Dear Governor:
Obviously you didn't read my original email, since I clearly supported increasing taxes as a way to solve this budget crisis. I'm glad you read it closely since it's that kind of touch with the common man that gets people elected, or unelected.
As I said before, I'm not going to vote for you again. I did last time because I thought that you would support a middle ground for the state economy. Instead, you're attacking the poor and most needy, in the name of
the state. If you don't think that's what you are doing, you need to open your eyes.
I believe that the budget problem could be solved in two ways. 1. Addressing Prop 13, i.e. doing away with it. I'm tired of long-term owners getting preferential treatment when it comes to a common entity--land value. So
do away with it, and start taxing people for what their properties are ACTUALLY worth instead of their "last sale price". 2. This state sends far more money to Washington DC than they give us back. Let's just keep it and fix our problems that way. It's not like the Federal government will miss that 24 billion too much. But people on Medi-Cal, SSI, and Welfare sure will.
Thanks again for the form email. Try again, governor's office.
Sincerely,
Chris Espe
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Monday, April 27, 2009
So sad
I need to do this so much more often. Every time that I fail to blog, I feel like I'm depriving five people of access to some of the most important thoughts about random crap that have ever existed. Naturally, every day we are being bombarded by thoughts about random crap, but few of them are important, and none of them are from me. I mean, until I succeed in my goal of space piracy (first stop, your retarded ass, International Space Station, next stop, the Sun!) I will control a communication satellite (despite what I just said about the Sun and the ISS) and be able to beam my thoughts out to millions of people, who will be like, "Goddamnit, I just wanted to see Malcolm in the Middle in syndication!"
There used to be this really cool video game called Syndicate, where you directed a team of hitmen, and you walk them around a city and rescue some people and kill a bunch of others. I haven't thought about it until right now. Wow.
Anyway, until then, you are the only ones who get to enjoy my thoughts on all crap de la random. That's Esperanto for social networking sites. Between my Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, this blog, and the occasional clips I upload to Youporn without my girlfriend's knowledge, I really am lacking for ways to express myself, so lately I've been walking around Beverly Hills with a sandwich board that says, "Napalm will cure you of Alzheimer's, crispy grandpa" and on the other side, naturally, an advertisement for an Audi dealership. I mean, watches or some shit. Nevermind, this lie sucks anyways. I'm trying to say, I have no idea how I don't feel like I've said enough, but somehow, I just don't, OK? Maybe this should simultaneously be a note on Faceboook, so that they'll start hitting me up with advertisements and things about how I can order random crap (literally, manure from around the world) because I sure need that, like I need a hole in my head.
By the way, every old person who says "I need that like I need a hole in my head" must see kids with piercings and just think, "God Almighty, it's time to pack away the Dinty Moore beef stew and prepare for Armaggeddon."
Don't you wish they started selling tickets for that? And that Def Leppard played at Armaggeddon, so they could close out with Armaggeddon It, and everyone would hold their cell phones in the air because no one smokes but everyone is still a douchebag, and the singer would be all, "Come on, Steve!" because Steve's the guitarist, but apparently, he's sensitive and needs to be urged to do solos, and that's when the nuclear holocaust would start raining down. And of course, then someone would get hurt, and the whole concert would cost Def Leppard their career, just like Great White. What, too soon?
I'm wondering what will come next from this here Internet? I mean, I say it all the time, that with social networking sites, when the site you're using starts copying the competition, that site is over. Somehow Myspace is still around, because 14-year old girls are an entrenched lot, but most of the rest of everyone went over to Facebook last year, and then recently, it's all about Twitter. I read that they had a growth of 1328%. That's 13 times more users recently than before. If I started making 13 times more money, I could have someone killed, or at least maimed, by a Pakistani cab driver in a hit-and-run accident. For just 1/5 of my salary, I'll give you his name.
But it won't be long before Twitter winds up copying someone else, and that's when you'll know it's time to move on, stop tweeting from your phone, and start doing whatever the new thing is, which I think should be a rating site, where things are rated in hatchets. If you like what the government is doing, you remove hatchets from their name. If you get particularly mad at some government policy, you add some hatchets on there. If your friend's boyfriend cheats on her, add some hatchets to his name. The point is, the Internet needs to get a little more Lord of the Flies. It's time for these nerds to feel some rocks falling from above, shattering their glasses, and set the whole island ablaze.
Wait, that was kind of crazy. And somehow, I forgot that I'm wearing glasses. Damn. Back to the drawing board on this one, guys. The hatchet rating website is off for now.
