Bad Punchline: Christmas Funnies

Kids Say

My nephew Metaeo is three and between his parents, myself, my parents, my grandmother and others he had a enormous pile of brightly-wrapped parcels stacked under the tree and waiting for him that we had put out while he was napping (due to the timing of our celebration). Most kids would have been excited to see all those gifts. My mother reminded me that when I was a child I would have been excited by all of them even if they'd been nothing more than wrapped boxes because tearing off the paper was my favorite part. But after coaxing him to unwrap his first gift we asked him if he'd like to unwrap another one (as he had far more gifts than any of the adults of course) and he said: "No. I don't want to open any more presents!"


The Thought

I had been intending to give my brother and nephew's mother a gift I couldn't really wrap so I had the foresight to get them something I thought they'd enjoy and would allow me to give them a wrapped gift without spending a lot. I gave them their presents at the same time and my nephew's mother laughed when she opened hers and laughed harder when she saw what I'd given my brother. I was a little confused because I know that fantasy-themed coloring books are not typical gifts for adults in their twenties but they both like to color as much or more so than my nephew so I thought they'd enjoy them rather than thinking they were gag gifts. Rather than explain my nephew's mother handed me two presents addressed to me (the smaller of which said from Metaeo on the tag and the larger from herself and my brother). I opened the smaller present and discovered a set of markers. I opened the larger one and found... a coloring book. But not just any coloring book. I found a coloring book that was an identical twin of the one I'd picked out for my brother and what my nephew's mother thought was even funnier was the fact that they'd been debating between that one and the one that I had picked out for her.


Wrappings

My nephew's mother commented on my wrapping job at one point and asked if I couldn't find Christmas paper or if I had chosen to wrap them that way because it was inexpensive. I had to tell her that I actually had a whole roll of snowman paper at home that I'd bought but not bothered to use because I think that Christmas presents should be shiny (to better reflect the colored lights on the tree) and I had found thirty-seven and a half inch tinfoil rolls with which I was able to wrap every present I gave easily.


Special Delivery

When my brother saw one of the gifts I had wrapped but was sending back to my home town with my parents to be given to my soon-to-be-fourteen-year-old cousin he jokingly wondered why I was giving her a pizza box. I was guilty as charged. It was a pizza box. I told him: "So she'll wonder why I gave her a pizza box, of course. And it doesn't look like a pile of books this way." This will be the third year in a row I have given her a pile of books. And it's not because I work in a book store. Not really. It's because... let's put it this way: You shouldn't tell people who love to read that you hate it.


Estimated Time

Estimated time for Golfer's broken-down car to get looked at: Two weeks. Time until Christmas: Two days. Estimated time for Sean's car to break down after Golfer's did: Two days. Estimated delivery time for Chinese food on Christmas: One and a half hours. (Plus the hour it took me to locate a restaurant that was not only open but also willing to deliver on Christmas. In the snow. After six.)

Bad Punchline: Easter Eggs

As I told my friend Chris yesterday: "I fulfilled some elusive unstated objective in a game I've been playing for a while and now for the first time in the game I am required to make some kind of economic decision that might have some affect on my stats for the rest of the game. What do I do? There's a 'menu' of options." To which he responded: "Okay. What is the menu?" And my reply to that: "Many investment institutions with long incomprehensible names." Which prompted him to express his confusion and wonder what game I was playing. I explained to him that I got a mysterious letter that showed up not through the mail but as if by magic informing me I now met the requirements (whatever they were) necessary to create a 401(k) though my place of employment. After a brief break so he could get lunch I told Chris that the menu options did not seem appetizing.  Then I listed them off to him: "Money Market" "Bond" "Balanced" "Large Cap" "Mid/Small Cap" "International" He agreed that they weren't appetizing. After discussing each of them I concluded that "it is better to not bother because it would be like a savings account but really irritating to get money out of" and Chris concluded that I should watch the news instead of reading books about the economy. I decided to call it even and play Skyrim instead because at least it would have better easter eggs.

Bad Punchline: Waiting in Line

I realized something the other day and had been waiting impatiently to see one of my coworkers so I could share this observation with her. "I realized something mildly creepy." I started. "You're so hot there's a waiting list to ask you out when you become single again. Two different guys I know have asked to know when you're single again if that happens." True story. Two different male friends of mine have asked to be informed if she becomes single again. Sadly for them she mentioned to me today that she's past the point in her life where she'd be willing to date a non-vegetarian.

Why I Hate Webster

I'm going to come right out and say it. Noah Webster was a hypocritical jerk. I hate him for all his efforts to improve and reform spelling and education in America. Though history extols him as the "Father of American Scholarship and Education" and describes him as being a spelling reformer who was of the belief that spelling rules for the English language were unnecessarily complex this only serves to better highlight his hypocracy. If you weren't aware Webster is also the father of the modern American dictionary (though he was not, by any means, the first to publish an American dictionary) and to this day many dictionaries bear his name (best known being the Merriam-Webster dictionary).

As any current or former American school child can tell you spelling words in 'American English' is difficult, spelling tests are a particular form of punishment teachers like to exact once per week, and 'spelling bees' are to be avoided like the plague as not only do they expect you to spell things incorrectly they expect you to do it in front of a live audience so your embarassment might provide them entertainment. Mnemonics like 'i before e except after c' and 'bears eat candy and usually spill everything' (to spell 'because') are incredibly common. And all this is after the spelling reform and standardization so successfully implemented by Webster. Aside from dropping 'u' from certain words (ex. 'color' from 'colour') I can't say that he did much to actually improve the situation in any meaningful way. I mean, standardized spelling makes sense and allows us to more easily communicate with one-another especially in the modern era of the internet, but when the standard was based on nothing but the arbitrary distinctions of one man it doesn't make a lot of sense to bother with.

In modern times we are shackled by the status quo with all our machinery that is already calibrated for the unweildy version of our language and practically dozens of people who have bothered to master the spelling of words like 'Dryaonnajaq' (a fresh water fish) but Webster had no such restrictions. In a new country lacking in dictionaries, spelling standards, teaching standards and the like he had the opportunity to really  reform spelling and unshackle it from confusion. Webster failed to do this in a spectacular way if only because he himself was the one who thought that English spelling rules were too complex. He abjectly failed to make American English any less difficult than its over-seas progenitor. Despite wanting the language to be determined by and for the people the way the government in America was by and for the people he went ahead and decided the standards for spelling and pronunciation on his own and by teaching several generations of children these new rules via his 'blue-backed spellers' he effectively mired the language in silent letters, 'soft' and 'hard' consonant sounds as well as 'long' and 'short' vowels and seemingly more exceptions to the rules than unexceptional words.

The only logical way to lay out a language and standardize it is to have one letter for each possible phoneme (each distinct sound in a language) and to have written words consist soleley of the letters necessary to make the phonemes in each spoken word. Obviously we would have to add some letters to the alphabet to do this and take an average of the current pronounciation to decide how to spell certain words. After a generation or two, however, there would be no arguing about the pronounciation of certain words because children would learn that the proper way to enunciate words is by the phoneme-based letters that make them up because there would simply be no letters that made more than one sound and no two letters that made the same sound. We would also have to determine the meaning of all homophones based on context clues but we already do this every day in spoken language so I doubt it would cause any more problems in our written language than it does verbally. We would also have to learn more letters and change our keyboards to accommodate them. Those are the downsides. The upsides are equally-obvious. It would be easy if not intuitive to know how to spell even the longest and most technically complex words and upon reading a word for the first time it would be as intuitive and easy to know how it is meant to be spoken aloud. There woud be little need for spellchecker. There would also be little competition in spelling bees and no call for spelling tests. I feel like the trade-off would be pretty reasonable, actually.

Webster did not lay out a logical language. He laid out an arbitrary one that has hindered many children and discouraged them from reaching their full potential because of its difficulty. He sought a reform that did little in the way of reforming besides anchoring our language firmly in unnecessarily complex spelling rules. He did do some worthwhile things like help to make schools secular. But the thing for which he is best-known is the very thing he seriously screwed up.

Bad Punchline: Three Vegetarians Cook a Turkey

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone in the United States and anyone else who follows crazy American traditions and happy twenty-fourth of November to everyone else. Between the fact that today is a national holiday where I live (my job is closed and everything) and that I am still banging my head against the fifty thousand word total needed to successfully complete NaNoWriMo and the exceedingly early hour at which this was posted you might be able to tell I wrote this post up in advance. (Over a month in advance, actually.) But also six weeks ahead of schedule I came up with a (hopefully) funny joke for you to enjoy.

