Archive for June, 2005


Kindling

6/18/2005

As one of the last things I had to do to clean out my bedroom, I emptied my old dresser drawer (or whatever you call it), took it outside and then TOOK THE AXE TO IT! Seriously, I did. Whacka whacka. It was old and the bottom two drawers were completely screwed up. It wasn’t worth saving at all.

There’s just something positively cool about taking an axe to something, or anything for that matter. The only disappointing part of the whole experience was that it wasn’t all too difficult to break apart the dresser drawer. Bummer. I busted it apart in about five big whacks and several little ones.

To those who would ask “Why did you take an axe to your old dresser drawer?”, the answer is that it’s easier to throw away afterwards. Flat pieces of wood are much easier to transport than a big box.

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Sometimes it’s all just blah

6/19/2005

The ad for the house is in the ‘Globe today. There haven’t been any calls yet. I think I pissed away 141 bucks concerning that ad, but, at least I tried. Maybe I’ll get a call before the day is up or possibly later in the week, but I doubt it. This was my last effort at selling this house. After this, I’ll let pop do the realtor thing again (it was tried before but didn’t work out the first time).

—

Concerning werk, I did get a raise at my job. I think it was 30 cents an hour more or something like that. Yeah, I know, no big deal. I wasn’t really all that excited about it. It just reminded me that I’ve been working that crappy job long enough to be qualified for a raise.

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In the fiscal department, my checking account by mid-week will be a whopping 97 bucks; the lowest it has been in five years. The reason is because I’m getting close to the finish line concerning killing the credit card debt - and I’m not about to stop now. I am gonna kill that sumbitch if it’s the last thing I do. Then I can start banking money again.

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In the screenplay writing department, sigh.. what I can say. It’s tough. Writing is not something where you can just snap your fingers and expect perfection to appear and fly on to the page. I’m going to try to write today. Whether anything comes out or not I don’t know.

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Nah

6/20/2005

I was scanning the online personals today, just perusing through the ads and so on. After looking around for a lil’ while I just said to myself “Nah.” After the shit I just went through in my last relationship, no thanks.

The people you meet online are just weird. Maybe that means I’m weird. I dunno. I read some of the ads and was taken back at how idiotic they sound. Here’s a few choice ones:

Title: looking for my fate

Ad: Sagittarius aim to harmony, comfort and I’m not an exception. I want everything around me to be beautiful. I’d like to have a man who can value me, who loves me as I am. I want to feel that I am needed, that there is loving, tender and devoted man by my side who is ready to share the warmth and comfort of family with me and become good father for our children. Believe me I want to live, to love and to be happy!!!!!

First of all I don’t think you can go looking for fate..? Although I like Sag’s, this one is just way too forward. It almost sounds like she’s shouting to the heavens.. Tone it down, lady. Oh, and as “happy” as this girl is, there is no smile in her picture. At all.

Title: Nice girls don’t finish last

Ad: Well, according to my friend Kim, I’m intelligent, witty and open minded. I would say, I’m really bad at bragging about myself. I guess if you want to know more, just let me know. A few of my favorite things…music, dancing, spoken word poetry, sports (especially the Yankees)and just hanging out with some good people.

This is an example of the worst possible ad you can put on the personals. ANYONE can say they like “music, dancing..” and so on. Okay then, WHAT KIND of music, WHAT KIND of dancing.. TELL ME SOMETHING, don’t be so fucking generic. ARGH!

Additionally, don’t ever say “open minded” in an ad. Bad phrase to use. Using that phrase in reality means that they hope you’re open minded so you don’t recoil in disgust after being with this person for five minutes.

Title: Lost and confused

Ad: I am very outgoing and up to mostly anything. i am not like most women… I love sports. and anything outdoors.I have been through a lot of pain and always giving and not to be selfish i would like to be treated like a princess for a day. I am looking for a great friend that can turn into maybe something more. Email me if you want to have a good conversation.

This girl directly contradicts herself in her first sentence. You’re “lost and confused”, but yet “very outgoing”. How you can be outgoing, lost and confused at the same time? Stating that you’ve gone “through pain” only means one thing - you have emotional baggage you want to dump on someone else. And of course, the ad says absolutely nothing about her. Nothing.

