Ugh! It’s only day two of this exercise and I already want to quit. I must be on to something good, otherwise this would be easy, right? Isn’t that the maxim? Is it a maxim? What is a maxim, exactly? Let me look it up:
Maxim-noun : a concisely expressed principle or rule of conduct or a statement of a general truth.
Sweet. I got it right. I wouldn’t have changed it even if I got it wrong, just so you know. I’m not afraid to put my stupidity right out there for everyone to see.
So I’ve been trying to think about a topic to write about all day and I realize that the thing that is pissing me off the most today is how ignorant Americans are. Big news, right? It’s really this whole thing about the mosque being built near Ground Zero in New York and how this is a polarizing subject. It has become so polarizing, in fact, that suddenly 18% of Americans now think that President Obama IS a Muslim because he had the audacity to say that the Muslims are free to practice their religion when and where they so choose.
Freedom of religion, huh? That’s a new one. Where have I heard that before? Man, I just can’t remember.
But these idiots that think that Obama is a Muslim just because he would freely allow Muslims to practice their religion in a legal place is borderline asinine. It absolutely proves that Americans aren’t smart enough to put ANYONE in office, much less complain about the person they put in there. I saw a stat on CNN this afternoon that said 5% of the American public had “actually seen a monster in their closet” at some point in their life, too.
Really? You really want to trust these people with their outrage? I’m not saying that the 18% who think Obama is a Muslim are made up of the 5% who have seen a monster in their closet, but I’m guessing there is quite a bit of monster seers in the Obama Muslim crowd. Just a guess.
And what if Obama is a Muslim? So what. He’s the president. There was a point when it was HUGE news that Kennedy was a Catholic. Is this really something we need to be caring about at this point in the presidency?
But back to the mosque at Ground Zero. What the hell are the Muslims going to do so close to Ground Zero that they couldn’t do anywhere else in New York? Are we REALLY going to hold an entire religion responsible for the actions of a few of them?
Has anyone ever heard of the crusades? The Spanish Inquisition? Any of that crap? We’re all fucking nuts as far as religion goes. People don’t like gangs in their neighborhood, but what the hell do you think a church is? It’s just a gang with God’s blessing. I read a quote yesterday that said, “Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian the same way that standing in a garage doesn’t make you a car” or words to that effect. Yet it’s these people hiding behind their religion instead of their racism in opposing the mosque.
No doubt that putting that mosque where they want to put it is probably pretty inflammatory, but only to the families and friends of those killed in the 9/11 attacks. But at the end of the day those people were killed by terrorists who happen to be Muslims, not the other way around.
Get a grip folks. Put that mosque anywhere you want. Maybe we should have a zone set up for all the churches and mosques and synagogues and things like that and they could all be in one zone together so we would always know where the religious zealots are congregating, huh? And maybe we could make everyone wear a patch that denoted their religion so everyone else could see what religion they are. Then maybe we could invade Poland and make France our bitch.
Get it?
B!
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
500 Words A Day--Day 1
To give you some sort of idea of what this whole journey is going to be like, I originally planned on titling this little effort “1000 Words A Day” but I got tired just thinking about that much writing so I have decided to shoot for 500 or so words. That’s not to say that some days I won’t end up with diarrhea of the keyboard and throw down 2500 words if I really get on a roll, but there will be PLENTY of other days where I don’t feel like writing anything so forcing myself to drop even 500 words will be a chore. So there.
“So what’s the point of doing this silly thing and writing 500 words every day?” you may ask. Well, you can ask it all you want but that doesn’t mean I am going to come up with a good answer for you. I am notorious for starting stuff that I never finish (for example, just in the time it took me to write the sentence you are reading up to the beginning of the parenthesis I took a long drink of water, scratched my head, looked at my “1000 Places To See Before You Die” calendar, decided I don’t really have any desire to go to Borneo even if the Mengkabong River flows peacefully through the shadow of Mount Kinabalu National Park, ripped the page off the calendar, threw it away, pet my dog and ate like six bites of tuna and pasta). NOTORIOUS I said. I know that was a long sentence if you include all of the crap I did while writing it, so I will forgive you if you need to backtrack and re-read it.
Yesterday I hit rock bottom as far as getting nothing done with my life. I know, I know, I’ve done nothing with my life up until yesterday already, so what was one more day, right? Well, one more day is one more day I have wasted. During my lifetime I have wanted to be (in no particular order): a fireman, the Lone Ranger, a television director for the David Letterman Show, a rapper, a music producer, the owner of a record label, a screenwriter, a radio personality, a bar owner, a restaurant owner, a chef (yeah right, you should smell this tuna and pasta mixture, it literally smells like death), an author, a stuntman, etc. In fact, I could probably take care of all of today’s 500 words just by listing stuff I have wanted to be at some point in my life.
Now, for what I have done with my life: I work in retail. That’s it. NOT EVEN CLOSE!
So, since I think the most rational thing I could possibly choose to be besides the Lone Ranger (that’s easy, just grab a sweet mask, a couple of six-shooters and a dope light blue cowboy outfit and I’m set to go solve some crimes and confuse people on who I am) is an author. Now what I author will be up for debate because I will mostly be working on screenplays since I have like 6 of them in different states of development and none of them has gone any further that one sentence in the last 3 months (thanks to my staggering output of ONE SENTECE yesterday).
They say if you want to write, write. So I’m writing. 500 words a day. We’ll see how this one goes.
“So what’s the point of doing this silly thing and writing 500 words every day?” you may ask. Well, you can ask it all you want but that doesn’t mean I am going to come up with a good answer for you. I am notorious for starting stuff that I never finish (for example, just in the time it took me to write the sentence you are reading up to the beginning of the parenthesis I took a long drink of water, scratched my head, looked at my “1000 Places To See Before You Die” calendar, decided I don’t really have any desire to go to Borneo even if the Mengkabong River flows peacefully through the shadow of Mount Kinabalu National Park, ripped the page off the calendar, threw it away, pet my dog and ate like six bites of tuna and pasta). NOTORIOUS I said. I know that was a long sentence if you include all of the crap I did while writing it, so I will forgive you if you need to backtrack and re-read it.
Yesterday I hit rock bottom as far as getting nothing done with my life. I know, I know, I’ve done nothing with my life up until yesterday already, so what was one more day, right? Well, one more day is one more day I have wasted. During my lifetime I have wanted to be (in no particular order): a fireman, the Lone Ranger, a television director for the David Letterman Show, a rapper, a music producer, the owner of a record label, a screenwriter, a radio personality, a bar owner, a restaurant owner, a chef (yeah right, you should smell this tuna and pasta mixture, it literally smells like death), an author, a stuntman, etc. In fact, I could probably take care of all of today’s 500 words just by listing stuff I have wanted to be at some point in my life.
Now, for what I have done with my life: I work in retail. That’s it. NOT EVEN CLOSE!
So, since I think the most rational thing I could possibly choose to be besides the Lone Ranger (that’s easy, just grab a sweet mask, a couple of six-shooters and a dope light blue cowboy outfit and I’m set to go solve some crimes and confuse people on who I am) is an author. Now what I author will be up for debate because I will mostly be working on screenplays since I have like 6 of them in different states of development and none of them has gone any further that one sentence in the last 3 months (thanks to my staggering output of ONE SENTECE yesterday).