Today, for the third year running, my parents are coming up for Thanksgiving. Despite the fact that my brother, sister-in-law, and myself are vegetarians we believe that family traditions are important. Thanksgiving just wouldn't be Thanksgiving without a giant meal cooking in the kitchen. Not only that but all three of us feel the need to include the standard dishes our families had when we were kids. Even though both our families are from the same state we have very different idea of what Thanksgiving dinners ought to consist of. The first year we not only poisoned my nephew (we hadn't yet learned he was allergic to peanutbutter) but also ended up with enough pie to eat for a month. Last year we had our friend Sean over and I remember very doggedly telling him a story I can't now recall as I tried to ignore my mother throwing up in the living room. This year for non-family members I had a special invitation message: "Bringing food or alcohol is mandatory because we're poor. You may also need to bring a chair. We ask that you kindly leave your age at the door but entertainment should be well-covered because what could be funnier than three vegetarians trying to cook a turkey?"

Reasons that Ashley is Awesome

Here are some reasons that Ashley is awesome:

Saving me wheat pennies to give to Cheryl.
Having a adorable little daughter.
Having her life on track.
Keeping a A average in college.
Working, being a mom, and going to college.
Her fantastic ability to save money with coupons.
Her connection with her family.
Her documentation of her daughter's life.
Willingness to listen to my bad jokes.
Devotion to my blog.
Enjoyment of ugly jewelry.
Exaggerating everything.
Cutting her hair really short and wearing little-girl barrettes.
How she doesn't just go to the store she goes on an adventure to the store.
How fun she is to be around.
How refreshing she is compared to some of my other coworkers.
Her crazy ideas about things.
Her random obsessions.
Willingness to lend an ear to problems.
The little kids' book she wrote for her daughter.
Adding 'reasons that Ashley is Awesome' to the end of a list of ideas I wanted to write blogs about.

Reasons That You're Probably Insane

You're probably insane if you:

Ever talk to yourself outloud
Ever answer your own questions
Ever talk to your pets
Ever talk to inanimate objects
Compulsively check your e-mail
Compulsively check your Facebook
Blow off real-world activities in order to tend your farm in Farmville
Blow off real-world activities in order to play any flash game
Spend multiple hours each day playing any kind of game
Feel inexplicable joy when your cellphone goes off
Feel joy when other people are hurt
Fail to feel anything in response to tragedy
Feel joy in response to tragedy
Feel any other otherwise inappropriate emotion during any situation in which a normal person would feel one specific and obvious emotion
Take any kind of medication
Practice any kind of religion
Pray during scary, life-threatening, or stressful situations
Actively try to be unique
Obsessively try to fit in and be like everyone else
Obsess over the lives of celebrities
Frequently watch the news
Exercise on a regular basis
Drink sweat farmed from animals
Are a omnivore
Are a vegan or vegetarian
Are pro-life
Are pro-choice
Have ever lived on terra firma
Know how to read the english language
Think that I'm just using this list to play games with your head

Reasons I Might Be Crazy

Some reasons I might be crazy:


I often find myself counting my steps.
When I'm in the grocery store I find myself counting in foreign languages in my head as I navigate around people. When I do this and get to a point I can't remember I switch rapidly to another language and cycle through all the ones I know.
I frequently practice conversations with people in advance.
I frequently come up with comebacks or funny stories to tell in advance.
Even though many things bother me to the point of distraction I deal with them passive aggressively rather than head-on.
I over-plan simple things like bus trips to unfamiliar places and conversations I don't want to have.
I sometimes wait to see if problems will go away before dealing with them.
I carry on conversations with myself in my head. Both talking to and answering myself.
I narrate my life inside my head editing as I go along. You know how Scrubs is narrated? I do that. All the time.
I never stop thinking. My head is always busy.
I tap on things and pace back and forth when I'm uncomfortable.
I go through the same motions again and again when I deal with customers to the point that I even brush my hair out of my eyes at the same points during every transaction.
I come up with optimal PC phrases to say to customers to make them happy and use them over and over again.
I am not fond of greetings.
I am startled when I am referred to by my real name. Especially outloud.
I begin conversations with no preamble.
I talk about whatever I happen to be thinking about at any given time.
I can be quiet for long stretches some times but at others I speak like it's a compulsion.
I have this paranoia that I need to get a MRI to find out if I have Multiples Sclerosis.
I prefer fantasy to reality.

National Novel Writing Month

Hello, hello. If you don't know already November is National Novel Writing Month (often referred to as NaNoWriMo with each syllable being pronounced the same as it would be in the word it comes from). I'm quite fond of National Novel Writing Month and will be working on a novel idea for it this year. I will be trying to write 50,000 words in thirty days (the feat you need to achieve in order to 'win') which is approximately 1,700 words each day or a little less than two pages single-spaced and in total works out to roughly 187 pages in a novel. I also work between thirty and forty hours a week and enjoy doing things like sleeping and hanging out with my family occasionally. Understandably I probably will not have a lot of time to write exciting new things for my subscribers to read during November but never fear for unlike Epimethius in his acceptance of Pandora I have the power of thinking ahead. I've already scheduled a post for the first which you are currently reading and I have a post scheduled for the twenty-fourth. Prior to my writing this I have an additional two pre-written posts which I will put up at some point in November and I'm going to try to crank out a couple more before October officially ends. My normal cynical self will resume my pessimistic observations of the world as soon as December first but in the meantime please enjoy the pre-written posts I've managed to scrape together.

If you're interested in reading my NaNoWriMo project check back for an update that will include a link to somewhere you can view the writing (as soon as I figure out where I want to put it).

Shuffling Zombies

I'm not sure if it's the imminent arrival of Halloween or what exactly is the cause but there seems to be an outbreak of shuffling zombies lately. They are wandering down main street, breaking into malls during the day,  shambling down the aisles of your local grocery store, and stumbling into your home. The economic fallout has turned the world into the post-apocalyptic future infested with zombies that movies are so fond of predicting. They are everywhere, they are annoying, and unlike traditional zombies you will be arrested if you shoot one in the head to end its misery.

Some zombies are the kind who present with extreme cirrhosis of the liver and stumble into a shopping complex at ten on a sunday morning still so saturated with libations from the night before that a single spark would likely set the whole building on fire. These zombies may mouth words and try to communicate through hand-gestures as well but are ultimately not cognizant enough to intelligibly communicate and quickly break down into frustrated anger. Fortunately the zombies that have reached this stage have so little coordination they cannot effectively do any harm because they have to concentrate too much on just remaining more-or-less upright. The best weapon against them is disapproval and shooing motions.

Some zombies are the high-functioning sort who can manage to go through the motions of life over and over again without actually living. You may see them on the buses or walking down the street. You may hear them talking to themselves in the grocery story as they wander along largely unaware of the real world. These zombies are not violent and won't try to hurt you unless you hurt them but they can still be very dangerous. Do not allow them to back you into a corner and start talking about cats or celebrities or whatever other inane obsession they might have. Your best defense against these kinds of zombies is non-pseudo pseudopods which you can use to locomote away or if you are trapped in a situation where you cannot leave your best defense is a cellphone which you can use to fake a phone call or else make a real phone call to your work number to aid in your escape.

Other zombies are the drooling drug-induced kind. They grin like skeletons while moaning about their pain. They trap you in webs of questions that they use to hold you still while they tell you about their hallucinogenic visions of signs of god that they see everywhere and use to justify an evangelistic faith they only wish that they could spread as easily as the spore of zombism spreads in movies. These zombies are capable of extreme violence at the slightest provocation. Do not attempt to confront them physically. Your best defense may be flagrant atheism or threatening to call the authorities.

Still others are merely the dress-up kind who are literally wandering down mainstreet unconvincingly on an exceptionally cold saturday in late October in the middle of the afternoon. These zombies are completely harmless even to themselves and retain a distinct sense of self-preservation that manifests itself in the form of their uncanny ability to observe traffic laws. Your best defense is inclement weather and a healthy dose of mockery.

Then there is the most common kind of zombies. Those unfortunate souls who are so awestruck by celebrity that they become obsessed with glossy stacks of colored paper, thin sheets of color-emitting plasma, tweets, feeds, and applications on their phones- anything to give them that much-needed dose of vicarious excitement. Your only defense against them is to keep your wits about you. If you feel your cognitive intelligence may be impaired for some reason the only thing you can do is run as fast as you can.

Remember, if you see any of these types of zombies around you should immediately inform the CDC* so they can begin tracking and containing the outbreak. Do not try to take matters into your own hands in the form of a metal object being propelled at upwards of six hundred miles per hour by a tiny explosion or you will be arrested. Simply try to keep your distance from the zombies so as to avoid being infected with the brain-damaging malignancy they all possess.


*Center for Density Control

Bad Punchline: Scary Smart

One of my coworkers and I were talking about our 'formative years' last night and I was reminded of two things my father says about me when I was a little kid. One is that I was an "awfully cunnin little kid" and whatever happened to that? (If you're wondering 'cunnin' is a colloquialism applied typically to small children and it means 'cute'.) I am apparently no longer cute but I'm also no longer a small child so I think that one is easily explained. The other thing is that I used to be 'scary smart' and this coming from a man with a tested IQ of 156 (and who would probably score higher if there was no reading involved as reading is not the strong suit of a dyslexic) is an intriguing compliment but (again) he wondered what happened to that. I explained the latter in much less detail and then said something like this: "The thing that he's never correlated is that it's not that something happened to my intelligence but rather that I learned something else. Among my artillery of 'social skills' I learned how to seem less intelligent to other people so I could fit in better and even then I still come off as an arrogant jerk. If I acted as intelligent as my father felt I was back then I'd be insufferable."

