Welcome To My Hell

So this morning Tom’s laptop decided to go one the fritz. For whatever reason, as soon as the power supply was plugged into the back, the power pack would immediately power down and not charge. The green LED on the power supply went out and everything as if it were detecting a short or over charge.

So after standard troubleshooting, debate on the cause of the anomaly, and then looking up a replacement part, we had the original idea of dropping it on the ground. If it can work for a case fan, then it could work for this, right?

No bullshit, Tom dropped it on the ground. I plugged it in.

Power Status: AC Power.

Last night was a scene straight out of The Secret of My Success.

3:00 AM. I’m trying to sleep. And I’m awaken by an unexpected but certainly not unrecognizable sound. But with my inability to sleep though it. I figured I would at least conduct the symphony for my own amusement. It went something like this.

Note: Try ot ignore the amateur film editing.

I’m also getting my computer tomorrow. I would have had it last Friday had Wells Fargo not flagged the payment to newegg.com as a fraudulent charge that eventually ended with me calling my bank up, telling them the charge was fine, and then missing the shipping window that day on newegg. Thus, causing my parts to be shipped the day after as opposed to the day before. And landing my shipping date on Monday the 5th; not Friday the 2nd.

After many payments to newegg.com in the past, some of them for even greater amounts of money, they flag this one.

…*sigh* I’m sooo switching banks soon.

“By accepting this brick through your window, you accept it as is and agree to my disclaimer of all warranties, express or implied, as well as disclaimers of all liability, direct, indirect, consequential or incidental, that may arise from the installation of this brick into your building.”

While I commend the empire for completeing this powerful space station, I was troubled to read about the installation of an exhaust port leading “directly to it’s hyper-sensitive power core.” I was further disturbed to hear this opening described as “torpedo-sized.”

I got my letter from Mars today.Â

See, whenever I get a package of plain m&m’s, I make it my duty to continue the strength and robustness of the candy as a species. To this end, I hold m&m duels.

Taking two m&m’s between my thumb and forefinger, I apply pressure, squeezing them together until one of them cracks. That is the “loser,” and I eat the inferior one immediately. The winner gets to go another round.

I have found that, in general, the brown and green m&m’s are tougher, and the newer blue ones are genetically inferior. I have hypothesized that the blue m&m’s as a race cannot survive long in the intense theater of competition that is the modern candy and snack-food world.

Occasionally I will get a mutation, a candy that is misshapen, or pointier, or flatter than the rest. Almost invariably this proves to be a weakness, but on very rare occasions it gives the candy extra strength. In this way, the species continues to adapt to its environment.

When I reach the end of the pack, I am left with one m&m, the strongest of the herd. Since it would of course make no sense to eat this one, I packed it in an envelope and sent it to m&m Mars, A Division of Mars, Inc., Hackettstown, NJ 17840-1503 U.S.A., along with a 3×5 index card that said: “Please use this m&m for breeding purposes.”

This week they wrote back to thank me, and sent me a coupon for a free 1/2 pound bag of plain m&m’s. I consider this “grant money.” I have set aside the weekend for a grand tournament. From a field of hundreds, we will discover the True Champion.

Tonights results:

I’ve seen clever things done with condoms before but…
http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1772982

This puts those of us with too much time on our hands to shame.
http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1771977

Funny, but I’d be pissed if I weren’t directly involved in this prank.
http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1772718

Excellent acting. Ever try one of those Apple Pies from McDonalds?
http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1772696

It’s like 4chan in the real world.
http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1771556

This is so clever my brain almost exploded.
http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1771267

I think he had this coming.
http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1771228

The wind has feelings too!
http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1770963

But how you ask?

Well Timmy, it’s really quite simple. Allow me to give you an example.

Legend:
House A: Where my grandmother lives.
House B: Where the new neightbor lives
Red Line: Property line between the two houses.
Yellow Box: The section of grass that the neighbor refuses to mow because he thinks that the property line is the end all be all of his lawn and it isn’t his responsibility.
Blue Dot: Delicious Cake

Now in the neighbor’s defense, he’s right. It isn’t his responsibility to mow that section of the grass if he doesn’t want to. It is on my grandma’s side of the property line. However, I’ve always been a big fan of going out of your way to do a good thing, or just show some human to human courtesy. But it seems that the neighbor is diliberately going out of his way to be an asshole by not mowing a portion of his lawn that is part of the same patch of grass as the rest of his yard.

So — I mowed his entire lawn. It’s simply priceless that in this way I can be nice to someone, while at the same time sending them a clear and obvious message to go fuck themselves.

