Random Squeegee

The Greatest Thing in the World

2008-06-06T12:18:00.004-04:00

I will now attempt a transcript.

Unholy Humpty Dumpty Mutant Eggman thing is sitting on a wall...

Kinder...yibbo shaky!
shakes smaller, non-mutant egg

Me unscrabbly.
unwraps foil cover to reveal chocolate egg inside.

Choca Doobee!
opens chocolate egg to reveal yet another egg, this one made of plastic

Doubly Choco Doobee, ops wubbo! (laughs)
opens yellow plastic egg, tiny plastic man which could possibly be a soldier but on further inspection he's got a red chef's hat on and holding a wooden spoon (also inexplicably red)

Tooooyy!
Mutant Eggman has apparently just eaten some of the chocolate

Yodel yum and choco scrum with multi-pumfabo toys!
picks up a small toy airplane from assortment of Kinder Surprise toys next to him

Oh, grobelee!
moves arms in circular motion; raises eyebrows. outside in the cold distance, a cuckoo cuckoos

Me scooble now. Nogo. Wheee!
Mutant Eggman does the "redrum" finger thing, and freefalls backwards of the wall. Proper British Announcer says "Kinder Surprise from Ferrero."

Discuss.

But I'm Your Density...

2008-05-12T08:03:00.003-04:00

Why didn't George McFly divorce his wife when his son came out looking exactly like the guy that "helped" him get her to go out with him high school? Once Marty hit puberty, George should have been a little suspicious of the striking similarities. As if that wasn't bad enough, she named the kid after him, just to rub it in!

Maybe he just decided to let it slide. Why let one little indiscretion ruin a good thing? Maybe he thought, "It could be worse. At least he doesn't look like Biff."

Nonfiction Books: Why I Hate Them, Why I Think Every Nonfiction Author Should Die A Horrible Death, And Why You Should Think So, Too

2008-05-08T13:04:00.007-04:00

Why does every single non fiction book include a colon followed by a friggin' paragraph-long subtitle? That ticks me off a lot more than it probably should. It doesn't help that the two biggest offenders, political hit jobs and and self help books, are the two most deplorable genres anyone could ever write about. It's bad enough they're blood-sucking leeches, but do they have to be so obnoxious about it?

One of these days someone is going to write "CHAMPION!: The true story of how I overcame adversity, and against all odds, wrote a book with the longest subtitle in history and scored a bunch of chicks and a sweet movie deal, so look for Champion!: The true story of how I overcame adversity, and against all odds, wrote a book with the longest subtitle in history and scored a bunch of chicks and a sweet movie deal in theaters this Summer.

If I ever write a nonfiction book, The title will just be something short, followed by a colon. And the entire inside of the book will be the subtitle. Beat that, you stupid jerks.

Coming this Summer

2008-04-23T08:58:00.008-04:00

Today I learned that if you put Daniel Day-Lewis' head on Will Smith's body and tint the the whole thing orange, you get Vin Disel. I also learned Daniel Day-Lewis makes a great evil Grimace.

The Majority of People Are Unusual

2008-04-17T08:40:00.001-04:00

This lands in my inbox every once in a while, but for some reason, this time I started thinking about it, specifically the first paragraph:

Fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too. Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.

i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! if you can raed tihs forwrad it.

Okay, it says that only 55% of people can read this, but then it explains that it doesn't matter what order the letters are in, the human brain will still be able to read them. So shouldn't anyone be able to read it? Wasn't that the point of the second paragraph? Also, 55 out of 100 is the majority, so wouldn't the 45 who couldn't read it be the ones with strange minds? Why would the majority, who's brains work just fine according to the Cambridge University study sited in email, be the one's with strange minds? I knid fo gte hte isrimeposn ttha eht 55% nebmur wsa peluld uto fo sooneme's sas.

Test

2008-04-15T21:50:00.007-04:00

This sucks. where the hell is my website?

Edit: Okay, some of it's back. But where's the masthead? And Amazo? I guess it's a start...

EDIT: Gah! All the images are gone!

EDIT: Hold on, I think everything is back know. I had to switch from posting everything via FTP from my own server to publishing from Blogger using a custom domain name. I don't know what any of that means, but I think it's working again. Except now I've got that stupid Blooger toolbar think at the top of the page. How do I get rid of that?

Who Am I? Why Am I Here?

2008-04-08T11:00:00.004-04:00

I've lost my memory. Well, half my memory. Well, it's not technically my memory. Let me start over.

I'm typing this on my company-issued Powerbook G4 with 15-inch screen, two RAM ports, a compass in the stock and this thing which tells time. This particular model has a defect that can render the lower RAM port unreadable, cutting the speed of the machine in half. When this happened to a couple of the computers here a few years ago, they were taken to the Apple store to be repaired and we checked the rest of them to make sure they were using both RAM slots. Mine checked out all right, so I thought I must have gotten lucky and didn't get one of the defective ones.

About a month ago, I noticed my laptop was running ridiculously slow. Every command was followed by a lengthy appearance by that stupid spinning rainbow. My browser quit constantly, and even the simplest tasks were met with resistance. Clearly, I needed more memory, 512 MB is much too small these days, especially in the graphic design business. I went online and looked for the best deals on memory cards. I found a place where I could get a 1G card for $87, with free shipping. But Joe, who actually speaks in all caps, said "GOOD LUCK GETTING THEM TO BUY IT FOR YOU. THEY ALWAYS TURN ME DOWN WHEN I TELL THEM WE NEED BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH" Interestingly, when I first mentioned finding a cheap place online, he suggested I email our IT guy to see what I should do. I told him I was pretty sure we get charged every time we email him with a question. Joe said he didn't think so, which explains why our employer is always griping about the exorbitant IT bills.

Still, I knew it would be a hard sell to ask for more RAM, since everyone else was getting by with what they had, but my computer was barely functioning and affecting my work. Then, by chance, last week I clicked on "About this Mac" and discovered that my computer wasn't running slow because it only had 512 MB of RAM, but because it only had 256 MB of RAM. 256! It's like I'd been transported to 1997!

Checking the system preferences confirmed that the lower port was shown as being empty. After all this time (and after the warranty conveniently expired) the defect finally kicked in. Super.

