You typically get the whole day off on a holiday. You can stay up late the night before and sleep in the next morning if your schedule allows for it. The celebrations that occur between bedtimes enable you to enjoy the company of family, friends, good food, and possibly gift-giving. For at least one day, we can escape into fellowship, nostalgia, and festivities.
I wonder about the in-between during the holidays. The morning hours on the Fourth of July. The later hours of Christmas after all the presents have been open. The twilight hours on Thanksgiving after the leftovers have been put away and everyone idly shuffles around, wondering what to do with themselves in the evening.
Slovenly activities seem so excusable in these unaccounted hours. Television marathons and video games and napping and aimless chit-chat dominate the unplanned void. Any other day, we would ride ourselves incessantly for such sloth-like decisions, but on holidays, anything seems to go. We need something to do in between waiting for relatives, waiting for it to get dark, or just...waiting.
I enjoy this downtime. It enables me, personally, to think about being a year older, what football teams suck, why multiple HBO channels show the same movie (seriously, Spanish-speaking people really want to see Alvin and the Chipmunks on HBO Latin?), and how each and every family celebrates the holidays differently. My downtime is not the same as anyone else's.
Not much else to this, just taking my personal aftermath to lay down some printed words on the subject.
Did you read this on your downtime?
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
On Bike Pegs
I'll never forget riding on bike pegs when I was a kid. I never had them on my bike, since they would have been pretty impractical. They were typically used for the BMX-type bikes that I eschewed in favor of larger mountain bikes. Still, they were fun to hitch on to for a jaunt up the street when I didn't feel like hauling my ten-speed out of the garage. I'm sure they served a much more technical purpose for those skilled enough to ride bikes competitively, but for me, they were good enough to just ride around on while some other kid did the work.
There was a park behind the house where I grew up, and before it was expanded with a panoply of sports fields, it was a couple of nature trails and a place for teenagers to experiment with sex, drugs, and probably hip hop; it was pretty low-key, all things considered. The neighborhood kids and I used to toss our bikes over the flimsy fence that bordered the park and our neighborhood and shoot up and down the empty trails as fast as our little legs could carry us.
One day, and the particulars naturally escape me, but I either did not bring my bike or had traded it with someone else, but I had a bike with pegs on it. Naturally I chose to use the bike in ways that could not be accomplished on my own personal transport: standing on the pegs and over top the crossbar and the seat. I would pedal to the top of the bunny hills that dotted the park's nature trails and coast down them in this awkward fashion. It was fun, different, and pretty dumb.
This was years ago, maybe even over a decade ago, so the remembered past is ultimately hazy at best, and at worst, probably misinterpreted beyond recognition. Nevertheless, I recall two things clearly about that day: the bike with pegs and the over-sized olive-colored khaki shorts I was wearing. As the afternoon wore on, i continued to get a little more brazen on the loaner bike. Before I knew it, I was flat on my back, looking up at spider webs and scatter shot sunlight.
I felt no pain after having been flipped over the handlebars of that bike. I dusted my preteen self off and got up to see a hole in my pants. A hole that happened to be the size of a regulation basketball. It made walking almost impossible. How had that even happened? The other kids I was with posited that it might have come from getting caught on the handlebars, or even just ripping as my legs spread out while I was in midair. Still, the aftermath was more detrimental to my existence than anything else. I emerged scratch-free, but with a gaping hole in my pants that was sure to have a negative effect on my emotional health in the coming moments.
For the life of me, I cannot remember what happened to me or those shorts after I was flipped over those handlebars. Even more importantly, I did not think that such a trivial incident knuckleheading around as a kid would have so much resonance on something that has happened to me as a young man.
I had never fallen in love with another person before, in a romantic sense. My loved ones were either there for me since birth or had accumulated over the years, as friends tend to do.
But then I did. Now I've been flipped over the handlebars and have stood back up with a gaping hole in me, only not in a pair of over-sized olive-colored shorts. So like that time so many years ago in the park, I woke up dusty and discombobulated.
And today, just like then, I don't know what to think.
There was a park behind the house where I grew up, and before it was expanded with a panoply of sports fields, it was a couple of nature trails and a place for teenagers to experiment with sex, drugs, and probably hip hop; it was pretty low-key, all things considered. The neighborhood kids and I used to toss our bikes over the flimsy fence that bordered the park and our neighborhood and shoot up and down the empty trails as fast as our little legs could carry us.
