Round and Round

So, we were on the bus. For those that have not been forced to give back to the community in lieu of serving jail time, there are wheels on the bus. They go round and round. Round and round. I kinda get where Ratt got the idea for the song now.

The bus cruises down the freeway. We still have no idea where we are going as I stare out the barred windows trying to get my bearings in case there is some type of riot and I have to find my way home. It's me. It could happen. It's a ragtag bunch of dudes. There are dudes with tattoos of stars behind their ears, the dudes who can't speak a lick of English with what looks like their kids' backpacks because they are obviously too small and feature cartoon characters, and the club kids who look like they just got on the bus from gettin' down up in da club. A dead give away to these dudes is the crooked army cap.

We are so South of San Jose by the time the bus pulls off the freeway that we could be in Fresno. Ahhh, Fuck. It's Fresno. We're not really in Fresno, but the only landmark that I can pick up is a Golfland about a quarter of a mile before we turn into the yard of the Santa Clara Valley Water Authority. We file off the bus and start milling about waiting for direction.

There are a couple of folding tables set up end-to-end that are employed as backpack storage. Kid backpack storage in some cases. Just backpacks full of bag lunches and in one case a Cup O' Noodles (sounds Irish). Brilliant planning in that guy's case. Expecting a microwave or tea kettle, dude?

This dude in coveralls who is a spitting image of Scatman Crothers in The Shining rolls up to and addresses the crowd as the prison bus dashes out of the yard amidst more milling about by a couple of bulldozers. He lets this group of Noway Laureates know that they will be bagging sand for the rest of the day. Global warming. Drought. This sounded like make work work, but whatever, it's something to do to kill time.

The rules: teams of four will be on the hoppers dispensing sand into the bags. The winners behind them will tie the bags. The winners behind them will place them on palettes. Easy enough, right? Also, we will be issued safety glasses, gloves and respirators. Glasses and vests will be worn at all times even during breaks. There will be no use of outhouses outside of allotted break times.

I took 25% of the hopper crew and started filling bags and passing them behind me. It's actually a really good lat exercise that is not too unlike working with a Swiss ball. So, it was what it was and I really didn't mind it.

After about an hour I kind of caught one of the club kids staring at me every time I passed a bag back. Whatever. Maybe he knew me. I had noticed him on the bus because I didn't think he was properly dressed for work. Also, remember that you are never fully dressed without a smile. Pro tip.

So, there was a period of time that I was waiting for a sand refill in my hopper and dude goes, "So, how do you like it so far?"

"Dude, I fuckin' hate it. Are we supposed to like this?" and I went back to filling bags.

As the day went on dude kept making small conversation during any opportunity. The third conversation set my gaydar off. Well, that and the fact that dude was staring at my ass the whole fucking time. Well, whatever.

Lunch came and went with the rule that you could do whatever you want outside of going horizontal. No laying down.

After lunch I saw these dudes using their keys to slash the bags before passing to the palette guys so that the sand would spill out in the name of entertainment. This would make sense if you didn't have to fuckin' clean it up. This sums up the mentality of these people that were never going to graduate weekend work and who may not have wanted to. This was a peer group to some.

Day ends (sorta) and we clean up our stations and wait for the bus. We jump on the bus and get back to the freezing cold garage at three. We stand there for forty five minutes doing NOTHING. Like fucking nothing unless freezing can be considered a hobby.

The asshole cops line everyone up and do another roll call. I guess they occasionally lose people. They call my name and I walk across the garage to the other side and freeze some more while we wait for them to call everyone's name. Somewhere deep in the annals of public service this is considered a system. It explains a lot.

I get out and go home and sleep with visions of sand in my head. Piles and piles of sand. I imagine that the next day we are going to have to go take all the bags that we filled up and empty them out for the dudes to use the next weekend. Losing faith in the system as the whole thing is a huge fucking waste of time and benefits no one. Perhaps they should let me set up a new system for them, but I have a feeling this is a culture that is adverse to efficiency. It's called my own personal kryptonite.

SPOILER ALERT: I got CalTrans the next morning. More to come.

I Write, You Left.

So. I had my criminal part of Project: Debt To Society last weekend. That now makes my week consist of four DUI related activities a week. There is the weekly group meeting for an hour and a half, a two hour education session that is straight propaganda, and then two days a week of the Weekend Work Furlough Program.

The weekend work is to replace the jail time. You can do three straight days in the hoosegow or nine weekend days from 8 to 4. I chose to knock it out the box and do Saturday and Sunday and it just happened to fall in December which blows donkey balls, however every time I find myself complaining about it I hear a school marmy voice say "You should have thought about that before you drank and drove."

Anyway, here is how it went down for the curious. We can evaluate the DUI education experience in its own episode.

For the first weekend, you have no assignment and are to show up at a parking lot across the street from the jail and the courthouse. You've just got to be there at eight. "We," the collective one, as in me, almost didn't make it. Drank with the soccer team the night before and it got fun as I found someone to call me on my shit and then explored tan bark theory for a little bit. It was fun. It caused me to get to bed too late. It caused me to sleep in past one alarm. It caused me to sleep past another alarm. Finally, a teammate who has saved my ass in countless games saved my ass again by giving me a wakeup call and telling me to get the fuck out of bed and get there.

