Absolutely Nothing

So how can a person who literally does nothing all day hope to be respected by the rest of humankind? "Nothing" generally consists of occasionally letting the dog out so he can bark at the neighbor's dog -- because to hell with that whiny chihuahua -- and maybe exerting the necessary force to push the "change-channel" button on the channel-changer. That's really what the last four or five years has been for me; just, you know, watching TV. Eating. Sleeping. More or less. That's what I hope will be on my epitaph: "Ate, Slept, Defecated. A Life in Words."

Ah, but with no particular specials skills that rise above the cream of the crop, how does one stay motivated to keep moving? Knowing that you're an inadequate human being certainly doesn't help one's positive outlook on life, and doing "nothing" cannot be properly displayed on a resume without expecting a raise of the eyebrow and maybe a few laughs from a would-be employer. Nothing is something! Can't you see it? It takes one jerk-of-a-person to say, "Hey, I'm blind, but I'm going to climb this 29,000+ foot mountain anyway just because, yeah, you know, no biggie," and another person to say, "I'm alive and I was given the tools necessary to make a difference in the world, but to hell with it, I'm gonna do jack shit. Ooh, look, reruns of Seinfeld!" That...that is tenacity: though the world expects it all from you, "nothing" is on the top of your to-do list. It's supremely difficult! I have first hand experience!

Tom Hanks' fictional character -- who will be unfortunately referenced here -- was once marooned on a island with just a volleyball, a productly-placed Fed-Ex package, and his sanity. He started talking to the volleyball and he didn't open the potentially life-saving package, but despite these two acts of lunacy, his sanity still existed within the confines of his newly-Robinson-Crusoe-christened heart. However, he lost it once he wanted to get back to civilization. See, a lot of what someone does (I'm assuming) alone on a deserted island is absolutely nothing. You do what you need to survive (harpoon the fish, break some coconuts, conduct oral surgery with an ice-skate, etc.) but even then...you end up doing a whole lot of nothing. It breaks a man. Accomplishing something is easy. You just tell yourself, "I'm going to [for lack of a better [and non-repetitious] example] climb a mountain today! Okey-dokey, here I go!" At the end of the day, you feel good about yourself -- you've gotten your exercise, you've gotten your scenic vista, and you've done something that only a chosen few [read: possible thousands] will get the privilege to do.

Doing the exact opposite and still feeling good about yourself? It's rough. It's like grabbing your metaphorical soul and violently rubbing it against a rusted cheese-grater. Tom Hanks' character couldn't mentally handle wasting away doing nothing with his life, so he broke. He went back to civilization to pursue "accomplishments" and "dreams".

What a pussy.

Random Dreams: Part Five

We were out on the Florida Marlins' baseball field, which, for some reason, was really on the beach. Home plate was the shallowest of the positions on the field, but near-everything else was out in the ocean, with the poor center-fielder being the deepest of all. I was the third base ball boy, and I kept missing every foul that would roll in my direction. Finally, upset by this, one of the umpires decided to start throwing me pop-flies. The crowd -- consisting of a bunch of 300-pound fat people -- shouted in anger when I could not catch a single one of them. Who could blame me? I was technically treading water while trying to catch baseballs.

The inning was over, and I trudged into the dugout, which also happened to be a seafood restaurant. Unfortunately, at that time, the tide came in, along with a bunch of sword fish with saws for noses and sharks with fish hooks for teeth. Course, they started biting us. Clutching high onto a nearby chain-link fence, I looked down at the water below me and saw them ferociously hunting for a shred of savory Florida human leg meat. I could have sworn a morbidly obese woman was grabbed and taken into the depths of the ocean (or baseball field, in this case). The tide eventually subsided, and I sullenly walked into the dugout/restaurant.


However, as with most weird dreams, I was almost crushed by a woman who was not 300-pounds, but closer to a thousand. I could clearly see the glistening ripples in her magnificent fat rolls jiggle as she came rolling towards me. Helpless -- powerless -- I tried my best to run, but this woman was more or less taking up every square inch of the place. Like a steamroller traveling at about three miles an hour, she undulated towards me until finally, my feet moved and I ran the hell out of there.

Another obese woman screamed -- not because I was almost crushed to death, but because the second-baseman was being scooped up whole into the mouth of a great white shark. That's when the phone rang in real life.

Random Dreams: Part Four

I don't know why, but I've been dreaming a lot lately. I'm guessing it's because I'm getting too much REM sleep, due to the fact that whenever the alarm erupts into a fit of unwanted noise, I just end up hitting the snooze button. Right now, sleeping a little later is something I'm allowed to do! Other times, say, when I have an actual job, I won't be given the pleasure of such weird dreams.

Anyway! This morning I rode through some wet cement on my bike, but it wasn't entirely on purpose. I just didn't see it before I rode through it, that's all! Unfortunately, the Mexican dude there that had just laid the cement dashed over to berate me -- he didn't speak a word of English, though, so he had his young son translate for him. Why this kid wasn't in school was beyond me, but here he was, translating angry words in my general direction. I apologized, and the issue was quickly resolved.

A couple days ago, in reality, I had watched Pineapple Express, a movie you can tell was made just because the producers wanted to make it, which is nice in an industry where money rules the place. Sadly, the film isn't actually any good. Never mind the critique -- the point is, Amber Heard played the protagonist's girlfriend in Pineapple Express, so, of course, she also happened to appear in my dream. Nothing naughty went down, mind you! We just ended up playing a game of tag.

