quick thoughts

if i had access to all of the internets while at work, i'd spend my days playing this game.

also, yesterday was the 24th centennial recognition of Holly's birth. Should you see her, be sure to nod approvingly at her continuing ability to not die.

Everyone seems to be fellating the new Batman movie. I hope to see it soon, so that i too can rave, but i'll probably see that new zombie movie instead. Damn i loves me some zombies.

Yesterday Rob and I went mountain biking (though we couldn't find any mountains). 4 or 6 miles into a 13 mile loop (read: farthest from our cars as possible), Rob's chain decided life was hard and gave up. We flagged down a rider-by who happened to have a chain breaker, and proceeded to break that poor man's hand tool, just before fully reassembling the chain. He told us to keep the corpse of a breaker as he rode off. We limped the bike to the next check point that happened to be near a beach with several pleasure boaters; Rob swam out to the nearest vessel while i frolicked on the beach. The boaters were not inclined to deliver us to the nearest port but the water was quite nice. It was clear the chain wouldn't hold up on the pseudo mountains and we had to find a flatter route home. We had zero thinking beers on hand but a fire trail presented itself which we were able to follow to a lovely dirt road. It, inevitably led to a second dirt road featuring an old man in a van, who would ultimately direct us towards pavement and the trail head. Several road miles later on thick-tired mountain bikes (the old man claimed 7.5 miles with an preciseness that demanded respect) we were back to our cars and none worse for the wear.

I think i'm going to buy a bike repair multi-tool.

reality makes a house call

Two days down at the ol' office, several hundred thousand to go.

I've spent the majority of my first two days rearranging an empty cubical and reading mindless and repetitive technical data. I have a computer and phone, but no one needs/calls me and my login account isn't active, making me and it 100% useless. In fact, about the only thing i've engineered in the last few days was a lunch.

i forgot to mention

but another old building dies in detroit because there's no reason for anyone to try to invest in rebuilding this place. Sniff you later Madison Hotel. Sniff you later forever.






Sorry about the size, but you really need the detail

for nick

i talked to the home-boys at DC. Told 'em what you said. It seemed to work.

http://money.cnn.com/2005/06/13/Autos/funonwheels/dodge_challenger/index.htm

careful

http://history.cookiethievery.com/071904/

http://history.cookiethievery.com/040504/

they might blow up your mind

a long time coming

Pistons in 3

that's right, Detroit will require only 3 games to win the best of 7 championship series against the Spurs.

If you're a self proclaimed home team fan, you HAVE to have faith that they will win and you gotta stand by it. This is doubly true for Detroit. The whole success of the Pistons is based on winning games they should never win with players that should never be good enough. And here we are again, and people are back at it with the "i don't know, sure they made it this far, but i think their luck is about to run out." type shit. Remember when the national professional sports analysts were hoping for just one win out of detroit against LA, to in their words "keep the series interesting?" And those folks that will commit to predicting a victory? They always have to attach some BS rider like "no way they take two in San Antonio" or "I heard Duncan is a robot and they're upgrading his battery pack." (side note: Tim Duncan IS in fact a robot, but is limited forever to his first issue components.)

Fuck 'em. I say Detroit sweeps. Ben Wallace EATS Tim Duncan at half court. And Darko Milicic (Or "the DMC" as we call him) will score a triple double... Twice.

just killing time

an informal collection of data reveals, the two most frequent searches that bring people to this page: "Son of Jor El" and "fuckthesouth.com"

(i had to check the data archives to reveal the perpetrator of "iMac'd my RAM all over her face." I mean, how can you put an integrated circuit on a woman's face? and how can the imac be the verb through which you did this? Anyway, that person is out of the will... JIM)

-C

yeah it's got a Hemi

while Chest is at the gym, i'll be working on my robot suit.

this is how Batman defeated Superman, you know...

must make entry before booze over takes senses...

hey. how 'bout that new imac?

i turned up the ram 200% in this sexy mutha, so now i can edit 10 photos and do all the associated web crap at the same time and it's smoof like butter. (this picture is PRE-ram added.) Incidently, Holly says "hi." At least she did say hi a few nights back when these photos were taken. It's never a good idea to try to maximize your ram-ness when there's a women looking to be paid attention to.



I present you all now with this fine opportunity to flood the comments page with "that's what she said..." and "i gave her..." type remarks.

how 'bout

them pistons?

in other news...

The Piston beat the fuck out of Miami last night. You tell 'em 'Sheed....



Rasheed Wallace deserves an apology from the NBA for the officiating in game 5. Easily the worst called game i've ever seen, and very much a hot national topic after the dust had settled. An apology you ask? Well, turns out they fined him $20,000 instead for what they consider was him starting a conspiracy theory about the NBA. To the press, after commenting about how he "Had to put up with extra help they had out there," (referring to the refs being on Miami's team), he was asked if they would win game 6. I don't have the exact quote (the media world is very much not repeating it. anywhere.) But it went something to the effect of "We'll win game six because the league will send some good guys down there to help us out. They (the league) want there to be a Game 7."

I'll sign your hat

last night the strugglers convened at Comerica Park for a Tiger's game. The short version of this story is, we were sitting next to some quasi-famous athlete and these little leaguer's in front of us were lining up to get there hat's signed by him. Drunk and riding high, i stood up and proclaimed "Hey, I'm an engineer; I'll sign your hats.... I work for Chrysler." At least two kids fell for this and even went as far to search out a pen for me. My housemate claims the parent's eyes lit up with that "ohh, positive roll model!" stare of hope.

"wipe away the failure's frown"

Right. Before i get to it, just let me say this.

So yes, although I've been in way too much of a drunken stupor the last two days to report the following, i have officially been offered an electrical engineering position at Diamler Chrysler Corporation in their battery engineer group. (You can read the initial leaks here and here.)

This group is responsible for all battery (and associated technology) engineering/packaging/releasing/quality tracking for the Chrysler group. Though not terribly exciting, people from this department tend to move onto the HEV (Hybrid Electric Vehicle) Group and that, my friends, would pretty much be a life dream realized. (the trunk monkey division of DC (if you don't know what i'm talking about, you should have watched the video at top) was not hiring due to the spectacular failures realized after cold day's of Detroit's last winter).

My emotions of late have run a gamut, but i can't deny the overwhelming wave of self pride. I try to avoid lengthy reflections here, but since graduation in Dec '02, i feel like i've had my ass kicked by life. But you know what, i didn't tap out (well, i may have tried a few times, but i always ended up back in the five-sided-fistagon) and i'll admit i've tended to be a mopey, alcoholic son-of-bitch lately, but i reversed that shitty hold life had on me and i stabbed that muther fucker "fate" in the face with my rusty boot knife.

[makes stabbing motion to accentuate point]

But i digress. I turned a 6 month period of unemployment into a job selling websites (designed by coke-heads) to businesses that didn't need them. I flipped that into a job in a factory that eerily resembled a scene from "8-mile." Desperate, I pulled some strings and scammed a job setting tee-times for rich fuckers that couldn't golf to save their drunken, hollow lives. With the change in seasons, I sold suites, until i stumbled ass-wards into a job driving a van. I accumulated these jokes (with a little help from my friends) into a resume that read like a well written dirty novel; juicy, verbose and always giving the reader exactly what they wanted in the end. And then i sold it to the Germans.

But even with the pride of finally being able to tell my folks that "yes, i have a real job now," There's a funny subtleness that i fear is lost and never want to forget. Alas; the struggle was not in vein. I never would have appreciated this new job a fraction as much had I scored it straight out of college. Likewise, I would never have had the humility that can only be gained by being a part of the working class. I mean seriously fucking living the life everyday and not just some stupid summer job. And finally i never would have met some real important people.

No longer struggling, but still representing,
-C

"unmolested"

I was never too impressed with the new NIN single, Bite the Hand that Feeds, until now.

links!

ever want proof that a six-shooter is a poor choice for zombie protection?

play this game .

guess that's it for the "links" promised in the title. screw it, i'm tired.

nerds

if you have any experience with "online gaming" you'll appreciate the hell out of this slightly large video of a some live gaming action.