They say if you want to write, write. So I’m writing. 500 words a day. We’ll see how this one goes.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
The Peek-A-Boo Kid
Today I had the unfortunate experience of having a 4-year-old kid try and play a game of “peek-a-boo” with me. He may not have actually been 4 years old, I didn’t check his ID or anything, but he looked to be in that range given my expertise of more than a decade of those type of bastards screwing up my toy store while their idiot parents looked on adoringly and completely oblivious to what a complete kneebiter their little bundle of joy has turned out to be. Sometimes it was harder to tell who was dumber, the parent or the kid. Just kidding, it was almost always the kid. Almost.
Anyway, the experience was unfortunate on several levels, but the most important level is that a kid actually looked at me as someone he would like to spend some quality time with. What a moron. I wish kids could sense the SOS signal going off in my head when one of them comes near me. It’s not really an SOS signal, per se, but more of a “get the hell away from me you prick” signal that I have tried to master over the years. Either I failed miserably at sending that signal or that kid was too damn stupid to pick it up.
The second level of the unfortunate experience has to be that “peek-a-boo” is NOT actually a game. It is something that people with less than optimal brain function use to entertain themselves when they have picked all of the boogers their nose is willing to give up and there are still 23 hours and 45 minutes left in the day.
Whoever invented peek-a-boo needs two swift kicks to the gonads if you ask me. I have decided not to put quotation marks around the words because it’s a pain in the ass and, more importantly, my left and right pinkie fingers. I will take a second to let you put your fingers on the keyboard and imagine what it is involved in hitting the quotation mark key on your board. Now imagine having to hit that key TWICE for the beginning quotes and the end quotes. Don’t forget to put your fingers on home row. That’s right fuckers, I type from home row like a champ. Sixty words per minute, sixty-five if I’m doing nothing but cuss words. Sixty-seven if I’m insulting a minor. I know some of you type faster than I do, but I also know that I insult minors way better than you do so I win. I also sometimes insult miners, but not very often because I secretly really like coal energy and I don't want it to stop coming my way because of my sharp tongue. And a miner who is under 18? Forget about it!
The concept behind peek-a-boo is bordering on complete insanity. Not just the kind of insanity that makes your friends like to hang out with you when you’ve had a few beers and there are sorority girls around. I’m talking about the type of insanity that gets you locked up in a place that Ghost Hunters will eventually walk around in during the middle of the night long after you are dead as they have an EMF detector pointed in your general direction while they ask you why your spirit hasn’t left the place that got shut down by the government when someone even crazier than you shoved a “Psychology Today” textbook up your old highway with little or no lube while you were sitting in the corner playing peek-a-boo with your pet sparrow or your imaginary friend Cecil.
I don’t need to tell you the concept of the game because EVERYONE has “played” the game at some point and I am willing to bet that you were annoyed with the game within 25 seconds of the beginning of it. It’s a lot like a WNBA basketball game in that respect.
I would also be willing to bet you figured out the secret to the game within that first 25 seconds, too. This is not a game that takes a lifetime to master. It is the exact opposite of chess or, to a lesser extent, EVERY other game that takes functioning synapses to play. I have a puppy that figured that game out before he knew it wasn’t okay to poop in the house (or in my car, or in my bike seat, or on his sister, etc.). This is the same puppy that is surprised to see me if I leave the room for 15 seconds and come back in with a different shirt on. If I try to play “peek-a-boo” with him he looks at me like I’m an asshole and continues writing whatever research paper he is currently working on for his doctorate at the University of Phoenix.
So when a kid who CLEARLY should have been bored with the game 3 years and 25 seconds ago decides he wants to engage a total stranger in a game that involves him hiding behind his own hands and saying “peek-a-boo” to me (I started adding the quotes again because I had a protein bar and I need to burn the extra calories as well as build the muscle in my pinkies so I can “hang loose” ambidextrous-style like a true local if I ever make it to Hawaii) I think something might be MAJORLY wrong with him. I just wanted to tell him, “Hey asshole, your stupid face might be hidden but I can still see the rest of your crappy person and I will only be happy when you learn to play ‘peek-a-boo’ in a way that makes your whole body disappear forever. If you could do that I would play with you once. Once.”
The smartest thing he did was play the game with me while I was at work. In retrospect, the kid really may not be as dumb as I think he is because heaven knows that if we were just randomly on the street and he started playing that game I would have pushed him into traffic or down a flight of stairs (provided traffic or a flight of stairs was handy at the moment) the first time he covered his eyes in my presence. Someone needs to teach that kid that hiding from strangers is something that involves your whole body, not just your eyes.
Amazingly, just because you can’t see me doesn’t mean I can’t see you. What it does mean is that you will NEVER see the two hands that are going to push you into traffic where you can see that the nameplate on the front end of a Dodge truck is more than just a shiny representation of a clever name, it’s a way to extend your life.
Sigh, I’m just kidding, I’d never push a kid into traffic. Down a flight of stairs maybe, if they had carpet on them and a pile of laundry at the bottom. And the kid was wearing a helmet and perhaps a bear-proof suit. Or if they were playing “peek-a-boo” with me in pretty much any other garb.
Yeah, I said garb. What a stupid word. Wanna make something of it?
B!
Anyway, the experience was unfortunate on several levels, but the most important level is that a kid actually looked at me as someone he would like to spend some quality time with. What a moron. I wish kids could sense the SOS signal going off in my head when one of them comes near me. It’s not really an SOS signal, per se, but more of a “get the hell away from me you prick” signal that I have tried to master over the years. Either I failed miserably at sending that signal or that kid was too damn stupid to pick it up.
The second level of the unfortunate experience has to be that “peek-a-boo” is NOT actually a game. It is something that people with less than optimal brain function use to entertain themselves when they have picked all of the boogers their nose is willing to give up and there are still 23 hours and 45 minutes left in the day.
Whoever invented peek-a-boo needs two swift kicks to the gonads if you ask me. I have decided not to put quotation marks around the words because it’s a pain in the ass and, more importantly, my left and right pinkie fingers. I will take a second to let you put your fingers on the keyboard and imagine what it is involved in hitting the quotation mark key on your board. Now imagine having to hit that key TWICE for the beginning quotes and the end quotes. Don’t forget to put your fingers on home row. That’s right fuckers, I type from home row like a champ. Sixty words per minute, sixty-five if I’m doing nothing but cuss words. Sixty-seven if I’m insulting a minor. I know some of you type faster than I do, but I also know that I insult minors way better than you do so I win. I also sometimes insult miners, but not very often because I secretly really like coal energy and I don't want it to stop coming my way because of my sharp tongue. And a miner who is under 18? Forget about it!
The concept behind peek-a-boo is bordering on complete insanity. Not just the kind of insanity that makes your friends like to hang out with you when you’ve had a few beers and there are sorority girls around. I’m talking about the type of insanity that gets you locked up in a place that Ghost Hunters will eventually walk around in during the middle of the night long after you are dead as they have an EMF detector pointed in your general direction while they ask you why your spirit hasn’t left the place that got shut down by the government when someone even crazier than you shoved a “Psychology Today” textbook up your old highway with little or no lube while you were sitting in the corner playing peek-a-boo with your pet sparrow or your imaginary friend Cecil.
I don’t need to tell you the concept of the game because EVERYONE has “played” the game at some point and I am willing to bet that you were annoyed with the game within 25 seconds of the beginning of it. It’s a lot like a WNBA basketball game in that respect.
