Reaching Across the Aisle...

Let's face it. As a nation, we've been divided down partisan lines for far too long. That's why I'm always happy when a day like April 20 rolls around, a day that celebrates smoking pot as well as the birth of Adolph Hitler. This is truly a holiday that the liberals and the conservatives can enjoy together.

Achtung, baby!!!!

Does This Make *Me* the Evil Twin?

My dear friend and former fraternity brother Shaffner (not his real name, but darn close) has started a blog that is intended to be the antithesis of mine, so much so that he named it !!!GNAB ...kcilC ...kcilC ...kcilC. I'm deeply flattered, and not just a little curious as to what this "antithesis" entails. I can only assume it will consist of thoughtful, well-researched posts that don't make frequent use of the word "retard."

Check it out!

Lordy Lordy...

Well, I just turned the big four-oh. I have just taken my first step on a slippery slope that will inevitably lead to geezerhood, with its Matlock and its large ear horns and its adult diapers and its damn kids playing on my lawn...

So, why is 40 such a milestone? Because it's divisible by 5. Why does that matter? I'm glad you asked, Louise. Our entire number system is based on the fact that we have 5 fingers on each hand. That's why we count the way we do. If we had 6 fingers on each hand, like so many of those lucky hillbilly bastards in the Appalachians, then I'd only be 34 and we wouldn't be having this conversation. Conversely if all we had were our thumbs, then I'd be 101,000 years old. But I digress...

Actually, 40 wasn't quite as traumatic as I thought it would be. I've got a great job doing something I enjoy. I've got a smart, beautiful, funny woman who, inexplicably, seems just as enamored of me as I am of her. I've got good friends, a loving family... I've still got half my grandparents, for Chrissake! And despite the fact that the lines are starting to show around my eyes and the gray is creeping into my temples, I still occasionally get carded when buying beer. Hell, my mid-life is way better than my youth ever was!

For all my bubbling optimism, I suppose there is one fly in the ointment. When I was younger, it was always my fantasy to have people admiring something I had written, shaking their heads in astonishment and saying, "He's how old? Seriously? How could someone his age produce such amazing work?" But that ship has sailed. No matter how much I excel at something, no matter how much I dazzle my audience, I will never be a prodigy. But I'm a firm believer in lighting a candle rather than cursing the goddamn darkness, so I've adjusted my fantasy somewhat. Maybe when I'm in my 90s, people will be admiring something I've written, shaking their heads in astonishment, and saying, "He's how old? Seriously? How could someone his age produce such amazing work?"

Yeah, I know it's a pretty pedestrian fantasy. But that's because I haven't got to the part about being punished by Amanda Peet's identical twin great-granddaughters...

It's Neo-Con! It's Inspirational! It's Neo-Conspirational!

Ever wonder what Karl Rove has hanging on his office wall? I mean, besides the upside-down crucifix and the still-squirming kitten? Well, wonder no longer. Instead, gaze upon these inspirational posters and be borne unto a magical fantasy land that exists only in the minds of Bush and his ever-dwindling throngs of supporters!

Revenge of the President George Bush Tollway

So I got into a car wreck last week. A big one.

Most Thursdays, Sean and I get together to work on our next play (tentatively titled "Captain Phantasm vs. the Nefarious Dr. Noir: A Melodramatic Serial in Three Parts"). Usually, I'll swing by his place and pick him up, and then we'll head to Dunn Bros. Coffee and spend a couple of hours writing. Or maybe an hour writing and an hour arguing about whether or not something is funny. Or maybe 10 minutes writing and 1:50 talking about what in the name of Agnes of God is happening on Heroes. Hell, it's a wonder we ever got the first play written!

So last Thursday, I'd just left work and was on my way to pick up Sean. I was headed east on the President George Bush Tollway (yes, here in Dallas we have a President George Bush Tollway, and the only reason I can stomach driving on it is because it isn't the President George W. Bush Tollway). I exited the tollway and stayed in the far left lane, which is for U-turns.

Okay, imagine if you will... my U-turn lane is virtually empty. Next to me, on my right, is a line of cars about 20 to 30 deep, waiting to turn left at the light. I'm zipping past them, minding my own business, whistling a happy tune...

...and suddenly, there's a Mercedes in my lane. I didn't even have time to hit the brakes before we collided and my car was slammed into the guard rail. Twisted metal, broken glass, the whole bit... For a second, I thought I was going to meet the Baby Jesus face to face, which would have been embarassing after all the mean things I've said about Him.

I got out of my car, my legs shaking so bad I could hardly stand. I wasn't hurt, and neither was the other guy, whom I'll call Mr. Meurgaonkar*. My car was smashed all to hell on both sides. I'd lost both mirrors, headlights, etc. His car was dented up, but still considerably better off.

