Damn it

Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it.

I got laid off.

Damn it.

It's for the best. Damn it. Damn it.

Now the fun begins!!

T shirt


T shirt, originally uploaded by holyjuan.

I hear people make money designing T-shirts.

I am not one of those people.

Another Great Venn Diagram

D comes before E

Erik moved to within 1.2 miles of my home. Tonight, I helped him move a last few items into his new house and then he and I went in search of a neighborhood bar.

I’ve been in the neighborhood about a year, but no neighbor wants to drink with me. Many people were drawn to Westerville due to its dry status and so many of my neighbors are not into neighborhood bars. I have been barless and must travel tens of miles to grab drinks with friends. Now that Erik is close by, that is all going to change.

Well, no it’s not. The only thing that is going to change is that Erik and I will both have an untouchable bar that is that much closer. We won’t go out more, we’ll just not be going out closer to home more.

But we do like to kid ourselves and our wives like to let us pretend that we can tell them whatever we want, so we were both allowed to go check out a local establishment.

It sucked. Bad, loud music. Horrible atmosphere. No Golden Tee.

Three beers and a free shot later, it wasn’t so bad.

The bartender had asked us what we were doing and I said that Erik was new to the area and we were interviewing bars. She said, “What do you mean?” And I calmly replied, “Where do you see this bar in five years.” Well, she didn’t get the joke (no one has so far) and she thought I was asking her where she was going to be in five years. She immediately thought that I cared for more than her ass crack sticking out of her too small jeans and took a liking to us. She asked for our names and we did not lie.

Fifteen minutes (and that free shot) later, we shuffled out the door with promises to return. She said, “I’ll remember your names because D comes before E.”

D comes before E. For the next five years Erik and I will be debating why D coming before E is better and or worse for the other person. We laughed the entire .9 miles back to his house.

We found our bar.

Spelling (Update 1)

A few months ago I posted a Spelling List of words that my guys in the field (and I) spelled horribly wrong in e-mails and reports. A smattering of those might have been typos, but a majority were just blatent misspellings.

Six months later, we have an update to that list. Here is page two:


My favorite is either stike or chash.

The made-up word story

Thanks to everyone who contributed to the Cratousum story. It turned out a bit dark as I have been listening to Margot non stop. See if you can find the words that are made up and the ones that are just horrifically misspelled.

Love without Definition

It was raining. Again. If this were a movie, you’d see the shadows of the rain on the windshield crossing my face. I turned the wipers on and the only good they did was to rhythmatically kick "The Girl from Ipanema" song that was dittyitising around in my skull. Now all I heard was the first stanza of “The Stroke” repeating over and over. The day was not going to get better. Thanks Billy Squire.

I drove off into the morning darkness. Though the sun was dragging itself up, it was getting darker. I reached up to the dash and put my hand on my kickidoe mounted next to the broken compass. It was a “Buddy Jesus” I bought after a murksom night of cable television. Glame, I know, but he always seemed to give me a sense of…

Shit

I slid sideways in the roadway as the breaks decided to work and then didn’t and then did. The car jumped and kicked itself straight.

Shit.

The 45MPH traffic had slowed to a crawl as some plippethead snailobily decided that 13 MPH would keep them from wrecking in the downpour. In trying to maintain safety, the goody two shoes almost caused a neekabaum. With the sudden stop and instant panic, I was about to have a neekabaum in my pants. I pulled into the berm and drove past 14 cars who only had time to honk once I passed them. I pulled into Jack and Jacks and smontelorped across the parking lot. The woman coming out of the front door decoded my walk and held the door for me.

In the bathroom, I barely got my pants down and speelisher on the toilet seat before I let loose with a rage that only a victim of Crone’s disease that had been pharmaphlarneffed 1500ml of prune juice extract would be able to withstand. My chest burned white hot. Sweat mixed with the rain on my face and I realized that I had left my inhaler at Jesse’s house in her kitcheneteria next to the half cup of coffee. The walls of the stall started closing in and I felt zoofloged and helpless.

I was fading. And I felt Jesse’s presence from the night before, her hair swuuuping across my legs. She was humming to herself.

The manager who called 911 later told me that he puked from the smell when he came into the bathroom and found me half in the stall and half on the floor. He told the paramedics it must have been mine. I can live with that.

WELCOME TO NEW IRAQ

I had a wonderful idea just the other day. It solves many problems and creates wealth, which we all know and love.

I’m sure most of us agree that we have fucked up Iraq and that there is really nothing we can do to fix it without continued blood shed on both sides. We can’t pull out because the minorities will be slaughtered and while that would have been easier to stand years ago, now with the slaughter happening LIVE on CNN, it makes it harder to ignore.

My plan is simple and genius.

Let’s carve out a chunk of the United States and give it to anyone in Iraq who wants to leave. Here is my 8 step plan.

1. ADVERTISE
Posters (as a bonus, bulletproof posters) will line the streets, telling Iraqis of a better life over the ocean. All they need to do is pack two bags each and prepare to leave on July 4th.

2. PREPARE THE LAND
Choose about 400 sq miles of hurricane devastated land in the United States and kick off the squatters. Set up temporary housing that was never used after Katrina. Build a wall around it. Erect the WELCOME TO NEW IRAQ sign. Dust off hands.

3. LOAD THE CARGO CONTAINERS
Iraqis will be loaded on to cargo containers and shipped to the states. As a bonus, video screens will simulate a porthole view of a ship passing by the statue of liberty. The video will repeat every 10 minutes.

4. PULL OUT OF IRAQ
Anyone left behind can deal with it.

5. LAND HO!
Dump off the Iraqis and hand them shovels and brooms to begin the clean-up. They will fill the now empty cargo containers with trash and the bodies of the people that didn’t handle the trip so well.

6. CLEAN AND BUILD
The Iraqis will be provided with food and shelter. They will be provided building materials and help to construct cities. Coincidentally, the cities will be near gas refineries and bio diesel plants that are also under construction.

7. PROFIT!
The Iraqis will build cities where they will live and work in harmony. Cheap labor will provide Americans with goods. As the older and bitter Iraqis die off from working in the refineries, the younger folks will be Americanized through the free MTV2 pumped into their homes. In twenty years, we can tear down the wall.

8. REPEAT?
Oh shit? During this time we went to war with Iran? Crap… OK, play old tapes of the Iraq/Iran war and use the young Iraqis as cannon fodder. Once New Iraq is empty, fill it with Iranians and change the last letter on the WELCOME TO NEW IRAQ sign.