Joe said, "TAKE THE APPLE CARE CARD AND GO DOWN TO THE STORE! THEY'LL FIX IT! HASSAN CHOP!"

The Apple Care card, which is expired, wouldn't have done me much good anyway, since all it does is bump you up to the front of the line if there's a wait. But I did go to the Apple Store on Friday. I was hoping they would fix the problem for free, since they did that for the other computers a few years ago and there's a whole page about it on Apple's website, but no dice. They said that the warranty on the laptop had expired which voided whatever free stuff I would otherwise be entitled to. They did offer three solutions. The first was to get the motherboard replaced, which would set the company back a grand and leave me without a computer for a couple of days. The second option was to send it to their "depot" for at least a week, during which time they'll fix any and all problems with the computer for a flat rate of $320. The final option was to say, "Screw the lower RAM slot!" and just put more memory in the upper one. I went with that one.

So I reported my findings when I got to work Monday morning, and given the other two options, my boss was happy to go with option 3. So I went back to the website I found that had the memory for $87 with free shipping, but Joe, well, Joe orders everything from our sales rep at a certain retailer, thinking the guy gives us deals. He kept saying "I'LL SAVE YOU THE HASSLE OF USING THE COMPANY CREDIT CARD! I'LL JUST CALL WHAT'S HIS NAME BECAUSE WE HAVE AN ACCOUNT!" I was too busy and tired to object, so Joe made the call. In the end, going through what's-his-name we have an account with cost about $150, versus the $87 I'd originally priced out. Good thing we have Joe and his connections to help us save money, am I right?

Nothing Can Kill the Grimace

2008-03-05T10:00:00.001-05:00

We were talking about the Bourne movies at work and somehow that led me to Yoda backpacks, and then to the Wikipedia page for McDonaldland characters. I don't know how exactly, but I do know that what I saw there confused and frightened me. Tacked on to the last line of the write-up about Grimace, the lovable purple blob that's supposed to represent milkshakes, was the following epitaph: "The character was retained after the streamlining of the characters in the '80s, but was dropped in 2007."

What? What?!! Those sons of bitches! They killed Grimace! And by extension, Uncle O'Grimacey! But that wasn't even the worst of it, apparently Early Bird, the McNugget buddies, the Fry Kids, and even poor, mentally disabled Hamburglar have been raptured up into McDonalds heaven. Leaving only Ronald to traverse the desolate wasteland, alone and broken.

Some may have seen these characters as cold, heartless corporate mascots that contribute to America's growing obesity problem, but screw them. The rest of us saw our childhood; memories of a simple time when Saturday morning was the highlight of the week. Commercials debuted between our favorite shows, revealing what the new Happy Meal toys would be for the next few weeks. They were almost as enthralling as the shows themselves. Sure, most of the time the toy was disappointing, I think one time I got a stencil, but the excitement, the mystery of what would be the next promotion was the driving force. And the "off weeks" when the toy was something lame like a single-color lump of plastic shaped like Ronald McDonald flying a helicopter, only strengthened our interest and wishes that in just a few weeks time, a cooler new promotion would take it's place. Maybe it'd be a tie-in to the latest Disney movie, like Little Mermaid bath toys. It seems like it was usually Disney movies, but I remember (and still own) American Tail Christmas stockings, which never really occurred to me until just now as sort of inappropriate (why is a Jewish mouse on a Christmas stocking?) Sometimes the toy would be McDonaldland-specific, such the Changeables, cheeseburgers and milkshakes that transform into robots accented with late-eighties bright green and purple trimming, or the adorable yet slightly disturbing when you think about it McNugget Buddies.

But before the big reveal for the latest Happy Meal, we'd get a little slice-of-life vignette featuring Ronald and any combination of characters from the McDonaldland stable. Some characters were phased out before I was born, or shortly after, so I never got to see Mayor McCheese, the Professor, or talking, paper-eating trash cans(!) in action. And I wasn't around for Grimace's debut as an evil, six-armed shake snatcher. But the McDonald's near my house did have a hollowed-out fiberglass Big Mac, the beloved constable and best friend of Ronald McDonald, that you could climb into and peer out of his giant burger-shaped head.

I can still remember Birdie learning to fly, Grimace's epic adventure to regain his voice, or the McNuggets taking on Ronald in a sporting event. Those were carefree times, times of vaudevillian puns and talking food who seemingly had no fears of being devoured. Whether they were oblivious to their fate, exempt from it on account of their sentient nature and giant eyeballs, or masochistically looked forward to the day they were chewed into pieces was never really made clear. What is clear, is that those Halcyon days are over. McDonaldland is no more. Queue the sad montage of characters being forced from their homes, as McDonaldland itself crumbles from Utopian magical kingdom to harsh, boarded-up ghost town.

Now Main Street's whitewashed windows and vacant stores
Seems like there ain't nobody wants to come down here no more
They're closing down the textile mill across the railroad tracks
Foreman says these jobs are going boys
and they ain't coming back to your hometown...

With his friends and home ripped away from him, good-natured oaf Grimace could very well revert back to his evil nature. In fact, last year a police sketch artist released a picture of someone who'd been attacking women in the North End, and I couldn't help but think he looked awfully familiar...

Thanks a lot fat kids, you've ruined McDonaldland and precious childhood memories for everyone. I hope you choke on your Apple Dippers.*

* I don't actually hope anyone chokes on anything. Things change, circle of life and all that. But if someone gets the runs because of all this, I wouldn't mind that.

You Want One!

2008-02-12T16:45:00.004-05:00

Gee whiz, it's Wuvums, the adorable, marketable rodent thing! Wuvums! Shouldn't he be emblazoned on t-shirts and other cash-flow generating materials? Isn't it an injustice that he isn't? He's so damn cute! His big doe eyes are crying out, "Please slap me on a canary yellow onesy. With feet!"

Like last year, I made Valentine's Day cards for Brianna. This time, they feature Wuvums, and more horrible puns. The pirate one says "Arrgh...you gonna be my Valentine?" That's probably my favorite.

I guess if I had any forethought, I could have drawn them weeks or even months ago and try to sell them in time for Valentine's Day. There's always next year, right?

