The Enigma of the In-Betweens

Recently, my neighbor introduced me to self-psychoanalysis in tandem with Internet prescriptions. I'm not a fan of either, but it seems to be working for him and has served as inspiration to pursue at least one of those through proper channels. So, I've sought out a referral for a psychiatrist or psychologist. I don't know the difference between the two, but felt that either could lead to a significant improvement to my general outlook on life. I think one can hand out prescriptions. I think that's the difference.

There is this verse in "Philosophy," which has always served as one of my personal theme songs, by Ben Folds Five that goes "I've seen that there is evil and know that there is good and the in-betweens I never understood. Won't you look at me I'm crazy, but I get the job done. Yeah, I'm crazy, but I get the job done."

So, I've finally decided to deal with the crazy part. It's worked out fine until now, but it's becoming an annoying novelty. It hinders this pursuit of normalcy that I may not even want, but wouldn't mind a taste. I'm finding that having a retirement fund, paying taxes in January, wearing black socks with decent shoes and occasionally sporting a tie for a wedding or a funeral is not the true definition of "normal" that I've always thought it is.

I imagine "normal" to be an acceptance of all that is. I'm always convinced that there is something more. Something better. Like this isn't the life that I'm supposed to be living, but I'm also convinced that perhaps the key to happiness is accepting that this is your life. Exactly what is is exactly what you are supposed to be doing. It's exactly what you are supposed to be satisfied with.

Lately it started with stopping going to the gym because honestly, who cared. Then I noticed that I was smoking more. Next I noticed that I didn't feel like putting toilet seat liners down in the work bathroom. After that it was a general lethargicness and finally all I want to do is to go home to my mancave and sleep. I get lonely, but don't want to be around anyone.

It's not as bad as that paragraph makes it sound, but it's still not happy. I still get up early on Saturdays and clean my apartment, drink coffee and listen to good music, but I'm lacking "reason." Not the reason that culminates in rational thought and good judgment, but really a question of "Why?" Why do anything? The personal satisfaction related to feats of awesomeness is dwindling. If a tree falls in the woods, it's proven that no one hears it. If I do something awesome, it's been proven that no one notices or cares. Christ, I made pudding pops one Sunday and also invented the Cashew Chicken Burrito and no one was around to share in the deliciousness. Actually, the pudding pops were kinda gross. I used banana pudding and no one likes that.

So, why? I'm sure it's all related to my environment. I'm in a toxic environment surrounded by toxic people in a work environment that could be categorized meteorologically the same way that a weatherman would describe the forecast for Seattle in November. It's gray. I've lost faith in the people that sign my checks and have been disillusioned by 9:00 AM more than most people get disillusioned all day. At home I've got a neighbor that makes me fear growing old, lonely, and creepy. I can see the cat lady waddle to the elevator with a pull-along cart full of cat food. She only lives on the second floor and has clearly given up.

Now, I haven't given up hope. Instead, I've looked for ways to improve the situation. I'm trying to eat three times a day. Definitely cut back the booze. I'm looking at new places to move to. I almost got a new job until I got Charlie Browned, which my Aunt described as a typical Hugh Voltage situation. It'd be fine if she had said Hugh, but she used my real name. I try to cook more at home and just keep myself busy, but I'm not sure where it's all going. So, perhaps this whole post is just a dry run for therapy, but regardless, I'm aware that there are some loose parts rattling around in my skull for the time being.

I was recently told by someone I've never met, yet someone that I talk to more than almost anyone in my life currently (thank you, by the way), that I look "normal" in pictures, but that just triggered a thought I had the other day while driving. I was looking in my side mirror and thinking about how it says "Objects in mirror are closer than they appear." I got home and was looking in my bathroom mirror and the statement flashed in my head again, but instead it said "Objects in mirror are farther away than they appear." Also, that person always manages to provide the pleasant surprises lately through music and books and just general pleasantries and somehow being there when the avalanche cascades. It seems that one of the few that seems to understand me, I've never met. Sounds like what some people consider God, but she talks back.

I'm sure it's just a case of the recurring Wednesdays (not good, not bad, the in-between day of the week), but I'm working on it and pretty sure I can get through it. It's mild compared to what I've made it through in the last five years and should be no sweat and involve less questionably legal activities. Yeah, I've got some scars, but should be fine moving forward.