I jumped up convinced I was fucked and threw a toque, jeans and a sweatshirt on and threw my lunch that I had made the night before into my backpack with my court papers and jammed out the door. I got in the car and realized at this point that I had left my water bottle at the bar (again) and pulled a Diet Coke out of my lunch to pound at 7:45 in the morning. There is something so white trash about morning soda. So, I hit the freeway with about twenty miles to go in fifteen minutes. I'm also painfully aware that if I get popped for speeding a) I'm not going to make it, which means court or a warrant and b)there is a chance of getting breathalyzed in a situation where .02 would get me another DUI as I have no tolerance. It was reckless, but here is a pro tip: There are few risks that are not worth taking when balanced against legal administration. They just cannot figure out how to do shit.

So, I'm in the 80s and my car is shaking furiously because I haven't gotten my tires rotated in forever because I rarely drive anymore and the cigarette perched out my window is shaking like crazy as I barrel down the freeway just asking for it, but I've been good lately and knew I deserved this, so there was a chance.

I got to the exit ramp right at 8:00. At this point, I'm hoping that the cops are not good at setting watches as everything else to do with this program is about extreme punctuality. You CANNOT be even a minute late for things. Luckily, this was not one of those things. I got my car parked and emptied my pockets of "contraband" and ran toward the parking garage where I mulled in with about 25 Mexican dudes. It felt like Christmas, kinda.

I'd like to point out right here that on the program contraband list there are things like knives, cell phones, and lighters, which make sense. There are also things like calculators that don't make a lot of sense. Remember that.

So, I stood in a freezing ass garage for about a half hour before anything happened. This would prove to be a theme for the program - standing with nothing happening. When something finally did happen, they lined us up to be checked in and searched for "contraband." It would be really funny to bring a copy of the supergroup Contraband's CD to this. Okay, that would be fuckin' lame. I got checked in by the most unpleasant man alive. Here's how it went.

"ID, Please."

"Here ya go"

"Empty your pockets and pull them out of your jeans."

"No problem"

"Is this your lighter?"

"Oh crap. I'm sorry about that. I missed it when I cleaned out my pockets in my car."

"Do you have cigarettes?"

"No."

"If I find some in your bag, I'm sending you back to court."

"Sorry, sir. There should be nothing in my bag except for my lunch."

Dude looks through my bag right here and finds a book, The Suitors by Ben Ehrenreich, and pen. He looks at me with a hard look and says, "What is this?! I could send you back to court for this. Didn't you read your list of contraband? Books are contraband."

At this point, I couldn't help it and said "That's very Bradburyian of you."

He looked at me like I was about to be fuckin' tased and I said to him quickly before I was made an example, "Dude, that's not a putdown it's a reference to an author" and to amuse myself just said in my head "Not a strong reader, huh?"

He told me that I could pick up my book at the end of the day which was hilarious. A big fucking clear trashbag full of cell phones, lighters and cigarettes and that one lonely fuckin' book. The woman in charge of the "contraband" asked me what my cellphone looked like at the end of the day and I told her I was there for the book and emphasized that it was the ONLY book. This was not a very literal crowd. I mean, no offense, but all most of them would be into reading would be books by Iceberg Slim.

So, I get checked in and the cop hands me a vest and tells me to go stand against the wall. A small group starts to collect around me like dirt would to a piece of gum on the bottom of your shoe. Then, when it got about 40 deep, a dude came over and got us to line up and get on a bus. We were getting bussed somewhere with no idea where we were going. Honestly, I'm not even going to bother explaining what this imagery was comparable to. We get on the bus with two dudes in the cages to boot and the bus driver fires up the bus and the radio kicks on and what do you fuckin' hear? "I kissed a girl and I liked it. The taste of her cherry chapstick."

It was going to be that kind of day. I'll pick up on that later. Gotta work.

Real Work Conversation #45

Girl1: "Hey. You are never gonna guess who I saw last weekend."

Me: "Who?"

Girl1: "I saw Cheryl in the city."

Me: "Where were you, the Power Exchange(sex club)?"

Girl2: "Oh my god. That place is weird. I've been there once."

Girl1: "Uh, I think he was just kidding."

Me: "You are hella busted."

Home Is Where The Hard Is

We (the collective one) are bored. Life has taken on some form of undynamic, blah persona and just kind of sits there staring back, saying nothing. It's a really awkward silence. The silence is broken, however, by the sound of beer cans popping like balloons at a crying child's birthday and the lovely sounds of young country (shitty rock) emanating through the front door as of late.

Here are the topics discussed in front of my apartment:
1) High school football games and kickers.
2) "Mama and Randall"
3) Online dating, both match.com and Yahoo! personals

This is what I hear while I don sweatpants and worship my television. I don't know why I bother with my television when I have thirtysomething and Intervention going on right outside my door, but sweats feel safer and distance limits my interactivity in entertainment. It's better to watch sometimes than partake in the action. Actually, in recent moments, that's the rule of thumb. Let someone else put on the clown wig and party king crown and run their own court. I'd like to watch for a while.

One neighbor is definitely going through some shit and putting down some serious booze. Power to him, but when he came home with a thirty pack of Keystone Light, I got both nostalgic and empathetic. He has been finding solace in Internet dating and is more than happy to show me pictures of boobs and talk about his dates, though. The Internet dating and weeknight drinking are just reinforcers to avoidance. A nice meal and four hours on the xbox is way preferred. I don't see that a solution lies at the end of his path, but who knows. Life is not known for being just or predictable.

