Lessons From My Father: Number X+2 or 3 or 438

During every election cycle that I pay attention to, I remember the 1988 elections. I remember watching the Democratic National Convention during sweltering heat in an A-frame house in Wisconsin while my brothers had fun outside because I thought we were required by law to watch these things.

I remember wondering who the shit are all these old men and why isn't Jesse Jackson speaking more? Jesse Jackson was the only person I had heard of before that night.

I remember wondering, how does the rest of the country survive through this interminable extravaganza? Damn it was boring, but I was worried I would get arrested if I didn't watch it.

I also remember my father's briefcase. He had a soft-sided, tan briefcase that he carried to work in Bucharest. I went looking through it once, because I was hoping to find nuclear materials or Romanian state secrets or something cool like James Bond in that briefcase. Instead, I found a bumper sticker stuck to the unpocketed-side of the briefcase. That bumper sticker read, "Lick Bush." I remember thinking this was rather underwhelming. Being the age at which American children read a lot of old-timey but timeless novels like Tom Sawyer, I thought nothing of this sticker although I did wonder why it was on the inside of the briefcase. I had learned that summer that Republicans exist and are the problem and support George HW Bush, so I figured that maybe they wouldn't like my father's proud admission that he would make Bush say, "uncle" or something.

When I was voting for the first time, I remembered this bumper sticker and laughed out lout while I was standing in the booth. Two little old ladies shuffled over and asked if I was ok. Just proud of my dad, that's all.

Randomly Posted Random Songs

Here's a taste of the music playing while I search for a new job and write my novel:

Aimee Mann - Thirty One Today
These United States - Burn This Bridge
Billy Idol - Untitled track from Cyberpunk
Johnny Cash - I Still Miss Someone (from At Folsom Prison)
Empire of the Sun - Walking on a Dream (downloaded from Fluxblog)
Jonathan Coulton - Re: Your Brains
Lejeune - Kubasaki Ha'i
Thievery Corporation - Indra

Fantasies Involving Pregnancies

Okay, I could have phrased that title better.

I know a lot of women right now who are pregnant, or are recently un-pregnant and pushing around little, mewling wads of balogna in strollers. Not one of these women has ever gone full-Rambo and taken out a room full of ninjas, however. That would be pretty frigging sweet, even if I had to fend off the rival ninja gang as well.

Permits, Tests, and Lessons Learned

So I am teaching my brother how to drive. He has taken driver's ed classes, and is now working through the 60 hours of supervised driving required by the state of Maryland. I understand my father a little better than I did before this experience. Jebus Monte Crisco, I think I have lost a few years off my life. So far the best part has been:

Me: "Just turn right here."
Brother: "It says Do Not Enter."
Me: "Ah fuck it, just go, what are the chances a cop is around?"
Brother: "I don't wanna break the law."
Me: "Just fucking go already."
Cop: "Why did you just drive through that Do Not Enter sign?"
Brother, smiling a shit eating grin: "I'm sorry, I made a mistake, I'm just trying to pick up my wife and I wasn't sure which way was for the buses and which for the cars."
Me: "It was my fault, I gave him bad directions. I don't drive and walk everywhere, so I didn't even notice that was a Do Not Enter sign."
Cop: "Well, you just make sure you obey the signs in the future."
Brother's Wife: "What is going on?"

hee

Heaping Loads

So, I think I am being audited.

Fuck.

Shouldn't be too hard, since I don't have any money. And never have had any money. The IRS probably just wants to tell me that I shouldn't have filed late for the years that I filed, but they owed me money in those years anyway. There are days, and then there are days.

UPDATE: Turns out they want more money for self employment taxes and fees for 2005. HAHA! The jokes on them! I'm broke, bitches! HAHAHAHAHAHA!

DC: Now With More Bullshit Statistics

Somewhere, I heard that the DC population is getting close to 60% female. This seems about right given my daily experiences. There is an alleged correlation that DC should have more single women. Lemme just tell you all this right now: that's a crock of shit.

College Revival Comics

I am not a guy to get stressed out about much of anything, and this is also a contributing factor to much of my current situation. However, much of one of my previous situations, when I was in college, could be explained by this picture for sad children. This joke is so much more inside than anything 3Bulls can come up with, I doubt even fulsome gets the joke to which I am referring.