I would also be willing to bet you figured out the secret to the game within that first 25 seconds, too. This is not a game that takes a lifetime to master. It is the exact opposite of chess or, to a lesser extent, EVERY other game that takes functioning synapses to play. I have a puppy that figured that game out before he knew it wasn’t okay to poop in the house (or in my car, or in my bike seat, or on his sister, etc.). This is the same puppy that is surprised to see me if I leave the room for 15 seconds and come back in with a different shirt on. If I try to play “peek-a-boo” with him he looks at me like I’m an asshole and continues writing whatever research paper he is currently working on for his doctorate at the University of Phoenix.
So when a kid who CLEARLY should have been bored with the game 3 years and 25 seconds ago decides he wants to engage a total stranger in a game that involves him hiding behind his own hands and saying “peek-a-boo” to me (I started adding the quotes again because I had a protein bar and I need to burn the extra calories as well as build the muscle in my pinkies so I can “hang loose” ambidextrous-style like a true local if I ever make it to Hawaii) I think something might be MAJORLY wrong with him. I just wanted to tell him, “Hey asshole, your stupid face might be hidden but I can still see the rest of your crappy person and I will only be happy when you learn to play ‘peek-a-boo’ in a way that makes your whole body disappear forever. If you could do that I would play with you once. Once.”
The smartest thing he did was play the game with me while I was at work. In retrospect, the kid really may not be as dumb as I think he is because heaven knows that if we were just randomly on the street and he started playing that game I would have pushed him into traffic or down a flight of stairs (provided traffic or a flight of stairs was handy at the moment) the first time he covered his eyes in my presence. Someone needs to teach that kid that hiding from strangers is something that involves your whole body, not just your eyes.
Amazingly, just because you can’t see me doesn’t mean I can’t see you. What it does mean is that you will NEVER see the two hands that are going to push you into traffic where you can see that the nameplate on the front end of a Dodge truck is more than just a shiny representation of a clever name, it’s a way to extend your life.
Sigh, I’m just kidding, I’d never push a kid into traffic. Down a flight of stairs maybe, if they had carpet on them and a pile of laundry at the bottom. And the kid was wearing a helmet and perhaps a bear-proof suit. Or if they were playing “peek-a-boo” with me in pretty much any other garb.
Yeah, I said garb. What a stupid word. Wanna make something of it?
B!
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Henceforth I Shall Call You . . .
I’m on an endorphin high from the gym, you’ll have to bear with me. Odds are I will have an inordinate amount of cusswords in this little entry. Why? Because I fucking can, okay? I can write without using cusswords any time I want, but I already did that shit in high school and college and look where that got me. Perhaps cussing will get me that coveted spot on the Time Magazine editorial staff. Perhaps not. Perhaps if I keep using words like "perhaps" they will see that I’m not all cussing and poop jokes and give me a chance. Or maybe I can get a job with the Des Moines Register or Cat Fancy magazine.
The point is, SOMEBODY needs to pay me for my brilliance. Cusswords or not, I’m awesome!
Okay then, back to my story. I was listening to John Denver today while I was at the gym, kicking the crap out of myself. And YES, fuckers, I listen to John Denver while I’m at the gym from time to time AND I bench press more than you AND I lift pretty much everything heavier than you do. I probably don’t squat as much as you do, but that’s okay because I’m better at sex than you are and that makes it all even.
It does, I looked it up. Math is cool.
So anyway, this song came on from John Denver and it was the live version of the song and before the song started he went on about how the song was written about his Uncle Dean (which is kind of funny because the name of the song is “Matthew,” not Dean, but it kicks ass because it has a banjo in it and if you don’t appreciate a good banjo in a song then something is wrong with you. “Who plays a banjo?” you might ask. Well, does the name Kermit the Fucking Frog* mean anything to you?! That little green bastard played the S-word out of the banjo and you ate that shit up when you were a kid, don’t try to tell me you’re too good for that stuff now, no one likes a hypocrite) and all I could think of was, “Dean, what an unfortunate name.”
I’ve only known one person named Dean my whole life and that guy was a complete tool. It really is an unfortunate name. And that got me thinking about how cool it would be to have the power to nickname people to relieve them of their stupid, parent-given names that I don’t approve of. Only the catch would be that I would give people nicknames that had NOTHING to do with anything about them.
I already have a gift for bestowing nicknames that stand the test of time based on the fact they sort of make sense, so now I think I would like to test the waters on giving people nicknames that they don’t want, don’t like and, hopefully, don’t understand.
“Dean, I don’t know much about you except I hate your name. But you seem to be really well spoken and a pretty nice fella, so henceforth I shall call you Slapdick. You’re welcome.”
“But I—“
“No need to thank me Slapdick. Just go on about your life with the warm, comforting fact that no one will ever call you Dean again. What a stupid fucking name. Do me a favor and slap your parents the next time you see them for me. And slap your grandma too. No reason, just for practice. You’ve gotta keep your pimp hand strong, you know?”
I could go on and on about unfortunate names, but I won’t because I don’t want to offend anyone who might come across this by insulting their name (for instance, if your name is Michaela it just means your parents really wanted a boy and they got stuck with you and were too stupid to come up with a real girl’s name. It also means you pick your boogers and eat them. I base this on the fact that I’ve only known three girls names Michaela my whole life and one of them picked her nose and ate it in front of my first grade class while she was doing “Show and Tell.” I was never in a first grade class with the other two, but the first one ruined that name for me and everyone else for the rest of existence, and that’s why henceforth I shall call anyone named Michaela “Buxton” as a nickname.) I will, however, leave you all with a list of ten nicknames and you can pick and choose them and bestow them on unsuspecting people at your own whimsy:
Plank
Mudbucket
Trunkforge
Bill Clinton
Captain Shits-a-ton
Public Speaker Jones
Headfoot and Buttcrotch (only to be used on twins or people who look alike)
Pong Cocker
Zip Zap Rip Rap Smacky Wacky Ho
Pissblanket (an oldie but still a classic)
Oh, and remember, you MUST use the new nickname in conjunction with this verbiage: Henceforth I shall call you . . .
Rules are rules, bitches.
B!
P.S.—I don’t really condone slapping grandmas, so don’t do it, not even if they’re into that sort of thing. If they are into that sort of thing, don’t encourage them, it will all end in tears and that’s JUST WHAT THEY WANT.
P.P.S.—Endorphin highs are AWESOME!
* not his real name. The “Fucking” was added later and without permission thanks to the letter F, the true sponsor of this blog.
The point is, SOMEBODY needs to pay me for my brilliance. Cusswords or not, I’m awesome!
Okay then, back to my story. I was listening to John Denver today while I was at the gym, kicking the crap out of myself. And YES, fuckers, I listen to John Denver while I’m at the gym from time to time AND I bench press more than you AND I lift pretty much everything heavier than you do. I probably don’t squat as much as you do, but that’s okay because I’m better at sex than you are and that makes it all even.
It does, I looked it up. Math is cool.
So anyway, this song came on from John Denver and it was the live version of the song and before the song started he went on about how the song was written about his Uncle Dean (which is kind of funny because the name of the song is “Matthew,” not Dean, but it kicks ass because it has a banjo in it and if you don’t appreciate a good banjo in a song then something is wrong with you. “Who plays a banjo?” you might ask. Well, does the name Kermit the Fucking Frog* mean anything to you?! That little green bastard played the S-word out of the banjo and you ate that shit up when you were a kid, don’t try to tell me you’re too good for that stuff now, no one likes a hypocrite) and all I could think of was, “Dean, what an unfortunate name.”
