Thanks for the Toll Quarters, Toni Collette

An advantage to having an elephantine memory is that it enables one to exploit those who pay little heed to the meaningless minutiae of popular culture. So, to be candid, when I see the opportunity, I pounce on it.

Some weeks ago I was challenged that the female character in the Amityville Horror remake alongside Ryan Reynolds was the same woman as the lead female character in the Sixth Sense. I knew this not to be true, but eventually escalated the bet from $5 to a cool $50 before iMDB settled the score as it does with most 21st century bets. I won. I settled for $3.50 in quarters. Thanks for the toll quarters, Toni Collette.

This eventually has something to do with the meat of this entry.

SPOILERS: I AM TOTALLY GOING TO RUIN THE SIXTH SENSE FOR YOU. IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN IT, IT CAME OUT IN 1999 AND IT IS NOW 2007, SO THERE IS NO REASON FOR YOU NOT TO HAVE SEEN IT. ANYWAY, I WILL KEEP GOING.

Recently, I jumped head first into another empty pool of maturity: paying for my own cell phone bill. Now, most of the readership might assert that they have been doing so for a while, and blah blah I suck at life. Well, that could be true, and maybe the big boy pants have been put on a little late for me when it comes to this one, but don't go on and tell me you're 22, completely self-sufficient, and not miserable. So, I bought my own cell phone and I subsequently died in the process.

The plot now merits that I provide a brief overview of my personal history with cellular telephones:

1999: Received a Motorola Talkabout.
2003: Received unknown Motorola flip phone.
2004: Lost phone in freak accident involving a sewer drain and torrential rainfall. Replaced with Nokia 3530. Cracked screen of Nokia 3530 the next day. Replaced with same brand/model the next week (the story behind this is not fit for this blog).
2005: Received unknown Motorola flip phone, switched from Alltel to nSUCKOs.
2006: The Fountain Incident of 2006. Replaced Motorola flip phone with Motorola V710.
2007: Replaced Motorola v710 with LG enV. Switched from nSUCKOs to Verizon.

The point to all of this is that throughout this checkered cell phone past, I have retained the same number. In eight years, that has not changed. I attempted to stay the course and keep my number as I changed to my third provider.

And then I died.

How did I die?

In the interim while waiting for my number to be ported from my old phone to my new phone, I received no phone calls or text messages. No messages I sent were granted responses, and all of my phone calls went straight to voicemail.

M. Night Shyamalan? Is that you?

Wow, it's suddenly Philadelphia, 1999.

Whoa, is that you, Donnie Wahlberg? Why are you wet and in your underwear? OH MY GOD THAT'S A GUN OH MY GOD OKAY REALLY DUDE CHRISTIAN BALE HAD NOTHING ON YOU WHEN HE LOST ALL THAT WEIGHT FOR THE MACHINIST REALLY PLEASE JUST DON *KABLAM*

Man, I thought I was gone for sure. But you know what, still no one responded to my communiques. I asked several parties about my texts and calls and none were received. They would be lost in the ether forever. And yet, my phone still made calls and sent texts. But to where?

I'm fairly certain Haley Joel Osment isn't part of the Verizon network headed by that mysterious bespectacled gentleman. Yet, driving on Sunday night, I felt his presence. And again Monday afternoon after work. Finally, he showed his face. When he did, he said:

"I see you're roaming."

So I tried to make a call.

"Your call cannot be completed as dialed."

OKAY, THIS IS A REALLY GOD AWFUL VISION. REALLY, HALEY JOEL OSMENT? THAT'S IT? I'VE REALLY HIT ROCK BOTTOM HERE.

At least that's what I thought.

In the end, it turns out that I have two phones. Neither work. What a life.

PS: Bruce Willis was killed by Donnie Wahlberg.

An Inner Monologue/Buying Socks (Whatever I'm Back)

A great man once asked me, "What happened to your blog, assh0le?" He was right. He never said that, but he was right anyway.

I am no expert on what people in the majority call "the real world." I am new to what is basically Chutes and Ladders "for keeps," as we used to say when the bloodsport of Pogs was the event of the day. BUT I will say that I have picked up on something in a rather expedient manner, and that is the disproportionate amount of time one spends alone. This is not about loneliness, although the two can be connected. This is about forced alone time, and what one man must do to get some socks.