For those of you that don't know, it wasn't that funny a joke anyway. The comic is way funnier than the joke, it just has an added reference layer for me and maybe two or three people out there.

Do you gmail-using-people ever have that moment where you are typing in a name in the "To" box and a name comes up and you have no fucking clue who that name's person is? I have somewhere around three thousand names in my contact list apparently and I think I know maybe ten of them. Every time I write an email without slapping the reply button, I find names in my so-called contact list that belong to no one I can remember. Apparently, I chatted with them maybe? I bet they were on that ultimate frisbee team I tried last summer (what a disaster, no one plays for fun, it's all about the win and fuck that shit). Or maybe they are friends of other people that have mass emailed me and know they have spread to my contact list like some sort of gmail STD? That is a lot ruder than I mean to be to these probably nice people (or email addresses), but the metaphor is apt, like if I send you an email, you are know in correspondence with everyone I've ever emailed. Hope you have virus protection, because my gmail account gets around, lemme tell you.

New Source of the Funnies

While apparently volunteering my time, I found The Cincinnati Dealer.

So, So Wrong

Yeah, I am not even allowed to discuss Diebold voting machines with my brother. I can already fell the bile rising and the anger bubbling. I need to distract myself.

Oh! Hey, there's a release date for Warhammer: Age of Reckoning: September 18th. OOOH! And there's also pictures for sad children.

That Thing Where You Do That Thing?

Do you ever do that thing where you laugh or hurt quickly while reading something and look up suddenly wanting to share the moment with someone who you totally know will appreciate it but then you realize that you can't share that with them because you did something that totally changed the nature of your relationship and you are not allowed to share things like this with them anymore?

Yeah, A Softer World does that to me on a regular basis, but none so much as this one.

Now I feel kinda bummed out.

Other Other Hobbies

So I will finally be binge-blogging all of my various new musical experiences over at Well Rounded Nerds. It should be interesting. To at least one of you. It may even draw dontEATnachos out from seclusion, but it is unlikely to draw even a pageview from fulsome.

Other Hobbies

Apparently, I've been confusing the cry of a red-tailed hawk with the cry of a blue jay. Whoops.

Hobbies And Wikipedia

I was strolling around Wikipedia* and looked up some information on one of my hobbies. I was looking at a page and then wondered what the discussion page looked like. People sure do get snippy over a crappy army that my titan would roll over in two turns.

Pictures of the painting process of that titan are coming soon. If I care about something, that means you care about it, too. That is how this whole bloggio thing works, people.

*STROLLING, not trolling. I never mess around with pages because I just don't have enough tolerance to deal with the people that seem to care about their little corner of the wikiwebtubenet.

New Target Acquired

I must have one of these morsels of hot awesomeness before the year is dead:


A quick search of the interwebs turned up this Yelp page, unfortunately Chowhound did not contain any pertinent information. I would have spent more time there, but I am overcome with a craving for bacon-wrapped meat articles. Also, I am still experiencing a Baltimore high from an awesome crab cake sandwich, of which I only got two bites and lust for more. Sadly, Henninger's is closed on Sundays and Mondays but damn that was a good crab cake at Jimmy's.

Morally Objectionable

President Bush should probably just quit while he is way behind and phone in the rest of the year. We should be so lucky. Instead, Bush has decided to reinvent health care to include a doctor's right to refuse to perform any action deemed "morally objectionable." There goes that oath. Let's all play a game in the comments (pretty much guaranteeing that AG will ignore this), wherein we all describe horrible situations where doctors refuse treatment because they determine that the treatment is "morally objectionable."

I'll start: a bitter ER resident decides that he won't treat a crack addict's pneumonia because the resident decides it would be morally objectionable to let the addict live.

I am sure that we can all invent some scenarios that are less extreme and yet generate as much anger.

BBC Needs Some Proofreaders

This is exactly why you have proofreaders:

The Death Zone

Expedition organisers only learned of the avalanche after a group of climbers arrived back at the mountain's base camp on Saturday evening.

