Episode VII

Blanket Boy's Pierced Ears.. vii

Please… can we figure this out before I look like even more of an idiot?

I’ve been meaning to write about this for some time – it’s been happening for a while and I just kept forgetting to include it. So, at the Montessori school I’m assigned to garbage duty every Thursday. Basically, I wheel out the garbage cans to the street for the school and for all our neighbors. It’s supposed to be a total of 10 cans that I wheel out (I always end up with either 9 or 11.. wondering where the fuck I went wrong). But anyway, one of the teachers there was like

“oh wow.. trash duty. They must not like you. I had that a while ago, it’s awful”\

-“honestly, I don’t really mind it that much, especially on a nice day, it’s a nice little break from the classroom”

“yeah, I guess. I just feel really awkward going up into their yards to get their trash cans.. Jean (that’s my boss) acts like we’re doing them this big favor, but really nobody has ever asked them if they even want us to take their garbage down to the street. And if it were me, I’m not sure I would want some strange guy coming into my yard and taking my garbage can.”

-“woah… yeah, I didn’t know that”

Seriously? Just have Texas John go and do the dirty work? It’s Montana, I could get fucking shot by some crazy meth-head. But the story gets way better. When I had that ^^ conversation, I didn’t really believe the teacher. I was like “oh well… why would they care?” but then, the next Thursday, I went to get one of the trash cans and found it locked to the porch with a bike-lock. Like “NO. DO NOT TAKE OUR TRASH.” Plus the lady who lives there glared at me as I came walking up. I guess it’s all in a day’s work.

Irony III

This one’s about yon Joe and more of his adventures.

Montessori Misadventures

It’s been a while since I’ve done this section.. because I tend to do more or less the same thing every day. And as fascinating as it is to me, I know that you don’t want to hear over and over about how great that game of glue tag was. (if you do you, can always just re-read old episodes). But a few crazy/cute things happened this week

I. – The kids invented a new game. It’s called the “let’s steal John’s hat and hide under the pavilion with it” game. It’s actually really fun, I get to chase the kids all around the playground for a half hour or so. They all conspire against me to keep me from getting my hat back until it’s actually time for me to go. They’re pretty good about giving it back then.

II. – unfortunately, they’re not always good about letting me go. Even when I’m already late because I lost track of time. (yes I know, that’s a fragment.) Lately, they’ve taken to all grabbing a-hold of me and refusing to let go. It’s like a game of whack-a-mole. I pry 3 of them off and then 4 more grab on to me. It’s okay though, it just means that I have to start trying to leave about 5 minutes before I actually have to leave. I’m training to be a parent. (did your parents ever do that? Like okay kids time to go! 1 hour later…. Okay kids, REALLY, time to go. And then it’s another ½ hour before you actually leave).

III. – Most of the kids who come to the Montessori school have very young, very attractive moms. It’s actually kinda crazy –I’ve never seen that many milfs in one place before. Plus a lot of them volunteer there – and they’re all super nice too. Anyway, one of the kids named Mason comes up to me on Monday and he’s like

“hey John, my mom says you’re sexy!”

“uhhh what?”

“my mom, she keeps telling me how you’re sexy”

2 questions kid:

1 – where did you learn that word? You’re 5.

2 – is your mom single?

Yeah, just thought I’d include that because it was super validating. It made me feel good about myself until I realized that it didn’t change the fact that Michelle Rodriguez has no clue who I am.

Munch. Munch Munch.

That’s the sound a fairy muncher makes. I think I can actually take credit for that term? Pretty sure I developed it. I definitely popularized it. My original definition of a fairy muncher is anyone who deletes a facebook comment. It tends to have a negative connotation E.g. “that stupid fairy muncher.”

I started using it because I needed a way to describe the frustration I felt when I would go looking for a comment and find that it no longer existed. Fairy muncher just seemed to fit. Hitting that little “x” is like munchin on a fairy

Then it morphed and became a generic term for someone who has taken to munching fairies/being obnoxious/stupid on a regular basis.

Just another reason not to make friends anytime you’re in Montana

Although, to be fair – I think this is more a “don’t make friends on the bus” issue. I was riding the bus, talking to Noah about something sarcastic (I don’t remember quite what) when crazy lady in front of me starts to turn around and grin. I’d seen this behavior before from bus-goers. Generally it’s an indicator that they’re trying to decide how heinous to make their interruption. I went for the glare method (e.g. glare at them as they start to grin and hope they take a hint).. forgetting that my glare needs improvement.

Crazy chick was undaunted – she sounds slightly hungover as she pipes up,

“so, I’m trying to get my degree online”

*at this point, noah goes for the “duck and cover” method. He hid behind the seat. it worked for him, but I was already stuck in the conversation*

Not wanting to be rude, I replied very courteously, but with subtle intonations indicating my disgust, “oh yeah? What’re you majoring in?”

“oh you know, I’m trying to get a degree in business, but I gotta take classes to learn how to take my classes online. I’m not so good with technology najklnbsdainqionvajauigiasunvjsdbnas baisufasbv asdjvnajslvnsaibgoiu asjkbvjknajklsdfasjdbnaksv sdqowiasjnvalksjdf. I gotta take classes to learn how to take my classes! Sajlknvajksnhvauhqwiounba vbv asdhfvsajdbn vx n asdhbjsabkjcbahbdaf jalkjdsb sadv I gotta take classes to learn how to take my classes!”

*she kept repeating that point.. thought she was awful clever she did.*

-“yeah sounds crazy”

“yeah you know, I just want to be able to help people, like maybe design a super-race or something”

-“oh yeah?”

“yeah, because you know, I have 100% immunity – like I’m immune to everything and I just want to be able to use that to help other people, you know – do something good for mankind.”

*struggling not to laugh* “oh wow, yeah that sounds really helpful”

“yeah you know, I really just want to help people so that maybe someday they can all be like me”

I shit you not. That is as close to verbatim as I can remember. I had to bite my tongue. I almost said “too bad you’re not immune to obesity.” Anyway, she went on to tell me how “my son goes to the same school as you and is in the honor society and drives a red Volkswagen. Oh and by the way his name is Xanthium. Just don’t tell him I told you or he’ll get upset that his square mom was talking about him” <-- her word choice is ironic because she was literally square, but not slang-square.

Prom.

Prom. So before anything, I want to say that it was amazing. I saw 10-20 of my best friends in the entire world for the first time in months. And I finally got to experience that amazing sensation that you can only get when you’re surrounded by a crowd of people, letting your body flow to their rhythm with music playing loud enough for the vibrations to dislocate your ribs. With 20 of my best friends in the world no less. But I have 2 complaints:

1 – why do I have to grow up? It made me realize that seeing those people – the friends whom I love will never again be mundane. It will always be a big deal. (which is nice in a way.. I guess) but even coming home.. seeing my parents/my dog/my house is an ordeal. Sobering thought right? Really I think I just suffered from the lack of an afterparty. It gave me a weird feeling somewhere between homesickness and wanderlust.

2 – why would you ever, EVER get a dj from Kalispell named DJ Q? more like DJ WillYouPleaseSTFU? I’m pretty sure that he literally did not know what dubstep was. Almost everyone at the dance asked him to play more dubstep and all he said was “I’ve been playin’ it all night man.” Um… no? no you really haven’t. sorry man, but contrary to public belief metallica and Ke$ha do not magically combine to make dubstep.

Meth – round II. I lost this one.

We had another interaction with Todd (that’s the name of the crazy meth-head I invited over to dinner a couple weeks ago). He came outside and started helping us rake our yard. We got to talking.. turns out he does stuff like that because his doctor told him that he doesn’t get enough exercise. He figured he might as well help people out while he exercises. No, he’s not a meth-head, and yes I am a fucking asshole. Sorry man, I really am – I mean you’re still crazy and only have one tooth, but as far as I can tell you’re nothing more than a sweet, lonely man who’s just as scared of a premature death as the rest of us are.

My no boost. <-- for any wondering, that’s the first sentence I ever said. Apparently, I didn’t want my mom to boost me up into the car.

Olivia, one of the few friends I’ve managed to make at the school had some crazy shit happen to her a couple weeks ago. (it actually provides even more evidence for the scarcity of sanity in Kalispell). She was minding her own business, wiping down a table at work when some lady comes up to her and asks her if she could please “marry me over the phone to my husband who’s in prison right now”

Seriously.. who does that? I mean clearly somebody in Kalispell does. Anyway, Olivia said that she would (really there’s not much else that you can say.. like NO I WILL NOT PRESIDE OVER YOUR WEDDING). So she got her boss/2 other people to be the witnesses and helped them with their vows. Then they got the groom on the line and did the thing right there. Good thing she hadn’t already used her phone a friend lifeline. Okay sorry, that was lame.