LEEROY!

i don't know a damned thing about world of warcraft, but i know funny.

if i hit the switch i can make the ass drop

I have another interview with one of the big three this week for an engineering position. I don't know how i came to be so obsessed with cars and the auto industry, but i'm pretty sure i will not be happy until i've weaseled my way into a position that allows me to completely surround myself with cars, specifically their design. I think it might have a direct correlation with the habit of always looking for used cars of interest when i'm out; who else would just *happen* to know that there's a '97 bmw 850r with 11,000 miles for sale, askin $4700 O.B.O. (blue book retail 6500, i could work him down to $4300) just down the road from a cherry 1989 Cadillac Brougham with a mere 101,000 miles for $3400. That car ain't even broken in.

Here's a few stories that make my point... my senior year of college a bunch of companies were in town for the career fair recruiting and they had their respective products on display on campus. Caterpillar for example had heavy equipment to show and GM, among other cars had their newly released Hummer H2 on proud display. On my way to class i was distracted by this beast and had to stop to catch a gander. As I'm squatting down behind this thing, inspecting the underbody, some fellow comes up and starts small talk about the new truck. "Pretty impressive," he begins, opening the door to my ranting. "I don't know, i'm not too impressed with the ground clearance. That rear axle looks like it was ripped off a suburban." He pauses to take this in for a moment, while i continue "those foot steps would hang up pretty easy, i figure..." Well. as it turns out, he was the guy who designed that axle... surprisingly, i didn't get a job with GM that year. Or ever after.

Fast forward to three weeks ago. the most exiting event of the week was when i was passed by an EV-1 going east bound on I-696. two things kept me up for three nights after this event. First of all, the EV-1 was an electric vehicle leased only by GM to an exclusive group of customers in predominately warm, southern states. This little electric bitch, toted by the majority of the press "too little too early" passed me going about 80. The second thing is, these little guys made big news a few months ago when they were all crushed while celebrity protesters stood by. Well, there's a least one left and it's terrorizing work vans in detroit.

nerd out,
Curt

the funny

a guy walks into his bed room one night while his wife is lying there in bed, and under the guys arm is a sheep. The guy looks up and says, "You see dear, this is the pig i'm fucking when you're not around." The wife is a little shocked at this, but has the sense to realize something's wrong and replies "That's not a pig, that's a sheep..."

The guy says "I wasn't talking to you."

show me your light sabor

now that i've seen the new Starwars movie, i feel i should fulfill my roll as internet blogger and offer a review of the flick.

(warning, some spoiling may ensue)

The Bad: Not every fuckin sentence uttered by Yoda was meant to be delivered in reverse prose. Fuck, man, it was like my brain wanted to explode every time Yoda opened his mouth. Furthering the perversion, the computer generated Yoda simply does not look right. Not even close.

The Good: A return to the roots of sexy spaceships in action packed, sci-fi-tastic battles. Don't get it twisted, this was no Hoth battle scene... but the opening sequence was pretty good.

The Bad: Why is everything so cleanly computer generated? The whole fucking universe is shinier than Samuel Jackson's freshly waxed dome. I miss the dark sets; the grimy X-wings with blaster marks, the dingy Millennium Falcon's interior and dirty cross-dressing bars where Solo hung out.

The Good: over all, this movie kicked the first two right in the jimmy. Lucas should have made only this last one, since it's really the one part of the story that relates directly to the other three. Screw those other two.

For a good review that makes mine look like it was written by 3rd graders with head traumas, check out this piece by the New Yorker.

length for no particular reason other than boredom

I spent the other day working in a medium sized office building in downtown detroit. My coworker "e" (previously mentioned in a few entries here) said he used to work at an electro-plating plant just a few blocks away. It was his first job here when he first moved to the detroit area four years ago. If you're not familiar with the electro-plating process, it involves dipping metal components into various acid and chemical bathes, and then running high voltages through the liquid to form a chemical plating over the metal. Basically, think chrome. It's not a very pleasant process to be around, and any undesirable manufacturing process is magnified in suckitude when it's taking place in a dilapidated factory in Detroit's industrial section. Ed (or Easy-E as i like to call him) began telling stories of when the acid tended splash on his arms because the rubber gloves were so short and how certain chemicals would "make him high" because he had only a filter to protect him from the fumes and not a respirator. Easy Said he was commissioned with cutting up the empty 55 gallon chemical drums, which often had residual liquids in them, for easier disposal. Furthermore, he claimed his fellow workers, "the big black guys," would take his lunch and often made fun of his size and speech. The whole experience came to a head one particular evening when his ride home failed to materialize. See, Easy worked the evening shift. or the day shift. or both if they told him to. And on this particular early morning as he got out of work, he said in his broken english, he was forced to make his way to the bus stop to try to get home. Before he made it, a large women approached him and tried very persistently to sell him her body or some crack. (imagine poor ed now, trying dearly to accurately represent the deep voice of this immense women, in his own broken style of speech, "Hey you want buy my pussy?" he said while grabbing his crotch.) Easy-E fled from the women and took refuge in the most well lit area he could. it just so happened that his ride, the brother in law, did show up and edwin was safe for another night.

trying to digest the story i had just heard, while simultaneously dragging out the day's assignment to a full 8 hours, i made my way down to the parking garage for a bit of a wonder. The building housed mostly law firms so the garage attendant was also the valet. It was afternoon now and the morning rush had given way to the lull until the afternoon rush. It was one of the first warm days of spring and I found the attendant just outside the entrance to the garage, leaning back in an old chair, absorbing the sun's rays. He kept referring to it as "being on the beach" INitially i assumed he was making conversation, lamenting what a pleasure it would be to actually be sitting on a warm beach at that particular moment. but as he continued, i realized he really did believe (or at least imagine) he was sitting on a beach. He didn't go to and from the guard booth to park or retrieve cars, he walked to and fro the beech. Likewise, he admired the birds picking crumbs, sparrows i think they were, and how with a little squinting, you could see the long beaks and colorful feathers they flaunted. yes... the feathers... i think i'll enjoy my stay at the beach.

hmmmmm

at some point during the Detroit Tiger's game last night, probably around beer 6 or 7, Jon's women initiated a fresh conversation thread: She turned to me and with the straightest of face, asked "what if you had to choose between a fat, tight chick, or a super hot chick that was blown out?"

Damn. i need another beer. (merry cinco de mayo)

i see...

we don't need the taco jon's monkey to tell us it's not supposed to snow in May. not ever. especially not two days in a row.

well, you know what they say: april snow bring may snow.

"first i took away his weapon; both of them."

i learned four things in Wisconsin this past weekend.

1) shooting guns is fun.
2) sin city is possibly the best movie ever made.
3) a slipknot show is likely the most hard rocking experience i'll ever have.
4) there's some crazy stuff that goes down in a Bristol, WI gentleman's club.

sensory over load...

wonder boy

so yeah. this is the bat that paid the price of my emotional tsunami. damn i loved that bat. in fact, it has a little history behind it. The Hulkster (my bro) first used this stick in early 90's beer league softball matches. left behind at my folks house, i took her under my wing and started keeping it in the trunk of the Dodge Dynasty for protection in the mean street of the S-Gate! werd. escaping several intense, action-filled years in the burbs (without seeing any non-passtime action) it spent a few years in dry dock while i wasted my time and money at an institution of higher learning. (the effects of that last job interview are obviously still being felt) Anyway, now that i live near a batting-range, the old girl came off the bench and had a new found exposure, explaining how my recent roommate and exploding electronic music DJ, rob felt the serene pull of bashing helpless goods and found the black bat was the perfect tool for "playing out" shitty CDs. this particular happening became a popular and now folklore-ish event at one of the shows that would be a stepping stone to his now world-famous status, seen here.
Once rob had blown fully up, he was able to move on and leave the bat and I to our devices, which mostly consisted of devastating high speed, little yellow balls (20 pitches for $1.50, up a quarter from last year). That was, until furry and alcohol took my strength to a superhuman level, and the little bat that could, did no longer.

my failure is complete

as promised, i got the call today regarding the second interview at chrysler. i came in second. again. i didn't dare mention it at the time, but the guy i interviewed with made it seem like it was a sure thing that i would be hired. he joked about "can you start today?" and said the whole thing went really well. well, apparently some dude showed up who had already worked for chrysler in the past and then quit to go back to school. guess who got the gig. The interviewer said he would have preferred hire me for the long term, but this candidate was a better short term solution.

thanks. that makes me feel much better. makes me totally forget that in the end the whole thing was waste of my fucking time AGAIN, because no matter what i said or how well i hit it off, some fuck walks in with a brown tie and monosyllabic vocabulary, but he has experience at this company, so now this "entry level" position goes to him. what a joke. of course I'm left with the comfort of the bullshit fed to me for an hour about how "we have no problem hiring someone without automotive experience" and "this is the perfect entry level position for you."

