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January 29, 2011

Oh My God, The Lost Symbol Was Awful

I read The Lost Symbol under the same circumstances as I read all of Dan Brown's other books: on a cross-country flight, desperately trying anything at all to make the thing seem shorter. In that situation, I always think that an unchallenging, easy to follow, infuriatingly awful book is the way to go. So when I was waiting in the Milwaukee Airport to go home for Christmas, I was delighted to see that Dan Brown's latest monstrosity had been released in paperback, because there's no fucking way I'd pay hardcover prices for one of these things. I bought the thing...

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September 10, 2010

Adventures at Gyro's House

First off, Google Maps says that I'm spelling this place's name correctly--there is a place on Verona Road that is apparently a house owned by a guy named Gyro. Or something. In any event, Taste of Madison was this weekend, and L-Dawg and I had but one goal: to find an amazing gyro. As it turns out, the best gyro of the day was the first one we had. And it was from a place called Gyro's House, which is located in the Mobil gas station at Verona and the Beltline. This is both strange (it's in a fucking gas...

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November 2, 2009

Worthy of Failblog?

I was watching TV tonight, and, due to the fact that I wasn't watching stuff off the DVR, I had to sit through commercials. I hate commercials, but I'm sorta glad I did this time, because something hilarious happened. This commercial came up that was clearly one of those extremely low-budget ads for some extremely sketchy pseudo-company. Then it cut to this screen: That's right--they want you to call their website. Or they named their company after the website, which, unless you're Google or Yahoo, just seems like a bad idea. Plus, also, how large is the target audience for...

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October 26, 2009

Happy Birthday, Happy Housewarming

Here we are in late October, and, for some reason, that means that three of my friends just had birthdays. Yes, Mr. Vice, pH, and Night Cactus all added a year to their life tallies recently. Oh, and I moved in to a new place that needed to be warmed. So, it was with much fanfare and shit that I invited tons of people over for a combo birthday-birthday-birthday-housewarming party. Despite L-Dawg's contention that it would, in fact, be a house cooling, I think things turned out fairly well. The main theme to the party, if there was one other...

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October 13, 2009

The New Worst Company I've Ever Dealt With: Dish Network

In all of my various exploits with stupid people working for stupid bureaucracies, I had not, until recently, encountered a company that fails to provide even mildly competent customer service as completely as Dish Network does. It all started with the move. I was told that I had two options for TV: Charter and Dish Network. That choice seemed easy: I fucking hated Charter, so I decided to go with Dish Network. I called up Dish Network and explained to them that I had tapped them to provide me with mindless entertainment. I gave them my name, phone number, address,...

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October 5, 2009

The Cheese Stands Alone

Lots of awesome stuff has been going on lately. There's been some non-awesome stuff, too, unfortunately. But I've been too busy and too tired to sit down and post about it. And when I decide that I'm going to, all of a sudden it's 1am. But not to fear! Here's a post of my favorite series of pictures with chelsadilla. I hope you enjoy them, and I promise more substance soon....

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September 24, 2009

The Queen Has Pubic Hair

I thought this story--about Justice Sotomayor getting lost on the way to Washington--was sort of interesting. What I like about it is that it gives us this strange sort of glimpse into the mundane details of the daily lives of one of the most powerful lawyers in America. In her career on the Supreme Court, Justice Sotomayor--like all of her colleagues--is likely to make a good amount of history and will influence the interpretation of our most important documents for decades to come. But here we're presented with a moment where she's clearly just "one of us": she's a person...

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July 26, 2009

Parking Ramp Fail!

Chelsadilla and I went to the Farmer's Market Saturday and parked at the parking ramp by the Great Dane. This is what we saw: In case you can't tell, that's a car parked across three parking spaces and behind a pillar. It's also parked in by the surrounding cars, so that there is absolutely no conceivable way this car could get out of the spot unless at least two cars on either side move. How did this thing get here? What asshat or drunk put it there? The world may never know. But in mean time, I plan on laughing...

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July 20, 2009

"Another Thing We All Survived."

Four of my best friends are getting married this year--Mr. Vice and pH in October, and L-Dawg and Xtina in just under two weeks. Somehow, they, along with chelsadilla, RPM, RPM's still un-nicknamed significant other (I'm going to suggest Hannelore, based on this), Mr. Utah, and L-Dawg's brother, all managed to take some time out of our calendars to head up to the Dells this weekend for a bachelor party for the men, a bachelorette party for the ladies, and a day at Mt. Olympus for all. Large portions of this thing were supposed to be a surprise. Certainly, the...

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July 8, 2009

I Will Never Own a Mac

Fucking seriously! I'm using chelsadilla's Mac right now, and this thing makes no goddamned sense. First off, there's this "Apple" key. The Apple key does everything you would expect the control key to do. So, if I want to open a new tab in Firefox, it's not "ctrl+T," it's "Apple+T." If I want to copy and paste something--and yes, this computer actually does have copy and paste, so I guess Apple is aware that it's a thing that you can have machines do--it's not "ctrl+C" and "ctrl+P," it's "Apple+C" and "Apple+P." So then you'd think "Ok, if there's this whole...

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June 23, 2009

Have You Seen This Governor? (Updated) (Updated Again)

Perhaps I should have included South Carolina on my poll of ridiculous state governments. I woke up this morning to a headline telling me that their governor was missing. "Missing," I thought, "Like some stranger offered him candy and now police are combing the neighborhood looking for clues?" How the fuck does a governor go missing, exactly? The real story is much lamer than you might think. It turns out Mark Sanford wasn't abducted by aliens or terrorists or anything. No, instead he went for a long walk after getting his ass handed to him by his state's legislature. And...

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June 15, 2009

Undergrads

My friend Mr. X graduated from college one year ahead of me, by which I mean that he rushed through the subject matter in four years while I took an extra year to really let things soak in. Anyway. Mr. X went off to grad school and came back talking about how much he hated undergrads and how annoying they were. I, still being an undergrad, thought he was crazy and out of line. Then someone reminded me that it was my turn in beer pong, so I screamed at the top of my lungs and chugged a beer while...

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June 12, 2009

New Poll!

So the vast majority of you agree with me--not to mention reason and good sense--that "Gangsta's Paradise" is Coolio's best song. Some of you voted for "Fantastic Voyage," which I guess is respectable. One of you voted for some other song, which frankly makes no sense to me. I think this should lay our previous disagreement to rest, Mr. Vice. In any event, the new poll also got its impetus from a conversation I was having with a friend. Morenononsense and I were discussing various state governments, and I asserted that New York's is clearly the most ridiculous. He pointed...

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June 10, 2009

6:45

For the most part, being an adult is going alright so far. I guess it comes with more responsibilities and the consequences of fucking up are probably greater, but the tradeoffs from childhood are probably worth it. Independence, self-determination, fulfillment: these are good things. I mean, yeah, I can't get totally wasted every weekend, but I don't really want to. And sometimes I miss blowing off responsibilities to do something more fun, but I get a real sense of satisfaction from my work, so it's not that bad. All in all, I definitely prefer being an adult to being a...

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May 28, 2009

Singing and Dancing is Awesome

I've always loved musicals. It's true. I really do love them. My favorite is probablyChitty Chitty Bang Bang, but I really like but Mary Poppins and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory are awesome, too, obviously. I've also really enjoyed every single musical stage production I've seen immensely. I think that life would be awesome if it was more like a musical. Think about it. Instead of fighting, we'd dance and sing and have stylized, choreographed pseudo-conflicts. You'd have an orchestra and a chorus line to back you up when you're feeling down. And if there's a better way to...

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May 26, 2009

Grammar for Idiots, Part III

In English, it is often difficult to decide how to indicate that a noun is plural. Sometimes you have to add an S to the word, sometimes you have to drop a Y and add an "-ies," sometimes you have to change the word completely, and sometimes you just have to leave it alone. And that's not even all the options. So, yeah, the whole thing is pretty easy to mess up--if you're an idiot. See, the one thing we always know is that we only ever have to apply one transformation to a singular noun to arrive at a...

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May 14, 2009

More Parking-Lot Shenanigans

Strangely enough, this story involves something that happened at my office, not at my apartment. Mr. Vice and I have an office in an old three-story building. The ground floor has three offices--ours, our landlord's, and a CPA. The second and third floors are residential apartments. The building has a parking lot in the back, and we rent one of the spaces. The others belong to the landlord, the CPA, and some of the tenants in the apartments. Mr. Vice and I arrived this morning to find a giant white van parked in our space. But here's the thing: it...

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May 10, 2009

The Four Most Overrated Things in Life

Dee pointed me to Overrated List, a blog consisting of readers' lists of the top four most overrated things in life. Dee also asked me to write my own. So here goes, in no particular order. Summer. Yeah, I have to admit that I was pretty excited when the average temperature started being above freezing this year. Yeah, I like not having to put on four layers just to take my garbage out. Yeah, I like being able to go for walks and stuff. And I love the farmers' market. And the Terrace. I love all of those things. But,...

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May 6, 2009

Roadside Meat, a Special Spurgh Sidebar

Yes, during our third day in the Spurgh, chelsadilla and I had some roadside meat. We went to lunch at this fucking amazing BBQ stand that was in a parking lot somewhere. It was all really, really good, although chelsadilla's pulled pork was way better than my brisket. The sides were great and the cornbread was out of this world. But the funniest thing about the stop was something on a flyer. The BBQ place was apparently hosting the second annual chili cook-off. The rules were very clear that the meat in the chili had to be beef. It listed...

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April 20, 2009

Despite All His Rage

I've heard a lot about that moment when a son realizes that he's stronger than his father. Or that he's faster or smarter or more successful. The moment when a son surpasses his father, it seems, is a big deal. I didn't have a father, though. I had Billy Corgan. Ok, so that analogy is a little much. Billy Corgan wasn't my role model; I didn't want to be like him. No, I had much better people to look up to. But at a time in my life when even my best friends seemed like cruel strangers, the stuff in...

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April 12, 2009

Terrible Driver Sighting

I was driving home. I was in the middle lane of a three-lane road. The extreme right lane is explicitly reserved for right-hand turns only. I'm driving along when I see a minivan in my rearview mirror. I see that it swerves from the extreme left-hand lane to the extreme right-hand lane. This is a maneuver a friend of mine once called the "Jersey Slide." I thought, "Fuck, this guy really needs to make a right-hand turn." Anyway, the van drives along in the right-hand turn-only lane. It's going pretty fast. It passes me. It passes the first right-had turn....

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April 11, 2009

Concerning Dreams, Babies, and Bathwater

I'm not one of those people that thinks that dreams mean something. In fact, I'm the opposite: I'm of the opinion that people who think that dreams mean something are dumb. As far as I'm concerned, dreams are a random collection of nonsense, devoid of any deeper significance. The idea that dreams are made up of representations of things that are going on in our waking lives is ridiculous to me. So that's why i was sort of shocked to have a dream last night that I found sort of relevant. In this dream, I was a lawyer. I had...