One day, and the particulars naturally escape me, but I either did not bring my bike or had traded it with someone else, but I had a bike with pegs on it. Naturally I chose to use the bike in ways that could not be accomplished on my own personal transport: standing on the pegs and over top the crossbar and the seat. I would pedal to the top of the bunny hills that dotted the park's nature trails and coast down them in this awkward fashion. It was fun, different, and pretty dumb.
This was years ago, maybe even over a decade ago, so the remembered past is ultimately hazy at best, and at worst, probably misinterpreted beyond recognition. Nevertheless, I recall two things clearly about that day: the bike with pegs and the over-sized olive-colored khaki shorts I was wearing. As the afternoon wore on, i continued to get a little more brazen on the loaner bike. Before I knew it, I was flat on my back, looking up at spider webs and scatter shot sunlight.
I felt no pain after having been flipped over the handlebars of that bike. I dusted my preteen self off and got up to see a hole in my pants. A hole that happened to be the size of a regulation basketball. It made walking almost impossible. How had that even happened? The other kids I was with posited that it might have come from getting caught on the handlebars, or even just ripping as my legs spread out while I was in midair. Still, the aftermath was more detrimental to my existence than anything else. I emerged scratch-free, but with a gaping hole in my pants that was sure to have a negative effect on my emotional health in the coming moments.
For the life of me, I cannot remember what happened to me or those shorts after I was flipped over those handlebars. Even more importantly, I did not think that such a trivial incident knuckleheading around as a kid would have so much resonance on something that has happened to me as a young man.
I had never fallen in love with another person before, in a romantic sense. My loved ones were either there for me since birth or had accumulated over the years, as friends tend to do.
But then I did. Now I've been flipped over the handlebars and have stood back up with a gaping hole in me, only not in a pair of over-sized olive-colored shorts. So like that time so many years ago in the park, I woke up dusty and discombobulated.
And today, just like then, I don't know what to think.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
No Promises/Printers as People
A sagacious fellow once told me that blogs that are one's personal opinions, categorically detached from following a series of events or chronicling the minutiae of everyday life, just don't have the stamina to survive.
He is right. The Smug cannot compete, but that much is known.
All sorts of efforts of seriousness behind, what the fuck is the score with printers?
The printer is truly several living things at once: the emotional parent, the ungrateful child, the pet that always needs to be walked, the expensive date, the uncooperative flight attendant who won't give you the full ginger ale rather than pouring you half a cup of it, and so on down the litany of aggravating persons and things any human encounters.
It's always something with your printer.
Imagine it bursting into tears of embarrassment when it runs out of ink mid-document, just like a mother in a weak moment, say, after you graduated in the bottom 3% of your high school class" "RICHIE! I NEVER WANTED YOU TO SEE ME THIS WAY! RUN TO OFFICE MAX AND FETCH ME A NEW BLACK CARTRIDGE!"
You might picture a similar scenario when there's a paper jam before the first sheet has even been printed. "DAD! Fix IT! Fiiiiiixxxxx itttt!! You said you would! Every other printer in school doesn't have to have the paper feed button pressed all the time!"Come to think of it, this tableau resembles the pet that always needs walking, only instead of the child whining incessantly, it's "Barkbarkbark BARK BARK DOGS DON'T KNOW IT'S NOT BACON!"
The printer as the expensive date is the printer I've been involved with the most since I could plug the serial cables into my Fischer-Price dot matrix printer. Which is a lie, since those did not exist. Nevertheless, the expensive date has plagued me to this very day, reaching its apex during my first couple years of college when I absent-mindedly (or retardidly, if you prefer to be inconsiderate) used a Dell printer. Dell printers, in essence, are the technological equivalent of a young lady who refuses to gargle anything with Perrier after she Listerines. Or claims to be allergic to any purse but a Coach. I am making this up. I am not an expert.
The Dell printer uses ink like a Hummer uses gas climbing up a 90 degree angle with the air conditioning on full blast. I once printed out directions on Mapquest using my Dell printer and I only got halfway to my destination...because the printer ran out of ink. Thankfully, my Dell printer and I broke up unceremoniously this past year, thanks in part to years of ignoring it and also due to a pseudo Geto Boys moment with the side of my parents' house.
