go...

METROed

So I was coming home on the Metro last week after getting back from a business trip in San Antonio where I failed to get any ass, but got a lukewarm promise from a cute waitress to give my co-worker a call (and thereby contact me) if she got a job with the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency and ended up moving to the Greater D.C. Area. Ill-prepared as always, I forgot to pack business cards. The odds of her calling are stacked against me as it would require an extraordinary confluence of events not seen since the Three-headed Nor’easter that caused the storm that led to George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg’s untimely death in The Perfect Storm. Devin, my waitress, would have to pass a background check, meaning no history of experimentation with narcotics or three-ways, and she would also have to appear to be the best choice among all the other candidates with the NGA, and if this is true she would have to decide that she no longer wants to waitress at Swigs, and that she does want to pursue a career in intelligence in the Greater D.C area and actually move to the area, and then remember that she met a cute/ funny guy at her bar who offered to talk to her boss and ask if she could leave early, and that she doesn’t have his contact information, but does have the contact information of his co-worker who may not even be his co-worker by the time she moves to the area. And then she has to actually call. Good luck, Sam.

I get off at my Metro stop and the gates don’t let me through, apparently I do not have enough money on my card to meet the exit fare requirements. I have no cash on me as I was misled into believing that cash was rendered useless in this Digital Age of ours. Tired and probably looking like a friendlier version of Mohammad Atta, I approach the gate-attendant to find an appropriate solution to my problem. According to the lady, my coming to the gate with no money was pre-meditated.
Yes lady, I am doing this on purpose just to make your day worse. I want to take advantage of both you and the MTA. Maybe I can get your supervisor to reprimand you or better yet, fire you.
I tell this idiot that I am a daily-rider of the Metro and that I pay full fare everyday. I pay fare to a system that charges peak rates from 2AM to 3AM when the trains are sparsely populated, a system that arrests a lady for eating a Payday while riding the escalator down to the concourse.
I even have two metro cards which when combined equal $4.00; more than enough to cover the exit fare. $2.40 + $1.60 > $3.55 I explain to the lady. I offer this as evidence of my paying for the fare, and I state that I am an unfortunate victim of circumstance. Just when I think that things cannot get any worse the lady informs me that my $2.40 metro card actually contains no money. The lady tells me that this is my fault since the card is in my possession. “But I bought the ticket from your machine,” I counter. The lady yells at me some more, and finally says that she doesn’t want to see my face. She opens the exits gate and tells me to leave.

tarr's letter

Aaron is going to school in a foreign country because he is either a communist or just a turncoat. He wrote Adam an email:

I got here on tuesday and don't have to register for
classes until tomorrow. My first real class is on
tuesday but the professor already told us that the
point of it will be to get drunk. We had a department
meeting on friday in which they gave us the keys to
our offices. Yes, I have my own office in the
department building, you stupid fuck. I feel
important, and I am. I shall make contributions to my
field, the likes of which you can only dream about.
That's how important I am.

I live with more Chineese people than I thought
existed. I hang out with a Polish guy named Marcin
and a German guy named Frank who doesn't speak very
good English but really wants to fuck British girls.
They are both hilarious, Frank because he says things
in the absolutely most stereotypically German way. He
has not patience for people who lack strength,
determination, or efficiency. He yells at the
Chineese people for speaking mandarin around him. The
Chineese people worship us as gods because we tower
over them and we are all blonde. Frank and Marcin are
both about 6 foot 3. The little Chinky bastards
scamper like roaches when we walk into a room. I have
befriended one named "Simon" although that is not his
real name, which is completely un-pronounceable.
Simon's goal in Liverpool is to "get fat" as he puts
it. He and his girlfriend weigh a grand total of
about 150 pounds. If you laid them length-wise they
would fit in the trunk of any midsized sedan. Frank,
Marcin, and I made Simon carry our television up the
hill from the city centre to work his arms and lats,
then we made him eat a half-gallon of ice cream. Then
we scared his girlfriend by being large and white.
Then he fell asleep on our kitchen table as a guy from
Aros (a place I thought was a mythical Island in the
clouds but is apparently a real place) yelled at him
in flemish (which I thought was what the Amish spoke.
I was wrong). The little Bastard clogged our sink
with rice paddies (I'm not kidding). He deserved the
ire of the greeks.