Other neighbor has a high school crush on the new neighbor from Alabama. She's got the weirdest accent one has ever heard and he's like 50 something and she is way out of her element, so I can see the motive. It's actually kind of cute to watch. Everyday after work they end up sitting on the stairs in front of my apartment and shootin' the shit, but everytime I see it, I can't help but picture bleachers and varsity jackets. The other weirdness is about how she made out with me the first night we met and went out whiskey drinking with the other neighbor. I'm not interested because I could fit into her jeans. She caught me whiskey drunk is all. I don't do that anymore and I was the out-of-elementee in that situation.

So, anyway, everyone of her stories that I hear ringing through my flimsy door is about "mama," Randall, or involves a pig and a quad. Dude, Alabama is no joke. They are stuck in a timequake, man. Imagine the worst you could about backwardness, ignorance and the and a hateful Jesus and you will come to about the third ring in that Dante's Inferno.

So, yeah, I'm finger pointing today, but I had to write and these things do affect me. I do nothing, but sleep anymore and have kind of introverted, which is very uncharacteristic. I just think this shit is getting old and it may be time to move somewhere a little more socially motivating. I've got to clean up my own backyard before I start venturing out of it, but I'm close. The rough spots are getting smaller and more isolated and it's been a while since I woke up with a penis drawn on my chest or a stranger in my house. These are good things. They are starting points. I just feel like there could be a more productive and fulfilling place where I could set up shop. I feel like I'm constantly in a hurry to get out of what I'm doing, but to go do nothing. It turns out I just don't want to be doing what I'm doing a lot.

Otherwise, everything is perfect.

F-U tility

Today is an exercise in repetitive futility not seen since one last stared at the stairs in an M.C. Escher drawing. Seriously, just circle and circle and circle of struggling while you drown in a puddle of shit that feels like quicksand. Some call it work. I think everyone has an e-mail filter on that auto-replys elaborate, over wordy versions of "Fuck You. Try again Fucktard." when they receive my e-mail address in their inbox.

Outside of that, everything is Jim Fuckin' Dandy. I'm finding solace in soulless searching of my innerworkings and trying to figure out how to unwind it all and not be so pissed off and frustrated. I've tried kicking a tree while I smoked a cigarette for ten minutes and it was just another action to put in the bin of futility to be incendiarily excited in order to be sacrificed to the Futility Goddess that rules my Charlie Brown-Dark Cloud work life at the moment. Just something else to throw on the fire.

Just like anything in life, however, it could be worse. Oh, so much worse. There are unexplained pee spots on the front of your pants, there are unexplained coffee outages, mirthless meetings that go nowhere for no reason and days that make you imagine that if you had a terminal disease you would want every day to last this long until the pain set in. Oh, so how could it be worse? Prison.

Recent events have had me reviewing work furlough programs because I really don't know what to expect from my criminal side of repaying my debt to society. I thought it was just an orange vest and get out there and pick up some garbage. Nope. There are other things and unfortuately none of them are prison librarian. Enacting a Dewey decimal system in a correctional facility has never sounded so good when compared to some stories that I'm hearing of what the program entails.

As a side effect of the research process, I decided to check out some prison pen pal resources. I thought it might be fun to get one. We could discuss our days and I could support him towards rehabilitation and life "on the outside." He could teach me how good I really have it not being incarcerated and also fill me with the purpose of helping someone. Perhaps there are sites like that, but I found this one: writeaprisoner.com. It's kind of like myspace or facebook mashed up with Megan's Law in some cases, but it is still a great time sink on a Friday.

I'm still getting familiar with the site and just found the part where it lists the crimes. There is also prison penpals with a hyphen that I haven't really checked out.

Also, being the competitive type, I suggested that some friends pick out their own prisoner, too. That way we could compare letters and see who is rehabilitating their prisoner the best. It would be like adopting a kid, but way easier. Or, maybe like getting a robotic dinosaur. Or, maybe like getting a pet rock that wrote letters to you. That is just the best premise for a sitcom in the 70s.

Be warned. There are some rules to mailing a prisoner. No stickers, no food, no nude pictures, etc...I will just mail mine cigarettes because that is like money in the joint.

Mom's Tamale Casserole

I'm putting this here so that I have access to it whenever I have a hankerin' for some tamale casserole and comfort. It's from my mom and was kind of a family tradition. I think I'm going to bring it back tonight, but fuck, it looks like a lot of work. Whatevs. It's something to do on a Wednesday. Also, is this the part where I find out that she got the recipe off the back of a pack of Marlboros or out of the back pages of a Penthouse Forum. This is where I get crushed isn't it?

Future recipes? Look for the tuna casserole. Children of the 70s ate a lot of casseroles I think.

Tamale Casserole

1 whole roasted chicken from the store or 2 to 4 chicken breasts

2 small cans of tamales (Hormel is my favorite)

1 recipe of white rice (1 3/4 cups water to 1 cup rice)

1 can of cream or chicken soup

1/2 soup can chicken broth

diced green chilis (optional)

grated mexican cheese or monterey jack cheese or just cheddar

Bake chicken breasts and shred. While the chicken is baking, make the rice. Or if you get a chicken from the store, just shred it and make the rice.

