09:20 pm: First post in a long time.
Spotted in the parking lot upon leaving work the other night:




I very frequently hate humanity.

09:46 pm: For the uninformed:
Since the New Year's party at Tubro's apparently isn't going to happen this year, we at 1014 have taken it upon ourselves to declare that we're throwing one to make up for it.


Tell your friends, and tell them to tell their friends. Unless they're in high school, then tell them to stay home.

06:16 pm: I got a trick for Halloween.
Monday, like all Mondays, kinda sucked ass.

I couldn't haul myself out of bed so I didn't make it to Soc, which wasn't too bad. I got caught up in my classes, so I was at least happy about that. When my last class was over at 2:50, I wasn't happy that my phone told me I had to work at 3:30. I was in a rush as usual to get home, change, and get to work on time (Parkland to N Lincoln to N Prospect is a time consuming trip). It was about 3:10, it was raining outside, and I turned left out of my apartment complex.

Sorta. I let the clutch out a bit too fast going into second and my trusty BMW complied as it was told: the rear wheels spun on the wet pavement, the car began sliding due to oversteer. Physics took care of the rest and suddenly I'm staring an Indian guy in the face wondering "hay wait a minute what am I doing in the opposing lane OH FUCK ME!"

So when the wet dust settled I glanced at the front of my car. The entire front end is shifted to the left by an inch or so, and the bumper's a wreck. According to my neighbor, who runs a body shop: "there's easily $3000-5000 worth of damage here." Paid $2000 for the car. Isn't that fucking awesome?

So here I am now carless for the time being, with no money to put it back in working order. I'm worth about $-400 now that I paid rent today. My credit card is $300 from being maxed. I have a $75 ticket, my insurance is going to skyrocket, and I don't have a car for the forseeable future. Hours are down at work, so I'll be lucky if I can make rent.

But hey, fuck it. I'll deal. I have an incredible family that will do everything humanly possible to help me. I have kickass friends who say "I'll be right over" when shit hits the fan (thanks Kyle). Even my roommates are awesome: Adam offered to help me buy groceries if I need it.

I know I'll be fine, and that's because I'm a faithful person. I know that some people turn to religion when things are bad, but I'm not one of those people. I'm faithful in myself and those around me, because they've proven to me many times that they're there for me. That's something religion has never done, so when I come out on top of this, I'll be happy to say: "See? It's better without the crutch."

02:12 am: Of politics - part the second
Last year I made a post about my beliefs, the reasons behind them, and the oddity of political discussions that I happen to find myself in so frequently. I suppose it's time for an update, isn't it? After all, people change, right?

Well here's the update to my beliefs: I'm still pretty much exactly the same, with one exception, and I'll put it right on out there in big fat fuck-off bold print:

PEOPLE ARE GODDAMN RETARDS

Seriously, what the hell? We re-elected Bush in the past year. I can accept that. It's righteously shitty that we have to deal with his gun-totin', poor-people hatin', “Harvard educated” ass. What I'm more concerned about is the fact that more than half of America thought him being president was a good idea. This sets the base for what I'll dicuss in this entry: most people really suck at just about everything, from voting right to sucking cock to living.

1. Yes, the lists are back, motherfucker. Deal, ok?

2. Holy sweet tapdancing Jesus are Americans fat. Exhibit A:



It sounds like a stereotype, but it's not. I've been to Europe, and that's 100% no-balls-about it true. The only fat people in Europe are pieces of shit Americans wandering around spouting “Hurr, honey, gather up the crotch-spawn, we're going to hunt down a Mack-Dawnolds! Oh wait, that's a 10 minute walk away, let's go to Pizza Hut instead!”

Speaking of...

3. Reproduction is out of hand in this country. Notice the conspicuous lack of the word 'getting' in the previous sentence. Kids are the bane of the Earth. I'm glad I never was one, because I'd have to kill myself if I knew I made my parents go through that bullshit. I work at Circuit City and I swear to Allah every time I see some little shit running around crying because we don't have Gary the Smiling Flying Airplane Goes to Fuck a Hooker I want to punt the little bastard from cameras over to home audio, which is a solid 30 yards. The sheer pleasure of hearing one of those little shitheads crying “mooooooommy!!!!” as he flies over one of the listening stations would be nothing short of orgasmic.

4. Back to politics. To be honest, I'm sick of it. I love discussing ideas, but I honestly can't handle talking points anymore. I hate hearing recycled, bullshit rhetoric that some psuedo-intelligent asshat read somewhere spits out like he's one of those animatronic people at Disney World. “Global warming is a real problem.” That's nice, you plastic piece of mechanical horse-shit! Go out there and do something about it or sit down and shut the fuck up and go back to reading Reader's Digest or whatever.

