If you're ever in a war, instead of throwing a grenade at someone, you should throw one of those little plastic pumpkins at them. Maybe it'll get everyone to stop and think about how stupid war is. Then, while they're thinking, you can throw a real grenade at them.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Random Thought
My friend Alex came up with this years ago, and it just popped into my head out of nowhere, so now I share it with all of you:
Computer Confusion
Seriously now, why is it so hard for me to figure out how to upload anything to the internet? I had this same problem for our first project, and now I'm stuck on it again. There's like some block in my head that refuses to let me get this right....
Sunday, May 3, 2009
I Should Really Start Betting....
A horse with 50-1 odds won the damn Kentucky Derby. If you had placed a mere $10 on that horse, you'd wake up today with $500. Son of a bitch....
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
God Bless Middle-Market Baseball
I had an extremely shitty day on Monday, and when I realized we didn't necessarily have to show up to class, I decided out-of-the-blue to go to the Rangers-Orioles game. $15 ticket to sit in the first row in center field on a gorgeous night: not something you could do off the cuff in New York or Boston. Even though the Orioles followed their familiar script (get ahead early, go cold, lose the lead, get momentum in the 9th and make fans think they can pull off a comeback before falling on their faces), it was fun and lifted my spirits a bit.
This also isn't something you can do with football or basketball.
This also isn't something you can do with football or basketball.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Dry
I've been very good about the alcohol for the past week and a half. I hope you appreciate it, liver and kidneys....
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Sigh
This has been one of those weeks where life has kicked your ass and all you can do is lie on the floor and nurse your wounds.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Figures
Of course the semester goes by quickly when I need to make up about $4,000 worth of money I "borrowed" from my student loans to meet basic living expenses. How the hell do I have less than a year left to make that up now?
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Monday, March 30, 2009
Status Quo
I'm often terrified by the thought that nothing in my life will ever really change. I get the sense that there's a status quo for me in regards to my writing "career" and my finances, and that any chance I think I may have to enhance either is a false hope.
Last year I met a literary agent who really built me up, and loved all the ideas I pitched to her; when I sent her my novel, she was very supportive and told me that, even though she didn't represent works in the young adult fantasy genre (as my novel is), she would give the names of several agents who might like it. Long story short, none of them did (one was close to picking it up, but backed out at the last second -- that hurt). I even sent another proposal to the first agent, but she turned it down. So yeah, now I'm right back where I was before I met her, only now I'm dealing with the fallout from thinking I might have finally broken through.
On a similar note, I met this guy at a bar a few months ago who writes a nightly financial newsletter and wanted to turn his old columns into a book. We got to talking, and eventually agreed that he would pay me $10,000 (five up front, five after completion) to edit his columns into a book form. I was ecstatic. One week later, the stock market went to hell, and he's been spending all his time sense trying to get a hold on everything and doesn't have time to work with me on putting the book together. Goodbye, ten thousand.
Shit like this happens all the time; I get excited by the possibility of actually having a tangible way out of the morass I'm currently in, and those possibilities always prove to be nothing more than smoke and mirrors. One of these days I'll learn to just stop expecting anything good, even when people give me "assurances."
Last year I met a literary agent who really built me up, and loved all the ideas I pitched to her; when I sent her my novel, she was very supportive and told me that, even though she didn't represent works in the young adult fantasy genre (as my novel is), she would give the names of several agents who might like it. Long story short, none of them did (one was close to picking it up, but backed out at the last second -- that hurt). I even sent another proposal to the first agent, but she turned it down. So yeah, now I'm right back where I was before I met her, only now I'm dealing with the fallout from thinking I might have finally broken through.
On a similar note, I met this guy at a bar a few months ago who writes a nightly financial newsletter and wanted to turn his old columns into a book. We got to talking, and eventually agreed that he would pay me $10,000 (five up front, five after completion) to edit his columns into a book form. I was ecstatic. One week later, the stock market went to hell, and he's been spending all his time sense trying to get a hold on everything and doesn't have time to work with me on putting the book together. Goodbye, ten thousand.