Then her mom showed up and told Amber she had to go home. Sigh.
Bye, Amber. Don't know why you were in a bikini, but I guess that's just how things are 'round here.

Random Dreams: Part Three

When I awoke this morning, I remember that I had dreamt the ground opening up and spitting giant, flaming boulders upon the surface of the earth. These boulders were the size of buildings; I could gauge the size because these fiery colossi demolished a few when they first began erupting from the earth. Of course, I ran at full speed away from them, and, of course, since I am able to tell the whole story of the dream, I was able to get away.
The strange aspect about the boulders is that they just didn't roll around like normal rocks effected by normal laws of physics, no -- they seemed to be controlled by a will of their own, and if they spotted any person or building in the vicinity of their "eyesight", they rolled in that specific direction. Luckily, I was the protagonist of my own dream. As such, protagonists do not die, much less get crushed by gigantic, flaming boulders.

A little later in the dream, I escaped from downtown and hijacked, of all vehicles, a Hummer. Thing is, I couldn't drive it out of the parking lot, the thing was so big. So, I ended up attempting to climb this steep incline, and thus the Hummer rolled onto its top.

That's when I woke up.

This Isn't About The Hangover, But Here's a Picture of the Movie Anyway to Make This Post More Readable

I was at Target last night, trying to find a fucking copy of The Hangover, which, by the way, is not a movie worth the effort of scouring an entire valley to find. The great thing (note: sarcasm) about living in a small valley is that many stores don't receive as many shipments as they would, say, in the city -- as such, you've got to put a little more "oomph" into your search than normal. We don't even have any normal movie-rental places. So, you're Indiana Jones, and you're traversing deadly, icy streets and dodging oncoming deer to finally discover a copy of a sacred film where four dudes get in some deep shit in Vegas.

But surprisingly, this worthless block of words isn't about The Hangover, no sir; instead, it's going to be a short analysis of how my mind functions in an otherwise normal situation. Here's the dealio: we're at Target, we've gotten our Sacred Cow of a Movie, and we're standing in line. Pretty normal. To point out that, hey, I'm pretty broke and I really shouldn't be buying anything, let alone a movie I probably am not going to like all that much, I make this comment about how I'm from Aspen and can afford every little item that may come into contact with my well-manicured fingertips. I try to say this with a posh-British accent, hoping to get some sort of reaction.

I get a reaction, but not the one I was expecting.

"Well, aren't you pretty snobby."

This comes from the cashier, who's currently checking out the people in front of us. I turn, looking deep into her eyes, trying to figure out whether she's serious or not. Oh, she's pretty fucking serious, you can tell by the look on her face. My friend, fortunately, says, "Oh, he's not really from Aspen."

No response from Miss Priss.

I'm pretty dumbfounded at this point, because a) who takes anything seriously these days when you've got the fucking Terminator in office and b) I could set fire to a pile of fresh dog shit in the middle of the store and nobody would notice, I'm that inconspicuous. Anything I say is dust in the wind.

Long story short, the cashier has someone take over for her before she can ring us up, she walks away, and we leave.

It's not that great of a story, really, especially not one to write about. Thing is, I wasn't really angry that this person whom I had never met was calling me out on something that actually wasn't true, no -- I felt guilty because my performance wasn't up to snuff. Normally, you can tell when I'm being sarcastic, but here was this person who did not know that some dumb comment I made was actually, truly falsified. I am not from Aspen! I do not have a Bently sitting in my garage! I don't speak in a posh-British accent! I don't need a monocle to see clearly through my left eye!

More than anything, I wanted to apologize to her because I hadn't given her my best. Otherwise, she would have been in hysterics about how funny the entire I-have-no-money-yet-I'm-buying-this-completely-overrated-movie situation was. It's pretty funny! It's not, but still. Why so serious?

P.S. -- I Wuv You, Target! Thank you for relieving me of such undignified greenery!

Gee-tar Siren Song

What exactly is the appeal of being able to play a guitar, anyway?

You get women. And...that's about it.

As I see it, the guitar not only seems like a tool to create music, but also the male version of a siren call to woo the fairer sex.

Way back when, I tried to play the guitar. I thought it would make me cooler -- that I would be able to enter the annual high school talent show and have all the girls hoot and holler and whistle as I strummed the chords required to play whatever song I scientifically decided would earn me the most, how you say, feminine street cred. Even if I wasn't handsome, even if I had a rotten personality, even if I consistently shot loogies from my mouth whenever I spoke; if I was able to play the guitar, none of that would have mattered. I would be a god. An ugly, disgusting, unlikeable, musical god. But the women would love me.

All right, so maybe that's a little exaggerated. Still, there's no denying that the guitar has some societal power here in the world. You can't say something to that effect of the french horn, for example.

Before I was physically and mentally conscious of myself, my instrument of choice was, of all things, the flute. I had probably chosen it because I was actually able to get some sound out of the damned thing. Thinking back on middle school band class now, it's strange how my classmates' chosen instruments perfectly complimented their categorical personality. All the loud people played the trumpets, the stoners and underachievers banged the drums, the shallow valley girls tooted and squeaked their clarinets, the tall people played the tubas, the didn't-quite-fit-in-a-specific-category people played the trombones, and the frickin' dainty-ass wafers were on the flutes. I was quiet and shy; thus, I played the flute.