5. Since I love hypocrisy, I feel compelled to say one last thing: stop getting so worked up over this crap. It doesn't seem to matter anymore which rich white guy gets elected to which post, or which aide is banging the president or whatever. Nothing ever seems to change: people are still going hungry and living on minimum wage. Asshole teenagers are complaining because they tore their shirt from Trendyville. People on both sides are still dying every day over in Iraq. Nobody really cares about other people, because we're Americans and we're right, goddamnit!

Here's my advice: enjoy the ride while it lasts, because, as Bill Hicks says, it's just a ride.

08:18 pm: My customers
Today was a fairly normal day. When I say was, I mean the period prior to around 5:45 PM. That's when things changed.

I was having a fairly good day at work; the numbers were looking very promising. I was in a great mood, until I met Mary Louise, her husband, and their three children. They were shopping for a laptop, like many families do, but something wasn't right. Mary Louise just seemed sad; everything she said had a level of despair to it. She was wearing what appeared to be a house robe. She inquired about her service plan options (she called it 'insurance'), and I began wondering if she was sad because her previous laptop had died. I give her a quote for her laptop and the service plan, and offered our no-interest financing since they seemed a bit upset about the price. With a despairing voice, she agrees to try, though it's apparent to me that her confidence is not high. She's definitely not sure if she'll get approved for the credit card. I ask for her driver's license so we can begin the application, and as soon as it's in my hand it hits me: the despair, the mention of insurance, the clothes she was wearing.

I haven't cried in six years, and I almost burst into tears simply by being handed a Louisiana driver's license.


I asked, out of habit, if the address on the card was current.

"That's the address, but it's under water."

I asked about her employer, and she told me that it was destroyed by the hurricane. Turns out she works for the Audubon Society. The irony immediately struck me: someone with such a love for nature having everything taken away by it.

We finished the application, and it was transmitted to the bank. She was instantly declined for the credit card, and was informed by the cold, unfeeling bank that a letter would be mailed to her within two weeks explaining why. Mailed to her underwater mailbox, that is.



Later in the evening, I came across a lady buying a TV. She purchased her TV and left her son inside while she went to get the car and pull up to the loading dock. Twenty minutes later, she stormed into the store, cursing at her son eleven year old son for being a "worthless fuckup". She was raving mad, swearing at everyone, shouting and shrieking. Apparently her son had forgotten to tell one of us to load the TV into the car.


The juxtaposition was striking. Here was a soccer mom flipping the fuck out over waiting a mere twenty minutes and treating her innocent son like he wasn't even human. Here was an entire family who lost everything who simply wanted a laptop to presumably get in touch with lost family members. Both these groups of people were in our store today, and both of these people are Americans. One group of people had a right to be angry: their government failed their neighbors and family. They lost everything. One did not have a right: her time was too precious to be wasted by her "worthless" son.

And yet, the ones with the right, the ones who lost everything, were completely calm. This, my friends, is what is wrong with America. We are so caught up in our own petty bullshit that we fail to realize the important things: one mother brought her children with her to go shopping because she was thankful they were alive. One brought her son with her because he was a "bratty, worthless fuckup."



There was an anti-war protest today, but I'm sure most Americans don't give a flying fuck about all "those other people" dieing all over the world. They're just worried about how their wonderful president is doing, and how he's spreading freedom to those heathens in the middle east.

03:33 pm: I'm sure this is just what everyone wants to hear, but I think people should see this. It's a video of CNN's Anderson Cooper absolutely tearing into Louisiana senator Mary Landrieu for spewing bullshit. You can hear the emotion in his voice, and you can feel that something is definitely not right down south. It's reporters like this that make me happy I'm going into journalism.

http://movies.crooksandliars.com/Anderson-Cooper-Landrieu-Katrina1.wmv

09:31 pm: 01. When you look at yourself in the mirror, what's the first thing you look at? penis

02. How much cash do you have on you? $40 in ones

03. What's a word that rhymes with "TEST"?: breast

04. Favorite plant?: weed

05. Who is the 4th person on your missed call list on your cell phone? some hooker

06. What is your main ring tone on your phone? that black-eyed peas song everyone loves

07. What shirt are you wearing? I'm naked

08. What do you "label" yourself? white trash

09. Name brand of your shoes currently wearing? 'your ass'

10. Bright or Dark Room: campfire

11. What do you think about the person who took this survey before you?: they're an asshat

12. Ever "spilled the beans"? yeah back when ma was getting ready to bake them

13. What were you doing at midnight last night? milking the cows

14. What did your last text message you received on your cell phone say? 'don't forget to pick up some PBR'

15. Do you ever click on "Pop Ups" or Banners? only if they're the 'shoot the monkey to win 400 billion dollars' kind

16. what is a saying you say a lot? 'fuckin squirrels got in my truck again'

