Irritable Male Syndrome

2008-05-17T22:37:00.000-07:00

The theme of the night is...

PETE POSTLETHWAITE IS NOT KOBAYASHI

What the fuck?

2008-04-29T10:13:00.001-07:00

I value my time, and if there's a way I can shave off even a few minutes of doing some mundane task, I'll do it. Yes sir, real mind-bending and asinine things I speak here, huh?

This morning I was at the local supermercado to fill the void that is my gaping caffeine addiction and to pick up another 2 gallon pump-jug of soy sauce-- if there's two things I can never get enough of is a slight buzz and an elevated and irregular heart rate.

It only took a few minutes to grab my items and head towards the checkout lane, when I was stopped short of throwing shit at the head of a four person queue--each person with ten items--in the only goddamn open lane. I closed my eyes and pictured each of the four trying to buy Similac with expired food stamps, too, but I'm demented most of the time.

But, when I scanned one lane to the right and noticed that all four self-checkout lanes were open, and totally empty. Praise Jesus. I sauntered, or swaggered, depending on how you'd like to picture my ass in your imagination, up to the first open kiosk and deftly motored my way the process, and out the door in less than three minutes.

I gave everyone in line my patented "walking away, middle finger over the shoulder salute", hopped in my BMW 13 series and tried to run over 3 hobos and 2 prostitutes and 17 transvestites on my drive to work. I didn't succeed in any of those, but I so totally proved myself worthy of life by saving 1 minute and 45 seconds by trusting a computer.

I. AM. AWESOME.

Really, though, would you wait in that long of a line when you could use an empty self-checkout lane, and also not have to talk to a supermarket employee that hates living life? Granted, I understand that using technology is hard, almost sometimes as hard as addition and subtraction, or even radical ideas like chewing and breathing, but it's not that difficult once you realize that the whole secret is that the damn self check-out kiosk is a scale located underneath where you supposed to put your scanned items, you know, so the store knows you're not a thieving asshole, you hoodlum, you.

I'm looking right at you, Guy That I'm Usually Stuck Behind.

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My job consists of a large amount of downtime, downtime that's normally filled by the internet. In order to become a better employee and curtail bad habits should I ever escape this cubicle gulag, for the past few months I've been trying to cut out my internet usage, or at the very least keep away from sites with the words "tight" and "teens" in the url. It's harder than you might think, no pun intended.

My most recent great idea--one on the same level as the Segway or taking a vow of celibacy--was to install a time tracker on Firefox.

It was working up until about a week ago, when I looked at the time and it said I'd spent 9 hours and 3 minutes on the internet. In and 8 hour workday. Now I just feel depressed.

2008-04-21T14:19:00.001-07:00

I look back at all the things I've purchased for homebrewing since I started in September(less than 7 months ago--really?), and all the time I've spent on forums or random blogs, reading and absorbing beer knowledge, and I realize that isn't that far removed from how I took to poker in 2003. That my almost retired poker blog is going to be 4 years old is odd to me.

Anyhow, when I started off brewing, I really didn't have a clue what I was doing, or why. Still don't for that matter. Same with poker. I do know that all this beer has started turning me into a tubby tub tub fatty fat, but I think that's a role I could really dig into, if given the chance. Many of you have done the same, I see. Also, Molly has said that she'll leave me if I ever put on a lot of weight, so hey--newer model girlfriend, here I come!(...slowly lumbering, out of breath, wheezing, in desperate need of a cheeseburger and some chili cheese fries).

But, much like poker, or any new hobby for that matter, it's tough for me to get past a certain point when none of my local friends enjoy the same thing. I don't have the daily face-to-face conversations about brewing or beer, or with someone that knows much more about beer than I do(not tough) to tell me if my beer sucks or not. My friends have liked certain styles so far, but I suspect that they would drink almost anything that's free and doesn't taste like swamp water.(No offense, Drizz!)

I started off gangbusters in September, brewing something like ten to fifteen 5 gallon batches of beer in just a few months, but I haven't brewed since the end of January for no other reason than being too awesome right out of the gate, which almost seems like cheating, or like I've done no real leg work in making what amounts to good beer, or what could be considered good beer by people who know the difference. That's boring. Ok, fine, perhaps I've grown a little too lazy as well.

What this amounts to is that I've got to get out of my comfort zone(hmmm, once again like poker)--that area where I just allow my friends drink my beer, because that's the safe thing to do-- and either enter competitions(not likely), or join a local club and get input from those much more experienced than am I. We shall see about that, though. That would mean I'd have to deal with real people again, and I hate real people. I might just have to start a beer blog...

So, yeah, I need to make more beer pronto. I'd post a picture of my empty kegerator, but I figure that it's Monday, and people are having a tough time dealing with the day as is--no need to make you sad about that, too.

2008-01-03T20:42:00.001-08:00

On NYE day, I drove to the neighborhood Rainbow Foods to pick up--yep, you guessed it--art supplies. By "art supplies", I mean "food". The only artistic bone I have in my body is the one best used in bed, if you know what I mean. To fingerpaint on my sheets, duh. No euphamism there, people.

In the special, as in stupid, words of Vanilla Ice; "Bumper to bumper, the avenue was packed...", as was the parking lot of supermarket. Makes sense, I suppose, that the streets outside of said supermarket parking lot were just as busy as were the streets adjacent. Brilliant, this one. As it was, it took me a few minutes to navigate my way through people that looked like they'd eaten their way lunch the self-serve candy bins(trough), and decided that 1 mil contractor bags were also practical as a muu muu, until I found someone backing out of their spot, way, way back in the far corner.

What I didn't see was the asshole waiting around the corner, behind another parked car, that had presumably, judging by his extreme assholery, been waiting for that single parking spot since Christmas Day. The car that was leaving backed out towards me, which meant that the other guy was blocked for a moment, giving me first access to the spot. That is, until the guy tried wedging himself into the spot(even though two-thirds of my car was already in), while screaming at me through his closed driver's side window, through my driver's side window. He sounded more like Hellen Keller than a coherent, level-headed human-being, which made me stop my progress and laugh at him.

His displeasure then came in the form of random hand motions, and mouthing some profanities and, what I can only assume was his recital of the Declaration of Independence while playing I'm a Chubby Bunny. I couldn't understand anything, but it looked like he wanted the spot, badly at that. So, I backed out and decided to let him have it.

This didn't please him, either, because he started trying to squeeze past me to find another spot, coming so close to scraping his mirror down the whole of my passenger side. Of course, I did tried to rile him up more by not parking in the spot that he so desperately needed, and parking in another open spot that he fucking passed on the way to attempt to shit on my day.

What is wrong with people? I may hate a lot of people--and I do mean a LOT--but never once have I gotten even the slightest bit upset over something as trivial as a parking spot. I was sort of hoping that he'd try to confront me in the store so I could ask him just how miserable his life is, how much of a disappointment he was to not only himself, but everybody that he's ever been close to, that he went all Krakatoa over something so unimportant.

I'm sure that would've gone wasted on someone like him, though. Then I'd be forced to Forearm Shiver him, a la Bob, and kick the three kids that were walking by because they kind of, sort of looked like the asshole.

I suppose this could lead me to being less of an ass in my free time. Unless, of course, it's completely warranted, say, to people that refer to themselves as anything "licious", or people with monroe piercings, or even stupid parents that name their stupid kids with stupid names, like Deshauwvauntay WindLisp--last name Miller.

Get Real.

2007-12-05T11:23:00.001-08:00

(This post was contstructed last night--All Repeal's Eve. Very timely am I.)

I currently have 7 gallons of a rye IPA boiling away on my kitchen stove. The two pots--I have to have two, because my stove burners aren't powerful enough to boil 7 full gallons--are situated among all four burners. Ingenuity at it's finest. It's also a good way to have the flames shoot out from under the sides of the pot and burn, say, the counter and, oh, I don't know, the refrigerator.

My apartment is hot, and because I didn't plan ahead and open the windows, they froze. I need to wait another twenty minutes before the steam will soften the ice around the storm windows so they will open.

You can clearly see this is after I was able to pry my window open. Also, please note the 17 lbs of spent grain in the background.

Of course, after completing tonight's tasks, I'll completely forget to close them, assuring a frozen, open window. In December.

I converted one of my closets, a closet that is very important to storage because my apartment is so small, into a make-shift fermenter. The buckets sit in cold water, which holds a fairly constant temperature compared to the air, allowing the fermenting wort to also stay fairly constant. The bucket on the left(it has a 5 lb weight on it because it wants to float away. You could say I n...you know what? I'm not going to go there. I'm not a racist asshole, no matter what mom and her boyfriend Darrell say) is...something. It's a double IPA, I think. The bucket on the right is a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale clone. It isn't the floaty type, I guess.

I haven't outgrown my apartment--my hobby has, though.

Oh. OH! I was just sitting on my couch typing this up while the wort boiled away in the kitchen, when I felt a small splishitty-splash hit my mouse hand. I passed it off as a weird muscle spasm, because I'm getting old and that's what happens to old people. But, it happened again. I looked up, and the molding around my windows were not only dripping, but bringing six months of unattended dirt down a make-shift waterfall. I may have to re-think this boiling large quantities of water in the winter thing, because condensation of this caliber might cause problems. Yes, might.

Fuck.

Last week I mentally tabulated all my beer-brewing expenses and was a little bummed that my hobby was getting too expensive. Is it a problem that I've considered eating spent grain from the brew process in order to save money on food and still be able to brew beer? It does? Oh.

Fortunately, though, I was able to track down all of my receipts* and was pleasantly surprised (probably a little drunk, too!) to learn that it wasn't as bad as I thought. Not even close to weekend's bar tab in Vegas. If I was going this weekend, that is.

Sigh. If you'll excuse me, I have 15 gallons of beer to drown my sorrows in. I might even drown my balls in it, I don't know. And the funny thing is, you won't know either!

*This coming from a guy that hasn't balanced his bank account in over 5 years--why in the hell would I save every fucking receipt from beer-making related purchases?

2007-11-30T08:22:00.001-08:00

If I were to have a different vehicle other than my rockin' Prizm, what would it be? What would you picture me in?

Also, what type of vehicle should I stay the fuck away from?

2007-11-29T17:31:00.001-08:00

Who was the genius that hired Bryant Gumbel to do play-by-play for the NFL Network? Whoever it was should be fired, flogged, then have their cheerios pissed in, just for effect.

Bryant Gumbel is barely believable as a human being, let alone as a knowledgeable football authority. I'm secretly hoping that Katie Couric pops her freaky skele-head into the booth--at least I'd be able to close my eyes and pretend I'm watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Oh, look, Woody Woodpecker.

Speaking of that, Chris Collingsworth on color commentary? Seriously? What's next- Joe Buck bringing up the rear with the on-field interview duties?

I can't believe I canceled FSC for this.

It's not Joe Buck, it's worse--Deion Sanders. Hey, Neon, stop trying to eat the microphone!

2007-11-13T07:37:00.001-08:00

This is how my weekend started.

This is how my weekend ended. I can't say I remember much about this.

Somewhere in the middle, all this happened.

The band was amazing, but Molly couldn't get the lead singer's pit stank off her shirt. See that look on her face? She already knows she'll be carrying that smell around all night. Also at the show, I saw a girl walk in the front door with a lower lip full of chew, and promptly spit in a planter. Classy. I would've been less disgusted had she sprayed feces out of her ears.

And I finished my kegerator! Well, sort of. The damn thing will never be done. Hey, folks, I suggest you make your own beer. It's a cheap hobby. Actually, it would've been cheaper for me to start my own meth lab. Now all I need is a bigger apartment that costs less to store all this beer that I'll never drink.

This is where the pictures from Sunday would go, had I remembered my camera. As it was, we went to Crosby Park, down by Fort Snelling. Being hungover does not allow for a very pleasant hike, that's for sure.

2007-11-08T22:42:00.001-08:00

I have a decision to make.

I spent fifteen hours working today--sitting on my ass for 8 hours, running to and from the cars of very well tipping doctors for the final 7. I made good money.

Molly turned 26 at midnight, and we're going out for her birthday tomorrow (today). Big night. I'll admit that I'm exhausted right now, and I don't have much energy for things like thinking, or moving, much less that pesky breathing.

I have no idea what to get her.

My dilemma is; should I have another beer from my brand new kegerator? It's an IPA, if that helps your decision.

I think I shall.

Thanks for all your help.

2007-10-30T08:08:00.001-07:00

It was tough to leave you this morning. You looked so cozy and warm, that all I could think about was nuzzling up next to you and falling back asleep. It's breaking my heart, but I'll be forced to count the minutes--nay, seconds--until I can see you again tonight, but I'll live--for you.

Plus, my kitchen floor is filthy, and the buckets in which you'll be residing for the next two weeks are cold and uninviting.

How does one go about professing his love to his homebrew? My heart weighs heavy with that decision right now.

So, uh, yeah, I currently have 4 different beers--5 gallons each--bub, bub, bubbling away in my apartment. 20 gallons of malty, hoppy goodness, just waiting for me to turn it to pee. The epitome of an unselfish lover. To say that I've been taken over by this "hobby" is an understatement. If I were the type of person to use the phrase "it consumes me", I'd say that right now. But, I'm not, so I won't.

In fact, I consume it. Nyuck nyuck.

(Oh god, I'm so unfunny and forced sometimes that it's surprising I don't get less site traffic, even though that's almost an impossibility.)

Next on the plan is to build a kegerator out of a chest freezer, 3 packs of Dubble Bubble, and with the help of a miniature sherpa named Yerba. Yerba the sherpa. Hey, I didn't name him. Since I've started making my own beer, I've ordered the Department of the Treasury to reallocate money from the "Bar Fund", to the "Homebrew Fund", and while I know you're saying; Hey, Chad, you're still spending all that money on alcohol! While that is technically the truth(pffft, truth), the key distinction is that I'm not spending all that extra money on tips to bubbly, overtly flirtatious bartenders(that's just the dudes!) and an outrageous alcohol tax.

So, that's a plus for me in the win column of life, I guess. Thus ends my update on beer.

Oh, wait, one more thing! I just learned yesterday that there's a bar in Chicago, on Hoyne Ave N, called The Map Room. If you don't understand why I'm so fucking freaked out right now, then you don't know me well enough. Personally, just between you and me here, folks, if I thought my car would've made it down to Chicago without bursting into flames or losing an entire axel, I would've driven down there last night so I could be there by this morn at 6:30am.

It's all to beautiful too be mere coincidence.

2007-10-16T08:28:00.001-07:00

Last weekend Molly and I went to the North Shore (of Minnesota, not Oahu, unfortunately) to experience some pretty, pretty dying leaves. Mother Nature obviously didn't get the memo that enjoying the scenery requires an unobstructed view , because when we peaked the hill overlooking Duluth, we were met with a thick blanket of fog. That sadistic bitch.

That made it tough to see anything from the many scenic overlooks on the drive. Instead, I just closed my eyes and pretended I was staring over beautifully massive Lake Superior, while Molly closed her and made-believe that I was Emil Hirsch.

Whatever.

Even with the damp weather, I was determined to go hiking. Sunday was, by far, the best day for hiking, but it wasn't pouring on Saturday when we arrived at the resort, so of course we donned the clothes that absorbed the most moisture, and started the short hike to Poplar Falls.

The picture doesn't really do justice to the massive amounts of water going over the falls, nor does it detail the number of feet that it actually dropped, but suffice it to say, had Molly pushed me in like I'm sure she wanted to, the force of the water would've pushed me to the UP, and I would've screamed "Weeeee! Here I come, Michigan!" Either that or I would've hit my head on a rock and drowned before I hit calmer waters. It was 50/50.

Me: Hi, I'm the Smug Hiker! Her: Tell me when you're going to take...[click]

What does this picture say about me? I think I'm Ansel-fucking-Adams. You can never have too much black and white photography.

Things I learned this weekend--

--Baby salamanders love the comfort of a warm hotel room just as much as we do. I tried to take a photograph of the little bugger, but I was drunk, and have a tough enough time operating cameras when I'm sober. And I suck at photography.

--Even if the hotel room has a whirlpool bathtub doesn't mean that a man should take a bath in it . Things float in a completely unnatural and wholly unattractive way. No pictures, you're just going to have to trust me on this one.

--Large amounts of rainfall means many, many waterfalls due to the terrain, and waterfalls are pretty. That is, until they're flowing over the road and we don't notice until we should've slowed down 15 seconds ago. And there is nothing more embarrassing than telling people you were blindsided by a waterfall.

2007-09-28T08:39:00.001-07:00

A few months ago I was sitting at home alone on a Friday night, sucking on a bottle of Sierra Nevada, when I had an epiphany. I thought; hey, I bet it would be much cheaper to brew my own beer. I could do that. All it takes is patience, the ability to boil water, and the almost neurotic, strict adherence to sanitizing and you, too, can brew beer.

Becoming one of those cool guys that brews his own beer never even crossed my mind in the past, though. Up until a few years ago, all I'd ever drink is lighter beers that are super cheap as is, so it was much more efficient to go to the liquor store and pick up the finest case of swill that $11.99 will buy. In, out, and drunk by 5:45pm on a Friday night.

But drinking better beer, beer with any flavor whatsoever, is much, much more expensive. My current favorite, Sierra Nevada is $15 a 12 pack. With as much beer as I drink, it can get expensive, fast. But when you brew your own beer, the ingredients for a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale clone run from $25-$30, depending on what yeast you use, and the recipe makes 5 gallons of beer, or about 2 1/2 cases.

On the flip side of that, 2 1/2 cases of store-purchased Sierra Nevada would set me back $75. Easies--decision--ever.

Before I could brew my first batch, though, I had to buy all the equipment necessary to brew.

First, I bought a kit with the fermenting buckets, a carboy, some sanitizer, a few brushes to clean the carboy, a bottle capper, and a book on how to brew. All that for the low, low price of $80.

But I still couldn't brew.

Next, I needed an ingredient kit; I chose the Sierra Nevada clone, thinking that if I was going to make my own beer, I might as well make something I know and like. The ingredients were $30.

Surely I can brew now, right? Not so fast. Even though I had the ingredients and some of the equipment, I didn't have all of the equipment.

I needed a $40 brew kettle. Fuck.

And because I'd rather spend money than do anything that required more time or energy, I bought a $50 wort chiller to lower my wort cooling time from hours to merely minutes. Not that I had any fucking idea what wort was, or does, but who cares. My wort needed $50 worth of chilling, and it needed it now.

And piggybacking on that idea that doing more work equals less fun, I decided to jump completely past bottling my own beer, and right into kegging it. I gave up counting expenditures at this point, so let's just use a ballpark figure of $100 spent on kegging equipment. Luckily I had a 20lb tank of co2 just laying around in the backseat of my car, though. If I would've had to purchase that, too, it would've tacked another $70 on to the total. Does it really matter why I had a 20lb tank of co2 wedged behind my passenger seat? I contend that it does not.

Can I brew now? Yes, yes I can! Thank God.

That brew session was almost three weeks ago and last night I had my first homebrewed beer; homebrew that I made. I'm not a braggart, but it's good. Really fucking good. It's closer to Honker's Ale than Sierra Nevada, but it's still better than I expected. Much better. My pride is akin to that of the father of a newborn baby, but, since I'm sure all the beer has rendered my impotent, this feeling will have to suffice.

If you're the countin' type--I'm obviously not--you'll see that their is a flaw in my money-saving plan. There are 60 bottles in 2 1/2 cases of beer. My first batch of homebrew, if you count all the equipment expenses, cost me close to $300. Only 25 more batches until the beer making equipment is justified!

Thrifty I is not.

It doesn't matter that my beer is $5 per 12oz (let's not take into account how much I've spilled, shall we?), or that I just wasted 3 weeks of my life that I'll never get back, or that I'll never get the sticky off my kitchen floor. All that matters is that I can drunk 7 nights a week without ever having to take a bag of recyclables to the bin out back.

That, right there, is worth the monetary waste, because I'm lazy, not because I care about all that 'save the environment' mumbo-jumbo. That's all a bunch of bullshit.

2007-09-21T09:46:00.001-07:00

I just got a Myspace friend request message from Thom Yorke. Yes, that Thom Yorke. The Thom Yorke of Radiohead fame.

I don't get it. Usually when I get friend a request from a band, it's usually some random band with a name like ShitEaters--sorry, The ShitEaters, or something equally silly, like Matchbox20--that is the house band at some podunk Arkansas bar. Either way, though, it's usually a band that nobody has ever heard before, nor do they ever want to hear from again.

But Thom Yorke? Something is wrong with this. Why is he fishing for MySpace friends? Granted, I haven't heard any of his new solo stuff, but it can't be that bad.

If I could say one thing to Thom Yorke right now, it would be this; Tom, friend, buddy--HEY, look me in the eye when I'm talking to you! Ok, close enough. Thom, you're better than this. Stop sending out random friend requests on Myspace. It makes you look cheap, and trust me, I know something about looking cheap.

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Last Friday I was at work and Jenny Lewis from Rilo Kiley walked by me. She's not much to look at, but goddamn if I wouldn't let her rape me with that voice of hers. I already clench my eyes as hard as I possibly can and cry during sex, so it's not like I'd have to change one bit of my routine.

Call me!

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2007-09-07T11:07:00.001-07:00

Every single time I go into Costco, the makeshift food court is packed. Babies are sitting in their strollers, parents nowhere to be seen. Unattended carts packed with 10 gallons of catsup, 15 4lb cans of Similac, and mountains of Juicy Juice boxes are strewn this way and that, like their owners suddenly realized that, "Holy shit, I can save time by feeding my fat-assed demon spawn here instead of at home. I've been saved!"

"Oooh, look, a slice of pizza the size of ham-sized fist! ", she said without ever once considering that the man behind the counter was wearing a fucking beard net.

A net. Over his beard. To catch rotten facial hair before it falls in the soup. Hygenic, maybe. But, stir my appetite, it does not.

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At the 2nd job last night, we had some insufferable prick squeal his way out of the valet zone because a) it took two extra minutes to get his car, b) we wouldn't drop his car off a block away from where we're supposed to, and it's illegal for us to do so(plus, it was raining heavier than I've seen it rain in a long time, and we would've had to walk back to work in that shit) and c) the valet that brought his car down from ramp almost hit the curb with his tire.

I hate when I come up with the perfect response to an asshole like that, though I come up with it hours and days later, and even though I know the only thing you can do to someone like that is to shit under their passenger seat, or jam an open can of potted meat way back in the dark recesses of the trunk. Basically the same thing.

For the most part, the people we deal with are out and about because they want to have fun, to enjoy the evening. But every so often we get those self-important douches that think that a superfluous $6 and leased $35,000 BMW gives them the right to be an asshole.

When he got home, Chip opened a fresh bottle of Belvedere, mixed it with the finest of Sugar Free Redbulls, bankhanded his Russian mail order bride, Sasha, to pre-emptively stop her incessant yapping, cranked the Bose system, you know, so he could really feel the Nickelback, deep, way down, in his cold, black soul. He thought; Ha!, my god-given gift of pushing the accelerator 3/4 of the way to the floor really showed those fucking valets who's boss!

And then he quietly cried himself to sleep again because his penis resembles a shallow vagina.

2007-08-31T15:03:00.001-07:00

Just a quick post before heading to a wedding ceremony for people I don't know.

I was putting on my only pair of dress pants I own a few minutes, only to discover that hitching the two interlocking clasps together was nigh near impossible. So, instead of trying to fix the problem, I'm just going to leave 'em unclasped. Let's hope the zipper stays up this time.

Oh well. Guess I'll grab another beer. I wonder if I have time to add fat to it?

2007-08-24T20:44:00.001-07:00

Apparently, the "in" thing to do on a Friday night is to sit at home by yourself, drink beer, and watch Fellowship O' The Ring in HD. At least that's what I'm doing. so by default, it has to be cool, right?

I have a Goose Island IPA resting on the couch's center console to my left, a warm, humming, porn-infected computer resting securely on my scrote, and new programmable Logitech remote to my right. If I believed in Heaven, this would have to be as close as I'd ever get without the addition of Jessica Biel tonguing my balls in beat with John Philip Souza's Stars and Stripes Forever.

Now that would be Heaven. If I believed in that.

Huge problem, though; I have to urinate something wicked, but I'm fresh out of diapers. I guess holding it's another option, too. Hold on, be right back.

Can you believe I'm not even drunk? This is three beers deep.

11:14pm: I'm watching Time Machine, with Guy Pierce. He is a hideous, hideous man in this movie. This isn't really worthy of an edit, but you get what you get tonight.

11:37pm: Wow, I do have friends. Heading to The Local. That's walking distance. Dear muggers, don't mug me, or I'll have to shit myself to stop you.

2:03am: Home now. Not that drunk. World Series of Poker is on ESPN HD right now. Why in the fuck do we needs card games in high definition? I'm all about it, but why?

2007-08-21T13:24:00.001-07:00

A few days ago I decided to do a lower body workout. Let me back up for a second and say that my exercise of choice is weight lifting. I don't lift weights to get huge muscley arms, nor do I lift to get stronger. I lift because it's the last activity I can do that burns away all the beer, and that I don't hate.

I detest distance running, as I have flat feet almost to the point that my arch is convex instead of concaved and my feet hurt for days after a few miles. Plus, I'm lanky and my form is less than optimal, which causes pain in places where pain isn't normally present. Like my taint. Odd, considering it's not a joint or muscle, and I Gold Bond the hell out of it before doing anything in the heat--then again, I'm no physiologist.

I own a pair of rollerblades that have rolled, at most, 1 mile, most of that mileage in my bedroom the day I bought them. After that day I come to find out that not only does rollerblading make you inherently gay, but I also lack the balance necessary to prevent said rollerblades from shooting out from under me and landing squarely on my coccyx.

I like biking, and I have a bike that's in working condition, but I still haven't figured out how to bike long distances without my ass hurting something fierce. So, I lift weights.

Normally I do upper body workouts, because I like being one of those guys that's freakishly top-heavy. Big arms, big chest, with the legs of Calista Flockhart. I'm fine with that. But every so often, I'll do a lower body workout because it's quicker than my normal workout and takes, at most, 20 minutes. The problem is that I stopped with this workout before the beginning of the soccer season.

Anyhow, Sunday I returned to this workout because I was feeling lazy and just wanted to be done quickly. It was a good plan, until my legs started stiffening up shortly after getting to work yesterday morning. And since I barely move in my desk all day long, they're tightening up real good this time 'round. Every time I get up to head to the bathroom, I have to stretch my quads and hamstrings. If I don't, not only is the act of walking painfully slow and cumbersome, but once every forth step or so, my legs will almost completely give out and it takes a more work than necessary to get them to respond to what I'd like them to do.

Today alone I've had 4 people ask me if I'm ok, because it looks like I've had a stroke.

But, I choose to look at the brightside. Though it hurts, and walking is a chore, the only thing I have to learn now is the speech slur, and then I can finally try out for Off-Off Broadway debut of The Facts of Life--A Very Special Episode, as Cousin Geri.

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Just a quick blurb here; I'm finally amongst the technology alive in the group, having purchased a new HD LCD television this past Friday. It feels so good to finally live in the now.

I never knew what I was missing until I witnessed the joy that is watching 13 year old boys cry after losing in the Little League World Series--in high def. I can't get enough.

2007-08-17T08:30:00.001-07:00

Hello, all. Welcome back!

Where have I been? Glad you asked. I've spent the last month studying the elusive Yanomamo people of central Brazil. I had to return to civilization because, not only had I become desensitized to native boobs(that's a bad thing), but they didn't have any beer(also bad). Plus, they smelled like muenster. Normally that wouldn't be that alarming, but I like to keep my Brazilians smelling like a combonation of the beach and coconut oil, and not like Nazis.