I have a series of papers due between the 7th and 10th
of January, but all other times are good.

Shut Up,

Tarr

haha. Yes, shut up.

I really had to go

So, yesterday I went hiking about 30 mile northeast of Phoenix in the McDowell Mountains. The trail wasn't too mountainous though, and it was pretty flat. I did really make me want to drop a huge deuce though, so I did, right here.....

I then came across the dreaded and feared Jumping Cholla, famous for delivering a debilitating Hot Needle Spray. It looked fierce, and ready for a fight.

Unfortunately, my hiking trip was cut short when a Hot Needle Spray was delivered and my dong was left lying on the desert floor. Get up brother.

Test (icle)

I am preparing for my role in Last of the Mohicans 2: Chingatchgook in the City.

counting coup

read this:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39980-2004Sep21.html

wrote this:

Mr. Stuever,

You probably do not know about 20th century US Government policies regarding Indians, that as recently as the 1950s the gov't sponsored programs to get the indians off their own land, into the cities, and white-ify them. This program was meant to educate them to leave their own culture, religion and language behind; the barriers to success in a white world.

The reason I bring this up is because your article in the Washington Post today presents the viewpoint of a man who seems slightly offended that Indians are STILL upset about all that bad stuff that happened to them SO long ago.

You dismiss their headdresses and tribal getup as an anachronism which has no place in the white world, castigating white people who respectfully try to understand, while simultaneously admitting your own misdirected love for their savage mysticism which, incidentally, is a racist preconceived notion that I'm pretty sure Indians would prefer you leave behind.

Everything that you say which comes remotely close to being respectful has a glib parenthetical comment, a subtle jibe against a people who should try to live up to their self-imposed obsolete lifestyles a little better.

I could go through each of your paragraphs and find at least one inadvertently (or worse...not) offensive thing you said (and I'm not a even a Native American or history student) but I'll satisfy myself with this one:

Wizened grandmas scootered around on late-model motorized wheelchairs. Traditional music came out of the sound system with occasional modern backbeat mixed in behind it. Indian families pushed high-end strollers, drank Diet Pepsi, wore fanny packs under shawls. Indians in full ceremonial garb waited for the morning procession to start, and everyone seemed to be using flip phones. "Joe, this is Curtis, I'm on the Mall and it's Tuesday morning," said a man in a bright, beaded, violet-and-silver ceremonial outfit and headdress. "If you get this, then call us back so we can find you."

Wizened grandmas, full ceremonial garb, zipping around on motor scooters and drinking Diet Pepsi, or talking on a cell phone? How absurd.
That is like saying, 'they are Indians, so lets subjugate them to their traditional role of badass savage, and NOT let them use modern anything.'
What do you want them to do man, just live on their shitty reservation land and pretend like everything is hunky-dory in the 1400s?
My friend Bayes said it best: "the author was all mad that they weren't scalping people and whooping"

You have pigeon-holed an entire nation of people of all different cultures and beliefs into this tiny little box of 'brave warrior or noble shaman'. Sure, we think it's a fine characterization because it seems to shed a good light on them, but it also a dehumanizing light, and for you to pretend like you know anything about these people is like saying I know what its like to play golf on the moon. Same thing with the Washington Redskins, we think we are honoring the first people on this continent for their bravery in battle by naming our football team after them, but this pinches their complex social, spiritual and physical society into a teeny tiny little stereotype that completely misses the fact that they are human beings who deserve to write their own history, not have it told to them by the very people who robbed them of it.