I’ve only known one person named Dean my whole life and that guy was a complete tool. It really is an unfortunate name. And that got me thinking about how cool it would be to have the power to nickname people to relieve them of their stupid, parent-given names that I don’t approve of. Only the catch would be that I would give people nicknames that had NOTHING to do with anything about them.
I already have a gift for bestowing nicknames that stand the test of time based on the fact they sort of make sense, so now I think I would like to test the waters on giving people nicknames that they don’t want, don’t like and, hopefully, don’t understand.
“Dean, I don’t know much about you except I hate your name. But you seem to be really well spoken and a pretty nice fella, so henceforth I shall call you Slapdick. You’re welcome.”
“But I—“
“No need to thank me Slapdick. Just go on about your life with the warm, comforting fact that no one will ever call you Dean again. What a stupid fucking name. Do me a favor and slap your parents the next time you see them for me. And slap your grandma too. No reason, just for practice. You’ve gotta keep your pimp hand strong, you know?”
I could go on and on about unfortunate names, but I won’t because I don’t want to offend anyone who might come across this by insulting their name (for instance, if your name is Michaela it just means your parents really wanted a boy and they got stuck with you and were too stupid to come up with a real girl’s name. It also means you pick your boogers and eat them. I base this on the fact that I’ve only known three girls names Michaela my whole life and one of them picked her nose and ate it in front of my first grade class while she was doing “Show and Tell.” I was never in a first grade class with the other two, but the first one ruined that name for me and everyone else for the rest of existence, and that’s why henceforth I shall call anyone named Michaela “Buxton” as a nickname.) I will, however, leave you all with a list of ten nicknames and you can pick and choose them and bestow them on unsuspecting people at your own whimsy:
Plank
Mudbucket
Trunkforge
Bill Clinton
Captain Shits-a-ton
Public Speaker Jones
Headfoot and Buttcrotch (only to be used on twins or people who look alike)
Pong Cocker
Zip Zap Rip Rap Smacky Wacky Ho
Pissblanket (an oldie but still a classic)
Oh, and remember, you MUST use the new nickname in conjunction with this verbiage: Henceforth I shall call you . . .
Rules are rules, bitches.
B!
P.S.—I don’t really condone slapping grandmas, so don’t do it, not even if they’re into that sort of thing. If they are into that sort of thing, don’t encourage them, it will all end in tears and that’s JUST WHAT THEY WANT.
P.P.S.—Endorphin highs are AWESOME!
* not his real name. The “Fucking” was added later and without permission thanks to the letter F, the true sponsor of this blog.
Friday, April 30, 2010
The JV Experience
I have been MIA for quite a while as far as writing goes, and I have friends who will attest to the fact that I haven’t even written them e-mails in the past few weeks and they probably hate me by now. But things have happened in my life lately that have kept me from my duties of writing fart jokes and joking about poo and all the normal topics of discussion I usually decide to post for all the world to see on my blog.
I sincerely apologize for my disappearing act, but my plate has been quite full since March 15th of this year, as I have been assistant coaching JV softball at ******* High School on top of working my regular job. Basically I have been leaving my house at 6AM every morning and coming home at 7 or 8 PM every night except for weekends—and even on weekends I was busy as we had a doubleheader against **** that somehow managed to last nearly 8 hours. It’s been quite a ride. I haven’t even been to the zoo or anything! I wonder if the animals miss me.
We finished the season with the stellar record of 3 wins, 11 losses and 2 ties. Believe me, it was much rougher than that record portrays. I don’t want to bash the girls on the team, but we had 15 girls on the team and I would say that 2 of them are what one would consider “athletes” by any stretch of the imagination. Not to say the other girls didn’t try, but there is a very distinct difference between an athlete and someone who attempts athletic endeavors while worrying about her hair and if she looks fat in her sliders.
Anyway, after so many long days and so many losing games and so many practices where I just got the feeling that most of the girls just didn’t give a care if we won or not, I was really ready for the season to be over. We had our last game on Wednesday, and I was excited to put the season behind me. It was my first time coaching athletics and I really didn’t know what to expect, but I definitely expected more dedication from people who willingly came out to play the game. I didn’t necessarily expect fanaticism, but I expected a lot more than I got. The only thing that ever seemed to get the girls riled up was a discussion about what kind of pants they were going to have to wear to school with their game day jerseys—I had NO IDEA that jeans could be such a horrible thing to wear with a jersey . . . I think most of the girls would have rather spent a winter in a Russian gulag than to have to wear jeans on an 80-degree day. Then they could wear their Ugg boots and a cute sweater and a hair tie or whatever fashion statement a Scottsdale girl needs to make while in a labor camp in the tundra of Siberia.
So I showed up for the last game fully expecting to take my normal spot along the first base line as the first base coach/official scorekeeper/outfield coach. Instead I got the keys to the field thrown to me by the head coach as he had to attend to a regional track meet at the request of the district athletic director.
“Good luck, head coach,” he said as he tossed me the keys. “It’s all yours today.”
And so I HEAD coached my first softball game. And I will let you in on a secret: I don’t know shit about coaching softball.
Sure, I can teach someone to catch and throw a ball, and I can teach someone to hit, especially if they don’t already have a clue as to what they are doing. I know how to run and I know how to throw and I have a rudimentary knowledge of the game that I learned from coaching first base (which, for those unfamiliar with the game, is basically just telling girls to “run through” if they need to try to beat a throw to first or telling a girl to “go two” if they can safely advance to second base). I was saddled with the scorekeeping book for the whole season on top of coaching first, so for most of the game I was busy trying to keep track of balls and strikes and runs scored and whether or not the girl on second base got there because of an error, a passed ball, a wild pitch, a single and a stolen base, or a double. There is a LOT going on in that game, let me tell you.
So there I was, standing on the third base line, responsible for calling signals (bunt, pullback bunt, delay bunt, swing away, etc.) to fifteen girls, lining up the outfield to cover a hitter’s tendencies, keeping the girls on second so they didn’t steal without my signal, and trying to keep the girls in the dugout from saying something insanely inappropriate to the umpire and getting themselves kicked out of the game. It was a little overwhelming, I will admit.
I finally called the girls together after the second inning and told them I was NOT going to be giving them signals to bunt or anything else. I wanted all of them to go up to the plate with a little swagger and swing away and make something happen because at this point we were already down 9-0 (remember what I said about how my cup runneth over with athletes on the team). The first girl up after that speech proceeds to step one foot into the batter’s box and then look down the line at me for the sign. I made no attempt to disguise our sign for “swing away,” which she promptly did and got out thanks to a POWERFUL hit that dribbled to the pitcher in slow motion. The next girl came up and did the same thing, only this time she swung and missed three times.
“Are you kidding me?” I thought to myself. “What part of “I’m not going to give you a signal so just swing away” do these girls not understand?” I gave another swing away sign. The same thing happened with the next girl, and the next. About the 4th inning I finally realized that they had ACTUALLY learned something during the season and they were going to continue looking down the line to get the sign whether I wanted them to or not. Just doing what they'd been told for the last 15 games, finally.