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The type of personal ads I respond to (if I’m so inclined) are ones where they shed some type of light into the girl’s personality, because seriously, that’s what we’re all looking for. All of us want to be with someone to share things in common with, so when the sex gets old you have something to talk about.. or something to do or whatever.

As far as the actual writing of a personal ad goes, this is what I would do:

(Note: Play the online personals game - see how many of these you can spot in girl’s personal ads!)

1) I would eliminate any personal ad that begins with any of the following:

“People describe me as..”
“I’m (or I am)..”
“Looking for..”
“Can you..”
“No more..”
“Just got out of..”
“Why is it..”
“My life..”
“My kids..”
“First of all..”
“My last..”

2) I would filter out all these words and phrases:

“likes music”
“likes movies”
“dancing”
“family”
“loves life”
“outgoing”
“open minded”
“sense of humor”
“energetic”
“sassy”
“nuturing”
“my kids”
“relationship”
“serious”
“conversation”
“for who I am”
“as I am”
“tender”
“devoted”
“maybe more”
“into something more”
“people describe me”
“friends describe me”

..there are more, but those are the biggies.

3) I would make it MANDATORY that all personal ads begin with something that describes something.. ANYTHING.. about the person who’s writing it in the FIRST SENTENCE, such as:

“Monty Python movies really crack me up.”

See there? Sense of humor, likes dry British comedy, knows the “spam song” — rock on!

“I make the best omelette you’ve ever tasted.”

Ah, someone who likes to cook. Is the way to a man’s heart through his stomach? YES.

“Jeans and sneakers are better than a cocktail dress.”

Nice and laid back. Very nice - and true.

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Ah, well.. what ya gonna do. To date, there was only one personal ad I saw a really long time ago (6 years ago?) that was so awesome I had to write her. Her and I had absolutely nothing in common, but I wrote and thanked her for writing something so unbelievably cool. It included things like “Smurfette” and “Princess with no crown”.. trust me, it was awesome. She wrote back and thanked me for thanking her. I hope she did well. She deserved it.

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Diction

6/24/2005

Here’s one that will keep you up nights.

Diction is defined “Degree of clarity and distinctness of pronunciation in speech..”

The words most people screw up when it comes to diction is almost anything that starts with “tr” or “dr”. Test this on yourself, you will probably fail the test.

Say the word “truck”.

Now analyze the way you said it. Did you say “chuh-ruck”? Most likely you did. There is no “chuh” in “truck”. The proper pronunciation is “terr-ruck”. “Church” is pronounced with a “chuh”. “Truck” is not.

Say the word “drive”.

Did you said “juh-ry-vuh” (said slowly that is how it comes out most of the time)? You probably did. It’s “derr-ry-vuh”. There is no “juh” anywhere in the word “drive”.

The biggie:

Say “try”. Did you put a “chuh” in it? You probably did. It’s not “chuh-ry”, it’s “terr-ry”.

—

When you finally master eliminating “chuh”’s and “juh”’s, you’ll then start spotting all the people who say words incorrectly. Then you’ll start noticing how many actors in television and movies say words incorrectly. Then you’ll wish you never read this article. ;-)

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Why do you smell like cat food?

6/26/2005

Possibly the funniest bastard I’ve seen possibly ever: Robby Roadsteamer. Watch this guy in action (Windows Media Player).

This guy is gonna get on Dave Letterman someday soon - you watch.

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Unleashing the beast.. sort of

6/27/2005

Turns out my favorite soda in the world (presently) is one of the most expensive you can buy, Monster Energy. My particular fave is what I simply call “the blue one”, otherwise known as LO-CARB.

One day I decided to buy one just to see what the hype was all about. I first tried “the green one”, Monster Energy. It was okay. A very pungent scent comes out of the can the second you open it. A lil’ weird tasting. Don’t ask me to describe the taste, I can’t.

I tried the blue one next and man did it taste good. I really liked it. I had absolutely no idea it was being sold as a “lo carb” soda, because I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about anything labeled as “lo carb” to begin with. Every now and then I will pick up one of these (such as today). Perks me up, tastes great, what more could I ask from a soda. My only bitch is the price, it’s about $2.40 a can whereever you go (for real), but you do get 16 oz compared to 12. Big can. As with the green one, don’t ask me to describe the taste of this either.. because I can’t.

The worst of the three Monster sodas is Assault. Seriously, it’s called Assault. This one I can describe the taste of. It’s a cherry soda - and it sucks. The taste of this is as bad as the artwork on the can.