The one thing I'm confused about is you seem to mock the misunderstanding white people as much as you do the silly Injuns, I guess its easy to stand back and be critical but it sure makes you look like a prick. I'm not sure what the point of this email is, just to let off some steam I guess, but next time I think you would be better served to just report the news and not throw in your own dissembling commentary. The Native American Museum is a step toward helping what is undoubtedly the most oppressed minority in the United States and anything but complete pious admiration for it is disgraceful. It seems like you didn't know any better and any self-respecting person would forgive you for that (most Indians probably wouldn't even bother to call you on it) but I think you should be ashamed of yourself.

-Jonathan Zuckerman

This is my world. I bought it.

I got an XBox and this new game Fable this weekend. Fable is a pretty standard role playing game but with the notable addition that your character is constantly presented with moral dilemmas and the game tailors itself to how you respond to these situations. Within 5 minutes of turning this damned fool contraption on I was forced to decide whether I wanted to play Fable or not get kicked out by my girlfriend. Haha, just kidding, I was actually presented with the ethical decision of whether I should guard a man's house while he was away or loot it in his absence. Now keep in mind that before I even started playing this game I had decided that my in-game alter ego would either choose to ignore or fail to recognize all the basic rules of civilized social interaction. Obviously, I robbed that man blind and lied about it.

Basically everything in this game is up to your own discretion; your character can even decide what pants, hat, gloves, shirt, and boots he wears. I quickly found out that running around in your underpants is a good way to make new friends. You can also go to a barber shop and get a new haircut or beard, but once you find out that the Hulk Hogan mustache is an option, there isn't much of a choice left to make.
One thing about this game that I like is how it pretends to be surprised when, given a predicament where I have to decide whether to rat out a man cheating on his wife or keep his secret, I invariably choose to beat them both up, pick their pockets, then defile their prone bodies by urinating on them.
The game's clever artificial intelligence grows with my increasingly vile persona by giving me the ability to communicate in new and different ways based on the way I have acted in the past. Because of my singularly awful behavior, the only way I know how to interact with women is to flick them off, thrust my pelvis at them or, my favorite expression, the aptly titled 'obscene gesture'.
Everything about this game is very realistic, the graphics are top-notch except for being occasionally choppy, I assume this has something to do with loading from the disc. The realistic shadow effects are incredible, when you see the dappled sunlight coursing through the trees and making a mottled pattern on your back you will probably do what I did, which was to smash someone else's personal property then stand there with my hands on my hips laughing a manly laugh and sneering at any small children walking by.
One of the most touted features of this game is how your character grows to physically reflect all the things that he has done. To test the mettle of this, I have switched to a pie only diet. I have also tried to remind myself to halt my wheezing run every few minutes to swill a couple of beers to complete my grotesque transformation into a horrible stinking freak show. I'm glad that Peter Molyneux (the abstract genius behind Fable) decided he didn't have time to add in the ability to conceive children with your optional virtual wife, because I'm pretty sure my character would have taken it upon himself to perform a couple of impromptu abortions. On a somewhat related note, my neighbors have encouraged me to not drink more than 3 or 4 beers at a time, I guess they don't want me reliving that hour long whisky fueled berserker rage I flew into last night in the Hero's Guild. I killed 52 innocent civilians and guards and racked up over 100,000 dollars in fines for myself, stopping only to double over and vomit then frisk the slain for pies. It's going to be hard for them to collect the ludicrous fines they have assessed, though, because I tend to quickly squander all my money in one of the game's many gambling dens as soon as it comes into my filthy hands.

I was able to wrench myself away from Fable for a few hours to hang out with Tommy, Charles and Catherine at their awesome, relatively new apartment in the district. We walked over to some bar where we stuck around just long enough to realize we were never going to hear the songs Aaron put on the jukebox. On the walk over there Aaron proposed making a CD of attempted socially conscious ballads by 80s metal bands that ended up just being ignorant and possibly offensive - he got as far as suggesting Winds of Change by the Scorpions, Cherokee by Europe and 18 and Life by Skid Row... he mentioned another one but I forgot what it was. The bartender at DC9 looked like a cross between Frank Zappa, Ron Jeremy, and Zorro. I appealed to Charles' love of gambling in trying to get him to play the Blackjack game in Fable to win me shiny gold coins but I guess virtual Casino loses its lustre when you realize the best thing you can use that money for is to buy Leather Boots +1 to kick chickens.