1) Take the paper off the tamales and break them into thirds and layer the bottom of a 9 x 13 casserole dish (I do it in the sink so I don't make a greasy mess)

2) Layer the shredded chicken on top of the Tamales

3) Mix the soup and the broth in the pan with the rice until it is the desired consistency. You can add the diced green chilis if you want. You can also salt and pepper to taste.

4) Bake @ 375 for 25 minutes. Add the grated cheese to the top the last 10 minutes. When the underlying casserole is bubbly, it is done.

* I think grandma marlene sprinkles paprika on top of the cheese.

Serve to only the casserole worthy guests.

Enjoy

mom

D'yer Rol'ls

This is wrong, but I have to profess a confession.

This morning, while making a fantastic pot of coffee, I was in the break room and this woman came in to get in my way as I moved fluid and lithely between the mini fridge, the coffee maker and my coffee mug. She had worked me towards the copier in her giant fantasmacolored shower curtain dress as she maneuvered herself to the microwave. She opened the microwave and it went down like this: she pulled a plate out of the microwave with five croissant looking things on it as I took my coffee and started heading out of the room.

She then looked at me and said "Do you want one of my rolls?"

I looked at the plate and then at her and then at the wall as I lied, "No thanks. I just ate a muffin."

Now, what really happened was when she said "Rolls" I flashed through all of the rolls on her body, got internally visually sick and then mentally, in my head said "Which one?" in reference to all of the rolls covering her body. That made me laugh inside a little bit and then I told my lie. That's what really happened in about half a second.

Fully Awesome Burbank

Pictured above are the pieces that make up a delicious puzzle. It's the raw elements of the Ready Pac Santa Fe Style Caesar Salad and it's no fuckin' joke. I'm a whore for anything with corn in it, so this salad had me at Hello, but chips, cheese and corn? That's the same chemical makeup as nachos on the food periodic table. I believe it is number 48. 47, is chips and salsa I think.

Anyway, cheese, romaine lettuce, chips, corn and chicken partnered with a non-chipotle dressing. That's a bold fuckin' move right there. You'd think a chipotle honey dressing or something, but no way...Salsa Ranch dressing. The Ready Pac people show real balls right there. Only a company like that would put apples in a prepackaged salad. My hat is off to your boldness Ready Pac people. You are innovators, risk takers and patriots.

So, what could possibly steal the thunder of this perfectly balanced ingredient wise salad? The packaging can, that's what. So, you think it's too fuckin' awesome when you pull the top level of the container out and it has all your ingredients separated from the salad in little compartments. Then, you dig into the lettuce to get the tortilla chips and Wham!, there is half of a spork and you are all like, "Shit, I need to go get a fork out of the break room because these douche bags at Ready Pac only put half of a spork in my container and now I have no handle to scoop salad. But, no, Ready Pac fires back, "Hey douche. Open up that spork and unfold it into a full size spork. Now who's the douche, Mayor of Doucheville, Nevada?"

Seriously, if you squint in the picture above you can see it. It's one of the most impressive things I have ever seen. More impressive than babies. More impressive than anything that your kid paints, draws or does in a recreational sports league. More impressive than a tiger meat burrito...Wait. A tiger meat burrito would be pretty impressive and maybe illegal. Jesus is anything impressive legal nowadays?

Anyway, finished spork is in the photo below, jammed into the delicious salad. My scissors and my favorite brand of highlighter are in there, too. Only because it's near Christmas and if you are buying me highlighters, that's my brand. While we're on that subject, I also use Number 3 pencils exclusively. There is one in the picture if you need a visual reference.


Now, something completely unrelated. Did you know that Burbank is fully awesome? Here's proof.
More proof. The place was lousy with Fully Awesome signage.

I like to think that if Axl Rose remade the Welcome to the Jungle video that he would not be getting off a bus in downtown LA, but rather landing at the Bob Hope Airport in Burbank. It's only like the best airport ever. Best soundtrack. Best twelve dollars for two pounds of pasta. Best looking people when compared to the ugliness and obesity that is the San Jose International airport. Amidst the current financial meltdown, I'd say that Burbank is one of the last banks that you can believe in. Dad Joke. Zang.

Hugh B. Forty

Jesus. I suppose I owe an apology to the Interwebs for my lack of buy-in over the last few weeks (month). The God honest(awful) answer is that I've been busy in these subjects:

Work: Who cares about work

Weddings: Attended and participated in a beautiful wedding between two of the most beautiful people I know in lovely Portland. There was a little bit of everything in a break neck weekend in Portland, OR. Got to dress up like 007 and have a prom style hookup. Basically, two kids groping in the dark in a hotel room. Just like prom. I also managed to find a first printing of The Shining in the hotel's main lobby bookcase. If it wasn't missing the dust jacket and such a rad Easter egg, I would've put that shit on eBay in a second. Had a wonderful time and managed to not ruin the wedding, go to the most surreal strip club (the strippers put their own music in the jukebox while they are completely naked and there is a full bar), and even get a couple of Voodoo Doughnuts and a gnarly ass-kicking cold from the weekend. Oh, and some kick ass Arsenal cuff links (Thanks, JD and B!). Really the wedding was an awesome time and you could actually feel the Jungian libido of my brain moving to the "everything is fine" side. When it was all said and done I felt more emotionally sound and actual happiness than I have felt since 1998.

