Typical

I think the internet may be destroying what hope I had for humanity. I keep making the mistake of reading user comments. This makes following the election an even more miserable experience than it would otherwise be. Same thing for the recent disastrous playoff series between the Wizards and the Traveliers. The political stuff is a little more upsetting, I guess, because of the magnitude of the thing and the scope of regular folk who are interested in the outcome. I realize, as with talk radio, the part of the audience that chooses to participate is probably not representative of the audience as a whole, but... I don't know. If I read one more comment about how Obama supporters drink lattes, I may well scream, and that would be fun for nobody.

I thought about scouring the world-wide web and finding some good examples of dumb comments, but a) it's not worth the effort, and b) I found something that probably sums it all up. It refers to an article on ESPN.com. It is a ridiculous story about a pretty lady in Nashua, New Hampshire who, in a fit of Yankees pride, mowed down a bunch of Red Sox fans with her car, killing a man. This happened outside a bar called Slade's. In many ways, it is the single greatest news story I have ever read. It demonstrates better than any dramatist could that at least some of us are animals. So I should have been satisfied just to read the article and move on. Instead I clicked the link for reader comments.

The most recent one, right at the top of the page, was written by someone named AdamPatsFan. Here is what he had to say:

Typical Yankee fan.
Classless.

Which I think may be going over the line. And also, now that I think about it, an awfully classless statement in and of itself. More than anything, though, I think AdamPatsFan has neatly encapsulated the state of modern discourse, and for that I pray that someone beats him in the face with a snow shovel until he goes blind.


Ivonne Hernandez, typical Yankee fan

Oh yeah, wait...

I forgot that I actually had something of an ending in mind when I started to write yesterday's pointlessly long thingy. The premise was basically that people in cities like Baltimore don't have a ton of things to get excited about, unless they're big syphilis aficionados or get all jazzed by high infant mortality rates. They are, by and large, bitter, stupid people with little to cling to besides their rosary beads and their Saturday night specials. And, of course, their giant foam fingers. And these New York fucks, with their charity balls and their opening nights, are so greedy and malevolent, they have to invade Mid-Size Market, USA and ruin everyone else's fun and rob them of what minimal joy they're allotted. It's creepy, aberrant behavior. I don't know about anyone else, but seeing my native land invaded by hordes of drooling half-retarded bullies who say things like, "Give huh uh bayg of chawklit" makes me pine for the days when murder was legal.

Maybe I've said it before on this site. I know I've said it in real life. THERE IS NO REASON FOR NEW YORK TO HAVE PROFESSIONAL SPORTS TEAMS. There's already enough going on here. It's not fair to people in Cincinnati, who have nothing. NOTHING.

Also, Hank Steinbrenner has pushed ahead of Robert Mugabe on my annual list of The World's Most Evil People. The list isn't going to be officially revealed until June (timed to coincide with J.C. Penny's "Spring Into Summer" sale), but some prominent names you'll see include George H.W. Bush (shape-shifter king of our Reptoid overlords), perennial favorite Zach Braff, and Vampire Weekend frontman Ezra Koenig, who is as fine a lyricist as I am a catamaran and whose singing makes me want to hear me sing, and who, like Zach Braff before him, has a big smug face that was just made for punching.

All right. I gotta take my meds. Pizzeace, sizzuckizizzaz.

Go Back to Onondaga, You Filth

So many things I can tell you, so few of them worth writing down. I have been in a weird mood lately, where I am sort of outwardly cheerful and inwardly full of venom. The Washington Wizards play no small part in my misery, though I cannot be angry at them. I am in no position to demand anything of them, though I do have a very good friend who's a season ticket holder, which should count for something. It hurts me to see Andy taken advantage of this way. He didn't pay all that money to watch them lose.