Speaking of; upon my return, I decided to do something I've been interested in for the past few years; brew my own beer. I figured, hey, I like drinking beer so much that I'd love to spend hours toiling above a rolling boil, hoping that I don't accidentally pee in the pot, and then waiting an extra month before I can get test the final product. What's not great about that?

Oh, and the $200+ in start-up costs for something that's going to ultimately end up as urine? Totally my thing.

I have one issue that's preventing me from beginning the brewing process right this minute, though; my apartment is too warm to store the sludge that turns into beer. If only I knew a new homeowner with a basement in which I could store the carboy. Hmmmmm.

****************************************

It's 65°F right now, which is the perfect temperature to play hooky. It's not too hot, because when it's too hot, I sweat like a fag eating a foot-long hotdog.

Oh, please. It's not even my joke.

Anyhow, I want to go golfing, and I've yet to get out on the links this year. I used to play at least 36 holes every damn day in high school, at least ten times a year during college, but that level has slowed to nary a trickle since. My brother, dad, and I would go every Father's Day, but this year we didn't even get to do that. This year I was in Chicago, praying that my liver would spontaneously combust.

Since the days of my 36 hole-a-day habit, I've become increasingly intolerant of the amount of time spent on the golf course. Back then there was nothing else to do. I didn't drink, didn't have a girlfriend, didn't really care what was going on that night after lipping out on the last hole. Now, though, I can't play more than 4 holes without wondering if I'll be able to make it home in time for happy hour, and where the fuck is that beer cart girl?

And walking? Forget about it. I used to laugh at the E-Z-GOers, those lazy fucks. But now, I am one of those lazy fucks. I don't even want to think about having to walk a few miles while swinging a light titanium club at a little white ball.

Oh how taxing.

2007-07-25T10:07:00.001-07:00

Forgive me father, it's been over two weeks since my last blogfession.

And dad? Can you tell mom to get off my back for not calling? Just because I don't return her calls doesn't mean I've died a horrible drunken death(but it does sound rather romantic, huh?), it just means I know she'll ask me to clean her computer mouse for her again, and it's about time she learns to do that by herself. That's what she gets for not going optical. And having an ashtray for a mousepad.

Begin rambly-pambly bullshit.

To drown out the inane chatter of my coworkers, I have two options during my work day; put on my headphones and listen to music, or jam toilet paper balls so far into my ear canals that I have smell the ghost of Mr. Whipple in my nasal cavity.

As appealing as the latter may be, I'd rather listen to music. I'm so different, such a refreshing breath of fresh air, that I could probably fart lilacs if I tried hard enough. And I'm consistently and without fail redundant.

But there's still a problem with that. Since I'm totally against buying those new-fangled compact discs, and my off-brand MP3 player has a battery life akin to that of the staying power of a 19 year old, my only option is to listen to internet radio. All two stations that are able spooge through our company firewall.

I just listened Relient K "rock out", followed by New Found Glory "ripping shit up". Hellogoodbye is currently raping my ears--in a less than ideal way-- and threating to make my penis turn into an innie.

Still, it's better than the jejune office cacophony, even if it does threaten my manhood.

********************

Fuck you, perspective. Honestly, balls deep, right in the ass.

For the past week or so I've been battling a severe (read: mild) case of achy back. (Not to be confused with acne back). The pain comes and goes--or ebbs and flows, if you swing like that--but it's definitely worse when I'm sitting at my desk, or in my car. It starts on the left side of my lower back, makes a beef jerky and Jolt pit-stop in my left ass cheek, then continues down the highway of nerves in my left leg.

If I sit just so it's barely even noticeable. I'm sure it's nothing more than years worth of bad posture and poor sleeping position--on my stomach, arms and legs akimbo, like a swastika-- coming back to fuck with me, but that doesn't mean I've not done my fair share of bitching about it. I've referenced getting a backyotomy more than once, and I'm sure the girlfriend has done all that she can to refrain from telling me to put a stitch in my gash, God bless her little heart.

But after last night, I highly doubt I'll be bitching much more about my relative problems.

While sitting at my 2nd job with Rachel, I was mentally debating that the reason behind an obese America is because people valet their cars(it's amazing how jaded one can get while doing nothing more than parking cars for money, it really is), when we got our first car of the night. The guy couldn't have been more than 40 years old, thin, a little graying near the temples, but he definitely wasn't what one would considered healthy. The cane, that he had to lift his left leg out of the car to plant it on the ground, and that it took him 5 minutes to get to the front door all drive that point home.

We didn't know what he was suffering from, and we weren't drunk enough to ask*, but whatever it was, it made him downright miserable. But he still smiled when he pulled up, and again when we brought his car around.

And it made me want to kick myself in the balls for prickishly lacking any of perspective in regards to my back ache. Pansy.

As my mom would say "There are children starving in Africa..."

*************************************

* That reminds me of a story about my buddy, Jon. One night we were all out at the bar(back when that was the cool thing to do--8 years ago), and we came across a group of girls, one of which that had an upper arm that was much, much thinner than the other.

Jon, being ever-so-smooth, (and drunk, not that I had to tell you that) pointed to her from across our group to get her attention, pointed to his arm and made the "your arm, it's so teeny" gesture with his thumb and forefinger. I've never seen an entire group of girls get so disgusted, so quickly, and this coming from a guy that knows a thing or two about turning women off.

It wasn't until a few minutes later that he found out that she'd had cancer in that arm a few years back, and not because the anorexia had aggresively whittled the muscle away to nothing, like he'd previously suspected.

2007-07-13T09:51:00.001-07:00

Last night on the way to my soccer game, I got a call from my mom. She told that there had been a process server at her place earlier in the day, looking for me. You know, serving me papers because I'm such a huge deadbeat dad/criminal/harmer of other people's property. I knew immediately why they were there, though. (But let's not talk about why they tried to serve them to me at an address I haven't lived at for 14 years, or why the very professional process server let my mom partially read the papers. The words "severe emotional anguish" were included.)

4 years ago I was involved in a small accident outside of my apartment. I was parked and planned to u-turn and head south to drop off a friend at her car that we left at the bar the previous night(but didn't find out until right after the accident that her car was parked two up from mine. Whoops!).

The street I lived on was super quiet, and for some reason I didn't even think to look over my shoulder to see what might be coming. I just didn't think there would be anyone coming.

My car was two feet into the u-turn, when my left front bumper collided with an engaged couple in a Jeep Cherokee traveling north. Collided is such a strong word, though. I didn't get far enough out in the street for him to collide with me. His front right tire popped, and my bumper left a scrape mark down the right side of his vehicle. There wasn't even a dent if I remember correctly, just that scrape. I was able to reattach my bumper with a swift kick and some spit.

We spent the next 1/2 hour on the phone with both of our insurance providers(I think he had Geico, too), filed a police report, changed their tire(he even helped), and they were on their way, probably to try to con some other unexpecting shlub out of their hard-earned money.

Since that time, I'd occasionally get a call from the lady at Geico handling my case, saying that the couple was still making claims from the accident for injuries, but that they were taking care of it. Oh come the fuck on! There was absolutely no way they had any injuries. Well, unless they had brittle eggshell bones(covered by paper mache skin), of course. Other than that, they were absolutely fine.

I'm not a tough guy by any stretch of the imagination, but for crying out loud, rub some dirt in it, people, and stop bothering me with your enormous gashy-ness. My accident wasn't the cause of whatever problems you claim to be ailing from.

Then why am I being hunted down by a process server? Because Geico refuses to pay what they're requesting. They know a hustle when they see one.

Get this; The lady has been to the chiropractor 113 times since, and to a back specialist about 30 times. She had an MRI, which came back negative. She probably told the MRI Tech to do it again, because that's what a-holes do. She was asking for $40,000 in medical bills and "damages". Geico offered $4,000 and she didn't take that offer.

The man, well, there was a lapse of 18 months in his treatment, and he just recently filed another claim, stating my accident as the cause. Not sure what condition(s) he had that decided to take a year and a half siesta, but I'm not a doctor, either. I consulted a doctor friend, he told me that the guy likely suffers from assholery.

Anyhow, he was asking for $13,000, Geico offered him $1,000 basically to get him to go away. He refused that, too. So now they're coming after me, obviously because I'm big pimpin' here in the city, because I have so much money that I can just throw it towards some swishy, lawsuit-happy couple that are too lazy to make money by, oh I don't know, working at a job. Or earning it. That's crazy talk, I know.

When I got off the phone with my mom, I was pissed. Justifiably so, too. I mean, here are two people that I know are lying, and they're trying to cheat me out of money. It's one thing when they're nickel and dime-ing a huge corporation, but me? The seat belt in my car is broken; how would I be able to afford this? How in the hell would I be able to afford a lawyer? Where would I even find a lawyer? And am I going to have to take a day off of work to sit in a courtroom with these people? Is a cockpunch a felony or a misdemeanor?

I'm a little calmer this morning after getting off the phone with someone at Geico. She told me-- not in these exact terms, but close--that they're pretty much going down flailing, hoping the hit something on the way down. Geico doesn't believe their outrageous claims, so now they're coming after me. But, if that poor process server (that drove 40 miles out of the city to an address I lived at in high school. Idiot) finally catches up with me, my insurance company will deal with it. Lawyer and court fees are covered by my premium, so that's good. I'm safe here.

Bu why do people do shit like this? Why does it seem to be de rigeur to blame somebody other than ourselves for our own problems. For all I know, these people do have legitimate health problems, but they definitely weren't caused by me. It's probably all due to their fat-ass laziness, but what do I know? It's also very possible that they have no health issues whatsoever, but they saw an opportunity to pounce on what they thought was a wealthy person, or one with wealthy parents(the house I lived at was a $600k+ house in a wealthy neighborhood, but I rented a 3rd floor apartment with two other guys) and ran with it.

Whatever their deal is, it still amazes me that people like them do a) attempt something like this, b)that someone just like them will get away with it. Pisses me off a little, too.

2007-07-12T22:48:00.001-07:00

Hi there.

Can any of you lawyers out there provide me with some advice? It seems that somebody is trying to serve me papers(they tried to serve them to my parent's place, where I haven't lived for 13 years) from a 4 year-old accident, and I have no idea what I'm supposed to do next. There's no way I'm paying this ass for his "great emotional stress", when all that happened was that my left front quarter popped his right front tire and left a small scrape down the right side of his Jeep Cherokee.

(If you haven't guessed, this fucker has been milking my insurance for the last 4 years, that capped, and now he's trying to go after me for bullshit injuries and, yes, "great emotional stress"

Complete and utter bullshit.

This is one of the few recent color pictures of me...

2007-07-10T11:23:00.001-07:00

This is one of the few recent color pictures of me where I don't look 9 kinds of retarded. Here I'm only a 5th level retard, though, which is something I'll take whenever I can.

This picture was take at Kenwood Park on the 4th, and there's a rumor that I was drinking a 3.2 Miller Lite, but those liars need to shut the fuck up and mind their own bees wax. (It was 3.2 Leinenkugel's Original and that was, like, a whole hour earlier, thank you very much)

Sigh. That's the abv limit the park department allows, which is pretty stupid considering that a full alcohol Lite is only 4.2 abv. But, we didn't want to have to pay an open container ticket should a prick of a park police officer happen upon our little shindig and decide that we were getting a little too crazy with our bocce ball, our eating of thoroughly and safely cooked meat products, and our lack of concern for the well-being of all 11 other people in the enormous park by not using our inside voices. Yes, I hang out with a bunch of party manimals.

One question before I go on; has anyone suffered from the "3.2 flu"? Is it a real thing, or are people just making it up? I ask because I felt fine the next day. Granted, I did take one of the biggest dumps of my adult life on the 5th(there was one when I was 2 that my mom still talks about to this day, that's how massive it was. Not that I remember it, I was only 2. I claim infantile amnesia), but I wouldn't necessarily call it a bad thing. In fact, that's just cool.

(You see, the great thing about that last paragraph is that you don't know if I'm giving slightly too much information, or if I'm just making shit up, literally.)

We'd originally planned on having a little picnic at Thomas Lowry(aka Seven Pools Park) up behind the Walker, but that was quickly nixed when we couldn't find anywhere to pee. True, there was always the man-made pools, but the sign clearly said "No Wading", and I usually heed a sign's advice over nature's calling. It also explains all my urinary tract infections, too.

If you'll notice for just one second, the shirt is clearly misspelled. It should say "Amsterdamn!", as in, "Damn, look at my chest in that shirt!". You'll also notice that I tend to buy my shirts in the Target boys department, but I'm not made of money, damn it, and sometimes you just have to make due with whatever $6.99 will buy. In this case, it's a medium.

Granted, my chest looks, well, like I'd just finished lifting, which I had(but it's not like that makes any difference), but would it kill me do some calve exercise every now and then? For fuck's sake. Or is it "For fucks sake."? I never know this type of shit. Regardless, for fucketh saketh, my legs are scrawny.

There was a time that I took a lot of pictures, but now? Not at all. I find my 2 year old camera cumbersome, and it's a pain in the ass to lug around with me wherever I go. Sure, I'll carry it around in my man-purse--errrr, backpack-- but taking it out and snapping pictures, that's a different story. And it's just slightly too big to fit in my pocket.

That last paragraph doesn't belong in this post.

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I don't work this Friday night, and Molly is going to NYC (NYC? Get a rope.) which means that I am a free--yes, free!--man. But only for one night. When she gets back, I'm sure she'll put the kibosh on anything related to fun from here until Jesus comes back from the dead. Again.

Anyhow, my plan is to hit up the Macy's Day of Music at Peavey Plaza for The Hopefuls(whom I've never seen before, even though I've planned on going to each and every one of their last 15 shows, only to have the plans fall through every fucking time. Now that I say that, it'll rain, just you watch), maybe even stroll down to the festival formerly known as the Hennepin Ave Block Party. I don't know. Anything is possible for a free man in Minneapolis, right?

And by anything, I mean that I'll probably get super loaded during happy hour with Dawn, then drunkenly plod my way back to my apartment to sleep it off. At 9:15pm. Completely forgetting to see The Hopefuls yet again.

2007-06-21T14:42:00.001-07:00

Welcome to snippet Thursday!

You can't make this shit up

He may have had a missed connection with his cashier, man, but holy shit, he scored a direct hit with my funny bone, intentional or not. I'm laughing like a goddamn fool over here, and it just keeps getting funnier with every read.

I applaud the bawdy fridge magnet poetry for retards, but I get the impression that the only way he'll get a response is with the 1-2 combo of telescoping baton and chloroformed rag. The circular sentences sure aren't going to work.

2007-06-21T12:57:00.001-07:00

Hi-larious.

Now if we could get the people at Massengil to admit that their product used for the female funk, down there, rather than tip-toeing around the issue by labeling it "not-so-fresh".

Not so fresh, my ass. You stank, sister RottenCrotch!

I have one question about this, though; are their guys out there that actually shave their entire bodies, including armpits and legs? Why, ya poof? Why?

What a fucking weekend. It's a good thing that ...

2007-06-18T07:04:00.001-07:00

What a fucking weekend.

It's a good thing that it ended when it did, because my body would not have allowed me to drink for another night. I might write more when my body detoxifies, but probably not.

Molly pointed out that it's been well over two wee...

2007-06-12T13:34:00.001-07:00

Molly pointed out that it's been well over two weeks since I've written anything, and that I better get to writing.

Fine.

I was supposed to go to birthday party at a downtown bar on Saturday night, but by the time I got there(12:30am), the line was 40 people long and there was no way in hell I was going to stand around with the other hunyucks, and then pay a cover for what would end up being an hour a drinking. Fuck that.

Everybody else had just left the party, so luckily for me it was easy to coax the Girl out of her conversation with two queens that had fallen in love with her in three drinks time. I'm just that studly.

Where did we choose to go? Solera, of course! I don't normally like drinking at the bar at which I work, but it was one of the few places that wasn't absurdly busy. I haven't been downtown on a weekend in what seems like forever --because the loud music hurts a curmudgeon's ears--but I was surprised how many people wait in line after midnight to get into a shitty club with a shitty DJ playing shitty music.

We grabbed a beer at the bar and quickly headed outside to enjoy the summer air on the sidewalk patio. It wasn't long before we were joined by two of my coworkers, Andrew and Lori. There was a gaggle of 15 Solera employees celebrating a birthday one table over.

I didn't hear this until after the fact, (I might have been peeing or admiring my reflection in a pint glass) but at one point while we were sitting there, a young, productive, lanky, cornrowed member of society asked the girls if they had the time. Molly reached into her purse to check her phone time, but before she could slide it open, Lori answered him. He gave a disgusted look.

Five minutes later, I heard both Molly and Lori scream. When I turned towards them, I saw the man running past on the sidewalk with a black bag in his hand. It took very little time for me to realize that he snatched a bag off of one of our tables, but when I did, I immediately dumped my chair, hurdled a low chain, and took off after him, down 9th St, past Chamber's.

Looking back, I'm sure he tried to time the snag with the stoplight on Hennepin, so that if anyone were to chase him, he'd make it through the intersection, but the pursuers would be stopped by traffic. I don't think he realized that anyone would follow at all, and definitely not as quickly as we did.

Like I said, I got up and ran after him almost immediately. At least that's how I remembered it. Everything happened so damn fast that I don't recall ever even thinking. Andrew saw me take off and thought, aw shit, now I've got to go, too.

My problem? Flip-flops. They're kick-ass flip-flops that have a bottle opener in the bottom, but right then, at that very moment, they weren't helping my crime-fighting ways at all. When I got to the end of the block, I briefly thought about kicking them off and continuing the chase, but not only would I have bitched and moaned about every pebble I stepped on, but Molly would've killed me. They were a gift. A gift that opens beer bottles.

Is it any wonder that we've dated this long?

Right when I nixed the idea of losing the flippies, Austin, one of the guys from one table over, bolted past me, sans shoes.

"Was that your bag?" I wheezed. I didn't understand why he'd join in if it wasn't.

"Nope!"

It wasn't until that point that I knew that the friendly guy without a watch had grabbed Molly's purse from off the table, right in front of her. Motherfucker.

Shortly behind us were two more guys from Solera who decided to join in the chase. It was obvious that I was no longer a legitimate threat in catching up unless he tripped over a crack in the sidewalk, but I ran just fast enough to keep the thief(and Andrew, who was way closer than anyone else) in view.

It was no fair because Andrew had on normal shoes, and I had decided to let my dogs breathe for the the rest of the evening. In my defense, I didn't think I'd be running 1 am sprints. Have you ever tried to run in flip-flops? I can do it, but it's not exactly efficient. Despite that, I think I did an adequate job in making myself look really, really slow.

Anyhow, the chase took a right turn on LaSalle, and then a left down 10th. I remember screaming "STOP THAT MAN!" on more than one occasion while we were running, but I don't remember exactly when or even if there was anyone around to hit this fucker with a flying spear tackle to the back, severing his spine in the process. No such luck.

When I got to the corner of 10th and LaSalle, a valet from Chamber's joined in the chase. The only thing that would've made me feel less capable was if he was running on stumps for feet. My sense of self worth was boosted a little bit when I saw that he was wearing comfortable and sensible shoes.

In addition to the Chamber's valet, a small black man in a wife-beater was following the festivities from the comfort of his BMX bike. My first thought was that he was with the thief, an accomplice to grab the bag in a quick pass-off scam, but he was too far behind to do anything about it.

3 blocks in and everybody started to tire. The thief slowed to a trot right across from The Local, which allowed Andrew to catch up.  As Andrew was about to get near him, the guy started digging in his pants for something. Um, ok. Abort, abort!

Andrew stopped, told him to put the purse down, and smartly started backing away. The man quickly rifled through the purse, I'm assuming for cash, and when he didn't find anything worth a damn, he dropped the purse and started jogging away.

To make this story succinct, when we returned to Solera with the purse, we were met with a hero's welcome, complete with fireworks, confetti cannons, and strippers dancing on tables and cheering our names. And free drinks.

At least one of those is true.

Everything was still in the purse, except for one tube of carmex for some odd reason. I guess must be a bitch being a poor man with monumentally chapped lips.

The cops showed up a few minutes later with the suspect in the back of the squad car. They picked him up a few blocks south of where we parted ways, and it turns out that the guy on a bike was an undercover something or other, and he was the one to track him down. They didn't say he was a cop, rather "security", whatever that means. Regardless, well played, sir. Well played.

It wasn't after I sat down and downed 2 pints of beer in under a minute that I thought, jesus, what the fuck was I going to do if I caught him? He wasn't a beefy guy, but at 6'5", he wasn't exactly small. And what if he had a weapon?

And what if he shot me in the face?

Not a bright decision, but it all turned out fine. He'll ultimately end up in jail for awhile, so said the police officer that took Molly's statement.

But my big question is this; couldn't he find an easier target? That area of downtown, from 9th St up to Washington, and over to the Warehouse District has the highest concentration of robberies and theft in the city. There's plenty of drunken people(Andrew and I were not drunk) down near all the bars to prey on, so why would he choose to thieve from an area where there's nowhere to run but empty streets? It's not like there are really any alleyways to lose someone during a chase, nor is there a crowd to get lost in, either. He clearly did not think his cunning plan all the way through.

Minneapolis is not a large city by any definition, but it still has it's fair share of crime. Shit like this just happens, I think mainly because people are assholes. There are far too many assholes.

Has anyone else been mugged in Minneapolis? What area? Were they ever caught? The closest I've come is having my stereo stolen from my car. Not the same thing at all, but I'm less than an optimum target for someone that's too lazy to get a fucking job.

2007-05-22T08:35:00.001-07:00

What would you have done?

I walked into the Holiday on 25th and Hennepin early Friday night, around 9pm, to pick up a pack of gum. Immediately, I noticed an extremely blotto, greasy haired 6'3" indian/native american/hobo (use whichever is least offensive to you, I guess). He was shoving a Grab Bag of chips down his pants, and didn't even care that he was in full view of the door, but you could tell he was trying to slightly conceal his actions from the lone girl at the front counter, to my left, so it's not like he was so drunk he didn't know he was trying to steal.

He walked up to the counter, hurried his two friends--also shitfaced--out the door and walked away.

I debated trying to find a subtle way to let the fucker know that I knew he just shoved a bag of chips down his pants, but what then? If he gets nervous and puts the bag back, would you want a bag a chips that had been resting next to his sweaty balls, even if it was only for a millisecond? I didn't think so. I also didn't really care much for the idea of getting stabbed with a homemade shiv, and I detest talking to drunken fools, even when I'm drunk myself.

Then there was the option of telling the clerk, but she looked a little overwhelmed, and the police have a little more to worry about than a homeless man stealin' a 99 cent bag of Doritos.

So, would you have done something about it?

On the way to the car, I thought, oh man, it would've been great to kick him in the stomach/groin, breaking all the chips and hopefully clipping a gonad in the process , but he probably wouldn't feel it, nor would he care that he was now the not-so proud owner of ill-gotten chip dust.

Untitled

2007-05-16T10:06:00.001-07:00

Ok, geeks and business folk alike; did I just make a mistake by buying the Blackberry Pearl instead of the T-Mobile Dash?

Can anyone tell me why you'd choose one over the other?

2007-05-14T13:30:00.001-07:00

Notes to self--

--when you leave for work in the morning, doofus, please remember to place all, ahem, 'adult toys' farther into their hiding spot underneath the bed. If you don't, the landlord will, no doubt, call and say that they're showing your apartment in a few minutes.

It's not so much that they'll think you have, you know, a decent sex life, or even one at all--hey, high five!--but the landlord and the potential new resident, a resident that you'll have to see from time-to-time who is probably also a gay dude on the prowl, will think that it's yours. Do you really want that?

--nice, new birthday flips flops(with bottle openers!) are just as likely get peed on from the guy with stream direction issues at the adjacent urinal as are the cheap Target flip-flops. Make a concerted effort to master one leg peeing.

2007-05-10T12:12:00.001-07:00

I usually loathe these silly memes, but Joe tagged me (even though he called me by my alter-ego name, "Chadillac", that ass), and since I'm almost out of here for the weekend(oh, you didn't know I've been celebrating my birthday all week? And that I took tomorrow off? Now you do), I'll do it.

7 retarded/random things about me, abbreviated due to laziness:

1) I've had stitches in the roof of my mouth. Seriously.

2) I'm missing the big knuckle of the ring finger on my right hand. I know I left it around here somewhere...

3) Everytime AC/DC comes on the radio, I get visibly irritated, pissed even. Not sure why, but their songs make me want to jam my 21" computer monitor right up the ass of whoever might be walking by when the song comes on. Flourescent light makes me react in a similar fashion, which is why I've disabled all the lights above my cube.

No, I do not need medication, thank you very much, FuckFace.

4) I'm more afraid of getting fat or losing my masturbating hand in a terrible lawnmower accident than I am of dying.

5) Of all the things I did while growing up, like fish(every damn day), golf, (every day during the summer), play video games, play soccer (summer, high school), the only of those I still participate in with any regularity, is soccer. I somehow lost all my fishing equipment years ago and haven't been fishing since, golfing takes too much time, and don't have the patience to play video games (outside of GHII). But soccer is still around. I suck just as hard as I did back then, but at least I'm still playing.

6) I've met almost all of my friends on the internet. True story.

7) Someday I'd like to open a bar, even though I have no idea what it takes to run one, and I'm sure I'd be the guy that ends up cleaning puke at 2am on a Sunday morning. But the prospect of free drinks and bangin' nubile female bartenders would make it worth it.

The tag ends here.

2007-05-04T09:33:00.001-07:00

I shouldn't be as hungover today as I am, but boy, this morning was not easy.

"Nice sweat stain in the back of your shirt" she said while we were walking to the bar. We had just finished up a very unsuccesful geocaching session along the banks of the Ol' Miss, The Old Man, and I'd been wearing my new ~~manpurse~~ Camelbak. I'm a big fan of wearing long underwear shirts as an under-shirt, and this one just happened to have moisture wicking properties, and holy shit did it wick.

So, I was going to the bar wearing a shirt that looked like it had been worn by a fatty in a sauna on the sun, it was that wet. Hooray for being a sexy bitch!

It was Ladies Night; free well/rail drinks and free domestic beer from 9pm-11pm for the lizzadies. The upper-crust, Aristocrat vodka pretty much insured that their crippling hangover this morning was free of charge as well. I once saw a homeless turn down a free Aristocrat heavy vodka tonic and then immediately take a swig of Listerine. Who knows, maybe he was a very periodontally aware bum, but I doubt it.

That reminds me of that massive hangover I had from drinking well vodka/redbull at the IP. Worst. Hangover. Ever. And I only had 3 that night at the most. Not 3 drinks, total, but just those 3 there. Had I not been drunk already when I started in on 'em, I may have notice chunks of impurities floating in my drink. But I was, and I didn't. They were there, though, and they somehow found a way to lodge themselves deeply in my frontal lobe, little spikey pieces of shit that they are.

That night, my friend Amber, her friend and I all passed out in my bed. We woke up in the morning, fully clothed, thank you very much, ordered pizza at noon, and then promptly passed out back out until 4pm, praying that our hangovers--the size of Godzilla's nards--would go away. If you know me at all, you know that I hate sleeping past, say, 11am, even with a hangover.

Like I said, worst hangover ever.

I can only imagine how those girls, all those pretty, pretty girls that put on something skimpy for a night out, looked at the end of the night. To me there is nothing sexier than long hair hanging in the toilet water.

But then again, I'm a big fan of anorexia.

I'm sure most of you Minneapolitans already know, ...

2007-04-26T09:12:00.001-07:00

I'm sure most of you Minneapolitans already know, but City Pages released it's Best of the Twin Cities edition this week. Always a good issue if you want a good laugh, not so much if you're looking for the real Best of the Best.