There used to be this really cool video game called Syndicate, where you directed a team of hitmen, and you walk them around a city and rescue some people and kill a bunch of others. I haven't thought about it until right now. Wow.
Anyway, until then, you are the only ones who get to enjoy my thoughts on all crap de la random. That's Esperanto for social networking sites. Between my Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, this blog, and the occasional clips I upload to Youporn without my girlfriend's knowledge, I really am lacking for ways to express myself, so lately I've been walking around Beverly Hills with a sandwich board that says, "Napalm will cure you of Alzheimer's, crispy grandpa" and on the other side, naturally, an advertisement for an Audi dealership. I mean, watches or some shit. Nevermind, this lie sucks anyways. I'm trying to say, I have no idea how I don't feel like I've said enough, but somehow, I just don't, OK? Maybe this should simultaneously be a note on Faceboook, so that they'll start hitting me up with advertisements and things about how I can order random crap (literally, manure from around the world) because I sure need that, like I need a hole in my head.
By the way, every old person who says "I need that like I need a hole in my head" must see kids with piercings and just think, "God Almighty, it's time to pack away the Dinty Moore beef stew and prepare for Armaggeddon."
Don't you wish they started selling tickets for that? And that Def Leppard played at Armaggeddon, so they could close out with Armaggeddon It, and everyone would hold their cell phones in the air because no one smokes but everyone is still a douchebag, and the singer would be all, "Come on, Steve!" because Steve's the guitarist, but apparently, he's sensitive and needs to be urged to do solos, and that's when the nuclear holocaust would start raining down. And of course, then someone would get hurt, and the whole concert would cost Def Leppard their career, just like Great White. What, too soon?
I'm wondering what will come next from this here Internet? I mean, I say it all the time, that with social networking sites, when the site you're using starts copying the competition, that site is over. Somehow Myspace is still around, because 14-year old girls are an entrenched lot, but most of the rest of everyone went over to Facebook last year, and then recently, it's all about Twitter. I read that they had a growth of 1328%. That's 13 times more users recently than before. If I started making 13 times more money, I could have someone killed, or at least maimed, by a Pakistani cab driver in a hit-and-run accident. For just 1/5 of my salary, I'll give you his name.
But it won't be long before Twitter winds up copying someone else, and that's when you'll know it's time to move on, stop tweeting from your phone, and start doing whatever the new thing is, which I think should be a rating site, where things are rated in hatchets. If you like what the government is doing, you remove hatchets from their name. If you get particularly mad at some government policy, you add some hatchets on there. If your friend's boyfriend cheats on her, add some hatchets to his name. The point is, the Internet needs to get a little more Lord of the Flies. It's time for these nerds to feel some rocks falling from above, shattering their glasses, and set the whole island ablaze.
Wait, that was kind of crazy. And somehow, I forgot that I'm wearing glasses. Damn. Back to the drawing board on this one, guys. The hatchet rating website is off for now.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Happy new year to you...in jail!!!
Last night, I watched It's A Wonderful Life, which I am not ashamed to admit is one of my favorite movies. For one thing, it's a totally great movie, and I always feel like there's more to it each time I watch. Like last night, I realized that the first person who shows up at George Bailey's house at the end of the movie to bail George out of trouble is the guy who goes to the Building and Loan in the bank panic and demands all $242 of his money. Also, I realized that the movie is really about the danger of going into business with your dad's alcoholic brother. You'd think they would have fired Uncle Billy long before trusting him with $8000 of the B&L's money, right? I mean, he keeps a crow named Jeremy in the office! He ties strings around his fingers to remember things instead of, I don't know, WRITING THEM DOWN!!!
But hey, the movie is awesome. I mean, it's all romantic, and it's basically about how awesome it is to be kind to others, because they will be there for you, and how your friends are really the proof of how rich you are. In the end, Mr. Potter and all his money are still unhappy, unfuckable, and alone except for the creepy guy pushing him around in his wheelchair. Still, personally, I want to be both. Why is it that you can't be like super popular and rich at the same time? Is that a law?
I mean, don't get me wrong, when the revolution comes, I plan to put rich people's backs up against the wall. But I wouldn't mind being rich if I had the chance. It's much better than being poor, I think. I mean, poor might be semi-chic from time to time, but it's really only cool to look poor, as in wearing designer clothes designed by people who live in the gas chamber of a condemned prison and sewn by Cambodian infants to look shabby. That is pretty cool. But I would enjoy being able to boss people around with money. Really, let's face it, that's all that money is. In the olden days, you would be like, "I am the Archbishop of Mainz!" and that would be enough to let people know not to fuck with you, because you command like crazy amounts of knights, and everyone's afraid of you, because without your favor, God will kill them with the Black Plague and other shit. Or you'd be like the Baron of Muchausen's Syndrome, and when people around you are like going to war, you're pretending to be sick to get attention. That's power. Oh wait, that's mental illness. I'm so fucking confused.