Shit like this happens all the time; I get excited by the possibility of actually having a tangible way out of the morass I'm currently in, and those possibilities always prove to be nothing more than smoke and mirrors. One of these days I'll learn to just stop expecting anything good, even when people give me "assurances."
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Troubling Story
I've been working on another short story (I've really been in a sprint for the past couple months), and this one is fucking with my head. The main character is a voyeur, and writing from his perspective is just... disconcerting. I don't want to mention the plot here, but it's also a little disturbing. It's good, though, I feel up to saying that. It's all just taking me to a strange place.
Anyway, in other news, Purdue finally made the Sweet 16 in the NCAA Basketball Tournament, for the first time since 2000. They'll get annihilated by UConn, but hey, at least they made it this far. Boiler up.
Oh yeah, and apparently my brother's wife tried to kill herself. I don't want to get into the details, but she's physically okay. Mentally, ehhhhh, that might be another story. Maybe I'll get into all that later, maybe not, but definitely not right now.
Anyway, in other news, Purdue finally made the Sweet 16 in the NCAA Basketball Tournament, for the first time since 2000. They'll get annihilated by UConn, but hey, at least they made it this far. Boiler up.
Oh yeah, and apparently my brother's wife tried to kill herself. I don't want to get into the details, but she's physically okay. Mentally, ehhhhh, that might be another story. Maybe I'll get into all that later, maybe not, but definitely not right now.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Money mohey money
I'm really feeling the financial burn, and there isn't a fire extinguisher in sight....
Monday, March 9, 2009
State of the State
Now that I've lived in Maryland for about eight months, I can say that it's probably the worst of the three states I've lived in. Not for the weather or anything, but because of some of the bullshit laws and frustrating hoops I've had to jump through since moving here.
First of all, what the hell is up with this bars must close by 2:00 AM crap? Fuck, even Indiana, a state with the most backward-ass liquor laws around, lets bars stay open to 3:00 or 4:00. And this thing against selling alcohol in grocery stores is annoying too, especially since every liquor store I've found so far closes at 10 FUCKING 30! WTF, mate?
And the license plates... oh, the license plates. I've now been over to the MVA three times in an attempt to get a temporary license plate so I can get a state inspection so I can get an actual license plate so I can get a driver's license. Every time I go, they tell me I need something else that they didn't tell me about the previous time. I'm sure when I go back again tomorrow with everything they said I'd need, there'll be something else I don't have. And it's no small trip out to the MVA from where I live -- it's a good half hour.
And the customers I get at my Barnes & Noble here are louder, more annoying, and more demanding than any of them I had in Indiana or Texas. I've blogged about that before, and don't want to go there again, but I still can't believe how bad some people are there.
Anyway, on a good note, I'm finally fixing the story I was working on that had gotten out from under me and I feel good about it again. This will be the third story I've written in the past couple months that's better than any of the stories I had written previously (not counting my novel). Maybe I'm finally getting the hang of this short story thing after all these years, or maybe I'm just going through a burst of creativity that hopefully won't flatten any time soon.
I'm off to try and finish this story, then figure out just what the hell Etsy is for our class presentations. Seriously, I've never even heard of it before....
First of all, what the hell is up with this bars must close by 2:00 AM crap? Fuck, even Indiana, a state with the most backward-ass liquor laws around, lets bars stay open to 3:00 or 4:00. And this thing against selling alcohol in grocery stores is annoying too, especially since every liquor store I've found so far closes at 10 FUCKING 30! WTF, mate?
And the license plates... oh, the license plates. I've now been over to the MVA three times in an attempt to get a temporary license plate so I can get a state inspection so I can get an actual license plate so I can get a driver's license. Every time I go, they tell me I need something else that they didn't tell me about the previous time. I'm sure when I go back again tomorrow with everything they said I'd need, there'll be something else I don't have. And it's no small trip out to the MVA from where I live -- it's a good half hour.