A Thing I'd Like to Say: Sick of Sympathy

Sadly I've not said this spiel because I like to keep my working relationships with people at least civil if I can manage but I simply can't stand this.

"Yes, I know you managed to slice your finger open through an act of your own stupidity. That's what happens when you pick up shards of glass with your bare hands. Next time put on some gloves or make use of a dustpan or something because if you cut your finger again I know I'll have to listen to this garbage for another two weeks. You cut your finger and it's horrible and it bled a lot and band aids leave sticky residue on your nails and obviously nobody else you know has ever experienced a paper cut or any kind of other laceration or puncture wound ever in their entire lives so obviously every time you see them you must not only update them on the status of the healing progress and how much it still hurts but also regale them with the story of how it happened over and over and over again until they want to further injure you just so you will shut up about your tiny little cut and complain about something else at the very least! I know it must seem absolutely inconceivable to you that anyone could have been in a comparable amount of pain before and that they don't have other things they'd rather do than listen to your desperate bids for sympathy but I have news for you: They have and they do. The reason I don't bring up the time I stabbed myself in the shin all the way until I felt the serrated knife scraping over bone or the time I split my thumb open on a ill-placed french chef's knife or the time I got gall stones or the eight million paper cuts, bramble scratches, glass lacerations, cat scratches and other injuries I've sustained in my life at every opportunity is not because they happened in the distant past or because I wish to avoid setting off a pity party but because, fancily enough, nobody cares. That's right. Nobody cares so suck it up and shut up about it already before you offend an amputee that happens into the store or something. Seriously."

Situational Irony

I had a lot of conveniently empty time in which to think the other morning while I was battling nausea and a runny nose at work. I had some initial thoughts earlier in the morning that revolved mostly around the fact that this was the fourth morning in the last five that I had thrown up and of course not actually eaten anything for breakfast before heading off to work. Once made sense to me because I started a new job Monday morning and  extreme nervousness had previously had this effect on me. Four out of five, though? That seemed excessive. It seemed like my body was trying to communicate something that my logical mind had not yet figured out. And it had something to do with my new job, obviously. Taking the job had seemed wholly rational at the time and I doubt I'd make a different decision even if I could rewind up until that point three weeks ago.

Some of the things I thought about had nothing to do at all with the situation at hand but rather trying to get into the right mindset in order to even consider it. I settled on a mostly logical and partly math-driven decision making process. I started by doing some calculations of what my earnings were with and without this job. I calculated how much it was costing me to get there each day. I calculated the amount of time I spent traveling between my job and apartment and between that job and my other job. I calculated the hours I had spent actually in my apartment in the last five days. I calculated the number of hours I had genuinely enjoyed in that same time period. I calculated the approximate cost of getting my license and acquiring a car and sketched out a conservative timeline for that process to take place in. I ran into one of the same sort of logic spirals I had used as a counter-argument for why I hadn't bothered to get a second job when I first started living in this city. In order to have a second job I would need a car (true of this situation with the new job because of its location) and in order to afford to have a car I would need a second job.

Considering the slippery nature of the logic spiral and some of the less intrinsically calculable facets of this situation (including my happiness, the value of my non-work time, the fact that Linda would be much better at this job than I was, the fact that the very nature of the job riddled me with anxiety, the detrimental effects of having to get up early every morning would have on my mood and health, and the fact that I will soon be moving) I concluded I should make sure that this was within the bounds of reason before becoming fully committed to the conclusion I fairly inevitably came to. Actually, that's not true at all. I was pretty committed to the conclusion by the time I came to it. I just wanted to make sure that I was not acting irrationally while being blinded by my logical constructs. I was also fairly certain of this. I just thought I should check on the finer points.

The conclusion I had come to, though, was that I should stop working at my new job and Linda (who has for the past few months been a coworker of mine at my book-shuffling job) should do it instead because it was, in fact, the kind of job she was looking for when she'd settled on the place I work and she'd be much better at it. The downsides were few in that I thought that it might fluster my boss at the book-shuffling job and I might not get to work with Linda anymore. The only real obstacles to this conclusion were how to explain this to Linda without making her feel guilty about it (this was foremost in my mind despite it theoretically being lesser than the second obstacle) and also how I should go about explaining to my new boss that I didn't really think I wanted to be employed by him anymore. Previously when leaving jobs I always had genuine reasons for doing so such as my mother requiring back surgery and needing assistance (though that wasn't the whole truth of why I really left Amato's) and moving to another city. I was also in no way desirous to give a 'two weeks notice' as it were but neither did I want to actually quit. I considered whether the phrase 'I don't think this is working out' would be too much of a cop out or if it adequately encompassed my calculations regarding the situation without explaining them all explicitly.

Despite my inability to consult about this problem with another rational human being beforehand I was immensely relieved when my new boss made just the kind of leading statement I had in no way been expecting. He said: "You know, the hardest part about my job is when I have to do things like this." And I knew exactly what he meant by that. I was a little put out that I didn't get to break up with him first but the statement he followed with invited what would probably be a response he wasn't expecting. He followed with: "But I just don't think you're going to work out here." I agreed with him before he'd even finished what he was going to say. I think my firm agreement confused him because he started to launch into what felt like a prepared explanation of his motivations until I interrupted him again by agreeing with his assessment and after another half a phrase he seemed to realize that I'd actually been agreeing with him and no explanation was required. After that the sort of things you have to say in that situation were said. I told him to have a nice afternoon and left. We parted by mutual agreement.

I knew when I got to my book-shuffling job a short time later that the first thing Sue and Linda were going to ask me about was the other job. So I headed them off with saying something phrased roughly like this: "Well, he and I regrettably came to the same conclusion from different angles today. My logic had much more to do with the fact that it was not economically better for me to work there and physical illness due to the job itself and his logic seemed to have far more to do with the fact that I am not, nor have I ever claimed to be, a mind reader." I shrugged. I was going to stop working there anyway so what did it matter that he felt I should, too?

Linda asked me a short time later if it would be alright with me if she contacted the guy at the garage and saw about getting that job. I assured her that it would be fine. I spent all morning trying to manipulate things so Linda would work at the garage and I wouldn't and in spite of the fact that none of my machinations were even so much as set in motion they came to pass. Classic situational irony.

The Meaning of 'meh'

My mother was cool enough to get me a t-shirt bearing one of my favorite interjections for my birthday. White letters on a black t-shirt that just says 'meh.' Though you might not find 'meh' in a hardbound dictionary typing 'define: meh' into Google brings back nearly seventy-two million results the first one of which is more or less how I've always defined the word. Even though I'm sure I've used it in conversation unconsciously on dozens of occasions with all sorts of different people without any communication problems within two wearings of the shirt I'd been asked four times what in the world 'meh' meant. Maybe it's the little bit of 'teacher' my mother managed to build around the seething ball of frustrated impatience for a lack of understanding that I inherited from my father but I explained patiently and thoroughly what 'meh' meant to each person that wanted to know. But even though I gave them the correct answer I almost wish I hadn't. I could have said anything- anything at all and they would have assumed I was correct. So I decided to amuse myself for a few minutes with coming up with some responses to the inevitable 'what does "meh" mean' that I'm going to get the next time I wear it.

Malicious Emo Hipster
Managably Erratic Hypothalamus
Marketing Event Horizon
Making Everything Horizontal
Malignant Electrodactylic Hypertension
Massive Esoteric Hashish
Mildly Exclusive Histrionics
More Evil Harpies
Missing Every Happiness
Munchies Every Hour
Men Eating Hashbrowns
Most Entertaining Happenstance

Got any other suggestions for me?

Bad Punchline: Psychic Vampires

This is a special post for someone who has their birthday today.

I recently read about a experiment where they sent some of the muon flavor of neutrinos from one location to another and they traveled faster than the speed of light. And you know what moving faster than the speed of light means? Time travel! So my first thought was that I'd make some kind of construction out of them in order to delay time for one day for you. But the thing is neutrinos are sub-atomic particles of matter and though they have mass you can't even look at the things without changing them so that kind of made me throw that idea out. I had another science-related idea though that I'd actually thought of earlier. On the basic premise of a Faraday cage (a mesh or cage made out of a conducting material that keeps out electromagnetic radiation and interference) I would make you a Faraday Amulet. The amulet would be for keeping out the malicious electromagnetic impulses (otherwise known as brainwaves) from the evil psychic Vampires that want to prey on your mind while you're at work and drain your energy and psychic lifeforce. Additionally it makes a rather attractive piece of ugly jewelry which I know you like. Unfortunately you can't have it until the next time I see you but I thought you might like this in the meantime.