The mountaineers included Koreans, Pakistanis, Nepalis, Dutchman and Italians, reports say, but exact details remain unclear.

They at an altitude known as the Death Zone, where oxygen levels are not high enough to sustain life.

I keep writing all these really awful jokes here, but eleven people died doing something I will never attempt and I am trying to reconnect with the human race, so I keep deleting the jokes. The view must be amazing, and all the more so for the struggle.

CNBC Claims Oil Prices Plunge!

While watching some news this morning, I saw a moment of stupidity on CNBC. This is a perfect example of one of the problems of mass media. The ticker on the bottom of the screen starts with "OIL PRICES PLUNGE!" and you have some talking heads saying some crap about Iran backing down, campaign rhetoric, and the record high of $157 (this may not be correct) per barrel of crude oil. I wondered how low the price had plunged, expected it to be below $100 per barrel due to the use of "plunge." Thirty seconds later, the ticker says "OIL BRIEFLY DIPS BELOW $120/BARREL."

That doesn't really seem like a plunge, but it is close to one-fifth of the price of a barrel at the height, providing I heard that one guy correctly. However, that price is still double what people were calling an expensive barrel of oil a year ago. Remember when people were predicting total financial collapse if the cost of oil hit $80/barrel? Fucking crap, you newsies never learn. You should all read this book.

Newspaper Websites: You're Doing it Wrong, Washingtonpost.com

To: Washington Post
Attention: Web Editor and General Management
Re: www.washingtonpost.com

Your website sucks. It sucks almost as much as the guy I saw last night on Clara Barton Parkway driving a fucking Firebird with a bumper sticker that read "Back Off My Nutz" and with a pair of the plastic testicles hanging from his bumper. You might wonder why The Genius has laid a claim of suckage upon thine internet personage, and I'll tell you: your require some bullshit login for every damn article.

When I click on the link for this story about the hippo losing his home, I want to read the article and not see some useless fucking login. I would not mind logging in to peruse your archives, but I am sick and tired of having to log in to view the content of every podunk website out there.

It's also a frikking jumble. I am a web savvy genius and I find it hard to locate information that I want on your website. You need to clean that shit up. You have only three columns, which is good, but when I think I have reached the bottom of the page, the "Diversions" scroll bar, I haven't. There is a ton of content below that bar, but I was fooled and you can bet others are. Clean it up. Kitchen sinks should be left in the kitchen.

You're a national newspaper. Report national news and do it well. Leave the local news to the various Gazettes around town.

On a final note, your movie critics are terribad. Hire me instead, I can guarantee that I will at least watch the entire movie and won't write from the perspective of a balding, jilted journalism major.

Better Said By Others

There are some times when it is best to let other people speak for you. In a foreign country, when complementing you, or when dealing with the police. Every now and then, I find something that sums up a lot of my feelings about a subject that maybe I hadn't even been thinking about or maybe just hadn't been able to elucidate verbally, but this Fart Party comic pretty much sums up the way I feel about DC: it sorta sucks a whole lot and then I stumble upon a brief moment that reminds me of all the reasons I live here.

I went to a show last night and had a good time. I converted $37.65 worth of nickels and dimes into a cab ride (STUPID ERRATIC METROBUSES!), a new CD, and the entrance fee to Stella Schindler's CD release show at the Velvet Lounge.

In an announcement that is news to no one, I am really behind in some album reviews. I will have to get those done this weekend since I was called out by dontEATnachos a few weeks/months ago.

Current Homework Projects

I have to design a series of art pieces for a hat store for the class in design and layout that I am taking at the USDA.* Apparently the computer lab is open on Saturdays, which is nice because I don't have hundreds of dollars to slap down for Adobe's Creative Suite 3. I just might spend all day in the lab tomorrow working on my project but also working on some movie posters in the style of the Master, Myers87.

I could have done a tattoo parlor or body piercing shop and may still choose that because my hat store ideas are pretty lame. Well, so are my tattoo and piercing lounge ideas. Some day, I hope to be able to match the brilliance of dontEATnachos:


* Yes. I am actually taking a class at the United States Department of Agriculture. They have a graduate school.