Heh, I got into a fight with a vegan at Apollo Burger today. I was just minding my own food and this neo-hippy-PETA nut, comes up to me and starts going off on how they tortured the cow I’m eating.

Why do they always have a bone to pick with me and go out of their way to bust my ‘chops’?

This isn’t the first time this has happened. I don’t understand why so many vegans have beef with me anyway. It’s so damn cheesy for them to milk political correctness. Just because I bring home the bacon, doesn’t mean I’m egging them on. The ’stakes’ are high on this one, but they’re all too chicken to stand up to the criticism anyway.

Just because I want to eat the burger, doesn’t mean I want to ‘meet’ the cow.

By: Cynical loser your suspect is trying to sleep with his cars.

• A car can wait forever for you.
• A car doesn’t compare you with it’s past users.
• A car doesn’t get calls from it’s past users while you own it.
• A car doesn’t mind how excited you get.
• A car doesn’t tell you how great it’s past owners were.
• A car is big in all the right places.
• A car doesn’t ask you if you’re seeing other cars.
• A car won’t even talk about marriage.
• A car won’t mind how many other cars you have.
• A car won’t say, “Let’s just be friends.”
• A car won’t shave with your razor.
• A car doesn’t ask you a thousand querstions everytime you get in.
• Cars are easy to turn on.
• Cars are ready when you are.
• Cars are very responsive.
• Cars will always do what you want it to.
• Cars don’t care about age difference.
• Cars don’t care if you’re married.
• Cars don’t get pregnant.
• Cars don’t get upset if you use other cars.
• Cars don’t make you meet their parents.
• Cars don’t mind if you share them with a friend.
• Cars don’t play ‘head games’ unless you boost too hard.
• Cars never ask you to call them later.
• Cars never have headaches, or take rainchecks, or have a curfew, or have that time of the month.
• Cars won’t mind if you don’t like their friends.
• With a car, you never have to say you’re sorry.
• You can turn off a car.
• You can visit a car any time you like, and it’ll be up and ready for you.
• You don’t have to tell cars you love them. (But I do anyway.)
• You’ll never hear”Surprise! You are going to be a proud father of a new car ” unless of course you go out and buy one yourself.
• Cars don’t have to have a shower every morning.
• Cars don’t mind if you stay in the garage all day and work on them. In fact, they love it.
• Cars don’t complain about how loud the music is.
• You can always make a car look ‘young’ again.
• A car doesn’t care if it’s not getting enough attention.
• You can look at pictures of nice cars all you want to and not feel like a pervert.
• You can hang any kind of car picture in your dorm room and not get in trouble.
• A car doesn’t have girlfriend cars that will talk about you and tell her that you are not good for her.
• You can rub and wax a car in your driveway and not get arrested for lewdness.
• Cars don’t get mad at you for no reason every 28 days.
• You can always test drive a car before making a commitment.
• Cars come with an owners manual.
• You can stare at nice cars in a parking lot and your car won’t care.
• If the car makes too much noise, you can get a muffler.
• If you shave it once, it stays that way.
• Cars come with warranties.
• $1500 goes a long way for body work.
• They’re always well lubricated.
• A car screams every time your press the pedal harder.
• A car won’t cheat on you.
• Cars don’t whine unless something is really wrong.
• A car can’t be driven by another guy unless you give them the keys.

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Ever heard of it?

Yeah me neither. But yesterday was the start of my three Onsite Word/Excel classes at Fremont Highscool, in Plain City. I had to actually pull up a google map in order to find the place.

It’s on the Northwest corner of Odgen. When I learned of the distance, I immediately thought of my car’s final drive ratio. There is no way in hell I’m taking my car over 100 miles, for three days at 4000+ RPM’s. (For those of you who don’t know, it’s kind of an unspoken rule that it’s ok to go about 75 MPH on the freeway between Bountiful to Ogden.) So luckily, New Horizon’s was kind enough to let me take the company van, which the owners so kindly named the “Chick Magnet”. The name was clearly jest. The only way this van would qualify as a Chick Magnet is if the observer is:

A) Female (This is pretty much a given right?)
B) Looking for someone with a steady job.
C) Very knowledgable in computer software, netware, etc.

Anyway, the drive here yesterday couldn’t have been more of a disaster. Right off the bat, after I left home I hit horrible traffic on I-215 North because of a traffic accident ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE FREEWAY!! Jesus people! What are you?! Moths?! Four million years of human evolution, and we still do not have the awareness necessary to not be drawn to flashing lights. I loathe to be called a member of the human race. And if I must be a member, however, I, and I’m sure many others, would like to have a subgroup.