He's Toying With Us

2008-02-12T11:13:00.000-05:00

It's been over a year since Joe mentioned Captain Nice. Or Mr. Terrific! I'm a little concerned.

Yes, he does still end sentences with "Arrrurrghrgrurrgh!" when he thinks he's said something particularly goofy, or when he's frustrated, or whatever the hell other reason he makes that stupid noise. And he still somehow manages to to add extra syllables to both "hello" and "you" in his stock greeting "Hello-o. How are yew-oo?" when he's making personal calls. I'd commend him for finding a way to stretch "you" into two syllables if I didn't want to hit him repeatedly with my stapler.

He even threw a "Holy D'Artagnan, Batman" or two at us recently. I think I heard Hassan chop not too long ago. "There you go thinking again," is another one. Oh, and "They always spoke so highly of you" is another old standby; he even uses it when referring to inanimate objects.

Joe's old gems never fade away, they just lie dormant until you've let you're guard down. "What if I don't want to" is still as strong as ever, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. It's almost enough to make me open the windows and shout "Shoot me now and get it over with!" But I mustn't stoop to his level. Mustn't I?

He still lives and dies by the word of Howie Carr, still hates the font Palatino because it has "Latino" in it (speculation, of course, but still, I'll bet he avoids using it) and insists there are "Asian Agents," a secret organized union of illegal Asian pan handlers in New York City. Asian Agents. Really.

He still has a grotesquely forced laugh that makes you want nothing to be funny ever again, ever. He still stands unimaginably close while he talks to you, and absolutely cannot walk past your desk without commenting on what's on your screen. It's usually a drawn-out "Oooohhh, pretty", or, "Oh, that looks really good." To be fair, he's trying to be nice, but many times the layout you're working on was designed by someone else in the office, or even by a third party, so his praise without the slightest knowledge of the history of the project rings hollow. He still lingers too long after awkward pauses, seemingly unsure when to clomp away. He still hovers around your desk asking personal questions all day, and just doesn't understand the concept of personal space in general.

He still doesn't wash his hands after he uses the bathroom. He'll still lie about it if confronted. He still can't go a day without exposing us to lethal levels of hairy butt-cleavage.

But he hasn't brought up Captain Nice or Mr. Terrific. Not since last January. He started rambling on about old TV shows a few weeks ago, and I thought for sure they'd be peppered in there. But, hold on, sorry, he did his idiot machine gun laugh while I was typing. Anyway, he was talking about some old show, and my ears perked up and suddenly I got all excited, just waiting for him to say "Hey, here's one, Meeester Tay, do you remember Captain Nice? But it never happened. But the fact that it didn't, and that I was actually disappointed about it, kind of horrifies me.

What have I become?

Ode to Kimmy

2008-02-05T15:05:00.000-05:00

Ahora que es un wenis.

Indian Burial Ground

2008-02-02T10:59:00.000-05:00

I always like to check out statcounter to see what kind of weird crap people search for to end up on this blog. This morning, someone in Tamil Nadu, Chennai, India, found their way to the page about my creepy dead people on the lawn dream by doing a Google search for "composting human corpses." Well, that's...unsettling.

Sure, maybe someone was searching for a non-traditional, eco-friendly way of putting their loved ones to rest, or perhaps they were even planning for their own final arrangements. But just to be on the safe side, the Tamil Nadu authorities might want to check and see if they've got any missing persons cases open. Someone might have a body they're trying to get rid of.

A Trip (And Fall) Down Memory Lane

2008-01-31T09:12:00.000-05:00

You know what's fun and not a cop-out at all? ~~Copying and pasting~~ Revisiting old stories from the FMD days. Since Sean and Sandra Bernard took their hump'n and dump'n act to more hospitable doorways, and the Metro doesn't have any blatant mistakes today, let's take a look back to another time, when cataloging every single event in my life was a suitable, if temporary, distraction to the ad nauseum blather of Joe.

Back in December of 2004, we had only just recently moved into our new office on Newbury Street, and most days I walked from Park Street Station to work, via Boston Common and the Public Garden. Let's have a look back at one such cold, December day, shall we?

The past couple of days I've had a few close calls with icy patches on the sidewalk, so I guess it was only a matter of time before I finally ended up sprawled out on the pavement. This morning I slipped in the park and landed on the right side of my back. I got up after a few seconds, but my chest, back and right knee are sore. Also, I kinda dented my...er, the company's laptop. But it works fine, since I'm using it.

Over three years later, and it's still working fine! Just a little dent. Woot! And my chest stopped hurting after about seven hours. I can't remember, but I'm sure Michele sent me 700 emails telling me to go to the doctor. Well, I'm still here, aren't I?

Some Asain guy was doing kung fu or something and saw the whole thing, but he didn't help, he just kept swinging his arms around and making weird noises.

Yeah, I know. He was doing Tai Chi. There's a bunch of people who do Tai Chi every morning, usually led by a little old Asian guy that shouts "Hup!" or something. They're out there every day, no matter the weather.

Since I was up all night watching football, all I can think of is having my fall replayed over and over with commentary by John Madden and Al Michaels...

Michaels: There appears to be a man down on the play. It looks like generic_screenname.

Madden: You hate to see that happen to young graphic designers. Let's see the tape again. Oh, look at that. Here's the fall right here. (draws circle on screen)

Michaels: Looks like he's able to get up on his own.

Madden: Yeah, and I tell you what, he's lucky. You have to look out for those ice patches. See, right there. His foot is just touching the ice, but it's enough for a down.

Michaels: That was a close call.

Madden: Yeah, I tell you what. They used to put stickum on their cleats, but...

Michaels: Wait...what? When did they ever put stickum on their cleats?

Madden: Well...see...the, um...(waves hands at Al) FOOTBALL!!!

(read the whole dang thing here.)

