StSanders Shreds

Oh my god. Finally, they are all in one place. This is so fucking rad.

StSanders Shreds

I just saw the Iron Maiden one for the first time and nearly peed myself in the good way.




Seriously, watch them all. It's so great.

2Dot0h

Ummm. So, I've got a huge bruise on my forearm from a disgruntled phlebotomist. Apparently, you should not comment on their sweatpants while you are cuffed to a bench at 2:00 AM. For instance, don't say "Nice sweatpants" before they take your blood. On the subject of the blood, I still don't know what my BAC level was the night of my arrest, but I think my attorney will find out when it is available. I'm also still trying to get scheduled for my mug shot and prints. Swear to god that if I get a copy, it's going up on my Facebook.

Anyway, I haven't drank since the arrest and have let certain parties that often throw a beer in front of me that I've stopped drinking for personal reasons and I'll let them know when I'm ready for them to throw free drinks in front of me again. It just makes it easier that way. I spent Friday night in a bar with my soccer team and drank a few waters and a strange thing happened being sober. Here are my reviews:

Attractive Jaeger Girl 1: "I'm about to leave, but I just wanted to let you know that you are one of the nicest and charming people that I've ever met."

New girl on soccer team (Overheard): "He (me) was really funny last time I met him, but a little obnoxious. This time he was still funny, but really personable and he remembered my name."

The other new girl on soccer team who is super hot in a being super smart way: "Jesus, dude. You are on fire."

So, Jaeger Girl 1 was just doing her job, but she actually did lock down with her other Jaeger friend where I was sitting with my team and they talked to me for like a half hour about whatever. One worked "in the motorcycle industry" and just moved here from Minnesota. I'm guessing she got pictures of her taken on top of them. The other was in school to become a therapist and started to dig a little deep into some areas after a few stories of debauchery and malcontent. She also had a kickball game the next morning. On their way out, they were nice enough to give shirts to the team, which I thought was a very nice gesture after they took offense to me turning down any of their tchotkes. I'd kinda be spectical of it if I was tipping them, but it seemed pretty genuine.

New girls on soccer team are good people and met me when I showed up shithoused to my team's game last week. I wasn't playing because I'm currently on the disabled list. The team, does however, like to get my keepersense input on what the other team is doing and what we need to do to win games, but I kind of let them down at this game when I showed up three sheets and just drew penises on the clipboard that we draw out plays on. I found it very entertaining at the time, but I was kind of a one man show that night with a one man fan in the audience. Anyway, new girls on soccer team seem to have preferred Jauge 2.0.

To be completely honest, I'm starting to prefer this version, too. Yeah, it's only been like four days and I won't believe I've changed until after at least a month, but so far the results are coming back pretty good. I might be into this. I'll admit, it gets kinda weird when the brain starts to spin a little fast and you want to stop it, but I've learned to channel that into productive endeavors or to just chill the fuck out and lay down and close my eyes and relax. Or, read a book. Or, eat licorice. Or, anything, really.

The New Deal

The new mantra popped into my head last night when a wave of ponderings started assaulting my docile brain. Watching Million Dollar Password makes you docile. It's this: When life gives you misdemeanors, make misdemeanorade. Seriously, when you encounter something like this, it's a good mantra.

Yesterday, I got a nice referral to a lawyer and he was awesome enough to get me in for an almost immediate consultation on my situation. He was a pretty rad guy and really helped alleviate some of the stress of the situation. It's not that I want to fight it. I did it. I'll take the responsibility, but the paperwork is a hassle and I'm afraid that I would miss the crossing of a T or the heart above an I and exacerbate my situation. So, he took all my paperwork and told me not to worry about it and I gave him a credit card and we called it a deal. It's now an $1800 Tuesday night of karaoke and bad judgement. That number will rise, but it is what it is. Plus, I got a free Diet Coke at the law office.

