the Dave Effect

She Has to Buy a Ticket

2012-02-03T18:23:00.000-05:00

I'm walking out of the doors at work today next to a small group of guys talking about "the one that got away."

I heard the phrase "Great White Buffalo" being tossed around. Two of the friends were getting on the other one for his inaction in relation to a girl that had recently moved away.

Apparently she had been "the one." This kid had to be around nineteen. If only he knew.

But his response to the jests of his peers?

"Dudes, she can't just magically fly to Daytona."

He's right. Today we use airplanes. Much more comfortable than broomsticks and you get the added inconvenience of airport security.

Suck it, bros. She can't magically get here.

She has to buy a ticket.

Self Ghost Writing, it's gonna be Huge

2012-01-30T18:28:00.000-05:00

Do you start writing a book from the front? I know the term is in media res (start in the middle) but sweet unholy Hell, man...opening a book is hard.

I have the idea. I even have most of the character names, how the book basically ends, and most of the meat (the potatoes are still boiling.) But I'm having trouble boiling the water (to continue the metaphor.)

The scene opens with my main character at bar. I know this. He is sitting there, half thinking about where his life is, half thinking about how to approach a pretty brunette socialite, and he just can't seem to get it. He is conveniently interrupted by a friend and from there, the action begins.

The idea of the ripple in the lake, or the penny picked up that leads to a changed world. She walks in the door and changes his life. The only thing is she changes it in a way that he couldn't anticipate, and he's not sure he wants.

Actually writing this scene is a completely different story. I need to pay myself to Ghost Write this story for myself.

How to Right the Ship

2012-01-26T17:20:00.000-05:00

My fingers seem to have forgotten what it is they do when on a keyboard. My brain isn't functioning the way it did a year ago.

Life hasn't changed that much. I still go to bed too late, wake up too early, work what I consider to be much. I eat poorly, drink too much, exercise daily in some vain attempt to make up for my other bad habits.

Nothing seems quite as funny, when I sit down to write. My life seems to have undergone a very slight tonal shift. I still love humor and the idea of being a humor writer, a comedian. But at the same time, I feel the need to write deep, imploring pieces about the state of life as we know it, or at least as I know it.

I want to talk about the economy because I go to work and all day we discuss how to make our job better. I (and my friends) always ask the question, what could our company do to fix itself? How do we right the ship?

And this is something I think our entire country seems to be asking right now. About the state of politics, the economy, families, relationships and floundering sports franchises.

How do we right the ship? Where did it start to tilt? Is it even sinking or are the winds just that strong?

This is what my brain does now. It clicks and clicks and chugs and chugs until I can (hopefully) discover a way to talk about this, find a way to make sense of my more current chain of thoughts.

Continued soon...

Method Creation

2011-12-15T01:27:00.001-05:00

I'm working on giving myself a method. Or a counter method even. I don't need a method to a madness. I need a counter to placidity...to the mundane and the draw of the everyday. I need a way to battle mediocrity.

Inspiration is key.

How does one get inspired?

They read.

And they read.

How does one use gained inspiration?

They write. Or draw. Or dance. Or sing...

Then they make it better.

Then they rinse. And they repeat. And they continue their process.

I want to create a desire to Create.

For All the Skyrim Ninjas

2011-12-13T21:42:00.002-05:00

Random Santa Picture. Because.

2011-12-13T19:19:00.000-05:00

Uploaded from my iPhone (see, I'm hip) hence the shadows. I might actually PhotoShop (oh god oh god oh god) this later and see how it turns out.

A Small Problem

2011-12-13T18:57:00.000-05:00

I've drawn cartoons. A few of them. Odd styles and random lines. Fun. Enjoyable. Hell, they even have a message. I look at my "website" blog thingy and I think...holy shit I hate the name of my blog.

This presents a problem following an already existing list of problems.

I will show you this list.

Dave's Problems: (I'm just going to type up the list for you.)

1) I forgot how to PhotoShop.
2) I work weird hours at a job I just really...really...love.
3) I play too much Skyrim.
4) Star Wars: The Old Republic is coming out.
5) I want to write more, but I keep thinking about TOR and Skyrim.
6) I can't decide what I love enough to write about. (Solution? Write about everything and hope people can follow my subject hops.)
7) I can only make a list of things I really don't want to do.
8) I no longer like the name of my blog.
9) I have no idea what to call the "new" blog.
10) I don't know how to work websites, which means I'm going to have trouble doing anything other than blogspot.

Oh god oh god oh god.

Commas? Pushaw.

Have I Read These Already?

2011-12-11T00:12:00.000-05:00

I wrote both of the lower posted stories awhile back (and posted them on another blog)as a writing exercise. They're the type of pieces I love doing, turning things on their heads just for the fun of it. Also, writing like that tends to help get me out of any "Writer's Block" like funk I've managed to sink into. I'm considering writing a few more or working on a Christmas project, only 14 days left...

Anyway, thought I'd throw those up. Enjoy!

Rapunzel the Angry

2011-12-11T00:10:00.000-05:00

For thousands of years now, I have been telling the story of fairest Rapunzel. Well, hundreds probably, but the point is, I’m quite sick of it. I can no longer stomach the web of lies I have propagated in the name of “the Moral of the Story.” The truth is, that Rapunzel, while beautiful, most assuredly could not be called fair—she would most certainly, and without an ounce of mercy or regret, mace you right in your face if she heard you call her that. And not the mace that modern day would be attackers—specifically modern day would be attacker’s eyes—know so well, but the medieval kind of mace, one that breaks teeth and cracks skulls and occasionally is called a morning star because olden day warriors apparently appreciated levity.

When I first heard the story of Rapunzel, and decided to retell it, I was told, quite poignantly and under threat of death, that Rapunzel must be the one in the tower, the one who was saved, while my dear, musical genius, Moustache, was actually the one trapped in the tower by the evil witch—who for the purposes of this story, will be called “Witch,” because her real name was incredibly guttural and difficult to pronounce or spell.

So for the hundreds of years leading up to this day, as I desired to do, I told the story of Rapunzel and Moustache, and as I was instructed to, I told it in reverse. Then, near the close of the 20th century a funny thing happened—Feminism.
And now, finally, the true story of Princess Rapunzel the Angry, and Moustache the Gifted, can be told in earnest, with the utmost attention to detail and fact. Onward friends! Into the story that changed facial hair forever.
…And also Women’s Rights, in a rather roundabout way.

***
Many years ago—again, most likely hundreds of years ago at this point—a family of farmers grew desperate. You see, their crop had come up short again this year, with the droughts and abundance of calamities in the Kingdom. They barely had enough food to feed themselves, and yet, this year of all years, was the one that God or Nature or Whatever It is You Choose to Believe, cursed the pair with the gift of child. And so in an act spurred onwards by fierce hunger and a creeping fear, the man stole into the beautiful, ever plentiful, garden of his neighbor, Witch. He stole a variety of foods, and had Witch not seen him, she would never even know these delicacies had been pilfered, due the magical nature of her nightly, bountiful harvest. However, see him she did, and so, on threat of murder most foul, the man consented to every single one of Witch’s demands. They were surprisingly few, but impossibly harsh. The newborn child of the couple, who Witch had foreseen would become a man gifted with the incredibly desirable, fantastically rare Musical Talent, was to be hers until such a time as she saw fit to release him into the World—which being an Enchantress and or Witch, whichever you prefer to call her, that possibility was a rather dim light at the end rather long tunnel.
Now, at this point of my tale, you might have a few questions about the accuracy of the story. For example, you may ask, “Cannot Rapunzel’s name be traced back to a radish that her father stole?” Well, I’m afraid I’ll never how the King came into possession of such an odd naming convention, but know that Rapunzel is grateful for her name. Prince Broccoli and her younger sister Princes Pea on the other hand, were decidedly less enthusiastic about their father’s eccentricities.
As Destiny or Fate would have it, one destiny-filled and or fateful day, Princess Rapunzel and her band of warriors wound its way past Witch’s lonely tower on their way to battle in the name of their lord King. And this day, like many days, found Moustache playing one of his many stringed instruments, some say it was a cello other say the violin, I personally fancy the tale of the first electric guitar—it was a magical tower, after all. Out his window and down to the marching soldiers his music went, and quite quickly it was followed by his melodic voice, telling the story of his lifelong imprisonment. It was soul searching and heart shattering, and all of the warriors in the column took out their flint sets and lit fire that they waved in unison as they passed. Rapunzel was colored interested and swore to herself she would return to the tower once her enemies had been vanquished.
***
A few days later and a few men fewer, Rapunzel and her men again traveled along the dusty trail that passed by the solitary tower. Her surviving men gave great credence to the music of this place, and bid her to make camp in the sparsely wooded field nearby. So rest they did, and wait they did, for the music they all hoped would soon begin.
Moustache saw the battered group from his tower room, and called out to them from on high, “Soldiers of the King, what business have you here, on the Enchantresses land you now be, fear her and flee, as I wish I could!”
Rapunzel, a princess and proud owner of a fair share of battle scars received in her Father’s name, took offense at this, how couldn’t she? Her father’s daughter she was, and many a battle had she fought for this kingdom. “The Enchantress you say? My father’s land this is, he is your King, and hers! We camp where we will, tower-boy, and nothing else from you shall be heard!” Her men groaned in a feeling of general despair for the inevitable lack of music most fine, their promised reward for a battle well fought, they feared they would not find.
Hearing their sighs and grunts of distaste Moustache went against Princess Rapunzel’s orders, “Apologies Princess, I did not know, and why do I hear such complaint?”
“Your apology is accepted, and your question answered: My men are in the mood for a melody, they desire to hear your Musical Talent. Come down and play for us, I will reward you, sir.”
“Come down, I cannot, as I have been trapped here these many years.”
“Trapped in a tower? By whom and for what?” Rapunzel yelled back, concerned that such a thing would happen in her kingdom, under her very nose.
“By a sorceress of great power for the minor misdeeds of a hungry farmer and expecting mother—to feed me and my young mother, my father—the Farmer over yonder—stole into the field of Witch. She discovered him forthwith, and a punishment she required. For his misdemeanor, she gave him a choice, his life, and the life of his wife, for the imprisonment of his newborn son.”
“A terrible choice.” Rapunzel responded sadly.
“And one he made well! I do not hate my father, he visits every day. He brought me these instruments, bits of food and deserts, and even a grooming kit to contain my curse.”
“Tell me of this curse, dearest…”
“Moustache, my name, my Lady, is Moustache.”
“Princess Rapunzel,” she said in kind, “sometimes known as a Princess Rapunzel the Angry.”
“I’ve heard of you and your deeds before, beautiful Princess! And these must be the so-called Amazon’s Men! What an opportunity. I’ll tell you my tale, I will, but for you, I’ll do it in song.”
Applause went up and rippled through the Princess’s army in a wave. They all settled in, now facing the tower, waiting for the great talent of the man known only as Moustache, to be heard. And heard it was, a song like no other, he had set up his strings and pulled out his dusty drums, and he began to tell the story of Witch, and her many pronged curse on his undeserving person.
He sang of his separation from his beloved family, he sang of his first love, untouched as she sat on the broken fence below, he played his cello in a face-melting solo that spoke of anger and regret. He told them through melody of the curse of facial hair unending, and how he must shave, six times a day, just to keep his neck from-a-breaking.
His story in song continued on through the night, until the crescendo had long passed. He eased the men to sleep with a lullaby, a stringed rendition of one from his past. To the Princess and her men he sang the song his mother had sung to him through her tears, every night of his now lost youth. And so the men slept, but Rapunzel could not, for sadness had overcome her.
“Moustache,” she called, “when will this enchantress, Witch, release you from your towered prison?”
It took him awhile to answer, he had pondered this question many times over the years. “I do not know. She comes to visit me once a month, on the full moon so bright, she brings supplies and makes me play. Then once again alights.” He paused for a moment, Rapunzel though she heard scribbling. “That one was good, so bright…alight. I enjoyed it.”
“What?”
“Sorry, writing. Music is a passion, and all artist, it is said, do better in troubled times.”
“By whom?”
“Excuse me?”
“By whom were you told that? You can’t have met that many people here.”
“Good point,” Moustache replied, “but we’ve gone off topic, as is a habit of mine. Witch returns on the full moon, and speaks little, and never of my release. I fear I will be here for the entirety of my life, short or long as that may be.”
This did not sit well with the princess who had grown quite fond of Moustache’s Musical Talent over the course of the evening. She found him entertaining and relaxing, and as was the case of many a princess, or for that matter, many a person, in that time, she had fallen in love with the man, and desired his company, and his heart in return. A plan began to form. “Moustache, did you say you shave, six times a day?”
“Indeed. If I do not, my facial hair grows so heavy that I must sit down, for fear of snapping my own neck!” He stuck his head out the window and showed her how much it had grown since the first exchange earlier that night. “By morning it will fill this room!”
“What would break this curse?”
“I’m not a doer of magic, how would I know?” He asked, trying to sound ironic, and not sure how that could be accomplished.
“Point taken. Dearest Moustache, do not shave your face,” Rapunzel began, “the full moon comes tomorrow, and escape you shall. And your facial hair will be your savior—well, it and me, of course.”
“Of course,” he said skeptically, “then tomorrow it shall be, my facial hair will set me free.”
Rapunzel blew her new love a kiss, and went back to her tent, and in the morning her force had gone—and she remained, hidden away from sight.
***
On the full moon, as was her habit, Witch arrived at her tower, home of her prized possession, Moustache. As was her custom, she floated up to his window—again, before you interrupt, I realize that before I had said that the witch would call out for Rapunzel’s hair, but really, we all know this would be quite painful, and as a sorceress, Witch had access to magic hitherto unseen, why cause undue pain to an already enslaved man—and forced Moustache to begin to play.
Down below, in a bundle of thick shrubbery pressed up against the grey brick tower, Rapunzel waited with her mace, waited to thump her True Love’s captor in her very enslaving face.
Moustache finished up his song, and Witch, against her grain, asked him about allowing his facial hair to grow so far, she pointed with disdain. He had not gotten to it he replied, and this seemed to suit her, because down she floated to her horse, and off she intended to ride. As she through her leg over her saddle, a crack she heard, and pain she felt, and out of her seat she dropped. Over and over she rolled, until she found herself looking up at a rather angry, rather blonde princess of determined gait.
“Release your spell over Moustache,” the young woman said, “or find yourself in a face to face meeting with my ever faithful mace.”
Before Witch could answer her royal attacker’s demands, she heard a tearing sound unlike any she had ever heard before. She looked up just in time to see the backside of Moustache rushing at her from above. She tried to let loose a scream, but too late, Moustache had met the ground.
And so, indirectly, through his tearing facial hair, Witch met her untimely—or quite timely, depending who you are and how you look at it—end.
“I think your plan was going to fail…” Moustache said as he climbed up with Rapunzel’s assistance. He brushed himself off and looked around, before noticing Witch, dead at his feet. He was clearly surprised, but covered it well, and rashly offered a kiss, to his now dearest Rapunzel, his hero and future wife.
And so off the two went, into the night, into a future of facial hair and musical delight, off into a future so bright.
***
And this, finally, is the real story of how facial hair above the upper lip became known as a “moustache” later to be called a Mustache, because Americans are too lazy to spell anything properly.
Oh, and also how Princess Rapunzel the Angry liked to hit things with maces.

The Scorpion and the Frog, Take Two

2011-12-11T00:07:00.001-05:00

The Scorpion and the Frog, Take Two
By David Start
“ A scorpion needed to cross a river. But, upon reaching the river, he noticed that it was too wide for him, a rather poor swimmer, to cross. He noticed a frog sitting on the river bank, and of him he asked a simple favor.

“Frog, will you help me cross this river?”

To which the frog responded, “But, Scorpion, if I do, will you not sting, and subsequently kill, me?”

“No, Frog, not on the river! If I were to sting you, we would both surely drown!”

So out onto the river the two went, and yet half way across, the scorpion could restrain himself no longer, and he stung the frog.

The frog, resigned to his fate, asked the scorpion, “But why, Scorpion? Now you will surely die as well.”

“I know, Frog. I know,” the scorpion responded, “but, it is my nature.”

And so the scorpion and the frog perished in the currents of the mighty river. “

A fable widely believed to be an African, specifically West African creation, implying either the mutually assured destruction of scorpions and frogs in regards to rivers, or the inevitability of Nature’ call.
-Unknown Author

Scorpions and frogs have a history of having relationships a bit on the chaotic side. The term whirlwind is so rarely used in regards to a relationship without also implying a romantic angle bordering on Hollywood. And yet, the case of the Scorpion and the Frog may very well be a true exception: their friendships always manage to end in death, specifically the poisoning and drowning variety—a naturally occurring murder-suicide.

A few facts of this very interesting interspecies relationship you may be unaware of:

• Scorpions are lazy creatures.
• Scorpions cannot swim.
• Scorpions cannot resist their nature.
• Frogs are generous and kind.
• Frogs are stupid.
• Frogs can swim.
• Frogs have rather stingable skin.

Eddie, a scorpion descending from a long line of traveling scorpions was well aware of all of the above listed facts. And Eddie, as it so happened, very much desired to cross the river that was, at this very moment, flowing in front of him. Beside him on the river bank sat a frog, eying him curiously, yet also warily—and therefore wisely.

“Hullo.” Said Eddie, as he approached the frog, clearly content on his log of choice, waiting idly for a fly or some other ill-fated bug to happen along.

“Hello,” replied the frog.

Eddie, you might have guessed, figured that the predominant problem facing his river faring ancestors was their laziness. Why, Eddie wondered, ask a frog to help you cross, when there are a myriad of other creatures on the riverside. Just continue to walk, dearest scorpion! Surely, Eddie thought, he would find another, more suitable…hopefully less stingable creature to help him cross. “A good day to you, Frog.” Eddie said as he passed.

The frog did not respond, but instead breathed out a sigh of relief, and continued on with his motionless hunt for that rare, unlucky breed of cricket.

Onward scuttled Eddie until he came upon a snake coiled in the sand. It was a rather hungry looking snake that was eying him with a mathematically balancing countenance. Clearly he was weighing the advantages and disadvantages of attempting to eat Eddie. One shake of his very prominent tail spike was all the encouragement the snake needed to balance the equation, and find that it didn’t add up—he would just have to find his dinner elsewhere. Or was it his breakfast? Were snakes nocturnal? Eddie always forgot, but he supposed, in the end, it really didn’t matter. And onward he walked, in search of the perfect aquatic traveling companion.

Eddie passed a tropical bird that spoke a language Eddie had never heard, a large lizard the seemed ever so capable of eating a bug just Eddie’s size, a river crocodile that didn’t seem to belong to this particular stretch of the Forest…it seemed that Eddie has passed a near circus like procession of animals that could swim. But, he realized, all of them would either die to his sting, or eat him despite, or possibly even, in spite, of it.

Finally, after a march that implied a rather distinct lack of laziness on this odd little scorpions part, Eddie came upon a turtle. You might think to yourself, through your self-imposed narrative filter, that the story of the Scorpion and the Frog could also apply to the Scorpion and the Turtle. But this was a large turtle, with a high back, and it wore—as many turtles do—a rather large shell that enveloped him like a knight in his ever shining armor, or a catcher in the very scorpion unfriendly game of baseball. To the turtle Eddie called, “Turtle! Could I ask of you a favor?”

“Well,” the turtle responded, “I suppose you could, however, if you will is another question altogether.” The turtle could not repress a chortle at his own clever turn of phrase.

“Very true,” Eddie said, smiling his very scorpionish smile, “but, it is a matter of the utmost urgency. So, ask I will.”

“Ask then! Ask.”

“Will you, friend Turtle, take me to the other side of the river?” Eddie asked in earnest.

“But of course I will!” the turtle said.

“Turtle?” Eddie asked as he climbed onto the green shelled giant’s back.

“Yes, Scorpion?”

“Do you mind if I tap you out a tune, a percussion melody of sorts, as you swim?” Eddie understood his nature, but, being an intelligent young arachnid, he knew that if he could not control his own impulses, he could at least channel them. A talented drummer was Eddie, and a rhythm, he could most assuredly carry.

“Why, Scorpion,” the turtle said, “I daresay I would enjoy it.”

And so the two traveled across the fierce currents of the mighty Forest River, to the tune to the scorpions fiercely beating tail spike, tapping on Nature’s drum that was the turtle’s strong green shell. As Eddie dismounted from his kind chauffeur’s back, he waved his tail merrily and said, “Thank you, friend Turtle. You have done me a great service.” And so, he began his journey into the Other Side of the Forest.

“Scorpion, if I may ask…” the turtle began.

“Please do!”

“Why did you want to be on this side of the Forest?”

"Well, Turtle," the scorpion responded, "it is my nature."

I Just Want to Kick Off My Shoes and Watch a Dance Movie

2011-12-01T21:07:00.001-05:00

Last night I finally admitted a hard truth to myself.

I like dance movies. There, now I've shared it with the World. Or at least the Internets.

I like dance movies and I think I may even be able to explain why.

First, let's not skip past the obvious here. Dancing is fun. It looks fun at least. What I do can't be called dancing when compared to what these people do. I move my arms around and occasionally shuffle my feet in a way that may or may not approximate rhythm. I still enjoy myself on a dance floor, but these people are artists. They are strong because they need to be. They push up off floors and fly through the air, land hard on their backs, spin on their necks...if you sit back and imagine this was being done to them as opposed to by them, it would look less like dance and more like torture.

Secondly, and possibly even more obviously, the women in these movies are impossibly hot. They all have beautiful faces, and are physically perfect specimens (I was experimenting with sounding like a douche, and you know what? I think I managed it.) All of you girls reading this can call me a chauvinist pig, but let's be real, the guys are all ridiculously fit as well. And they (probably) pass for handsome, the beardless twits.

But I think the real kicker, for me, is the sense of meaning, of purpose. Albeit, the purpose is complete bullshit...but it still hits home...somehow. For example, last night, I Netflix'd Step Up 3. Yeah. The premise of the movie is that "Moose" (A hold out from Step Up 2...shut up.) has come to NYU and is now trying to figure out what he wants to do with his life. (SPOILER: He just wants to dance.) He becomes a member of a House (a dance club but less lame than a normal club) called the Pirates (kidding, just as lame.) They need to have a dance battle at the World Championships to keep their house, and their home.

And while all of that is complete horseshit, the internal battle that Moose has to fight, between the practicality of an engineering degree, and the love of dance and following his passion with a degree in dance? That's a real issue that artists face, all the time. Where do you draw the line between what you love and what you need?

When do you quit your job and run away to write and when do you suck it up and keep working? The movie takes the stand that you can do both...but the movie also takes the viewpoint of an 18 year old dancer with a wealthy family.

I'm tired and poor and that's not happening. But that sense of passion, of purpose. It always sticks with me beyond "oh, the moves are cool." Or, "she's hot." It makes me want to be a better writer, it makes me want to work out harder, dance more. It makes me want to struggle to be happy.

And also the girls are just so f'n hot.

Live and Let Live -- or You Might Forget What the Hell You Were Doing in the First Place

2011-11-20T19:43:00.001-05:00

I had a very distinct idea for what I wanted to talk about. I had thought about it in depth. I was excited, upon going into work, that I would get off of work with enough time to sit down, have a coffee, and write about this very idea.

I worked my shift, because this is how having a job goes, and eleven hours later...still wanted to go get a coffee and write about my idea.

Upon opening my laptop and jumping online I noticed I had an email from a cruise I had taken earlier this month. (I haven't decided if I want to talk about the events of said cruise yet, I mean, how real does a blog that is primarily humorous need to get?) The cruise line wanted me to fill out a survey, they told me I may win money towards another cruise if I filled it out.

I filled it out like a good little consumer. Eventually I found my way to the section about whether or not I had any complaints.

You bet your ass I had a complaint. Your bottom goddamn dollar. You see, we had quite the large party on this here pleasure boat, and at one point, the majority of us sat down to a very formal dinner. This on-board restaurant employed people to wait upon us, called waiters, as many restaurants tend to do.

Only our waiter was a dick. And on top of being a dick he was foreign. So when he bothered to be there, with his douchebaggery and dickish antics, we couldn't really understand what the Hell he was saying. And that's when he was actually there. Most of the time he was off doing his dick-foolery with other waiters. Presumably grumping around about how terrible we Americans can be.

So, me being me...I had to tell the cruise line all about my horrible experience with their asshat of an employee. Within a few minutes I realized that I had written a small complaint letter that I doubt anyone will actually read.

Oh, and I had forgotten what I had wanted to write about in the first place.

New Routine

2011-11-01T18:06:00.000-04:00

Believe it or not team...I've been working on a novel. And for someone who doesn't write as much as he wants or needs...this is a pretty big step. In accordance with this step I've been trying to figure out how to keep in the practice of regular writing.

I've obviously never written a novel before. This is a new thing and I'm not entirely comfortable or any kind of rhythm. (Working retail makes it hard to get a real idea of when my schedule will be anyway.)

So here I am, looking at my blog and wondering...what do I do with this? I don't want to get rid of it. I don't know how many people read it or have read it. And while a part of me truly cares, the deeper, more self-absorbed "me" thinks, whatever, this was always just for myself anyway.

My thoughts are leaning towards keeping the blog around but changing it up. Making it a bit more...write-y and less cartoon-y. Which has already started to happen, just not in any official way. I think I want to use this space as a way to keep myself in some kind of routine. When I don't feel like working on my novel or can't find that next step...I'll come here. And write all the things.

So...now to figure out how to go about getting that routine.

Steve Jobs Thinking Pose: Outpacing the Mona Lisa in Most Views, One Click at a Time

2011-10-14T18:13:00.000-04:00

This is the only picture of Steve Jobs you will ever see again.

And he isn't even holding an iPhone. For shame.

