroom, I was very nonchalant with my bag of biohazard urine and made my way down the hall without anyone noticing that I had a fist full of piss...until I bumped into the hot doctor lady.

Seriously, she was super hot like the doctors on House or any of those other doctor shows on TV. There should be a word for when you see a hot doctor, nurse, or stewardess. I used the word stewardess because there are no hot flight attendants on domestically run airlines because the ugly ones complained.

When this happened I felt like I was holding a five gallon trash can of pee with both hands. It wasn't a full-on collision worthy of a "Pardon me," but instead was a light graze enough to gain attention from the grazee, however, it was still obvious that I had been peeing in a bottle that gets put in a bag with biohazard written on it.

So, obviously after having my penis in a dude's hand, signing an HIV consent form, giving blood and peeing in a cup, I'm not really super in the mood or throwing game at all, but she was hot. It was still okay to say something charming and smart. NOPE! There is no line nor game when you have pee in your hand. I merely skulked back to the lab and dropped off my specimen and got the hell out of there feeling flush and about six years old.

Hoping for a clean slate on Friday and then pursuing a life of celibacy if only to avoid ever having to do that again. I'll throw down, don't get me wrong, but perhaps something that is more traditional in regards to timelines. Maybe let it be more special (specialer?) than getting a pizza or winning a soccer game. Jesus, what is happening to me? Also, if I see someone on Halloween dressed up as me at my annual STD exam, I'm going to get superpissed. Actually, I don't get superpissed. I will be unnerved.

So, there you go. Besides that, everything has been awesome. I can't believe I'm posting this. Whatevs. I made the bed. I'll sleep in it. I'll even wash the sheets of the bed I made.

Update: Clean Slate achieved. 5:56 GMT.

The Mix Tape: Alive and Well

Hmmm. I'm at work three hours late, two bucks short, lightly hungover, and I have an Interview Committee meeting in an hour. If I retrace my steps, this is what happened.

After work I went and bought some shaving lotion by Murad. At thirty bones a pop, I'm referring to it as a shaving treatment and referring to myself as a Metro...you know what? Scratch Metro, I'm calling myself a homo for that purchase. Swear to god, though, it's a nice shave.

After that I actually went to the grocery store and I hadn't eaten all day. This is as close as I ever come to being stoned. I bought a bunch of broccoli and some bread and cheese for grilled cheeses when it rains, but managed to buy some stoner fare: Honey BBQ twists by Frito's, a DiGiorno pizza and some Hot Wings. I didn't remember purchasing them until I put them on the conveyor for the clerk with my twenty Yoplaits. I'm seriously so gay for Yoplait.

I went home and ate dinner and planned on staying in for the night until I found my muse. I remembered a bartender telling me to put up or shut up when I called the jukebox stale. I jumped on my computer and made two of the most elitist indie hipster mix CDs for the jukebox. So, I ran them down to the bar and planned on maybe having a beer and going home. That didn't happen.

I got there a little after 9:30 and the CDs were in the jukebox and playing in their entirety by 9:45. I'm vain and love my music, so it was like hanging out with a beer and my iPod. That's a nice time. So, I had to sit there and listen to the CDs and see how the crowd reacted. Love me daddy issues like that of a stripper. Oh, I also met two girls who have got to be strippers. GOT TO BE.

When you make a mixtape you have these delusions that it can change someone's life. Like someone is going to hear that lyric in "Exodus Damage" by John Vanderslice and their life will change. Mine did a little bit, but I can't expect the same from others. Here is the set of lyrics that I found ultracompelling when I first heard the song. I seriously almost teared up:

"so the second plane hit at 9:02
I saw it live on a hotel tv, talking on my cell with you
you said this would happen, and just like that, it did
wrong about the feeling, wrong about the sound
but right to say we would stand down

an hour went by without a fighter in the sky
you said there’s a reason why
so tell me now, I must confess
I’m not sick enough to guess

dance dance revolution
all we’re gonna get
unless it falls apart
so I say: go go go
let it fall down
I’m ready for the end

so you hope that one person
could solve everything
and for me, that’s you
sometimes that dream
is a sad delusion
but sometimes it’s true"

Seriously. That is good writing. Regardless, Antonio's Nut House has one of my favorite jukeboxes in the Bay Area now. I realize it is super phonicly narcissistic, but it is what it is.

Here's the playlist of one of 'em:

1. Fuck the Valley Fudge - Grandaddy
2. Ram It Home - We Are Scientists (B-side)
3. My Lunatic Friends - Deathray
4. Song to Say Goodbye - Placebo
5. Can You See Anything? - Veto
6. One - Sunny Day Real Estate
7. When the Sun Goes Down - Arctic Monkeys (Live)
8. Don't Go Down - Elliot Smith
9. Sleep on Needles - Sondre Lerche
10. My Ghettoblaster - Brant Bjork
11. The Bends - Radiohead
12. The Slow Descent into Alcoholism - New Pornographers
13. Meds - Placebo
14. Shake the Sheets - Ted Leo and the Pharmacists
15. Whatever Happened to Corey Haim - The Thrills
16. Velvet Snow - Kings of Leon
17. Photograph - Jason Falkner
18. Beautiful - Clem Snide (Christina Aguilera cover)
19. Son's Gonna Rise - Citizen Cope
20. You Are a Knife - Veto
21. Cigarette Smoker Fiona - Arctic Monkeys

Okay, here's the second:

1. Use It - New Pornographers
2. La Costa Brava - Ted Leo and the Pharmacists
3. Store Bought Bones - The Raconteurs
4. Fortress - Pinback
5. Finer Feelings - Spoon
6. Get Me Naked 2 Electric Boogaloo - Minus the Bear
7. Can't Lose - We Are Scientists
8. Well Thought Out Twinkles - Silversun Pickups
9. Dr. L'Ling - Minus the Bear
10. Reckoner - Radiohead
11. Big Dipper - Built to Spill
12. Sender - Pinback
13. Exodus Damage - John Vanderslice
14. Freeze the Saints - Stephen Malkmus
15. Apology Song - The Decemberists
16. The Pioneers - Tunng
17. A Call to Apathy - The Shins

I did hear good things about it, too. So, I hung out too late. Sent one semi-bitter/ill-advised e-mail at three in the morning. What happened was this. I was dreaming in an English accent again. Seriously, you do not want this to happen to you. It's miserable. I don't know how the English do it. So, I was up at three in the morning and couldn't sleep and a little out of it and I checked my work e-mail. It was 9:00 AM GMT, so I was technically working. When you are sleepy and lucid, your mind fucks with you. It's like living out your subconscious. That is a world that no one wants to be in. Could you imagine a world without emotional fences and boundaries and half-truths and lies for the benefits of others? I'll say it over and over. It is what it is.

So, 19 minutes until this meeting of reviewing 25 resumes and coming up with five imperative questions to ask candidates. I've got one that goes "If Eddie Munster's dad was a Frankenstein and his mom was a vampire; how was he a werewolf?" The second question I have is just to challenge prospective candidates to a footrace. Technically, asking someone to race counts as a question. Third question is "Quien es mas macho? Senor Burt Reynolds o Senor Tom Selleck?" Fourth question is "Do these pants make my ass look fat?" Fifth question is "What do you think was in the case in Pulp Fiction?

