ability is my only obstacle.

I make my fun where I can.

2005-08-29T17:47:00.000-05:00

Click the picture. I'm just impressed at how close the computer got to the proper Jewish pronunciation.

I heart the interweb.

2005-08-22T21:43:00.000-05:00

Sweetie - Nana's uterus fell out, call home.

2005-08-18T11:30:00.000-05:00

I've been e-mailing with my friend Nathan a lot this week. We have a hard time staying in touch for one reason or another, and it's been neat getting to have sort of a dialogue with him for a couple of days in a row. We like to do this thing, like I'm sure lots of people do, where we like to come up with weird non-sequiters as subject lines. It gets a little infantile somtimes; I've been known to toss off a mot bleu before. I've really never given it any thought, as Nathan was always way more hardcore than me at just about everything, salty language included.

So can you blame me for not paying more attention to the (contractor) that appeared by his name on these recent e-mails? Of course not. I got an e-mail this morning with just my name in the subject line, and I knew there was trouble:

friendly reminder: this is a work account so please no
naughty subjectlines, please? You almost got me canned today,
buddy!~nate
I felt really bad about it, but I know Nathan, and I know he was secretly loving every second of it. Here's how I imagine it going down. I picture John Houseman as Nathans' boss. For Nathan, let's say Steve Buscemi. Not so much that he looks like him, because he doesn't. And he's way too old. Let's not use Steve Buscemi. Corey Feldman. Everyone can find something to like in that.

"Mr. H___? Ah yes, ah Mr. H___, may I see you in my office for a moment? Yes, go ahead and bring your bag with you, don't bother setting it down..."

"Oh... what's up?"

"Mr. H___, are you familiar with our institution's code of conduct, specifically the rules and regulations concerning proper use of the equipment and facilities, vis-a-vis, the transmission of pornographic material through company computers?"

"Oh, uh... well, I read it of course. When I was hired. I read it then. What about it?"

"Mr. H___, we intercepted an e-mail this morning addressed to you, containing pornographic content."

"That can't be right. I don't use work e-mail for that."

(Boss gets up, walks around desk, and shoves a piece of paper under
Nathan's nose. Nathan reads it, and stifles a giggle.)

"Really? Then tell me, Mr. H___, in what capacity does your job require you to know that 'sometimes my balls feel like tits'?"

SCENE

It is He who is the one called I am.

2005-08-12T11:47:00.000-05:00

What a great way to start a Friday.

Please forget about that ugly-ass poster.

2005-07-27T01:46:00.000-05:00

Much better. If you didn't see the other poster, you got lucky.

Sometimes Google News has a good sense of humor...

2005-07-07T07:11:00.000-05:00

and sometimes it doesn't know when to take a break.

In other news, I suppose this probably throws a pretty big wrench into the works for theV for Vendetta movie.

If you lose a fight to a midget, you become one.

2005-07-05T12:01:00.000-05:00

From the stepping stone to Williamsburg department:

So I moved a couple of months ago. My new place isn't too bad. I'm paying about $200 less for about one and a half times the space. It's in worse shape than my other apartment, but I prefer to think of it as having character. I live near the square in Denton now, and it's sort of like, if it wasn't for the people who live here, this place would be a total ghetto shithole. But there seems to be a good mix of students and hipster doofuses. It's like Brooklyn.

There's a girl who lives across from me who must be a music major, since the first week I was here, I was getting ready to leave the house, when I heard the ice cream man driving by. I opened the door,and realized that the music was actually coming from her pad next door, via the Good Time Denton Dixieland band practicing. But it's not so bad. It comes through my bathroom almost crystal clear, and I find it quite relaxing while on the pooper.

From the giant boner with a cheesburger on the end department:

Went to see Batman Begins last week. On IMAX, no less. It was awesome, and I reccommend it heartily. The only thing I didn't care for was something that's bothered me for a while about Christian Bale, though I haven't pinpointed it until now. I think whenever he tries to do an American accent, his mouth makes this weird puckery pout, and it kind of gets on my nerves. Of course, when he's kicking the living bejeezus out of people, it's not so bad. I really couldn't think of a thing that I didn't like about it, but of course, I thought the same thing when I saw the first Spider-Man, and I think I've only watched that once since I first saw it in the theater.