And the customers I get at my Barnes & Noble here are louder, more annoying, and more demanding than any of them I had in Indiana or Texas. I've blogged about that before, and don't want to go there again, but I still can't believe how bad some people are there.
Anyway, on a good note, I'm finally fixing the story I was working on that had gotten out from under me and I feel good about it again. This will be the third story I've written in the past couple months that's better than any of the stories I had written previously (not counting my novel). Maybe I'm finally getting the hang of this short story thing after all these years, or maybe I'm just going through a burst of creativity that hopefully won't flatten any time soon.
I'm off to try and finish this story, then figure out just what the hell Etsy is for our class presentations. Seriously, I've never even heard of it before....
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Is This Really Grad School?
If I have to read another story filled with insane grammatical errors that shouldn't even happen while the story was being written, much less if it was even casually glanced at once since it was completed, I just may stop reading entirely.... I'm sorry if that sounds snobbish, but for fuck's sake, it's distracting as all hell.
Oh yeah, and has anyone who's ever worked in customer service ever entertained the notion of calling in a bomb threat to your store because you've been pushed past the point of all reason while dealing with idiot/asshole customers? I came to that point twice this past weekend (and to be fair, so did pretty much everyone else I work with). What the hell is it about White Marsh that makes my store there so much more unbearable than my stores in Lafayette, Indiana and Austin, Texas ever were? Seriously, damn near every one of us who closed work on Sunday were shouting the word "FUCK!" every thirty seconds while we were trying to clean up the store, and I know I wasn't the only one who genuinely wanted to rip out a few customers' large intestines and strangle them with them.
Okay, bitch-fest over. We now return you to your regularly-scheduled program.
Oh yeah, and has anyone who's ever worked in customer service ever entertained the notion of calling in a bomb threat to your store because you've been pushed past the point of all reason while dealing with idiot/asshole customers? I came to that point twice this past weekend (and to be fair, so did pretty much everyone else I work with). What the hell is it about White Marsh that makes my store there so much more unbearable than my stores in Lafayette, Indiana and Austin, Texas ever were? Seriously, damn near every one of us who closed work on Sunday were shouting the word "FUCK!" every thirty seconds while we were trying to clean up the store, and I know I wasn't the only one who genuinely wanted to rip out a few customers' large intestines and strangle them with them.
Okay, bitch-fest over. We now return you to your regularly-scheduled program.
Monday, February 16, 2009
FUCK!
My technological curse struck again. I had my whole presentation written out, then my USB thing decided to die. Just die. One minute the little orange light is shining bright, the next it's gone and my computer can't read the device any more. I still have the rough version written out on several tiny sheets of paper I swiped from work, but now I have to type the whole revised version up in class.
I also had several stories on that flash drive that I honestly don't know if I have backed up anywhere else... if I can't find some way to fix the thing, that will really piss me off....
Monday, February 9, 2009
Garden of Forking Paths 3
This website (http://www.cyberartsweb.org/cpace/ht/htov.html) doesn't have anything to do with Borges' story, but is rather about hypertext as a whole. It's essentially an overview of its nature and applications. The literature page (http://www.cyberartsweb.org/cpace/ht/htlitov.html) was my primary focus, for obvious reasons.
This whole thing got me to thinking about what I believe is called the "alternate universe theory," or something of that nature. As a dork since childhood, I was of course introduced to this basic concept via Star Trek: The Next Generation, but in the past year I've been thinking a lot more about it since reading Philp Pullman's His Dark Materials Trilogy, which references the infinite number of possible universes created when any person makes even the smallest decision.
I suppose one could create a narrative (I'm guessing it would almost have to be an online narrative) to represent this, with literally hundreds of different "forking paths," so to speak -- some story-altering, some completely (or perhaps just seemingly) innocuous. That would be an interesting experiement, but would also be massively time consuming.