Windows Down and Rolling Like a Recenlty Unemployed Boss

2011-10-04T21:09:00.000-04:00

I truly enjoy driving. Something about an open road and an open window just make me happy. A bad day rolls into a good day as soon as I roll the windows down. I know this is a common theme in American History. As a kid I always heard about "Route 66" without ever really understanding it. My parents would occasionally say the phrase "Sunday drive." I'm not sure how they handled my bland looks of incomprehension.

There's a balance when we drive. It's comfortable (for any period of time under an hour) and yet it's active. We become one with our vehicles and our minds are allowed to drift. It's what the toilet was before the invention of smart-phones.

I think it's important to note that I've never owned a new car. In fact, I've never owned a car with under one hundred thousand miles on it. I fully intend to get a brand new vehicle, but like most things I fully intend to do (see: comics, losing weight, getting a coffee) I'm not sure when I'll actually get around to doing it.

I've lived all of my driving life (about ten years or so now) in a constant fear of breaking down. And not in that nervous kind of way--sure, I've had some rough times, but I have a blog for that--but more in the "Holy shit, will my car make it through the day?" kind of way. Currently I'm living with the knowledge that my car-battery is going to die soon. Probably within the next month. I have no desire to do anything at all about this, because frankly, I can't afford it.

My Jeep was what I would acquaint with a modern day comedy of errors. It was never a question of "what's wrong with my Jeep?" But, rather, a question of "will it drive?" For example--bad water pump or starter solenoid? That's going to get fixed. Slight oil leak or, more accurately, consumption--it never actually leaked so much as lost fuel into some sort of Jeep-created vortex (like the Bermuda Triangle--but instead of airplanes, synthetic oil,) well as bad as that sounds--not fixing it. It'll still drive, and buying an extra three dollar container of oil each month was going to end up cheaper than fixing the engine housing or oil-operator or flux-capacitor that the mechanics claimed was causing the problem.

My Oldsmobile is a completely different demon however. I have no idea what's wrong with. There's a seat-belt holder that broke that makes a noise so consistently annoying that I either end up screaming at it, blasting music or giving up and humming in tune with the damn thing. My rear bumper cover has been broken for the better part of it's career and would cost over four hundred dollars to replace the large, expensive, piece of plastic that it is. It too makes a rather fearsome noise that I have grown quite skilled at ignoring.

It took me weeks of hearing the noises to figure out what was causing them, longer to figure out if it was serious and longer still to figure out just how annoyed I was. Annoyed enough to complain? Yes. Annoyed enough to pay for new, less annoying parts? Most certainly not.

As I'm driving tonight (speeding, actually) along the I-95, I began to hear, roughly, the scariest fucking noise ever. I thought my car was about to explode. Now, like I said earlier, I'm a windows down driver... (It's one of the few benefits of living in Florida. There's never really a bad day to drive with the windows down--so long as you drive fast enough and it isn't raining.)... so when I heard this noise, I effectively freaked right the Hell out.

I was slowing my car down as I got on the off ramp and I'm hearing this ridiculously high pitched screech, like all the belts in my engine had simultaneously started scraping themselves against a chorus of dying cats. When I realized....

I had been flying directly under a landing airplane for the past twenty or so seconds.

!@#$ Mondays. Why? Because I'm angry at you for no discernible reason.

2011-10-03T17:29:00.001-04:00

I imagine that most of us think of ourselves as nice people. I certainly do, despite all of the evidence to the contrary. Maybe I'm just hiding behind a veneer that just appears to be simmering with anger and sounds like a sarcastic asshole. Or, maybe I'm an angry sarcastic asshole.

Again, I imagine most of us don't think the World revolves around us. But every single one of us acts that way. Facebook is testament to this thought process. Updating your status for the World (or your 500 former acquaintances, 30 coworkers and 3 real friends) to see, as if seeing your post about how the "Jets are making my life Hell right now." or that post about your ex-girlfriend and how she made your life a "dark room where nothing is visible and nothing is worth touching." Because I need to read that shit. Could you not tell by my dark and gritty post that I too was having a shit day?

What's worse is the fact that so often, like today for example, I get angry at a particular person, or issue. It's not a general feeling of "Today sucks" but rather "you suck Today" kind of thing.

At those times I retreat to my corner of the store or my bedroom or just stop walking in the middle of a crowded sidewalk and hop on facebook (or once every year or so to Twitter) and post something about that individual. They're probably on my facebook, shit there are people on my facebook I'm not even sure I used to know.

But what type of arrogance makes me believe that person is actually going to log on to their account and immediately type my name into their search bar? And even if they did do that, would they have any clue what the Hell I was talking about? Most of the time when I'm mad at someone they never know, because I don't want to tell them and they have no idea what they did (if I even had an idea what they did...)

On those days I'll get and type a really overly specific post about something. Something too obvious. It will have words like "fuck" and phrases like "don't give a" and "about you." I'll sound like a complete douche in the status which isn't the tone I'm going for, after all, I'm the victim here.

I won't post this because, honestly by this point I know my routine and frankly it's just too much damn work to delete a status, especially if someone actually read it, or worse commented on it. So I'll sit and think about what I've written. After a few moments it will sink in that the person I'm mad at or thing I'm angry about probably won't read my post, I don't imagine Debt has a facebook account, and if she does, it's most likely set to private. Once that realization has (again) set in, I'll reword the post slightly.

About ten times.

In doing this I've begun to actually write and have slipped into the "craftsmanship" stage. Despite my pre-status update assurances in the mirror of "not caring" and "ain't playin' no damn games," I am now very much caring, and trying to win at games. I have settled in to write a post that's just going to annihilate this someone or something that has aroused my ire.

As these things often go, the thing I've written now makes little sense, is too artistic, and has words in it that I had to go to "dictionary.com" on and spellcheck in my text message box to make sure I was using correctly. I've run into the problem of "getting too into it." And while the Sith may argue that going balls deep into your hatred can only bring you power, wealth, and Imperial women, reality always seems to show us that all anger really does is waste more of our time with being unhappy.

Now, sitting, standing or walking aimlessly while looking at my phone, I've realized that I'm wasting my time on writing a really beautifully worded, yet angry under the surface, facebook status to someone else. It always seems to sink in after I've rewritten my original thought about six times. By this point my anger has simmered and I'm no longer quite sure why I'm angry, just that I am. I begin to question how the person I'm actually upset with would even know they'd done something wrong. Or if they even had. The depths of my douchebaggery has begun to sink in. I feel like an asshole.

Like any fight. once you're in your own head on an angry post you've already lost the war, you might as well give up the battle. At that point you put up the white flag of surrender that is a "fuck Mondays" status update and call it a day.

Frosted Flakes -- Supporting Irresponsible Parenting Everywhere

2011-09-21T22:34:00.000-04:00

Fuck this guy. Who makes his kid field grounders all morning before eating breakfast? What type of father is Kellogg's supporting here? The Nazi Sports Dads?

There's one with them playing football before breakfast too. Freakin' Frosted Flakes.

@#$&ing Swimming Monkeys

2011-09-21T18:58:00.000-04:00

If you (you shouldn't) or I were to look back (I don't) upon my previous blog posts, you (or I) would probably notice a continuing theme of wanting to do and or be better. I consistently think about moving forward and consistently sit in cafes drinking sugar-saturated iced coffees.

Today I went to work at 8:58 for a 9AM shift. I considered this an achievement and a very adult thing to do. I then spent about twenty-five minutes trying to get a blu-ray player (that can't loop because it's a Sony) to loop.

I had a very adult day doing very adult things. I said "hello" to every customer that I didn't say "hullo" to. I sold things and cleaned things and made sure things were so well lined up it looked like they had been aligned by a laser-eyed robot box aligner. I was awesome.

Then my supervisor-boss guy did the worst thing anyone has ever done. He fixed the televisions by the answer center.

And then this (in video format) came on:

The fucking cutest things ever.

For the entire length of the video (and fifteen minutes or so after) I was a giggling school girl, filled with happiness. These are fucking swimming monkeys people. And there is nothing cooler or cuter or more cuddly or fun. If I die and am reincarnated, I swear to all that people who believe in reincarnation swear to that I had better damn well come back as swimming monkey, or I will most assuredly start some serious shit.

Of course, me being me, I had to be vocal about my near-delirious joy. At that exact moment my boss asked me something, in front of a customer. And all I could say was "hehe. Swimming monkeys!" And point listlessly at the television.

In that moment all credibility I had ever had or would have with that customer was lost. But shit if I wasn't happy as monkey in a pool filled with monkeys.

Netflix Access, Hooray

2011-09-20T21:31:00.000-04:00

A friend of mine recently gave me the greatest gift a man of my interests could ever have received...access to his Netflix account.

Since then my roommate and I have been watching pretty much anything we find even remotely interesting. Naturally, we began watching foreign action films.

I remember watching older movies with my father, and hearing about all the weird tricks that advertising companies used to do, or even the mistakes that the film companies used to make. I find it fascinating to have the opportunity to watch these foreign action filmmakers grow up.

I find it even more fun to point out their mistakes. Half the time we're laughing because of a wicked badass knee to the face or flying kick to the top of a head, the other half we're laughing at a blooper made by the director or production company. It's a rocking good time.

This weekend we watched Clash, and oh my, was it amazing.

Clash is a Vietnamese film that is completely misrepresented on Netflix. But whatever, it's an action flick, so we just kept going with it. It follows a small gang of traitors and warriors who kick ass in modern day Vietnam for various reasons. The only one I was clear on was the girl who wanted to save her daughter (who they ruthlessly killed off screen at some point) and the main character, whom wanted to take down Black Dragon (who is introduced, but not as Black Dragon for over an hour and a half.)

The thing is...the movie is actually pretty good. The story is well paced for an action flick, the fight scenes are incredibly fun and even the enemies are likable (as enemies.)

It's the movie magic that actually ruins the movie. Everyone uses revolvers because apparently that's the only type of gun made in the entire country. Despite multiple scenes entirely focused on the characters fake firing at someone and only then actually loading the weapon, the guns seem to have infinite ammo in the "real" fights.

The few times automatic rifles do actually make the scene they get about 10 shots off before they're hastily discarded for the much more efficient use of feet, knees and fists.

There are scenes where bandages hop arms like they're playing a "the skin is lava" game. In one scene the source of tension is the male character bandaging up the female character. They then act on this tension, the whole time focusing on her left arm. Three seconds later, as the classic "reveal nothing, imply everything" love making scene begins, the bandage is on her right arm.

Later, she goes to kiss the main character with the hair parted to the right, and as she withdraws, it's parted to the left.

The band begins to play a Tango because the plan calls for a Tango and the Universe is on their side. No need to request a song, obviously Tangos are played after ten minutes of awkward lounge music. This is apparently common sense in action film land.

Other times characters continue fighting despite getting stabbed in the kidney multiple times. I don't know about stabbings, mind you, but I've been punched in my kidney once and I didn't want to do anything for like, six hours afterwords.

Then again. I'm not a Vietnamese Action Star nor his shirtless French nemesis.

Mainly Adult Things and a Sign Spinning Clown

2011-09-13T19:26:00.002-04:00

Today was one of my precious few days off. I was out and about doing mainly adult things (however there was a point, when walking through Target, that I found myself gravitating to the Star Wars toy aisle and found myself in a sudden fit of George Lucas induced rage) and getting, as they say, shit done.

My roommate decided to accompany me, I had enticed him with promises of going to the Art Store and Taco Tuesdays. We had earlier met with our apartment complex management over a living situation that has steadily declined into a future where we will have noticeably less money and noticeably more space. We haven't decided yet if this is a good or bad thing. Rather we have accepted that it simply is and worked hard at not throwing things at walls.

But only because that would cost us money and the only things we have worth throwing are edible.

We finally extricated ourselves from the consumer maze that is target to continue our journey into financial obscurity, that is to say, we went to buy, or look at buying, more things.

On the way we noticed the purpose of this massively tangential blog story thing;

We saw a make-upless clown at a gas station, putting a sign into his car and smoking a cigarette. I knew instinctively that this was not a man who was dressing up as a clown because he good and damn well felt like it. His goal in life was not to make children smile, to be a source of happiness to a crowd or to save a bullfighter from a rampaging badass with some ironic name like "Buck Nasty."

No, this was most assuredly a dude. A dude who was trying to make enough money to continue eating, and the way he had discovered that allowed him to do such a thing was dressing up as a fucking clown, and holding a sign for a company.

A company that, I like to imagine, was run by two people in an office who had a similar conversation to this imaginary one:

"You know what we need, Tom?"

"What, Dick?"

"A sign."

"A sign?"

"Yeah, you know--a sign. So people know that we are, in fact, a company."

"Fuck yes, Dick, a sign. But it can't be a normal sign."

"Oh Hell no, Tom. Shit needs to be spinning. Maybe even waving."

"I like where you're heading with this."

"Should we hire a girl, for to spin the sign?"

"Girls? Balls to that, sir. We should hire a clown."

"Or just some dude, but we'll make him dress up like a clown."

And that's how this man (may have) ended up packing a sign for Tom and Dick's Defense Firm into his car after a long days work spinning some pointlessly heavy sign on a Tuesday afternoon.

And then it hit me.

I probably know someone who has dressed up as a clown on a day that wasn't also Halloween, or a randomly occurring costume party. There is likely someone I have met that is or will one day be, a man or woman who dresses up like a clown...for money.

I'm not capable of determining whether that thought is dark and tragic or just darkly amusing.

A Question of Careers

2011-08-29T21:41:00.000-04:00

I've been working towards answering the greatest question life currently has to offer me...should I go to law school?

I realize most of you are saying something along the lines of, "Damnit, Dave. Get your shit together." And I hear you. I probably shouldn't go to law school.

But you try watching Franklin and Bash and keeping that lawyery itch away. It cannot be done. Everything about what they do just seems fun. Super fun. Like the type of fun that could normally only be provided by a bouncy house, copious amounts of alcohol and a jovial group of scantily clad women.

But then, the next day (a Thursday, because that's when it comes on) you watch Suits and it's like, "Woah, hold up. I thought lawyering was like a tag-team party where you drank beer in a hot tub, naked and muscular? But, now I see this dude, this like truly unhappy little dude, and the other, older (yet also unhappy) dude is making him do a shit ton of work? What the Hell?"

Because that's all Suits is. A douche telling a funny and clumsily charming young man to do shit. And instead of being a "stick it to the Man" situation, the young guy goes and actually does it. He just works all the time.

So I asked a real lawyer (trolled some websites about becoming a lawyer) and he was all (all these comments read) that being a lawyer is a ton of work. In fact you pretty much never stop working. From the day you enter law school (gah) until the day you retire from a firm you probably don't own.

That's a "no" then. On law school. To handle the depression of that self-answered question, I watched a rerun of Bones. I immediately wanted to be an FBI agent.

I began to suspect a hidden truth about myself. I tested it by flipping over to USA where I watched an episode of White Collar. I'd be lying if I told you I didn't want to be a suave thief.

Now that I've realized the truth behind my fickle career ideas, I think I know what I need to be when I finally grow up:

An actor.

Something to Write About

2011-08-23T02:32:00.000-04:00

It always amazes me how long it takes me to post. I think about writing all the time. I randomly come up with stories or go over old ones in my head. I call friends out of the blue to run over some idea about an emperor or a manic depressive college student or about the guy pooping in the stall next to me.

And yet somehow, when I get home from work I just seem to lose it, like so much spare change in the laundry. There's still a penny banging around my washer from the first time we used it. I won't say me because there are three of us and it feels unfair.

I never can seem to get it together on which story I want to write. Or more importantly, on what type of writer I want to be. Do I want to write a novel? If so do I want to write the next Great American Novel? Capitalized because I heard it in a movie once. Or do I want to write a fantasy novel and one day be at a MegaCon-esque event talking about how I was inspired by Star Wars and researched the ancient Greek Empire for thirteen years before coming up with such and such? Sometimes I want to be a blogger, others a comic writer (graphic novels included.) sometimes I just want to write poop jokes or jokes about people pooping (oh, I have stories.)

This constant struggle between what I should be and what I could be seems to have grounded me into the abyss of what I currently am.

A guy who occasionally writes on a blog about dreams to do more.

Maybe I'll just do what the writers of yore did....drink a lot and start some shit.

It would certainly give me something to write about.

A Ho-Hum Routine and the Tire Douche

2011-08-07T21:33:00.002-04:00

I set my alarm each night for exactly one hour before I need to be at work the next morning. This leaves me exactly enough time to not get a complete breakfast, miss most of Sports Center, and make it to work with a little less than two minutes to spare.

This system allows me to do things like, but not limited to: complain about being tired or having low energy levels all day;need a lunch because I didn't have a good breakfast; not know anything that's going on in the sporting World until someone brings it up.

Yesterday began no different than any other day. Wake up at nine for work at ten. Eat a single cookie, hold on longingly to the second one before putting it back, all the while telling myself that this was the place the battle would be won, this cookie would be the first of many victories. (I feel you should know that I am currently eating an ice cream.) Get dressed, take one last wistful look at the clock. Leave.

A ho-hum morning to the tee. I threw myself into my little Oldsmobile with typical abandon, put on my music and morosely pulled out of the parking spot.

The differentiating factor this particular morning was the UPS driver--who I imagine had, much earlier than I, gone through his own ho-hum morning routine and was now in a mental state that fell somewhere between utter anguish and happy pink butterflies. The point of that metaphor? He was taking up both lanes.

Being the astute morning driver we all know me to be, I reacted about ten seconds too late and flung myself up and over a (maybe) six inch curb. Something that should of, at worst, made my car complain the rest of the drive to work. "Dick move, Dave. Dick move." Yeah, it would have been annoying. But I would have understood.

Instead, my tire exploded like an overripe watermelon. It would be safe to say that it handled the situation poorly.

So instead of getting to work two minutes early, I got to work fifteen minutes late. And then, as my shift came to it's seemingly unreachable conclusion, I had to call my roommate to come pick me up, who, like any good mother, was at the door waiting and waving as I left the building.

Florida seemed to know exactly when I'd been forced into an outdoor situation, and immediately reacted with what I'll loosely call a "fierce heat." As I've long associated mind-numbing with cold weather and boring people and hate the word "sweltering."

As with most flat tires, I had to replace this one. In so doing I had to locate a spare, locate the jack, get the car up on said jack, get the wheel off and the spare on, the only difference between this and any normal flat-tire situation? It was like a rookie league pit crew. I had about thirty minutes to get the car into the shop and get it fixed.

This undoubtedly doesn't sound like a problem to most of you, but for me, changing a spare without a book telling me exactly how is a lot like putting LEGO's together without a guide. Sure, it'll look the same, but I always end up with fourteen extra pieces and a building that tilts to the left the ten-percent of the time it isn't tilting to the right.

Inevitably, we (my roommate was there for the whole ordeal, because he cares) beat the clock with two minutes to spare, an appearing theme in my existence, and got to the tire shop exactly twenty minutes after my appointment. But an hour and a half before close.

The guy, who I will jokingly (not really) call the Tire Douche, "spit his game" at me, as it were, for the next ten minutes. Wasting time as, at this point, I would have bought whatever the Hell he told me to. Instead, he pulled a super exaggerated "Captain Morgan" pose. He managed to get his leg all the way up to a counter that was a little higher than my waist. As if he wanted to say. "Look bro, I'm taller than you. Also, my cock is in your face."

Good times.

About an hour later, I made my glorious return to the land where Tire Douche ruled as King and finished paying for my tires, alignment and subsequent soul harvesting. He spent about twenty minutes reassuring me that I had done the right thing in getting tires. He did this despite me, after minute one (more accurately, second ten) telling him, "Yeah, they were not in good shape."

To which Tire Douche responded, "Good shape? Dude, you should play the lottery, I'm freakin' honored to be in front of you right now, man. You should have died!"

Awesome. But, he was right. There were small pieces of asphalt stuck in the glaringly obvious fibers sticking out all over the damn place. In places the tread was so destroyed that you could count the layers the road had chewed through. My tires essentially looked like they had been made of felt rather than rubber. Like someone threw out a couch and I said, "Fuck yes, I want that on my car."

Maybe I just care about the roads comfort more than you.

Day Off Productivity

2011-08-02T21:19:00.001-04:00

You ever have one of those days where you're just ridiculously productive? Like just...all day. Just doing all the things. Making money, taking strides...changing lives?

Me neither. But, I've totally had one of those days where I caught up on like three episodes each of my favorite four shows. That's like twelve hours of programming I won't have to watch slowly over a period of nights. Progress.

I decided, after episode twelve of my little Dave-a-thon, that I would go be productive in a more serious manner. By writing a comedy blog at a coffee shop. But then it rained. And rained. And eventually poured. So even my attempt at fake-work failed.

About this point I decided to hop online, why not? Check out some Facebook, maybe play a game of League of Legends. And what do I see? This post from my friend's wife on his wall. That's right. Not only has he gotten married, had children, worked a 9-5 job and consistently (more than I can say for myself) updated a successful (again more than I can say for myself) blog. Dude wrote a book.

Well. That's it then. The month-old icing on last year's cake. I totally suck. Not like, "Oh, Dave. Well he's a bad human." But, more like "He had so much potential."

To which someone else responds, "Did he? ...Did he?"

That person actually is a bad human though. I'll always have that.

The Bookstore Lumberjack

2011-08-01T17:55:00.003-04:00

As you may know, I've made a move recently. And while it's not exactly to a place far away and grand, it is away, and it's certainly...something. There's a word for what it is here and I can't quite put my finger on it. For now we'll just call it Daytona.

Again, as you may know, I'm a large fan of bookstores. They mix books and coffee into one sophisticated frappuccino of tasty knowledge that's just impossible to resist. Sometimes they even have cookies.

Like most bookstores, the one in Daytona has books. And also coffee. And sometimes cookies. But it also has a bearded lady.

This is not a woman with facial hair. That would merely seem Italian. No this woman's face has a beard on it.

Actor Portrayal.

Now, this all may seem crass, and very targeted. And normally I would agree. I would say, you evil, evil man, how could you make fun of something or someone like that! How horrible. Let's all make fun of you because you're fat. I get it. I hear your complaints, I understand your complaints, and I ignore them.

And this is why:

Upon entering the store yesterday, I saw the bearded lady helping a customer. An older male customer who was absolutely fascinated with said bearded lady. Or more particularly, said beard. He asked her a question, something like "Where are the maga..." and then got lost in the bushy fullness of her chin.

Finally he broke down. I saw it happen. His eyes darted back and forth, I could see the mental calculation happening. I knew the questions he was asking himself.

"Is it worth getting kicked out of a Barnes and Noble?"
"How horrible a human am I really for wanting to know?"
"Why is there so much of it?"
"Does she know she has a beard?"
"What if she's a dude with abnormally large, feminine boobs? That's possible right?"
"Why is there so much of it?"

By this point I had edged as close to the customer service desk as possible, idly flipping through the pages of what I assumed to be a book, but could just as easily have been a blank stack of papers, at they very edge of listening range.

And then it happened. The man asked her, "Why don't you get rid of the beard?"

Immediately I thought, "Wow, the stones on this guy."

What I imagine his stones to look like.

She paused for a moment and then casually responded with the comically beautiful phrase, "God made me this way, so I'm staying this way."

All guilt I had ever felt about calling her the Little Bookstore Lumberjack just melted away.

Lady, God made me this way too. And I still shave. I do it every day. As a fun fact, the logic "God made me this way" also works for God making the people who made:

And even:

She might even give you a two for one rate.

2011-07-27T21:45:00.000-04:00

I always fully intend to post on this damn thing. But instead manage to do other things. Like work a full time job. And play League of Legends, where no one can see me cry, or hear me scream. Except anyone in Ventrilo or in a 1-mile radius of said yelling.

The fact of the matter is, guys and guy. I have a website I never use. It's called logicfails.com and I fully plan on using it in the next few weeks. Tomorrow, later tonight, some point in the future I have the full intention of doing a comic and or blog and or comic blog about a bookstore lumberjack, a poop that turned me into a man, a poop that me feel sorry for another man, and a plan to save the World. Or conquer it.

Flashback to the Future

2011-06-20T21:36:00.002-04:00

I have this memory, a memory of myself telling me a prophecy of sorts. It's a memory of a flashback, only the flashback was in the future. It was complicated even then, and I was 12 (or something) and completely willing to accept things outside of my understanding, as most things were.

I was in the family's old busted Lumina (a car whose eventual demise I would play a hand in) with my brother and my father. It was very cold and I was complaining. I was sitting in the back because at that point, I was still smaller than Nick and not ready to assert my dominance by calling "shotgun." Apparently my father was keeping the car cold because otherwise he would fall asleep. It followed that if this happened we would probably die or at least be severely maimed. I kept complaining because--well, I'm a champion, and champions never quit.

There we were, driving along, my brother and father talking about soccer or something equally as boring, as I droned on endlessly about how cold it was and wanting to be home. Eventually we passed a bank or something else entirely too adult for my preteen sensibilities when it happened.

I flashed forward. I saw a man, who I somehow knew to be myself, standing in line at a bank. I had worry lines and was tall and thin--I had a strong sense of self-image at that point. I was complaining about a bounced check, a check that I wrote, to a clerk who seemed very unhappy with my tone. Flash forward me was very unhappy and had responsibilities--12 year old me understood this to be because of having a family and a job.

The vision faded and I was still in the car with my family. Only now I was freaking terrified. What the Hell was that? That's what being an adult is? I had an "Oh Hell no" moment that I'm not sure I ever recovered from.

Fast forward 13 years to a much larger version of my self, bearded and adult-like and living through my own misguided prophecy. Wanting to order checks and not being able to because my address has changed. Ten minutes on the internet and that's fixed.

Oh shit? What's my routing number? Three calls to the bank and a reset of my iPhone and that's fixed.

Wait for the website to update and realize my address IS the same address as my card--now.

Get a headache from being financially frustrated. I'm getting worry lines and I don't even have real responsibilities.

12 year-old me was completely right. Being an adult sucks.

Internet Dependency

2011-06-11T14:45:00.000-04:00

THIS IS A QUICK POST ABOUT INTERNET DEPENDENCY:

I have it.