Like most of you, I've also been dying to find out who would win the Best High School Athlete in the Cities, even though I'm 14 years removed from anything high school, and no, those girls I leered at a bus stop the other day don't count. They were totally asking for it, what with the pants and sweatshirt wearing thing they had goin' on, the fucking trollops.

I was also giddy when I learned that hotly contested Best Sign of Spring was listed, and that "Custom Cars" eeked out a win. Finally!

Wait, what? Who makes this shit up? How can you have a Best Sign of Spring category and not have "Tank tops and skirts" even given Honorable Mention? This is a travesty! An outrage! A...a...hold on, I have to...go to the bathroom. I am in no way going to look at a thesaurus. Be right back.

A sham! It's a traveshamockery!(Sorry, that commercial always made me laugh, still does. Right along side the "Great Googlymoogly" guy.)

Most of the categories are useless, but one of the "winners" puts a stick firmly in my craw.

Best Happy Hour: Chino Latino (Readers Choice: Lyle's)

This is why Suburbanites shouldn't be allowed to vote on anything city related. In fact, this is a good reason that nobody from the suburbs should be allowed inside the city, period. Sorry, mom!

Anyhow, I'm not entirely sure that Chino has won this category before (came close last year, I think. I know Lyle's did win a few years back, and the readers have had a perpetual hard-on for Lyle's since forever, but I'm too lazy to go back and take a gander to see what Chino has done, when), but it is hardly the best happy hour in the city, and it's not even close. True, the food is good and the booze is fairly cheap, but the fact that it's only and hour and half a night (Su-Thu 10:30pm-12am) is a complete buzzkill. Literally.

Why didn't it win the same category in 2004, when the happy hour went from 10pm-12:30am, and the beer and wine was $1 cheaper? It's obviously rigged.

I've always been a big fan of The Independent's happy hour, even though I'll never understand why a bar would discount their premium booze, but not tap or bottles of beer. Though, the last time I was in The Indy, I overheard the bartender say that he wanted to "kill whoever created happy hour, because it brings in all the cheap trailer trash". I was there during happy hour, and even though I'm sure it wasn't intended for me, that sort of thing leaves a bad taste in a drinker's mouth. It tastes like gin.

I like to drink and would be broke if I was a spendthrift with my alcohol money. If that makes me trailer trash because I refuse to pay that much for a beer, so be it. There's no reason for anyone else to point that out, though.

Ooops, I didn't mean for that to degrade into a Indy bash, but I guess it did. All I'm saying that there has to be a better choice for Best Happy Hour, right?

(You see, this is where you give me your happy hour choices. You're obviously new here.)

2007-04-23T09:28:00.001-07:00

"So, is that your girlfriend?" the man behind the counter queried.

It wasn't an unexpected question, really. I'd been into his bar at least 5 times, and almost every one of those times alone. There was no reason for him to believe that I had any friends, let alone a girl whom would frequently have sex with me, and that wouldn't ultimately end up in itty bitty pieces in a chest freezer.

"Yup." I offered.

"So, how long have you been dating?" he continued.

I told him the duration, he countered with a toothy grin "I'm recently single. Hell, I've only been a doing this since June (meaning bartending), and you wouldn't believe the hot women I pull on a weekly basis. It makes no sense!"

I think he was more surprised than I was. I've been to many different bars since I started drinking, and most of the time I'm a casual observer because people amuse me. They're silly. I like seeing people interact when they think nobody is looking. I watch how a female customer interacts with a semi-attractive bartender(hell, even the less-than-attractive ones) , and then how the same customer completely ignores, say, a much better looking barback or waiter, and the difference between the two interactions--or the lack of interaction thereof--is staggering.

The bartender gets fellatio eyes while the barback gets a much less desirable look of disgust. How is that fair?

I'm not saying this is solely reserved for the male bartender/female drunk scenario. There have been many a times where I've thought a girl was more attractive because she was pushing me a full pint glass. When I see that girl out in public, in broad daylight, I wonder, oh my god, what was I thinking?

Obvioulsy, I blame the alcohol like most drunk girls would, but it's got to be more than that, right?

How does the average bartender recieve almost rockstar-like status? While I realize that being a great bartender is almost an art form, (and the ratio of great to acceptable is very, very low), being a run-of-the-mill bartender does not require any skill. None whatsoever. So, you can mix me a passable drink or open a beer bottle in terrifically douchetastic fashion?

Big fucking deal.

***************************************************************

Last week I was out with some friends that I don't normally go out with, at a bar I don't usually frequent. I was talking to a friend of a friend, when she asked me about my part-time job.

"So, are you a server or bartender at Solera?" she said.

"Neither, I work outside as a valet." I replied, almost ashamedly.

"Oh." was all I got back.

Oh.

And then she completely shut down the conversation, as far as I could tell, because I don't serve martinis to pretentious a-holes in my time away from my job that actually pays the bills. Perhaps she just ran out of small talk(possible), or maybe I'm a terribly boring individdle(also entirely possible), or maybe she found out my Geo Prizm has 130,000 miles on it and smells like the dumpster at Red Lobster, but talk about feeling like not only a second rate service industry employee, but a second rate person.

I don't talk about my feelings much here, if ever, but if you believe that whole 'feeling like a second rate person' tripe, you're an idiot. Christ, it's not like I have a vagina, people! Thank god.

But I do feel that had I responded with "bartender", I have no doubt that her clothes would've come off a la Naked Gun, and she would've proceeded to tongue my perineum right there at the table, even if it was just for cheap Flirtinis.

2007-04-22T20:55:00.001-07:00

A few minutes ago I was laying on my bed, eating sunflower seeds, sucking back some swill in a bottle and watching crappy Sunday night teevee, when I came across a show called "I eat 33,000 calories a day" on TLC.

I didn't see any of the people that ate even half that, but still--holy crap! It's probably every bit of a disease as binging and purging, but at what point do the postives of eating 15 deep fried chickens--lightly rolled in crisco, butter and packets of raw sugar--outweigh the negatives?

Not only is the inevitable weight gain(which might be a secondary or even tertiarty concern here), but how many times can one plug the shitter before enough is enough? If I ate even 5,000 calories a day, I'd be taking dumps the size of planets, complete with their own gravitational pull.. It might not be a Jupiter or Saturn, but Pluto or Mars, easily.

Also, how do the bed-ridden people get the money to pay for all this food? There's got to be a point where there's just no more money for food, right? You lay in bed all day, with no job to report to, therefore have zero income. Food stamps only go so far. Another question; who makes all this food for them? If a person is too lazy to leave their bed to eat, they sure in the hell aren't going to be putting forth the effort to make the 13 meals a day they require.

Just wonderin'.

*******************************************************'

I left work early on Friday and partook in a wee bit o' geo-geekery. Um, that means caching. I ended up over by Theodore Wirth Park on the western edge of Minneapolis. I'd say that if I hadn't picked up this little hobby, I never would've seen all the cool little areas this city has to offer, and that's downright sad.

One little story; growing up, The Chipmunks were always the epitome of creepy for me. They walked upright and sang Christmas songs, for fuck's sake! Don't even begin to tell me you were not the slightest bit leery of that.

Anyhow, back to Theo Wirth Park. I was trying to dislodge a particular cache container--in this instance, a tupperware container covered in camo duct tape. Classy!--from a hole in the end of a fallen log with a stick that was laying on the ground. It was tougher than it sounds.

Just a little sidenote; As a grown man(shut up!), I still have two huge fears that go back to childhood; deep, dark water, and sticking my hand in a hole in the ground, a tree, or something similar. Both fears have to do with not knowing waiting for me in the space I cannot see. Hell, there could Great White below me in the lake, or a cute, furry animal just waiting to gnaw my arm off to the pit in that hole in the ground. Hey, you never know! That's my admission for the day. All I ask is that you is not to tease.

I'm digging the cache out, and just as it's about the become free from it's stumpular confines, a cute little devil-hued chipmunk, complete witha mohawk, pitchfork and fire shooting from his eyes decided it was time to scoot past me and into the hollow trunk. It was moving pretty fast, but I'm sure it made stabbing motions on it's way inside, it was just that evil.

As something that is approximately 2 billion times the size of a rodent, It's awfully vagtastic of me to be that jumpy around said rodent. Maybe not so much afraid, but I've seen the movies; those little fuckers aim for the face and latch until one of us succumbs. A chipmunk fight is a fight to the death, I'm much too pretty to not be worried that it's going to choose my ear as it's last meal.

I assure that whatever chunks of flesh you get from me, young Alvin, will be the last flesh you ever taste. I have big shoe and know how to punt, just so you know.

I backed up a little to sign the log(the paper in the cache), and it was at that very moment the chipmunk decided to come out of the log and confront me. He jumped straight up in the air, landed on two feet with all of the agility of a teensy, brown-clad ninja, chirped something that I'm sure meant "Get away from my home, and leave my bitch alone, beyotch.". I'm not fluent in chipmunk and the audio was dubbed horriby, but that was close enough for me. Warning heeded, my friend.

He chirped at me again, this time it sounded like just a chirp oddly enough, and then slowly circled my perimeter while eyeing me the entire time, finally darting out of sight, to call in reinforcements, I sure. I put the cache back from whence it came, and slowly walked backwards out of the woods, keeping my gaze firmly fixed on that stump.

I understand the need for an animal to defend it's territory when it feels it's being threatened, but the stink eye was a bit overdramatic, don't you think? Even for a spaz like me.

2007-04-17T11:32:00.001-07:00

In the past few weeks, I've had at least four people ask me if I was moving into a larger apartment so that Molly could move in with me.

Uh.

No.

Hell no.

Nyet.

Hell no.

I repeated that one twice because it's just that important.

This is in no way a jab at her or even our relationship. Not at all. Things are good, we're good. Granted, it would make everything cheaper for me, (she already pays a ridiculously low amount for rent), and I am almost that selfish to only think about how it would benefit me, but I've lived by myself less than 6 months, total, over the past, hmmm...how old am I? Almost 32.

Counting the years back to college, carry the one, divide by pi, (the number, not the lesbo bar)--I've been living with other people for the last 156 months of my post-pubescent life. 13 years, folks. That's insane.

Why, after all that time of having to deal with other people's messes, other's annoying habits, would I subject someone else, especially someone I'm dating, to mine?

I can't let her see that I sometimes walk around the apartment with my underwear wedged up my ass crack so that I can check out my own fantastic heiny when I walk by every mirror. Or that I record Match.com commercials in order to listen to them when I'm lonely, or depressed by the fact that I've yet to find someone to fill the ever-growing void between my 26th and 29th dimension of compatibility, or even when I'm slightly gassy and I've found that Dr. Neil Clark Warren's soothing voice aids digestion in a totally non-creepy way.

She may be ready for that in a year, but not now. Not yet. It's too soon.

Or maybe it's just that I don't want to dive head first into living together when I've just started to enjoy living by myself. I'm weird that like.

Well, it's that and the whole underwear up the butt thing. If you're not creeped out by that mental imagery, you're a freakin' robot.

2007-04-12T12:49:00.001-07:00

I've never been one to hide the fact that I'm a bar loyalist. If I like the way a bar feels, the bartenders, and the specials, I'll frequent a bar over and over(and over again) until they do something to sway me away, or until someone does better. Considering I've written nothing in the past few weeks, about anything, I figured I'd write about where I've been spending my time, why I've been to certain places, or why I've shied away from others. If you're not from Minneapolis, well, you probably couldn't care less about this. If that's the case, perhaps you'd rather spend your time at the Hun.

Hits:

Bootleggers: This bar is your typical downtown bar--the kind of bar I'm quick to loathe; loud and full of post college-aged drunks looking to 'hook-up', that seems to be all the rage these days with the kiddies. But the managers/owners/whoever "get it" when it comes to drawing people like me in for a drink or ten. Maybe I'm getting crotchety in my old age, but I hate going somewhere where you have to stand shoulder to shoulder with people that smell like cheese, or I only get to drink 1/2 of my beer because people keep bumping into me, but during early happy hours and before 9pm, this place can be downright comfortable.

And a good 241 special, trivia, and gimmicks, well, that doesn't hurt them at all, either. If only they'd add a foot railing and a hook underneath the bar, I'd be able to frequent the place more often. As it is, the barstools hurt my ass.

Mac's Industrial: Quite possibly my favorite bar in all of Minneapolis right now. If I were to explain it to someone that doesn't know Johnny and Jimmy, I'd have to say that it's a "bar for drunks, owned and operated by drunks". Take one look at the "decorations" surrounding the bar and you'll quickly understand.

If I owned my own bar, it would be almost exactly like this, only bigger. But, considering that I spend all my time confined to a stool, who needs it to be bigger? Good specials, comfortable bar(with hooks AND a foot rest to boot!), and a handshake when you enter are all tick marks in the plus column here. The only complaint is that it's in NE, and not mere steps from my apartment.

Bulldog NE: It's tough for me to pinpoint exactly why I like this bar as much as I do, even though I've only been there twice. I don't know anybody that works there, there are no definite specials (as far as the website says), and it's usually packed.

But something about it--perhaps it's the high, airy feel to the main room, or the shufflepuck on the side, I don't know--makes me feel comfortable. They do have an awesome beer selection, even if it tends to be on the expensive side. I like beer, but it's always better when it's cheap, regardless of brand or flavor. I am definitely not a beer snob.

Whiff:

Rock Bottom Brewery: Brewpub with acceptable seasonal beer list that has always been among my favorites, mainly just for the beer. I'd never watch a sporting event there willingly because they have music playing instead of tv sound, which to me is downright asinine. I also think the popularity of people like Dane Cook is downright asinine, too, so take that how you want.

They've had a decent happy hour in the past, but I was in there after work one night and the 22oz mug prices had gone up to $4.75. It was a bargain when the price was hovering around $3, and it's still not that expensive by downtown standards, but it's not as good of a deal as it once was.

The Imperial Room: In our single days (Jeremy and I), this bar used to be among our favorite because it wasn't full of frat boys, and it wasn't overly expensive. Then the owner started charging a $2 cover, stating "it's either that or raising the drink prices", which we begrudgingly accepted.

But then he went and raised the drink prices anyhow and we hadn't really been back since. We decided to hit up their SIN night after work this Wednesday, and though it was a great deal(even though they don't tell you there is a $5 bracelet charge in the City Pages ad, for shame), looking at my bank account today leaves a sour taste in my mouth, mostly for the bartenders that night, but of course it mars the bar, too.

Ha. Mars bar.

Anyhow, I'd settled out my $22(did I really drink that many $1 and $2 drinks? Good lord.) tab without a tip, on purpose. I'd planned on leaving the tip with whatever cash I had left in my pocket, but I had to pee so bad(and I was admittedly drunk and stupid by this time) that I signed the slip quickly(and didn't take my copy) and ran to the bathroom, intending fully to come back and put money on the bar.

Well, that never happened. I forgot to do that when I came out of the bathroom, and we left shortly thereafter, completely oblivious that I so totally didn't tip, and that was my fault. I'm not the guy that doesn't tip. As is customary with those that work in the service industry, (unless there is a huge fuck up or the person serving me is completely inadequate) I tip fairly well.

I looked at my TCF account today and there's a charge from the Imperial Room for $31.50 from that night. The charge is still pending right now, so I'm hoping that it's a mistake and the correct charge will be posted after this one goes through the system, but I don't think it's not going to do that. I'm pretty damn sure that I didn't write anything on the tip line, and if I did(and forgot), I know for a fucking fact that I didn't tip $10 on a $22 tab. Actually, I'd be more likely to tip an even dollar amount, like $10(or $6), than I would tipping that extra .50 cents. That part makes no sense.

So, if the correct charge isn't posted later on today, I'm going to have to go down to the Imperial Room and dispute the charge by telling the manager that one of his bartenders is writing in (large) tips for himself. Does anyone know how long a tab will stay in a bar's system? If it's already gone, I'm going to have a tough time convincing anyone there as to what happened.

So, yeah, sour grapes right there.

On the fence:

The Local: I love the new, gorgeous back room, but would it kill them to have a special every now and then? $1 off a 20oz beer is not a deal. You hear that? Not a deal. I guess that they're not necessarily hurting for business, so they can charge whatever they damn well please. But I'd be more willing to give them more of my money if it weren't for the outrageous expense of their booze. But I'm sure that's just me.

Restaurant Miami: My friends freakin' love this place. As of one visit, I am undecided. It's more fun than I thought it would be, but I hate the location and the size. And the bathroom situation. That they know a bartender doesn't hurt, though.

So, tell me; what are your favorite places? Why?

On scene...

2007-03-27T08:12:00.001-07:00

A few years before I moved to Minneapolis, I lived in a farm house way out in the middle of nowhere. It had running water and we didn't have to crap outside, and for $150/month, it really wasn't that bad. Apparently there was a grass fire awfully close to the house yesterday.

Story here

If you get a chance, please, oh god please, watch the video. Pay special attention, specifically to when the Tricia Takinawa of the KSTP news team starts in with her on scene report of the fire, and this wildfire season.

Did she really just say what I think she said?

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2007-03-26T20:48:00.001-07:00

I've lived in my apartment all of 6 months, and I feel it's time to move.

I'm movin' on up, to the East Side--in this case, it's technically the south side of the building, but whatever--to a deluxe apartment on the 4th floor. Even though it has a terrible ring to it, I'm happy to be moving into a 1 bedroom, big boy apartment.

My apartment right now is fine, but there comes a time in every young man's life that he has to have seperate sexin' and entertainin areas, and that time is now for me, I guess. It's only $100 extra a month for much more room, and I can afford it without having to sell plasma for beer money, so why not? It's not like I'm going regret the decision when the end result is that I can have sex in both the bedroom and living room and gloat, for once, that they're not the same room.

As it stands right now, though, I don't own any furniture outside of my bed and desk, so if any of you people can hook me up with something to sit on, I'll repay you by letting you help me do the cleaning required to move out of my current apartment. No, no, thank you is not necessary. Really.

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2007-03-05T11:43:00.001-08:00

Wait, I do have a quick story.

For the past few days, my car has been acting up. It's an old car and I can't explain why it hasn't given up the will to live, but it hasn't. It's reliable transportation that's paid for, I suppose, but it comes at the price of my dignity, mostly because it's hideous. There's been a constant problem with the power steering when I first start it up on cold days, but it hasn't caused me that many problems; just a slight squeal that quickly goes away after a few blocks.

But the other day, my oil light came on for a few seconds, and that's something that's never happened before. And then, on my way out to parent's place--where I was subsequently ignored by my niece for the duration of my stay--my temperature gauge fluctuated wildly during the first few miles of the trip. That can't be good.

So, I figure it might be the thermostat. Or the serpentine belt. Or the blinker fluid needed to be sieved and replaced. I don't know that much about cars, ok? I made an appointement to get my oil changed for later today, and when I checked it earlier this morning (the first time I'd checked it since it had been replaced some 7,000 miles ago), the dipstick came up dry as a menopausal woman. That's pretty dry.

Not wanting to incur the ridicule, not to mention dirty looks, from someone unable to ever get their hands completely clean, I headed to the closest gas station to buy a few quarts of oil. Or was it pints? That's how I usually measure liquids. Whatever.

The first gas station I stopped at was selling oil for the unbelievably low, low price of $4.63 a quart. I didn't read the fine print, but it must've been flecked with gold from King Tutankhamun's asshole, or blessed by car repair deities, Click & Clack. Nothing else could possibly justify the outrageous price.

The 2nd gas station was a little more reasonable, so I purchased me some oil. After emptying two quarts into an engine that should've siezed some 10,00 miles ago, and checking the dipstick, I noticed something that, as far as I know, didn't belong in my engine compartment.

There, wedged between the windshield wiper fluid reservoir and something else that was too rusty to identify, was a fist sized chunk of fossilized banana bread.

So that's where it went!

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2007-03-05T11:05:00.001-08:00

Sorry for the lack of content, but I just haven't been getting drunk enough for any good stories to come about. For now, be content with this post that I'm only posting to try out the new Bleezer. Thanks.

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2007-02-12T13:56:00.000-08:00

Tivo is probably the best thing that ever happened to me. Don't let my current--or past for that matter--girlfriend(s) tell you any different.

I wish I could say the same for my ISP. When I first moved into my new apartment, Time Warner was in the process of getting deep-throated by Comcast, and I was under the impression that my address was unable to get high-speed internet through Comcast. When I plugged my info into their website, it said that the address wasn't in the system. So, I went with my only other option, an option that's not so much high speed as it is, um, slow speed.

BOOYAH!

Last night I tried to download a Xbox 360° demo that was only 1MB, and it took over four hours. I probably could've driven to--and returned from--where the server on which the download is hosted in less time. Also, do you know how frustrating it is to download porn to watch the next day? When all you want is your porn and video games yesterday, it's very frustrating. Good thing I don't download my food from the internet, huh? HUH?

Anyhow, I went to the Comcast site today, and HUZZAH!, my address is now listed in their database. Here's how the day is gone for me, so far.

--Price out high speed internet, come to the conclusion that paying $60/month is akin to getting financially sexually assualted(because being financially raped is no joke, people). After a little further investigation I notice that, because my building pays $52/month for my standard cable, I'm able to upgrade to digital cable for only $15/month and get Fox Soccer Channel, and I really, really want Fox Soccer Channel. That's all I want by upgrading, actually, but the bonus is now I get Oxygen, too!

Plus, my high speed internet drops to $42/month because we all know that charging $3 less a month for two services over just one, well, that makes perfect sense. Perhaps that is why I wasn't a business major.

But when I try to order both services through the website, they require me to give them my 1st and 3rd born children, my right testicle, julienned and served with a nice vinagrette, and give them an absurd amount of money for "installation charge".

Fuck that!

Like I'm going to pay someone to trudge into my apartment with dirty boots(while I wait quietly in the bathroom because that's the only place to get away from anybody in my apartment) to perform something that I could do by myself. It's not like the technician has to connect the cable in the basement; I already have working cable, damn it!

--I decide to ask an online representative by chatting through the super awesome Comcast chat client. 45 minutes of waiting in queue--and one question by me--later, "Jennifer" tells me to call the local support number. Thanks for all your help, Jennifer!

--I call the local support number and talk to the most helpful person I've probably every encountered in dealing with customer service. She answers every question, calms every concern I have about paying out the ass, and even makes fun of herself when she fumbles over a word. And when she did fumble over a word, I could still understand her. Outsourcing, what?

She tells me everything that I wanted to hear; that I can, indeed, get out of paying all those stupid installation charges by picking up and installing the cable box and modem myself. Nice! She said that she'd put all the info in my file and the person that helps me at the service center would know exactly what was going on.

--I drive 20 minutes to pick up the equipment, and when I get there, the girl with the eyebrows shaded with permanent marker(black Magnum, natch) and the guy that smelled kind of funny had to tag-team my account to get me settled in. Why did it take both of them? Well, because the only information that was in the system was my name and phone number, and neither of them had any idea what was going on. Duh.

At one point the guy was trying to tell me I had to call the customer service again and have them take another order so that he could fill it, because I guess it was impossible for him to both take an order and process it to get me out the door. When I said that I already did that, he caved and gave me all the stuff I needed and sent me on my way.

Right now I'm staring at a digital cable box, a non-descript box that holds my cable modem, and a self install kit for my high speed internet access, thinking; what are the chances that I'll get all of this hooked up only to have it fuck up my Tivo, and ultimately my Season Pass to every show featuring that studly home remodeler, Ty Pennington?

I clearly did not think this all the way through.

2007-02-08T12:17:00.000-08:00

I read this article and the only reaction I can muster is: Big fucking deal.

What does giving him the death penalty really do--for anyone? It's not like killing him or letting him sit on Death Row reverses what happened. When he's dead, the family isn't going to miraculously say; oh, now that he's gone, we can finally go on with our lives! It's about time!

Does the family ever get closure? I can't imagine how killing the man that murdered your daughter would make any of this easier to take.

If anything, this whole situation has made me question the purpose behind the death penalty. About the only thing I can think of is that it clears out that little corner of prison full of murderers and other evil-doers so that we aren't paying to keep them alive.

Does it do ultimately do much for the people that were hurt, or are still hurting? Fuck no.

The best way to describe my feelings right now is that I'm ambivalent. I think.

2007-02-07T12:53:00.000-08:00

It's Wednesday, February 7th--do you know what day that makes it? Other than the 7th of February, you retards.

That's right; tonight is the premiere of the second third of the 3rd season of Lost on ABC. As much as it pains me to admit it, I really do enjoy watching the damn show and I can't hide that any longer. For me, it has it all. There's pretty scenery of mountains and oceans, mystery, scenes involving death of both primary and secondary characters(like they even had a chance), off-screen sexual encounters(my favorite kind!), hit pop songs (You all everybody is rock at it's finest), sweaty manboobs, peanut butter, and last but certainly not least, unanswered questions.

Questions like, why doesn't anybody ever complain about sand fleas? Why kind of other-worldly beach is it that doesn't have sand fleas, goddamnit? Fuck figuring out about the polar bears and odd magnetic field, I want to know where all the sand fleas have gone! And how can it be that Hugo hasn't lost any weight? Where does Sawyer recharge his beard trimmer? Lastly, how is it that Sawyer can have sex with both Ana Lucia and Kate without taking a machete to their unkempt jungle bush, you know, down there. Or is he letting them use his beard trimmer beforehand?

Gross!

Even though it's gotten to the point where I don't care about Jack or Sawyer's backstory any longer, or who Kate is going to love, drug and then subsequently desert, I still look forward to watching it each and every week. Come to think of it, I wouldn't complain one bit if all the main characters died(except for Hugo. I love that fat man like a gay fat man loves another gay fat man, or something like that) in a highly illogical and unexplained way so the writers could bring in a whole new cast and call it Lost II, Electric Bugaloo--that would be tits. Unfortunately, for me at least, that's not going to happen.

What will happen, you ask? Ah, you're on your toes today, dear reader, because I'm here to tell you the likelihood of a number of Island happenings. Ready? I'll begin.

-----------------------------------

Number of times Jack gives his patented perplexed look after being told something that everybody already knew, including himself--4

Example:
Ben and Jack, talking in Jack's cell
Ben: "Jack, you were on Oceanic Flight 815. It crashed. You're on an island."
Jack, looking perplexed, possibly constipated: "WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?"

Number of references to "angel hair pasta" and "nerves" in the same sentence, said with a straight face--2

Instances where Jack, Sawyer and Kate are completely unaware that they're being watched by The Others via black and white video feed--1(they're learning)

New questions or storylines opened by the end of the one hour episode--7

Percentage of those involving Paulo and Nikki--0%

Number of times I ask The Girl "Who the fuck are those two?" when referring to Nikki and Paulo--11

Loose ends left untied--4,815,162,342

Shirtless Sawyer scenes--Trick question--he doesn't own a shirt.

Number of times that Sun screams out "Michhherrrrr!", or Micherr screams out "WALT!"(you can liberally swap that with a stonefaced "They took my boy!"), or Walt pines for "VINCENT!", or Vincent barks stupidly in the background--None, I hope. But to be fair, I'll set the O/U at .5

Number of times that a background bit player is referred to and we're supposed to know exactly who is being talked about (e.g;Scott and Steve)--1, but only because I loved me some Arzt.

Number of times that someone tries to steal Claire's baby, Aaron--0

Number of times that Claire screams "MY BABY!" just for the fuck of it--3

Number of times I scream "MY BABY!" during the entire episode--every scene with Claire in it, so just once

-----------------------------------------------------

Did I miss any?

So, after I get done with work tonight, I'll be tuning to ABC at 9pm in hopes that some of the unanswered questions are, well, answered. Like why someone as hot as the Hobbit would fuck Evangeline Lilly.

'Cause she's naaaaasty.