fuck that.

the bullshit roller coster continues with the staffing agency now. "we haven't given up on you and we think you're a really great candidate." "I'm sure we'll get you something..." What comes next is either the best part or the worst part... which is more interviews, more time off work, more smiles and more bullshit small talk, which inevitably becomes more forced with each failure at bat. If i'm lucky.

today i drowned myself in booze, BBQ and the batting cages... which was either a really good idea or really bad idea as i shattered an aluminum bat with a well connected line drive.

if only i could smash myself into the job market with my bat. i need a god damned beer.

the reality

things that already exist. in my mind.

housemate and i are throwing ideas to compete in this.

it involves a lot of bicycles being sacrificed and the insertion multiple pulley systems and a honkin fly-wheel. (the last of which may or may not be jettisoned at some point during the ace with explosive bolts.

i need a welder.

okay

a less dramatic post.

the old familiar sting

*i hurt myself today*

got another interview tomorrow

*to see if i still feel*

same company as last time, different position

*i focus on the pain*

gonna have to call off work AGAIN

*the only thing that's real*

should i fail to achieve my goal, i move a step closer to inadvertently liberating myself from current source of income

gizmo understands me

full paralysis would almost be worth it.

almost.

(watch the movie)

fuck the fuckers

"it seems pretty strange to me that they'd act so positively about me on the day of the interview and then just break off all contact... "

"sometimes this happens; maybe he got too busy. Maybe they decided not to hire anyone. Then again, our computer still shows the position as open."

"this is ridiculous. He promised an answer that day. Then again on Monday."

"well, they are still our client so we don't want to bug them too much about it."

"so i guess i won't be holding my breath anymore waiting to hear an answer?"

"that's probably best."

data

well, time to prove to the world that i really should be an engineer.

In my quest to better understand these "humans," i've been collecting a well of data. first, i would like to show sophist blog attendance since i started crying like a 12 year old bitch with a skinned knee about my failures at life. with site hits blowing up in the past 4 days (and not even mentioning page hits) i can confidently say it's jumping off over here.

I'm thinking of finally dropping my amateur status and going pro. I suppose the alternative is you sick fuckers just really like to see me squirm and can't get enough of the human drama that is the Dudley St...

here's the fun numbers: My housemate Jon and I (Jon's idea) decided to measure the muzzle velocity of the $4 and $8 dollar air soft guns we bought at the dirt mall. (we needed to explain, scientifically, why the $8 versions were leaving holes in the blinds and dents in the walls) Using a measured distance down the main hall of the house, we set up a microphone and recorded the pop of the gun firing and also the sound of the BB ricocheting off our front door. Disregarding the time it took for the sound to travel back from the door (at just under 200 inches and 70 degrees, it was a mere 0.00203 seconds or something between 0.5% and 1% of the total BB travel time) we used the PC to measure the time the BB took to travel and merely divided it by the distance traveled. There's no pretty graphs here, but for extra credit you can produce the graphs yourself and turn them in. Here's the numbers:


Analysis: The colts (Chest and Notorious' pieces, as well) cost an amazingly low dirt mall price of $4 and produced a fairly decent shot. However, for a few more bucks, you can wreck some shit... or in Becca's case, get an obviously sub-standard mechanism. Also note, that Jon's Glock failed early in it's life, losing a few (what we thought were) useless pieces. Turns out those cracks were very detrimental to it's performance compared to a fully operational version.

Conclusion: if you piss me off, i will pummel you with 80 mph plastic death. Also, watch out for the little woman with the big gun.

if the world had an enema, this is where they'd put the tube

staffing company called. seems the dude i interviewed with at DC (diamler-chrysler) has fallen off the earth without letting anyone know who he picked for the job.

they claim, "you are still (i was before?) the leading candidate."

i swear if i get this job i'm taking everyone to the bar.

speaker for the dead

can't sleep. too much anxiety over tomorrow's decision about the job. though, i suspect the decision is already made, and i await only it's announcement.

too easy to wonder what mental state is most likely to please the gods and grant me my wish. a pendular sine wave of hopefulness and doubt play itself out in an overly analytical mind. i don't dare fantasize about how the events of life would unfold should i become an engineer for Chrysler... but sometimes in moments of weakness, i find myself imagining how i might go about giving resignation to a job i despise or what i could accomplish when finally awarded a chance to flex my engineering muscles. that has been my moment as a whiney bitch for the day.

all this lack of sleep has allowed me to chew up the first real book i've read in about 6 months: Ender's Game. Highly recommend. damn those buggers.

FYI: housemate snoring quite loud and odd sounding. will not investigate further.

status report from the western front

While I patiently await a decision by chrysler, I should update the situation with punks in the neighbor hood; But first, PREVIOUSLY ON THE DUDLEY: The house across the street seems to be the source of greatest strife and i understand there are three brothers and a mother that live there. The eldest brother, who is approximately my age was a pretty alright guy who we on the dudley used to hang with quite a bit at the local drinkery. Unfortunately, he moved away, leaving the remaining brother to play hell with the neighborhood; one in high school and one in middle school. Now, we also have a kid that lives next door to us that is approximately the same age as the youngest brother across the street. They're not exactly friends, but the kid next door does seem to enjoy putting himself in a position where the other kid can deliver a severe beating in front of the rest of the neighborhood. The kid next door, however, is a good source for info on the goings on of the other houses.

a few nights ago around midnight, the Dudley St. blew up when Jon Law and his friends Mr. Fire Rescue and Mr. Ambulance rolled on the house across the street from us. It was pretty hard to tell what exactly was going on, (damn i wish i had some kind of device that could magnify from a distance...) but there was a lot of PO-lice and a lot of Ballahs and least one dude took a trip downtown. The folks on the block, tho as biased as us against the local teenagers, don't ever really know what the score is in their own hood and couldn't tell us what went down that night. Luckily, we at the Struggle know two key people; a teacher at the high school AND the 911 dispatch operator for our city. The teacher claims there was a kid in this area bragging about how many local homes he had broken into and suspected that maybe he Finley got taken down. The 911 operator was going to look into the incident and that report is pending.

so yeah... time to get heated up.

so thirsty...

a man and a job. it's an arrangement of tremendous insignificance in the great cluster-fuck that is the universe. who cares if Applicant-Unit A is hired or if Applicant-Unit B is hired? the position will be filled either way, and the cogs of the machine will continue turning. then again, if you're Applicant-Unit B, and that fucker Unit A gets the gig, you've lost face once again before Unit B family and friends. Desperate and without hope, Unit B takes to a life of booze and floozies, never realizing his full potential as a widget validation engineer. Meanwhile, that son of a bitch Applicant-Unit A is warm, happy and well insured for full medical, dental and vision. He loses touch with his roots and forgets the common place turmoil of just a few years ago. That's why he's never even suspects that the knife-wielding Applicant-Unit B is sneaking up behind him.

*sneak, sneak, sneak"... STAB!
(that visual stolen from here.)

coming off yesterday's high, induced from what i must admit was a pretty decent interview for me, i've entered the "this is what i should have done better and not doing so is why i will not get the job" phase of the waiting process.

additionally, i'm a little hung over.

housemate jon lent me Ender's Game to read. It shall help as the dehydration and desperation pass.

it takes my pain away

First, there's been an explosion of activity on my street lately. it all started when I woke up one morning and the side mirror of my work van had been quite efficiently smashed off. Though easily repaired, I was concerned for the possibility of future events and started poking my nose around the hood. Turns out the pickup down the street ALSO lost a mirror, and a ford focus one street down was rear ended one evening a few nights later, and the assailant drove off. More data collection revealed that our next door neighbor has some expensive gear ripped off from his garage a few months back.

Now, info up to now has been factual... essentially; here comes the biased stuff: We live one block from a local high school (with a fine reputation for producing losers) and there's some punk-ass teenagers that live across the street with what would seem to be an absence of supervision. (Do I sound old yet?) Combined, the neighbor kids and the local high schoolers are always wandering around our house, since the kids across the street seem to attract the best of the local element. These kids are "teenage punks" in the purest sense; they walk by our house in groups of 4 or more, 37 times per trip around the earth's axis and spend the remaining 14 hours of the day on the porch directly across from us, sitting in darkness and talking trash. They (now we're talking the neighbor's AND the other local roustabouts) are always rolling deep and frontin' hard, with their stupid hooded shirts and what not. And then there's the trash talk; i thought only in movies did people walk down a street and yell sexual innuendoes, physical appearance assessments and invitations to fornicate at passer-byes. I was wrong.