Bad Punchline: Harvest Moon

I was on Skype the other day and someone started describing something they were trying to do and though I knew immediately what they were talking about without their having said specifically the wildly confused reaction of the other person in the group prompted me to say:

"Yeah, describing Harvest Moon in detail does make it sound like some kind of absurdest play about a guy with OCD. 'Every morning he gets up and throws his sleeping cat across the room and then after laboriously watering all his flowers one-by-one he saddles up his ostrich and goes gallivanting about the town throwing things at the townspeople he's trying to befriend.'"

My Idea of "Fashion"

My idea of fashion, to those who actually believe in being fashionable, probably belongs within the realms of fashion nightmares. My idea of fashion is like my own brand of insanity- it makes perfect sense to me.

My ideas for shoes: I have six or seven pairs of shoes and every single pair is black. If seven feels excessive to you when they're all the same color you obviously don't live up here where the seasons necessitate different shoes depending on the weather. Three pairs of boots, two pairs of sneakers, and two pairs of sandals does not seem excessive. Why is every pair black? I'm told that black goes with everything. Also- stains do not show on black things.


My ideas for socks: I have dozens of socks. All the ones that I have purchased are black. Why all black socks? Because that way not only do I never have mismatched socks but also they don't get dingy after a while like the white ones do. I will admit I own a few pairs of non-black socks and these are of the excessively fuzzy variety and I wear them around the house in the winter if I'm cold. Most of them came from my mother or my aunt. I get them every year for Christmas. I also get at least one blanket for Christmas.


My ideas for pants: All of my shorts are black. I also own black slacks, black jeans, blue jeans, and one pair of grey jeans. I would never buy a pair of pants that has no pockets.

My ideas for undergarments: I find them to be uncomfortable and not especially useful or attractive. I tend to neglect to wear them most of the time. The few pairs I do own are black and functional. I don't even bother to buy the 'attractive' ones because they aren't.



My ideas for shirts: Shirts come in two varieties- plain solid-colored long-sleeved ones and short-sleeved ones with some kind of design or picture. My long-sleeved shirts come in two or three shades of grey, black, and two or three shades of blue. There are no exceptions. My t-shirts come in black, various shades of grey, and various shades of blue. I don't have any green ones right now but I'm not averse to wearing green. I don't buy shirts with stripes, dots, or any kind of repeating pattern. I also don't buy shirts with button collars or collars of any kind, really. I don't buy shirts with logos of any kind or wear ones that have them. There is one exception to the previous rule: I own a Dr. Pepper shirt because Dr. Pepper is delicious and I don't mind wearing an advertisement for them even though it means I own a singular maroon shirt. I don't advertise for anyone else, though. In the winter I wear my t-shirs over my long-sleeved shirts so that they are usually layered in contrast though I sometimes wear grey t-shirts over grey long-sleeved shirts but I never do this with any other color. In the summer I just wear t-shirts and no long-sleeves. I never wear the long-sleeved shirts by themselves unless I'm ill or am currently engaged in the act of washing my laundry.


My ideas for jackets: I have three hoodies. Two of them are grey and one of them is black. Hoodies are intended for chilly weather. For cooler weather I have a standard US Navy Peacoat but this is wool and therefore cannot be worn during any kind of precipitation. I also have a large winter coat that goes down to my thighs because if you live in cold weather you need a coat that covers your ass or else you will be cold.


My ideas for 'accessories': I have one pair of grey gloves. I have one black knit hat. I have one black scarf made of some kind of fuzzy synthetic. I think I still own a tie or two that I don't really wear but I used to wear them in high school a lot with inappropriately casual outfits.


My ideas for jewelry: Jewelry shouldn't be 'nice' or 'tasteful' it should be interesting. If it's not worth talking about it's not worth wearing.


So my ideas for overall fashion end up boiling down to not owning anything but complementary colors and large portions of my wardrobe consist of neutral black and grey. This way not only can I never clash but I could be struck blind and pick out my clothes randomly and still match. It's both practical and weirdly obsessive. It also means that when I get new clothes that are slightly different from my usual wardrobe people that I work with or see on a regular basis end up looking at me because they can't quite figure out what's different about me. Having strict rules about what I wear makes it easier to buy clothes because I'm not paralyzed by indecision induced by an stratospheric number of choices and it makes it easier to get dressed because I can just grab some clothes and put them on without worrying about how they'll look together. I guess there might be a reason for my insanity but you still probably wouldn't call it 'fashion'.

Job Applications? Why bother?

I haven't decided if I am just inordinately lucky or if I have some kind of super-power but I realized when I was telling someone about my new job that not only have five out of my six jobs been great jobs but I've only ever even applied to one of them.

Jobs had:
Movie Theater
Music Theater
Amato's
Data Entry for the University of Maine
Book Store
Automotive

Job: Movie Theater
Acquired: Because my mother was working there when they needed to hire someone new and nepotism is something hicks in small towns do.
Pay: 50-75 cents above the State-mandated minimum wage.
Duties: Cleaning, selling tickets, doing concessions, changing the marquee, cash-up, inventory, answering the phone, talking to people.
Perks: Free movies, free popcorn, free fountain soda, cheap candy, ability to read while getting paid if otherwise not busy, Christmas bonus, time off if/when I needed it.
Downfalls: Customers who did not understand that it was a one-screen, customers who wanted to pay with plastic, customers who wanted to buy tickets in advance, the fact that the theater was sloped and not tiered and any soda spilled ran down hill, seven day weeks in the summer.

Job: Music Theater
Acquired: Because my friend was their regular light-person and he knew I could do lights (I used to for productions at our highschool where I learned by doing).
Pay: A dollar above state-mandated minimum wage at the time.
Duties: Lighting
Perks: Free dinner, free fountain soda, free shows, attractive actors to look at, ability to play Pyramid solataire (because it fit on the counter under the light board better than other versions) while working.
Downfalls: Lighting system occasionally overheated and flipped the breakers which made me have to quickly throw on the spot-lights, turn down the master some, and run and flip the breakers back on, I was not an official employee, I only worked when the regular person was off, and they tended to cancel shows without any warning even to me.

Job: Amato's
Acquired: I knew the manager and she agreed to hire me on the spot.
Pay: A dollar twenty-five above state mandated minimum wage starting out and was given a fifteen cent raise after three months.
Duties: Making food, prepping food, prepping vegetables, washing dishes, washing counters, prepping dough, taking things out of the freezer, lifting heavy things, sweeping, mopping, cash-up.
Perks: None. I didn't even get a discount.
Downfalls: Cameras, not allowed to eat food for free, no discount on anything, worked by myself primarily, did not get breaks because of the previous, was not allowed to sit down, was required to serve customers until nine but it took nearly an hour to close up and corporate got mad if I stayed after I was scheduled, co-workers, hot oven, cooking in a fast-paced situation, the grease that permeated everything, the cement floor, and customers.

Job: Data Entry for the University of Maine Acquired: The scientist my father had worked with on a fishing research project needed someone to turn physical logbooks into spreadsheets.
Pay: There was 1,200 dollars budgeted to pay someone to do the data entry.
Duties: Turn logbooks into spreadsheets.
Perks: Work from my own bedroom, task took a total of eight hours.
Downfalls: I couldn't keep doing it.

Job: Book Store
Acquired: By application.
Pay: State-mandated minimum wage.
Duties: Checking in books, magazines, newspapers and gift items, putting away books, magazines, newspapers and gift items, checking inventory in assigned book and magazine sections, straightening book and magazine sections, writing blog posts, making up displays and windows, helping customers find books, recommending books, checking people out, doing back-stock, some vacuuming and dusting, doing cash-up, and watching the customers.
Perks: Reading free books, discounts on store items, and talking to people who like books.
Downfalls: Dealing with customers who have no concept of reality, living with sometimes annoying coworkers, trying to figure out where to draw the line... for everything.

Job: Automotive
Acquired: Was informed of the job by a regular customer in the bookstore, told what it would involve, and was warned that the owner was very crude. I went in knowing I was capable of meeting the job requirements and confident that crude was something easy enough to deal with after living with a commercial fisherman for nineteen years.
Pay: One dollar and fifty cents above the state-mandated minimum wage.
Duties: Opening mail, using Quickbooks and spreadsheets, answering the phone, doing billing, filing, updating the website, updating the company Facebook, smiling at people.
Perks: Nice pay, relatively easy work, would make a good future work reference, have permission to read when not otherwise occupied.
Downfalls: There are no buses that go past there and I may have to actually get my license. I have yet to work here but I suspect that 'dealing with customers' is probably going to be the biggest downfall.

Those five jobs that I didn't apply for but got anyway compared to the fifteen other jobs I applied to before I was hired at the bookstore and the several other applications I sent places since then that I never even got a call back on... Well, it makes me think that filing out applications might not be worth it.