2007-01-31T14:57:00.000-08:00

I must admit, I fall well short in considering myself well-read. I go through phases where I read a pile of books one month, and absolute zero the next. Right now I'm in one of those months where I've read nothing, and I attribute it to moving from an area that had a few used book stores that I really liked, to an area that has none. Well, I also attribute it to being lazy as fuck, but we're not talking about that.

This morning I decided to change that; to find some new reading material that would not only educate me and enlighten me--causing me to spend time doing something other than watching Travel Channel and playing Xbox 360°--but also blow my fucking mind. Mission accomplished.

I give you...NetMagazines.com.

For obvious reason I went with the 5-for-$30 deal, because that's only, like, $13 per subscription. I may not be good at math, but counting money has always been one of my strong suits.

The Choices:

Backpacker--I realize that we have no real mountains in or around Minneapolis, or even that I live close to anywhere that would consitute wearing a real pack, but that doesn't mean I can't be one of those idiots that carries a backpack but doesn't want to admit it's really a glorified manpurse. A hardcore backpacker (like me) can still bring his moisturizer and whitening toothpaste everywhere, right?

Game Informer--I blame my brother. I asked for his infinite knowledge on the subject of video games, and he pointed me towards this magazine that originates in Minneapolis. Yeah, I'm a Homer. Hey, if you say "Game Informer" in that raspy movie announcer voice it sounds cool. Go on, try it.

Coming this March to a mailbox near you...GAME INFORMER. [cue ominous music]

See what I mean? So not cool. Right.

Official Xbox Magazine--I blame my mother for getting so drunk that one night way back in '74, thereby producing a son that was stupid enough to buy two gaming magazines. Thanks, Mom.

Outside-- Because "Out" was four letters too short.

Men's Journal--This one was thrown in solely because my only other viable choice was Penthouse, and I actually thought about it for a split second before coming to the conclusion that it would cause too much drama, but not between my girlfriend and I. Hell, she'd probably only care if I spent too much time reading Jackie Martling or the Forums (I never thought this would happen to me, but the other night while in the dorms/while trying to fellate myself/in the porta-potty taking a wicked dump...), for which she should be worried. My girlfriend is pretty laid back, obviously. I only wish I could say the same for my optical mouse and computer monitor, the jealous bitches.

As an added bonus, they decided to throw in two more subscriptions for free--Seed and Entrepreneur. I've never heard of the first(but can only assume that it has something to do with gardening or a being a mega whoreslut, or both), and with the second it'll be nice to have a handy reference should I ever want to spell "entrepreneur" in the future, but I'm really not holding my breath on that.

So, in a short, short 6-12 weeks, I'll not only be enjoying these staggering works of literary genius on a monthly basis, I'll also be cursing myself for not choosing the magazine with gigantic boobies and unnaturally posed pictures of the crotch.

2007-01-30T09:58:00.000-08:00

I have a little bit of time while I run some process(that you couldn't care less about) in the background, so I might as well write something, even if it's directionless bullshit that pops into my head.

Sitting here in my cube, eating a ham, turkey and cheese Lean Pocket(Lean, because regular Hot Pockets go straight to my ass) with a knife and fork, just like Costanza and a candy bar, and I must admit that I feel a little retarded doing so. It feels odd. It feels unnatural, but I assure you that my actions are warranted.

You see, I eat Lean Pockets for work lunch at least 3 times a week. They're quick, easy, and require little-to-no financial committment on my part--just like my last girfriend! And they taste as though God himself filled them with his love; or at least I hope that's his love. I've eaten so many of these delectable little pastries over the past few years, that I imagine the Hot Pockets Board of Directors kneeling before that picture I sent them awhile back, praising my insatiable Hot Pocket habit because it's sure to keep them afloat for many years to come. I've put factory employees spawn through college, people.

A few months ago, they changed the style of ham they put in their Hot Pockets, though--to deli thin ham.

Yes, I realize it's pathetic that I eat something so much that I knew immediately when they changed the formula. I'm predictable. I know this.

That's all well and good because I loves me some deli thin ham, but the ham is so thin that it's impossible to chew through without getting a face full of molten cheese covered ham-goo. If only I was into Foodie porn. Sigh.

But to allay the fears of all my Furry friends out there reading this, I'll let you know that though I love food, I don't love it like that.

I love Wikipedia, but someone has got to do something about the woefully inadequate Furry Wiki. Then again, I'd be just fine with the vagueness.

On another sad note, I am eagerly anticipating the release of Guitar Hero II for Xbox 360 on April 3rd. I'm excited--for a fucking video game--at 31 years of age. I did wait in line for a few hours on the night that Halo 2 was released, but I was out there more for the, um, writing fodder that could not be passed up, rather than my desire to be the first to play a game that features neither nudity nor sluts. I know, I was disappointed, too.

Guitar Hero is different, though. It's fun. Like, really fun. The only thing that could possibly make the game any better would be to up the rating to Mature upon the addition of a mode where the Guitar Hero gets laid, nightly, just for being a Guitar Hero. I want to ask The Girl if I can be her Guitar Hero, but I really don't think she'd be impressed, nor that her panties might miraculously end up on the stage that I built in my studio apartment over the weekend.

Thusly, yes thusly, the new ads would absolutely, no question about it, have to use the tagline "Do you have any Guitar Hero in you? Want some? Please? I'm clean! I swear! How about a handjob?"

Love, Chad

PS-For those of you that bitched about having to sign up to comment, just do it! Please? How about a handjob?

2007-01-24T12:10:00.000-08:00

So far today at work I've put the finishing touches on my resume and cover letter, used the company fax machine to apply for another job, and finished my 2006 taxes, both state and federal, thank you very much. If that's not productive, I don't know what is. Of course, I haven't been productive doing actual work related things, but little victories are still victories, right? I think my supervisors should cut me some slack; at least I'm not looking at porn or being creepy stalker guy on Myspace.

Speaking of the latter(and not that anyone really cares), I locked up Myspace profile right after sending off that resume this morning. One needs relatively little information to find someone on the site, and I can only imagine what a potential employer would think should they happen upon one of my blog entries detailing both bitches and hos. Personally, I'd probably hire me on the spot, give me a huge raise and an office corner overlooking the nude beach. Not that we have a nude beach in Minneapolis, but that's hardly my point.

What is my point? Do I ever have one?

My point is this; while walking by the ghetto Super America in the Loring Park area the other night, I heard a guy cat-calling to a woman as she walked into the gas station.

"Wooo. Baby. BAY-BEE! Hey..." he blurted out, immediately followed by maniacal laughter, like he'd just walloped Sinbad in a joke telling contest.

When I looked over to catch a glimpse of this convenience store Casanova, it didn't suprise me to see that he was black(like there was ever any doubt), but it did surprise the fuck out of me to see that he was sitting on a Lark mobility scooter. Cripple Pimpsalot was not only, well, a cripple, but sitting on his scooter all cock-eyed, trying to project the cool like only a pimp in a motorized cart can. Which is something I'd argue is impossible to do while on a scooter, but he was sure was giving 'er one hell-of-a go. Picture how you'd imagine K-Fed sits on a chair, any chair, and that's exactly how this guy was sprawled out; leaning back, right arm slung over the back of the chair, legs dangling leisurely above the footrest that's ribbed for traction.

The only thing that could've completed his idiocy is if he'd been holding a 40 in a dirty tube sock and had his hat cocked to the side. For his sake, though, I hope his scooter had compartment for chloroform, because there's no way he's getting laid anytime soon without it. And if he did, where would he find a pay-by-the-hour, no-tell motel with a ramp? That's what I'd like to know.

2007-01-19T12:43:00.000-08:00

Well, well, well. Fancy meeting you here. I'm glad that you're here, just a little surprised. Since I've got you around, allow me to detail some things I cannot, for the life of me, understand. Perhaps you can offer your insight, oh Wise Ones.

Club VIP Rooms...in Minneapolis--Is there any need for these in Minneapolis? Do we have that many real VIPs that require a seperate area for popular people to drink so as not to be mobbed by us common folk? Of course not. The thing is that I've never seen Prince, Kirby Puckett, or...shit, name another celebrity from Minnesota. That's right, there aren't any. And that means our VIP rooms are populated by retarded assbags from the suburbs--hopped up on Redbull and a false sense of entitlement--ogling droopy-assed girls sporting embellished tanks, or those equally hideous extra long shirts that seem to be all the rage nowadays. Oh hell, while I'm at it, there might as well be a Flirtini or two in the scene, too.

I could write a whole rant, but why are those shirts popular? I thought the whole idea of women's fashion was to accentuate the best features while hiding the worst. These shirts do neither; they only make a bulbous, out-of-control, Twinkie fueled ass look even more titanic. Don't even get me started on blue jeans sans ass-pockets. Or tight jeans tucked into tall, black boots.

I digress. VIP rooms. Right.

It means the VIP rooms are full of people desperately seeking validation from others just as desperate to be validated. Pathetic.

It's almost as bad as keeping a blog. Almost.

The Internet-- That probably makes me sound like a crotchety old fucker who misplaced his prunes, but I don't care. Why is everything becoming so goddamn difficult? Just by my estimation, I am a member of close to 4,337.5 sites that require me to log-in. Blogging sites, banking sites, at least 400 internet porn sites; where does it end?

That would be nice and all, that is if I were dumb enough to keep the same username and password on every single one. But, I'm not. But I'm also not the kind of person that writes any of that shit down. I guess that means even though I care about security, I'm too lazy to do anything about it. I've been told on more than one occasion that apathy is cute.

The other day I bought an Xbox 360 and after I got it home, proceeded to sign up for Xbox Live, their online gaming service. Sounds easy enough, right? Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

I signed up just fine, but the process required me to have a Windows Live ID account, formerly MSN Passport.net, to link to my Xbox live account. In a perfect world it's supposed to be one account you can use for a number of Microsoft services, like Hotmail and whatever the hell else that Microsoft sells. If Satan were alive today, he'd applaud Microsoft's effort.

I thought that I had a passport.net account in the past, but couldn't remember which email address I used when signing up, so this time 'round, I used my Gmail account. Safe enough, I thought, considering that I've had my Gmail less than a year and just recently started using it for signing up for various online accounts.

[removed for overeager nerdery that nobody cares about]

To make a retarded story short, I somehow fucked up in my Xbox sign up, and instead of just being able to go into the system and correct my mistake, Microsoft requires to me pay $10 for a new Xbox Live identity(gamertag) and also sign up for a brand fucking new Windows Live ID to link to the new gamertag. Apparently it's impossible to un-link my Gmail with my old account, and link it to the new one? Doesn't make much sense to me.

The only thing that pisses me off more than a superfluous online account is an online news article that has multiple page jumps. Well, that and Splash Pages. I hate splash pages.

2007-01-11T13:16:00.000-08:00

You can tell your building is soundproof when something like this happens, and you don't hear so much as the hint of a siren. My apartment overlooks this intersection that's less than 100' away, so you'd think a commotion that this sort of accident would produce would be heard. Nope, not even a tire screech.

The thing that creeps me out is that I was walking down LaSalle after work at 1am, and I could easily see how this sort of thing would happen. The cab driver, I'm sure, thought that since it was 2am he could speed down LaSalle because there was nobody out. And the pedestrian could've been drinking(just speculation on my part because, really, who else is out at 2am?) and either didn't look at all, or couldn't see the car approaching because of all the other cars parked along the street.

Either way--yuck-o. I noticed weird orange paint markings on LaSalle this morning, but I thought it had something to do with the parking situation. Silly me, livin' in the city.

***************************************************

The Girl and I were planning on going on a quick vacation in the next few months, but it looks like that might have to wait a bit. Turns out that a few of her favorite musicians, musicians that rarely play shows, just happen to be playing shows in the next few months; Patty Griffin in Chicago and Dispatch in NYC.

That's fine with me. If she was cancelling our plans to see someone like, say, Kid Rock, I may have to end her. Luckily, though, it's two bands that she really loves and doesn't get to see often. So, she gets to see two shows that she's absolutely giddy to see, and I get to avoid being a sweet, white bottom boy to an inmate named Cletus(again), which is surely what would happen if I were to have to kill her.

That's a win-win in my book.

So, to keep me company while she's gone, I've decided to splurge and buy an XBox 360. I want a Wii, but they're nigh near impossible to track down and I'm impatient,

When I told her that I was planning on buying one, I tried to justify it to her--and me a little bit--that it was either buy the Xbox 360 and play video games with my nerdy friends over the internet, or track down Gummy the Lush from Market BBQ a few months back to keep me company. Of course, she called my bluff and said that she was ok with me hanging out with a whore as long as I got my shots. But, a tetanus shot hurts, yo.

I've been teeter-tottering on whether I really needed a 360 or not, but after learning that Guitar Hero II is coming out for the console in a few months, we both needed no further prodding. It will be mine. Oh yes, it will be mine.

2007-01-08T13:16:00.000-08:00

The Problem: A few weeks ago my music subscribtion service, Napster, upgraded their client. In doing so, they started using Windows Media Player 10+ or higher, while previously it had been set at 9 or higher. The problem is that here at work I'm unable to upgrade to WMP 10.0 because it requires Windows XP. My work computer runs Windows 2000.

Shit on a stick.

As such, my Napster client has become wholly inoperable. It opens and then immeidately crashes. I can still use Napster at home(because that computer has XP), but if I'm paying to use something, I want it to be functional on every damn computer I use.

The conclusion: Napster gotta go. I am in the market for a new online music subscription service.

The solution: You tell me. What service(s) do you pay your hard earned money to use? What do you like about them? What should I stay away from?

I liked using Napster because even though I don't ultimately purchase a lot of music, I do like the opportunity to listen to a lot. I was able to download music to my hard drive--music that's out of my normal, go-to genre and never would've found without the radio service-- that I never really owned. That's fine with me; I don't need to own a license for every song in my library. I rarely listen to more than a handful of albums at any given time anyhow.

Requirements:

Radio stations--

This allows me to listen my favorite music at my leisure(heh, I said "lez") and hopefully find bands I'd never heard of before. This was one of the main reasons I liked Napster in the first place.

Compatible with 2000--

I'm fully aware that by the time I cancel and sign up for another service, every damn service out there will probably shun Windows 2000 like it has the clap. I may just be s.o.l. Whatever.

Unlimited listening without ownership--

This is why itunes is out of the running; it only has pay-per-download, does it not? I've never been able to dig that far into the software without causing harm to something fragile in the room, like a lamp. Or my patience and ego.

Eh, without having you, dear reader, do all the research for me, why don't just tell me what you use and why you like it, mkay?

2007-01-05T12:03:00.000-08:00

I'm back!

Please, oh my, I didn't think I'd recieve this sort of applause upon my return. I'm flattered. If you'll settle down, we can get down to more pressing matters. Ok, fine, just one more standing oh.

Let it all out.

You, in the back, please climb off that man's shoulders and put your sheer tee-shirt back on. You can leave that bra up front with me. Yes, dude, I'm talking to you. Sicko.

Anyhow, I'm sure most of you already knew about this, but I just discovered Cooliris, a kickass extension for Firefox. With it, you can mouseover a link and have a preview window--a preview window with the full functionality of the webpage--pop up in the foreground. Love it.

This is great for me because it reduces the number of superfluous, uneccessary and redundant mouse clicks for me. It doesn't stop me from being too wordy, but what does? Not much that I know about.

One thing, though; would the preview still be counted as a page view? If not, my web usage here at work just went way down.

Also, on the recommendation of a few of y'all, I've decided to try out Google Reader for all 84 of my feeds. Why not? I figure Google already owns my emailing, website analyzing, map making, direction finding, video watching ass, so why not let them take me over completely? The only problem is that, for some odd reason, I can't download the notifier extension here at work, and that's something I need in order make my time wasting as efficient as possible. I'm all about doing nothing at all as quickly as possible.

*********************************

Did anyone else learn the word "superfluous" from watching the Simpsons? Just me? Oh.

I've learned most of my, albeit slight, knowledge from odd places. One day in Mr. Ause's 11th grade World Studies class, he asked a question to which the answer was clearly "an amulet". I knew this, and replied as such. Nobody else had a clue what the fuck an amulet was, let alone that it was used to ward off evil spirits.

What I didn't tell anyone was that the only reason I knew the answer is because I played a shitload, and I do mean a shitload, of Castlevania and Faxanadu when I was growing up. I let them believe I knew the answer because I was goddamn brilliant.

Surprisingly, I didn't get laid much in high school.

2005-10-26T11:35:00.000-07:00

A few years ago I subscribed to a video game equivalent of Netflix called Gamefly. After a few months of paying for the service, I cancelled it because I just wasn't using it enough to be justifiable.

Ever since that day, I've been getting periodic emails begging me to become a subscriber again, but for a cheaper monthly price. Today, I'd had enough, and tapped out the following reply in hopes that the emails would stop.

"Dear Gamefly,

I'm sorry, but it's just not working out. I've met someone else. Yes, I love her. Why would you want to know something that's just going to sting? Masochism doesn't look good on you.

It's not that you're a bad person, per se, it's just that I don't feel we're compatible. No, no, there's no reason to cry. And cheapening yourself as a ploy to get me back? Nobody should have to do that, not even you, Gamefly.

But I will give you one thing; you're persistent. There is a point, though, where persistence is looked upon as being pathetic, and you passed that point about 10 miles back.

Oh man, I can't believe we've even had to let it get this far. I should've told you that I wasn't feelin' it, that I just wasn't that into you. For that, I apologize. Instead of confronting an issue, I tend to avoid it in hopes that it'll just go away. That's why I haven't been returning your emails. You don't seem to get the hint, though.

I know there's someone out there for you. You'll find them soon, don't worry. You're fun, loyal, and most of all, a cheap date. Though you and I may not have worked out, there are a million guys out there that would die to have you on their arm. True, they're 13 and living off cheetos and Mt Dew, and suffering from "Nintendo Thumb", but that's a start, right? People with Nintendo Thumb need love, too.

Listen, I have to go. I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings, I really, really am. Oh, stop it, you can too live without me. You'll be fine. For what it's worth, I had a lot of fun during the time we spent together, but I've moved on, and well, you obviously haven't. I'm looking for something different, something that can't be found while sitting on the couch with a bong and a controller. That's your idea of heaven, not mine.

Take care of yourself, Gamefly. I hope you find whatever, or whoever, it is that you're looking for. Believe me when I say that you deserve better than I ever gave you.

Sincerely,

Chad

Too harsh? Too late, I already sent it.

2005-10-18T13:21:00.000-07:00

Weird heebyjeebies, man.

I hate that feeling deep down in the pit in your stomach when you run into someone that you haven't seen in a long time. Hell, haven't even thought about them outside of the flitting curiousity over where they might be, but never having the thought, or care, to google them.

One minute you're trying to change your flat tire, and the next, BAM!, you run into an old crush that 11 years has passed by, at Caribou of all places.

I know this feeling, because I'm experiencing it right now.

It's odd, for me, to have never even been that curious as to her whereabouts, especially considering how stupid gaga over her I was. Boy, was I ever. It could've been the rampant pubescence that caused the starry-eyes, but even after I ran into her today, she was still damn cute. Not that I'm through with puberty yet, but she still looked the same.

I remember the day at work when I first felt my heart race over one of her adorable motions that I wish had been repeated more once. I remember it like it was only 5 years ago.

There were three of us working in the rental building that day; Nick, the 16 year old high school wrestler and I, and this girl. I'm intentionally leaving her name out. Nick and I were sitting along the back counter, facing out towards the main area of the building, and the girl was sitting on a tall swivel stool helping customers at the register.

As the customers left the building, all agog over muskie breeding and Grumpy Old Men, the girl spun around on the stool to talk to us. Slowly she twisted, her right foot precariously and delicately perched atop a cabinet handle underneath the counter, her left foot barely attached to the rung on the stool, almost dangling.

The result of those combined actions was a thing of beauty. The closer she came to facing directly at us, the farther apart her legs splayed. The girl was known for wearing very, very short hiking shorts. Not short enough that her small, teenage girl ass would hang out the bottom, but enough to limit the range of motions that should be allowed by such a small piece of fabric.

There, in a musty old cabin at the age of 19, I received my initial introduction to The Indadvertant Crotch Shot.

Nick swatted, trying to get me to notice that her virginally colored panties were in plain view, but I already knew. And though I looked at him and loudly whispered "DUDE! I know!", he didn't stop swatting. My biggest fear was that she'd see this and close up shop, and neither Nick nor I wanted that, but I was having a problem talking to her and trying not to listen to the Snake Charmer music emanating from her crotch. It wasn't easy.

It's like when you're out with someone new, a new friend perhaps, or even a first date, and they have a huge booger on the outside of their nose. You're too embarrassed to say "Uh, huge booger? On your nose?" so you tell yourself to look away, just look away and the problem will solve itself. Yet, for as hard as you try, you just can't avoid that your gaze will afix to the phlegmy abberation.

Yeah, this was just like that.

Unfortunately, another customer walked in a few seconds later, and the death grip her groin had on our vision was loosened.

I'd like to think that I had a crush on her before that day, but I remember that she just wasn't too bright. Not much going on upstairs, if you know what I mean. And when you can't tell that two testosterone laden teenage boys are laughing at your white panty-sheathed YumYum, it just solidifies that. But hey, if only for our benefit, I'm glad she was dumb.

I didn't talk to her this morning when I ran into her, and I'm not even sure that she recognized me. What was I going to say anyhow?

Hey, remember that time you didn't know we were staring at your white, cottony panties? That was pretty cool.

She still looked the exact same--outside of the change of attire--which is not normal, considering how much it's possible to change in 10 years. I also did something that I never do when I meet a new girl, or run into one from my past; I looked for a ring. No clue why, I suppose just curiousity.

When I got back to work, I Zabasearched her name, and you're right, it does work!

She lives 4 blocks from me, and as we all know, women love a guy that's inadvertantly, yet appreciatively stared at their crotch. I'm so money.

2005-09-30T17:57:00.000-07:00

The coffee is kicking in, my stomach is empty, so please forgive this in advance.

Why do brunettes dye their hair blonde and still, possibly, by any stretch of the imagination, think it looks good? Your eyebrows don't match, damn it.

I haven't had a decent drink since Sunday, so I'm a little standoffish. I'm ready to rip shit up.

I suppose I've been sitting on this long enough, so I give you...drumroll please...

Ahem, somebody give me a fucking drumroll, ok?

Listen to me.

Thank you.

Without further ado, I have to let you in on a little secret that's taken me 30 years to realize. It depresses me now that I've finally learned, but I suppose it had to happen sometime. Prepare to have your mind blown. Ready? Good.

Porn isn't real

Holy shit, huh? Before you think that I'm just pulling your well-greased tit, I'll give you a thorough explanation.

If the real world was anything like porn, I'd be having sex with a girl, a buddy would walk in, and instead of everyone getting freaked out, the girl would say, "Hey, the more[holes plugged] the merrier[my digestive tract becomes], and the DP would start in. No lube, no easin' it in, just Vvvoooop, right in. "Vvvoooop" is the sound that DP makes, I guess.

But luckily, porn isn't real life. Not even close. That's never happened to me. I have a "one dick per room" rule, and if I'm in the room(which tends to happen wherever I go), that dick is going to be mine. I don't think I have to mention my "one dick per woman I'm dating" rule. No other naked dudes, regardless of who they're doing. There's enough pressure on me as is with women critiquing me, I don't need hear criticism from a guy's perspective, too.

Dude, that's as deep as it'll go unless I decide to jump in head first.

If real girls were anything like porn starlets, every girl I've ever dated would ask me to spray her in the face with my man-goo, all the while with a smile as wide as the Grand Canyon. Oh yeah, and she's running a hand down her taut stomach towards her exquisite vagina and slapping her perfect ass at the same time. That smile only growing larger when my rope shoots her right in the eye, no recoil or anthing. A trooper.

Oddly enough, this has never happened to me. I've never had a girl request that I shoot her anywhere let alone somewhere important, like an eye. And anytime I try this nifty move on the sly, the girl specifically states "NOT IN MY EYE!". What gives? Where are these women that put on a happy face while I do my best to destroy depth perception?

Fine then, the ear it is.

If porn was real life, the pizza delivery men/janitors/plumbers of the world would get laid much more than they do. Granted, I can't speak for everyone involved, but women, when was the last time you had a pizza delivered and thought "Ooo, it makes me so hot when a man gets paid per mile! Do me, cheese boy!"

Never, right? That's what I thought.

On the converse, to all my plumbing/pizza delivery readership: how many times have you been laid directly because of your job? At all? Probably not. That would be like me getting laid due to my job. Not happening.

Contrary to what modern porn would like us to believe, it's not easy to coerce a girl back to the apartment to have sex with you. And to that I say "Phooey!".

Whether she's hitchiking, sitting at the bus stop, or studying for her Rocket Science test in the school library--by herself, always by herself(well, sometimes she's there with an apprehensive boyfriend, but whatever)--girls just don't get in the Chester Chester, Child-molester van, even if you shake a hundred dollar bill in front of her face.

Most girls aren't slutty, broke college students that will do anything to pay tuition. Crazy, I know! My whole belief system is crumbling.

Some of my friends, that just happen to be girls, destroyed another porn myth, that I long thought true; size does matter, just not Bongo Bat sized.

I assumed, illogically, that most women wanted a huge tool rammed--the bigger the better--in and out of them at high rates of speed. Stupid me, how was I to know that some of those "ouches" I heard in downloaded porn were actually cries of pain?

Apparently, real girls don't need the penile equivalent of being fisted to have the experience be a pleasurable one. Who knew? And all this time I'd been attaching a shampoo bottle to the end of my wang, and wrapping the bottle/wang combo in 35 condoms to increase girth and length, and not one girl said a word about it! Not one!

And just one little quick about location, sex on the beach--literally makin' hump on the beach, not the drink--just doesn't work. And it isn't sexy. Unless you consider that terrible saltwater taste in your mouth and sand compacted deep in every orifice sexy, well, more power to you.

Nothing about porn is real. The sets, the people involved, even the sex itself. It's all a facade. A farce. All men don't have the quivalent of a 32oz Nalgene bottle hanging between their well-sculpted legs. And all girls in the world aren't 18 years old, nubile and shaved.

If they were, I could never be a high school teacher.

2005-09-15T09:40:00.000-07:00

Tuesday night, I plopped my ass down on a William's barstool, waiting for Rachel to show up so we could start out what has become somewhat of a routine over the last few weeks. I ordered a Limon and water with a lemon wedge. Oh yeah, and a NerdBoard.

While waiting and keeping to myself, a girl in a black hooded sweatshirt approached the bar on my left. Her hair was unwashed, uncombed and looked as if it had only one more bleach job to go before it lost all hope and detached itself from her head. I could hear it's tortured cry of "No more peroxide. Please". I couldn't look directly at it for fear that I'd go blind. You get the point.

At first I thought she was just going to order something from the bar. That is, until she turned towards me. Great, just what I needed. I don't ask for this shit to happen, so why does it always happen to me?

"You playin' the game?" she mumbled while pointing up to the tv. She was drunk and her teeth looked as if they hadn't seen the right side of a toothbrush since the day before Reagan died.

"Yeah, and I'm sucking at it" I replied.

She fidgeted and looked around the bar for almost a full minute before replying. "Yeah, I sucked at it, too".

It took her that long to come up with that? She obviously wasn't very bright, but I thought that I'd be nice and not bring that up. The last thing I wanted was to create a scene in an empty bar, even moreso considering that I was sober.

"You mind I have a drink of that?" she said while pointing to my almost-full drink.

"No, that's ok"

As she started to grab my drink and put the straw up to her lips, I realized my error in response. I didn't want her to have any of my booze. In fact, I just wanted her and her yuckmouth to go away. That booze was mine. I paid for it, and was put there to fuel my drunk, not some random, unshowered skeeze. I caught the glass right before it hit her lips.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa...WHOA. That's not what I meant. Yes, I mind if you take a drink from my glass. No, you cannot have any. What the hell would possess you?" I said while still trying to be somewhat of a decent human being.