That sounds like some Alice In Wonderland shit to me:

And then a sofa came from within the trees, flolloping (for that is the most precise way to describe a sofa’s movement) up to Alice.

“please,” the sofa begged, “could you preside over my wedding?”

-“whoever could want to marry you?” Alice asked, before clasping a hand across her mouth – as though attempting to prevent the distastefulness of her comment from leaking out into the world.

But the sofa was unfazed, “why the TV of course!” it replied. “we’ve been engaged for 3 years! Have you not heard? No matter, no matter, We would have long since been married.. probably divorced too. If only I could have found a minister sooner. But now I’ve found you!”

-“but.. I’m not a minister.”

“nonsense, pure poppycock. I do wish you were an honest minister. No matter, no matter. It shall have to do, I simply must be married!”

-“excuse me! I shan’t do anything for you until you lose that tone.”

“right you are. I do apologize, I simply have cold legs!”

Alice looked down and did indeed notice that the sofa’s legs were completely engulfed in snow. “Oh my! We must get you someplace warm. Where is the TV?”

“he’s been chained to Humpty’s wall since the day that I met him 3 years ago, but don’t worry, he has promised me that he will tear himself free and elope with me as soon as we could find a minister to marry us”

Alice looked up then, and noticed that there was a rather large brick wall with a TV resting on top. And there, sitting in the utmost repose, occaisionally flipping from one channel to another sat Mr. Dumpty.

“Quickly! Quickly!” the sofa urged alice, “do you take my beloved TV to be my lawful wedded husband until the day you die?”

-“I suppose I do” replied Alice

“well do you or don’t you, for if you don’t I must be off to find a new minister!”

-“oh goodness, I do.”

And with that the TV leapt down from atop the wall and shattered on the ground. The sofa flolloped away with a curiously satisfied look in its cushions, while Mr. Dumpty flew into a blind rage.

“Goddamit you fucking bastard child” he shrieked, “I hope your ancestors all die in childbirth. You filthy wh….” But his rage was interrupted – for in his blindness, Humpty had accidently stumbled off the side of the wall. He splattered on the ground, splashing yolk on Alice in a most repulsive manner.

______________________________________________________________

Wow, did I really just write that? I honestly didn’t intend to write a short story. It sorta just happened. It’s actually quite layered. Subtlety, I believe it’s called. Hope you found that enjoyable.

The Morgan Files

For those who don’t know, I have a roommate. For those who don’t know, his name is Morgan. For those who don’t know, he’s the fuckin’ man and I love him a lot. Plus, he’s quite a character. He was the co-inspiration for the coloring book, and for most of the other awesome things that I do. This week, we collective decided that it would be a good idea for me to include a section in this blog called “the morgan files.” Its sole purpose is to follow the weekly undertakings of one, Morgan Kulkin.

So… this past week, Morgan shaved his beard into a mustache, was complimented on his mustache by some random guys driving down the street, was hit on by some Mexican dude on facebook, and shaved his mustache. Also this week, Morgan decided to shout out “watercolors…. Oh wow!” in his sleep. Neither of us can quite figure out why.

The Web (-----> look over there for quick access to this section now)

News about news and the like

I’m quite a fan of news about news, especially when the news within news contains jokes within jokes. Like the story about how a Fox News reporter played an april fool’s joke on his fellow reporter. It’s funny, I was under the impression that the entire show was a joke..? Basically he gets her to lick an ipad and it’s hilarious. Definitely worth checking out: http://www.tipb.com/2011/04/06/wednesday-fun-video-news-anchor-cohost-lick-ipad-april-fools-joke/

Also, if you have not seen the Scarlet takes a tumble video yet.. it’s a must see. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIwTYL1fwJk

That lady has millions of people laughing at her. In fact, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1FBqwjzbSA

She has people laughing at people laughing at her. That’s pretty impressive Scarlet.

For funsies

http://features.cgsociety.org/newgallerycrits/g85/362285/362285_1232630961_large.jpg

so yeah… I saw that and was like wtf. That’s not cool at all. But check it, that’s 100% cgi. I thought it was real.

http://stories-etc.com/awards.htm

sometimes the stereotype is actually true.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icjasmCEoqM

Logorama – this video is brilliant, if you have 16 minutes of your life to spare. If not, then it’s your loss. It’s not funny or particularly crazy. But it’s impressive.

Music

Kesha – blow remix. Kasha is one of my guilty pleasures. I think this is one of the best remixes I’ve ever heard. Ever.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ul2-c2pxQqo

Zion y Lennox – Ahora. First heard this song on an old version of FIFA (the soccer game). It’s not bad for some latin shit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlyMT82-Afc

Zion I – Coastin’ – literally the best song to listen to when you’re standing on top of a mountain looking at the line you’re about to cut down 3 feet of powder

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrvvDnFGfjY

Episode VI

HOW DOWN ARE YOU WITH FAIRY MUNCHING? ... vi

First of all, I guess I owe all of my readers an apology for last week. I didn’t post anything – I somehow thought that because I posted the one from two weeks ago on Monday that nobody would notice if I didn’t post anything.. plus I was on spring break and I was crazy busy trying to find enough hours in a day to hang out with everyone that I wanted to. (I failed in that endeavor by the way, and I apologize to any of you whom I didn’t catch. I promise I tried! But it’s hard to make up for years of absence in 3 days) Anyway, I was operating under the fantasy that nobody would notice.. but I’ve already had one of my friends message me like “wtf homie, where was the blog?” so clearly that didn’t work out so well.

It’s okay though, this week’s episode is pretty fucking great, and it has some amazing links. I’m slowly starting to remember how I used to use the internet for more than facebook and porn.

I CAN’T THINK OF A WITTY NAME FOR THIS SECTION THAT’S NOT HEINOUSLY BIGOTED, BUT IT’S ABOUT A GAY GUY

I was Thrifting [e.g. recreational impulse consumption at thrift stores (e.g. buying shit for fun on a whim because it’s cheap)] in Montrose. Montrose is unquestionably my favorite section of Houston. All the druggies, homosexuals, eccentrics, and artsy people frequent it. It’s home to some scrumptious hole-in-the-wall burger joints, beautiful graffiti, and some of the best people watching available in this country (think airport caliber).

So we’re walking around browsing and minding our own business when some crazy-looking 30+ year old comes up to me like,

“hey man, somethin’ told me that I should come over here and talk to you today”

-“um okay.. what’s the deal man?”

“I just gotta ask you, are you straight or are you gay?”

*an extremely flustered me* -“uhh.. I’m straight dude”

“oh okay, well you musta been curious, cause I saw you eyein’ me”

And then he walked away, while everyone within earshot started cracking up.

Like, woahhh dude, I was not “eyein’” him. I did give him a bit of a glare when I noticed him openly checking out three of my best friends though (which is weird, because they were girls). And I mean openly.. like low whistle under his breath, with head-nodding and elbow nudging. I think I should probably work on my glare a bit.

SNEAKING INTO SCHOOL?

I decided to pull the first legit April fool’s prank that I’ve played on anyone in years. It had its genesis in a conversation on March 31 with Andrew Best. And it’s rather brilliant if I do say so myself. I decided to sneak into my old school. The first part of the plan was to convince the track coach that I was actually a student and get him to let me join his PE class. But the second, subtler part was to be done by Andrew. He would spread word of my coming around the school, but do it in a way made people assume he was attempting to prank them. The kids would then call his bluff, but the joke would be on them when I actually showed up.

Everything went perfectly, until the coach decided to kick me out of class. He definitely believed that I was a current student.. but it didn’t matter, he was like “you’re not in my class – you can’t just come up here on a free period”

Regardless, the look on my friend’s face when he saw that I really did show up was priceless. And I did manage to crash several other classes that were taught by the teachers who actually knew me. One of them told me that my name had just come up in a conversation that he was having the day before. Speak of the devil I guess?

TOURIST MOBS IN SALT LAKE

I almost didn’t write this section.. god forbid that I’m perceived like this stupid UCLA bitch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Johj5WEYzZo

But it’s like my high school chemistry teach always taught me.. “almost” only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.

I was sitting in the airport, minding my own business and downloading Black Swan, when approximately 20 Chinese tourists (some of them wearing traditional garb) decided to cluster around my table to ogle the mountains. Honestly.. what the hell? I was sitting on the side of a very long corridor between two terminals. The corridor was almost empty and lined all the way up with windows. Why did they have to encircle my table to ogle their mountains? I would totally understand if the entire corridor was full.. like somebody was going to get mobbed and I look friendly so why not? But that just wasn’t the case. They could have walked 10 more feet and had their very own table! What a novel idea. So naturally I assumed they were a potential threat to my livelihood. It was the perfect scheme – like “okay, we will distract this dumb American while you homies on the other side heist those cookies that his grandma made for him.” But, I didn’t know how to shift my bag closer to me without being rude. I mean, I knew inside that the odds of them actually trying to nab my shit were slim to none.. and you can’t just pull your stuff to your chest whenever some Chinese people get close to you. That’s just so wrong. I decided to opt for the “root around in your bag until you find something that you can pretend you were looking for/discretely move your bag closer to you” strategy. It worked.

