Hey Stacy, This is Some Great Kool-Aid

This is probably my bad for watching the first 30 minutes of The Social Network, but what the fuck?!?!?! Were the rights to Back of a Tampon Box taken? I watched The Pirates of Silicon Valley movie back in the day starring Noah Wylie as Steve jobs and Anthony Michael Hall as Bill Gates. That was interesting, if anything, because Anthony Michael Hall was playing Bill Gates. Social Network? One angry dwarf, spurned. Those four words plus "Justin Timberlake" can save you 90 minutes of your life. It was filmed very nicely, though, David Fincher is good. Also, Mark Zuckerberg's actual review of it in a bar to me one night was "I liked Fight Club better. Better ending." That was actually a perfect review.

So, anyway, the movie sprung a leak in my brain that I had been suppressing so as not to go fuckin' nuts. When I was a kid the future was jet packs and exploring space and defeating Russia. Now, the fact is this: Our economy, our future, our civilization and culture is driven by an application to send us personalized advertisements based on our personal information and also let us talk to people that in turn creates more information about us to send us more targeted advertisements and FUCKING COUPONS! It's one thing to respond to marketing. It's another thing to jump into bed with it and give it your spare key.

Really? Are we there now? Coupons and communication applications? Fucking Penny Saver and a goddamn phone. When you are in line for the Kool-Aid, look around you. Are these your peers? This has happened before. I said the same thing when Pets.com had free shipping on dog food and WebVan had free grocery delivery. You can tell something is not right. The numbers don't add up. Like, "Hey. Who left these free donuts here?" Don't ever get off the boat and don't ever eat the free donuts. Someone WILL send you a picture of the donuts on their dong. Anyone that invests in these overvalued IPOs will be getting a pic of a donut on a dong eventually. I can guarantee this.

So, let the "wealth" managers talk idiots into investing in overvalued stock that is going to lead us right down to a bunch of people feeling entitled to being bailed out and a bunch of investment firms that should feel guilty for kicking a retard in the mouth and we'll do it again. Seriously. It's coming and I think we earned it.

Shawful

It's Friday and I'm doing a throwback to the search for the whack ass pattern in the iPod shuffle. I've got $50 on a triple shot of Beck. It's going to come out that people are paying to get into the shuffle algorithm someday.

1. Pie In The Sky by Frank Black
FB is rad. This is on Teenager of the Year which was my gateway for FB and the Pixies, but this song is just okay. In there and out of there, though. It doesn't waste your time and it's better than Linkin Park.

2. Friend of Mine by The National
Rules are rules. When Ryan Adams comes up 72 times on the shuffle, I've gotta wear it. This band belongs to someone else and I had it flagged to not show up in shuffle, but the new iPod refreshed and this comes up. I mean it's not like she owns this band, but we went and saw them so it reminds me of her. Plus, she really liked it. Music for wounded birds. What ever happened to happy music? The National is for drinking whiskey by yourself in a low lit room. They are awesome, but fuck man, if this music were a color it would be the grey of Eeeyore's fur.

3. Space Dementia by Muse
These dudes sucked Steve Jobs' dick or something. They are in the contest for most plays on shuffle with Ryan Adams and Beck. So, Muse is rad. They are surrogate for Radiohead's The Bends after Radiohead went Ok Compute. My homepiss Joel brought Absolution back from Europoe when he played there and we loved it. I downloaded their whole back catalog because it wasn't in the states yet and always wondered why their label thought it wouldn't sell here. Well, it sold. It got played on the radio. It got played during movie trailers and lo and behold, the record industry Blood Sugar Sex Magiced Muse for me. They just played that shit into the fuckin' ground and somewhere there are "kidz" singing a Muse song for a Kidz Bop album somewhere. Muse is bad ass, though. They write bad jams that are so secretly science fiction that you don't pick up on it on the first spin, but all their shit is about space. This song is not so secretly about space. If Carl Sagan started a band, it would be Muse.

4. Officer David Livingston ny The Shit (Ryan Adams)
Told you. Ryan Adams comes up constantly on shuffle. Need to uncheck this from the shuffle list, too. The song was only a minute long. Had no time to write anything about it. The Ryan Adams side project is pretty funny, though. I have enjoyed it in the past.