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April 9, 2009

Some Simple Rules to Follow if You Want to Be More Like Me

People have told me that I have a unique personality. I've always been baffled by this because I think my personality is fairly obvious and boring. Still, I'm putting together a list of the basic principles I follow, just in case you decide to impersonate me or something. The perceived funniness of something is directly proportional to how many times your audience has heard it. If something was mildly amusing once, it'll be fucking hilarious the fourteenth time. If people tell you that something you're doing is obnoxious, you just haven't done it enough. Whoever is louder is righter. The...

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March 25, 2009

Dan Aykroyd Acknowledged Me!

Dan Aykroyd has apparently lost his mind. If you doubt that, you should check out the video at the website for his newest business venture, Crystal Head Vodka. This thing has apparently been all over the place for a while now because, well, Elwood Blues manages to somehow relate extraterrestrials, ghosts, and parallel dimensions to, umm, vodka. I mean, don't get me wrong--I love vodka, but it's no proof of the divine. Anyway, when I was excited when I heard that Mr. Aykroyd was going to be here, in Madison, at the west-side Woodman's (a local grocery store), promoting his...

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March 22, 2009

Unmitigated Douchebag at the Five Guys

Mr. Vice, RPM, and I were at Five Guys this afternoon picking up some food before heading back to RPM's place to watch the Battlestar Galactica finale (which, despite the efforts of RPM's DVR, was awesome). And it was then that I saw one of the biggest douches ever acting like a giant fucking douche. And then I called him on it. I don't know how many of you have been to Five Guys, but it's this burger place. It's pretty good. One of the distinctive things about it is that they have giant boxes full of peanuts for you...

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March 18, 2009

New Poll!

So, nearly half of you seem to value intelligence over attractiveness or wealth. Or, more accurately, 48 percent of you would rather be more intelligent than more something else. I respect that, yo. But now it's time to get down to serious business. My new poll really concerns something both germane and critical to the state of modern American life. The topic, my friends, is this: what's the best Coolio song? This is a debate of long standing between Mr. Vice and myself. He contends that "Fantastic Voyage" is the best. I think that's a great song, but I don't...

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March 6, 2009

I Win

So, chelsadilla and I went to dinner tonight at Tex Tubb's Taco Palce. It was pretty decent, although their Mexican rice sucked the fat cock. But while the food was ok, the highlight of the evening was the unexpected appearance of Dr. Lady. Yes, the M.D. who pulled out a journal article on our "date" showed up. She must have seen me, but she didn't acknowledge me. I only saw her after she was walking away from us, so I didn't have to pretend that i didn't see her in order to excuse my avoiding her. They sat Dr. Lady...

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March 3, 2009

The Biggest Tool in the Universe?

I've previously admitted that I love the show Tool Academy. For those of you not in the know, Tool Academy is built on probably the best reality-show idea ever. Nine guys sign up for a competition they think is called "Mr. Awesome," but what's really going on is that the guys' girlfriends have signed the guys up for the show because, well, the girls think the guys are giant tools. And they're completely right. At the end of each episode, one tool gets eliminated (the line the host delivers is awesome: "You're just a tool"--way better than "You're fired"). Then...

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February 25, 2009

This Is Crossing the Fucking Line

I've grudgingly accepted the fact that, in our society, you can now be famous and admired for absolutely no reason. There are young girls in America that look up to Paris Hilton. That, right there, should be enough to let you know that something is seriously wrong with everything. But I think there's someone who's actually worse than Hilton. That person is Heidi Montag. I can't even come up with a good way of expressing exactly how worthless this thing is, so I'm going to resort to analogies. If Paris Hilton is a hangnail, Heidi Montag is inoperable brain cancer....

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February 13, 2009

A Step in the Right Direction

If I'm Superman, then UPS is Lex Luthor and Charter is General Zod who, I now admit, is a first-rate Superman villain. Anyway, yeah, UPS and General Zod. Today I was pleased to learn that Charter Communications has filed for bankruptcy. Yeah, sure, the article makes it sound like it's a friendly bankruptcy or whatever, and Charter's not gonna start liquidating its assets or anything, but it's something. I mean, yeah, it's not as awesome as tricking General Zod and making him think that I've lost my powers when in fact it's him that was exposed to the anti-power energy,...

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February 6, 2009

Are You A Member of Generation Y?

Recently, tRJ told me that his work had sponsored some thing where people came in and told all the employees what they were like based on when they were born. Apparently, Generation X kicks ass and Generation Y is a bunch of ingrates. Or something. Anyway, I was thinking about that today and I went and started looking on the whole "Generation Y" thing. As it turns out, I was not as cool and unique as I thought I was when I was a teenager. Did you know, for example, that everyone my age was sad when Kurt Cobain died?...

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January 29, 2009

The Big Lebowski: Fucking Short Version

Hilarious:...

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January 21, 2009

Touché, Charter

My feud with Charter is second only to my feud with UPS. You could say that Charter is like the General Zod to UPS's Lex Luthor. Right. Anyway, when I last tangled with my dastardly foe, I told them to go shove it because they refused to waive a stupid, made-up fee they had decided to charge me. I told them, in no uncertain terms, that they were the worst company in the history of the universe and that I would never do business with them again. This apparently did not resonate with Charter, as I have gotten at least...

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January 17, 2009

My Subconscious Is on Overdrive

So, I had another wacky dream last night. Or, well, this morning since I just woke up from it a few minutes ago. Anyway, in my dream, I'm in the courtroom of a judge I'm before relatively frequently--Judge R, for those familiar with where I practice. Messers. Vice and RPM were there, too. So were lots of other people, but everyone besides us and the judge was Japanese. In fact, it was as if the courtroom had been turned into a Japanese game show. The judge was wearing a shiny blue robe and his hair style changed throughout the dream...

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January 8, 2009

Two Thoughts on the English Language

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were fairly busy days. At the beginning of the week, Wednesday in particular looked like it was going to be a bitch. You see, Wednesday was the day of a motion hearing that's been months in the making. And I really wanted to win. On top of that, I had to drive to the middle of nowhere for another fairly big hearing. Oh, and I knew that I was going to have to spend Wednesday night prepping for my trial on Thursday. Oh, and I still had to find some way to cram four client visits...

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January 7, 2009

Fuck You, UPS (Part MMXCLIIVq)

Those fucking fucks at UPS are at it again. I was expecting a package today, but I knew that I wasn't going to be home in time to be here when they tried to deliver it. So I was prepared for another fight with these worthless fucks. Here, now, is the timeline of how this shit went down. 6:58: I come home, see that UPS has left a sticker on my door, take it, and go to UPS.com to arrange to pick up my package tonight. 6:59: UPS.com has completely failed. The InfoNotice number that I am specifically told to...

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January 5, 2009

I'm Gonna Write a Book

As is my custom, I bought a horrible book for the flight back from Los Angeles. I find that nothing passes the time better than a ridiculous tale of international intrigue, ancient mysteries, and furtive glances. The particular book that I bought, though, was terrible even by the standards of its genre. It was The Alexandria Link by some douchebag named Steve Berry. Still, my need to know what happens next drove me to finish the thing. When I was done, I literally wanted to throw the thing int he trash--something I've never even considered doing with any book. But...

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December 27, 2008

Mia

So, I've been home for a few days now, and I'm leaving tomorrow afternoon. It's been a really good trip. My cousin Gloria has a four-year-old daughter named Mia. Mia is the cutest, funniest, most charismatic little girl I've ever met. Mia spends days when her parents are at work either at her paternal grandmother's house (where she's doted on by her father's mother), or at my mom's house (where she's doted on by my mother, my aunt, and my grandmother). The result is that she's the most ridiculously spoiled little girl in the world. Anything she wants to do,...

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December 23, 2008

"I Like to Be Here When I Can."

So I actually came far too close to having that nightmare scenario from that terrible JTT movie come to pass. I woke up at 2:30am Central and drove to Milwaukee. The drive was pretty ridiculous, actually. The roads weren't terrible, but they were far from good. In the end, though, I made it to Mil-town without too much of a problem. My parking and shuttle situations worked out fine, too. The problem started when Frontier Airlines decided that, instead of de-icing the plane and taking off, we would sit on the runway for a long time. Like, an hour. After...

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December 22, 2008

Predictions . . . .

Tomorrow morning, for the first time in two years, I'm going "home," by which I mean that I'm going to the place where my parents live now. I'm really, really excited. I theoretically fly out of Milwaukee tomorrow morning at 6am. That means that I'm going to leave my apartment at about 3am. Others might think I'm crazy, but I love getting up really early to start a trip. I don't know why, but I'd feel ripped off if my cross-country journey started while the sun was up. I say that I'm theoretically flying out because my trip has an...

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December 11, 2008

How Lecherous Am I?

I've been thinking lately about how old a girl would have to be in order for me to consider dating her. I mean, I'm twenty-seven. That's fucking old in terms of the whole dating scene, right? I mean, I'm not in college anymore. Fuck, I'm not even in grad school anymore. So would it be strange--either for me or for other people--if I dated someone in, say, law school? Or college? I mean, people in college are, like, twenty-three at the most. What are those people like? I envision this scenario in which I show up with my twenty-two-year-old girlfriend...

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November 19, 2008

The Upside to the Housing Crisis

So, yeah, I was sort of busy there for a bit. But I'm back now--one of my trials is over and the other one is being rescheduled. Now, yeah, the housing and lending crisis or whatever really sucks. It's fucking over lots of Americans, and I fully acknowledge that, and it sucks, and I'm sorry--not that I played any part in it. But even in the worst situations, it's important to find the good news, the silver lining. With that in mind, I have to tell you guys that I was filled with vengeful glee when I saw this story....

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November 2, 2008

Halloween, 2008

So, yes, Halloween happened. From what I can remember, it was a hell of a lot of fun. We played the newly created Pulp Fiction drinking game and then the traditional yearly game of asshole. I never rose above the rank of vice-asshole, so things went badly (or well, depending on your point of view) for me. Here's the costume rundown. (We had originally planned a Quentin Tarantino theme, but only some of us ended up going along with that): pH as Gogo Yubari from Kill Bill 1: Mr. Vice as Captain Coons from Pulp Fiction: Here's me and RPM...

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November 1, 2008

And That's How You Pick up a Stripper

So, Co-SME, The Reeg, RPM, and I went to some undergrad Halloween party hosted by The Reeg's friend tonight. I spent the early portion of the evening doing what I normally do at large parties: stand around and looked pissed. I also went outside and criticized their beer pong rules. The proper way to play beer pong is with two teams of two people, with each person having six cups arranged in a triangle in front of them for a total of six cups per person and twelve cups per side. Here in Wisconsin, people are too afraid to drink...

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October 30, 2008

What in the Fuck Kind of Person Likes John Mayer?

I have never been a fan of John Mayer. I don't particularly like being whispered to by another dude. But then I saw this cover he did of Tom Petty's "Free Fallin'" and now I pretty much think he's the worst thing that ever happened to the concept of music. Check it out: Seriously, what the fuck? Since when does stripping all the actual energy out of a song and replacing it with supersmooth, adult-contemporary-inspired, generic, repetitive bullshit count as "good"? His vocal delivery on this song suggests that he has about as much soul as a prostitute. He sounds...