THE no longer BAREFOOT FUCKING BANDIT *note: this section is not about colton harris-moore

It’s about some fucking asshole that goes to the gym. So, I decided to leave my socks out while I spent 14 minutes in the sauna.. because it was convenient and I didn’t think anyone would steal my sweaty socks. But, sometime during that 14 minutes, somebody came along and stole my sweaty socks. I have dubbed him the “no longer barefoot fucking bandit” because he was clearly a bandit.. and one can only assume that he was barefoot until he took my socks. For anyone who’s curious, I did look all over the locker room/in my locker/in all my pockets/in my shoes/in lost and found for them – but the socks are gone. Seriously, who the fuck does that?? I mean, it’s not a huge deal or anything, I have plenty of other socks.. but, honestly – everyone I know travels with a pair of socks on their feet at all times. I guess the no longer barefoot fucking bandit didn’t.

IRONY II

I’m just going to make “irony” the perma-name of sections that I can’t post to facebook, regardless of their irony or lack thereof. So yeah, you know the deal – comment or like the note if you want me to shoot you this section. For any wondering, it tells the tale of a tragic breakup.

GOTTA GET DOWN ON FRIDAY

Some 13 year old named Rebecca Black just put out a new song called Friday. It’s fucking awesome. Jklol it’s fucking awful. But, it’s really not as bad as people are saying it is. I’m fairly certain it’s the most “disliked” video on youtube right now. Last time I checked it had 80 million views and 1.5 million “dislikes.”

But don’t take my word for it! Go watch the video for yourself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD2LRROpph0

While you’re at it, be sure you check the box that says “enable automatic comment updates” – then you can fully appreciate the 10-20 comments that are posted every second about how the song is a disgrace to humanity and the 1 dude who says “OMG I FUCKING LOVE REBECCA BLACK YOU GUYS NEED TO STOP HATIN.” [edit: the commenting has slowed down a lot since the beginning of the week when I wrote this, but it WAS 10-20 comments every second]

If you get bored with that, you can always prowl youtube for trolls. (a troll is someone who makes heinous youtube comments for funsies. like “Your face makes me want to punch babies.”)

SORRY KID.. I CAN’T BE YOUR FRIEND RIGHT NOW

Before I start, I actually felt really about this situation.. but it totally opened my eyes to the way society works. I went to a Panic! At the Disco concert last Saturday at Discovery Green. Before you judge, I gotta say that they actually put on a decent show.. plus it was a free concert, so I really can’t complain. I went with 3 of my best friends from way back in the day. Like kids that I grew up with that I rarely ever get to see anymore. We were all standing around reminiscing about the good times we used to have before we grew up and got super boring when crazy chick comes up to us all like “hey ya’ll, I just moved to Houston and I don’t really have any friends.. and I love your outfits so… yeah” girl, you couldn’t know this – but it would have been almost impossible for you to pick a worse time to try being my friend. I don’t even live here anymore and this is the only time I get to see my bffls from another life. The last thing I need is some crazy 25 year old tagging along. But none of us were able to formulate that concept into words and explain it to this girl so we all just sorta stood there looking from one person to another and back again until she was like “well.. this ain’t goin’ nowhere” and walked away.

The thing is, I’ve totally been there before.. like in a new town without any friends. It fucking sucks. Unfortunately, my emotional resonance didn’t change the fact that I only get to see my friends a couple times a year. It did, however, make me question the circumstances in which it is socially acceptable to go introduce yourself to someone. I think it’s totally situation-based. E.g. it was okay for comment on the conversation I overheard in the airport because her valet had brought her the wrong car and she hadn’t noticed until she was 100 miles down the road and that’s just hilarious, but it would not have been okay for me to walk up to some random person in the airport like “hey I don’t have any friends zomg will you help me?” And it definitely wasn’t acceptable for me to be like “wait what was that?” to that chick I was playing soccer with a few weeks ago.

Bottom line: if you’re going to introduce yourself to me out of nowhere you better a) be really attractive, b) be really fucking funny, c) be a likable, charismatic person OR, d) have an accent. Sadly, crazy concert chick didn’t fit any of these criteria. That’s probably why she has no friends.

…….YOU GOT ME

I’ve been travelling a lot in the past week or two.. interacting with TSA reps on an almost daily basis. I gotta say.. TSA has a lot of haters, but a lot of the guys that work there are actually pretty cool. Like this one guy who had to do “additional screening” on my bag. He took it and did his thing while I took off my belt and did my thing. Eventually he comes back with it like:

“hey man that’s a really well packed bag.”

--“oh, thanks!”

“yeah, your mom packed that for you didn’t she?”

-- *laughing*“….you got me man, she did.”

“yeah.. there was no way you packed a bag like that”

It’s true… whenever I visit Houston, my mom still packs my bags and makes me lunches. I dunno what the moral of this story is, but I thought it was funny.

MY NO BOOST.

This section is not about me. Weird right? I decided that some of the things that happen to my friends are worth writing about too. Especially this one – it’s great. Will (one of my friends) was also travelling last week. He had a 40 minute layover in Salt Lake and they delayed his flight to by 80 minutes. 40 – 80 is not a positive number. That means that he would be missing his flight in SLC. That would be a bummer! But, he didn’t give up and start crying like the lady who missed a speech that she’d been planning for two years because of the delays. He found a Delta representative and got a voucher for a taxi ride to a nearby airport that had a flight that was leaving right at the 40 minute mark. Then he sprinted out of the terminal and flagged down a taxi. Generally it takes 35 minutes to get to from one airport to the other.. but that wouldn’t really work out very well. 5 minutes to get checked in/through security/to your gate? No way jose. So he told the drive his deal and was like “check it, if you get me there in 20 minutes I’ll pay you $10 extra on top of this voucher.” He got there in 20 minutes.

Once there, he also manipulated the Delta agent into printing him a first class ticket like “hey, you should probably put me on first class so that I can go in the premium security line and actually make my flight.” He ended up making all of his flights on time and flying first class. G status right there.

Plus, now you know what to do next time you’re in NYC and your flight gets delayed. Don’t just sit there and cry – get your ass on another flight and make damn sure they give you a first class ticket. Actually, that’s a good life lesson – don’t just lay down and fucking die when life deals you a wrong. Get you shit together and then brag about how awesome you are for succeeding against all odds.

THE WEB

MUSIC

Freestylers - Cracks (flux pavilion remix) - amazing song... i think jizzed a little the first time i heard it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5ZeukLrD74

Pitbull - Hey Baby (drop it to the floor) - this is like the junk food of music. i fucking love it.. it's ear candy. but subject matter/message is pretty shallow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LefQdEMJP1I

Mimosa - Pandora - just do it. i initially liked it because of the name.. but it turns out to be an awesome song too

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2aHgHox5Lo

rebelution - from the window - frat boy reggae ftw! [somebody convinced me that ftw meant fuck the whore for about 4 months once] this song <3 <3 (e.g. this song is pretty great and makes me <3)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RX4BYsH3eek

WEB

http://www.superbad.com/ - just go with it. it's this awesome artist dude who makes some ill web-designs and links them all over the place. some parts of the site are actually narrative - like they tell a story but you have to click the right links to find it all.

space painting - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dY1Lr-yGtd8 - the library is closing soon so i have to hurry but just give it a chance. it looks like it will suck but it gets crazy.

illusions - http://www.dougmoran.com/collections/optical-illusion-pink-dot-circle.html

this is a rareity - an illusion i'd never seen before. its a really cool one too. the dots disappear. legit.

before i die - http://candychang.com/before-i-die-in-nola/

what would you put on that list?

Episode V

THE COLORING BOOK... v

^ that's the first hit on an image search for "happy friday". how awesome is that?

also, if there's a sentence/paragraph that doens't make sense.. comment about it. the paste kept fucking up for some reason. i think i sorted it all out but im not positive.

THE BOXING RING THAT MOVED

Last Friday (like a week ago Friday) – I volunteered to help this guy named Phil Moore move a boxing ring because he’s a really cool guy and he was coordinating the only “golden gloves” in this part of the world. He told me to meet him at the gym I always work out at – it’s called SBGI (Straight Blast Gym International) as soon as I was done at my job. So I did.. or I tried to. He’d said that he would definitely be there because they had to load up the boxing ring, which is no small feat. I got to SBGI at about 1:30 – which was well within the time frame that he gave me, but when I went inside, there was no Phil. What’s more, there was no ring. I guess it just decided to walk out on its own or something? I dunno, so I was asked one of the other guys that works at SBGI where Phil was and he started laughing, like

“Dude you missed him, he already took it over to the Outlaw Inn, you could probably still help him unload it though.”