5. Jackson Cannery by Ben Folds Five
I know it's hella pussy to like Ben Folds, but I do. He's a rad songwriter and The Five has a great sense of humor. This is a bad jam, too. I couldn't tell you what it's about, but the bass on it does a great job of making a trio sound big.

6. Assemble The Empire by Sparta
This is when they still sounded like At The Drive In. This was the first album post breakup. Now, somewhere down the line after this they turned into fuckin' U2. I swear to God, I could play one of their songs off of Porcelain for Bono and he would lawyer up. It's a good band. This was the first song I ever heard by them off of a downloaded rough demo.

7. Carpal Tunnel Slug by Buckethead
Another favorite of the shuffle. There are 11,000 songs on this iPod and all I get are The National, Ryan Adams, Butch Walker, Beck, and Buckethead. Elvis? Hasn't come up once on shuffle. Now, Buckethead jams, but it's like Q-Bert to a DJ; this isn't something I'm going to have playing at a BBQ, but dud fuckin' jams. He also uses nunchuks live and is batshit crazy. Good guitar tones. Interesting composition on writing tunes. Not enough live drumming on most of his stuff, though. Now, legato? For daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaays.

8. In God's Country by U2
And there's U2. Dude, shuffle is a scam. This is all premeditated. There was a fucking u2 iPod. Of course they are going to come up on shuffle. If you are going to do U2, you might as well listen to Joshua Tree. I go hot and cold on U2. I'm admittedly not a huge fan of all the echo that Edge uses. When he is just banging on an acoustic I can get behind it. Finally, U2 is interesting and they really do mean well, I think. Yeah, Bono, comes off as bigger than life and they charge $250 for tickets to watch them on giant screens, but they mean well.

9. I Ain't Tha 1 by N.W.A
All I have to say about this song is "Are We There Yet?" Seriously, what happened to Ice Cube. He used to be hella street. Now he's just countin papes like Ice-T. Hollywood came knocking and just leaving piles of money on their porches. Money will take a dude away from the streets. It did with me. i used to be hella street.

10. Vulnerability by Operation Ivy
This is pretty much where it all started. The shit actually kind of holds up relatively well. It just reminds me of being 16 and going to Berkeley Square for rock shows. This generation underneath us is fucked going to $180 Bieber shows. The rock show quite possibly could be dead. It's definitely scarce. There are also a lot of fakers trying to pass as real rock shows. A rock show isn't sponsored by Red Bull.

11. Hole in the Earth by The Deftones
These guys are so rad. They can do no bad in my book. I'm never like "Oh, that shit is so played" on a Deftones jam. There tones are distinctive and you immediately know when it's a Deftones song. That's such a good quality in a band that is a little lost these days...said the jaded fading hipster.

Side Note:Here is a sentence that you should never ever hear: "Oh, I've got to stop by my travel agent and then swing by Blockbuster and rent some movies for the kids tonight."

12. Autumn in New York by DJ Reggie (Ryan Adams side project)
It's absolutely insane late night bullshit, but he mentions Revenge of the Ninja sometimes. There was a nice morning just kicking it and listening to DJ Reggie jams in bed, but it's music for another time and place. It will be removed.

13. Dreamer in My Dreams by Wilco
This is off of Being There. It's also the name of an awesome Peter Sellers movie. It was my first Wilco album and I was like "Hmmm. Let's see what all this Wilco business is about." It's a great fuckin' double album. There newer shit smokes it, but there are some really deep jams on this album. This song isn't really my favorite. I don't like honky tonk so much. Honky tonk just has way too much tonk in it. This song is also like 2 minutes too long.

14. Backseat Love by N.E.R.D
Dude, I don't even know how this is on my iPod. If Adele comes up today, I'm going to get mad. There is some Gwen Stefani and Black Eyed Peas (pre-fergification) in there, too. It's one thing for a girl to leave underwear or a sock at your house, but Adele on your iPod? Amoxicillin won't get rid of that. This song blows. Rules are no skipping, though. I think it might be about anal sex. It's hella boring. Anal sex and the song. Anal sex with choking in a clown suit? Now, that is interesting.

15. Evening Star by Judas Priest
This is off of Hell Bent For Leather. How did hessians miss that clue in the album title? They could have called the album "Sucking Dicks on the Weekend" and dudes still wouldn't have got the hint. The thing a lot of people don't know about Judas Priest is they really aren't that heavy. Their music sounds like fuckin' Boston or Bad Company at some points. Adults just got scared of all that leather. I went and saw these dudes last year and I'm not being homophobic or anything, I'm just calling it as a I see it, there were some super gay points of the show. It's not meant to be derogatory, it's meant to be used as an adjective. This song is just meh.