"I'm already drunk, so it can't hurt to ask..."she said as she trailed off into a mumble. And then she followed it up with "...well, that fucking games sucks." as then she drunkenly stomped away.

Who does that? Who asks for a sip from someone's drink that they don't even know? And then, when I deny them, try to offend me by taking a jab at something that doesn't even matter?

"Can I have a drink of that?"
"No."
"Well...your forehead is too...foreheady!!"

Crazy people, that's who. Crazy drunk people. Yes, I know the game sucks. And you still can't have a drink.

It's one thing if I'm with a friend and they say "Hey, can I try that?" because they've never had tasted that particular conconction before. Because my friends do tend to have even the basic hygiene routine down. And they can form complete sentences and enunciate. I try not to keep company with people that have both Mush and Yuckmouth, thank you very much. I do have some standards, damn it.

Later in the evening the same girl tried to come up to the bar to buy a drink, and when the bartender carded her, the girl just walked away in the bathroom. The men's bathroom. Whoopsie!

Who knows, maybe she felt the need to finally brush her teeth, but I doubt it.

2005-09-06T15:18:00.000-07:00

Summer is officially over. Excuse me, I think I have a piece of dust in my eye.

Ok, now that I've stopped crying, where were we? Oh yeah, the end of summer. To celebrate this once a year occasion, I'm going on a drunken hiatus. Not a drinking hiatus, because we both know that, even though I could probably do without the boozing, I'm not really sure why anyone would want to. Not that I am going to stop drinking, but I need like a two week break from waking up the next day feeling like a pile of ass. I was in extreme self-inflicted pain on Monday morning, and that's a pain that I just don't feel the need to relive in the short term.

So yeah, two weeks, no drunk text-messages from me. Deal? Deal.

The rest of this post is going to be a rambling mess, so I apologize in advance.

I am so fucking sick of people popping back into my life on a cloud, and then leaving just as quickly. It's getting old, really it is. It's happened on more than one occasion in the past few months, with more than one person, and each time it always ends with me left asking "why did you even come back in the first place, damn it?"

People, honestly. I know I'm not perfect and fuck up more than seems normal. That's just part of being human. But, I don't understand how an apology can help when the only reason you're apologizing is to make yourself feel better. Because the apology certainly wasn't for my sake, that's for sure. Or maybe it was that you just wanted to be able sleep easier at night. Who knows.

I also don't understand how sleeping with me is going to make you forget that you're still in love with your ex-boyfriend. Ok, maybe I understand the urge to feel wanted and needed by someone, anyone other than friends. Even though they're always great, it just doesn't fill that void. Yes, I understand that I am a sex God, and my dick is so big that it has it's own zip code and gravitational pull, so it's almost impossible to avoid my bed. I get that part.

But, I cannot fathom the choices that people make without thinking of the direct implications, even though these are the same people that are above and beyond what would normally pass as being super-skilled in the art of overthinking. Masters, they are. I think about the future, but I just don't care about that part of the future. Why put so much stock in the what-does-it-all-means, and the where-is-this-all-goings when we all could be gone tomorrow? None of that matters, and I definitely don't enjoy missing people that don't deserve my misspent emotions, even behind the guise of a empty apology or a well-timed I'm lonely fuck.

If I hadn't lost all my pubes in 'Nam, I'd be ripping them out in clumps right now. Is there anything bigger than a clump?

What else?

Oh yeah, psssst. Hey. Dude in the pink shirt with the popped collar; you look like a walking Miami vagina, circa 1984. You need to douche, you vag, you. Or maybe it's that you're a douche in serious need of a vagina. Whatever it is, you don't look cool.

I was at the State Fair this weekend and saw a kid wearing a bright pink t-shirt that said "Tough guys wear pink". All 5'6", 125lbs of him. It took all my strength to hold back that punch to his balls because I wanted to see him cry. I figured he wasn't worth going to jail for.

So, let's recap, shall we?

The color pink=not cool
"Pink"=cool

2005-08-31T10:24:00.000-07:00

Ok, I get it; I'm getting old. I understand now. I don't need any more reminders, damn it.

It's not enough that the skin cancer didn't quite get this point across. It's also not enough, I guess, that I can't hear out of my left ear.

EH? What's that, Sonny? Speak up!

Yesterday, after lifting weights, I jumped in the shower to rinse off. With the water bouncing off my chest, I slowly spun my body counterclockwise to allow the wetness to cascade down my back. As I turned, I felt a sharp pain on the right side of my neck.

I tweaked a fucking nerve or muscle in my neck by TURNING AROUND. I am El Pussy Grande.

Picture it; I can't hear out of my left ear. I can't turn my head to the right. So, if I hear some sort of commotion out of my one good ear, I can't even acknowledge it without turning my entire body, like some modern day freaking Frankenstein, with dimples.

And a middle ear infection.

2005-08-26T10:20:00.000-07:00

I am 10 years old.

Granted, we all know that I have the mentality of a pre-teen--what with my propensity to laugh at the word "poop"-- and my math skills can only be described as "a joke", but now there's another reason that makes it that much more difficult for anyone believe that I really am 30 years old.

I have an ear infection.

Yeah, good, great, grand. What 30 year old gets an ear infection? Me, apparently.

Twat? I cunt hear you. I have an ear infucktion. Can you help me finger it out?

See what I mean? Damn I loved that witty play on words when I was a kid.

A few weeks ago I went to Urgent Care because I'd been having a pain in my left year. "Urgent", my ass. More like "We'll get to you before you pass out from the pain Care". I sat in the waiting room for three hours for them to tell me that I had a big, hard ball of ear wax that was causing the pain. No shit? Well, get it out!

They tried, and tried, but the damn thing wouldn't budge. A little gross, I know, but at least it wasn't wax on the outside of my ear. It's not like anyone could see it without an otoscope, so whatever. They also tried to soften it up with this stuff called Colace, that doubles as a stool softener, but it didn't do the trick. It's a good thing that the liquid doesn't seep through the skin, otherwise I would've crapped my pants right there in the doctor's office, and I'm just not up for that kind of embarrassment these days.

The doctor told me to go home, buy a bottle of Colace and put a few drops in my ear a few times a day, and then come back when the wax is loosened. So, not only do I have a big Death Star of goo attached to my ear canal, but I was now supposed to enter a real pharmacy, with real people working behind the counter, and buy something that's usually reserved people for old people and babies. I would've rather bought adult diapers.

I had the mental of image of bringing the Colace up to the counter, laughing nervously when the Somali lady behind the counter uses the intercom to request "Price Check on Stool Softener. Colace". And then when she looks at me uneasily, I point to my ear and mumble "wax ball", and that gets an even weirder look from her, as if I just spoke in a dead language or some shit like that.

I didn't need that. Fortunately, I couldn't find any store that sold Colace liquid, only pills. I'm no genius, but I have a feeling that sticking a pill in my ear wouldn't have the same effect. At all. It would probably just make things worse.

So, I went with the over-the-counter wax remedy, Debrox. It took two weeks for it to work, but it finally worked. A few days ago, after two weeks of intense labor, my ear gave birth to a sticky orb; a resin baby. There was a problem, though--it was still born. It didn't cry, it didn't even breathe. It just sat there like a ball of wax.

The other, bigger problem, was that my ear started to bleed and I couldn't hear a damn thing. That's not usually a good sign, is it? What? Speak up, I can't hear, remember? Christ.

Back to Urgent Care, I go! Wee, this is as much fun as a barium enema.

This time they took my plight a little more seriously and I got to see a doctor in less than hour, only to have her say "Yup, looks like you've got a pretty decent ear infection. Just like little kids usually get." Thanks, Doc. No, really, describing it that way makes me feel like such a man. Perhaps you'd like to tell me my penis is "cute" while you're at it? That would give me the same feeling.

She prescribed me a drug named "Ceftin" for the infection, and said that if it keeps oozing clear fluid after I'm done with the medication--right now, it is--I'd have to come back so that they can check for a punctured eardrum. Lovely.

Yesterday I was reading up on the wonder drug, Ceftin, you know, just to make sure I could drink while taking it--I can--and the website I was on listed all it's various uses. There was, of course, the ear, sinus and throat infection, but at the bottom of the list, there stood the super-happy-fun STD, gonnorhea.

What she didn't tell me was that my ear was not only infected, but it has The Clap to boot. I guess the good thing about this is that, if I'm quick about it, I can go out, get gonorrhea, and not have to get a new prescription for it. Two birds, one stone.

So, just a forewarning for those that were looking to fuck my ear this weekend; Don't, I have no idea where it's been.

2005-07-22T11:47:00.000-07:00

I admit, I've regressed to being a college frosh, only I'm allowed in a liquor store without my parents. No, I haven't taken to drinking berry flavored OE Special Reserve again. I never did understand which berries comprised "berry flavor". Strawberries? I don't know. Rasberries, it had to be rasberries, right? Once again, I don't know. I do know, however, that it looked slightly like a big pile of liquified blueberry after it escaped from my stomach, landing in my dorm room sink.

Last night, on the way home from my soccer game in Coon Rapid, I decided to take a little detour to the great city of Spring Lake Park. There are only two reasons that I'd ever consider going to SLP; as a throughway to most of my soccer games, and for booze.

You see, Minneapolis has a disgusting ordinance that, in addition to no alcohol sales Sundays, all city liquor stores must close at 8pm during the week. Why? Minneapolis is retarded like that. I don't get it. It makes no sense. I can understand the Sunday thing, what with it being Jesus day and all. Lord knows that nobody drank in the Bible. But there are times when I'm watching too much internet porn to make it to the store by 8pm during the week.

With my game ending promptly at 8:01pm, and my belly in need of a frosty, pee producing beverage, I make a quick bee line to the booze store off of Central Ave for a case of their finest lager.

I walked right by the distilled spirits without even so much as an aknowledgement. No hard alcohol tonight. Nope, nothing but beer for this guy. But, what kind of beer?

I've had enough Miller Lite, High Life Light, and Premium Light in the past few months, enough to make the whole Kennedy Klan--even Rose--cry out in sympathy pain for my liver. I wouldn't heed the macrobrew's Siren Song, oh no. I do fancy myself a Silver Bullet man from time to time, but I was in search of something different. I needed something new. I wanted a beer that I could turn into the new PBR, one that all the hipsters would latch on to and say "Hey, I'm cool because I drink this beer even though it tastes like dirty butt."

And I found it in the form of Gluek Golden Light. Most people outside of central Minnesota have never heard of it, but those that are from the area should have tried it at least once, what with the brewery near St. Cloud and Gluek's bar located in downtown Minneapolis.

And just my luck, it was on sale!

For $7.99 a case.

That's .33 cents a beer.

If you don't see me for awhile you know why.

I felt a little awkward walking towards the register, as if I actually was that freshman in college using my older brother's ID illegally. I was very much legal, though, but still really embarrassed that I'm 30 years old and made a beer purchasing decision based on largest amount of beer I could buy for the least amount of money, regardless of flavor or possible effects it might have on my lower intestine. Nice.

The pudgy black lady behind the register said "You really drink this?" and gave me a look like I'd just raped her dog. And her cat.

"Me? Drink this? No, oh no, no, no. My mom, she's an alcoholic and beats me if I'm a spendthrift with her money. At least she punches me when we're naked. No obvious bruises that way." I said with a wink.

I walked outside, raped a random dog(and cat), punched an old lady in the face--she deserved it for looking at me all wrinkly-faced--got in my car and drove home to my mansion.

What, you expect me to live in a craphole when I save so much money on buying shitty beer? I think not.

The End.

2005-06-28T08:15:00.000-07:00

Now that summer is officially upon us, I thought I'd go way out of my way to provide to you, anonymous reader, a public service. Summer is a time for fun; going to the beach and ogling people with a lot less skin than I have is one of those ways to have a shitload of it. There are plenty of things that are must-do's during the summer as well. For example, enjoying your favorite beer on your favorite patio. Now that's what I call enjoyment.

There are some definite don'ts, too. Like, oh I don't know, don't sit out all day in the sun without suncreen. Any way you look at it, that's no bueno. Peeling skin is kind of fun. Peeling scabs doesn't tickle like you'd think it would, though.

This following will be my first installment in what I like to call Do's and Don'ts of Enjoying a Minneapolis Summer

DON'T!

When you're on a wooden deck, don't refill a bamboo tiki torch with citronella, light it and walk away. Wanna know why?

If you do, your roommate will point at the blazing inferno that has started on the corner of the deck--that you can't see because you're inside, by the way-- squeal and say "OH! OH! OH!" while a) not hurriedly trying to find something wet to put it out with, and b) not clueing you in to the fact that the house is afire.

Because we all know the quickest way to suffocate flames is not with water, but with incoherent babbling and a well-placed pointer finger.

Also, when you finally procure enough water to douse the flames, make sure you're careful about how you attempt to put it out. From what I hear, water has the tendency to spread what is basically an oil fire. Sometimes even spreading it on to power lines that are 5 or 6 feet below the deck. Yeah, so I've heard.

So there you have it. Pure, unabashed summer advice. Stay tuned for another installment...sometime soon? Sounds good to me.

2005-06-24T11:03:00.000-07:00

Getting older is fucking lame.

I was at the doctor's office today getting something minor looked at...what? NO, it wasn't for a leaky discharge, thank you very little. That hasn't happened for, oh, a good three or four...days. I'm in the clear.

When I was young, there was never any worry about getting sick or anything weird happening with my body. Well, other than puberty, but that's more fucked up than I'd like to go into right now. I rarely ever went to the doctor other than for a sinus infection or twelve, but the visits never resulted in anything major. I'd come out with some antibiotic, perhaps a salve, and everything would be a-ok. Now that I'm 30, though, it seems that everything that can, and that will go wrong, just sneaks up on you.

For example, why didn't anyone ever tell me that I was going to be required to diligently maintain follicles growing on various body parts? It's a disease, I tells ya. Can anyone clue me into the reason that I need hair inside my nose? What the fuck is that shit? I know for damn sure that it's not to keep the heat in. Don't even get me started about ear hair. There are not enough hours in the day to keep it under control!

Another thing I hate about getting older is that everything suddenly becomes bad for you.

If you eat too much, you'll get fat. Well, that seems simple enough. I can live with that. I love to eat, but I do know when to hold off on the 4th I Love It of Cold Stone in a 24 hour time frame. Also, if you eat too much fatty food, you'll have heart problems. And if your take in so much sodium that you could pee another layer on to the Bonneville Salt Flats, well, you'll develop high blood pressure. Nice. On the other hand, if you don't take in enough salt and too much water, you'll pee constantly. Where's the happy medum?

If you get too much sun, you'll get cancer. This one sucks for me, because I have a skin type that definitely lends itself towards that happy-go-deathy non-friend, Melanoma. I like the sun. A lot. I like being tan even more. I couldn't care less about wrinkles, because after all, wrinkles on a guy are "distiguished". On a woman, though, they're a death sentence. Why yes, I am licking my forefinger and marking down one point for the men. High-fives all around, guys. What I don't need, however, is skin cancer. Not that anyone does, but sometimes it is all about me.

If you drink too much alcohol, not only will you develop high blood pressure, but you're more prone to liver disease. Great, just great. I'll take my chances on this one. If I'm going to the grave soon, it's going to be with a fatty liver and while drunk out of my gourd.

And you can't even fuck as much as you'd like because you'll either get the girl pregnant, or your dick will fall off. Where's the fun in that?

Nothing is good for you, and it seems that everything has a warning label. Don't do this with this. Don't take this unless under the supervision of a doctor. Please limit intake to 16oz per day. Fuck, can't anyone have any fun?

With all these warnings, it makes a guy want to go balls-out on every self destructive behavior possible, just to see which disease usurps all others in regards to causes of death. My money is on ass cancer. Even for women.

The last thing that really blows about getting older is my ever-growing intolerance for idiots. I wish I had more patience, I really do. But I don't. So, I write about it here.

After my appointment, I stopped by Chipotle to pick a super salty, not-so-fatty burrito bol for lunch. Bonneville, here I come. When you walk up to the counter, as most of you know, there lies the best device ever created for the food service industry: The Sneeze Guard.

Ah, I love the Sneeze Guard. Actually, the mental imagery of those combined words is of an old, bushy eyebrowed grandpa dressed in a rent-a-cop uniform, standing inbetween you and your food, angrily, yet gently, poking you with a rented nightstick in order to keep you arms length from the food. He works hard for the money. So hard for it, honey.

Anyhow, the plexiglass is present so there's no contact between the dirty customer and the semi-fresh food behind it. For the most part, it works. Not all the time, though.

There's always that one guy that feels it necessary to point at whatever it is he wants, touching the glass, and smearing his dirty-ass finger oils all over it in the proccess. First off, if pointing is required, I assure you that it can be done with out touching the glass. But, pointing shouldn't be required. That's what language is for: so we, as humans, don't have to point and grunt like a baby, or a gorilla, or even a baby gorilla, when we want something.

Even worse is when someone doesn't respect the au-thor-it-eye of the Guard, and proceeds to put their whole arm up and over it in order to point, as if well enunciated words and playing behind the line just aren't enough. Thanks, guy at Chipotle. I really wanted your crusty, calloused fingers hovering over my black beans and white rice. No, really, that's great. I'll enjoy your skin flakings and fingernail dirt as if they're part of my last meal on earth

Why can't you just go away already?

Anyhow, I need a beer. A BFB.

Happy Friday!

2005-06-19T21:07:00.000-07:00

Blogging at the bar, Part III.XIV

That's right, folks. I've come back to where only some people know my name--the bar. The wireless connection is intermittent at best, so I have nothing else to do but make fun of people in my head and try to make some sort of rambling type post. Though, I never need any sort of connection to silently mock others.

A few weeks ago I sold my laptop to my brother for an ungodly low sum of $300. Why did I sell it? Well, the highest resolution on the craptacular Dell 5100 was not very good. I'm not sure of the exact setting, but I think that at one time, it would display, at most, 3 colors and 15 pixels. Not very good. And because of that, it was impossible to multi-task between internet poker and the various websites I need to have open in order to satiate my ADD.

There's no way that I could go without a laptop--I'd be left with reading being my only viable option for the daily hour-long shitter marathons I've grown accustomed to ever since I started drinking coffee--and it was just good timing that my roommate was getting rid of his Dell that had a much better screen. Hey, if I'm going to be addicted to a fucking card game, I might as well maximize that addiction. The only problem with this laptop, even more than most, is that the keyboard is NOT made for typing. Strange, I know. I'd do better to hire a guy with no hands and allow him to stump out whatever I was dictating, all stenographer-like. He'd probably type faster than I am right now. I don't think that it's possible to type slower.

Fuck. The wireless keeps cutting in and out in about 15 second intervals. This wouldn't seem like a big deal, but the computer feels it necessary to alert me each time it flip-flops. Signal Strength:Very Low. Wireless connection unavailable. Make up your damn mind!

Hey, look at the guy geeking out with his laptop at the bar, getting mad a fucking information bubble. So cool, that one.

Speaking of bubbles, I was golfing with my dad and brother yesterday(more on that in a bit), when my brother told me that his wife, Kristen, bought a Bubble Mower for my niece. How cute. I think I'm going to keep her as my niece for a bit longer.

Does anyone remember the Bubble Mower from their youth? I'm not sure how long it's been around, probably 20 years? I don't know. I do know that it's just a little hunk of plastic that spits out bubbles when you wheel it around. It doesn't mow shit, so I have no idea why it's shaped like a mower. Perhaps Bubble Shopping Cart was too much of a stretch? And I'm sure that "Bubble Wheelchair" wasn't quite what the advertising people were jumping at the opportunity to promote.

Whatever.

Back to golfing and Father's Day Eve. I spent the equivalent of 5 years during my teens on a golf course. If there was still daylight, you could be sure that I'd be chasing that stupid ball until the night swallowed it whole. Now, though, it seems that the only time I ever step onto a course is for Father's Day. At least there's one day year I can count on pissing the daylight away by attempting a Rockford in my rented EZ-GO.

Just for the record, I've been told by a reliable source that the feat is easiest at dusk. So I've been told. I don't know from experience, that's for sure. Ahem.

Even though I only golf once a year, I can still hit the shit out of that dimpled orb. All I need now is a short game--which is oddly enough, important to getting a decent score--a hot Scandanavian wife and some man boobs, and I'd be all set for the PGA. The bigger question is this: "Is the PGA ready for me?"

Short answer: Hell no.

So, do I have the skillz to pay the billz?

I shot an 86, You be the judge.

Since I "celebrated" my dad yesterday, I spent today walking around my neighborhood. On the weekends, the main intersection near my house is packed with people. High school girls in frilly skirts and perma-tans, sopping for the latest fashion statements at Urban Outfitters or GAP, overprotective soccer moms close behind. And of course, there are the ever present gay men.

Gay men are usually outnumbered by the young girls, but today they former was out in full force. In fact, the neighborhood was uncharacteristically quiet for a weekend. And I couldn't figure out just why it was just the gays and I enjoying the beautiful day.

About a few hours into my walk down Hennepin and back up Lyndale, I thought: Duh, Chad. It's Father's Day, you twit. Gay men haven't changed their routine because they're not celebrating the Hallmark holiday. They were disowned many years ago for being gay

Har har, I funny.

2005-06-08T23:12:00.000-07:00

Riddle me this, BatFuckers--how is it that I just returned from vegas after drinking what seemed like cases upon cases of beer and never felt all that drunk, but when I get home and have 6--yes, only a six pack--of Schell Maifest beer....wait. Look at that page. No wonder I'm shitfaced after 6 beers. The Alcohol by Volume is 7%! Jesus flippin' christ, where's this beer when you need it in Vegas?

And the great thing is that the 6 pack is only $7! Too bad that these 6 packs are basically leftovers from April/May, and they don't make it the rest of the year.

Too bad, or lucky for my liiver. Either/Or.

2005-05-31T17:32:00.000-07:00

A few minutes ago I walked in to the bathroom. I pee so much during a day, that I've often thought that I might be pregnant. Sadly, it's never come to be. Sigh, I'm so barren.

I walked in, noticed that one of the stalls was in use, and moseyed up to one of two urinals that are seperated by a divider jutting out of the wall. I appreciate the man that first proposed the idea of the small wall extension. Without it, I would be unable to pee in public.

So, I'm standing there, cursing The Powers That Be for keeping the minute amount of water at the bottom of the urinal so fucking cold, when I heard a strange, yet familiar, sound coming from the occupied stall.

Chugga-chuggachuggachugga chuggachugga...chuggachuggachugga... chooooooo-chooooooooo

"Is that....a cell phone ringer? Oh hell no. Don't answer it. Don't answer it. Just don't answer it" I thought to myself

"Hello? Hey, how's it going?" said the man sitting on the crapper.

Fucker.

I stopped mid-stream and all progess made was quickly erased. I would have to start again. As he talked to some guy on the other end of the line about counting hours or some shit like that, I slowly started talking myself into being able to urinate.

"Come on, Chad. You can do it. You've been here before. You're better than this" I muttered in a mongoloid-like voice.

There was a commercial a few years back for the Special Olympics, and in it, there was a young, mentally handicapped guy laying on a weight bench. He's trying to psyche himself up for lifting a weight greater than I can probably lift, which isn't saying that much, but still impressive. With a thick tongue, he grunts out the phrase "I can do it!" Now everytime I use that phrase, I can't help but mimic him.

Finally, I'm succesful in psyching myself up to the task of peeing, and a lovely, golden stream starts flowing into the bottom of the basin. I think this is true for any man alive using a urinal, but the correct form is to attempt to hit the back wall, and not the water. If you hit the water, there's a greater likelihood of splashback, and that's no bueno.

But, I was paying more attention to the poop-talker than my own aim. I notice that the longer I hit the water, the louder the man talks. I quickly surmised that he couldn't hear over the splashing!

So, what do I do?

Pee more forcefully, of course. Directly into the water. I didn't care if my legs were drenched by the time I finished. It would be worth it.

There, in the yellow-tiled bathroom on the 2nd floor of the office building, I was witness to a beautiful dance--a wonderful back-and-forth--between the loud talker on the toilet, and the splashing of the urinal cake. Sadly, it had to end, mainly because my tank went dry, but I'd like to think I ended the relationship on a good note.

I flushed the toilet three times in succession when he was mid-sentence, walked over the sink, turned the faucet on high, washed my hands, and walked out of the bathroom, living to fight another day.

2005-05-31T10:31:00.000-07:00

Dear VIP at the bar,

Psst, man, come over here for a second. I don't know how to tell you this. Oh man, this is going to be embarrassing. I'm sure it's tough to notice, what with the light weight and ergonomic design and all, and I bet it completely slipped your mind but it seems that you've forgotten to take off your Bluetooth headset that you initially donned for the ride over here in your pimped out Audi A4.

I'm not sure how important you really are, or how important you think you are, but you haven't taken a call in the whole time you've been here, and that's 3 hours too long. The headset makes you look like an asshole. And foolish. Yes, even a foolish asshole. Or, in the case that you really are important, I offer up my humble apology. But I have a tough time believing that somebody as important as you are blatantly trying to be would sink so low as to hit on that chubby Somali girl, with her 3 size too small jeans, and her fat handles spilling out over the top of the waistband. Come on, her teeth looks like a mismatched pile of dirty chiclets.

The issue isn't with her, though. The bluetooth headset is designed to be worn in the event that you'd like to have hands-free conversation via a cell phone, and I understand that it's spectacular for use in a vehicle because it keeps your hands on the prescribed wheel locations, 10 and 2. When not in use, I've been told that it fits rather well in the front pocket of a pair of jeans. Oh, but you're not wearing jeans, I see. Why wouldn't the designer put pockets in a pair of sweat pants? That's just not right

Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't get the memo. You're absolutely spot on:nothing says "cool", or "with it" like tear away sweat pants and bluetooth technology.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sorry for the lack of updates in the past few weeks. I leave for Vegas in 1 day, 18 hours and 33 minutes and it's all I've been able to think about. It consumes me. I will try to update later this afternoon on the happenings of the recent past, which includes a robbery and funeral.

Be back soon.

Toodles.

2005-05-18T14:14:00.000-07:00

It's official: being hungover makes me a half-day too late in being the hinge in bringing up every day absurdities.

LiveStrong bracelets and all the copycats.

I'm all for people being all for living healthy, but I contend that you're not that proactive in promoting The Cause by sitting in a bar, simultaneously sucking back on an unfiltered Lucky Strike and a Jack and Coke. What really annoys me is that these things have become fashionable. Is there even a brown one now? If not, I'm going to introduce one into the already oversaturated market as a ShitStrong bracelet.

HAHA, poop is funny.

"Support our Troops" car magnets

Don't even get me started. Hey, look at me! I'm supporting our troops by driving around like an asshole in my $50,000 Lexus. I even bought the magnet. See the magnet? See it? It's right there above the gas tank! Please stop the magnet insanity.

Fountains

No, I'm not talking about drinking fountains, or as our Cheesehead neighbors to the east call them, "bubblers".

Retards.

I'm talking about decorative fountains. The kind that are big, sometimes pretty, and spew water all over the place. They also seem to be under repair constantly, even though most of them only deal with water pressure and no moving parts. Then again, I didn't go through Sally Struther's course for Fountain Repairmen. I took her advice and chose my own degree. If I had, I'd have cornered the fuck out of that small fountain repair niche.

A few minutes ago I was walking through another building in the office complex my company is located, and I noticed that there was a fountain. I'm not sure how I missed it before, because it's loud as fuck, and spitting constantly--kind of like my last girlfriend. Take that however you want.