Critical Mess

So, went on a date with my PT on Saturday. Going into it I was freaking out. Like stomach hurting stress. I woke up early Saturday morning and had a half a pot of coffee, watched soccer and tidied up my apartment. I smoked a little bit as I still had no idea what we were going to do.

She texted around Noon and said she'd be ready about 1:00. That worked. I told her to just meet me at my place and we would cab down to an art & wine festival. I sent her directions and told her just to call me when she gets into the abandoned shopping center. I got the text saying that she thought she was in an abandoned shopping center and walked out to meet her. It looked kind of foggy in the parking lot which was weird since it was about 90 degrees out. I looked to the left and one of the buildings and an adjacent tree was on fire. This was probably a sign.

I called her and told her to park closer to the apartment complex and pointed out that I called her before I called 911. We walked back to my apartment and I threw on my shoes and stuff for the art & wine thing and called a cab. I'm thinking that she thought that I didn't have a car, but even a girl is not worth a second DUI for a .04 BAC.

We got to the festival and went to lunch at this ripshit Mexican place that has awesome margartitas and we each got one. Conversation went well as I nibbled at some nachos and she got a veggie quesadilla. Topics included NASCAR, TV (Lost, Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place, 90210) and music. She liked Jeff Buckley's album Grace which really worked in her favor. She's a Cubs fan because her dad is from Chicago and she likes olde-tymey pictures from magazine covers and the like. She wants to get a tattoo of a butterfly with her mom and her sister, but hasn't because it violates some rules of her mom's people. She would rather be evacuated from an embassy by boat rather than helicopter and her life plan includes never getting a phone that receives e-mail.

It turned out to be a two plus hour lunch and she started yawning. Yeah, could've been the margarita and the heat, but this was the second date and the second time she started yawning. So, I settled up the tab and we went and got her a coffee. Grabbed a cab back to my place in which I referred to the dangerous at night park as "The Stabby Park" to the cab driver. She was not a fan of that remark. This was quickly followed by a walk her out to her car, an awkward hug and what felt like a girl making an escape.

It's been pointed out that this is the first time in 34 years that I've tried a normal courting process wihtout booze, bars or any other extraneous environmental issues to work to my advantage and I will admit that I hate it. Eventually, however, I need to do this without crutches or shortcuts. Eventually, it will have to work. In the meantime, my question is "This is how you really do it? Seriously?"

Regardless, it was good practice and has forced some super self analysis post-game. She was my kryptonite. I totally faked like I was something else the whole time because I thought that I would like her when I got to know her. If you read that sentence again, you will read volumes into how I set myself up for failure.

My problem was nailed in one statement made by the sage wisdom that is Pappy sometime ago: "You are in a hopeless cycle. If a girl likes you, you don't trust her due to poor character judgement because you don't like yourself and if she doesn't like you, you hang around to figure out why because you can't stand the fact that someone doesn't like you."

It's true for now. Scary.

Pet Smells

This weekend I had my first owning a pet experience. If you've read this before, you know that I desperately want to give up any type of hope and become a cat lady to fill all of those holes that I have in my life with hairballs and empty cans of Fancy Feast and this felt like the first step on the way there.

It started on Saturday afternoon after I burned the Canadian flag into my front while I lay by the pool and talked on the phone. I forgot to rub in the sunscreen because I was distracted with a 48 hour followup to hanging out with a girl.

I'm completely out of my element on this one. I'm used to "Hey, you're cute" then "Hey, I'm drunk" and then a phone number with a question mark after the first name that I'm never going to call. Honestly, this is the first time that I've made an effort responsibly and relatively sober and kind of hoped that something worked out. I have to be honest, it's not an incredible amount of fun, but I guess it's how the other half or 97% live. I'll try it.

Anyways, next to the pool I forgot to rub the sunblock in because I started eavesdropping on this chick that was talking about going to a Los Lonely Boys concert that night and I was really intrigued about who a typical Los Lonely Boys fan was. I thought they were always just the band that happened to be playing at the fair that day that you happened to be there.

I went back to my apartment after not learning too much about the LLB demographic. I did think that there might be a white trash element to it, but can't confirm that yet. My apartment smelled a bit foul and I thought it was the recycling or the trash so I hauled it all out and went so far as to actually attack the bins with an assortment of sprays and a roll of paper towels. Thought it was done.