Fucking sports. I went to a baseball game the other day, Orioles vs. Yankees in Baltimore. I went with my cousin, his son, and my uncle. I love my uncle, but I think he has said maybe a dozen words to me, combined, over the 34 years he's known me. My cousin, who I do not necessarily love because he is not a blood relative and thus I am not obligated to love him, is a very, very nice guy, but he is a Yankees fan, and when the subject of baseball comes up, I cannot help but want to grab him by the neck and throttle him until he apologizes, then volunteers to personally hack off Derek Jeter's stupid gay head.

I understand, though. He cannot help where he was born, and I'm sure if he'd been able, he'd have been born in Baltimore same as any other worthwhile human being. And surely being from Long Island is punishment enough. I also suppose that, had I had the terrible fortune to be from this wretched Empire State instead of the mighty Old Line State, I'd have chosen the Yankees over the Mets, because, really, if you're going to make a terrible decision, you might as well go all out and make the MOST terrible decision. Plus, Babe Ruth, storied history, etc.

So, while I pity my cousin for feeling so insecure he has to root for the team with the most money and the most overall success, I recognize that he is, somewhat like me, a human being, and can thus be counted on to maybe not be as smart as we like to think ourselves. Where he crosses a line, however, is that he both assumes and expects the rest of the world to give a shit. He genuinely believes there is something called "THE YANKEES MYSTIQUE" that not only exists, but is significant, and not just significant to Yankees fans, but significant to anyone who enjoys baseball. For instance, he really believes that a good player should be recognized by the world as a great player if he played for the Yankees, because the Yankees Mystique should rightfully boost any player's prestige.

Which is, you know, insane. A Yankees homerun is worth exactly as much as a Pirates homerun, i.e., one run. There is no conversion rate. Yes, the Yankees have won 26 championships. That's an impressive number--nearly as impressive as the huge numbers separating the Yankees' typical payroll from that of the average team. But it doesn't matter. It's the past. Just because Mickey Mantle was great doesn't mean Melky Cabrera is a future Hall of Famer. The Yankees have been an elite team the last ten years or so because they were stocked with good, expensive players. If the Milwaukee Brewers had the same guys, they'd have won a bunch of World Series, too. You know why there's no Brewers Mystique? Because Milwaukee isn't the biggest, richest city in America. Athletes pay for whoever wants to give them the most money. Babe Ruth would have happily led the Red Sox to a million pennants if they hadn't sold his contract to New York. New York has no claim on Babe Ruth. I'm sure, like anybody, he would have preferred to play for his home town team; that's every kid's dream, right? Unfortunately, his home town lost its team in 1903, when the Baltimore Orioles moved to New York and were renamed the Highlanders, a name they kept for ten years before finally changing it to--wait for it--the Yankees. Maybe it's worth noting that about 2/3 of the Yankees' World Series victories came in 1953 or earlier, and that the St. Louis Browns did not become the Baltimore Orioles until--wait for it--1954.

All right. This is all very fascinating to everyone, I know, but here ends the history lesson. Let's get back to today. Better yet, let's go back to two days and about seven hours ago. Somehow, Camden Yards had managed to be the single spot in the state of Maryland not to be hit with heavy downpours. I think it was the 6th inning when it finally started to rain. Now, I don't know if you're aware of how things work throughout much of the east coast, but there is a delightful tradition that's really blossomed over the last decade involving New York and Boston fans invading other cities' ballparks when their team is in town. So it was that Oriole Park at Camden Yards, inarguably the finest stadium in the world, was half-filled with asshole Yankees fans who think that wearing a shirt with the word "Mattingly" on the back gives them a certain credibility abroad they would not otherwise have at home in New Paltz or West Hartford. Unfortunately, because I was with relatives who already eye me with suspicion and distaste, I wasn't really free to scream "faggot" at them or flick pennies into the back of their heads. Even when Chad Bradford came in in relief and promptly served up a two run homerun to one overpaid sissy or another, I stifled the urge to accidentally kick the guy in front of me--who had the gall to cheer--repeatedly in the neck and chest until he died. Actually, he wasn't exactly in front of me; he was in the row in front of me, but, like, 8 seats down. My blood just boils thinking about it. I can picture him now, with his fancy stubble and big shot New York City windbreaker. Asshole.