No, money is power, not a new point, but let's face it, people with money always do totally boring things with all their power. I like me a crazy billionaire like Richard Branson, a conceited asshole who's dream is to circumnavigate the earth in a balloon. Well, that's not actually his dream, that's just an awesome thing he does with his money. Seriously, if I had Bill Gates kind of money, I'd start my own space program, and I'd build a golf course on the Moon. Then I'd demand like $100 million from my crazy asshole friends to play 18 holes. Since gravity is like 1/6th of Earth's, a par 4 hole would be like a mile, and instead of sand traps, you just have giant craters everywhere. Plus, at the end, I'd have a bar called the 19th Hole that would actually be a time portal to the Cretaceous period, and we'd all go there and fucking hunt dinosaurs, and pretty much kill all the animals we could. Ray Bradbury be damned.
I mean, rich people set up the most boring charities, and honestly, many charities give money to people with money, like when people set up charities to give money to doctors and hospitals to find a cure for some disease, like Spidermonkeyitis, where your left foot turns into a spider monkey during the full moon (my uncle suffers from this), I mean, why not just give the money to some real shit, like people without feet at all, or without a place to sleep or food to eat? No, rich people need to be like, "I gave 100 grand to cure Dandy-Walker syndrom! Yay for me!"
I think I'm going to start my own charity that gives money to rich people with awesome, worthless uses of money and power. Like, you know what would be awesome? A guy who gets around town by having an army of people crowd-surfing him down the street. Get like 500 people, and pay them all like $100, and they've got just one job, not to drop you, and they like run around, and push you down the street, crowd-surfing your way to work. That would be an awesome waste of $50,000, and you would have many 500 people kind of happy, and me very happy. What about taking vicious dogs from every dog pound in America, and instead of euthanizing them, you employ them as the guards at a new Supermax prison!??! Try to escape when Fido the Fido-killer is ripping your leg off. Guess you'll think twice about being in the Aryan Nation now? (Question: are people in the Aryan Nation racist against black dogs? And if not, then they are even stupider than they already are. At least take your prejudice to the illogical extreme.)
What does this have to do with It's A Wonderful Life? Nothing at all, but to say that Mr. Potter sucks balls. By the way, where did he get all his money? Was he just born with it? God was like, "You don't get working legs, but you get a million dollars," and Potter was like, "You once called me a warped, frustrated old man," and God's all, "Um, no, I just said you get a million dollars," and Potter's like, "What if I were to offer you a position making $20,000 a year, starting today?" and at that point, God is like, "I forgot why I don't talk to characters from movies," and Rocky shows up and knocks Mr. Potter out, and is like, "I hate you, Mr. T!" Remember? Like in Rocky V where he has brain damage and beats up crippled people because he's demented?
Well, I feel like I pretty much didn't talk at all about what I really love about It's A Wonderful Life. That's OK. At some point, I promise, I will.
But hey, the movie is awesome. I mean, it's all romantic, and it's basically about how awesome it is to be kind to others, because they will be there for you, and how your friends are really the proof of how rich you are. In the end, Mr. Potter and all his money are still unhappy, unfuckable, and alone except for the creepy guy pushing him around in his wheelchair. Still, personally, I want to be both. Why is it that you can't be like super popular and rich at the same time? Is that a law?
I mean, don't get me wrong, when the revolution comes, I plan to put rich people's backs up against the wall. But I wouldn't mind being rich if I had the chance. It's much better than being poor, I think. I mean, poor might be semi-chic from time to time, but it's really only cool to look poor, as in wearing designer clothes designed by people who live in the gas chamber of a condemned prison and sewn by Cambodian infants to look shabby. That is pretty cool. But I would enjoy being able to boss people around with money. Really, let's face it, that's all that money is. In the olden days, you would be like, "I am the Archbishop of Mainz!" and that would be enough to let people know not to fuck with you, because you command like crazy amounts of knights, and everyone's afraid of you, because without your favor, God will kill them with the Black Plague and other shit. Or you'd be like the Baron of Muchausen's Syndrome, and when people around you are like going to war, you're pretending to be sick to get attention. That's power. Oh wait, that's mental illness. I'm so fucking confused.