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October 23, 2008

The Omnivore's Hundred

Having nothing better to write about--that I want to share, anyway--I've decided to finally do this list, which I got from tRJ. 1) Copy this list, including these instructions. 2) Bold all the items you've eaten. 3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating. 1. Venison 2. Nettle tea (I have no idea what this is.) 3. Huevos rancheros 4. Steak tartare 5. Crocodile (That's gross, dude.) 6. Black pudding (Congealed blood? No. Fucking. Way.) 7. Cheese fondue 8. Carp 9. Borscht 10. Baba ghanoush 11. Calamari (Am I the only person in the world who doesn't...

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October 8, 2008

"I'll Take All of the Blame"

As it turns out, I am a terrible friend. See, Mr. Vice and pHrecently got engaged, and I neglected to say "congratulations" in a public and embarrassing forum. So, anyway Mr. Vice and pH, congratulations on your engagement. Just remember who you have to thank for your eternal bliss: that's right, me. So, for example, let's say that you're walking down the aisle at your wedding, pH. You shouldn't be thinking about your future husband or your wonderful life together. No, you should be thinking about me. And you shouldn't just be thinking "god, I wish he would stop undressing...

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October 4, 2008

Who Am I and What Have I Done with the Real Ismael?

It's 9am on a Saturday. I am willingly awake so that I can go to a farmer's market. What the fuck is wrong with me?...

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September 23, 2008

Apology to the Charter Guy

Ok, Charter Guy. I grudgingly admit that I owe you an apology. See, I may have been on hold with Charter for literally an hour and a half that night. And your company may have been completely incorrect about everything you told me. And it is absolutely the case that three different people told me three different stories about when my service would get fixed before you got on the phone. And it's true that the person I spoke to immediately before you barely spoke English but still managed to convey a level of condescension and derision that not even...

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September 10, 2008

Let's Find the Higgs Boson

So, the Large Hadron Collider is supposed to be turned on today. Stay tuned to Here is No Why for updates about whether CERN's particle collider creates a black hole that swallows and destroys the Earth or the entire Universe. Anyway, while I'm not nearly smart enough to understand what the fuck the LHC is actually supposed to help us learn--something about particles, dark matter, and the nature of mass, from what I understand--I am smart enough to appreciate an extremely geeky yet catchy rap video about the LHC. Check it out:...

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August 28, 2008

Mission: Accomplished

My fucking place is clean like a motherfucker! The living and dining rooms are organized and tidy, except, again, for the corner with all my guitar crap. The kitchen is fucking sparkling, and almost all the dishes are done. I say "almost" because there are still some glasses and bowls I need to wash that I just didn't want to wash last night. The bedroom has been completely cleaned up and now it looks really, really empty. And the bathroom is sanitary. And I also brought back the concept of a hamper, so there's no longer a big pile of...

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July 30, 2008

Band Update

So, as I said, tRJ and I are making a semiserious effort to start a band. By that I mean that we posted an ad on Craiglist looking for a drummer and a bassist. We got some responses, but haven't played with any of them because, well, they all suck. First there was this drummer guy who said he was into what we were into. So we sent him a very rough demo of a song we worked on together. He wrote back that he thought he liked it and that he thought it would work really well as a...

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July 27, 2008

Seventeen

Here's an interesting question that came up last night--and when I say "came up," I mean "I brought up and then repeated over and over again." What is the highest number of orgasms you've ever had in one day? As the title of this post suggests, mine is seventeen. In the past when I've told people this, they've reacted with shock and disbelief. I don't think it's that amazing--a bored fourteen-year-old boy with lots of time on his hands, a boring Saturday, and a free preview of Cinemax can do a lot good. Seventeen times, to be precise. I mean,...

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July 18, 2008

How I Spent My Friday Morning

My friends and I are going to see The Dark Knight tonight. There had been some discussion about going to a midnight showing, but we never did anything about it and then assumed that all the screenings were going to be sold out. And, besides, we've all got responsibilities and jobs and stuff. Well, as it turns out, I don't have to be in court tomorrow and I'm not meeting any clients. I've got stuff I have to do, sure, but I don't have to be up at any specific time. That left me wondering what I was going to...

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July 17, 2008

I'd Totally Still Do Her, Though

Hayden Panettiere, the cheerleader from Heroes, is totally hot. She also apparently risks her life to save dolphins. And although she's a rich teenager in Hollywood, I haven't seen anything about how she's spending her nights doing blow off of guys' cocks in skeazy West Hollywood clubs. And, as near as I can tell, she hasn't nearly killed anyone with her car. Oh, and she's not the worst actress I've ever seen. So, you know, she's got some things going for her. What she does not have going for her is musical talent. Check out her music video: Now, unlike...

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July 11, 2008

I Fucking Hate You, You Fuckwads

To the guy at the courthouse: Good god, you're an idiot. Let me see if I understand what you just did. You walked into the Clerk of Courts room, saw the long counter with the windows on it, saw the people standing in the fucking line, saw the fucking signs saying "please wait in line until you are called to a window," and decided that you were somehow above all those fucking rules and just walked right up to a window--one manned by a woman on the phone, no less!--and conducted your business. I fucking hate you. To the woman...

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June 8, 2008

Fuck It All, I'm Growing a Goatee

After about three seconds of thought and consideration--and against the advice of some of my most trusted advisers--I have decided to grow a goatee. Yes, I'm following in the footsteps of Evil Spock and Garthe Knight. This is gonna be totally awesome. Or not. After not shaving since Wednesday, I decided that the time was right to carve a goatee out of my facial hair. So that's what I just did. It's still rather thin, but it doesn't look entirely terrible. Although I have to say that I'm having a hard time taking my reflection seriously. That bodes ill for...

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June 5, 2008

Grammar for Idiots, Part II

In English, we use the apostrophe for several purposes. Two of these uses are most common: we use the apostrophe to indicate that some noun possesses something ("This is John's book" or "That is my cat's favorite toy") and to indicate contractions ("I'll be back" or "He's more machine, now, than man"). We do not use the apostrophe to indicate plurality--ever. So all those fucking signs out there that advertise "CD's" are not only wrong, they are offensive. That's all fairly simple, I think, but now it's going to get complicated--if you're an idiot. See, people seem to have trouble...

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June 4, 2008

I Fucking Hate You, Hillary Fucking Clinton

I'm going to draw an analogy between what Hillary Fucking Clinton has been up to and a not entirely hypothetical from my own life. First I'll present what Hillary Fucking Clinton actually did, then I'll make a plausible analogy about myself. For context, I'll be using a hypothetical about the one time I've run for an elected position in my life: Law Review elections. What Hillary Fucking Clinton did: Acknowledge that the delegates from Florida and Michigan wouldn't count but then campaign there, anyway. Hypothetical analogy from my own life: Proxy voting is allowed at Law Review elections, but only...

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May 27, 2008

The Secrets of Flipping

Flipping houses can be a lucrative endeavor. Unfortunately, it can also be extremely risky. The novice house-flipper should, therefore, be wary and keep several general things in mind. Remember, for example, not to get personally involved in your investment: you're not going to live there, don't design the house for yourself. Beyond that, there are a few specific and time-tested secrets a new flipper should keep in mind. Here's a short list. it is not exhaustive. When in doubt, use travertine. Travertine offers the strength and versatility of marble and granite without the great expense. And it doesn't look too...

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May 25, 2008

Three-Day What Now?

Apparently this is a three-day weekend. I had no idea that was the case until I was in court Friday and saw a little sign saying the courthouse would be closed on Monday. That's cool. Anyway, because I had absolutely no idea that this was one of those weekends where we were supposed to do something fun and three-day long, I didn't have any real plans. But that hasn't seemed to stop me from having a great time, anyway. On Friday, Bluebunny and a man I'll refer to as Peterr came up from Chicago and, despite my dire warnings earlier...

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May 20, 2008

I Like it in Flyover Country, Thank You Very Much

As you all probably know, I grew up in Arizona. Whether that constitutes the "West Coast" is open to debate, and I really don't care. But, in any event, I spent lots of time in Los Angeles when I was a kid, so I feel qualified to comment on various things about the region. For example, it fucking sucks. But, aside from that, it is clear to me that, at least compared to people from Los Angeles, people from Wisconsin are almost unbelievably nice. Some of the people I love most are from L.A., but that doesn't change the fact...

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May 12, 2008

I Love My Mom

Yes, today was Mother's Day. I called my mom at about 7pm local time, and the first thing she said was "Son, I thought you had forgotten about me!" Of course, I hadn't forgotten about my mom. I don't see how I ever could. I think I've written before about how when I was a little kid I saved up for a long time--well, what seemed like a long time, anyway--to have enough money to buy this giant Lego pirate ship. I couldn't wait to get it, so when I finally had the roughly $100 that it was going to...

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May 8, 2008

Concerning Rules and Metablogging

I assume that most bloggers are like me in exactly one respect: they all have unspoken rules for how they run their blog. This blog is a highly personal thing, so I try to maintain some sort of consistency, even though I doubt that anyone realizes that I do or don't do certain things, mostly because they're such strange things. One of these things, for example, is that I generally try to refer to people by the proper honorific and their last name. Sometimes--like when I get tired of writing "Mr." or determine that a certain combination ("Mr. Obama") just...

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April 29, 2008

What's the Point, Really?

I was walking to the courthouse here in Madison yesterday when I found that I was surrounded by people with signs and shit. There were about seven people, each holding antiwar signs. Some of them had slogans on them like "Honk to end the war." And a few passing drivers would honk. But I just thought to myself "What the fuck do you hope to accomplish here?" I mean, certainly you're not hoping to raise awareness. Everyone knows we're at war, right? I mean, most people do. And the people that don't probably can't even read your signs, so they...

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That Was a Fucked-Up Dream

I've mentioned before that I don't usually have or remember my dreams. Well, last night's bizarre series of dreams makes me sort of sad about that cause I was damn entertained. I may have forgotten some of the details or the order her, but I think you'll get the gist. Ok, it started with Mr. Vice and I being at a park or somewhere, potentially with other people. We were walking around sort of at dusk. I know that it was a work night, so we were both thinking that it was time to get home pretty soon. Then I...

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March 10, 2008

Harbingers of Doom

We are fucked. Oil prices are breaking new records every day. We are mired in an endless war. Our President doesn't seem to mind torture. Our leaders are more corrupt than ever. Or perhaps they're not, which is even scarier. Yes, it seems that at almost every turn, we are confronted by evidence that our entire civilization is heading for the shit can. But the most compelling evidence that our culture is (rightfully) doomed comes from Hollywood. Yes, at a time when the entire entertainment industry seems to be completely out of original ideas and left with no option but...