I remember a call my band teacher made to my parents before I had made the flute my permanent instrument of choice: he wanted to make sure that it was all right if I, a certified teenage dude, played such a homosexual instrument.

"Why the hell not?" I think was my response at the time. "I can get sound out of it, so I'd like to play it."

Some years later, I quit. I wasn't getting any better, and most of the material we were playing just didn't interest me anymore. I was tired of music -- at least, tired of playing music. So, despite all of that, I decided to pick up the guitar instead, though not because I thought I would enjoy it, but because it would get me somewhere. Playing the guitar meant I was moving up in the world. All I needed to know was the three chords required to play Hey Jude, and my course for success was set. Money would start rolling in by the millions, I would have to hire a couple bodyguards to help stave off the tons upon tons of women from lovingly suffocating me, and best of all, I would be happy just knowing that it took little to no skill to get on that gleaming, shiny pedestal of Gee-tar Awesome.

Okay, so I don't really think like that, but it still stumps me as to why the guitar is such a nationally-lauded instrument. I've boiled it down to a couple reasons:

1) The Rock-Star Lifestyle

Seriously, if you're a rock-star, you're a god. Being able to shred some sort of quick melody, your fingers jumping up and down the frets, is more heroically viable than conducting heart surgery on a dying patient. Add in some head-banging and long hair, and to the guitar-loving world, you can do no wrong. You could insult somebody's mom and get away with it -- that's how loved you are. I guess the rock-star lifestyle isn't what it used to be, though, but that's probably because now anyone can get in on a taste of the action. How, you ask? Well:

2) It's Because of Guitar Hero and Rock Band, Bra!

A lot of musicians have been complaining in the past couple years about the fictional reality that these artificial music games create for the millions upon millions of dorm-room kids who have played them. These musicians claim that pressing buttons on a plastic guitar does not, in any way, compare to actually strumming a bona fide guitar -- instead, these dorm room kids should get out and actually pick up a piece of the real action. While these sentiments are entirely true -- bragging about how you can conquer some Dragonforce riff in Guitar Hero is kind of sad, really, when you think about whether or not you could actually play the song on something not made entirely of plastic -- I think the main problem musicians have with these games is that they give everybody a glimpse of what only a select few musicians could hope to experience. It's like finally joining an exclusive club where you're able to eat genuine crab and lobster all day, gorging in some succulent deliciousness; then you find out that they make fake crab and lobster and sell them at the local supermarket, a place where the Average Joe goes. Oh, and the fake stuff tastes just as good.

3) The Guitar Has Nothing to do with the Mouth

If you've played some sort of instrument that requires a certain amount of lung capacity, then you certainly know about the amount of saliva that accumulates every time you blow into the thing. Spit valves, for example, are kind of nasty. And so is the human mouth, a place where bad breath could run rampant, or where teeth could be the most delicious shade of yellow. Or brown, even! So all the women out there will be delighted to know that the guitar has nothing to do with that orifice. They can rest easy. That's why all of the most "romantic" instruments (I'm thinking Lady and the Tramp here, with the accordion), don't need any wind power to use. The same goes for the guitar, which is the number-one pick for people who want to get women, but don't want to look like a nerd plucking the violin or bash their social lives against the wall solely by playing the accordion.

(I like the accordion, though! It's just, most people don't.)

And that's the success story of the guitar. I can appreciate those small number of people that can actually play it, and play it well, but for everyone else, I don't want to hear you strangling a dead cat. I know you're trying to get ahead in life. Believe me, I've been there. But you just sound...terrible. Put your time instead to becoming a doctor or a veterinarian. Animals need saving, too, and the ladies will love you for it.

Vicinity of Obscenity

2010 is going to be an interesting year, I can already tell. It began with the usual fireworks show up in Aspen, Colorado, which was pretty usual as far as usual fireworks shows go. There was this guy being hauled from a nearby outhouse into a cop car, which we all assumed was due to some Indecent Exposure; because, dude, it was wickedly cold out and shrinkage is embarrassing and should be lawfully punished if revealed to the public. We all know the effects of shrinkage -- relationship breakups, crying children, and yes, the extreme plummeting of self-esteem. Knowing this country and its laws, the poor bastard in the cop car probably is gonna get five, maybe ten years.

It was cold out. He should have known better.

Once Aspen became boring (which was pretty quickly), we went back home and decided to scream obscenities at the local deer crossing the road. These deer...they think they can just walk out in front of an oncoming vehicle and hope to get away with it! I mean, it's almost like those pedestrians who decide to take their sweet everloving time crossing the road when I'm obviously in a hurry -- you can tell by the loud revving of the engine and the easily-visible vein in my forehead. So, just like these pedestrians, these deer get the old obscenities treatment.

Thing is, this isn't any old obscenities treatment. No, ours is special.

FECKIN A.

That's what it is. Not exactly your standard "Fuckin' A", no. "Feckin A" is a verb and a noun all at once. It's technically not quite an obscenity, yet it sounds close enough to be mistaken as one.

How did it originate, you ask? You didn't ask? Well, Feckin A, I'm gonna tell you anyway.