But no one was actually sitting in front of me until it began to rain. I failed to mention that we were sitting in the shittiest seats available, in the very back row of the centerfield bleachers. My cousin tried to put a positive spin on the seats, pointing out how you could really spot the location of the pitches from that vantage point, but they were not good seats. There's no way to spin "literally the furthest spot from the pitcher in the entire stadium" into something good. There was a legitimate advantage that bore out once it began to rain, though: we were sitting directly underneath the massive scoreboard, which obviously made it impossible to watch the bloopers and the animated hotdog races and whatever other whimsical bullshit they use to keep the drunken fans from punching each other out of boredom between innings, but it did keep us dry (at least until the wind picked up).

The Orioles were coming to bat as the rain really started to fall, but all the Yankee fans' eyes were on the visiting team's bullpen, and they whispered to each other in eerie, almost awe-filled anticipation, like Ba'al had just been summoned. It turned out Joba Chamberlain (pictured here surrounded by flies, because he is too fat to properly wash himself) was coming in to pitch.



This is not the best organized piece of creative nonfiction to come down the pike, I know, but please let me backtrack a minute, just to mention that throughout the game, I'd been keeping my eye on certain, especially distasteful Yankees fans. There was the Mexican guy who kept waving his hat around every time something went NY's way, and appeared to be at the game alone. There was the guy with the windbreaker I mentioned before--but I didn't tell you before that he had an iPhone. You can't even use an iPhone in Baltimore--no AT&T service. The only cell provider you can use in the area is something called CrabNet. Anyway, there was one guy I paid special attention to. I'm not sure why, really. He just looked dumb, and so did his ladyfriend. They were the ones I trusted the least. I admit it was an impression based almost entirely on the way the backs of their heads looked, but my scumbag detector is as fine-tuned as anyone's, so I knew I was on to something. So it made perfect sense that, when it really started raining, those two were the first rats to scurry back to where we were, where it was nice and dry, and sit directly in front of me. I quickly wedged the tip of my shoe under the seat in front of me, so that when the guy sat down, the seat would stay up a moment too long--just long enough so that he'd be slightly uncomfortable for half a second, but not long enough that he'd realize iI was doing it and beat me up.

Back to Joba Chamberlain now. As soon as the fat fuck (whose name is pronounced "Jabba" and who, as I mentioned at the beginning of this sentence and also a couple paragraphs earlier, is fat) starts waddling onto the field from the bullpen, the dickface in front of me starts yelling "Joba! Joba!" over and over again. I'm sure a billion people have made "Joba the Hutt" jokes, but I'd never heard any, so once the connection was made in my head, I could barely keep myself from shouting it, but I did, even though the guy in front of me kept shouting his name and cheering him on (while, incidentally, his wife slipped on a fetching black garbage bag to protect her from the storm). Fortunately, the jerk's cheers only seemed to encourage Chamberlain to give up hits to the first two batters he faced--the worst two hitters in the Orioles lineup. It was after the second hit that I finally let go and yelled, "Keep 'em coming, Joba!" That was when the umpires called for ground crew to roll out the tarp, and my uncle made the executive decision to not try to wait out the weather, and we left.

Admittedly not much of an ending there. Sorry about that.

BONUS! Some insults I wanted to yell to distract the players but could not given my companions:

Johnny Damon - Your mom must be so proud of you, you lisping ogre; she may have gotten paid to suck, but you're getting paid, like, $25 million!
Derek Jeter - Hey, look! An attractive six-year-old-boy, you pedophile creep! Nice hairdo, too, by the way, you dimwitted pervert!
Hideki Matsui - Hey, nice skin, you hideous mutant!