Everything I've written about, thought about, or talked about in the past week has somehow spiraled it's way back around to the inconceivable, seemingly intractable fact that I do not have internet, yet.

Yet is not in italics because I'm not quite sure if there is hope anymore.

And then I read this and realized how true it was. Damn it PvPonline and always being one step ahead.

How Not to Internet: A Small List of No No's for Public Web Use

2011-06-11T14:33:00.002-04:00

Porn
I've actually seen someone do this in public before. It didn't end well for him. I've only ever seen one person physically thrown out of a bookstore before, and that man, sadly, was pitching a tepee and carrying an open laptop.

Internet Porn is one of the few sexual taboos that no one really cares about anymore. There are songs dedicated to it, it comes up in conversation. On a recent first date I was asked, by a girl, who my favorite porn star was.

I often wonder if the fact that I couldn't decide between five women that I actually knew the full names of is the reason we only had the one date.

Screw it--it was her fault for asking.

Openly Facebook Stalking People

It's funny when someone says it out loud. Someone knows just a little too much about you for your first time out, and you ask something like "Did I tell you that?"
And she (or he) says "Nah, I just I stalk your facebook."

It's almost cute. I'm often flattered. Because I know she is, but I also know (hope) she isn't outside my window at night quietly sharpening a butcher knife.

But (to me) even opening up facebook at a cafe or public place seems weird. Facebook, to some degree, is what people use to let each other in on the private going-ons of their lives. It's modern societies way of saying "I want to know you better." It's Pride and Prejudice with pictures and more suitors.

But for the dude two tables over to look at my screen and then turn and whisper to me "Bro, she's hot." And then consider that alright is most assuredly not alright.

Manage Money

Don't get me wrong. I'm not against paying off a quick credit card, or checking a bank account. A few days ago I even went over a benefits package. That's fine. It's the people who set up an office in the corner that get me. The second a portable printer has found its way to the table is the second you need to realize this is a cafe.

The thing is, I so need to do that. I get internet for 45 minutes a day right now. I have shit to handle. Damn it Brighthouse. Damn you and your silly appointment times.

Sunday. Sunday. I can do this. I can make it one more day.

Play Video Games

Everyone's seen it. Everyone. And the thing is, most of us play video games. Occasionally we play the video game we see someone playing. That does not make it acceptable. Playing World of Warcraft in a cafe, with a headset on, and other people present, is a lot like saying "I don't ever want to have sex." Or maybe even "Friends are for other people." Or ultimately "F*ck you and your books, bookstore. I'm here for the coffee and the internet."

I've been there. Going on week two without video games and I'm having withdrawal symptoms. Yesterday I stomped on a mushroom. I've been carrying around a hammer in hopes of finding an enemy hero to stun and then subsequently surround. Things are not going well.

But I resist the urge. I resist.

Watching YouTube Videos Without a Headset On
Or at all.

Try watching Epic Meal Time without laughing or vomiting. The Whitest Kids U' Know have a skit about Abraham Lincoln that it is actually impossible to not curse along with.

And I know, Lord I know, that everyone should hear and see these things at some point in their lives. But if you are sitting at a cafe, where people are utilizing their eyes for reading and their ears for ignoring you, now is not the time.

Internet Table

2011-06-08T19:14:00.000-04:00

Day Twenty-Five Without the Internet:

I've eaten the Cat5e cable. It was sinewy and tasted like dried up joy. I haven't seen Epic Meal Time in two weeks. Reading online cartoons seems like a fever dream I had once...years ago.

I can no longer pay my bills without calling and leaving a message, like some relic of a bygone age. I am a technology Neanderthal. I'm using my phone as a phone--watch as the children throw rocks and me and feed on my suffering.

I tried writing--to pass the time, until I remembered that I had thrown my keyboard against a wall earlier, cracking it open like a piggy bank in a classic cartoon. I had hoped the internet would fall out through the shattered keys and broken plastic and I would gather up its fluffy goodness in my arms like so much spilled Styrofoam packing on a long since forgotten Christmas morning.

Sadly, it did not. I still have no internet.

I'm in a local Ice Cream Store, Neighbors, owned by a friend of a friend of a roommate. I'm sitting here, considering squatting long term (in a bid for future ownership,) growling at passerby as they look enviously at my table. The table with the power chord. It is mine and you cannot have it.

This seat is where the Internet is and it is now mine.

I am the uncrowned King of Internet Table. Fear me.

Moving

2011-05-17T19:07:00.000-04:00

So, on top of actually trying to figure out how exactly a ComicPress website is operated, and attempting to move (the theme of this, hopefully, short blog) my comics and random whimsical musings on life and the proper method to training penguins--I'm actually moving.

I'm not quite sure for how long, presumably until at least September, but it may be a semi-permanent thing. The upside? I'm doing it because I have a job. Albeit, it's me, back to an old job, but to be honest? I want a job. So that's a win.

The only real downside, in fact, is that the move taking place? Is going from Orlando to Daytona. When people whine and complain and wish they could "just escape Orlando." They don't mean 45 minutes to the east.

In fact, I'm reminded of a debate I once had with a friend--it went something like this:

ME: I don't want to live in Gainesville.

HER: You mean Gainesvegas?

ME: Seriously? It has four roads. The entire city is built around four roads.

Her: Four awesome roads.

Only now, that I'm moving to a place built around a road, that was built around a track, do I grasp the irony of my situation.

A Tale of Two Arguments

2011-05-12T16:07:00.000-04:00

Campaign Season

2011-05-11T17:49:00.000-04:00

It's Campaign Season--again. It feels like it's always campaign season. In some respects, it literally is always Campaign Season, or a Campaign Season.

The Osama, Usama, Bin Laden episode has brought about a whole new wave of voter sympathy towards Obama (not to mention a lot of people "accidentally" calling Obama 'Osama.') It's also caused a lot of Republicans to sigh deeply and complain about a nearly guaranteed second term for 'the Democrats.'

The whole thing has spawned quite a few "Coffee Shop" debates for me in the past week or so. The problem of course with politics and "debates" or even "discussions" is that they very quickly become "arguments."

You see, a political discussion is only possible between two largely moderate, or at the very least, open minded individuals. A debate is only possible between people who understand what they are actually discussing.

I'm going to do a comic on this tomorrow, but here comes the question:

Do you believe people are inherently good? Or inherently evil?

This question, is what I feel politics essentially boil down to.

Political Bear

2011-05-11T17:47:00.000-04:00

Cinco de Drinko

2011-05-06T17:36:00.001-04:00

May the Fourth be with You

2011-05-04T19:29:00.001-04:00

I wouldn't normally throw down two cartoons in one day. But I felt that in honor of Star Wars day, I'd knock this one out as well. Star Wars was a huge part of my youth, and the Extended Universe (Movie Snobs can shut the Hell up) is what got me into reading and writing in the first place.

Bear Society

2011-05-04T17:21:00.001-04:00

The Royal Wedding -- Who is it Hurting?

2011-04-30T15:28:00.003-04:00

Waterworld and all of it's likenesses are trademark of Universal Studios.
If anyone wants to buy a print of this comic at some point in the future...I'll have to go back and actually draw Kevin Costner. In his Waterworld garb. Yes, it would still be a Universal trademark, but it would be an illustrated Universal trademark.

Starbucks, you Sly Devil

2011-04-28T20:05:00.003-04:00

I have always been a proponent of the bookstore coffee shop. It has the two things I need most in my coffee drinking experience, namely: coffee and books.

Borders was long a favorite of mine, despite a shoddy store set up, awkward management decisions and horrible business savvy, it just always felt like home. It had a cafe that felt open and fun, it had a clientele that could be talked to, with and about. It was conveniently located. And oh yes, they had a large comic and graphic novel section.

I would just go to small, Mom and Pop coffee shops, or use my one dollar refill cup at 7 11 if it wasn't for the comics. That sweet sweet, panel art and writing combination I love so much. I became a Books-A-Million club member, simply so I could hop online, drink coffee, write blogs and read comics. Books-A-Million, you may not know, has the worst cafe known to man. Maybe eight possible drink selections, half as many table, and the same three old guys talking about "when lacrosse wasn't played in schools around here." I guess they're from the North.

I had long been without a cafe home, as it were. And far from negative, this "homeless experience" has been quite productive. I've worked on my art. I've developed new comic ideas. I opened a freakin' Twitter. I wrote application letters, unsuccessfully applied to jobs, talked to random passerby in a desperate attempt for human contact. I have done these things and done these things well.

And then...

My wallet may never be the same. And I don't even like Starbucks' coffee.

Easter Candy

2011-04-25T18:19:00.003-04:00

Job Hunt

2011-04-21T21:29:00.002-04:00

Error There is no Error

2011-04-18T20:52:00.002-04:00

I was trying to watch Burn Notice: The Fall of Sam Ax earlier when this screen came up.

The "Error: There is no error" of cable television.

If you haven't had the joy of that particular computer related error it looks like this:

I would find this situation amusing if it happened to someone else.

Or during an episode of Jersey Shore.

How to Make Cartooning Difficult

2011-04-18T20:36:00.003-04:00

Eventually, I hope//promise, I'll learn to do backgrounds easily. And if not easily, efficiently, and they'll start making their way into the cartoons. In the meantime, I'll just keep trying to do them to the point of frustration and then removing that layer and uploading the comic without them.

Gotta' learn somehow. Someone (who was most likely) famous said that. So it has to be true.

Twitchy

2011-04-17T15:49:00.003-04:00

I have three dogs (according to my father, that's one dog too many,) like all dogs they have their own unique quirks and personalities. They can be summed up by their nicknames: Itchy, Twitchy and Bitchy. Obviously these aren't their real names, but in the interest of protecting their identities their names are being withheld (that and I like calling them Itchy, Twitchy and Bitchy.)

Their roles in the house seemed set in stone up until about two years ago. Around that time, I figure a very invasive, very bitey breed of flea must have started a family in our backyard. Twitchy, who up until that point had been a very solitary creature, so named for her undying fear of loud noises, gray skies and passing blue birds, became a member of the household.

She'd always been quite playful, and up until our accidental acquisition of Itchy, made a point to play at the same time every day. Six AM. Like evil clockwork. Once the little mutt was introduced to the household she became a lot more interested in inter-canine affairs and found her way out of ours. Until, of course, the (assumed--I've yet to find evidence) flea invasion.

Scratching became her drug. Every opportunity found her face in yours, just long enough to make eye contact, her eyes intoning a deep desire to be loved. Just as you reach out to pet that adorable face, she would swing her body around and throw her ass into your outstretched hand. The ol' bait and switch. I fell for it for quite awhile before she realized she needed new methods. She began just standing there. Ass leaned up on your leg. Making weird moaning and yipping noises. Clearly upset and not above showing her displeasure. Eventually she would begin nipping at you. Encouragingly at first, desperate within seconds of you not scratching.

Her drug were fingers and there was no way out. When Twitchy was a puppy she had what we called her "War on Entertainment." It was a brutal campaign of attrition where the only plausible solution seemed to be outspending her rate of chewing.

She went after anything that reeked of amusement. Television remotes, DVD cases, DVD's, books, video game controller chords, pillows, reading glasses and the occasional slipper. In fact, once she found an object of aforementioned joy and relaxation, she would tirelessly toil away at it's destruction until only a few measly fibers or filaments of it remained to bespeak it's existence. Case in point, she once got after a book of my father's. He caught her in the act and somehow managed to get her to refrain. He put some Scotch tape along the binding, put it back on the shelf, and went about his business. Within an hour he was back in his room, presumably doing dad things, when he found her destroying what he found to be the same book.

An idea struck. He taped the book up again--with a lot more tape. By the time she finally lost interest in said book, he had taped it up over a dozen times. He'd added pages from our printer, he'd hidden it in places he was sure she wouldn't find it, but he always made sure it was within her reach--and more importantly, her smell. We learned a valuable lesson that day--sometimes on book must die, so that many books may live.

We began applying this to all of our objects. Within months you could find taped up glasses and remote controls, sewed up pillows and slippers with toes sticking out.

Twitchy eventually outgrew her predilection to eating anything remotely fun. She discovered a fierce love of just holding things in her mouth and running around like a five year old being chased by a wasp. At some point she must have been holding such a thing, for example, a sock, when my mother, bless her, decided she needed said sock in the laundry.

I can see my mother, standing in the laundry room, staring at Twitchy as she wagged her tail excitedly, menacingly. Two thoughts must have entered my mother's head:
A) Chase the dog around for the next ten minutes to maybe get the sock from her in some kind of working order.
B) Present dog with a better option, i.e. a cookie for a sock.

So, as is to be expected, my mother bartered with a four legged creature whose whole thought process was most likely "this feels soft, yeeeey." It should have been a pretty story with a happy ending, for dog, sock and mother. But instead, a monster was born.

You see, Twitchy is the smartest of our dogs. Which, I realize is a lot like saying "he's the fastest offensive lineman on the team." He still weighs 350 and isn't chasing down a frisbee in a breeze, much less a corner back running a 4.2 forty. But, all metaphors aside, Twitchy developed a system. She began hunting socks with a zealotry. When no socks were available she began to substitute in underwear. And every time her reward was the same. A cookie for her troubles.

Within months I was missing over half of my sock pairings. I was wearing gray with black and short with long. My sister had changed her style to "tastefully tacky" due to the sudden lack of a neon green twin to her already ridiculous sock choices.
We began to make sure everything was off the floor. Our rooms weren't necessarily clean, but the laundry was put away.

Twitchy began to take trash from the wastebaskets, she began stealing caps off of bottles you were currently drinking out of. Napkins that still had hands gripping them. If and when she got a hold of these objects she would immediately sprint away joyously, just to return within a few moments, object still in mouth, shaking feverishly waiting for her treat.

And that's how I'll always remember her--happily wagging her tail holding onto one of my possessions. Not like she will be in the next few minutes-that is to say dead, if she doesn't give me my !@#$ing sock back.

You Scream, I Scream, We all Scream for a Good ol' Face Stabbing

2011-04-15T18:24:00.004-04:00

Now I'm all for a horror film (I'm really not) but at what point did they become humorous? Outside of the Scary Movie franchise, humor + horror does not a happy equation make. The trailer for Scream 4 has more laughs than horror. And I'm struggling to figure out why. No, Scream was never a very scary franchise. The guy is just a normal man in a robe making prank calls...that end in vicious stabbings, so I suppose that part's a bit scary. But, it never had that Halloween "this guy is untouchable and we are all f*cked" kind of vibe.

But, what seemed to happen (of course without watching the movie) is that somewhere along the line, someone forgot how to hire for slasher flicks.

Anthony Anderson: the New Face of Horror

I suppose you can only go so far with a guy in a mask, and there's always been an element of humor in the Scream films (to me watching Scream felt a little like I imagine getting stabbed in the eyes and or ears repeatedly would, but I had friends that enjoyed it) otherwise Scary Movie wouldn't have worked in the first place. The trailer just took me in the wrong direction. Laughing at serial killers as they switch gets flipped is one thing--laughing as you watch them joyfully, and bloodily, rip through a dozen coeds? Quite another.

Congratulations are in Order

2011-04-13T18:10:00.007-04:00

If they don't name him David, maybe they'll go for my second idea, Darth Davgen.
Future Dark Lord of the Galaxy, parts known and unknown.

Party Invite

2011-04-12T23:02:00.000-04:00

How the Commercial Really Ends

2011-04-11T18:58:00.002-04:00

Call me a cynic but these Cheezit commercials are bit ridiculous. I'm all about the personification of food, if your goal is to make the consumer base feel like cannibals and or murderers...did no one in the Ritz Marketing Department think about what the logical next step of this ad was? Well, I did. A lot.

Which brings me to Domino's Pizza. They're putting a survey on a box, and they think that will make years of bad tasting pizza and health risk chicken okay. A survey on the box? What the Hell good does that do the customer other than make the company look really good to the Lowest Common Denominator of Consumers?

Do you know what you do with boxes? You throw them away as soon as the food is no longer in them. In the trash. That's where these vaunted surveys go. How is this helping anyone? Least of all the company. Oh wait, it isn't. Because they don't care.

Domino's doesn't actually need to be a company that cares about what you (the consumer//customer) think. They need to be a company that is perceived as a company that cares what you think. If they really gave a shit about what we thought about their food they'd give away free pizza and ask opinions. Put the survey on coupons for a free pie, etc. Instead, they put it on a chicken box and make a big show of the "lead chicken chefs" pretending to be scared for their jobs because of the one 50-something mother of six who actually cares enough to fill out a used, grease filled box, and mail that f*cker back.

A Novel Idea

2011-04-10T18:49:00.002-04:00

This is a decidedly regular conversation between me and my friends. I'm often reminded of the most annoying stat in professional sports: Quarterbacks "yards in dropped passes." I like to think that I have millions of dollars in unpublished (unwritten) novel and movie ideas. One day I'll find one I love so much that I actually start writing it.

I hope.

A Dream Fulfilled

2011-04-09T22:51:00.001-04:00

The Riskless Parachute

2011-04-08T23:51:00.000-04:00

So, I want to keep to a "Daily Cartoon" idea. So I'm going to drop this little one on here. I know where it's headed, as a portion of a larger segment (similar to my idea with the dogs I'm working on.)

The gist of this cartoon is this: I feel like we all make the mistake of losing our ability, or maybe more importantly, our desire to take risks. I'm (maybe) the worst offender. I think it's important to remember that there is no age, no time in your life, that you can't do something great. I think we all forget that.

Also I have a funny idea involving parachutes. So this was in my head. I promise. I'll elaborate at a later point.

Productivity Hit

2011-04-07T23:14:00.002-04:00

This can loosely be described as my "work computer." I realize that calling it my "work computer" implies an at least 3:1 work to fun ratio, but thinking thoughts like that is what brought you here in the first place.

This is the Nefarious, Notorious Interweb Monster. I call him Gaaaaahgle. Because he is scary, and reminds me of a word that starts with "g" and sounds like "oogle."

It might sound like I'm blaming the internet and all that pertains for my problems getting work done--because that is exactly what this is. Me, blaming the internet. My very limited self-discipline has nothing at all to do with it.

Nothing.

Updatearoo

2011-04-06T17:04:00.001-04:00

I am sitting down. Right now. Right now I am sitting down and I am going to write and draw things. This is a solemn promise, (solemn> Yeah, it's spelled correctly, bringing it at full speed) I'm going to do one cartoon a day. A daily cartoon, as it were. Here for your viewing.

I haven't quite decided what to do with the blog yet. I have no idea if I want to do a character cartoon, an idea, whatever. I know I'm going to keep up with the "humor blog" concept, hopefully I'll be finished with one tonight. But it will at least be started (the Saga of Itchy, Twitchy and Bitchy.)

I've had a rough couple of days with car trouble and hunting down references and job opportunities, but hopefully that will all be solved going into the summer and I'll be in a grad program, working, and happily drawing cartoons. In the meantime, know that I'm still here.

And come read the page tonight or tomorrow.

Kinetic Military Semantics (It's Bullhockey--I mean Shit)

2011-03-24T17:43:00.001-04:00

I've been reading up on the Libyan action lately. I wish I could say I was amazed by how uninformed I am, but I've known me my whole life, and this point I'm kind of used to my lack of knowledge regarding anything at all useful (but damn it I can recite at least half the US capitals and like six foreign ones, and most of the Pokemon Red roster.)

I'm not really confused or surprised or even upset about the U.S. 'Military Action' in Libya. At this point, I accept the fact that we want to be everyone's protector. We, or our government, or both, feel either entitled or required to step into everyone else's proverbial "shit" whenever and wherever it rises up to dirty our collective pant legs.

Rather, my issue with the situation is that we won't call a duck a Mallard--I mean duck. What is the issue with the word "war?" It's so simple. So clean. It means, in short, that we (Americans) are here, and we're going to f*ck your (everyone else's) shit up. It's pretty simple. But, instead of being the simple badasses that our ancestors once were, we've been candy-coating our combat since the late 1950's. Police action, armed intervention, armed conflict and now the newest (also see: lamest) of them all: Kinetic Military Action.

What the unholy Hell, America(n Government?) I understand that you (now I'm talking about Obama/President at the time) want to get votes. And that American voters dislike fighting in wars we don't belong in. But you know what we dislike more? American soldiers dying for what the politicians seem to want us to think is basically a very serious paintball tournament between exceedingly friendly enemies.

How about 'screw that?' First off: if we (back to 'we' being us as a Nation) keep avoiding the word "war," we also happen to be avoiding the word "Constitution." As in the Document that makes us (Nation again) who we are. You know, that pesky little document all those Forefathers guys signed when they dreamed up this whole "United States of America" deal? It's really quite convenient not to need Congress to put our troops, our friends and family, in the line of fire anymore. It's even better that these men and women die for something that cannot officially be recognized as a war. I bring you back to my earlier point: Screw that.

I promise, while the American people might not be happy you (leaders, President) have put us into a new conflict, we'll certainly respect you more for knowing exactly what the Hell our troops are fighting for, and what exactly it is that we're supporting (our troops for.)

As Stephen King once said: If you want to say "shit" say "shit." Feces, boom boom, and poopie just don't cut it.

I'm Going to Miss the Green Beer

2011-03-17T17:38:00.002-04:00

I'd like to say that my past few days have been fun, but (and isn't there always a 'but?') they haven't been. I worked everyday this week (surprisingly exciting in the current climate) and injured my knee playing basketball (again, and again 'surprise.') All that really means is I can't go out on St. Patty's day, which may or may not be the worst thing ever. If I just go to sleep it won't be a "thing," however if I stay up reading all the inevitable drunk "I'm now here" facebook posts for the rest of the night, I may want to kill myself by midnight--or all of the people posting said posts. With their damn smartphones in one hand and their beautiful green beers in the other.

Depression always gets more severe when people inadvertently rub their stupid happiness in your face. My neighbor, bless her heart, invited me to the beach (with her hot friend--of !@#$ing course) as soon as I got into my car to go to work. My friend met these three smokin' hot girls that are into...stuff (yeah, we'll go with stuff)...just as soon as I got into a relationship. ROBIN RETIRES AND BATMAN IS IN THE MARKET FOR A NEW ROBIN, NO, IT'S COOL BATS, I JUST STARTED WORKING FOR THE GREEN ARROW, THE GREEN !@#$ING ARROW...(For those non-comic lovers among you who read my blog, the Green Arrow pretty much sucks, he's like the shiny green opposite of the Dark Gothic Badass that is Batman.)

I think you see where I'm going with this. I'm upset that I'm not Robin (you may see this is an awkward thing, that is to say: not wanting to be Batman, but rather his sidekick. I don't know if you know this but, Batman is barely mortal, he sleeps like two hours a day (yeah, not happening) and has collected more scars than Jay Leno has collected motorcycles (and chin surgeries--that thing can't possible be real.) His job kind of sucks. But Robin? Occasional kick-asser take-namer, gets his own sweet ride, a room in the manor, and access to a massive fortune, yeah, sign me up.)

My mother, taking pity on my gimpiness decided that today would be a good day to go see Battle: Los Angeles. Or as I like to call it Independence Day 2: Lose the Airforce, THROW IN THE MARINES, HOOAH. it's a long tagline, I know. I'm not going to deny it's awesomeness--or really break down the movie for anyone (just in case)but, come on. We all knew what was going to happen. I'm especially pissed with the previews. All of the heartbreaking, eye opening scenes were in the previews. Way to let us all know ahead of time who was dying.

Which brings me to my closing point.

Batman should be in Independence Day 2. Come on Will, make this happen for me.

Batman Makes it Better

2011-03-15T16:44:00.001-04:00

I've been thinking about this really hard. I've gone over the facts. Hell, I've checked them twice. I even psychically looked in on all the leading literary minds, and they too, subconsciously agree: No story wouldn't be better with Batman.

I came to this realization in the middle of a Star Wars comic I was reading while aggressively sucking down a frozen cappuccino (thank you for the plug Books-A-Million? No thank you for the coffee.) I was watching (reading, what do you call reading a graphic novel these days?) Cade Skywalker (Luke's grandson? Great Grandson?) open a can of jaded-Jedi whoopass when it struck me that, if instead of his predictably blue friend fighting alongside him, Batman filled the role of "ass-kicking teammate," that this book would be at least 163% better. Scientifically speaking, of course.

Epic space battle? Yeah, he has a jet for that.

Hard core action mystery thriller? His cape is made of shadow.

The Great Gatsby? Come on, Bruce could get him all the invites he needed. Why didn't Nick look him up?

Romantic Comedy? Relieve some tension with a mugging and subsequent Batman throwdown. Add Batgirl and or Batwoman to relieve the tension that would inevitably follow when the lead female role falls irrevocably in love with the Caped Crusader (who for some horrible reason, no longer wants to be called that. Bad decisions.)

Documentary Film? Finally. A narrator you can trust. Batman not only doesn't kill, he doesn't lie. And homeboy has gadgets, he'll get to the bottom of whatever it is we're interested in. Want to know if Bigfoot exists? Well, if he does, Bats has him on speed dial. He probably bought him the damn phone.

The real problem is making sure that the Batman insert isn't too grandiose. Half the great novels would never have happened it Batman was around. The Kite Runner would have actually been about running kites and Caesar would have missed his last words.

I'm not saying it wouldn't be a challenge, just that it needs to be done.

Tell me Alderaan gets destroyed if Batman lived in that Galaxy?

No. Hell no. Batman knew Palpatine was going to do his Sith thing before he did. Sorry Anakin, you're still a Jedi in my world.

The point of this post is that I'm a huge Batman fan. And recently read the 'Return of Bruce Wayne." Loosely titled so because Bruce Wayne is Batman, and has returned. Through time.

If you're thinking about asking me, "Hey, Dave, do we get to see Batman as a pirate?"

The answer is yes, yes we do.