His name was Kurt. He worked at the local pizza joint. He was in my journalism class back in high school, and as his editor, I told him that his article needed a complete overhaul. Kurt didn't take too kindly to that. A year later, once I had graduated, Kurt and I reminisced about that specific journalism class, and Kurt, in all his brilliance, coined the phrase "Feckin A".

It appears to be two words, but actually only consists of a single word. Really, you kind of pronounce it, "F-eh-kin-uh". Pretend you're a stoner. Pretend you've just gone to the dentist and just gotten your entire mouth numbed up. Now say "Fuckin' A".

Yeah. That's it. You've got it. It's absolute genius.

I salute you, Kurt.

Oh yeah, that's right -- 2010. I have a feeling it's going to be a good year.

What Would Kratos Do (WWKD)? Part 4

The gods were gunning for him, and by "him", I mean the friend of a friend.

He had taken it upon himself to follow in the immortal steps of Kratos and punish the gods himself, inescapable brutality and all. To curse such a delicious drink was a crime against humanity. The gods needed to pay.

And not in dollars, my friend.

In blood.

However, the beings upon Mount Olympus were very much aware of his intentions and were tracking his every move. Kratos, the once-powerful warrior and God of War, had tried and failed this dangerous mission before, sent to the depths of Hades for all eternity to burn for his disobedience -- but apparently, Ol' Whitey had mustered enough mental power to send a motivational message to Mankind. Now, humanity's fate was in its own hands.

The friend of a friend was struggling through thickets in the misty forest, slowly making his way toward Mount Olympus, broadsword strapped to his back. No jet or airplane could penetrate the forcefield around the mystical mountain, unfortunately; no, the only epic way was on foot, and as such, an adventure could occur so as people could write stories about it. (It would be boring if someone could just fly up to their destination, in other words.) Also, he had a broadsword on his back. Either this meant he was deadly serious about his intentions, or he was compensating for something.

Slowly, very slowly, the friend of a friend was delving deeper into the forest -- so deep, in fact, that he equipped his massive, phallic weapon and began to hack away at all the vegetation and greenery that dared to stand in his way. Pine needles SWOOSHED! Vines went WAHPPAH! Canadian maple leaves went HUZZAH and were soon shredded to pieces.

"What kind of sorcery is this," he wondered, "where all the greenery in the world gathers in droves to impede my progress?"

He didn't have much time to ponder after that, for the pine needles and vines and Canadian maple leaves were upon him again, this time in a swarm that was thicker and fuller and even more deadly. A shrill scream escaped from the poor man's mouth as he tried to combat the furious vegetation, hacking and slashing as quickly as he could. But the maple leaves blinded him, and the pine needles pierced his skin, and the vines were wrapping themselves around both his body and his gigantic, pulsating broadsword. With his last breath, the friend of a friend was only able to manage one final phrase:

"What would Kratos do?"

He then promptly laid down and died.

What Would Kratos Do (WWKD)? Part 3

"WHAT WOULD KRATOS DO?"

Those were the words that had emerged from the mouth of the friend of my friend while he was stricken with the horrible Stone of the Kidneys disease. Thoughts of Kratos had burst into his head, and thus, the pestilence was eradicated from his body. That's all it took; for the legendary Kratos had slaughtered hundreds upon thousands of harpies, minotaurs, and hydras -- how could something so weak as a couple of stones formed by swallowing the delicious beverage of soda compare to these foul beasts of yore?

They couldn't. And now people were becoming healthy, imbued with an extraordinary strength brought on by the thoughts of Kratos.

"W-what shall we do now?" worried the gods. Kratos had defied them before, and now that he had taken the side of the humans, it seemed as if there was nothing to do to counter mankind's sudden wellness.

"We're powerless!" they wailed.

"We're doomed!" they cried.

"This Mountain Dew: Code Red stuff turns my stools into bright red lozenges of fecal matter!" yelped a lowly god who had, out of sheer curiosity, tasted said delicious human beverage.

Suddenly, Zeus emerged, lightning bolt in hand. His face was calm, though tiny beads of sweat were evident upon his forehead.

"Fear not!" he uttered. "I have an answer to our dilemma..."

Wide eyed, the gods all at once realized their folly. They knew what he spoke of.

"Falbi..." they whispered in unison.
Falbi was different from Kratos in the sense that he ran a chicken-flying mini-game on the cliffs of Lake Hylia; he had never, I am told, torn the wings from a harpy or stabbed a minotaur in the throat. No, Falbi was just a simple, flamboyant, extremely well-dressed man who managed a successful business that may or may not have given customers the chance to earn a piece of heart or an orange 100-rupee prize.

So why did the gods fear him? Why did they utter his name with such reverence?

It was Falbi's enchanting, melodic voice!

That voice ("Hiiiiii!") had the ability to waft through the heavens and mend any complex argument that people might have against the gods. Mankind could be angry at the beings on Mount Olympus for causing a gigantic tornado to pick up and toss all their cows, easily mincing the poor animals into hamburger stew -- but with one word from Falbi, these once-furious people would just shrug and say, "Yeah, maybe all that hamburger would have clogged my arteries. Thanks Falbi!"

Hades, Falbi could even convince a grown man to grab a chicken, hang on for dear life, and jump from a cliff into the shivering waters of the lake below. Chickens don't actually fly, mind you. And they don't support a human's body weight. But such was the power of Falbi!

What Would Kratos Do (WWKD)? Part 2

"And so it was..."

No, no it wasn't. Not exactly.