In the bottom of this fountain was an unusual amount of coinage somewhere between a handful and a shitload. I was never good at math. I've also never understood why people always throw change in a fountain. Is it due to superstitious mumbojumbo? Come on, we all know that tossing coins and wishing only works for Goonies.

Humans are powerless to the allure of the decorative fountain. The moment we lock eyes, it's all "Ooh, look--a pretty fountain. Let me just see what I've got in my pocket...", followed by a concentrated squinting and a hefty coin huck. We have no control.

As I walked out of the building, I was hit with this overwhelming feeling that I had finally found my true calling.

So, I've finally going to buckle down and get to work on being a writer, eh?

That would be nice, but right now, it's going to stay as a hobby. No, my true life calling is much better, not to mention much more profitable.

Then I've decided to be a prolific stand-up comedian, right?

Hardly! I'm afraid of large crowds, and even though Mom is always calling me her "Funny Little Motherfucker", I get even more nervous talking in front of large crowds. I'll leave that occupation to the real professionals.

Get ready for this, and Pump up the Jam at the same time, please.

My calling in life is to be a fountain.

Whoomp, there it is!

Sorry, I obviously lack control over Jock Jams, Volume I.

Think about it, though-- just look at how much money is just sitting in the bottom of these things all around the world. Look at it. Hey, you're not looking! With a little ingenuity, a small water pump, 15 feet of plastic tubing, a kiddie pool and a whole fuckload of duct tape, I could slowly start moving my way towards "Full Time Fountain".

I'll be irresistable!

Take that, Sally Struthers!

2005-05-09T11:47:00.000-07:00

Days:Hrs:Min:Sec
02: 13: 28: 35

As I start typing this, that's the exact amount of time left before I turn the big Three-oh. 30 years old. Am I worried about it? Not at all, but everybody else seems to think it's quite a big deal, and I'm not really sure why. There are no added benefits to turning 3 decades old. I get nothing from it. There's no plus of being able to legally drink, my car insurance rates don't drop again, and it's not an age when I finally become a man and get my period. I wish. So what's all the hub-bub about?

Judging by my friends, though--most of whom are younger than I am--Thursday morning is a turning point in my life. To them, I am old. I'm now supposed to drink coffee without gobs of sugar in it, my life will find it's direction, and I'll finally feel a deep emotional pang to have a handful of cute offspring. But, it'll be tough conceiving because every time I have an orgasm from Thursday through the rest of my life, it'll look like a mini-recreation of a Mt St. Helens false alarm; nothing but jizz-dust and worried female faces. Looks like I'll be frantically trying to line-up some Squish for Wednesday night. Either that, or drinking a beer, playing some poker and not worrying about it. The latter is much less work, so it's safe to assume that I'll succumb to that option.

Yes, I'm lazy.

When I was in college, I always thought I'd settle down by the time I turned 25. You know--brilliant, gorgeous wife that had a great job, allowing me to work from home, a nice house in a new development with a weed-free lawn that I'd pay the neighbor kid to mow, and all that junk that typifies what is normally considered as "grown-up". And if I hadn't had kids by the time I passed the quarter century mark, at the very least I wanted to raise a few rottweiler puppies, watching them grow into upstanding members of the equine community, which is much tougher than it sounds.

5 years after having passed that imaginary save point, I consider myself very lucky to have gotten by it without falling into all the seemingly great things listed above. Most of all, I'm happiest to have dodged the ovulation bullet. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing but respect for those that raise children. It's not tough to have a kid, though. Anyone yokiel can have a kid. Look at how many people conceive that aren't even trying! It's not hard to create life. Which makes it all the more surprising that I am not paying someone from my past for child support. And No, there isn't an illegitimate Chad Jr or three out there that I just haven't met yet. I realize the last sentence doesn't make sense, because if they haven't come forward, then how can I say they don't exist, right? Shut up, I just know.

No, it's not hard to make a baby, but it is, however, hard to raise a baby. I look at friends and relatives that have kids and a house decorated like Ikea puked inside of it, and I realize that I am lucky. I'm lucky that I haven't "grown-up". That I've escaped the clutches of Succubi gone by.

And that fills my "Succubi" usage and rhyming quota for the next eon.

Cleaning "spit-up" and wiping asses is not my bag, baby. A little off topic, but why do adults "puke", "vomit", or sometimes even "hork", and babies are allowed to hoard the phrase "spit-up"? That's not right. When I get drunk enough to fill the toilet full of half-eaten burrito mixed with bile, I want to be able to say "Ah, yeah, I spit-up last night". Much less abrasive, don't you think? No, instead I have to say "I yacked.", which is not quite as cute, not to mention socially acceptable. Whatever that means. Most babies don't even get reprimanded when stomach contents are emptied on a relative's face. How is that fair? It's not. All I ever get is a look of contempt, possibly mixed in with a dash of digust served on a heapin' helpin' of guilt.

Where am I? I wrote the first line, after which I everything went black, and now that I'm coherent again, I see 6 paragraphs of shit that go absolutely nowhere. Oh well, might as well leave it.

30 leaves me highly unimpressed. It's not any different than 29, which wasn't any different than 28, or even 26 for that matter. It's just a number. I'm still going to be the same politically incorrect person with a bad sense of humor, and just because I've hit an age that's disvible by 5 doesn't mean that I'm going to miraculously "grow up". That's for suckers.

To all the suckers reading this:Ha-ha, you're a sucker.

I guess that's the thing--30 is just a number. It doesn't define who I am, nor will it define the person that society normally dictates who I "should" be. I ran around Calhoun last night, which always provides the opportunity to bear witness to a large spectrum of Uptown society. Though I hate running, it's something I force myself to do, if only for the unintentional humor value involved.

There's the uptight girly-girls that dress up in J.Lo sweat suits, top and bottom an eye-searing shade of pink. It's ironic that they choose that outfit, because they last thing they'll be doing in it is perspiring. And their biggest choice isn't how long they're going to "exercise", it's whether or not to wear 2" or 4" inch pumps, because we all know that's important. Nothing says healthy like blistered feet.

You also see the middle-aged, tan-skinned health freaks. Their love for all things spandex not only allows me a fleeting lesson in anatomy, but it also disturbs me to no end. I know, for a fact, that lycra is not supposed to be wedged that far up someone's ass. Ever. And the fact that they're just comfortably plodding along with genatialia right there, well, that's just wrong.

Sick.

There's also people that are right around my age, and for those you in a time-warp, that's 30 human years old. Not dog years. The thing is, though, they're nothing like me. I don't feel old, I don't look old, and most of all, I don't act old. So, why anyone would consider me old is beyond me.

On Thursday, I turn 30, and to everybody else, that's synonomous with "old". To me, though, I'll be drinking cheap beer at the bar just like I always do, followed by reverse-eating into the toilet at the end of the night, and the next morning, if I'm a lucky girl, I'll finally get my period.

That's not old, that's just me.

2005-05-03T10:39:00.000-07:00

We have hardwood floors in our apartment. I love hardwood floors more than I love teenaged internet pornstars. I love how they look, how they sound, how they smell when properly cleaned. Now, let me explain why I like hardwood floors.

When I was a kid, my brother and I would start at one end of our kitchen and run full-speed towards the slick floor covering in the living room, competing to see who could best our Guinness Book of House Records distance. The outcome depended on whether or not my mom had cleaned them the previous week. If she had, we slid until we ran into a wall, or our myopic dog. If she hadn't, we'd know immediately because of the foot-blistering heat created from an amount of friction not so conducive to sliding.

When I first moved into our new apartment, I took one look at the hallway floor and said "Hey, hardwood! I might as well get this sliding thing out of the way." I backed up into my room, licked my finger to adjust for wind speed, and exploded out of the gate. A quarter of the way down the hallway, I stalled and my brain froze up as I couldn't decide if I wanted to slide with my left foot forward, or my right. Right, it was definitely my right foot. Or was it my left?

I backed up and forced myself to slide right foot forward, and two minutes later I regretted that decision as I pulled a sliver out of my right heel the size of a railroad spike. After removing the intruder, I got mad and kicked the flloor, stubbing my toe.

Floor [2]-Chad [nil]

My room is at the end of the hallway, which means that I have to dodge every nail head, every chunk of wood sticking up in order to keep my socks in pristine condition. Since the beginning of the year, the floor has snagged every single sock that I own, somewhere around 12 pairs.

Floor[26]-Chad [sick of it]

Sure, I could scour the hallway, meticulously searching for exposed nails, pounding them down until it's understood they've been a bad dog. No! Bad. Down boy. But the problem with this plan of attack is that our house is old. When we first moved in, the contractor said "Yeah, I'm surprised the thing didn't lean to the left and fall over, or for that matter, even collapse altogether." They leveled it off and it's sturdy enough where I don't fear waking up in the middle of Lake St., but it still isn't all that stabile. It's not going to fall over, but every time the washer finishes it's cycle and spins out, the house shakes. It's not even just a little shake. The house hits huge pockets of ground turbulence.

I've gone through and used a countersink to pound the nails under the surface of the floor, but of course, someone just has to have clean clothes--I admit, it was me--and the spinning out causes the nails react similar to a cobra being coerced out that fucking little wicker basket by a snaker charmer.

Na-na-na-na...na. Na-na-na-wah-wah...wah-wah. There's a place in France where they wear no underpants.

That was supposed to be the snake charmer's song, but I don't think I captured it just so.

Yesterday, immediately after snagging my last, good sock on a nail that I swear let out a mocking laugh, I'd decided I had enough. Off to Target for new socks!

I have a love/hate relationship with Target. Each time the front doors magically and automatically open for me and only me, and I'm allowed to roam free in my own, personal Mecca, a feeling of elation not only washes over me, but molests me. I thought the reach-around was a bit too much, but who am I to argue? And then, I'm disgusted as I "come to" in the parking lot, only to find that I've spent $75 on gum, candy, socks, razors(Mach 3 Turbo, mmmbbbooooooyyyy! These things are sharp enough to shave the hair off my heart) and a Pacifico t-shirt that I've always been looking for, but could never find outisde of those silkscreened on a XL Hanes t-shirt, and shoved in my face by a peddler on a warm beach in Puerto Vallarta.

"You like cerveza? YOU LIKE CERVEZA?" Yes I like beer, but not when it's full of your fingerprints, damn it.

I arrived at my place, unpacked all this shit that I didn't need, and it suddenly hit me.

It's almost summer. I NEVER WEAR SOCKS IN THE SUMMER! I am a flip-flop guy. Flip, flop, flip, flop, FLIP, MOTHER-FUCKING-FLOP. So, not only did I spend not-so hard earned money a white pieces of fabric that I'm not going to wear, it'll be five months before my floor will be allowed to fuck with them.

Ha, ha...take that, Floor! You suck. I hope you get blue balls.

2005-05-02T13:59:00.000-07:00

Last night while watching the final table of an online poker tournament that I should've been playing in, I was also browsing through tv channels when I came across a show called Cheaters. The premise behind the show, oddly enough, is on people that cheat in a relationship. One person in the relationship--the accuser--"hires" the tv show and their private investigators to tail the other--the suspected cheater. It's overly dramatic, and the person suspected of getting a little ass on the side is always cheating. It never fails and I loved it.

In one episode the camera crew followed a gay man and his "friend", plus another guy, into the bathroom of a public park. Oh yeah, it was at 1 in the morning. What do you think they're doing in their in the middle of the night? Communal, therapeutic pooping? Last time I checked that course wasn't in the Community Ed. bulletin. When confronted, the cheater threw the most stereotypical gay hissy fit I've ever seen, and I live above a gay-owned salon. If there's one thing a flamboyant man knows how to do, it's throw a tantrum.

I laughed.

In another episode, a man suspected his hot, very goddamn hot, girfriend of avoiding him because of another guy. I felt bad for the guy, because it was glaringly obvious to me that she was slumming it with him as her boyfriend. Think, not quite Liz Hurley, but not low-rent, either and that's what she looked like. He would never be able to do better than her. Hell, if I were the "other guy" in the situation, I'd, quite literally, jump at the chance to get with her, even with the knowledge that she's a cheat, whore, skank, skeeze and a trollop.

We only live once, right?

Anyhow, I got to thinking about cheating in relationships, and I'm going to be honest and say that I've only ever cheated on one girl in my life. That doesn't figure in all the girls that I wasn't technically dating, because that's a different story altogether. Of the girls that I've dated more than six months, though, it was only that one girl where my faithfulness went by the wayside. Looking back, I don't feel too bad about it.

The previous week we'd broken up over an argument that escalated to the point where she called me a "dumbass". In front of my Mom. My mother is a little woman, and my girlfriend at the time was not, but I know that dear ol' mum could've kicked her ass if only I'd said the word. Instead, I told her to get out of my life. A week later, I reluctantly took her back because, well, she was familiar and up until that point, the only girl I'd ever had sex with. In other words, I was young, stupid and horny. In my mind, though, I was already plotting another break-up and the only place I wanted to hang out with her was in my bed. Even then, I wanted her to leave after my 30 seconds of pleasure were through.

About a week after the reconciliation, I met a girl named Danielle. She was skinny, quirky, and a little bit of a skirt-wearing, patchouli wearing, stringy-haired hippy. By "little bit", I mean the exact opposite. She only wore skirts that doubled as tapestries, bathed in patchouli scented bath oils, and her hair looked like it had been washed, but never introduced the technological wonder that is the comb. But she was cute, flirted with me, and in case I forgot to mention it, she was skinny.

I justified my actions, which were only comprised of one make out session while we were both drunk, by telling myself that I was as good as out of my other relationship. Hey, I'm going to break up with her anyhow, so why wait for the inevitable? Being actually broken up is just a formality that I'd already gone through in my young head, so I didn't consider it cheating.

Of course it was cheating, and at the time, I felt bad. Now, not so much.

As the Cheaters hour wound down, I realized that if I ever suspected a girlfriend of cheating on me, the only way I'd be able to live with myself is if I called this show. What better way to humiliate someone that hurt you, than by exposing them for what they really are, all in front of an at-home audience comprised of tens of people? She'll never get another date now that she's known cheater! It doesn't matter that she's gorgeous, or that she's a self-proclaimed whiz with her tongue-ring, or even that she pulls in a 6 figure salary and likes her men to not have to work, so that they'll have enough strength to satisfy her after the workday is over. The only thing that matters is that now she's been exposed to everyone able to watch CBS M-F at 10am--face it, that includes every elderly person in the world, and not many others--or Sunday nights at 9pm--which includes pathetic people home alone on a Sunday night, which I'm sad to admit, was me.

Does anyone know where I can get the number for that second-rate Liz Hurley?

Hmm. And I do live close to a city park.

2005-04-28T08:09:00.000-07:00

This afternoon while I was at work, I got a call from a number that I did not know. Not one to break with routine, I didn't answer it for fear of the ex-girlfriend's wrath, and lucky me, they didn't leave a message. I am so brave.

It wasn't until later that I realized that the number in my called ID was dangerously close to my number. Only one number was wrong--the last one. And, on top of that, the mistaken numbers were similar in shape and height only theirs was missing a piece on the left hand side. Does that make sense?

Ok, fine. I guess I can explain a little better without giving out my whole phone number on the internet. The last digit of my phone number is an 8. The last digit of the mystery number was a 3. They look similar, right? Right. Other than that aberration, our numbers are identical.

This is a riddle of sorts.

Who owns the other number?
Why are they calling me?
Is anyone else involved?
What about the man with a hook for a hand?
Am I really this neurotic?
Are we there yet?

I slept on the conundrum(it's hell on the back, by the way), and when I awoke this morning still thinking about it, I decided to do a little sleuthing of my own.

I tried doing a reverse look-up on the odd number, but it the search produced no results. I wasn't expecting any. I do, however, know that it's a Verizon number. Or was at one time, at least.

That's it.

Here's the scenario that I've cooked up in my head:

I don't know good ol' Number 3, and they don't know me from that putrid, Mexican lady squishing her way down the aisle at the Big K on Lake St. Someone involved in this does, though. I think that at some point in time, I wrote my number down for someone, most likely a girl, and due to my cripple's scribble, the 8 looked quite similar to a 3. There's also a distinct possibility that I gave the girl a wrong number on purpose. I don't remember doing that recently, but that doesn't mean it hasn't happened.

Yes, I know. There's not a secret code in the world tougher than the one I dub "One Number Off". No, she'll never figure out my clever encryption scheme! She's an idiot! Why am I using so many exclamation points! Speaking of which, if you're ever in Minneapolis and see a yellow Specialized mountain bike chained to a rack or a sign, and it's tethered by a combination lock, the encryption scheme is entirely different than the one I just explained.

Ha ha, suckers. They'll never be able to steal my bike now! Oh crap, am I still typing?

Ahem.

So, this girl tried to call my number, but kept mashing the Number 3, because, well, the damn thing looked like a 3. Why wouldn't she call it? The owner of Number 3 gets pissed at all these wrong number calls, and decides to find out who "Chad" is, and why this girl is incessantly calling at all hours of the day, even though she's been told time and time again "Chad's not here." Neither is Dave.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that I'm just stupid enough to write down a false number, but only change the last digit. I'm not smart enough to, oh I don't know, give her a completely fictitious number that was originally activated in Ypsilanti, could I? No, that's crazy talk.

I suppose I could've told her that I just wasn't interested, but that would give me less to write about.

What? Goddamnit, people. I'm sure it's all a coincidence, but I need something to write about, and until I get mugged, you'll have to deal with this tripe.

You have been warned.

2005-04-26T10:02:00.000-07:00

Why am I admitting this?

It's my blog, and I'll give too much information if I want to, too much information if I want to.

A little bit of a preface first: I am not normal. No joke. You've probably realized this. Still, it's moments such as the one I just experienced that make me question how much the therapy I'm bound to need is going to cost.

I first started having sex in February of 1994. Groundhog's Day weekend, to be precise. Just like any other teenage male in the midst of trying to bust out of the horror that is puberty, I was over-excitable. Just how over-excitable? There were many a times that I had to walk to class with a backpack over my crotch in order to hide an erection that just wouldn't listen.

My dick was a disobediant puppy.

I'm sure there are at least a few guys that know what I'm talking about. There was nothing I could do to make it pay attention to me. Sit. Stay. Roll over. I even went far past rational and hit it with a rolled up newspaper, but that just ended up hurting me in the end. Quite literally.

Bad dog

Kissing, yes sir, that's going to cost me an erection. Exposed cleavage--a girls, not mine- was definitely going to result in a unwanted, and definitely unwarranted, not to mention highly embarrassing, response. Hell, even randomly thinking about something along the lines of, oh I don't know, Grandma's sponge bath sessions would create a tightness in my 501's that made even me feel like I'd fallen on the wrong side of the dirty tightrope. God, I just grossed myself out.

It was also, naturally, at that time that I became familiar with the "smell of sex". It wasn't until a few years later that I realized that it's not really the "smell of sex", it's the smell of "rotten crotch". There were times, while standing in the elevator on the ride up to my 9th floor, beiged walled prison dorm, that the smell would force it's way up my nose, and I'd think "Hey, that smells like sex!"

No, Chad, that's unwashed crotch that you smell, not sex.

I was in the Mexican Ghetto K-mart of few weeks ago, walking behind a short, pudgy woman with frizzy black hair and bad skin, when I was blasted in the face by that smell. Up until 5 years ago, I probably would've been transported to a certain time with a certain girl, happily reminiscing about all the bad sex that was had. Good times, those were. That's probably what I would've been thinking.

There, though, in the bright aisles of lowest of the low rent Big K's, I came this close to puking on a mexican woman with a filthy Hoo-Haw.

Also over the years, I became acquainted with my own smell; the smell of liquids seeping from my person. That's right, I'm talking about jizm. If you take enough target practice, shoot enough rounds, eventually you're going to become accustomed with the smell of gunpowder. Repetitiveness begets familiarity.

Or something like that.

As Raven Simone once said in an episode of The Cosby Show in which she was trying to convince Cliff that she was growing at an alarming rate of speed, "I know my body!"

So, of course I was suprised when I was sitting here, at the Independent, and I noticed the aroma of a very manly bodily fluid.

Why in the fuck does the Independent smell like the inside of my boxer shorts after the slow, painful walk past cheerleading practice during my freshman year in college?

2005-04-25T10:40:00.000-07:00

There is a direct correlation between the phase of the moon, specifically a full moon, and the level of crazy inherent in all women. As the giant, sunlit orb waxes towards obesity, women get crazier. It's a scientifically proven fact that this phenomenon is real, and very dangerous. By "scientific fact", of course I mean that it's a myth perpetuated in my own messed-up brain, the conclusion derived from 2 months of direct experience. 2 months is all the research I require. Fucking scientists and their over-elaborate ways.

Silly me, I was under the assumption that the full moon only affected werewolves and alcoholics, but wouldn't that mean that all the women of the world are hard-drinking, sex starved animals? That's not true, otherwise it wouldn't be so difficult for me to find a woman that gives great head.

Yeah, yeah, I know that the only person causing a problem in that regards is me.

Saturday night, as I walked along the path to Anthony's place, weaving and skipping my way around the lake, destined for drunkeness, I looked off to the north only to see that the moon was abnormally large, white and bright enough to burn a hole through the retina in my right eye. Great, I hope this is isn't an omen for the course my night is bound to take, I thought.

As I arrived at Anthony's, I shrugged off the overwhelming feeling of impending and unavoidable doom, chugged a red, plastic glass of keg beer and tinkered with my nose ring a little, never fully realizing the direct implications of the lunar schedule on the outcome of my night. That realization would come later.

Also, having Jon dressed up as Magnum P.I, completely with cheesy, Just For Men soaked mustache and Detroit Tigers hat is as a good a way as any to forget one's troubles.

Let's take a moment to look at last month's bone chilling, day-long episode of the dramedy that is my life, shall we? I can't believe that I just wrote the word "dramedy".

I was neck-deep in dealing with a crazy, stalker ex-girlfriend that thought it appropriate to leave false-voiced messages on a friends phone, not fully understanding that, hey, even though you can costume your voice, it's not going to change the stomach turning reaction I get from hearing it. To borrow a phrase from a friend: "what a fucking whack-a-doo!" I was also trying to figure out what, if anything, to do about a girl that wanted to give me a hernia check with her mouth, just a few minutes after meeting me at William's. There was only one option, and that was to Brillo pad my brain in hopes that I'd forget she ever existed. It didn't work, in case you're wondering.

So, the last full moon was a Snickers bar--chock full o' nuts.

I don't have the energy to recount the various instances of drama during my one hour stint at the Independent on Saturday night. Believe me, it was coming from more than one source, all in varying degrees of fucked-in-the-head. And it could've been worse. I'm pretty sure that Emily was there that night, too, because I saw her friend Jenny, and those two rarely go galavanting around town without eachother. I didn't try to seek her out, though. Long story. Not getting into it right now.

Now knowing that a full moon equals estrogen overload, at least I'll be fully aware of the possibility of behavior abnormalities oozing from female types in and around May 23rd. Consider my calender marked.

One thing still baffles me, though. I use this here blog as an outlet for frustration, not in an attempt to be a digitally penned Bassanova. A friend told me that I should be getting laid more due to my writing, but that's not my intention. Come on, what sane man would ever expect women to fawn all over him when his subject matter includes, but is not limited to, poop, unintentionally politically incorrect humor, and last, but certainly not least, Emily? Not I, that's for damn sure.

I've been writing about her for 4 years now, and it boggles my mind that any other girl would still be interested in me after reading of our sordid, drawn-out, 10 year lust affair. Why any self-respecting woman would put themselves through such an unhealthy torture, well, that's beyond me. It's not wise.

I am bruised fruit, man. I am a dented can of generic, black and white label peas.

It's one thing if they don't read my blog, because at least in that respect they're being lied to. But, when someone religiously reads the shit that pukes out of my brain--and face it, we're all devout members in the Church of Chad--they know too much about me. Knowing too much about me is a bad, bad thing.

That's why it's impossible for me to date another online "friend". I've done it before, and it causes me to shutter up my writing windows, closing myself off completely. I feel like I should censor myself, and I hate, hate, hate worrying if the shit I spew will offend or hurt someone. And, if I ever had to choose between writing and a girl, there's not a girl alive that stands a chance, not even Emily.

Writing is the only mistress I need.

Beer being my main bitch, of course. I just wish she'd learn to fellate me without all the teeth-scraping.

2005-04-22T06:18:00.000-07:00

Part V:

(Hey, look--I posted this right today! If you missed the first 4 parts, scroll down and read up)

I thought about detailing the rest of Sunday night, but I've come to the conclusion that some things are better left unwritten. It doesn't matter. I dropped her off at her apartment at 11:30 am on Monday, almost 24 hours had passed since we met up. After not even having written contact for 2 years, to say that I'm baffled is an understatement.

As of right now, I'm not all that worried about where this is heading. I've done that before, and I already know that it just doesn't work. There are some things that I have figured out, though.

Something is different
I don't know quite know how to explain it, but Emily is not the same person that I remember from two years ago. She's not worse, definitely not worse, just different. From the steps she takes to initiate physical contact--like holding hands, you sick-fucks--to the way she kisses me, all the way down to spending the entire day together and not getting the impression that she had somewhere else to be--it's all different.

I don't know if it's because she feels terrible for the way she treated me--which she should--and she's trying to make up for lost time, or if there's another motive behind it. I've spent so long being there for this girl, that it's nice, for once, to have her respond in kind, even if the moment is fleeting.

Yes, yes, I know. It's only been a few days. I'm not holding my breath.

I'm sick of pussyfooting around our issues
Two years is a long time to think about something like this. I look back and realize that there are times that I let her run over me. I don't feel that she did it intentionally, but I was there to be an emotional chew-toy--just there to gnaw on for awhile and then spit out when something else tickled her fancy.

Hi, I'm a pussy sometimes. Fuck that.

I get nothing out of being timid with her, and blunt and honest is now the name of the game. What do I have to lose? Absolutely nothing.

"You know, I'm sick of always being second best, or always taking a back seat to everything else in your life, whether that be another guy, your career goals, or whatever. I just don't think I fucking deserve that." I said while we were laying in bed yesterday morning.

The only response she could give was a pained frown and timid stammering.

I don't expect anything from her this time around. I don't expect that she'll finally realize that we're perfect together, and that we're the only people responsible for making this 10,000,000x more difficult than need be. I would, however, appreciate a little of the respect that I've been doling out to her for close to the last decade. I don't expect it, but it sure would be nice.

We will never have a platonic relationship
There is no way in Jesus-tapdancing-Christ that we'll ever be "just friends". Been there, done that, and we both know that we're too sexually and physically charged together to ever have that work in the long run. Almost a decade we've been doing this. We part, have a reunion, part, have a reunion and each and every time we meet again, the attraction is still there, and it's like we never spent any time away. There is a reason for it. What is it? Who-the-fuck knows.

You know how when you break up with someone, and the next time you see them that feeling you once got from just by having them near isn't there? That's never happened between Emily and I. We now have come to grips that we'll be doing the same thing 10 years from today, as well. Unless someone is run over by a steamroller, we are bound to repeat the cycle again.

So, what are our options?

We could, of course, continue to relearn how great it feels to be around each other. You know, hanging out, talking, laughing, drinking, ending up together in bed when the mood strikes us, which oddly enough, sounds like a real relationship, only minus the label of boyfriend/girlfriend.

Hi, could we lie to ourselves even more?

I've had that type of relationship before, and they can be so much fun. Really, they can. The problem arises when one person finds someone else that they like to date, and hello, that relegates me to second best again. Huh.

We both know that washing our hands and simply walking away is another, viable option. On the other, dirtier set of hands, I highly doubt that either of us is quite that strong right now. It might save a little pain in the present for what might be a castastrophe in the future, though.