The "I WANT TO DO THAT" Syndrome and a Few Common Mistakes

2011-03-09T21:05:00.003-05:00

I go through this crap every time I read, see or hear something new. I call it the I WANT TO DO THAT syndrome. Some people may know it as the "I COULD totally DO THAT" syndrome, (I get that one whenever I look at something written by James Patterson--no matter how unrealistic I'm being) or even the, "OKAY SO I HAVE THIS IDEA--IT'S LIKE A CROSS BETWEEN FAMILY GUY AND BATMAN (Not the circa 1960's Adam West one--but like Nolan--you know...serious) syndrome.

What's worse is the fact that I'm a socially dependent creature. I can't do anything alone.

Friend: So what are you doing?

Me: Uh, just sitting around. Thinking about stuff. Just a normal day over here with Dave--definitely not pooping.

You might ask, what about the blog, Dave? Yeah. I've pitched quite a few new ideas to various friends who are always completely under-enthused about the entire process. An average conversation might go something like this:

Me: So, I have this idea for a blog. It's like a dueling blog, see?

Friend: No.

Me: Oh well, it's like a humor blog, or something like that, where we both talk about whatever, and just refute each other and there's this whole back and forth--

Friend: I meant "no." As in "I don't want to do it."

Sometimes I actually manage to get a friend on board for a project and we intend to work on it, we really do. But we make a continuous series of mistakes from the time we decide to partner up, until the time of our inevitable self-defeat.

Common Mistake Number One:

Friend: So, where are we meeting to work on random project.

Me: I was thinking random coffee shop?

Friend: Sounds great.

No. No it's not great. It's a coffee shop, damn it. What are we thinking? Let's list the ways we're wrong to do this:
1) Coffee shops have people.
2) Coffee shops therefore have girls.
3) Coffee shops normally have coffee.
4) Coffee often leads to a desire to get up and do other things.

Like drinking alcohol, sometimes with girls. Which leads me to our second most common mistake.

Common Mistake Number Two:

Talking about ideas at bars.

Who are we kidding here? I realize that alcoholism and depression are the two leading causes of successful writing, but no one is ever depressed when drinking socially with a buddy. You can try, but inevitably the buzz overtakes you, you begin to lose hold of whatever idea it was you were so desperately clinging to. Maybe it's the girl on the other side of the bar with the drooping v-neck and "hug me" chest. Maybe it's the bartender, giving you completely undeserved extra rounds "on the house" (parenthesis: she wants a big tip.) Maybe you're just sitting next to some really cool dudes and a game is on.

Who knows? The point? You aren't talking about working, how to begin working, or even the idea that set you off in this work related comedy of errors in the first place.

Common Mistake Number Three:

Going into the project with an unclear idea of what you actually want to do.

We all want to do something. Something big, creative. Something with pizazz. Mainly, something that will get you rich.

This is not enough to go on. Outline first, collaborate later.

It's like my father always says, "David, if the buddy system worked, you wouldn't still be fat."

He didn't really say that. But, if the buddy system worked?
I wouldn't still be fat. Hell, I might even be rich.

But probably not.

The Power Chair and a Dead Battery

2011-03-07T18:52:00.003-05:00

Surprise, I'm behind on my blog again. I have this idea for a larger blog project (on this blog,) but the amount of drawing it involves is frankly, quite daunting. On top of that I've spent the past two weeks working and working. Which is troubling and outside of my normal routine. Normally I just pretend to work and drink coffee--imagine my surprise when the coffee was gone--and I was still working. Mainly I've just been applying to jobs and writing letters and emails to people, essentially begging for jobs or further education. Of course my problem turns into a whole new monster of actually knowing what I want to do, and all the things I'm applying for not being that. I suppose money, to a certain degree, outweighs happiness, I just don't know when I became this person. Probably when I realized I was turning 25 soon and had real life to attend to. I'm not trying to start a pity party off here, nor am I making excuses. I'm writing my excuses out for you--they pretty much made themselves. (Self-coalescing excuses, they're possible, I swear it.)

My goals for today were exceedingly simple, I made them that way in some vain hope of actually getting them done. Write a blog (check,) write a few emails to various editors to maybe get some freelance work (check,) write a reference letter for...

And that's how it actually happened. My computer shut off in my face. Of course it did. Because technology, against commonly held beliefs and petty things such as logic, is actually zealously against the idea of progress. Anything I own works fitfully at best. It doesn't even have to be advanced technology for this problem to come into play. For example, my shower very rarely, if ever, hits that Goldilocksian sweet spot. Instead it seems to have two settings:

"Holy sh*t that's cold."

And "Aaaah what the mother !@#$--"

Both of which just end up being painful.

So needless to say (but I will, oh I will) my computer shut off again. So there I was, alone in a cafe, staring at two men as they typed away furiously on their fully powered, plugged in laptops. And I hated them. I hated them so much. But they had the Power Chairs, and I was just a man at a cafe table. Weak and without working, powered, technology.

I think the term "power chair" may confuse some people. It's not exactly a throne, nor is it one of those scooters that promised old people independence and fulfilled life long dreams.

No, it's a simple chair, near a power outlet. So I can do work. Like an adult.

As you can see by this blog actually being finished and posted, I eventually got the power chair. Maybe it was because he was finished with whatever he was doing, or maybe it was because I was staring at him angrily from a few feet away. Who knows, but he left, and I, with Gollum like speed, placed my ass in the best seat in the building.

I won't lie. It's not that comfortable of a chair.

Elegiac, Hauntingly So

2011-02-28T16:53:00.002-05:00

My Borders shut down recently. I know, let the depression sink in for a moment. if you aren't sad it's because you hate me and want to see me suffer. As you may have guessed, I've spent many of the past few days searching endlessly for a new place from which to read, drink coffee and avoid writing, while drinking coffee.

My search was essentially a huge failure. I got into my car feeling very gung-ho, and got as far as about two blocks away before I came upon a Starbucks and gave up immediately. I mean, they do have coffee, tables and internet. That's like my three basic needs right there. I can deal without having books to browse--or at least I can bring my own.

Imagine my surprise upon entering said Starbucks discovering that they are planning a remodel (were, it started today.) So even the place I didn't want to go to in the first place is shutting down. I'd call it bum luck but I see the common factor--me. I was about to embark on another epic quest of block-traveling import when my mother suggested "Books-A-Million" to me. Yeah, she said, it's right down the street.

I don't know if you know this but--I grew up in Books-A-Million. I used to ask to go there everyday after school. I was very serious about this store. It had Joe Muggs coffee (Frozen cappuccino? Yes, please.) and a copious amount of comics not to mention an entire section of Star Wars books which were kind of my thing.

Then, in what would become the story of my life, the store shut down. That is to say, became Full Sail University. Shortly after that I (my mother) discovered Borders and life was good again, or so I thought. I--in my beautiful ignorance--did not realize that companies aren't necessarily permanent, no matter how much love and attention you give them.

Not until my reemergence into the beautiful world that is Books-A-Million did I realize what I had been missing. First off--the frozen cappuccino? It tastes like childhood. They have a humor section that is easily four bookcases long and a comic/sci-fi section that stretches into eternity, into the beautiful light of fake knowledge and imaginary galactic lore. I have found my happy place, and it is a terrifyingly corporate bookstore. My inner hipster is crying, but as I still have pants that go down to my very non-flip flop shoes, I figure I can get away with it.

It even has a "last chance" section with books costing 1, 2 and 3 dollars. Where you can find such killer titles as "Elegy Beach." A book that is said to be "hauntingly elegiac." It doesn't exactly make me want to read it--but if that's the kind of review I can be expecting, you can be expecting me, right here, every other day.

Plus the store is pretty much devoid of people my age--maybe I'll get some work done.

Band (of Wisconsin Democrats) on the Run

2011-02-24T23:19:00.000-05:00

I know that politics have gotten pretty serious lately (say, since around the time Athens was becoming the predominant center of 'Western' culture,) but they've taken a turn for the odd in Wisconsin. Democrats are actually running away rather than vote on the new collective bargaining bill that's being pushed by Wisconsin's (R) Governor Walker.

Further driving home the point that Democrats think Republics smell, or conversely, that Democrats are small children wearing big boy suits (edit: politicians are small children wearing big boy suits.)

Gov. Walker actually had to send State Troopers out after the missing legislators, although, as of now, they have been unsuccessful. I find this behavior to be, aside from decidedly pointless (the Wisconsin Democrats realistically can do nothing but delay this bill) but also repulsive--I'm disappointed. These people are our (Wisconsin 'our') leaders, and rather than deal with the situation, they run from it.

I have no true opinion on the subject, I know I hate filibusters for what they eventually encourage, that is to say half-assed laws and grumpy politicians,

but this particular argument is outside of my scope. I understand very little about unions, as I've never been a member, nor wanted to be one. I understand even less about pensions and how they're paid. The real point here is that in things like this, no one is exactly wrong or right, hence the voting process. If a law gets put into action and then 'like oh my god totally sucks' we have the power to 'like oh my god totally change it right back.' It's a pretty cool thing, this Democracy.

I do however, understand what is going through the Democrat's heads, which is to say, they're trying to protect their voters. But they can't, they'll fail, they're delaying the inevitable, and in cases like this, that's not really a good thing. The new bill is the beginning of the budget cuts in Wisconsin, and while it isn't the only collective bargaining agreement getting looked at across the nation, it's certainly the most 'severe.' While public workers and unions will still retain rights and pensions will still be offered, the bill leans towards stricter regulations (against) unions, with things like annual dues not being required. It also is increasing the amount of money paid by the worker for his/her pension.

I think what really gets me is not that the politicians are running, it's entirely less annoying (if twice as irresponsible) than filibuster's and sound bytes, it's more about how they're doing it. They're reportedly holed up in a Comfort Suites somewhere. In an issue where the Attorney General's office has to fire someone over 'live fire' twitter comments, you'd think the politicians could get their shit together and act like men. Men like say, Abe Lincoln. When he didn't like the way a bank bill was going, he literally jumped out of a window to stop the vote. According to the tale, it wasn't a window on the first story. Moral of the story? Democrats? Stop being pansies and do it right.

Oh, and Abe Lincoln ain't nobodies !@#$%.

Daytona and Stuff

2011-02-21T21:08:00.002-05:00

I went to Daytona this weekend, and before you ask, I did not attend the Daytona 500. To be fair however, being in Daytona during the race is very similar to actually being there, as you can hear absolutely everything that goes on at the speedway from anywhere in the near vicinity (for example, neighboring countries.)

I went to visit a few friends to whom the word "NASCAR" means "loud noises" and "insufferable traffic." Although, giving it the moniker of "insufferable" is being incredibly generous. To put it mildly, it was difficult going anywhere. So, while I'd love to regal you with awesome beach tales and drunk humor, we basically played video games all weekend.

As you can see, the scary traffic monster is keeping me from a building, some would assume it's a house. Don't, it's a restaurant. The traffic didn't care about my hunger. It was all "Walk, punk."

If I was the proud owner of a helicopter, I imagine I could have played "Spot the Road." The game where the question "What do we do with the Helicopter today?" is answered. Islands? Mountain ski resorts? Ridiculously hot women? Nah, spot the road in Daytona, bitches.

I suppose I could finish this post by lamenting the incredible loss of money that occurred this weekend (it was only 50 bucks all told, but, guys, that's like 25% of my current net worth) but instead, I'll say this: If you want to do anything like blogging professionally, you will probably have to use Social Networking tools, like Twitter or Friendster. I left my Twitter account alone for all of two days and it very obviously felt horribly abused.

I realize "Dave (me)" looks really thin in this picture. Don't hate my self-image.

I'm going to do my best to get into a multiple post a week rhythm, but working on the comic website is slowly, possibly irrevocably, driving me insane. And every time I'm in desperate need of something comically newsworthy to talk about in a post, some tragedy inevitably happens that makes throwing anything other than personal humorous stories out quite difficult.

I'll sign off tonight with best wishes, thoughts and prayers, for everyone in New Zealand and Libya at the moment, as said people recover from (or continue to go through) their separate tragedies/issues.

It's Cool Mouse, I Have a !#@$ing Touchpad Anyway

2011-02-14T19:22:00.002-05:00

I had a post in mind for today. Like most nights, when I go to sleep, I came up with a 'brilliant' idea. I was going to talk about my unsuccessful nights at a local (all too crowded) bar, World of Beer. Don't worry a post resembling what I had intended this post to be will eventually show up on the site.

But today, Fate, and my computer, had different plans. You see, batteries don't last for ever--a fact I take for granted when ever I'm using a battery reliant product. Despite Duracell's prattling commercials constantly telling me that Air Rescue Dagobah use their batteries for their surgical lightsabers--I don't ever actually think about changing out batteries until they actually die. I'm thankful I don't have this same problem with deodorant--or toilet paper.

So, as you might now expect, just as I was getting ready to work on Today's blog, my mouse died. I use a tablet for most of my art so it was only small loss, but I decided to keep my laptop's touch-mousepad open just in case I needed it for the more internet specific stuff--like 'right click.'

It's obvious that the designers over at Toshiba don't actually think people will need to use this touchpad, that or they designed it for a race of tiny humans, or people without thumbs. It is quite literally impossible for me to use my keyboard without my left hand touching the damn thing. I already have to keep my right thumb way up in the air, dangling there like I'm trying to be a reverse-fancy typist. Pinkies up ladies and gentleman, three finger typing is the new...screw you touchpad you're ruining my life.

A FEW REASONS WHY MY TOUCHPAD SUCKS, (AND PROBABLY YOURS TOO)

1)The touchpad thinks it knows what you want better than you do. On the webpage you were looking for? NO YOU MOST CERTAINLY ARE NOT. Go back five pages-instantly. (Why is that even possible? Who ever needs to skip back fifteen websites in under a second?)

2) Wherever you last left your cursor on the document--that's where you'll suddenly find yourself, and soon. It's like a whimsical insert function. "Make document typing more interesting with our innovative new SUPER-FRUSTRATOR TOUCHPAD."

3) If you are like me, and are used to clicking and dragging to get things copied--get over it, fast. The touchpad on the average laptop has no idea how to make this happen fluidly. It can't tell you have two fingers on it's once glossy surface--looking to copy this one sentence? How about the entire page? Are you sure you didn't want to just delete all your work? Apparently the developers of the laptop touchpad never heard of the 'control+a' function. I hear it's pretty cool.

4) There is no clear definition of which section of this malicious piece of hardware does what. This thing should come with a warning diagram--so I made one.

It's that or just a note from the developer--"My Mother-In-Law made me add this touchpad so she didn't have to use a mouse anymore. I hate my Mother-In-Law."

I could understand that.

I suppose I shouldn't complain. I still got my work done (at give or take a 400% loss of efficiency.) I'm thankful I have a laptop in the first place and my technology isn't trying to kill me yet.

Live Well

2011-02-14T15:50:00.001-05:00

I'll get to my 'regularly scheduled' content in a moment--or rather I'll start writing it soon, but I wanted to get something said first.

Yesterday, a friend of mine, Matt Moran, passed on. He was a friend (a great friend) to many. He was young and no one expected his death, no one really believes it. It's unsurprising how very--effected--we all are by this tragedy.

As it always seems to be, he was one of the good ones. And I don't mean that in some cliche 'only the good die young' kind of way. He was truly good. He made life better for those around him, he made it fun. He lived with passion and if nothing else, we should take away from his life--not his death--that we can follow his example--we can live well.

I say this all the time in some vain effort to convince myself to do better that 'life is for living.' Matt knew that. Sometimes I think that I don't. If you have dreams, goals, passions--you need to pursue them. This concept of 'Tomorrow' or 'the Future' ... next year, next month, whatever it is...it's a not a guarantee. It won't always be there. Life can be as fleeting as it can be beautiful, and at some point you have to pursue it--reach out and grab it, as it were.

Matt loved the water, and the woods...Nature really. But I remember a conversation with him where he talked non stop about the lake and how much he loved being on it. The beach, the lake you name it--he loved the water. He said that to me a lot. The reason I bring this up? Matt loved the water--and he spent a lot of time on the water. He was always there.

Find what you love and do it. Learn from Matt--have something you love and have it be said when your time comes--that you did that--what you loved.

I hate to quote Serendipity here--but it is one of my favorite movies, but there is a quote (a real quote) in it that makes sense in times like these:

"You know the Greeks didn't write obituaries. They only asked one question after a man died: 'Did he have passion?' "

Onto happier and brighter things.

And for Matt--thanks for everything, rest in peace.

Sleep: It's for the weak.

2011-02-12T23:02:00.003-05:00

I have long had the problem of not getting to sleep on time. In fact, that sound's reasonable: "not getting to sleep on time." It's like I'm lying to you and saying I got to sleep about an hour late and that's what ruined my day. I don't get to sleep at night. That's the problem.

Around four or five AM every night I'll finally get my proverbial shit together and get in bed. The problem with beds being that they are often near televisions. I have learned, over the course of the past few years, that late night television scheduling doesn't always suck. After 3 AM you can still watch Family Guy, Metalacolypse and reruns of Numb3rs. Eventually, I talk myself into turning off the television, normally around the time I hear my sister leaving for school--or depending on where I'm sleeping, friends getting ready for work or class. This is about the part of the night (morning) where the self-loathing really begins to sink in.

This particular morning was not haunted by siblings, friends or roommates. Rather, it was grandparents. I would (despite the inherit danger of doing so) assume. This weekend was the neighborhood garage sale, and only grandparents show up to garage sales at 6:30 AM. My dogs found this process very interesting, so interesting in fact, that they felt everyone else should know about it--now.

There were moments where I (mistakenly) thought I could find a quiet gap of silence to slip into and fall asleep. I guess the lag between yard sales for the strolling customers was just large enough to taunt me with moments of quiet. In one such gap work called. I substitute teach a few days a week and the system requires you to type in a series of numbers indicating whether or not you are willing and able to work. Hitting "two" means you aren't available.

I hit "two."

My house phone is also attached to the subbing system--in case I legitimately miss a call, I can still pick up the hours. I do not have a house phone in my room--for to hit "two" with.

My mother, however, does. She hit "one."

At this point sleep is just another day dream, something that exists for other people--those people. Underprivileged people such as I do not deserve to sleep.

This is when I begin repeating to myself, over and over, my mantra.

Sleep is for the weak.

I am not weak.

Just very, very tired.

iConfession (and no, that's not the real name of the app.)

2011-02-09T19:24:00.006-05:00

I've recently come across an app for the iPhone that gave my brain a mild case of absenteeism (much like when I listen to anything by the King's of Leon.)

That's right boys and girls and Mom and Dad, I found (I won't lie to you, someone else found and told me about) Confession, (read up) a smart phone program that allows Catholics to "to examine their consciences and confess to their sins."

Before I went into a rant or let any (attempted) hilarity ensue, I got into contact with a Catholic friend of mine (read his blog here) and had what we'll call a 'micro conversation' on the subject, over facebook, in our spare time (his spare time, I have so much of it that calling it spare is dangerously close to hyperbole,) so it was pretty serious stuff.

In short, he talked about how happy he was that the Church was evolving, or at least attempting to evolve, with new media and it's people. However, the app is not actually intended to supplant or replace the act of Confession anyway--it's really a precursor. The iPhone is the coach, and the app is the pregame speech (Mass then becomes the game, Confession the playoffs and Heaven the Super Bowl, so don't let the metaphor take you too far.)

But I got to thinking, if we (loosely: technology companies) are going so far as to take Confession digital, what can we (see above) do next?

iVoting
The last election (for President) had the highest turnout in modern history. That's right. Guess the percentage of the electorate that showed up, votes in mind? 64 percent. That means that over a third of voting-able Americans didn't bother to show up for an event that determines who our leader for the next four years is.

If only 64% of a company's employees decided to show up for work for a week, that company would be 36% smaller. 64% is like a local news rain forecast, it might rain, but then again...

Direct Purchases
I wish I could say this wasn't already happening. But it is. There are commercials about it (in the ads, the guy has a spot to actually swipe the card.)

No one sees the insane amount of potential credit card fraud here? Really?

The iTeacher
An app specifically designed to replace the teachers we already don't have enough of, but won't hire more.

iDoctor
We already have WebMD, the biggest needle in a good doctors already pin-cushioned ass, why not just put the doctor on the phone? Maybe the 10:15 appointment time will actually happen at 10:15 (I'd settle for 10:45.)

iMarriage
Online dating sites (apparently) can be thanked for 1 in 5 "successful marriages" (and 9 in 10 commercials.) We can mail order our brides. Out of state student's marry for instate tuition fees. Forget the Green Card issue. Phone companies are zealously trying to convince us we can live a fulfilling family life on the road. Why not just get over the hump and get the whole thing on digital style.

Citizenship issues can be the next step, national borders? Yeah, there's an app for that.

Maybe I sound a little bit technophobic here, but trust me, when there's an iDMV app, I'll be the first person in line. Digital line though it may be.

Here's Hoping For Super Bowl XLVI

2011-02-07T20:57:00.003-05:00

Ah, the Super Bowl. It's like Christmas for all the forty-something beer lovers out there. It's where "Funniest Commercials" get's it's American audience. It's the reason football is played and watched. It's a pretty big deal. But it is not what it should be.

THE SUPER BOWL SHOULD BE FUN
This is the Championship, people. The Big Kahuna. This is every boy's dream (and a few men's too.) And yet, there is so much pressure going into the damn game that even the fans feel nervous. This is ridiculous. It may be the 'World's Biggest Stage' but on that stage a game is being played.

Super Bowl - the posturing - the propaganda + more football = win.
The math may be off, but this is a good equation.

DO NOT SPEND THE THIRTY MINUTES LEADING UP TO GAME-TIME READING ME THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
I love my Country, I do. I promise. I have friends and family that have served and are serving in the Military. I am proud of them and all our soldiers. I stand up for the Pledge of Allegiance and take my hat off for the National Anthem. But let's not pretend that the Super Bowl is patriotic--at least not for the NFL. It's business, big business at that.

More over, after sitting through what seemed like a History Channel special that I ignored once in fourth grade, you make us watch (and listen, sadly) to Christina Aguilera butcher the nation Anthem. Nothing against her forgetting the words, how often do you sing it? Lot's of pressure, I get that, she championed up and kept going. It's the fact that she (and every other performer of the Anthem ever) feels the need to add in a series of yodels and tempo changes that server little to no purpose other than pissing us (mainly me) off.

I get that ESPN has pretty much said everything you can about the two teams twice, and has had more ex-NFL players make predictions on the game than VH1 has had washed up comedians (a job I wish I had) talk about various decades...but, I'm sure we can come up with something that's not so faux patriotic. Patriotism shouldn't be forced, and it certainly shouldn't be advertised for.

THE HALF TIME SHOW SHOULD HAVE GOOD AND RELEVANT ACTS
I like the Black Eyed Peas. They make fun music, I won't call it good, but fun. Fun is a good word for it. However, live concerts are not their strong suit. On top of that, I'm not quite sure why they were dressed up like Gay Robots (which I capitalized only in an ode to Grandma's Boy.

It's like when the Super Bowl had the Rolling Stones. I love the Rolling Stones (who above the age of 20 doesn't?) but, most of the younger people watching the Super Bowl had only ever heard of them via their parents or a magazine that doesn't talk about them anymore.

COMMERCIALS SHOULD BE MORE CAREFULLY CHOSEN
Network television is business beyond business. I get that. But, wow. Most people don't understand Groupons wacky voice and 'out-there' advertising style, but even I was a little shocked with the ads they went with.

Doritos hasn't produced a commercial that made me laugh in about three years--this one just freaked me out.

Facebook stalking can now be done from the car--so that should make all the pretty people feel safe.

Bud Light doesn't need ten slots every year, but at least they're funny--maybe the other companies should hire the advertising agency that does their work? Anyone? No?

I have more to say on this subject but I've already run longer than I wanted to. I'll talk a little about the game tomorrow...or maybe I won't.

It was boring. Aaron Rodgers played well. There was no give and take. The Packers dominated for awhile, then the Steelers dominated for awhile, then the Packers picked back up and then it was over.

At one point, towards the end, I thought it might get interesting, but then it didn't.

The End. Congratulations Packers. Sorry Steelers and I hope everyone who got injured in the game heals up fast so they can enjoy their ridiculous pay checks.

You still aren't the Bucs.

Start Your Weekend Wrong

2011-02-04T19:55:00.000-05:00

Let's talk, for a moment, about a few ways to start off your weekend wrong.

Have an interview at 10am on Friday morning.
But, still get called over a half-dozen times by the various high schools and middle schools that want you to come in. At around six am. I hear you don't need sleep to perform well in life.

Take a nap.
And get woken up for the express reason of getting the knowledge that "You'll have to wake up in 30 minutes." dropped on you. If any of you have ever been overnight in a hospital you've probably been woken up and asked if you were sleeping well. Well, I was. And now if you don't give me a copious amount of sleeping pills, I will sue you.
Silly me, I thought I could avoid this type of nonsense in my own home.
it all comes down to me realizing that no nap taken is ever worth it. Hold out the extra few hours and just go to sleep.

Be single.
This sounds good at first. Friday night is the night to be single.

When you have money.

I do not have money. My friends? They have girlfriends. Some of them even have money. This makes Friday night a bad night.

Leave your house.
By force. I was told that plans were made, I was not apart of them, out, out, out.
Awesome. Now I'm out and hungry. So severely hungry in fact that I felt it needed to be in italics.

This may be some internet-shaking news, but I have a weird discomfort borderline phobia of eating out, alone. I just can't do it. It basically forces upon me the fast food angle, which is currently not an option.

Be a mild sports fanatic.
Yeah, I love sports. We all know it. There are things I hate about professional sports, certainly things I'd change. Like for example, whose in the Super Bowl.

Let's talk about the Green Bay Packers: They're from Wisconsin and therefore irrelevant outside of Favre (poor Aaron Rodgers and Media Day questions still being about that.)

Pittsburgh: Has there ever been a team you loved to hate more?

No. (Unless you count the Brady-era Patriots.)

Or you live in Pittsburgh.