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February 28, 2008

Ridiculous Shit that Happened Today

First, remember that special Best Buy was offering on Blackberrys? The one that jackass told me would be over last Friday? Well, I was at the Best Buy looking at something we need for the office today--something that was incredibly overpriced--and, just out of curiosity, I went and saw what the normal, nonsale price on the Blackberry was. To my shock, the price tag still said $79. Well, what the fuck is that, I thought. This sale was supposed to be over almost a week ago. So I asked the woman who was there if that was some sort of...

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February 26, 2008

If You Were My Daughters, I'd Disown You

Through the years, I've known a lot of people that were completely full of themselves. But none of the people I've ever met have been as completely and egregiously diluted as the two eighteen-year-old girls who are accusing Southwest Airlines of discriminating against them because they're too pretty. These girls sound like some of the most worthless human beings on the fucking planet. Let's take a look at some of the unbelievable treatment they were subjected to because of their unbelievable looks.As soon as they boarded, [Nisreen] Swedberg says she asked for a bottle of water and was told she...

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February 24, 2008

I'm Kicking Ass and Taking Names

I'm not sure if people would describe me as a pushover, but there have been a lot of times in the past when I haven't stood up for myself to the extent that I probably should have. I'm not talking about interpersonal situations so much, but rather about my dealings with institutions. For some reason, there have been many situations in which I take someone's word for something or just let something go without fighting as hard as I could or should. Regardless of my personality with my peers, I've always been less than assertive with respect to authority figures....

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February 21, 2008

Apology to the Guy at the Best Buy (This Time, the One in the Cell Phone Department)

I acknowledge that I owe you an apology, Guy at the Best Buy, but let me explain my side of the story first. My phone contract with my current company is about to run out. That means I get to buy a new phone, which, for someone as obsessed with technology as me, is just way too fun. I was extremely excited to see, then, that Best Buy has the Blackberry Curve on sale for $80. That's a fucking bargain. But here's the rub, Guy at the Best Buy: my contract with Alltel, my current cell-phone people, doesn't expire until...

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Fuck You, Technology

Now, don't get me wrong, there are few things I love as much as new-fangled gadgets. If there's a needlessly technological way to do something simple, I want it. And if there's some fancy new equipment out there, I want that, too. For example, I don't know how I've lived this long without GPS--how can I go on without knowing my exact location on the surface of the Earth? Still, there are time when technology lets you down in a profound way. Today was one of those times. It all started innocently enough--the "ABS" light in my car came on...

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February 6, 2008

Vignettes

Scene One: Finally! We find our protagonist shoveling the sidewalk for the second time that day. Being from a state with a warm climate, this whole "shoveling snow" thing is new to him. And he doesn't like it. Not one bit. His mind is focused on one thought: if it wasn't for the phone company, he'd be at home right now. And he'd be warm and dry. Instead he's cold and wet because of the snow. But then, after seven hours of waiting, the phone rings and, yes, it is the phone company. They are on their way. The ordeal...

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January 28, 2008

It Makes Me So Angry . . . . (Updated)

I am not an ad executive. I have never been to business school or even taken a marketing class. I have never written copy or tried to sell anything. I am completely naive as to what it takes to brand and sell a product. I want you all to keep this in mind for what follows. You see, although I am completely ignorant as to what it takes to market a product, I would assume--based on nothing other than common sense (which apparently tells some people that the ass is a reproductive organ)--that an advertising campaign that makes anyone that...

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January 27, 2008

Of Repression and Butt Babies

Apparently, the FCC, those minions of repression and near fascism, have decided to fine ABC almost $1.5 million after it showed a naked female butt during prime time. There are a couple of things I'd like to say here. First of all, our society really needs to get its head out of its ass. Everyone has butts, just like some people have tits and vaginas and other people have cocks. It's not the fucking end of the world, and it's a stupid attitude to decide that all nudity is inherently offensive or sexual or whatever. I mean, seriously. Why do...

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January 19, 2008

With Apologies to Dee . . .

I watched the movie Gone Baby Gone last night. It was really, really good, which is hard for me to admit seeing as how there were two Afflecks involved in its production. But the movie was very well written and surprisingly unafflecky. And the younger Affleck did a very good job. Except in one crucial aspect of his performance: his infuriating Boston accent. Now, I've only been to Boston once--on a school trip when I was a little kid. I remember liking it a lot because we got to see a bunch of really cool American history-related things. I do...

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January 17, 2008

Tom Cruise Is the Bat-Shit Craziest

Most of you have probably seen this already, but I just think it's too funny in the creepiest possible way not to post. It's apparently a video produced by the "Church" of Scientology for internal purposes. They're apparently pissed that it got out. And with good reason, because I don't see how anyone could take them seriously after this. Not that there were any reasons to think they were legitimate before. Anyway, without further ado, I give you perhaps the craziest, creepiest person in Hollywood, which is saying a lot (incidentally, Mr. Cruise uses some jargon that I wasn't familiar...

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January 16, 2008

Advice!

I fucking love Savage Love. There's something infinitely entertaining about reading letters in which people reveal how fucked up their lives are. It's also sort of interesting to see how stupid people are. I mean, how much sense does it take to know you've gotta leave someone even if they're really nice to you between the beatings? Unfortunately, Dan's latest columns have been kind of lame. I mean, why did he decide to field the question by the girl who felt strange about wearing panties with Disney princesses on them? Not only is that hot in itself, most of the...

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January 15, 2008

Concerning Philosophy and Los Pitufos

For various reasons, not the least of which is that I didn't really do a lot of interesting things today, I don't have anything interesting to write about concerning what's currently going on. I did, however, see an interesting story on CNN.com that reminded me of an interesting character I met in college, and I thought it might make for an interesting post. As I've said, I was a philosophy major in college, and, as such, I took a hell of a lot of philosophy classes. As it turns out, there was a small group of people that took a...

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January 12, 2008

Allez Zombies!

Attention Iron Chef America fans! What this trailer for a movie called I Am Omega, which is apparently a horrible, low-budget I Am Legend rip off. Notice anything--or anyone--familiar? It sort of blows my mind to see him in a different context. As long as there's no Mario Batali or Alton Brown sex tape, though, I'm fine with it....

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January 9, 2008

My Political Strategy

Here's what I would do if I was Hillary Clinton. I'd call up Barack Obama and this is what I'd say:Look, dude, let's do this. You drop out of the race. Then, when I win the nomination--and I will. I mean, c'mon, Richardson is a joke. And did you even know that Kucinich was still running? I know, isn't that crazy? Anyway, I mean, there's Edwards, but he's just such a huge tool... Anyway, you drop out of the race. Then, when I win the nomination, I promise to make you my running mate. That way, look, we save literally...

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January 3, 2008

Germophobes Are Stupid

One time in college, I was at a movie theater with some friends. One of my friends and I were in the restroom just before the show. We washed our hands, and headed for the exit. I noticed that my friend took his long shirt sleeve and wrapped his hand in it before touching the door handle. "What the fuck are you doing?" I asked him. "Can you imagine all the people who come in here every day and don't wash their hands and then touch this handle? I don't want other people's shit on my hand." "You're a fucking...

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December 13, 2007

Christmastime Has Come

It hadn't actually occurred to me how close it is to Christmas until I was at the mall today. I was helping a friend do some Christmas shopping and the store was playing Christmas music. I recognize the song, but it took me a little while to realize that they were playing The Smashing Pumpkins. I had actually completely forgotten that SP had recorded a Christmas song sometime after Siamese Dream but before Mellon Collie. Anyway, the song actually took me from being completely out of the Christmas spirit to being completely in it--I'm really excited about it now. Which...

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December 12, 2007

NoooOOOOOooooOOOoo!

This is bad news on so many different levels. At least the other, hotter Jessica isn't knocked up yet:...

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December 11, 2007

"I Can't Promise I'll Try, but I'll Try to Try."

I hate a lot of people. I don't want them to die or really to suffer or anything, but I don't want to be in the same room as them and, if pushed, will be a huge asshole to them. And sometimes I'll do that even when I'm not pushed. I was thinking recently that maybe I should try to stop hating people so much or so easily. Then I started thinking about some of the reasons that I hate certain people. For example, I hate people for all of the following reasons: Because the person is a date rapist....

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December 10, 2007

"My Father's Gonna Hurt Me"?

In college, my friend--let's call her Valentine--was notorious for misunderstanding song lyrics. The title of this post is a reference to one of her most endearing blunders: she thought that, in "Why Bother," Rivers Cuomo sings "My father's gonna hurt me" instead of "Why bother, it's gonna hurt me." I referenced another of her misunderstandings here: she thought that the chorus to The Pixies' "Hey" is "We're shoot to aim," rather than "We're chained." In any event, her interpretation of song lyrics was always good for a laugh. But now I fear that I might have significantly misunderstood some song...

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November 19, 2007

Apology to the Guy at the Best Buy

For various reasons, it was imperative that Mr. Utah replace his dead laptop this weekend. Partially to that end, he drove down to Madison from his home in the North. L-Dawg and I took him to Best Buy to check out the selection. That was our first mistake. See, the Best Buy rarely has the best buys. In fact, I hate the Best Buy. If it wasn't for the fact that they're the largest electronics store in the city, I'd never go there. Fuck them. Their computer selection was underwhelming, to say the least. That, combined with Mr. Utah's frugal--almost...

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November 17, 2007

You Probably Don't Measure Up

Although I have no evidence to support this conclusion, I'm fairly certain that there are a large number of female readers of this blog that want me. Like, sexually. While I'd love nothing more than to satisfy you all in some sort of huge orgy scenario, I'm really pretty much into monagamy. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to post some of the things I must and must not have in a woman. If this is you, then you win. If not, then please try to move on with your life and know that someday, somewhere, you'll...

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November 15, 2007

Pictures

I've been pretty bad about taking and sharing pictures lately, so here are some. These first few are from my recent trip to Chicago. Here's a nice one of RPM and Bluebunny: Next up is a few we took on our tour of haunted Chicago. See if you can spot any "orbs." If you can, you're seeing photographic evidence of a ghost. Not as convincing as the historical evidence for vampires, but still pretty compelling: Then, here are some from later that night when we were all hanging out at a bar. These are all examples of Bluebunny's "pictures taken...

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November 1, 2007

Apology to the Guy With the Scooter

Seeing as how I generally offend the vast majority of the people around me and, in some cases--as we're about to see--people who have never had any direct interaction with me, I've decided that I need to start apologizing to people. Seeing as how I rarely know the people I piss off, I think this is an appropriate forum. Now, here's the thing. L-Dawg and X-tina live downtown. There's not a lot of parking around there. Sometimes, I have to drive around their neighborhood for a good twenty minutes before I can find somewhere to park. And even when I...

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October 31, 2007

Bigfoot?

What do you think this is a picture of: According to the accompanying article, it's a picture a hunter's automatic forest camera took. The hunter, one Rick Jacobs, having never seen anything like the pictured object, immediately reported the pictures to--who else--the Bigfoot Research Organization. And the BRO, in an entirely unexpected move, concluded that the picture is, indeed, of a bigfoot or, more accurately, "a juvenile Sasquatch." The Pennsylvania Game Commission, however, believes that the picture is of nothing more than "a bear with a severe case of mange." Let's carefully parse each part of what's going on here....