Acting: Let me preface this by saying that I am no actor, but have now acted in something. In life's constant pursuit of a presence on IMDB, I've finally done it with a credit as Chris Isaak. A friend sent me an e-mail asking me to play Chris Isaak in a project that he was writing and I thought it was a jab at me. The script showed up shortly thereafter and I started learning some CI tunes on guitar, still half assedly. I received the shooting schedule and booked a flight and it was fucking on.

It was one of the most intriguing experiences I've been in to date. Let me say right here that acting is really fucking hard. There is so much more than memorizing shit. There is interaction with others and yourself while spitting memorized strings of text while you move around. There is emoting. There is guitar playing and massacration of Chris Isaak hits.

The anxiety when compared to playing guitar in front of a bunch of people pales in comparison when there is a camera a foot from your face and you are talking to someone and can't look at it. The whole thing was a real fuckin' trip and actually really awesome. The after effects have been seeing behind the curtain when you watch TV.

For instance, there was a dude from Mad Men in the shoot and when I got home, I caught up on my Mad Men and there's the dude I was watching football with and hanging out with, but it wasn't really him on the screen. He was really some dude in the 60s.

I was humbled and inspired by the whole experience and really enjoyed it. Plus, all the free Emergen-C you could drink and all of the snacks in the world. They also called me "Talent" which I found a bit presumptous, but they were all very gentle. The director and the other actors were so incredibly nice and supportive that the whole thing felt like an Alcoholic Anonymous session without the Jesus element.

By the end of it, it started to feel a little more natural and I think if I do it again, it'll be really awesome.

Legal Issues: I got officially convicted of Driving Under the Influence. In fact REALLY under the influence enough to get an enhancement on the charge. So, I had to go get enrolled in a 9 month DUI class and pay a gang of fines and go get my "Restricted" license from the DMV. An exercise in waiting and flaming hoops to jump through. On the path to resolution, though, and come July, god willing, this will all be behind me. I've learned my lesson and not going to jump over this candlestick ever again. Hugh be nimble (like a ninja). Hugh be quick (like a ninja shark). Getting a DUI kinda sucks dick.

So, that's it. Sorry I've been neglectful.

& The News

So, what's the bad news? The bad news is that my BAC was .22 a couple months back when they pulled me over and arrested me. Because of such a high (or impressive) BAC, I got an extra three months of cocktail college. My sister said she liked it and that you just end up watching a bunch of Intervention and hanging out with partiers.

In addition, I will be required to perform nine days of community service with criminals. I do, however, look pretty decent in orange. Vests, not so much. I wonder if they would let me just wear an orange cummerbund. I'm also trying to figure out which gang I should join. The white power dudes scare me and the Latinos are a little intense. I need to find the Canadian gang and then I think I would be able to get by by just being real nice to people and being funny.

Let me see. Other bad news is the fines, the restricted license for to and fro only to work, cocktail college and weekend freeway trash pick-up. This could totally work if I met someone at trash pick up or the cocktail college. It would be like a weekly date.

Now. The good news? I just saved three hundred dollars on car insurance. Seriously. I've never changed my insurance since I bought my car and was referred to a DUI car insurance guy who was kinda funny as hell and awesome. He called me back today and it will be switched over tonight. The car's a piece of shit and I never drive it, so it'll work out fine. Plus, I got a free t-shirt and bottle opener. Pure Awesomenacity.

Throughout the whole ordeal, I will admit one thing and that is that I really kind of needed it to happen so that I would stop arrogantly driving around like I was untouchable. I was given a lot of chances and someone had to finally come up and bitch slap me and cuff me to a bench so that I would stop acting like a fucktard. I still get fucktarded now and then, but I don't drive anymore when I'm all fucktarded. I think it's going to end up working out. Plus, I now have that social club that I've needed for the next nine months. DUI class has got to fall somewhere between AA and a book club, right?

Trail Of Beers

Well, it's on. Fresh off a beautiful trip to Hood River, OR, I booked the flight to LA to be in a TV project, which absolutely cracks me up. I'd give away the premise, but it's not really mine to give away. So, put that on the list with all the other shit that makes no sense that I do. The only acting that I've ever done in my life is that musical when I was like 8 and various instances of creative lying. Oh, I've also acted like I had Down's syndrome when my sister and I were shopping for pants once. She got superpissed about it.

So, the recent Hood River trip. It was for a friend's wedding and I was staying with two of the dopest people I know in a really nice place that would cost way too much if it were located in the Bay Area. We even got a special guest visitor on the couch that I took to Shari's at three in the morning for some fine barefoot dining while wrapped in a TrailOfTears blanket that was worth $500 in this particular circumstance.

The condo was within walking distance of a severely confused British pub that became post-festivity headquarters. I call it confused because there was a fucking Frommer's guide to Ireland on the bar and not one TV for showing soccer. Plus, they weren't even open for the first EPL game of the day on Saturday. I guess if you fly the Union Jack and serve Bass, you are British enough.

The condo also had a view of Washington conducting commerce and for $1.50 American, you could cross a bridge and pay sales tax and pump your own gas. It was brilliant and the weather was a borderline sign of the apocalypse. It was just perfect.

The pub, however, had one thing going in their favor in the form of a bartender that I was lightly smitten with on the first night that we got there. The last night I was there, I ended up with her at another bar with her bartender friend that she had to have been sharing a bed with, but stranger things have happend. It was the Pacific Northwest, though, so I may have been reading her wrong.