And that’s when I relaxed. I figured we were already out of the game at this point and we were going to get 10-run ruled in the 5th inning anyway, so as the girls came up to bat, I decided to get a little stupid with my signs. I started doing the “rubber-baby-buggy-bumpers” sign (patting yourself on the top of the head with one hand while rubbing your belly with the other hand) before giving the swing sign. I did a little bit of Madonna’s “Vogue” hand movements before the swing away sign. I did every sign we have in succession before giving the indicator for the swing. I did everything I could think of to just keep it lighthearted and fun out there.
So THAT’S when the girls finally started hitting the ball. We actually started a little rally there in the bottom of the 4th inning. One girl told me that if I did a Michael Jackson dance she would hit me a home run. When she stepped into the box I gave her a little leg kick and an MJ point before giving the swing sign. She laughed so hard and got her first ACTUAL hit of the season (before that she was our designated bunter and only reached on bunts or errors for the season), which was as good as a home run in my book, and probably hers, too. She was SO happy over on first base, celebrating her first REAL hit she almost forgot to run when the next girl came up and ripped a shot into left field.
Of course, it all had to end, it was too little too late and we still ended up getting 10-run ruled in the sixth inning. But at one point we were having so much fun out there none of that mattered. The umpire actually came up to me after the end of the 5th inning and said, “Do those girls know they’re losing this game? I’ve never seen a losing team having this much fun before.”
I told him that the girls haven’t known a score of a game for the WHOLE season so why start now? I took his remark as a compliment though (he did say it very good-naturedly, more in amazement than anything) because I think that JV softball SHOULD be fun for the girls. Winning is nice, but the fact that the girls improved over the course of the year (for instance, we had 17 errors in our first game and only 3 in our last one) and learned little things like what “there’s two outs so run on anything,” means. Even if it did take them 16 games to understand the concept of running on a pop fly ON PURPOSE and not just because they don’t understand what “tag up” means.
After the game the girls started running pulls like they normally do. A pull is where all the girls line up on the third base line and run in the outfield a distance equal to the distance between the bases. I watched them run 4 pulls before one of the girls kind of hesitated and said, “I want to hear Sir Patrick (my nickname to the girls, for some reason) tell us to run.”
I said, “I wasn’t even going to make you ladies run, but since you started I wanted to see how far you’d go before you started complaining about it. Looks like I got four out of you.” They all laughed and came running in around me and took a knee and looked up at me and begged for a speech. I just told them, “Thank you for allowing me to be your coach this year, it was an honor and a privilege and I hope you girls really had some fun this year. If you want me back next year, I will definitely be back.” One girl stood up and took her headband off and gave it to me. The girls all wanted me to put it on so I put it on over the top of my hat to the applause of the girls.
It was such a heartwarming moment that is HAD to be followed up with one of them jumping up and saying, “Let’s get Sir Patrick with a Gatorade bath!” As I found out during the course of the season, the girls could say the sweetest things one minute and follow it up 30 seconds later with a statement equivalent to pure evil. Such is the mind state of a 15-year-old girl, I guess. All of the girls ran to the dugout and grabbed the cooler full of ice water (they grabbed the wrong cooler) and came running at me with it. Unfortunately for them a cooler full of ice water weighs probably 80 or 90 pounds so it took three of them to lift it high enough to pour it on me, which was unfortunate for them because all I had to do was grab the front of the cooler and push it back and it DRENCHED all three of the girls who decided to try to lift it while getting my left leg slightly damp.
That just goes to show you that being bad at softball also equates to being a poor tactician in the art of dumping water on people. Just another thing for them to work on next year, I guess. But I hope they work on hitting first.
B!
I sincerely apologize for my disappearing act, but my plate has been quite full since March 15th of this year, as I have been assistant coaching JV softball at ******* High School on top of working my regular job. Basically I have been leaving my house at 6AM every morning and coming home at 7 or 8 PM every night except for weekends—and even on weekends I was busy as we had a doubleheader against **** that somehow managed to last nearly 8 hours. It’s been quite a ride. I haven’t even been to the zoo or anything! I wonder if the animals miss me.
We finished the season with the stellar record of 3 wins, 11 losses and 2 ties. Believe me, it was much rougher than that record portrays. I don’t want to bash the girls on the team, but we had 15 girls on the team and I would say that 2 of them are what one would consider “athletes” by any stretch of the imagination. Not to say the other girls didn’t try, but there is a very distinct difference between an athlete and someone who attempts athletic endeavors while worrying about her hair and if she looks fat in her sliders.
Anyway, after so many long days and so many losing games and so many practices where I just got the feeling that most of the girls just didn’t give a care if we won or not, I was really ready for the season to be over. We had our last game on Wednesday, and I was excited to put the season behind me. It was my first time coaching athletics and I really didn’t know what to expect, but I definitely expected more dedication from people who willingly came out to play the game. I didn’t necessarily expect fanaticism, but I expected a lot more than I got. The only thing that ever seemed to get the girls riled up was a discussion about what kind of pants they were going to have to wear to school with their game day jerseys—I had NO IDEA that jeans could be such a horrible thing to wear with a jersey . . . I think most of the girls would have rather spent a winter in a Russian gulag than to have to wear jeans on an 80-degree day. Then they could wear their Ugg boots and a cute sweater and a hair tie or whatever fashion statement a Scottsdale girl needs to make while in a labor camp in the tundra of Siberia.
So I showed up for the last game fully expecting to take my normal spot along the first base line as the first base coach/official scorekeeper/outfield coach. Instead I got the keys to the field thrown to me by the head coach as he had to attend to a regional track meet at the request of the district athletic director.
“Good luck, head coach,” he said as he tossed me the keys. “It’s all yours today.”
And so I HEAD coached my first softball game. And I will let you in on a secret: I don’t know shit about coaching softball.
Sure, I can teach someone to catch and throw a ball, and I can teach someone to hit, especially if they don’t already have a clue as to what they are doing. I know how to run and I know how to throw and I have a rudimentary knowledge of the game that I learned from coaching first base (which, for those unfamiliar with the game, is basically just telling girls to “run through” if they need to try to beat a throw to first or telling a girl to “go two” if they can safely advance to second base). I was saddled with the scorekeeping book for the whole season on top of coaching first, so for most of the game I was busy trying to keep track of balls and strikes and runs scored and whether or not the girl on second base got there because of an error, a passed ball, a wild pitch, a single and a stolen base, or a double. There is a LOT going on in that game, let me tell you.
So there I was, standing on the third base line, responsible for calling signals (bunt, pullback bunt, delay bunt, swing away, etc.) to fifteen girls, lining up the outfield to cover a hitter’s tendencies, keeping the girls on second so they didn’t steal without my signal, and trying to keep the girls in the dugout from saying something insanely inappropriate to the umpire and getting themselves kicked out of the game. It was a little overwhelming, I will admit.
I finally called the girls together after the second inning and told them I was NOT going to be giving them signals to bunt or anything else. I wanted all of them to go up to the plate with a little swagger and swing away and make something happen because at this point we were already down 9-0 (remember what I said about how my cup runneth over with athletes on the team). The first girl up after that speech proceeds to step one foot into the batter’s box and then look down the line at me for the sign. I made no attempt to disguise our sign for “swing away,” which she promptly did and got out thanks to a POWERFUL hit that dribbled to the pitcher in slow motion. The next girl came up and did the same thing, only this time she swung and missed three times.
