There are some words in the English language that convey profound meaning through their sheer ambiguity. Assclown is one of them.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Kentucky Spirit
Last weekend, I returned to Baltimore via Louisville International Airport aka Standiford Field. After clearing security, I spied a teen aged boy sporting an offensive, yet amusing t-shirt. I smirked and thought, "Wait and see how funny it is when they don't let you on the plane with that." We were both walking through the concourse in the same direction, when he joined a group that was presumably his family. I am fairly proficient at reading people and I could tell that they were hardcore Jesus-freaks at a glance. Yet, they all had on the same offensive shirt. So, of course, I asked the mother where she got them and learned that they came from an airport souvenir store. This may well have been the best $9.99 I ever spent:
The Queen of Hyperbole introduced the internet to a new word that was created by her kindergartenering daughter. The Princess's discovery was: Fuckorama. Upon discovery, she proceeded to proclaim it loudly about the playground, which is what any one of us would have done given the same circumstances.
Unfortunately, the post left us hanging because the Princess of Hyperbole has yet to provide a working definition of Fuckorama. However, as I was driving down a rural interstate recently, it came to me in a vision:
It is beyond debate thatFuckorama would be an immense improvement over 231 Adult Plaza. Especially since 231 doesn't even represent some unique sexual position but is actually a highway number. Perhaps I've been a bit harsh in my assessment of the intellectual capabilities of the younger generation.
I had planned to leave the previous post up over the holiday, to allow you to contemplate one of the more visible signs that capitalism is clearly running amok. Sure, American society is careening headlong into an economic catastrophe of unmatched magnitude. And, yes, within the next 25 years, I believe that the world will see levels of warfare and famine sufficient to make Revelations look like a great idea. Nevertheless, I am well aware that some things must take precedence over these topics, such as: What are we going to do about Cham's midlife crisis?
For the record, this does not diminish my my inexplicable urge to make steamy monkeylove to Cham on Jerry Falwell's grave one iota. I'm going out of town for the holiday, I'll smell you Monday.
This is what I mean when I say things like corporate campaign contributions (and public stupidity) have rendered the American public impotent at the voting booth. Currently, we have a newly minted Democratic majority in Congress. Yet, the petroleum oligolopy is confident enough in its purchased power to undertake some of its most blatant gouging ever. The following chart shows the monthly, averaged price changes from Jan 2006 to the present of both crude oil and regular gasoline in the US. The price gap shown for May 2007 is pure profit. When prices went up last May, the oil companies blamed increased crude prices. This year they don't bother because we're already trained.
As I've mentioned, I started a new job recently and, so far, the job has turned out to be fairly copacetic. So, last week, I agreed to do some part-time work for a former employer. In fact, I giggled like a little girl at the prospect of referring to myself as a consultant. The hilarity was short lived due to an emergency at my primary job that has been requiring me to work 12-16 hours/day. Thus, I'm not sure how coherent the next post will be, when it will be, or whether it will be in English, but that ought to be par for the course by now.
I hope you don't take offense, but I'd like to kill you. It's not that I have anything against you personally, it's just that I want to kill every single thing on this planet, with the exception of dogs. Now, you are probably thinking that this just sounds like a typical day in the life of Mr. Sunshine-Rainbows-and-Kitten-Farts, but I can assure that is not the case.
The cause of current foul mood can be directly attributed to the fact that I have not smoked a cigarette in over 4 days or approximately 345,600 seconds. It is said that smoking is as difficult to quit as heroin. Although heroin may be cheaper, I don't plan on taking up smack to conduct a thorough comparison. Thus, let it suffice to say that the last 4 days have sucked copious volumes of unadulterated ass.
Fortunately, I have employed the a smoking cessation strategy, otherwise known as drugs. I have been taking a new prescription drug called Chantix (varenicline) for the previous 10 days. Chantix works via a 3 pronged strategy:
1. One of the side effects of Chantix is that it induces nausea nearly immediately after consumption. Nothing quells the urge for a cigarette like the urge to vomit. On the upside, I've developed a new sport, similar to Geocaching, which I like to call Puking for Points. Once the nausea wears off, though, I'm back to my willingness to kill a few drifters solely for the purpose of extracting the nicotine from their blood.
2. A bottle of 56 Chantix (1 mg) tablets, which is a 28 day supply, costs $130. For reasons that nobody can explain to me, neither my previous or current employer's benefit plan covers this medicine. (Of course, if I continue to smoke, they will cover the chemotherapy and associated lung cancer treatments.) The bottom line is that it is just expensive to buy Chantix as cigarettes. Thus, my thrifty, partial-German heritage has proven advantageous, as there is no way in hell that I'm buying both.
