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January 31, 2008

Stank Whores Away!

At 6:10AM tomorrow morning, Nerdy Squirrel, Esq. and I will be departing the cold, gray, socially-and-economically-barren landscape of Cleveland, commonly known as the Kazakhstan of the American midwest, for the warm, sunny, socially-and-economically barren island of San Juan, commonly known as the Cleveland of the Caribbean. 

After briefly sampling San Juan's finest Corona lagers and filthiest prostitutes (Hey? Is that where nacho cheese comes from?),  we will proudly board the Celebrity Summit for seven days of lust, greed, gluttony and sloth.

Hopefully, you are furious with envy.

So long, suckers. 

 

January 24, 2008

Different Day

So far, today has been a good travel day.

After a sleepless night, agonizing over spending the next four days (yes, including Saturday) at a work conference, I woke up late to a freezing house.  Shriveled and shivering, I sprinted about to shit, shower, shave and shove-off (never underestimate the importance of completing these tasks in the proper order) in record time.  Backing out of the driveway and pulling into the street, the dark, frigid morning appeared unusually fuzzy.  I had forgotten my glasses.    

Eventually I arrived at the airport parking garage which, despite them giving me a ticket and allowing me to enter, was full-fucking-up.  I raced laps around the lot with the other snooze-button slaves, eventually spotting a single, partially-obstructed space next to a pick-up driven someone who is apparently incapable of coloring within the lines.  Some back-and-forth aligning allowed me to squeeze my old Saturn into the tight spot, at which point I took no small amount of pleasure in viciously smashing my door into the inconsiderate fuck’s stupid truck.

From there I double-timed it to the check-in counter, dodging in and out of and every dilly-dallying asshole in my path while vulgarly cursing them and, preemptively, anyone else who threatened to drift close.  When the escalator opened up into the ticketing area revealing the bag drop and security lines, my sphincter collapsed.  No way was I going to make my flight.

Fortunately the bag drop line moved quickly, and I darted over to a little-used security checkpoint at the ass-end of the airport that is rarely used.  After more running, dodging, and cursing, I finally arrived at my gate with ten minutes to spare.  

Delayed.  Mechanical issues.

First, it was 30 minutes.  Then an hour.  Then two.  Two hours and forty-five minutes after our scheduled departure time, I finally boarded my five-hour, cross-country flight. 

So, you ask, how could this be a good travel day?  First Class, bitches.  Getting upgraded to First Class changes everything.

Cushy seats, free booze, delicious meals, warm cookies, sexy and slavish flight attendants, gregarious companions, stock tips, low-interest loans, relaxing back rubs and happy endings.

Plus, they plan fun activities to occupy your time between naps, like guessing in which coach passenger’s complimentary thimble of soda the coach flight attendant will unknowingly shed the outer layer of her giant, hairy mole (that’s good protein!).

It just goes to show, it’s the little things in life that matter.  Like feeling superior to other people.

January 19, 2008

Tosser

I’m no pack rat.  Unnecessary clutter makes me anxious and I like nothing better than getting rid of stuff I no longer need or want (unless, of course, that unnecessary thing might turn around and sue me for half the stuff I actually do need or want). 

However, there are certain items that I just can’t bring myself to throw away.  Typically, these are things that I feel I might need some day.  Unidentified keys, expired warranty cards,  random screws and bolts, old girlfriends’ phone numbers, and my future to name a few.

Topping the list, though, is medications.  The drawer in our hall closet is a DEA agent’s wet dream of stockpiled drugs.  There are leftovers from previous illnesses and injuries (Zyrtec, Vicodin, some generic penicillin, and a miraculous ointment about which I refuse to comment), expired over-the-counter remedies (for the four “C”s:  cold and flu, constipation, cortisone, and the craps), and so many random pills littered across the bottom of the drawer that it looks like the floor of an M&M factory.

(When I was a kid, I imagined the M&M factory as a magical workshop where Christmas music is playing over the loudspeakers and giant, framed posters of Pixar movies decorate the walls.  Inside five distinct, brightly-colored conveyer belt lines (red, green, yellow, orange and blue, of course!) made of taffy are each manned by a team of whistling leprechauns in color-coded jumpsuits.  At the beginning of each line a giant, fat rabbit dressed-up as a distinct superhero is happily grazing on a steady diet of candy canes and sugarplums.  Sparkling pixies zip to and fro overhead carrying large, festive syringes filled with antibiotics which are continuously injected into the rabbits to stave off illness and disease because rabbits are herbivores and their digestive systems were not meant to digest processed sugars.  Oh, and intravenous tubes connected to each rabbit’s right eye-socket – the eyeball is removed when the rabbits first arrive - pump a continuous flow of dye (red, green, yellow, orange and blue, of course!) into its bloodstream.  At the end of the line, imported child-labor from North Korea paint little “M”s on each candy by hand using a lead-based paint and a pointed stick they must continually sharpen with their own teeth.)

