Note: I started writing this entry several weeks ago and was never able to finish it, and I think I figured out why that's the case. I realized the magnitude of the self-fulfilling prophecy of the blog and how this is honestly another grain of sand on Internet Beach, destined to be passed over by Internet metal detectors and no doubt end up clinging to the testicles inside of some web browser's unfortunate Internet boardshorts. In fact, the prophecy continues to be fulfilled by the mere typing of these words, though not by you reading them. Your reading them provides this blog ultimately with some sort of worth, because at the very least, you expended the calories to click the mouse to this page. Thanks for using up the energy you got from that 33rd Goldfish cracker you ate. I appreciate it, as I realize I am no better than the other persons, places, things, or blogs I herald or criticize here, because they have just as much worth or are just as worthless as my secondhand smug. With this epiphany of self awareness, here is "Table for One," written from December 16th, 2007 to January 7th, 2008.
"I make the heartiest attempts to not air any of my dirty laundry over the Internet. A friend of mine once told me that the blog is the watermark of a psychopath, and his words still resonate with me several years after he said this in the dining hall of our school, no doubt over recycled chili and half-digested dessert that had seen far too many tours of duty beneath fingerprint-glazed sneeze guards and fluorescent lighting. He was no doubt discussing the character of a questionable young woman who will naturally remain anonymous as the next patron at Ann Taylor Loft or what have you. However, my remembrance of his notorious quote is twofold, for this dumpster of decomposed thought, rotten stories, and other base intellectual refuse and worthless ruminations is my own little trash heap, and in it I have uncovered an appropriate topic that I have chosen to broadcast as we lurch closer and closer to the holidays: dating.
It's around this time that one can feel truly alone, even though spending an exorbitant amount of money on someone who might dump you before MLK Day is not a tableau I wish to see arranged. If you have been cryogenically single as I have since the Bronze Age, you might be numb to all of the holiday goings-on that shine a light on your failures, shortcomings, faults, and character defects. You have no significant other to buy presents for, so you end up either 1) blowing it all on obscure family members 2) buying yourself several gifts to fill that gaping void in your life or 3) opting to double up on gifts for your immediate family, in some halfhearted way of repaying them for years of tolerating your unreasonable requests and overall ungrateful attitude for your comfortable life. Furthermore, you take no dates to Christmas or New Year's Eve parties. I would know; last week I stood under a sparse mistletoe, watching it wilt from the laughter of others as my forlorn gaze cut across the party crowd. On New Year's, I won't be locking lips with any fetching bird as the ball drops, but instead craning my neck skyward so that my face will be as far away from both the happy and the spur-of-the-moment-booze-fueled couples as well. Will I be bitter as the calendar rolls over and I come closer to crossing the bar? Certainly not in that particular ticker-tape covered instance, but I do not let my awkward digits prowl this keyboard in some serene sentimental manner, not in the slightest.
Once January 2nd rolls around, a much larger problem, in my opinion of my life, will be illuminated. Admittedly, it's an incidental issue. Should I be more concerned with my 401(k) and paying students loans off and paying my rent and getting my life straight with the Flying Spaghetti Monster? There is no doubt in my mind; however, why not pontificate on matters of the heart while I sit collecting dust, getting older and more worthless as the sun sets and the moon rises.
What is there to say? One might accuse me of copping out when I blame the environment, but really, hear my take on this one. Once you're out of college, it's virtually impossible to meet members of the opposite sex your own age who are either too healthy, too religious, or too drunk for you.
Maybe the grocery store?
No thank you, I am not trying to be judged by some femme fatale whilst I choose between the discounted Lean Cuisines.
Perhaps work.
Are you kidding? Having an age and a tax bracket handicap does not help me out too much. Neither does driving my mother's old car to work. I'm not exactly the cock of the walk around the workplace, if you will. Maybe if I stopped carrying my lunch in a plastic grocery bag, that might cause a meteoric rise in the pecking order.
Fine. Let's isolate the gym, ecclesiastical establishments, bars, the grocery store, and the workplace from view. What about house parties?
When's the last time you found an acceptable member of the opposite sex to pick up at a house party? Everyone there is linked by such easily soluble social networks that by the end of the evening, everything looks like a bleached watercolor painting and you still don't know anyone's name. Not exactly.
However, let's say, for example, that by some stroke of genius, I channel some caveman instinct and with all deliberate force and speed, knock a young lady out and take her out. Have you ever seen an eight-year-old drive stick shift? I'd imagine it would be like that; there's so much rust to knock off of me the Tin Man would accuse me of being shiftless. I am so far removed from the dating world it's completely alien to me; I would serve myself better by learning a foreign language (lol Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus references LOL LOLOLOLOLOLOLLLLLLL) or taking up that craft of putting ships into bottles. A dying art, really.
We can joke all we want about a sad scene or my lack of game, but I think what's the most depressing thing out of all of this(here is where I am a huge, hyperbolic prick!) rock-bottom diatribe are the dudes that young ladies actually accept as legitimate boyfriends. They're out there, ladies of America. They can't speak English well. They can't dress themselves; hair gel is the only steady product they purchase. They will ignore your interests, they will bro out instead. They will pick fights and get tossed from establishments. They will forget your birthday. They will. forget. your. birthday.
Honestly, the only thing that I am proud of from this one is the boon of self-actualization I received from trudging through this lackadaisically lugubrious lament. It was shameless. It was low. Am I sorry for it? No. Will I do something along these lines again? Chances are pretty slim. Will you be a loyal reader after this entry? I can already sense you clicking the right hand corner."
Monday, January 7, 2008
Sunday, December 9, 2007
Dead Horses Should Stay Dead
Update: MySpace still hasn't deleted my account. Tom must really want to keep his 535,987th friend around forever, in spite of my profile space resembling an abandoned storefront.
In an effort to break a mental sweat and fill the void of the missing Tuesday night Guitar Hero tournaments, I have taken up going to trivia nights at a bar downtown in order to nerd out and keep myself from becoming a sheep and taking Domino's up on their Two Times Tuesday offer. If I ever order pizza alone, I will eat all of it so that my heart will stop, and I will die. That is how it will go down.