As far as my current fave “lo carb” is concerned (the blue one), it tastes really good. And it’s true, it does perk you up. One would expect the color of the soda to be blue, right? Wrong. It’s gold colored. Kinda weird that a gold soda comes out of a black can with bright blue lettering on it, but whatever, I likes it. ;-)

One more thing: Best wallpapers for sodas I’ve ever seen here and here. Hell.. yeah. ;-)

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Meme Shmeme

6/28/2005

As one who scans LJ (that’s LiveJournal) from time to time, one thing that I see a lot of that truly puts a hair in my Cream O’ Wheat is meme quizzes by Memegen. Just about everyone I see on LJ posts one (or hundreds) of these things. “How sexy are you”, “How goth are you”, “How redundant are you”, “How [insert star sign here] are you” and so on.

I

hate

them.

Not only do they get in the way of real content, but half the time the people who posts these things get the html code wrong and completely screw up the look of their post(s). ARRGHHGHGHH..

Here’s my own quiz:

—

Memegen-masturbation quiz

(each “yes” answer counts as one point)

Question 1. Have you ever put a memegen quiz on your blog?

Question 2. Have you ever put two memegen quizzes on your blog?

Question 3. Have you ever put more than two memegen quizzes on your blog?

Question 4. Have you ever put more than two memgen quizzes on your blog in the same week?

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1 point: You are hereby put on blog probation and are let off with a warning. Don’t let it happen again.

2 points: You have committed 1st degree memegen-masturbation, giving others full right to think nasty thoughts about you.

3 points: You have committed 2nd degree memegen-masturbation. Were I to have control over your computer, you would be banned from using it for one week.

4 points: You have committed 3rd degree memegen-masturbation. You are officially beyond hope. People who read your blog are doomed to encounter at least 2 to FIVE quizzes a week or more.. the horror. You probably even share quizzes with other LJ bloggers. Make it stop.. MAKE IT STOP..

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Seriously speaking, quizzes are retarded. Think of it this way. You’re reading a book, and on every 10th page you are forced to read through a quiz that has absolutely nothing to do with the book you’re reading. Gets kind of annoying around the 20th time you do it, right?

Right.

Don’t do it.

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Marathon sleeper

6/29/2005

Yesterday I fell asleep around 6pm. It’s not my intention to knock out at that time, but that’s just the way it happens sometimes. My job just wears me right out. I woke up around midnight (note: that’s six hours of sleep). Then I usually stay up all night and by 2pm the next day I’m ready to pass out at werk. “Not this time”, I said. I went back to bed.

Woke up @ 5:45am. My back was stiff as hell for sleeping that long. It still is as I’m typing this. It’s not stiff from stress, it’s stiff from sleeping.

I seem to have a really weird cycle of sleep. I’m hoping this marathon 12-hour sleep thing will push me back to a normal one, as in go to bed @ 10 or 10:30pm like I’m supposed to so I can get my 7.5 to 8 hours like I should. Even though my back is stiff right now, I do feel quite rested. :-)

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Up for grabs

6/29/2005

There is now a “for sale” sign at the foot of the driveway. The house is now officially for sale again. Kat was mentioning to me recently that the next big positive (hopefully) event is going to happen on July 6th. Why July 6th? She told me but I forgot. (doh!) Has to do something with the moon I think.

My thoughts and prayers are directed towards the sale of this house. It is high time to go, no doubt about that. I have been trying to get outa here for several years now. Something always gets in the way - and it’s always fiscal. The last time I tried to go (which was not too long ago,) no bank was willing to play nice with me.. so.. I had to try another route. The sale of this house is that other route.

To my friends, wish me luck.. I’ll need all I can get.

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3/4 mil guitar?

6/30/2005

A Fender Stratocaster guitar originally bought and played by Jimi Hendrix was put up for eBay auction at (get this).. $750,000.00. No lie. To my delight, not a SINGLE PERSON bid on it. I am SO happy that the public realizes that there is no such thing as a guitar that is truly (note the word “truly” there) worth 3/4 million. What would this guitar be actually worth? Nowhere near 3/4 mil, that’s for sure.

I also loved what happened in the Q/A section of this auction. The store who put it up for bid got PANNED like crazy for putting this thing up for such a RIDICULOUS price.

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