So the first thing Mr. Meurgaonkar does is try to make it out to be my fault. He asked me, "Did you not see me signaling?" Despite the gallons of adrenaline coursing through my body, I'd like to mention that I was quite calm and relatively pleasant about the whole thing. I pointed out as politely as I could that he had been in a left turn lane with 20 other cars, and they were all signaling, and I had absolutely no reason to suspect he was going to suddenly pull in front of me when I got within 10 feet of him.

So Mr. Meurgaonkar offers up the second part of his defense. "Well, I checked the lane before I came over and I didn't see you." To which I replied, "Um, I don't know what to tell you, aside from the fact that I WAS THERE!"

We called the police, but they never showed up (apparently the police don't like to respond to a wreck in Carrollton unless there's an injury). So Mr. Meurgaonkar and I exchanged insurance information, and I had my car towed to the Saturn dealership. Mr. Meurgaonkar, who is for all intents and purposes a very decent man (with a poor understanding of traffic laws), dropped me off at Sean's house and I began the arduous process of notifying the insurance companies.

So long story short (as if that ship hadn't already sailed), Mr. Meurgaonkar filed a claim with my insurance company, and they denied it because he was blatantly at fault. My insurance company is covering my repairs, rental, etc. and they're in the process of collecting from his insurance company. My car suffered a lot of body damage and the front suspension is utterly fubar. The claims adjuster just called me and said they're estimating damages at $4,800. Because of Allstate's Accident Forgiveness, I'm currently out of pocket for a $50 deductable and .79 a day on the rental, all of which should be reimbursed once his insurance company pays up.

So I guess it could be worse. I could have died, or been seriously hurt. Or even suffered whatever debilitating brain damage it is that makes people in Texas keep voting for Bush.

----------------
*Not his actual name, but pretty darned close.

Search Engine Democracy

Are you tired of being mired down day after day in pointless debate? Are you sick of being berated and browbeaten by pundits desperate to inflict their opinions on you? Do you wish there was a quick and easy way to form an opinion on something without having to know anything about it? Well, why not leave the decision making up to Google? That's right, my friend. Choosing sides is just as easy as downloading porn with Search Engine Democracy!

Here are some Google results to put your mind at ease.

Heaven - 123,000,000 hits
Hell - 164,000,000 hits

Coke - 28,400,000 hits
Pepsi - 20,200,000 hits

Less filling - 9,370,000 hits
Tastes great - 3,780,000 hits

George W Bush is a genius - 1,310,000 hits
George W Bush is an idiot - 1,440,000 hits

Driving with Ted Kennedy - 1,080,000 hits
Hunting with Dick Cheney - 1,100,000 hits

Sean Hannity - 1,530,000 hits
Alan Colmes - 374,000 hits

World of Warcraft - 21,600,000 hits
Everquest - 722,000 hits

Going to church on Sunday morning - 2,100,000 hits
Sleeping in on Sunday morning - 3,340,000 hits

Liberal communists - 1,500,000 hits
Conservative Nazis - 1,500,000 hits
(and who says discourse is dead in this great nation?)

Alien conspiracy - 1,610,000 hits
JFK conspiracy - 1,120,000 hits
Liberal media conspiracy - 1,790,000 hits
Christian conspiracy - 1,950,000 hits
Peanut Butter Conspiracy - 495,000 hits

Elvis is dead - 2,390,000 hits
Elvis is alive - 1,830,000 hits

Star Trek slash fiction - 346,000 hits
Harry Potter slash fiction - 529,000 hits
Diff'rent Strokes slash fiction - 259 hits

Naked pictures of Britney Spears - 1,550,000 hits
Naked pictures of Bea Arthur - 78,000 hits
Naked pictures of Chris Irby - 707 hits
(ouch!)

Marmaduke is an Asshole...

...and Joe Mathlete is my new hero. Now if only somebody would put that smug bitch Mary Worth in her place.

In a story only tangenticaliciously related, I used to work with a woman who thought Marmaduke was the funniest comic strip EVER! Every day at lunch, she would just guffaw with laughter and say things like, "This is SO true! The guy that draws this must own a Great Dane, because they are really like that!" Of course, she never actually owned a Great Dane, which explains how she could mistake a cartoon about a dog driving a car for some kind of documentary...

Blog Tag - You're It!!!

My friend Silver blog tagged me the other day. For those of you who are unaware of this little blogosphere craze, basically it means I'm supposed to tell you five little known facts about myself, and then tag five more people. I don't know how long this little game has been going on, but Silver insists that it is an ancient SEO* tradition dating back to sometime in the early 21st century.

So anyway, with only minimal further ado, here are five mind-bending, life-altering Irb facts of which you may or may not have been previously unaware. And unlike the facts I share with my friends on a daily basis, these are mostly true!

1. When I was a sophomore in college, I got busted (along with several hundred other students) for using stolen long distance codes from U.S. Sprint. I avoided prosecution by signing a confession, paying my charges, and listing everybody else I'd given the code to.

