The fly was clearly named by someone who was extremely lazy. Adam was probably late for a party at Eve's, and God was like, "Hey its time to name the animals." So Adam, not knowing how many there were going to be, agreed. Then his centaur assistant brought out the first animal, obviously the fly. Adam asked what it did, and God said "Well, it basically just flies around." So Adam, in a hurry to get to the party, said, "Ok, then its name is 'fly'. What do we have, like a dozen or so more animals?"
(The next animal the assistant brings out is a bird.)
Adam: "What does this one do?"
God: "Well, this one basically flies around too."
Adam: "Well shit. Ummm.... how about... uh... 'bird'?"
God: "Bird? Where the hell did you pull that out of?"
Adam: "What? I don't know. You're the one who made two different animals that fly."
God: "Umm.. yeah... two."
Anyways, I think flies get a bad rap. I kind of like them, because they are small, and they make me feel enormous by comparison. Because of this, they're really easy to beat up. There aren't many people I can beat up - maybe a few starving children, and babies I can definitely take. But thats it. One time I went out for drinks with a woman and a fly tried hitting on my date. I know what you're thinking, it's really weird that a fly would be attracted to a woman. But don't worry, she was half woman and half fly. The fly was attracted to her fly half and I was attracted to the woman half. Well, okay, I am somewhat into flies too. Anyways, the point of the story is that the fly was really easy to beat up.
Last weekend I went to a gay bar with my friend and had one woman buy me a drink. She probably thought I was gay though. But another woman came home with me. At first I thought it was pretty impressive that I was able to pick up a woman at a gay bar. In hindsight, there is nothing impressive about picking up a woman that large. Unless you mean you literally picked her up. Now that would be an impressive display of leg strength. I think Gary Coleman could've taken this woman home from a laundromat.
My friend Nate is moving to San Diego so he had a going-away party on Saturday night. One guy there started saying to me, "You kind of look like Tom Cruise..." and I got excited and interrupted him. Normally if I'm compared to a celebrity it's someone like Steve Buscemi or Gerard Depardieu. So I immediately stood up and started walking around telling people "You... complete me." It turns out that I shouldn't have interrupted him because if I would've let him finish he was going to say "You kind of look like Tom Cruise if he had down syndrome." What a jerk!
In all seriousness though, I'm really going to miss my friend Nate. I feel almost as lucky to have him as a friend as he should feel to have me as a friend.
I went golfing Friday. The good news is I was in trophy contention the whole way. The bad news is the trophy was for "Worst Golfer Ever."
What is going on with bees? Do they think I'm a flower or something? I think my friends would have told me if I looked like a flower.
I went to Target to get a shower curtain for my bathroom. For some reason, when I pictured doing this in my head, I imagined myself walking down the aisles of Target carrying the whole thing unfolded and at full size. Seeing the people at my new apartment building, for a while I was afraid I had accidentally signed a lease to live in an elderly care facility. But fear not, we have at least one neighbor who looks to be under 50.
The smaller room has a small balcony coming off of it. It's tiny, maybe four feet by four feet, but it could be somewhat useful. I was thinking if I had this room it might be nice to put some plants out there, maybe a hanging flower pot, some small potted plants on the ground, and a smidgen of weed. This would give my balcony a touch of class, at the risk of giving evidence to those who already question my sexuality.
The only problem I can think of with this plan is those damned birds. My parents hang potted plants out on their front porch, and every year some mangy flying rodents settle in them. Instead of seeing this as a negative though, I could use it as an opportunity for scientific discovery and an outlet for my bird hating. Here is the plan: I'll set up some potted plants with bright bird-attracting colors. Then I wait for a bird to nest. Once it has nested, I wait for it to pop out some eggs. Next, I wait for the bird to fly off and get food, leaving its unprotected eggs. Okay, so far I know the plan mainly involves waiting, but its about to get interesting.
When the bird is gone, I will go outside to its nest, dump the eggs out (or take them inside and scramble them), and replace them with giant plastic easter eggs. You may think there is no way even a stupid bird could fall for this, but as I've mentioned previously, the cuckoo bird does something very similar to this already.