Once an obvious enemy had been established (the punks) and a perimeter defined (our property) we had the workings of a battle plan. So last week we drew it up.




It's pretty straight forward; your red indicates your threats and their potential movements into our positions. The work van represents our already weakened forward defensive positions, while our allies and potential allies are outlined along with whatever data we had or happen to drunkly think we had.

we've already had updates with this situation, so watch for those later. The reason i had time to type all this crap up today is because i called off work and took a sick day. I did this, not because i was sick (unless you're reading this and you're a coworker, in which case everything that follows now is the OPPOSITE of the truth) but because i had a job interview with Chrysler's Truck Engineering facility in Detroit. I tend not to discuss the workings of things like this until a clear conclusion has been established, but this particular job is pretty noteworthy. It's not that I'm superstitious, but i do believe firmly that should the powers of the universe happen to look up and realize I'm excited about something (especially a prospective job) those powers will snatch it away faster than you can say "what a fucking waste of four and a half years and $50,000." But fuck it, most everyone knows about this one anyway. The deal was this; the guy was interviewing two candidates today and had already interviewed two others. A staffing co. set this up, so those lucky bastards have multiple candidates for the same position. Think about this; they're standing there wishing me luck and shaking my hand and filling me with their BS, while they're ALSO the bastards supplying my competition. Fuckers. Anyway, the interviewer is leaving for Mexico Monday and had to make a decision TODAY. "Awesome," i say, "an interview with clear and prompt resolution." Now, most of you can probably figure out that i've been trying to break into the auto industry for about, oh, three years now unsuccessfully... This is the perfect job; open to those with no experience with the auto companies, dealing with prototype cars and trouble shooting the issues there in and very closely related to exactly what i do now (i.e. have experience with). I'm so into this job i could puke. More so than any before it. The rub is, instead of getting an answer today, the interviewer decided to postpone his decision until monday, and indicated only that i was one of three candidates still in the running. So now i'm screwed... the powers know full well that i would kill somebody in front of they own momma for this position and it's inevitable that they snatch it away. I'm not going to sugar coat it... I hate my job, and the idea of going back to it monday after having spent the morning at Chrysler and seeing the "green pastures" of the promise land is unbearable. Here's to irony, chance, karma, luck, retribution and coincidence.

you did what?

two news items of interest today.

the first teaches us that you should never be worth more dead than alive. oh, and don't try to out smart angry thugs.

the second reveals how stupid people look when they try understand "the internets."

is it the bunny-carcass shape that makes easter chocolate taste so good?

*blink*

i wish my blog was this funny.

shut your man pleaser for 7 seconds...

boy... this blog thing really fizzled the last few weeks. i blame my renewed vigor to find an engineering job, a recently purchased copy of Unreal Tournament 2 (Son of Unreal Tournament), and warming weather which is teasing me to that sexy mistress mother nature. in fact, i haven't even been surfing with the regularity of past.

speaking of the outdoors, anyone every consider getting in a group and renting an RV on Water? Sounds like good, clean, drunken fun with lots of swimming, drinking, cliff diving and piloting of large, cumbersome vehicles, if you've ever spoken to someone who's done it. think about it... twenty aught six.

time for retribution

much to report..

1). Unreal Tournament 2004 (for Mac) is Bad-Ass. I can almost feel the next 3 months of my life slipping away.

2). An open (and brief) letter to the person who took a bat to my van's side-rear-view mirror: If i find you, I will smash you. Even as you're looking up from the pavement through bloodied eyes, begging for forgiveness, still i will feel nothing.

3). I've decided to buy this bike. If my paycheck had made it to my bank account at 4:30pm today, as it was supposed to, i would have already put the chips down on this bad bitch. Anyone up for a ride? Down a cliff?

4). I've seen a furry of stats and graphs that suggest site attendance here at the sophist's playhouse is way down this month, so tell your friends to stop in and say "howdy."

too much booze...

make homer "something," "something..."


http://www.jimwirt.com/coloringweb/COLORINGBOOK.htm


...lethargic?

where's the booze?

i bailed out of work early today (well, actually, they assumed i would want to leave and get drunk without me even asking... odd) and it's that magically-drunk day of the year, so i figured i'd help all ya'll with a few jokes, anecdotes and toasts you can use this evening.

disclaimer: i guarantee these are funnier when you're drunk


**************************
"Here's to all the kisses we've snatched...and vice versa!"

**************************
"Here's to panties; they're not the bet thing in the world, but they're close to it."

**************************
What do Pink Floyd, Berlin and Dale Earnhardt have in common? Their last hit was a wall.

**************************
(drunk version)
"Here's to honor; If you can't cum in her, cum honor"

(sober version)
"She offered her honor 
He honored her offer 
And all night long, it was 
On her, off her, on her, off her"


**************************
An Irishman is never drunk as long as
He can hold onto one blade of grass and not
Fall off the face of the earth.

**************************
Some Guinness was spilt on the barroom floor
When the pub was shut for the night.
When out of his hole crept a wee brown mouse
And stood in the pale moonlight.

He lapped up the frothy foam from the floor
Then back on his haunches he sat.
And all night long, you could hear the mouse roar,
"Bring on the goddamn cat!"

**************************
In heaven there is no beer
that's why we drink it here
and when we're gone from here
our friends will be drinking all the beer

**************************


and as if you needed another reason, you can always drink to make the people around you interesting.

wher are all the people?

The new coworker i've been training (whom we will call Edwin, because that is his name) continues to bring color to my day. Today he locked his keys in his car. If you've never seen a man with a think accent try to contact a lock smith over teh phone, you haven't lived, my poor little friend.

A few days back we were in Down Town Detroit. We were eating lunch at the Subway across from the Compuware building, gazing out out the window longing for a fulfilling career. Noticing that we were surrounded by ginormis office buildings, he asked me where all the people were. In case you've never been in detroit on a regular business day, it is easily the most desolate metropolis you will ever experience. The streets are always empty (and yet, strangely, there continues to be no available parking spots) while the mostly empty building loom over head. Edwin lamented that he had never sen a city like this, and even though he'd been in the area for 6 years, he was still not used to it. He could easily spot the queerness of a local detroiter; in his words, "everyone looks like they expect something bad to happen."

Later that day, in detroit, we were driving on the Lodge service drive and came across a smashed Chevy Suburban. The radiator fluid had all run out onto the road but had long since stopped steaming. There were no other cars on the one-way road, be them smashed or otherwise. I pulled around the wreck, have-way onto the curb and went around. Edwin, following me in his Mini-van (too new for a company truck) didn't even seem to notice the the car corpse.

he's fitting right in.


Oh yeah, Holy and I saw "Robots" tonight. It is, of course, now highly recommended. And I'm not just saying that because of the obvious robot presence.

here comes the meat wagon...

this story needs to be read. An incredible wealth of knowledge can be gained. Here's a few points...

1) everyone should carry a piece (preferably a .45 or larger)
2) it's not uncommon for people to have their face taken off
3) the primate revolution is at hand

try to spot the others and list them below.

spot me, twig-boy

jeez... i really got get back to the gym.

err, wait...i already did.

i was in the cut-off.

you can't miss me.

I hear there's rumors on the internets

it link time! (everyone get your green tights and pointy hat!)

i honestly had a conversation recently with a friend about this: he was commenting on how it takes a certain degree of effort to keep a long term relationship interesting. i guess he was right. That being the case, I'll be busy this weekend.

"The vendor who sold the cassava balls insisted nothing was wrong with them and ate a few to prove the point. Now she, too, is in critical condition." damn.

seriously, this right here may be only link in this post worth while. gotta love that soundtrack.



your mother.

are you down to put in some work?

the latest object of my inappropriately dispersed sexual desire...

i spent some time with an unruly VCR the other night. Does there exist a company that recognizes the potential of a person that can fix anything? not that it matters... i mean fuck, how do you make note on a professional resume that you have some degree of hands on experience with every consumer electronic product known to man? (while secretly harboring a desire to build kill bots?)

Leela: They say Zapp Brannigan single handedly saved the Octillion system from a horde of rampaging kill bots.
Fry: Wow!
Bender: A grim day for robotkind, eh, but we can always build more kill bots.

shit, all your conglome-crop types want is another cog for the machine. who wants a car designer when they can get some chump to spend 37 years refining the deign for bolt #3.45A?