The HP I got in its place has been much better, but instead of the expensive date, I'm now in a relationship with the uncooperative flight attendant. I'm lucky if I print anything on my current printer, much less receipts, concert tickets, or even the pictures of Danny Tamberelli I printed out for my "Ginger Former Child Stars" advent calendar I'm giving to all my friends this holiday season. "I'm sorry, sir, no .pdfs today. We don't have the time for it," the printer will say. "Try those Amazon.com invoices another day." To me, the uncooperative flight attendant is the most aggravating of all of these archetypes I made up on the spot fifteen minutes ago. You're paying this person for a service, and when you're perilously hanging on for dear life tens of thousands of feet up in the air with nothing but an empty cup and a dated SkyMall, you want a sycophant catering your your every whim, not somebody stonewalling you about ginger ale.
You bought the printer. It should print whatever you want it to print. That's all.
I have to go buy printer ink.
He is right. The Smug cannot compete, but that much is known.
All sorts of efforts of seriousness behind, what the fuck is the score with printers?
The printer is truly several living things at once: the emotional parent, the ungrateful child, the pet that always needs to be walked, the expensive date, the uncooperative flight attendant who won't give you the full ginger ale rather than pouring you half a cup of it, and so on down the litany of aggravating persons and things any human encounters.
It's always something with your printer.
Imagine it bursting into tears of embarrassment when it runs out of ink mid-document, just like a mother in a weak moment, say, after you graduated in the bottom 3% of your high school class" "RICHIE! I NEVER WANTED YOU TO SEE ME THIS WAY! RUN TO OFFICE MAX AND FETCH ME A NEW BLACK CARTRIDGE!"
You might picture a similar scenario when there's a paper jam before the first sheet has even been printed. "DAD! Fix IT! Fiiiiiixxxxx itttt!! You said you would! Every other printer in school doesn't have to have the paper feed button pressed all the time!"Come to think of it, this tableau resembles the pet that always needs walking, only instead of the child whining incessantly, it's "Barkbarkbark BARK BARK DOGS DON'T KNOW IT'S NOT BACON!"
The printer as the expensive date is the printer I've been involved with the most since I could plug the serial cables into my Fischer-Price dot matrix printer. Which is a lie, since those did not exist. Nevertheless, the expensive date has plagued me to this very day, reaching its apex during my first couple years of college when I absent-mindedly (or retardidly, if you prefer to be inconsiderate) used a Dell printer. Dell printers, in essence, are the technological equivalent of a young lady who refuses to gargle anything with Perrier after she Listerines. Or claims to be allergic to any purse but a Coach. I am making this up. I am not an expert.
The Dell printer uses ink like a Hummer uses gas climbing up a 90 degree angle with the air conditioning on full blast. I once printed out directions on Mapquest using my Dell printer and I only got halfway to my destination...because the printer ran out of ink. Thankfully, my Dell printer and I broke up unceremoniously this past year, thanks in part to years of ignoring it and also due to a pseudo Geto Boys moment with the side of my parents' house.
The HP I got in its place has been much better, but instead of the expensive date, I'm now in a relationship with the uncooperative flight attendant. I'm lucky if I print anything on my current printer, much less receipts, concert tickets, or even the pictures of Danny Tamberelli I printed out for my "Ginger Former Child Stars" advent calendar I'm giving to all my friends this holiday season. "I'm sorry, sir, no .pdfs today. We don't have the time for it," the printer will say. "Try those Amazon.com invoices another day." To me, the uncooperative flight attendant is the most aggravating of all of these archetypes I made up on the spot fifteen minutes ago. You're paying this person for a service, and when you're perilously hanging on for dear life tens of thousands of feet up in the air with nothing but an empty cup and a dated SkyMall, you want a sycophant catering your your every whim, not somebody stonewalling you about ginger ale.
You bought the printer. It should print whatever you want it to print. That's all.
I have to go buy printer ink.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Blogging about Blogging in a Blog
It has been a time.
The past couple of months have witnessed me tripling my blogging workload at the expense of the original and still crappiest blog in the 'sphere, Secondhand Smug. Along with my close friend and mutual antagonist Kris King, I have taken up ghostwriting duties for Olde Coast, a blog for (essentially for, though it is intended to be about) Michael Warren. If you know Michael Warren at all, it's the funniest thing on the Internet. If you don't know Michael Warren, you probably think Real Ultimate Power is still the funniest thing on the Internet; this is easily corrected. If you know Michael Warren and still think Real Ultimate Power is the funniest thing on the Internet, I recommend not leaving the next burning building you happen to find yourself inside.