16. Erase You by DJ Shadow
This is off of Outsider which was kind of a trip. Shadow had some hyphy shit and some Cold Play shit on the album and I didn't really know what to think, but a not as good DJ Shadow album is a lot better than a lot of other things. The beat on this is sick. The thing about DJ Shadow is you WILL get some sick beats.

17. The Reaping by Coheed & Cambria
the songs are about comic books and space, but these dudes have riffs for days. The lead singer takes a bit to get past and some people never make it, but if you can do Rush, you can do Coheed & Cambria. Riffs and bad ass solos. that is Coheed & Cambria.

18. Little Journey by The Avalanches
Probably the most interesting record I have ever stumbled upon. The sample selection is crazy as fuck. It's almost like Paul's Boutique the way he works samples together from old travel albums and modern jams. This CD is one of the crown jewels of my music collection.

19. Fizzy Lipton Drinks by Buckethead
This is heavy. Also heavy? The love that iPods have for Buckethead. Seriously?!?! A Steven Seaweed Threefer Madness is going to happen on this shuffle test. This song is off of Elephant Man's Alarm Clock and actually is pretty cool. The only thing, though, is if you don't play guitar this is not going to interest you. It's like Satriani not for general contractors and pressure washers. I don't know anyone else who listens to Buckethead. I don't know anyone else who really would. Oooh. There is a hidden track on this song. The track just goes quiet for a 3 minute gap and then starts rocking again. The hidden jam would say "Hey, I can play hella fast" if jams could talk. I am naming this hidden track "Still Life With Envelope Filter." This is why the days of CDs will be missed. The mp3 will destroy and maim music as we knew it. Fuck, records sound better than mp3s at this point.

20. Que Onda Guero by Beck
I fuckin' called it. I could pull these artists off of my iPod and Beck and Ryan Adams would still come up on shuffle. I've got nothing against Beck, but I'm dying to know how Apple programmed their shuffle. Does it honestly go grab U2, Beck, Ryan Adams and The National first and then spice it up with some random tunes to seem legit like it's not just playing the same shit over and over again?

21. The Stars Look Down by Rush
This is off of Vapor Trails after Neil Peart wife and daughter passed away in a tragic car accident. Rush was almost done, but dude went soul searching and came back a new man. I have a ton of respect for that. As far as Rush goes, I saw them last weekend and they are just monsters. Every one of them is the master of their instrument. Neil Peart hits his kit with purpose and perfection. The drum solo is a little lame at this point, but I could watch him play drums all day. Geddy Lee? Dude, a bass off between Steve Harris from Maiden and Geddy Lee from Rush would make the world spin backwards. I've seen them a couple times and they just get better as they get older. They definitely got me fired up on Rush again. This album, though? Not as awesome as Hemispheres. Dont' get me wrong, though. Rush is hella bad.

22. Plug In Baby by Muse
11,000 songs and it grabs two Muse songs off of Origin of Symetry. What are the odds of that? 2 in 11,000. That's .018%. So, here is how Muse works. The bass player plays classical triads to move the song along and the guitar adds the accents. That's how they make it work as a trio. It's actually really interesting and good and it's not their fault tha they got Blood Sugar Sex Magiced. I can still listen to them occasionally. They just always sound so...desperate? They are the soundtrack for the end of the world.

23. Instrumental 1 by Wilco
This is from the never released Yankee Hotel Foxtrot album that Warner refused to release and eventually got Wilco dropped from their label. It's documented in the movie I Am Trying To Break Your Heart. This version of the album is preferred in some circles. Jeff Tweedy leaked it to the Internet after the band was dropped from the label. What a savage. it's actually really cool to hear the differences between the songs on each album and some of the songs ended up as B-sides. This is what you need to know. Wilco is good. This song is pretty cool, as well. Just a mellow little piano ditty.