“Are you kidding me?” I thought to myself. “What part of “I’m not going to give you a signal so just swing away” do these girls not understand?” I gave another swing away sign. The same thing happened with the next girl, and the next. About the 4th inning I finally realized that they had ACTUALLY learned something during the season and they were going to continue looking down the line to get the sign whether I wanted them to or not. Just doing what they'd been told for the last 15 games, finally.
And that’s when I relaxed. I figured we were already out of the game at this point and we were going to get 10-run ruled in the 5th inning anyway, so as the girls came up to bat, I decided to get a little stupid with my signs. I started doing the “rubber-baby-buggy-bumpers” sign (patting yourself on the top of the head with one hand while rubbing your belly with the other hand) before giving the swing sign. I did a little bit of Madonna’s “Vogue” hand movements before the swing away sign. I did every sign we have in succession before giving the indicator for the swing. I did everything I could think of to just keep it lighthearted and fun out there.
So THAT’S when the girls finally started hitting the ball. We actually started a little rally there in the bottom of the 4th inning. One girl told me that if I did a Michael Jackson dance she would hit me a home run. When she stepped into the box I gave her a little leg kick and an MJ point before giving the swing sign. She laughed so hard and got her first ACTUAL hit of the season (before that she was our designated bunter and only reached on bunts or errors for the season), which was as good as a home run in my book, and probably hers, too. She was SO happy over on first base, celebrating her first REAL hit she almost forgot to run when the next girl came up and ripped a shot into left field.
Of course, it all had to end, it was too little too late and we still ended up getting 10-run ruled in the sixth inning. But at one point we were having so much fun out there none of that mattered. The umpire actually came up to me after the end of the 5th inning and said, “Do those girls know they’re losing this game? I’ve never seen a losing team having this much fun before.”
I told him that the girls haven’t known a score of a game for the WHOLE season so why start now? I took his remark as a compliment though (he did say it very good-naturedly, more in amazement than anything) because I think that JV softball SHOULD be fun for the girls. Winning is nice, but the fact that the girls improved over the course of the year (for instance, we had 17 errors in our first game and only 3 in our last one) and learned little things like what “there’s two outs so run on anything,” means. Even if it did take them 16 games to understand the concept of running on a pop fly ON PURPOSE and not just because they don’t understand what “tag up” means.
After the game the girls started running pulls like they normally do. A pull is where all the girls line up on the third base line and run in the outfield a distance equal to the distance between the bases. I watched them run 4 pulls before one of the girls kind of hesitated and said, “I want to hear Sir Patrick (my nickname to the girls, for some reason) tell us to run.”
I said, “I wasn’t even going to make you ladies run, but since you started I wanted to see how far you’d go before you started complaining about it. Looks like I got four out of you.” They all laughed and came running in around me and took a knee and looked up at me and begged for a speech. I just told them, “Thank you for allowing me to be your coach this year, it was an honor and a privilege and I hope you girls really had some fun this year. If you want me back next year, I will definitely be back.” One girl stood up and took her headband off and gave it to me. The girls all wanted me to put it on so I put it on over the top of my hat to the applause of the girls.
It was such a heartwarming moment that is HAD to be followed up with one of them jumping up and saying, “Let’s get Sir Patrick with a Gatorade bath!” As I found out during the course of the season, the girls could say the sweetest things one minute and follow it up 30 seconds later with a statement equivalent to pure evil. Such is the mind state of a 15-year-old girl, I guess. All of the girls ran to the dugout and grabbed the cooler full of ice water (they grabbed the wrong cooler) and came running at me with it. Unfortunately for them a cooler full of ice water weighs probably 80 or 90 pounds so it took three of them to lift it high enough to pour it on me, which was unfortunate for them because all I had to do was grab the front of the cooler and push it back and it DRENCHED all three of the girls who decided to try to lift it while getting my left leg slightly damp.
That just goes to show you that being bad at softball also equates to being a poor tactician in the art of dumping water on people. Just another thing for them to work on next year, I guess. But I hope they work on hitting first.
B!
Monday, February 8, 2010
My New Hobby
Hello kids. I am in kind of a good mood today because I think I just invented the best hobby ever created. I’m kind of excited about it because I think it might just take the world by storm and I like to think of myself as kind of a trendsetter (those of you who used to read my Myspace blogs will already be familiar with my trend setting skills through my invention of the word “pissblanket” and my universally accepted “Cro-Magnon Introduction Method To Meeting New People”—and those of you who haven’t read those blogs, maybe if you are really nice I will post a retro blog one day a week to remind you of my seemingly bottomless pit of brilliance. All you have to do is ask. Oh, and send money).
So here is the concept of my new hobby. Whenever I get bored, I am just going to open up a Word document and write someone a really tasty piece of hate mail that is completely baseless and most likely borderline insane. My targets will be chosen completely at random, except in very severe circumstances where someone I can actually identify has pissed me off in some way. Here is an example of my first bit of hate mail (I’m new at this, so if this sucks, tough shit):
2/8/10
From: the Desk of B!
To: The Governor Of Texas
Dear Sir or Madam,
Good morning, or afternoon, or evening, as the case may be. You will recognize by the salutation that I don’t know who you are. You will also recognize by the signature below that you don’t know who I am. Let’s keep it that way, shall we?
I have not bothered to look up who you are because I don’t think it is right to introduce yourself to a person who clearly has no interest in you. Since this feeling is probably quite mutual, I think we can dispense with the formalities and get on with the business at hand, which is this: Your state is a festering pile of crap.
I wasn’t a math major, but I would like to school you on some of the properties of math to let you understand just what kind of a moron you are for purposefully seeking the title of Governor of Texas. The first property I would like to introduce you to is the transitive property of math, which is stated as:
If a = b and b = c, then a = c
To put this property in proper perspective, let’s add names to the variables, shall we?
If (a) can be taken to stand for Texas and (b) can be taken to stand for the word “is” and (c) stands for a festering pile of crap, then we can assume:
Texas is. (a = b) Is a festering pile of crap (b = c) then Texas is equal to a festering pile of crap (a = c). It is also humid there, so that makes the crap even worse, but I don’t have a property accounting for humidity and ambient air temperature so you’ll just have to take my word on that one.
Your state of Texas is a festering pile of crap. Right there, mathematically proven, in your face, so don’t try to argue with me. Oh, and as a postulate: you’re a moron. I just added that last part in because it’s true. I don’t have a mathematical proof at hand for that one, but I’m sure I could muster one up if you would like me to. In lieu of the mathematical proof, I will just provide data that would convince any jury of what a moron you are:
Anyone who would willfully and intentionally govern a state with such places as Dalhart, (a city with so much cattle flatulence in the air you can literally see it from six miles away) and Houston, which, in spite of NASA being located there, has amassed a population so stupid that the collective IQ of that city isn’t even a real number as far as I can find in the math books both real and imagined. And Galveston? Are you kidding me? Did you even LOOK at the state you were trying to run or were you just so entranced with all of the murals of Tom Landry and all the other old Dallas Cowboys on the walls of your local Outback Steakhouse that you wanted to assume control of a state with such artistic, if stupid, tendencies.
Have you ever heard the phrase “the wonderful state of Texas?” Of course you haven’t, because such a phrase doesn’t even make sense. I spent 9 months in Texas and I don’t even look at it as a state as much as I look at it as something that I stepped in that was so disgusting I had to throw my shoes away.