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October 22, 2007

How Not to Write a Movie Review

I think I've mentioned before that I love reading good reviews for bad movies. A good bad-movie review can be really funny and entertaining. Like everything else, though, there are bad bad-movie reviews. And, of course, there are stupid bad-movie reviews. I found this example of a stupid bad-movie review, written by Armond White, the other day while looking on Rotten Tomatoes at the reviews of Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married?. Mr. White's review would border on offensive if it wasn't so stupid. So it promopted me to come up with a few general guidelines for writing a...

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October 13, 2007

Lord of the Earth

I was just watching the episode of Scrubs where Laverne dies. It got me started thinking about what I'd like to have done to my remains if I ever die. Some of you have already heard this idea, but i just want to get it down in writing so that you guys will actually do it. First, I want to be dressed in my top hat, a tuxedo, and that kick-ass pocket watch that co-SME gave me. Second, I want to be encased in a big, transparent lucite cube. Third, I want the words "Ismael Tapia II, Lord of the...

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September 28, 2007

Shenanigans at the Bank or I Fucking Hate the State of Arizona

Even though I graduated several months ago, I have yet to actually get licensed to practice law. The reason for this is that I put off the character and fitness application until pretty much the last day and, since then, Wisconsin has sent me on a scavenger hunt for various documents that would make even that guy from The Da Vinci Code dizzy. Still, after narrowly avoiding committing a felony, I'm finally at the point where I only need to collect one more document before I've given them everything they want. I only need to get a copy of my...

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September 26, 2007

Technology Makes My Neuroses Easier to Live With

I have absolutely no idea why, but I hate going to a store and knowing that the clerk knows exactly what's going on in my life or what I'm about to do based on what I'm buying. I hate going into a grocery store and buying just the ingredients for lasagna because the clerk knows that I'm going to make lasagna that night (and yes, I do know how to make lasagna). I hate going into a hardware store and buying just lightbulbs because the clerk knows that, somewhere in my apartment, a lightbulb is out. I don't know why...

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September 18, 2007

My Fucked-Up Sleeping Schedule

My sleeping schedule tends to get all fucked up anytime that I have a period of over a week where I don't have a consistent wake-up time. As I haven't had a consistent wake-up time for months, my sleep schedule is seriously fucked up. And I think I may be an insomniac now. For example, I got about eight hours of sleep total this weekend. Then I stayed up from about 11:30 Sunday morning until about 6:30 Monday morning. But I couldn't sleep, so I got back out of bed and didn't actually get to sleep until about 8:30 or...

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September 8, 2007

Plans for Next Weekend?

If you guys aren't doing anything, some frenchmen, Mrs. Bennison's first grade class, some actual ducks, and I are going to play the Michigan Wolverines. One of the little kids knows how to fold ninja stars out of paper, so I think we've got a pretty good chance. Anyone wanna come?...

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September 5, 2007

Psych!

Senator Larry Craig is one hell of a practical joker. In the past few months, he's successfully punk'd America no fewer than three times. First, according to the police report, Senator Craig--obviously seeking to bring some entertainment into the life of an undercover agent relegated to airport toilet duty (what the fuck do you have to do to end up assigned to sit in an airport toilet stall waiting for someone to proposition you for anal sex, anyway?)--decided to humor the poor schmuck and, through the use of Bond-like signals such as "tapping your right foot" and "sticking your fingers...

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August 31, 2007

I Hate Best Buy

Sending out resumes requires printing resumes. Since my printer was out of ink, it was therefore time to get more ink. That's simple enough, but it was still frustrating as all hell to get it done. The first problem was that I have a photo printer. Although my resume, cover letter, and writing sample are all completely in black, my printer refused to print anything at all because it said that it was out of several shades of color ink. I didn't see how that mattered, but the fucking thing refused to print. I had several extra cartridges of ink...

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August 30, 2007

New Poll!

It's finally time for a new poll. First, however, the results from the last poll. It turns out that the politician you'd most like to see hit by a sea bass is Hillary Clinton. That's not too much of a surprise. Strangely, however, Bill Richardson came in second. I didn't expect that at all. Why does everyone have to hate on the Mexican? Second, I have to give the new poll some context. After being gone for several weeks, L-dawg came back this weekend. Mr. Utah was also in town so, needless to say, we drank. At around five o'clock...

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August 29, 2007

Honor Shakespeare, Dishonor Nirvana

I went to see an outdoor performance of Much Ado About Nothing tonight. Although I have read several Shakespeare plays, this was the first time I actually got to see one performed. I thought it was pretty good, although I still think that Shakespeare is pretty ridiculous and the dialogue is sometimes impenetrable, especially when it's mumbled in an outdoor venue. Still, the outdoor stage made the whole thing much cooler, except for the part where it started raining really, really hard. But that only lasted for about ten mintues and, after a brief break, the play resumed. The second...

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August 27, 2007

I Win

Alright! I believe that all of the issues with the blog have been fixed, including the comment issue. I believe it's now possible to comment smoothly. I've just tested the comment thing, and it seems to work fine, so leave comments, people! There are still some problems with the templates not being applied evenly all around, but I'm working on that and it's only an aesthetic issue. So, I guess I'll tell you the story of why the blog's been more fucked up than normal lately. It all started a long time ago when my commenting system got fucked up....

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August 21, 2007

Embracing My Destiny

Because I don't currently have a job, go to school, or have other responsibilities, I've settled into a pretty ridiculous sedentary lifestyle. Because all of my friends are gone, on extended vacations, or gainfully employed, I haven't really been seeing very many people lately--I only saw four people other than myself today. At first, the transition from being super busy and extremely social to having absolutely nothing to do and no one to do it with was difficult. But I settled into it today--I've accepted my fate. And, goddamnit, if I'm going to be an unemployed bum, I'm going to...

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August 18, 2007

Superawesome

Mr. Vice, pH, and I went and watched Superbad tonight. The movie surpassed all of my expectations, even though I was expecting a lot. It was definitely funnier--though not necessarily better--than Knocked Up, and both Mr. Vice and pH thought it was funnier than Forty Year-Old Virgin, although the jury's still out on that for me. What this movie definitely was, though, was all-out hilarious, and it didn't spend a lot of time on sentimental or romantic stuff. That might be a negative for some people, but I liked it. Although I generally don't mind a love story in my...

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August 17, 2007

Here's a Question . . .

Why is my computer calling me a "loser" at seemingly random intervals. There is absolutely nothing at work right now that should be making any sound, let alone insulting me. What the fuck?...

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August 13, 2007

Getting the Hook Up or Stealing?

A few days ago, I was annoyed to find that, although I thought I had finally broken my cats of their habit of chewing through cables, they had chewed through my guitar cable, meaning that I couldn't play my electric guitars. So, the next day, I went down to the music store and bought a new cable. When I came home and plugged it in, everything seemed to be ok for a few minutes. Then, something strange happened: music was coming out of my amp, but I wasn't playing it. In fact, there was singing. And it was in Spanish....

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August 11, 2007

Tequila Night

As it turns out, I like Mexican food. Who would have thought? In any event, I ate so much ridiculous Mexican food tonight that I was neraly out of commission for tequila night. I swear, after chips and salsa, fajitas, water, and about sixteen margaritas, I was about to explode. And not at all buzzed. After some meandering, we ended up at the Silver Dollar, one of Madison's best dive bars. Co-SME showed up with his girlfriend, adding to the crowd consisting of me, pH, Mr. Vice, Mr. Utah, Emily-in-Chief, and New SAE. One of the night's main attractions, apparently,...

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August 5, 2007

Why the Fuck Is There a Song Called "Radar Love"?

I was driving around this afternoon listening to the local classic-rock station, The Lake. They usually stick to the pretty standard classic-rock stuff: the Beatles, the Stones, Hendrix, Led Zeppelin--that kind of stuff. It's usually pretty good, although they sometimes play some unmitigated crap--seriously, who the fuck likes progressive rock bullshit? Anyway, "Radar Love" came on. And I thought to myself "why the fuck does this sone exist?" It's such a terrible song! First of all, I hate call-and-response arrangements. If you can't come up with a better idea than to constantly switch back and forth between stupid lyrics and...

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The Old Man Is Snoring . . .

It's raining like a motherfucker. No, I don't mean, as Mr. Utah might think, that people are throwing money around. Instead, I mean that water is falling form the sky--a lot. Last night was pretty fun--it was Bluebunny's going away party, which was, of course, bittersweet. But I think everyone had a good time. Except for L-Dawg, who was far too drunk to even be aware of where he was. His extreme level of intoxication was due, surprisingly enough, to a new drink he invented. It's tentatively called an "Australian Tea," and involves peach-flavored crystal light, lots of rum, and...

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July 31, 2007

Madison, Wisconsin: Land of the Terrible Writers

There is apparently something called the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, the purpose of which is to find the worst opening sentence to a fake novel each year. The contest was inspired by the line "It was a dark and stormy night," which apparently actually is the first line of a really bad novel. In any event, would-be authors submit their horrible sentences each year, and the winner gets the grand prize--$250--and some well-deserved notoriety. If you go to the site, you can read some really, really awful sentences. My personal favorite is this one:She wasn't really my type, a hard-looking but...

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July 24, 2007

At Least I Wasn't Wearing My Superman Ones

So, here's what I did on the night before the second day of my bar exam. I had come back to the hotel pretty early. I decided I was hungry, so I decided that I was going to order room service bercause--fuck it, why not? So, I ordered up a club sandwhich and they said it'd be here in a few minutes. They asked me if I wanted anything to drink, and I said "no thanks." But I did want something to drink. I wanted water, which is what I drink almost exclusively. Unless I'm drinking booze. But that's a...

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July 4, 2007

I Am Not a Rockstar

I met some people at the High Noon Saloon last night for Gomeroke. I signed up to do "Livin' on a Prayer," but then started thinking that, given the date, it might be more appropriate to do "Born in the USA." The people I was with convinced me, though, that Bon Jovi was the way to go, so that's what I ended up doing. And I sucked. Part of the problem was that my vocals weren't coming through at all in the monitors, which meant that I had no way of knowing how my singing was relating to the music....

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June 30, 2007

"I Have So Many Ass-Blood Stories!"

For the first time in almost two months, we gathered at a table and played poker. It was awesome. The awesomeness culminated, I think, in Mr. Utah delivering the above line. I could give some context for the remark, I suppose, but I'm not going to. Another of my favorite moments was when L-dawg lost a significant amount of money to Eugene, who's known for playing in a completely ridiculous fashion. On this particular occassion, Eugene beat L-dawg with a Jack-five off-suit. And that's after there was a significant preflop raise. I love watching L-dawg lose. Bar/Bri sucks pretty hard....

