A Funny Thing Happened Today

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Ever miss an appointment because you shut off your alarm and fell back asleep? I tend to do that. It happened this morning. I woke up at about 10:10am. This was about two hours and 10 minutes after my scheduled appointment (in which I was supposed to be the service provider). Needless to say, I looked at the alarm clock and jumped out of bed with an audible "Oh shit."

What do you do when that happens? Do you just say screw it and hope for the best? Or do you attack the situation and try to make it work in your favor? Well, after about 10 seconds of contemplation, I decided that the best course of action was to attack and create a very plausible excuse. How else? Google.com, that's how. I searched for "excuses for missing appointment". It was a concise and accurate search, but wielded few viable reasons for missing an appointment. Very disappointed, I shut off the computer and contemplated my next move.

I went downstairs to the telephone. I saw the little blinking number "1" on the answering machine. Reluctantly, I pressed the play button and waited for the nails on the chalkboard to wake me up. Just as I assumed, it was The Boss. "Jay, this is (Boss). (Individual) and I are waiting for you. Call when you get a chance."

Shit. Again, I could blow off the situation or try my best to fix it. So I called Boss. Boss says, "Individual said that their power went out last night because of the storms and thought that perhaps yours went out as well." Perfect. What better an excuse? I could at least be half-honest. I called Individual. I told Individual about how "My power went out and when I woke up my alarm clock was blinking."

They say everything happens for a reason. For a few hours of extra sleep, I won't argue.

Cell phone commercial

Books and sausage

How can a college charge over $1300 for a (as in one) class and make you pay over $100 for its books? I feel, like, intellectually raped and stuff. That's gay dude.

Completely Useful Information

Hello again, and welcome to another edition of Answer the Damned Question (ADQ). After long hours pondering what I might ask this time around, a friend of mine - we'll call the friend "Sansnam" - suggested the following two-part inquiry:

1. Do you prefer the toilet paper to go over or under the roll?
2. Explain.

Death by PowerPoint

P.P.? Why does every forum, convention, meeting, bat cave, conclave, powwow, congregation, and/or cattle call have to include an hour-long funeral via PowerPoint? Because nobody knows how to engage an audience anymore. It's almost as if society has forgotten that stimulating an audience actually helps them learn and understand presented material. But we say, "F(_)ck that homie," and drive on with our brainwashed Micros0ft society. Captivating speech is not taught in college public speaking classes. Maybe that's saved for acting class. What is taught is that you must have a presentation, you must physically speak to your audience, and you must use today's ever uninspiring technology to do so. Yawn. That sounds like a dead-man's checklist. Anyone can read what's on a projection screen, but that'll never make an audience shit themselves so hard that they'll never forget what you had to say on 12 March 2005. We need to fight back people. Or fall asleep if you prefer.

Multiple Subjects

1. United Airlines Decision. Wow, they actually got back to me about the undesirable trip I took with them earlier this year. Their decision? To hand me a $100 discount to be used toward arrangements made with United. Woo hoo. How about a $100 refund check. A$$h0les. I don't think I'll be using this discount, out of principle. Let me do the math and get back to you.
2. Weight. I've gained 6 pounds in two weeks.
3. Personal Training. It's going well. A client every now and then, just to put some chump change in my pocket.
4. Work. I'm employed.
5. School. Almost.

-------------------------------------- Next Subject--------------------------------------

On that note, anyone who reads this shall submit comments, answering the following questions:

• Who would have made a better President of the United States? (choose from: Michael Dukakis, Bob Dole, or Al Gore)
• Why does a dog lick its balls?
• What do you hate the most?
  

Any ideas?

In trying to build and maintain an interesting weblog (not necessarily decent though), I've searched for "tweaks" to make my page easier to view. I do not want it to become so over-did that people take me for a joke. Wait a minute... No, that's fine. Take me for a joke. What you don't realize is that I'm your father. Anyway, come back, read, learn how to be skeptical and brainwashproof, and laugh 'til your nuts hurt.

Some of the recent tweaks are:

• Hide/show comments. Now you don't have to open a separate page to view other comments people have posted. Waste of time. If you want to mess with me, just click the "comments" link, then "post a comment".
• Polls.
• Audioblogger. You'll literally hear me b1tching every now and then with new audio posts. Although I feel this would be more useful whilst traveling.

If you have any other great ideas for me, you now know the procedure.