This has been going on for a couple of months. Additionally, I have taken a position as a writer for Bugs and Cranks, taking on the Florida Marlins. Mind you, the fire still burns brightest in me for the Cleveland Indians, but I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity. I recommend checking that out for official, relevant, content that is not sophomoric or asinine. It'll be updated several times a week.
Why did I do this...why triple a workload when I did a pathetic job of handling one blog?
I have no good answer. I have no acceptable answer. Basically, I can do what I want. Kris starts a new blog practically every week, so I figured I wouldn't harm anyone adding a bit more of my own worthlessness to an already crowded Internet. IT'S MY PARTY TOO. I think. Maybe.
This influx of blogging activity on my part as well as my friends (Close friend and mutual antagonist John Stanley ripped off of me in his inaugural entry, Kris even tried to start a blog called "The Beerzebo," a portmanteau of "beer" and "gazebo," though it only lasted one entry, so I can't even remember the URL), in addition to watching the same episode of South Park three times got me to thinking about blogging and its pointedness as well as its pointlessness.
Blogging is basically like having an asshole. Or, an opinion.
That's really all I could think of regarding the pointedness of blogging. Too many people blog, honestly, myself included. There really should be some sort of screening process to even obtain the privilege of blogging, kind of like getting one of those punch cards at Tropical Smoothie, but maybe a (little) bit harder. Yet, there isn't, and thus the blogosphere (this word is a dumb word) has become crowded with the same thoughts rehashed over and over and over. Sure, original ideas are out there, but chances are, it's on a blog you will never see because it's virtually impossible to find the URL.
Granted, it does give you the opportunity to practice becoming a better writer, but no one's really critiquing your work. Are the 9 friends that read your blog really going to offer you any constructive or, God forbid, negative criticism for the tiny corner of Internet you chiseled out for yourself, knowing that any sort of defamatory remarks might catalyze you to fall into some sort of massive state of depression? I doubt it. Well, at least the 9 friends I have that read this blog wouldn't do that, I don't think.
I hope.
By and large, blogs are pointless. I enjoy the various points of view offered by complete strangers who consider themselves authorities or connoisseurs on certain subjects, but I'm a solipsist at heart and tend to consider everyone else an uninformed asshole. Most of the time. Blogs just take up Internet space, as each new blogger attempts to manifest destiny for him or herself in the world wide wilderness. Honestly, that would be creepy if the Internet sort of...ended one day. Just up and ran out of space.
However, in the end, blogs, no matter how many we have or don't, how often we update or don't, or how many we read or don't, provide that necessary catharsis that we so desire when no one else will listen; thus, we opt to air our dirty laundry and problems out to complete strangers for every last human on the planet to read.
Thanks for sticking with the Smug. I'll try to be better.
The past couple of months have witnessed me tripling my blogging workload at the expense of the original and still crappiest blog in the 'sphere, Secondhand Smug. Along with my close friend and mutual antagonist Kris King, I have taken up ghostwriting duties for Olde Coast, a blog for (essentially for, though it is intended to be about) Michael Warren. If you know Michael Warren at all, it's the funniest thing on the Internet. If you don't know Michael Warren, you probably think Real Ultimate Power is still the funniest thing on the Internet; this is easily corrected. If you know Michael Warren and still think Real Ultimate Power is the funniest thing on the Internet, I recommend not leaving the next burning building you happen to find yourself inside.
This has been going on for a couple of months. Additionally, I have taken a position as a writer for Bugs and Cranks, taking on the Florida Marlins. Mind you, the fire still burns brightest in me for the Cleveland Indians, but I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity. I recommend checking that out for official, relevant, content that is not sophomoric or asinine. It'll be updated several times a week.
Why did I do this...why triple a workload when I did a pathetic job of handling one blog?
I have no good answer. I have no acceptable answer. Basically, I can do what I want. Kris starts a new blog practically every week, so I figured I wouldn't harm anyone adding a bit more of my own worthlessness to an already crowded Internet. IT'S MY PARTY TOO. I think. Maybe.
This influx of blogging activity on my part as well as my friends (Close friend and mutual antagonist John Stanley ripped off of me in his inaugural entry, Kris even tried to start a blog called "The Beerzebo," a portmanteau of "beer" and "gazebo," though it only lasted one entry, so I can't even remember the URL), in addition to watching the same episode of South Park three times got me to thinking about blogging and its pointedness as well as its pointlessness.
Blogging is basically like having an asshole. Or, an opinion.