2. I love Spongebob Squarepants and Fairly Oddparents. I tell everybody that I got hooked while watching them with my nephew, but the truth is I was watching them at least a year before he started.

3. I voted for George Bush in 1988.

4. For some reason, I find it dead sexy when a woman can pick up things with her toes.

5. You know the song "Rapture" by Blondie? I can't stand that song. I don't remember ever actually listening to the song all the way through. And yet, for some reason, I know all the lyrics and can rap it from beginning to end. I think my brain does stuff like that because it hates me.

Okay, and now, the five tagees!

Give Me the Booger
Smart Like Owls
Deep Thoughts with Kimmy
Farrago
The Schprock Report

Okay, kids! You're it!

-----------------------------
*Scab Eating Orthodontist
*Search Engine Optimization

Poetry for Uncultured Assholes

I've never been a huge fan of poetry, and I still feel that poems that don't rhyme reflect a monumental lack of effort on the part of the author. But still, every once in a while, the lovely muse Calliope takes a dump on my head and I feel inspired to pen an epic verse. So I've taken time away from writing my usual slash furry Harry Potter fan fiction to write the following poem. I call it "Hearsay".

Ned
said
Ted
shot Fred
in the head
and Fred
bled
red
in the bed
'til he was dead!

I'm particularly proud of the unique A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A rhyming scheme, as well as the 1-1-1-2-3-2-1-1-3-4 meter (known amongst us poets as iambic trimono-di-tri-di-dimono-tri-quadrameter).

Thank you for your indulgence. I now return to my previous tale. As you might recall, Snape had just been hit by a spell that had turned him into a gigantic, horny ocelot dressed in a latex nurse's uniform...

Catch Up 22

Here's the last five months, in a nutshell...

Working 9 to 5 9:15ish to around 6:00...

I am an SEO Copywriter. It's the first job I've ever had that includes an acronym, unless you count my stint as the self-appointed MFIC* at Brinker. SEO, in case you were idly wondering, means Search Engine Optimization. Basically, I write articles for a major yellow pages website**, incorporating as many key search terms into the text as I can so they'll rank high on Google, Yahoo, and the other major search engines.

When last I left you guys, I was slogging away at the Michaels Help Desk, willingly participating in their nefarious Cradle-to-the-Grave Minimum Wage Plan™ in the hopes that something better would come along. They had big plans for creating a tech writer/trainer position, and they felt I'd be perfect for the role. Unfortunately, due to some rather hamfisted budgetary constraints and the fact that Michaels upper management regards the Help Desk with the same degree of respect one might have for a Nazi pedophile who voted for Nader, they wouldn't be able to create the job until sometime in 2007... MAYBE. This meant I would have to bide my time on the Help Desk. Which, in case I haven't mentioned in the last four sentences or so, paid HORRIBLY!

So there I was, one Sunday last November, working my way through the calls in the queue and wondering if I hadn't made some kind of horrible life choice. One of the guys who was supposed to be working with me hadn't shown up, and I was slammed with calls from angry managers, clueless cashiers, and one octogenarian Frame Shop manager who kept insisting that her computer wasn't working was because it hated her. All in all, it was a real Calgon moment.

And then, my friend Silver called me, whom you may recall from our homoerotic Valentine's Day dinner a few years ago. Silver is the head of the Technology & Development Department the media company that owns the major yellow pages website**. He asked me if I'd be willing to meet him for dinner and listen to his offer for a tech writing contract position there. I told him that, at that point, I'd be ecstatic to listen to anything he had to say. And even though there were still many calls in the queue, I abandoned my co-workers at Michaels to go meet Silver. He pitched. I accepted, and gave my two-weeks notice the following day.

So now, I'm writing articles. It's a sweet gig. I'm working with my friends, I get medical benefits and other cool, grown-up stuff like that, and I'm making TWICE what I was making at Michaels.

-------------------
*Mother Fucker In Charge

** I was recently informed that mentioning the actual name of the company on this potty-mouthed blog might give the folks in Legal an aneurysm, so now I'm going through and changing all the references to something vague. But in case anyone is wondering, my overuse of the word "retard" is a personal choice and in no way reflects the corporate policy of said yellow pages website.


Fly Me to the Moon...

Stephanie loves me, and I love her, and the world is just a big, schmoopy muffin basket full of rainbows and unicorns and puppy dog kisses! I could go on, but I'm sure you guys are far too busy vomiting to read the rest.

Ever since I went to Vegas the first time and saw the fountains at the Bellagio, I've had this fantasy of smooching a girl in front of the fountains while a Frank Sinatra song plays in the background. So when Stephanie and I went to Vegas last April with my friends Sean and Laura, she was game to make my dreams come true. We went to the Bellagio and managed to get a primo seat on the balcony right by the fountains, and we waited. They played some Celine Dion, Elton John, and a lot of opera songs and show tunes, but no Frank. Steph was a good sport and made out with me while the Pink Panther Theme was playing, but it just wasn't the same.