I started training this new guy, Edwin, at work last tuesday. He's Philippine and although sports a large english vocabulary, is very difficult to converse with do to a thick accent and slow word recall function. He's probably in his late 30's and is super-plus eager to learn the ins of the "trade" i call my job. He's also surprisingly technically intuitive. I say surprising, i suppose, because of my own bias that assumes foreigners don't have electricity. How soon i forget about the Indian Hit Squad that stole my electrical engineering controls book. those fucks. Anyway, Edwin, he's an interesting character; maybe it's because i spend 90% of my time working alone and it's a new novelty to have a "apprentice." Either way, at first i assumed he was eager to work/learn as a result of some work ethic typically lost on your typical american... turns out he just hates being at home with the wife and kids. that bitch is ALWAYS nagging him to fix this or clean that... and he... he's like me. he just wants to think the big thoughts, you know. He confided in me an idea he once had for an invention that he's convinced could make him millions... if he could just get the damn thing built. He said he's never told anyone about it before, which made me feel ways about things. (i will now divulge that million dollar idea to the whole of the internet) Anwyay, I think he feels like he's wasting himself on this life, always comparing himself to me and my "Young, free, single lifestyle" he imagines i live. inevitable it all ends in a reference (in broken english mind you) to his wife, kids and boundless responsibilities. He once told me about the motorcycle he used to own and switched over to advice on how to pay for his kids college in the same breath.

damn, Edwin.

"I deal with the god damn customers so the engineers don't have to. I have people skills; I am good at dealing with people. Can't you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people?"

[seriously folks, i love cats. i'd have one if my housemate/land lord wasn't so damned allergic.]

The saying goes, "if you don't like the weather in michigan, wait a minute; it'll change." Although the variability of the weather has been a key topic of conversation since the first caveman needed to fill an awkward silence with his caveman brethren (probably a co-worker), it *is* a comfort knowing that here in michigan, change is guaranteed. Always in the future, just around the corner, a new season lurks. Something to yearn for, i would say; a prospect of new opportunity, even if it is merely a perceived event. What can i say? It excites me to think that in a few short weeks the entire backdrop of life will refashion itself.

There's another saying that i believe comes from Mark Twain (but i could be way off about the origins): "Everybody is talking about the weather, but nobody is doing anything about it."

Agreed.

[sigh]

buddies

damn i wish spring would hurry up and get here.

"there were no words back then for what she could do"

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

here comes the revolution

my housemate jon and I hit the dirt mall this morning.

pistol

price: $4.99 + tax
model: double eagle
style: single action
clip capacity: 8 rounds + 1
muzzle velocity: stings
accuracy: surprisingly high
housemates: time for retribution

now i am the master

when your time comes, will you be remembered by your creations?

dudley street, bitch, ain't a good place to wind up dead

i was reminiscing with my housemate jon about the wonderful geekiness of the TI-85 and it's psuedo-fortran programming language... so simple, so powerful and yet so intuitive. it reminded me of the time in 9th grade when stos and i wrote a program that would allow the user to "interact" with everyone's favorite violent anarchist, Mikail Bakunin. basically it would ask simply yes/no questions like "is the man oppressing you" and "have you killed a government agent today" and then recommend a course of action that would lead to a simpler, more pure existence. the point of this story follows: though you think fundamental russian anarchy is dead, it actually lives on forever in the hearts and minds of the school children.

speaking of the memory fountain, later that day, i was remembering a more recent event. some local high school chick that lives near my house told holly's mom (mother == teacher to the girl in question) "yeah, i think i've partied with that guy" in reference to me. (i'm still not sure how this conversation come up)

and now you know how i got my nick name.

-statutory Curt

i'm about to go coo coo and taste your cocoa puffs

tonight i saw million dollar baby with Clint "make my day" Eastwood. it was a damn fine flick. i can't get into the details without spoiling it, but boxing really has very little to do with the themes and ideas it explores. Morgan Freeman does a hell of a job and so does Clint (even if he isn't sporting a revolver of unimaginable calibor). this is one of those rear movies that begs you to explore the characters further while walking back the parking lot. i would recommend checking it out and try to avoid learning too much about the plot before hand. (be weary of spoilers in the ensuing comments page).

26 inch pythons

not that i feel i need to justify the hulkamania that ran wild on this page last night, but perhaps i can put it into context. a few nights back, holly and i hung out with some of her friends from high school at the local drinkery. now these three dudes were freshmen when she was a senior, so after consulting the internal book of preconceptions, i knew these fools would be know-nothing jaboni's. shit, how could they even be old enough to drink? next thing i know, these fools are running off at the mouth about the hulkster (the real one, not my brother), "hulking up" and doing bad arnold impersonations that simply consist of a generic eastern european accent repeating the tired phrase "get to the chopper..."

get to the chopper? those doppelganger bastards...

watch your backs, folks. the pod people are everywhere.

be a part of a winning team!

Did you know the Hulkster was the first wrestler to have music playing as he approached the ring?

(be sure to scroll ALL the way down)



you wanted the best.
you got the best.

speaking of boobs...

Holly gave me this card for Valentine's Day. (yes, folks, she's quite wonderful and quite taken so keep your damn hands to yourself) But It brings up an interesting point... why is it that boobs are like nature's "mind taker?" i can't help my unhealthy fixation... i'm surprised anything gets done around here at all. in fact, how is it that man, through-out all time has ever managed to accomplish anything with breasts just hanging about the place? i'm pretty sure they don't serve any purpose in the long-term survival of the species... but then again, neither does NASCAR. (no wonder i did so well in college) And, i guess like NASCAR, they just get the stupid folks into trouble. i don;t even know what that means. this whole rant is degrading fast... too many distractions.

must go... now

email your comments to boobies@inmymouth.com

ugh

[stares at blank text box for several minutes]

i'm never gonna drink again

that is all

this video makes me happy

remember becky?

got this in the mail today from becky. remember when i went to tech and lived with like 20 chicks? and then they'd get into pillow fights? naked? ...'member?

(judge this for yourself. i laughed at least once)

Twas the Night Before Carnival
By Aaron (Monkey) Richard

'Twas the night before Carnival, and all through the land
Not a student was smiling, no snow was at hand.
The grand month long statues all mighty and tall
Were all shrunk by the sun and looked stupid and small.

A lone senior looked on, a tear in his eye,
his Carnival looked lost, it would just pass him by
The snow was all melting, awash in the streets
Like a winters wet dream, absorbed by the sheets.

When from down 41 there arose such a clatter,
Like a big heavy log truck, but louder and madder.
"To Jim's" some one yelled and they all made a dash,
Leaving everything behind, except I.D.s and cash.

As the first student came, he shouted "What luck!"
For no one was parked there, but a red and white truck.
When up from the masses came a deafening cheer,
for this truck was special, this truck brought them beer.

The driver was not Santa, or a cute Easter Bunny,
Not even Curt Tompkins, though that would be funny.
Yes out stepped the driver, with a wink of his eye,
For everyone knew him, t'was the Budweiser Guy!!

Our Hero got out and he unlocked the locks;
for the cargo was beer and wine in a box.
In clear or dark bottles and in big kegs it came,
And as it rolled off the truck he called them by name.

Drink Molson, Drink Blatz, Drink sweet Lebatt Blue
Drink Killians, Drink Rolling Rock, drink all the best brew!
Take it back to your fraternities, take it back to your houses,
Take wine for the girls, to get your hands up their blouses!

The students drank hard all through the night;
Their speech was now slurred, they soon lost their sight.
They drank like huge rock stars with no bill to be paid;
The freshmen passed out, the coeds got laid.

This Carnival was awesome, it was way above par.
The students held down Jack Daniels, they held down PBR.
From distillers down in Dixie to brewers of the West;
This Carnival with no snow, this Carnival was best.

Our champion in his truck, lays down on the horn;
He's back on the road, just him, No-Doze and porn.
You could hear him exclaim, now that Carnival was over,
"Best wishes to all, and good luck getting sober!"

oh yeah...

apparently Holly spoke with Mr. T's voice mail today and it didn't have the words "pity" or "Fool" mentioned anywhere.

WHAT THE FUCK, T?