So not only are you a moron, you owe me a pair of shoes, jerkface.
Would you like more examples of how horrible you and your state are? Of course you would, because you haven’t BEGUN to understand how stupid your state is. For this next example, I will use the symmetric property, which is stated as:
If a = b then b = a
In this case, as always, the letter a stands for you, the governor of Texas, and the letter b stands for big pile of asscrap (yeah, I just made that word up, what are you going to do about it, you pissblanket?) called Texas, then you and a pile of asscrap, governor, are one and the same.
Congratulations on running the 2nd worst state in the union. You can thank God for Mississippi, the only state in the Union that is more fun to spell than it is to visit. But at least it doesn’t have to count El Paso as one of its GOOD cities.
Fuck off. Sincerely, fuck off.
B!
I’m pretty psyched about my new hobby. My next target is the guy who kept cutting off those GoDaddy commercials before they actually did something worth watching in that crappy game yesterday.
I like me some Danica Patrick. And not just because her last name kicks ass.
So here is the concept of my new hobby. Whenever I get bored, I am just going to open up a Word document and write someone a really tasty piece of hate mail that is completely baseless and most likely borderline insane. My targets will be chosen completely at random, except in very severe circumstances where someone I can actually identify has pissed me off in some way. Here is an example of my first bit of hate mail (I’m new at this, so if this sucks, tough shit):
2/8/10
From: the Desk of B!
To: The Governor Of Texas
Dear Sir or Madam,
Good morning, or afternoon, or evening, as the case may be. You will recognize by the salutation that I don’t know who you are. You will also recognize by the signature below that you don’t know who I am. Let’s keep it that way, shall we?
I have not bothered to look up who you are because I don’t think it is right to introduce yourself to a person who clearly has no interest in you. Since this feeling is probably quite mutual, I think we can dispense with the formalities and get on with the business at hand, which is this: Your state is a festering pile of crap.
I wasn’t a math major, but I would like to school you on some of the properties of math to let you understand just what kind of a moron you are for purposefully seeking the title of Governor of Texas. The first property I would like to introduce you to is the transitive property of math, which is stated as:
If a = b and b = c, then a = c
To put this property in proper perspective, let’s add names to the variables, shall we?
If (a) can be taken to stand for Texas and (b) can be taken to stand for the word “is” and (c) stands for a festering pile of crap, then we can assume:
Texas is. (a = b) Is a festering pile of crap (b = c) then Texas is equal to a festering pile of crap (a = c). It is also humid there, so that makes the crap even worse, but I don’t have a property accounting for humidity and ambient air temperature so you’ll just have to take my word on that one.
Your state of Texas is a festering pile of crap. Right there, mathematically proven, in your face, so don’t try to argue with me. Oh, and as a postulate: you’re a moron. I just added that last part in because it’s true. I don’t have a mathematical proof at hand for that one, but I’m sure I could muster one up if you would like me to. In lieu of the mathematical proof, I will just provide data that would convince any jury of what a moron you are:
Anyone who would willfully and intentionally govern a state with such places as Dalhart, (a city with so much cattle flatulence in the air you can literally see it from six miles away) and Houston, which, in spite of NASA being located there, has amassed a population so stupid that the collective IQ of that city isn’t even a real number as far as I can find in the math books both real and imagined. And Galveston? Are you kidding me? Did you even LOOK at the state you were trying to run or were you just so entranced with all of the murals of Tom Landry and all the other old Dallas Cowboys on the walls of your local Outback Steakhouse that you wanted to assume control of a state with such artistic, if stupid, tendencies.
Have you ever heard the phrase “the wonderful state of Texas?” Of course you haven’t, because such a phrase doesn’t even make sense. I spent 9 months in Texas and I don’t even look at it as a state as much as I look at it as something that I stepped in that was so disgusting I had to throw my shoes away.
So not only are you a moron, you owe me a pair of shoes, jerkface.
Would you like more examples of how horrible you and your state are? Of course you would, because you haven’t BEGUN to understand how stupid your state is. For this next example, I will use the symmetric property, which is stated as:
If a = b then b = a
In this case, as always, the letter a stands for you, the governor of Texas, and the letter b stands for big pile of asscrap (yeah, I just made that word up, what are you going to do about it, you pissblanket?) called Texas, then you and a pile of asscrap, governor, are one and the same.
Congratulations on running the 2nd worst state in the union. You can thank God for Mississippi, the only state in the Union that is more fun to spell than it is to visit. But at least it doesn’t have to count El Paso as one of its GOOD cities.
Fuck off. Sincerely, fuck off.
B!
I’m pretty psyched about my new hobby. My next target is the guy who kept cutting off those GoDaddy commercials before they actually did something worth watching in that crappy game yesterday.
I like me some Danica Patrick. And not just because her last name kicks ass.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Stabbing Cracker Barrel
Ahem. I am going to stab the Cracker Barrel right in their stupid heads, I promise you that.
I like to start off each one of my little entries here with some sort of a seemingly random quote that will grab the reader’s attention and let them know that, hey, I mean business. And business, in my case, involves stabbing corporations right in their stupid heads. I know it is only pro bono work at this point, but I’m hoping if I stab enough corporations on my own dime I will latch on to some bigger corporation stabbers in some sort of paid internship or something.
Granted, I don’t actually know if Cracker Barrel is incorporated, it may be an LLC or it may be part of a larger conglomerate that is run by lower primates. I will leave finding those answers up to somebody who didn’t just get rejected by them for an interview based on some sort of screening process that was obviously devised by a chimpanzee. I’m still going to stab them.
For those of you who have never been to Cracker Barrel, I congratulate you, for you have successfully dodged one of the worst dining experiences known to man. Here is what it’s like to engage in a dining experience there: As you make your way past a seemingly endless row of “handmade” rocking chairs priced at $149 on the porch, you see a menu describing the daily special written in chalk on the side of the building next to the door. You can NEVER read that because it has been the same special for 13 years and they ran out of chalk 12 years ago. The management has never gone through the rigorous process of going to Wal-Mart to buy more chalk because they are so engrossed in figuring out how to put on their suspenders they have little time for anything else.
Inside you will be forced to walk through a retail store that has somehow managed to cram so much stuff into the space that it looks like an episode of “Hoarders” is getting ready to film there if they could just figure out how to get the camera inside the door. In between Christmas ornaments of Elvis and cassette tapes of Kenny Roger’s Greatest Hits you will find cool things like . . . ummmm, nothing. There is nothing cool there. Unless you count the little tub full of those awesome dinner mints that melt in your mouth, but that little 8 ounce tub costs $7 so if you do count that, you should be eating at a much better restaurant than Cracker Barrel. You should be at the Red Lobster, moneybags. There’s more flavor in those cheesy biscuits than in a whole table full of crap from Cracker Barrel.
If you manage to find a path through all of the piles and piles of shit that makes a Grandma’s knees quiver in dry-crotched joy, you will finally find a hostess who is genuinely unhappy to see you. If she wasn’t so busy fielding special requests from people making ABSOLUTELY SURE there is no spice on any of the food, she would actually spit in your face before taking you to a table right next to either a table of pure-blood white trash or a table full of the bingo club from the church or, better yet, both.