I sat at my computer for a bit and could still smell it faintly. I did the obligatory nose to armpit and thought it could be me. I don't really smell ever, but didn't want to rule it out. So, showered.

A few hours later I could still smell it. I pulled everything out of the cupboards and cleaned them out. It smelled like cleaning produck at that point and covered up the gross smell.

The next morning it was in the kitchen area again. I was at a complete loss and went to Mother's Day in the city after making mixtapes for mom and sister all morning. I just relistened to one of the playlists and it's absolutely heartwrenching. It's like an audio suicide note. I'm wondering how that's going to go over and also why I was haing a Mother's Day morning funk like that.

Mother's Day was radical. My sister showed up from LA. There was a slowly escalating water arms war that eventually resulted in a broken window and blood. That's a badass Mother's Day.

Got home and walked in my door and it was an odor of death you could feel. The only thing that it could've been at this point were the floors. Vaccuumed and did the linoleum on hands and knees because I don't have a mop. The smell was still there and I went to grab my neighbor to borrow his nose because he doesn't smoke and probably has a better one.

He asked why and I told him I needed to locate the smell and he said that he had it in his apartment, too. Bingo. Light Bulb. Eureka. Uno. Tic-Tac-Toe. Yahtzee. It was a dead rat in the wall. Awesome.

So, I named it "Stinky" and will consider it domestic pet ownership until they extract it from the wall. In the meantime, this bitch is going to be tits up in Glade plug-ins and mandle burning.

Not In This Dojo

As the sun sets on my court-mandated, rehabilitative, community program that I playfully refer to as cocktail college, I thought that I would reflect on a discussion that we had last Monday. The exercise was to write down some things that you enjoyed as a child before you started drinking to assist you in tapping into that joy of life that you had as a child without involving booze. It's to prove to you that you can have a good time without boozing. You then have to pick one or a few of the things that you wrote down and try to do them in your near future or day-to-day life. Tag or a BB gun war, anyone?

Sadly, my list of things I did as a child were predominately things that I do now. There were some throwbacks in there, though, such as sidehacking and muddogging. Those would probably get me in trouble or maimed nowadays. Sidehacking is basically hanging as much of your body outside of the passenger window of a car while your friend drives erratically. Muddogging is taking snow toys to a hill of mud in the rain and treating it as if it were snow. Muddogging is brilliant.

So, we've got this venture capitalist guy in the group and he went down his list. He tries to be funny, but it always fails completely, so it's a tough read usually. Anyway, he went down his list of like chewing wood, eating Necco wafers and whatever and then said "doing karate." Motherfuckin' karate. The balls on the fucker. He then followed it up with karate as being the thing that he would like to get back into, "but it's complicated" he said.

I perked up and asked "Did you kill your sensei?" and waited for an answer.

He didn't answer. It was like he really may have killed his sensei, which we all know is never accepted in any dojo. Mercy? Not in this dojo. Failure? Not in this dojo. Killing your sensei? Not in anyone's dojo.

So now you know about proper dojo etiquette.

Would You Like Some Rain For Your Parade, Sir?

Yesterday was kinda rad. I was killing it in meetings. I was supposed to call the cute girl after work and then I got home and there was a pound of coffee on my doorstep from my neighbor that works at Starbucks. So, it's going great as I let myself into my apartment and then my neighbor takes a deep inhale off of his smoke and says "Hey, dude."

I turned and replied "What's up?" as I held my new coffee closely to my body and was teeming with anticipation of drinking the shit out of it Saturday morning.

"I started drinking again," he said "I got suspended from work and maybe fired and now I want to call that chick again to tell her that I'm sorry."

We had both cut back on our drinking, coincidentally, a week or two ago. He was drinking Gimlets at 8:30 in the morning and crying to me. Grown man crying is so uncomfortable.

I've done it. I know a man can be driven there sometimes. Christ, when I was going through my divorce I cried while watching Star Wars: Episode III and also during a Simpsons episode. It fucking happens. Anyway, he's been doing it a lot and he's 50 and has kids. I mean, there comes a point when you've got to take an assessment of the situation and realize that there is not a time and place to make a habit of cashing checks at a bar in the afternoon and drinking a gallon of vodka that comes in a plastic bottle at night. That wasn't me doing that, by the way. I have excellent credit and use direct deposit for my checks. I also only drink vodka from glass bottles and preferably with a cork.