Fantastic Four is probably going to really blow goat.

From the leakage through seven layers department:

I had to go get my food handlers' certification not too long ago. The health department came for their annual inspection, and were a little concerned that none of us working at the store were certified. So we all had to go watch an instructional video, and fill out a pop quiz. The video was a bunch of little instructional videos, covering food handling/safety topics, all produced by one of the worst dinner theater groups I've ever seen. When explaining about fecal-hand-oral transmission (or as the black guy in the video kingfished, "Is dat when you get the boo-boo on yo' hand after you wipe?" Swear to God.), and how there can be leakage through seven layers of toliet paper, the 'doofus' character pipes up, "From now on, I'm going to use EIGHT layers. Ha HA!" The black guy then inexplicably loses the accent and offers, "Why don't you just wash your hands?"

And, here's a real sample question from the test:

Pests and insects need:
A) Warm, dark places to breed
B) Immediate extermination
C) Love and tenderness
D) Both A and B

Don't eat in Denton County.

From the world's sexiest granny department:

A woman in her sixties came into the coffee shop the other day. She clearly had tremendous amounts of work done, as her face was pulled impossibly tight, though still peppered with liver spots. She took care of herself it seemed; her arms were actually pretty cut, and she was very trim and small waisted. Of course, it could have just been an optical illusion created by her MASSIVE FAKE TITS. And when I write MASSIVE FAKE TITS, I do not exaggerate. If I had a child, I would swear upon it's head that each of her breasts were literally the size of a small bowling ball. They were just perfectly round and quite pendulous, due to the fact that she didn't feel like wearing a bra under her tiny tank top that barely contained her MASSIVE FAKE TITS. She was a mee-milf. I'm usually pretty quick on my feet with odd situations, but I was at loss. I'm a boob man, and this was blowing my tiny world apart. I couldn't help but look, but I'd immediately get totally fouled out and look up, but that screaming skull of a face would freak me out too much and I'd go back to the jubblies, starting the cycle all over. Afterwards, I fainted.

From the Doobie Brothers used to be called 'Pud' department:

The last gig went off really well. I wouldn't hesitate to say it was our best yet. People actually showed up, though I'm sure it wasn't specifically for us. Nevertheless, everyone seemed to genuinely dig us. We made eight bucks from the door, which was quite the windfall, seeing as how none of us have ever made money from a band before. The japanese dudes were SO good live, and I didn't even notice that they only played two songs until they were almost done. Those boys PLAY. Plus, they liked us well enough to ask us to play with them again when they come back in the fall. So, we've got that going for us, which is good.

The japanese dudes were funny as hell too. Their english could be described as broken, at best. It couldn't even really qualify as engrish, since some words would come out clear as a bell, while others sounded like some odd collision between esperanto and every other language known on the planet. The bass player talked the most, and told us about what it was like touring in a different country. According to him, it's a major hassle to find any kind of drugs in Japan, so they really like coming to America and just constantly getting wrecked. We asked him about where they were headed to next, and he told us they were playing in Oklahoma the next night. We expressed our sympathies, though he really didn't understand. He finally caught our drift and asked, "Many... red neck?" More than he could imagine.

And finally, the band is changing our name, sort of. Magnets by itself is a little generic, and we never really used the asterisk the way we had intended, so we decided to change the name to Anti-Magnets. I'm okay with it, so long as I don't have to try and explain it. There's not really an impetus behind the name, as far as I know, and I sound like an asshole when I try to concoct some kind of meaning. And I've got enough trouble not sounding like an asshole as it is.

Loretta Swit had a bush you could hide a VCR in.

2005-06-10T18:22:00.000-05:00

We'll go on first, about 10:30. We even have a new song, so that mkaes six you've never heard. What a bargain!

There is a God, and he loves me.

2005-05-31T23:18:00.000-05:00

This is going to sound like the beginning of a joke that you'd find in Playboy, but stick with me: every word is true.