3. The packaging and delivery scheme of Chantix is conducive to smoking cessation. The tablets are minuscule, which makes them easy to ingest and particularly difficult to keep lit. The genius of Pfizer's packaging design is illustrated in the following picture:
On the left side of the package, you will observe two rows of Chantix tablets, with two pills per column. Each column equates to a daily oral dosage, so a full week's regimen is in pictured. If the patient slips up and smokes during this period, they have to administer the "Punisher," which is the cayenne pepper suppository pictured on the right. (I don't know what smokers who are into BDSM are supposed to do.)
Thus, it looks like after 20 years of smoking, I am on the path to clean living. That's not to say that I am prepared to swear off the occasional Macanudo. I admit that every once in a great while, I enjoy a good cigar and I can't see any reason why I should stop. Sure, I'll no longer be able to do so orally and I may even refrain from lighting them first, but I'm sure that this is a strategy that's guaranteed to pay off in the end.
If you follow Malnurtured Snay's blog, you know that he is about to graduate from Towson University with an English degree. In fact, he'll be celebrating this accomplishment by attending graduation commando with his tassel tied in a most inappropriate manner. When the dean hands him the diploma on stage, I suggest that he make the sheepskin exchange a quid pro quo proposition, to liven things up.
Regardless, Snay's situation takes me back to 1997 when I was a drunken, chemistry major at TU (back, then it used to be called Towson State). Almost 10 years ago to the week, I was a senior who was about to graduate. I had all all the general university requirements fulfilled and no final exam bore enough weight to flunk me. My only outstanding obligation for graduation, was the completion of a 2 credit independent research class, in which I was enrolled. In fact, I'd done the lab work, which consisted of some type on organic synthesis that escapes me. All I had to do was write the lab report, submit it, and my ticket was punched. The professor was supercool and he liked me, so I probably could have written it in crayon on maxipads and graduated.
I had several acquaintances that had graduated and were out in the "real world". When I contacted them for job leads, I kept hearing the same story: "All I can find is laboratory technician jobs through temporary services--poor pay and no benefits. My 6 month grace period is over, so student loans are killing me." Even though I had "real world" lab experience, I found the same was true. So much so, that I had my temp job lined up for June 1. The idea was that I'd graduate, take a week off, and report to temp hell.
With over 140 credits and only 2 credits away from a BS in chemistry, I pulled the plug. I took all my finals, but never turned in that lab report. The professor gave me an extension and I agreed to it, but I had no intention of doing it. In fact, the day of last final was the last day I stepped foot on Towson University property. As you might imagine all of my friends and family thought I was entirely insane. I had to patiently remind both parents that since they didn't pay for college, they had no right to bitch. I must have heard the word dumbfuck a thousand times that month. Considering that I had $20,000 in student loan debt, no degree, and only an $12/hour lab-flunky job going for me, they might have had a point. Instead, I told myself I knew what I was doing and ignored them--the way I always do.
What I knew was that once I had a bachelor's degree, I couldn't get any loans for a more lucrative degree. In other words, I'd have been stuck living check to check for years, praying to get a job with benefits. However, with no degree I could continue to receive federally subsidized loans. Thus, I hung around Baltimore for the rest of the summer and partied like a god. Once it got cold, I went to my father's hometown in the Midwest and worked for a year, while scoping out the local universities. Finally, I enrolled and completed an engineering degree and I finally finished the chemistry degree, too.
Although I may have accumulated much more student loan debt, I am making close to double what I'd be making if I'd finished the TU degree. I've paid off most of the aforementioned loans and I am in a field that I love. If I choose to be a temp in this field, it's called contracting and it pays well. The bottom line is that quitting Towson University was the smartest thing that I've ever done.
(That's not to say that M. Snay should consider anything of the sort. In fact, if he does, I'll break my long standing Blogger Happy Hour avoidance policy and administer some tough love via tire iron.)
Today, I will tackle a question that has been plaguing humanity for centuries. No, I won't be providing the meaning of life (I've already taken care of that on myspace), but I can assure you that it will be just as enlightening. As the title of this post alludes to, I am trying to determine whether certain females truly believe that size is important.
Obviously, it's not just a simple matter of asking. Women tend to be kind-hearted creatures, so I doubt that many would decimate the delicate male ego by saying that it wasn't big enough. Instead, I expect if that were true, most ladies would merely feign satisfaction and allow the guy to believe that it was sufficient. I imagine that this type of thing could go on for years and even decades.
On the other hand, perhaps there is some truth to idea that size really isn't that important. Maybe there are other factors that outweigh size, such as timing or the means of delivery. For some women, it is quite possible that the physical aspects of it are entirely eclipsed by the emotional facets. This has always made me wonder if there is any truth to the cliche: It's not the size, but it's all in what you do with it.
These are challenging questions. Unfortunately, I don't have all of the answers. All I can say with any degree of certainty is that I'm sincerely glad that I've got a huge one:
PS: If any of you have any bright ideas about a good way to package this monstrosity for interstate shipping, without bending or rolling it, I'm all ears.