If either of you plan to vote for Clinton, please click here and read this

Otherwise, never mind.

An Idea That Will Probably Go a Long Way Toward Making Us All Equals

Quick pop quiz: Who is the current monarch of the United Kingdom?

Give up? The answer is Queen Elizabeth II. That's right, "the second". A little pretentious, right? I mean, the woman is a billionaire. "The second". Is that really necessary? Aren't you far enough above the rest of us already? Yeah, lady, that's right--I'm addressing you directly. Scared? Does it make you a little uneasy having a commoner all up in your shit like this? Well, too bad. This is not the world you think it is. You know you lost Hong Kong, right? Pretty much everything else, too. There's no more Rhodesia. I think you might be down to Bermuda, Cornwall, and Gibraltar at this point. The Falklands, too, I guess, but I just read that Argentina's new leader aims to take them back.

Look, hon, I'm not rooting against you. I will admit that old wounds have begun weeping pus lately thanks to HBO's wonderfully above-average "John Adams" miniseries, but I think I speak for all of America when I say that I am in your corner. You speak English, after all, and you're nothing if not white. And, yes, we may be well on our way to joining you in The Big Book of Once-Great Empires, but we've still got a firm grasp on the cliff edge, and China is not necessarily a lock to find a hammer and bang our fingers until we let go, if I may stretch the analogy until it snaps. Whatever the case, there is one thing we are surely still best at: cynical marketing strategies.

I won't draw this out any more. You're a smart lady, and I'm pretty sure you'll see the potential benefits in what I'm about to suggest. I know that you will buck against it, because you are old and a billionaire and it is your birthright to be one of the most out-of-touch people on earth, but it is too simple not to work. Just remember that the world beneath your gilt-embellished windows is moving ever forward toward an age of populism. I am not one who believes that we can ever effectively demolish class systems, but I am wholly certain that there will be less and less people like you. That doesn't mean you should give up; no, never give up, m'lady. Never! But, if you are as wise as your one assumes you must have been to acquire all that wealth and power, you will put aside some of that famous entitlement of yours and make some concessions.

Actually, I think a lot of ground could be gained by just making one concession. As I mentioned earlier, it's a simple one: as I mentioned earlier than that, barring the arrival of some latter-day, English Robespierre, your position above the rest of us has been well cemented, at least enough that you can forego some of the more ostentatious, self-inflating trappings of the throne. As with any rebranding, we must begin with the name. I, for one, cannot think of a more pompous-sounding name than Queen Elizabeth II. I'm not saying you need to start calling yourself Lizzie Schwartz (or whatever your real surname is--it's something more along the lines of Goethe-Himmler, from what I recall). I don't think things are that dire that you need to lower yourself that much. But how about something just a touch more common? What if--just hear me out here--you did one thing like everybody else in the world, drop that ridiculous "the Second", and start going by Queen Elizabeth, Jr.? It might take some getting used to, but I really believe it could make a difference, just like I believe that, had he heeded my similar advice to him, the previous Pope would not have been torn to pieces by a violent mob.

All right. Do what you want. Send my regards to your idiot children.

Your loyal servant,
X (unable to sign my name because I am a peasant)

Evan Bayh Can Also Go Fuck Himself

Still, I am SHOCKED that Barrack Obama could come away from a trip to Philadelphia with the feeling that some people in this country are bitter. Seriously, Philadelphia provides the world with 3 things: bitterness, cheesesteaks, and goofy bands. Would people have been offended if Obama said that he thinks some people in America are G. Love and Special Sauce? Probably. It's no coincidence that "Evan Bayh" rhymes with "making political hay". Ugh. I'm so tired of this. You know how people are always threatening to leave the country of so-and-so wins? Well, I don't care who wins anymore. I'm not saying any place is any better, but I need a change. If I have to live somewhere with horrible politicians, it might as well be somewhere I don't care about. Of course, it's a moot point, really, seeing as I'm signed up for two more years of New York schooling starting September. In my heart, though, I'm in Greenland starting... NOW!