The Holy Grail of my stash is my EpiPen, an epinephrine auto-injector that, despite having expired in 2003, I am certain will say my life someday, probably from shadowy alien invaders who can pinpoint earth from light years away but still have to rely on prosaic crop circles to find a good landing spot; who can easily survive in our atmosphere yet biologically generate a airborne poison mist that is released from their wrists like Spiderman or some shit; and who can be killed with plain old water but are magically affected by rain or dew or humidity or every other fucking thing in our world that is made up 90% water.  Knowing my EpiPen is safely tucked away gives me comfort, as does the baseball bat mounted on my wall.

Anyway, having had a bad cold the past week, I’ve been ingesting massive amounts of symptom reducers.  On Wednesday morning, to my surprise, I had eaten through all the leftover cold medicine we had amassed, all except for a 24 Hour Sudafed Extended Release tablet containing 240 mg of pseudophedrine sulfate that expired in 2006. You may also know this product by its street name, crystal meth.

Sudafed’s website says you should stop using this product if you feel nervous, dizzy or sleepless.  And for the next 24 hours, I felt exactly that.  It made me as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs being rocked by horny old men who like nothing better than sodomizing long-tailed cats.  It made me as dizzy as a glue-sniffing dervish riding the Roundup on smaller, earth-like orb with a much faster planetary rotation.  It made me as sleepless as Seattle (they drink a lot of coffee there).  And I was as queasy as queasy person who takes expired medications on an empty stomach.

But I didn’t have the slightest bit of nasal congestion or sinus pressure.  So maybe I’ll just hang on to the rest of the Sudafed for a while.  Just in case.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

January 15, 2008

Now What? Season 2, Episode 1

When last we left our daring crusader, his archenemy, the fetid bitchtard Supervisor, had trapped him inside her evil work-piling-on machine and then, as usual, went home early for the day.  CB Commando was rapidly losing strength and had collapsed on the floor beneath a crushing mound of manila folders.

WILL THE EVIL BITCHTARD DRAIN OUR HERO OF HIS WILL TO LIVE???

IS THERE ANY HOPE FOR ESCAPE BY 5:30PM???

COULD THIS THE END OF CRUNCHY BLUE COMMANDO'S PLANS FOR THIS EVENING???

*ahem*

Anyway, after a lengthy bout of procrastination, it’s time to delve back in to the process of figuring out my career path.  For several months, the conspicuous absence of stupidity at work had lulled me into a false sense of contentment.  Well, the last two weeks have more than made up for it.  In any case, if I presume to have more sense than a frog, then I should get busy hopping out of this pan before the water starts boiling…again.

The first thing I need to do is to build a framework for making a decision.  An effective approach might be to layout my long-term goals alongside my short-term needs.  Then, taking a birds-eye view, try to find a healthy compromise.  Hopefully, for your sake, hilarity will ensue.  Before I do that, though, I want to remind myself of the pitfalls or distractions that always seem to side track this process and/or affect my decisions-making.

In the end, the one with the most toys wins!
This is only true if one of those toys is human cell Re-Animator  or a Cherry 2000.  Otherwise, in the end, everyone just dies.  The more shit you have, the more time you have to spend polishing your shit.  And time is the only real asset anyone has.  Besides, wealth and accumulations can always be lost, get stolen, or be spontaneously combusted when placed in the microwave to dry. 

Wax on, wax off, Daniel-son.

Keeping up with the Joneses.
While similar to the previous pitfall, all I need to remember here is that Mrs. Jones keeps trying to bang the paperboy, and Mr. Jones listens to Huey Lewis and the News.  In other words, the Joneses are total shitbags.  And a bag of shit tied off with a big, fancy ribbon is still a bag of shit. 

Social climbing and blind ambition are bright, shiny ideas that attract people with the insight of a moth, and to the same end. 

There is always tomorrow.
Time is the only thing of real value I have.  It’s constantly diminishing, and there is no way to replenish it.  Every hour I spend doing something I hate is an hour I could’ve spent enjoying my life.  More free time is more gooder, so move your ass, old man!