Here's the problem--and I'm writing this part as a reminder to to bring this up to Emily the next time I see her--that I have with taking the cowards way out and walking away: As I get older, I see more and more just how fragile life is. Whether that be witnessing my parents age and the health problems associated with that, or that I'm more aware of the world than when I was younger, I don't know. When you're young, you think you're bulletproof. Nothing can touch you, and you think you'll live forever. So, the small pain now vs. large pain later makes sense on that level.

Not that 30 is relatively old, or that I'm all that wise, but a few years ago I wouldn't have understood just how flawed that concept it.

Let's just say that we both chose "walking away" as the only course of action between us. We'll both hurt for a little bit, but life isn't that one dimensional, and you can't predict, ever, what will happen.

What happens if, after walking away, the other person is in a tragic car accident and dies? Not fun to think about, but it happens more than we want to believe. Well, not only is there the intial hurt of having to walk away from someone, but it's also compounded by their death, and losing someone that was once special to you. On top of that the pain is magnified because you missed out all the time that should've been spent together, but you were too busy worrying about what might happen, rather than just enjoying what is happening.

We've now got 3x times the hurt due our own, stupid safety mechanism!

This whole entry turned into one clusterfuck of a Nike ad, but life is short, and any energy used on worrying about what "might" happen, well, that's just wasted energy.

Why do we do this?

Fuck, nice work, Captain Tangent.

What do I think about this? I have no clue. Is their a very real threat that I might get hurt, worse even? Hurt, yes. Worse? Probably not. The thing that hurt me most two years ago was not having answers to why she was being shady and reclusive. I've got some answers, and my only goal right now is to find out as many as possible.

So that's where it stands, and all I can say right now is "We'll see."

2005-04-21T11:13:00.000-07:00

Oooops. I am a dumbass, and it's a good thing Chris mentioned it, but I forgot to post Part III before I posted Part IV. Stories tend to flow better when you don't leave a WHOLE SECTION OUT.

Ok, Part III has been added where it's supposed to be. Scroill down, and it should make more sense now. At least I hope it does.

2005-04-21T07:24:00.000-07:00

(4th installment. Read the first three, then come back)

The LCD screen lit her face while she read as I sat on the bed and worried. She laughed at all the appropriate places. That is, until she got to a paragraph near the end.

"Hate fuck? You wanted to hate-fuck me?" she eeked out inbetween uneasy laughs.

I explained that it was hyperbole for effect, and that at the time, I was mad at her. Sure, I wouldn't have minded having sex with her, but even I acknowledge that using the phrase was a little strong. Not that I would ever go back and edit it, though.

"Still. Hate-Fuck? She questioned again.

"We both know it would be impossible to hate-fuck someone you don't actually hate. I haven't forgiven you for how you treated me, but believe me, you wouldn't be here right now if I hated you." I replied.

She let it go.

Laying on the bed, I extended my arms and made grabby hands towards her. When you take something from a baby, they usually extend their arms, flex their fingers, clench and unclench their tiny, fat fists because they want the object back--that's what I call "grabby hands". That's my way of saying to Emily "Get over 'ere." And you know what? It works. I perform grabby hands, and she obeys.

I pulled her close and we curled up on top of a clump of sheets in the middle of my unmade bed, talking about other sections of the story.

"You'd really have babies with me?" she asked.

I've vehemently insisted that I never want kids, mostly because I haven't found anyone that I'd be comfortable having kids with. I'm sure that once I find that perfect person, everything will feel "right" enough, and hey, I may even want her to squirt out a few of my red-faced alien offspring. The prospect of having kids with Emily has never scared me, though. Will that every happen? All signs point to no, but if anything, it proves that I'm not a completeley heartless, selfish asshole. There's hope for me yet.

"So...you thought we'd ultimately get divorced?" she finally asked. I was waiting for this one just because I knew it was easily defensible.

Given her actions over the course of the months after returning from Ireland, there was nothing in the way she spoke, the way she acted, or the way that she reacted to me that made me believe otherwise. She was selfish, and for lack of a better way to put it, acted crazy. She nodded as if saying "You're right." and that part of the conversation was dropped.

At the end of an awkward silence, I unwrapped myself from her body and got ready to meet up with friends at Old Chicago. It's odd--most of my friends, even my very best of friends, have never seen me with a girlfriend. And I can honestly say that they've never seen me with one that I've truly been interested in. Sure, there have been other girls, but with most of them I'm apathetic and indifferent. With Emily, though, I'm a retard.

Yeah, a huge retard. In fact, I would go so far as to say that when I'm around her, I definitely don't "look gay".

We only stayed at Old Chicago for one beer because Anthony and the guys were sitting outside, and Emily was too stubborn to bring a jacket with. From the OC, we went to the Independent to grab something to eat and a half an hour later, we were laying on my bed again, very much sober.

It was then that Emily leaned in and kissed me.

Anyone that really knows me, knows that I am not a sappy or overemotional person, nor am I all that romantic.

This kiss, though, there was something different about it.

Why is the room suddenly spinning?

[to be continued]

2005-04-20T11:06:00.000-07:00

(If you missed the first two installments, scroll down and read from Part I and up. That should get you up to speed. If you care, that is.)

After I left Emily's at 6:30 in the am, I laid in my bed, staring at the ceiling, attempting the third-times-a-charm fall asleep method, but I couldn't shake the feeling of deja vu.

Our last night in Derry, we squeezed onto a couch as the sun came up, kissing and talking about where everything stood between us. Just the way she looked at me was enough to make me a shell of the man I was supposed to be. I, as a whole person, was "goo".

Last night was ended the same way--on the couch as the sun came up, talking and kissing, with her looking at me in that same exact way that makes me not me. I'm a sucker.

I slept for 3 1/2 hours, and that definitely wasn't enough. The only consolation in that is that at least I wasn't hungover. As fucked up as it is that I experienced deja vu Saturday night /Sunday morning correlating to my last night in Ireland with Emily, Sunday afternoon was more of the same, only reminiscent of the day that I met up with her in Dublin.

She's habitually slow in regards to getting ready in the morning, and Sunday morning was a direct replay of when we met at her hotel in Dublin. She was flighty, slow, and took her ol' sweet time getting her things together. Both times I could've very easily been annoyed, but I was more happy to be with her than anything else. And if anyone says that I'm too forgiving, you can eat my ass.

Are you catching on to the cyclical nature of our relationship? It gets better. Or worse, depending on if you're a half-full or or a half-empty type of person.

Our whole day was comprised of fragemented bits and memory inducing pieces of our dysfunctional, 9 year relationship.

9 years. Very few people reading this are older than I am, but for most of you, 9 years comprises a fairly large chunk of the amount the time that you've been alive. She's been around, left, around, left--rinse, repeat, wash--for one-fucking-third of my life.

I can't believe it, either.

We left her apartment--that's dangerously close to my old favorite bar, Lyle's--at 2:30 pm and walked towards the Walker Arts Center's grand reopening. There were far more people than I wanted to deal with, especially considering the number of answers that I wanted to get from this girl. I didn't want to be around a lot of people. So, we walked on.

As we were crossing the pedestrian bridge over Hennepin and Lyndale, Emily made a comment that didn't register at first.

"Didn't we go through this park when you walked me back to Jesse's?"

I didn't understand, but when she mentioned Our Lady Peace, the significance hit me in the face harder than a burlap sack full of baby carcasses. Is that the plural? Carcassi? Regardless, it hit me hard.

Pssst, this is where you have to click the link to get the backstory here. That way, I don't have to make this longer than need be.

Anyhow, we walked through Loring Park, and planned on getting something to eat at a restaurant along Nicollet. The conversation was a little awkward at times, so how do we remedy that?

A drink, of course!

We settled on The Local, and if you're not familiar with the significance, this will fill you in, in detail. Basically, it was the very last place I ever saw Emily, about two years ago.

We had a drink, and talked about things that mattered. None of the "How are your parents?" bullshit that we don't need to weed through. This was heavy conversation that both of us handled pretty well, all things considering.

We are adults, after all.

As the Local is super expensive drink-wise, even mid-Sunday afternoon, we set off to Pizza Luce to eat and enjoy happy hour. More conversation, and that conversation turned to seemingly harmless flirting. We were both only one drink deep at this point, so it's not even right to blame it on the alcohol. That's just how we are.

We could not talk for, say, two years...hey, wait! That's how long it's been! What a coincidence. Anyhow, we're the type of people that are always going to have an attraction to each other. We get together, and the invetible happens; we stand close, hold hands, hug and act exacly like all those couples that I abhor.

I wouldn't have it any other way.

We left Luce and were on our way back up to my place so that I could change, when we passed Rock Bottom Brewery. We popped in there for a pint of stout, and it wasn't until Emily mentioned that it tasted like black licorice that I decided it was icky. Up til then, I thought it tasted like a combination of coffee and chocolate, but the second she planted the black licorice seed in my brain, I couldn't finish my beer. I hate black licorice.

The walk from dowtown to my house is somewhere around 20 blocks. Not a long walk by any means, but long enough to sober me up.

I wish I could pass blame on the Smithwick's for showing her a story that included her, but all I could do is wait for her reaction after I fired up my computer and said that she should read this.

I'm either really stupid, or really, really stupid.

I laid down on my bed in wait to find out which.

[To be continued]

2005-04-20T09:22:00.000-07:00

Part II:
(If you missed part I, scroll down and read up from the bottom)

"Emily!

She turned and gave me the same, sheepish smile that I remember oh-so-well from the Our Lady Peace show 3 years ago. The situations are oddly similar, but this time the falling-out preceding the reunion was much more severe.

"Have you talked to Jon, lately?" she asked.

"Not for a week, or so" I replied. "Why?"

She saw Jon, my old roommate, last Thursday while he was working at Trygz, and asked him to say hello to me for her. That was her way of feeling out the situation rather just blindsiding me by asking for my new celly number. She was also afraid that I wouldn't want to talk to her

"Well, do I have any reason that I'd want to talk to you?" I said.

And that's the last I remember being all that snarky to her, as we talked about how we've both been lately.

Shortly after the last time we talked in April of 2003, she got into a relationship with a guy that was controlling and abusive. She wasn't allowed to talk to her friends, let alone me, hence the reason for the complete ignore thing that she did. I wouldn't consider it valid as an excuse in the least, but fucked up relationships do fucked things to seemingly normal people. He wouldn't even let her go out with her friends, apparently, for fear that she'd do something stupid, like cheat on him.

He fucked with her head huge, even going so far as getting to her believe that I was the crazy stalker type because of how I reacted around the time they got together. Admittedly, I was a little over-the-top, but I can't imagine how anyone would react differently when not getting answers to questions they had that should've been easily answerable.

She had been living with him after he moved to California, and the only way that she escaped from the abuse is that her friend, Jenny, the blonde girl with her that night at the Independent, bought a one-way ticket to Cali, pushed her in a car, and drove her back to Minnesota.

When we were driving around Ireland together, I told her flat out "Emily, this isn't you." in regards to a messed up work situation she had gotten herself mixed up in. Saturday, she finally admitted that I was right, and that her actions the last 3 years "were not her". She is not the girl that you'd typically pick out as one that gets stuck with an abusive boyfriend, as she's got much more going for her than just some insecure shmuck ever deserves. It even happens to the best of girls, too, I suppose.

The last three months she's been living in a studio apartment that's only a few blocks from my old place. Recently, she's walked by where I used to live, hoping that my car would be out there, and she could either talk to me or leave a note on my car, because she had so much that she had to talk to me about.

It's probably better that we ran into one another the way we did, because I don't know how well I would've handled her showing up on my doorstep with an apology. At least in a public place, neither of us is willing to do something stupid, or embarrassing.

We closed down the bar with beer, apologies and a little bit of crying, but nothing that both of us couldn't handle. A year ago, I wouldn't have dealt this as well as I did.

As we walked outside, she asked for my number so that we could meet up on Sunday because she still had certain things that she wanted to talk to me about. I agreed, as we'd never came to a definite conclusion about anything we talked about that night. I walked her to the car that she and her friends had all piled into, and that's when she asked me if I wanted to come over that night.

"Thanks, but no thanks. I need sleep, and it's better that I just go home to my own bed."

I slowly walked home, a little numb as to the night's events. As I washed my face and got ready for bed, I was still trying to get myself to believe that every thing at the Independent was a booze-induced hallucination, or that I'd wake up to find that her number wasn't in my phone.

We all knew that my willpower in declining her invitation would only last so long, and I called her shortly after I realized there's no way I'd be able to sleep not knowing what else it was she had to say to me. Was it good? Was it bad? I needed to know.

I packed a little bit of this, and a little bit of that(no whiffle ball bat) in my backpack, walked my bike downstairs and headed off towards my old neighborhood close to 3am. I arrived outside her building a few minutes later and she came down to get me.

There isn't much to say about the rest of the night. We talked a little, but not as much as I might've hoped because Jenny was staying over at her place. When Emily passed out next to me on the futon at 6:30am, I slid my arm out from underneath her, kissed her on the nose, retrieved my bike from the basement bike storage area, and slowly peddaled my way home in a hazy fog, not unlike the one that was clouding my brain.

I only hoped that I'd be able to sleep at least the tiniest bit before meeting up with her on Sunday. Something felt different in the way Emily was acting. Not good, not bad, just different.

[to be continued]

2005-04-19T06:10:00.000-07:00

I wasn't sure if I was going to write this up, because for one, I don't even know what to think about it right now, and two--even though it's been less than two days--the story is long. Due to that, I'm going to break it down in parts.

Most reading this are in the know as to who Emily is, mainly because this whole relationship dates back 1/3 of my life. For those that have no clue what I'm talking about, read this.Most people that don't already know about her, probably don't care. No biggie, but it's a good story, nonetheless.

To be concise, Emily is the girl I shared an incredible trip to Ireland with 2 years ago, and susequently had a fiery falling-out with a few months after that. We've been on this relationship rollercoaster since we met during her freshman year in college. She just turned 27 late last month.

Hope that helps.

Part I:

Early Saturday evening I was at Canterbury Park, figuratively getting my ass handed to me at the poker tables by a fat man with an emornous tuft of white chest hair poking out from the neckline of his orange t-shirt. It's a good thing that Jeremy did so poorly, otherwise I would've been down much more than I happened to win on my first casino trip on Wednesday.

We left around 10 pm because both Jeremy and I had lost a large chunk of money to bad players, and Josh had to get back to the city for a night out with one of his buddies that's moving out of state in a few weeks. When we arrived at my apartment around 11, I wasn't even sure I wanted to go out. Josh was going to the Red Dragon, which, though I like, I didn't want to sit at after losing money at the tables. I'd absentmindedly left my celly at home that afternoon, and when I checked to see if anybody else had any other options for me, I noticed that Anthony had called just a few minutes before, saying that they were going to be at the Independent.

It's times like these that I take a step beck and realize just how absurdly different my life would be today, Monday, if I opted to minutely change my plans and stay in for the night. If you would've told me sometime last week that, Saturday, I'd run into Emily, at my bar of all places, the only reaction I'd have is to give a slight laugh and follow it up by puking in your shoe.

Unpossible.

As I walked in the bar, nothing was out of the ordinary. My friends were drunk and hitting on all the suburban girls that were too dumb to admit that the tag on their Kate Spade purse really read "Kate Spode", and just like normal, the bartender shook my hand and said "Miller Lite?"

I nodded and scanned the room, looking for anyone that I know outside the friends that I'd planned on hanging out with. My friends are great, and a hell-of-a lotta drunken fun, but I was sober and they were completely ass-faced drunk. I don't deal well when I'm that sober.

I didn't notice anyone that I knew. I did, however, see a few people that I thought I might, possibly, maybe, sort of recognize. Minneapolis is a small town and that type of thing happens all the time. I know that person from somewhere, but where? Most of the time you just occupy a lot of the same bars on the same nights, but there are few times that you really don't want figure out how you know them.

Two inparticular, stuck out to me; a tall guy with curly blond hair, and a shorter girl with long blonde hair. I know my descriptions are terrible, but I have trouble remembering details when I'm sober. Deal with it.

I know those people, but from where?

I had them pegged for people that attended Minnesota State University-Mankato at the same time I did, but there's something more. I knew them better than that. As in, we'd probably talked on numerous occasions, and I could even hear the girl's voice ringing through my head.

Oh shit. Shit. SHIT!

After her voice left my head, it was immediately followed by Emily's voice, and at that moment, I realized who they two people were, and where I knew them from. They both went to high school with Emily, and we all attended the same college at the same time. The were both very good friends with Emily, and in a hometown that small, everyone usually goes out to the bar in a group.

So, where was she? She had to be there.

I turned my eyes towards the floor, silently weighing my options. What would I do if she really was at the bar? There was the whole punching in face vs. hate-fucking scenario, but the only outcome those produced ended in me getting 86'ed from the bar where everybody knows my name. Or, at least a few people know it.

Fine, I'm the only one that knows my name there, but at least everybody recognizes my face. And that's enough for me.

With those options being out of the question, I requested a refill on my empty beer. I don't know what it is about The Hoppy Goodness, but it makes me have to pee. I'm an odd duck, I know. As a reflex of the having to pee, I looked back towards the bathroom to see if a line had formed, and as I looked over and around people walking, I saw Emily.

Shit.

She was sitting right off to the side of where I had to walk if I wanted to empty the ol' bladder. I closed my eyes, put my full pint of beer to my lips, and chugged. I've never done a beer bong in my life, and I'm not a chugger, but it wasn't until I opened my eyes again that I noticed my glass was empty, and the only thing I'd been swallowing for the last 4 or 5 seconds was air.

The swallowed air combined with the nervousness I felt over seeing Emily for the first time in over two years produced a feeling deep inside my body that can only be described as "puketastic". And as the beer settled deeper into my stomach, the pukey feeling shifted more towards something I like to call "shit-a-riffic".

Whatever you call it, it wasn't good.

Emily was sitting with a guy that I didn't recognize, so I wasn't about to walk up to her, though, surprise is probably the best plan of attack with a girl like this. There's no reason to announce my arrival, just barge in and fuck things up like I feel I should be allowed.

In the span of 10 minutes, I think I drank 3 pints of Miller Lite. I don't remember if that's exactly right, as my head was too fuzzy with things that I wanted to say and the conflicting orders that my brain was sending my arms.

"You better punch her"

"No, we're going to work as a team and hug the damn girl."

Considering that conversation, it seems like I could've had closer to 5 beers, who knows. I did know for sure that I wasn't leaving that bar without talking to her, and the conversation was going to take place with me, hopefully, at least partially drunk.

I took a sip from my pint, and as I removed the edge of it from my lips, I noticed that her friend, the blonde, was walking by me, followed by a straggling Emily. And best of all, no guy.

This was my chance. As she walked by, I yelled out.

"Emily!"

[to be continued]

2005-04-17T10:05:00.000-07:00

Remember The Girl that, if I ran into randomly on the street, I wouldn't know if I'd rather punch or hate-fuck her?

Last night I had my chance, and I dropped the ball. I couldn't punch her in the throat, and it's hard to hate-fuck someone with which you hold such an unbelievably deep emotional attachment.

She lives in my neighborhood now, and as of today, Sunday, I am too wonkified to understand if this is a good development or leaning more towards the bad. Whoever said "There's a thin line between love and hate" needs to eat shit and die, because I'm tiptoeing that line after a late night of apologies and I'm sorrys, and all it'll take is a slight breeze to push me one way or the other.

If you don't hear from me for a few days, you know why.

One question before I go, though.

What should I legally change my name to: Rob Gordon, or John Cusack?

2005-04-07T09:55:00.000-07:00

I am addicted to Caribou's large iced mocha. I blame Alicia. Sadly, all she would do tee hee at me, so it's no use holding a grudge. Still, it's her fault, and at almost $4 a pop, it's an expensive fault.

I hate coffee, though. It tastes like dirty, tepid water that's been passed over a fat man's ass, and then pushed through a filter made of shit, after which it's poured into the mouth of a man with severe ginigivitis and spit into my glass. It's downright disgusting. Anyone that can drink their coffee black--hey, just like I like my men!--well, they need a brainyotomy. Something's just not working right.

Espresso tastes different than coffee, it really, really does. I can't get enough. When I drink it, I want to make love to my cup, but the opening is too big, and that's depressing, so I just drink it instead. I tell myself "No Chad, you don't need it", but I can only avoid it's siren song for about 10 minutes. Then I get the shakes, and I don't want the shakes so I drink the mocha and the mocha is good so I drink more, and I feel better, but then I get the shakes from the espresso but I still feel better than without it AND THEN OH MY GOD IT'S ALL DOWNHILL FROM THERE.

By downhill, I mean downstairs. To the bathroom.

2005-04-06T13:38:00.000-07:00

Seriously, do I have "I'm Freaker Friendly!" tattoed on my forehead? Is my breath infused with a weirdo attracting pheremone that science doesn't know about yet? If that's the case, I need to chop off my head or just stop breathing so damn much.

Last night I went to William's by myself for a quick 2-4-1. Yes, we all know that by this point, I'm pretty much "asking for it" when I go there alone, but I wanted to get out of the house for a bit. I had no more than taken my first sip from my Limon-n-water(with a lemon!), that I became aware of a man standing dangerously close to my left-hand side, staring at me. I did what any other uncomfortable person in my predicament would: I looked his way.

"Hey", I said with an empty nod.

"Can I buy you a drink?" he slurred in the accent of a Midwestern Drunk that I knew all too well.

Where I'm from, "Hey" means "Hey, Creep. I don't want to talk to you. I just acknowledeged that you are, indeed, breathing.", not "Hey, I like having alcohol bought for me by guys I don't know."

"No thanks. I've got two drinks already" I faux-apologetically replied while making sure he noticed my glasses were indeed full.

"Are you sure? They're free. No? Ok, your loss." He pleaded while pointing to a not-so-crisp Twenty.

He turned away to get the bartenders attention, and when he noticed that she was way at the other end of the bar, he turned back towards me.

"Free drink? Ah, I wonder if they have coffee." he questioned.

It was through his repeated begging and my determined denial that I realized that he was not a midwestern drunk--he was German and very drunk. His frustration with the lack of service grew, and he definitely voiced it. Not loud enough for anyone outside of me could hear it, but I noticed.

"Fuck!" he muttered under his breath, followed by some German gibberish that I'm sure would make Hitler proud. "Fuck. Fuck. Fuck."

At this point, I was mentally ready to react by diving behind the bar in the event that he pulled a Luger from the crotch of his pants . I was never a Boy Scout, but I see no harm in always being prepared.

Do you hear that? It's the sound of a cannonball of a question about to hit my square in the jaw, and won't realize it's implications until long after it was asked.

"Are there any hotels in this neighborhood?"

What an odd question. Whatever would he need a hotel for in Uptown? Is he lost?

"No, man. Downtown. There are plenty of them Downtown, but none around here" I replied, dumbstruck.

See, now I was thinking that maybe I had read him all wrong. Perhaps he was just a friendly German tourist that had lost his way after all? That still doesn't answer why he'd be looking for a hotel room at 11 o'clock on a Tuesday night, but what did I care? People are weird.

His annoyance levels through the bar's high ceiling due to still not being served, he gave me a tap, tap on the shoulder, an "Ok, buddy" and one last muttered "Fuck." and he was out the door.

After he left, I talked to the manager, Mike, about him. Turns out that he was in there just last week, drunk, and drinking coffee. He was acting odd then, too. He thanked the bartender--by shaking his hand-- for making the "best coffee he's ever had". And he wouldn't let go. Mike said that he stood there smiling, shaking his hand, for like a minute.

Mike also said "Oh yeah, he's gay."

And that's when it really hit me--I was just propositioned by a drunk, gay German guy to have dirty, dirty hotel room sex. He was into men, and I was his attempted, and subsequently, failed conquest for the night. The dirty Twenty he held was probably earned through a hard Monday night of glory-holing.

Ew.

I bet he wouldn't say "Danke Shoen" in the morning, the fucking Kraut.

2005-04-05T08:07:00.000-07:00

Funny:Petty property border disputes between two gay men.

Funnier:One of the parties involved(the next door neighbor, actually)--while holding a Bichon under each arm-- being chased down the driveway as the other squeals "Get your fat ass off my property!"

Funnierest:My roommate, Colin, devising a plan to prank call next door neighbor, but then chickening out using "What if they catch me?" as his excuse. Colin, it's a prank call, not a death threat. Also, they're gay, not Italian. What--do you think they're going to sick the Prada Mafia on you? Even if they did, they wouldn't kill you, they'd just make you look pretty and teach you how to accessorize.

Speaking of gay men--why do so many of them own Bichon Frises? My landlord has at least two of the little ankle-biters, and the next door neighbor has at least as many, if not more. When a man comes out of the closet, is there someone there ready to bestow a congratulatory Bichon on them?

"Here's your one allotted, non-shedding dog for admitting you're gay. The rest you have to buy on your own. Happy Homo-ing!"

Holy shit, I just had an epiphany. It all makes sense.

It's like "Book It" for gay men. Instead of receiving a personal pan pizza for every 5 books read, the gay receive a Bichon for every straight man they convert.

They don't want me, they just want the doggy!

2005-04-01T08:11:00.000-08:00

This story just keeps getting better.

Remember how I had Dawn call both weird numbers? Well, one of them was routed directly to Carrie's voicemail, which I'm guessing was at her house. The other was, more than likely, a cell phone, because Dawn said that it sounded like the girl was driving in a car when she answered.

When the girl in the car picked up, Dawn made up a fictional person--Katie-- that she was trying to get ahold of. Apparently, Carrie has Caller ID at home as well. How do I know?

Thanks for asking!

Dawn got a call last night from a number that came up as "Restricted", so she did the smart thing and let it go to her voicemail. When she her messages, this is what it said:

"Hi, I'm looking for Dan..oops, I mean Dawn. Yeah, and you sound like a bitch!"

*click*

It doesn't take Stephen Hawking to figure this out. My guess is that Carrie matched up the number from the missed call on one phone to the wrong number call on another, and realized that someone was fucking with her. Whether or not she thinks that someone is me, I don't know. How would she?

In other news, did I tell you that I bought a pet rabbit last week? His name is Floppsy.

[To eveyrone whose number I should have in my phone: If we've talked in the past month or two, and you think you should be entered into my phone book, please let me know. It's possible that I haven't saved your number. The reason I ask for your number again is because I'm not answering any call from a number I don't know.]

2005-03-30T19:30:00.000-08:00

Penis Girl--Part II

A few minutes ago I received a phone call from a number in the 763 Area Code that I didn't know. That indicates the number is west of Minneapolis. As a general rule, I never pick up my phone when I get a call from an unknown number. Call it paranoid if you want...well, that's exactly what it is. I just don't feel like getting surprised by a long lost ex-girlfriend that's an ex-girlfriend for a reason.

A few seconds after the call ended, my phone buzzed indicating that I had a voicemail waiting for me. Hesitantly, I dialed "1" to reach my voicemail inbox. When I heard the voice on the other side, I still had no clue who the call was from.

There was mumbling and laughing, followed by a girl-like voice saying "What do I say?" directed at someone in the background on the other end. Immediately after that, the caller hung up.

My best guess is that this is the girl from William's on Friday night, but it would've at least helped for her to, oh, I don't know, leave a legitimate message. Or, at the very least, a name. I'm not a mind reader. I remember the girl from William's having a 651 number, I think, which is based in St. Paul. I may be wrong about that, though.

5 minutes after the weird-o voicemail, I received a text-message from the same number.

"Hey dude whats up."

This is where I started doubting the Penis Girl theory. Girls, if you really wanted to hang out with a guy, would you call him "dude"? And would you freak out when you first try calling him and hang up before leaving message? Come on, every cell phone on the market today comes with Caller ID as one of the standard options.

I don't think there's any way I'm calling her back.

Penis Girl--Part III

After much deliberation by a jury of one--me-- I decided to be a man for once and do it myself. That's right, I waited until I was partially buzzing last night at the bar, and text-messaged back "Who *is* this?"