There are precautions I must take, however. When I am going outside to do the dirty deed, I will wear a tuxedo and a motorcycle helmet, in case the bird returns. There are two reasons for this. First, if the bird sees me stealing its eggs, it might get angry. I don't want the bird to be able to recognize me if it sees me sometime later, say in the grocery store or at the club. The tuxedo and helmet is sufficiently different from my usual outfit of pink hotpants and Gap Kids tank top so that the bird will consider the outfits as two distinct people. The second reason for the outfit is protection. Birds have sharp beaks, and they will peck you in the eyes with them on a whim, leaving you blind, especially if you are stealing their offspring. A motorcycle helmet protects me from birds attacking my eyes, and also makes me look cool for once. Why does it have to be a tuxedo? Well, I own one, and I don't really have any other opportunities to wear it.
Back to the plan. Once the plastic eggs are in the nest, the bird will try sitting on them. First it will be uncomfortable, because the fake eggs will be so much bigger than real ones. More importantly, plastic eggs will never hatch! I can't help but wonder, if the bird really was fooled, how long would it sit on eggs that are lifeless? Would the bird sit on them well past the expected birthdate, say well into winter? That would be astounding. If I get the small room, and I get this plan in motion, I will set up a webcam pointed at the nest so everybody can check it out. This is going to be amazing. The only thing that would be better is if I took the birds eggs inside, kept them warm, and then hatched them myself. I would raise them as children, then when they got old enough I would take them to my window and show the parent (still sitting on a plastic easter egg, mind you) what I've done with its offspring. Finally, they would be trained to seek out and kill other birds in my neighborhood. Okay, sorry, I guess that's getting a little crazy.
As the photons bounce off of your countenance and into my retinas, along the optic tract, and finally into my primary visual cortex, electro-chemical reactions signal pleasure centers in my brain. I hope you are impressed with my knowledge of the neuro-ocular system. Your depth of knowledge of political events and entertainment news is sehr impressiv. Yes, I also know some German. Your news reports on MTV give viewers a reprieve from the flashing lights and quick camera cuts, allowing many viewers a chance to expand their attention spans by a few seconds. The way you are able to handle guest stars perfectly straddles the line between stuffiness and overt flirtatiousness. Your glasses give you a sophisticated air, and your body is one of goddess-like perfection. Plus, I'm really into asians.
Your perfection has been well documented. While it pains me to be anything but humble, at this point I will need to prove my worthiness to you, so that your strict but loving parents will accept me as your suitor. I receive e-mails with a new word everyday, so my vocabulary is ummm... big. I have read the first chapter of many interesting non-fiction books. After the first chapter it can get quite difficult, but the first chapter is usually enough to impress people at parties. Since you work for MTV, it is only appropriate to mention that I am a music lover. In fact, I purchase and listen to so much music that I basically have no time for anyone or anything else.
It has been a joy watching you over the years. If you would like to date me, I am available, and I'm trying to move away from fat chicks.
Sincerely,
Your #1 Fan
But even more amazing to me than the insanely low prices on these roses was their incredible fluctuation. Roses went from $10/dozen to $5/dozen in four hours! What could have possibly happened in that four hour period to affect the value of roses that much? Did everybody in the world catch some olfactory disease that suddenly makes roses smell like limberger cheese? Did scientists discover that roses cause gonorrhea?
Even if there were some amazing discovery about roses that drives the price that low, four hours is just an enormously short time period for price change. I don't know how it occurs. Are there people on Wall Street trading roses alongside gold and pork bellies and such? Because thats the only way I can imagine the price going down so fast. I waited around the rose store for another eight hours because I figured by that time they would be paying me $5 to take a dozen roses.
I had decided to go shopping alone, because other people tend to slow me down and frustrate me. "Tim doesn't shop well with others," my elementary school teachers warned my parents. Going to Ikea alone turned out to be a mistake. In the throngs of yokels, there is a sort of current which can easily sweep up people who came to shop in insufficient numbers.
The layout of the store has showrooms along the outer wall of the whole top floor. Most people walk around the outer edge, going into every room, walking around it, and moving on to the next room. While this is efficient, it is not advised. Halfway through the showroom, and I am not making this up or exaggerating, I was dizzy and nauseated after going in circles around all these sample rooms. Granted, I had just given blood and sniffed glue that morning, but nonetheless, I recommend eating a large meal and drinking plenty of water before attempting to traverse the showroom floor at Ikea.