Shit. Done and done. Work is so easy. If you are reading this, I hope you are having a wonderful Friday or weekend. I care about you all deeply.

Update: I just went into the break room at work to grab a Diet Hansen's (so good and plastic tasting like a nice scotch) and I think someone at work has figured out how to microwave farts. Swear to god. It's either that or they are microwaving a dirty diaper and muddy, sweaty tube sock.

Work Stuff

First. Everybody stop loud talking. Use your inside voices. We are all in offices and I can still hear you planning your life outside of work all day over my iPod headphones. It has gotten to the point where it takes Ozzy at 85% to drown you out with the stock iPod headphones. Yeah, my bad for not ponying up for the Bose Noise Canceling headphones so that I can listen to M.Ward while you talk to your kids. I'm this close to closing my office door. This close. |------------------------|

Second. People that adjust their schedules to ease their commute are annoying me for some reason. First of all, it makes me have to come into work at seven because you have been here since four. Basically, you wake up for work when normal people are getting kicked out of bars and leave work when normal people go to lunch. The trickle down effect lands in my lap as I get off at four and have to shop with the blue hairs. I will die alone because even my last chance of grabbing an orange at the same time as some perfect representative of the female species that enjoys oranges has been ruled out because I am shopping with old people who can't park. Are these my peers? Would this be my jury? Do I need to fight aisle wrapping pharmacy lines to get to the bread aisle? Did you seriously just take a half day at 8:00 AM? This can't be real. I am done with laundry and dinner and in my jammies when my friends/friend are/is getting off of work.

Third. How hard can it be to maintain a comfortable climate in an office building? I can't feel my hands. I'm going to look like Bob Cratchit by Christmas. I'll have some fingerless gloves and a sweater on while I type and look at my breath. While I see the appropriateness of holiday decorations to boost morale, I feel that people should not be used as window dressing while they work and especially if it is not entirely their doing and instead some kind of secret HR department plot.

Fourth. Try this at work. In a meeting, casually put your thumb up on the edge of the table. Then, while actively participating in the discussion, see if anyone else puts their thumb up on the table. It's just a relatively accurate coolness gauge. You do, however, run the risk of being called out on it. If you do get called out on it, excitedly pronounce that you are President and point at someone and say "And you are asshole." If someone busts out a deck of cards and a twelve pack of Miller High Life, you've just won the meeting and qualified as President for a game of Asshole. That, my friend, is called winning at being awesome.

Fifth. I skipped soccer and drinking after soccer last night to install an Oracle database on my personal laptop. I felt about ten feet tall while I talked to my neighbor about how he lost six pounds drinking Gimley's vodka and lime juice instead of beer. There may have been a diet book deal in that conversation if we had written it down. He was wasted, but power to him. He invited me out drinking on Friday, but I told him I had a soccer game and really wanted to cuddle up with my newly installed database that I can do whatever I want with. Change is afoot and it feels pretty good. I plan on winning this thing.

Sean Paul Jones

I'll admit that I ironically subscribe to the genius of all that is Sean Paul. He is like a more aggressive and more legit Shaggy while still being watered down and not legit. You can, however, hear his music coming out of everything from Escalades to Berlinettas at stop lights from the left to the right of the United States as a whole. I'd like to add right here that not only are we the home of the Whopper, waterboarding and Wikipedia, but we are also the home of Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader, Deal or No Deal and Don't Forget the Lyrics. Anyway, here is what you hear when you sit at the stoplight next to Sean Paul fans. It made me laugh real hard this morning.

Good Ideas for Autoreply Messages: Vol. 1

In these days of spam and mailing lists and general Inbox maintenance, it is a good idea to put some rules in place or even use the autoreply function for certain messages like "Thank You" or "Good Job."

The question is, what do you put in the autoreply that conveys sincerity and alleviates the automation of the whole process? How do you inject humanity into a reply that you may have never even seen go out of your outbox? Well, I have it. It's right here:

"You just don't get it.
I am not communicating with you for your sake.
The e-mail was strictly in an effort to hope you leave me alone all
together.
I don't want anything to do with you and I don't want your help or your
best wishes.
I know its harsh but it's how I feel."

Just cut and paste that into Outlook and you are set. I've got it set for anything with "Viagra" in the body text.

All The Things You Are

Made it. The first leg of the holiday mental gauntlet is in the books with minor altercations and negative points. There were some not entirely positive things that happened, however, and because I try to be completely honest through a veiled guise of anonymity even though many friends read this and can finish my sentences when I try to relate a story that has been chronicled here. Therefore, I'll run down some of the things.

First negative point was Black Wednesday. It would've been smart to stay home for this one, but something drew me out. To be honest, I've totally figured out what it is and it's so lame that it shoots pangs of guilt throughout me whenever I tap into my subconscious and see what's really going on. Sadly, I get drawn out when I feel lonely in the hopes that I will find some kind of stimulating conversation with someone who is attractive and intelligent. My god, that is so sad. Too stubborn to join a book club or e-date, though, still. That's a whole can of worms, though.

Here is a clue for anyone considering this type of action because it must occur in other people. I've been informed that I'm not special, so at least three other people must have experienced this. It rarely to never works. Perhaps the reason I still do it is because it has worked in the past (at least in a temporary form), so I intrinsically know that there is a chance. Anyway, the clue is that it may not be a good idea and it will probably not work. At best, you will wake up the next day and feel like crap and realize you just wasted time and money and may have even said something horrible to someone. Worst quote yet has been "Hey butterface. You should really be nicer to people that are more attractive than you." That is the most vain and mean thing I have ever said to anyone, but she deserved it.

So, the negative point on Black Wednesday went down like this. I was at my goto bar and this thick neck guy and his two personal trainees were with him. They had incredible Rottweilerish backs. So, anyway the two trainees started talking to me about how much better real ones were when compared to fake ones. Seriously, I'm not a fan of this argument. To each their own. I don't care about how a TV works or where your breasts came from. Not really my business.

Long story short, one of the trainees grabs my hand and puts it on her breast as I say "That's really not a good idea." This was the spark that the powder keg needed as I was about to be jumped by Thick Neck. This culminated with a heated (his side) and disinterested (my side) argument that probably had an under the breath comment of why would it matter if I touched a dude's breast anyway which then pissed off everyone involved.

I'll also admit that, at this point, every one of my drinking stories is sounding like it is from the point of view of Holden Caulfield. That's not really where you want to be. So, anyway, this situation did not end pleasantly, but I did not get a bloody nose or anything, so it's merely a minus one. I did, however, wake up the next morning still pissed and decided that this stuff needs to stop.

The next day was Thanksgiving and I went to my broken home to be with family. I refused to touch a drop of booze as I feared it would Irish up Thanksgiving and instead drank Diet Cokes and Ginger Ales which were very pleasant. I exchanged pleasantries with my maternal grandmother who explained to me that Mitt Romney is spoken to by the lord and not, in fact, George Bush. I told her I really didn't know who to trust on that one and it was kinda he said/she said for me. She then relayed that the Middle East would play out the way that the bible has prophesied.

At this point, I was looking for anything to gouge into my chest warranting an exit from this nightmare conversation. I can't believe that we even share any DNA and really think that she would have been better off had my grandfather never taken her from Canada. America has not been good to her.