Trivia is a strange beast indeed. Is it trivial to know trivia? Or is it trivial to be trivial about trivia? Who am I to judge? Trivia might be more important than a casual observation of it might suggest. Consider Jeopardy! Ken Jennings didn't exactly stack paper as an offensive lineman Seahawks; he was on the show seventy-five times. At sporting events, there is always some sort of trivia challenge and handsome reward that accompanies the nerd who knows the answer. Since alien technology brought us the television, there has been a bevy of game shows that involve knowledge that most of us wouldn't exactly consider "common." Yet, retaining such information can, on occasion, make you look like the world's best person. That's right, the best person in the entire world.
What happens, however, when you corral a sizable number of individuals into an establishment who have a history of self-aggrandizement and massive egos with faulty foundations? Which is to say, what happens when you have a trivia competition?
Each Tuesday night downtown, Blackfinn Restaurant and Quasi-Overrated Nightlife Hotspot holds a trivia event where smug Richmonders fake the funk and act like the cock of the walk when it comes to identifying celebrity mugshots and recognizing 50s pop hits. Now, I run hot and cold when it comes to competition. If I know I can emerge victorious, I transform into a mean-spirited, venomous creature who does not acknowledge failure as an option. However, if I know I haven't shit for a chance, I acquiesce to those competing who will surely smite me down with righteous indignation. Trivia night is one of those potentially victorious occasions.
I'm not the smartest person I know by any means, and have no way of quantifying intellectual capacity in any sort of scientifically sound manner. But if I'm in a trivia contest, I trust myself first and foremost, and pretty much no one else. Is this conceited? Yes. Am I being a dick about it? Yes. Will I change? Never. The thing to keep in mind, however, is that there are tons of people exactly like me, in the same room as me, on these trivia nights.
Easily the best and worst part of the evening involves me criticizing the competition to my teammates to the most petty of details. It is as if a fog washes over me and I morph into a beast who considered those on other teams to be the bane of my existence. But seriously, why not? It's a competition, and these people, one and all, are giant assholes. Giant, gaping, assholes. They name themselves such clever things as "No Pictures Please" and "The Artist Formerly Known As..." and "Soviet Masturbation" and "We Are Dominatrices" and on and on and on and kill me. Some groups are less smug and pretentious than others, but let's face it, folks: if I'm calling them smug and pretentious, they've got to be exactly those things.
We all sit crouched around answer sheets with ice in our veins and an unquenchable hatred in our eyes, as pens furiously scribble across paper to determine the proper Soviet premier for this or that multiple choice question. We ponder quizzically as the DJ plays song snippets in the identification portion, as if our thoughts might levitate towards the ceiling and form invisible air forces, battling it out above the din of the crowd and the haze of cigarette smoke. Through it all, I remain transfixed on the opposition, waiting for them to err and allowing my team to gallop forward.
Much to my chagrin, we never really do such things. Certain teams pack considerable heat and leave us in the dust week in and week out. Perhaps this only fuels my relentless desire to eviscerate the competition and claim myself to be the top nerd. Is this trivia or American Gladiators (thank you, networks, for allowing the writers' strike to result in the defibrillator working on this dead horse of a physical game show and bringing it back to air in place of legitimate television)? Maybe my dislike of the competition is actually the way I manifest self-loathing, and this has become too psychoanalytical for my tastes, so let's recede a bit and use words like poop to lighten the mood.
Hope, as they say, springs eternal, and pending the rapture, there's always next week. At least I know what Nick Nolte looks like in his mug shot.
In an effort to break a mental sweat and fill the void of the missing Tuesday night Guitar Hero tournaments, I have taken up going to trivia nights at a bar downtown in order to nerd out and keep myself from becoming a sheep and taking Domino's up on their Two Times Tuesday offer. If I ever order pizza alone, I will eat all of it so that my heart will stop, and I will die. That is how it will go down.
Trivia is a strange beast indeed. Is it trivial to know trivia? Or is it trivial to be trivial about trivia? Who am I to judge? Trivia might be more important than a casual observation of it might suggest. Consider Jeopardy! Ken Jennings didn't exactly stack paper as an offensive lineman Seahawks; he was on the show seventy-five times. At sporting events, there is always some sort of trivia challenge and handsome reward that accompanies the nerd who knows the answer. Since alien technology brought us the television, there has been a bevy of game shows that involve knowledge that most of us wouldn't exactly consider "common." Yet, retaining such information can, on occasion, make you look like the world's best person. That's right, the best person in the entire world.
What happens, however, when you corral a sizable number of individuals into an establishment who have a history of self-aggrandizement and massive egos with faulty foundations? Which is to say, what happens when you have a trivia competition?
Each Tuesday night downtown, Blackfinn Restaurant and Quasi-Overrated Nightlife Hotspot holds a trivia event where smug Richmonders fake the funk and act like the cock of the walk when it comes to identifying celebrity mugshots and recognizing 50s pop hits. Now, I run hot and cold when it comes to competition. If I know I can emerge victorious, I transform into a mean-spirited, venomous creature who does not acknowledge failure as an option. However, if I know I haven't shit for a chance, I acquiesce to those competing who will surely smite me down with righteous indignation. Trivia night is one of those potentially victorious occasions.
I'm not the smartest person I know by any means, and have no way of quantifying intellectual capacity in any sort of scientifically sound manner. But if I'm in a trivia contest, I trust myself first and foremost, and pretty much no one else. Is this conceited? Yes. Am I being a dick about it? Yes. Will I change? Never. The thing to keep in mind, however, is that there are tons of people exactly like me, in the same room as me, on these trivia nights.
Easily the best and worst part of the evening involves me criticizing the competition to my teammates to the most petty of details. It is as if a fog washes over me and I morph into a beast who considered those on other teams to be the bane of my existence. But seriously, why not? It's a competition, and these people, one and all, are giant assholes. Giant, gaping, assholes. They name themselves such clever things as "No Pictures Please" and "The Artist Formerly Known As..." and "Soviet Masturbation" and "We Are Dominatrices" and on and on and on and kill me. Some groups are less smug and pretentious than others, but let's face it, folks: if I'm calling them smug and pretentious, they've got to be exactly those things.
We all sit crouched around answer sheets with ice in our veins and an unquenchable hatred in our eyes, as pens furiously scribble across paper to determine the proper Soviet premier for this or that multiple choice question. We ponder quizzically as the DJ plays song snippets in the identification portion, as if our thoughts might levitate towards the ceiling and form invisible air forces, battling it out above the din of the crowd and the haze of cigarette smoke. Through it all, I remain transfixed on the opposition, waiting for them to err and allowing my team to gallop forward.