Isn’t my life good enough as it is?
According to Abe Maslow, I’ve got it pretty good.  All my Physiological, Safety and Love/Belonging needs are being met (though, in my opinion, you can never have too many Chinese throwing stars or blow jobs).  Still, it is not like I’ll get second shot at this.  Life is like the Superbowl of, well, life.  Except the commercials suck.

That settles it!  I’m going to make a change. But first, the garage could sure use a fresh coat of paint.
I’ve got to figure out a way to avoid getting sidetracked and bogged down in tasks that provide immediate gratification and little else.   It’s not like spend my days touching doorknobs or counting toothpicks, but I definitely have some strong obsessive tendencies with a little anal retentiveness sprinkled in.  I don’t think I need therapy, but I could certainly benefit from someone coaxing the paintbrush out of my hand and talking me down off the extension ladder.

I’m going to have to figure this one out.

Opportunity is a whore.
Most of my career has been spent chasing good opportunities.  And while those opportunities may have afforded me a pretty nice life, in and of themselves, they haven’t gotten me any closer to what I want to do/be.  Or knowing what I could do/be.  Or having the faintest fucking idea what I want to do/be.  Do/be, do/be, do.  

My point is that, like Jehovah’s Witnesses, opportunities don’t care whose door they knock upon.  And sometimes undercover DEA agents can look a hell of a lot like Jehovah’s Witnesses.  So unless the opportunity is one I clearly recognize and am expecting, I need to just pull the shades, flush my stash and hide quietly in the closet until it goes away.

That’s it for the pitfalls I need to avoid.  Oh, and I should also avoid Blockbuster, internet porn, YouTube, my bellybutton (don't ask), poker sites, and Bob, my stupid neighbor who likes to tell me stories with no end when I’m trying to move the fucking groceries into the house.  If I can navigate all these obstacles, then hopefully I can focus my full attention on…hey, what time is the Democratic debate on tonight?

 

January 14, 2008

Loogie Here

I've been sick for the past week. It all started when Nerdy Squirrel, Esq. had a cold and absentmindedly* used my toothbrush instead of her own.  Two days later I woke up and choked out a slimy, bloody brick of snot the size of a fucking quarter.  Since then, my head has been like ten pounds of mucus in a five pound sinus.  

I did try to write a few things in between massively imprecise doses of Nyquil, but for some reason none of the words I typed included any vowels. Anyway, I’ll try to have something tomorrow.

In the mean time, let me solidify my lameness in your eyes by offering the following video which I think would be hilarious even if I weren’t chemically imbalanced from a dog’s breakfast of OTC medications.


I F H Mondays - Watch more free videos


* Other words you might use here include: inconsiderately; passive-aggressively; or in-a-calculated-attempt-to-make-me-pay-for-being-less-than-empathetic-during-her-own-episode-ly.

 

January 02, 2008

Ex-mas: Parting Thoughts For The Holiday Season

It wouldn’t be Christmas without Burl Ives.  Not only does he belt out the coolest holiday sing-along ever, “Holly Jolly Christmas,” the man actually looks like Santa Claus. He owns December the way that Mr. T owns the afro-hawk or Rosie O’Donnell owns erotically-devoid lesbianism. 

During the other eleven months of the year, however, Burl Ives needs to be packed away in a musty attic with the other Christmas decorations.  And there he must stay until next Thanksgiving or the day when someone finally unearths the long lost recording of “Holly Jolly Arbor Day.” 
_____

I’m going miss you, Christmas Ale from Great Lakes Brewing Company, with your festive bottle, spicy bouquet, and 7.3% alcohol content.  No more regaining consciousness in my neighbor’s rose bushes covered in a crispy coating of frozen Christmas cookie vomit.  No more head-butting the Salvation Army lady outside of Giant Eagle just to “ring her bell.”  No more waking up at 4:00 AM inside a running clothes dryer. 

_____

A week before Christmas my annual holiday bonus arrived: two AMC movie tickets. I don’t expect much, but seriously, what the Christmas fuck?  Am I the freaking paperboy?  Hell, at least Clark Griswald got a different jar of jelly every month. 

Seriously, go fuck yourself with an oversized candy cane coated with jagged, crystallized sprinkles of AIDs.

_____

I witnessed a holiday miracle on Friday.  The name on the boarding pass of the person in front of me in line for my flight to Indianapolis on Friday was Richard Wacker.  I swear to Santa.

What a struggle it must be for poor Dick.  You know he wakes up every day and says, "This is it.  Today, I'm going to finally change this awful fucking name of mine," and then wimps out for fear that his father, Willy, and grandfather, Pudding (better known as "Pud") will roll over in their graves in disappointment.  At least he has it better than his son, Jerksoffalot.