-- Okay, where is that place? I’ve never heard of it before

"oh, it's by Rosaurs"

-- um.. where is Rosaurs?

“it’s sorta over that way, you can’t miss it” *and he gestured here something between a point and a wave*

Thanks man, super helpful. Especially since main street spits into two different streets – North and South. And of course I managed to forget the name of the place I was going to while I was running *that way* -- so there I am, running in sorta the right way, with no idea what the place was called, looking off both sides for a place that I couldn’t miss. Eventually I realized that I was not going to find it. And that if I kept running I would definitely just miss it and have to turn around. So I was like “shit, what the hell do I do now, I can’t go back to SBGI, they would just tell me the same thing they said last time, and it wouldn’t really help at all. I surveyed my surroundings and decided to try a gas station because I remembered seeing a guy borrow a phone from a gas station on TV once. Sure enough, they had a phone that they didn’t mind me using – so I called and found out that I was literally across the street from where I needed to be. Figures. Oh, and the best part is that after I’d hung up the cashier lady was like “oh, are you going to the golden gloves?” and I was like yeah.. and she was like “oh well I could have told you where that was.

THE REGS (REVOLUTION EVER GROWING STRONGER)

So I thought I’d throw some links in here and ask anyone reading this (as a favor) to check it out. If you don’t like it, so be it. But if you do, then tell everyone you know about it. Can you do that? Please? Like actually, think about it – how often is it that you have the chance to actively help someone else pursue their dreams? You’d probably get on santa’s nice list.Okay, so I thought I’d do a bit of a special section this week because one of my friends got together with another couple of my friends and made a band. The crazy thing is that they’re actually good. They just made a demo with 17 tracks on it and threw it up on youtube and are trying to get a label.

Here’re some links to my favorite songs. check ‘em out:

Animosity – far and away my favorite track – it’s about his ex http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DA4envdCkg

It’s evil if you make it (why we fight) – my other favorite track.. the beat is ill, and his lyrics are awesome

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3knr7OqRVA

The Riot Act – Raymond, I love it when you play piano. What is love but genuine lust? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIGqvvxywgE&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

Worriless man – kind of a jazz/blues feel to this track, but still good

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4yQ_r8N8bI&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

Hip Hop Apocalypse Remix – gotta say, molly has a great voice. I think this track needs to be reworked a little bit though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iYpiS4pN8M&feature=BF&list=ULJaZV4riERW8&index=5

HOW TO EXPAND YOUR MUSIC TASTES

While I’m on the subject of music that’s awesome – I thought I’d throw in a little section on how to expand your music tastes so that you can listen to all that awesome stuff in your itunes that you’ve never listened to before. (and that you really can’t remember how the hell it even got into your itunes). Anyway, I developed this technique recently, and it’s worked pretty well for me. Step 1: delete everything on your ipod. It’s not that bad, just throw all your playlists onto itunes so that you can resync it later. Step II: fill your ipod up with music that you have never gotten around to listening to (like all that awesome reggae you got from somebody last year) Step III: take the time to go through and slowly listen to all the albums that you just threw on your ipod, or just put your ipod on shuffle. And yeah, you’ll find a bunch of songs that you fall in love with that you didn’t know existed.

Or, there is an alternative option if that doesn’t sound like you’re style. You can always just listen to the REGS and tell your friends about them. That would certainly help expand your music taste.

GLOVE SAMPLES

I’m slowly starting to realize a couple of things about life. First of all, I’m learning that I need to learn discretion sometimes. I was walking through the grocery store with a friend of mine this past week explaining the irony to him that everyone who attends FVCC is stupid. It’s ironic because the school is called flathead valley community college. Like they all have flat heads because they’re stupid. (credits to Andrew Best for noticing that irony by the way – he pointed it out to me and I promptly told all of my friends about it). Anyway, I was explaining this irony to him when a girl who looked to be 19 walked by carrying a child. Kalispell is quite renowned for 3 things: its quirky, granola, telemark skiers, its meth-heads, and its underage, pregnant girls. I swear that something on the order of 60% of girls over the age of 18 have children. It’s honestly depressing, most of the girls my age already have kids. We actually play a people-watching game sometimes called “mom or sister?” the gameplay is pretty intuitive. So that night in the store, I turned to my friend and was like “hey man, you know why I hate Kalispell? Because that’s her kid” and he thinks that she heard me.. she gave us a look and walked away. She probably heard me.

That same night at the grocery store taught me another life lesson – what you put out to people determines what you get back. For example, if you are very open about how much you enjoy the free samples in grocery stores and joke with the people working the sample booths about how you’re going to trade clothes with your friend and then come back for more so that they don’t recognize you, sometimes you get extra samples. This one old lady, bless her soul, actually told me to take all of her samples. She was like “go ahead, fill up your pockets” then, when I came back around later she gave me a plastic glove (not the gross latex ones) to use as a little baggy and pack full of samples to take home with me. Then, and this is the best part, she asked me to put the baggies in my pocket and keep them out of sight. Somehow, I think I actually may have managed to get a worker to help me shoplift. And all I was doing was being honest about how awesome free food is. Since adopting this mentality of openly scavenging food, I’ve been tipped off about free cake, free popcorn, more free cake, and free scones. I highly recommend it for anyone who likes food, but doesn’t like paying for it.

THE COLORING BOOK THAT YOU ANTICIPATED LAST WEEK

Maybe you noticed last week that I titled the note “in anticipation of the coloring book” that’s because I knew I was going to be writing about the coloring book this week, and that it was going to be fucking awesome. And I am. And it was. My roommate and I have been contemplating/developing a new style of beard for approximately 2 months now. We dubbed it the “coloring book” because you shave the inside part of your beard but leave the outside lines – it ends up framing your face like lines that you’re supposed to color in. it also ends up looking absolutely repulsive. Like heinously so. The best part is that I kept it for a day and went out in public.. nobody said anything to me about it, although one guy did start a conversation with me at the thrift store about clothes. I guess I looked gross enough to be one of his kind. Anyway, we took some pictures of it and a video of people’s reactions. i’ll put the pictures up, but the video is not legit to post.. somehow there was nudity. Like it definitely wasn’t my intent, but I guess my face blew their fucking clothes off? Or maybe one of my friends just doesn’t know how to close the door when he goes to the bathroom.

profile picture status. but not really.

METH. NOT EVEN ONCE.

Across the street from us there are these apartments. We collectively call them “Meth Row” because everyone in Montana does meth, especially the kind of people who live in Meth Row. Well, last week after dinner, I was standing in the kitchen when I noticed some grizzled old man come out of his meth den and walk across the street to stand on our sidewalk. He stayed there for about 30 seconds.. or maybe a minute before walking back into his house. Then he came back out another minute later with two shovels (clue I that he’s a tweaker), walked back across the street and started shoveling the snow berms next to our sidewalk. Berms are giant mound-build-ups that are created on the side of the road (but not on the sidewalk) by the snow-plow machine. Nobody ever shovels them. Ever. It’s a complete waste of time because they only ever occur in space that’s not used for anything. Moreover, even if you were to shovel them because you’re a crazy meth head with nothing better to do, the plow would just build them back up the next day. It’s the Houston equivalent of taking a bucket and trying to get all the water out of the gutters on the side of the street in the middle of a rain-storm. Normal people just don’t do that kind of stuff. Anyway, I told everyone in my house about the crazy guy shoveling our berms for us and we all stood around watching him until he looked up and noticed us. Then Hunter (being the southern gentleman he is) saw it fit to go talk to the guy. Well he seemed nice enough like “yeah, I dunno man, I just get bored sometimes so I thought I’d shovel your walk.” ß clue II. Then I went outside and was like “well that’s awful nice of you, wanna come over for dinner on Wednesday at 6 PM?” and said sure. 6 o’clock Wednesday came and went but the guy didn’t show and we haven’t seen him since.

3-WAY STOPS

To anyone who reads this on a regular basis.. do you remember the section I did on how I caused a traffic jam? Yeah? Well, I did some more investigating, and it turns out that it wasn’t really my fault. Kalispell just simply does not understand the way that traffic works. 3 way stops on a 4-way street do not work. They make this happen:

That thing in the middle is an accident. I didn’t know how else to draw it. Anyway, the intersection that I caused a traffic jam at always seems to be jammed up. So I decided to do some casual snooping in order to determine the real cause of the perpetual gridlock. Turns out that it is only has 3 stop signs. Every time I go past the intersection, I always double check.. thinking that I must have missed something.. that maybe one of the streets is one way. Or even that one of the streets gets significantly more traffic than the other three combined. But none of those things are ever true.

