Hungry to Blog

So here we are.  I’ve been meaning to blog for so long, because I have absolutely nothing to say and goddamn it, I need to say it.  I’m still on my 8-5 grind.  Anxiety about graduate school has replaced my working man’s ennui for the time being.  Sometimes at work I daydream of going back to school and putting in my two weeks.  And in those final two weeks, I spend them mentally checked out to a degree that is only rivaled by someone on morphine.  Maybe I do a little bit of work every hour, but most of the time, I’m either up getting coffee, standing around the water cooler talking about the office slut, or pooping in the urinals.

Unfortunately, this naughty behavior is still months away for me.  I face off with the GRE next Saturday.  I think I’ll be okay.  I’m predicting a 650-680 on the verbal section, which would be perfectly fine.  I don’t even think that the University of Phoenix or DeVry even require the GRE, but better safe than sorry, amirite?  This is my future we’re talking about!

I received this text late Friday night/early Saturday morning.  The sender seems to be genuinely embarrassed about it, so they shall remain nameless.  However, it is one of the better texts I’ve received as of late:

I find myself clutching the toilet bowl belonging to the woman i love while she goes off to a frat party.  I remember when i loved college.

I received a follow-up later on Saturday that had the sender saying that what they thought was a funny text when they sent it turned out to be “the most attention seeking sad pathetic thing I’ve ever read.”

I’ll leave you with that.  Thangs need to be done.

Back From the Dead

I was almost resigned to the fact that I may never on here again.  Maybe it’s just the ringworm talking, but I’ve got a bit of inspiration.  I know not every blogger can have the trendiest fucking illnesses, but I think this one deserves some respect, goddamn it.  Plus, if we are to believe the medical expertise of the guy I sit next to at work, who once warned me that ringworm on a cat will “kill it pretty fast” (this is not true, not even close), then I’m really playing with fire over here.

I think I got it from a bench at the gym.  You may not be able to catch AIDS from a toilet seat, but you can catch ringworm from a sweaty bench that you lay on while you’re lowering heavy things to your chest and then pushing them back up again.  Lauren noticed it a few days ago, it’s a dime sized red ring on my back, at the base of my neck.  I’ve been spraying tough actin’ Tinactin on it twice daily, which is supposed to clear it up after four weeks or so.

In other news, I am slowly mobilizing toward grad school applications.  I have my recommenders lined up, I rescheduled the GRE for November since my earliest application is due in January, and I’ve already thought of a few thinly veiled threats of suicide if I’m not admitted that I can include in my personal statement.  All in all, the ball is rolling.

I do have one humble request for the blogosphere.  Post what’s on your Google Reader.  My dear sister over at Marshellow Kissesdid it, and Google Reader has some prominent writers/bloggers posting their lists over at the Featured Reading Lists, and now I want more.  I mostly just have the blogosphere on mine, and want to expand.  Please tell me how to think.

Birthday blog

Well, here I am.  The big 2-4.  I’m not pleased.  By most calculations, I am in my “mid-twenties,” which feels like a phrase that is synonymous with making some long term decisions about which direction I want to take my life in.  Of course, I know many people older than me who are still impotent man-children, so perhaps the pressure is not as great as I’m making it out to be.

I’m going to get a birthday card at work today.  Our office, much like The Office, has a “party planning committee,” which is even more useless and stupid than it is on the show, because no parties are actually thrown.  Someone just zips around with a birthday card inside a manilla folder, stops by your desk, and makes you sign it.  Then, they give it to the delighted birthday boy/girl, who gets to enjoy a bunch of wishes that are completely heartfelt and organic.

Yesterday, my boss asked me how old I was going to be.  When I told her 24, she wistfully said, “Ah, to be 24 again!  And to be smart!  I would have done things much differently if I was 24 and knew what I do now.”  To which I replied, “Oh, so you wouldn’t have gotten fat?  “

I’ve been shoveling GRE vocabulary words into my brain for the past week or so.  It’s being done at a faster pace than I would like, but time isn’t on my side.  I’m going through the Barron’s 3500 word “Master List,” which is broken down into 50 word lists of 50 words, and marking words I’ve either never seen before or am not totally clear on the definition of.  I’m on list 21 right now.  Once I finish, I’m going to have to go back through and see which words I’ve forgotten out of all of them, and then condense the list and re-memorize those.  There’s a website called Test Magic, which has a GRE forum on it, and you have these non-native English speakers scoring between 750 and 800 on the verbal section because they basically memorize word lists (there’s a word list on there that they consider to be the “Master List,” and it has 9000 words on it).  Of course, none of them can craft a fucking sentence because they don’t actually understand the mechanics of the English language, they just know a whole bunch of words.  Once again, the stupid Americans have been outwitted by the industrious foreigners.  This country is fucked.