Fear and Thermostats

2011-01-28T20:17:00.000-05:00

Oh fear and "the Media." How well you do together. You go hand and hand like death and taxes. While FOX News may have perfected the art of scaring parents and good Samaritans into locking their doors at midday and arming themselves with anti artillery weaponry for the inevitable gang wars baring down upon their uptown Suburbia gated communities, no Media outlet is immune to, or above, the call of scaring the shit out of normal people (that read the news.)

"The Body Odd" (a segment on the MSN News website) has recently run an article titled "Turn down the thermostat, your heater may be making you fat." It's not the type of scare-tactic I'm used to, but it worked--it's certainly something special.

The article is essentially about possibilities--not substantiated evidence, but research currently suggests that a warmer room may actually slow down your metabolism. (According UK Health Behavior Research Centre at University College, London.) "Lowering your thermostat may reduce not only your spending, but also your weight, a new study suggests." (That opening line would have been a more positive, and friendly heading for the MSN reader, but it doesn't make you want to run away screaming, so the editor couldn't, in good conscience, use it as a title.)

I understand the premise, for example, it is a proven fact that humans (really most creatures) eat more in cold weather (i.e. the winter.) We do so to warm up our cores (stomachs, heart...internals) and build more fat, to keep toasty and generally less frozen. It's pretty simple. However, it's also been researched into that, in the warmer parts of the year, our metabolisms do not slow down, rather our intakes change. We eat less voraciously but consume higher quantities of liquid to supply our sweat glands with...the stuff that makes sweat.

In fact, the research in this article is limited to warming up your house in the winter, stating that, due to the cold weather outside (blah blah) you'll still eat more, because you are genetically inclined to do so, but when you get into the warmth, your body will stop metabolizing as quickly, because it's not cold anymore. The moral of the entire article comes down to this: if you feel like the heat or lack of heat is contributing to you gaining all that winter weight (not the copious amounts of turkey and bake goods you ate throughout the Holidays) you should turn down the thermostat and wear a sweatshirt.

It all ends up being moot anyway, because the researcher states that the main factors of obesity and health in general will still be food and drink intake and exercise. She was just interested in temperature and needed to do research, it's that or not get paid by the University. The writer for MSN, in similar fashion, realized that without writing an article, she would not get paid. Soon after the MSN editor hopped on board and said "if she does research, and she writes an article, and people click it, we (more likely 'I') get paid" so the editor put "making you fat" in the title, and boom, instant website traffic.

Because while we may hate it, the American people have a morbid fascination with their (our) own doom. We wait for it, watch for it, almost expectantly, with all the power of the deer so famously stuck in the onrushing headlights. Scare tactics sell papers, get viewers and readers. It works. So they do it.

It worked for me, I clicked. But I took the path less traveled, I clicked the link with my eyes squinted and a part grimace part sarcastic grin thing going on, so hopefully my click counted for less, because I was being facetious (and that made all the difference.)

Nick Cage is on my Website, and he's Angry About It (or should be...)

2011-01-27T17:45:00.006-05:00

Guys. Guys. I have an advertisement on my blog.

This isn't unexpected, I've had google ads running on the site for about a month in some vain hope that eventually, inevitably (hopefully), people would start reading everyday, I would start writing more, and we (you as the reader, me as the writer, as expected) would grow a pair and take a not-so-literary journey of uproarious comedy and covered-up in-the-cafe-laughter (or maybe only giggles, depending on the blog and your poor taste in humor) through time, space and hyperbole. Oh, and i would get paid.

That's right, paid. Let's not sugarcoat anything here, I love writing, and no matter how bad, unfunny, or generally lousy I can be at it (with it?), I always hold onto the belief that I can do better, be better. I can make you cry, I can make you laugh, I can get a stalker (who maybe takes weekends off to keep the creepiness factor low and the thrill factor high.) But, I need money, for to buy things.

However, up until now, my advertisements have mirrored the actual blog. Things about writing blogs, or targeted ads that take out keywords in each piece, so dental hygiene when I talked about my root canal or funeral homes when I talked about my grandmothers funeral (that one seemed inappropriate and raised all sorts of questions about automated advertisements.) But this one? This one is a movie! And not just any movie, it has Nick Cage in it (so it's even a real movie!) With his recent track record, it's altogether likely that it's a (really) horrible movie, but...guys, it's a movie.

Does this mean I'm internet famous?

Probably not, but it's still nice.

The thing that strikes me as the most 'interesting' tidbit is that, in looking at the advertisement (the movie is Drive Angry) I didn't think:

"Guns and Nick Cage, a recipe for a fun disaster!" No, I thought: "Oh look, that hot girl that had about ten-seconds of human screen time and fifty of zombie screen time got a feature role in a movie. Good for her. She's hot."

Okay, okay, so I thought "she's hot" first (and about a dozen other times throughout my 'thinking process.') I'm only human but, I totally have a humor blog with movie advertisements on it, so, yeah, I'm e-awesome.

I lied about the Cake

2011-01-26T15:56:00.000-05:00

I've begun to see terms that use the word 'cake' pop up into pop-culture. A modern satire/humor book titled I Was Told There'd be Cake by Sloane Crosbey is the first place I noticed it. Yesterday, over a coffee, a friend of mine and I were talking about a party she had attended on the premise that it would be fun, and "lots of single handsome guys would be there, promise." I asked her why she was so down about her evening and she said, "To put it mildly, the cake was a lie."

"The cake was a lie?"

"The guys, while single, were certainly not handsome. Nor where there in anyway 'lots' of them."

Oh. The 'handsome guys' were the cake, and they were lied about, or rather, entirely made up, by a friend who wanted her to go to a party. I see. I see.

Kind of. I'm fond of metaphors and catchy terms that use food (what fat guy isn't?) so I went with it.

Only later, as I sat looking at my blog that I've updated a whopping four times this month (I claim disability.) did I realize...I lied about the cake.

Cough cough cough...

2011-01-19T19:32:00.001-05:00

I'm sick and it sucks. That is the simplest, most primal, description I can give of my current situation. Understand, that the act of being sick, having a cold (in this case), isn't the problem. I can deal with sick, and it's safe to assume you can as well. You see, illness, like anything in the realm of the physical, is about how strong you are, how tough you are, or in some cases, just how stubborn. In fact, being sick is a great excuse to sleep all day and not talk to anyone you don't want to talk to.

On the other hand, expectations change. I am expected to be playing basketball tonight, right now actually. Now, despite the fact that I am physically capable of playing, I can't, in good conscience, go play. As if I made someone else sick, I would feel guilty and possibly ashamed. So instead, I'm sitting in a very private corner of this very open, very crowded cafe, with a large jar of tea, in hopes that people will assume, that in the case of their health, I am not to be trusted.

My friends and family all tell me the same thing. Sleep it off. Go to sleep early. Rest. "Oh but make sure..." Ah, there it is. On the one hand, I'm supposed to completely shut down my life and "get well." On the other hand, I still have things to do. And they need doing, now. This is the great parody, the problem with illness. For example. I would love to draw a comic about that (Today's would have had me drinking tea and looking around angrily, and possibly something about moving a bed, despite sneezing 10-15 times a minute.) But I don't feel up to finishing it (them.) It's not that I can't, it's that I won't, and that alone makes me feel worse.

So instead (and this is where we get off track) of doing work I should be doing, or researching schools further, or any number of useful things one can do while sick. I went to a movie, alone. I actually felt better about it, taking someone to a movie while you're (possibly contagiously) ill, is a lot like punishing them.

I went and saw the Dilemma. Many of my friends argued against it, saying that I shouldn't spend the money on it or wait for it to release on DVD (I didn't spend money, because I'm special.) The thing that made me ignore their arguments was this: Almost all of them said the same thing, "It's not really a comedy."

Okay. I get that. So why shouldn't I go see it? "It's not funny." This strikes me as odd, and something you wouldn't hear anywhere else.
"I'm going to watch the playoff game."
"It wasn't really a comedy, so..."
"..."

I get that Vince Vaughn is a funny actor, and that the majority of his movies are comedies, but at what point did anyone begin to assume that the Dilemma, a movie about telling your best friend his wife is screwing someone else, was going to be strictly a humorous film? I'll admit it was no Citizen Kane (a movie which, in itself, was no Citizen Kane,) but I did enjoy it.

I realize that this is me at my flightiest/jumpiest. But I feel funny. In a dramatic kind of way. And as I have been sick going on two or three days, I felt like getting something written would be better than doing nothing.

A Heated Commerical

2011-01-13T15:41:00.000-05:00

It’s important to remember, as we play our various fantasy sports game and idolize our heroes and memorize their Hall-of-Fame-statistics that in the phrase “professional athlete” the word “professional” comes first. They are just (overpaid) working men and women like anyone else, the fall of the previously near-deified Brett Favre has shown us that (although, I suspect the media had to do with that circus than Favre himself.) The Mythos of the Athlete has been building since Ancient Greece and the first marathon. Americans idolize the greats of whatever game it is we choose to love, if not more than one.

But we, the fans, are stuck in another age. We believe that we are still living in the era where athletes were normal citizens like us, people to relate to, people we could drink with and talk shop with. This is no longer the case, the “everyday” heroes of the past are now the exception to the rule, the days of the “down to Earth” athletes have left us behind, only, most of us are too star-struck to realize it.

I bring this up because of a recent commercial I saw on TNT advertising that they do in fact have NBA basketball available for our viewing pleasure. This particular commercial used the major cast of the Miami Heat, due to their upcoming game, or more likely because even LeBron commercials garner high ratings.

I have a few “beefs” with this commercial, and none of them so serious as to cause any actual disgruntlement, rather, it has given me a severe case of simple bewilderment, or near-amazement even. That either the athletes themselves (I don’t want to believe that) or the producers/directors of the ads (I want to believe that) actually think any of this is close to reality, or will help sell the NBA (which needs very little help, but maybe this commercial will do that) is outside of the realm of my understanding.

First up in the commercial is our ever ego-friendly LeBron. The first thing he says is “I’m redefining myself.” Really? Does he really believe that’s what he’s doing?
Let’s look at the list of what Lebron was in Cleveland:

1) Hero to a City. (That’s pretty huge. Cities are big places, normally. Hence being called cities rather than towns, or “places where people sometimes gather and or live.”)

2) NBA Super Star on the level with the greats like Michael, Kobe and Larry. (There are others, but I felt like acting like a first name basis was merited, or even possible.)

3) Future Hall of Famer (This won’t, and honestly shouldn’t, change.) Franchise Player (Sadly, for he City and him, the only one.)

4) An incredibly rich young man with legitimate NBA title aspirations and a baby powder fetish.

Now let’s look at his Miami self-makeover.

1) One of three “Heroes” to a City.

2) NBA Super Star on a level with…

3) Future Hall of Famer (Possibly with an asterisk beside his name.)

4) One of three "Franchise players."

5) A slightly more incredibly rich slightly older young man with legitimate NBA title aspirations (but now with a Yankee-like stigma of just out-spending the competition) and a baby powder fetish (that fans are losing a taste for.)

I’d say I’d like to take the first list, but honestly, I’d take either, or just the first part of number five.

However, we can (and should) agree, that no real changes have taken place, LeBron simply is now what he was then, but in a warmer climate. I think LeBron got the words “relocate” and “redefine” mixed up somewhere, an understandable mistake.

The second part of the commercial (for LeBron) has him saying:

If winning was the only thing that mattered the Magic would have collapsed as a franchise a long time ago, and I’m pretty sure Cleveland would have imploded in a tidal wave of self-pity and sports related woe decades ago.

Wade goes onto say some things about how proud he is to wear the Miami uniform (a sentiment that Bosh and LeBron followed with) and I don’t mind this. He should be proud, he brought the team a Championship years ago. More importantly, he hasn’t betrayed (whether you feel LeBron and Bosh did that or not) any fans, or gone against his roots in any way. But, it’s important to remember that Miami isn’t a city to be proud of (that’s not saying it’s a city to be ashamed of, but it is no “City Upon a Hill.) It’s the home of public thongs, amateur porn, Mickey Rourke and retiring New Yorkers, it’s pride left when Marino started doing commercials for car dealerships.

Bosh took a different approach with his screen time:

It's implied that these players consider themselves (or are told to consider themselves) heroes of their respective cities. Cleveland may have needed one, and every city loves a super star, we (the fans) love the greats, we’re Americans and we can’t help ourselves, but let’s not get carried away. Ask anyone who their hero is and they’ll say something about firemen or the troops overseas, police officers and paramedics.

I love Dwight Howard and I can and do mention Turkoglu (I even pronounce his name correctly!) at least twice a day, once at breakfast, and once beside my bed, before I go to sleep--but my heroes they are not. They are incredibly talented athletes who play for a team that I consider “my own” and have somehow managed to apply the word “we” to so often that some people might believe I’m actually a part of the Magic organization. However for Bosh, James and Wade to consider themselves heroes in a city (we're gonna' go with the positive side of Miami now, as I've already used up my negatives for the day) so massive it takes up most of the southern tip of Florida (this may not be a positive), a city that calls itself the Winter Home of every super model on Earth (yes!) and better Cuban food than you could get in Cuba is almost laughable (in fact it is laughable. I laughed, and then decided to write this, and now it has been read. Ha ha ha. Laughable.) For me it’s important to rationalize the entire thing. Professional athletes, I imagine, are required to do PR bits like this. It’s like when an author has to go on a book tour and sign half a million (he or she hopes) of his book, or a movie star has to walk the red carpet to go watch a movie s/he just spent two years working on and has watched half a thousand times already.

It’s a part of the job, they get paid in the millions (yearly) and if they are told to act like complete tools so as to continue receiving those paychecks, they will.

Nerd vs. Norm

2011-01-10T20:45:00.009-05:00

As many of you may know, I am a nerd. I have been fitfully unable to keep this side of myself repressed, or as they say, in the closet--it's just so hard.

I got into reading because my mother took me to see the Star Wars series when the movies were remastered or broken (depending on how long you had been a fan, and how hardcore you were.) After that I read and reread any book I could get my hands on. Starting with the extended Star Wars Universe and working my way into more adult science-fiction fantasy. Eventually I began reading literature and "real" fiction (despite the oxymoron therein) because my teachers told me to, and reading a lot isn't the same thing as being well read.

I've played at other things, like football and basketball, and truly enjoyed and excelled at them. I am, deep down, quite competitive. However, in Today's world, one can be just as competitive in the previously "nerd-centered" market of video games as in "real" sports (honestly though, golf, bowling and poker are now listed among those "real sports".) The difference being that the nourishment of choice tends to be anything that will help you stay awake and ply your "trade" into the wee hours of the morning.

Like all people who age, I've grown up, and therefore, in some sense, matured. I still go to the basketball courts and I still log into all of my favorite video games, I just do so now with that itching feeling that I had forgotten something.

Oh that's right, I forgot that I don't have a mortgage!

I suppose the point, in itself, is moot. We all play games or have hobbies because they're fun, because they give us a sense of relief or release from a world we feel thrust, largely unprepared, into.

I have a hard time seeing myself not reading geeky books and playing video games and attending conventions. But at the same time, I can't seem to see myself without football or basketball, a family and Thursdays at Applebee's--the currently mainstream and accepted things.

My personal battle really comes down to my entire dream/goal of writing for a living. Do I split blogs? Do I write one on Logic Fails about all the nerdy, geeky and "Star Warsy" goings on and keep this "the Dave Effect" more open to things in politics, sports, Oxford Commas, and life in general? Do I go for freelance or sports journalism and leave the world of comics behind, to other minds that have already made it? How do you balance a plurality of goals within goals and dreams upon dreams?

I think the answer (probably) lies in following the footsteps of great men like DaVinci and Danny DeVito, (yes, I made a Renaissance Man joke) and just doing everything I want to. Or at least trying.

Analysis Paralysis

2011-01-06T22:44:00.003-05:00

I am afflicted by an odd mental disorder that my father has termed "analysis paralysis." Basically, it's what happens when you can't make decisions because you have too many ideas in your head. It's not quite as bad as being really, really stupid, but oddly, far more annoying to anyone in the vicinity when the person in question (i.e. me) is ordering food, deciding how much money to take out of the bank, deciding what graduate program he wants to go to (oh God, oh God, what am I going to do?), discussing anything (you specifically want to avoid conversations about women) or having a slow moment filled with "deep" thoughts.

Because...we've been here for like two hours...

This has been my personal demon since I was a small child and spent the better part of many an evening frozen, staring at an over-sized box of crayons, unable to decide which shade of green to color the grass in with. (Thankfully Boise State wasn't playing those nights or we would have run into a whole other host of problems.)

As of late the problem has risen up specifically with my previously mentioned "graduate education" issue. It's a multifaceted problem that I have attacked with a relentless apathy. First, I have to decide what I actually want to get a graduate degree in (this results in me muttering "do not want" over and over and eventually retreating to my room teary-eyed and pouting), where I want to attend or where I can even afford to attend in the first place. This, of course, completely leaving out the all too likely fact that I might not get accepted to my first school of choice (or, to be a realist, I might not get accepted to any of my choices.) Intellectually, I know this to be the case, but I still get caught up in reading fifteen different programs a day, calling the schools, and then going through a self-destructiveness and self-confidence building that shouldn't go hand and hand but do. "You can't get in here...Why not call them? They don't want you there...But, you could do so well there..."

It's not only vicious, it's time consuming.

My father is of the opinion that (I'm an idiot and) I should just apply for anything I feel like, anywhere I want, because it's just the paper (and proof that you went and did what the school told you to go and do,) not the degree itself, that matters. I'm actually afraid of him being right. I feel like if I spend fifty thousand dollars on something, not to mention time, that the education itself should matter too. If everything is going to end up just being "on the job" training, then why do so many possible employers turn down people for their "lack of work experience?" Because said people don't have shiny Graduate Degrees hung on their walls, I suppose. I've taken the test (and may have to take the horrible thing again) and decided to move forward with applying and getting reference letters, so we're now officially beyond the point of whining and complaining (it's just so hard.)

On top of that relatively depressing indecisiveness, I've also been unable to decide what to write about for, this, my humble blog column thing. I've spent most of the New Year staring at my computer screen and vainly begging some higher power to give me direction and possibly entrance into a school of their choice--that or a winning lottery ticket.

Of course, that could just end up being more of the same.

One thing you may have noticed, in reading this here blog/column is that I've added comics. I'm going to try to keep this up from post to post as it didn't take me much longer than an hour to do, and I'm notoriously slow (meaning it might get faster!)

It's been a fun year, and I'm hoping this next one is as good. Thank you to everyone who has read my work, and continues to do so. I appreciate it.

-D

The Airport

2010-12-29T16:11:00.001-05:00

Yesterday I was told two seemingly separate, relatively important things. First, I would be able to pick my car up from the shop the next day at around noon. And secondly, I would be driving my friend to the air port at around eight (AM.)

The math didn't line up properly, and so, eight o'clock I found myself walking out into the (quite literally) freezing morning to ride shotgun to the airport in my friend's car.

Mind you, the last time I was at the airport I was in my early teens. I've now managed to avoid it for the better part of a decade. The closest I've come to the runway is driving by the surrounding fence on the way home from a (mind-numbingly) distant interview. My last memory of the drop-off terminal came from the back seat of my mother's minivan.

For those of you who haven't utilized Orlando International in the past ever, the entrance itself is a puzzle of Rubix cube-like proportions. It can be figured out, with time, and a healthy dose of logic (some argue that there is a pattern, that has been planned, but I disagree,) so long as you do not fall pray to using your GPS (despite what it tells you, the south runway is not where you turn right.)

After you've finally figured out where the elusive path that leads to the terminals actually is, you've built up so much nervous energy that finding the correct drop off is nearly impossible. This inevitably forces you back into the vehicular maze for round two, where you place all of your Faith in the belief (and that's what it essentially equates to when driving with me) that eventually you will arrive at your destination.

Then, you (in this scenario the drafted chauffeur to the now worldly-seeming friend) have to find your way back out of the labyrinthine roadways of the airport just to find yourself back on the highway, which is where(any officer of the law or worried mother will tell you) the real problems begin. It's entirely likely that you own one of the various gadgets the electronics corporations (seemingly, in a race to cause the most car accidents in the shortest amount of time) have developed "streamlining" their products. Now we have cell phones that tell us where to go, play our music, movies and books on tape. The only way they could be more dangerous is if they also offered alcoholic drinks and pointed out really interesting bits of passing scenery at very inopportune moments.

Some of you "old pros" (I'm sure) are reading this and wondering exactly how it is I've made it this far in life if I'm having problems with a simple airport trip. Well I can assure you it's not by making rookie mistakes similar, if not exactly like:

Not going to sleep until four AM the morning you're expected to drive your friend to the airport at eight.

Not familiarizing yourself with the directions to and from your destination.

Not familiarizing yourself with your friends car before driving.

Not adjusting the mirrors, seats and various music and air-conditioning settings of said vehicle until you have already thrown yourself headfirst, salmon-like, into the upstream battle that is exiting Orlando International.

Having a nearly complete lack of knowledge of the highways near to your lifelong home.

Making mistakes like these are exactly how one (someone I certainly have nothing to do with and in no way resemble) doesn't make it past his or her twenty-fifth year, so I make absolutely sure I do not to make them.

Grandmommy's Gifts, When I'm Right, I'm Right.

2010-12-27T18:40:00.001-05:00

Like most Christmases, this Christmas was over by the 26th, and it now being the 27th means that I only have so long to write about it before it becomes old news, or worse, old fake news.

I don't know why I was so surprised to be exactly right about something, as I so often (Ha!) am--yet again, my grandmother managed to fill up multiple boxes worth of gifts, wrap them in Holiday themed paper, and hand them over to us with a huge smile on her face while she sung out the oh-so-familiar chorus of "this Christmas is the last Christmas I'm doing." I have a feeling that just as she said that last year, and this year's Christmas still arrived with a doting Grandmother in tow, so too will next year's Christmas drag her into the Holiday festivities, kicking and screaming--or, entirely more likely, she will find herself at a garage sale, or in front of a product at a store that she knows one of her grandchildren just has to have, and she will buy that product saying: "This is the only thing I'm buying so-and-so this year. And they can just deal with getting only one gift." She is likely to repeat this process two dozen times (per grandchild) throughout the year until this happens yet again:

You might notice the very practical nature of some of these gifts. I'm relatively sure my cousin got six pairs of scissors. Well, five. I stole a pair. I think she noticed, because she gave me a very questioning look that asked: wait, you actually want one of them? Go right ahead. How do you feel about this whisk?

It might sound improper, or even borderline rude, to complain or joke about a gift, and sometimes it is, but in all seriousness, I have a paring knife sitting at the bottom of my shorts drawer, that has been sitting there since I was twelve. It's not that we don't like the gifts, it's not even that we don't need them. What it comes down to, in truth, is that she gives me and my cousins these incredibly useful packages, for that mythical day she just calls "the day you own your own home." While it may be a buyers market, none of us are, or anytime soon will be, in the market for an actual house. And yet, each and everyone of us are now the proud owners of a fully stocked and decked out gourmet kitchen, even if the kitchen itself is (and for the near future, is like to remain) entirely imaginary.

We all love these gifts, we always have and always will, and seriousness, that paring knife will find use someday, maybe even in paring, if I ever figure out what that is. It's almost impossible for us to even consider not getting "grandmommy's boxes."

The only problem with my grandmother's gift giving system (outside of the obvious storage issues that inevitably occur) is what I've come to call "the Favre Effect." Brett Favre has long been one of my favorite players in the NFL, however, it is widely known that the man throws a put ton of interceptions. When you hold the record for touchdowns, and passes thrown, it's logical that you'd also at least be "up there" on "picks" as well. My grandmother has come across this same problem, in regards to her own unique sport. Each year, every one of her many giftees receives somewhere around a half-thousand individual presents. Statistically, not every gift will be a hit. And even if the gift is perfect, it might not be entirely applicable. For example, take one of the pictures above. It is widely known that I am an avid gamer. I enjoy the video games. However, I do not now, or have not ever, owned a Zelda game. Despite my love of that particular platform, I haven't ever owned a system with that series even on it. My experience with Zelda comes entirely through friends and their respective experiences. And yet, this Christmas Eve found me the proud owner of a Zelda strategy guide. (Strategy guides being one of the five great gamer sins non-withstanding) I had no way of using this. But throwing it away, or giving it away, seems somehow wrong. Plus, I find it entirely too cute that I got a video game guide from my grandmother. She clearly had the thought process of "He plays video games. So he plays this video game." But beyond even that, the cutest thing of all (or most insulting, depending on where you sit) is that she thought, well, if he plays video games, he probably needs help. And so I came into ownership of a guide, for a game I've never touched.

However, the awesome reality of it all still remains: I'm overjoyed that my grandmother continues to think of me, it's great to know that someone does, that there is a veritable wall of love always lurking, looming, somewhere in the distance, ready to shower me with gifts and mixed statements about what I should be doing with my life and who I should vote for in the next election, with a pinch of "I love you" thrown in for good measure.

The New Big Three and Orlando's Big Deal

2010-12-19T16:43:00.000-05:00

Today, like most days, I woke up to a barrage of text messages. Don't take that as me unabashedly telling you about how popular I am. Take it for what it is, an indication that I go to sleep when everyone else is waking up. I'm smack dab in the middle of my first REM cycle when my first wave of text messages (normally the ones asking about lunch) hit.

The messages today led me directly into a conversation that we all love to hate: sports, or more specifically, the viability of the current Miami Heat lineup, and the moves that the Orlando Magic made in the past few days.

Sports fans will say what they will about the Heat--and haven't stopped doing so since the first day LeBron put on his floaties and jumped out of the sinking ship that was (and is) the Cleveland franchise, and paddled his happy way into the warm waters of South Beach--but the Heat are proving to NBA fans and ESPN Sports Analysts alike that three superstars can play together and win games. I, personally, am still holding onto the belief that having three players of that caliber on one team will be detrimental to their overall chances at success. Regular season games are won by thirty point scores, but playoff basketball requires the complete team, it requires a solid bench--something the Heat are distinctly lacking.