And speaking of football, this Boston vs. New York stuff is getting old real fast. The fact that neither Boston nor New York City actually has a football team doesn't seem to register with the idiotic reactionary newspapers of said cities (That would be the Boston Herald and New York Post, respectively.) Why are the mayors of Boston and New York making the traditional "friendly wagers?" I wonder if the comptroller of Spokane, WA and Prime Minister if Sri Lanka made a friendly wager on Sunday's game? It would make about as much sense. Yeah, yeah, Boston vs. New York plays out better in the media than Foxboro vs. East Rutherford, but it just seems like these city wankers are riding the coattails of other people's success. If I was whoever the hell is in charge of Foxboro or East Rutherford, I'd be pissed that someone else came in and ate my breakfast. Foxboro is practically in Rhode Island, and the Giants literally don't even play in New York state, let alone New York City. Give it a rest. Wankers.

Whatsa Mata?

2008-01-29T14:52:00.000-05:00

As I've mentioned before, the Metro is my favorite paper. Both ironically and non-ironically. It's free, it's exactly the correct length to read cover to cover from Braintree to Park Street, and when they run out of space for an article, it just ends mid-sentence. I come for the free news, but I stay for the hilarious typos.

While not technically a typo, one thing that always gets me is when a story reads "on yesterday" as opposed to just "yesterday" or "on Monday/Tuesday/Whatever day preceded this one." I don't know if "on yesterday" is grammatically correct (although I'm almost positive it isn't), but it definitely sounds...off. I can only assume all the "on yesterdays" are the result of a computer program that automatically changes the name of a weekday to "yesterday" if it falls on the day before the story was written. My favorite example of this, and the best proof I have that it's the doing of a cold, emotionless computer program and not a living human being that just happens to think "on yesterday" has a certain ring to it, came a few weeks ago. It was the day after Martin Luther King Day, and the article explained that "King's birthday is Jan. 15, but the federal holiday bearing his name is observed on the third yesterday in January."

For the record, the third yesterday in January is January 2.

Today's top story was that crime on the T is down from last year. Or, violent crime, anyway. Less people are getting shot, stabbed or robbed, but weird old guys are still coping feels at their usual clip. Anyway, the first line of the article is "Violent crime on the Mata hit a 10-year low in 2007." What the hell is Mata? Did they mean MBTA? Mata shows up four times in the article, each time with only the M capitalized. Mata. Mata! I thought that maybe Mata was a separate entity from the MBTA, and it just so happened that I'd never heard it mentioned until now. But a much better and more accurate thought would be that the Metro editors take the short bus in to work. And good for them, working in a real office. God bless those goofy bastards.

Meanwhile, everyone's favorite ebony and ivory ragamuffins, Shawn and, um...Shawna, have been sleeping in front of the door every day this week, staying later and later each morning. This morning I walked by the door and saw the familiar gray hump obstructing my path, so I decided to go get some coffee instead of trying to do that weird dance to get past them and open the door. I went down the street, got a coffee and donut and leisurely read the Metro. After twenty minutes or so, I headed back to the office, thinking I'd given them enough time to either get up on their own, or be kicked out by one of the less passive occupants. But no, there they were, still blocking the door, still smelling like urine.

A guy from the sixth floor had some clients with them this morning and couldn't get in because they were blocking the door. The guy said he was going to call the cops. That's the second time in as many days that someone's threatened police involvement. I don't think I like where this is headed. There's going to be a confrontation. I hate those. I don't know if it's going to come to actual physical contact, or if we're going to come in one morning and find a revenge dump spattered all over the entranceway. Either way, it won't be pretty.

It's been really cold the past few days, and I feel terrible that anyone has to sleep (and hump...ugh) outside, but by now they have to know this building has several businesses in it, and people start coming and going early in the morning, so it makes sense for all parties involved if they packed up and found some new digs. There's a church across the street, I've seen some guys sleeping on the steps. Unless that spot's already been claimed. Some of these guys are territorial. Maybe that explains the huge turd in front of Brooks Brothers. Well, there's a ton of other doorways on this end of the street alone. Hell, the place across the street has had a For Rent sign since we moved in here. They could sleep and crap and hump over in that doorway 'til their hearts' content. It's win-win, right?

UPDATE! They weren't there on Wednesday morning. That was anti-climactic.

Mmm...Floor Chocolate

2008-01-24T08:11:00.000-05:00

I'd never heard of Amy Vanderbilt, but she was one of those Annie Cavanagh-type purveyors of etiquette and taste until she fell out a window. Does my ignorance of Ms. Vanderbilt mean that I'm uncultured? Perhaps. For example, I had no idea that black suits are only proper for servants or the dead. That doesn't really make a whole lot of sense, and why lump servants in with dead people? Apparently this obscure rule that most people have never even heard of came about as a result of President Abraham Lincoln being assassinated in a black Brooks Brothers suit. According to Brooks Brothers' Wikipedia page, anyway.

Incidentally, that's the second instance that someone's made a point to mention that Lincoln died in a Brooks Brothers suit. The Duck Tour guides usually mention it when they drive by the Brooks Brothers at the corner of Newbury and Berkeley Streets. Is that really a big selling point? "Brooks Brothers reminds you that if you're going to be assassinated, why not go out in style?" Even their logo, which I think is a sheep suspended by a pulley system, reminds me of the goat from Jurassic Park. I guess it's supposed to represent the Golden Fleece, but I can't help seeing Sacrificial Lamb.

Anyway, I walk past that particular Brooks Brothers every morning on the way to work, and this morning there was a MONSTER turd (monsturd?) on the front steps. This thing was immense, and oddly rectangular, about the size and shape of a croissant from nearby Au Bon Pain if it was dipped in chocolate coating. Actually, that sounds pretty delicious. Or gross. I'm torn.

The worst part is, this wasn't the work of a dog. No, this was human plop.

Coinciding with the appearance of this mystery loaf is the reemergence of the homeless couple that used to sleep in the doorway of our building. I can't find the link, but I know I've mentioned them before; a black guy named Sean (or Shawn, he doesn't wear a name tag so I can't be sure of the spelling) and a white woman who I'm almost positive is Sandra Bernhard. Now I'm not saying it was them, only pointing out the serendipitous timing of their latest camp-out and someone indiscriminately dropping a brick in front of a classy place like Brooks Brothers.