What else? Just back from my drawing class, the one thing that now stands between me and a college diploma. Had to look at a guy's thing for three hours. Well, I didn't have to look at it. We did about 6 drawings. I think mine were all of his knees and shoulders. The teacher compared my work to that of American artist Cy Twombly. Here is a Cy Twombly painting called "Leda and the Swan":



I thought she was just trying to make me feel better about myself, but now that I've seen what Cy Twombly is all about, I'm thinking that she was basically calling me talentless. Oh well. Comes as no great surprise.

Why Gary Condit Should Be The Next VP

I had this whole big idea for a a big special audio treat, but no one seems to read this site, so I ain't gonna bother. Not even going to bother writing it, since it's the kind of material that I may as well save for the novel. Here's a wee taste of how it might have been:

(Imagine you are listening to me read this in a subtle but hilarious character voice)

I'm Bram, and here is what's going on around town:

Music -
Friday, Prognosis brings their unique brand of synthesizer operatics to Club Upstairs with supporting act The Uncle Machine.

Tribute acts Whole Lotta Led and China Cat Sunflower duke it out in another round of Hippies vs. Metalheads Saturday night at Tequila Sunset's. Half price shooters from 11 to midnight.

Comedy -
Improvination is hosting another tickle night at the Improvination theater

Theater -
The Six Counties Community College Player are staging the original musical, "The Man From Minnesota", about the life and times of Walter Mondale. Tickets are free.

The Earnest Little Community Theater is running their production of von Trindel's "Night, Dark, Black" for one final week. Red wine, Triscuits, and apple wedges will be served.



That's all you're getting, maybe forever. This totally isn't worth it if no one's reading, and I'm not about to go through the hell of trying to drum up traffic again. This blogging shit's yesterday's news. I'm going back to stripping. (Ha ha ha! That's a Diablo Cody joke! If I had half her talent, it would have been a much funnier joke. She's a comic fucking genius. The George S. fucking Kaufman of her generation, if you ask me.)

Okay. Eat one. Bye.

I deserve more credit in general

I was staring out my window just now, watching two birds have sex on the fire escape (ah, springtime!), and it reminded me of the time I saved a man's life. Well, not a man so much as a college student; an adult, I think, would have had the sense not to fall out of a window like that.

I'm getting ahead of myself, though. Let me set this up.

It was probably around this time of year, nearing the end of freshman year, Univershitty of Crotchshitster class of '96 (not to be confused with "Class of '96", which, I believe, did not premiere until the following fall, but that is really a subject more fitting for my other site, retro80sand90sflashback.biz). It was, as I recall it, a warm night. The regular gang was hanging out in Dan and Toby's room. I believe it was gin that night. I further believe that was the night we did something called barbershop shots, or something like that. It involved taking a shot and sitting back really fast, or something dumb like that. I promise that we did not make a game out of drinking most nights. Most nights we'd just drink and smoke pot and then someone would throw up and we'd go back to our rooms and go to sleep. If there were drinking games, I managed to steer clear of them. But this night, someone had the idea to do this stupid thing, and we did it. I'm sure it got me drunk, but ten shots of gin will tend to do that to a teenager anyway, so I cannot vouch for the efficacy of this particular device, whatever exactly it may have been.