DIE PLASTIC FAT MAN!

the large garbage cans at my house love to fill up with water and become immobilized with mass. tonight, under the cover of fog and darkness, i plunged a rusty screw driver into that fuckin can again and again freeing the foul water, which streamed from it's innards like milk from the teat.

that single act was more satisfying than my entire day up to that point.

speaking of trash, why do some fuckers choose to take the form of another as soon as they claim a mate? i've known these jabronis longer than i haven't; i know the real you, you fool! are you kidding her? or yourself? some of these fools turn it on and off like a switch with each relationship, presumably until the inevitable wedding when the light burns out forever. on the list of the great tests (which is arbitrarily defined by me, based on the nights alcohol level) it ranks high to have a women that will not expect you to become a watered down version of yourself, or better yet, calls you out when you do.


Giddy Up

it's quiet. a little too quiet.

GIZOOGLE bitches! it's a novelty that will last at LEAST 10 minutes...

i hate my job, i hate my job, i hate my job, i hate this town.
i need a gun, I need a knife, I need a stick, it makes me frown.
i hate my job, i hear a noise, who's that lurking out of site?

what the?

oh NO!

the end?

granted reprieve by allah

Here's an interesting story from Friday. As i was driving down the expressway at astronomical speeds in my work van, i noticed a bit of lumber roughly 2/3 my body length eject gleefully from a garbage truck in front my me and navigate itself carefully towards my face.

well fuck. trying to swerve a full-size work van at high speeds is like trying to swerve a full-size work van at high speeds. Best i can tell, Vishnu strong-armed that bitch Shiva, so as that mighty wood would not smash my face, but instead ricochet off the hood, kick my antenna's ass and surf my roof to put the hurt on someone else. (the work van, apparently, forgot to pray to the god of busted-ass work vans)

This is the point in the story when i peed.

Regardless, i survived the incident with face and faith (in the mathematically unpredictable turbulent drag of an oblong-rotating stick of death) in tact.

praise you rotational inertia


Dr. Chestcrates sends us this first hand account of what's really going on outside your living room. don't trust whitey.

taste like nylon

there is no delicate way to eat a candy necklace.

doubly-plus true if someone else is wearing it.

A: a new last name

these stats just in from the Detroit Free Press:

Michigan:
Last in the Nation for Personal Income Growth
Last Nationwide in Employment Growth
Last in the National Index of Economic Momentum
Highest Unemployment in the Nation

no place to go but up, eh? am i right? yeah...

instead of a simple bar-blow-out drunken saturday night college bonanza, i had a dinner party last night, with plans for sophisticated adult fun at the local drinkeries afterwards. None of the guests seemed very interested in hanging around, so i was still home alone playing grand theft auto by midnight, drinking cervases (sp?) in the real world and killing hookers in the imaginary.

no place to go but up, eh? am i right? yeah...


Q: what's long an hard that polish woman gets on her wedding night?

the call of the wild

photography doesn't pay.

engineering don't want me.

it's all settled then.
(are you willing to do hardcore? yes... but no pee/skat)

random blogging is cool. you find random stuff like this.

wow

that you sasquatch?

Rogaine Works, Melts Skin!

I've returned to the ultimate frisbee field, joining an indoor winter league. I can't describe how good it feels to be back in the game, showing some young punk what it really means "break downfield." Like wise, i probably can't describe the pain of leaving a trail of knee DNA on the astro-turf after diving for the disc on said breakaway. (that point is mine forever more.) The point is, it feels good to out there, mixing it up. Kudos to Pat R. for convincing me to join.

Unlrelated news: I've never seen this much snow fall at once in Detroit. it's freakish.

I could make that much money in five seconds!

hell, i wouldn't let a few corpses ruin my vacation either.

heartless fucks

Anyway, everyone should order one of these ribbons. God loves ribbons, after all.

Is it just me or has every person wielding any amount of fame and/or power fallen deeply into one of the following categories:
A) right-wing, hypocritical religious fanatic
2) evil, heartless, money/power hungry bastard, walking on the backs of the tax-payers
3) some combination of the previous two

i mean... you know... even more so than before. can i be the only person left who's not interested in ruining the world? and if so, can i put that on my resume?

to quote napoleon dynamite: gosh!

robo?

Here's some links to some stuff i stole from other blogs.

people are funny sometimes.

sometimes they're not.

The Champagne of Beer

i wonder if anyone fills their free internet time by falsely completing out those online resume/career pages that all those big stupid companies offer on their big stupid web pages. I think it would be kind of fun to click through the horribly tedious bubbles and such, building the perfect theoretical applicant, just to paste that text resume into the box with the simple content of something along the lines of "FUCK GE IN THEIR CADY ASSES. DOT COM. THE MOVIE."

p.s.
no more posting when drunk

never surrender; never admit defeat

trying to think of something to type about... then i realized i am sitting in front of an imac- the owning of which is the computing equivalent of banging a supermodel; sure it's not the smartest gal around, but who cares?

sweet.

so, uh... anybody got any engineering jobs out there?

my new fighting technique is unstoppable

I'm fucking bothered.

you'll find the rest of the goodness here.

shit you don't see everyday... unless you're those guys

i saw some shit today that was straight out of a poorly written but well financed movie-

i was working on the fire alarm at a police station near, but not within the Detroit city limits and there was this mysterious "special investigation department" room that was locked to all but the chief. As luck (or Allah) would have it, i needed to get in tis room to check some documents. Turns out this is actually the narcotics department and these guys are crazies... walking through this door transported me from an average, clean walled, cubical ridden police office into a well-funded, kill crazy frat house.

It was a big room and there were still cubicles around the outside area, but the eye was instead drawn to the posters on the walls: all either hot naked chicks (mostly Brook Burke) or movie shots of dudes with guns (Scarface, Tupac, Pulp Fiction, etc...) In the middle of the room was a giant 62 inch TV with a PS2 and a stack of DVDs, all either hardcore porn or COPS episodes. They had mini-fridges, scales, money counters and lots of nice things that you might expect to have found on say, a drug dealer before he was busted. The cubicles themselves were laden with evidence bags and drug paraphernalia, stun guns, swat equipment and colorful trinkets of all types. My escort, a certain Capt. who looked at me and had to acknowledge the situation in some manner, commented on how it took "a certain type" to work in this department. I nodded the nod of a man who knows too much for his own good nods.

I should back up... a few minutes before this all happened, i was working on smoke detectors in the holding area. Not the cells themselves, but the hallways outside the cells. To get into this area, you need the giant key ring with the giant keys you see featured so prominently in any prison movie. Long story short: rather than escort me the whole way, this guy hands me the key ring (which I'm damn sure had the keys to the cells as well) and says "here ya go."

news headline: "local man killed in prison riot"

Back to the Narcotics department. None of the Narc guys were around when we were there, so the Capt. and the maintenance guy started chatting about the room to each other. They observed the bag of shrooms on one desk and kicked a playboy aside. They discussed the pimped out H2 that had been brought in recently and were it might end up. in all they seemed pretty oblivious to my presence, which is the tremendous power of a work uniform and tool bag. I had to wrap it up quick because that damn chief was breathing down my neck. Said i was too wrapped up in this case. On my way out i think i saw Will Smith.

twenty aught five

i have a wise friend who's done feeling sorry for himself in 2004...

--inspirational theme from "Delta Force, Missing in Action" starts playing in background--

My friend, he's like a a star of optimism surrounded by a dark sea of broken souls and it feels good to be around that light when everyone else is so dead on the inside. People (like me) try to nay-say his angry optimism, but he's taken to rebutting all arguments with the simple statement "It's freakin 2005 man." And you can't really argue with that. most of us are well into our twenties and with a few exceptions, haven't done shit since college. I'll be the first to admit that I've ben the biggest offender of the lot when it comes to sitting on the sidelines of life in 2004. I mean, what a shit year... personally, i accomplished nothing other than moving out of my parent's house like ten months ago, which isn't all that impressive considering the greater part of the population pulled that stunt off well before i got around to it.

I feel that i am truly on the crossroad of either one, actually doing something with my life or two, falling into the pit of mediocrity; a place where you wake up one day and it's 20 years later, nothing's changed and you're ready to put a gun to your head. On the flip side, even when life was at it's shittiest in college, moral was high because i was always on a path towards something else. Skip to 2004 and i wake up everyday and think "this fails" (with the exception of the people in my life) and that's a rough way to start your day. Unfortunately radical change is difficult to invoke quickly, unless you say, go to jail or become a crack head. So now begins the slow, focused implementation of plan Z.