Since falling face first onto the concrete slab that is life, I have spent a lot of time by myself, and if you pardon me for a moment to be lachrymose, it has quite simply blown. Why? Well, it's not like you can do much alone.

That's not entirely true, is it?

Is this pathetic?

In all honest, it's quite difficult to think of things you can't do alone, but at the same time, when you start listing things like vacuuming and eating, you get sad, so you stop. You compose yourself, and you start again. Mike Myers, while in a fat suit, once said...

This all stems from a Sunday afternoon where I set out to buy some socks. I have found that my Sundays are sort of an amorphous series of hours, a diamond in the rough I have not quite found yet from that big scary tiger's mouth that Jafar walked through that one time. Remember? So anyway, these Sundays are jumbles of both weekend regret and weekday guilt...basically what I did do and what I should've done in the first place, you know? Enter the socks.

So I go into a department store whose name is irrelevant in search of some dark socks.

From hereon out, the asterisk (*) will indicate when I am seeing it fit to conduct an inner monologue. It will also be used for when Roger Maris hits 61 home runs to break Babe Ruth's single-season record for home runs. Curiously enough, it was ignored when Mark McGwire hit 70 home runs in 1998 and even not really brought into conversation when Barry Bonds took 73 deep in 2001, yet Marc Ecko decided to bring Ford "SexyBack" Frick into the limelight again with Bonds' 756th home run ball escapades. The asterisk also looks like a booby tassel.

*socks socks socks socks socks socks socks gotta find socks dark socks muh muh muh MYYYY SHARONA where are these damn socks?*

*hmmm this inner monologue thing might be a sweet blog idea. damn but i haven't written in that thing in weeks. it is sunday i've got plenty of time i guess. oh cool socks, dark ones even*

Shopping is a lot like going for the two-spot in a public restroom, there is a sense that an audience is present and you must either perform or wait until they exit the venue. I'm speaking completely from personal experience and have no empirical evidence whatsoever to validate such a slipshod statement, but I waste my semiprecious time writing this and you don't have to read it. ONWARD.

There was a dude there, perusing the aisles for some undergarments. In my periphery in caught a glance of his prospective items and thankfully he had decided to avoid such novelty accessories as Tabasco or Corona boxers. I wouldn't have stopped him from buying them though, we all have to learn from our mistakes.

*wow good thing that dude didn't buy those Family Guy boxers that could've been a doomsday scenario with a lady. if i had those on, i would kill myself first. good thing, good thing. can't really get songs from My
Aim Is True out of my head. sneaky feelings, sneaky feelings ooooh can't let those feelings shoowwww...*

*okay so we've got some socks here, got em right here, like prying them off the feet of the Wicked Witch of the East had she not been hit by a house but merely left them in a drawer, clean, unworn, and also been a dude, so that is legit*

*shit*

*gotta decide because people are starting to circle around me like hungry buzzards for carrion*

*these. no, these. i could get both. or i could get these. or these. maybe those instead. two pairs? three pairs? two pairs. TWO TICKETS TO PARADISE, WON'T YOU PACK YOUR BAGS WITH ME TONIGHT*

*two sets. seems like a decent deal. watch that dude over there. he's looking at socks. don't look over here at me. i'm in the socks zone. the quadrant. the area. keep to yourself. i'm in this place. i came for the socks. it is sunday and this is what i'm doing. socks and i right here, in this place*

*okay i guess i am good to go*

*dum da da dum dum dum da da da dum dum dum dummmm shoes shoes shoes walking past the shoes that people wear sometimes where is the damn checkout? oh over there. cash or card cash or card what's the total strange looking cashier girl. wipe those eyes off your face. well crap. one more dollar and i could've paid cash for these socks. probably should've tipped that waitress less last night. enjoy my halfhearted pleasantries, cashier girl*

*where is my car, i can't hit anyone with my car, that'd be terrible*

*okay there it is. puttputtputtputtputtputt ZZZZZZZOOOOOOOMMMMMM lord I hate driving*

*man, traffic is so terrible. in hell, all you must do is wait in traffic. with red lights and rubbernecking and big cars you can't see around. i guess i could blog about all this. but people hated James Joyce so there's no way any of this drivel could get off the ground. great.*