The next day, I woke up and had a slip of paper with a penis drawn on it and her girlfriend's name written above it. That makes us BFFs. I don't remember a tremendous amount of the latter part of the night, but my left nipple was in severe pain the next morning when we disembarked on the scenic route to the airport. There are a lot of waterfalls in Oregon. Pro Tip.

Now, for notes from the wedding, I'll just bulletpoint some quotes/conversations:

Conversation 1
Her: "I was told that you are my best chance for getting laid at this wedding and I've already thought of some disgusting things to do to you."

Me: "And your name is?"

Conversation 2
Other Her: "Has anyone told you that you look like Dane Cook?"

Me: "No. And I don't enjoy his humor. Have you ever heard of Bill Hicks?"

Conversation 3
Other Her: "I heard you call some girl a moose at the bar. Is that what you call me?"

Me: "Uhhh. No. Of course not. Swear."

Conversation 4
Dude: "Robert Palmer is dead?"

Me: "Yeah, he died like five years ago."

Dude: "What did he die of?"

Me: "I don't know. Maybe a love addiction?"

Might As Well Face It

I just ordered a new iTouch as I need an iPod upgrade. Coincidentally due to a friends re-enamoration with the brilliance of Robert Palmer (1949 - 2003), I had it engraved with "Might As Well Face It You're Addicted To Love." My iTouch will serve as a memorial to the man that didn't mean to turn you on. The runner-up engraving was "Mr. Gorbachev. Tear down that WALL!"

Bears

This is one of the funnier stories I've seen all month. You may not even need to read it, but a dude was riding his bike down the road and crashed into a bear. Fuckin' rad.

Teacher OK after crashing into bear on a bicycle - Yahoo! News

47 Dicks

Ummmmm. On a whim or because my house had been taken over by ten year old guitar heros, I went for a drink last night. Probably too late for a Sunday night, but I'm not as fragile as I used to be. So, I had a few and talked to some girl for a while...woke up with a swastika drawn on the right side of my chest and a giant dick on the left. There was also something drawn on the back of my neck that I'm kinda hoping that no one else can see. Also, there is ink all over my sheets.

There is a ton of irony in a dick being drawn on me. For some reason, it feels like a symbol's revenge somehow. The picture above is from the Imperial Palace last week when I decided to draw dicks with a keno crayon until I got my food. This is not some weird Superbad thing either. Been drawing dicks for a while. I think it started with golf balls. I would just draw a dick on them instead of my initials.

So, I was at dinner last Friday with my sister and her boyfriend and her old roommate and their friend. A lot of wine was harmed in the formation of the fuzzy memory that is Friday, but I was talking to her friend who is retardedly smart, charming and has an advanced degree in Psychology. I asked her if a grown man drawing 47 dicks on a placemat would concern her and she just told me that it definitely raises a red flag. I'm not even sure she was kidding.

So, regardless. I got chiefed by a girl last night. Grown man chiefed. That's just sad. It will get better. This I know.

FTATM

This is my Favorite Thing At The Moment while I worry about The Breeder.

Get Your War On: The Animated Series

This is just beyond the definition of superbadazzzzzzzzz.



Just absofuckinlutely brilliant. The other episodes are on 236.com. Also, check out My New Filing Technique Is Unstoppable.

Bingo Army

First of all, may Jerry "Snowman" Reed rest in piece. An immense talent under the direction of the great Hal Needham and not even Sally Field looked as good next to Burt "Buddy" Reynolds.

Next, Feist is the official soundtrack of the bike ride into work this week. It's just the perfect amount of chill to slowly remove the cob webs at 6:50 AM. Plus, it calms me. Speaking of calm, I've started making my bed every morning again. This is a really good sign. I only do that when I'm feeling content with life in general. I don't know why I'm content, but I never question these things. It could be all the CW that I've been watching. I watched Gossip Girl the other night and I'm totally gay for 90210: Redux.

Third, the reason I'm posting. I recently moved from my office that smelled of a Salvation Army dust aroma because it's where they did most of the research in the late 50's while creating the plans for a particle accelerator. At least that's what my grandpa said about the building. It has no connection to the smell besides it just being a really fuckin' old building. Regardless, it was gross and not cutely vintage. So, I got cubed and haven't been happier in a long time with my work situation. Lots of desk space. Little storage space. This resulted in me getting rid of a lot of accumulated crap.

So, my own private world is good, however, there are new people to not play well with. One that I've picked out in just 48 hours is the woman that matches me toe-to-toe with a meal to each cup of coffee that I have. That's three by noon, by the way. She keeps offering me food every time I go grab a cup of coffee. I may have to trick her into getting shoved into an oven a la Hansel and Gretel before this is all over.

Speaking of Hansel and Gretel, I was in a musical of it when I was seven or eight. I still remember the song "I'm Your Big Brother" from it. To be truthful, it was an elementary arrangement and the word choices were horrible, but whatevs. I think my dad has a videotape of it somewhere for blackmail in the event that I ever run for public office. Oh, so instead of shoving the witch into the oven like in the book, they had me kiss her at the end. The kiss made her good, I believe. Now, do you see the warping of a child mind that happened? I was ruined for life. I believed (like 80% of the female population) that my kiss could change a witch (person) into a princess Something good). That's fucked up to do to a kid. The kiss should have made her melt so that I could take that forward in life to POint A.25.