This friend of a friend of mine would not give in to the pain so easily. His insides on fire, he thought that he would just succumb to the torture, that the easiest way out of this excruciating dilemma would be to simply lay down and die.

"No, you're right, Kratos," he muttered. "This can't be the way it ends...no one should die this way. I'm not going to die this way."

Arms shaking, legs quaking, kidney stones rumbling, he vaulted from his hospital bed, shouted to the gods above, "WHAT WOULD KRATOS DO?", and emerged from that villainous room unscathed. The doctors and nurses couldn't explain what had just occurred before their very eyes; a mere boy -- nay! A MAN! -- had just survived the worst of curses that those blasphemous beings from Mount Olympus could have conjured up from the depths of Hades and placed upon the finest beverages of mankind.

How had he done it? Was it some sort of witchcraft? Some kind of Harry Potter voodoo?

"Nay, doctors and nurses! Be not startled! For Kratos, enemy of the gods and friend to Man, came to me in a feverish dream and told me not to worry. He gave me the strength to survive, and will, too, soon give strength to those stricken by these wicked kidney stones! Hurrah!"

"Hurrah!" the medical staff echoed. The entire hospital erupted into a melodious harmony of cheers. Up on Mount Olympus, the gods heard these sounds of joy and happiness, and their bushy brows furrowed.

"What is going on?" they pondered, readjusting their La-Z-Boy recliners to get a better view of what was happening down below. "Didn't we make these 'sodas' undrinkable? Aren't humans stricken with the horrible Stones of the Kidney? Why are these shouts down yonder so joyous?"

The friend of a friend of mine heard the gods' query and let out a bloodthirsty scream.

And the beings upon Mount Olympus recoiled in terror, for they knew that this could only mean one thing:

The gods were going down.

Edit: a video appears!

What Would Kratos Do (WWKD)? Part 1

A friend of a friend of mine was in the hospital some time ago for a problem that might have been related to drinking too much soda, but let's just say it was caused by the gods on Mount Olympus. These ferocious gods had been angry for the longest time! For they had created the fine beverage of water, and blessed the entire world with its presence. One day, however, the gods realized that there may have been too much water for all the world's beings, so they cursed the oceans by contaminating them with the most deadliest of devilry: salt. Oh, were the humans pissed!

"Curse you!" they shouted to the gods, who were relaxed on their La-Z-Boy recliners up on Mount Olympus. "We must drink from these oceans, and now you have contaminated them? Curse you!"

So these humans created a beverage of their own, one that would rival water and put it out of commission in supermarkets across the world. The beverage was called "soda". And most of the world's inhabitants shrieked with joy and frolicked among the flowers and bunnies and fireflies, Diet Dr. Pepper's in hand. This was the beginning of World Peace.

That is, until one fateful day, the gods caught wind of these "Diet Dr. Peppers" and these "Mountain Dew: Code Reds" and decided that they must put a curse on these as well, for humans should not be able to make a beverage as delicious as something the gods could concoct.

"Have some kidney stones, pitiful humans!" they shouted with a chuckle. "Consume too much of your delicious drink and may you have the best of times trying to urinate! Har har!"

And so it was.

Edit: And in consideration for the blind, a narrated version:

The Seafood Burrito

There's something terrifyingly uncomfortable about seeing a bunch of white people in a Mexican restaurant, you know? Most of what makes the Mexican restaurant experience is the atmosphere, with the music, the adobe architecture, and most importantly, the authentic Mexican people rounding out the whole package. When you can't even hear the mustachioed guy in the speakers singing about his long-lost love because a large group of obese, middle-aged white people keeping cackling and chewing away at their food, something is wrong with the world.

Our waiter called us "amigos". I don't know why he did. He didn't look like he wanted to be there working, so I doubt serving us food made us welcoming and friendly to him. Still, if I had any friends, I would probably call them "amigos" with an affected accent, but the only friend I have is a pet cat named Amigo. I just renamed her that. I hope she's okay with it.

I had a seafood burrito, though.

The Grandfather Paradox

I once met my future self in the auditorium of my old high school, a high school that wasn't old at the time because there was still asbestos in the walls and the authorities hadn't yet realized that it was slowly killing us all. Two of my female classmates and I were rehearsing for an upcoming play -- and for the sake of privacy, let's name these girls "Judy" and, the other, oh, I don't know, "Megan O'Flannegan" (how's that for specificity?). After we were finished for the day, Megan, who I may or may not have been unhealthily obsessed with at the time, came up to me looking for some sort of consolation for a problem that had been pestering her:

"You know, sometimes I just can't stand Judy."

"Really?" I inquired with an incredibly handsome smirk. "Why not? She seems fine to me."

"Well," said Megan, who had had more theater and acting experience than Judy and I combined, "she started giving me pointers today about what I could do better. It's like she thinks she knows more about acting than I do."

"That's ridiculous. She probably was just...insecure about her own abilities, so she criticized yours."

That's probably what I should have said. As a complete jackass who then viewed the world as an axe murderer who was out to get me at every whim, I thought that Megan's complaints were childish and immature. She was probably talking to me just for the sake of talking to me, seeing as I was an attractive and lovable guy who was absolutely impossible to resist (but apparently not too impossible, as we will soon see).

Instead, I replied, "Know what, Megan? Just deal with it."

Megan looked at me with disgust.