That's really all I could think of regarding the pointedness of blogging. Too many people blog, honestly, myself included. There really should be some sort of screening process to even obtain the privilege of blogging, kind of like getting one of those punch cards at Tropical Smoothie, but maybe a (little) bit harder. Yet, there isn't, and thus the blogosphere (this word is a dumb word) has become crowded with the same thoughts rehashed over and over and over. Sure, original ideas are out there, but chances are, it's on a blog you will never see because it's virtually impossible to find the URL.
Granted, it does give you the opportunity to practice becoming a better writer, but no one's really critiquing your work. Are the 9 friends that read your blog really going to offer you any constructive or, God forbid, negative criticism for the tiny corner of Internet you chiseled out for yourself, knowing that any sort of defamatory remarks might catalyze you to fall into some sort of massive state of depression? I doubt it. Well, at least the 9 friends I have that read this blog wouldn't do that, I don't think.
I hope.
By and large, blogs are pointless. I enjoy the various points of view offered by complete strangers who consider themselves authorities or connoisseurs on certain subjects, but I'm a solipsist at heart and tend to consider everyone else an uninformed asshole. Most of the time. Blogs just take up Internet space, as each new blogger attempts to manifest destiny for him or herself in the world wide wilderness. Honestly, that would be creepy if the Internet sort of...ended one day. Just up and ran out of space.
However, in the end, blogs, no matter how many we have or don't, how often we update or don't, or how many we read or don't, provide that necessary catharsis that we so desire when no one else will listen; thus, we opt to air our dirty laundry and problems out to complete strangers for every last human on the planet to read.
Thanks for sticking with the Smug. I'll try to be better.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Writer's Bloc Series: Worse in Real Life
I really dislike St. Patrick's Day for superficial and arbitrary reasons, but this dislike is so polarized I cannot even bring myself to put this dislike into words, so...welcome back for Part II of the Writer's Bloc Series. Things aren't any better with this installment.
It's taken me almost a month to crank out an acidic, hyperbolic, convoluted piece of crap entry for this worthless rag, and all I could come up with was bowling. That's it, and I'm being 100% honest: bowling.
What's worse is that there's really not much to say about bowling that hasn't been covered in Kingpin or The Big Lebowski or The League of Ordinary Gentlemen or hell, even the Disney Channel movie Alley Cats Strike! What might be even worse is that I like bowling and if given the opportunity, free time, and desire to get lung cancer from secondhand smoke by age 28, I would try to join a league to get better at bowling, in hopes of avoiding a gutterball for every eight pins I knock down. So if it's a dead horse, I enjoy it, and ultimately I'm a product of my generation by being better at Wii bowling, what's left?
Still, there is uncharted territory in the bowling alley itself. A certain mysticism about it endures, since while bowling seems to attract every American under the sun, very few of it remain within its prototypically dated tableau. Why is this?
The sound of reactive resin striking pins is typically muted by a schizophrenic playlist that sounds little more that sonic mud seeping through blown speakers. The lighting is typically an amalgamation of black lights and epilepsy-inducing colored lights, moving with reckless abandon, or a phalanx of 33-watt fluorescent lights that feel and look like nothing more that electrified sour milk. Since chances are you're not there for league night, you head to the deaf mute carnival barker at the cash register, who is scurrying about with bowling shoes in his or her hands like a frazzled cobbler. I would characterize the aforementioned person as the "manager" who seems far too busy to help anyone with anything but bowling shoes. Of course, the sideshow always has a portly general manager much more affable than the mute barker, but this fellow is far more concerned with avoiding any sort of labor possible and vanishing into a mist of cigarette smoke and nacho cheese, if nacho cheese has ever had the potential to be gaseous.
I realize that I failed to explain why the manager was a deaf mute; he or she seems positively incapable of any sort of verbal communication with any person or persons that approach the register. Somehow, the duties of bowling alley manager have been condensed down to shoe courier. Shoes, shoes, shoes. We all know the bowling alley never has shoes in your size, so let's not trot (ha) a whole stable of dead horses out here. All of this builds up to the most mysterious part of the bowling alley.