Anyways, I started firing back at him "Dude. Number one. Start alternating those beers with fucking water. Number two. Eat something. I've got some food in my house and you can have it. Number three. You know that you are making it fucking worse by drinking that shit and you shouldn't have a drink until you have resolved all the toxic shit that you've had in your head. Down times are the worst times in the world to fucking drink."

He lost interest at that point as I stood there in disbelief of all the shit that had just come out of my mouth. It was all the right things rather than "Fuggit, dude. Let's booze."

So, he went back inside and I was feeling kinda awkward and it totally ruined my free coffee buzz. Just then, my ten year old neighbor was cruising by and yelling to his dad that he was bored. So, like a succubus that feeds on youthful exuberance, I had him over for some xbox time. We played some Rock Band and I let him play my Kozik guitroller and we were having a blast. Then his "girlfriend" came over and they nudged me out of the game to talk to his dad for a bit about high school sports. High school sports is the worst topic EVAR. I'm almost to the point of telling him that that topic is off limits, but he feeds me, so...Anyway, he went and grabbed me a Chile Colorado burrito that is off the chain for distracting his son so that he could have some dad time. Totally good tradeoff. I got a child's outlook on life and fed and he got to troll facebook. That , my friends, is true symbiosis.

Let's Get Physical Therapied

I went to physical therapy for an ankle sprain that was getting kind of unpredictable. It would just constantly roll. I would be walking and it would just go out like getting flat tired or something. You know, like when someone walks behind you and steps on the back of your shoe? That shit never gets old.

So, over a six week period I developed a crush on my physical therapist. She was a little mousey girl, kinda young and looked like she would be totally by the book, but had an appreciation for the smell of Thera-band. I like that in a girl.

By the second appointment, it was a bona fide crush. There is a hitch here, though. My personal definition of a crush involves something that is totally and completely unattainable. Like my crush on the e-surance girl. As the sessions went on she started to play along with my inane conversations and would follow me off topic of ankles and balance drills. She seemed to be genuinely enjoying hanging out for our hour a week. I chalked it up to a courteous bedside manner, but was developing a thing for her.

My ankle was pretty much rehabbed two weeks earlier than planned and I told her that we didn't need to have rehab anymore, but she told me to come back and work on my balance. That's when the conversation happened that changed everything. I was trying to balance on one leg on a foam pad with my eyes closed. It's way harder than it sounds.

I said "This is really hard. You aren't going to make me juggle now, are you?"

She said "Have you ever surfed?"

I replied with my eyes closed "No. Have you?"

She replied "No."

I just started cracking up and fell down and said back to her "Then why are we talking about it?"

I still get a kick out of that conversation.

Anyway, I finished up and she gave me her card on our last scheduled day and I was a little bummed that I wouldn't get to see her anymore. After two weeks I did the unthinkable and sent her an e-mail to her work e-mail thanking her for fixing me and then asked her out...over e-mail. It felt horrible and gross, but it fucking worked. It was also a better call than hurting myself again so that I could pay $35 a week to see her again. That felt dirty. I'm still shocked, but celebrated with one beer after I received her reply. One beer in eleven days. This is a new Hughge.

So, anyway, finally figured out how to ask a girl out when not drowning rationality and tact in ten Ketel & Sodas in a bar and then not remembering what the girl looked like the next day.

Speaking of that, as I hit that lucid state last night at 9:48 PM on Cinco De Mayo, my phone beeped letting me know that a text was coming in. You can also hear a pop in the alarm clock speakers a few seconds before this happens. I hate that. Anyway, my brain tucked away my almost dream of a dude in a Carpeteria jacket eating a cartoon taco and I checked the message. It was a number with no name asking me to go down to the bar to meet for drinks. It took me a second and I think I figured out who it was. Here's the story:

Was at the bar down the street from my house and just getting a toe in the water for getting heated. I was walking to the bathroom and saw this girl. She was a Ginger, which is normally not my type, but for some reason I ended up talking to her for a few hours and we exchanged numbers. You should never trust a ginger. It's totally documented.