"'Know what'?" she mocked. "You're an asshole." She stormed off.

Looking back on it, she was wrong about me; I was a jackass, not an asshole. Either way, I had pissed off a girl who I had liked above all other girls in a high school appropriately deemed "The Hot Girl Academy," which only accepted the hottest of the hotties. Oh, and I attended it, too, for some reason. Don't ask how or why. It just pays to know people, that's all.

In any case, I stood alone in that auditorium, feeling both dejected and rejected. But this story isn't about how I had lost the girl of my dreams -- it's about how I lost the girl of my dreams to science. For at that moment, a bright light appeared on stage, and from that bright light appeared...me. I hadn't aged a day.

"Howdy, there, old self," he said.

My jaw dropped. "What the hell? Who...what are you?"

He smiled. "Isn't it obvious? I'm from the future, delivered unto the heavens from my very own homemade time machine, here to correct the sins of my past. I'm you."

"Really, huh?" I accepted this strange twist of fate rather quickly. "You look good."

"Thanks. Eat your vegetables. Drink your milk. Yadda yadda." My future self cleared his throat. "Anyway, delightfully pleasant conversation is not why I'm here, I'm sorry to say. I'm here to correct the si--"

"...'sins of my past'. Yeah, I got it." I was incredulous. "What sins? I haven't committed any sins, uh, per se..."

Now my future self looked incredulous. "You don't consider that a sin, what you just did? You let the goddamn girl of your dreams slip away like that, and you don't consider that a sin?"

"Well, now that you mention it..."

"You're damn right it's a sin! Just because you're all angsty now does not give you the right to bash your future's hopes and dreams against a friggin' brick wall!"

I scoffed. "I haven't bashed anything! You -- I mean 'I' -- built a time machine! Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

"No, it's definitely a colossal human achievement; I will admit that. But I slaved hours and hours to build it, and in the process, denied the hundreds upon thousands of gorgeous women knocking at my doorstep just to get here. To get to this one moment."

"Are you serious?" I asked, again incredulous. "Out of all the events in history, out of all the tragedies you could have averted, out of all the wrongs you could have righted, you chose this moment in time...just to tell me to stop being such a jackass?"

"Well, basically."

I stared in amazement. "You know, now that I think about it, I do recall something I learned from the HGA's science class about time travel, something I wouldn't have ever thought about had you not shown up. Or did you forget about that seemingly crucial piece of information, too, even while making your time machine?"

"Like what?"

"Well," I announced, "there's this little thing called the 'Grandfather Paradox'..."

My future self's eyes became headlights.

"Oh, shit..." Realization had hit him in the face, apparently. I continued.

"You remember, now, don't you? You know, the theory that states that if a person were to go back in time and kill his or her grandfather, then the grandchild, AKA the killer, would have never been conceived at all? Come on, man! Have you never seen Back to the Future? ...Well, obviously you have because I have..."

"No, I see where you're going with this."

"Right. This means that by coming back here to warn me about a dumb verbal mistake I had made with Megan, it will seemingly convert one 'bleak' future path to another future path filled with a lifetime of happiness with her, right? But you wouldn't even be here had that happened. What I'm saying is, nothing will come of your time-traveling actions. You being here means I'm still going to go down a lonely, yet extremely technological-savvy road no matter what you do!"

Defeated, my future self admitted, "You know what? You're absolutely right. Huh. Well, that sucks. No use crying over spilt milk, right?"

"Er...not exactly."

It looked like my future self was physically trying to hold back the tears. He probably was about to say something profound, but all he could muster was, "See you later...asshole."

"Jackass."

And with that, he disappeared into the light and, contrary to his farewell, was never to be seen again. Well, except a few months later when I checked my face in the reflection of the time machine I was building.

Random Dreams: Part Two

I swear to you, right now, that I am not on drugs. I swear!

There's this dream I've had, one that is quite famous among my friends because I've told it so many times, and it honestly doesn't get any less weird each time I tell it. I have strange dreams -- I can't help it. Speaking of which, many philosophical-minded people seem to analyze dreams and how they pertain to a person's hidden demons or subconscious feelings.

I don't really buy in to that school of thought. That's not really how my mind works: logically, I'm probably insane.

Anyway, the dream begins during one of my science classes in high school. The teacher is an older woman with shoulder-length gray hair, and it should be noted that she and I never really saw eye-to-eye. She's lecturing to the class as always, when she suddenly turns around and says,

"Hold on: I'm going to get the experiment from out of the back room."

Okay, so no big deal, right? Wrong.

After about ten minutes or so, she doesn't emerge from the room, so the class calls upon me to find out what the hell is taking so long. I get up, open the door, and there she is, sitting on a white bucket with her pants down, a determined look on her face.

Now, in the dream, I somehow get a close-up shot of what she's, uh, producing in the bucket, and it turns out to be this:

A vein-y, white sausage. That was her experiment for the class. My god.

If you try to approach this from an analytical perspective, I don't even know where you would begin. I'm sure you could get into the sexual implications or something like that, but that's a topic that doesn't seem too appealing right now. Or ever.

As it stands, the vision of the sausage is something that will haunt me forever.

Hmm.