24. Conversation 16 by The National
.018% chance of this happening and it did. God, they are good, though. It just sucks that it's tainted. It's like going to your favorite restaurant and then getting home and getting the flu. You kinda blame the restaurant for it and don't want to go back. The thing is, though, the restaurant is still good. It's not the fault of the food provider. So, yeah, The National, gets fucked because I still get hung up on some exes. You can't just hoard your music, though. You have to share it with the caveat that you could lose it. I suppose it's the same as sharing some of those deep, dark feelings you have with someone you trust that will eventually just walk away like you weren't never there at all. This song is actually one of their more awesome songs. This album became the darling of Pitchfork last year. The luric "'Cuz I'm evil" is particularly good. Somewhere there is a picture of these dudes with myself and a friend in it.

25. Perfect Timing by David Lee Roth
Finally shuffle is comin' up Jauge. Steve Vai, Billy Sheehan and David Lee Roth? So sick. The opening riff is so awesome. The keyboards could be turned down in the mix, but who am I to question David Lee Roth. I sometimes get this riff stuck in my head. Those are good riffs when they do that.

26. Corduroy by Pearl Jam
I recently hung out with a girl that said this was her favorite Pearl Jam song. We discussed exchanging music and books and things were going real good. Then my buddy told me that he thought she was too old for me and should not date anyone older than me. For my final trick with her, I had a bottomless champagne brunch and stunt drank with her next to me. The idea was to drink enough champagne to drink on the house's money. I did and flipped the J.J. Show switch and we haven't talked since. We probably won't. Old habits die hard, but problem solved. It kinda sucks, but I think deep down, the guy driving this boat knows what he is doing. I hope. If not, we're fucked. Oh, as for the song, it's actually pretty good. This was the last Pearl Jam album that I bought and recently I've been listening to them again and they are a really cool band that just kept trudging through the end of grunge and came out on top by defying genre.

27. Snowden by The Doves
Dark, depressing, d'awesome. That's how I describe The Doves. Joelge got me into them and they really are dope. It's a soundtrack for a Sunday when you haven't talked to anyone in three days and you don't really see any chance of any human interaction for the rest of the day so you throw this on and read a book and enjoy being alone. That is The Doves. I don't share them. I want to keep them for me.

28. Crack The Skye by Mastodon
This song is radical. Science fiction and comic nerds have left their basements and picked up guitars and turned it to 12. The Sword, Coheed & Cambria and Mastodon are all nerds that just rock the shit out of everything. This whole album is incredible. They aren't the best live band, but may be one of the loudest. They play their music perfect, but that's the problem with their live show. It's almost too perfect. Their guitar lines are awesome in the way they are all crunchy and then get all loose and play single note lines that just sound gigantic. They are masters of sound dynamics. They are also still big dorks.

29. Cro-Magnon by Mr. Lif
This dude is smart. This is good hip-hop that you will never hear on the radio. So, go find it. Discover music and don't wait for it to be forced on you. Pro tip.

30. Get Yo' Feet Back On The Ground by Tower of Power
Best drummer ever in this band and from Pleasanton. I can't say enough about this band so I won't bother, but this record changed my fuckin' life. After I heard it, everything was different about music. The way I looked at my guitar was different. The way I listened to music changed. It made me feel insecure about my honky pox. It's just so funky and in the pocket, it's ridiculous. It makes me miss the East Bay like a Casper's dog does. Oh, and my family and stuff, but Tower of Power and a Casper's dog sounds like my Ben & Jerry's flavor called East Bay Grease. Crazy modulation on the fade out. Band nerds can make rad funk.

Gonna go build something at work now. A disaster recovery database. Seriously. When the shit goes down, everyone in the room will be looking at me hoping that my app on a thumbdrive is going to get us through it. Scary.

Negative Ghostrider

Have you ever been walking to work (not slowly and not staring at your goddamn phone) and had someone come up from behind you while jogging and they just lightly graze you as they pass as if it could possibly be on purpose like some kind of Maverick-buzzing-the-tower kind of move? If that has happened, have you ever started lightly jogging behind them just to kind of freak them out? It's a totally creepy move and highly recommended. Here's how it works:

1. Find an area with a heavy and consistent jogging population.

2. Walk nonchalantly while paying attention to your surroundings and wait for your moment. You get bonus points for finding one of those real serious jogging types. Usually you can tell by the bottoms that they are wearing. You can tell the ballers from the hobbyists.

3. When you find your mark, let them pass you and then BAM! throw a fucking headband on and just start jogging next to them, but don't say anything. Just act like it's totally normal.