So, back to Bingo Arm. As I look around, if I took everyone in the room from door A to door B and tried to put them into an elevator, there would be no chance. Furthermore, if you put me on a plane next to Bingo Arm, I would go for the emergency exit as a shock induced death would take way less time and be way less painful than being smashed into an airplane window next to a woman like that for any amount of time. On top of that, I would avoid having a gravy/butter hybrid of sweat dousing me. I'd also like to add that it is the same lady in charge of the annual cakewalk. I think I may be able to have a little bit of fun with this a la the voice activated copier prank of 2008. Six fuckin' people yelled at the copier that day to my amusement and only three people in the department knew I did it because I told them I was going to. I think the first prank I will try is laying some faux food out like a styrofoam turkey leg and see if she tries to eat it. From there, I'll figure out what makes her tick and exploit it. It's what I do.

So, yes. I love my new cauge.

Shaved Beef

This is a hypothetical story that may or may have not happened. I'll be the first to say that you would need wings to fly above the pile of weird shit that's intersected my path from point A to point A.5 so far, but this hypothetical story is one of the more weird. It starts with me trying to find a new girl to cut my hair.

I knew a girl that cut hair that I had talked to in the past and she commented on how good my hair was. I don't mind being stroked and started talking to her once I had asked her to take her top up a button because she was really trying to hard. I'm a man of business when it comes to finding a new manscaper. I had no idea how far this was going to go. So, we talked a bit and then parted ways. We exchanged numbers which ended with some extremely explicit text messages from her which in turn lead to an extremely implicit deletion of a contact.

So, down the road, I was a little desperate for a local girl to cut my hair and I knew where to find her. It was the bar, of course, my center of commerce and culture. Commerce being free peanuts and culture being people that never made you apologize the day after a bender, but appreciated it and welcomed you back.

She walked in while I was there after work and we talked a bit. We played some dice and then an extreme game of bar Yahtzee that may or may not have resulted in an under-the-bar HJ. This strayed deviantly from the task at hand which was to find a new set of clippers locally. The good news? I found a new girl to cut my hair that knew how to work with a puff of hair surrounding a giant scar. The bad news? I may have made a future haircut uncomfortable.

So, I explained to her that grabbing a dude's junk in public was totally inappropriate and she suggested that she give me a ride home. I jumped on the ride home because I was wasted. BIG MISTAKE.

So, one thing lead to another and I had a grown woman in my shower. That's if a grown woman is 21 years old. Women do mature faster than men, though, so she gets the benefit. All of that is pretty normal on a Tuesday, but it gets weird in a second.

I handed her a towel in the name of chivalry not being dead and she asked me to jump in. This is exactly what went through my head in giant letters: "WHATEVER."

I'll cut through the boring parts and just jump to the part of having razor burn below the belt.

I'm a self-admitted manscaper, but it's been since marriage that I let a girl do that. It's the opposite of how a sandwich is better if someone else makes it for you. Swear. Same sandwich made by someone else is better.

Now, the good news about the whole thing is that I may have a last ditch haircut if I need it and I know she cuts all styles and may even throw in a shave. Plus, I was asleep by midnight. That, my friends, is the sound of winning.

Goobama

For some reason, this is making me laugh super hard. It started with a picture of a chick holding a giant Vegas drink that a friend sent over. I removed her head and was going to put his on there, but for some reason, I went with Obama. It just makes me laugh. I should really lose my Photoshop privileges about now.

Safari Conversation

"Oh man, did you see the size of those giraffes today?"

"Yeah, dude. They were huge. What about those crazy fuckin' monkeys, man?"

"Doooooooooooood. Those monkeys?! Those monkeys were off the chain. I wanted to put my sunglasses on one of them and take a picture next to it for my facebook profile."

"Dude, that would've been sick. Why didn't you do it?"

"Oh, because I'm afraid of monkeys."


That is what you call Safari Conversation. Apparently, you can buy furniture for Safari Conversation at Walmart.

Judging by the review by MollyDD, the table that it comes with is the perfect size for playing cards or having drinks. I like the way you think MollyDD, however, I have to guess that there is no way that $35 is ever going to buy me something appropriate for proper safari conversation. I mean, fuck, if I am going to sit in a Safari Conversation chair, I want something safari worthy to talk about. If I'm just going to play cards and have drinks then isn't there a set for the type of conversation that goes with cards and drinks. A 3-piece Idle Conversation Set, perhaps? A 2-piece inane and annoying conversation about topics that no living creature should ever converse about set, maybe?

I have taken something from this in that I am going to try and have more safari conversations in the future. I had no idea that there was this untappped area of conversation. I had idle, lite, and heated conversation styles down, but Safari just totally caught me by surprise. Who knew?

Bored Games

I accidentally started playing a game with myself in the office yesterday. I've been doing it inadvertently since I saw the movie Alive or maybe since I read Lord of the Flies. Regardless, since Lost came out, I've been doing it everytime I get on a plane.

Side note: Why have I never called a fat guy "Lord of the Fries?"

Here is how you play the office version:
1. Perform a mental inventory of your co-workers or just go walk around the office for a bit.