Random Dreams: Part One

While I have it fresh in my mind, I'm going to tell you about a dream I had this morning:

It began as Uncharted 2 -- I was first dragged down a waterfall into an Italian city, where I was then assaulted by a chef with a meat cleaver. When I grabbed the weapon from him and slashed at his throat, nothing happened....like slicing through air. The chef growled, knocked me out, and I was captured. Next thing I knew, I was handcuffed, running around the city, wondering how and why I had broken free of the chef's culinary clutches. Then, I broke the steel prison around my wrists and decided to attend my dad's birthday party, which was conveniently going on in the vicinity at the time.

I sat down at a table next to my brother, and then a waiter showed up.

"What would you like to order?" he asked.

My brother and I looked around, but we couldn't find our menus. The waiter sighed with exhaustion and sat on a nearby chair, covering his face with his hands.

"It's been a long day..."

Out of nowhere, my aunt appeared in a black dress and looked strikingly similar to Sally Field (she actually does look like Sally Field in real life). She made a comment that subtly dissed my mom's weight, and then she trotted away. I got angry.

The dream falls into this horrific scenario where this party is transported into a basement/cellar combo with dim lights, but with a significant amount of people having a good time. I get up to get a drink, and that's when I encounter the moose.

It's instantly recognizable, but the red eyes and white fur are a little jarring. The moose turns to me and snorts -- the thing only has one antler jutting out the side of its nostril!

I run. I don't know why exactly, but I feel it's my job to protect the kids at the party, and that white beast potentially has some sort of hellish wrath up its sleeve that I don't want anyone to experience. When I get back to the room, everyone has cleared out except this one family: some parents and their two kids. The father tells me to get the hell out of there; the moose is coming! I don't want to leave the people, but I take his advice anyway. I hear the family's shrieks and screams as I run for my life.

One of the adjacent rooms is an old western saloon, and on a table, I pick up two fully-loaded revolvers. They feel good in my hands (even in the dream): heavy and firm. Around the next corner is Woody Harrelson, playing his character from No Country for Old Men, and next to him is his prostitute girlfriend. I draw my gun and Woody does the same. We both fire. The smoke clears. I see Woody collapsed on the floor.

His girlfriend also draws her gun, but I tell her, "No, you can't do that. It's against the rules." I point to Woody.

"He already shot."

She tries to fire anyway, but all she gets are clicks from the hammer hitting an empty cylinder.

And of course, with any strange dream, it concludes with a hot make-out session between me and a girl I knew from high school, who now smokes so much pot that she makes the guys from Half-Baked look normal (and if I made out with her now, I probably would contract some horrible, unknown, druggy disease. No offense, of course.).

And no, as a matter of fact, I am not on any drugs myself! Hooray for plain-ol' insanity!

Eulogy for an Unknown

A friend of mine was killed in a car accident about two weeks ago. Well, I really shouldn't call him a friend because he was more of an acquaintance than anything. We had gone to middle school together for a couple years, and then when high school rolled around, he vanished from my quaint little teenage world. Whether he had dropped out or just transferred to another school is beyond me -- the point is, I knew him, and by educational means, he was connected to me.

Then, after I had graduated and began attending the nearby community college, this acquaintance of mine reappeared. I got a call one morning from my dad saying, "Your mom was in a car accident; she's okay, don't worry. She just bumped her head is all." Dad and I drove to the hospital, where Mom was recovering from a slight bruise to the head, but you could tell she was shaken up from the event. I really don't think she drives as casually as she did since then.

My mom was dropping my brothers off at school when out of the blue, this car careened into her, completely totaling the back end of our three-year old Toyota RAV4. Apparently, the guy driving his car hadn't bothered to scrape the ice off the windshield and was leaning his head out the window so he could see. Obviously, he didn't spot my mom's car in his general direction. Nobody was seriously injured, but once I found out who the driver was, I did a double take and vomited all over the floor.

Okay, so not really. My realization was relatively clean.

Yeah, it was him. The guy from school. It's rather strange having someone vanish from your world and then quickly reemerge to preform some surprising act that will forever leave an impact. Sure, it had more of an impact on my mom than anything, but it affected me, too...little though it may be.

Months later, I saw him at a popular local pizza joint. He didn't recognize me, nor did he know he had crashed into our family car. I thought I had wanted to beat the living shit out of him, but I didn't. Really, the first instinct that came to mind was to ask him, hey, man, are you stupid? Who the hell drives with an iced-over windshield? Let that shit thaw out, yo! I'd give him the run-down, he'd say he was sorry, it won't ever happen again, and we'd go our separate ways.

That didn't happen.

Instead, I avoided all eye-contact, finished my pizza, and left the restaurant a few minutes later. I didn't hear from or about him until a phone call two weeks ago. It was my dad.

"Hey, do you know a [such-and-such]?" he asked.

"Yeah. Why? That's the guy I went to school with. The guy who hit mom."

"I thought so. Well, there's a thing in the paper about him. It says he was killed in a car accident."

Huh. Really now. You don't say.

My acquaintance was twenty years old. Like some goddamned magician, he did a disappearing act two times in my life, and twice did he reappear to shock the hell out of me. He spoke a little English when I knew him, though mostly Spanish to his actual friends. He was in some of my classes; I probably lent him some pencils and paper and him the same to me. We might have even played some Four Square. And now, because I didn't give him the rundown at that pizza place or give him a fucking black eye, he's dead. Dead and gone.