Regardless, it was the best food on record and was great to see everyone, for real. My mom gave me one of my old books from when I was three and my neighbor read it to me. Sadly, the theme of the story kind of matched my mood even though I didn't learn from it 29 years ago. It was Hucklebug and was about a little bug that runs away and then feels bad, but doesn't want to go back because he feels bad for the mistake that he made by running away. I might add that I ran away twice before I was eight and I still have problems with mistakes and learning from them.

So, crap, day after Thanksgiving, I just bummed around and then eventually went out to get dinner. All the places that I tried were closed for holiday parties and I ended up at my other bar. The definition of insanity as determined by Jung is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Started talking to one of the bartenders instead of getting tacos. Beer. Beer. Beer. Whiskey Shot. Beer. Beer. Smoke. I ended up "dancing" at one of my all-time unfavorite bars while drinking "handsomes" with a girl from my softball team. This didn't go well and they took my beanie as it broke dress code.

Saturday. Did nothing. I read some stuff from my programming book and watched a couple of episodes of Twin Peaks and four episodes of Top Gear, which is one of the best shows on TV that I know of. Be careful, however, because you will start dreaming in an English accent if you watch too much BBC. It happened last night and I slept horribly.

I ended up at a party on Saturday night with Pappy at Warner's house and saw some really good friends and had an awesome time rocking out to Rock Band. I have to buy it now and put a Rock Band together. Right now, my official profile is Gay Pete. He looks like a short, fat Dee Snider and his name is considered "not Classy" by the XBox Live program. Whatevs. He is badness.

We need a bass player, but I think we've got the guitar and drums nailed at this point. The name's up in the air, though, because we need to have a band meeting to discuss it. It was something like Anal Stripes at last argument. The redeeming thing of the night was that fact that I drank three beers in six hours and was considerate to mostly everybody. The gay guy didn't really care for the name of my Rock Band guy. Like that was in my control. That's his name. That's it.

So, starting Saturday night stuff started getting good. I tooled around the apartment on Sunday and did laundry and stuff and felt good about most stuff.

A couple of things here, though. I'm starting to sound like Colin Oberst, but I'm thinking about quitting drinking again. I realize it's horrible timing for it with the holidays and all, but when I tally up the points, the good ones rarely come after a few. Let me clarify that, having sex in a hallway of a Sheraton at four in the morning or having sex with a semi-stranger and not remembering their name in the morning are not good points. Good points are feeling warmth in your chest from meeting someone as you walk away and go home to bed or doing something really considerate for someone and not for yourself. Very rarely are these points scored even with a drop of alcohol anymore. All the good points come under the influence of conscience and intuition. I've given myself a mulligan on saying things that are offensive in the spirit of self-degradation or lightheartedness, but I really am getting sick of it. The regret and guilt will wipe you out when you are sitting by yourself wondering why you are still smoking and alone.

It's harder than it looks and it breaks down to loneliness and regrets. It's weird. It starts out with you feeling lonely. The next phase is the guilt because you start to think that you wouldn't be lonely if you hadn't blown it about 25 times. Basically, you feel like you were given what you want and bit that hand that fed it to you. That's not healthy, is it?

Oh, the other thing is that The Girl from a couple of months back had a boyfriend and that's probably why she went AWOL. It's some form of closure and I still wonder why I got and am still a little hung up on her. The thing about that question is that even having the answer to it wouldn't mean a whole helluva lot. So, here goes.

Update: Proof that iPod shuffle functionality can read your mind. "Textbook" by We Are Scientists came up on my shuffle right when I finished writing this. No one should have to relate to that song, but it happens. It's like sad girls and Faith Hill songs. Has it really come to this? Seriously?

Hyperlameity

Holy crud! Still tired from Oracle OpenWorld last week where I was made to feel real dumb, inspired to learn more, stranded at the CalTrain station with no way of getting a ticket (second time that's happened), and the recipient of an Oracle umbrella. My first umbrella since my ex took my Stanford umbrella a long way back.

So, last Monday, I made it to OOW around Noon. I had to run my gear to my sister's house in the Marina and then get back to the conference. I had a gig on Monday night in the Richmond district and wasn't going to leave my gear in my car. Four guitars later, you know not to leave musical gear in your car. Not only does it promote the theft of the gear, but is usually really bad on your windows.

First day of OOW can be summed up like this: Business Intelligence, Web 2.0, Dashboards, Green, Next Generation [any word here]. The night before the first day there had been a shooting at the Metreon because some kid didn't go down the escalator fast enough. Another action pushing the culture as a whole an evolutionary step backwards. Got home Monday and was exhausted after pounding Diet Cokes through the gig.

One note about the gig, is that the guy who used to play drums for the band showed up. I think he is aware that I clowned him and also have already stated that I'll never play with him again. I watched him tune his floor tom for a half hour one night while we were late for a start and he also wears socks with Birkenstocks and I'm sure by now the Birk's have evolved into Crocs. What a fucked up world we are living in when people can do this. Managed to get home around Midnight and get into bed whilst having one pair of clean pants left to wear the next day that were a little short, to be honest. Whatever, floods at a dorkfest shouldn't be too bad.

Second day of OOW. I had missed the cocktail reception the night before, but this crowd didn't party real hard, so everyone was pretty with it. There were over 40,000 people at this conference and sessions were held in a ten block radius that you could get to via an intricate shuttle system that must have cost Oracle a fortune. It was clear from the onset, however, that money really wasn't an object at the conference. Some highlights:

-They shut down Howard street between Moscone North and Moscone South to build a tent a block long where events were hosted and meals served. It was impressive.

-They had a customer appreciation event at the Cow Palace and booked Billy Joel, Lenny Kravitz and Stevie Nicks and Mick Fleetwood. They also had Envogue. That's pretty tight.

-They were running a fleet of full-on tour buses between the hotels and also their headquarters in Redwood Shores.

-They provided palatable lunches everyday. I had a Thai wrap that could very well have been unstoppable. I would eat it again.

-The tchotkes at the conference were some of the better tchotkes I've ever seen. I think it was Tuesday that I saw about twenty people walking around with Guitar Hero III from the NetApp booth. My Oracle bag is pretty nice, too.

That was the second day. Business Intelligence sessions and a little bit of PL/SQL in there. I went home Tuesday and managed to get some laundry done.

The third day was the day of the big concert at the Cow Palace and Larry Ellison's keynote with Michael Dell. The next day the concert was followed by reports of noise complaints from the event from as far as ten miles away. They must have just rocked. I think I still would have been more impressed by the keynote that day. It was bigger than some rock shows that I've been to and people were pumped. Pro tip-for the next 5 years, at least, "Green" is the thing. That is all anyone is fucking talking about besides dashboards, of course. I think I fell asleep at like eight that night. Walking around with 40 pounds of backpack and sneaking work into session breaks was taking its toll on me.

Now, by the fourth day, I was done. I bought a new book for $75, but it was to replace one that was stolen a while back and it's super good. It was a slow day as everyone had left or was tore up from the night before. I still went to a bunch of sessions and talked to some guy from the UK for a while about database development and footie. I wrote some random notes down in my notebook during one of the sessions, though. Here they are:

-Jawas in the exhibition hall. These are the old Asian people that comb the tradeshow exhibition hall for branded junk. They are easily spotted by their bags full of stuffed bears, thumbdrives, hats, mouse pads, key chains, etc...They will take anything and are absolutely unqualified leads. They also bug the shit out of me because I used to do tradeshows for a living.