PARTY AT THE HALFWAY HOUSE

Last Friday, a bunch of the kids from my house went to some kind of dance/performance at a local coffee shop with over 100 people at it. (that’s a LOT of people in a small town.. like its actually about 1% of the entire population for miles around)anyway, one of the kids from my house that went decided to invite over a couple girls that we’ve been hanging out with lately.. and somehow the word got out that there was a party at our house. Which is weird because it’s a halfway house… So at 10:45, 15 people show up on our doorstep. We can’t have people over after 11, so any partying was going to be a bit short-lived. Eventually, we got rid of them, but no sooner do they walk out the door than some other guy that we’ve never even met before shows up like “heyyy, I heard there was a little ‘get together’ here” we told him there wasn’t really anything, but he persisted like “oh, well can I just come in for a second” and we were like “dude everybody else is gone already. Get outta here” he left after that. I guess word gets around in a small town. Parties are big news, even when they’re at the halfway house.

THE WEB

Movies.. if you want to watch them go here. I found this site a while ago and I’ve had really good luck with it thus far

http://www.letmewatchthis.ch/

possibly the best commentary that I’ve found this week.

http://www.reddit.com/r/nihilism/

Music

THE REVOLUTION EVER GROWING STRONGER. LOOK UP IF YOU DIDN’T READ TO GET THE LINKS.

Imogen Heap – Hide and Seek

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYIAfiVGluk

Kid Cudi & Rich Hill – won’t you tell me

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWsa_jVdZkk

Ziggy Marley – Love is my religion

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8oAGvFxevw

i sorta look like i have a gnarly double chin don't i? this picture honestly makes me want to throw up.

much love amigos.

Episode IV

In anticipation of the coloring book.. IV
WHAT CAN’T YOU SNEAK INTO A MOVIE THEATER?

I’m convinced that there’s not much that fits that category. I decided on a whim to test it this past weekend. My friends and I were all going to see Battle LA. Before the movie, we made a pit stop at the dollar tree (great place to shop when you’re a poor college kid by the way) and we all bought food/drinks for the movie. Most of the kids bought a can of coke.. or maybe a 20oz bottle if they were feeling adventurous. I was eyeing that 2-liter of orange stuff. I experimented with it for a bit.. shoving it under my shirt and asking one or another of my friends if it was noticeable. Then I realized that other people in the store would probably be under the impression that I was contemplating stealing their orange stuff. So, I went ahead and bought the stuff, then one of my friends piped up, asking the cashier if he knew whether it was possible to sneak that stuff into the theater. He said that it was totally doable (he was a chiller by the way, long hair, beard.. total ski-bum) – he even offered some advice, he suggested I have a couple of my friends walk in front of me to make it less noticeable. We thanked him for his help and left.

Then, while we were walking around, munching on ice cream and waiting for Battle LA to start, I came to a realization – there was no way in hell that they weren’t going to notice that I had a fucking huge orange bottle under my shirt. I tried shoving it down my pants.. but that was no better. Nobody’s packin that hard. I needed a new tactic. Inspiration struck while I was sharing a coldstone “love it” cup with one of my house-mates. (ben ‘n jerry’s is way better.. don’t ever buy coldstone. And if you aren’t faced with that option because you live in the middle of fucking nowhere Montana, then at least don’t get skittles mixed in, they freeze. Then every time you bite one, you’re in your head like “omgomgomg is my tooth breaking??? Oh wait.. that’s the skittle” and somehow your brain never quite figures out that your teeth aren’t breaking, so you go through the entire ice cream dreading the skittles)

Anyway, inspiration struck me, I decided to take off my jacket and drape it around the bottle, clutching it to my side in what I hoped was a relatively normal hoodie-holding pose. The only flaw was that my left side was immobilized and it was rather obvious that there was something heavy in the hoodie because my entire arm was flexed. But hey, people never notice that shit. Then when we were about to walk in, I realized that I wasn’t going to be able to maneuver my wallet/get my ticket with only one arm, so I asked my best friend to buy my ticket for me. I meant for him to buy both tickets as one transaction with the $20 I gave him and then pay me back later. I guess he didn’t comprehend that – he had the lady do it as two transactions but paid for both of us. It’s okay though, the lady probably just thought I was mentally handicapped or something – I definitely heard the girls behind us making fun of me like:

“ohey can you just like order dinner for me, I’m too shy”

Laughter

Ahhahahahaha so funny, let’s laugh at the retard ahahaha. Fuck you.

It’s okay though, they didn’t get 2 liters of orange stuff while watching Michelle Rodriguez fuck up aliens for 2 hours.

On that note:

MICHELLE FUCKING RODRIGUEZ

Is definitely my biggest celebrity crush ever.. including the Emma Watson obsession I had in 3rd grade. which is weird because she’s old enough to be my mom. I dunno man, something about that feisty latin spunk just does it for me. Plus I can totally relate to her, she kicked out of 6 schools growing up. I didn’t quite manage that, but I sure tried. Anyway, she’s still full of wisdom like – “if you ever crave knowledge, there’s always a library” or “If you fear it, run towards it like a train, kid, life is short.” ß possibly my favorite quote ever. Everything she just say is my favorite thing to do too.. like every day. Anyway, that’s all. Just felt the need to get it out there.

IRONY

Okay.. honestly I can’t print this section. At least not on facebook. People might be offended at me. So if you want this section, then either “like” this note or comment in your email or both and I’ll send it to you. Or do neither, but if you do neither then I probably won’t email it to you. Your loss. It’s fucking hilarious. (note the additional level of irony that arises from my inability to print the irony section on facebook because of the irony presented in it) just to pique your interest, it involves an extreme lack of discretion on the part of one, Joe and justice being served to that same one, Joe.

TALENT SHOW

Noah, my best friend here currently, was performing drops of jupiter at a talent show here last Friday night. All the rest of us here got pretty excited about going to watch him/cheer him on. But we were operating under the assumption that it was going to be free. I mean it makes sense for it to be free, why would the hell would they charge us to watch? I dunno either man, it’s kind of a boner-kill. So I got there and saw it was $5 to get in. I thought about paying for a couple of seconds, and then remembered that Noah is just as stingy as me and that he would totally understand/not hold it against me if I didn’t pay. In fact, he might feel bad for me if I did pay like “dude why the hell would you pay? I could play that song for you any time” and without Noah, there’s definitely not $5 worth of talent in Kalispell. Instead, I spent my Friday night on facebook trying/failing to find old friends to talk to. Apparently normal people have lives that don’t revolve around not spending money.

MONTESSORI MISADVENTURES

Honestly, it’s been a pretty uneventful week (relatively speaking) at the school. This one little 5 year old girl named Gabby did invite me to her house though. I met her for the first time and she was like “I like you, you can come over to my house and watch megamind” I was like “uhhh wouldn’t your mom think it a little weird for some stranger to come over?” I didn’t know how to say no without hurting her feelings. She persisted for a while like “no, she doesn’t care if I invite you, you can come” eventually I managed to distract her with something else until she forgot about it. But the best part is that I was talking to one of the other guys that works there.. turns out she did the exact same thing to him. He took the course of:

“hmm, why don’t you invite some of your other friends here?”

“wait, but aren’t you my friend too?”

“……yeah, I am!”

“well then, you can come and watch megamind.”

*sigh* I guess she didn’t get the memo about not inviting strange men 12 years older than you over when your mom hasn’t ever met them. She’s a sweetheart when she forgets about megamind though.

Also, there’s a little girl named Lexy – she was feeling sick one day, so I got assigned to sit with her and entertain her so that she didn’t annoy anybody. I started talking to her for a while about her cat, and then she mentioned that she had dogs at home too. So I asked her “oh! Are you a dog person or a cat person?” she gave me a quizzical look so I thought I should clarify, “do you like dogs better or cats better?” she thought for a good 30-45 seconds before replying “chicken!” with a huge grin. I guess that makes her the first and last chicken person I’ve ever met.

Lastly, and this is certainly newsworthy, enough of the snow has melted that I can finally start playing soccer with the kids – it’s SO much fun. There will be 5-10 of them chasing me around and I’ll just pop the ball over their heads or around them for a while and then pass it to one of the smaller kids who never get to kick it otherwise and watch them all run after the ball. Soccer was such a big part of my upbringing (we used to carry over the score at recess every day) so it’s actually really heartwarming for me to be able to pass that on to the kids.

WHAT THE F*CK GRIZZLIES?

Science shows that grizzly bears will be waking up soon, and when they do, they’ll be fucking hungry. I wish that for once, just one year, they could sleep in. so yeah, what the f*ck grizzlies? What’s your deal?

Why you gotta wake up and eat snowboarders?

THE FUTURE IS UNCERTAIN, BUT THE END IS ALWAYS NEAR

Yo I wrote this heading a while ago and I totally forgot where I was going with this, but it sounds like good advice to me. All roads lead to rome man. Oh, and while I’m at it.. who wants to hear my theory on 2012? It’s pretty good. And it fits the end being near bit.