Much to my chagrin, we never really do such things. Certain teams pack considerable heat and leave us in the dust week in and week out. Perhaps this only fuels my relentless desire to eviscerate the competition and claim myself to be the top nerd. Is this trivia or American Gladiators (thank you, networks, for allowing the writers' strike to result in the defibrillator working on this dead horse of a physical game show and bringing it back to air in place of legitimate television)? Maybe my dislike of the competition is actually the way I manifest self-loathing, and this has become too psychoanalytical for my tastes, so let's recede a bit and use words like poop to lighten the mood.
Hope, as they say, springs eternal, and pending the rapture, there's always next week. At least I know what Nick Nolte looks like in his mug shot.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Identity Theft or Identity Crisis?
Checking my bank account is not something I particularly enjoy; personal grooming is often a preferred pastime over a few mouse clicks and keystrokes. It's as if I half-expect to see all $.79 of my account drained like a Larry Bird three, shorts, 'stache, and everything else. Yet, such a fear is there, as irrational as the avoidance of aluminum foil or pickled beets. The end result is that I don't monitor my checking account as close as I should monitor it.
Until today.
Going through a bank statement is sometimes like reading over an old paper you wrote and received back with a grade. You tend to skim it over, expecting the usual comments and nit picking, but tend not to pay much attention to it as you'd like to put the whole process behind you and have no interest in reading something you wrote some time ago. However, you still have to peruse it thoroughly because you never know when WHAT THE HELL IS THAT!!!!?1?!/?!!ONEwhoaONE!!!!1!??/1/!?1
But wait.
Take that.
Rewind it back.
Secondhand Smug's got the beat to
That's too many syllables.
Why didn't I preface the preface with this preface? Last week I received the Gap card in the mail that I applied for two weeks previously. However, the next day in the mail I received a notice from the bank that the Gap uses (with the curious moniker "GE Money," as if the organization were secretly a member of Master P's old No Limit Records label) informing me that my application for a Gap card had been unceremoniously denied, based on the existence of a previous card in my possession.
Jigga what?
What would have caused me to forget about applying for a card? I remember far too many tarradiddles to let a credit card application slip through a fissure in my brain. Then, my extremely boorish inner monologue said: "Hey asshole! Maybe it wasn't you!" For once I thanked my extremely boorish inner monologue and debated the possibility that someone was trying to steal my identity, in a very methodical and ultimately stupid fashion.
I decided to make the pilgrimage, or hajj (I'm huge in the Middle East apparently) to a local Gap establishment to determine the root of this evil. It turns out that paranoia and delusions of grandeur really do cloud one's judgment and make things transform into something more nefarious than reality has them appear. It turns out that a system error caused my information to be reentered into Gap's database two days later, making it seem as though I were either quite stupid or I had decided I liked the Gap so much I would prefer to have two of its credit cards in my possession just for the hell of it.
Thus, with some excellent sleuthing, I put my fears to rest like a baby with colic.
Because like a baby with colic, my fears would soon wake again.
*flash forward whoaaaaaa on tachyons*
I decided to do something remotely mature and investigate the balance on my checking account. It seemed, at first glance, to be at a reasonable amount, so I paid no further heed to it and prepared to let my brain rot reading baseball trade rumors or the allmusic.com blog or something equally as trivial. Yet for the hell of it (and because I wanted to see how much I really spent on certain nights that will remain unmentionable), I chose to revisit my online statement and comb through it...with an imaginary...fine-toothed...comb.
That's when I discovered that I spent, or some identity thief spent...seventy-nine American dollars on Amazon.com. Frantically, I checked Amazon for my most recent purchases, in the event that one early Sunday morning I decided to buy a bunch of motion-sensing LED lights for my bathroom or somesuch nonsense. However, no purchases had been made on my account since October, when my grandmother made her quarterly charge of me to purchase several out-of-print novels by expatriate Frank Yerby; I doubt my grandmother knows he was an expatriate.
Scanning further up the statement, I then discovered that someone, myself not a party of the first part, or at least in my opinion at the moment of truth, had made a six dollar purchase at a place indicated as "201 HAPPY OWL AKA." Thus, after several scrolls of the touchpad, I tallied up the oddities on my statement, and only the two previously mentioned were the aberrations. The game was still most certainly afoot.
The bank was actually helpful when I called its toll free number and I reached someone no more than several states away rather than on the Indian subcontinent. However, they could either cancel my card or let me take care of the transaction myself. Back to sending some carrier pigeons Amazon.com's way. After faking mental retardation, I was connected to a delightful young woman from...guess where?
The Indian subcontinent! Oh boy!
After several minutes of miscommunication and both parties being completely baffled as to what the other person was saying at the other end of the tin can telephone line. While checking several network news websites, I noticed that Congress had passed several bills on immigration reform, Iran promised to put a stop to its nuclear program, and Alex Rodriguez hit his 800th home run to an empty crowd in New York as the Yankees dropped to a season-low 20 games below .500. Mind you that I am talking about the far future. That was a brief illustration, because I am clearly such a self-enamored, cocksure clairvoyant that I can predict the future in the most asinine way possible.
It turns out that on Monday December 3rd, 2oo7, Amazon.com woke up and decided to make me a member of its Prime Club, to the tune of seventy-nine American dollars. Did I want my account to be sapped of precious resources so Jeff Bezos could put a couple gallons of premium in his tricked-out Hummer? Hardly. In a boon of good luck, the young lady half a world away informed me that she could remove me from Prime Club membership and give me a full refund because I hadn't used its benefits yet. What damn benefits? Faster shipping? It already gets to your doorstep in two days! If you're that impatient, go out and get it yourself! If you're that impatient and also an agoraphobic, you should consider suicide, since you live your life in a contradictory manner.
With seventy-nice greenbacks corralled into my little ranch of an account, I sojourned forth to determine what this Happy Owl place could be, so I phoned a friend WHO WILL REMAIN NAMELESS. Not that anyone cares. We walked through the previous couple of days to analyze how some $6.19 might have fallen through the cracks, and then, like a crappy episode of Lost, the proper flashback came to me.