Punctuation Perfection

Some of you - the ones that actually take the average 55 seconds out of your day to read this (yes, that's the average view time of my weblog) - may know that I'm an English nazi. Well, I don't push my grammatical prowess upon any man, woman, or child, so maybe you don't know after all. To make this ever-growing story ever-so-short, a blog bandit just so happened to comment on yesterday's entry and let me know that I actually have a chink in my armor. (Click the comments link in the below post to see what this ruthless individual wrote)

If you're keeping tabs, however, I still hoist Excalibur.

Aspirin? No thanks.

Do you take some kind of medicine every time you cough, sneeze, have a headache, can't sleep, have a sore neck? Do you need medicine to cope with what ails you? I don't like the idea of America's drug companies pushing drugs on people as "a way to treat restless leg syndrome". What the hell is that? I'll tell you what it is. It's made up so some drug manufacturer can make money. As a matter of opinion, I think they messed up some other drug experiment and, when said screwed up chemical was ingested, the lab rats just so happened to stop running around and finally took a rest. So they say, hey let's sell this!

I was stuck in a room full of 40-plus people this weekend. One was sick. I somehow caught the sore throat/cough. And what did I do? Drank orange juice. Gargled with salt water. Didn't let it ruin my day. Didn't succumb to a drug company's quick fix. Kept the money in my pocket and dealt with it, just like billions of people before me have. It's just a sore throat people. But for some reason, people can't seem to understand why I would want to deal with it when there are things to take care of the pain. It's a matter of principle. Get over it and buy some vitamins.

Bastard Institutions

The following list is created to spread the word on my negative experiences with them:

1. U_M_U_C. Don't even bother looking this one up. First of all, this place of higher learning sucks. If you're about to go to school, find another institution. You'd rather become a circus act than a student here; you'd surely get more respect. One day you've signed up and the next thing you know, your drunken instructor falls off the train and has to cancel your class. True story. You finally get through the majority of your classes, then get to your final credits and they're sucking your wallet dry and bending you over at the same time. It seems like the closer you get to completing your requirements, the less they want to help. Or maybe that's just because they only have lazy employees that only have a certification in transferring calls.

2. United Airlines. I'm not sure, but these morons probably never learned how to color within the lines. "Fly the friendly skies"? How about "Get shit on by all United ground personnel"? Yes, that sounds more like it. I wrote a 2-page letter (single-spaced in small font) about my crap experience and mailed it in March. To this date, I have a case pending review at United Customer Relations. Will update with the results of that... 15 years from now when the company is defunct because of its sh1tty service. Do me a favor - Next time you make travel plans, don't buy the cheapest tickets if they're offered by United.

3. New York State Department of Taxation and Finance (NYSDTF). Don't get me started on this one...it might take me three years. That's because for the past three years, NYSDTF has either been extremely tardy on my tax returns, or as is the case this year, did not receive my tax return. That means that the a$$h0les "lost" it and didn't want to do the right thing and just find it. It's probably sitting on some schlep's desk right now, underneath his sticky pocket porn. Wrote the Commissioner directly and demanded resolution on this issue. Still no word almost three months after I sent the original state tax return packet. Will update when I find out what's up.

Just had to get that out in the open. In order, my personal solution to each problem is:

1. Graduate and move the hell on.
2. P!ss on United's help desk.
3. Move the hell out of New York State like the rest of sensible humanity already has. The Yankees are about the only thing we have that isn't taxed.

Why won't my scanner work!@$%#*^&

Just when you want to do something good for humanity, your scanner stops working.

[update] The scanner is still not working. I could swear that scanners have something against me, but I don't have proof. My template updates will have to wait. So bored.

Train for Gain

Been watching Ultimate Fighting a lot lately. Have you seen it? Have you given it a chance?

It's much more intense than boxing and you don't have to wait 10 rounds for the fight to be decided. Sure, the face smashing, bone breaking stuff is violent (that's the whole point), but I watch it for the technical aspects - grappling, ground work, submission holds, etc. Ever been jumped by over 20 people at once? I have. Ever been forced to knock out a coked-up 6-foot tall Dutch girl clawing at your carotid artery? I have. It makes you stop and think, "I had better be able to handle myself." It also makes you wonder who your real friends are. Would they help if your head was getting stomped?

To that end, I train five to six days per week. Right now it's resistance and cardiorespiratory-type conditioning exercise, which is very physically demanding, but not as demanding as a 5-minute scrap session. That's what I'd like to start training for.

Do you hate the President?

I'll play the percentages here and bet that you hate the President of the United States of America. If you were eligible to vote as a US citizen in the last Presidential election, but didn't, you have two options:

1. Cry.
2. Realize that you had better study the candidates before the next elections.

Of course, you could choose to do both. Did you know that only 30% of eligible Americans voted in the last Presidential elections? Therefore, 70% of those eligible (but non-voters) can't complain that Bush is President. Give yourself peace of mind and vote.