Point A to Point Break

We just got a new student intern in our department that I've deemed "Nerdy Betty." I'm not even sure if it is a girl yet. It honestly might take an ultrasound to figure that one out. I'm at a loss at this point.

So, I take mass transit for all of the hot chicks that do it and also because there is no parking at work at 7:15 AM. It's totally convenient for where I live and I actually really enjoy it at this point. I hate driving now. I have a brand new Civic that has 612 miles on it at the moment and it's been three months since i bought it.

There are some drawbacks, though. A rigid schedule and occasional late trains can be a hassle, but it's all part of the deal. I can accept that. Giants trains can also be a little full and you don't really get a seat, but I can deal with that. The shuttle once I get to work can sometimes be crowded and the asshole next to me can sometimes bleed over into my assigned seat space because he thinks he is home on his couch in his underwear with one ball hanging out while he watches "Biggest Loser" while eating a bucket of KFC, but I'll deal with that, as well.

The thing that I can't stand is fucking slow walkers. There are variants of them and I'm convinced that there is a conspiracy of slow walkers conspiring against me in some kind of fucked up cabal dedicated to slowing down my life's progress. There is a simple rule in getting from one point to another and that is a straight line as fast as you can. An object in motion must remain in motion. It's just efficient. Some people, though, aren't of that persuasion. They honestly must have nowhere to go or are just waiting to be stomped on by a predator like a wounded gazelle.

The first slow walker is the "I Don't Where I Am" walker. They will take a few steps forward and then a few diagonal and then back right in front of you and then just stop and look around like they have lost their bearings after 9 steps. They aren't aware of the fact of the surge of people trying to catch the fuckin' train and for all intents and purposes are the only living human being on the face of the Earth. They should probably just sit down and quit trying.

The second slow walker is the "Person With Kids" slow walker. This type is complete chaos and absolutely unpredictable. They could absolutely be existing on two or more separate planes of existence at the same time and their movements can only be described in a fourth dimension of reality. With the child chaos factor, even on a tree diagram of possible outcomes, their movements cannot be predicted. They are the Schroedinger's Cat of the slow walkers. They are in front of you at the same time as not being in front of you. They are all possible outcomes that only exist once you have observed them. There is also a modifier on this slow walker when you add a stroller or a dog. Seriously, it would take a graphing calculator and a Cray supercomputer to evade their walking pattern. You are going to get stuck behind this one.

A third slow walker was discovered yesterday. Sadly, the best name I have for him is "Guy Holding His Polo Shirt Out At 10 and 2 Like He's Driving" slow walker. This one's a trip. I was stuck behind him making a break to Trader Joe's to buy groceries with about 10 minutes of allotted time to spare. I was stuck in a walkway and trying to figure out a way around him without hitting trees that were lining the walkway or cafe tables on the other side of the walkway. His moves were subtle and you could kinda get a cue on where he was going by where he pointed his shirt with his "10" or "2," but he was also throwing some fakes in there. He was crafty for sure. It was like watching for signals from a level boss in a Nintendo game.

A fourth slow walker is the "Lean Back And Walk Like You Are Browsing A Mall" slow walker. These people drive me crazy. It's that slow shuffle from left to right with 60% of your weight located 7 inches behind the balls of your feet. I've totally caught myself doing it. It happens. It's cool, but you don't do it around transit machines that work on a set schedule. I'll admit that I will occasionally mock these motherfuckers when I'm stuck behind them, though. Missed a fucking train once because of one of these. These people are the people that stand on escalators and don't walk up them.

There are definitely more types that I'll find today. You never really know until you are behind them, but trust me, they live among us.

So, I think the whole thing that bugs me is the lollygagging. I'm a man that moves from one point to another with purpose even if there is no real purpose at my destination. I'm a destination lollygagger and not a journey lollygagger. From my desk to the printer at work? Head down and straight at it. To the bathroom? Head down, body leaning slightly forward and right to it. I may not be doing shit, but at least I look like it. I think I may start stepping on the backs of their shoes and yelling "Flat Tire!" at them. It's just hard to figure out what they are going to do even at a low rate of speed. It's the tai-chi of point A to point B and the slow walkers have mastered it.