The last time these two hunkered down in the breezeway of our building, completely blocking the front door, they slept well past seven AM every morning, when the first wave of workers from one the six businesses in the building begin to arrive. They'd groggily move their blankets and soda bottles out of the way so someone could get by, then go back to sleep, only to repeat the process a few minutes later, and again a few minutes after that. Usually they were compliant, but occasionally one or the other would get aggravated that their sleep was being disrupted by, you know, people who work and don't smell like crotch. They were there every morning for a few weeks, maybe even months, and then one day, they were gone. But not before leaving behind a gift of...something...smattered all over the wall and floor. Maybe it was explosive diarrhea, maybe it was vomit, I still say it's a little of Column A, a little of Column B. Whatever it was, it was a chunky burnt sienna mess, and the last we saw of Sean and the missus for a while.

But now they're back, and perhaps the giant dump down the street is an indication that they've learned something on their sabbatical: Never shit where you sleep.

Sweet Tapdancing Jesus!

2008-01-22T18:44:00.001-05:00

Heath Ledger died! I did not see that one coming. And Michele did it to me again! People really need to stop dying before I find out about it. It messes up my whole day.

I wonder if they finished all his scenes as the Joker? What if they left the ending open-ended for the Joker to return in future installments? I mean no disrespect, I feel terrible for his family and his daughter, and the whole this is very tragic, but it seems like they finally got this Batman franchise right, and I wonder what kind of effect his sudden death will have. Do they keep the Joker out of any further Batman movies, or do they find a new actor to fill the role? And could replacing him kill the franchise? Well, it hasn't seemed to hurt the Harry Potter movies. And The Dark Knight already has one cast change since Batman Begins; Katie Holmes has been replaced by Maggie Gyllenhaal in the role of Rachel Dawes, much like the real Katie Holmes has been replaced by a zombie-like Scientologist Pod person. Oddly enough, Katie Holmes was on Dawson's Creek with Michelle Williams, who was married to Heath Ledger. Also, Maggie Gyllenhaal is the sister of Jake Gyllenhal, who was in that gay cowboy movie with Ledger. Oh yeah, and Michele Williams was in that, too.

In his most recent movie, I'm Not There, Heath played Bob Dylan. Here's a weird question: is he the only person who's starred in a biopic about someone and died before the person they were portraying? There could be a few others, but I can't think of any.

Death of a Clown (reprise)

My makeup is dry and it clags on my chin
I'm drowning my sorrows in whiskey and gin
The lion tamer's whip doesn't crack anymore
The lions won't fight and the tigers won't roar

La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la
So let's all drink to the death of a clown
Wont someone help me to break up this crown
Let's all drink to the death of a clown
Let's all drink to the death of a clown

The old fortune teller lies dead on the floor
Nobody needs fortunes told anymore
The trainer of insects is crouched on his knees
And frantically looking for runaway fleas

La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la
Let's all drink to the death of a clown
So wont someone help me to break up this crown
Let's all drink to the death of a clown
La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la
Let's all drink to the death of a clown.
La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la

Heath Ledger,
1979-2008
We're the same age. Jeez.

Things I Found Out In My Twenties

2008-01-21T10:00:00.000-05:00

The first in an ongoing series, unless I change my mind and don't do any more

I've got less than a year and a half before joining the creaky ranks of the thirty-and-over crowd, so now is a good time to reflect back on some things I've learned in the past decade.

For example, while there very well may be someone named Annie Cavanagh somewhere on this planet, she is not mentioned by name in the J. Geils' song Love Stinks. For the first twenty-odd years of my existence, I'd thought Annie Cavanagh was someone who'd spurned Peter Wolf, and calling her out by name was some sort of revenge. Take that, Annie! You got served in a top 40 radio staple!

The other idea was that maybe Annie Cavanagh was a noted romance or etiquette guru with a weekly advice column/radio show, like Dear Abby or Dr. Joyce Brothers. I'd never heard of her, but lots of songs name-drop people who were famous when the song came out, but lose their relevance as time goes on, like Sir Edward Heath in Taxman, or the little-known fifth verse of America the Beautiful that praises James Henderson Blount's plan to overthrow the Kingdom of Hawaii. So the idea that Annie Cavanagh was a well-known talking head in the late seventies/early eighties that has since drifted from the public's consciousness is not unheard of.

But alas, there was no Annie Cavanagh. Turns out the line is actually "I don't care what any Casanova thinks". Even so, I still think Annie Cavanagh sounds better. That Casanova line sounds like it's missing a syllable. Cas'nova. And really, who cares what Annie Cavanagh thinks?

And If You Should Die Before You Wake...

2008-01-16T11:23:00.000-05:00

Thank you, University of Sheffield. The school, which I totally heard of before reading the BBC News article, recently concluded a study of more than 250 children between the ages of four and sixteen, and discovered that they all saw clowns as "frightening and unknowable."

The study showed that hospitals "decorating children's wards with paintings of clowns to create a nurturing atmosphere could backfire," because, according to child psychologist Patricia Doorbar, "Very few children like clowns. They are unfamiliar and come from a different era. They don't look funny, they just look odd."

A companion artilce asks "Why are clowns scary?"

And it probably comes as no surprise to horror fans that a University of Sheffield study of 250 children for a report on hospital design suggests the children find clown motifs "frightening and unknowable".

One might suspect that popular culture is to blame. In It, made into a television movie in 1990, Stephen King created a child-murdering monster that appeared as a demonic clown.

King's It has sparked a slew of schlocky movies over the past 20 years, known as the killer clown or evil clown genre.

I don't know if I agree with that, though. Intentionally scary clowns aren't scary at all. In fact, to me anyway, they are the funny clowns. It's the innocent-looking ones that creep me out. Making clowns look "scary" takes away what makes them creepy in the first place. It's like Leslie Nielson. When he started doing comedies like Airplane! and Naked Gun, it was funny because he was spoofing serious genres, as well as his own previous roles as a serious actor. But then he started doing goofier and goofier roles, because by then he was known as a comedic actor, but it didn't work anymore because the reason his shtick was funny to begin with was lost along the way. The same thing goes for movies that spoof comedies. How do you spoof a comedy? It's a double-negative.

Clowns = scary.
scary clowns = not scary.