I've thought about this for a while. I don't blame myself, or try not to, at least. He was speeding and wasn't wearing a seatbelt. Same old story. But you know, I could have stopped this from happening. I mean, it would have made a hell of a story in the local paper: "Kid Starts Fight With Other Kid He Knew From Middle School -- Victim of Black Eye Learns Lesson." I probably would have been banned from that pizza place and done some jail time, maybe, but it would have been worth the goddamn effort to save his life.

And lately, the food at that pizza joint hasn't tasted all that great, either. Yes, it would have been a fucking noble sacrifice.

The noblest fucking sacrifice the world ever saw.

Rest in peace, guy. Thanks for letting me borrow those pencils in middle school. I never really thanked you for that.

Wait! Don't Go! You Clicked My Name Out of Pure Curiosity on Some Website, Didn't You, You Poor Bastard

You really shouldn't go around doing that. Most of the time, you'll see some unusual or interesting comment left by some random person on a message board, and you'll think, "Well, this guy's comment was pretty damn weird, so I'll just see what he's going on about at his personal website!"

And when you get there, you realize, "Oh god, what have I done? This blog of his is complete shit and absolutely incompetent compared to real, professional writing."

Believe me, I sympathize with you. Let me be the first to tell you that this blog, too, is complete shit, and I have given up updating it because -- *gasp* *big surprise* -- nobody reads it. Which, as you can see by the title, is kind of a strange, double-edged-sword-kind-of-gimmick.

Honestly, I'm just trying my best not to blend in with the crowd, that pulsating mass of "personal feelings" and "political stances" and "absolute shit" that is the Internet...again, which is a double-edged sword because everyone probably is trying to distance themselves from it, too. It's like that time when I wanted to be original, so I dyed my hair blue, carved the alphabet into my chest with a knife, and ran around singing that wondrous 80's classic, "Everybody Wants to Rule the World".

Problem was, everyone at my high school was doing the exact same thing.

Can't win 'em all.

Oh, and I'm sorry I called you a bastard. It just...slips out sometimes.

Eyes

With blood pouring down my face, I picked up the dead man's cell phone and called it in.

"It's done. You can let her go now."

"Not quite," the voice said. "You've still one more assignment."

Silence on my end.

Finally, I mustered, "Isn't there another way?"

The voice didn't reply.

Frustrated, I conceded defeat and hung up. I closed my eyes, wishing the throbbing pain in my head would fade, that the blood would stop seeping into my eyes. My sight was important. Without it, I had nothing to rely on.

How many had died for her? Ten? Twelve? Fifteen? It wasn't a staggering number, but killing anyone ripped chunks from a man's soul, to the point where that person became inhuman, a monster. Once you kill, the soul was essentially a goner, and so, too, the man with it.

Searching the ground for my sword, my head became increasingly heavy, and I collapsed to the ground. There, sticking from the corpse -- there it was. Shining blue steel, my third arm. The organization who had taken her had given it and vague instructions to me:

"Use this sword, and only this sword, to conduct your business. Then she will be set free."

That was it. I had wondered why they hadn't equipped me with a gun or some other more efficient weapon, but I found out soon enough.

It's the eyes. The eyes give it away.

When you stab a man through the heart, all the while listening to his hopeless gasps for breath, you witness a quick flash in the eyes. Brief, almost too brief. In that moment, you get to know a man better than you ever could -- you see his hopes, dreams, memories, everything, vanish into thin air. They're yours now. Absorption. However, because everything that once belonged to that man has changed ownership, you begin to lose the essence of what you call "yourself". It's unpleasant to say the least. I'm hardly me anymore.

That's why the organization equipped me with a sword instead of some other weapon -- all of this murder is beginning to kill me from within. But finally, I have only one more target to defeat. One more target.

Still lying there, blood pulsing from the head wound, I unstuck the gleaming steel from the man's corpse and brought the blade to my throat. It would only be a matter of time before they found me, and then, only then, would they let her go. Sweet release from this awful assignment.

I hope she knows what I've done for her.

INFECTIOUS

OH MY GOD. Listen to that.

Let's Tap: The sensation that's sweeping the nation!

"In Bruges" Review!

I wish I had an idea about how many blogs are updated daily, each one probably concerning some piece of media or world event (Jesus, people, enough with the Sarah Palin crap already!) -- most are probably not very well-written (perhaps...like this blog?) and occasionally unintelligible. For example: "ilkiek teh new batmn movie heath leger man i wish taht guy didnt die he was soooooo00 good totlly shold win a oscar for taht role and i like teh mvoei vary much liek wen tehjoker was in the truck an btaman used teh rope t flip teh truck o man ti was sooooooo cool!!!"

Uh-huh.

Personally -- and I don't know about you, dear non-existent reader -- but I don't really want to read what random people on the internet think about films or movies or Sarah Palin. It doesn't really benefit me in the long run, know what I mean? I could scrounge through millions of posts and maybe, just maybe, absorb only a couple of useful morsels of tasty information. What's new, right? In this case, it's somewhat ironic that you, dear non-existent reader, are reading (or perhaps skimming over the rubbish) about what I think about what other people think about...things. Absolute lunacy, I know. But, since you're here and still reading (I mean, come on -- still?!), let me fill you in on my opinion of the film, In Bruges (starring COLIN FARREL(!), BRENDAN GLEESON(!!), and RALPH FIENNES(!!!) no less!):

I just watched this film last night. It was good. Go see it.