About a week later, she texted me. It was my birthday and some Sangria had pretty much punched me in the face at dinner with my parents for my birthday, but I went out anyway letting her know that my charm may take a small hit due to the fight with a pitcher of Sangria, but she was game anyway. I hung out with her friends and had some drinks and everyone was getting along, but there was no connection I felt with her.

Long story short, at the end of the night, we were talking out in front of the bar and I wasn't getting a vibe from her so while we were talking I clicked my phone open and navigated to her name in my contacts directory. I then said good night and deleted her name out of my phone right in front of her and then walked away. What a prick?

Anyway, I think her name was Kendall and I think she texted last night. Her name is in my phone now as First Name: "Kendall?" Last Name: "Bar".

Re: (g)Urgent

Got a memo in my inbox this morning from HR at work. The subject line said "RE: Urgent" so I grabbed my emergency survival kit that I'm required to keep at my desk as a part of organizational policy and moved on to the e-mail. I bend the rules on this a little since one day I ate my rations to see what they tasted like and then refilled the kit with Glenfiddich scotch and a pack of Parliament recessed filter cigarettes. Both will act like currency when the grid goes down and buy me three times as many rations as the original kit held.

So, there I am clutching my survival kit and reading the attached memo. It was titled...I've got to fudge this a little bit or I could probably get in toruble. Basically, it was my organization's policy for returning to work if returning from a trip to Mexico. Here are the highlights.

"For seven consecutive days after returning home, take your temperature each morning before going to work." You are allowed to come to work if your temperature is below 100 degrees and do not have a runny nose, sore throat, nasal congestion or cough.

Umm. Sounds like allergies combined with a hangover so far.

Now, for the if you do portion. It says you should contact your doctor. That's super brilliant. Oh, and you should tell your doctor that you just got back from Mexico. Just for fun, tell him it was via Thailand and you got into some weird shit over there with ping pong balls and three trannies and a scooter.

Now, if after seven days, your temperature is good, you can stop taking your temperature.

Wait, not done yet. Say this next part in a Jeff Foxworthy voice. If you have not been to Mexico recently, but have been in contact with someone who has? You just might have swine flu.

So, all of this is all fine and dandy, but they added one stipulation to the e-mail they sent out the memo with. It said this applies to all faculty and staff except for one group. Of course, the group is the portion that is primarily hispanic. Love it. The one group that probably has the highest chance of visiting Mexico is not part of this policy.

In the meantime, all hypochondriacs driven by fear, raise a glass and let's toast to the new disease to fear while we ponder waiting in line under a makeshift tent at the nearest hospital.

And We're Back

Wishful conversation at work:

(Real part) Douchebag: "It smells like tobacco Hugh must be at his desk."

Wishful reply: "That's funny. I thought it smelled like assholes and thought that you must be near my desk."

So, stuff should be getting exciting again. I've been pretty much dead man walking at work which has caused an "unsettled" mental meteorological mood. The dead giveaway was a request from my boss to put together a document of all my job duties with examples and time commitments of each. That means a raise justification unless you've just gone through a round of layoffs. In that situation it's a deathblow.

Work stress has become nearly debilitating at times and makes me just want to sleep all the time. I applied for a new job and that was going extremely well, but unraveled last Friday. I retired to my man-cave with a sense of defeat, but was lured out for a Friday night late birthday dinner. Dinner was delicious. The resulting cop beatdown was an epiphany.

So, there have been some cosmic coincidences lately that were ignited by the beatdown. For the record, I was wasted, but being responsible and walking to a couch to crash on. I'd say that they were justified for a drunk in public, but there wasn't even any public around. I was walking down a suburban street minding my own business. When one cop's knee pushed my face into the pavement by way of his knee to the back of my neck I realized I needed to make some life changes. Had I not asked him to pull out my wallet and check my ID and look up the same name with a ",SR" on the end of it, it could have ended quite badly. No cop wants to beat up a cop's son. They got me a cab and for the bargain price of $30 I averted a complete disaster.

The next morning I decided to try and put things into the proper place and put a toe in the alcohol abstinence pool. I figured if I eliminated that chaos variable that the resulting chaos would be much more imaginable. It feels like a false promise, but it's something I need to do while I'm trying to figure out what's next. It's an awesome super power to be able to destroy anything and create complete havoc while drinking, but x-ray vision would be way cooler as a super power. Even my super power of being able to look at kids on swings or bikes and make them stack is a better super power.