In light of this story, I sort of feel bad for clowns now. The ones that aren't serial killers are just trying to make kids happy. And how are they repaid? Kids screaming in fear, pants-wetting, angry parents, unemployment, and now even their images are being taken down from hospital ward walls because they're deemed too frightening. They just want to help the sick little kids. It's not fair that Hollywood has turned clowns into a horror genre goldmine. It's not the clowns' fault. You guys can point the finger at them, you can talk about Pennywise and Gacy, and if you do that. It's not fair. That's my quarterback. I mean clown. That's my clown.

My eyes have been opened. Sure, the makeup still creeps me out and the blood-red smiles are unsettling, but I'd like to open up what is hopefully the first of many talks to further improve human-clown relations. And I'd like to end today with a little selection from The Kinks

My makeup is dry and it clags on my chin
I'm drowning my sorrows in whiskey and gin
The lion tamer's whip doesn't crack anymore
The lions won't fight and the tigers won't roar

La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la
So let's all drink to the death of a clown
Wont someone help me to break up this crown
Let's all drink to the death of a clown
Let's all drink to the death of a clown

The old fortune teller lies dead on the floor
Nobody needs fortunes told anymore
The trainer of insects is crouched on his knees
And frantically looking for runaway fleas

La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la
Let's all drink to the death of a clown
So wont someone help me to break up this crown
Let's all drink to the death of a clown
La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la
Let's all drink to the death of a clown.
La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la

Soak it in Dishwater!

2008-01-15T11:38:00.000-05:00

I found this joke online:

A young bride and groom-to-be had just selected their wedding rings. As the young lady admired the plain platinum and diamond band she had chosen for herself, she suddenly looked concerned. "Tell me," she asked the rather elderly salesman, "Is there anything special I'll have to do to take care of this ring?" With a fatherly smile, the salesman said, "One of the best ways to protect a wedding ring is to soak it in dishwater."

I've got to be missing something here. Where's the punchline? Are you not supposed to get dishwater on wedding rings? I feel like there needs to be another paragraph or two. Maybe a genie or a talking goat could also give her advice. There could be some wordplay at work here that I'm not picking up on. Soak it in dishwater. Maybe if you say it really fast it sounds like something else. Soakitindishwater. Sew kitten this otter? That doesn't make any sense. Anyone? They made a point to say the salesman was elderly, so his answer must be some sort of comically incorrect thing, right? That must be a clue.

But "soak it in dishwater" is more odd than funny. Like, if you went up to a guy and asked him what time it was, and he said, "Gophers! There's gophers controlling the New York Stock Exchange!" That wouldn't really be a joke. A non-sequitur, sure, but not a joke in the tradition of "Three guys of differing races, religions and or nationalities are doing something fairly innocuous when suddenly a figure of either mythical, religious or historical significance appears, and hilarity ensues." If it had been a leprechaun talking to a hillbilly, it would have been instantly funnier.

What is the joke? This is killing me. Is that it? Is the joke that it's not really funny? I've heard of those, I think Mr. Schprock talked about it before. It's when you tell a completely nonsensical, unfunny joke and then laugh uncontrollably, leaving the other person completely baffled. So they start laughing because they don't want to look stupid, and then you ask them to explain why the joke is funny. Which, of course, they can't. I don't think this is one of those, but...soak it in dishwater, what does that mean? Can someone please explain this freaking joke? I don't get it.

Why I'm Afraid of Clowns, Part II

2008-01-11T08:00:00.000-05:00

Cave paintings recently discovered in Lascaux depicting a Clown Hunt

Clowns. Clowny clown clowns. Man has feared clowns since the dawn of time. Whether we're pitting them against our super heroes, or turning them into sewer-dwelling giant spiders, man has looked to clowns as inspiration for dredging up our darkest fears.

But clowns are funny, you say? Clowns are harmless. Well then, riddle me this: whenever you think of circus clowns, what song instantly plays in your head. It goes something like this "Do do doodle-oo do do do do do...", right? Do you know what that song is called?

Entry of the Gladitors by Julius Fucik, a Czech military orchestra composer. The clowns are mounting an army. On Bozo's command, unleash Hell.

Incidentally, if you've ever wondered the name of a classical piece that you always hear in movie trailers or when Jerry is setting Tom's tail on fire, check out kickassclassical.com.

The Stinkening

2008-01-09T07:55:00.000-05:00

There was a weird smell emanating from our pantry. So Michele asked me to go find out what it was and get rid of it. I walked over to the big white cabinet, but before I could open the doors, before even getting within a foot of the thing, my nose was assaulted by the most foul smell it had ever encountered. I opened the doors and to my horror, the stink was even worse, but I couldn't immediately find it's point of origin. It could have been coming from anywhere, so I'd have to...ugh...sniff around.

I started with the top shelf. Some time during the summer, the shelf had collapsed, cascading all manner of dried and canned goods all over the other shelves and onto the floor. We never did find the last of the four tiny L-shaped bits of plastic that hold the shelf in place, so ever since then, it's been teetering on three pegs. To keep the whole thing from tumbling down again, the heavier stuff was moved down the the lower shelves and the top shelf held mostly spaghetti and other dry noodles, maybe a couple of those seasoning packets for tacos, and nothing in the back left corner where the peg is missing. I checked to see if one of the packets had opened up and spilled out, but I couldn't find anything.

And so it went, moving down to the next shelf, and then the next, trying to locate an expired can of...something, or a broken bottle, leaking putrid stink juice all over. But again, I didn't find anything.

Finally, I reached the bottom shelf. There, we have some onions and potatoes. Deep in the back was a bag of little yellow potatoes. Little yellow potatoes leaking terrifying brown stuff. I'd just found ground zero.

Who knows how long they've been there, only that it was too long. It looked like the potatoes were secreting their own soy sauce. That bag was without a doubt the culprit, but because the onions had other potatoes had been trapped in there with the soy-sauce potatoes, they suffered from second-hand stink and had to go, too. Fortunately, the onions and potatoes were all in bags which in turn were sitting in wooden crates that oranges come in, so the smell had a buffer in the wood that prevented it from seeping into the white plywood cabinet. All I had to do was lift up the orange crate and toss those suckers in the trash.