-Keynote Speaker Cellphone Videotapers. At least four of these guys were in front of me during the Ellison/Dell keynote. I was concerned that I would catch their hyperlameity. I did, however, send a few texts during it and was genuinely impressed by an uninterrupted data migration between two 11g servers. I would never tell anyone that, though. Seriously, though, impressive.

-Personal Space Invaders. After two days of people walking right into me constantly and bumping into me almost twice as constantly, I started to believe that I may have become invisible. Could people seriously bump into me that squarely if they could see me? It defied all explanation. I also became a fan't of the person who gets on the escalator and puts a head in your ass. Seriously, this dude had his nose in my ass going up the escalator one day. Perhaps he was a budding proctologist, but he was violating my personal space in a bad way.

-Grown Man Stuffed Menagerie Makers. These are the grown men in jeans and sport coats with brown boat shoes and branded stuffed animals. I managed to spot one with three different types of plush toys and made a tiny little prayer to myself that he was going to bring them home to his son or daughter because it wasn't even really desk worthy.

-Escalator Standers. The rule is that if there is room in front of you, then walk. It's not a fuckin' ferris wheel. It is meant to speed your travel from one point to another faster than it would take to walk the stairs. It is to decrease time, not your effort, you fat fuck. Put down the cookie and start walking. Look what happened on the Metreon escalator (even though it's totally wrong and uncalled for). Escalator related violence is increasing at an alarming rate, so please follow the rules of the road, therefore, decreasing the chance of anyone experiencing Escalator Rage.

-Lunch Chasers. The lunches served were very decent, but they still came in a box. Is there any reason that you should be seen running across a plaza to get a ham and cheese sandwich? If you've done this, you should probably roll a ten sided di to see what damage you just took to your dignity.

-Beanbag Sleepers. These folks were definitely web 1.5, but they are still out in full effect. For some reason, if you are sleeping on an Oracle beanbag, you don't look homeless sleeping on a concourse floor. That's right. People are merely a shower, laptop and a beanbag away from looking homeless sometimes. I will kind of stick up for these people, though. The conference was super exhausting.

-BO Aficionados. There were dudes at this conference that brought BO to a new level. Sadly, every time I would get behind a guy that smelled of BO, I could only think of Sting. Why did he ever get into singing that as his thing? It worked the first time, but he throws it in everywhere live. BO is to Sting as "Dyno-Mite" is to ________________. A little SAT prep thrown in.

-Cookie Cutters/Collectors. These are the people that would cut in front of me at cookie time. Everyday around 3:00 or 4:00, they would bring out the coffee, cookies, and soda and people would go ape shit. It was like feeding time at the zoo. I have to admit that I found a tremendous amount of pleasure in watching the whole event. A couple of the days, I would jump in for a cookie and a dude seriously pushed me out of his way the way my grandma does at Christmas and Thanksgiving. I seriously thought about leveling some old Chinese guy over a cookie. Instead, I just let him get his handful of cookies and went for one when the frenzy had died down a little bit. The cookie was really good, though. It was peanut butter and not too hard or too soft. I cared for it.

-Tennis Shoes and Suit Wearers. I've been trying to pull off a variation of this at work, but no matter what you do, you end up looking like Rick Nielsen from Cheap Trick without a hat on. Sometimes, though, I've almost sold myself on the look. Black Adidas Gazelles can almost compliment some slacks better than dress shoes. It's a sense of aloofness combined with a projection of "I'm very serious about getting some work done today, but could still ride a skateboard home" vibe.

-PPT Slide Photography Enthusiasts. There was not one presentation that you could not get on a thumbdrive or download that was presented at the conference. There was, however, people that insisted on taking fuzzy pictures of the PowerPoint slides with their iPhones and e-mailing them to themselves. Was there something that I was missing that enhanced a PPT slide if it were caught in it's natural environment? Was it like seeing a lion on a safari versus seeing one at the zoo? Fuck these people.

That pretty much sums up my last week. I mean, yeah, Thursday night I got into a beer chugging contest with a guy named Bjorn from Germany and a guy named Edmundo from Mexico. We ended up bar hopping and I lost two credit cards and got stranded in the city, which lead to a night on my sister's couch and a commute of shame the next morning, but that's just a Thursday, isn't it?

Judo "The Art of Choking"

I've been following the Hans Reiser trial lately. I find it extremely interesting. There is sex, betrayal, shadiness, a Honda CRX, and Judo "the art of choking" involved. The San Francisco Chronicle has a blog that is updating very frequently as the trial progress. Here's the link: SFChron Hans Reiser blog.

On every side of this trial are high profile San Francisco Bay Area legal people. Prosecutor Paul Hora had the Sausage King of San Leandro case. In that case, a guy who owned a meat processing plant disagreed with some inspectors and shot them all. He died in San Quentin a year after he was found guilty.

William Du Bois is on the defense. He represented one of the dudes from the Newark Gwen case in the Bay Area. That was where a bunch of dudes had sex with this "chick" and then were super pissed when they found that she was a really pretty guy. The kid involved got 15 years to life for it.

The judge is Larry Goodman. He was the judge on a case out of Pleasanton. It actually involved a girl that I went to high school with. She was abducted by a couple while she was on her way to work, raped and dumped up in Tahoe.

Check out this gem:

4:08 p.m.: Oakland police launched a major surveillance operation of Hans on Sept. 18, 2006, 15 days after his wife went missing, Hora told the jury.

Cops tailed him in numerous undercover vehicles and even in a plane circling overhead. They followed him as he left a daylong child-custody hearing in Oakland, had lunch with a friend at Fonda restaurant on Solano Avenue and then watched as he was dropped off near his Honda CRX at San Pablo and Ashby Avenues. It's the car the cops had been searching for. Hans then drives the car to Monterey Boulevard off Highway 13 in Oakland, parks, gets out, circles the hatchback four times, fiddles around in the car and then leaves. A cop sees Hans talking to a cab driver who appears on scene. By then, it's nightfall.

When the cab leaves--and Hans is nowhere in sight--the cops radio each other excitedly, "He's in the cab! He's in the cab!" Police start following the cab and tail it as it heads toward the Oakland airport.

But wait! Hans isn't in the cab, the cops realize.

Then an officer sees Hans "sprinting up the hill" up Shepherd Canyon Road, looking nervously over his shoulder. The cops lose him in the Oakland hills and never see him again that night, Hora said.

But OPD still has Hans' car--and it's missing the right front passenger seat, Hora said. The seat was there when Hans was pulled over by Redwood City police six days earlier, the DA said.

So, read more at the blog. Their coverage is really good so far.

A couple of things:
1) I am officially denouncing the "Thank You" e-mail and putting a filter in my inbox to automatically delete it. Don't get me wrong; I'm appreciative that you are thankful for some kind of action that I performed, but it's not necessary to thank me over e-mail. It's enough that I've obviously been identified as someone with a small rig and erectile dysfunction that needs to make lucrative stock purchases everyday, but I need to do stuff besides delete e-mails all morning. So, from now on, I will assume that you are thankful and if you are not, then that's neither here nor there. I do nice things for people to make myself fell better not them. It's absolutely selfish of me.