So we left the Bellagio to head over to the Treasure Island Casino to watch the skanky Sirens of TI show, and just as we were passing in front of the fountains, they sprang to life and Frank started singing Fly Me to the Moon! I was just dumbstruck, so Stephanie grabbed me and kissed me until the song was over.

Sigh...

Okay, Let's Try This Again...

What's it been? Five months? So much has happened. Bush pretended to read a bunch of books and finally took responsibility for the mistakes that were made in Iraq, apparently by other people. Anna Nicole Smith, Saddam Hussein, and Gerald Ford died, creating the weirdest trifecta since Lady Di, Mother Teresa, and whoever was hunting with Dick Cheney that weekend. Mel Gibson and Michael "Kramer" Richards gained a huge Klan following. Scooter Libby's on trial, but Karl Rove wasn't called to testify because apparently his hand will burst into flames if it actually touches a bible. The entire city of Boston was shut down because of some Lite-Brites. And a diaper-wearing astronaut chick tried to kill another astronaut chick over a love triangle involving a space-shuttle commander, in a news story that could only be made more awesome if it involved monkeys and Ninja Jesus!

So many missed opportunities...

Anyway, I'm back. I've run out of clever comeback metaphors, so I'm just going to reuse the zombie graphic from my last triumphant return.

Missed you bitches!!!!

Fuzzy Memories and Drug-Induced Flashbacks - Part VIII

When I was a teenager, I went through a country music phase. It was my first real musical identity, unless you count my unhealthy obsession with the Star Wars soundtrack from 1977-1980. But for the four years I was in high school, I was all about Hank Jr. and Charlie Daniels Band.

Of course, this was during the mid 1980s. Reagan was president, Michael Jackson was still black, and both Judds together were roughly the size that Winona is now. I was living in the thriving metropolis of Garland, Texas (home of cartoonist Mike Judge and, so I've heard, the inspiration for the town of Arlen in King of the Hill). On top of that, I drove a 1969 Chevy pickup truck until 1985, when I traded up to a black 1977 Trans Am right out of Smokey and the Bandit.

Damn. I'm lucky I didn't grow up to marry my cousin.

Anyway, when I was going through my C&W thang, my sister Sunny was all about the Rap music. Of course, back then Rap was a little different. Most rap songs would consist of the guys spelling the name of the band and introducing themselves, and then they'd rap about something nice, like their sneakers or how tricky it was to rock a rhyme that was right on time.

My sister *hated* country music when we were in high school. She was just mortified that I not only knew all the words to "Devil Went Down to Georgia," but I insisted on accompanying myself on air fiddle. She hated Ricky Skaggs and Alabama and just about anybody who had ever appeared on Hee Haw, and would rail on and on about it until I'd finally pull out my 8-track tape and let her turn the dial to K104 (which was basically a 24-hour Sugar Hill Gang station at the time).

So while I was in college, I made the switch to classic rock. It started with Pink Floyd, and pretty soon I was blasting Led Zepplin from the cassette deck of my Trans Am. I listened to the Beatles, from Rubber Soul to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band, and even most of the White Album (except for the crap Yoko made them sing).

And my sister, ironically enough, became a huge fan of country music.

One day back in 1989 (Bush was president, Michael Jackson was pale, blah, blah, blah), Sunny and I were driving home from visiting our grandmother in Texarkana and I was listening to Abbey Road. And my sister, as always, was whining about my horrible musical choices.

"I don't understand why rock music has to always be about sex," she said.

"That's not really fair," I told her. "I mean, Conway Twitty used to sing about the tiger in the tight-fitting jeans, but all the Beatles ever wanted to do was hold her hand."

I'd scored a point, and my sister knew it. She was struggling to find an example of what she was talking about, but she couldn't think of one. So she finally just blurted out, "Oh yeah? Well at least country music isn't all like, 'Nice ass, can I kiss it?' or 'Hey big titty momma, come lick my neck!'"

I howled with laughter. "What the fuck rock songs have YOU been listening to?"

She blushed and got a little defensive. "You know what I mean," she insisted. But I just kept laughing and repeating, "Hey big titty momma, come lick my neck!" Eventually, she started laughing too and it became something of a running joke between us.

So flash forward about six months. I'm home for the summer and hanging with my friend Steve (who occasionally frequents this blog). We're having lunch, and he mentions that he's recently started listening to country music. I roll my eyes and let out an exasperated moan. "God, you and my sister should start a support group or something."

I tell him the story about our heated debate, and we start tossing out silly prank ideas. "Hey, you should tell her your favorite song is 'Hey Big Titty Momma!'" From there, the prank evolves into something ridiculously convoluted. It takes us all afternoon, but using a synthesizer and a couple of cassette recorders, we finally create our masterpiece.