Once I got to my office to make the vehicle trade off, I realized that the books for my students were still inside the office. — Which was locked. I did eventually get in and got the books. So I lug what felt like the equivalent of 5 computer dekstops worth of books out to the van, along with some CD’s from my car for music, and I’m on my way.

Ok, so I’m on I-15 North now, heading up to Odgen in a very comfortable, air conditioned, van. I’ve got my overpriced starbucks coffee; I’m travelling somewhere new; My tie is straight; The ride is quiet; (Try having a car with no seats, carpetting, or sound deadener sometime.) I sift through my small, 100% pirated collection of music. I find the CD I’m looking for. “Yes. Combichrist. What else?” Everything is groovy. Until — no CD player. Instead there is a Cassette player. This Van looks to be quite new. Why do they even bother putting in the cassette player at all? A CD player probably costs less in parts to manufacture anyway. And if they are still stingy about it, why not just delete the cassette player all together to cut cost on the car? God knows no one is ever going to use a cassette player.

It gets better. “No music?” I think. “I can deal with this. Before we all had CD holders on our sun visors we had the radio.” After what seemed like a Herculean task requiring the sun, moon, and planets to be in perfect alignment, I find a song that is half decent. It was about this time that I round the side of the mountain dividing Salt Lake from Bountilful, and the reception cuts out. Priceless. I made one or two more attempts to find music before I eventually settled on Bob and Tom.

Further up the freeway, I meander through the laughable construction on the Ogden portion of I-15, I find my exit, and I start heading to my address.

Now, let me try to paint a picture for you. No buildings above 10 feet. Trees! They have those here too. It’s like Mt. Pleasant, UT.

“Great.” I think. “I’m in the middle of nowhere.” I looked over at my Onsite Class Request Form to make sure I’m headed to the right address. Everything looks to be in order, but I can’t shake the feeling that there is no way in hell that there is going to be what a city person would call a “High School” within 30 miles.

I’m driving down the road, trees on each side of me, nothing to be seen but the road ahead. And then all of the sudden, the trees cut away and Bam! HUGE Highschool. Largest single building campus I’ve ever seen. I was shocked. All doubt that I was in the wrong place instantly vanished. “How did I not see this place from the freeway?” I inquire to myself. “How the hell do they hide something this size?” I think they should put a military base out here somewhere. No one would be the wiser.

Ok, so thank God I made it to my destination. I check the time — 7:54. Oh good. I made it on time! “I can get inside and to my classroom. Easy.”

…

“Uhhh…Why is the whole parking lot barricaded off?”

Turns out that they are currently resurfacing the entire parking lot. So I was forced to park on the road, and the walk to and from the van to the building is easily…Well it’s far to long. It literally takes about 5 minutes to get from the van to the door.

I got inside the building after trying about 3 sets of locked doors. I found out where I needed to be. So then I have the task of getting a very significant amount of books into the building from the van. I asked the office if they had a dolly I could use to wheel the boxes inside. They immediately recruit an office aide to help me carry the boxes in. I stood blankly for a few seconds before I gave my rebuttal, “Maybe you are not understanding just how heavy these books are. — And not to mention the distance they need to be carried…” Oh wait. They left, no one is listening.

So we walk back out to the van, me and — some guy. We get the boxes, and about half way back we both have to take a break. Again, I stress how heavy these boxes actually were. After five more minutes we finally get the boxes up the stairs and into the classroom.

After all this, By some miracle I still managed to get set up before class starts.

There’s more, but I must sleep.

And that’s why I don’t ever want to do an Onsite outside of the city ever again. Heh.

Ya know what would be freakin’ awesome?
Having super powers.

And inversely, do you know what would really suck?
Finding out I had super powers after I died.

I know it sounds stupid, but this is honestly of a serious concern to me. What if, this whole time, I’ve had powers and have simply not been trying hard enough? What if Coca Cola is my Kryponite?

Maybe if I flap my arms a little harder I could actually be zipping around the globe right now. Maybe I could make the cat that hangs around outside my house float? Or perhaps I could be reading my romantic interest’s mind and discover that deep down inside — they really don’t reciprocate that interest.

No one here can tell me they haven’t dreamt of having super powers. We are secretly yearn to be different. We all want to have something like that can set us apart from the rest of the world. Be it for isolation? Perhaps making it easy to leave behind a legacy? (My personal reasons are obviously the two questioned.)