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May 29, 2007

Concerning Sudan, Horses, and Sailing Ships

As promised, here it is: a transcript of Cliff Thompson's comencement speech. I got this from someone who got it from the person who transcribed the speech live for the hard of hearing at the ceremony. I've retyped it all, and I've attempted to correct any words that were spelled phonetically, but I may have missed some. In any event, this is what he said, and it's awesome.These remarks will be as incoherent as that lecture. At first I want to emphasize one of the important points made by Mr. Justice Butler, and that is that some years ago, not...

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May 17, 2007

My Plan for the Next Thirty-Six Hours

Today: Drive to Chicago, pick up mom, uncle, cousin, and godmother. [done] Drive back to Madison. [done] Drop family off at their hotel. [done] Go out. [not done--due to circumstances outside of my control, I didn't get back to Madison until about 1:40. I was pissed] Get drunk. [again, not done] Early tomorrow morning: Stumble through door. [done--I just got home, and it's 2:28am] Pass out. [about to be done] [done] Later tomorrow morning: Wake up. [done. ugh] Need more sleep. [done. ugh] Call cab, get to my car. [no need for cab] pick up family, go to awards brunch....

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April 26, 2007

New Poll! and a Rant About Those Young Whipper Snappers

Ok, it's been a while but, at the request of TheExpat, I've posted a new poll. But first, the results from the previous poll. It turns out that the thing the that you're most looking forward to about the summer is . . . warmth, which got 36 percent of the votes. That's not really surprising--even I, an admitted winter lover, was getting tired of the sub-thirty-degree weather. Second place, with 32 percent, was the new Harry Potter book. Neither of those is surprising, but what's mildly surprising is how heavily you guys favored those two: the next closest vote...

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April 11, 2007

Man, Wisconsin Kicks Ass

As the little header to this post indicates, today is April 11. About a month ago, we had a gorgeous spring day--it was about 80 degrees, there wasn't a cloud in the sky, there was a slight breeze. In short, it was an awesome day, and we all declared the arrival of spring. And, although I guess I was ready for spring, I was sad to see winter, my favorite season, go. Then, of course, I spent last week in Florida, where it was 84 and sunny every single day. Which, again, was awesome, but I don't know if I...

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April 6, 2007

Spring Break: Day Six: The Beach

We finally made it down to the beach together. We hung out in the water for a long time. It was probably a little bit cooler than I would haved liked, but it was still very nice. We got out of the water after a while and sat on the beach. And that's when my sunburn started. See, I'm opposed to wearing sunscreen. I'm Mexican, goddamnit, and my people have spent hundreds of years developing dark skin with the sole purpose of protecting us from the sun. I don't need the extra protection of stupid coconut-smelling, oily lotion. So, yes,...

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March 24, 2007

"Oh, He Couldn't Bring the Columns Down, He Couldn't Destroy a Single One"

I got a haircut today. My hair was longer than it had been since high school--it came down to my chin in the front. I told the girl at the place that I wanted to look clean-cut and professional, but also that I didn't want to look like a tool, so that she should leave it relatively long. She asked me if about half the length would be good, and I said that sounded perfect. My hair now is about an inch long. Which, unless my math is mistaken, is much, much shorter than half its previous length; my hair...

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March 21, 2007

Hall of Fame

Like last year, there were two short movies at this years Law Revue show. The first was "Community Justice Commandos II: Behind the Justice," a sequel to last year's film. The other was written by a certain Vic Yanz and was received incredibly well. I have to admit that it's fucking hilarious. The producer, Rachel Graham, has posted the video on Youtube in four sections. For those of you that missed the show (or if you just want to watch it again), here's Hall of Fame: Great work, Vic ad Rachel!...

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March 17, 2007

Concerning My Thursday and My Hair

The past few days have been exhausting. Thursday started out normally enough; I had to help prepare and distribute the last round of cite-check packets for the Law Review 2Ls. Then I had to go to my Negotiations class and finish up a group negotiation. Then, I had rehearsal for Law Revue, which was to be followed up, so the plan went, with several more hours of work. I got to school at around 11am and started getting the packets ready. But the process took much longer than we had anticipated because of a large number of completely unforeseeable things...

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March 14, 2007

The Seventh Thing to Love About Madison: Spring

Goddamn, it's was cold for a while. But it looks like winter is now mostly behind us. Although the official start to spring is still a few weeks away, we've had a precursor to the season of rebirth here in Madison. Where before there were huge piles of snow, there are now only large puddles, which themselves dry up rather quickly. Where before there were several frozen lakes, there are now mostly unfrozen lakes, although some idiots are still out there icefishing. Where before there were down jackets, there are now t-shirts, at least for me. It's a great feeling...

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February 17, 2007

Welcome to Rock Bottom

I know this isn't my usual schtick, but I just think this is so funny I have to comment. Britney Spears has apparently shaved her head and checked into rehab. Here's the picture from the Superficial: Man. Remember when she used to look like this? At this point, she might as well just give up. There's no comeback on the horizon for her. And speaking of comebacks, how the fuck does Nicolas Cage plan to rebound from Ghost Rider, which is currently rocking a 24 percent freshness rating at Rotten Tomatoes? God, I hate it when Hollywood puts out shitty...

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January 31, 2007

The Fourth Thing to Love About Madison: Bucky Badger

Now, I have to admit that the first time I ever saw Bucky, I thought he was the gayest mascot in the land. But that's because I saw the wood carving statute at State Street Brats, which, it must be admitted, is rather gay looking. But, since those first naive days of my 1L years, I've come to love Mr. Buckingham U. Badger. Bucky is the best mix of manly aggression and adorable cuteness. Yeah, he's technically part of the cheerleading squad, but he's also able to do something like sixty push ups when we're beating second-rate football teams like...

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January 26, 2007

"Sing Us a Song, You're the Piano Man . . ."

After working on Law Review stuff until about 10:30, I decided that I would join Cole, Kristin, Chris and others down at bar review. Tonight's bar review was at the Orpheum, a downtown movie theatre and bar. This was in spite of the fact that the original announcement said bar review was at the Great Dane, an altogether better and cooler bar. Still, a bunch of my friends decided they were going to go out, so I did, too. For various reasons, I was in kind of a bad mood tonight and was suffering from what I've decided to call...

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January 25, 2007

Random Thoughts on a Boring Day

Un-fucking-believable! I seriously don't plan on blogging only about this class from now on, but this is fucking ridiculous. We just had to "register our clickers." Well, other people did--I don't have a clicker. Anyway, this was the most absurd thing I've ever been involved with in law school. Basically, people's names scrolled down the screen and, at the right moment, people had to push one button, then another. It was the stupidest thing ever. And, to top it all off, we're going to have to do it again on Monday because it didn't work this time. Fucking amazing. I...

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January 23, 2007

Class Simulblog

Oh. My. God. So far, this class has been off to the most ridiculous start ever, so I'm giong to attempt a simulblog. Since I don't hate any of the people in the class (yet), I think I might be able to post this. 1:34--Ok, we're doing the clicker test. Thanks to the miracle of technology, we now know that there are a lot of 1Ls in the class. That brings us to the other point--there are a lot of 1Ls in the class. Oh, yeah, she just said "I think you benefit from having something to do with your...

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January 12, 2007

You Are Not Having the Best Night

The other night, a few of my friends and I were at this late-night gyros place on State Street. We were sitting in a booth; I had my back to the door and counter area, my friends were facing it. All of a sudden, my friends start laughing and saying things like "what the fuck." I turned around to find something I had not imagined was possible: Here are the other pictures, in case the first one wasn't clear enough: Yeah, that's a man in a wig, leather thong, high heels, and full-body catsuit thing. I have no idea what...

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December 29, 2006

Sometimes You've Got to Buy Yourself an Old Luxury Car

Nothing too interesting has happened for the past few days. Today, though, my aunt bought a car. A BMW. Convertible. From 1989. She's picking it up tomorrow. I kind of can't wait to drive it. I've never driven a convertible, and, given that the weather out here is anything but Christmas-y, tomorrow should be a perfect convertible driving day. The other thing that happened is that my uncle from Redwood City got here. He's a pretty cool guy. He owns this gardening and landscaping business in the bay area and he's pretty successful at it. Anyway, he started this foundation...

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December 11, 2006

This is Entirely Unacceptable!

Look. Wisconsin does a few things, but it does them well. First, we make beer. The beer here is better than the beer anywhere else. Fuck you if you don't agree. Second, we have brats. We have an annual bratfest, for fuck's sake, and we try to set a world record for the most brats eaten in a single weekend every time. Almost 200,000 brats in three days is nothing to sneeze at. Third, we drive drunk. Let me rephrase. I don't drive drunk, but a hell of a lot of people do. My 1L criminal law professor told us...

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December 6, 2006

Don't Do It, Claire!

You know how they used to say that marijuana was a "gateway drug" and that, if you smoked so much as one puff of pot, it was only a matter of months before you would find yourself making shit porn on the internet so that you could buy black-tar heroine? Well, I think that Paris Hilton is pretty much a "gateway trainwreck." If you start hanging out with Ms. HIlton, I think it's only a matter of days before your vagina makes its world debut. Put another way, there's no faster way to know that your life is a trainwreck...

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December 1, 2006

The Most Horrible TIme of the Year*

It's the most horrible time of the year With the 1Ls a-crying And frantically asking you "What's a voir dire?" It's the most horrible time of the year It's the shit-shittiest two weeks of all With those stressed-out study groups and no more class meetings For the rest of the fall It's the shit-shittiest two weeks of all They'll be checking your ID, making sure you're not nineteen, Ne'er mind the kids on the third flo' There'll be outlines for classes that everyone passes For exams from long, long ago It's the most horrible time of the year There'll be...

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November 11, 2006

Puttin' on the Ritz

I love to dress up. I don't know why, but I love wearing suits and stuff. It makes me feel like a real person or something. It makes me feel more powerful, more authoritative. And it's just plain cool. Still, I find something essentially boring about the normal business attire. For instance, white shirts are so fucking boring. I refuse to wear white dress shirts. I don't own a single one. All of my dress shirts are a much darker color, like maroon, royal purple, dark blue, grey, etc. I think this is much more unique and stylish. I also...

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November 7, 2006

"Maybe Now She'll Get Her Life Back on Track"

BRITNEY SPEARS AND K-FED ARE GETTING A DIVORCE!! I'll provide a link as soon as possible. For now, it's at the very top of cnn.com, under the breaking news banner. Article here! Who cares about the elections?...

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October 31, 2006

Maybe This Will Make Donnie Shut the Fuck Up (AKA: Another New Poll)

Gandalf by a landslide. Moving right along. At Donnie's request, I am now asking you to help decide, once and for all, which is the best Journey video. Your choices are as follows: Open Arms (Live) Faithfully Chain Reaction Why Can't This Night Go on Forever Separate Ways and Don't Stop Believin' Personally, I don't think anything can top Separate Ways. The keyboard on the wall and the drum kit made out of trash cans, in addition to the ridiculous premise (some woman walking around for no apparent reason) puts that video over the top. But, as always, you should...

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October 24, 2006

Are You Too Stupid to Do Math?