Poop Blogging

Sort of like the idea of “naked blogging” as espoused by a dear friend of mine with rather tenuous employment at this point in time, “poop blogging” is another style of blogging that I may or may not be engaging it right now.  I know some people may be grossed out by both the general concept and the thought of me partaking (or maybe just one or the other, I don’t really know), so lets keep this is in the realm of the purely hypothetical and assume that I am not actually poop blogging, but just riffin’ about it. Anyway, there’s not much too it, and while my friend got a little philosophical on the idea of naked blogging, I’m just going to say that there’s no real philosophy behind poop blogging besides letting people know you’re doing it, as well as being able to end your entry with “Boy am I pooped!” (something I eagerly await myself for).

I had a political discussion at work today with the guy I sit next to.  He’s the same guy who told me that he voted once and thought it was a waste of time, and he wasn’t going to bother voting in the past election because neither candidate was going to take away his guns.  I’m sure you can’t imagine what a white male obsessed with guns thinks about health care, so let me tell you how it goes:

Him: (In reference to Obama’s speech) I’m not watching that crap.
Me: Not on board with health care reform?
Him: Not when everyone’s saying it’s all lies.  And they’re probably just going to raise our taxes. I just don’t believe any of those guys anymore.

Pretty surprising that the white male obsessed with guns doesn’t like taxes, huh?  Not that anyone actually likes taxes, but I assume most people understand the importance of taxes so we can afford civilization, so I just don’t get people who refuse to even entertain the thought of higher taxes in exchange for something that is clearly beneficial to all citizens.  Anyway, I’m sure this guy is a Ron Paul supporter but just doesn’t know it yet.

Speaking of Ron Paul, during the last election, I was on a Myspace page of some girl who was a Ron Paul supporter.  She wrote a blog post about how if everyone owned guns and knew how to use them, we’d have less violent crime in the States because people would learn to respect what guns can do and wouldn’t want to pull them out on someone else who has a gun.  Isn’t that just the dumbest fucking thing you’ve ever heard?  This entire paragraph has nothing to do with anything, but I’ve always just wanted to talk about what a fucking simp that girl is.

Anyway, I’ve written over 450 words at this time, so I’m going to go.  Boy am I pooped!

Let me learn ya

Here are some opinions I have:

Blueprint 3 is okay.  There are so good songs, some great beats, and some really embarrassing shit.  Young Forever is a song that falls into the last category, and is really just an awful, corny beat.  Which is what you get when you sample the song Forever Young.

Only Built For Cuban Linx 2 is better than Blueprint 3.  Raekwon’s coke raps get sort of tired out, but the supporting cast is strong enough to make up for most of his lyrical lulls.  Ghostface has a fairly dirty verse about getting head from some pregnant ho, which, upon further listening, is pretty prosaic when compared with this song of his that just appeared today.  I assume that it’s a track off his upcoming R&B album, which is an R&B album done right, I will tell you that much.

I’ve been reading The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan.  Aside from knowing that dinosaurs existed 4,000 years ago, I don’t understand the first goddamned thing about science, so I’ll believe most anything he tells me, which is a convenient way to approach basically any aspect of your life that might require critical thinking.

I’m sorry this blog post is so fragment and abbreviated.  I don’t really have much to say.  I am in the mood to find a grey, slim fitting suit, Mad Men-ish, of course.  Now if only I could be as happy as Don Draper, I would have it made.

Shite Week #2

Another shite week for me.  I had to work about 4 hours of overtime this week!  Fuck!!!!!  You’re mad too, I can tell.  And believe me, you should be.  It was a great inconvenience for me, and to quote a Kanye West blog post, “I’m typing so fucking hard I might break my fucking Mac Book Air!!!!!!!!”

4 hours doesn’t seem like very much, and I will agree, it isn’t very much, and I am a big baby for complaining.  But you must concede this point – I am a big baby who does not get paid very much.  My free time (in the most literal sense), which I spend reading GRE vocabulary flash cards and posting the latest fear-mongering uncirc. news on Gray Robaczech’s Facebook wall, is worth more to me than the actual paid time I have.

On the plus side, the sentient, maternal bowling ball that manages me at work (Get it?  My boss is fat.) is gone for the next couple of weeks for some sort of minor foot surgery, which is probably linked to the undue stress she puts on it as she waddles between her desk and mine to show me the latest comic on her Zits day-to-day calendar.  It’s a funny comic, don’t get me wrong.  He’s a teenager!  He doesn’t drive very well!  His choice in rock music is bewildering to his parents!

Lauren asked me if I would attend the funeral if she died on the operating table.  I told her I wasn’t sure, although I might, I guess.  I’m not sure what the decorum is in a situation like that.  Do you really have to go to a funeral for someone you only see at work?  I won’t be grieving to the same degree as most others as the funeral, so it seems like I would just be out of place.  Maybe you only go to the wake?  Maybe it would be best if I just didn’t attend either, and tell myself that’s what they really would have wanted.  Or just explain to everyone, “Oh, I don’t know, it seems like going would just be such a bummer, you know?”