It's weird today, though. It's a Friday and I'm thinking about what to do tonight and it feels like having demons waiting outside your door. I'm going dry, so all of my go-to things to do have been altered significantly. In AA, it was a feeling of fear of these demons. AA also taught you that if you did not follow the herd mentality and were left to your own devices you were fucked and they would get you. I'm here to tell you that it's all going to be okay. The demons are just apparitions of fear created by your mind. If you learn to understand what they are, they are no different than a pint of ice cream at the grocery store when you are feeling fat. You've just got to learn to live with them. I don't want to drink tonight, but the social interaction sounds nice, but it's not real social interaction. It's a bunch of people that are dealing with the same demons and choose to drown them rather than live with them. I'm almost better off spending some time with myself and catching up with work or reading something to make me smarter.

So, taking it in stride on this lovely smoke filled Friday and looking forward to a night of relaxing and guilt free safety. I'm waiting for this attitude to change, but there has seriously been some kind of chemical rearrangement that went on in my brain over the last couple of days and the square pegs are actually starting to fit into the round holes. Yeah, it shouldn't work, but it does for some reason. It's actually an overall feeling of contentment that occurred when being handcuffed knocked down all of those walls that were preventing me from moving forward the last three years. It feels really nice. So far. I won't believe myself for a month or two, but that's the goal.

D U Why?

So, they finally got me last night. The unarrestable (me) was cuffed to a bench in a police station last night and had to call in a favor from his dad to stay out of county jail for the night.

I deserved it. There were many times where I was far worse than I was last night when I made an ill advised right hand turn across railroad tracks as the barriers were coming down and got pulled over, but I still deserved it eventually.

It went like this: they pulled me over in front of a Jack In The Box with a drive thru full of real drunks. They gave me a field sobriety test that I was just killing. The eyes? Always look two ticks to the right or left and your eyes don't track. Dad taught me that. They made me do the ten steps in each direction and I made nineteen of them and stumbled on the twentieth. At that point, I looked at the very nice police officer and just simply said "you win, dude." After that, I was cuffed and thrown in the back of a squad car after requesting to give a blood test rather than breath. Pro tip. It was my best chance at taking any kind of edge off.

So, they drove me back to the police station and as they walked me through to a bench to cuff me to, I let them know that they really deserved a better police station because theirs was in City Hall and they needed their own space. So, they cuff me to a bench while the bald cop is writing the report and the young cop looks at me and says "You seriously have golf clubs and a skateboard in your trunk?"

I replied, "Yeah. You never know if you need to bust a rail slide or just slice it into the woods on the 14th hole, man."

So, they got the phlebotomist there in her sweat pants and I gave blood hoping for the best. I kept telling them that the cuffs were really uneccasary as they had clearly won the match and I would take responsibility for what I had done. I felt and still feel awful about the whole thing. The thing is this: Would I have felt bad had I not been caught? That really is the question. I think getting caught can turn into a relatively expensive, but productive lesson. I may have needed this kick in the pants. Don't, for a second think I'm laughing about this. I may join AA again just to prove to myself, friends and family that I'm trying. That my hearts in the right place.

So, anyway, they go "Would you like to make a phone call?" and I go "Yeah. I got one for ya."

I called my dad. He's a lieutenant in a different county. My stepmom answered and I asked for my dad. I never call him except for Father's Day, Christmas and his birthday so she knew something was up. So I go "Dad, I got a deuce tonight. I don't really know what to do." He simply replied "Let me talk to one of them."

I looked at the young cop and said "My dad wants to talk to you."

He looked at me like I was crazy as I handed the phone to him, but he also looked curious about what I was pulling at that point. After a series of yeahs, uh-huhs, nos and sure that won't be a problems, he looked at me and said "Good news. You're not going to county tonight. Now call someone to get you out of here."

I called my best friend in the world and his phone went to voice mail. So I did the next best thing and called his fiance who was next to him in bed. She answered and handed the phone to him. You know that feeling of shame you got when you were eight and you knocked over the birthday cake for your sister face down on the kitchen floor? The look that your mom gave you is the same one that I felt as his eyes burned into me at the moment. Outside of parental units, he's all that I've got for living up to. For being responsible. For not fucking up. He's known me since before I fucked up. When we both possessed the innocence of youth. When debauchery was stealing a smoke from your mom and smoking it in a weird alley on the way home from Junior High while you pounded Slurpees. It hurts bad. You get a look like a beat dog, but it's good. Everybody needs someone to keep them in check and keep them...well...good. Being that I have no one in an intimate way like that, which used to work a bit, it's the best I've got. So, as he reads this I'm saying thank you. A non-real friend wouldn't give a fuck and would simply watch his friend crash and burn. People need to be called on shit or they would run rampant.