Having been a pizza delivery driver for a few years, I know that there's almost no reason at all to care about doing a good job. The prospects for job advancement in the field are slim to none, promotions generally involve a paycut (drivers have the potential to make a lot more money through tips than salaried managers), and most of the people in those jobs are doing them temporarily while in school or in order to buy more pot. On that note, most of them are high. Still, I think it's fair to expect at least a baseline level...

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October 13, 2006

I Just Want to Talk to a Person!

So, I got home just now and checked my mail. I had a thing from Charter, my cable company. In fact, I should say "the cable company." It's not like I had a choice. Anyway, I opened up the letter and found a letter saying that my payment for the month hadn't worked because my card was declined or something. Furthermore, my automatic payment that I had set up was now "suspended." I thought to myself: "Now, how the fuck could that happen? I know I've got more than enough money in my account to cover the cable bill. This...

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October 9, 2006

This One's For You, PJ

How 'bout them Yankees?...

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September 12, 2006

My Life is Complete!

Oh my god! Someone from NASA read my blog! How do I know? Because my site tracker told me so. Someone from the NASA.gov domain came to my site. How did they find my site? Apparently, they searched Google for the phrase "giant douchebag," which lead them to this post. And then they spent almost 5 minutes running around my blog. That's fucking awesome. Still, I wonder. How is it that an employee of NASA has time to search Google for such a stupid term? Shouldn't they be busier converting feet to meters or some such shit? I mean, I'm...

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August 24, 2006

My Family's Crazy and Scarface Sucks

We went out for my birthday yesterday, and it was a bit of a debacle. But I don't really want to talk about that. What I found funny was the way that my family acted. First, a little background. We had originally planned to go to this one restaurant. I drove my grandma in one car. My aunt drove my mom and Mia (my cousin Gloria's daughter) in another car. Gloria met us there in her car. Kaky met us there in her car. When we got to the first place, I decided it sucked and that I wouldn't have...

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August 22, 2006

All Out

So, my aunt and I went to the Morongo Casino today. She went and played her slots, and I once again tried my hand at live poker. I generally believe that, when you gamble, you should set aside a certain amount of money, consider it lost, and then see if you can keep any of it. I failed at keeping any of my money today. But that's ok, really. This was the first time I played in a casino in almost a year, and the first time I had played no limit as opposed to limit. I had a great...

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August 6, 2006

I Don't Like This Trend . . .

Alright. Up until last weekend, I had gone my whole life - roughly 24 11/12 years - without getting spat upon a single time. Now, in the course of about a week, I've been spat on twice. What the fuck is going on here? The most recent one happened Friday night. I had been out with some people, but decided that I was tired and I wanted to go home. We were up on the square, but my car was parked at the State Street ramp, so I had to walk around the square and down State Street. No big...

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August 3, 2006

Is Donald Rumsfeld an Idiot? You bet! Also, Bellatrix LeStrange and a New Family Member

Does he ask a bunch of rhetorical questions? Yes. Is it annoying as all get out? Gosh, yeah. Does he deserve to be shot? I think so. Do I have a link to some sort of corroboration about what I'm talking about? No, not right now. Would I appreciate one? Yeah, I think I would. In other news . . . Bellatrix LeStrange will be played by Helena Bonham Carter in the Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix movie and, hopefully, in the last two movies. I gotta admit that I don't know how I feel about it....

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August 1, 2006

Am I a Giant Douchebag?

So, as an addendum to the post where I asked you guys to identify the biggest douchebag, I submit this picture: In it, me and the office assistant for the Law Review do our best interpretations of some of the bigger douchebags in the original picture. I'm happy to say that the originals are still the best....

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July 27, 2006

Corporate America Can Suck My Ass!

Oh man. I fucking love seeing those I hate fail. And there's literally nothing I hate more than UPS. Fucking nothing. So, when I heard that their stock price tumbled, I was gleeful. My glee was mitigated somewhat by the fact that they still eared a shitload of money, but, you know, whatever. So, why do I hate UPS so much? I'll fucking tell you. It all started when I placed an order on Amazon.com. The fastest delivery option was UPS. Being impatient as I am, I decided to have my order shipped via UPS. A few days later, I...

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I Just Don't Think This is Accurate . . .

You scored as Average. You are an Average in the sexual arena. In better words: Bland. You are like a robot and follow the norm in moral standards. Count yourself lucky if you have sex at all. Lubricate those joints and get out there and live a little, try new stuff.Very Kinky70%Average70%A WUSS !!40%A Sicko10%How sexual are youcreated with QuizFarm.com How the fuck is it that I'm insultingly boring, but my runner up is "Very Kinky." What the fuck is that? Somehow, I'm so fucking boring that I'm a fucking robot, but I'm this close to being ridiculously kinky?...

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July 23, 2006

The International Douchebag Symbol

One time, in college, my friend Frank tried to make some sort of gang symbol with his hands. It was a huge failure. So, I took a shot, and thus was born the International Douchebag Symbol. Let's say you're sitting around at a bar, surrounded by your best friends, when, all of a sudden, you see a giant douchebag walk past. You want to point the douchebag out to your friends, but you can't say "douchebag" because the the guy would hear you and get hurt and shit. Or let's say you're at a bar with your female friend, and...

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July 20, 2006

Another Fucking Poll!

Ok, so "fuck" is the best curse word. No surprises. Let's move on. Ok, first, consider this picture (which I got from the cool and funny blog Confessions of a Litigious Mind): Now, if you're anything like me, you're thinking "Holy motherfucking shit! There are a lot of douchebags in that picture!" I know, I was blown away by it at first, too. But here's the thing. Using the picture below to identify each specific douchebag, vote on which one you think is the biggest. I know -- it's hard to pick just one, but I have faith in you!...

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July 15, 2006

"I Thought You Were Going to Ask About the Pig"

So, the President got really fired up about a fucking pig roast in Germany. How fired up? So fired up that even when a reporter politely implied that he should shut the fuck up about the goddamned pig, George Bush responded that he hadn't yet seen the pig, but would be happy to talk about the pig the next day. I'm all for talking about food. Especially exciting, awesome food like a whole roast pig. But when you're the leader of the free world and you're getting asked questions about Hezbollah, Israel, and a growing conflict where thousands of innocent...

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June 6, 2006

I'm Not The Man They Think I Am at All - Oh No, No, No - I'm a Rocket Man

You guys have to go here and check this out. Either the song is so awesome that it's meaning cannot be diluted, even by Captain Kirk, or my emotional state is even more far-gone than I had thought, but Mr. Shatner's rendition still speaks to me....

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April 27, 2006

Dorks

Alright. The time has come for me to fucking comment on something. I absolutely hate it when people who are absolutely not dorks claim to be dorks in an attempt to be cool. Listen to me: if you're super-popular and very socially adept, great. But don't fucking tell me that you're a dork because you read Harry Potter. Look, unless you can do the following things from memory, you are not a dork. Just so you guys know, i didn't look any of this shit up: Lord of the Rings Give at least one additional name for Gandalf.Name both of...

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April 11, 2006

I'm A Woman?

So, i went to the page that Katherine linked to, and entered this picture of me: It turns out that the celebrity i most resemble (71%) is Anna Lindh. Who the fuck is that?, you're wondering. No idea, but here's a picture: Still don't know who that is? Me either. Clearly, the fucking thing was fooled by my glasses. It had to have been the glasses because check out the next few celebrities: Hrithik Roshan (68%) Sir Elton John (63%)Hell, even Erica Durance, the super-hot Lois Lane from Smallville showed up (55%) because of the glasses.Moral of the story? My...

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April 9, 2006

Shoutout to F.X.V.

Courtesy of his Frank-ness, a little bitta titty....

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I Wasn't Ready For the Midget

I just watched all 12 chapters of Trapped in the Closet. I don't even have anything to say. It was so bad. Something's wrong with out society. That's all i have to offer. My god. UPDATE: As if the Trapped in the Closet train wreck wasn't bad enough on its own, the CliffNotes versions (chapters 1-5, 6-12) add to the hilarity substantially. Especially look at the glossaries and the essay questions....

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April 3, 2006

How To Tell a Certain Lawyer Joke

Here's one way to tell it: Man, it's cold outside. In fact, it's so cold that the lawyers have their hands in their own pockets. Here's another way to tell it: Man, it's cold outside. In fact, it's so cold that the lawyers have their hands in their own pockets. See the difference? Here's the real question, though: which is the correct way to tell it? Let me know your answer in the comments. CAUTION: answering wrong means you're probably a tool, and idiot, unfunny or all three....

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March 27, 2006

Masked Justice

So, yesterday we filmed for Law Revue (the show). We have two movies this year: the first is Brokeback Hill, starring Walter Dickey and Michael Smith as wanna-be Torts professors. The second is Community Justice Commandos. I was involved primarily in the second one, in the starring role of "Commando No. 1." The Commando costume includes the following: black shirt, black pants, black shoes, black tie, black judge's robe, black ski mask and black sunglasses. In order to film it, Cole and i had to run around the law school in the outfit i've just mentioned beating up undergrads and...

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March 25, 2006

What's Worse Than Undergrads in the Law Library?

How about undergrads playing with motherfucking colored pencils?!?!?!?! Seriously, there is an undergrad to the table to my left working with colored pencils. It doesn't look like he's coloring anything... i don't know what the fuck he's doing. But let me tell you, he's making an obscene amount of noise. It's like he doesn't know that wacking pencils together makes noise. And as if that wasn't bad enough, he seems to be making it a point to bang the pencils every time he changes colors. So, he's like "ok, i need red. there's the red, completely away from all the...

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So Was Zachar RIght?

So, i shared Katherine's outrage and shock when Vin Diesel announced that he was a serious actor. The whole world came into question. Now, however, the Vin Diesel movie in question, Find Me Guilty, has been released and we can examine whether Vin Diesel really should be taken seriously or whether he's just a muscular moron. Here now are some excerpts from the Find Me Guilty page at Rottentomatoes.com: "It shouldn't work, but the story runs on pure Diesel." "It fails on almost every level possible to fail on" "Diesel owns it. He hits us in the eye with the...

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March 23, 2006

You Know You're In Wisconsin When . . .

I had this conversation today in the atrium after seeing that it's snowing pretty hard: Me: Why is it snowing? Friend: Because it's spring. Man, it feels like winter has been going on forever....

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March 21, 2006

Spring Break: Day Nine: All Good Things . . .

10:39 am Final cleanup of the room has started. Zachar is massively hung over. I’m doin’ alright. Cole’s ready for first shift, I’m taking second. Man, it’s really over... 12:40 pm Just had lunch at the Denny’s across the street from the beautiful Monaco. Now we’re heading north on A1A, beginning our 24-hour trek to Wisconsin. We’re keeping the music low in order to avoid “noise-induced vomiting� on Zachar’s part. We walked down to the beach one last time before we left. Man, it’s beautiful down here. It’s hard to leave, especially considering all the work we have to do....