So, it starts 3-4 billion years ago with the big bang/creation/whatever the fuck you believe in, I don’t care but there’s 3-4 billion years of geologic time on the planet to explain. Well, abiotic-genesis (e.g. the process of something non-living to become living) is REALLY slow. Basically, rocks won’t be taking over the world any time soon. In fact, it takes about 3-4 billion consecutive helpful gene-mutations in order for this to happen. (per my science teacher) The odds of a single helpful mutation are immensely low.. so for 3-4 billion of them to happen annually is basically impossible. The probability is approaching 0 as odds against approach infinity. In fact it’s FAR more (actually, it’s infinitely more) likely that some kind of alien being (or a god) either intentionally or inadvertently dropped some kind of bacteria into the atmosphere and that it developed slowly into our world. Well, I’m not much one for the religion theory.. aliens are just way cooler.

So aliens created us way back in the day and now, for whatever reason, they have decided to check up on us in the fateful year of 2012. I don’t claim to know their motives, but they’re definitely coming. I can prove it – they’ve actually already started the invasion.

In some lake somewhere in California last year, scientists found something puzzling. The found a bacteria able to create its DNA out of arsenic. This was completely unprecedented. Every known organism on the planet uses Phosphorous. They chalked it up to evolution. But we both know they’re full of shit. It’s clearly the beginning of an invasion. The aliens came and left some more bacteria in that lake. And if we let it fester for another 3-4 billion years then we’d probably find a nice roaring culture of arsenic-eating hoodlums trying to take our jobs from us. We need to annihilate the threat now and prepare for the 2012 invasion.

See: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/12/nasa-finds-arsenic-life-form/

FACEBOOK IS THE PERFECT PLACE TO EXPERIMENT ON SOCIETY.

Like social experiments. I know right? Fucking great. Let me explain – In sociology class a couple days ago, the teacher went off on a ramble about American Ideologies. Basically, most Americans want to believe in equal opportunity – especially the middle/upper classes. They want to believe that good things happen to good people, that ragsàriches is possible, and that success is a function of hard work. They want to believe in a just world. According to my teacher, this mentality serves as a protection from having to face the reality of poverty/the role that luck plays in social class. Because then, they might be obliged to help.. god forbid. It makes perfect sense too – think about how much harder it is for somebody born in poverty to work their way into wealth. Especially if they have to drop out of school and get a job to keep their little sister from dying of starvation. It can happen, but it’s extremely hard. And the wealthy are oftentimes “born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple.”

Anyway, I recoiled from this when I heard it – like jesus that’s crazy I would never be that guy who just doesn’t give a shit about people. And then I realized that I totally already am, and what’s more, that I never even notice the biases and benefits that I have from growing up in the middle class.

So I decided to do a little experiment and see how many of my friends agreed with said ideologies. I made a facebook status endorsing one them (sometimes you fail and you just gotta get back up and work that much harder so that you can succeed. don't ever let anybody tell you you can't do something. because you can. no matter what happens, you just have to decide that it's worth it to you. Monday at 4:36pm) and within a minute and a half, two people liked it.

The Web:

Unforgivable – a Harvard kid pretending that he’s super ghetto.. hard to beat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mz1nQEQ6UAQ

Michelle’s blog (not as good as mine)

http://www.michellerodriguez.com/blog/

Mr chi city – honestly this guy is classic – if you don’t know who he is, you actually really need to watch this. He’s really hard to beat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBRL7D0wcXM

just because.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pVmmsuuc5U&feature=related

Music

Deadmau5 – Arguru

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8dEF9yCW4s

Ferry corsten – Hell yeah. One of the finest.

It’s time – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOHrVWYplKU

Forever – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDoOBProocY

Forever – (dub remix) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnHUg4oQ4-U

Simple plan – untitled – literally the best depressing song for when you just want to be sad. The best part is that it’s title is “untitled”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQ7oqmikZDQ

Calvin harris – everyone I know likes this guy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yZ_yNtVL7M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhUcSbbURyc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzujNk-yYrE

Episode III

Hey.. so its been a while since I’ve posted anything. Go figure. I knew that was going to happen actually. I’m really bad at writing on a regular basis – I tend to just write when I want to. And sometimes I don’t want to for weeks at a time. But anyway, welcome back to my followers I guess? And to my stalkers who read these but never post on them– hey, you don’t have to pretend like you’re not actually reading this you know. I’m not that judgmental. It’s only weird when you bring up something that I wrote about when I had no idea that you were even reading it. Then I tend to be like “wait.. how do you even know about that?” like when the kids I work with at the Montessori school are perpetually bamboozled by my knowing their names. Some of them ask me every day.. “How do you know my name?”…. uh you introduced yourself yesterday.. and the day before.. and actually the day before that too. Maybe you should get that checked out or something.

On a similar note, I’m fairly certain that I creeped out a girl that I was playing soccer with a few weeks ago. She let out this weird noise.. it sounded kinda like a dog whimper – I think she was afraid that somebody was going to run into her. But anyway, whatever the case – I was like “wait, what was that?” I was being sarcastic. I forgot that sometimes when you’ve never talked to people before it’s a bad idea to be sarcastic. She definitely thought I was serious, she was like “oh.. nothing, I just made a noise.” I said “oh.. yeah, I know” and walked away. I didn’t talk to her for the rest of the game.

TRAFFIC JAMS

Kalispell drivers kind of suck. Some of them actually don’t know how to drive. But more than that, they just have no concept of street etiquette. I mean it’s super nice of them to stop and let me cross the street and I appreciate the gesture, but it tends to just make me feel weird when they stop at a green light to let me cross in front of them, especially when the people in the other lanes don’t stop. It used to make me feel obligated to jog across the street in order to get out of their way more quickly – but lately I’ve adopted a new policy. I cross streets blindly. I just assume that people are going to stop for me because they always do. Well, my policy didn’t work so well once – I caused a bit of a traffic jam. There was a 4-way stop at a busy intersection and somehow it happened just right so that nobody could go anywhere for the entire time that I was in the intersection. By the time I got all the way across there were 8-10 cars waiting to go about their ways. I’m not sure what’s worse – that I inconvenienced 16-20 people or that I don’t feel bad at all about it. It was still better than the “wave battles” that ensue if you try to insist that a car should not in fact stop for a green light.

BROWNIE SHENANIGANS

I’ve been trying to send my team (e.g. the kids that I lived with on campus in the middle of nowhere) brownies for about 2 months straight. I make a batch of brownies almost every week, and almost every week I manage to rationalize eating them all myself. Actually, that’s not quite true – one week I did manage to not eat any. I made them on Wednesday night and was sending them out on Thursday. I only made enough for each person to have one brownie and I carved their initials into them to make it more personal. If I ate any I would know who I was stealing a brownie from and feel like shit about it. Then, when I go to get them.. 2 are gone. And of course nobody ate any.. there’s not a single guilty man in Shawshank Prison. I literally asked about 25 people if they’d had any brownies and not a one of them would admit to it. I still haven’t sent brownies to my team. If you’re reading this.. sorry guys. Ill get them to you eventually.

MONTESSORI MISADVENTURES

This is a fun section.. as it always is. Lately I’ve been playing a wide variety of different versions of “tag” with the kids. Their two favorites are zombie tag and glue tag. Zombie tag used to be the best – basically it’s tag, but whenever somebody gets tagged they become a zombie and help tag everyone else. They always make me “it” so when we play zombie tag it’s super easy because I just tag one person and then stand around and watch them play. But then one day the kids realized that zombie hunt was more fun than zombie tag. It all started with a mischievous little 6 year old named Mason. I tagged him but he refused to yield. He rallied all the kids in the playground against me like “guys, we don’t have to be zombies, we can fight back!” oh did the kids love that.

They all came running up jumping on me/pummeling me with their tiny fists. I ran away for a while.. but then I got tired so I decided to divert them (all kids are ADD) – I was like “guys.. let’s make snow angels! Who wants to see me make a snow angel?” and they all forgot to attack me.

After that incident, I tried to stay away from zombie tag – so we all started playing “glue tag” which is what the kids are calling Freeze Tag these days.. I guess it’s just more fun to say “you’re glued” than “you’re frozen”

WHAT THE F*CK COPS? (YES I WATCH PHILIP DEFRANCO)

A couple of weeks ago, one of my friends was jogging down the street – running late for an engagement that he had and minding his own business when he was tackled by a cop. The cop literally pulled a gun on my friend. Apparently he matched the description of a runaway-suicidal kid. I still can’t figure out how pulling a gun on a suicidal kid is going to help anything. “GET DOWN…. I’ll shoot.. I’ll shoot” chalk it up to small-town cops. They get bored.