So many nights tend to blend together from this period. Was this one of the nights when the RA knocked on the door and questioned us about the smell of pot? Was it one of the nights when there was a fire drill so we just shut off the lights and kept drinking? All I remember is that at some point, probably around one in the morning, I decided it was too nice a night to sit indoors. No one else agreed, so I set off alone. On my way out, I noticed the window by the dorm's exit (slash-entrance) was open, so for some reason I decided to exit that way. It was all of two-and-a-half, maybe three feet from the cold, unforgiving patch of grass below, but I was feeling indestructible, probably from all that gin. I've heard before that really drunk people sometimes survive horrific car accidents because they're too out of it to brace themselves the way a sober person would, and are thus relaxed enough to let their bodies be tossed around a little instead of tightening up and forcing their spines to fight momentum. Or words to that effect. If I thought anybody was reading this, I'd go back and clean up that sentence. Anyway, whatever. The point is that he principle behind that drunk driver thing is probably what allowed me walk away from my daring leap. A long fucking way to go for that payoff, huh?

Once I got my bearings, I saw my old pal Rudy "El Gatito Cansado" Alvarez (whom I've given the name of a fake boxer to protect his identity, as the last time we communicated, he seemed like he'd become very stern in his adulthood and by now would probably want to distance himself from me as much as possible. Fucking jerk.) sitting on the stoop in front of Gilbert Hall's other entrance/exit, which faced the one I would have just come out of had I not been the devil-may-care rogue with ice water in his veins that I knew not how NOT to be. (So you can picture it better, the building is basically C-shaped, with doors at the two ends and basically just a big empty, lawn in the middle. Anyway...

I'd known Rudy from high school. He was the guy who first introduced me to pot, oddly enough. Smoked it with an empty Coke can in my parents' basement. Turned out to be fake, apparently. He was a good guy, a close friend for many years who grew increasingly to see me as a reprobate as he increasingly became a fan of latter day white ska. I'm not entirely sure there's a connection between the two other than that they seemed to occur simultaneously, but I can kind of see how they could fit together. At least, I kind of hope they do; I strive, in my way, to be all things that ska is not. If you see me in a pork pie hat, I pray to God it's because someone cut my head off and put a pork pie hat on top of it. In Rudy's credit, he never got that far into it, as far as I know. Maybe he bought a pair of black and white patent leather shoes or something, but it's not like he walked around dressed like the trombonist from Reel Big Fish (assuming Reel Big Fish had have a trombonist and he/she dressed/s like a ska person). Christ, this thing has spiraled into nothingness, hasn't it? Oh well.

So I go over to Rudy, who at this point in time still presumably likes me, and I sit down beside him and we start having a nice chitchat. I always liked Rudy and he, at this point, still seemed to like me, had never once let his true, sinister nature slip through in my presence, had been expertly careful to keep his disloyalty a secret. So we talked and were having a gay old time of it when, alls of a sudden, this guy plummets backwards out of a third story window onto the courtyard below. Being a dormitory on a college campus, the area was pretty well-lit, but being late at night, it was also pretty dark. Furthermore, neither of us were looking at the side of the dorm when it happened. I can't speak for Rudy (and if I could, I'd be too busy telling me what a great friend I am and how much I''ve missed my sparkling wit all these empty years that have passed since I last beheld your awesome countenance, oh my great hero, oh my Messiah!), but I remember a blur, then a thump. Rudy and I looked at each other. He said something like, "Did someone just fall out of a window?" I remember him sounding drunker than he sounded a moment before, and I remember feeling strong and alert. I don't recall what i said in response, but I know that I was quick to my feet, and quick to the body.

The guy was on his back, not moving but groaning weakly. I looked up at the window from which he'd fallen. There was a girl there, panicking. "Is he okay?" she cried.

"I don't know! Call Security" I shouted, but she was frozen in panic. I started knocking on the nearest window until another girl I didn't know opened it. "Someone fell out of the window," I told her. "You have to call Security."

"Oh my God," she said. "What happened?"

"I don't know! Just call Security!"

So she did. I stood watch by the body, and tried to assure him that help was on the way. Maybe Rudy stayed with me, but in the way I want to remember it, he was afraid Security would write him up for being drunk and so ran off to hide under his bedclothes. Or maybe he stuck around. Though I really do think he took off. Either way, I'd taken point, and was thus shocked and insulted when the dweeb from Campus Security finally showed up, saw me sitting by the injured student, and forcefully demanded that I not touch or move him. I explained to the guy, who was no older than I and definitely a much bigger nerd, that not only had I not endeavored or planned to move the patient, but that I was the one who saw him fall and got someone to call the incident in to Security. The guy from Security made me leave.