This whole thing got me to thinking about what I believe is called the "alternate universe theory," or something of that nature. As a dork since childhood, I was of course introduced to this basic concept via Star Trek: The Next Generation, but in the past year I've been thinking a lot more about it since reading Philp Pullman's His Dark Materials Trilogy, which references the infinite number of possible universes created when any person makes even the smallest decision.
I suppose one could create a narrative (I'm guessing it would almost have to be an online narrative) to represent this, with literally hundreds of different "forking paths," so to speak -- some story-altering, some completely (or perhaps just seemingly) innocuous. That would be an interesting experiement, but would also be massively time consuming.
Garden of Forking Paths 2
This is the website (http://www.scribd.com/doc/454118/The-Garden-of-Forking-Paths) where I found the story (tiny print, murder on the eyes) and a small commentary on Borges and his role as a precursor to hypertext authors. Apparently Borges never even wrote a full novel, yet many consider him to be a great pioneer of hypertext narrative.
I started thinking about what the story would be like if it were written with modern media. Would it be a print story at all? If not, would it be as widely read? In an odd way, I kind of like that it's written as a straightforward account and not (to be annoying) a garden of forking paths. Reading the story this way, as the characters in the story had to read the novel-within-the-story, seems fitting. If the story were written as a hypertext document, then it would change entirely (the setting would probably be the first thing to go).
Anyway, I wasn't able to find too much about in the way of hypertext adaptations of this particular story (maybe I just don't know how to look), but I did find quite a bit about hypertext in general.
I started thinking about what the story would be like if it were written with modern media. Would it be a print story at all? If not, would it be as widely read? In an odd way, I kind of like that it's written as a straightforward account and not (to be annoying) a garden of forking paths. Reading the story this way, as the characters in the story had to read the novel-within-the-story, seems fitting. If the story were written as a hypertext document, then it would change entirely (the setting would probably be the first thing to go).
Anyway, I wasn't able to find too much about in the way of hypertext adaptations of this particular story (maybe I just don't know how to look), but I did find quite a bit about hypertext in general.
Garden of Forking Paths 1
My laptop computer sucks monkey testicles, so updating this blog (and especially reading other blogs) from home is never an easy task. I began by simply reading the story straight through (I'll refrain from offering any of my views on the nature of the writing or the story itself), then I managed to come across one website that would actually load for me after searching Wikipedia (I know, I know). This one (http://www.geocities.com/papanagnou/cover.htm) offers more of an explanation of hypertext and Borges' indirect role in its inception, but also links words in the text (written in red) to other, similar words within the story.
On the whole, I'm not all that impressed with this site -- after a few minutes, I grew bored -- but it isn't difficult to understand.
EDIT: I now notice that several other people have mentioned this site as well. At least I'm on the right track.
On the whole, I'm not all that impressed with this site -- after a few minutes, I grew bored -- but it isn't difficult to understand.
EDIT: I now notice that several other people have mentioned this site as well. At least I'm on the right track.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Old Rant
So my blog title has the word "rant" in it, but I haven't gone on one since I started it, and I'm not feeling anything now, so I delved back into my archives and found an epic one from last month, on the day after the Indianapolis Colts' loss in the first round of the playoffs (again) to the Chargers (again) during a year when I thought they could win the Super Bowl (again). Enjoy.
Randy Quaid from Major League II? Yeah, that's me right now. I will now fully expect the Colts and most any other team I follow to tie the nooses around their necks and leap from the balcony come playoff time. If the fucking Indianapolis Colts can't pick up 2 fucking yards (and instead give up an 8-yard sack!), then fuck it, they deserve to go home. The Chicago Cubs? Wo-ho-ho! We don't even need to go there. Texas? If a freshman defensive back holds onto a gift-wrapped interception, they're playing Florida in Miami on Thursday and Colt McCoy is hoisting the Heisman. The Colts? How about winning a damn playoff game.