Such testerone coursing through my veins, I know.

I got no response last night, though. It wasn't until this afternoon that the person behind the number responded with "Carrie".

Great, so the William's Girl is named Carrie. We've got that set straight. I didn't remeber it being Carrie, but that means nothing. I forget even the names of cute girls--names that I want to remember, and that I'd forget a creepy girl's name, well, that's understandable. The odd thing is this--I know that she lived over in St. Paul and her cell number had a 651 or 952 area code. Why, then, would she be calling me from a 763 number? That's on the exact opposite side of the Twin Cities. It just made no sense.

After work today, I found out why. Sort of.

I had just come back downstairs after eating and noticed that I had one new text-message from a 612 number, which is for in and around Minneapolis proper. Hesitantly I checked my message, half expecting Carrie to be watching me from through little screen on the inside of my phone. I was confused by the area code switch-a-roo, but why would a crazy person ever start making sense? Luckily it was just a plain, benign text-message. Or was it?

"Just writtin' to wish *u* a happy early birthday...How's billy?"

I didn't change a word in that, and that's exactly how it was written. Funny, I intentionally shied away from telling the girl from William's anything about me. And just how she would know that my birthday is in a little over a month, and that my mom goes by the name "Billie" is beyond me.

"Just writtin' to wish *u*..."

That *u* thing struck me in a strange way. Like it was being emphasized, and I was supposed to be wishing this person that I thought I knew, but really don't know, a happy birthday, too, at some point.

OH FUCK! No-fucking-way. It can't be. There's no way...is there?

When I was 19, I dated a girl named Carrie Jo. We shared the same birthday, and my mom, Billie, was crazy about her. And Carrie Jo was a pro at kissing my mom's ass. The whole relationship ended in a screaming match after she called me a dumbass, in front of my mom of all people. She was serious, too. I haven't even wanted to say one word to her since.

Just how the 612 text-message was worded makes it glaringly apparent that she's trying to track me down again. So, this part of the mystery being solved, I'm now on a mission to find out how my crazy, stalker ex-girlfriend got the number to this cell phone. This isn't the first time she's tracked me down, and I know it won't be the last.

But wait--what about the 763 number? Who's that then? ANOTHER GIRL NAMED CARRIE?

This time I had my friend Dawn call both numbers because I'm sick of trying to be a man, and it's she confirmed that I have two crazy Carries on my hands. Not one, but two. Not three. Two.

How in the hell I am supposed to cope with shit like this? I'm surprised that I'm not drunk already.

Part IV--It just keeps getting worse

10 minutes after I had all of this written out and thought, mistakenly, that I had everything figured out, Penis Girl just called me from a 952 number.

Her name is Bev! And that's not even close to Carrie! She called to ask me out for a drink sometime, and I must admit, after all this a drink sounds pretty good. Especially with a girl that the likelihood of playing touchey-feely is high. I need some sort of stress relief, damn it!

So, the real mystery is who's the 2nd Carrie? Is it the same as the first Carrie? Is the ex trying to confuse me by throwing different numbers, friends and voices into the mix?

This is just plain nuts.

2005-03-27T19:08:00.000-08:00

Friday night at about 9pm, I went to William's with a buddy from work to play a few games of foosball. The number of times that he trounced should've been an omen of sorts that I was in for an odd night. Actually, "odd" doesn't even begin to describe my night.

Around 10pm, my coworker left, leaving me flying solo for a few hours before Twanner came out for the night. That's fine with me, as I normally have better stories when I go out by myself. I'm not sure if it's because people aren't afraid of me when I'm alone, or maybe they're afraid of my friends. That's got to be it, right? Well, whatever it is, people feel the need to talk to me when there's nobody else with me.

I plopped myself on a barstool, ordered a liter of Miller Lite and a Nerd Board, and prepared for an exciting early evening of NTN. 10 minutes after sitting down, two girls sat down in the stools directly to my left. Immediately after sitting, they both looked at me, looked at each other, and the girl that was nearest to me switched seats with the other.

O....k.

I knew for a fact that I didn't smell, because I'd just taken a shower prior to leaving my house. Fuck, I don't understand women one bit, so their reasoning behing this action could've been damn near anything. With a swig of my beer, I concluded that I didn't even care.

That is, until the girl next to me tried initiating me in conversation.

Well, hello, what do we have here? She seemed normal enough--could carry on a conversation, had all of her limbs, wasn't a hideous she-beast. At first I just thought she was bored, as her friend was talking to the people next to her and more of her friends began showing up. The conversation started out as idle chit-chat with questions about the trivia, and what I'm doing at the bar myself on a Friday night.

Somewhere in the course of this conversation, she got my number. It wasn't even a big deal, really. I'm always in search of girls that like to drink and would rather spend time at a bar than a coffee shop, so I was all for it. She wasn't ugly, liked beer and spoke English--I'm not as picky as most people think.

As soon as she got my number, I realized things were about to go horribly awry. How did I know? She started in with personal questions; questions that I'm usually loathe to share with someone I just meet.

"What do you do for a living?"

I hate explaining what my job is, because my job is not who I am. Does it really matter what I do, as long as I'm making a decent living? I mean, I'm not dealing drugs and not shooting porn. Outside of the fact that my job pays the bills, what I do doesn't matter. But, I humored her and gave her a brief job description, to which she nodded and smiled, just like I knew she would. Nobody ever says "Wow, that sounds like fun!" or, "Sounds like a dream job, mate." Unfortunately, she didn't stop there.

"What do you do for fun?"

This is, by far, the worst of the get-to-know questions. Just hang out with me for a whille and you'll know what I like doing and what I'm all about. I know she was trying to find some common ground, but I hate when I'm forced to give information. When I feel like divulging, I'll do it.

Did she stop there? Of course not!

"Do you find me attractive?"

After this question, no, I didn't and it's about this time that I was wishing that I had the ability to change my phone number just by staring at my phone. I rarely give out compliments, and when I do, I'd like to think they mean something. I'm not going to compliment someone that's just asked for one unless I'm expecting to get laid, but then I feel slightly dirty because that's pretty damn close to lying for sex, and I should never have to do that.

So, I'm avoiding answering her queries, and saying "That's the worst question that I've ever heard". Little did I know that she had absolutely no pride, and was about to blow any and all previous questions out of the water.

I told her that I was about to leave to meet up with my buddy, and she gave me a disappointed look and offered to buy me a beer. I rebuffed those two ploys aimed at getting me to stay, and she sat in silience before coming up with the following gem spoken with an emotionless face:

"Do you have a large penis?"

Utter disbelief is the best I could describe what I felt. Disgust probably conveys it better, though. I don't quite remember, as my face went numb for a bit and I shut out everything in the bar, including her. It's one thing that she wasn't coy, or flirty about asking me if I had a big dick. The matter-of-fact manner in her question bothered me enough, but her use of the word "penis" caused me to laugh in her face. She might as well have used the word "willy". What the fuck--are we in 8th grade Sex Ed?

Penis. Honestly now.

If she really wanted to know, she should've just nonchalantly cupped my crotch. And I'm a little surprised that she didn't try fellating me right there at the bar. But no, she used the word penis in a sentence. While trying to be sexy. Whoops, objective failed and miserably at that.

You wouldn't think this could get any less sexy, do you? You'd be wrong.

As I got up, I laughed at her again and started putting on my coat, when she took it upon herself to determine my penile proportions...by affixing her gaze directly to my groin. I snapped my fingers in front of her face once, and she didn't stop staring. I don't wear tight pants, so I'm not quite sure how she thought it possible to see my penis through a layer of denim, but that sure didn't stop her from trying.

Looking back, it probably wasn't in my best interest to tell her that I shot porn for a living.

Good Friday for Craig, indeed.

2005-03-25T07:42:00.000-08:00

(Just between you and I, he's probably a little better suited for a smaller box, if y'know what I'm sayin'.)

Local man model for abusive relationship

2005-03-24T09:07:00.000-08:00

Minneapolis, MN (AP)-Uptown glutton-for-punishment, [name omitted], has been the whipping boy to his girlfriend's erratic mood swings for the better part of a few years.

"I don't know where to turn anymore." said the 29 year-old cube jockey. "I've put up with the her shit for so long that I've almost come to expect it. I get uncomfortable when she's not hitting me, yelling at me, or even just making me miserable by being her bipolar self. You'd think that I almost get off on the treatment. Oh man, I'm so depressed."

He admits that it isn't always like this, though.

"Sure, we have our good times. Just a month or so ago she was in a wonderful mood. Boy, did we have fun that day. It was sunny and we laughed, and we thoroughly enjoyed eachother's company. I'd pay good money to have more days like that with her.

But, like in many abusive relationships, the happiness can only last so long. It fades away as the jealous partner's mood rapidly changes, and what was once a sunny disposition becomes a bitter, gray, inclement shell only mildly resembling the person from just 24 hours before.

"I don't understand why she changes so fast. One minute we're laughing, having a beer, and we go to bed that night smiling. The next morning is another story. It's like she's a completely different person--a person that I don't even recognize. I get out of bed, and the warm, cheery person from yesterday backhands me with a cold, listless gaze, and not one word. Not a one! I totally didn't deserve it this time. I swear!"

Not even his best friends, especially those from out-of-state, understand how he's put up with her for as long as he has.

"What a complete bitch!" said southern Californian cohort, Henry Jones. "He's always complaining about how she treats him like shit, and that just one more punch to the jaw is all it will take and he's gone. 'This time I mean it. Seriously.' he says. Well, I've counted 29 such punches so far, and he hasn't even so much as packed an overnight bag. Look, I've been there, and I know it's not pretty. But, I also know that in order for Chad to be happy, he needs to move far, far away from her."

"I love her. I really do" explains Chad. "And I know she loves me, too. You just don't know her like I know you. You don't see the good times we have together. Sure, there are times that she's not always warm and receptive to me, but I know she has it in her. And that's why I stick around. Half of the year she's a wonderful person, but other half--the half where all I want to do is get drunk with my friends in a warm establishment-- she's waiting outside of the bar for me to come home. I don't know how much more of that I can take."

His girlfriend, Minny, wasn't returning phone calls at the time this article went to press, but we did get ahold of someone possesing an abusive partner's mindset--Ike Turner. "Oh man, Tina could take a punch." Ike relayed in a recent phone interview. "I miss that bitch."

2005-03-23T11:40:00.000-08:00

I didn't touch booze until I turned 23. Sure, there were times that my dad let me take a pull from his can of Stroh's, but the true tests of liver fortitude didn't commence until well after my 21st birthday. Considering that now I can't keep my hands off of the stuff, I'd like to think that's surprising.

I didn't drink until my last two years of college because, for one, I had a girlfriend at the time that didn't drink. I was getting constant sex, so I had no need to fill off hours with copious amounts of booze. It wasn't until a year later that I'd realize that booze and sex are practically inseperable.

Secondly, I found drunks to be utterly retarded. The one thing that bothered me the most was drunk-talk. The "Dude, I am so drunk right now" stuff that every drunk in the history of time has repeated. It's the drunk mantra.

Dude, I am so drunk right now.

Great. Really proud of you there, Skippy. It takes great skill to pour overpriced liquids in your mouth, huh? Yeah, didn't think so. That's akin to a woman proudly telling everyone in her immediate vicinity that she's pregnant, like it's some great feat and nobody in the history of time has ever been pregnant before. Any woman can spread her legs and allow a man go to town.

I digress.

Last night, the Drunk Mantra was all mine, and I honestly have no idea how I go there. Dude, I was so drunk.

Now, I've not been drinking as long as many of you out there. I was a definite late bloomer in almost every respect--I was 5'1" until 10th grade, I didn't even start puberty until about the same time, and the first time I ever got drunk was off of Old English Special Reserve (Raspberry!) malt liquor late in my junior year of college. You'd think, though, that after 7 years of continuous booze-fueled weekends, that I'd have some sort of guage on my tolerance level.

Nope, there are times like last night when the full out palsy drunk sneaks up on you. Even this morning, I still don't understand how I got so annihilated that, when I checked my phone to see what time it was(it was 11:00am, by the way), there was a text-message from a friend that said "Are you ok?". You know I'm in bad form when people are concerned about how drunk I am. Rarely will anyone question it, because I'm usually a subdued drunk, and people have a hard time figuring out just how far along the beer soaked Yellow Brick Road I am. For the record, I'm usually farther along it than most people think.

I even limited myself to beer last night, which is the easiest way to keep myself out of trouble. I didn't do a single shot, nor did I drink any hard alcohol. How, then, did I get so drunk that I stumbled out of the bar early, perhaps tried to kiss a friend on the nose--which, looking back, I think she mistook for an attempted make out session--and don't remember the 2 block walk home, getting into my apartment, getting naked or setting my alarm? Hell, I barely remember my drive to work at noon today. I should've been here at 9.

I love you, Beer, I really do. But, all I'm asking for is a little consistency. Once you've determined that it'll take 15 of your friends to get me shit-faced, let's keep it at 15--not 35 one night, and 5 the next. Considering your decision to keep your legs closed and be a frigid bitch, I think it's the least you could do for me.

2005-03-22T10:08:00.000-08:00

In a recent Men's Health Magazine, there was an article titled "The 30 hottest things you can say to a naked woman".

On the surface, the following advice looks normal enough, and I'm sure that there are even a few women will eat this shit up with a spoon without reading too much into it. The problem is, as the male form, we know what we want to say, but not always the best way to say it so our intended meaning is conveyed properly. Also, many women overanalyze everything and read too much into what the man is saying. In other words, they're crazy.

Hey, I never said that we were all that bright in the first place.

Saying anything like the following is a sure-fire way to be the only guy in bed with a naked girl that's guaranteed to not get laid.

(Bold=Men's Health advice. The two lines underneath each are my additions.)

"Is it okay with you if I take this slow?"
What I mean: "I don't always have to pound-pound-pound away. I like to make love sometimes, too".
What she thinks:"If we don't take it slow, you're going to come again in less than 5 seconds. Why can't you fuck me like I want to be fucked?"

"Want to join me in the shower?"
What I mean:"Sex in the shower the dirtiest way to get clean, and it's fucking ho-o-o-t."
What she thinks "You're telling me that I smell like rotting halibut and need a good scrubbing. Let's see if you ever get head again."

"I want to kiss/lick/touch every inch of you."
What I mean: You have an incredible body that I can't get enough of"
What she thinks: Even my ass? Fucking pig!"

"I love how you taste."
What I mean: "You taste good. Simple enough."
What she thinks:" What--is there a time when I don't taste good? I bet there is, otherwise you'd mention that I taste good all the time."

"Do you feel this, too?" ("This" being an incredible emotional euphoria.)
What I mean: "Do you feel the passion/spark/connection?"
What she thinks: "I wish you'd just stop asking for penis validation already. It's getting old."

"Hungry? Stay right here. I'll go make you a burrito."
What I mean: "I'll do anything that makes you more comfortable."
What she thinks: "Are you trying to make me fat? You're trying to make me fat!"

"I'll get the light."
What I mean: "You're comfortable and you're naked--let me get out this warm bed to turn the light on/off so that you don't have to"
What she thinks:"Holy shit, you're disgusted by the sight of my body and can't even make love to me with the light on! I'm such a whale. While you're up, you might as well grab that can of Pringles, a pound of butter and the maple syrup, because it could be a while until I'm craving something other than Pringles pancakes."

"I'll cancel my plans if you'll stay here with me for the rest of the weekend."
What I mean: "I'm comfortable here with you, and getting out of bed is the last thing I want to do."
What she thinks: "Fuck, I'm an independent woman and you, a shmuck that I barely know, already wants to hoard all my time. It's my time. My time. I'm not letting some limp-dicked, three second boy turn me codependent. Where's my phone? The next time you walk your his hairy-assed self to the bathroom, I'm calling my girlfriend to tell them about this shit you're trying to pull. Men are such assholes!"

"No one's ever done that before."
What I mean: "Wow, that was amazing. Please do that again, and then repeat as necessary."
What she thinks: "You didn't like it, otherwise you would've complimented me on my skill. I better not do that anymore."

"Can we do that again?"
What I mean: "Can we, as in both of us, simultaneously, do that again."
What she thinks: "I can't believe you're so selfish to think that I'd be the one doing all the work again!"

Nothing. Total, deliberate silence. You can stare at her, grab her, touch her, but don't make a sound. If she tries to talk, place a finger on her lips.
What I mean: "I like you a lot, and I'm trying to build the sexual tension by staring deeply into your eyes that resemble azure pools."
What she thinks:"I wish he'd stop staring at me, because this is becoming really uncomfortable. What, do I have a booger?"

While looking out the window at people not currently in bed with her: "Suckers."
What I mean: "I'm the luckiest guy alive right now because I'm in bed with a hot-ass girl, and all of those people outside are jealous."
What she thinks:"Oh shit, you're using reverse psychology on me. By mentioning those people on the street, you're really saying that you want to be out there with them. I better go."

While looking at moonlight reflecting on the ceiling: "What do you see?"
What I mean: "What are you thinking about? I'm trying to figure out how your brain works."
What she thinks: "What do I see? What the fuck do you mean, what do I see? I see the moonlight. Are you calling me dumb because I don't see what you see?"

"I'll go make coffee."
What I mean: "Once again, just like with the light, I'll get out of bed to do something for you, and you can stay comfortable."
What she thinks: "You have a sheisse fetish."

"Let's play hooky today."
What I mean: Let's both call in sick to work, order pizza, drink a few beers and have floor joist breaking sex in every damn room in the house."
What she thinks: " I can't believe you're trying to get me fired in order to make me a live-at-home girlfriend!!"

"Squeeze my hand when it feels really amazing."
What I mean: "Just let me know when you're coming, because I have no clue since you're not a squirter."
What she thinks: "I can believe you don'tt know when I'm coming! What a selfish ass! Looks like I'm faking it. Again."

Words that end in "uck." Yes, even "duck," when appropriate.
What I mean: "Fuck. FUCK! Holy fuck. Jesus fuck, that's good!
What she thinks: "I better not do that anymore, because you might think that I've slept around to get this good. Even though that's exactly how I've acquired this skill, it's better that you not know that."

"I'm ready to go again."
What I mean:"I'll do my best the second go-round, but I'm not promising an orgasm on your end".
What she thinks: "You better last more than a minute this time. Also, can you get that thing any harder, Softie?"

"Damn, I've missed you."
What I mean: "I've missed you."
What she thinks: "Codependent much?"

"How about a massage?"
What I mean: "How about a massage?"
What she thinks: "I'm on to you--first you start with my shoulders, and then you slowly work your way down my back. After my back, you'll work your way up from my feet, ending with my inner thighs. Though you won't directly touch my already tingling nether region, you'll lightly brush around it enough times in order to get me hot. The next thing I know, you're balls deep screaming your mother's name, and I don't know if I'm ready for that again."

Eh, that one is spot on. If I offer up a massage, I'm also trying to get laid.

Playful laughter.
What I mean: I'm having fun, hence the laugh.
What she thinks: I hate your laugh. Stop.

"Don't ever leave me."
What I mean: "I love you, and don't know what I'd do without you."
What she thinks: "If I ever leave you, you're going to hunt me down covered in war paint--a bowie knife in your right hand and every picture we've ever taken together in your left, screaming out "How could you do this to me? I LOVE YOU!" Is there such a thing as a preemptive restraining order?"

2005-03-21T12:35:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I wish my life was a plot in a choose Choose Your Own Adventure book, so that my readers could go back and take another path in the event of a setback.

I remember reading this series of books in grade school, and in not a single one did I make it through all the way to the end without the main character dying a magnificent death, like getting chomped in half by a carnivorous plant the size of a double-wide trailer, or becoming the slave to a master race of genius Border Collies. Nothing was ever too far fetched for my little 5th grade imagination.

The beauty behind these books--well, the whole premise behind them, actually--was that if the character ever died, the easiest thing to do was back-up to your last fork in the road and begin again down the road less traveled. Bingo, you're immediately not dead! And nobody but you knows any different.

I've never been a position where I've had to deal with something as serious as my own death, but I still look back and think about which page number I chose that has the possibility to lead me down a less than desirable path, and what might've happened had I chose the alternative.

In high school, my favorite class was French. A lot of it had to do with having a great teacher that I may or may not have had a crush on, but that's not the point. Suffice it to say, though, learning a new language came very easy to me, and decided to choose French as my first of many majors in my freshman year of college. Of the two professors that taught where I went to school, one of them looked identical to Tim Curry, and the other was a crotchety old bag named--I shit you not--Madame White. The only thing missing in the department was a phonetics teacher named Professor Plum, a dead body and a motive and we'd have ourselves one hell-of-a good board game.

Unfortunately, I found myself disliking the material as a result of my distaste for the people teaching it, and gave it up early in my second year. But, I still look back at that point and question what might've happened had I chose the other page.

For one, I would've spent at least a few months studying in Paris as part of a required study abroad course. In that storyline, I'd fall in love with a cute Parisian girl named Sophie that waxed off all of her body hair save for that on her melon, and would make enough money for both of us by moonlighting as a dancer in La Cage Aux Folles. I'd sit at home all day, drinking wine, writing, and questioning why she had so many highly effiminate male friends. But, I'm not the jealous so I'd dismiss the notion that she was cheating on me, and label her a fag-hag.

Ultimately, the whole relationship comes to a firey demise due to my inability to deliver on her constant demands for anal sex and only anal sex. But hey, it's better to have loved and lost, than not loved at all, right? Right.

There so many of these little tendrils and offshoots that my life could've followed, and if their call had been heeded, I'd be an entirely different person. I'm not so sure I would be better person, per se, but I know that I wouldn't be the guy sitting in a cube daydreaming about a French minx with an adam's apple and an abormally large clitoris.

That much I know.

2005-03-21T07:33:00.000-08:00

I was standing upstairs at First-Ave, Interpol on the main stage boring me just enough to forget about spending limits, when I thought I'd have a little fun with the prevous night's booty-caller. Out come the text-messages.

Me:"So, can I expect another 2:30 am message tonight?"

I didn't care if she really was planning on texting me while drunk again, nor was I all that interested in having her come over. I was bored while watching a band that I wasn't into. A few minutes later, I got my answer.

"On."

Things just got a bit more interesting. She's telling me "game on", so that means I can expect someone occupying my bed other than myself. Sweet.

I decided to get cute.

"I have no idea what that means.", I replied.

Of course I knew what "on" meant. I'm not stupid. "On" meant that she was planning on stopping by after she was sloppy drunk to have relations that she sure in the hell wouldn't remember. Hey, we've all been there, right? Of course we have, more than likely together.

The next response I got was entirely unexpected.

"I'm staying in, so on, I won't be texting you."

Unless you're a moron, you can see the problem here. I even underlined it for knuckle-dragging droolers reading this. She can't spell "no". I know for a fact she couldn't say "no" but not being able to spell it is a new one to me.

Being the quick-witted, off-the-cuff guy that I am, I waited 10 minutes to send back the perfect response. Even now, 24 hours later, I can't get over how perfect of a text-message it was.

"On is not the same thing as NO. Where did you learn how to proof-read? Dyslexia University?"

Sometimes even I find myself funny.

Ok, so it wasn't that great. But, wouldn't you think something as important as shooting a guy down requires a little more in the way of a glance-over before sending? I sure do.

2005-03-16T09:31:00.000-08:00

I am in a billion times better mood today. Why?

I got to hang out with my year-old neice for a bit yesterday, and she's finally starting to look less and less alien and more like a miniature human. And that makes me happy. No, she's not disfigured at all, it's just that babies are weird looking.

I am happy over all, but I've come down with a cold that, even though it makes my voice uncharacteristically sexy, it makes me more annoyed at little things that really don't matter.

But, you get to hear about them.

Mini Martini drinkers:
Fuck these people. I can understand drinking a martini so big that it costs your first born and requires a $100 glass deposit, because that's a lot of booze. I'm all about a lot of booze. But, when you're sipping a one ounce drink out of a little, teensy glass that you can't squeeze too hard for fear that it might crumble, it doesn't make you look cool, it makes you look like an asshole. Stop being a pussy and drink it out of a shot glass or a lowball.

Shitty tattoos:
Now, I'm sure that people look at my tattoos and want to say "Holy shit, dude, those tattoos are shitty!", and you know, sometimes I'd probably agree with them. There are, though, some things that people shouldn't get permanently jammed into their skin with a needle.

For one, a barbed-wire arm band tattoo. Or any arm-band tattoo for that matter. The only exception to that is if the arm band is huge, but I suppose that would technically make it a partial sleeve, and those are just cool. Any time I see a girl with an arm-band tattoo, I can guarantee that it will be paired with big boobs, a halter top and a teased mop of Aqua-Net drenched white hair. It never fails.

Any time I see this combination, I want to run up to them and scream "Hey, look everybody, it's not Pamela Anderson!" Not even Pamela Anderson wants to be Pamela Anderson most of the time, and I can't imagine why anyone else would want to be.

Another tattoo I hate is on the lower back of women, mostly because they place it there under the misconception that the skin doesn't stretch. True, it won't stretch if you get pregnant like it would if, say, it was on your belly, but it still requires that you don't get enormously fat. Ever see a fat person with a skinny back? No, because that area will get bigger and stretch just as much as any other spot on the body, and when a flowery tattoo spans out into the love handles, it's going to stretch.

And you know what else I don't like? Tattoos of eyes. They creep me out. STOP LOOKING AT ME!

Stupid hat wearing girls:
There are only two types of hats that girls should ever wear: beanies and straight baseball caps. There is nothing worse than an attractive women ruining their look by adding a goddamn Von Dutch cap(turned sideways for coolness!) or a pink, fuzzy J.Lo hat. The only similarities between you and J Lo is that your face looks like her ass(both fat), and anything Von Dutch screams out "Hey, look at me! I'm stupid enough to pay $40 for a hat that makes me look stupid!"

Wait, there is one more hat that women can wear. A hat like this, but I think I might be biased because the girl in the picture is fucking gorgeous.

2005-03-15T18:50:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the inaugural post of Irritable Male Syndrome. I think the title speaks for itself. If you're easily offended, this is probably not the site for you, but you if you like random babble, stick around. We both may just learn something.

Without further Apu, I give you the today's post.

Today is my mom's [>50]st/nd/rd/th birthday, and in about less than an hour, I'm headed out to Buffalo for dinner at my brother's house. It isn't a heavily planned party, but I should probably stop off at Target to pick up a greeting card.

I hate greeting cards. Nothing says trite and unimaginative like a $3 piece of carboard laser printed with Anne Geddes babies, pretty flowers and flowing words. Here you go, mom. None of the sentiments contained therein are original, or even mine for that matter, but hey, I broke a fiver for you! Who loves ya, baby?

But, my mom dig's cheesy shit like that. She feigns like she doesn't, but my brother, dad and I know different. I've been less than a great son, and I think I know how to totally redeem myself-- I'm going to stop off at Target to buy the perfect birthday card, but I'm not going to give it to her. Oh no, I'm going to write down whatever it says on college-ruled paper, hawking the lovely passages off as my own. I might even try to draw a rose. I'm not sure yet, but I feel like doing something just that dangerous.

My mom will love it. She might even cry. Nothing makes my mom misty-eyed quite like greeting card plagiarism. Woohoo!

Think about it, though--don't words and feelings mean more when they come from the heart? Yeah, yeah, so I'm lying to her. So what? Will she ever find out? Of course not!

Does it make me any worse of a person? Of course it does. That's the beauty of it!

Great, now I'm starting to realize how many weird situations that I could've gotten out if only I'd thought of this earlier.

Dear Amy,

Sorry you caught me fellating your dog.[turn page]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Love, Chad.

I looked, but I couldn't find the Canine Oral Pleasure/Birthday section at Target.