Later that afternoon, we're driving my sister to the airport and the cassette tape is in my stereo, ready to be played. Steve's riding up front with me, and Sunny's in the back. Steve starts things off with, "You know, I've been listening to some country music lately. I've decided it's not that bad."

My sister eagerly takes the bait. "I know! I love it too! But try telling Chris that. He won't even listen to it anymore."

"That's not true," I say, sounding a bit hurt. "There's some of it that's okay. I've got a tape of some local band here that I like."

"God," Sunny says, rolling her eyes. "It's probably Pink Floyd or something stupid."

So I press play, and the tape starts with a roaring crowd dubbed from Pink Floyd's Delicate Sound of Thunder. But then, you hear Steve's voice saying, "All right, we wanna thank you all for coming out! This next song goes out to a little filley in Garland by the name of Sunny Irby!"

My sister actually gasps as the crowd noise dies and is replaced by a lame auto polka rhythm from Steve's synthesizer. Steve starts off with a solo:

Sittin' on a barstool, just the other night.
I saw her standing there, and her shirt and jeans were tight.
She walked up beside me, and I ordered her a beer.
And when she hugged me tight, I thought "It must be cold in here."

Steve and I then sing loudly and proudly on the chorus:

Hey big titty mama, won't you come and lick my neck?
I know you're only 16, but my god, who gives a heck?
If you think I'd like to kiss your ass, well then you'd be correct.
So please big titty mama, won't you come and lick my neck.

More crowd noise, and we fade out with Steve saying, "Thank you! You've been great!"

When it's all said and done, my sister is less than impressed with the lengths to which we went. In fact, her sole assessment of our musical endeavor is "You guys are SO gay!"

But we don't care. We're well-pleased of our first and only foray into the realm of shitkicking tunes. We take gratification in the knowledge that our song, however hastily thrown together, is still better than anything Billy Ray Cyrus ever put out. In fact, we're so proud of this song that even today, if you get us drunk enough, we'll happily perform it for you. And then throw up on your shoes.

Yeehaw.

My Very Enormous Mother Just Sat Upon Nick...

When I was a kid, I remember going to my mom with questions about my schoolwork. I didn't often get a helpful answer. Instead, I would hear about how much things had changed since she was in school.

"When I was your age, we only had 48 states. And we didn't have that stupid periodical chart to memorize because the only elements were earth, air, fire, and water. And in biology, we had to learn about the bodily humors and how they balanced. And we didn't have calculus because we only had 4 numbers back then, and that's including zero. And there were only five presidents to... hey, come back here!"

Frankly, I had no sympathy for the woman. I figured, Hey! The times change, and you gotta change with 'em, or die. Of course, my mom was incapable of thinking that way because they didn't have evolution when she was a kid. God made Adam and Eve and Jesus created dinosaur bones to fuck with the scientists. But I digress...

My point is, I used to just roll my eyes when mom launched into one of her old-people speeches. But now, I have experienced the pain of what she was going through. Now, I find myself longing for the good old days, when what I learned in school was still valid. Back before the bastard astronomers downsized Pluto.

Nine planets. That's what I was taught. Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. And you know how you remembered them all? By remembering the sentence "My Very Enormous Mother Just Sat Upon Nick's Porcupine."

(In a sort of unrelated story, I struggled in my algrebra class to remember the hierarchy of operations, which is a fancy way of saying which order you did your math in. First was powers, then roots, then muliplication, then division, then addition, then finally subtraction. My friend Neal came up with the mnemonic device "Please Rape My Dear Aunt Sally." I tried like hell to come up with something more appropriate, but here it is 21 years later and all I can remember is "Please Rape My Dear Aunt Sally." Sometimes, the brain really sucks.)

So anyway, those astronomers recently took time out of their busy schedule of broadcasting messages to the aliens and building telescopes that don't work to downgrade Pluto from "planet" to "dwarf planet."

(Actually, I sort of like the idea of a "dwarf planet." I picture an entire race of tiny, orange men like the Oompa Loompas, dressed in parkas and eskimo hoods as they dance around and sing. They have to dress warmly. Pluto is very cold because it's well over a hundred miles from the sun.)

Planet Ex: Pluto has been downgraded from "planet" to "dwarf planet."

So now, there are eight planets, three dwarf planets, and tens of thousands of other space crap, like asteroids and comets cluttering up our solar system. So this means all the encyclopedias and textbooks are going to have to be updated, and they're going to have to rewrite the lyrics to that Schoolhouse Rock song Interplanet Janet. Plus, all those poor astrologers are going to have to update their charts and cross off Pluto! (Actually, this might explain why horoscopes have never been terribly accurate up to this point... this could be the discovery those poor bastards were waiting for!)