Yo, Check out my Gun

Poppin, stoppin, v-dubya hoppin. We goin' retro on the new age funky photos. Stay fresh, stay young, stay alive. It doesn't make any sense, but I apparently needed to jive. And rhyme? No way. Get outta here.

Anyone out there driving v-dubya's raise your hand and leave a comment. Maybe we can be total dorks and have our own VW club (insert snorting sound here). Matter of fact, anyone who reads this can leave a comment about pretty much anything, because as you can see, I post garbage every now and then just to keep it real. Hell yeah 1st Amendment! Down with Big Brother. Second Amendment, here we come baby.

Uncle Tony, you and I's-agonna-race.

Here's looking at you

Good evening. Monday was a very uneventful day. Here's my question of the day to all who wander to this blog:

What was your least favorite part about Monday? Post comments...

T-shirts anyone?

Here's my offer:
This is a small hobby, not a small business. I'm self-taught beeeyatch. If you have a graphic or simply want some text printed on a t-shirt (one to two color designs) without wanting to pay a lot for a professional quality t-shirt, I can make you one. Again, I don't do this for a living and thus I don't guarantee my work. But you can bet your ass I'll make a good image for less money than the next guy. With the price of materials and shipping, your finished shirt could cost you anywhere from $10 - $20, depending on shirt quality and shipping costs. The more duplicate shirts you order, the less you pay.

Interested? Post a comment below. Agreements will be made via email. Shirt(s) will be made and shipped to customer after the order has been made and funds have been sent. I will pay for the shirt if I feel I have messed up the image. Remember, this is just an easy way for you or a friend to get your smiplistic one or two color image on a t-shirt without having to pay over-the-top prices for a pro-printer.

How is it done?
Start with a graphic, maximum size of 8.5" x 12.5". Draw the image by hand, or print a black image on vellum with computer graphics program/printer for very detailed art. Transfer image to the screen (using various methods), throw some ink on it, and BAM. T-shirt. All my inks are water based, simply because I do not have the professional grade equipment to heat cure a plastisol-based ink (the type used on most production dark t-shirts to lay the ink on top of the shirt fibers). What I'm trying to say is that it's easier for me to do a light colored t-shirt because a water-based ink will stain the lighter fibers very well and will be soft to the touch. Nothing lays on top of the shirt as with a plastisol ink, so there's no plastic/rubbery feel. Shirt must be 100% cotton. Polyester and polyester blends (synthetic fibers) will not accept the water-based ink stain and will wash out immediately.

Some samples of my distinguished collection...

Slobodan Milosevic would be proud.

Interested? Drop a comment using the little link below.

I won my first real six-string...

Here it is. The almost famous air guitar contest, held in the Netherlands, April 2004. Behold the only known digital photo of the elusive pink bunny in the process of earning his Gibson SG electric beat-your-face-mo-fo guitar. The proof of his mystical, rarely seen performing powers. There was never a doubt.

*Performed to "I Believe In a Thing Called Love" by The Darkness.
**Note the wee lad in the shopping cart choking on intensity.

For historic reference and factual information: It wasn't as straightforward as it may have sounded above. After ripping through the first song, and after the judges final decision, there was a tie in talent. Cottontail was forced to square-off with a good friend (and Superhero band member), Thom, in a test of fortitude, integrity, and might to see who had the right stuff to swipe the strings. If any one factor could test the magik rabbit, it was the experience that would be summoned from the sweaty palms of Thom's beastly manhands. Instead of battling, the two elite juggernauts joined forces and let "Shout of the Devil" make up the judges minds. They both rode off into the Dutch sunset with shiny, new axes.

'Round and 'round

What comes around goes around. Mother's day. Sounds like a good day to show a little extra respect for your mother and the greeting card companies. So, I said "Screw it. I'll paint a card." It actually looked better than many commercially made four-dollar cards. And I'd rather pay an art supply company and put some time into it than sell-out and take two minutes looking for the perfect card (read as: "I fight to keep at least some of my family values alive in an age of 'I don't have time.'" -OR- "I'm pissed because I'm not the one making easy money on lazy consumers.") Perhaps it even had more meaning to its recipient. Who's to say?

Maybe my mom will paint me a card for Son's day. Well, maybe I'll just have to wait for a new Hallmark-holiday.

Timeless

Huge fan of the old "Courier" font. It's about as timeless as this blog. About as timeless as the full-monty softshell chicken taco.

Remember the Triad.