MY NEW HERO/Links to Awesome Stuff

So, some dude managed to steal a $238,000 from the wicked capitalists. He complained of bowel pains on a flight that he somehow knew was transporting 1.6 million dollars and spent the entire flight in the bathroom. he sounds like another barefoot bandit. i wish they could get together and like find 9 other guys and make colton's 11. gotta bust him out of jail first though.

Check out the story for yourself

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2684553/posts

oh and Philip defranco is my other new hero.. he’s probably the funniest vlogger I’ve ever seen. Check it out – I promise you’ll laugh. He’s talking about condoms.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqCJc6cvjec

Episode II

VANISHING WEIGHT

I’ve actually been wondering about this phenomenon for quite a while – if anyone has ideas about it you should comment them in – but definitely don’t link a scientific article or anything because it’ll be stupid and I won’t read it. Plus they’ll probably prove that it’s wrong in a few years. The phenomenon in question is vanishing night weight. I’ve noticed that when I go to sleep I will weigh about 5-7 pounds more than I do when I wake up in the morning. Now, short of nightly sleep-shits, I have a difficult time figuring out where the hell this weight is actually going. I don’t get night sweats, I don’t ever use the bathroom in the middle of the night – in fact all that I really do is kinda lay there in a dreamy state waiting for the cock to crow. So, where does that 5-7 pounds go? I entertained the idea that I’m breathing out all that in water weight – but that’s really just not even possible. That would literally be a gallon of water in about 6-8 hours of breath. My current opinion is that the before-mentioned aliens that spawned in the arsenic ponds of California (if you haven’t heard about the arsenic bacteria you should check them out) are abducting me on a nightly basis to extract my blood and do tests on it. That would also explain why I’m so goddamn groggy in the morning. I definitely don’t masturbate enough to lose 5-7 pounds a night so that’s out of the question too. Comment in your ideas if they’re good. Otherwise don’t bother.

VANISHING FOOD

Along with my evaporated milk and 5-7 pounds, 6 pounds of bananas and 3 tomatoes are on the loose somewhere in Kalispell. I tried to buy my weekly bananas but the house poltergeist had other ideas. I’m pretty sure he squirreled them away in the attic somewhere. Just thought people should know. Don’t let your fruits and veggies sit out, they might vanish. I can deal as long as the attic-dwelling demon doesn’t develop a taste for homemade brown-sugar brownies (I bake them on a weekly basis).

MY SOLES

When I discovered that my bananas were missing, my first instinct was to assume that they’d been left in the car, hiding under one of the seats. So I went out to the car fully expecting to find two bags of smiling fruit. I scoured the car, but the bananas were nowhere to be found. However, my running shoes that I loaned to one of the other kids here about 2 weeks ago were scrunched beneath one of the seats. I pulled them out only to find that the soles had been taken out of them. So I came running inside bitching at about ½ my capacity about how somebody had stolen my fuckin sole. (Get it? I’m making a pun with soul) – yeah so anyway, another one of the kids who lives here comes up and he’s like “dude that same shit happened to me – I went to put on my shoes one day and they didn’t have soles in them” turns out the kid who borrowed my shoes has a sole fetish. Who knew?

WEIRD HOUSE ART

I actually have wanted to rant about this for a long time. There’s a bunch of student-made art from days long past chillin all over the house. So there’s this one of a face with a nose that literally looks like a horse-penis. I really want to meet the sculptor and ask them how in christ’s name he got his teacher to fire that work of art. I mean, plenty of people have tried to sneak bongs through the kiln, but I’ve never heard of a horse penis before. I’m honestly not even mad, I’m impressed – somehow he must have managed to convince his ceramics teacher that he was making a sculpture of Pinocchio the naughty boy. I bet his nose got a little longer when that art went into the kiln though.

the object in question

speculating upon possible uses

MY FRIEND-MAKING FAILURES

I am many things – but until now I’ve never thought of myself shy or any more socially anxious than the next dude on the subway. I guess there’s a first for everything. Anyway, I’ve been struck by my complete ineptitude at meeting other people who go to FVCC (the community college where I take classes) – the closest thing that I’ve made to a friend is this guy named Rob that sits next to me in Sociology and hates the teacher as much as I do. Part of the problem is that it’s a community college and people don’t go there to find a social life, part of the problem is that most of the people there are old enough to be my parents, but I’m coming to realize that perhaps the biggest problem is that I’m not at all motivated to make friends. I started out eager to meet new people – in fact I struck up a conversation with a single mom on the bus on one of my first days there. It turned into me listening to her bitch about how much she “fucking hates Kalispell” in front of her 6-8 year old daughter. I have a feeling that kid’s gonna have some issues in a few years. But anyway, I looked around the room of my calculus class about a week ago and came to the stark realization that there was not a single kid in there with whom I could envision myself being friends. They’re all old or crazy or nerdier than me.

MISCELLANEOUS

Yeah, this section doesn’t really have anything to do with anything. It’s just a bunch of random crap that I’ve speculated on in the last few days. Speaking of “crap” I heard a 4 year old say that today.. it was weird. I definitely didn’t know what crap was when I was 4. In fact I’m not even sure I knew how to crap in a crapper or wipe my own ass when I was 4. Mom, you’re not allowed to comment on that by the way. Anywho, I can prove that global warming will cause an ice age. My logic is that we’re already way overdue for an ice age (they gernally happen every 10,000 years or so and it’s already been 12-15,000) plus, we’re actively melting ice caps as we speak. Now, ice ages, contrary to popular belief, are not caused by cold weather. They’re caused by abnormal amounts of precipitation during cold weather because clouds/snow reflect the heat of the sun which makes the world colder which makes it more likely to snow which makes it colder which makes it more likely to snow which makes it colder which makes it more likely to snow which makes it colder which makes it more likely that you’re going to stop reading this paragraph because I’m saying the same thing over and over. But you get the point – precipitation causes ice ages. And melting all of the ice in the world makes more water which makes more precipitation which makes more ice age. Therefore you should go buy stock in the north face.

On another note, I’m currently in possession of an ipod mini. Does anybody else even still remember what those look like?

8:36 and ½ pm is my favorite time of day. I swear to god that I didn’t just make that up either. It is literally my favorite time of the day. I bet you didn’t know that about me.

Lastly, and this is actually important – should I grow a beard? That’s not a rhetorical question. I go back and forth on this. In all honesty I’ll probably ignore what people tell me here and do whatever I feel like but please do comment your opinion!! I’ve never grown a groomed beard before and I kinda think that I could rock it – but another part of me feels like I look disgusting with facial hair. I dunno, what do you guys think?

EXISTENTIAL DRAMA

Okay, you got me. I’m being philosophical here. This paragraph is honestly not going to be that funny – but I love this shit. So, assuming that you’re wrong, is it better to believe in an afterlife or not? E.g. if would it be better for me to think that there is an afterlife when there’s not or think that there’s not when there is? I can actually see both sides of this. On the one hand, assume that there’s not an afterlife –all the people who spent their entire lives trying to get to heaven just look like complete idiots then don’t they? But assume that there is one, then all the people who didn’t believe in one could be totally fucked and spend an eternity in hell. Now that’d be a bit of a bummer. Here’s the two arguments:

- It’s better to believe in an afterlife, because expecting paradise will make me happy for my whole life and if there’s actually not one then I won’t be around to care.

- It’s better to not believe in an afterlife (but still live a good life) because then I am living for myself and not for some false image of sanctity. Plus, if I am wrong then I will be pleasantly surprised in paradise but if I’m right, then at least I saw it coming.

ROCK STORE ADVENTURES

There’s a store close to where I live that sells powerful rocks – rocks that bring you power. So my friend decided to go in there just to fuck with the lady that owns it last week, but he ended up believing in the power of the rocks. I guess she’s a really good saleswoman. She sold him a ring that would “help keep him grounded when dealing with demons” – she wouldn’t tell him how to summon a demon though, so he had to look it up on the internet. He decided not to do it because it was “too hard”. I don’t know what’s worse, that he was somehow persuaded into wasting the last of his money on a demon-ring or that the only thing that stopped him from actually trying to summon the demon was that it was too hard.

SMASHING BREADLOAVES

It’s like smashing pumpkins, but not as seasonal. There was an old stale bread-loaf posted in our kitchen. Nobody wanted to eat it so I decided to take it outside and smash it on the ground with one of my friends. I really can’t explain why it was so fucking funny, but it was. You’ll just have to take my word for it – I think it’s one of those “you had to be there” things. The best part was that two people were having a really intense conversation in a car right in front of where we smashed it.