When we got back to their apartment we watched a couple episodes of the Venture Bros. on their TiVo. This is the only thing that could have made me laugh more uncontrollably than my own despicable behavior in a virtual world and cry more than my own realization of how pathetic I must seem right now. Any attempt to describe The Venture Bros. would probably result in failure, so I will just say that there is a butt throw and Tommy assures me that there has been a piss joke in every episode. It's on Saturday at 8pm on Cartoon Network.

Thanks to Old Man Murray (and Seanbaby) - basically anything that was funny in this post was a ripoff of their style - also thanks to Tucker Max, that tremendous asshole, Ryan Adams for calling himself a silly twat but really he's a pretty decent guy, and Cartoon Network for bringing a ray of vaguely homo-erotic light into my life.

Dan Arrives From Spain

Last week, Daniello was in town for a few days after visiting his grandparents in Syracuse. He spent the night at my house, as did Mr. David Kwasnowski. Interestingly enough, Dan seems to have contracted a strange disease that only allows a small portion of his tongue to protrude through his lips. Check it out.

First Day Up and Running

JON DID IT

---

On this day, Jonathan R. Zuckerman installed this lovely blogging software on the site. Flying Pirates everywhere. AAARRRRRR.

We're Going to Need More Water

me:
BJ's wedding was pretty fun, I drove up to New Jersey on Thursday night and then from there Marco drove us up to New Haven, where we stayed for free because of the absurd number of hotel points he has accrued from his job. Once we got there me and Marco did handstands and jump kicks all over the Yale campus. We went to a driving range and hit some balls, tried going to the famous New Haven hamburger joint Louis Lunch (where the hamburger was purportedly invented), and then later had a beer at a bar called Rudy's.

Marco was inverted

At the wedding the next day the bridesmaids were too busy hugging and sobbing to pay any attention to me and the other girls there all had girlfriends
Tommy:
girlfriends? hot
me:
ahah\ oops
ill let you go on believing that though
Tommy:
thank you

Marco does 'Blue Steel' while Jon does 'Le Tigre'

So we had a good lunch and entertained ourself with the open bar. After the reception me, Darrell and Marco went back to Rudy's and had about two pitchers of Hoegaarden each and did more handstands outside to attract a crowd. They were all clapping and uh, taking bets on how far we could walk, how long we could do handstands for, stuff like that.
Then we met the bridal party at some bar, some idiot bought me two shots of whisky and i don't remember a lot after that. Darrell got kicked out of a bar, and Marco said to him, "just wait out here, I'll go get Jon", but he didn't have to go far, as I was being escorted out right behind them. We then went to a different bar, where we wandered around numbly for awhile, eventually settling down to talk to some girls. I promptly fell asleep sitting up, Darrell fell asleep next to me, and his head fell in my lap, so I've been told we were both sleeping there leaning on each other. Apparently the girls thought this was hilarious and Marco kept talking to them for awhile. Then a 400 pound bouncer came by and said we had to leave, but Marco said, "No, they can stay. They're not hurting anyone!"
and the bouncer had to admit that we weren't hurting anyone, so he let us stay.

At our hotel breakfast the next morning I was drinking water out of a pitcher and giggling about how hung over I was. There were a lot of very fit people in spandex wandering around. Turns out New Haven was hosting a 20k championship runners convention that weekend. We started talking about sports drinks, and how all these extra calories and sugars in those things like EdgeWater can't really be all that great for you. Water is probably still the best sports drink. I said, "The only thing better than water is two waters."
"Or two times the water but it still fits in the same volume," Marco posited.
So we decided to invent Double Water. It's just like regular water but twice as much.

all pictures from Bruce's Wedding