Bestsellers Aren't

As I've mentioned before I have a book-shuffling job and on sundays we do the switchover for the week's bestsellers. We use the New York Times bestseller list (published approximately two weeks in advance so at least with bestsellers I can easily look into the future) which is more or less the industry standard within the United States though other lists do exist. In an empirical world the list would be done completely by volume of sales. In fact, by the very nature of the name you would be under the impression that Best Sellers are determined by volume of sales (literally which ones sold the best). Unfortunately if you were under that impression it would be a mistaken impression. The New York Times list is based on survey samples from independent and chain retailers in the United States as well as wholesalers and other factors which are trade secrets. I'll let you think about that for a moment before I start dissecting it.

It's not the trade secrets part that bothers me too much because in the over sixty year history there has been ample data that if they used the "trade secret" bit to influence the list to their own advantage it would have become obvious by now to people who can do math. There are two things about their methodology in deciding that make me cringe. One thing is the fact that they count sales from wholesalers as part of their formula. You know when you were a little kid and "double counting" was one of those unfair tricks you accused other kids of? That's what they're doing when they count not retailer but also wholesaler sales. Because where do the retailers get their books? Obviously from the wholesalers. The other thing is the word "sample". And here is where I can draw on my movie theater background. When I worked in the movie theater every single night we got a call from not one but two companies (Rentrak and Neilson EDI) that tracked box office numbers and the theater that I worked at was an independent one-screen in a tourist town seating less than two hundred per showing and usually having fewer than ten showings in a week. Rentrak and Neilson weren't taking a "sample". Our little one-screen was not part of their "sample"- they called us because they called every theater. Now that I work at a bookstore I know we don't get a call at the end of the night asking what books we sold during the day and I work at a chain that's been around longer than Borders. So who belongs to the sample? I have no idea.

Although, if I did know which stores belonged to the "sample" and I did have a book being published and also some money I could manipulate my book into being on the bestseller list. It's been done before by some economists who obviously are capable of math and clearly viewed it as a good investment. It's been done even more times with the Amazon top one hundred list but that's another story entirely. It also turns out to not be illegal in any way though the New York Times does frown upon that sort of behavior. But only when it's an individual doing it and not a large corporation. Why do I say that? It turns out that the top ten largest publishing companies in the United States are responsible for 98% of all New York Times bestsellers. The top five largest are responsible for 80% of them. If you were standing in front of a shelf of bestsellers right now and glanced at their spines you'd probably be inclined to disagree with me vehemently. You might say: "I can see Scribner, Bantam, Atria, Tor, Knopf, DelRey, Amy Einhorn, Ballantine, Beyond Words, Simon & Schuster, HarperOne, Little Brown, Razorbill, Hyperion, Harper, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, St. Martin's Griffin, Back Bay Books, Broadway Books, Reagan Arthur Books, and that's only twenty from this week that this blogger happened to remember off the top of their head from doing bestsellers on sunday!" Well, you'd say the first part but the last part was really only to illustrate my point. All those publishers are for books on the bestseller list this week and there are twenty different ones. If you looked at all the books you'd probably find twice that many or even more. So how could just ten companies have a lockout on 98% of bestsellers? Well, if you can name which of those twenty isn't actually one of the top ten in the next five seconds before I tell you I'll give you a prize. Because when I see that list I see Simon & Schuster, Random House, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, Random House, Random House, Penguin, Random House, Simon & Schuster, Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, Hachette, Penguin, HarperCollins, HarperCollins, Workman, Macmillan, Hachette, Random House, Hachette and that right there is the top six largest publishing companies in the United States plus Workman (and if you guessed Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill you won a prize).

And those companies are the reason that bestsellers aren't. Say you work for Bantam, an imprint of Random House, and you receive this amazing manuscript from me and everyone who reads it loves it so you know it will make your company money. When you print that book you're going to want to print a lot of that book because you think it will sell well. When wholesalers buy that book you convince them to buy a lot of them because you think it will sell well and the wholesalers do buy a lot of them. The wholesalers then convince the retailers that it will be worth their while to buy a lot of them. To further this cause the publishing company likely has a contract with many retailers across the country to display certain books in a prominent position and even if those books never sell the retailer still gets money for putting them on a special display. More than likely, though, those books will sell because they're in a highly visible position and the public has been trained to buy books from these special displays because it's an easy way of finding "high quality" books without doing much looking. Then, because the publishers printed a lot of them and convinced both wholesalers and retailers to buy a lot of them and get the retailers to put them in a prominent position so they sell well they make it to the bestseller list. Once on the bestseller list not only are they in an even higher visibility spot for customers but they're now bestsellers and the consumers believe that lots of other people are buying this book and use that as a reason to buy it, thus prolonging it's stay on the bestseller list. Long story short, publishing companies basically expect something to become a bestseller so it does. A self-causing self-fulfilling prophecy.

Electronic Birthdays

The approach and arrival of the fifth of September causes a stirring in the code that is tied to my e-mail address, facebook, and many various accounts across the internet. Sometimes in advance of the fifth and sometimes just at midnight that code will execute and a flurry of electronic birthday wishes filled with generic pre-conceived text that artful scripts have stitched my identity into in a effort of personalization. The in-box of my e-mail accounts will sprout a giant crop of special birthday advertisements from all the companies that have a hold of my e-mail and know when my real birthday is like mushrooms after the rain. These messages may once have been written by some person but any meaning in them is watered down by all the hands that touched the project and the number of years it's been since the message was first hammered out. The messages are further made cold by the hard coding that executes them. There is no person at one of these well-wishing companies that knows that today is my birthday and yet through the power of code and universal time systems I get a message telling me that everyone at this company wishes me a happy birthday.

I hate electronic birthday messages. Initially I found them mildly startling but now I tend to delete them without even looking inside. Because nothing said in that message is going to be remotely worth the several seconds they take to read. A long theoretically deeply heart-felt pile of text meant to endear me to some company whose service I already subscribe to is never going to be as special as a message in person or a phonecall from someone I actually know. But unfortunately the electronic birthday messages do not stop with the execution of some scripts to send me e-mail. Because social-networking sites don't stop with e-mail. They alert all of those people that are supposed to be my friends that the fifth of september is my birthday and prompts them to wish me a happy birthday.

What is wrong with Facebook reminding my friends of my birthday? Some people don't remember things like that very well. I know that's true. My brother's phone reminds him of things like mother's day and my birthday because his memory for that kind of thing is terrible. My memory isn't the greatest either but I remember the exact birthdate of about a dozen people and roughly when the birthday of a couple dozen more people are. These are the birthdays of the only people I want to wish happy birthday to. Not that I wouldn't wish a happy birthday to anyone else I know including random customers in the store but if your birthday is important enough to remember all the time or spend hours programming into my phone so I will remember it's important enough to at least call and leave you a message about. Otherwise you're probably not going to be terribly upset if I forget. I imagine you would agree with that.

So again, what's wrong with Facebook reminding my friends about my birthday? The fact that today I will receive many birthday wishes from people who haven't so much as said a word to me, even via the medium of Facebook, since the last time they were reminded to wish me happy birthday. Congratulations Facebook, you figured out how to create human spambots. I don't count these messages as being any more special than the ones written by someone in the marketing department of a company I happen to shop at because they're all electronic birthday messages. Every wall post I get that contains less than five words and at least one of those is "birthday" is  no less of a code-execution than any that showed up in my e-mail box from my cellphone service or internet provider.

In conclusion, if you want to use Facebook as a means of remember when my (or other people's) birthdays actually are you're more than welcome to but if you see that message and only take the few seconds to assuage yourself from any possible guilt you might feel at not saying it to tap out thirteen letters and hit enter then you have effectively become a spambot. If you want to take a little more time and write something whole lines long you have graduated to human being. But if you actually want to wish me a happy birthday as a friend or relative and not merely a fellow human being and you aren't going to see me in person in the near future to say it then that requires the whole minute or two of effort to find my phone number conveniently listed on my facebook page, punch it into your phone, and leave me a voicemail if I don't pick up. Otherwise, don't waste the few seconds of effort on fourteen keystrokes and contribute to the spam on the internet.

The Man Who Golfs in Thunderstorms

A man who golfs in thunderstorms is, without a doubt, looking for trouble. And a someone who attracts emotional drama like a man who golfs in thunderstorms? Well, that's a person worth writing about. I will not mention this person's name, reveal the identity of those they are involved with, talk about anything I have been specifically asked not to talk about, or generally do anything worth suing over. Because yes, this is a real person and real events I'm about to detail. Why? Because it's worth writing about, as I mentioned, and also because he's kind of been driving me insane lately. Passive aggressive much? Well, maybe a little.

I have known the Golfer for about a year now, I guess. He is, I think, twenty-six years old. He was married right out of high school for seven years to what I have been told was a very crazy person but that's really all I know about that. He moved down to the city that I live in about a year ago to be with this girl who seemed all right the couple times I met her. Very laid-back pot-smoking individual living hippie-style with a bunch of other people. We'll call this girl Sea. He was living with Sea (and the other people that lived in the house) and working down here and he somehow managed to drive Sea away by being too cuddly. Seriously. That's pretty much how he explained it to me.