2. Go back to your desk and try to determine who is the most feeble and weakest person that you work with.

3. Now, maybe add a couple other people to that list of one that you just mentally created. Do not write this list down ever. Seriously.

4. Finally, imagine that some type of horrific/catastrophic event occurs and try to determine how long that person would last before you or the other survivors attacked them because you finally had a pretty decent opportunity to and can base it on some Darwinian principle if you had to. Might be the guy who goes around turning the lights off to flex his power. Might be the woman who just really doesn't add value. Or, could just be someone that would make things unpleasant in a situation when you are rationing supplies and cut off from the outside world because aliens just happened to show up during your dentists convention.

The travel version:
1. It's best on planes, but can be done in cars or boats, as well. It's the same as the office version, but usually involves strangers or family members.

2. Do the same thing as the office version and assess your range of candidates in the same vehicle or space as you. It's much more superficial than the office version.

3. Get your list together whether it be the hot flight attendant, the guy who looks like a doctor or the guy who won't make eye contact with anyone, but looks just crazy enough to get you out of a jam.

4. The travel version gets different when you have your list together. This time it's not who you would attack, but who you would prefer to be stuck with in order to increase your chances of survival. The part that is a little disturbing, I'll admit, is sitting on a plane and imagining it crashing into the ocean or imagining a car flip off the side of a road. A lite version would be to play it with a conflict of running out of gas, maybe.

5. Regardless, try the office version and perhaps move on to the travel version when you are ready. You never know. It could come in handy some day.

The World Still Manages To Spin Despite Your Efforts

I got all sentimental this morning because English Premier League soccer started this weekend. I mean, yeah, I was happy to have soccer on again, but that wasn't it. In fact, yesterday when I was drinking a pot of coffee and studying control structures in PL/SQL, something just felt funny. It was that feeling when you wake up in the middle of the night and you look into your closet and swear to fuck that you see someone in there, but you know if you ignore it that it will go away. Plus, you are just too fuckin' tired to deal with a dude in a jumpsuit in your closet if there really is someone in there.

Oh, so, I got up this morning and was still feeling a little goofy and for some reason I put Tegan & Sara on my iPod for my morning bike ride to work. Mornings are mellow and way homes are metal. It's the rules. About half way to work, it hit me that this was the band that I totally associated with the Cat Lady and the reason I got a little goofy on Saturday morning was because last year on the opening day of soccer season we had got into it after a night of heavy boozing, obnoxious public displays of affection, some other stuff and then a huge argument until 4:00 in the morning when I refused to sleep in the same bed with her and hit the couch for the night. So, because of that, I was awake to watch Arsenal play at 4:45 AM while she slept. I think she eventually came out and got me or slid on to the couch to watch it with me and that was like after a week of knowing each other. She was good like that.

We were doomed and we both knew it, but there still was a lot of something there. I can't describe it nor bottle it to sell to others, but it was fun for the brief amount of time that it lasted, no matter how emotionally destructive it turned out to be. From stumbling down the street laughing at the expense of others to throwing popsicles into the groceries to somehow legitimize buying vodka at 9:00 in the morning to having some kind of Sid & Nancy moment when I thought she had stopped breathing one night and became unresponsive. It wasn't all good, but I'm glad I did it.

So, the Tegan and Sara thing. She really liked that band and when you broke down all of the music that she liked, it was all sad and frustrated and scared. In retrospect, it speaks volumes and also most of it was pretty decent music. It's one of those things, though, how music imprints your brain and associates it with moments of your life.

You have to be careful about who you share your favorite music with because there is a chance that they will stomp on you or wrong you and then you will forever associate that music with them. I had to quit Steely Dan for three years because of a situation like that and you will probably never EVAR catch me listening to Painted From Memory by Bacharach/Costello. That's some heavy shit on that record and I loved it, but it's too difficult to listen to anymore without tying it to a lot of less than awesome memories. I'll be honest, though. I pulled the sheet music out for the album and was playing a little bit of it on the guit-box the other night. It's hard to deny.

So, anyway, I got a little sentimental and then started thinking about those people that stick with you. It's not like in a pining way. It's more of a blurry memory shoved into the back of your head. Or, maybe a GI Joe guy that's been partially microwaved, covered in dirt and jammed in a green tackle box in your parent's garage, but you remember it like you were playing with it in the front yard just yesterday. Some things stick and the music that you were listening to at the time will push that shit right up to the surface before you know it. I could actually probably pull ten CDs out of my collection that I could pinpoint a person or a memory that it represents.

Now, while this was a nice exercise and I really wish the Cat Lady the best of luck in all her endeavors, this morning's sentimentality exercise will be put back into remission. She was pretty awesome in many aspects and she was the cutest thing in the world, though. I believe that it is time to listen to The New Pornographers first record and do jumping jacks while I smile like I'm intellectually disabled.

Work e-mail exchange of the day:
[Guy had just pressed extract twice instead of pressing extract and export like he had done for at least the five years I have been here. I told him that if he hit it twice it would act in a particular way so it was working fine and he just kinda blew it. This was his response]

Yes it's too bad we can't give the buttons names that are a little more different, like Make File and Send file.

Because Extract and Export are too much alike? Actually in Make File and Send File, there are more of the same letters than in Export and Extract. I wonder if the guy has ever taken a donut on a walk because dog and donut are so similar? Again, amazed that the world is still spinning with these fucktards stuck to it.