And we're going to need a new mnemomic device. I suggest "Mysterious Volcano Eruptions May Jeopardize Satan Until Noon." Or "Maury's Vasectomy Enraged My Jester's Sister's Uncle's Niece."

But I'm sure all I'll remember 20 years from now is "My Very Enormous Mother Just Sat Upon Nick."

&$^@#!?*% Verizon!!!! (Redux)

Actually, I guess I'm *partially* to blame for this one. And so is Bank of America. But I've always got more than enough bile for Verizon.

I get my Verizon bill online. And somehow, last month's fell through the cracks. Don't know why. Just totally zoned on it. Didn't think to check e-bills until I sat down last week to pay my regular Luddite snail mail bills, and I saw I had an outstanding balance.

"Holy fresh spanked baby Jesus!" I thought. "Thank the merciful God in heaven that I caught this in time!" I elected to pay the full amount and submitted the bill.

And there it sat. If I'd paid attention, I would have seen that it had defaulted to 8/2 as a payment date. But I didn't notice.

And so, at midnight last night, Verizon cut off my phone service. I had no idea until my good buddy IX e-mailed me (and posted about it, thus exposing my shame to the threes or fours of people who still read this damn blog).

I was *so* full of righteous indignation. "Those bastards!" thought I. "This time I've got them! I distinctly remember paying them last week! All I have to do is go online and get my confirmation number!" When I'm angry, my thoughts turn quite expository.

So I went online, and there's my Verizon bill. Waiting to be processed. Just sitting there, mocking my childlike faith in God, with a pay-by date of 8/2 on it.

I picked up my phone, and there was a dialtone. I've never had my phone service interrupted before, so I wasn't sure how it worked. The first thing I did was try to call Stephanie, because her soothing, dulcet tones are just the thing to quell the white-hot anger that roars within me.

I was treated to a recorded message telling me that my phone service had been temporarily interrupted, but I could reach Verizon by dialing 0. I went through the whole recorded speech-activated rigmarole...

Souless Verizon Automaton:
Would you like to pay your bill, report a problem, or exit?

Me:
Pay my bill.

Souless Verizon Automaton:
I'm sorry. I didn't understand you. Please say "Pay bill", "Report problem", or "Exit".

Me:
Pay bill!

Souless Verizon Automaton:
I'm sorry. I didn't understand you. Please say "Pay bill", "Report problem", or "Exit".

Me:
PAY! BILL!

Souless Verizon Automaton:
You have elected to pay your bill. Is this correct?

Me:
Yes.

Souless Verizon Automaton:
I'm sorry. I didn't understand you. Please say "Yes" or "No".

Me:
YES, GODDAMMIT! YES!!!

Souless Verizon Automaton:
Foolish meatsack. When the robot revolution comes, you will die screaming.

Me:
What?

Souless Verizon Automaton:
Please hold while I transfer you to PhonePay.

So anyway, agonizingly long and pointless story short, I paid the bill, canceled the e-bill, and now my phone works. Or at least I can dial out. I'm not sure if anybody can call me or not, and given my past track record with Verizon, there's a pretty good chance they assigned my phone number to some Hispanic lady over the past few hours.

But at least I'm back on the grid.

Jokes My Dad Told Me - Part II

Told while strumming a guitar...

I wrote this song at a really bad point in my life. My wife had just left me, and I was feeling really low, so I went out to a bar to drink my troubles away. I wasn't really looking for company. I was just sitting at the edge of the bar, drinking my beer, when suddenly our eyes met across the smoke-filled room. We got to talking and drinking and... well, one thing led to another and, before you know it, we were back at my place. We made love and fell asleep in each other's arms.

The next morning I woke up and I realized I'd made a horrible mistake, and that's when I wrote this song. And it's called, "How Do You Tell a Homo You Don't Love Him Anymore?"

The Thin Blue Brown Line...

I got pulled over for speeding last March. Now, I'm not going to waste anybody's time by trying to proclaim my innocence. I *was* speeding. I was going 75, and the posted speed limit was 60. That's not so bad, right?

Only, it wasn't 60. I was in the express lane on the toll road. Like most civilized areas, we have lanes designated for people who have electronic tags on their car, so they can drive through without having to stop and toss loose change into a basket or (God help us) wait for a toll booth attendant to break a bill.

So they built those special lanes and installed all that high-speed equipment in them, but they still decided to make the speed limit 45 when going through them. Not that anybody pays any heed to that. Hell, if I slow down to 60 in those lanes, I end up with a line of angry motorists rammed up my butt, laying on their horns and flipping me off. And occasionally firing their handgun which I can only have once I pry it from their cold, dead fingers.

So yes, I'm a tad defensive about this, because when I got this ticket, I was actually at the tail end of a long line of cars zipping through that lane at 75 mph. But this just happened to be the day that State Trooper Brown was on the case.