Nothing to blog and blogging it

I just finished watching Breathless by Jean-Luc Godard.  I came away pretty neutral to it.  I suppose on some level I enjoyed it, I certainly didn’t hate it.  As the movie went on, I became more and more cognizant of the fact that I had no business in watching it.  I do not have a particularly sophisticated film palate (at least not enough to enjoy this highly praised work), and I certainly have no appreciation for French New Wave, nor do I even know what the fuck defines that film movement.  And here I am, having just finished watching it, and all I have to add to the discourse about this movie and the larger discourse about film in general is this: 8=======)~~~.  That is the only thing I can say.  Do you know what that means?  It means I am literally the most unqualified person to ever comment on this film, and probably film in general.  And I will go so far as to even extrapolate that sentiment to everything that I have ever held an opinion on.  And this is out of everyone in the world who has been born and died, and had an opinion on anything, for any amount of time, no matter how short. Let’s go ahead and throw down the gauntlet and also include all the aborted fetuses that never had the chance to even hold an opinion, or the sperm that never went toward the creation of a human being, and instead ended up in a kleenex and then a rubbish bin, and then a garbage truck, and then a landfill, and then wherever it may blow from there after the garbage bag rips and the contents go spilling out over the mounds and mounds of garbage.  I place them all above me.  My opinions are indefensible at best, and at worst, shameful to everything it means to be a sentient human.

Lets get beyond that, though.  I would like to set the record straight on my Facebook status from last night, where I said that Coop jumped into my toilet that was full of urine.  As Lauren initially interpreted, I negligently left a toilet bowl full of standing piss unflushed for who knows how long, and then Cooper came along and jumped in it, waded around, perhaps snorkled, and then got out.  And then I let her air dry like that.

What actually happened was that I was peeing with the door open and was just finishing as she walked in.  She walked around me and looked inquisitively at the toilet bowl, and I knew where this was going. I quickly zipped up and tried to stop her (not the first time I’ve used that line in a story, hey-ooooo!), but she jumped onto the toilet bowl rim, sort of lost her balance and fell in at the edge of the water line and sprang out a half second later, then ran out of the room.  Her paws got wet, but she was otherwise dry, and I took a wet paper towel and tried my best to clean her.

Mostly, this explanation is just to make sure that no one things I’m the sort of guy who lives by the old adage “If it’s pee, let it be.  If it’s brown, flush it down.”  That’s just fucking gross, you know?

It’s 4:20 somewhere

So Cooper has officially lasted longer than my other kitten.  I guess it helps that she isn’t terminally ill, which is what the vet confirmed to me yesterday when I took her in for  a check-up (something Wayside Waifs recommended I do within 10 days of having her).

After having her for a little over a week, one thing is glaringly obvious, and that is that she was weaned too early.  Every night, when I’m laying in bed, she will jump up and climb onto me (or Lauren) and start sucking on our noses or earlobes.  And not some sort of light sucking either, she acts as if she’s nursing from us.  You can pick her up off you and set her on the blankets, and sometimes she will suck on the blankets and try to nurse off of that, or she’ll just walk back up on you and resume sucking on you.  She started doing it the first night she stayed at my place, so the next day I asked Google, “Why does my kitten suck on blankets?” which surprisingly yielded some good information.  Most people confirmed that the cat was probably just weaned too early, and there’s not much you can do besides wait for them to (maybe) grow out of it.  There’s also the Catsifier, which you can give your cat as a substitute for your body:

It’s a fucking pillow with nipples.  When I’m woken up at 4 in the morning, it seems like a good idea to have.  But do you really want to be caught owning a pillow with nipples?  There are a lot of judgments someone can make about someone who owns such an item.  I don’t even know if it would work, and if it doesn’t, then all I’m left with is a throw pillow with nipples.    I simply can’t risk it.  My reputation is too important.

Saw 500 Days of Summer on Friday.  It was okay.  I spent more time being jealous of Tom’s apartment than his relationship with Zooey Deschanel.

Also, I guess we’re going to be losing the public option for reform?  This nation is literally full of stupid gay babbys.

Blogging for two now

I took the plunge yesterday and got a kitten from Wayside Waifs.  Originally named Sassy, but I’ve renamed it Cooper (Agent Dale Cooper from Twin Peaks, HELLO!!!), not that she seems to mind.  It may seem odd to name a female cat Cooper, but I am very progressive and do not mind gender bending my animals.  Anyway, here are some pictures:

There you have it.  I could post more, but I feel that it would be the same as showing someone else baby pictures, where showing off more than 2-3 is just far too much.

I don’t really have much else going on right now.  I’m about to watch American Splendor, and judging by how much I’ve enjoyed other Netflix movies I’ve picked at random, I do not have high hopes.

Vindication

Just a quick post before I go to work.  As you may have known, I have tried for months to join the snooty club of published authors, and I am proud to say I have finally accomplished this goal.  After I took some creative liberties in the update of the Buckler beer Wikipedia page (liberties, you could say, that I authored ), I made a routine check by googling: Biden, Buckler, “mostly ironic.”  I didn’t come up with the search terms, I noticed that someone had found my blog by searching those terms, so I tried it myself, just to see what I would find.  And finally, we have proof that I have broken into the club:

http://acapella.harmony-central.com/showthread.php?t=2393659&%3Bpage=3

http://askville.amazon.com/Buckler-Beer-made/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=56706157

Not to bad :p.

I’m going to look at cats today.  Just to look, not to buy.  And I mean it.