How much does a game of bowling cost, exactly? I've paid twenty-five cents, I've paid close to ten dollars. Prices are about as predictable as the lottery. I have a feeling that alley staff sit inside the break room and watch the parking lot via closed circuit television, making up prices as patrons get out of their cars. Have you ever seen prices on any sort of marquee at the bowling alley? You can sure as hell set up a party at the bowling alley or join a league, but God forbid the casual fan of bowling attempt to make his/her quarterly trip to the local lanes. Groups of friends or families are left with overused footwear and a seemingly Faustian agreement to "pay when they're done bowling." The frustration of the bad lighting, bad music, and bad service coupled with anxiousness to fling a ten pound rock at ten pins is too tempting to consider the fine print of the verbal contract.
Once you get past the veritable drawbridge-free moat around the castle that is the front desk, you run into more variables far, far out of your control. The dudes who think they're the Jesus but aren't good enough to actually compete in a league. The bikers who blow more smoke than their Harleys. The horde of children who try with all their might to push a five-pound ball down a bumper-lined lane. Someone at some point said something about not being able to change people. That's true, but you can probably get some results from heaving your rental bowling bowl in their general direction rather than at the pins.
The games themselves are enough to make a bracketologist vomit. The worst bowler can trump the best bowler any day of the week. Upsets are not uncommon, but the order of the day. I have bowled a 70 in one game and more than doubled it the next week, but I never keep track of my high score, knowing that bragging about it will cause me to look like an absolute ass. More often than not, the most modest bowler will do the best, because he or she has the least to lose. The drunkest person, however, will most likely not care about any of this, because he or she is the drunkest person there.
What is possibly the strangest part of the American sideshow called the bowling alley is that when all is said and done, if you really wanted to , you could toss your shoes on the counter and bounce. Believe me, given the arbitrary nature of game prices, I've been tempted many, many, many times. And why not? Robber barons run free everywhere else in the United States, I don't need to be bled dry in my recreation time. Upstanding citizen that I am, I choose to be bilked, and I make sure everyone else I know does as well. We all need points in Heaven.
Writer's Bloc continues the next time I write something, don't finish it, lose interest, and let it rust as a draft.
It's taken me almost a month to crank out an acidic, hyperbolic, convoluted piece of crap entry for this worthless rag, and all I could come up with was bowling. That's it, and I'm being 100% honest: bowling.
What's worse is that there's really not much to say about bowling that hasn't been covered in Kingpin or The Big Lebowski or The League of Ordinary Gentlemen or hell, even the Disney Channel movie Alley Cats Strike! What might be even worse is that I like bowling and if given the opportunity, free time, and desire to get lung cancer from secondhand smoke by age 28, I would try to join a league to get better at bowling, in hopes of avoiding a gutterball for every eight pins I knock down. So if it's a dead horse, I enjoy it, and ultimately I'm a product of my generation by being better at Wii bowling, what's left?
Still, there is uncharted territory in the bowling alley itself. A certain mysticism about it endures, since while bowling seems to attract every American under the sun, very few of it remain within its prototypically dated tableau. Why is this?
The sound of reactive resin striking pins is typically muted by a schizophrenic playlist that sounds little more that sonic mud seeping through blown speakers. The lighting is typically an amalgamation of black lights and epilepsy-inducing colored lights, moving with reckless abandon, or a phalanx of 33-watt fluorescent lights that feel and look like nothing more that electrified sour milk. Since chances are you're not there for league night, you head to the deaf mute carnival barker at the cash register, who is scurrying about with bowling shoes in his or her hands like a frazzled cobbler. I would characterize the aforementioned person as the "manager" who seems far too busy to help anyone with anything but bowling shoes. Of course, the sideshow always has a portly general manager much more affable than the mute barker, but this fellow is far more concerned with avoiding any sort of labor possible and vanishing into a mist of cigarette smoke and nacho cheese, if nacho cheese has ever had the potential to be gaseous.
I realize that I failed to explain why the manager was a deaf mute; he or she seems positively incapable of any sort of verbal communication with any person or persons that approach the register. Somehow, the duties of bowling alley manager have been condensed down to shoe courier. Shoes, shoes, shoes. We all know the bowling alley never has shoes in your size, so let's not trot (ha) a whole stable of dead horses out here. All of this builds up to the most mysterious part of the bowling alley.
How much does a game of bowling cost, exactly? I've paid twenty-five cents, I've paid close to ten dollars. Prices are about as predictable as the lottery. I have a feeling that alley staff sit inside the break room and watch the parking lot via closed circuit television, making up prices as patrons get out of their cars. Have you ever seen prices on any sort of marquee at the bowling alley? You can sure as hell set up a party at the bowling alley or join a league, but God forbid the casual fan of bowling attempt to make his/her quarterly trip to the local lanes. Groups of friends or families are left with overused footwear and a seemingly Faustian agreement to "pay when they're done bowling." The frustration of the bad lighting, bad music, and bad service coupled with anxiousness to fling a ten pound rock at ten pins is too tempting to consider the fine print of the verbal contract.