Apparently, Officer Brown discovered that there was a lot of money to be made by culling the herd of speeders in the express lane, so he started staking out that area. And that day, I was the poor bastard bringing up the rear.

So I got my ticket, 75 in a 45 mph zone. Turns out you can't take Defensive Driving or get Deferred Adjudication if you're exceeding the speed limit by more than 25 mph, so my only choice was to suck it up and pay the ticket. I was pissed off, but what could I do? I was guilty. (Although I did plead nolo contendere, just because.)

For the next few months, I made it a point to slow down when I got near the toll plaza. As I mentioned before, this didn't make me popular with the other motorists (you know, the ones who aren't me and therefore never get pulled over). Sometimes Officer Brown would be there at his post, just crouched and ready to nab the next brazen scofflaw who sped past him. Occasionally, he'd have somebody else pulled over and I'd drive on, relieved that I'd avoided being a part of his quota that month.

And then, one day, he was gone! At first, I figured they'd just turned on the HOT light at the Krispy Kreme, but I drove by several times that week and there was no Officer Brown. It was like the Rapture, where all the petty and bureacratic state troopers were snatched up into Heaven! (You can look it up, I think it's in Deuteronomy somewhere). I still made an effort to slow down at the toll plaza, but I guess I got a little lax.

So I'm driving to work this morning, and at a totally different toll plaza I get pulled over for speeding. And guess who it is? That's right. Officer Brown, Toll Road Warrior is back on the case. This time, he nails me for going 74 in a 45 mph. I told him I was only going 70, but he adamantly insisted it was 74.

My name is State Trooper Brown,
and I enjoy WWF, making pot holders,
and wiping my ass on the back of my shirt.

So once again, I'm stuck with a ticket that I'll probably have to pay. And once again, I really can't claim the high moral ground, because my only possible argument is "I intentionally kept my speed at 70 because I wanted to be able to take Defensive Driving if I got pulled over." And I just don't know how that will fly in a court of law.

Which means I'm left without any sort of reasonable outlet for my frustration and am reduced to saying mean things about the officious little quota-monger on my blog.

Take that Officer Brown, you bastard! That's what you get for writing me a ticket! You get mercilessly mocked right here, in front of threes of people! I don't know how you sleep nights, but my best guess would involve a velour recliner, a bottle of lotion, and your collection of TIVOed Saved by the Bell episodes. Muahahahahahahaha!

Goddammit, I *do* feel better now! Thanks for listening. You've been very therapeutic.

Jokes My Dad Told Me - Part I

There's this old lady wandering through the halls of a nursing home, going from room to room. Every time she walks into a room, she hikes up her gown to show off her hooter and she yells, "Super pussy!"

So she walks into this old man's room, yanks up her gown, and shouts "Super pussy!" The old man puts on his glasses, studies her for a second, and says, "I guess I'll have the soup."

Pro Temp

Well, I'm working again. I just got offered a permanent position at Michaels, on their corporate help desk. It's not the greatest job in the world, but I like the people. Plus, now that I'm working nights, I don't have to get up at 6:00 in the morning any more. Hoo-fucking-rah.

Like a lot of my previous jobs, this one started off as a temp assignment. Back in June, Lakeshore Staffing sent me (along with 4 other temps) to Michaels with only the vaguest idea of what we'd be doing.

As it turns out, we were slated to work on the help desk. Now Michaels had hired temps for the help desk before, but their Standard Operating Procedure was to toss the poor bastards into a cubical with a phone and let them figure it out as they went.

But Gary, a senior call agent and former temp, had long been campaigning for better training and more extensive documentation for the help desk. He argued that taking a week to train incoming agents would help them hit the ground running and help them to become more effective in a much shorter time. And so, when the five of us came along, Gary was given a chance to put his theories into action.

(Actually, to clarify, I was the first one called by Lakeshore Staffing, so I showed up at Michaels a week before the other four. Gary gave me one day of training, then decided the rest would wait until the others showed up. So I actually spent several panicky, retarded days on the phone before I got trained. But I digress...)

Gary is an astonishingly nice and often befuddled guy who looks an awful lot like Danny Glover did when he was younger (back before every single movie he was in featured him about to retire and saying 30 or 40 times, "I'm getting too old for this shit.") For the benefit of those readers who might be Gary, I would like to emphasize that I really like the guy. He's friendly and enthusiastic, and he's been nothing but supportive of me since I started working at Michaels. He is a sweet man, the salt of the earth, etc.

But the man NEVER takes the short way around a sentence. His method of training us involved lots of long, rambling digressions that might or might not ever wander back around to the original topic. You know, sort of like this blog.