The biggest problem for the Heat lies in the expectations. James, Bosh and Wade all expect a Championship, the Organization expects a Championship, and the fans not only expect one, they need one, if only to justify the soaring prices of regular season tickets in Miami. The investment (and therefore strain) that Miami, emotional and financial, has placed in (and on) these three players is extraordinary, and the requirements the players are demanding of themselves more so--if they don't turn out a Championship this season, or at the latest, next, we might see trade rumors and a talks springing up like the Huns in Mulan.

And honestly? We should. LeBron needs to be the star of the show for the chemistry of any team he's on to be right. The same could be said for Dwayne Wade, who is, in my opinion, the most underrated of the NBA superstars. The reality very well may be that the newish "Big Three" might be a little too big.

The biggest sports buzz of the week though, for any of us who still call Orlando home, lies in the Orlando Magic's series of rapid fire deals. There was some excitement, and a lot of general puzzlement, about the Vince Carter trade (you know, the one that got rid of Courtney Lee) in the first place. Now we've dished Carter to get Hedo Turkoglu (a name that only a Magic fan could pronounce with any accuracy) and Jason Richardson (a 20 points a game player.) We also traded away Gortat to Pheonix, effectively swapping three fifths of our team for thee fifths of the Suns' teams in what NBA analyst of yore call "ye ole Swaparoo."

On top of the "you take mine, I'll take yours" trade that Magic President Otis Smith worked out with the Suns, he also sent Rashad Lewis (my favorite overly-capable, under-performing professional player) for Gilbert Arenas, the troubled all-star from the more troubled Washington Wizards franchise.

I've been a huge proponent of the "We (the Magic) need a 30-point a game scorer" argument. Then, Smith, in his wisdom, waved his magic wand and made it so. Arenas alone gives the Magic a very solid chance at a legitimate playoff run, taking nothing away from the near Championship of 2009 where for a reason unknown to me, good old Skip-to-my-Lou was taken out for a fresh from injury Jameer Nelson. Picking up half of the Suns' roster and dealing the "Glass Ankle" known as Vince Carter can only be considered a bonus, even if we did lose Gortat, another famously underrated player, in the deal.

Of course, I would rather have a superstar who hadn't brought a gun into a locker room, or faked an injury to get a fellow teammate game time (although that one doesn't sound too bad.)

It's alright, it's just the Magic keeping in line with the new Orlando (and Cincinnati, if the Bengals have a say) tradition of hiring people with checkered pasts (a la George O'Leary) and minor criminal infractions.

I mean, it was just a gun. In a locker room. Well, so long as he scores thirty points a game, I'm alright with it. After all is said and done, I won't be in the locker room anytime soon.

Grandmommy's Gifts

2010-12-12T17:29:00.000-05:00

My mother is talking to me about my Grandmother again. Or more accurately, talking to my Grandmother when I'm around (which in this case translates into the same thing.) Grandma is upset (again,) my older sister took some things (things that were also gifts) from my younger sister, and my younger sister gave them willingly. I would understand Grandma’s issue, if she were a normal person, that gave a normal amount of gifts.

But she’s not normal. She’s Grandmommy, and she is what I have come to call a "thriftaholic." She shops for deals, at garage sales and thrift stores, if it's cheap, she’s interested. My Grandmother personally kept the Salvation Army afloat from ’83-Modern Day. The day Grandma stops shopping for deals is the day we take away her car keys, her money and her cell phone (my aunts and mother are enablers to their cores.)

Don’t take this all negatively—it worked for her, a little too well. When I was five years old, I would sit down on her multi-colored carpet in front of the Christmas Tree, next to one of my cousins, and open a box I could fit my bed into (suffice it to say this was not a typical Christmas present.)

The children would spend the rest of the evening digging through our presents, trying to catalog what we got, a task, I might add, we nearly always found to be impossible unless we got incredibly general. “This is a box full of gifts,” one of us (the cousins) would say. And the rest of us would look on and say “She is wise, mine is also a box full of gifts.” Without this very political approach you could quite easily spend the rest of the year opening one Christmas gift.

I have a theory that somewhere in her house, is a secret room with about twenty or so cubbyholes, with my family's name tags taped across the top. Each one is filled to boiling over with random toys, books and gadgets. Each year, sometime in November, I imagine she goes down those stairs with as many boxes as she feels she needs, and just reaches in and pulls out whatever it takes to fill each one. She no longer has an inclination to even look at what she’s giving to whom.

This may seem like a very efficient system, but she has caught herself in what I think of as the “Thriftshopper’s Spiral of Doom that Leads into the Penny-Pincher’s Abyss. (It needs work, I know.) You see, she buys more than each family member needs in a year, so she is essentially buying in advance for years to come. This would work swimmingly, if she—at some point—stopped buying. But she doesn’t. Ever.
So each year, she buys half again what she actually gives each of us. So what’s the end result? Run-on gifts of course. You get gifts in 1994 that you were supposed to get in '93, and so on.

So here we are, adults in our twenties and beyond, getting boxes full of action figures, Mr. Potato Head and friends-with a few priceless gems mixed in. When I was twenty, I got my older cousins gift. A ceramic vase, printed with roses and a gold enameled rose. There were recipe books for women being in shape-and a small sweatshirt. Grandma claimed she didn't mix it up. I still have the vase, it holds my favorite pens.

It’s hard to say I have any actual complaints about her system. Every Christmas for 24 years I’ve been getting a box that outweighs me (this is no small feat) of some of the coolest gifts you can believe. Grandmommy's boxes are always a joy to open, it’s the grab bag of Christmas. A recipe book about only PB&J, why not? A ceramic rose? Sure. The first model of camera Kodak ever made? Every year Grandma’s boxes serve as a reminder, firstly that my Grandmother is still alive, still bringing happiness to our family, and secondly that there is no such thing as a bad gift. We’ve been told since we were children, by every Christmas movie ever made, that it’s the act of giving that counts, the spirit of the Holiday. My grandmother is the pinnacle of this feeling, the epitome of what we should want to be during the Christmas—or whatever you celebrate (Politics! Would you like a stick of gum? How about this button that says “Vote for Dave!”?)—season.

I hope my grandmother keeps bargain shopping for the rest of her life, it's good to know someone's out there, thinking about me.

You always hear people say that this or that is the only thing that they can’t take from you. Maybe these things are true, I tend to think people are just melodramatic. But family? Family is something you’ll always have, or have available to you, because it’s something you make, through your own bonds, personality in effort. I just happened to be blessed with an amazing family from the start. And a grandmother that just so happens to out-shop your average Costco Corporate buyer (on her slow days.)

Shepard's Pie

2010-12-06T19:50:00.001-05:00

Tonight I discovered a conundrum. One that has (most likely) been around for centuries. Mother's who can cook well, but also like to spend time with their children face it everyday, and we, the ignorant masses, never know of it.

I'm not sure if they do.

Let's take Shepard Pie Night on any old day before today: Shepard's Pie? Boring. It taste like cheese, and beef. It's like a taco, in a pot, only instead of spicy sauce, you go the A1 route. Tonight? I don't know what, exactly, it was we ate, but it was fantastic.

It tasted like I imagine most meals in Heaven, or Emeril's, taste like. It needed no extra flavors, it had vegetables and starches, meats and dairy.

It was the perfect meal. And it has been missing from my life, these many years.

And I think I know why.

Let's rewind the clock a few years. My brother and I are at the dinner table. We are both exhausted, mentally and physically. Football practice and school have tapped us out.

We sit down to the table where our little sister sits, at her smaller place, with her smaller cups and plastic plates, pouting because she thinks shes a big girl now, and she knows she deserves a bigger plate. Even though she too hates Shepard's Pie.

My brother and I will do anything to avoid eating this. But, with our father and mother looking on, we know it's impossible. We are doomed to this meal, and we know it. But, if we're going to be forced to eat it, well...they (our parents) are going to be forced to stay here far longer than is needed.

And that's how, after forty five minutes of fart jokes and name dropping high school girls and the all the drama implied, my mother would finally concede and say "Eat a few more bites."

To which we would of course respond, "Do we get desert?"

What we didn't know was that my mother? She was winning. Not only were all her children spending more time with her, but we were actually conspiring to do so.

Tonight's meal was fantastic, it was perfection topped with cheese. And took all of five minutes to eat two helpings of. She spent two hours making it, we spent 1/24th of that time eating it. And with a simple "Thanks, Mom." we were off, back to our respective dwelling or studying places.

Then again. We're older now, we're still her babies, but we aren't her babies. We're old enough to where she knows she doesn't really like us all that much.

So now, she makes the better food, knowing it will get us out of her sight faster.

Smart play, Mom. Smart play.

Ahh, Time to Purchase (Ha!) Christmas Gifts!

2010-12-05T17:29:00.000-05:00

Christmas is approaching, and surprising no one, I have no money (for to buy gifts.)

This is something I've been getting used to. I'm not quite living paycheck to paycheck (I think they use the phrase "barely surviving" in cases like mine.) I meet a girl now and I think "You're cute, I'd like to talk to you." But instead, I sit down and mumble discontentedly under my breath, like a crazy person. I used to ask girls if they would take me to dinner, or possibly a movie. And then, when they inevitably said "No, you take me." I would say "Deal." Now I just turn and walk away. I have become an incredibly proactive feminist.

So, as the Holiday season nears, my fear builds. I'm coming up on 25, it's probably time to stop doing large pieces of art work and passing them off as gifts. "Here mom, another picture of me as Santa Clause. I know, I know, I could totally pull that off in reality."

What does a man like me, that is to say a poor man, give to his loved ones for Christmas?

I used to have a list, but I've found that, with the onset of my late 20's right around the corner, my old list might not work.

The "1 Week of Chores Free" card: Most people my age don't live at home. And those of us that do? Well, if we get told to do chores we say "Well, I'm not getting charged rent..." (I'm like to say no sarcastically while doing whatever it is I was told to do. That'll show her that I have some power around here. Or something.)

The Obligatory Drawn Christmas Card: This is always a winner with Mother's. But, over the past few years I've improved, drastically, in the arena of "illustration." This has had the opposite of the desired effect. Now all of my cards have to be amazing, vivid drawings, that tell a story. I can no longer work on something for a few hours and expect that to do, no, now I have to get involved in a full Christmas project for Mommy. (Many would argue that that is, in fact, the point.)

Candy or Edible Goods: Everyone is on a diet, always. And those of us that aren't, but just say we are (me), should be.

That basically leaves me with one option: Alcohol. And honestly, you can't give someone cheap alcohol for Christmas. It's just not right.

So for me, it's back to the drawing board.

Literally.

What I'm trying to say to all of you who are close to me is: expect pretty pictures.(Pretty is an opinion, but if you disagree, you're wrong.)

That or nothing.

Thanksgiving Day...the Return of the Destroyer of Dinners (this title is a lot more fantastic then it needs be, but, onwards!)

2010-11-27T21:20:00.003-05:00

"I'd hate to be one of those guys." My cousin says, talking to me and my uncle (her father) about the players currently battling it out in the annual Dallas Thanksgiving evening NFL game.

My uncle laughs, and I snort. "Yes," I say to her, "it sure sucks to be making a few million dollars a year, to play football." Of course I say this in regards to the big name players, but the league minimum two hundred grand a year would be just terrible. I'm guessing my cousin has never worked retail, and therefore has never eaten Thanksgiving dinner with the sense of impending doom that is the Black Friday workday. I'd rather play football on Thanksgiving any day.

"It must suck to be away from your family on Thanksgiving." Again, my uncle and I laugh, this time my father joins in. Although I think for largely different reasons. I snort because I know the players families all prefer the money, and are probably at the game anyway. My father is probably snorting because family is essentially, a pain in the ass that you also happen to love, and my uncle because, well...he loves football, and assumes the players do too (I make no such assumptions about professional athletes.)

"What would really suck is to be the turkey, today." I agree. Turkeys are delicious, and therefore always living under threat of death by consumption, I feel like it would just consistently suck to be a turkey. I don't think it's a holiday specific sort of "suck."

Thanksgiving is, aside from the obligatory "time of thanks speech," a really good day to watch football. If you've ever watched a Thanksgiving day game (which in America, on Thanksgiving, means you've opened your eyes a few times throughout the day) then you've seen some of the best games ever played.

You may argue, but let me make my point:
1) It's always Detroit and Dallas. For the past decade or so, a consistently bad, and consistently good team, respectively.
2) Detroit is always the underdog, so if they win, it's always awesome, and if they lose, it's always an offensive light show by the other team.
3) Dallas is (not) "America's Team." And as such, I hate them. Very much. Any chance to watch them lose is fantastic. Watching them lose in front of my uncle? (A self proclaimed fan since 1972) Well, that's damn near priceless.
4) Thanksgiving is the only day of the year that you get a couple of pretty good pro games, followed up by a pretty good college (or as I like to think of it real football) game.
5) Thanksgiving is the only day of the year where sitting around watching football all afternoon (and part of the evening), drinking a lot of beer with a bunch of dudes, and eating more than your body weight in food, is not only considered "OK," but also allowed by the women (who may also be doing the same thing.)
6) There is an award called the "Galloping Gobbler" given out to a player each year. I would be in the running for the "Stationary Gobbler," if such an award existed.
7) It's like a day long Amateur Football Analyst Hour (I capitalized that to imply it was an event.) In my family we basically sit around arguing the merits of the Turkey Day NFL tradition, whether or not the NFL network should host it's typical
Thursday night game, and whether or not Dallas has any right (they don't) to be called "America's Team." The real downer here is: we actually sound like we know what we're talking about. Which is more than can be said for nearly all the football analysts I've listened to this year. They all pretty much sound like idiots. This leads me to believe that in any given family, there are at least three people who could be getting paid to talk sports, I can't imagine me and mine are unique.

I'm sure there are other merits to Thanksgiving. Things like familial bonding and a social setting that's ripe for (or rife with, depending on the family) drama and conflict (and therefore live, sitcom quality, entertainment, for those not directly involved.) But, it normally gets avoided quite well with my family. We just eat and talk, laugh and joke. It's pretty much like any other day of the year (where half the family is trapped in a kitchen cooking and the other, happier, half is out and about, picking at hors d'oeuvres and drinking too much to be considered "family appropriate.")

But, it's okay. Every time I get in trouble for being me, just, the me that's been given a free pass on watching his weight, I just yell out: "What!? It's Thanksgiving! Jeez."

This is almost always followed by a chorus of "yeah's" and "leave him alone's." Of course, it's always the group outside the kitchen defending me. But that's okay. That's half of my family. The happier half.

But, that's what they (the kitchen dwelling half, and don't get it twisted, this year there was a man amongst them, I think he hated us more) get for cooking a turkey and half a hundred other delicious dishes. One day they'll wise up ad just do appetizers and a pizza, or maybe some baked ziti, and realize that we still eat it just as fast, and just as deliriously happily.

Until then? Gobble gobble.

Mammoth Find Reveals New Facts About The Ice Age!

2010-11-19T22:00:00.002-05:00

And all the people who truly cared, were actually at the dig site. Presumably, digging (or, if they're clever, watching other people dig while they "nurse a back injury they got in an intense game of racquetball earlier in the week.")

I don't mean to imply that fossils and prehistoric life are not interesting. In fact, I think it's fascinating that before us there were thousands of cycles of life, different and unique types of life, and even before them, thousands more. It lends a weight to our lives, a gravity, instills an urgency. It helps us find purpose, or to want to in the first place. Ancient remains always say the same thing, to me, there is more to life than survival. Life is transient. We will not always be here. Demand the best (or at least medium-rare) and don't be afraid to send it back if it's crappy. And tip your waitresses (or waiters, depending on how politically correct you feel the need to be.)

But fossils are not new. Don't take this literally, obviously they're incredibly old, but rather, the act of finding fossils is not new. It happens all the time, and has happened all the time, since the first time a human took a rock, and dug into the ground. (An instinct we still have today, we even invented a vehicle that carries around a giant shovel for us. Because digging is awesome.)

And yet, archeologists (and the community of other ists who refused to leave the sandbox) are consistently surprised when they find new fossils. As if, the idea that the planet had life before us is as amazing and new now as it was then, then being the beginning of recorded history.

This is evidence that my theory about scientists is closer to correct then I thought it was when I originally posited it (that is to say, when I first told the joke.) Scientists are essentially just rather large goldfish in human suits, large periods of lulls, with bursts of excitement, followed by an immediate forgetfulness that is so full, so utterly complete, that it mimics a Brazilian wine hangover. I can't go into my room for ten minutes without finding something I lost three years ago, and yet, the scientific community goes into a "fossil frenzy" every time we find a mastodon bone.

If a man (or woman, equal rights, people) comes stomping into town on the lead bull of a wooly-mammoth herd, I would be surprised. I would expect the scientific community to begin immediate and furious shenanigans. Because this would be awesome. But digging through last weeks trash and being surprised to find chicken bones is just plain silly.

And I know what you're thinking. "Dave, it's not that they found a mammoth fossil, it's that they found the fossils of twenty-two (or some odd) different species on this one site!"

Because in the modern world, animals don't live together in complex ecosystems of more than one or two types of animals at a time. What a fascinating, and new, discovery!

All jokes and mocking aside. The find will give us knowledge we desperately need (to know the next time we are quizzed on the ecosystems of the Ice Age.) And congratulations to all the ists out there who are involved in the dig.

And the construction worker who didn't run over it with a bulldozer, way to keep your cool, Construction Guy. The ists thank you.

Candor and a Higer Education (or at least the Possibility of one...)

2010-11-17T17:46:00.005-05:00

There's that word again: "candor."

I'm kind of sick of it. It's not that truthfulness, or as I like to think of it, truthiness, bothers me, it's that...it's kind of frightening.

Of course, it's situational, for example, when the barista (a rather attractive girl) brings two free drinks to me in one day because "I messed this one up." or "I made extra, whoops." I'm glad for her honesty. Had she just smiled and walked away I could have spent the next three weeks mooning over her and wondering what exactly these drinks meant. Does she like me? Should I like her? How do I bring her free drinks?

However, when my mother was honest about giving me Christmas gifts because of the social morays and the religious establishment that require her to dote upon her children, well I could have done without that. (And did, my mother is an absolute doll, and would never say that. But if she had that would have really sucked.)

Now to the point: To speak with candor, I am afraid. Not in that pull the sheets up over my head, hide behind my mother's skirts kind of way. Not even in the go buy a shotgun kind of way. But in that, freeze in your tracks, unsure of what to do next, kind of way.

You see, this week has seen me sign up for the GRE (short for: oh my God, I Really have to get moving with my life Exam.) and begin researching what I want to go to school for.

So far I've come up with:
Journalism: Because I don't want a real job, and I figure I can just do this, but have credentials.
Communications: Because not enough schools have Journalism, and I don't want a real job, and I figure I can...
Political Science: Because I hate myself.
Underwater Basket Weaving: It's better than open-air basket weaving any day of the week, yo.
Scriptwriting: Because I want to be popular with people my mother would hate.
Womens Studies: Someone has to understand women. (Right?)

I really only got anywhere with researching the Journalism and or Communications schools, and I was fascinated but what I found: I'm ridiculously under qualified. (You see, candor is scary.)

But, on a high note, the schools that offer these programs (outside of Plain Jane UCF) are in really awesome places.

New York University offers programs in Writing and Mass Communications // Media Relations for people who are much smarter and wealthier than I am.

New Orleans University offers a Journalism and Communications for people who are much more fun than I am.

The University of Nevada, Las Vegas offers a top ranked Communications school for people with much more self-discipline than I have.

The University of Alabama has a (reportedly) great program for people that like Alabama.

England...well apparently every school in England offers a Journalism Masters, because America doesn't and the Brits love thumbing their collective noses at us.

Newcastle University, Australia: Where I want to go because anything with Newcastle in the name has to be amazing.

Now I just have to write a letter of purpose to any and all of these schools. Which could be really fascinating. What am I going to say? "I like trying to make people laugh. But I cant guarantee it." I think that line is missing a certain academic quality.

This is what I imagine my letter would look like, if I were to be truthful.

Dear Dean of Students, and or Head of the Journalism Department,

My name is David Start and I want to be a humorist. Seeing as you offer no classes in this subject, I would very much like to get into your school's illustrious program so I can sit next to a stronger (in regards to academics because, I mean, come on.) student and give his or her project a running commentary and wrap up any and all assignments with an in-depth comedic analysis, while also doggedly trying to make any and all of my prospective Professors chuckle and or kick me out of his or her class due to my (hopefully funny) antics.

Please let me into your school. I promise I will only waste twenty to twenty-two hours of every day on frivolous ideas and awkwardly timed jokes. (I won't even post all of these on the internet, because that is perilously close to work.)

If you don't accept me, could you please send this letter, my resume and my transcripts over to the Head of the Political Science department?

If I can't learn to get paid for my humorous take on the World, I'd really love to get paid sit around and talk shit about politicians all day. (That's called a Political Correspondent or Analyst, I believe.)

Thank you for your time,
David Start

P.S. Enclosed in this letter is a whoopie cushion and a webcam. You know what to do.

P.P.S. If you are possibly a Dean and or Head of Department, even a Professor of a school I may or may not attend, I absolutely do not feel this way about obtaining a higher education.

P.P.P.S. Unless you feel that way, then I totally do.

You Can't Cry Upside Down

2010-11-14T16:57:00.002-05:00

It has taken me years of searching and thousands of (someone else’s) dollars, but I have finally found it, it being the answer to the World’s sadness. Crying is officially a thing of the past (so long as someone strong is nearby.) My sister has recently broken up with (and subsequently gotten back together with, broken up with again, and reunited again) her boyfriend. My sister is at the age where this is not out of the ordinary, in fact it is expected (we took bets, I owe my Dad something I’m sure.)

My sister is a teenager (as you might have guessed) and as such, is incredibly hormonal, to the point of ridiculousness. I managed to go my entire life without being around women that cried (excepting my mom around anything resembling a small child doing, quite frankly, anything), and then my life exploded into a river of tears, seemingly, out of nowhere. I’ve since found myself distinctly lacking the crying girlfriend, but she was immediately (and quite forcefully) replaced by the teary eyed sister. She can cry about anything. My mother wants her to do laundry, but tells her more than once? She cries. Her boyfriend can’t come over on a Saturday because he has a baseball game? She cries. She got a bad grade on a test she didn’t study for? She cries. It’s raining? She cries. The show Doc got canceled? She cries. (It was canceled six years ago.)

Yesterday, during one of her spouts, I went a different direction with my reaction (insert something about a forest and a path less traveled), I picked her up and threw her over my shoulder. This may seem cruel at first, but imagine my surprise when…she stopped crying! I didn’t quite believe it so I kept her up there for awhile more to make sure my ears weren’t deceiving me. They weren’t! She said to me “David! Put me down, I can’t cry upside down!”

Victory.

Sweet, sweet victory.

I looked at my mother, and I could see that she too, had no idea what had just happened. She was as bewildered as my sister at my joy. “Don’t you see! Don’t you see!?” I yelled. “We’ve done it! The World will be a happy place!”

My mother cut to the core of the problem relatively quickly, “But, David,” she said, “just because people aren’t crying, doesn’t mean they’re happy.”

“But Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom,” I responded, “now we don’t have to hear their unhappiness.”

And then, I could see she finally understood.

She had raised an asshole.

“David,” my sister said, “put me down, I’m choking on my tears.”

A Debate about Gravity

2010-11-12T21:19:00.003-05:00

My friend Michael is what one could call a "science enthusiast." One could actually say "science zealot" and not be too far off. But he occasionally finds me gems (and or fodder for my blog.) Like this one:

If you don't want to read it, I'll go ahead and explain it. A teachers assistant at the University of Wisconsin (for a Philosophy class, so let's not give him too hard of a time) was explaining Descartes to his students when he came up with a metaphor (incorrectly) using the moon, and of course (being a philosopher) a pen. (A writer would surely have used a Kindle, and hoped to see it float away, never to be thought of again, or, if he were Dave Barry, he would have used a toilet in his metaphor.)

The metaphor went as follows: "A pen always falls when you drop it on Earth, but it would just float away if you let go of it on the Moon." The point of his simile was to show the class that things don't always happen the way we think they will. He should have launched into a rant about women and how this one time, he bought his girlfriend a beautiful gold necklace with a diamond heart in the center. And instead of thanking him she ran into her room and cried for two hours because the necklace reminded her of a heart her best friend in middle school drew for her right before she moved away never to be seen or heard from again and she still hasn't quite gotten over the trauma of the whole ordeal, but really baby, she said later, it was a thoughtful gift, and she never wore it and left him three months later, and the damn thing cost over two hundred dollars. (You see, sometimes things don't end up how you think they will class!) Instead, he told the students (essentially) that gravity doesn't exist on the moon.

The man who wrote this article, who went unnamed (he's a professor of physics now, so go him), raised his hand (and dropped his jaw) to question the TA. You see, due to the fact that the moon is, in fact, a rather large celestial body, it does have gravity. Actually, if you were to make a chart of it, the moon's gravity would come up somewhere between the seriousness a situation FOX news wants you to believe something is, and how serious the situation actually is.

When the TA was challenged with the question: "then why didn't the astronauts float away?" He replied, apparently with confidence, "Because they wore heavy boots." Oh of course, heavy boots.

A fun fact for any of you who haven't ever opened a 7th grade science book: In zero gravity, which this TA believes the moon to be in (based on his earlier pen assumption), weight not only doesn't matter, it doesn't exist. Strictly speaking it's only mass--remember that time in any space-set movie ever when the guy/girl in the space suit pushes the insanely heavy object away from his/her space craft with his/her broken pinky finger? By that logic (closer to factual), wearing heavy boots would only make it harder for the astronaut to board the spaceship in the first place.

The really inane part about all of this is that the professor (the one who wrote the article, not the Physics uninitiated Philosophy TA) later created a test involving that exact question (why didn't the astronauts on the moon land away--worse, it was multiple choice.) I won't go into the details (you can read the link), but suffice it to say, a higher number than expected failed (and a percentage even asked if material they hadn't studied for would be on the next test--because that was totally unfair.)