As a result of the fact that the Golfer was living with Sea when they broke up he came to "temporarily" live on our couch until he could "find his own apartment" because the Golfer is my roommate's brother. So the Golfer moved out of Sea's house and onto our couch. For a while after he spent a bunch of time "taking rides" with a chick that he was working with that I will call Elle. I met Elle a couple of times and she seemed okay but was obviously much more interested in dating the Golfer that he was in dating her. And by that I mean that the Golfer liked hanging out with her but didn't want to date her and was totally oblivious of the fact that Elle wanted to date him. So he hung out with this Elle chick for a couple of weeks until he started something with another coworker whom I will call Thorn. There's a reason that I decided this particular person's codename should be Thorn and I'm sure you'll figure out why as you read on.

So let me tell you what I know about Thorn given that I can't recall having met her (and I don't think I actually have met her at any point). Thorn is twenty-one and so just a little older than myself being as I am almost twenty-one at the time of this writing. Before he started dating her the Golfer already knew two things about her that would have made me not want to date her at all. Number one, Thorn has cancer. Not cancer in the way that I jokingly say that all of your cells are cancerous but cancer as in she has a tumor growing in one of her lymph nodes or something to that effect. Number two, Thorn also has Multiple Sclerosis. They say that the younger you are diagnosed the worse your MS is. I have personal experience with MS as my mother was diagnosed when I was ten and my aunt a few years later. My mother was diagnosed in her forties, had good health insurance to cover medications and the thousands of dollars worth of injections she does every year and she's still been noticeably affected by her MS. I cannot imagine being with a twenty-one-year-old who was diagnosed with MS. Especially not because she was diagnosed because she started falling.

So, maybe I'm a terrible person but I wouldn't have started dating Thorn. But the Golfer did. And she already seemed to have some relationship issues. Around the time they started dating she had just taken a restraining order out against her previous boyfriend whom she had been living with. Which, to me, was an obvious sign of trouble. You know, one of life's roadsigns that states "Whoa there, use your big head to think about this one" but should really be accompanied Ian McKellan's voice as Gandalf saying "You shall not pass." But at first Thorn seemed weirdly... generous by buying the Golfer a fancy phone
and putting it on her phone plan and such. But by the time their two-week anniversary rolled around her bitchy insanity started to become clear. And if I weren't a terrible person and had actually started dating her it would have been at this point that I stopped. When people who aren't ridiculously wealthy, fabulously beautiful celebrities are dating and one of them is insane at least one of them is going to end up hurt so it's best to end it as quickly as possible. The Golfer did not do this.

Instead he spent a lot of time at her place (when she had moved in somewhere her ex was not inhabiting) and not just while she was there. He started to get all buddy-buddy with her roommate(s?) and their friend(s?) because they liked Magic and the Golfer does as well. He'd even sleep in her room when she was not there. This seems a little creepy to me but I guess that could just be my opinion. He announced one day that he was going to move in with her since he was spending so much time over there anyway. But he was not officially going to move in until the beginning of the next month. Before that could happen Thorn got cold feet or something and decided she needed to go and stay with some people (and not just some people but from what I understand these people were restraining-order-ex's family) to sort out her feelings. Then the Golfer announced that he would not be moving until August at the earliest (it being June still at this point).

Things sort of seemed better between Thorn and the Golfer after she "thought about things". For a few minutes, anyway, because it was just after that things took a turn for the worse. Thorn went to go and get a IUD (a internal contraceptive device if you're not familiar) implanted upon the orders of a doctor different than her usual one. So after getting the IUD implanted Thorn went off to work and because she didn't want to lose any money by leaving she suffered through painful cramps and bleeding during her shift and returned to the emergency room afterward. It turned out that she'd had a spontaneous abortion because that's what happens if you're already pregnant and you have a IUD implanted. Despite the fact that she supposedly knew about it the doctor that ordered the IUD did not tell Thorn that she was already pregnant. I don't know about you but I feel like if I was a doctor giving orders for a patient who was already pregnant to get a contraceptive device implanted it might occur to me the idiotic redundancy of the situation. How about you?

The part that struck me as weirdly out of place was that when the Golfer relayed this information to me he told me about the spontaneous abortion first and then told me that wasn't even the worst part. He interrupted himself then to assure me that it was his and that wasn't the bad part. He then explained about how the doctor that ordered the IUD supposedly knew about the pregnancy but didn't tell Thorn because she knew from her chart that she'd recently had a painful miscarriage and didn't think that she would want it. The part that struck me as weirdly out of place? The assurance that it was, of course, his. I think if I were in that situation worrying about whether it was mine or not (as it was already gone anyway) would be sort of low down on my list of priorities. I'd be thinking a lot more about suing the doctor because hey, that is what malpractice insurance is for, right? I certainly wouldn't be thinking about naming the dead fetus or getting my skin permanently etched with ink to commemorate the life (if you can call it that) of the fetus.

So while the Golfer was busy designing a tattoo and thinking about suing doctors another thought had occurred to me. What if Thorn didn't have a spontaneous abortion because of the IUD? What if Thorn had gotten an abortion and made up the crazy story about the IUD and the emergency room visit and the doctor who knew she was pregnant because she, Thorn, didn't want to be pregnant and didn't want to tell the Golfer? I was almost inclined to believe that there was a sue-worthy doctor oversight because that somehow seemed more acceptable to me than the idea that someone crazy enough to make up a story like that to cover up getting an abortion existed. So my mind went with the slightly less insane option.

Meanwhile in Wonderland where it's starting to look more and more like Thorn lives, Thorn pushes the Golfer away and her ex-boyfriend (of the restraining order, if you recall) comes to stay with her for a while. At first it seems like she and the Golfer are merely fighting as a result of the emotional trauma that has happened but then, despite a lack of status-change on Facebook (a ever-important relationship indicator in this day and age), it seemed like they were not dating. There was nothing particularly definite about it but it seemed like it had been just a few days between my wondering whether they were still together at all and the Golfer getting a date invitation from a dating website. When did the Golfer sign up for a dating website? I have no idea. What possessed him to want to get involved with another girl so soon? Well, let's just say I don't think those were thoughts that went through the head he keeps on his shoulders (apparently for decoration).

Not only did the Golfer get a date but he got a date invitation from a hot Asian chick. The Golfer is, admittedly, not the hunkiest studmuffin in the world despite the fact that you might get that impression from his string of girls. Now, when a hot chick who is on a dating website invites a guy who isn't swimming in riches to go on a date it should be obvious that there is something about this girl that makes her undesirable for dating. And the first time the Golfer met up with the hot Asian chick (whom I will be calling Ruska because despite the fact that she is extremely Asian she has this really obviously inappropriate and incredibly Russian name) in a sort of pre-date thing he found out what it was. Ruska, whose age I do not know but is (hopefully) at least mid-twenties, has two children. One child is four and the other one is just a year old. During the pre-date she invited him to go on a second non-date ostensibly to see if her younger child was going to be okay going to movies. But this was not a date. This was a test. I even flat-out told him that it was not a date but a test.

Now, the Golfer claims that he is not looking for a serious relationship especially not after the thing with Thorn. And yet despite knowing that the non-date with Ruska and her children was a test the Golfer went anyway. Maybe I wasn't clear enough with my warning about the test. Going meant he passed the test. So while he may have verbally said to Ruska that he just wanted to be "friends" or something and that he wasn't looking for a serious relationship the signals he sent to her by passing the test were quite the opposite. Going to a kid's movie with someone else and their children and being cool about it sends long-term relationship signals whether you like it or not. Regardless of the signals the Golfer sent Ruska sent some of her own as well and not just by being the one to initiate contact and set the date. The Golfer and Ruska and her older child (the younger one ended up not even going despite being the pseudo-reason for the outing) were the only ones in the theater and the kid wanted to be all grown up and sit a few rows in front of them. So the Golfer had a little x-rated Winnie the Pooh experience.

To continue with the mixed signal-sending the Golfer has gone to hang out with Ruska on multiple occasions even though they're just supposed to be friends and he isn't looking for a long-term relationship. Not only that but the Golfer had Ruska (and her children) over to our (and by "our" I mean mine and my actual roommate's not the Golfer's because he's just supposed to be crashing with us "temporarily"... since March) apartment on at least two occasions while I was home. This is wrong not just because of the mixed signals thing but also because not only is our apartment not particularly child-friendly but also because the Golfer sleeps on our couch and doesn't have a room. My roommate was not very happy when he found out that the Golfer took Ruska into his room and did ... I don't know because they shut the door one of the days that she was over (the day when she just brought the one littler kid who seemed to be sleeping both when they arrived and left).

