Time is blurry
I haven’t written in a while. Things are fairly hectic and insane with trying to get all my ducks in a row for the big move. I still haven’t heard back on my appraisal, which is a little bothersome since I’m supposed to close in a little over a week. I still haven’t packed much. I’m spending way too much time looking online at furniture. For some reason chili-red couches look really appealing. Everyone says I shouldn’t be afraid of a little color. I just want to curl up with my cats, read a book, and drink tea. I think I’m an old woman on the inside.
The Conversation Thread Part Deux
While playing Scrabble with my Brother and his girlfriend:
Me: <insert Bros GF’s name here>… GOJO isn’t a real word.
<insert Bros GF’s name here>: yes it is……
Me: if you are going to make up words, you’d better have a snappy definition for it. Gojo could mean a handjob given by a G.I. Joe for instance.
Brother: No, that’s a Gojob.
While in an IBM training class with an instructor that looked like Harry Potter:
Harry Potter: Next we have another set of software wizards…. oh how I love wizards.
Me: OMG… he just said he loved wizards…
Coworker: Let’s hold him down and draw a lightning bolt on his forehead…
While in an IBM training class with an instructor that looked like Harry Potter (Day 3):
Me: Does his shirt say “Who ate all the pie”?
Coworker: He’s a wizard, he should figure it out.
Me: If he doesn’t, I’ll form a search party with my 1/2 Indian sidekick. We’ll find that cherry-stained bastard.
The New Residence
So I’m in the process of buying my first house. It’s in a subdivision in a suburb called Bel Aire, which is only about 5 minutes away from my work. I will have to get used the the extra minutes of lazy time this short commute will provide me. I will also need to get a personalized license plate that says “Fresh” and get dice for my rear-view mirror.
Brent Applies the Law of Natural Selection
So I was at the Dallas Aquarium this week when I had a little downtime, and there were some screaming little bastards running around squealing their ears off. I had little patience for it as I had a massive headache from all the crap the day before. I’m not just being an ass. I like kids, but these little shit-fucks made my ears ring. Considering that I go to a lot of live rock shows, this was quite a feat. As I saw the screaming kids lean over the rail by the crocodile pit (which is strangely not very high or stable looking), I came to a harsh realization of the laws of nature. Here are some of the observations made:
- My initial inclination when a shitty loudmouthed spoiled yuppie kid is bending over the rail of the crocodile pit, is to reenact the ending of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
- If the same kid was looking down at the stingrays, he would have had something in common with Steve Irwin.
- If the kid was less noisy, I wouldn’t be thinking like Patrick Bateman.
- Quiet, respectful kids are more likely to reach adolescence.
- Kids with favorable phenotypes (living quietly in fear of angry adults) are more likely to survive and reproduce than those with less favorable phenotypes (those who make Veruca Salt seem like a librarian).
Safe Kid = Boring Book
The Conversational Thread… aka Random Conversations I’ve Heard or Participated in During the Last 48 Hours
From the TV’s Flight of the Conchords:
Brett: What’s Water Polo?
Jermaine: It’s Polo in the water
Brett: Do they use Seahorses?
Jermaine: No
At my friend Chuck’s B-day party:
Me: As terrified as we are of bears, imagine how terrifying a bear is to a fish. It would be like a giant hairy raptor claw coming out of the sky and picking you up.
Some guy: (insert quizzical silence here)
Me: Although I think I’d be more scared of a bear than a raptor.
Some guy: Why is that? What if the raptor is fucking smart like the ones from Jurassic Park?
Me: Bears are smarter than Raptors.
Some guy: How so?
Me: Bears can be trained to ride tricycles. As soon as they learn how to ride ATV’s we are all fucked.
Some guy: What is it that you say you do again?
Also at Chuck’s B-day party:
Chuck: Have you seen Survivor Man on the Discovery Channel?
Me: No, what’s it like?
Chuck: This guy goes to exotic locations, as his own film crew, and survives for a week without any prior supplies. Last one I saw he was in the desert. It’s an awesome show I think.
Me: You know which episode of that I would want to see?
Chuck: Nope
Me: The cold harsh void of outer space.
Chuck: That episode would end with a corpse cartwheeling through nothingness.
Me: Here’s some Tang and 4 days worth of Oxygen motherfucker….
Chuck: They wouldn’t let him take any Tang. That would be breaking the rules.
After the vacation…
Last week I was in vacation mode. I stayed home, but a wonderful stress was lifted from me. I realized that I do in fact despise a good number of coworkers as they make more work for me. I spent most of the week hanging out in bookstores/coffee shops, playing around with my new effects pedals (bought a couple ElectroHarmonix goodies), and catching up with friends. It was wonderful. My guitar has wonderfully spacey sweeps and echo sounds now. I even got a little business taken care of. I went ahead and got pre-approved for a home loan, and am starting to house shop. House-shopping makes me feel old. Going back to work makes me want to take Krav Maga classes. I hear they teach you how to kick people in the balls really hard.
Current guitar mood: content with recent acquisitions
current pedal board: DanElectro Daddy-O ->ElectroHmx Pulsar Tremelo -> Ibanez DE7 Echo -> ElectroHmx Holy Grail Reverb
Now watching…. another pile of shit from Michael Bay
I went and saw “Transformers” last weekend with my brother. I’m not a big fan of Michael “KaFuckingBoom” Bay, and this movie didn’t change my mind too terribly much. My brother suggested that Mr. Bay start screening movies for monkeys, and if said monkeys piss or shit themselves, he should show the movie to no one.
The Good:
- Special effects were nice.
- John Turturro is in it.
- Peter Cullen (the original voice of Optimus Prime) plays -whodathunkit- Optimus Prime
The Bad:
- Too much focus on everything but robots.
- It tries to be funny…. all the time… and it’s really lame
- The Abercrombie model they hired to play a hacker/NSA analyst doesn’t look like she could figure out I-tunes. Was Tara Reid booked for another Uwe Boll movie? She did a better job looking scientisty.
- Megatron is in the movie for maybe all of 15 minutes.
- Megatron doesn’t have a trigger for a unit anymore.
- The are about a gajillion cuts in the action sequences, which makes it look like two big Katamari are fighting instead of badass robots.
- The whiny boy protagonist saves the day. If I went to school with him, I’d probably head butt him and kick him while he’s down.
I bet he has an itchy trigger finger……
Making some noise…
So I spent part of the 4th blowing up GI Joes with my brother (which is just as fun as it was when I was 8), and part of it playing with my new Crate V8 amp. It’s my first tube amp, and it sounds like sex compared to my craptastic solid state practice amp (also a Crate). With my Ibanez Delay/Echo pedal, I can get some really organic/analog spacey sounds that I’m enjoying. It’s also nice that a sub-$200 amp is also made in the USA (by Ampeg for Crate), and contains a somewhat decent sounding Celestion speaker. I know there are better sounding tube amps out there, but this one is mine, and I didn’t have to skip meals to afford it.
From the mouth of babes….
This past weekend, I celebrated the 4th of July a little early with the fam since a lot of ppl are going to be out of town this week. My six year old cousin gave me some sound advice on lighting fireworks: “Don’t burn your face off”. Sage advice, young one. Sage advice….
Karma
Pronunciation: 'kär-m&
Function: noun
1. the force generated by a person’s actions held in Hinduism and Buddhism to perpetuate transmigration and in its ethical consequences to determine the nature of the person’s next existence
2. the fact we’ve laid off 10% of our workforce, and I still can’t find a decent fucking parking spot.