The previous Friday I had attended Richmond Renegades hockey game, which was sort of like a roller derby on ice with the amount of white trash that populated the backwater Richmond Coliseum. My quarry that night was granted with the possibility of ten free bones covered in hot wing sauce from the fifth-rate "restaurant" known as Hooter's, if only it could even be called such. Really, it just collects overweight, pasty white men in sleeveless shirts, so it's kind of a clearinghouse for that precious...commodity. In any case, if the Renegades happened to score five goals that night, we'd get free wings. Miraculously, they did, and somehow it was Christmas day in the morning. My party collected its due and I forgot all about it a few days later. How could I forget our charming Eastern European waitress and her insinuations that we split the check three ways, despite ordering completely different items off the menu? It was pleasant, all around.
So, at the end of the day, I realized I was not the target of identity theft, but rather a victim of identity crisis, having not remembered what happened the day before or having the rug pulled out from under me by Amazon.com. In some way, I feel like my parents' generation, with their constant fears of being wiped clean by some faceless, devious entity in a way that might resemble some mid-90s movie about the Internet. I suppose I should understand that no one has your information, they can't steal your identity. I have enough trouble being myself anyway, so who would possibly want take the reins instead?
Until today.
Going through a bank statement is sometimes like reading over an old paper you wrote and received back with a grade. You tend to skim it over, expecting the usual comments and nit picking, but tend not to pay much attention to it as you'd like to put the whole process behind you and have no interest in reading something you wrote some time ago. However, you still have to peruse it thoroughly because you never know when WHAT THE HELL IS THAT!!!!?1?!/?!!ONEwhoaONE!!!!1!??/1/!?1
But wait.
Take that.
Rewind it back.
Secondhand Smug's got the beat to
That's too many syllables.
Why didn't I preface the preface with this preface? Last week I received the Gap card in the mail that I applied for two weeks previously. However, the next day in the mail I received a notice from the bank that the Gap uses (with the curious moniker "GE Money," as if the organization were secretly a member of Master P's old No Limit Records label) informing me that my application for a Gap card had been unceremoniously denied, based on the existence of a previous card in my possession.
Jigga what?
What would have caused me to forget about applying for a card? I remember far too many tarradiddles to let a credit card application slip through a fissure in my brain. Then, my extremely boorish inner monologue said: "Hey asshole! Maybe it wasn't you!" For once I thanked my extremely boorish inner monologue and debated the possibility that someone was trying to steal my identity, in a very methodical and ultimately stupid fashion.
I decided to make the pilgrimage, or hajj (I'm huge in the Middle East apparently) to a local Gap establishment to determine the root of this evil. It turns out that paranoia and delusions of grandeur really do cloud one's judgment and make things transform into something more nefarious than reality has them appear. It turns out that a system error caused my information to be reentered into Gap's database two days later, making it seem as though I were either quite stupid or I had decided I liked the Gap so much I would prefer to have two of its credit cards in my possession just for the hell of it.
Thus, with some excellent sleuthing, I put my fears to rest like a baby with colic.
Because like a baby with colic, my fears would soon wake again.
*flash forward whoaaaaaa on tachyons*
I decided to do something remotely mature and investigate the balance on my checking account. It seemed, at first glance, to be at a reasonable amount, so I paid no further heed to it and prepared to let my brain rot reading baseball trade rumors or the allmusic.com blog or something equally as trivial. Yet for the hell of it (and because I wanted to see how much I really spent on certain nights that will remain unmentionable), I chose to revisit my online statement and comb through it...with an imaginary...fine-toothed...comb.
That's when I discovered that I spent, or some identity thief spent...seventy-nine American dollars on Amazon.com. Frantically, I checked Amazon for my most recent purchases, in the event that one early Sunday morning I decided to buy a bunch of motion-sensing LED lights for my bathroom or somesuch nonsense. However, no purchases had been made on my account since October, when my grandmother made her quarterly charge of me to purchase several out-of-print novels by expatriate Frank Yerby; I doubt my grandmother knows he was an expatriate.
Scanning further up the statement, I then discovered that someone, myself not a party of the first part, or at least in my opinion at the moment of truth, had made a six dollar purchase at a place indicated as "201 HAPPY OWL AKA." Thus, after several scrolls of the touchpad, I tallied up the oddities on my statement, and only the two previously mentioned were the aberrations. The game was still most certainly afoot.
The bank was actually helpful when I called its toll free number and I reached someone no more than several states away rather than on the Indian subcontinent. However, they could either cancel my card or let me take care of the transaction myself. Back to sending some carrier pigeons Amazon.com's way. After faking mental retardation, I was connected to a delightful young woman from...guess where?
The Indian subcontinent! Oh boy!
After several minutes of miscommunication and both parties being completely baffled as to what the other person was saying at the other end of the tin can telephone line. While checking several network news websites, I noticed that Congress had passed several bills on immigration reform, Iran promised to put a stop to its nuclear program, and Alex Rodriguez hit his 800th home run to an empty crowd in New York as the Yankees dropped to a season-low 20 games below .500. Mind you that I am talking about the far future. That was a brief illustration, because I am clearly such a self-enamored, cocksure clairvoyant that I can predict the future in the most asinine way possible.
It turns out that on Monday December 3rd, 2oo7, Amazon.com woke up and decided to make me a member of its Prime Club, to the tune of seventy-nine American dollars. Did I want my account to be sapped of precious resources so Jeff Bezos could put a couple gallons of premium in his tricked-out Hummer? Hardly. In a boon of good luck, the young lady half a world away informed me that she could remove me from Prime Club membership and give me a full refund because I hadn't used its benefits yet. What damn benefits? Faster shipping? It already gets to your doorstep in two days! If you're that impatient, go out and get it yourself! If you're that impatient and also an agoraphobic, you should consider suicide, since you live your life in a contradictory manner.
With seventy-nice greenbacks corralled into my little ranch of an account, I sojourned forth to determine what this Happy Owl place could be, so I phoned a friend WHO WILL REMAIN NAMELESS. Not that anyone cares. We walked through the previous couple of days to analyze how some $6.19 might have fallen through the cracks, and then, like a crappy episode of Lost, the proper flashback came to me.