Meanwhile in Wonderland Thorn has apparently decided that she still wants to be together with the Golfer. At this point the Golfer is not so sure he wants to be together with Thorn and it might be that sanity is kicking in or maybe it's the "friendship" with Ruska that's giving him courage but he basically tells Thorn he doesn't want to be with her anymore. Despite this (because she lives in Wonderland, after all) Thorn text-messages him constantly, sends him messages on Facebook and whatever else and perhaps they even have face-to-face conversations. Having read some of their text messages her tone in these conversations varies wildly between sweet and loving and all "I love you and want to be with you, the Golfer" to angry, resentful, mistrustful and quite "I want to cut off your balls and roast them over a fire because everything bad that has ever happened in the world is ALL YOUR FAULT!" Not only that but Thorn is trying every manipulation card in the book. Up to and literally including a manipulation ("greeting") card she gave him to tell him about what for the moment I will call the surprise plot twist.

Because the card just so happens to be sitting on one of the end-tables in my living room I will include the complete text here:

"As long as I have you, no problem will ever be too big, no day will ever be lonely, no smile will ever go unshared... because as long as I have you, I'll always have everything I need to be happy." That was just the text that was printed on the card though the underlined words were done by Thorn. On the inside cover in her hand Thorn writes: "Whats Meant to be will always Find away~" On the opposite page underneath the inner printed text Thorn writes (note that "Claire" and the replacement of -illegible- for something unreadable and "Thorn" instead of her real name are the only changes I made): "today one of the best things happened, the dr said Claire Might still be here, we did blood work and only time will tell. Nothings definite it could be Ectopic all I know is there is still a chance for our little girl to be here and after loosing -illegible- yesterday I need this Miracle. fer now I'd like this to stay between you and I as if we do lose her No one really gets hurt. But our little Girl Might still be with us. Congrats daddy! Thorn"

Oh yes, you read that correctly, in Wonderland through the magic of plot twists dead fetuses become live festuses again. I know that was a bit crude but I feel I can be nothing but blatant in the face of that reality. Because that seems to be the reality. The medical explanation for this being that she did not have a spontaneous abortion but rather the bleeding was from her body rejecting the IUD and she was still pregnant with this child they'd been mourning. I feel like it has been long enough that she may have noticed prior to saying anything at all to the Golfer. So why wait until now to tell him? Maybe because she wanted to go to the doctor first? But she didn't wait for the test results. So maybe because of Ruska? Or maybe she got pregnant again (possibly from the restraining-order ex she was seeing again)? Or maybe she's not pregnant at all because she's been threatening to get an abortion (after mourning this clump of cells)? I have no idea. Because this is now. Right now it's a soap-opera choose-your-own-adventure of futures.

Oh wait, one more thing, because a good soap opera does not stand for just one major plot twist. Sometimes they're super-sneaky and throw two major plot twists together. Because the morning the Golfer comes home to report about Thorn's apparently pregnant state he also asks my roommate (the Golfer's brother) how he feels about being an Uncle? Which is confusing because the Golfer and roommate's older brother has three children. But then the Golfer added the single word "twice" and his meaning was suddenly, weirdly clear, because as it turns out not only is Thorn still pregnant but Ruska is pregnant as well.

Today's lesson: Condoms are cheaper than children.

What happens now in the exciting new adventures of The Man Who Golfs in Thunderstorms? I really have no idea but I think I can feel some August thunderstorms brewing.

Check Yourself Out

Several months ago the grocery store which I go to all the time (the specific location, I mean, because even without a car I could be at five of this particular kind of grocery store within an hour and three are in the same town) installed three self-checkout units in their store. I loved the self-checkouts from the moment I tried one. Why? Because I often buy lunch at this grocery store while I am at work. I go in and grab three items, scan them all through in a few seconds myself and swipe my card and I'm in and out in a few minutes and I never have to wait in line. At least it was like that for the first few weeks. Until other people started using them.

At first there were a lot of weight errors from these people but that can mostly be blamed on an inherent flaw in the self-checkout system. In fact, there are several flaws with the self-checkout system I'd like to point out. People have no idea what to do with their baskets because there's no place to put them so they leave them on the first scale to cause problems for the next person. There should be a delay built into the message the machine gives when something is set on the second scale or placed into a bag that the machine feels is incorrect as the vast majority of the time after a couple seconds the item settles and it cuts off the message. The input for eco-bags should be much more obvious so people don't end up with weight errors from the bags. There should be blank areas in the carrousel so eco-bags can be loaded easily as the flat top of it is too high (especially for short people) and you can't load on the part with the plastic bags or it's uneven and you get weight errors. There should also be a super-obvious way to enter the PLU code of a produce item rather than going through the menus to find it. So yes, there are several flaws with the machines, and I just listed them so obviously they're not that hard to figure out and avoid.

Perhaps, I should have said before that all was going well until other people started abusing them. People had used them before but this was all in a very competent manner and there were three of those things so you never saw a line forming. But then, all of a sudden, it somehow became okay for all of these idiots to use the self-checkout. A perfect example of all the things not to do at the self-checkout presented itself to me the other day. I ended up having to go to a line with people in front of me and a actual human handling the transaction and it took me less time than it would have waiting at the self-checkout because of the people there. One of the people was trying to buy a big bottle of alcohol- something it should be obvious that you cannot do because, after all, there's no one there to check your ID and see that you're of age or remove the big lock thing on the cap. One of the other people had a giant cart full of groceries that they were running through the self-checkout which the poor machine is emphatically not intended for (not to mention the large signs posted that indicate that large orders should be taken to other registers). The person with the giant cart also had a bunch of produce items that they were many levels less adept at finding than a real cashier would be causing the process to take even longer. And at the third one there were two people puzzling out how to use the machine and the one in charge sent the other back into the store to collect some forgotten item while he and everyone else waited. Those two people then attempted to pay with cash instead of credit and while the machines are admittedly better at taking cash than a standard vending machine they still aren't nearly as good at that as they are at reading a magnetic strip.

WIC checks, cigarettes, alcohol, weight errors, eco-bags, produce flubs, EBT cards, using cash, leaving baskets or even carts, going back to get stuff, giant orders, leaving unwanted items on the scale, failing to take receipts and on and on and on. All things that could be avoided if these people made the sensible decision to allow at least a trained if not necessarily "professional" employee of the store handle their transaction instead of thinking (mistakenly) they can do it themselves. Self-checkouts should be reserved for people that can handle them because honestly I don't know how some of those people manage to check themselves out in the mirror in the morning and indeed some of them look like they don't even own one. And if you can't even check yourself out in the mirror perhaps you need to check yourself in somewhere (or have someone do it for you).

An Update On Blue Hoodie Guy

For a explanation of who Blue Hoodie Guy is and what he does simply see my previous post. If you've already read it then move on to the next paragraph for a very special update on Blue Hoodie Guy.

The previous blog post I wrote about Blue Hoodie Guy turned out to be a public service. It helped get him arrested. Yes, that's right, writing on the internet about getting stalked home by a guy whose real name I do not know helped get him arrested. I know, I impress myself sometimes, too. (I've also been known for spraining my arm by stroking my ego- and no I don't mean that way.)

One of my coworkers read my blog at some point between when I posted it and her first shift of the week this week. Even though we talk for multiple hours every week the getting stalked home event and her first shift of the week (always a friday because she only works friday and saturday) were timed so that I hadn't talked to her at all yet this week which meant I hadn't told her either about the event or about the post yet. She read it prior to coming in to work, though, and she decided when she noticed we had security on that day (security is there on a seemingly random schedule which is, I guess, the, cough, cost-effective method of having security) that she would go and warn him about Blue Hoodie Guy. She told him what Blue Hood Guy looks like, you know, blue hoodie, bicycle helmet, bluejeans, tall and skinny. She also told him about Blue Hoodie Guy's history in and around the Mall and about how he had stalked one of her coworkers all the way to their house earlier in the week. So, being a good security guard, he promised to keep an eye out for someone matching that description just in case. Lo and behold he saw someone matching that description a short time later and this person was- surprise of surprises, I'm sure- harassing a couple of girls. Now, ordinarily, as long as the situation did not seem serious (i.e. there was no touching, violent threats, public nudity, or any actually illegal activity) he probably would have just rescued the girls and kicked Blue Hoodie Guy off the property but since this was Blue Hoodie Guy and he had a history of this sort of behavior he called the cops and had him arrested.

Blue Hoodie Guy has had the cops called on him many times, as it turns out, so much so that the cops knew him by name and also knew where he lived. Most of the time the cops are called on him Blue Hoodie Guy is not charged or even held for any length of time because he doesn't trespass, touch anyone, whip it out, or get too specific with his verbal desires so they actually can't arrest him for anything. Being creepy is not illegal in this country so they can only remove him from the situation in those instances by taking him home. And then they maybe talk to his mother whom I get the impression that he lives with but I don't know for sure. This time, however, the cops agreed to hold him in jail at least for as long as they were legally allowed (if they couldn't find anything to charge him with, that was). The Mall was also more than happy to issue a ban to him so if he comes back he will be trespassing (which is actually not much of an offense as far as I can tell unless he happens to be carrying a firearm in which case it would be a felony).