Now, you may be asking yourself: "Dave, why do you care? You're not a scientist and this isn't a "science blog." You're a humorist, or at best (or worst) a political satirist."

Well, questioning reader, the answer is simple: The people who answered this question wrong, well...they vote. And will continue to do so for the rest of my (and probably yours) life.

Let that sink in for a moment.

Yeah, now you're with me. Heavy boots indeed.

(I'd like to point out that I'm a super hypocrite. Not in regards to a basic understanding of gravity, but rather to the earlier comment about the Kindle. I so want one. It just seems easier. Downside? I'm pompous. I enjoy owning a library. A digital library doesn't impress literary women, no siree Bob.)

Cheesy Times at the Dave Effect

2010-11-06T21:44:00.001-04:00

"Eat more cheese!" the man said to himself.
"No, wait..." he paused, looking in the mirror, "don't eat more cheese."
"Dude, it's just cheese."
"Stop talking to me like that! I can feel my arm hurting."
"That's just in your head!"
"Really?"
"No. It's probably you're heart. You eat entirely too much cheese..."
"But, but...you told me to.
"Of course I did. I work for the U.S.D.A and it's good for the economy."

This is a (possibly) real conversation had between a man (possibly) employed by the U.S.D.A. or Dairy Management (a government non-profit concerned with the growth of the dairy industry) and (possibly) himself.

I find the current out pouring of food advertisements interesting, and not just because I love to eat things that will eventually kill me, but also because they seem so similar. Almost as if Taco Bell, Dominoes, Burger King and all of their competitors were using the same recipe for success. Imagine my surprise when I found out they were: Dairy Management. The company that could be responsible for letting you get so much of your daily saturated fat (say 3/4 of your expected daily intake) so easily (say in one taco, or a few slices of pizza.)

Dairy Management has recently partnered with quite a few under performing companies, such as Dominoes, with the goal of improving the U.S. economy via the dairy market. And no one could argue that this has failed. In fact, it's so successful that it's starting to worry the U.S.D.A., the organization that commissioned the smaller Dairy Management group to begin operations on expanding the dairy industry in the first place.

Here's the problem as far as the U.S.D.A. sees it: Americans are getting fat. (I will use myself as a rather credible, if declining, example of this fact.)

Here's another problem as far as the U.S.D.A. sees it: Americans are getting poor. And still getting fat.

I guess at the point they realized this, the problem wasn't really theirs to solve anymore. In fact the difficulty probably lies in America's addiction to fast food, cafe beverages and various forms of sugary consumables, and the fact that a high percentage of these eats and treats are dairy doesn't mean that if dairy farmers and companies ceased producing absolutely anything unhealthy that American's would suddenly start eating better and jogging to work.

The problem isn't that we eat far too much cheese. This is not new information. We eat over three times as much cheese (and therefore saturated fats) now than we did in 1978. This didn't creep up on us or come out of left field. American kids were raised on the happy meal and this has had adverse effects (if you want to talk like a lawyer.) What I mean by that is kids are getting fat. Childhood obesity is never funny. Except in the Goonies. And Goldberg from the Mighty Ducks, or the catcher from the Sandlot, or...(what is wrong with us?)

The truly befuddling part of the whole enterprise is how the problem should be dealt with. Obviously the average American can not be allowed to decide for themselves, advertisement executives and medical professionals have seen to that, so the government has to step in somewhere. (Right? Vote on it. I'll be the guy at the polls, I'll be the bearded guy sitting alone.)

What is truly interesting is the double standard that the government has had to pursue. On the one hand, the government is responsible (or at least held responsible) for the economy. While at the same time, is also responsible (held) for the health and well being of its people.

In effect, we've forced the government to create an organization that pushes a product to help the economy, create something to sell, companies to sell it, etc., and watch the money finally begin flowing into the market again. While at the very same time, creating an organization (within the same branch: Agricultural in this case) that deals with the negative results of what they're pushing.

The U.S.D.A and Dairy Management's relationship is a lot like what would happen if drug dealers invested in rehab centers.

Apologies

2010-11-06T21:03:00.000-04:00

I'll slam in a little "minipost" before I go into my actual blog/column piece. I've been really busy this week with work and some side projects that started taking over a lot of my time. However, you can check out some of that work on the links to your right. Team Badsalt is a project that me and two of my friends have long been interested in. We have no idea where it will "go" if it actually manages to go beyond what it is now, a lot of fun.

So, apologies for the lack of a blog post past few weeks, and onward I go, into writing the first one of the upcoming month/week.

D

Things You Can Learn by Watching the Animated Film Hercules with a Seventh Grade Class

2010-10-29T20:20:00.003-04:00

1) Seventh graders don't like musicals. Or rather, they don't like the songs in musicals, being quiet during musicals, or learning anything from musicals. The best you can get from them is that, they will, very grudgingly, accept that musicals exist, and possibly keep their eyes open and focused in the general direction of the screen, if only to keep themselves informed on when they should open their mouths to mock the characters pouring out their souls on screen. Every time a new song came on, I had to brace myself for the onslaught of the collective sigh that suddenly overtook the classroom.

2) American students have no background information on anything myth related. (If it wasn't in Clash of the Titans, they don't know it.) Not only do they not know what a demigod or Greek myth is (I'm relatively sure they thought Hercules' name was actually Kevin Sorbo and that he would later go onto captain a star ship called the Andromeda or something along those lines.)

3) All American students watch Family Guy:
No American students know who Hades is (beyond incorrectly labeling him the lord of Hell, and thinking he is Satan) but, ironically, all American students know who James Woods (the voice of Hades) is. "Oh, a piece of candy" was the joke of the week.

4) The fake watch salesman, a popular joke of my youth, is dead and buried. It has gone the way of the DoDo and been replaced by "the flasher." There is a scene, in the first half of Hercules where a man springs in front of Herc in the city of Thebes and throws his cloak open wide..."wanna' buy a sun dial?" I remember this joke, I remember seeing this movie. I distinctly remember not thinking "that guy is about to show his junk to Hercules!" Each class very audibly gasped in surprise or said "eeeeeew" when this scene played out. Humor has definitely shifted in the past ten years, and this joke didn't make the cut. In fact, now, it's mildly offensive (or terrifying.)

5) Disney does what it wants. If you watch a movie such as Hercules with your kids, or younger siblings, you don't really think about how entirely inaccurate the movie is in regards to Greek culture and mythology and you just enjoy the movie and the song and dance routines therein.

However, when you are in a class, and expected to answer questions on said movie, you realize that Disney got just about everything wrong when considering the myth as it was originally told.(Some examples are as follows:)

REAL MYTH:
Mother: Alcemene
Status: Demigod
Events: Murders his own children in a sorcery induced rage.
Muses: Nine goddesses of the arts.
Twelve Labors: Twelve hardest tasks known to man.
Titans: Zeus' parents.Former Lords of The Universe.
Timeline: Hercules proceeds the more common, and human, heroes such as Achilles and Jason.

Disney's version:
Mother: Hera
Status: god
Events: Turned into a super strong mortal by a potion Hades concocted.
Muses: Five black gospel singers.
Twelve Labors: Hades minions.
Titans: Hades minions.
Timeline: Hercules is trained by a goat and comes along well after a string of lesser heroes, and apparently, the Battle of Troy.

These are just a few of the incongruities that had to be addressed, in some manner, during the movie. I felt it was unwise to get into things like "no Greek god would ever be depicted to have pecs that big" (in regards to Zeus.) Or, "why was Hera mad? Well, you see, Zeus was a cheater. He cheated. Infidelity and all that...no, Fidelity is the name of a bank...look Zeus loved women and women loved Zeus. Moving on."

6) Seventh graders have no concept of historical time lines. I give you the case of: Heracles vs. Hercules. When explaining that the Roman's being the totally awesome, yet distinctly creativity lacking imperialists that they were, just jacked the Greek god's right out from under the Greek's (decidedly conquered) noses, I had to explain ideas like:

1) Greek language vs. Roman language
2) The Renaissance: A fascination with "the classics" led to Renaissance scholars discovering planets, and naming them after the Roman gods, not, as one of my seventh graders succinctly put it: "So, uhm, the Romans named their gods after the planets...right?"
3) "Troy was more than a movie with Brad Pitt in it, and the original story--the Illiad--no not the Alien, no not the Idiot, the Ill--the guys who...are you laughing at Trojan because a condom company? Really? Guuuuuys....the story had much great ramifica--again with the laughter, really?"

"Ha. Ha. you said ram."

The Decline of the Fortune Cookie

2010-10-23T21:55:00.002-04:00

There was a time when Fortune Cookies had tiny little fortunes inside. These fortunes were an integral part of the Chinese food experience. They told you about life, happiness, love, deceit, betrayal and which lotto numbers to play (they still do that.)

These days Fortune Cookies are less fortune, and more everyday advice. "Today you will find happiness in the World" has changed to "If you work hard at it, you can find happiness." (Sometimes they use a farming metaphor, but as my grasp on agriculture extends as far as picking the weeds around my parents grapefruit tree, I rarely get what they're saying.) But, alas, this is assuming you get a fortune in the first place. Twice now I've opened my after meal cookie to find it quite fortuneless. Certainly a third such incident would spell my doom. (My father has had similar luck with the moist towelettes you can find at any wing joint, but this normally only results in him not smelling of lemon after dinner.)

I'm not asking for specific fortunes here. I don't want to read about how after this meal I will walk into the parking lot, stub my toe on the sidewalk, fall headfirst into a passing car, luckily survive, only to be subsequently sued by the driver who whacked his spine out of alignment in an effort to avoid hitting me. I don't want to know this because I have a fear of self fulfilling prophecy.

However, the mini-advice column that the modern day fortune cookie has become is quite depressing. Half of the fun of eating Chinese was reading about the possibilities of your future (and saying "in bed" after reading a fortune.) They've taken that away from us by giving us structured (and rather bland) sentences with metaphors that make little sense to anyone who doesn't speak Engrish.

Further more, tonight's meal (Chinese) was accompanied by a fortune that I could not read.I don't even live in Miami! Honestly, I'm not actually too grumpy with the fortune being in Spanish, the plaza I ate in happens to be one with quite a few Latino shops, and one of the facts of living in Florida is that the population is diverse. Rather, what really irks me, is that they still weren't fortunes. The two fortunes, if you didn't read them, translate into: "Do you feel lucky?" (A question, you'll notice.) And "Laziness is the key to their poverty." (Which just strikes me as a generalization and borderline racist...and again...not a fortune.)

At this point I'm questioning the entire concept. Who do you go to about these things? Where can I file my complaints? Is there a Fortune Cookie Committee somewhere that oversees Fortune Cookie affairs? Makes sure that all fortunes are up to date and steeped with some kind of mysticism? Or is this a worldwide conspiracy against the concept of fortunes? If I wanted really lame advice, I would just ask my...well I wouldn't go eat Chinese food for it.

I want to sue for false advertising.

WikiLeaks and Why I Don't Like Them

2010-10-22T21:27:00.001-04:00

This is going to be a rather short, and unfunny posting.

Not only am I pressed for time, but I find this particular subject to be a little ridiculous and I can't find humor in it. Today WikiLeaks has begun (or finished by this time) the leak of over 380,000 classified documents regarding the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The question of journalistic integrity is brought to light here. I understand the World (and therefore it's People) do need, on occasion, to see the truth around them. It is difficult, near impossible, to correctly decide what is for the public eye and what should remain secret. The debate over Public Domain and classified missions/details to our History (as a nation) will always be in question. The Government has to decide what is relevant while the people have to decide what is just. Do we need to know which men informed on the Mafia? Probably not. Would the remains of the Mafia love to know which of their former members snitched? Most definitely. Us, the People, having said information puts those informants lives and the lives of their children in direct danger, and therefore we do not need to know.

Within the leaked documents (almost half a million all told) are things regarding torture in Iraq (done by Iraqi military but known about by the US, apparently a blind eye was turned) but also things regarding troop movements and Iraqi informants helping our soldiers identify threats and try to end hostilities with the least threat of death possible.

Should the American people, and the Citizens of the World, have the knowledge of what has gone on in this war? Of course. Basic Human Rights (a concept that some, a la Starship Troopers consider a myth) have been, or rather have possibly been ignored, and as such something should be done. There may not be even the possibility of placing blame on one man, group or organization, but knowledge of these crimes may help prevent them in the future.

However, this does not detract from the fact that what the people at WikiLeaks have done is wrong. It is, sadly, in-debatable. If something you release, as a journalist claiming the pursuit of the ever mythical "Truth," directly causes someones death (in a way that doesn't involve a Trial by his Peers...and a Judge) then you have done wrong. That is essentially what has happened here, or at least that's what many governments and even other news agencies fear has happened. Some of the documents released have the names, full names, of informants involved in certain operations, some of them ongoing. This information cannot have any positive effects for the people named, or any of the American or Coalition troops involved in the conflict.

All this has done is put the lives of thousands of soldiers, and hundreds of Iraqi civilians, in danger. And for what? Journalistic Integrity? Is this the Journalism that follows around the stars of Jersey Shore? The people who make Snooki...Snooki...famous? The same people that lashed out at Rev. Terry Jones for his planned book burning and all the danger it could have caused turn around and do this?

Life is full of hypocrites, it's our nature to hate what we do and do what we hate. But sometimes, it's so plainly visible that it's inexcusable.

I believe that we, the People, had the right to know about what is going on in this war that we have been dragged into, without our permission or request. (The argument for the 2001 Terror Attacks being the cause of the conlfict can obviously be stated at this point, but as Osama bin-Laden, the man widely regarded as the perpetrator of said attacks is not the focus of the current conflict, the debate loses some of it's gumption.) However, I feel that, as citizens, we can wait. Our desire to know about the nature of this war should never override our desire to see it ended peaceably, with as little violence and killing as possible.

No, I don't want to see American soldiers coming home in body bags because of some website that has decided it can, quite literally, make it's bones by leaking classified files. No, I don't want to see concerned Iraqi citizens with a desire to see Freedom in their land denied their right to live with said rights and benefits.

I don't even want the Insurgents, fighting for their declining way of life to die. These are real men and women here. And though, at the moment they might be holding AK-47's or M4's, next year they could be pushing grocery carts and holding babies.

Life may not be sacred, but it's worth a chance, it's worth more than the quick thrill of hidden knowledge.

In closing, I want everyone to understand that I in no way condone any of the negative acts that these documents most certainly allege, if not prove, have happened in the Middle East (and whatever else they manage to have gotten a hold of.) My argument is simply that the their is a time and place for it, and in the case of a life in death issue such as war... well the time is well after the victor has been named and around the time the official History books are going into print.

Sleep is Overrated, at least, Sleep Technology is.

2010-10-20T16:02:00.002-04:00

I've long held issue with the term "sleep like a baby." I haven't had my own yet, but I've been around enough in my time to bust this particular myth.

Babies don't sleep like babies.

Babies are fickle creatures. They sleep on a schedule that only works as a case to prove entropy. Go on a four hour drive and your child will cry, mumble, talk, whine, scream and poop for three hours and fifty nine minutes. The minute, the second, you pull into your driveway they're asleep. And not a deep sleep. They're not catching serious "z's." No. If you try to pick them up and move them, it's over. They're back to crying, mumbling, talking, whining, screaming and pooping. Only now they're tired and hungry too.

And this is just the experience I have had imparted in my memory. (That is to say, my mother tells me this was how I was.) My sister rarely slept through the night, and absolutely detested her childhood room. She didn't like the distance between her and the rest of the family. Bedtime was a silly joke played by my hopeful parents (on themselves.)

This didn't stop her from sleeping. Not at all. The moment I sat down on the couch, in would wander a grumpy toddler, empty bottle in hand and pouty eyes looking straight ahead. Without any provocation or even an "is it cool if I..." lead in sentence, up she would climb and plop right down on my chest. Asleep before her drool filled cheeks touched my shirt. This style of napping kept up for a year or so (or about 40 ruined t-shirts later.)

I bring this all up because my sleep schedule has been unnatural bordering on unholy of late. Despite a one or two o'clock bedtime, I consistently find myself not being able to sleep until four and five am. (Sometime after Family Guy is over, but before the NUMB3RS reruns are done.) You know, that time when all the late night commercials hit the air.

This week's commercial of choice has been "the Sleep Number" bed. The revolutionary technology that we've been hearing about for the past decade. I'm not sure how this concept works. They use words like "new" and "modern" but the first Sleep Number mattress commercial I saw came on right after a "Clap-On" ad back in the nineties.

The problem with this whole system for me is that I've rarely met someone with whom bed comfort is the issue. Beds are comfortable, by nature. We are a race of beings who at one point slept on rocks (in some cases still do), we sleep under the stars and on shaking boats, comfort isn't the problem (often.) Now you find a bed that will read to me, sooth my worries and pay my taxes, and you might just have yourself a new customer.

We could call it the "Therapists Couch...bed!" Throw in some of that astronaut foam, and charge triple. After all, memory foam is the brand new, revolutionary sleep technology of the space age.

You know, the one that started in the fifties.

300-pound Chimp escapes, but don't worry, I'm OK.

2010-10-19T17:43:00.001-04:00

Headline reads: 300-POUND CHIMP RUNS AMOK IN KANSAS CITY.

My mother, presumably reading from work while she enjoys a decaf coffee, probably of the pumpkin spice variety, spits her fall specialty brew out all over her computer screen, maybe hitting her boss whose standing behind it, watching her every move.

"Dang it, Sandy!" he says, using a report to wipe off his newly re-stained tie, "this tie already had its stains right where I liked them! What was that for?"

My mother, recovering responds, "My son is loose in Kansas City! I have to get there right away!"

A few text messages and gentle reassurances later, I manage to convince her that they were serious, it was a real 300-pound chimpanzee running around, not I. I have an alibi, I was getting the flu shot, or as I like to call it, my annual reminder that I am not cut out for tattoos (it still kind of stings, but I'm ignoring it, I want to appear manly, and I chose to wear a Ghost Buster's shirt today, I can't do that and whine about a shot.)

Earlier in my posting days, you might remember that I wrote a very long, and very jumpy article that at one point hinted at alligators being owned as house hold pets. We Floridians understand the inherent danger in owning a dinosaur as a pet, and so generally, we refrain (excepting for those guys who make the utterly terrible Gatorland commercials, they probably own a few.)

However, what self-respecting child has ever not wanted to own a monkey? That's right. This chimp was "owned" and the neighborhood dwellers who were privy to it's "rampage" were, if not acquainted with, then at least familiar with the animal. I think the problem was the owners misunderstanding of the term "monkey."

Yes. Owning a monkey would be cool. Aside from the odd problem with voice control and bathroom habits, there is a high percentage chance that owning a monkey could be the coolest thing ever. But a chimpanzee is a primate, they are little men. They use tools, argue with each other, and people, they dislike attitude, can out weightlift Arnold and play a mean game of Thumb War. You do not own something like this. If anything you share living space.

When a pet gets past 300-pounds and doesn't live in a barn, the general reaction is fear. As the police officers who had to handle the scene probably would agree with. Police Chief Jim Corwin described it as a "bizarre lunch hour."

After being shot with a tranquilizer dart, officers claimed that Sue (the chimp) climbed into a tree and evaded further shots while hassling them with taunts about their manhood ("you hairless apes can't do better than that?") and throwing their darts back at them, goading them on with their own ineffectiveness.

A pet monkey would never do that. A pet monkey would come out of the tree with nothing but an offer of a banana or a cute pirate hat, to go with it's already awesome monkey sized sword.

Those just goes to show that owning primates is wrong.

Because they get big, and if you try to dress them up like a pirate, they run away and beat up other people's cars.

I Want to Not Burn Things Too!

2010-10-16T16:05:00.000-04:00

I am going to make an important announcement.

Are you ready?

Are you overwhelmed with excitement?

Well here it is: tonight, I will use my grill. And I won't be burning Qurans.

Now where is my free car? (A 2011 Hyundai Accent, to be precise.)

This might seem like an awkward line of thinking, one colluded with an overbearing amount of Capitalism and misplaced charity, but it's an actual story. If you read the news, ever, or even just stop in to peek at my blog, you're probably aware of the story of the Rev. Terry Jones, Gainseville's friendly neighborhood Grill Master (sacred texts a specialty.) He had threatened to practice his culinary art on the Quran about a month back, and has since (famously) backed off.

A lot of people stood up and complained (before sitting back down and flicking over to NFL preseason) about the planned burnings, but only one man (company) decided to stand up and give him things to back off. Brad Benson Hyundai of New Brunswick, New Jersey reportedly offered the Reverend a brand-spanking-new Hyundai Accent if the Reverend would simply not burn the Qurans.

This whole concept is a bit hazy for me. I'm trying to follow it. Here's what I have so far: Terrorist attack in 2001. Nine years later a massive protest breaks out against some Americans of Islamic faith who want to build (expand an already existing) cultural center that happens to be close to Ground Zero (although similar protests arose against a center being built in Tennessee so apparently being close to Ground Zero can be accurately defined as "being on the same continent as.")In response to this onslaught of Islamic (in the words of Newt Gingrich) "stealth jihadism" a Reverend in Gainseville decides the best defense against this new threat is a good offense, or the burning a bunch of books. At this point I'm not really agreeing with anything, but I can almost follow the logic, twisted and dark as it is. Here's where I lose my train of thought: despite repeated pleas from the White House, Congress, local college students, three legged alligators and General Petraeus, Rev. Jones was strongly considering moving on with his debilitating attack on ancient literature. Then, in comes my personal hero Hyundai and solves the whole thing with the oldest trick known to man. Bartering. (And free things.)

I don't want anyone (even me) to place undue criticism on the Rev. Jones, he (or his secretary) has said that he will be giving the car to a Muslim charity. The man not only possesses and excess of moral fiber, but a mustache that would make Wyatt Earp blush and bandits fear.

In closing, I would just like to extend this offer to Brad Benson Hyundai, or any other dealer of things, I will not burn whatever it is you want me to not burn in a very public manner, for a measly compensation of at least $13,600 (the going price of a Hyundai Accent.)

Let It Burn?

2010-10-06T16:45:00.005-04:00

Citizen: "Hello, 911?"
911 Operator: "Sir, how may we assist you?"
Citizen: "My house is on fire!"
911 Operator: "Name and social security number?"
Citizen: "Carl Smith...wait social security number?"
911 Operator: "Yes. Social security number."
Citizen: "Shouldn't you be asking for my address...my house is kind of on fire. Like, right now."
911 Operator: "Sir, calm down. We'll get to that. But if you haven't paid the 75 dollar municipal fee..."
Citizen: "Are you kidding me?"
911 Operator: "Decidedly not, sir."

This is the tape of a real conversation (no it isn't) had by real (imaginary) people in a small town in Tennessee (in my imagination.)

Now, while I'm as happy to joke about fire as the next morally numb youth, this is a real story. Gene Cranick of Obion County, Tennessee, recently had his house burn down. In front of an audience. Of firefighters.

Now, I'm not an expert on Government. Especially not taxes, and honestly, I didn't know what the word municipal meant until I looked it up (shortly after writing this very sentence,) but it seems to me that a fire department is there to stop fires. I understand the problem in this particular town is that they are required to pay a fee, rather than having the fire department accounted for in taxes, but it still seems to me that, as a firefighter, you are morally required to help anyone whose home is on fire. If the Government has decided that these people don't deserve to have their home saved, that's fine (no it's not) but as a man who has sworn to protect citizens, your duty is to fight that fire. Go old school, get the pails out, start a line.

Glenn Beck, in his wisdom, said that he agrees with the decision to not fight the fire, due to Mr. Cranick not paying his fee. And in principal, I understand where this point is relevant (it hurts to agree with Glenn Beck about anything,) but in this particular town, you are paying for a fire fighting service. Kelly Edmison, fire chief of nearby Union City, said a fire tax would be better than the current fee system. That's right. A fire chief said a fire tax would be a better option. Fire departments are not privately owned, they are government institutions and as such, need to be a part of your state taxes. This is not one of those ridiculous "dog collar" taxes that have shown up, to the detriment of the taxpayer, over the past 100 years. This is simple logic, so simple and so logical in fact, that I took it for granted that the taxes we pay, go towards getting saved from fires, violent criminals, and military invasions by communists. We pay our taxes, you try to keep our homes from burning down. This is the simple agreement which we entered into 234 years ago, when we agreed to let the United States Government (you for the point of this argument) govern us.

I'm not mad at the individual men (firemen that is, whoever came up with a fee for fire service is an idiot,) if History (capitalized for it's personification) has shown us anything, it's that men will do terrible, horrible things when ordered to do so by a superior. But dogs (animals that were at one point puppies, the cutest creatures on the face of the planet) died in this fire (also cats, not as cute and lovable, but arguably, they were, at one point, kittens,) and the firemen knew this. For me, that knowledge alone makes not fighting this fire a near crime. More importantly, what if those animals had been people? What then? That, in my opinion, would be murder.

The whole thing is inexcusable, from the victim himself not paying the fee, to the local government requiring a fee. This all boils down to a very basic question (argument even) that we, as a nation, seem hard pressed to answer. "What is the point of government?"

I won't get into that debate right now (it makes for a viable later column,) however, I will say this: Don't let my house burn down, fee or no fee, tax or no tax, I will not be happy. And I will (going back to an earlier column) TP (toilet paper, or more specifically, the act of putting that toilet paper, strewn out, in very hard to reach, and therefore clean, places) the entire Capitol Building, White House, local courthouses, you name it, to get my point across. Do. Not. Let. My. House. Burn. Down.

Or let us get invaded by communists.

Fall Again...Right?

2010-10-03T22:12:00.002-04:00

It's that time again. Leaves are changing (in the North), Summer has given way to Fall (also, in the North), and the New Yorkers are coming south to roost for the winter (in Miami.)