17. Who told you they loved you last?: my gun

18. Last furry thing you touched? roadkill

19. How many hours a week do you work? I'm on welfare

20. How many rolls of film do you need to get developed? I have some film over the car that's up on cinderblocks in my yard

21. Favorite age you have been so far? I don't know how old I am

22. Your worst enemy?: damn neighbors keep using my well

23 What is your current desktop picture? Dale Earnhardt

24. What was the last thing you said to someone? 'i reckon'

25. If you had to choose between a million bucks or to be able to change a major regret?: shit a million bucks would buy me a nice trailer

04:20 pm: of summer
This afternoon I woke up in my own bed, alone and without a hangover.

The fact that, this summer, this combination of factors has been something of a rarity is either troubling or inspiring, depending on your viewpoint. From where I'm sitting, it's as if someone threw them both in a blender and hit pureé.

As much as I hate to place blame, I blame the graduation party. No one singular thing set the theme for summer moreso than all the people I'd just graduated with (that day!) partying hard with $500 worth of alcohol.

From that point onward, I found myself doing something involving beer and girls almost every night for three months. It seemed like I always rolled with the party, and Pat started telling people I had a harem.

Now, three months later, despite all the fun I had, I think it's finally hit me that I should probably slow down a bit. It's a lot of fun leading a shallow existence, but it's not the best for your soul.

So, to those of you I hurt, I'm deeply sorry. I can be a very talented asshole when there's nothing to stop me, and for that I apologize.

To those of you I had fun with, I have only one thing to say: cheers, it was a hell of a ride.

04:53 am: Somebody owes me a beer if I remember this shit tomorrow

11:49 pm: Bye bye Mahomet!

07:02 pm: My life is in boxes
I move tomorrow. I've lived in the same room for almost 19 years and I'm packing it all up and moving on.

As a result, my apartment breaking party has officially been set for August 10. Plan the rest of your life accordingly.

07:48 pm: laffo





...and I didn't even pass the damn class.

03:23 pm: The American Taliban
The quotes on this site make me want to break things. Here's a few samples:

"We are engaged in a social, political, and cultural war. There's a lot of talk in America about pluralism. But the bottom line is somebody's values will prevail. And the winner gets the right to teach our children what to believe."

"Being nice to people is, in fact, one of the incidental tenets of Christianity, as opposed to other religions whose tenets are more along the lines of 'kill everyone who doesn't smell bad and doesn't answer to the name Mohammed'"

"We don't have to protect the environment, the Second Coming is at hand."

"Nobody has the right to worship on this planet any other God than Jehovah. And therefore the state does not have the responsibility to defend anybody's pseudo-right to worship an idol."


I...uh...hmm. I give up; these people pretty much make fun of themselves.

06:38 pm: my stack
I've felt like posting something that's actually interesting for awhile now. Every once in awhile I'd sit down and look at the blank box and wonder where to start. For some reason, I couldn't. I didn't have a muse, so I continued droning on with my life, wondering when my muse would come.

Strangely enough, it was behind me the whole time. Those of you who have visited my bedroom within the past couple months will have noticed the two-foot tall pile of papers, books, and CDs that slowly accumulated in front of my doorway. Well, today I dismantled it. Curiously enough, it was an enlightening process.

The beginning of the stack was innocuous enough: various receipts from pizza places, bank deposits, and phone bills, among other things. They reminded me of just how much I've grown over the past couple of years, and especially over the past several months. Even a year ago I had no money, no job, and no bills. Now I have a credit card, $2000 in the bank, and rent due in September.

Towards the middle of the stack I unearthed my school papers from the previous two semesters. It seems so odd now that I was once in high school. I found practice AP tests, hall passes, and old issues of the newspaper. I suppose it reinforced the fact that my life is moving on. When I was in high school, it never felt like I was going anywhere; I was stuck in a doldrums of corridoors and bells that ring every fifty-two minutes. Now I'm free and independent; those bells no longer toll for me.

Lying at the very bottom of the stack, partially hidden amongst the effects from my trip to England, I found my dust-covered and never-opened Catholic Youth Bible. Its presence in my room reminded me of where I used to be and where I am now. It reminded me of my personal beliefs update that I posted a year or so ago. I found it curious that for the first time in my life, the basis and core of these beliefs have not changed. Perhaps it's a reflection upon my maturity. Perhaps it's a reflection upon my lack thereof. I suppose only time will make that clear.