So, they picked me up and got me home safely, which at the the time was like ice water on a hot day. It's just better than anything in the world at some times. I woke up this morning and took a verbal beating from my sister. She's back on the campaign that I need therapy and pills so that this shit doesn't happen anymore. She's almost got me convinced that she's right, but it somehow feels like giving up, but when measured against being cuffed to a bench, it may not be that bad. Being stuck at home in a Zoloft delusion could work for me, but I'm scared that I would know that my feelings weren't real. I already struggle with their realities as it is.

After the beating, I took a shower and rode my bike to the hospital to get my staples removed. It wasn't bad at all. Took some PTO on my Blackjack and then went to the police station to get my release for my vehicle. I know a ton of people had had this happen, but fuck me if the shame doesn't coat the top quarter inch of your skin. It sucks.

Then, I did what I do and talked to an ex-girlfriend, an ex-wife and another sister to just try and stabilize my head as it's spinning today. You kind of need to just accept and not fight it. It happens. It's okay. It's going to be $1700 and a restricted license for six months. If anything, it forces me to go green and ride my bike a bit more. So, if anything, I did my part for the environment. Also, according to my ex-wife, my bike is way cooler than my car anyway.

So, Whoomp. There it is.

Rub Her Bandwidth Me

I've been spending a lot of time liberating TV shows and movies lately from inside the InterWeb. I've also noticed that my Internet Service Provider, we will call them BombCast, has got to have been throttling me. I have to keep on resetting my modem and router by unplugging them for 30 seconds and replugging them in about twice a day. As soon as I open my client, my bandwidth degrades to NetZero speeds and I ping the Cnet Bandwidth Meter Speed Test and see these apalling bandwidth speeds that I'm being given. Now, to be fair, it could be a bad modem, but the trigger is opening the client and it will haul serious ass for a little bit and then get down to like 4 bytes per second, which is outrageous.

The good news is that I'm getting stuff through and have spent some time watching some movies and TV shows on my Xbox, which is like the coolest thing ever. Here's a list of stuff:

In Bruges - A really cool movie in the vein of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrells and Snatch. Dude goes on the lam to Bruges, Belgium after he accidentally kills a kid. Violent hilarity ensues.

Eastern Promises - Viggo Mortenson fighting two dudes in a sauna with his junk out and Naomi Watts getting smothered in a role that could barely be called supporting. She's still super hot, though. Double crossing organized crime drama. Pretty good. By the way, Viggo makes albums with Buckethead. Super random.

Teeth - Holy fuck on a popsicle stick. This movie was the most god awful twenty minutes or so of my life. It was almost as bad as Spiderman 3 until it got so horrible it was brilliant. It's about a naive girl with Vagina Dentata. I was all in after the gynecologist visit. The dude is on the ground missing four fingers yelling "It's real. It's real. Vagina Dentata is real." This is destined to be a cult classic just based on the severed penises alone. She sleeps with dudes and then they say something stupid and her face kind of clinches up and then the dude starts screaming and then a severed penis falls on the floor. I microwaved a hot dog and dropped it on my kitchen floor shortly after watching this and nearly ruptured my spleen laughing so hard. This movie has got to be the result of a late-night-coke-bender bet or an elaborate and expensive inside joke.

Dexter (Season One) - This show is great. I watched the whole first season last weekend. It's about a serial killer that works in blood spatter forensics for the Miami police department. Like a vampire with a heart of gold, he fills his cravings by taking a page from the book of The A-Team and only serially kills people that deserve it. There is also an arcing story that takes place through each episode, so you've got to just kind of watch the whole thing. You also start to see him develop feeling, which really messes with his party and also why he is the way he is. It's a really cool show that I totally missed. Now, I will be pertinent again in party conversation and not have to talk about Lost and time-loop theory, which can get pretty heady.