On the other hand you have different fingers.

details to come

the days of yor, which are oft remembered as good, and sometimes even were

As i type this, my most exciting purchase of recent memory is warming up in the living room, and i'm talking about Grand Theft Auto San Andreas for the PS2. Folks, i don't even OWN a PS2, but luckily my housemate does and this game is the Bee's Knees. 'nuff said.

Last night the old drinking line from Tech reassembled in Ann Arbor for a night of drunken reminiscing, mixed with drunken catching up. Notable guests included Rob "break-neck" B, Becky "Nut-Cracker" D. and Kelly "Mistress of the Oak" A. The surprise appearance went to Joe-O from those old lost episodes of Tech: The Marquette Years.

In the end, the lies and the beers flowed as one, although i had to be the first to call it short since my hell-life of a job was lurking just around the sun-rise. Holly now officially met (read: drank with) most of the major players from my college years and i suspect has heard all of the embarrassing, incriminating, and/or demeaning stories of my youth. bravo to her.

finally, i think i've identified one more of the tell-tale signs of old age: when you're old, every gathering you have with your old buddies becomes "an event" or a "reunion" to be orchestrated for maximum enjoyment and not just another thursday night who-ah.

well sucks to that.

wtf?

this guy is crazy and so is his ebay auction. But i like it.


..do ot do aay dee, do ot dee ah...

holly

holly
holly supports her local pornatorium.

drew

drew
this guy walks into a bar...

golden oppurtunity or media trick?

i like cars. a lot. not as much as girls, but pretty close. anyone else who likes cars would know that the Detroit North American Auto Show is about to hit Detroit, which the Detroit News Paper has been raising a big noise about. part of that noise is to create of panel of concept car analysts, built of readers that entered some very basic information (age, type of vehicle owned, etc) and picked by some method that we will never know. by now you may have guessed, i was chosen to take part in this panel.

Im not sure if this is a good thing.

here's the rub: concept cars differ from other prototypes and production vehicles in that concepts will most likely never be built and most certainly not in the form they are first shown to the public. so by default, they're all just a way to trick the yocal-locals into being excited about a brand. (okay, okay, some concepts are built, especially retro-styled roadsters that get rave reviews, but inevitably they fail to be hot sellers.) Secondly, this whole thing stinks of media "dog and pony show" antics. in my dream scenario i'm surround by engineers that promptly answer my questions about forced induction and composite costs, while i berate them on their choice of transmission options. but the reality will probably involve many PR people, some interns from the news paper and a lot of guys in suits whose only line is "don't touch that." i figure this is their perfect opportunity to round up some "locals" and show off these cars (2 days before the general public sees 'em) and capture the stupid grins that will inevitably erupt. "hooray, we all have hope for the future if we're gonna be driving these bad-asses in 5 years."

alas, I haven't written the whole thing off yet- i already cancelled my dentist appointment for that day...

I'm now taking votes for/against.

Other news: this article is a tremendous piece about the "hippsters" of our generation, specifically Owen Wilson and the movie Life Aquatic. Check it out, if you love trucker hats and looking like you're poor.

The rich-celebrity burdon

So the relief organization Doctor's Without Borders comes out and says "yes, we have all the Tsunami relief we can possibly se for the next several months; we cannot use any more money specifically for Tsunami relief." This then, elicits a response from all the OTHER aid organizations saying that the first group is gonna ruin it for the rest of them.

Those fuckers. This is why it's foolish to send money to organizations like Red Cross at times like these. No one can keep track off all that money and nobody knows for sure exactly what it's being used for. Billions and Billions just pouring in... It comes up missing or miss-allocated all the time, lest we forget sept 11. Besides, does anyone have any idea how many fuckers die or get killed in Detroit everyday. Spend your 10 bucks buying some poor fucker some soup, maybe HIS shit won't end up dead.

And what's up with famous rich people telling me to give money? It's not my fault they're more fucking rich than any single person should be and maybe on some deep level they realize they're living in the top .001% tax bracket because everyone else in the world eats dirt. Don't try to lighten your conscious by convincing ME to give up my ends. If they felt so shitty about how everyone's dead, maybe they need to sign over they're estate to Red Cross. I'm sure operators are standing by.

Anyway... wow that was negative. I wasn't even feeling angry until i started typing. Am I out of line here?


On a lighter note, check this shit right here out. It's funny. Real funny. Especially the "most popular pages" links on the side.

Also, the rejection hotline is fun to use on your friends or sex-buddies. There's an email version too, just put an email out to *whatever*@papernapikn.net and the auto reply is supposedly pretty funny. I'm not in the mood to try it at this moment.

this post: Averages 6.5 out of 10

New Years In Madison: 8/10

some Random dude kissing your woman: 0/10

almost killing some Random dude: 3/10

Life Aquatic on New Years Day: 9/10

abstinence in expensive hotel rooms: 5/10

sex in cheap hotel rooms: 10/10

pellet gun wars: 10/10

ice storms: 1/10 ( if you're Andrew's car: 0/10 )

people who comment on my comments: 9/10

anything that can't be mentioned Here: 10/10

and fuck this uniform

i woke up late today for a job that i hate.

i soon realized the truck that i hate to drive refused to start as it sat in front of the house that i hate to go home to.

the coldness of the city that i hate made it hard to make peace with the truck that i hate.

it's not the trucks fault it's a work truck. it didn't put those fucking death-ladders on it's back.

(i dreamt last night that i had an all black monkey, which was supposed to be symbolic of the coming of the apocalypse. The funny thing is, in my dream, you could obviously tell that the monkey had been dyed in a half-ass dye job.)

It can really cut a man down when you realize you're the only one not realizing your goals. or that you don't even know what your goals are. i need to go into the forest and clear my head.

it's time for change. and by that, i mean, i have to go wait for the tow-truck.

"We desperately need help burying our dead"

-quote of the year, made by the police chief of some village off the Indian Ocean.

Dead on the inside, Sexy on the outside.

Even though i'm pretty sure there's no point, i feel like i have to mention how the quake/tsunami in the Indian Ocean caused about 30 times as many deaths as Sept 11th... with some predicting it to go as high as like 50 times (some 150,000 dead folks). Yet, i don't feel 30 times as much emotion. In fact, i feel the same numbness; second-hand, removed feeling of watching a very graphic made-for-TV-movie i felt three years ago that early afternoon in college. ( i slept in, had no early classes that day).

So what was different about Sept 11th? For me, i think it was having to experience the effect that Sept 11th had on the people around me, making it 100% more "real." Kind of like having "second-hand emotions." Yet, with this newest event, i have a more intense "why do you feel nothingness?" complex going on. In fact, i'm pretty sure i am indeed dead on the inside.

I'm sure we could start a whole thing about how people are desensitized in one way or another... whatever. the point is that my whole "not feeling ways about stuff" makes me sad.

But therefor, the whole thing is kinda, like, resolved. It's like the proverbial little kid who gets grounded for say punching the cat in the head; everyone knows he's not sorry for what he did, but he's sorry as shit he's grounded, and the fact that he's sorry is all that matters. So the Catholics should be happy with me now.

Does this mean GWB will be sending troop to the Indian Ocean region? (i'm sorry, i couldn't help myself. At least i know i can still feel hate. For the Bush family.)

so this is christmas

and what have we done?


copy right infringement for all

to next year: we'll teach those with wings a thing or two.

dog save festivus

the tradition of Festivus was saved today in Florida

amen

but that's not nearly as important as what we can learn from this article. Especially all you men out there... read those last two paragraphs and save your essence.

that is all.



click for more fun

soggy jeans

i received a phone call this morning at 7:30 from my roommate Rob, informing me that there was a snow emergency where we live and my work truck had to be removed from the street, or heavy ticketing would occur. Keep in mind, I have the day off today. looking out my window, i realized the "snow-death '04" (tonight at 11, only on channel 4, what are local residents doing to deal with white death '04?) had swept over us. Now our driveway is quite narrow and lives precariously close to our house and our neighbor's fence. The work truck, on the other hand, is quite house-like itself, as it is a full size chevy van with no windows and several large objects strapped to the roof. Anyone who drives a behemoth like this knows that you have to back into tight spots or escape will be impossible, especially if the drug enforcement squad is firing rubber bullets at your face and you need to make haste. Add to this size indifference the fact that there's enough snow on the ground to make navigating the rear-wheel drive beast equivalent to driving while heavily intoxicated, and then you've got yourself a good time. Well, to make an exceedingly long story that really has no point, somewhat shorter, i did eventually maneuver the van into the backyard, where it will sit for the rest of the week. (with the whole large van, small driveway thing going on, i kept thinking of different "that's what she said" scenarios in my mind. i couldn't help it. it was very sad.) I also realized that for the first time this season, i had to peel off a soggy, cold, nasty pair of jeans with snow stuck to them and at that moment i had a tidal wave of memories from Houghton wash over me.