The morning turned to evening and I noticed three kids sneaking around my front patio like squirrels orchestrating a bird seed heist from a bird feeder. I thought they were friends with my neighbor's kids and just dismissed it when I saw one of them dart past my sliding glass door. When they appeared a second time I thought I would ask them what they were doing. One of them replied "Nothing." I in turn said back, "Sure, dude." I had just officially became a "get off my fuckin' lawn you kids" adult.

I let my neighbor know that there was some Tom Fuckery going on on his porch and then about an hour later he knocked on my door to tell me that someone took his cooler. The same cooler that he always stocks with cold beers for his neighbors. One neighbor who had cried at me at 8:30 that morning while he drank a vodka gimlet and told me that he had called in sick to work with the excuse that he was picking up his son from jail. Helluva an excuse. I'd go swine flu before I used that. So, anyway, I see the cooler theft as a sign that maybe some dudes need to cool their drinking jets. Last night he confided in me that he's begun going to AA classes, which is not a bad idea. So, that was cosmic coincidence two. I'm expecting some other type of Budweiser recall to be cosmic coincidence three.

So, anyway, I'm going to try to quit booze and see how this fucked up freak flag is going to unfurl. My best chance of winning is to have full control of all my wits, but it's really hard to motivate in a situation like this. Even then, being well fed and well rested is the name of the game, so eating and sleeping are the first step towards getting through it. It's scary is all.

Sadly, this horrible memory of my mom standing above me while I was a sad seven year old and singing "Every party needs a pooper that's why we invited you..." and then calling me "Eeyore" because I was a bummed out little kid all the time is on repeat in my head. Just goes back to the plain fact that I'm a giant manbaby. Thank god, it'll all work out based on the one fact that it has to.

Shenanigregarious

Whelp. I pretty much don't blog anymore. So, here's a quick update working backwards.

Last night I did my second public access appearance on a local soccer show. My segment is basically three to five minutes of unscripted shenaniganery. The first appearance I had a slight buzz on and it was on Cristiano Ronaldo getting a pregame mani/pedi. It was pretty easy and discussed his penchant for Ferraris and diving.

Last night's was on the Beckham AC Milan debacle. It was a little more difficult and I was super sober (semi on the wagon right now). It's all green screen and the backgrounds are as public accessy as anyone could ever imagine, but I'm learning how to work with it and look into the camera rather than turning to talk to the guy asking me questions.

So, last night my prep consisted of a text that said "We're going to talk about Beckham tonight." I texted back, "What's our angle?" and received a response that said "B there at 8."

Sweet. We had nothing. So, dude goes through this youtube segment of soccer clips and it's going all wrong and his elephant soccer clip turns out to be just an elephant walking around not playing soccer like it was supposed to. Apparently, he had the wrong clip.

So, we go through our back and forth about Beckham's possible transfer to AC Milan which breaches his MLS contract in an obscene way. It moves on to what was Posh wearing and some other inane topics and scamboogery. At the end, the other dude asks, "Is there anything else that you'd like to talk about?" I reply, "Yeah, I was watching that clip you had of that elephant and I was wondering do you think that Nike makes elephant balls? You know, like elephant balls for elephants to play soccer with?"

At this point, I start cracking up while everyone in the studio is just looking at me stunned because I said elephant balls. Of course, everyone in the studio consists of a dude in suspenders, a guy that looks like he owns a van with no windows for the sole reason of not clashing with his moustache, and two high school volunteers running the cameras. Also, this is more people than will ever watch the show when it airs.

So, I finished the show and took off. I think it may have been my last show. The preceeding show, I caught some guff for repeating the term "Meat Tube" rather than youtube over and over again. To be completely honest, though, it's kind of fun. Painful as hell to watch and I feel really bad for taking the spot of Chess Diva #6 on public access, but that's the business for ya.

Recommended things:
1) I was a huge fan of KEXP and listen to it on Flycast whenever I can at home. Truth is radio died, but is being slowly resurrected via the Interwebs. I listen to KCRW in the morning at work and also enjoy Indie Pop Rocks on SomaFM. I've got a new one out of LA that I listen to now. Apparently, it shutdown and moved to the Internet and it's really good. It's KDLD 103.1. I'd love to hear stuff like this on the radio rather than listen to preprogrammed crap that ClearChannel wants me to listen to. I'd also like to point out that I've never heard Linkin Park on any of the above stations and that is a good thing. They FUCKING suck. You know that you are either older or that radio is super crappy when you've got talk radio going on AM. That's a bad sign.