I also grabbed The Onion Movie, which was the second coming of Amazon Womeen on the Moon and some other stuff that isn't worth mentioning, I guess.

Oh, that aluminum can of dog shit Life on Mars (American Version). The original was one of the best shows I've ever seen. It was fresh. The acting was brilliant. John Simm and Philip Glenister cannot possibly be imitated or even approached to be imitated in their roles. The subtlety was perfectly executed while still leaving some type of work to the viewer. Even the filming of it seemed perfect. Then, the American version plays out like the SNL sketch, Caveman Lawyer. The entertainment industry thinks that their audience is eating paste and choking on Crayolas. Yes, they may be right, but come on.

That's all for now. Staples out on Wednesday followed by one of the most awesome showers ever. Look for the evite. It's going to be a pretty special shampooing. That word sounds gross. Shampooing. It sounds like faking number two so you can go through someone's medicine cabinet. Like "Oh, I was shampooing at my new girlfriend's house while I looked to see if she had any Amoxicillin in her medicine cabinet." Sorry for the dick and fart humor there.

We Shall Not Forget

Rhythm of the Night by El Debarge really was the poor man's All Night Long meets Rhythm is Going to Get You, but watch this and you won't be able to shake the melody for hours. You'll find yourself whistling it in front of strangers.

They just played it during The Last Dragon this morning. If your higher power shines down upon you and you get a chance to watch this movie at your leisure, look for a young William H. Macy and Chazz Palminteri. Brilliant. Also, check out how solid the soundtrack is. It's just ridiculous. They got Willie Hutch, who wrote The Mack soundtrack, to write two "glow" specific songs to help push the plot through. It's called fuckin' montage music, dude. Throw in El Debarge and some Rockwell and you've pretty much put together a time capsule of 1985 jams that would later be danced to by your parents in a Black angus in 1991. They even got some Stevie on there. Holy snap.

Here's the final fight scene of Bruce Leroy vs. Sho'nuff.

Let's Make a Deal

An employer in Michigan is firing smokers from his company. He, in fact, extended the ban to spouses. Here's the article from the sfgate.

So, I'll keep it short. I'll quit smoking if they ban fat people in public parks, movie theaters, bars, enclosed places, apartments, restaurants...Basically, take all the smoking laws and replace smoking with being fat even if it's hereditary or glandular and start taxing fucking fast food. That's my carrot and stick approach. You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours, but in the meantime, I want to scratch your fuckin' eyes out for being a d-bag.

Here are more articles on him. Luckily, he is not fat or I would have just fucking lost it and booked a flight to Michigan to teepee his fuckin' house.

Ungauzed

I got it off. Here's the whole scar gash:

Undressed

So, I just took my bandages off and looked at the back of my head for the first time. I was going to change the dressing, but then couldn't get this piece of gauze off. It's a work in progress. Sadly, it's more fucked up than I thought. Might I add that I'm way into hats for a while?

Here it is:

Drained My Main Vain

So, I've been quiet for a while. I may have overreacted to the whole diagnosis thing and I actually was convinced I had cancer for a few days. I think it came from watching too much House. You've got to watch out for that. I also started self-loathing and felt that I somehow deserved to have it. No one should ever feel like that and I was way in the wrong for that.

Anyway, the subscribers got a bonus feed from a meltdown the other night, but that's been about it. I had some explaining to do after that and inadvertently sent a shot across the bow of some friends that really care about me and felt like an insufferable asshole the next day. The silver lining: I know what's wrong and it took my little routine diagnosis to throw a match in that powder keg and make what bothers me the most and triggers small episodes pretty hard to miss.