AC/DC/E/F/G

I don't like meatloaf. Never will. It makes me uncomfortable the way they shape meat into a loaf like bread. Bread and meat are delicious as separate entities, but when mashed together it is not a peanut butter and chocolate moment to me. It's also because as a youth I was forced to eat it by my stepdad one night. It was an epic meeting of two stubborn motherfuckers at the dinner table. He was new and I was adjusting to him as a patriarch. He was doing the same adjusting to me as a sort of son. We sat at that fuckin' table for three hours while I picked at it and choked it down. That is probably the other reason that I won't eat it. This is a metaphor for life. I don't do well when forced to do something and will often throw a wooden shoe in the gears of the mechanism that is forcing me to do something either in the form of self-destruction which diffuses the whole situation a la pushing the big red button and blowing it all to pieces or leaving something in the results to fuck with the forcer later down the road.

This brings me to last weekend. The goal was to find two priest costumes and a Jesus costume for a mini Cannonball Run that I'm participating in at the end of the month. The idea is to pay homage to Cannonball Run while also committing heresy. I was raised religiously as a child or should I say religion was forced on me as a child and now I will occasionally say things that would be viewed as improper in a church setting. Well, not improper, but not popular in that type of setting.

Jesus was easy. Beard, hessian wig and crown of thorns. To match my Jesus keychain, we picked up a Caesar robe. It seemed kind of ironic that a Caesar robe was the robe that matched the keychain model that we were using.

The priest outfits were not so easy. You figure black pants and that priest shirt with a collar would be pretty basic. It wasn't. At the costume store all they had were priest outfits with ten year old boys sewn to the crotch and inflatable boners. Who's the heretic now? We tried a police uniform store and still nothing. We got a referral to a Christian bookstore and I started getting uncomfortable. Like meatloaf uncomfortable. I didn't want to go in one. It felt really wrong.

So, we called it and they closed at 1:00 PM. It was 2:00 PM. I dodged a bullet, but in the voice message at the place they used the term "Church Goods" and it turns out this is the proper term for finding Jesus gear. A Google search later, we end up heading up to South San Francisco to Western Jesus Supply or something like that.

On the way up El Camino Real, past the largest smattering of dive bars I have ever seen in my life, we established our cover story. We were going to say that we were making a student film about religion and needed the priest shirts for that. We weren't the directors and we were just sent out to get the shirts. It was pretty solid.

We got to South San Francisco after passing the See's candy factory (awesome!) and went into the store. My buddy looks at me and goes "Dude, keep it cool. You can do this." I had a smoke and went into the store after him.

He was outed immediately by the saleswoman as not being a priest and she asked him why he needed the shirt. Thank Go...Thankfully, we had the cover story. I browsed the store and couldn't believe all the Jesus gear. Some of it was super cool. There were 50 different sets of rosary beads and a statue of the patron saint of real estate for help in selling your house. I wish I was lying about that last part.

As my buddy is getting rung up, a car pulls up to the stop light outside the store and I hear music blaring through the open door of the Jesus supply store. I recognize it immediately and under my breath say "Listen, dude. Listen to the music from that car."

My buddy was like, "What, Dude?" and started listening.

Out of the car blares "Won't take no prisoners. Won't spare no lives. Nobody's putting up a fight. I got my bell, I'm gonna take you to hell. I'm gonna get you, satan get you."

I'm losing it, doing that breath through your nose, bite your lip thing to stop from laughing and blowing everything as you can hear the chorus of "Hell's Bells" by AC/DC as the car drives away.

It was totally weird, but we got the gear. We went and visited one of the old drummers from my band that worked down the street for a bit and talked about hooking up later.

We did some early evening drinking in Saturday night shirts when we got home and called the old drummer on a lark. He said he was going to an AC/DC cover band that night and would pick us up and we were like "We're in. We kinda have to go." We had come completely full circle.

I'm not really superstitious, but I do have to admit that something extremely coincidental is going down. I'm kinda on the lookout for things now. If the walls of my apartment start bleeding and locusts swarming, I may have to call it off and admit that I was wrong, but for now, I'm just kinda on heightened alert to my surroundings. I'm not ready to eat crow yet.

A House Is Not Home

The living situation has reached a fever pitch. Like a fever pitch that is purely low and outside and just walked in the game winning run of the opposing team, ruining your career and sending you to the minors to rot pitch.

Over the recent holiday my breaker flipped, knocking out everything in my apartment. It wasn't the local breaker. It was the main breaker and my apartment was the only one in the complex that got knocked out. The next day they sent someone out around 5:00 PM to fix it. The dude was a little sketch. I opened the door when he got there and had two thoughts 1) I'm about to get home invaded and 2) Where the fuck did I leave my nunchucks?