Since Ikea is right across the street from the Mall of America (or MOA for my buddies in the acronym club), I went there. I realize that since this is the largest mall in the U.S., many stores exist there that would not necessarily make it in the East Town Mall in Green Bay. But come on, Magnet Max? Are there really people thinking, "I wish I didn't have to run from store to store to fill all my magnet and magnet related supply needs."? Is this kind of consolidation really necessary?
Also, there are two(!) American Eagles, which doubles my chances of accidentally wandering into the women's section of the store and trying to squeeze into women's jeans. I swear, the line between men's and women's apparel could not be more ambiguous, especially with pink becoming a hot color for men this year (I swear, Fat Joe is the only reason I know this). My idea is to make it blatantly obvious which side is men and which is women. The men's side should be painted blue on the floors, wall and ceilings, and the women's should be pink all over. You might be wondering how pink would represent women if its trendy for men now. I've already thought of that. The walls on the men's side would be stenciled with giant penii. Problem solved.
The problem is our lack of aggression. Birds are quite fearful of us, even though most birds go an entire lifetime without ever being attacked by humans. This morning, I saw about 50 birds on the grass in between the sidewalk and the road, pecking at something. I'm not sure what it was, but I have a guess. As I approached, they scattered of course. Some of them are quite young, and can only escape a little ways ahead of me. But of course I will reach them again soon, forcing them to fly away again. My point is that if those birds had been attacked by a real aggressor, they would have been dead, and the weak would have been weeded out as natural selection says. But since I didn't have any violent motives, I was basically just giving them a chance to exercise! Our passiveness towards birds is turning them into ultra-strong killing machines. It makes me sick to say this, but I'm pretty much the John Basedow of birds. Except I don't have disgustingly ripped abs.
I have done some computer modeling, and simulated how our current course of actions will result. This is a picture of what a typical sparrow looks like. This is what it's simulated to look like in 100 years. In short, it's not going to be pretty. I recommend not having children, as they will inevitably be eaten by giant telepathic sparrows in the year 2090.
Living with four others, its pretty much inevitable that if you have the idea to do laundry, someone else had the same idea exactly four seconds before you, and will thus beat you to the machines. Nobody likes to go all the way into the scary basement only to find out the washer is busy, so most people ask the other people who are home if they are doing laundry. Sometimes someone will ask me, and I'm not doing laundry, but I need to. In this case it is best to lie, because my laundry is the most important (at least that I know of). "Well, Heath is doing laundry now, and I've got stuff down there waiting, like 6 loads at least. It's going to be a while so you might as well give up." "Wait, I don't hear anything down there." "Hey, Columbo, maybe it's on the Wrinkle-Shield cycle. Now don't ask me anymore questions unless you want to navigate the labyrinth of our basement yourself."
There was also a mildly deafening guy behind us. I couldn't tell if he was drunk or not, but he was definitely very loud. I usually don't mind this guy at Brewer's games, because this guy is me at Brewer's games. Well, maybe I shouldn't go that far - I'm loud, and quite annoying, but this guy was also moronic. Not only is he oppressively loud, but there is no facet of the game experience he does not feel qualified to yell about. This includes booing loudly if the opposing team has the nerve to catch a fly ball, yelling at the mascot the proper way to aim the t-shirt gun to make t-shirts reach the upper deck, and yelling "Nice One!" at the "Kiss Cam" at eardrum-shattering volumes.
But I am not completely innocent. I too committed some fan fouls. Namely, when eating peanuts, despite my best efforts to keep my peanut crushings within my sector, the jean jacket of the woman in front of me was awash in them halfway through the bag.
People my age and younger aren't stupid. Well, okay, many of us are quite stupid. But still, these slogans are an insult to our intelligence. MTV seems to think that merely putting the word "rock" somewhat near the word "vote" will somehow make voting instantly cool. Rocking the vote is pretty unrealistic, though. There are just so many goddam old people who can vote. They have much more free time, given that the only thing they're busy doing is waiting to die. A more realistic slogan might be "Nudge the vote." Young people do have the ability to nudge the vote if we show up in somewhat large numbers.