So, Vanilla Ice came into my coffee shop this afternoon. That isn't the best part, though. I've actually seen lots of semi-famous people in my mall, and I believe V-Ice has a home in Dallas, when he's not being TOTALLY X-TREEM ON HIS SEA-DOO. He came in talking on his cell phone, and ordered a cup of coffee. As I'm getting his coffee, I hear his end of the conversation. I'm paraphrasing, but it went something frighteningly close to this:

"No, it's not really like a gorilla... it's like, hairy all over, like a fuckin' sasquatch, and it kind of has a dog face... but it can talk, sort of, and shoot guns and shit..."

And it's at this moment that it dawned on me-I was listening to Vanilla Ice explain the concept of Wookies to someone. I know a gift from heaven when I see one.

Farts Are Jazz To Assholes.

2005-05-26T09:56:00.000-05:00

I've been finding a lot of albums just lying in the street lately*, and since I can't just sit still and listen to anything, I'll usually hear just the first song, and then decide whether or not it's any good without ever hearing the rest of the album. For instance, I got really into the Arcade Fire, but I never got past the first song on the album. Then the other day, I was reading an article about them, and they were talking about singing in French, and I was all 'what the hell?'

I've also become the classic punk rock kid who gets his mind blown by free jazz-Habeous Coltrane. Free jazz, as any dude standing outside the College of Music toting a saxophone and wearing a 'Fuck the Plebes' t-shirt will tell you, is music for people who feel that regular jazz just isn't elitist enough. I'll admit, that's part of the appeal for me, but I do genuinely enjoy some of it. That's not to say that I have even a basic understanding of it, but I still like it. Once, while dreaming up million dollar schemes, Josh and I discussed digging up the corpse of Miles Davis, taping a trumpet to his mouth, and recording the sounds of us jumping up and down on the body. We'd release it as the Mung sessions (Japan only, of course) , and retire before thirty. We still might.

Also, I discovered that trying to mow the lawn while listening to the Police and the Talking Heads actually tears a hole in the space-time continuum and stops the rotation of the Earth. I mean, is it so hard to write a song at least as fast as I walk?

*You don't know. It's totally possible.

Why does your breath smell like skittles and dick?

2005-05-17T11:25:00.000-05:00

It had to happen eventually, so I'll just say it: flavored condoms ain't that bad. We'd finally made our way through all the others, and so I was forced to dig out the coffee flavored one. Natural curiosity got ahold of me, and I gave it a quick lick. I gotta say, while it wasn't exactly Taster's Choice, it was way better than I expected. I thought it would be similar to that nasty brown coffee candy you'd get from elderly shut-ins on Halloween, but it had a really natural taste to it. Also, it was only about half the size of a regular one. My self-esteem was doing well. The only real downside is that even after a shower, my junk still smells like a frappucino, and I've been to the Jupiter House twice today.

Yeah, this really happened.

2005-05-02T10:20:00.000-05:00

The full story is here. I don't mind sending comics to the troops, but is it really neccessary to have Spider-Man and Captain America actually attend the press conference?

Also, this bothers me, and I'm not really sure why:

The Press Service also quoted Col. Joe Mudd, who works on the Joint Staff, as saying, "Any show of support is important, and people relate to comics. We like the good guys to win, and we think we're the good guys too."

Bargain of the century.

2005-04-28T19:54:00.000-05:00

Watching the presidential news conference tonight, I've decided that I'd like to make an offer to President Bush. I 'll let the president hang one major murder rap on me, if he'll just learn how to pronounce 'nuclear'. For reals. He can kill anyone he wants in the world, and I'll take the blame, so long as he gets on TV and announces that I'll be executed in the electric chair, which for the first time ever, will be 'NOO-CLEE-AR POWERED'. That's all. Holla back.

So the news conference was depressing to watch, partly because Bush has gotten way smarmier and ballsier since the election, and he was already a huge prick to begin with. Plus, the press got stiff-armed every time they tried to bring up a good question, and had to resort to recapping the speech's talking points. On the upside, I found this today. So in a way, balance has been restored.

No squares allowed.

2005-04-22T19:57:00.000-05:00

Cover is a little pricey, but the drinks will be cheap. Double check the times here. Or just guess. It's probably just as accurate.