Once you get past the veritable drawbridge-free moat around the castle that is the front desk, you run into more variables far, far out of your control. The dudes who think they're the Jesus but aren't good enough to actually compete in a league. The bikers who blow more smoke than their Harleys. The horde of children who try with all their might to push a five-pound ball down a bumper-lined lane. Someone at some point said something about not being able to change people. That's true, but you can probably get some results from heaving your rental bowling bowl in their general direction rather than at the pins.
The games themselves are enough to make a bracketologist vomit. The worst bowler can trump the best bowler any day of the week. Upsets are not uncommon, but the order of the day. I have bowled a 70 in one game and more than doubled it the next week, but I never keep track of my high score, knowing that bragging about it will cause me to look like an absolute ass. More often than not, the most modest bowler will do the best, because he or she has the least to lose. The drunkest person, however, will most likely not care about any of this, because he or she is the drunkest person there.
What is possibly the strangest part of the American sideshow called the bowling alley is that when all is said and done, if you really wanted to , you could toss your shoes on the counter and bounce. Believe me, given the arbitrary nature of game prices, I've been tempted many, many, many times. And why not? Robber barons run free everywhere else in the United States, I don't need to be bled dry in my recreation time. Upstanding citizen that I am, I choose to be bilked, and I make sure everyone else I know does as well. We all need points in Heaven.
Writer's Bloc continues the next time I write something, don't finish it, lose interest, and let it rust as a draft.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Writer's Bloc Series: Beam Me Up, Put Me Down
Writer's Bloc Series Part I: It has been close to two months since I updated, and I realize that while the well is dry, I still have some dusty nuggets left over from a more creative period. These will do little else besides kill time. Chances are they are incomplete, poorly constructed, or just plain crappy. This one was supposed to be released February 20th, 2008. Enjoy?
In my lethargic attempt to provide this blog with the occasional facelift, notice the fun links on the side. If you happened to come to this end of the Internet and want the free publicity, feel free to inquire about getting added. The end.
Just kidding. You would know that though, if you had kept reading. Onward.
War of the Worlds, is a classic work of literature, but, all things considered, not that great of a film. Nothing compared to the bona fide Charlie Sheen classic The Chase anyway, which is currently clogging the cable box. However, I will abuse the plot of War of the Worlds, the film here, rather than The Chase, probably because it is impossible to base a blog on a Kristy Swanson road sex scene. If you can do it, the gauntlet has been thrown down. Prove me wrong.
The most fascinating part of War of the Worlds to me was the concept that extraterrestrials had, at some unknown point in history, burrowed under the surface of the earth, only to emerge at another unknown point in history to wreak havoc upon whatever species happened to be piddling around the planet. In H.G. Wells's case, it was not Dakota Fanning and friends, but Steven Spielberg drew the high card on that one.
I'm of the opinion that the war of the worlds is happening right now as we speak, but in much more passive terms. We see it on TV with commercials featuring Justin Long and John Hodgman (nurrrr who?). We pass by billboards and posters of silhouetted individuals dancing to music from another room (or device), back lit by a bright monochrome facade. They've been here all along, but only in the recent past have they truly begun a surge that seems unstoppable. Apple products.
Before you get excited and/or let down (excited and let down?), this is not meant to be a comparison or analysis of Apple products and non-Apple products. I have had wretched luck with PCs in the past, and my first iPod met an untimely death this past summer, despite my innumerable attempts at resuscitation. Planned obsolescence is a fact of life in the technology industry, but sometimes we don't want to believe it. The future arrives when the powers that be think it's the most marketable. Opining about the speed of the iPhone's network aside, the aliens have landed, and from a smug person, they're pretty fucking smug, America.
Aliens? I thought this was about that Kristy Swanson sex scene in The Chase?
This is the culmination of several years of trips to Apple stores and seeing the same things and receiving the same treatment.