The previous Friday I had attended Richmond Renegades hockey game, which was sort of like a roller derby on ice with the amount of white trash that populated the backwater Richmond Coliseum. My quarry that night was granted with the possibility of ten free bones covered in hot wing sauce from the fifth-rate "restaurant" known as Hooter's, if only it could even be called such. Really, it just collects overweight, pasty white men in sleeveless shirts, so it's kind of a clearinghouse for that precious...commodity. In any case, if the Renegades happened to score five goals that night, we'd get free wings. Miraculously, they did, and somehow it was Christmas day in the morning. My party collected its due and I forgot all about it a few days later. How could I forget our charming Eastern European waitress and her insinuations that we split the check three ways, despite ordering completely different items off the menu? It was pleasant, all around.
So, at the end of the day, I realized I was not the target of identity theft, but rather a victim of identity crisis, having not remembered what happened the day before or having the rug pulled out from under me by Amazon.com. In some way, I feel like my parents' generation, with their constant fears of being wiped clean by some faceless, devious entity in a way that might resemble some mid-90s movie about the Internet. I suppose I should understand that no one has your information, they can't steal your identity. I have enough trouble being myself anyway, so who would possibly want take the reins instead?
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Hatred in Retrospect
More often than not, I fail to execute on some of my ideas for this little piece of Internet. Is this a source of pride for me? Certainly not. However, it is better to put ideas in the dumpster or on a back burner than it is to keep releasing albums, Duran Duran.
In any case, this entry is about sports. Sport? I do not know. I guess I'm not a sports fan in that particular sense. I am first, foremost, and only, a baseball fan. Why resort to such antiquated fandom in the days of Peyton Manning commercials and FIFA 2259? No telling. Why write a dreadfully inane blog three or so times a month? ***THIS ENTRY IS LONG AND YOU WILL MOST LIKELY GET BORED WITH IT, JUST SO YOU KNOW. I'M FLOODING THE INTERNET WITH USELESS DRIVEL***
Legitimate sports fans are made through suffering. Supporting your team through the bad times is what really bonds you to a franchise and helps you savor victory when it finally comes. By this logic, Chicago Cubs fans blah blah blah blah blah. We know the story all too well. Admittedly, I know very little about championship or even .500-plus seasons when it comes to other sports franchises. Do Atlanta Hawks fans exist? Anyone reading support the St. Louis Blues? Wikipedia tells me the Detroit Lions are still around, which was pretty shocking to me. "lol" as it goes. The point here is that somewhere in the bowels of these American cities, there are still never-say-die season ticket holders who come out year after year to yell themselves blue in the face for the hometown squad. This is loyalty. This is an unbreakable and unexplainable bond between man and team, and naturally woman and team as well. I wrote that to avoid getting heat. You see what I'm getting at here, and if not, watch a game with one of these teams in it. Someone is still out there wearing the team colors and supporting the franchise until his dying breath. Or her dying breath. Whatever. THEY'RE OUT THERE ALL RIGHT.
Consider this though: what if there were a sports team who didn't seem to have those fans? What if they seemed to sprout up like those God-forsaken magnetic yellow ribbons currently causing the paint to fade on a car on your street as you read this? You know the ones. Support our ribbons. It seems wasteful to pass judgment on individuals in a pissing contest regarding all things loyalty and history and whatnot, but let's say I've been holding it for a while. And now I can no longer hold back.
Flash back to 2003. A year like any other, right? Sure. Some of the few people who weren't chomping at the bit waiting for Peyton Manning commercials to saturate the TV airwaves were transfixed to the American League Championship Series between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox. A grand rivalrly that spanned decades of acrimonious, polarizing competition was once again competing on a magnificent stage to prove who would take home the American League pennant and play either the beloved Chicago Cubs or those fire-sale prone Florida Marlins. The Yankees, with their limitless payroll, boisterous fans, superstar roster, and twenty-six World Series titles were more than ever living up to the "Evil Empire" appellation as they put the choke hold on the scrappy, underdog Boston Red Sox. The Yankees would eventually prevail and thankfully fall to the upstart Marlins in the World Series, who after winning lit Pro Player Stadium on fire and shot all of their players in order to slash payroll. Such as 2003, another season of heartbreak for a baseball fan and supporter of parity like myself. I sat in my dorm room, crushed after the Red Sox fell from grace, seething with contempt for Yankees fans as they again through their weight and dollars around to win a pennant. I sat out the World Series in protest. Boston's wait for a World Series would now be 86, rather than 85 years.
2004 would bring about the nearly the identical scenario, with the Yankees on the verge of achieving a FATALITY against Boston. I watched nervously again in my dorm room preparing to have my dreams cracked and crushed, trampled underfoot by a rampage from the Bronx. Yet, something happened. A Dave Roberts (nerd reference) stolen base improbably ignited a Boston comeback and in Game 4, the Red Sox turned it around and stampeded through the powerful New York squad and left the St. Louis Cardinals in the dust in four laughable games. After eighty-six years, the Boston Red Sox were on top again, and I was overjoyed. Finally, the Yankee rivals had taken over and toppled the Evil Empire. It was a good day.
What the fuck was I thinking?
Since October 2004, baseball has been stricken ill with an incurable cancer that is spreading through the sport at an incalculable rate and nothing can be done to stop it.
The Boston Red Sox and their fans are destroying the sport from the inside out, and no one even seems to be batting (super pun intended) an eyelash. Consider this: seven, eight, nine years ago, how many Red Sox fans did you know? A few maybe? One or two? None? Yeah, that's what I thought. Maybe your uncle in Rhode Island. Sure. Fine.
While this is a trivial matter for most, it is of threat level midnight importance to me. I hardly have the stamina to proselytize enough on my exponentially expanding hatred for Red Sox Nation. What a stupid name, to start of with; the notion that Red Sox fans are peppered all over the American landscape and can invade American League cities at the drop of a hat, ruining the atmosphere for the hometeam crowd. When your bandwagon has the space, let 'em on, right? Where were these people when the Red Sox were in the thick of playoff competition in the 1990s? Asleep? Setting up sleeper cells inside other NFL teams to establish a cheating network for the Patriots? I sure didn't know about them, and I keep tabs on this sort of thing. Now they're everywhere. People who don't even watch baseball are goddamn Red Sox fans. It makes me want to vomit up my stomach.
As I said before, I don't have the stamina for this sort of thing. It throws me into fits of blind rage. I am unable to establish any sort of outline at which to dispatch reasons why the Red Sox and their cobbled nation, unfit to even deserve capitalization, are polluting Major League Baseball. I would chalk it off as arrogance, but that is perfunctory at best. Is it that Red Sox fans believe the players on their team are better than anyone else's? That might be it.