And to the DJ at the Bayou Cafe where my brother and I had to go because every fucking bar in Maryland closes at 1:00 in the damn morning, who was revelling in the fact that the Colts lost, I should remind you that you're getting your rocks off playing '70s disco music to a crowd of 30-40 year-olds who are trying to recapture their youth (and failing horribly, if the level of botox I saw was any indication) and choosing the most generic songs imaginable ("Disco Inferno"? Really?); you need to take a hard look at your life and wonder where it went wrong.
In the name of all things holy and good in this world, please, Miami Dolphins, destroy the Ravens today. I want to see Ray Lewis so pissed off he goes for the gun in his handbag and threatents to take Ronnie Brown hostage. Wipe the damn smirks off the faces of the assholes at work, especially my store manager who manages to be both a die-hard Ravens AND Cowboys fan (because he'll conveniently forget the wonder of 44-6 in the wake of another Colts early exit, especially to an 8-8 team that always plays them well). Please, Miami, I beg you, embarass the shit out of the Ravens (literally, if you want) just to shut up all the people I know here (ESPECIALLY the ones who are my age or younger and have absolutely no memories of the beloved Baltimore Colts or when they left town, yet still feel the need to act like Inidanapolis is worse than the Steelers).
Peyton? I love you, but what the fuck was that? 17 points? A sack on 3rd and 2 with two minutes left and the Chargers having no timeouts? Hunter Smith? Your one (ONE!) punt that went longer than 40 yards all night outkicks the coverage and lets Darren Fucking Sproles (who I said before the game would be more dangerous than LT) to pick and choose his open lanes.
Fuck Mike Shannahan; whichever team hires him will become a mortal enemy. All you had to do was win ONE GAME IN FOUR. Fuck Jay Cutler, the media's darling, who, for all his boasting, couldn't manage to beat the Buffalo Bills at home.
And to hell with the San Diego Chargers. I now officially hate them more than I used to hate the Patriots. Phillip Rivers? You didn't play that well, son; maybe you should save the boasting for when you do.
Lastly, fuck that stupid coin from the toss. You couldn't have landed on heads? What the fuck, mate? What were you thinking? Now we have to see the Chargers get mauled by the Steelers. I'll never forget you, coin. Never. You are dead, you hear me coin? DEAD! VENDETTA!!!
All right, I've expelled all my pissed off energy. If anyone other than me followed even 1/3 of what I just wrote, I'll consider it a major accomplishment in life.
Randy Quaid from Major League II? Yeah, that's me right now. I will now fully expect the Colts and most any other team I follow to tie the nooses around their necks and leap from the balcony come playoff time. If the fucking Indianapolis Colts can't pick up 2 fucking yards (and instead give up an 8-yard sack!), then fuck it, they deserve to go home. The Chicago Cubs? Wo-ho-ho! We don't even need to go there. Texas? If a freshman defensive back holds onto a gift-wrapped interception, they're playing Florida in Miami on Thursday and Colt McCoy is hoisting the Heisman. The Colts? How about winning a damn playoff game.
And to the DJ at the Bayou Cafe where my brother and I had to go because every fucking bar in Maryland closes at 1:00 in the damn morning, who was revelling in the fact that the Colts lost, I should remind you that you're getting your rocks off playing '70s disco music to a crowd of 30-40 year-olds who are trying to recapture their youth (and failing horribly, if the level of botox I saw was any indication) and choosing the most generic songs imaginable ("Disco Inferno"? Really?); you need to take a hard look at your life and wonder where it went wrong.