2) Try and listen to SomaFM when you are stuck on the InterWeb at work. There is a really good Indie Rock station and the Groove Salad station is pretty good, too.

Profundity, Monkey Dancing, and Barbarella

I just died laughing. I'm not even going to explain how I got this link, but the tagline had me cracking up. The tag was something about Nick Rhodes from Duran Duran talking about the profound influence that Star Wars had on Duran Duran.

Welcome To Planet Duran Duran

Okay, they took their name from Barbarella, which is like the sexiest non-porn movie ever made. That movie still makes me feel funny in the same way that Erin Gray did on Buck Rogers. It's a feeling that is both natural and unnatural at the same time. Some day I will understand it.

So, anyway, Duran Duran definitely has a sci-fi link, but if you want to talk about profound influences on Duran Duran, you would need to at least put cocaine, disco, and homosexual financing on the list somewhere. Star Wars I think would fit in that list fourth or fifth and would probably fall more into the category of "pretty big" influence.

Star Wars was a profound influence on Coheed & Cambria, Kevin Smith, and Hardware Wars. Let's just get that straight.

Side Note: There is something that is so incredibly calming about listening to Sufjan Stevens. It's not real happy. It's not real sad. It's just calm. That'd be pretty cool to be able to do that. He must be like 42 seconds away from being used in a Target commercial if he hasn't yet. I just heard a Target ad where they took Jim Noir's song "My Patch" and changed the words for counting down to Christmas or some shit. Dude, it's not even fucking Thanksgiving yet. What the fuck? Should I be getting stuff for my New Year's Eve celebrations now, too?

Anyway, many people in America don't remember Jim Noir for his song "Eanie Meany" from Adidas' World Cup Promotion. Jim Noir is worth checking out. He's got some cool stuff. Yeah, corporate whore, but whatevs. If I could quit what I'm doing right now and not have to do it for a year to do a dog and pony show for Target, I would just ask you to point the way and then start doing the Monkey Dance.

Update: Finer Feelings by Spoon could be one of the coolest songs ever written. For some reason, this song is just really clicking right now. It's got such a fuckin' solid groove in it and the guitar plays just enough without playing too much. Everything is just perfect about it. Perhaps...too perfect? Finally, Ga (x5) had to be one of the best albums this year.

Here's a link to the Underdog video. Brilliant.

Also, you can't forget keepon dancing to Spoon's "Don't You Evah." One of the coolest bass lines ever. I love it, genuinely. If you don't like that video, you are evil. It's better than LOLcats.

If You Lived Here, You'd Be Home By Now

So, no soccer on Friday this week after work. You know what they say about idle hands. I managed to meet up with a friend for a drink after work. This shouldn't be a big deal, but it sure is nice to do every once in a while. It doesn't happen a lot anymore. I wore a pseudo-Friday night shirt and Friday night shoes so that I could go over to my bar that I like that sadly has turned into a nightclub of sorts on weekends. This means that I have to put on dress codeable attire. I have to admit that it does make me look more handsome. So, it may be a blessing in disguise.

By the way, these new Friday night shoes that I got are awesome. They are Kenneth Cole Reaction. I think the model is Punchual. They are super comfortable and have now become my official shoes of work. Comfy and cheap. That makes a good shoe.

So, hung out on the patio of my usual bar and was apparently doing a meet and greet with every late 20s early 30s single mom in the place. I'm not hating on breeders. I just found it weird. It was like someone had put them all up to it and I was the butt of some kind of elaborate practical joke. I'll admit, too, that the mom from Poland was super hot. Whatevs. Not dating or hooking up for a while.

Got home late Friday after counting tips with the bartenders and walking two of the cocktail waitresses to their cars so that we could all be robbed and assaulted together. Chivalrous, yes, but safe? No. A jacket over a puddle is one thing, but protecting two hot girls from whatever comes out of the dark at three in the morning is something completely different. I'm not calling myself a pussy. It's just that there were giant Samoan bouncers inside and they sent me out. The lesson learned is never make eye contact when someone asks for something.

So, Saturday morning I missed some pick up soccer in the morning and then sat there figuring out what to do. I decided I would get a burrito for lunch. That was my plan for the day. I went and got said burrito and even threw in a quesadilla because I was jonesing for one. The problem with the quesadilla is that it prevented me from being able to eat the burrito. These are the problems that I deal with on a daily basis.

I watched Deathproof in the afternoon. I was a little biased against it and I didn't want to like it, but wound up really caring for it. The soundtrack alone is worth the price of admission. I have to hand it to Tarantino, his soundtrack taste is impeccable and full of deep cuts. So, after Deathproof, I watched The Fountain. I really like Darren Aronofsky, but this movie was challenging. Themes of love, despair, and immortality. Conquistadors, monkeys and yoga bubbles. It's visually stunning and a cool movie, but a lot of it had me going "What the devil?" Went to bed at ten Saturday night.

Woke up confused about what time it was because my phone had autoupdated for Daylight Savings. I don't really observe Daylight Savings, but do respect those that do. I finally figured out that it was 7:30 AM for everyone else, but 8:30 for me so I jumped in the shower and started my Sunday ritual which consists of coffee and the paper. Starbucks Coffee was apparently not serving coffee on this particular morning. Seriously, why don't they just change their name to Starbucks froofy espresso drinks with whip cream, trinkets and baskets of Cranium games? Stick to the basics. They invented the 400% markup on a cup of coffee and then can't even manage to serve it. Fuck You, Starbucks! Fuck You all to hell for not having coffee on Sunday.

So, I went to the other Starbucks down the street and got coffee and the paper there. I'm a total ass hypocrite. I'm aware of this. I burned through one crossword puzzle in the pink section and then struggled with the second one for a little bit. Browsed the Target ad, the Best Buy ad, and the Cost Plus ad. I don't know why I browsed the Cost Plus ad; it's not one of my usual ads that I browse. Oh, wait, I got angry because the Christmas push was starting and Cost Plus had a bunch of Christmas crap on sale. I disagreed with that.

So, at Starbucks there were nothing but weirdos and I decided to leave and go buy a vacuum because I had been putting it off for months. Buying a vacuum is the most thankless fucking act in the human action palette. No Dyson. No special pet hair function. I just need something that didn't require a bag, was not too loud and could handle the twenty square feet that is my apartment. I got it and for those keeping score at home it is a Bissel Cleanview II Plus or something. I think it's a piece of shit, but I was using a hand me down that resembled the vacuum from Mr. Mom and that thing started attacking blankets and the kids in the movie. So, I upgraded out of fear more than anything else.

Because I can never have a typical Sunday ever, I got a call from one of the dudes on my rec league soccer team and they were watching a game in Palo Alto. I had to give him the team bag and some jerseys, so I swung by the field and then watched the game. I've been thinking about joining an all mens team and wanted to see the level of play. It looked like an injury league, but fun.

After the game finished we went to a pub and watched Ac Milan versus Inter and then the Patriots versus the Colts. We drank some beers. We had some ideas and weird conversations. Well, at least I did.