Ask a Red Sox fan who the best pitcher in baseball is right now.
"JOSH BECKETT WITH HIS WICKED CURVE!" Wha? Johan Santana much?
What about the best first baseman?
"YOOOOOOOOOOUK." No, you retard. Albert Pujols? Justin Morneau? Mark Teixiera? Ever heard of them?
It slays me. Red Sox fans will think Dustin Pedroia is the next Roberto Alomar when players like Chase Utley take the field every day.
Red Sox fans are also the only fans I have encountered who will actually talk about how much they "hate" this player or that player on their team. What is that nonsense? If the guy's on your team, you support him! What kind of fan encourages dissension in a team sport? Unforgivable.
There are more than two teams out there, Red Sox Nation. You can't spend the whole season looking forward to the series games between your team and the Yankees. Other teams play too. What happens when you play the Mariners? The Orioles? The Tigers? Do you pretend they're the Yankees? What? You tell me.
What about the pink hats? Since when did this become a staple? It's perfectly fine for women to enjoy baseball. In fact, I wish more did and fewer gave me dirty looks when I get excited to watch the playoffs. Yet, Red Sox Nation has embraced these sickening articles of headgear in order to bait more women to pack in the Fenway Park dumpster/bandbox/"field" in order to watch David Ortiz walk from the dugout to the batter's box four times.
Amongst all of this wreckage that used to be a worthwhile sports franchise, I ask myself, and I ask you, if you're still reading: what has provoked the mutation of Red Sox nation and given them this abominable sense of entitlement? Each year their swagger goes greater as they demand more crappy Dropkick Murphys songs about Boston, more Jonathan Papelbon Riverdancing (fucking shoot me), more weight gain and hair growth by Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz, more hating of the Yankees and cheering like they've won the lottery when the Yankees lose, no matter what team they're playing. What other group of fans so passionately roots against a team? Are you with me?
This disease of Red Sox bandwagon fandom has to be taken behind the shed and shot multiple times, until the last gasping "Yooooouk!" cheer is kicked clean out of its lungs. No longer are the Red Sox the underdogs. Their payroll has bloated to that of the Yankees, and they too will not hesitate to buy talent for their needs. Their gimmicks are, as expected, the opposite of New York's: haggard, dirty, and weathered compared to the Yankees' reserved, clean-cut, and opulent. These are trite, predictable, and transparent. Worthless smoke and mirrors to fashion a paper-thin facade for Boston's true goal: Yankee-level dominance of baseball. Admittedly, I can't say I blame them: who wouldn't want to have 26 World Series titles? It took the Yankees a long time to earn these, though. Red Sox "nation" wants them now.
I hope that doesn't happen. I hope you've been convinced. Join me in this scatterbrained crusade to stop the new Evil Empire.
Why? Because I am a bitter, jaded, immature, and selfish Cleveland Indians fan. The pieces have all fallen into place.
In any case, this entry is about sports. Sport? I do not know. I guess I'm not a sports fan in that particular sense. I am first, foremost, and only, a baseball fan. Why resort to such antiquated fandom in the days of Peyton Manning commercials and FIFA 2259? No telling. Why write a dreadfully inane blog three or so times a month? ***THIS ENTRY IS LONG AND YOU WILL MOST LIKELY GET BORED WITH IT, JUST SO YOU KNOW. I'M FLOODING THE INTERNET WITH USELESS DRIVEL***
Legitimate sports fans are made through suffering. Supporting your team through the bad times is what really bonds you to a franchise and helps you savor victory when it finally comes. By this logic, Chicago Cubs fans blah blah blah blah blah. We know the story all too well. Admittedly, I know very little about championship or even .500-plus seasons when it comes to other sports franchises. Do Atlanta Hawks fans exist? Anyone reading support the St. Louis Blues? Wikipedia tells me the Detroit Lions are still around, which was pretty shocking to me. "lol" as it goes. The point here is that somewhere in the bowels of these American cities, there are still never-say-die season ticket holders who come out year after year to yell themselves blue in the face for the hometown squad. This is loyalty. This is an unbreakable and unexplainable bond between man and team, and naturally woman and team as well. I wrote that to avoid getting heat. You see what I'm getting at here, and if not, watch a game with one of these teams in it. Someone is still out there wearing the team colors and supporting the franchise until his dying breath. Or her dying breath. Whatever. THEY'RE OUT THERE ALL RIGHT.
Consider this though: what if there were a sports team who didn't seem to have those fans? What if they seemed to sprout up like those God-forsaken magnetic yellow ribbons currently causing the paint to fade on a car on your street as you read this? You know the ones. Support our ribbons. It seems wasteful to pass judgment on individuals in a pissing contest regarding all things loyalty and history and whatnot, but let's say I've been holding it for a while. And now I can no longer hold back.
Flash back to 2003. A year like any other, right? Sure. Some of the few people who weren't chomping at the bit waiting for Peyton Manning commercials to saturate the TV airwaves were transfixed to the American League Championship Series between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox. A grand rivalrly that spanned decades of acrimonious, polarizing competition was once again competing on a magnificent stage to prove who would take home the American League pennant and play either the beloved Chicago Cubs or those fire-sale prone Florida Marlins. The Yankees, with their limitless payroll, boisterous fans, superstar roster, and twenty-six World Series titles were more than ever living up to the "Evil Empire" appellation as they put the choke hold on the scrappy, underdog Boston Red Sox. The Yankees would eventually prevail and thankfully fall to the upstart Marlins in the World Series, who after winning lit Pro Player Stadium on fire and shot all of their players in order to slash payroll. Such as 2003, another season of heartbreak for a baseball fan and supporter of parity like myself. I sat in my dorm room, crushed after the Red Sox fell from grace, seething with contempt for Yankees fans as they again through their weight and dollars around to win a pennant. I sat out the World Series in protest. Boston's wait for a World Series would now be 86, rather than 85 years.