So, to add to my list of accomplishments I have the following:

Get stalked resulting in writing about it resulting in mall security knowing about stalker resulting in stalker getting arrested.

Blue Hoodie Guy

So there is this guy that we call "Blue Hoodie Guy" because he always wears one. Always. Even in the middle of the summer. He also bikes everywhere and pretty much always wears a helmet over his hoodie even while inside. The company that I work for actually took out a restraining order against this guy a few years back because he was harassing the employees. A while after the restraining order ran out he started to show up in the store again and at first he didn't really hang out in it or anything but at the first sign of harassment the company threatened again to take out a restraining order against him and this time the largest store in the Mall (which is not actually in the Mall proper if that makes any sense but is still part of the same building) agreed to go in on the restraining order, which would have forced him to stay far away from the entire Mall where before he only had to stay a particular distance from the company I work for's actual store front. He volunteered to stay away rather than have a restraining order taken out again.

I can't be certain but it seems like Blue Hoodie Guy bikes all around the city all day every day even in the rain and snow and I've seen him biking around multiple times after learning about his existence and since he was threatened with a second restraining order. But prior to last night he had never seen me while he was biking last night. I don't know if he knew/remembered that I worked at the place that I work as I only saw him there a couple of times or if he just does this with random people. After work last night I needed a few groceries so I went into the store and picked them up and then started to walk home with them. I was walking across the parking lot of the McDonald's (located at the corner of the Mall property) when I heard someone's voice and bike noises and I knew immediately that it was him. Blue Hoodie Guy. Talking to me.

At first he just said "hey" a couple of times, trying to get my attention. And then he asked me, using this exact phrase, if I needed a "bicycle companion". I wanted to laugh. Because not only does that not really make any sense but even if he meant to ask, as I figured, if I needed an escort wherever I was going since I was walking alone in the dark at night I still wanted to laugh. I've walked back and forth to work pretty much every time I've had to work since we moved into our apartment last November. Aside from being asked for money a few times (I'll let you sort out the irony of asking someone walking to work for money on your own) and once being asked if I wanted to hear the word of God today I've never had any trouble on my way home. And judging from some of the stories I've heard about Blue Hoodie Guy having him "escort" me home could very well be much worse than being panhandled or badgered by religious people.

I told him that I was all set and I believe it was then that he told me the first time that his mother was a Presbyterian Minister. Is this supposed to comfort me in some way? I am really uncertain. My mother is a school teacher but that does not automatically mean I can rattle off random historical facts the way she can or have infinite patience to explain something to someone. So why tell me that his mother is a Presbyterian Minister? Unless that is his idea of a pick up line? (And if you just thought 'he might be on to something there' you would be wrong.) He then told me that he was going to Wendy's which is just up the road from McDonald's in the direction that I was heading. He amended this statement to say Wendy's or Burger King (up the road a little ways farther) a few seconds later. He then told me that he used to work at Wendy's but not this Wendy's the one out by the Mall on Stillwater. (Which explains why, when I first told my brother about Blue Hoodie Guy, he knew exactly who I was talking about because he came in there all the time.)

In fact he went neither to Wendy's nor to Burger King. Instead he followed me all the way to my apartment building. I was really hoping that if I ignored him he would go away or go and do as he said he would and go to Wendy's. This was not the case. He followed me and despite my not really talking to him he talked to me and even found time to repeat several things. He said the following phrases word-for-word multiple times: "I know you don't really know me that well", "My mother is a Presbyterian Minister", "I used to work at Wendy's but not this Wendy's the one out by the Mall on Stillwater", "I have ancestor's from Maine", "I lived in England for about five years". He even told me about all the different things he likes to order at various fastfood restaurants.

He was still following when I rounded the corner and my apartment building came into view. I could see both Sean (roommate) and Ryan's (brother of roommate) cars out front so I pointedly commented that both of my roommates were home. When I started to walk up to the building entrance he said: "I know you don't know me very well but do you want my phone number?" I said I did not. And he proceeded to spout it off anyway. Then he said: "You don't want some companionship?" I said no. "Are you sure you don't want some companionship?" He asked me this multiple times as I entered the building and headed up the stairs (the front door is perpetually propped open in the summer and the stairs are right there so I could still hear him. I was on the third set up and he was still asking (from outside, thankfully) so I yelled something that implied that I was sleeping with my roommates (yes, both of them) and disappeared inside my apartment as quickly as possible and fumbled to lock it behind me.

So what did I learn? I need to invest in some creep repellant. I learned that hoping creeps will go away is not effective. I also learned that yelling you are going to have a threesome with your roommates may be the best way to end any conversation.

Living as Roommates

Roommate
Does (did) most of the dishes.
Takes out the trash most often.
Sweeps occasionally (pretty much all our apartment ever gets swept).
Sometimes cleans up in other ways.
Once a week (tops) he might give me a ride somewhere.
Buys toilet paper (though rarely the same quality and not often the same amount) roughly every other time we need it.
Holds responsibility for paying rent to our landlord (actually transferring the money over, I mean, I write him a check and his brother also gives him money to contribute to the rent).
Has the electric bill in his name (for which I pay him 1/3 or 1/2 depending on whether his brother is contributing or not).
Owns the television, playstation, and the majority of games and movies in our apartment.
Has (and pays for) the Netflix account we all use to watch movies and television shows as we don't have cable, satellite, or even a antenna to pick up free stations.
Has been unemployed since the beginning of march (three and a half months after we moved in and we have currently lived here for eight and a half months). Receives unemployment and foodstamps.


Me
Occasionally does dishes. Rarely forgets to at least rinse them. Often wshes/rinses dirty dishes to reuse rather than use clean ones.
Takes out the trash sometimes.
Rarely sweeps.
Sometimes cleans up in other ways.
Enjoys cooking and often makes food and shares said food.
Does not complain that eggs (frequently), spices (frequently), milk (sometimes), coffee (often), butter (frequently), peanut butter (often), and other foodstuffs (constantly) paid for and carried home myself (as I do not, after all, own/drive a car or frequently get rides from my roommate) are used/eaten by other people.
Does not complain that toothpaste and mouthwash disappear at a much more rapid rate than if I were the only one using them.
Buys toilet paper (the kind I wish we had all the time) every other time and then some that we need it.
Has the highspeed internet with which we stream Netflix movies/shows, browse the web, shoot zombies with people around the world in real time (that's all him, not me, I've never liked first-person shooters), and god only knows what else (porn, probably) in my name and pays the full amount for it because after splitting the $30 dollar charge for the first few months I decided to get $54 dollar a month internet just after roommate became unemployed and thought I would be nice and not charge him for it until he became employed again.
Bought a $210 8,000 BTU airconditioner when the weather in combination with our third-floor apartment made living unbearable and allowed the airconditioner to be installed in the living room and not my bedroom.
Covers for roommate and brother of roommate by lending gas money and other stuff between paychecks (which is sometimes not returned in full).
Has been employed for almost two solid years with the same company, makes minimum wage, and manages to keep my head above water despite working part-time.


Brother of Roommate (living with us)
Did the dishes twice just after moving in and once in the past couple days after roommate declared he didn't want to do other people's dishes any more.
Occasionally takes out the trash.
Does not sweep.
Does not clean up in other ways.
Frequently leaves dirty dishes around the apartment, does not rinse his dishes, and rather than rinsing out his glass and using the same one he used for water to hold juice and later water again uses three different ones in one day.
Reuses his towels many times and leaves the stinky things in the bathroom.
Sleeps on our couch (making it difficult to have guests) and leaves dirty clothing around living room not to mention the fact that I cannot use anything in the living room before noon (about which time I am often getting ready for work).
Has bought toilet paper once since living with us.
Never has any money (despite making around a hundred dollars a week more than I do, while my roommate gets unemployment for nearly as much money as I make not to mention foodstamps) and struggles to give roommate $200 bucks to cover some rent and electric.
Attracts emotional drama like a guy who golfs in lightening storms.


So tell me... does that add up? Because somehow it doesn't seem to come out evenly for me. That the guy who makes the most money pays the least for rent and utilities (though he does sleep on our couch, granted)? Funnily enough the months when roommate's brother was basically at our apartment constantly (and I've yet to mention that he works forty hours a week but does them consecutively and gets to sleep while there, of course so he is here a lot) except while working and to actually sleep my roommate did not complain about the dishes. Oh. And when I say "does the dishes" I mean that we have a dishwasher into which dishes are loaded, soap is added, and timer is set and that's "doing the dishes". Oh! And though our apartment has forty to sixty or more me-free hours every week I am rarely alone in it. Am I justified in feeling like I'm beating my head against the wall and wanting to kick out roomate's brother? Yes? I better be.