2) The 33 1/3 book series by Continuum is an excellent way to further enjoy some of the most classic albums ever made. I recommend ordering a few and spending a Sunday with the headphones on while you read one of these. I did the Paul's Boutique edition last week and was floored by how awesome it was. The first section opened up with a history of the origins of the album. The second section broke down the album song by song. It was like discovering a classic album all over again. Paul's Boutique, especially. I remember the first time I heard that album, I was like "What the fuck?" and it turned out to be probably comparable to when the generation before me heard Sgt. Pepper's. It changed everything and just got better with every listen. The album could definitely be described as rich. John Darnielle from the The Mountain Goats wrote the one on Master of Reality by Sabbath and Colin Meloy from the The Decemberists wrote one on The Replacements' Let It Be. I'm working on the Aja entry now and needless to say, there is a glossary.

3) Lastly, I'd like to recommend a wonderful concoction that I stumbled on. Cap'n Crunch (no crunchberries) and Breyer's natural vanilla ice cream. One word describes this: fuckingretarded.

Happy Hump Day. Enjoy yourself.

Shittibank vs. Mint

I recently began using mint.com to manage my finances after using Quicken forever. Quicken was cool and very well integrated online, but mint.com was just way easier to setup and maintain and over the last couple of months has proved to be an extremely positive experience.

So, I was checking out my accounts the other day because I love to watch my money whether it's expanding or failing miserably via my retirement account and I noticed that I had a 14.99% APR on my favorite card. It's black and awesome and used to have an APR of 4.52% which I really liked. I have never missed a payment and pay a lot on it every month as it's my primary bar tab card. I'll admit that it's been misplaced a few times and their customer service has been incredible on it.

The card was lifted in Vegas and they shut down the charges and killed the card swiftly and ably over the phone. I thought that the APR had to be a bug with mint and logged on to my account to check it out and sure enough it said 14.99%.

I checked out my past statements and November's had the 4.52% on it while December's had the 14.99%. I sent an e-mail off to their customer service asking if I had been a bad customer or something and they replied that it was due to the current condition of the financial markets and that I was sent the new terms and conditions and given the opportunity to opt-out if I wanted to. Now, in between convenience checks and bullshit that they send, I didn't read the 32 page fold out statement of terms and conditions, that's my bad. Who reads that?

To their credit, they gave me a second opportunity to opt-out, which to me, screamed that they tried to pull one over on their customers and got called on it. What kind of business outside of the oil business can you justify a 300% rate increase and get away with it? Furthermore, I live within my means. I haven't purchased a home because I can't afford it. I haven't bought a new car because I would rather pay my credit card bills down. Why should I be responsible for them or their customers' negligence?

So, I weighed out my options and decided to opt-out. The opt-out entails keeping my old APR until the expiration date on the card and then the account will close and remain until it is paid off. It will be paid off by that time, so I don't even get why I would choose to keep the 300% rate increase unless I never read the document. Honestly, there were no Pros to those Cons. That would be the best critique of prison writing that any prison writing program critic could ever write.

The question is how many others is this happening to or am I the only one that doesn't read all the mail that his credit card company sends him? Honestly, I've learned that if my bill isn't in the envelope, it's junk. Hmmm. Maybe if they quit sending convenience checks they could save that money that they need to provide their exceptional service and benefits. Then on top of all this, you have the bail out and their private jet they had to send back. Should I be feeling bad for them enough to say "Yeah, man, you've had a rough patch, so let me pick up the tab." They are not your mom-and-pop liquor store that you can justify paying more for convenience because they are a local business. They are not even your uncle with a drinking and gambling program that lost his rent in Reno one weekend.

Regardless, the whole thing kind of pissed me off and made feel a bit vulnerable. The moral? Read your goddamn mail or pay the price. Also, mint.com is pretty rad. I figured out my account had been messed with because they showed me cards that I could get that would be better than those existing.