2004 would bring about the nearly the identical scenario, with the Yankees on the verge of achieving a FATALITY against Boston. I watched nervously again in my dorm room preparing to have my dreams cracked and crushed, trampled underfoot by a rampage from the Bronx. Yet, something happened. A Dave Roberts (nerd reference) stolen base improbably ignited a Boston comeback and in Game 4, the Red Sox turned it around and stampeded through the powerful New York squad and left the St. Louis Cardinals in the dust in four laughable games. After eighty-six years, the Boston Red Sox were on top again, and I was overjoyed. Finally, the Yankee rivals had taken over and toppled the Evil Empire. It was a good day.
What the fuck was I thinking?
Since October 2004, baseball has been stricken ill with an incurable cancer that is spreading through the sport at an incalculable rate and nothing can be done to stop it.
The Boston Red Sox and their fans are destroying the sport from the inside out, and no one even seems to be batting (super pun intended) an eyelash. Consider this: seven, eight, nine years ago, how many Red Sox fans did you know? A few maybe? One or two? None? Yeah, that's what I thought. Maybe your uncle in Rhode Island. Sure. Fine.
While this is a trivial matter for most, it is of threat level midnight importance to me. I hardly have the stamina to proselytize enough on my exponentially expanding hatred for Red Sox Nation. What a stupid name, to start of with; the notion that Red Sox fans are peppered all over the American landscape and can invade American League cities at the drop of a hat, ruining the atmosphere for the hometeam crowd. When your bandwagon has the space, let 'em on, right? Where were these people when the Red Sox were in the thick of playoff competition in the 1990s? Asleep? Setting up sleeper cells inside other NFL teams to establish a cheating network for the Patriots? I sure didn't know about them, and I keep tabs on this sort of thing. Now they're everywhere. People who don't even watch baseball are goddamn Red Sox fans. It makes me want to vomit up my stomach.
As I said before, I don't have the stamina for this sort of thing. It throws me into fits of blind rage. I am unable to establish any sort of outline at which to dispatch reasons why the Red Sox and their cobbled nation, unfit to even deserve capitalization, are polluting Major League Baseball. I would chalk it off as arrogance, but that is perfunctory at best. Is it that Red Sox fans believe the players on their team are better than anyone else's? That might be it.
Ask a Red Sox fan who the best pitcher in baseball is right now.
"JOSH BECKETT WITH HIS WICKED CURVE!" Wha? Johan Santana much?
What about the best first baseman?
"YOOOOOOOOOOUK." No, you retard. Albert Pujols? Justin Morneau? Mark Teixiera? Ever heard of them?
It slays me. Red Sox fans will think Dustin Pedroia is the next Roberto Alomar when players like Chase Utley take the field every day.
Red Sox fans are also the only fans I have encountered who will actually talk about how much they "hate" this player or that player on their team. What is that nonsense? If the guy's on your team, you support him! What kind of fan encourages dissension in a team sport? Unforgivable.
There are more than two teams out there, Red Sox Nation. You can't spend the whole season looking forward to the series games between your team and the Yankees. Other teams play too. What happens when you play the Mariners? The Orioles? The Tigers? Do you pretend they're the Yankees? What? You tell me.
What about the pink hats? Since when did this become a staple? It's perfectly fine for women to enjoy baseball. In fact, I wish more did and fewer gave me dirty looks when I get excited to watch the playoffs. Yet, Red Sox Nation has embraced these sickening articles of headgear in order to bait more women to pack in the Fenway Park dumpster/bandbox/"field" in order to watch David Ortiz walk from the dugout to the batter's box four times.
Amongst all of this wreckage that used to be a worthwhile sports franchise, I ask myself, and I ask you, if you're still reading: what has provoked the mutation of Red Sox nation and given them this abominable sense of entitlement? Each year their swagger goes greater as they demand more crappy Dropkick Murphys songs about Boston, more Jonathan Papelbon Riverdancing (fucking shoot me), more weight gain and hair growth by Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz, more hating of the Yankees and cheering like they've won the lottery when the Yankees lose, no matter what team they're playing. What other group of fans so passionately roots against a team? Are you with me?
This disease of Red Sox bandwagon fandom has to be taken behind the shed and shot multiple times, until the last gasping "Yooooouk!" cheer is kicked clean out of its lungs. No longer are the Red Sox the underdogs. Their payroll has bloated to that of the Yankees, and they too will not hesitate to buy talent for their needs. Their gimmicks are, as expected, the opposite of New York's: haggard, dirty, and weathered compared to the Yankees' reserved, clean-cut, and opulent. These are trite, predictable, and transparent. Worthless smoke and mirrors to fashion a paper-thin facade for Boston's true goal: Yankee-level dominance of baseball. Admittedly, I can't say I blame them: who wouldn't want to have 26 World Series titles? It took the Yankees a long time to earn these, though. Red Sox "nation" wants them now.
I hope that doesn't happen. I hope you've been convinced. Join me in this scatterbrained crusade to stop the new Evil Empire.
Why? Because I am a bitter, jaded, immature, and selfish Cleveland Indians fan. The pieces have all fallen into place.
Monday, November 12, 2007
How I Learned to Stop Caring and Delete My MySpace Account (Hopefully)
Usually I hold a considerable amount of contempt for individuals who like to apply a scorched-earth policy to their personal histories, regarding everything even the most recent past as a blunder or mistake or ill-conceived trend of the times. And why not? Without the trial and error of life, everything would have this fantastical, cinematic quality about it that would smack of implausibility, recalling little else than an episode of Grey's Anatomy. You know, the one where they play that Snow Patrol song at the end. Wait, that's every episode of Grey's Anatomy.
Every.
last.
episode.
But you know, there are those occasions, those minor swatches in the tapestry of time that sometimes don't warrant forgiveness on our parts, allowing us to scream "THIS IS SPAAAARRMYYYYEARRRFFGGGHHHHH!!!1111!1111ONEONONE!!111!11" as we kick them down a greenscreen pit.
MySpace.
"But it's so great!"
"It really helps me stay connected with my friends."
"I never update my account. I just keep it to stalk people about once a month."
I've heard it all, and two weeks ago, I decided to put the old profile to rest. Why? MySpace is really like the mall in your hometown. It's full of people you don't want to see and pray to every last deity on the books that you can avoid for the rest of your natural life. However, old habits are hard to kick, and you still log on to MySpace just like you make that trip to the mall, warts and all. But couldn't you pick up that hoodie somewhere else? Did you really need to slog through all that rabble to get a fresh pair of steps? Shopping shouldn't eviscerate your soul, and neither should using the Internet or specifically a social networking site. I never want to see some of these people again. It's really nothing personal. But somehow it completely personal. I respect your privacy though. I sought to delete my account to stop stalking you and your boyfriend/husband/mom/pet/favorite post pop punk hardcore electro duo band from your high school. Only because you stopped stalking my favorite post-hardcore acoustic dub sextet from my high school.