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Spring Break: Day Eight: South Beach

7:23 pm Today is our last full day in Florida. We woke up at about 1. I was only slightly hung over. After our final covertly prepared meal, we got ready to go down to South Beach. I wore pants, planning to change later. The reason for this is that I had to rinse my swim trunks and didn’t want to wear them for the half-hour drive while they were wet. Why did I have to rinse them, you ask? Well, you see, something very strange is happening. I don’t know what it is, but all of my swim trunks...

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Spring Break: Day Seven: Popozao and Pax Americana

DISCLAIMER: I was drunk when I wrote this. I've left all the spelling errors and stuff in for flavor. The first thing we did today was cooking burgers covertyly. The first thing Ryan saw was Russian douchebags in their thongs. Then, we decided that it was time to leave, so we went down to our parking lot. On our way down, we saw those fucking Russian douchebags in their ass-flossy-man-thongs. And the Lord said it was bad. We got down to the seXterra, and we realized that the stupid sluts from North Carolina also drove an Xterra. Ryan came up...

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Spring Break: Day Six: King Three Off-Suit and Telekinesis

Surprisingly, we woke up late today. Cole and Chris went down to the beach at about 1. Ryan and I continued to sleep. Ryan got up a while later and went for a walk. I stayed in bed until about 3 or so. Then we played some shuffleboard, Cole and I against Ryan and Chris. Cole and I got our asses kicked. Twice. After shuffleboard, we left the beautiful Monaco Resort heading for the most amazing place on Earth: the Crazy Buffet. That’s right, once again, we paid an unbelievably small amount of money (this time $18, because it’s a...

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March 20, 2006

Spring Break: Day Three: Us Against The Man

5:17 pm We woke up this morning at about 11. It was a good night’s sleep. Zachar apparently talked in his sleep last night. About greyhounds. Our first mission was to get food. We went to the Denny’s across the street and liked it. Next, we went to Wal-Mart and bought a massive amount of food, as well as an electric George Foreman-type grill. This is the only way we can make our own food, it turns out, because grills are not allowed in the hotel or on the beach. We also got a bunch of hamburgers and brats. We...

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Spring Break: Day Two: Florida is a Long Fucking Cock

Eventually, under the control and stewardship of Mr. McNamara, we penetrated Tennessee. At long last, the South and I had come face to face. Since that time, I have counted a mere 5 confederate flags. I now can see that my fear of being lynched was largely unfounded. Still, the South is a strange fucking place. Tennessee was an interesting place. There began to be landscape again, an interesting change from the vast expanse of wasteland that was southern Illinois. We saw a sign that said: “Beaver Carpets.� I don’t know if it was the slap-happiness, but that fucking sign...

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Spring Break: Day One: Skunks and Antiques

I had never been through southern Illinois, really. Maybe the time I went to Cuba, Il. I don’t really remember. In any event, we went through Southern Illinois today and let me tell you: it fucking sucks. First, a review of the events to this point: The pick ups were all smoothly executed. After a triumphant farewell meal at Burger King (after which a suitcase attacked Zachar) we departed. We drove through Rockford and then around Chicago. Eventually, we found ourselves driving through southern Illinois. We made the following observations: There is a city called “Dix, IL�There is a city...

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A Spring Break Primer: Know Your Spring Breakers

First, an introduction to the cast of characters: This is Chris "The Hammer" Zachar, the most hilarious partner in Tapia, Zachar, Ruby & McNamara. His killing power is off the charts. Next up: Mr. Ryan Patrick McNamara. Don't let the quiet demeanor fool you, Ryan's a crazy son of a bitch: Ryan can drink seven bottles of vodka and not so much as slur. Next, I present Cole "The Ocho-Wrangler" Ruby. He might not drink, but he sure knows his way around an oreo cookie. More importantly, he knows how to keep it together when man-thong wearing Russians take over...

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March 7, 2006

Strange Happenings At the Jiffy Lube

Ok, i was at the Jiffy Lube yesterday getting an oil change in preparation for our road trip down to Florida. I was in the little waiting room when one of the strangest things i've ever seen happened. I'm going to try really hard to describe this in the most politically correct terms possible. Uncharacteristic, you say? Probably, but this involves a group which i genuinely am hesitant to make fun of. Ok, here's the story. I'm in the waiting room. Two guys come in. One of the guys is wearing an Oregon Fire Department shit. For those of you...

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March 2, 2006

Pancakes

I went to Door County, Wisconsin yesterday. "So?" you say. Sure, but i went at 3am. Still don't see why it's a big deal? Well, Door County and Madison are separated by over 200 miles. Sound a little more impressive? That's right, at 3am on Wednesday morning, i embarked on an almost four hour drive to Northern Wisconsin. Why? Because Katherine made me. Allow me to elaborate. I'm sitting in my apartment at about 11 on Tuesday night. I'm thinking it'll be a great, quiet night at home. I'm watching an episode of the fifth season of The West Wing,...

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February 25, 2006

Tito's, Poker, Perkins

'Twas a marquee evening tonight. First, Ryan procured bottles of Tito's vodka. It lived up to the hype as well as could be imagined. It's good, but not the best vodka i've ever had. I still think that's Level, by a mile. We played poker. Somehow, i lost $15. Laurence won, get this, $35. That's thirty-five dollars, US. Each buy-in was $5. That means that Laurence single-handedly took 7 buy ins. Un-fucking-believable. This beats the previous record of most money earned by a single person in a single night. The previous record holder was Cole at $31. Laurence had $20...

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February 24, 2006

Random Shit That's On My Mind

1. Why the fuck is Bono nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize again? I'm sorry, but he's a (shitty) rock star. He needs to accept his place in the world and stick to it. If he wants to write a song about forgiving 3rd world contries' debt, that's his business, but, for the love of god, stay out of the international policymaking arena. This is part of a larger trend, already discussed by Katherine, where organizations seem to be falling all over themselves in an attempt to lavish even more undeserved praise on U2 and it's members. Next thing you...

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February 23, 2006

What the Fuck is Wrong With the "F-Bomb"

Ok, if anyone knows me or reads this thing or meets me or sees me in the atrium or passes me in the street, they know that my absolute, all-time favorite word is "fuck." For an excellent explication of why fuck is the best word ever, go here. (I think that may have been written by Monty Python, i'm not really sure. I'm getting conflicting reports on this.) In any event, there's nothing wrong with "fuck." I mean, i use the word so casually, i don't even realize i'm saying it half the time. That has gotten me in just...

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The Source

Prompted by PJ's story of unbelievable idiocy, i did some wikipedia research. The habanero article at wikipedia noted that Habanero peppers are widely considered to be very fucking hot. So hot, in fact, that they generally rate at about 100,000 to 350,000 Scoville units. Wondering what the fuck Scoville units are, i clicked over to the article on Scoville units. It turns out that the Scoville scale is a way of ranking and quantifying hotness. Originally, the Scoville measurement would be determined by diluting the hot stuff being tested in sugar water in decreasing concentration until a panel of 5...

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The Stupidest Person I Know

Today, via IM, PJ informed me that he had taken an habanero pepper, cut slits down the side, put it in Tito's vodka, and then drank. His justification was that he had read (at the Tito's webpage, i believe) that this was "good for you." At the time that he reported this to me, PJ had been eating bread and guzzling milk for half an hour. Worst of all, he wasted perfectly good vodka. I beleive that this clearly makes PJ the stupidest person i know....

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February 20, 2006

Vodka.

Vodka has long been my favorite liquor. I pretty much love it in all forms: on the rocks, vodka gimlets, vodka tonics, vodka sours. I do prefer dirty gin martinis, but vodka martinis will do in a pinch. This begs the question, of course, of what vodka is my favorite. Well, i've had many vodkas: Grey Goose, Svedka, Stoli's, Finlandia, Skyy, and even Philip's, which is even worse than you'd imagine a cheap, plastic-bottled vodka could be. However, to this day, i have had no better vodka than Level, which was the first bottle of alcohol that was ever opened...

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February 16, 2006

Well I Will be Goddamned

Punk's getting married. I guess this is what the twilight zone feels like....

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February 15, 2006

A Brief Explanation of What's Wrong With All of Us

So, Valentine's Day has now come and gone and, as i pointed out, i spent it alone. Again. In addition, it is now official: i'm sick. There's no way around that. So, i spend most of the afternoon in bed, trying to not be sick. Instead i just slept and then felt more sick when i woke up. In any event, now i can't sleep, and i was lying in bed thinking, and my current predicament (the whole thing with my being alone) was on my mind. So, here's what i've come up with. On the one hand, girls are...

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February 11, 2006

Fuck Everything, We're Doing Five Blades

Well, i will be goddamned. In another amazing sample of life following (hilarious) art, the Gillette company has actually released a fucking razor with five blades. Yeah, five fucking blades. Six, if you count the one on the back of the thing for "precision shaving." The truly amazing thing is that The Onion foresaw this a few years ago in what is, to this day, my favorite Onion article ever. Check it out here. I swear, i would put money on Gillette having been inspired by this article. Here are a few choice excerpts: Would someone tell me how this...

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January 31, 2006

Fun with Robin, More Fun With South Park, and Credit Where Credit is Due

This film is funny. I'm not going to claim it's hilarious, but it's funny. Especially if, like me, you enjoy this type of humor. I particularly enjoy the depiction of Batman. Also, here's the south park version of my friend Frank and his fiancee anne. i believe it's spelled with the "e." I believe it's a reasonable representation, plus i think it's cute (and therefore repulsive) that frank figured out a way to include two characters in the picture. Man, who would have thought that our boy frank would turn into that guy?Anyway, check out the film.Oh, also, frank...

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January 30, 2006

Stranger Than Fiction . . .

Man, there are so many things wrong with this story, i don't even know where to begin. I mean . . . the primary issue, of course, is that the woman was 56. If you've reached the point in your fetishistic fantasies that you're paying someone to do this stuff to you, why not pay for an attractive younger lady. Unless age is part of the fetish, i suppose, but that just makes things strange. Aside from that, though, there are so many systemic failures and idiots involved in this story (i count at least four individual idiots and one...

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January 24, 2006

Letterman and O'Reilly

Don't get me wrong. I fucking hate David Letterman. And his little dog, Paul Schafer, too. If i could, i would jump through the tv and kick their motherfucking asses. Still, this video shows that even Letterman can not suck every now and then. It's a little old, but entertaining nonetheless. I hadn't seen it, but perhaps the more savvy readers have. In any event, enjoy it. Then post a comment with your own rip at O'Reilly. Or Letterman. Or Schafer who, in classic form, does nothing but parrot Letterman. God, i hate Paul Schafer. Correction: So, i was looking...

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January 14, 2006

World Domination . .

Ok, second straight night of Risk at Ryan's place. Just yesterday, i talked to PJ, and we lamented that neither of our new group of friends was into Risk. Well, i bought Risk yesterday, took it to Ryan's, and Cole, Chris, Ryan and myself played two rounds of mission Risk. Chris won the first, i won the second. Turns out, everyone loved the game because today, when we were talking about what to do, Cole suggested Risk and everyone went along. i was excited. So, i took the board to Ryan's and we set it up. The first round was...

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