In the name of all things holy and good in this world, please, Miami Dolphins, destroy the Ravens today. I want to see Ray Lewis so pissed off he goes for the gun in his handbag and threatents to take Ronnie Brown hostage. Wipe the damn smirks off the faces of the assholes at work, especially my store manager who manages to be both a die-hard Ravens AND Cowboys fan (because he'll conveniently forget the wonder of 44-6 in the wake of another Colts early exit, especially to an 8-8 team that always plays them well). Please, Miami, I beg you, embarass the shit out of the Ravens (literally, if you want) just to shut up all the people I know here (ESPECIALLY the ones who are my age or younger and have absolutely no memories of the beloved Baltimore Colts or when they left town, yet still feel the need to act like Inidanapolis is worse than the Steelers).
Peyton? I love you, but what the fuck was that? 17 points? A sack on 3rd and 2 with two minutes left and the Chargers having no timeouts? Hunter Smith? Your one (ONE!) punt that went longer than 40 yards all night outkicks the coverage and lets Darren Fucking Sproles (who I said before the game would be more dangerous than LT) to pick and choose his open lanes.
Fuck Mike Shannahan; whichever team hires him will become a mortal enemy. All you had to do was win ONE GAME IN FOUR. Fuck Jay Cutler, the media's darling, who, for all his boasting, couldn't manage to beat the Buffalo Bills at home.
And to hell with the San Diego Chargers. I now officially hate them more than I used to hate the Patriots. Phillip Rivers? You didn't play that well, son; maybe you should save the boasting for when you do.
Lastly, fuck that stupid coin from the toss. You couldn't have landed on heads? What the fuck, mate? What were you thinking? Now we have to see the Chargers get mauled by the Steelers. I'll never forget you, coin. Never. You are dead, you hear me coin? DEAD! VENDETTA!!!
All right, I've expelled all my pissed off energy. If anyone other than me followed even 1/3 of what I just wrote, I'll consider it a major accomplishment in life.
Weebl
Weebl? What the hell is that? That was more or less what I said to my girlfriend back before we started dating when she showed me a bunch of videos on this website called Weebl. For one of the most disturbing things you'll ever see (though it's hard to explain why), check out Salad Fingers (http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/salad+fingers/) Some of you may have heard of this cartoon, but if you haven't, you should check it out. No doubt, it's fucked up; the music in the background just give me chills. It's incredibly difficult to describe (my take on it is that it's set in some strange sort of post-nuclear world, where deformity and empty spaces are the norm, but it's never explained where this thing takes place); you just have to watch it for yourself.
There are several "episodes," most of them between 3 and 7 mminutes. If they were 20-30 minutes, like a television show, it wouldn't work. Salad Fingers simply cannot be stretched out to a "full-length" running time. If you string all the episodes together, of course, they would make this time, but each episode is both self-contained and part of a larger whole, and wouldn't make sense if presented as a straightforward narrative.
There are many more cartoons on Weebl, too. To check them out, visit http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons
Oh yeah, and a show this bizarre probably wouldn't make it anywhere other than the internet; not even on Adult Swim.
There are several "episodes," most of them between 3 and 7 mminutes. If they were 20-30 minutes, like a television show, it wouldn't work. Salad Fingers simply cannot be stretched out to a "full-length" running time. If you string all the episodes together, of course, they would make this time, but each episode is both self-contained and part of a larger whole, and wouldn't make sense if presented as a straightforward narrative.
There are many more cartoons on Weebl, too. To check them out, visit http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons
Oh yeah, and a show this bizarre probably wouldn't make it anywhere other than the internet; not even on Adult Swim.
Online Comics
I've never read online comics before, though several of my friends have told me I should. I randomly went about looking for some when I found this site (http://www.lorencollins.net/freecomic/) that has tons of links. One in particular struck me: http://www.slate.com/features/911report/001.html a graphic novel-esque version of the 9/11 report. It's fairly straightforward, and really all you have to do is click to advance to the next page.
Something like this probably couldn't be published and sold in stores, however; it would have to be online. Why? The content, of course.