So that incident wasn't that bad, however some ice cream was lost as collateral damage.

The next incident was two weeks ago. This one was similar, but it only knocked out the oven and the fridge. It knocked out the oven while baking (half-baking, technically) tiny pizzas from Trader Joe's. I had to push them across the finish line using the microwave and that resulted in ruining them. If you'd like the recipe for making disappointment, however, I've got it.

I called the property managers the next morning and asked them if they could send someone out to fix it and they said they would send someone out to fix it that day. This was after they asked me if I flipped the breaker. Yes, I fuckin' flipped the breaker. You can't just CTRL+ALT+DEL everything as a solution, asstard.

After I hung up the phone I peeked into the freezer at three kinds of ice cream and told them that they were going to be okay, but you could see that they were sweating. God knows what they would say if they could talk back.

Day goes by and no one shows up. Fantastic. Next day at around 6:00 PM the smell let me know it was time to let everything in the fridge go. I pulled the plug on the ice cream and tossed it away as if we had not grown closer than a man and his dog...that he eats over a 2 week period.

Three days and 5 phone calls later, they sent a dude out. It was a real electrician this time. He had tools. He checked out the wiring and did some test scenarios. Diagnosis? The wiring is fucked. The whole thing has to be redone. Headstones and bodies, man. When will people understand that you've got to do things full assed and not half?

So, anyway, I call the property managers about three times a day now trying to get out of my lease and no one answers. This whole electrical issue is just in addition to waking up to "Good Morning" on a Saturday as the neighbor wakes up her kid. There is also a Turkish debate that goes on every night at 11:30 that is followed by a Turkish marathon at about 2:00 AM. I'm sleeping with ear plugs now and feel like a fucking prisoner of my neighbors. I ordered a pizza from Dante's pizza the other night and instead of asking me which floor I lived on, he said "Apartment 20? Which ring is that on?" I know. Really forced and obscure reference. The walls of my apartment are so thin...How thin are they?...they are so thin that if I wiped a piece of fried chicken on them, I 'd be able to see through them.

Anyway, if I can't get out of the lease, I think I'll start growing weed in my apartment until they kick me out. If that doesn't work, I plan on training an illegal pet monkey to do my laundry and taking in a pet raccoon and naming him Gary Bandit. I'll have Gary Bandit drive a tiny Trans-Am up and down the hallway until all the neighbors demand that I be removed. Oh, shit. I think the work ecstasy is kicking in.

Scene From a Laundry Room

The laundry machine in my illustrious apartment complex has been broken since this weekend. It's the machine that soaks and spins and not the unsoak machine. I resorted to going to the floor below mine and using their machine yesterday. It's no problem. A flight of stairs with an elevator option for the weak.

I crammed my way into the tiny room that houses the machines, a wash basin for the Amish and a bookshelf. I don't understand why there is a bookshelf in there, but it does make the surroundings much more intimate for multiplayer washing. I had never been in the room with another person until yesterday. Anyway, I threw my clothes in the machine and went back to my apartment to tidy up a bit.

I returned after 35 minutes and walked into the room to find what would later be identified as a woman staring at the drying machine...intently. I squeezed past her and thought to myself there is no way that I'm getting out of here without some form of physical contact and that contact should be avoided. Maybe I can go over her if I climb up on the machine, but then it will be obvious that I'm avoiding her and I also may wreck my back.

She looked like she had not been out of the apartment for like six weeks and had not seen the sun in seven weeks. She had kind of a pale face with marks of adult acne scattered across it and was grinding her teeth. She looked at me kind of sideways and then left the room immediately.

My first thought was that she was reading my mind. That concerned me. When I started to think rationally in the situation, I decided that she was trippin' balls and hallucinated me as a demon or some type of laundry performing dragon and feared for her safety. That was a way better option than the mind reading, but that option has still not fully been discounted.

I managed to get out of the room without any type of physical contact and took that as a win in addition to getting my laundry dried on my floor which I promptly burned due to concerns of neighborly contamination. I think I'm going to stay off that lower floor, though. It's either that or fully investigate the situation. Sounds dangerous, though. Sounds a lot like Blair Witch Project meets Requiem for a Dream.