If there were a contest for biggest exaggeration in slogans, Citizen Change's "Vote or Die" would take the cake. Which is disappointing, because I was looking forward to eating that cake for dessert. Bush is a terrible president, but as bad as four more years of him sounds, I will probably not die as a direct result of it. The worst-case scenario is that a draft is reinstituted and I am selected to go to Iraq (or North Korea or Iran or any of the other countries we might try to "liberate" in Bush's second term). In that case, I think most people who know me realize I am likely to pull a Clinton and move to Canada or England, or maybe I will just grow a mustache as a disguise. Even the draft is unlikely, though. The truth is, "Vote or Die" probably applies best to people already in the military or thinking of joining the military under Bush's tenure. To summarize, "Vote or Die" should be changed to "Vote or Die, if you are in the military," or "Vote or the country will be slightly worse, although probably still the richest in the world."
So far I've only suggested changes to existing slogans, as a service to the people who came up with them. Its probably best to start from scratch, though, as I've come up with a few that dominate the changed ones up above. The new slogans reflect the attitudes of young people today, without trying to appease anybody else. Here is a sampling:
Expressions I do not like
There is only one stumbling block. One of the bedrooms in my new place is slightly bigger than the other. They're not different enough to justify paying different amounts of rent, but are different enough to justify a proper decision process, besides "First one to get his stuff into the big room gets the big room" (which I would win, by the way). A few different methods have been proposed: A coin toss, a slam dunk contest, a mechanical bull-riding competition. All of these contests are complicated by the fact that my future roommate is in another state, and will be until after I have already moved in.
My plea to YOU
Ok, I usually refer to my audience as 3 or 4 people, but seriously, I've talked to different people who say they read this, so I know it's at least 6 or 7 people. I need all of you here. Have you ever had this problem? What decision process did you use to decide who gets the bigger room? Do you have any novel ideas even if you've never had this problem yourself? How would these ideas work over long distances? Even if your idea doesn't work over long distances, if it is awesome enough, I can wait a few days before claiming a room. PLEASE, leave any ideas, the crazier the better, in the comments section. If your idea is chosen, I will send one dozen roses to your mother, with a card thanking her for shooting you out of her birth canal (actual wording may include tact).
Random Sausage Fest Anecdote
Someone asked Hines if he talks differently when he hangs out with his gay friends than he does around us. Linz jumped in with an impersonation of a gay person trying to sound straight: "Hey guys, how about our local professional sporting team?" Actually, I think he probably worded it better than this, but I was drunk, so screw off.
It seems like the entertainment world is mobilizing more for this election than they did for the last. Hollywood could actually make a difference, and if it does, it will probably be to help Kerry. So, the actors are generally for Kerry, but what about the characters? On my most recent 5 hour drive from the GBC to the cities, I thought about a few of my favorite movies, and who the characters in them would vote for.
The Wizard of Oz
The Little Mermaid
The Matrix
There you have it, how some of your favorite movie characters would vote in the upcoming election. My tally is: Bush - 7 votes. Kerry - 3 votes. Nader - 1 vote. Too afraid to vote - 1. Fortunately for the USA, movie characters are not yet eligible to vote, though if Bush is smart (which he clearly isn't) he'll propose an amendment allowing them to.
The first interesting sign says: "Been taken for granted? Imagine how God feels!" The point of this sign is apparently to make me feel sorry for God. Wow, yeah, he certainly does have it pretty rough. Oh, wait, he's God. But, I can't just jump to conclusions here. I have to really consider what its like to be god. ...(Cue dream sequence)... Wow, I'm omnipotent! I can do whatever I want! For instance, I could get a woman pregnant without her knowing, then just tell her later in a dream. Topping that, she will happily raise the child without my help or financial support. Wow, I'm even more powerful than... Shawn Kemp. Also, in the New Testament, Jesus creates wine from water. With such a huge supply of water, I could make tons of wine! Well, I don't really like wine that much, but I suppose as god I could do the same thing with Brandy Old-Fashioned's (or Space Ages, in modern terminology).