Savor the flavor.

2005-04-20T12:21:00.000-05:00

I just had to run over to the local Planned Parenthood to pick up another month's worth of womb brooms for the girlfriend. While I was there, I figured I should go ahead and pick up some condoms because I'm fresh out, and besides, I'm paranoid and don't trust the pill. They don't carry my brand (Trojan Her Pleasure, what what), so I just got a couple of each kind that they had. In doing so, I inadvertently nabbed a couple of flavored jimmy hats, one strawberry and one coffee, of all things.

I really want to see what they taste like. It's taking more willpower than it should to keep from tearing one open and popping it into my mouth like a perverted wad of Hubba Bubba.

Creampie to the hairline.

2005-04-20T09:12:00.000-05:00

Been in a bit of a funk lately. It started a little more than a week ago, when my dad came to town. My dad is what scholars refer to as 'a bit of a douche', and even though this was the first time I've seen him since 2002, I couldn't get away quick enough.

My dad only serves one real purpose, as far as I'm concerned: to show me what not to do in life. Some people, when faced with a decision,will ask themselves, "What would Jesus do?", and then they do that. I have to ask myself, "What would my dad do?", and then do the exact opposite. The girlfriend and I met him at his motel (he's no longer allowed to stay at my apartment, ever since the time he slept in the altogether on my former roommate's bed), and we made our way to a lovely dinner of Mexican food and inappropriate conversation.

It's amazing how, as I get older, I begin to discover that life really is just a series of sitcom cliches. When I hit 26 a couple of months ago, I sort of became the guy who's bemoaning the encroachment of his thirties. My mother, previously a sane and rational woman, has started to drop hints that she'd really like a grandchild in the next few years. And now my dad has become the 'discusses-bodily-functions-at-the-dinner-table' guy. It was really incredible. The hour we spent eating dinner was the longest week of my life. He talked about his new job working for a sporting goods store, which was depressing since I now officially make more money than he does. He told me about all the various physical ailments he's got, that will one day be visited upon me. He threw a guilt trip on me about traveling to the panhandle to visit my grandmother, despite the fact that while I love my grandmother, I really should put stuff like food and electricity as a priority right now.

Oh, and he had a wonderful story about how his local animal control got called out to his place, because the neighbors didn't appreciate how three of his fourteen illegal dogs jumped and killed a fourth in his backyard. Pass the salsa.

But it wasn't all bad. He did bring presents. He brought me a cap from his store, which upon closer inspection, had his name written on the inside. So basically, he just gave me his cap. He also brought me a t-shirt, with 'beauty is in the eye of the beer holder' across the front. I was surprised, yet so relieved that he didn't say, "It's clever, just like you!"

So there was that. I've needed a haircut lately too, which bums me out as well. I've been steadily losing my hair since my early twenties, which I also blame on my dad. I know you get your hair gene from your mother's side of the family, but it's far more convenient and emotionally satisfying to just hang it on my dad. The longer my hair gets, the more apparent it is that I don't have any, so it's beneficial to keep it pretty short. I haven't had time to take care of it, and so it's not looking good. The other morning, I got out of bed, and was just sitting around with the girlfriend, and she looks at me and says, "You've got silly hair." I didn't really think about it at the time, chalking it up to bedhead. Later, I went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror, and realized that by 'silly hair', my girlfriend meant, 'your hair has fallen out into the exact pattern of a clown wig'.

But there is some good news: the first gig was a success, by all accounts, and seems to have seriously gotten the ball rolling. I still have to double check all of this, but we've supposedly got a show at Hailey's this next Wednesday (April 27th), and then a gig at Rubber Gloves on Monday, June 13 with some crazy-ass Japanese psych rock band. So if you didn't make it to the Inferno (now that I've been there, I wouldn't have blamed anyone for turning around at the door), here's another chance to get in on the ground floor while you still can.

Queering don't make the world work.