So Rad

I need this for desk tchotke at work real bad. I just added it to my Amazon wish list. Ladies and gents. The Playmobil Airport Security Checkpoint playset.

Also, the Playmobil baby in an incubator is kinda tight.


OMG. Playmobil office equipment set is rad.

Won't You Sign In Stranger

It's been a month. I was accused of moving the blog and writing it under another fake name. In truth, I was just lazy and uninspired. Could be the TV. Could've been the weather. Could've been work. Could've been a variety of things, but it's not worth analyzing.

Here are some highlights. The coolest thing that happened was receiving nunchucks from my sister for Christmas. Scratch that. I actually almost received nunchucks. Instead, it was two pieces of wood and some chainlink. If they were connected it would be a felony unless used in a martial arts exhibition. Therefore, they are illegal if you suck at nunchucking and legal if you are good. Let's just say that if I did have nunchucks, I would probably have hit myself in the mouth with them about two weeks ago while chucking under the influence.

Now, in reference to their legality, how fucking stupid is that law? You break into my apartment to steal my TV that I love so much that I would write up a proposition to make it legal to marry it and you wake me up mid-theft. I come out in my underwear with my nunchucks. Pop-quiz, hotshot. Would you rather I had a gun or a pair of nunchucks? It's a no-brainer, but I don't have a large group of nunchuck enthusiasts in California that vote, so this is what we get. Watch for the NNA, though. I will start the National Nunchuck Association and make Mark Wahlberg our President due to the passing of Chuck Heston. I believe the rules are that the President must be the lead from Planet of the Apes and that's the best we've got.

Speaking of groups/associations, I've finished my community service for my Blottaux Pas. It wasn't that bad, but it was time consuming. The first weekend following it, I'll admit, I felt weird being at home on a Saturday morning. I'm not saying that I missed it, but it felt weird and I did have a small raking jones in the morning. So, after going through everything that I've gone through so far and still having a weekly meeting for the next five months and a zero tolerance for three years and a black smear on my record for ten, I'm starting to feel a little pissed at the California chapter of MADD (Motherrs Against Drunk Driving).

Yes, I empathize with people that have experienced loss due to people acting negligently, but I think in California they overdo it a bit. I mean fuck, okay, my bad. I've learned my lesson. Can we just move past this? I do feel lucky that I didn't hurt anyone or myself. I feel really fuckin' fortunate in fact, but get fucking over it. It's so typical of a woman and feels like a horrible marriage has been struck up with the Mothers Against Drunk Drivers. It's just no fun. Let it go. I'm sorry.

So, while I bear my scarlet three letters of D, U, and I, I'm getting myself a little divorce from this group that has just been riding my ass for making a mistake and refusing to accept my apology. I'm putting my own association together called DAMM (Drunks Against MADD Mothers).

It's not pro drunk driving, but it's pro forgiveness. It's pro let people get the fuck on with their lives. It's pro let people dig their own fuckin' graves and make their own fates possible without trying to control their behaviors through administrative bullshit. The best I can do at this point is to vote against anything they support in the form of propositions. I actually checked last November and did vote against anything they supported.

In fact, I think the BAC laws are completely relative. So, the legal limit is .08. That is whether I'm 6' 4" and 340 pounds or 4' 6" and 40 pounds. That is completely aside from the fact that people have different tolerances based on their familiarity with blottopia.

For instance, if I've had eight beers and am driving behind some soccer mom drinking a chai latte and talking on a cell phone while wiping up her kids fucking applesauce that's all over his face, I'm less of a danger to anyone on the road and she has a .00 and I've got a .10.

Actually, I'm extremely agile and resilient when under the influence. I would throw down the challenge of my inebriated agile self against Joe Grande Iced Mocha in a variety of tests like cabular impact absorption (absorbing impact from chartered transportation), long distance falling, and breaking and entering into secure objects (getting inside your house and into bed without keys).

So, anyway, say I perform a battery of tests at the DMV including monkey bars and running through tires on an obstacle course and as soon as I can do it without being awesome, that's my legal BAC. I think I could easily pull off a .18 while still remaining relatively awesome. Doesn't this seem a lot more fair, the idea of earning your BAC? Honestly, it just makes a lot more sense to me, but is definitely against the grain in a society of people that feel they are owed something just for being here.

Anyway, trying to write more and feliz ano nuevo.

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.