Ooh, I'm also omniscient. I can see and know everything! Finally, I can find out what Katie Couric looks like naked without being arrested. Also, if I am omniscient, I also have an understanding of everything that will happen in the future. Hate to waste your empathy, loyal subjects, but this means that you're taking me for granted is neither surprising (I saw it coming) nor disappointing (I created you knowing it would happen). Wait a second, I'm omnipotent and omniscient, and you're trying to assign me credit for creating humans? That's the craziest theory I've ever heard. As your god, its my duty to tell you that its more likely that you developed due to "the non-random selection of randomly varying replicators," (Richard Dawkins) as did the rest of life.
The second sign that caught my eye read: "You're Speeding! No wonder, Door County Candle Company is ahead!" (Sorry, this isn't an exact quote, but the closest I could remember). Yeah, this makes sense. Because candle aficionados are the fastest driving people I can think of. Finally, I have an explanation for why my grandmother and mother drive so freakin fast. But, seriously, I think the sign may be mistaken; at the least, it could be made more accurate. Follow me here: most candle crazies are women, right? So, most people going up to DCCC are women, right? So, the sign should read "You're driving over-cautiously while straddling two lanes! Also, you assume that hitting the brake pedal is the best solution to any driving difficulty! No wonder, you're probably a woman going to Door County Candle Company." I guess I can understand why they wouldn't put this on a sign - if charged by the word, overall costs would be absolutely horrific.
First, I would like to get t-shirts printed that say "God is an asshole." Not that cancer would change my attitude about god. I already think that if there is a god, the most likely possibility is that he/she/it is a total asshole. But if I printed t-shirts like that now, without cancer, I could be persecuted for my opinions. Once I have cancer, however, who's going to complain? Nobody wants to be the guy who yells at the young man with cancer. Besides, the cancer itself would prove the t-shirt right.
Second, I would write a letter to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Coming up with something to wish for would be quite difficult. I suppose I might ask to spend some time with Dwyane Wade and Shaq on the Miami Heat, since I do like basketball. Or, I could ask for a date with a supermodel, since I like insanely skinny women who eat even less than me. Or maybe Hilary Duff or the Olson sisters. But, in the end, I think my wish would be to not have cancer. Yep, Make-A-Wish, don't bother sending me to Disneyworld or hanging with Olympians. My simple wish is to not have cancer. I really appreciate it.
Dream time
I fell asleep for like 10 seconds and I had a dream where I did about 30 seconds worth of stuff. I'm thinking about using this as a rationale for falling asleep at work. I'm three times as productive when I'm sleeping! Hmm.. if only I could find a way to collate papers while I'm sleeping.... I'll get back to you on this one.
Random Sausage Fest Quote
White pants are the greatest invention ever!
Maybe not all companies ask these stupid questions anymore, but two interviews I have been in asked me for my strengths and weaknesses. People always have the most cliche strengths, like "I'm a hard worker and I get along well with others." In an interview, its best to assume that the person interviewing you expects everyone to say this, whether its true or not. So, I would give them something novel, so that they know I really consider it a strength and am not just rehashing something I read in the packet I got from the Marquette Career Center. Like, if I were asked what my biggest strength is, I would probably have to say that I'm a good sock accountant. This is a major problem for some people. Every time they do laundry, they lose a sock. On the other hand, I almost never lose any socks at all. I think I went for three years at one point without seeing any third wheel socks come out of the dryer. Even when I do lose one, I realize right away where it went. I'm all "Oh! I bet I lost it when I was driving home with the windows open and it was really windy and my dirty laundry was in back, and when I glanced at the side view mirror I saw a flash of white out the side. No, I didn't see the red stripe, but it could have been facing the other direction." Thats how precise I am. If Sock Accountant were a well-paying job, I would drop what I'm doing right now to apply. But then I wouldn't be able to finish this entry.