I had grown tired of the nauseating format of MySpace, with the endless permutations of colors and fonts and Panic! at the Cartel American Rejects Like Girls songs that invaded your audio space with every hesitant click of the mouse. As if MySpace had become Russian Roulette for mall punk bands. Do I want to read this person's profile that bad? Do I really want to be forced to listen to what they're listening to, even for a few fleeting moments? Does the site lag on purpose so I have to listen to this garbage? Should using a social networking site really feel like hiding from the monsters under your bed?
What's worse is that the monsters kept multiplying. Constantly, my inbox would be flooded with a deluge of friend requests, comments, and other such wasteful bits and bytes, littering the Internet like styrofoam coffee cups and weathered Doritos bags from back when Doritos had one flavor. Perhaps you recall. In any case, it got a little bit too much. You know how you can only stuff so many marshmallows in your mouth before you turn into an oral Gatling gun. KAPOW KAPOW KAPOW KAPOW KAPOW.
I thought of these things and decided to delete my account.
That was two weeks ago.
And then, I stopped getting emails. Suddenly, my computer ran smoothly. Attractive women started smiling at me at work and on the street. I was informed I no longer owed any money for student loans, and Publisher's Clearing House gave my mom ten million dollars though she never did any of those sweepstakes things to begin with, so I was now able to get that rhinoplasty I'd always wanted. Last week, life was great.
Until I started getting more emails.
Friend invite. Message. Group invite. Friend invite. Message. Group invite.
I thought I had deleted my account.
No, I will not accept your friend request, amateur porn stars and former childhood neighbors. I deleted my account. MySpace is worthless. Follow my lead.
Yet they kept coming. So today, I decided to revisit MySpace and see what the trouble was, and it turns out, I didn't delete my account after all.
I blame myself for a lack of good judgment and follow-through. I trolled down to my profile, like the police did looking for Bruce Willis in the Fifth Element and discovered my profile page to be riddled with adds and chain messages and all the trash of pre-Giuliani New York City. Just not that cool. So this time, I meant business, and went through the motion to delete my account. I received this message:
Account Cancellation Scheduled
The account registered to the following email address has been scheduled for cancellation:
roliver@rmc.edu
NOTE: Please allow 48 hours for cancellation to take effect. Thank you.
You'll never let this end, will you, Tom?
Every.
last.
episode.
But you know, there are those occasions, those minor swatches in the tapestry of time that sometimes don't warrant forgiveness on our parts, allowing us to scream "THIS IS SPAAAARRMYYYYEARRRFFGGGHHHHH!!!1111!1111ONEONONE!!111!11" as we kick them down a greenscreen pit.
MySpace.
"But it's so great!"
"It really helps me stay connected with my friends."
"I never update my account. I just keep it to stalk people about once a month."
I've heard it all, and two weeks ago, I decided to put the old profile to rest. Why? MySpace is really like the mall in your hometown. It's full of people you don't want to see and pray to every last deity on the books that you can avoid for the rest of your natural life. However, old habits are hard to kick, and you still log on to MySpace just like you make that trip to the mall, warts and all. But couldn't you pick up that hoodie somewhere else? Did you really need to slog through all that rabble to get a fresh pair of steps? Shopping shouldn't eviscerate your soul, and neither should using the Internet or specifically a social networking site. I never want to see some of these people again. It's really nothing personal. But somehow it completely personal. I respect your privacy though. I sought to delete my account to stop stalking you and your boyfriend/husband/mom/pet/favorite post pop punk hardcore electro duo band from your high school. Only because you stopped stalking my favorite post-hardcore acoustic dub sextet from my high school.
I had grown tired of the nauseating format of MySpace, with the endless permutations of colors and fonts and Panic! at the Cartel American Rejects Like Girls songs that invaded your audio space with every hesitant click of the mouse. As if MySpace had become Russian Roulette for mall punk bands. Do I want to read this person's profile that bad? Do I really want to be forced to listen to what they're listening to, even for a few fleeting moments? Does the site lag on purpose so I have to listen to this garbage? Should using a social networking site really feel like hiding from the monsters under your bed?
What's worse is that the monsters kept multiplying. Constantly, my inbox would be flooded with a deluge of friend requests, comments, and other such wasteful bits and bytes, littering the Internet like styrofoam coffee cups and weathered Doritos bags from back when Doritos had one flavor. Perhaps you recall. In any case, it got a little bit too much. You know how you can only stuff so many marshmallows in your mouth before you turn into an oral Gatling gun. KAPOW KAPOW KAPOW KAPOW KAPOW.
I thought of these things and decided to delete my account.
That was two weeks ago.
And then, I stopped getting emails. Suddenly, my computer ran smoothly. Attractive women started smiling at me at work and on the street. I was informed I no longer owed any money for student loans, and Publisher's Clearing House gave my mom ten million dollars though she never did any of those sweepstakes things to begin with, so I was now able to get that rhinoplasty I'd always wanted. Last week, life was great.
Until I started getting more emails.
Friend invite. Message. Group invite. Friend invite. Message. Group invite.
I thought I had deleted my account.
No, I will not accept your friend request, amateur porn stars and former childhood neighbors. I deleted my account. MySpace is worthless. Follow my lead.
Yet they kept coming. So today, I decided to revisit MySpace and see what the trouble was, and it turns out, I didn't delete my account after all.
I blame myself for a lack of good judgment and follow-through. I trolled down to my profile, like the police did looking for Bruce Willis in the Fifth Element and discovered my profile page to be riddled with adds and chain messages and all the trash of pre-Giuliani New York City. Just not that cool. So this time, I meant business, and went through the motion to delete my account. I received this message:
Account Cancellation Scheduled
The account registered to the following email address has been scheduled for cancellation:
roliver@rmc.edu
NOTE: Please allow 48 hours for cancellation to take effect. Thank you.
You'll never let this end, will you, Tom?
Monday, October 15, 2007
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.
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.
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
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.*
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.*
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