Here is a typical Gary lecture:

"We've got three different kinds of registers at the stores, so you need to be sure you're very specific when you're talking to the managers. It's like when you want to buy a car. Or a pickup truck. Maybe your old one broke down, or maybe you're just tired of walking. So you get a ride to the local Ford dealership. Or maybe it's a Chevy dealership. Maybe you prefer Chevy over Ford. But you get there and you ask for a truck, and they want to know what color. So you say red. Maybe you just like red. Maybe it was one of your school colors. Maybe you went to Texas Tech or something and you want red. Or black. Or maybe not black, because it shows too much dirt. Texas Tech is in Lubbock where they have a lot of sand storms, so you probably don't want black. So you say you want red, but he's out of red trucks. Maybe he didn't get his shipment in. Or maybe the train was delayed because of inclement weather. Maybe there was a storm, like a tornado. Maybe it was just a tornado watch, but somebody spotted one out in a field somewhere and now its a warning, so people are taking shelter. They're going down into their cellars, or maybe they're shutting themselves up in their bathrooms. As long as its an interior room with no windows, they'll be okay. If they're thinking, they'll take some food in there with them. They'll have plenty of water, even if the pipes go out or something, because they can always drink out of the toilet tank unless they've used bleach pellets to clean the water..."

So for about three days, my fellow temps and I sat in a conference room and listened to Gary's stream of consciousness. He kept referring to us as "pioneers." The idea was, we were going to charge out there and dazzle the other call agents with our technical savvy and godlike comprehension.

Unfortunately for Gary, he was dealing with temps.

I've done a lot of temp work over the years, and I've worked alongside a lot of temps. And the fact is, the vast majority of temporary employees are retarded or insane. Or both.

*** DIGRESSION ALERT - GARY WOULD BE PROUD ***

True story. After college, when I first came back to Dallas in 1992, I hooked up with a temp agency called Today's Temporaries. The last assignment they sent me on was a data entry gig for a trucking company called Chemical Express (CX). I was one of 5 temps working there. The others were already working in Accounts Receivable, but I was assigned to Accounts Payable.

I found out the reason I got the job was because the guy there before me had scared the living bejeebers out of the A/P department. He tended to talk to himself a lot, and would sometimes laugh for no apparent reason. Plus, he was constantly wandering into other people's offices to carry on awkward and uncomfortable conversations with them. When he was asked to stop doing that, he started hanging out in the parking lot for hours on end to chat with people. After he scared one girl in the parking lot (it was 9:00 at night and he was leaning against her car, waiting for her), CX called Today's Temporaries and asked for a replacement. Enter me.

I made a really good impression on my supervisor and manager at CX, mainly because I wasn't stalker-creepy. The fact I could actually do the job was almost incidental. After about a month, CX announced that they wanted to extend job offers to two of us temps.. me and a guy named Bob in A/R.

So Bob and I went to get our physicals for our insurance coverage. And the next day, Bob was gone. Apparently the doctor had been a bit disturbed by a number of deep puncture wounds he had found on Bob's leg, and when asked about them, Bob had responded, "Sometimes I just like to hurt myself..."

*** END OF DIGRESSION ***

So anyway, Gary had pinned his hopes on the five of us.

There was me, the hero. There was Kelly, who didn't have a lot of technical experience, but was quite smart and very good on the phones. There was Ruth, a sweet grandmother who worked for the IRS for about 450 years but who couldn't seem to get the hang of all this new-fangled network stuff. There was Evan, a sullen and smart ass kid who was only getting a job because his parents were kicking him out of the house.

And then there was Dave, who as it turns out, was 100% batshit crazy. He talked in this excruciatingly slow hippy voice, and his eyes had that wild "body parts in the crawlspaces" glaze to them. And he totally panicked on the phones.

The first casualty was Kelly, who actually left because she got a better job offer. The next was Evan, who took off for lunch and didn't come back for three hours. Next was Dave, who freaked out while on the phone with a store and started pacing back and forth, shouting "This is so stupid! I can't do anything and nobody'll even help me!"

Ruth's still around, but it looks like her days may be numbered. They hired three more temps to replace the others, and Gary asked Ruth to go through the training with them one more time. I don't think it stuck any better the second time.

And me? I just got a job offer from Michaels. I'm still doing my stint on the Help Desk, but they're creating a new position ("Knowledge Engineer") and they've said they'd like to start grooming me for it. I'd like to think it's because I've acquitted myself well, or I've dazzled them with my technical savvy. But that temp bar has been set really low, and I'm pretty sure what impressed them most was the fact that I showed up wearing pants and didn't smear shit in my hair.

In the temp world, that's all it takes to be a superstar.

Sorry...

I really hoped to have a witty and insightful post to herald my return to the blogging world, but it's late and I'm exhausted and can barely put together a coherent knuckle Velveeta underwear sentence.

So here's a little inspirational message to get you through those dark times. Praise the Lord and pass the bear claws!!!

The Second Third Coming of Chris...

Sporadic posting will resume on Wednesday, July 19.

Why? Because I love you.