The question about weaknesses gives rise to even more hideous cliches. People say things like "Well, I work so hard that sometimes my co-workers get jealous and neglect their families to try and match my hours," or "It's kind of embarrassing, but I'm allergic to unproductivity." Except they usually don't phrase it as creatively as I just did. In any case, this is whats known as the "making weaknesses seem like strengths" approach. Straight out of the career center handbook. When a potential employer hears this, they just think, "what an asskisser." I like to just lay out my real weaknesses, under the assumption that honesty is considered a bigger strength than manipulation. Except, in a Machiavellian twist, the weaknesses I list will be stuff that is totally unrelated to the job I will need to do. In other words, yes, I do have weaknesses, but fortunately none of them will make me do my job any worse. For instance, saying something like, "My biggest weakness is that I am sexually attracted to office equipment" may be dangerous, because there is a lot of office equipment in offices to tempt you. Instead, say something like, "My biggest weakness is that I can't fall asleep without masturbating" or "My number one flaw is that when people say 'What's up?' I sometimes reply with 'Good.'" See the idea? Not really that bad of a weakness. Even if it was, it doesn't affect your work life, so it's not too bad in the eyes of an employer. Feel free to send me thanks in monetary form for any jobs this advice helps you get.
Random
So, here is some stuff that doesn't fit into any particular day, or that I have forgotten which day it occurred. Someone said (feel free to credit this in the comments) that there is a three-way race for cancer in Critser's body between skin, lung, and liver. Once again, Critser sat outside all day on Friday with no sunscreen, and once again he turned red as shit. It looked awesome though on Saturday. Oh wait, no, he still looked red as shit. I broke the hell out of two separate lawn chairs. The first time, I made fun of Joynts name, so he poured some beer on me, so I tackled him while he was seated in the rainbow warrior. Surprisingly, the "aluminum" frame (I'm pretty sure it was actually salt-water taffy painted silver) collapsed under our 200 pound combined weight. The second time, I was getting up to console Tony after zinging him (see below), and someone (I will save him the embarrassment of mentioning his name), stuck his finger so far up my asshole he was touching prostate. Only somewhat surprised, I spun around 900 degrees and landed in Tony's lap, thus destroying lawn chair number two.
Samp is fricken huge. Like cover of Men's Fitness huge. Since the rest of us tip the scales at about 50 kilos, this is a big deal to us. As Samp first took off his shirt at the beach, Joynt commented, "Samp, you have more muscle in your shoulder than I have in my entire body." I followed with, "Samp, you have more testosterone in your right nipple than I have in my entire body." In a similar vein, someone later said, "I have more hair on my big toe than Jared has on his entire body."
My ass-kicking zinger
The first night, Tony was laying down some law on us laymen, after finishing his first year at law school, and he took a little bit of crap for being so academic. The next night, he said he wasn't going to talk anymore about it because of the shit he took for it. I told him no, he should do it, because we all like making fun of people. So, literally like 5 minutes later, we were talking about statutory rape and consent laws (for extremely creepy reasons, I'm sure), and Tony started talking his lawyerin' mumbo jumbo. My ears perked up, and I turned and leaned into the pitch (literally, as Linz can attest to), and said, "Hey, Judge Wapner, nobody gives a shit." After that home run of a rip, I was ready for bed.
Thursday
I arrived to Peninsula State Park around 5 and was greeted with an open beer and open oysters. Apparently my good friend Joynt takes
everything I say or write completely literally and actually brought back an ass-load of oysters. He was also pestering me all weekend about buying stock in
Acme Puppy Traps. So, we ate a bunch of oysters and became extremely randy. It turns out that oysters are completely awesome and we dined on these at various intervals over the long weekend.
Since we were all worked up from the oysters, and not too many people were there yet, and we were in a family area of the campsite, we decided to go to a local establishment and drink there instead. Once there, we noticed that there was an attractive female present. You may be thinking, only one? But this is Door County, and one attractive female was exactly one more than we expected. So all 6 of us pretty much hovered around her all night, and her and a not-so-attractive friend played a drinking game with us. Yes, I know, playing drinking games at bars is the stupidest idea ever - especially in Door County, where everything is about 10x more expensive than it is in the real world. They just distribute Monopoly money to the locals and let them pay for stuff with that, otherwise nobody could afford to live there. Eventually, we broke the attractive women's spirit, and she gave me her phone number, since her and I attend the same illustrious University. Unfortunately, it was later discovered to be not so much real, as someone tried to call it and got an error. In hindsight, I probably should've realized it was fake because it was only 5 digits long and some of the digits were actually punctuation marks.
As we were at the bar, most of the rest of the crew eventually filtered in as they arrived to Door County. We eventually made it back to the campsite, where we were apparently dropping a lot of f-bombs and other "curse" words. Come back tomorrow to find out why...