But then the most awful thing happened. When I picked up the crate containing the smelly potato bag, the smallest, tiniest droplet of liquid stink dripped onto my bare forearm. The drop was so small, it couldn't sustain a flea, (assuming a flea would drink rancid potato juice) but a little goes a long way. I brought my arm up to my nose to assess the damage. Dear God, it was even worse than I'd imagined!! My options were few, reign as Prince of the Land of Stench, or that arm was going to have to come off.

In the end, I decided against amputation because the loss of an arm might throw me off balance, so I just scrubbed it with soap and water for a good half hour or so until only my own pleasant musk remained.

But heed my warning, ye who would touch little yellow potatoes leaking soy sauce: don't.

Nuts to You

2008-01-08T12:36:00.001-05:00

Let's say you're walking down the street, when suddenly you see a car parked alongside the road with a license plate that reads "NO NUTS." It's probably the best thing that's happened to you all day, perhaps all month. Now, you have you're trusty camera phone with you, but all around you are...

PEOPLE!!!!

And you suddenly feel a bit awkward whipping out a camera to take a picture of a vanity plate, regardless of how hilarious said vanity plate is. You briefly consider a cover story in case someone wonders why you are taking a picture of someone's license plate (apart from the obvious, "It says NO NUTS"). You'd say that you were involved in an accident and you need photographic evidence for insurance purposes. But that won't work, because the car doesn't appear to have sustained any damage, and you are on foot, so there's no second car. You suppose you could say you were run over, but then you'd have to start limping until you turn the corner. And what if you run into the rare Good Samaritan who wants to help you, a poor injured pedestrian, while the jerk that ran you down is across the street, doing a sudoku and sipping a latte, chuckling to himself about the pain he's brought to you. Is it worth the escalating pile of lies, just to get a stupid picture? I offer that is it not.

Of course, you could just take the picture and not worry about anyone seeing you. So what, right? And anyway, if you had to, you could do that thing were you pretend you're on the phone, but you're really taking a picture. How many times have you gotten away with that one? Too many to count. Well, five. It was five times.

But then, then you think even if you did take the picture, well...then what? You can't put someone's license plate on the internet, can you? I think that's an invasion of privacy or something. Unless that person is a convicted sex offender. I'm pretty sure they put sex offender's license plates on the internet. But then how would you find out if someone's convicted a sex offender? I guess you could run the license plate. Although, if you're plates say "NO NUTS" you're pretty much announcing that you're libido isn't a threat to anyone. Unless that's what you want people to think. Very clever, possible convicted sex offender. Very clever indeed.

So let's say you took a picture, but decide not to post in online because it's probably illegal, or at least immoral to post someone's license plate and you don't want No Nuts tracking you down, because maybe "NO NUTS" doesn't describe the driver, but what he does to people that tick him off. It's a warning! Maybe the car belongs to a militant lesbian gym teacher out to castrate our patriarchal society one pair at a time.

All of this assumes that "NO NUTS" is referring to male danglies. Maybe "NO NUTS" is a former mental patient who was given a clean bill of health. What better way to announce your newfound sanity than with vanity plates? Or it could be someone who's had it up to here with these damn crazies and won't stand for them to be in or anywhere in the area immediately surrounding their car. NO NUTS ALLOWED. Maybe it belongs to a New Orleans fan.

It's probably just someone with a peanut allergy.

Well, whoever it is should have put a little bit more thought into what to put on the license plate.

His Hair Was Perfect

2008-01-07T08:33:00.001-05:00

Welcome to this, the first full week of 2008! I think I've let enough time roll by to throw Kimmie off my scent. What, that was my plan all along. I can't have people ripping me off-- inserting their wenis wherever they see fit--and the best way to prevent that is to not write anything at all, right? Sounds like a perfectly reasonable excuse, err...explanation to me. How about you, LL?

Okay, so back to business. The Friday before New Years, we gathered at Nick's house to exchange Christmas presents. No, we don't do anything on time. Nick gave Jose that little robot guy from FOX NFL Sunday that jumps around and points at people. Well, the CGI one does, I don't think this one does anything expect look like the one on TV. Actually, did he get that from Nick? I thought Wah-Kee got Jose in the name-pool, because then Kee handed him a Carolina Panthers jacket to wear when he moves down to South Carolina later this year. Oh yeah, Jose's moving to South Carolina because he met some girl online. What is the world coming to? Anyway, someone got a FOX NFL robot and someone got Jose a Panthers jacket. I think either Nick or Jose got my gift. How am I supposed to remember, it was like three weeks ago. Whoever it came from, I ended up with a Best Buy gift certificate and Michele and I each got a tickets to a movie and a gift certificate to Smokey Bones. Other gifts exchanged hands, but all I really remember are the Mojitos. I don't think it's a gay drink. Mo-ji-to.

After the gifts, Heidi announced that she had a new game/social experiment gone awry for us to play. It was called The Werewolves of Millers Hollow, and it plays pretty much the same way as Mafia, if you've ever played that, which I haven't. The story for the game goes that there is a village that is being slowly picked off one-by-one each night by werewolves. So during the daylight hours, the villagers gather in town hall or wherever villagers gather (Village Hall?) and try to weed out the werewolves by way of democracy and lynchings, the chocolate and peanut butter of lycanthrope-plagued-townships. Whoever the majority of the village accuses as the murderous beast is strung up by their necks until they're dead. Only after their death is it revealed whether the village has finally destroyed the werewolf, or just offed another one of their own dwindling numbers. The battle of wits has begun. The game is over when either all the werewolves have been hung, or when the last villager is eaten.

For replay value, and to a lesser extent, legal and moral issues, no actual blood is shed during the game. Instead, a non-playing moderator holds out a deck of cards and a group of eight or more chose one card each. On the back of the card is either a werewolf, or a villager (or one of the various subsets of villagers with special abilities). When everyone has chosen their cards, the moderator informs everyone that it is night, and all players close their eyes. Then the moderator, in our case Heidi, says the werewolves wake up, recognize each other, and chose a victim. The werewolves merely point to the unsuspecting chump, and when Heidi says it's morning everyone opens their eyes, with one person discovering they've been killed. And how do you know when you've been killed? When you've got shiny purple beads tossed at your feet. Once everyone's eyes are open, then the accusing begins. And that's when it really comes in handy to have a poker face. A poker face not being one of the things Santa left in my stocking, I was in for a long night. My problem is, I always look guilty, even when I'm just a lowly villager, which was the case in the first round when they metaphorically strung me up just because I kept smiling. Well that's just great. I was actually the Fortune Teller, a villager who is allowed to look at one person's card during the "night" each turn to try and learn the identity of the werewolf or werewolves. But instead, I sat out the rest of the game. Lousy stupid villagers. The werewolves turned out to be Wah-Kee and his girlfriend, Des. Pssh! I could have told them that. They were both even worse at lying then me.