Now all that's behind me are various scattered fragments from all the levels of the stack. Between them are bare bits of floor. I guess from this point it's up to me what gets piled on there.

01:03 pm: of yesterday: a mix of old and new
Before I say anything else, this bears reposting: http://www.livejournal.com/users/amunarchy/3139.html


Let's go in reverse chronological order, timeline style:


4:30AM-12:00PM - Sweet, sweet sleep.

4:30AM - I walk in the door and my mom doesn't ask any questions. Mutual understanding is nice.

4:00AM - Feeling much better now, and it's not just the nicotene

3:30AM - Kyle and I hightail it to Super Pantry to buy some damn cigars because goddamnit I need something to smoke after that shit

3:00AM - You can cut it with a knife.

2:30AM - Fan hits the shit, bizarro Bob's house comes into view. I begin to be pissed off for the first time in at least a year. Congratulations folks, because there isn't much that gets to me.

2:00AM - Talking about something worth talking about for once. Hey, this is kind of fun! I have no idea what's about to kick me in the nuts!

2:00AM-10:30PM - Chillaxin' is awesome, but I lost my goddamn bottle opener. Fuck.

10:00PM-1:30PM - "Working"

1:30PM-12:00PM - I actually spent some goddamn money and bought two books and a movie:

Towelhead by Alicia Erian

Profit Over People by Noam Chomsky

Waking Life directed by Richard Linklater

12:00PM-12:00AM - Sleep is easily the best part of my day.

12:53 pm: Damage report!
Preliminary estimates point towards a loss of about $250. Ouch. I guess that's what happens when you drop twice that.

All of the electronic equipment made it out safely, somehow.

Mad props to the folks who left cigarette butts everywhere. That was much appreciated and totally didn't take forever to clean up.

Simon is still alive; the crucified stuffed animals didn't make it, though.

Regardless, thanks to everyone who came and made it a crazy fucking night. You only get one graduation kegger, so for me it was totally worth it. We'll probably never all be able to do something like this again, but I'll sure as hell try.

03:37 pm: a friendly reminder
Graduation kegger is Sunday the 29th at 10:00 PM in Urbana.

We've decided on a keg of Bud Lite, a handle of Smirnoff, and two other as-yet determined handles that shall be mixed into jungle juice, screwdrivers, or whatever anyone wants.

Call me for directions if you need to; my number is 721-3609.

10:04 pm: my graduation party
It may or may not be what you think. Let's dispel any early misconceptions:

I'm throwing a kegger the night of graduation (May 29) at 10:00 PM.

Yes, you're invited. It should end up being a sizable party with pretty cheap drinks, so don't worry if you're poor. I'm not going to post the address on here for obvious reasons, but I can say it'll be in Urbana.

Post here if you want an invite, call me at 721-3609, or hit me up in person. I'll contact as many people as I can individually (as will Kyle and Bob) but sometimes people slip through the cracks.

I shall now open the floor to questions.

01:45 am: my high school reflection
I had to write this for newspaper, and since I know it's probably not going to get printed, I'll just post it here. Not sure why, but I think it's something of a suitable tribute to my "career" as a high school student.





When most people write a reflection, it's nostalgic and reminiscent.

Most people are dumb. I'd love to write a glowing reflection of my high school career, but my high school career wasn't exactly glowing. Sure, there were good times -- nothing beats talking about Bowie in APE -- but they were few. The rest of the times, with their characteristic immaturity and inanity, felt like an exercise in masochism.

High school is known as a growing period, both personal and intellectual. There's only one problem: that growth has a ceiling. This isn't the proverbial “glass ceiling”. This is a concrete ceiling with jagged radioactive spikes of evil death.

Growth in high school is a fascinating thing: high school gives you the skills you need to survive in life, but it doesn't let you practice them. High school teaches students adult information but treats them like naive children. Students are trusted with dangerous chemicals but must ask permission to use the restroom.

Oddly enough, the inherent and often comical hypocrisy is left unnoticed. Perhaps that's what it means to be a senior: they've grown too big for their high school britches and have become aware of just how ugly those britches were to begin with. They're ready to call themselves in to work; they're ready to call their professors by their first names; and they're ready to step outside for a cigarette if they so choose. They're ready to be treated with the respect that an adult deserves.

Maybe that's why students receive a handshake with their diploma. It's not a formality; it's a sign of acknowledgment. The diploma identifies you as a former schmuck and the principal identifies you as an adult. After all, people shake hands with their peers, not those of lower ranks, right?

12:28 am: El Cinco de Mayo
Keystone light