At this point, the dining experience is completely unremarkable unless you happen to catch some of the conversation from the pure-blood white trash table, where you will hear genuine, straight-faced statements like, “I don’t care what you say, I will park my Camaro anywhere in the yard I feel like,” and “Does this tank top make my rebel flag tattoo look bitchen or what?”
Just eat your “food” and get the hell out of there as fast as you can. And on the way home, don’t forget to stop off at ANY OTHER RESTAURANT to make sure you get some good food in your belly before you get to your front door.
Okay, so back to why I am going to stab these F-worders, they have an ad up in Flagstaff looking for a manager to run their retail side of the restaurant. I applied to the ad and was given a link to their screening process. From what I could tell from the “screening process,” the only question was this:
Do you have at least 2 years of retail management experience?
My answer was, “Yes.” (I have almost 15 years of management experience, for those who were wondering if I was lying about the whole “yes” thing right there)
My final score: 0
What the fuck?! I can say that word because I am over 18, in good physical health, have never been convicted of a crime (or even accused of one, for that matter), and have seen “Scarface” more than 57 times in my life.
I know I am probably not the best employee in the world. But I am as close as you will ever get without having to deal with someone who says things like, “Buck up, camper, things are getting better” and “What a fantastic day! It just makes you want to whistle a happy tune, doesn’t it?” early in the morning before you’ve had your coffee or pushed a midget down the stairs yet.
Somehow I have become fundamentally unemployable over the last 2 years without even trying. That’s the best part. I am the same guy who ran $2+ million volumes with little or no effort (just kidding, I worked my ass off, I just made it look easy). I am the same guy that managed to keep all of the various races and tribes from killing each other on their lunch breaks up at Savers in Flagstaff while SIMULTANEOUSLY lowering my golf handicap by 8 strokes.
Let’s face it, I rock. So why do I score a big fat 0 on the screening process for stupid Cracker Barrel? I don’t even want to work for Cracker Barrel. Their food tastes like it was designed by a chef who wanted the food to taste “as close to air” as possible, the people wear stupid outfits, I can never figure out that damn pyramid game with the golf tees in it before my food arrives and all of the people who work there look like they’d rather be in the back taking the jawbone of an ass to their manager, bible style.
What I want from Cracker Barrel is an interview so I can tell them to fuck off and quit calling me. I already know how awesome I am and I am WAY too good to be working in a shithole like that. But how can I tell them that if they won’t even give me an interview?
Somebody get on that for me, will you?
B!
P.S.--I don't care what you think about it, that "dry crotch" comment made me laugh, and that's all that matters, even if it is kind of sick and twisted.
I like to start off each one of my little entries here with some sort of a seemingly random quote that will grab the reader’s attention and let them know that, hey, I mean business. And business, in my case, involves stabbing corporations right in their stupid heads. I know it is only pro bono work at this point, but I’m hoping if I stab enough corporations on my own dime I will latch on to some bigger corporation stabbers in some sort of paid internship or something.
Granted, I don’t actually know if Cracker Barrel is incorporated, it may be an LLC or it may be part of a larger conglomerate that is run by lower primates. I will leave finding those answers up to somebody who didn’t just get rejected by them for an interview based on some sort of screening process that was obviously devised by a chimpanzee. I’m still going to stab them.
For those of you who have never been to Cracker Barrel, I congratulate you, for you have successfully dodged one of the worst dining experiences known to man. Here is what it’s like to engage in a dining experience there: As you make your way past a seemingly endless row of “handmade” rocking chairs priced at $149 on the porch, you see a menu describing the daily special written in chalk on the side of the building next to the door. You can NEVER read that because it has been the same special for 13 years and they ran out of chalk 12 years ago. The management has never gone through the rigorous process of going to Wal-Mart to buy more chalk because they are so engrossed in figuring out how to put on their suspenders they have little time for anything else.
Inside you will be forced to walk through a retail store that has somehow managed to cram so much stuff into the space that it looks like an episode of “Hoarders” is getting ready to film there if they could just figure out how to get the camera inside the door. In between Christmas ornaments of Elvis and cassette tapes of Kenny Roger’s Greatest Hits you will find cool things like . . . ummmm, nothing. There is nothing cool there. Unless you count the little tub full of those awesome dinner mints that melt in your mouth, but that little 8 ounce tub costs $7 so if you do count that, you should be eating at a much better restaurant than Cracker Barrel. You should be at the Red Lobster, moneybags. There’s more flavor in those cheesy biscuits than in a whole table full of crap from Cracker Barrel.
If you manage to find a path through all of the piles and piles of shit that makes a Grandma’s knees quiver in dry-crotched joy, you will finally find a hostess who is genuinely unhappy to see you. If she wasn’t so busy fielding special requests from people making ABSOLUTELY SURE there is no spice on any of the food, she would actually spit in your face before taking you to a table right next to either a table of pure-blood white trash or a table full of the bingo club from the church or, better yet, both.
At this point, the dining experience is completely unremarkable unless you happen to catch some of the conversation from the pure-blood white trash table, where you will hear genuine, straight-faced statements like, “I don’t care what you say, I will park my Camaro anywhere in the yard I feel like,” and “Does this tank top make my rebel flag tattoo look bitchen or what?”
Just eat your “food” and get the hell out of there as fast as you can. And on the way home, don’t forget to stop off at ANY OTHER RESTAURANT to make sure you get some good food in your belly before you get to your front door.
Okay, so back to why I am going to stab these F-worders, they have an ad up in Flagstaff looking for a manager to run their retail side of the restaurant. I applied to the ad and was given a link to their screening process. From what I could tell from the “screening process,” the only question was this:
Do you have at least 2 years of retail management experience?
My answer was, “Yes.” (I have almost 15 years of management experience, for those who were wondering if I was lying about the whole “yes” thing right there)
My final score: 0
What the fuck?! I can say that word because I am over 18, in good physical health, have never been convicted of a crime (or even accused of one, for that matter), and have seen “Scarface” more than 57 times in my life.
I know I am probably not the best employee in the world. But I am as close as you will ever get without having to deal with someone who says things like, “Buck up, camper, things are getting better” and “What a fantastic day! It just makes you want to whistle a happy tune, doesn’t it?” early in the morning before you’ve had your coffee or pushed a midget down the stairs yet.
Somehow I have become fundamentally unemployable over the last 2 years without even trying. That’s the best part. I am the same guy who ran $2+ million volumes with little or no effort (just kidding, I worked my ass off, I just made it look easy). I am the same guy that managed to keep all of the various races and tribes from killing each other on their lunch breaks up at Savers in Flagstaff while SIMULTANEOUSLY lowering my golf handicap by 8 strokes.
Let’s face it, I rock. So why do I score a big fat 0 on the screening process for stupid Cracker Barrel? I don’t even want to work for Cracker Barrel. Their food tastes like it was designed by a chef who wanted the food to taste “as close to air” as possible, the people wear stupid outfits, I can never figure out that damn pyramid game with the golf tees in it before my food arrives and all of the people who work there look like they’d rather be in the back taking the jawbone of an ass to their manager, bible style.
What I want from Cracker Barrel is an interview so I can tell them to fuck off and quit calling me. I already know how awesome I am and I am WAY too good to be working in a shithole like that. But how can I tell them that if they won’t even give me an interview?
Somebody get on that for me, will you?
B!
P.S.--I don't care what you think about it, that "dry crotch" comment made me laugh, and that's all that matters, even if it is kind of sick and twisted.
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