2005-04-13T11:43:00.000-05:00

Did you hear about this? The UNT college Republicans are a pretty sharp bunch, but apparently their New England branch is a bit more naive. They hired a washed-up wrestler who legally changed his name to his nom de slam to come and speak to the campus. The only part I'm not clear on is if he was given a topic, or if he was just allowed to rant, but either way, he began throwing racist and sexist epithets at random students, and the shit hit the fan.

"Warrior is talking! You do not talk when Warrior talks!"

The UConn kids apologized profusely, in that non-apology-apology kind of way. The Warrior, however, tells the hippies to suck a nut.

I love that he wrote, 'From the Desk of Warrior'.

UPDATE: Not more than 15 minutes after I posted this, I went to Something Awful, where I learned they totally dropped a funny bomb on the Warrior's ass, like, not even two days ago.

Did I already say shit's getting weird? I should have waited...

2005-04-07T02:32:00.000-05:00

So I go to take a look at another apartment today. It's managed by one of the larger companies in town, and since they have so many properties, rather than having individual agents show you the place, they just give you a key and let you check it out on your own. Fair enough. So I show up to nab a key, and it just so happens that the head maintenance guy is headed over to the same complex I am, and so he offers to just unlock the joint for me, and show me around.

So we get there, and he's showing me one apartment, and pointing out all the particulars I need to know about, and then he mentions that there is actually another floor plan he could show me, so wanting to be fully informed, I say okey-doke. Well, it turns out that he's got an apartment there, and this other floor plan he's going to show me is actually his apartment. He says he's moving out in a couple of weeks, and if I like it, I can just go ahead and take it over. But right now, all his shit is still in there. Furniture, clothing, food, and a parrot. Plus, he's a chain smoker, so the place reeks. Naturally, I can't wait to step inside.

So I'm being shown around this dude's place, trying to always keep him in front of me, and on the way out, he points out his bird. I guess it was nice, as far as birds go. He reaches into the cage, and lets it perch on his finger. Then, for what seems like an hour, right in front of me, he starts making out with the parrot. "Baby have a kiss for daddy? Smooch, smooch, smooch. Give daddy a kiss? Baby have a kiss for daddy?" Meanwhile the bird is chirping constantly, and I'm getting cold sweats. I kept waiting for the guy to punch the bird and scream "DON'T YOU FUCKIN' LOOK AT ME!"

The tour ends, and suddenly Koko B. Ware says, "I have another unit that's the same floor plan as mine, but it's empty, if that'd give you a better idea of the space."

MOTHERFUCKER, WHY DIDN'T YOU JUST TAKE ME TO THE EMPTY ONE IN THE FIRST PLACE?

I said no, I had seen all I needed to see. Then I came home and washed my eyes with gasoline. The end.

Holy. Moly.

2005-04-05T22:46:00.000-05:00

Man, I don't even know where to start. It's probably best if you just watch it. I'll apologize in advance for making your brain hurt.

Shit's getting weird.

2005-04-05T12:05:00.000-05:00

I'm apartment hunting, which in Denton, is a dicey proposition at best. If you're not living in an absolute hovel, you're paying far out the ass just to keep drunken college students away from you. After seven years of living in apartments in this town, I've finally learned that you've got to put some serious effort and time into sniffing out the best places/deals. Especially since the vast majority of realtors around here don't seem to employ any kind of office staff to you know, answer the phones and stuff. One of the many voice mail messages I heard today was:

"Hi, this is Matt. I can't come to the phone right now, but if you're calling about boxing or apartment leasing, leave me your name and number, and I'll get back to you."

How random. I don't know that I want to live in Matt's apartments anymore.

In other news, I got more details about the rock and roll show on Friday. Apparently, it's going to be essentially a mish-mash night. We go on first with our weird, mathematical rock/dub thing, and then after us is a pop-punk band comprised of 13 year olds from Midlothian, followed by an unknown quantity called Neil Eats Grapes, or something equally horrible. Finally, the headliner is an acoustic country singer/songwriter. Those kids' parents are totally going to hate us. The best I can hope for is that it'll be like my first "real" gig when I was in high school. My band played Punk Night at the Dog Star Cafe in Fort Worth when we were all of 17. Our parents showed up just in time to see dudes in mohawks spitting beer on each other in a circle pit and people fucking on the pool table. Then as we were loading out after we played, we happened across a girl we went to school with blowing some guy in a car right next to where we were parked. Hopefully we can scar those kids just as well. Keep your fingers crossed!