That lining is I get lonely sometimes. Some of those times are extremely painful. I feel like I have no family, no friends, no colleagues, no nothing. Sadly it's all me and they are all kind of staring me in the face, but I almost want to be lonely. Let me know if you have ever felt this way? You desperately want to be alone and then after three hours you wish you had someone there with you and realize that you could have someone with you, but in all honesty, you want someone specific there whether they be fictitious, known or someone you haven't even met yet? If it's not any of those three types, you just want to be desperately lonely again. It's the recipe for a downward, self-loathing cycle.

So, that's what I've got to knock out as my next step from mental adolescence to becoming some type of adult. There are methods to this that skitter on the edge of being productive, accepting, and self-satisfaction. It doesn't take pills, Jesus, or self-delusion to get there, either. It just takes self. That's my two cents.

Now, the reason for the e-absence or i-absence if you are on a Mac. By the way, on a sidenote, in most workplaces where PCs are primarily used, the guy who uses a Mac to stand out and be different is the vegetarian at your BBQ. While I would love to use a Mac and marvel at the style and usability of the device, if you need to run a report at work and have to fire up Parallels or VMWare to do it, you are doing it wrong. You are just getting in the way. And, if I hear one complaint about it like you think you are that Drew Barrymore dating douche from the adverts, I will scowl at you. If you are not in graphic design or music, at the end of the day, both systems are going to get most of your work done even if there is a CTRL+ALT+DELETE in there somewhere. Everything will be fine. After work, I'll jam my Dell D830 in a manila envelope and we can all be amazed. Remember. Point A to Point B is all that really matters when it's all said and done. I don't give a fuck how you got there. Just get there.

So, e-absence, post-tangent. I had a little surgery done. On the sheet it said reextract benign tissue from scalp and add flap using existing skin. When I read that, I did not feel real good about the surgery. Nobody wants a flap. I kind of just put my hand above a furrowed brow that sat below a freshly shaven head and checked that box that said I had no one to pull the plug if anything went wrong. That's a creepy box to check. I hadn't eaten or, more importantly, had any coffee in the last 12 hours and was not super fired up about putting on the booties and a shower cap again. I was however, fired up in putting this behind me.

I found out right before I went in that it had gotten to my mom via my sister's boss who happens to me married to my mom's sister. He found out why my sister was leaving work early and like a 38-to-1 upset at the Belmont Stakes, that news was off and running. The whole family knew before I was under a beautiful general anesthetic. That was awesome. I remember how the dude was talking to me and then I started slurring and then I was out. It felt like a typical Thursday night. I was built for this shit.

I woke up a few hours later and didn't remember anything and started to gather my bearings. I was starving and dehydrated and saw something in my peripheral vision that was attached to my head. I was told I would have a drain, but I thought it would be like a stadium pal and hidden beneath the gauze wrap that they had reapplied. By the way, this was the motherfucker of all gauze wraps compared to the pinner one they gave me last time. I can't pop my ears out of it and they are starting to hurt so I've had to use some of the Vicodin.

So, what I saw was a tube that ran from inside the wrap to a compressed ball that blood was dripping into. I kind of put two and two together and realized it was mine. The fuckin' thing just kind of hangs there and after multiple safety pins and readjustments, I've had to put it in a bandanna, Bret Michaels style. It's horrible. A beanie cannot hide this and I'm on straight lockdown after the neighbor's kid nearly cried when he saw me. Also, pro tip right here, if you can see your own blood dripping into any type of container, skip the lasagna.

I've been home a while and can't figure out how to sleep with this bag attached to my head. Plus, the head wrap does not mesh well with the weather. Thank god, I shaved my head. I suspect there is going to be some bic-ery when I get the wrap off on Friday. May have to go Bruce Willis style with it.

That's what I've got for now. I'm assuming that I dodged a major cancer bullet and should feel extremely fortunate for this chance that I've been given. Yeah, it fucking hurts, but ass, gas, or grass, no one rides for free. I'll just be happy when this is all over and do my best to be appreciative of all of the great assets and friends that I possess. This shit should be hard-wired into people, but I have to admit that sometimes I think I may be the King of TakeItForGrantedistan. So, just so you know; I'm aware of it. Most likely, I'm sorry as well. I'm eating some crow lately. Hopefully, it will be better from here on out.