That's pretty much the end of the story. The kid lived. I know he was in a wheelchair for a time, but I don't think it was expected to be permanent. Apparently, he'd gotten drunk at an event for one of the few fraternities I can confidently say was lamer than the one I was in. There were rumors of lawsuits and charter revocations and all that good shit, but I never really heard anything about it once the guy was out of the hospital and back to school. I thought about sending him an anonymous letter tipping him off to the true identity of the mystery hero who saved his life, but decided that, in the end, being a hero is kind of its own reward. Plus, if there's a Heaven, I''m probably at least gonna get a suite.

April Fools!

Oh no! I have been imprisoned for a crime! What an awful turn of events! I am so scared!

Ha ha ha! April Fools! Fooled ya! Fooled ya! Stupid! The only prison I am in is the prison of my mind! I am my only torturer! Hooray! Suckers!

Quick kiddie show idea, not for stealing

Cartoon, aimed at spreading multiculturalism for secret, insidious Jew purposes, featuring adorable insects. It's called, "The TolerANTs", and would ideally feature the vocal talents of:

Hoops legend Michael Jordan as Sweetfeet, the cool black ant.
"Sweet Science" sex sizzler Hector "Macho" Camacho as Crazy Loco, the wisecracking but dumb Hispanic ant who wears a hairnet.
The Geraldine Ferraro of the 21st century, Sen. Joe Lieberman (Fuckface-CT) as Thrifty Cheapowitz, the chubby, grinning, gray-haired, avuncular ant who owns all the businesses in Ant Town, especially the bank.
World-reknowned wiener swallower Kobayashi as Roboyashi--half ant, half calculator, ALL APPETITE!
Syrian President Bashir Assad as oh god this is going nowhere. Probably not an idea worth fleshing out, in retrospect.

So what is, then, an idea worth fleshing out? And let's see if we can get through this with using the word "fleshing" again, okay? I find it a little unsettling.

You know what else I find unsettling? Massive earthquakes. Hi-yo! A little something for all the geologists with us here tonight, ladies and gentlemen. So, I was going to the convenience store today and I got to thinking, "Why do they call them convenience stores? Is it because they're conveniently located and serve customers who almost always want to pop in and buy one, maybe two things? Because if so, I totally get it. Otherwise, what's the deal, right? I mean, seriously."

You know what else I have trouble understanding? Egyptian hieroglyphics. Seriously, it's like, "I got an eye here, a cat here, some kind of serpent over here, this one looks like a cat dressed up like King Tut..." I don't get it. Pardon me for being politically incorrect for a moment, but certain ancient civilizations got left in the dust a loooong time ago. Seriously, where would you rather live today, America, or 4th century BC Macedonia? You're free to choose whichever one you want, but I got one question: which one is it that has Kia Low Pressure Sales Events? Cause that's the one I want to live in. Nuff sed.

Speaking of sales events, this store near me was going out of business and having a massive clearout sale, with some items marked down as much as 99%. Well, to cut a long (and rather humiliating) story short, say hello to the proud new owner of 360 feet of retail shelving! It cost me less than $10,000, too. If I can convince the city to drive the gypsies out of this one location I've had my eye on, I'd say were no more than a couple months away from Tire Iron City becoming a reality and not a fever-dream like the sisters keep telling me.

Speaking of which, I promised Sister Ashlee I'd unclog the blood tube in the main Jesus--the big one that hangs over the thing. The stage, or whatever. You'd think, living in the basement of a church most of my life, I'd remember the names of some of these things. But me, I'm always forgetting stuff. Like the time I forgot to finish what