Attention area hipsters and tastemakers!

2005-03-31T15:37:00.000-06:00

LIVE - FRIDAY, APRIL 8

MAGNETS*

with

Some other band

Probably one more band

The Inferno

BE THERE OR DON'T!

A shitload of hip.

2005-03-14T08:39:00.000-06:00

Quite possibly the best idea, EVER. The organizers of the Annual South by Southwest festival have taken the entire lineup, and prepared a gigantic FREE downloadable file featuring a song from every artist performing this year.

Which is good. This is the first year I've genuinely wanted to go down there, but as each year goes by, more and more people want to attend, and I just don't feel like fighting through a sea of cool kids just to see Death From Above from the back of a shitty club. I can do that when they roll into town tomorrow, and I don't even have to worry about hippies.

Saturday night at the dong shop.

2005-03-10T22:35:00.000-06:00

After a successful day of thrift store shopping on Saturday, the girlfriend and I made an impromptu stop at My Spicy Treasures, the local lingerie/bachelor party supply/"miscellaneous" store in town. We just wanted to go and look around for a hoot, we didn't have a specific agenda or anything.

The place is a lot nicer than I was expecting, but I really wasn't expecting much. They have a lot of lingerie and novelties displayed when you first go in, with a room of party supplies to the side. Then, behind velvet curtains, and a hazy cloud of opium is... the CHAMPALE LOUNGE. Mmm.

Not really. It's the room where the 'cake toppers' are displayed. See, in Texas, you can't have vibrators and stuff for sale as sexual devices, and so through all kinds of rigamarole, they can sort of be sold as novelty items only, referred to as 'cake toppers'. Even then, the way I understand it, it's still not totally okay. It's sort of a 'just don't get caught' type of thing. I don't know. I don't understand why they don't just call them massagers, like when your grandma had one. My mom had one that looked like an engine off a 747.

We were the only ones in the store for a while, except for the girl working there. Another couple showed up after a few minutes and browsed around for a bit and then left without buying anything. My girlfriend pointed out the corncob vibrator. I learned that there actually is a product called the Anal Intruder. Some dude took way too long to choose which lube to buy.

We actually ended up getting a ______________ (noun) for _________________ (person) to _______________ (verb) whenever I'm not _______________ (place, pronoun) . It's ________________ (color) with _________________ (noun, plural) on the sides. It's cool. It can go __________ (speed) or ____________ (speed) .

Be creative!

The saddest thing I've ever seen.

2005-03-09T13:48:00.000-06:00

When you were in grade school, you had reading groups right? There was the red group (sometimes the red apples) that sat at the front of the room, and then there was the blue group (aka the bluebirds) that sat at the back of the room, and then there was the brown group that went to a special room in the basement every Tuesday and Thursday for an hour to read Little Golden Look Look Books with an old woman who took it a little too personally when, as a response to her question of how one pronounces the word 'the', I said 'duh'.

So tonight at work, a woman came in with her kid who was about 6-7. The kid had a toe head. I know the term 'tow head' means a blonde kid. No, this kid had a TOE HEAD. And a runny nose. They sat down, and the mom pulled out a paper and mumbled, "...arranged by groups... child will... mmrmrmmm... okay, so you've got groups. What color is your group? Are you in the red group?"

"SNIIIFFF...my group doesn't have a color."

Being poor sucks.

2005-03-02T12:52:00.000-06:00

I had to go to the doctor today. A couple of weeks ago, I got this weird rash on my chest and stomach. It didn't really itch, but it just looked weird and I wanted to get rid of it.

The good news is that it's not a big deal, it's nothing contagious, and it'll just go away on its own.

The bad news is that I had to pay FAR out the ass to learn that. I don't have insurance, so I had to charge it. All told, I only saw the actual doctor for only about five minutes, and she just told me there was nothing I could do but wait for it to go away. She could have at least let me raid the prize closet for what I had to pay.