And that got me thinking. On one hand, it seems like exploitation to create a fairly basic comic version of the 9/11 events with little in the way of surprises. Another part of me, though, wonders if maybe this is just one way to deal with what can still be a pretty traumatic event. If you convert it into something that you'd read in an average Spider-Man or Superman comic, it doesn't seem as frightening. Of course, we like to believe that someone like Superman could have stopped those planes from hitting the buildings; maybe by viewing these events in the Superman style, we can pretend he did.
Something like this probably couldn't be published and sold in stores, however; it would have to be online. Why? The content, of course.
And that got me thinking. On one hand, it seems like exploitation to create a fairly basic comic version of the 9/11 events with little in the way of surprises. Another part of me, though, wonders if maybe this is just one way to deal with what can still be a pretty traumatic event. If you convert it into something that you'd read in an average Spider-Man or Superman comic, it doesn't seem as frightening. Of course, we like to believe that someone like Superman could have stopped those planes from hitting the buildings; maybe by viewing these events in the Superman style, we can pretend he did.
Online Narrative... Thing (Part One)
Unlike a few other people, I didn't have much problem finding a cool site with Google. I just typed in "Online narrative + choose your own adventure" into the search thing, and I quickly found this site: http://www.iamcal.com/games/choose/ It's essentially what it sounds like, but when you get to the end of the "official" story, you can continue it yourself. Very zany. The story was a lot like one my girlfriend and I would make up between ourselves on the fly. Maybe I can do something like that with her later on; we already have a few stock characters we could plug in to one of these. This could be fun.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Damn....
Last night I was waiting outside the wine store for my girlfiend, who took my car to the mall across the street, to pick me up, I noticed a guy and a girl who looked more or less my age sitting on a bench outside. They were bundled up and were blowing on their hands; they looked cold (did I mention most of this town was pure ice yesterday?) The guy came up to me and asked if I had any change, just a penny or a nickel, because they were hungry. People my age. I dont know if they were homeless or not, but they sure looked like it. I pulled out my wallet and gave him two dollars, and he thanked me and returned to the bench. I thought about that and then walked over to the bench and handed him a five and told them to get something to eat. I doubt they were faking being poor just for coins. People like that aren't supposed to be homesless, damn it. Not even in Baltimore.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Sigh
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.
I had to have some excuse for enabling the "adult content warning" option, and I'm sure I'll drop a few of these words here and there, so I figured I might as well get some of them out of the way now.
So yesterday at work, a customer reached all new levels of dumb. A young woman came in with a couple other people and picked up one of the many copies of Bruce Springsteen's new CD from a huge display and said, "Wow, is this out yet?" Remember that part where I said she picked up the CD? Yeah, that's true. But wait, there's more: after staring at the CD... which was physically in her hands... she muttered, "No, I guess it isn't," and put it back on the display rack. I didn't have the heart to correct her; hell, I couldn't even laugh. After working retail for nearly nine years, I thought I had seen pretty much every form of idiocy, but the one thing I've learned on that front is that, whenever I think I've hit rock bottom, someone like that girl comes in and tosses me a shovel.
I had to have some excuse for enabling the "adult content warning" option, and I'm sure I'll drop a few of these words here and there, so I figured I might as well get some of them out of the way now.
So yesterday at work, a customer reached all new levels of dumb. A young woman came in with a couple other people and picked up one of the many copies of Bruce Springsteen's new CD from a huge display and said, "Wow, is this out yet?" Remember that part where I said she picked up the CD? Yeah, that's true. But wait, there's more: after staring at the CD... which was physically in her hands... she muttered, "No, I guess it isn't," and put it back on the display rack. I didn't have the heart to correct her; hell, I couldn't even laugh. After working retail for nearly nine years, I thought I had seen pretty much every form of idiocy, but the one thing I've learned on that front is that, whenever I think I've hit rock bottom, someone like that girl comes in and tosses me a shovel.
Monday, January 26, 2009
The Arizona Cardinals????
So it's come to this: the Arizona Cardinals can make it to the Super Bowl, but the Chicago Cubs still can't win even a single playoff game. Sigh.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)