We were with a couple of refs from our weeknight league and I basically laid out every trick that I ever use and asked them how they could possibly call me on them. They said they could now that they knew what I was doing. They really did respect my heel to the groin move, though. I stole it from Wayne Rooney. After you collide with a guy, you get up and act dizzy and then fall backward and grind your heel into the guys NADSAQ. If you put your hands over your face at the same time, it's a real easy sell.

So, we talked about rec league soccer for probably way too long, but managed to come up with the idea of combining some players from various teams into a tournament team. At the time it sounded like some kind of Axis powers super soccer team and crazy, but this morning it just seems like a tournament rec league team. No biggy.

After that, I went out on the patio to smoke and ended up talking books with this dude for about a day. We ended up talking about Steve Erickson for a bit and then came up with the brilliant idea of a book club. Not like a book club of a bunch of women in their late 20s, early 30s, reading John Irving and Oprah recommendations, but an elitist and pretentious book club that is centered around Finnegan's Wake by James Joyce.

I totally lifted the idea from Tom Robbins, but whatever. At this bookclub, however, we never have to read Finnegan's Wake, you just need a copy of it to get in. Once you are in the bookclub, we just talk about whatever books we are reading and music that we are listening to whilst drinking beers in paper bags. I'll stick by that idea the morning after.

Finally, best idea of the day came late. I remembered this news article about celebrities and people of interest donating their hair to charity. It's a cool idea and fun activity. It got me thinking, though. Are there firemen out there without moustaches? Cops without moustaches? Gay dudes without moustaches? Do they not have them because they can't grow one? D'you see where I'm going with this? I could grow moustaches and donate them to people in need of them to fill a stereotype that they aren't living up to. Plus, I would get to grow a moustache. It's a win-win situation.

OMG, foot in the mouth quote of Sunday:

"Hey, your buddy's pretty fucked up, man."

"Oh, he isn't. He just has MS."


That's all for now.

Uhhh.

I might have wore a fake moustache before posting this to youtube, but whatevs. It's basically a guy making fart noises in his hands that sounds like Sweet Child O' Mine. A better description would be that he is jamming along with the recording using nothing, but his hands and a super-vexed expression on his face as he concentrates on his art. I bet this dude gets real old at parties. Seriously. Watch his face. He's getting into it.

Simon Says Embed!

Muy In Telly Hentai

I had to train a new employee on our application this morning. She cut me off constantly and breathed real heavy. That's no big deal. I can handle that. She then took the documentation that I gave her and started fanning herself. My office is freezing all the time; it couldn't possibly have been the office climate. It's seriously cryogenically cold. I thought she might have farted and was trying to fan the smell away or something. Then I saw them.

She had banana hands. I have them, so I shouldn't hate too much, but they were bigger than mine. I've never met a woman who had bigger hands than me. From the point of visual contact, I was unable to make eye contact for the rest of the training. It was extremely uncomfortable. She is also the person who called my office phone and asked "Is this your phone number?" I replied, "Yes. That's why I answer it." It made me really confused.

So, after that, I get a little bit of work done and she sends out a weird e-mail regarding the meeting out of a form letter template. I read some of it, but it got me thinking about our recruiting process in my department and I actually Googled "Socially Retarded Affirmative Action." I didn't see any pertinent results in the InterWeb, so we must have it in a low key capacity at this point; it can't just be a coincidence.

On that note, here is my latest conversation with OfficeDwight. It took place while I was getting a soda from the fridge in the break room.

"Hey, man. I saw the dumbest martial arts movie last night" he said.

I replied "Dude, there really is no such thing as a shitty martial arts movie. Where'd you see it? Local Access or something?"

"No. I got it from Netflix. I've been checking out some martial arts and Japanese Anime." He made a hip pump gesture thing at this point and I immediately felt like I walked in on my parents doing it as I realized he meant soft core Hentai. He continued "I only get the rated R ones, but I rent them for the funny translations from Japanese. I wonder if they are that funny in Japanese."

I just walked away at this point, however, I love the Netflixian/anime usage of I read Playboy for the articles. That actually was truly awesome. It's like saying that you watch porn for the cheesy music. I've actually done that, but I actually recorded the music onto an audio tape while my parents were at work and then would listen to it when I delivered pizza in high school. I wouldn't sit there and watch a porn and be like "Oh, I'm just listening to it. I'm not really watching it." Dur, dude.

Link Smatters

This is a bunch of crap that I bookmarked last week, but was too lazy/busy to post.

Philosophy of Taoism - I actually found this off of Jeff Bridges' blog and have recently been reading up on it again. It's one of the better religions in my opinion, but that's a pissing match that I will abstain from.

Karate Depot - With Christmas around the corner, it's important that you take a look at Karate Depot. Everyone is getting fuckin' nunchucks for Christmas this year. Oh, pardon me. I meant Nunchaku. If I know one thing, it's that Nunchaku is a dish best served cold.

Andy McKee - Wunderkind. This guy plays nutty guitar and rocks the shit out of Toto. This is one of the best lyrics ever written "Sure as kilimanjaro rises like olympus above the serengeti." that's seriously in the song. Seriously.

Jeff Bridges - He was in TRON, Lebowski and he is also one of the best bloggers ever. It's mostly handwritten and it features some of his photography. The guy is out there, but super refreshing. He seems like someone who would be awesome to have a taco with. I spent a lot of time on his blog last Friday. It's great. There are links to stuff that your grandparents would forward you over e-mail.

Cardboard Tube Fighting League - This will catch on much quicker than soccer ever had a chance to. There are leagues in both San Francisco and Seattle. Check the FLICKR pools and buy a shirt or something. Or, better yet, find out when the next event is in your area and start practicing.

Hudsonia - Ray Hudson is a sportscaster for GOL TV. He is like the soccer equivalent of Harry Caray. Check out this gem "Zigic barely touches him and Palop goes down like a bunch of broccoli."

The Interrobang - Simply fascinating. I would get a tattoo of this. It was my gateway to fringe punctuation. Also see the acclamation mark, the irony mark, and the sarcasm mark. These would come in handy on text messages and e-mail.

To Each His pwn3d

Okay, picked up mom's at the doctor and talked to "Paul's Homie." If you drink enough, you will know everyone everywhere. Or, at least they will know you. I'll be mayor someday.

So, here's some random stuff. I had this epiphanical Sunday where I accepted happiness into my life as my personal savior. I was sitting in a a pair of sweats, watching soccer, waiting for a pizza and it happened. It felt like 1000 pounds of weight lifted off my shoulders. It was just in time, too. The previous Friday, I spent a half day with my sister and she explained that she had never seen me truly happy since we were kids and said that she worries about me constantly. She asked me very nicely to go on meds and I was pretty much ready to. It's really a last ditch effort for me because I'm not a huge fan of medicated happiness. See Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and you will understand. It doesn't end well.

The truth is that she is right. I've lived through other's happiness most of my life and find satisfaction in making others happy, but have never truly understood how to be happy personally based on my own personal merits. I'm aware of it and it's scary as hell. I do feel, however, that it's getting seriously better. I've road tested the new happiness and thrown it up against family, booze, and whatever else I could find that might ruin it and it's been bulletproof so far. Of course, dating is out of the question and should not be approached under any circumstance. The last girl that I "dated" (it's in quotes because the term "dated" is a real loose use of the word) indirectly caused me to start smoking again and really left a mark. She was pretty cool and pretty cute, but it wasn't in the cards. Hung me up for a little bit, though. I didn't care for it.