After that first game, I managed to not get myself killed through most of the others, except for the one time I actually WAS the werewolf. For that game I was also voted as the sheriff, which is a position that gives that person two votes. But no matter what kind of math you use, two votes are never going to beat six, I was voted out, and of course I was the only werewolf and at under two minutes it was the shortest game of the night.

Several games in, Heidi passed the moderator duties onto someone else so that she could play for a while. And I got her voted out in the first round. That was perfect. Michele wasn't immune, either. During one of my stints has a werewolf I gleefully pointed to her and danced in my seat. I can't really say why I did. Maybe I was afraid that if I didn't pick her, it'd look like I was playing favorites. I wanted to keep an even playing field. I suppose I could have done that without dancing, but why do anything if you can't do it while dancing?

On Nick's first go-round as the moderator, he left out the all-important "the werewolves go back to sleep" before saying "the fortune teller wakes up" so the werewolves, including me, had our eyes wide open when Des, the fortune teller, opened hers, so we had no choice but to kill her. Rookie mistake.

I don't know how many times we played, but it seemed like Wah-Kee and especially Des turned out to be werewolves an inordinate amount of times. We didn't keep a running score, so I don't know how many times the villagers won versus the werewolves, but considering the werewolves were usually outnumbered two to six, the village got wiped out a lot more often than I would have expected. I think that says something about people being more interested in "revenge killing" for previous games than trying to win.

The final game of the night answered a question that had come up a few times earlier in night; what happens when there are only two players left; a werewolf and a villager? If the two are remaining, during the "daylight" hours, the werewolf wins, because each one would obviously claim the other was the werewolf, resulting in a draw and no lynching, and the werewolf would claim it's final victim that night. That actually happened a couple of times. But, in the case of the last game, the final two were Josh (my understudy for when I'm not around to hang out with Nick and co.) and Michele. Each accused the other of being the werewolf, which would have been a draw, but...Josh was the sheriff, so his vote counted twice. So then we had two votes for hanging Michele and one for Josh. Josh wins, right? No! Michele had the hunter card. And the hunter, if voted out, is allowed to kill any other player with their dying breath. So Josh, the sheriff/werewolf hung Michele and Michele shot Josh. Nobody wins. It was awesome.

I don't know how to end this one. I guess I'll leave you with this advise for 2008: If you're constipated, DO NOT TAKE KAOPECTATE! That stuff is for diarrhea. Taking it for the other thing makes it much, much worse.

Mark As Spam

2007-11-16T11:00:00.000-05:00

You Don't Know What I'm Up Against

2007-11-06T09:00:00.000-05:00

Well, the good news is I didn't have to wait until Wednesday. This email was waiting for me in my inbox last night.

Thank you for your interest in an opportunity with Apple retail. At this time we have chosen to move ahead with candidates who better meet the business needs today. We wish you the best in your future endeavors.

Thank you again for your time and interest in Apple Inc.

So that's it. I'm boned. I did really good Friday, I know I did. I mean, I would have bought something from me. But it wasn't good enough. They tell you that you don't have to pressure customers and selling isn't a big deal because people come in four times before they buy something, but they're full of shit. All they care about is if you can get someone to buy their overpriced crap. Clearly having an extensive history using the product first hand holds no bearing. I've been using these stupid computers on a daily basis since high school. Whenever one of them starts acting wonky at work, I'm usually the one that figures out the problem and how to fix it. That is, unless Joe discovers it first and immediately calls IT to have someone come in on the company dime. Did I really just write "the company dime?" God. Well, whatever, the point is, it takes maybe thirty seconds to look up the problem on the internet, and more than likely you'll find someone who had the exact same problem and, more importantly, a way to fix it. And it costs nothing! Why is that so hard to do?

I think I got a little off track. What I'm getting at is I'm well versed in Apple computers. Apparently, that means absolutely dick to them. What is it you want? In the depths of your ignorance, what is it you want?

What they want, what they mean by someone who can "better meet the business needs today," is retail experience. I've never worked retail, so I could be Steve Jobs and they wouldn't hire me. And that's understandable, but what about all these teenagers that work retail as their first job? How did they get hired? It's not that I can't do it, it just that I haven't done it yet. Is this going to happen at every retail place? Am I so colossally awful that no one will even give me a chance?

And people come in four times before they buy something? Really? And they don't look at the price until the third time. Really? They have to know it's there. This isn't The Price is Right, there's no cardboard placard covering up the retail value, the first time you come into the store BAM! the price is plainly displayed. It's the first thing I look at when I got to a store. I can't for one minute believe that anyone not suffering for deep-rooted psychological problems would walk into a store three times before "asking" a salesperson how much something costs, only to have the salesperson tell them THE EXACT SAME THING THAT'S WRITTEN ON THE DAMN SIGN THAT'S BEEN THERE THE WHOLE TIME! I know when they give these little examples they're not meant to be taken literally, but nothing about that whole four times thing makes any sense at all. People browse. That's all they need to say. Four times. Give me a break.

Screw Apple and their smug commercials. Justin Long seems like a good enough guy, but if I ever meet him in person I kind of feel like I have to punch him in the face.

I don't know where this leaves me now. I've got a list of places that I've applied to multiple times since the summer, but I think if I apply to them any more times I'm going to get hit with a restraining order. I haven't tried Circuit City yet. Actually, I didn't even think about Circuit City until last night, since I haven't even been in there since Best Buy opened, and that was about ten years ago. But if I were to work there, maybe I'd be persuaded to spend some of my paycheck there...so what do you say, Circuit City? Will you let me sit on the couch with John Elway and Mike Ditka, or are you going to be dicks like Apple?