Why do you think that TV series Heroes did so well? Because everyone could relate to it. Every single person in the nation, while watching that show was communally thinking “Ohhh! I wanna do that!”

Albeit my strong belief system based on reality and facts, even I can admit to this longing.

I guess I’ll just have to call my queer, sometimes questionable cranial quirks, and my irregular, irrelevant, improvised yet incisive ability to alliterate — my super powers.

I wrote this back in March of last year for an ex friend. I stumbled on it today and felt a repost was in order.

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It starts innocently enough. You see your her at the club. No big deal, even if you did sense some chemistry when she arrived. And even if she’s beautiful, or she’s smart, or witty. None of that matters because she has a boyfriend. Or you have a girlfriend. Or a boyfriend. Or you’re a pussy.Â

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“Whatever,” you sigh. “There’s time.”

And there is time, but of the ‘passing quickly’ variety. You hang out each night, but nothing comes of it—least of all you. Naturally you play it down when the week is up and she says goodbye, leaving you with a hug and an O.C. season’s worth of sexual tension.

“Whatever,” you tell yourself. “There are other fish in the sea.”

And there are. But none have that enchanting smile. That cute laugh. An ass and legs from which all future asses and legs should be molded. You can’t shake the thought. Sitting around food at Denny’s with the guys, the question gets asked:

“If you could bang any chick, who would it be?” The answers are the standard predictable celebrities. It’s your turn now…

“Her,” you say, prompting groans. Someone calls you a fag. You crumple into the corner. Like a suppressed Gestalt (Psychology majors) or a debilitating case of blue balls (everyone else), that missed connection lingers, haunting you.

After days, weeks, months of platonic hugs, and fruitless fooling around. You finally straight up ask her. Only to realize that she’s not in one. Hey, no kidding, neither are you. You buy her some food, and offer the usual yet sincere praise of the way she looks. But to you they’re just a formality. After countless months, it doesn’t matter that you’re both half-unwilling. You could both be half dead and it wouldn’t temper that passion. You do something you never do and make the move.

The rest of the morning is a blur. You note that she has an beautiful smile but the moment opportunity knocks, you’re making out against the wall, against her doorway, on her desk, in her bed. Things escalate without reservation, because you’ve both been simulating this event every night since you met. You know exactly what to do. Repeatedly.

You wake up the afternoon in a strange house with vague recollections of the morning’s events. Initially you blame yourself for getting too desperate and sexually frustrated, but then you realize that it wasn’t the drunkenness of lust that caused the fog, but rather the passion. The love. ‘Mushin no shin’. everything happened so quickly that you were unable to process the minutia. What remains is a composite of the event. A mere mental highlight reel that you skim through as she gets out of bed and walks around. At that moment, everything is really fucking awesome.

After some pleasantries and an hug, she leave’s. You walk back to your car. Rather, you float. You float leaving the house, and you float during the car ride back home.

Later the guys ask why you’re floating. — “Her,” you say, prompting groans. Someone calls you a fag. You don’t talk to the guys again for the rest of the week. You don’t need to. You’ve got your own personal in-drive video, a greatest-hits collection, to keep you occupied.

Months later, you wake up in the middle of the night. Something isn’t right. Instinctively, you think back to her—just as you have every night for a half of a year, since the highlight reel doesn’t cut it anymore. The knowledge that you’ve had the one girl who got away, no longer provides you with pleasure. The satisfaction of that one morning at your place is gone.

In its place is another specter, but one that you can’t seem to identify. Is it the lingering wraith of a disappointing over-anticipated hook-up? Or are you haunted by the spirit of the person who was, is, and could of been? Or the real person that wasn’t, isn’t, and never will be?

As you quiver alone in the night, trying to capture whatever it is that lurks, you absent-mindedly scratch your junk. Just as you have every night for a week. And then it hits you. You’re possessed by something, all right. You sigh and continue to rub yourself, letting your head fall back against the pillow as the final thought of her flashes:

Man, what a bitch.

So I’m thinking “Ya know, I would kill for some Oreo’s right now.”

And like a God send, Aubrey comes down the stairs with a full pack of Oreo’s. Doesn’t get any better timed then that. Eager with antipation, I run upstairs for some milk. Open the fridge — no milk.

“Fuck!”

Anyway, no Oreo’s for now. So what else can I eat in order to slake my appetite? “I know! Cereal!”

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Yeah yeah…I poured a cup full of cereal and got all the way to the refrigerator before I realized what I had just did.

At this point I just went straight to the store and got milk. …Stupid milk.

My drink hates me. :(Â