So, no dating and spending Fridays that aren't on a soccer field at home watching this piece of shit. The Next Great American Band is one of the most dog shitty shows I have ever seen. An analogy would be if you were playing Trivial Pursuit with someone and every question that they answered, they got wrong and the person reading the card encouraged them by telling them that they got it right and you are stuck there never hearing the right answer to any of the questions. It's horrible. The glimmer of great was the little kids playing Iron Maiden, but the novelty wears off too quickly. Plus, thirteen year old boys with their shirts off feels weird. The dog shit supremacy award goes to the douche lead singer of The Hatch. I really hope they didn't take their name from Lost because that would be super gay. They are horrible, though. They are the chick at your party singing Bonnie Raitt with her finger in her ear as if her monitor went out and she was on stage. Like they look like they are doing it for real, but they sound like grilled ass.

On paper, I'm currently reading A Long Way Down. I got it at the Salvation Army for a dollar. I try to go once amonth and buy all the decent books that they have for a dollar. It brings used book shopping to the next level. Plus, you get to see all the freaks at the Salvation Army which is like taking the freaks at Walgreen's to the next level which is just the freaks from Long's at the next level. Anyway, it's an easy read and Nick Hornby is always enjoyable. I wasn't really into it at first, but there were some really weird coincidences in the book that kind of hit home, so I kept going. I'm almost done. It's good. I'm also reading Oracle Database 10g SQL. Not real interesting, but reinforcing my Structured Query language skills. I need structure in my life.

I'm currently listening to, of course, the new Ween. Pulling out old DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist stuff. Recently discovered Mac Lethal and I think I like him, but I'm wary of his Slim Shadiness. Calm Down Baby is one of my favorite jams right now, though. I found it extremely inspiring. He seems legit. The new Aesop Rock never gets old. I've also been getting melancholy to Feist and Cat Power when I'm hiding from the world. Tons of Elliot Smith which is very dangerous sometimes, but he was so fucking good. Also sneaking in old Stevie Wonder and some Coltrane. I like to throw my iPod on shuffle every once in a while to see what it shakes out. It loves the Karate Kid soundtrack very much. Also, digging Veto and KEXP live performance podcasts. Currently, listening to one by Magnet from April '06. It's pretty good.

So, funny story. I was on my way to my soccer game last Friday and discussing relationships and the caveats of dating married women to my neighbor. Then we discussed the importance of finding individual happiness and being okay with yourself and being okay alone. I looked at him and said "Dude, I'm happy with myself right now and even if a cute girl walked up to me and asked to exchange numbers, I would tell her 'no'."

So, after soccer, some of us went for beers at the bar near the field and it was full of Halloweeners. The one night of the year that I didn't stick out for having a soccer jersey on. It was kind of cool. I had taken a pretty bad shot to the neck from someone's cleat (you can still see it on my chest) and was out front squatting down because everything ached.

This red headed girl dressed as something Bavarian squatted down to talk to me. I just assumed she needed a cigarette. So we talked for a little bit and then I stood up and she started getting really close talkey. So, whatevs, I told her my name after she gave me a fake name and went inside. She was cute and I was in danger of being a hypocrite. The worst of all the crites combined.

I went out for a smoke and bumped into her again. I ended up buying her a drink while she started getting touchy and telling me how cute I was. I won't lie. I appreciate being told that I'm cute. Her friend ran in and told her that their friend was sick and that they had to go. This is the part where I got pwn3d. She asked to exchange numbers. Pure pwnag3.

She ended up coming back and we hung out for a bit. It was nice. She said "really" a lot and also tried to make out with me in the bar, but I'm not real down with that. It tends to send a mixed message to the bar patrons and I find it a disrespectful gesture to the public. And the crowning achievement of the night for me was waking up alone with my credit card and no hangover. I cared for it.

La Cucaracha

So, it's been ten days since I last posted anything. The reason? I've been happy as fuck. Like on drugs happy. I have no reason for it, but it's been...uncomfortable? It's nice, though. It's been a nice exploration of self enjoyment through solidarity.

A new Ween album came out last week. It's called La Cucaracha and is pretty good. They get back to the Pure Guava days on a couple of the tunes and "Your Party" is arguably one of the best songs ever written. Dave "Quiet Storm" Koz plays saxophone on it and the lyric "Cream Puffs and bourbon and the music was louder/My wife was competing in a game of chance/The party raged and the guests were screaming/I could've danced all night."

Crap. Gotta run and pick up my moms. She got an epidural. Gross. I just looked at what it is. Also, totally yelled at her last night like she was a kid. It's an uncomfortable role reversal.

Seriously

This is one of the best written songs in like ten years. The lyrics are so...penetrating? The Dance Dance Revolution line is awesome and the "The second plane hit at 9:02" brings it home more than a Giuliani $9.11 dinner. That second verse is absolutely chilling. Thank you John Vanderslice. You make the Bay Area proud.

I Bet You've Done This

Have you ever woke up an hour late for a meeting at work and then walked to your car 10 blocks away in the rain while texting your ex-wife and then realized that you gave your key and your credit card to the bartender the night before so you wouldn't drive because you were wasted and singing Van Halen at karaoke and then walked back home and got yelled at by an ex-girlfriend in a crosswalk who then gave you a ride to your apartment to get your spare car key and gave you a ride back to your car which you then drove to work to the meeting that you were late for and just killed it?

Responsibility is hard at 32, but I'm pretty sure I've nailed it.

Chest hair. Not just for breakfast anymore.

More Shredding

Steve Sanders on Dancing with the Stars. I don't know what star he is with, though. Image borrowed from Yahoo!

I found a direct link to all of StSanders youtubes. They are awesome and endlessly entertaining. The Santana one is so awesome. Also, Steve Vai Shreds in Denver is great with the tri-neck guitbox. Also, if his user name was short for Steve Sanders it would be even better, but he's Finnish, so I do't think so.

Link of the Month

This is from Wired. It's an article titled "Hilarious YouTube Parodies 'Shred' Guitar Gods." It's a brilliant premise. A Finnish guy came up with the idea while watching Steve Vai with no sound and playing along I guess. It's really funny. The clapping on the Ozzy/Jake E. Lee clip is so funny. Check it out.

Now, You Really Can't Go Home Again

So, last night, I was putting the final touches on the resolution of The Girl thing. It took a text from her that said calling late at night drunk was not cool. She was right. It's not and I did. I felt horrible and just apologized and took her number out of my phone so that it would never happen again. I followed it up with a nice e-mail letting her know that I would put her belongings that she left at my house in the closet in the event that she ever wanted them. It wouldn't be that big of a deal, but she left a laptop that I put back together like the king's men couldn't do for Humpty Dumpty.

I basically took the text as a "Please don't call me again, freak." Oh and there was a weird myspace friend drop that is so stupid for a man of 32 to experience and then even feel bad about. The weird part was that she even dropped my friends to sever any type of six degrees of Kevin Bacon connection. I felt a little vilified. I lightly self-medicated on Tuesday under close self-supervision and then just tried to take it easy and watch a movie last night. things were recalibrating back to manageable. I want happiness, but I need content. It's a matter of wants vs. needs.