The reality of autumn in Florida is a very unenthusiastic one. It's the difference between wearing an outfit consisting of shorts, t-shirt and sandals and wearing an outfit consisting of shorts, t-shirt and sneakers (with socks.) Fall doesn't change much here. It brings our very own, if less Biblical, locusts swarms (love bugs), football and perfect driving weather.

It's the high side of seventy-five every night now, the type of weather where you can't quite resist rolling down your windows, and just...going. This is the only time of year where I find myself driving with no particular destination, and, as is the standard with most people my age, the place I live has nothing interesting to do. Ever. As such, being destinationless is the norm. "Where are you going today, David?" (Someone who is interested in such things would presumably ask.)"...places. And stuff." (I, someone uninterested in such things, would probably answer.)

This time of year always seems to give rise to a new version of a tired complaint: "Florida is anti-seasons." Like it's an American Politician and can't quite figure out what it's for, so it just gets really negative about everything it dislikes instead. And when the other States call and tell it about their trees and the oncoming snows, Florida just says "screw that," and keeps on trucking. You see, Florida loves bikinis and citrus fruits. And nothing will change that, orange leaves and White Christmases are for punks.

But, here's the deal. If you're a Florida resident, you knew coming in that this was the standard,the norm, the Infinite Summer. That's why for the past hundred years Florida has been the location of winter homes, Disney World and Mickey Rourke.

Do I wish there were more than one season with varying degrees of humidity? No. Snow may look fun. But we all seem to forget, that snow is cold. And that's stupid. I'm about to get political on you. I am anti-cold. You can quote me. I can barely get out of bed in the morning now, I get chills and I'm in a state of general discomfort until I'm fully clothed and drinking coffee. And that's when the temperature is nearly eighty degrees (one hundred if you get too close to the windows.) When it snows it's below thirty degrees, that's proven science.

Also I like bikinis. And often the women wearing them. And, to reiterate how Florida (personified)feels: orange leaves and White Christmases are for punks. (However, if you are up north, or in a place that the schools actually need to teach the differences between seasons, and want to give me a job...well, I can be persuaded.)

Gainseville Again

2010-09-27T16:01:00.000-04:00

This weekend an opportunity managed to find me (or my friend Michael's mother, but she couldn't take it, so it found me as it's fallback.) I got Gator tickets. That's the team name for the University of Florida, for those of you who hate sports. This particular event was football, as is right, and just. They played the Kentucky Wildcats, arguably the worst team in the SEC.

To get me to Gainseville is a bit of a chore. I'm very much like a toddler (right in the middle of his "terrible twos.") I kick and scream, and drag my feet, and if you try to pick me up I go limp so quickly that you drop me. And then I'm hurt, and crying, and it's a whole thing. You might think this is crazy, what's so bad about Gainseville? It's not the city. Or even the school. It's the drive. First off, I am a completely social animal, and being alone, with no one to talk to for over an hour gets me physically ill (or when I'm driving, sleepy.) Every time I find myself on a highway, I think about those brave men, truckers, and their twenty hour drives. I can't even imagine surviving that job. As soon as I reach the city limits I'm drowsy and the seat is really comfortable, and the sun always seems to be shining at that angle that just screams nap (even at night.)

I've found answers to my problem, but if I am lucky enough to have a passenger, they tend to hate my solutions. I either need a stimulating conversation (known in my family as a "good old fashion throwdown" and or argument) or really loud music that I can sing to. This results in me playing the same thirty or so songs both ways, singing at the top of my lungs (I have a passable singing voice, but when I'm all slouched in my seat, it just sounds like I'm yelling at the other cars about love and souls and upbeat girls from New York.)

I went to the University of Central Florida, and have never been to a college football game that wasn't either them playing, or at the Citrus Bowl. Even for bowl games, the Citrus Bowl is so large, that it's nearly impossible to fill. I didn't understand what a UF game would actually be like. First off, I wore my comfy shoes for the drive up. Which, was a wise decision. For the car portion of the weekend. Then I was informed that I would be walking to the stadium, a grim reality that didn't truly set in until we had been walking for fifteen minutes, and Michael told me (smiling in his thick souled leather shoes) that we were still another fifteen minutes away. And this ignored the stark and haunting truth that we would have to walk around the entire stadium to get to the tailgate, and then again to get to our seats. Suffice it to say my feet took a beating, and have not yet forgiven me for my crimes against them. What really got me was all of the women, walking the same walk in sandals. I asked my feet what the problem was, and they were like "Dude, you're huge." I agreed and just dealt with the pain for the rest of the evening (by complaining as often as possible to Michael with edgy statements like "Ouch, my feet really hurt.")

After a few runs at the tailgate's food and alcohol, we made our way to our seats. Although, to be fair, I shouldn't really call them "seats." The spot itself was an absolute gem. Thirty five yard line, sixty rows up, perfect view of the entire game. But calling the places where we found ourselves seats implies that Michael and I are about a hundred pounds, after a fully clothed jump in a nearby pond. If Michael wasn't six foot four, he might have been OK, but the fact that my size can be compared to a compact car without much loss of accuracy might allow you to grasp the truth, we weren't going to be comfortable. However, I took solace in the fact that neither would my neighbors, and we could all be uncomfortable together, like a family, only with less yelling (at each other, but the referees were going to get it) and financial worry.

We were not on the student side, which was good, because we could at least attempt to sit down. The student section doesn't actually need seats, they all just stand on them (despite the constant reminders from the announcers that this activity is considered dangerous, and serious injury may result.) That allows for quite the sight for anyone in viewing distance, 30,000 college kids standing up and shouting, singing and yelling cheers. Coming from a school whose football program's rich history can be summed up with two words: "Daunte Culpepper," I wasn't ready for the raging bull that is a University of Florida home game. The entire campus seemed to have gotten the same idea in their heads when they woke up: Mainly, go outside and watch football there. Every available stretch of grass had a tent and a television, red cups and blue cups and even a few white ones (however the owners of said white cups were generally shunned and looked upon with distaste) presumably filled with liquid with a high alcohol content.

The game itself left a little to be desired (for Kentucky) and ended with a large margin of victory for the Gators. However, watching them live allowed me to watch ever play with a little more focus (without the "last" button I found myself being forced to watch the same channel, i.e. the field, the entire game.) In the interest of allowing this column to age like fine wine, I won't get into who they play or when and how I think the Gators have relatively little chance of going to the National Title this season, instead I'll say this: Their offensive line doesn't seem to like their running backs. As soon as one of these poor runners took the hand off, the line seemed to fall apart. Like old french bread, they just crumbled and flaked and missed even the slightest hint of an opportunity to hit someone (something you can do and get away with in football.) This means that if the running back isn't shifty as a thief in the night, he's going to get hit. Hard. Defensive lineman are not small guys, and they do not love tap (running backs.) At first, one is inclined to think "Wow, the UF offensive line is very bad, and should not be feared." But this is not true. As soon as Burton steps in to take a snap (this is the kid widely regarded to be the next, if much smaller, Tim Tebow) the offensive line grew six inches and was able to bench at least two hundred pounds more than they could a few seconds before. At least that's what it looked like. Out of nowhere the defensive unit for Kentucky was getting thrown around like rag dolls, and chewed on like tasty morsels. Burton ended with six touchdowns on the night. So either, they (the offensive line) really like Burton, or they really hate running backs. There's probably a middle ground, some common denominator, but if so, I couldn't see it. The Tebow era taught them that blocking for a quarter back was good, and the Percy Harvin era taught them that blocking for a running back was meaningless, he's just going to out run your opponent and therefore your block anyway.

Woe is the life of the UF running back today. Or more specifically, on Saturdays.

Idealists are having a Tea Party!

2010-09-20T18:19:00.003-04:00

Ah, populism. Stick it to the man. Gotta' love idealists. (Actually, you don't. At all.)

Idealism, in every day life, is a lot like optimism. Everyone wants to be an idealist. But we all realize we can't, because that's not real, and to quote Yoda: "Work, that will not." (He never said that, but were he involved in politics, i.e. Attack of the Clones, he probably would.)

But at the very same time, being a realist sucks, so we tend to dance in this political middle ground where we don't actually know what to do all the time. We call this state of dancing "being a Moderate." (Because not knowing what to do all the time is actually a human characteristic, and is OK.) And it's what works. Sure, idealists (Who are wrong, about nearly everything.) call us "fence sitters" and say we have no opinions of our own. But, like I said, idealists are wrong. About everything. See, here's the thing. In life, so many unique situations come at us, so quickly, that we can feel like we are under a constant attack. Sometimes, the security blanket we need is the 100% certainty that it is someone else's fault. At this point, joining a grass roots political movement, liberal or conservative, begins to make a lot of sense. All they do is functionally point fingers at their opposite numbers, blame them from everything from the State of the Economy to the death of Christ, and claim that everything good in the world has come from their ideas and Dolph Lundgren movies. Political idealist are a lot like fundamentalists in religion. They believe in a concept so wholeheartedly, so fully, that it consumes them. They simply cannot understand how you (A moderate.) don't agree with them. And because you don't, you are deemed ignorant. (After about two nights of news reports and talk show interviews, begins to sound more and more like unholy.)

The truly baffling thing about idealists is that they are, and I stress this, the minority. And yet somehow, they always end up getting the most air time, and the longest speeches. Every time one side gets a majority in Congress, up springs a new extremist group, pushing to get them replaced in the next elections, with candidates who will make everything better. (Despite over 100 years of this, nothing ever seems to get better, at least according to the growing number of protest groups and extremist parties.)

Enter the Tea Party "Protest" Movement. A group of right wing hippies against "big government." They are a grass roots movement who favor the saying "Don't tread on me." Despite the fact that they are funded by some of the richest men in America, mainly the Koch brothers. (Don't have time to read two blogs? Essentially, the men that fund the Tea Party are at the heart of big business in America. They are so mind numbingly concerned with their profits that they are against public schools.) The deep irony here is that the people that accept this money, are self proclaimed "Christian mothers." They never stop saying that they are doing this so their children can have a better country to live in. Really? By taking money by men like these? (Read about Palin, or O'Donnell, listen to one Tea Party protest, and experience the heart stopping irony of who actually funds them.)

O'Donnel, the newest white woman to run for politics on the Republican billet, has had a string of victories over Democratic nominees, and says this is due to the country "finally waking up." She ignores the fact that men like Sal Russo, savvy politicos who have been behind many of the Republican extreme right wing victories over the past 50 years, have spent nearly a quarter of a million dollars on political smear campaigns against her opponents. (Ignoring the fact the O'Donnell very publicly lied about her education, and has had a string of incredibly bad publicity incidents due to her views on sexual education. I.E. She thinks masturbation is wrong, she thinks AIDS research funding should be lowered because it promotes bad behavior, and she thinks that condoms won't work in preventing STD's. Yes, she's against condoms.)

And this is the reality with political idealist movements, the reality that forces me to consistently align myself against them, even in defense of administrations I'm not particularly fond of: these idealists don't care who funds their message, or what they're really saying, all they care about is that people they disagree with are hurt, that their opinions and messages are discredited.

This is not how the political system should work. This is not what a democracy is. We shouldn't make others look bad, but make ourselves look better. Other people's opinions matter, otherwise we would still serve the King. Being ignorant of your own groups goals, and not questioning what it is that you are doing, better defines a cult than a political party. It is absurd to not have anything to say for yourself, but have a myriad of thins to say against someone else.

Politicians and political groups constantly miss the point. Governments do not exist for the sake of Government. (Yes, bureaucracies lead us, and their own members, to believe that, but I assure you, it's not the case.) Government is about the people, about what's best for the nation. And that includes more than just Christians, whites, blacks and people who think reality TV is "totally cool." Politics are about being inclusive, about working together to find the best solution for all of us, and if you can't agree with that, you don't belong in office.

That's not saying don't get together and protest, don't share your beliefs. We need that as a country. Sure, I don't want to hear it, but that's my prerogative. I just don't believe people like Palin and O'Donnell, people who want to force their views upon the people, should be allowed in office. Have your say, get a talk show, throw your rhetoric over the air waves, that is your right as an American. But don't pretend that way of life is best for everyone.

Next up: The Pope's visit to Britain a success! Only 10,000 people protested, and Germany didn't invade!

I'm Still a Favre Fan

2010-09-19T17:19:00.000-04:00

The Vikings have started off with, an unexpected, two losses this season. Notice how I say that, because it's important. "The Vikings." As in the team. A group of men, presumably football players, have not won their games, this season. And it is a surprise. The Vikings were a story of Cinderella-like proportions. (And not the 5'6, buck-ten, blond, cute little princes kind of proportions, but the actual Cinderella story. You know, glass slipper and all that?) They have one of the best running backs in the league, and a wrecking ball defense that, until today's showing against the Dolphins, was indisputably one of the best rush defenses the NFL has to offer.

But people seem to forget that the Vikings are, in fact, a team. If facebook and the ESPN forums are to be believed, Favre personally lost both games. Heck, even the MSN story on the subject agrees, (Or at least the title states.) it's all his fault. This baffles me.(Yes, he fumbled in the end-zone, but, let's not ignore the fact that the Offensive Line does get paid to block. And they didn't.) Did everyone forget that the Vikes had A.P. and an amazing defense before Favre's arrival in Minnesota? Did they forget that he was the catalyst the team needed to spark their run to the NFC championship game?

We (As a Nation, don't actually include me in this.) seem to be judging Favre on something ludicrous. Mainly: His desire to keep playing. Yes, most of us will always remember him in a Green Bay uniform. But was this really a surprise? To anyone? This is modern professional football ladies and gentleman. And I'm stressing the word professional. Few, if any (these days), players actually finish their careers with the team they're known for. Lynch ended with the Broncos, Smith and Warner with the Cardinals, Jerry Rice, arguably the best wide receiver ever, ended with the Sea Hawks. Players want to get paid. And they want to keep playing. They'll go wherever they can to keep their dreams alive. And yet, we seem to hate them for it.

More over, we seem to have forgotten that Brett Favre is undeniably the best Quarterback the NFL has ever seen. Argue all you want. (You'll lose. Because I watch TV shows with lawyers in them, and know words like "sidebar" and phrases like "the evidence clearly shows.") But, in this case (Pun.) the evidence clearly shows (See?) that Favre is the best. He holds the most records, in the most categories, (In fact, if you split his career in two, and named one half of it Brent Favre, he would hold most of those records twice.) and oh, he's still playing. Were the other great QB's possibly better? Could you call someone else the best? Sure. (Again, you would be wrong.) But, everything is subjective when it comes to being a fan, and had Montana, Elway, Unitas or Bernie Kosar kept playing, maybe they would hold the records that Favre does. But they didn't. (So logically they don't.)

Further more,(Lawyered.)the NFL is a business, and the players are employees. Favre has filled the most stadium seats, boosted ratings the highest, sold the most merchandise (Not to mention Wranglers.) and been the source of the most "ooohs and aaaahs" in the history of the League. (At the very least he get's an "Employee of the Century" award.) And it's not like he's pulling an Emmitt Smith, (I still love you Emmitt, even after those terrible beard commercials.) and playing beyond himself. He's shown that he can still win. Last season could arguably be his best one yet, despite not winning the Super Bowl.

What is Favre's crime here, exactly? Wanting to continue his career? Being capable of it? Doing well? I would agree, that the way he handled himself with the switchover to the Vikings, the constant Retirement melodrama, and the way he handled summer camp was not only unfair, (To fans and his fellow players.) but also immature. However, this isn't something new. But, people hate him for it. In an era where we've seen steroid abuse in baseball, wide receivers having press conferences on their futures with the team mid season, or even after the first game, (Moss, Owens, Ocho Cinco...) and players being, at the very least, accused of taking money as collegiate athletes, we think Favre is the one who deserves our ire? What, he should be better than everyone else because he's older? Because he's the quarter back?

He has been good to his fans, he has been good to his teams, and he has been one Hell of a football player.

Not everyone can be Warrick Dunn. Although we should all, certainly, try.

The Demon Tooth and the Root Canal Experience

2010-09-16T14:43:00.005-04:00

I cannot feel my teeth. Logic dictates that this means I could, in fact, feel my teeth before. How is it that I have never noticed this? I notice similar things, for example, I noticed that I cannot feel my hair, unless someone is pulling it. I can always feel my knee, because, despite the normal aging expectations of the human body, my knee has steadily out-aged me and is now nearing its fiftieth year.

I came to this understanding when I went to sleep, or more accurately, when I tried to sleep. I never quite succeeded in this goal, because my tooth insisted, painfully, that I remain awake. And so my nights took a collegiate turn. As you might expect, the toothache party didn’t stop the next evening.

After the second night came to its much appreciated end, I decided I had a serious (and possibly paranormal) problem. Clearly my tooth had been possessed by an evil spirit. My father, however, assured me that this wasn't the case. He insisted that I had something called an "abscess" and that I would probably need a "root canal." Being raised in a heavily sitcom influenced era, I understood these phrases to be inherently painful, and as such, I instinctively feared them.

I knew what I needed—but there was no shaman available, so I called my dentist instead. He (his assistant) told me to come in the next morning. One more night should be easy enough to handle (it wasn’t.)

Imagine my relief the next morning, after several x-rays and a series of commands where I was directed to “bite down and hold,” when I discovered that I wouldn't have to have a root canal. "You see," my dentist explained to me, "You already have a root canal. A root canal is actually a part of your tooth. It's the inside, it's also known as the dental pulp, and it’s how your teeth actually grow. Once the teeth are mature, the dental pulp begins to function as sensory nerves. (It also serves as a relaxing vacation spot for microbial infections, and therefore intense and abundant amounts of pain.) What we're going to do is actually called endodontic therapy."

Of course I had no idea what he meant, but going by my earlier interpretation of root canal I decided that making the phrase more complicated and adding the word "therapy" (a word clearly intended to soothe) to the end could only be synonymous with "more pain."

Next, he told me he needed to drill into my tooth, and take said dental pulp out. After he was through with that, he would proceed to fill my recently pulp-vacated tooth with what can accurately and quite scientifically be called "melty goop." He assured me I wouldn’t feel a thing, Novocain, it turns out, is a very successful anesthetic.

Somewhere between him discussing drilling into my tooth with the same offhanded attitude one could expect to hear in regards to the weather and sticking rather large needles into my rather fleshy gums, I began to regret my earlier decision to stop looking for a shaman, or at least an apprentice exorcist.
However, one look at my dentist's tools and I realized that I had, against the odds, found my man. He had scissors, pokers and scrapers, various needles and a lighter (a tool whose purpose I could only assume, was to light things on fire—in my mouth), shaman indeed.

A couple Sports Center reruns later, (subtitled, by what I can only assume to be a third grader on his fifth espresso of the morning) my dentist had waved his magic wand six times (that's code for stabbing me in my gums with the previously mentioned needles—six times) and I no longer felt my teeth. (Or my lips, left cheek or tongue.)

It is an odd sensation, having something inside one of your teeth, and vibrating at high speeds. I felt no actual pain (that would come later), just the standard discomfort of having two people leaning over me while waving around tools that could also be considered weapons. Had my hands been strapped to the chair, the movie might have taken a darker turn.

Instead of that horror scenario, he wrapped up his exorcism with the professional grace and speed expected of a high class dentist (shaman.) and told me in the smiliest manner possible that he would see me again in three weeks. Of course, he had just made two hundred dollars (beyond the deductable) and had been the one holding the drill (and the lighter.)

In amendment to this article, I find it to be important to note, that my father, unknown to me, traveled to my very dentist (Shaman.) later that afternoon for his very own appointment. I'm not calling this a guarantee, but let's call it likely (Outside of Mayberry, NC.) that my father and I are the first father son combo to get a root canal (Endodontic therapy.) on the same day, by the same dentist, (And Dental Assistant.)in the same chair, (Presumably with the same, hopefully cleaned, tools. Including the lighter.)on the same (And I'm not kidding about this.) tooth. (Not exact same, for all of you literals out there, but rather, the same tooth position.)

Follow Dave's adventures in dentistry three weeks from now in: the Demon Tooth 2: The Crown

Hugs on Holidays, that !@$#'s Important!

2010-09-13T20:47:00.002-04:00

Sometimes you don't need the World to supply you with news. Sometimes it happens right on the home-front. Sadly, this is normally the type of news we want to avoid. Sure, this isn't always the case, there's the baby news, getting married news, the cousin won the Lottery (but probably won't share, because you're like barely first cousins.) news and such. OK. So to be fair, news is balanced. However, this weekends news was of the variety none of us wanted to receive, but weren't particularly surprised when we got. Great Grandma Vera had passed on.

No on is upset about her death. Not in the traditional sense. We'll miss her, and the one's who knew her best (my grandmother, mother...etc) they'll think of her quite often, sometimes fondly, sometimes not. But me? All I remember are hugs at Christmas (Which always leads directly into thoughts about fruit cake, which I still haven't the slightest idea to why, exactly, it's called fruit cake. Is there actually any fruit in it? Debatable.) and the occasional phone call. (To my mother. I was like 10 and probably even more annoying to talk to than I am now. Have your doubts? Lose them.)

So today, rather than taking my normal 10 minute trek to the bookstore, I huddled into the car with my father, mother and little sister, and buckled in for the two and a half hour journey to Jacksonville, where my grandmother lived most, if not all, of her life.

I have no interest in the Jacksonville area. it's home to a football team I've never really liked, a girl I'm crazy about, and a smell that I can't quite comprehend, (I'm told it's a pulp factory? I'm not even sure what that phrase means.) but it's definitely not my place.

Funerals have always freaked me out. And not for the standard reasons. I don't mind death. I've understood, or believed (People get so upset when you say things with clarity and confidence. Well, if they say something different the same way, that is.) that death isn't really that big of a deal to the deathee. My great grandmother doesn't (More than likely.) care that we showed up to watch her interred. She might have appreciated the thought before hand...but, in general (I hope we can all agree.) funerals are for those left behind. They're chances to say good bye and chances to get some closure, or at least the illusion of it.

I didn't really know what to say goodbye to. Grandma Vera was 98. I hadn't seen her for years, and even then, she just sat on the couch and chatted, very, very slowly, with my grandmother and the other adults. To me she had always been hard evidence that people, do in fact, get old, (A fact that, if you looked at my mother and her sisters, you may deny.) with the comfort in knowing it won't be anytime soon. She was someone to hug and say "I love you" to for vague reasons and familial propriety. (That doesn't make the love any less true, but maybe a tad less meaningful.)

So I said goodbye to a woman I barely knew, but still loved. I chatted with family members that I had forgotten I had, and tried to be a comfort to my grandmother, who has been much more than someone to hug on Christmas.

But, to say that this funeral was bland or smooth would be a lie. First, it's Florida. And for those of you who don't know, Florida doesn't have seasons. Rather, it has a State of Being. And that State of Being is "Muggy." (If you live in Miami it's "Muggy & Mugged." A two for one deal if there ever was one.) In the vein of all great lineman (That's an overweight athlete, for those of us who haven't turned on their TV's in the fall, ever.) I sweated so profusely that I'm pretty sure I have to burn the shirt I was wearing.

I got to walk around a cemetery, which was a solid mix between incredibly interesting and terrifying creepy. Every time a cloud passed overhead I expected the zombie horde to come screaming out, and every time the Sun glared off a windshield or someone's glasses I expected Steven Seagal to jump out from behind one of the headstones, guns blazing. Of course, none of these things happened. (But what if they had? What if they had?) Rather, we had the oldest living women I've ever met, fall--in what seemed like slow-motion. Miraculously she managed to land in one of two spots in the entire area that didn't have a headstone or plot marker, and was relatively unscathed. (She was damn sure she had ruined the whole funeral, we'd probably have to start over.)

To make that situation worse, her daughter was not entirely in the know about what we'll call "common cemetery protocol." Well, neither was the Old Woman herself, but if she wasn't 100, she was fast approaching it, she can be forgiven. The plot where my great grand parents were buried is right by her neighbors plots (the Old Woman's husband had already gone on.) Apparently, a salesman had gotten the bright idea to go door to door selling the "doorway to Heaven." (Yeah, I just went "Salesman Speak" on you.) He must have made a, pardon the pun, killing on my Grandmother's block.

This woman, Kitty, I believe, decided she would look for her future resting place. I can't imagine why anyone would want to see this. Ever. I understand it needs to be done. Buy the plot, put money aside for your funeral, be responsible to those you leave behind. But, isn't that something you do, and then never talk about again ever? I thought that's why parents had children Today. Cheap labor and someone to take care of all of their stuff when they finally (Don't read into this Mom and Dad.) pass on. Kitty's daughter, no shame in her game, was doggedly determined to show her mother where her husband had been buried. (*TAP TAP TAP* "Mom! I'm hitting Daddy! I'm hitting Daddy!") And her mother, bless her, looked at her husband's grave marker and said "Oh look! There's my spot." (While she stood, literally on top of, her future grave.) Before she plodded her way back to her daughter's car.

I wasn't sure how to handle the situation. Until I locked eyes with my cousin and aunt, who had been staring at me, waiting, knowing that when I looked over, I wouldn't be able to hold it any longer. Suffice it to say I found a very good reason to be somewhere else. Quick, fast and in a hurry. (Admittedly, the two women probably would have laughed too. They wouldn't really comprehend they "why" of it all. But damn it, they'd be laughing.)

I won't get into the ride home because, who wants to hear that stuff? Much less be forced to read about it? (A lumber truck rolled over on the high way and it took us like an hour to get by. Ha!)

I think the real message here, at least that I want to understand for myself, is this: Our time on this planet is limited. Believe it or not. It's hard to cherish every moment with those you love, (Hell, it's hard to cherish even a few of those moments, sometimes.) and it's hard to look at life with a consistently positive attitude. But, life shouldn't be something that you "struggle on" with. Something you "push through." Take your time. Enjoy it. Make sure you have people in your life that you get to hug on holidays. Make sure you can say "I love you" to them for more than the childlike fear of getting popped by your mother, or because you know you should. I'm not saying do this: http://xkcd.com/791/, but you totally should.