Upon entering the polished, luminescent surroundings of the store, I am immediately enchanted by the rows of people poking, prodding, clicking, pushing, listening, and so on. It's as though they have encountered some sort of hall of wonders, of things magnificent and wondrous, that only recently were but pieces of dreams. Everyone throughout the store is simultaneously mesmerized by all things Apple. Standing amidst the organized retail chaos are the employees of the Apple store, acting as guides through the sea of products whose unifying brand prides them on being intuitive and user-friendly. In actuality, the Apple wares are so user-friendly, the Apple personnel are superfluous and really just get in the way. I see enough smug assholes when I look in the mirror, I don't need them standing around, pontificating their own "awesomeness" while getting in my way in a store.
Yet, somehow, the good people of the world have not caught up with the future and the shiny new toys Apple cranks out on an almost aggravating basis (re: iPod touch hard drive expansion), and march to the tune of Pied Piper Steve Jobs over and over and over, to test out, but seemingly never buy, any Apple product whatsoever. I wonder why this is the case, really. The iPod has been out for seven years, and not much has changed. It's not like the Prius coming out right after the Model T. You can see these developments before they happen.
.
Or, like the aliens in War of the Worlds, maybe you could not.
Writer's Bloc continues with its next installment, "Worse in Real Life," soon.
In my lethargic attempt to provide this blog with the occasional facelift, notice the fun links on the side. If you happened to come to this end of the Internet and want the free publicity, feel free to inquire about getting added. The end.
Just kidding. You would know that though, if you had kept reading. Onward.
War of the Worlds, is a classic work of literature, but, all things considered, not that great of a film. Nothing compared to the bona fide Charlie Sheen classic The Chase anyway, which is currently clogging the cable box. However, I will abuse the plot of War of the Worlds, the film here, rather than The Chase, probably because it is impossible to base a blog on a Kristy Swanson road sex scene. If you can do it, the gauntlet has been thrown down. Prove me wrong.
The most fascinating part of War of the Worlds to me was the concept that extraterrestrials had, at some unknown point in history, burrowed under the surface of the earth, only to emerge at another unknown point in history to wreak havoc upon whatever species happened to be piddling around the planet. In H.G. Wells's case, it was not Dakota Fanning and friends, but Steven Spielberg drew the high card on that one.
I'm of the opinion that the war of the worlds is happening right now as we speak, but in much more passive terms. We see it on TV with commercials featuring Justin Long and John Hodgman (nurrrr who?). We pass by billboards and posters of silhouetted individuals dancing to music from another room (or device), back lit by a bright monochrome facade. They've been here all along, but only in the recent past have they truly begun a surge that seems unstoppable. Apple products.
Before you get excited and/or let down (excited and let down?), this is not meant to be a comparison or analysis of Apple products and non-Apple products. I have had wretched luck with PCs in the past, and my first iPod met an untimely death this past summer, despite my innumerable attempts at resuscitation. Planned obsolescence is a fact of life in the technology industry, but sometimes we don't want to believe it. The future arrives when the powers that be think it's the most marketable. Opining about the speed of the iPhone's network aside, the aliens have landed, and from a smug person, they're pretty fucking smug, America.
Aliens? I thought this was about that Kristy Swanson sex scene in The Chase?
This is the culmination of several years of trips to Apple stores and seeing the same things and receiving the same treatment.
Upon entering the polished, luminescent surroundings of the store, I am immediately enchanted by the rows of people poking, prodding, clicking, pushing, listening, and so on. It's as though they have encountered some sort of hall of wonders, of things magnificent and wondrous, that only recently were but pieces of dreams. Everyone throughout the store is simultaneously mesmerized by all things Apple. Standing amidst the organized retail chaos are the employees of the Apple store, acting as guides through the sea of products whose unifying brand prides them on being intuitive and user-friendly. In actuality, the Apple wares are so user-friendly, the Apple personnel are superfluous and really just get in the way. I see enough smug assholes when I look in the mirror, I don't need them standing around, pontificating their own "awesomeness" while getting in my way in a store.
Yet, somehow, the good people of the world have not caught up with the future and the shiny new toys Apple cranks out on an almost aggravating basis (re: iPod touch hard drive expansion), and march to the tune of Pied Piper Steve Jobs over and over and over, to test out, but seemingly never buy, any Apple product whatsoever. I wonder why this is the case, really. The iPod has been out for seven years, and not much has changed. It's not like the Prius coming out right after the Model T. You can see these developments before they happen.
.
Or, like the aliens in War of the Worlds, maybe you could not.
Writer's Bloc continues with its next installment, "Worse in Real Life," soon.
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