MORE MONTESSORI MISADVENTURES

-I had a 10 minute conversation with one kid trying to explain to him why he couldn’t take a really sharp knife and cut the sun in half

-another kid got really freaked out when she realized I knew her name

-this week, I came to fully appreciate that logic absolutely, positively does not apply when you’re dealing with little kids. I actually did an experiment to testit. I was trying to teach this one kid how to play chess – he told me that I was doing it wrong. I tried telling him that I used to be a chess fiend when I was younger and that I definitely knew how to play, but he insisted that he knew better and that the pieces most certainly did not go where I was saying that they did. I eventually told him he was right and that I’d been messing with him and told him that a piece went right smack in the center of the board (because, aesthetically there should be a piece there) – he agreed with me wholeheartedly. *facepalm*

- the same kid that told me I couldn’t play chess wanted to race me on the playground one day. I warned him that I was faster than him but he wouldn’t listen. So I beat him in the race and then he got really pissed off and said that I lost. He told me that I couldn’t play unless I ran slower than he did. I told him that was fine and I could go play with somebody else if he didn’t want to play with me. He threw a temper tantrum and went to the corner of the playground to stare at the side of a building. I went up to him and asked him if he would come play with me and all of the other kids, he refused, and I left him to stare at the building. I don’t think he realized that he was only punishing himself. I could care less if some Montanan kid throwing a temper tantrum stared at a building for 5 minutes.

-the entire playground was struck with a crystal-finding frenzy today. It started with one girl saying that they needed to find crystals for somebody’s birthday – then, literally the entire playground split off and all the little munchkins went to search for “crystals”. Eventually somebody found an ice crystal and the playground temporarily lost its purpose. Then somebody else had the idea to play “hide and seek” with the crystal – so for the next 45 minutes 1 person would hide the crystal while everyone else pretended to close their eyes (4 year olds literally cannot keep their eyes closed for more than 10 seconds) – then a race to the crystal ensued and whoever got to it first got to hide it next time.

THE BEST PART OF THIS NOTE

Has anybody heard of teen werewolves? Maybe met one? It’s teenage angst taken to a whole new level. These kids actually believe that they are part wolf – so they dress up with tails and cat-eye contacts. One of them allegedly cut the head off a dog, but “it was dead okay, it was dead so you people just need to get over it”

One of them, a kid named Katze Lupus Burn said, "We're not a gang at all. Gangs are like posers. They just want attention.” Maybe I’m just crazy but I’m pretty sure that the only reason you would strap on a fucking tail before you go to school is to get attention. They are literally asking for people to make fun of them. But don’t let me influence you, why don’t you watch the news report yourself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q77sJT8O56E

and, here’s a werewolf response to it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2xVJ-B6mF0&feature=related

and here’s a clip on why women can’t drive buses.. just for shits and gigs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_0YMKcQ4kE

and lastly, here’s Mr. Chi City with some good advice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBRL7D0wcXM

QUOTES

Here’s a couple of things that people have said in the past week or two that made me smile.

“we’re just gonna do reverse cowgirl every time” (talking about his future wife)

“she’s gonna get bored and sex your Mexican pool boy”

“well then.. we can role-play”

“yeah, then she can just pretend you’re her Mexican pool boy”

“I don’t believe in eating free-range cattle – why should we kill the happy ones? It makes way more sense to put the ones that live in their own shit out of their misery”

“who made those cookies?”

“no” (he had heaphones in and didn’t hear the question correctly)

“no, who made the cookies?”

“no”

“no… who made the cookies? Not ‘did you make the cookies?’”

“NO” (he still had headphones in…)

Episode I

I realized today that I quite literally have a 0 average in my sociology class. We’ve only had one grade – she doesn’t take role and has no idea what the majority of her students even look like (therefore we are definitely not getting any kind of participation grade) – and she gave a 1-question pop quiz. The question was “who coined the phrase survival of the fittest?” and I definitely got it wrong. Therefore I literally have a 0. But hey it’s probably my own fault for not being engaged enough in my classes isn’t it? It definitely couldn’t have anything to do with my teacher being a devil.

A couple of days ago I caught myself doing something way out of line while I was walking along the street on the way to work. There is a law in Montana that requires you to shovel your sidewalks.. but they never enforce it so it’s really more of a courtesy to keep your neighbors from hating your guts and resenting the shit out of you for thinking you’re above the rules. Anyway, there’s this one house on the way to work that never shovels their walks. The result is a 3 inch thick sheet of ice over cement. It sucks to walk on. Anyway – as I was walking along it on my way to work the other day I caught myself judging them super harshly – like unreasonably so. I literally thought “that fucking piece of shit never shovels his fucking sidewalks, he’s probably the kind of useless old fuck that’s responsible for our shitty economy” about 30 seconds later I had the thought “wait, what the fuck, did I really just think that based off of his not shoveling? How on earth could that possibly relate to our economy? I’m an asshole” apparently I don’t have a very good filter on my thoughts.. I curse so much to myself mentally. Just as long as I don’t drop any f-bombs around the kids at work it’s all good. Anyway, the best part of the story is that on the way to work today I found a steaming piece of dog shit on our sidewalk. I guess I’m responsible for the economy too. For any wondering, I’m not normally anywhere close to that judgmental – but I do believe that the yard-condition is a legitimate base for some degree of judgment. It’s just a faux pa to have your stairs turn into a ramp because your lazy ass never shovels the snow off of them. I mean think about it, the equivalent in Houston would be 4 foot high grass with mud and manure all up in it. It’s just not cool. So remember to shovel your sidewalks next time you come to Montana.

All the conservative Buddhists in the world would be thrilled to hear that I landed myself in a conservative propaganda class. It would probably give them some sense of kharmic justice since I spent the last 3 months actually making liberal propaganda. My microeconomics teacher lectured for an hour and 15 minutes about how capitalism is good and beneficial and increases wealth and makes our country greatest country in the world. USA is number one exporter of capitalism. It literally felt a bit like Napoleon and Squealer trying to convince me that profits had increased 300% - but the pigs up top still have to keep all my apples to power their fucking brains. (if you don’t get the reference, try reading a book sometime. It’s called Animal Farm and its under 100 pages so you should probably actually read it. It will only take about two hours of your life and it will make you at least 12 hours more cynical) I actually asked him about the idea that capitalism creates an environment with 5% of the population controlling 95% of the wealth and he denounced it as anti-capitalist lies. He then drew this picture on the board:

His point being that capitalism is actually responsible for the three healthy classes of the USA and that any other option can only support socialist lies. But he’s a loveable guy so I won’t hold it against him too much. The thing that gets me is that he mentioned in class the other day that America is actually no longer considered to have a free market.. but he glossed over that. America’s no longer the land of the free,. No big deal. Don’t worry about it, America is still greatest country in the world! It has been proven that socialist brain is size of squirrel.

Here’s some of the propaganda I made.. just for shits and giggles:

That dude is the CEO of Goldman Sachs (Lloyd Craig Blankfein) and he’s all up on honest Abe. The point I was attempting to communicate is multifaceted. Abe Lincoln was working to free the slaves – ironic since we’ve become slaves to the banks/corporations – almost as though Sachs was responsible for the assignation of Lincoln. :O Anyway, the other point is that Corporations have more influence over our government than the rest of us do. Like that time that the higher ups decided to bail out banks with billions – remember that? Yeah, why didn’t they ever let me touch some of that? That’s some bullshit man. So the impact is that we should hire John Wilkes Booth Jr. to shoot ol’ Blankfein.

Okay so this is my favorite find of the last 24 hours – taco bell’s beef cannot legally be considered “meat” by FDA standards any more. For curiosity’s sake, CNN posted that the beef is “35 percent beef - the other 65 percent of the meat-like mixture is: water, isolated oat product, salt, chili pepper, onion powder, tomato powder, oats (wheat), soy lecithin, sugar, spices, maltodextrin, soybean oil (anti-dusting agent), garlic powder, autolyzed yeast extract, citric acid, caramel color, cocoa powder (processed with alkali), silicon dioxide (anti-caking agent), natural flavors, yeast, modified corn starch, natural smoke flavor, salt, sodium phosphate, less than 2% of beef broth, potassium phosphate and potassium lactate.” And yet they’re still serving billions and billions. I think I am going to blame this one on people who don’t shovel their sidewalks. See how easy that was? I totally could get a job in the Bush administration.

I have a confession to make. I wrote most of this post last night because I was afraid I’d forget what I was planning on writing I didnt write it right away. Anyway, I saved it on a flash drive that I promptly lost. So I was originally planning on arriving at school at 7.30 (an hour and a half before my first class) to finish this up but instead I spent a half hour finding my USB. It was my pocket after I’d already given up looking for it. Oh and the evaporated milk never turned up. My sociology teacher is to blame for that one though.

This paragraph is a shout-out to anybody still reading. I am realizing every day just how cynical and sarcastic I am. See? Self discovery. And nothing really pleases me more than sharing it with other people – especially in a humorous way. It’s like a win-win-win because you get to read about all the stupid shit that I go through on a daily basis and I get to get it out of my system and everybody is happy, see? So yeah, thanks for reading this.