A Festivus for the rest of us!

Rejoice young squirrels and put down those nuts, for the mighty winds of Festivus are blowing are way! Is your Aluminum pole ready? (Are elements supposed to be capitalized? probably not, but i think they should be because they are THE WHIP- especially Aluminum and Zinc)

we will begin with the airing of the grievances!

Now that the republicans have soundly won the election, they can drop political f-bombs all over their home boy Donald Rumsfeld with out endangering the grand old party. Yes, turns out even republicans think Rummy's a dick. i have a little song to help us get past these little hang-ups and keep us in the festivus mood:

Bombs are flying
People are dying
Children are crying
Politicians are lying too.

Cancer is killing
Texaco's spilling
The whole world's gone to hell
But how are you?

I'm super
Thanks for asking
All things considered
I couldn't be better I must say

I'm feeling super
No, nothing bugs me
Everything is super when you're
Don't you think I look cute in this hat

I'm so sorry
Mr. Cripple
But I just can't feel too bad for you right now.
Because I'm feeling
So insanely super
That even the fact that you can't walk
Can't bring me down


Now, the feats of strength:


Thank you Dilbert and please don't sue me :-D

I guess that's all for now. Please comment below. if no one comments, then everything i do here is just an electronic form of mental masturbation, which tho intriguing to an electrical engineer (see above) is still pretty lonely. If things keep going like this, i'm gonna need to invest in this bad bitch.

that you saucer-crab?

what do Eric Estrada, Knife fights and God all have in common?

this clip right here, mutha-fucker!

Q: Why did Ron Artest leave the game early?

A: He wanted to beat the crowd.

born free, haven't been back since

as i was piloting my work van through the barren wast land that is south-central michigan, i began to notice a LOT of signs for "the cracker barrel" restaurant. So i started to think... and i started to wonder... do you think black people look at signs for the cracker barrel the same way white people would look at a restaurant named "the nigger box?"

on a side note, i think i'm going to start referring to any gathering of snooty old/rich white people as "a cracker barrel." basically, the type of people this page was made to spoof.

then again, this whole episode could be brought on by my recent consumption of homemade booze-nog... man that stuff will MESS you up.

haven a nice day

blind man here

[ahem]

so the new nun recruits are sitting around the rectory (rectory... this is funny already) and they're all pretty darn good looking and it's hotter than the hinges of hell. so being young and fairy free spirited, as they were, they decide to strip down naked and cool off a bit.

as soon as they do, there comes a knock at the door, followed by the proclamation, "blind man. Blind man here"

so the nuns, realizing that the guy was blind and obviously needed some sort of attention ran to door and opened it wide.

the man responded "Hey, nice knockers. Where you want me to hang these blinds?"



alright, if that didn't get you, this sure as shit will:

twelve raw eggs?

me news:
I logged all my working hours at Detroit's Western High School yesterday, in the heart of Mexican Town! Let me recap what i gathered from the very informative bulletin board: Western High school was built 1893ish and spend the first forty-odd years of existence in a mediocre state of "meh." In 1930-something a angry and vengeful fire gutted the brick structure, leaving a very well-meaning, but wholly useless shell. After it was rebuilt, the city decided to mandate the best of the best of the day's fire detection and prevention technology. Fast forward 60 years and several patch-job upgrades of an antiquated fire alarm system and you'll find me, ass-deep in shorted wires and broken conduit. My job, without objection, is to render the Western High School Fire Alarm in working order. This is the approximate equivalent of an aircraft mechanich standing over the smoldering wreckage of jet liner, trying to figure out how he's going to fix that darned landing gear. Oh, and the crash site is in the middle of downtown Detroit and people keep trying to steal his tools. Possibly to use as weapons against said mechanic.

release.

In other news:
This guy is crazy in a "fun to stand back and watch the madness" kinda way. it's just good, readin, dammit. I got the address when he linked to my blog somehow. (still haven't figured that one out) In case you didn't know, through the magic of magic, i track all addresses that access this site. That means i see you rockwellcollins.com and you too ameritech.net.

Even better is this shit right here. I challenge you to try to stop reading once you start.

And finally,
I will soon start construction of homemade egg nog (errr... booze nog, as the recipe says). It's a fine little concoction, given to me by rob, stolen from Lee, decoded from the writings of Kant, brought down the mountain by Pikachu. Amen.

write if you want a copy.

MOVIE TIME!!!

check out these bad-ass web flicks:

This is probably my favorite. Some dude mixed a smooth techno beat over top of a controlled plane crash. Those crazy Nasa folks.

Ever seen a real transformer that dances? Well you have now. (Again, love that soundtrack... "tack, tack, tack, ti, bow-ba-bow, bow!!") Im gonna get me one of them there.

Finally, Here's a little movie trailer for you Watching it should be safe, but i'm fairly certain that the movie itself will induce insanity in the weaker minded. (Johnny depp, you are officially creepy, and i respect you for it)

that's an organ, not a muscle

personal news:

I've been working the afternoon shift this week, affording me the time to do some X-mas shopping, get my eyes checked order some new glasses and run various other errands. (there are no comical, sarcastic or ironical statements in that last sentence, so stop looking). I still hate my job, but realized it's been so long since i thunked engineering thoughts, i doubt i could even do it any more. On a side note, I've essentially mastered the skill of being a fire alarm technician in a little under a year and could be state certified by January. This is something that folks spend years trying to (and often failing to) achieve, often apprenticing several years before starting in at the testing process. I'm like "test taking skillz, Be-yatch. learn 'em" So in essence, in the past 11 months, I kinda like learned a career skill because i had nothing better to do, and am now ready to walk away from it. I'm like "The Pretender"- but much sadder. It's all a very ego boosting and yet simultaneously depressing experience.

other news:

"Cowboys from Hell, "Cemetery Gate" and "Hell Bound" are just some of the song titles that become Ironic after some loony caps your ass in front of a live audience. Recognize.

Also, apparently Kid Rock likes to crash frat parties at U of M these days. Check out http://whatevs.org/ for all the playa-hater news.

Finally, thanks to my housemate Rob, I would like you all to enjoy this little movie from our pasts. Atari for life, HOLLA!

note: News items were not sniffed out by your loving author, but were instead fingered from other blogs that he visits. He assures us this pleases the blog gods very much, even more so than a bi-daily update cycle or a fatty tattoo of a big titty naked chick riding a snake.

I don't have morals but i have standards

The morning after

we went to the bar last night. I don't remember many of the details, but here's what i do know: I'm hung over, I'm missing 50 bucks and I have two temporary tattoos on my arms. i remember smoking at least 4 or 5 cigarettes, which is about 3 more than i've smoked in all my time leading up to this point. based on how my head/stomach feels, i must have been doing shots of spoiled milk and then smashing the glass with my skull. I'm not really sure what prompted such an assault on my body, but i think it was because chris and i couldn't find any friends to drink with so we got stupid out of spite.

the phrase of the night, uttered by the drunk stranger next to me: "I don't have morals but i have standards"

it's been about 6 months since i was that drunk and i hope it'll be much longer before i visit that world again. But on the plus side, i do now have a blinking miller light pin that i stole from a waitress who was hot from far away but cracked and haggard up close.

the thinks you can think

Posting has been pretty light lately. I blame myself.

Did anyone out there know that lead singer of Korn has a tattoo on his arm of a priest performing an abortion on a nun? That's pretty hardcore.

Due to lack of material, I'm posting a little photo story i put together a few months back detailing when we played beer-can baseball last fourth of July. I think it's pretty neat. Maybe next time you can come play too.

Dates of interest:
Dec 18: Rob Visits
Dec 25: Observe the birth of Santa Clause
Dec 31: We sack the town of Madison

on with the show...

The Idea

This photo is removed because you sons of bitches keep linking to it.
The Pose and/or Holly wets herself in anticipation

The Ready

The Pitch

The Step

The Swing

The Shag

The producer would like to thank the lovely (and in some photos busty) Holly C, Matt "Billy Idol" R, and himself, Mr. "always willing to shag the foul tips" Z.