I'm at home watching Knocked Up which was not living up to its word of mouth status at all. Paul Rudd is a genius and the dick and fart humor was funny at times, but it was no cult classic or anything. The movie was in Act II where the heroes experience something bad which they will always resolve in Act III in these type of movies and my phone rings. I look down and see that it's my mom. My first thought was to finish watching the movie and call her when I was done, but then decided I would answer it because maybe I could talk to her about feeling down lately. I know better than this, but I was planning on doing some mom and step-dad time this weekend in hopes of stabilizing my personal world. It turned out to be one of those calls. Apparently, I was going to add more complexity to what has got to be my Act II in life. I just wish it would only last 20 - 30 minutes like in the movies. It would also be nice to have some good one-liners in there. Actually, I do have a lot of funny moments in my Act II. I'll admit that.

I picked up the phone and my mom said "Are you home alone?" and I replied "Of course." She then says I moved out of the house and your step-dad and I are separated. My chest cinched up like a knot and I could almost physically feel the couch ripped from beneath me followed by the carpet, by the foundation of my apartment, by the dirt beneath it, all the way down to the immensely heated liquid core of the earth. The first urge was to throw my phone into the wall and find some satisfaction at the pieces flying all over my living room, but stuck it out because that would be selfish.

The back story, at this point, is that I've been through this before when I was 5 and had recently put it to bed with my dad. Like in the last six months. That was a cool silver lining of The Girl. She gave me some good perspective and great energy to go visit him and let all the bad stuff go because I was pretty much belligerently beside myself with happiness. Euphoria is dangerous. Pro tip. So, to go through this at 32 makes you feel like an asshole. Life is supposed to be like this: High School, College, Meet someone, Get married, Have babies, Grow old together. It's not for me. The last three years have felt like I'm walking through a stumbling block factory during an earthquake in a rain storm while wearing roller skates and sponge pants. My dysfunctional family was the last thing holding it together. There was always some solace when I was around them in almost any situation. They were my rock.

So, I paused the movie and did the phone call. Breaking down a couple of times. There is nothing masculine about a 32 year old man breaking down, but you know what, people do it. It's real life. Halfway through the phone call I was severely disappointed that I didn't have a cigarette and self-medicating was out of the question as I had cleared my apartment of any type of booze this last weekend. That's the point where you realize there is nothing you can do and every mental direction that you turn in your head has a locked door in front of it. In fact, on the locked door is a picture of you in a precarious position to just add a little guilt to the situation. It's so you can turn it around on yourself and kick your ass while you're at it.

She said that it's nothing permanent and they had talked about it for a while now and she was just unhappy. I feel horrible for both of them and just want them to be happy, but it's a situation that is so incredibly out of your control that it's a little ridiculous. On top of that, how the fuck can you help someone else when you are having a hard time helping yourself?

We finished the phone call after about an hour and I hung up the phone and just kind of stared at the wall for a while hoping that my Saturn would somehow rise before everything became too much. I think that's astrological or at least lifted from Tool lyrics. I wanted really bad to talk to someone about it and realized that I had no one. It was as alone as I have felt in a long time. I texted the oldest friend that I have and he stepped up and called me to talk about it, which was very nice. The coolest thing through the whole situation is that my kill switch engaged. No bar. No booze. No running from the problem at hand. It was just a mental list of bulletpoints of the reasons that were causing me to think that a drink might make things better. It doesn't. Then, going beyond the bulletpoints and realizing the real reasons and fears that were buried underneath them.

At this point, however, I just want to let it all go. I never want to go home again. No Thanksgiving. No birthdays. No Christmas. No anything. I don't want to go there anymore. I want to withdraw into my own deal and just not deal with chasing the ideals that are absolutely impossible for me to attain. Nothing is "normal" and there are others that have it much worse than I. That doesn't make it better, but it rains on my pity parade. The world waits for no one and I've already been sandbagging for long enough now.

Had to get that off my chest. I apologize completely and everything is what it is. That's all it can ever be. May have to browse some therapists today. It all just feels very overwhelming. That's a big deal. I hate therapy. Duh!

You Can't Ever Go Home.

Friday, I went to the East Bay to visit Pappy. It's approximately 40 miles and it took me an hour and forty minutes to get there from the Peninsula. By the time I got to his house, I was ready to kill something. I really cannot understand how people can do that everyday. It's, perhaps, the number one reason that I'm never going to move back to the city again.

So, we go to San Ramon to The Hopyard and meet a friend from LA. It was actually really good to see her. It had been a while. She drank root beer while Pappy and I drank a pitcher of bad ideas. She bailed and Pappy and I decided to go visit Pleasanton again. That's the bad idea part. It's true that you can't ever go home. It felt like Fresno. We went to a bar in a strip mall where I guess people hang out now. After forcing down the worst Ketel & Soda that I've ever drank in my life and listening to some song that went like "Save a horse. Ride a cowboy..." we left and went to another bar in Pleasanton. It actually worked out because the bartender that Pappy had an attitude crush on was pregnant. At the second bar, we were actually there for even less time. We didn't even order a drink.

We decided to head back to Livermore to get closer to Pappy's place. We also called my little sister and asked her if she wanted to get a drink or two. She met us at the ghettoest bar ever where I tried to teach the bartender to make a lemon drop. They were horrible. He didn't understand the sugar concept of it. So, when life gives you lemons, sometimes you are just stuck with them, apparently.

We got out of there and went to AM/PM where Pappy and Ashleigh bought $40 worth of candy. Got home and slept.

I woke up the next morning and was still a little dizzy from the night before because I hadn't eaten in a while. I grabbed my sister and got coffee and took her home. Hit a gang of traffic on a Saturday trying to get home and still wasn't feeling right, but thought if I laid down that I would feel better. After an hour nap, I still felt weird, but went and got my hair did in Los Gatos.

This is where stuff gets weird. After my haircut, I went and visited my ex-in laws. Why? I have no idea. It wasn't so bad, though. I haven't seen them in a little over two years and I really liked them, so it felt all right. One of their dogs had gone blind and I found it immensely entertaining. So, I got to visit with my ex-in laws and their pets for a bit. It was nice, but I still wasn't feeling right.

From there I ran home and fell asleep during a baseball game for an hour and went to a work party at my former boss' house. It was for Oktoberfest and all of the guest's had gardeners that made more money than I do. I think some people owned their own planes. Whatever, though, there was free beer and good food. This is where it got real weird.

My boss' sister was kind of talking me up a bit and I thought it was just to get smokes from me. She's a single mom and my boss had kind of warned me about her. Plus, this lawyer was all over her. As the families started to disappear and the party started to get a little more adult, she ends up in a bikini trying to get me to go hot tubbing with her. I think she was implying suit optional, too. I let her know that that wasn't a real good idea.

An hour goes by and she returns from the hot tub and incites some other women to douse my shirt with white wine. That got my shirt off and I realized it was a full on cougar attack. I grabbed my pullover and put that on while my shirt dried. The crowd was severely thinning out at that point and I was just trying to get my stuff dry so I could get out of there in one piece when I got referred to as a "Hot, Young Stud" for the first time in my life. It was crazy and so cliched that it was ridiculous.

Anyway, I'm appealing to a new market now. I guess it's always good to broaden your demographic. Now, if I could just get the one I want to work out to work out, that would be truly awesome. For now, I guess I've got this.