No, money is power, not a new point, but let's face it, people with money always do totally boring things with all their power. I like me a crazy billionaire like Richard Branson, a conceited asshole who's dream is to circumnavigate the earth in a balloon. Well, that's not actually his dream, that's just an awesome thing he does with his money. Seriously, if I had Bill Gates kind of money, I'd start my own space program, and I'd build a golf course on the Moon. Then I'd demand like $100 million from my crazy asshole friends to play 18 holes. Since gravity is like 1/6th of Earth's, a par 4 hole would be like a mile, and instead of sand traps, you just have giant craters everywhere. Plus, at the end, I'd have a bar called the 19th Hole that would actually be a time portal to the Cretaceous period, and we'd all go there and fucking hunt dinosaurs, and pretty much kill all the animals we could. Ray Bradbury be damned.
I mean, rich people set up the most boring charities, and honestly, many charities give money to people with money, like when people set up charities to give money to doctors and hospitals to find a cure for some disease, like Spidermonkeyitis, where your left foot turns into a spider monkey during the full moon (my uncle suffers from this), I mean, why not just give the money to some real shit, like people without feet at all, or without a place to sleep or food to eat? No, rich people need to be like, "I gave 100 grand to cure Dandy-Walker syndrom! Yay for me!"
I think I'm going to start my own charity that gives money to rich people with awesome, worthless uses of money and power. Like, you know what would be awesome? A guy who gets around town by having an army of people crowd-surfing him down the street. Get like 500 people, and pay them all like $100, and they've got just one job, not to drop you, and they like run around, and push you down the street, crowd-surfing your way to work. That would be an awesome waste of $50,000, and you would have many 500 people kind of happy, and me very happy. What about taking vicious dogs from every dog pound in America, and instead of euthanizing them, you employ them as the guards at a new Supermax prison!??! Try to escape when Fido the Fido-killer is ripping your leg off. Guess you'll think twice about being in the Aryan Nation now? (Question: are people in the Aryan Nation racist against black dogs? And if not, then they are even stupider than they already are. At least take your prejudice to the illogical extreme.)
What does this have to do with It's A Wonderful Life? Nothing at all, but to say that Mr. Potter sucks balls. By the way, where did he get all his money? Was he just born with it? God was like, "You don't get working legs, but you get a million dollars," and Potter was like, "You once called me a warped, frustrated old man," and God's all, "Um, no, I just said you get a million dollars," and Potter's like, "What if I were to offer you a position making $20,000 a year, starting today?" and at that point, God is like, "I forgot why I don't talk to characters from movies," and Rocky shows up and knocks Mr. Potter out, and is like, "I hate you, Mr. T!" Remember? Like in Rocky V where he has brain damage and beats up crippled people because he's demented?
Well, I feel like I pretty much didn't talk at all about what I really love about It's A Wonderful Life. That's OK. At some point, I promise, I will.
Monday, December 1, 2008
Here's some letters I've been meaning to write
Dear The Lead Singer of Incubus:
I was driving today, and I heard your song "I Wish You Were Here" on the radio, and I wanted to offer a minor critique of one line in particular in the second verse: you mention that you were like on the beach, and looking up at the sky which resembled a back-lit canopy, with holes punched in it. And you are counting UFOs, and then you say "I signal them with my lighter". Here is where I think a little lesson in physics and mathematics may help you out, and I wouldn't do this to, say, the lead singer of Creed, but you did use the word megalomaniac in a song, and that doesn't go unnoticed. What I'm trying to say is, respect.
OK: so, a lighter is actually not a good UFO signaling device. Your average lighter might be visible in a big concert hall, when it's dark, but then it only has to go a few hundred feet, instead of being viewed against, um, a GIANT FUCKING PLANET.
I don't know if you looked up in the sky tonight (December 1st, 2008), but there was a planetary conjunction. (Conjunction junction, what's my function? What the---the Electric Company? Next I'll be quoting shit from the Polka Dot Door. Can I get a childhood PBS-octemy? Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot I was writing a letter to you, the lead singer of Incubus.) In this conjunction, the planets Venus and Jupiter were close to each other, and the Moon to boot. Venus, by the way, is the third brightest object in the sky, after the Sun and the Moon. And it's like the same size and shape as Earth, approximately. Now, it's pretty close to Earth, but if you were to signal to it with YOUR FUCKING LIGHTER, I don't think people would see it. I'm just saying. They would be far more likely to hear your ear poison playing on their radios. If you wanted to signal aliens, why didn't you talk about like rocking the fuck out of their saucers or something? Your songs are dumb.
Sincerely, Cheetah X
Dear The Aliens from the Incubus Song:
Sorry about all that craziness about you being signaled by lighters and shit. I mean, the guy is clearly off his rocker, no pun intended. Even if you were in the sky above the beach, looking down, with like a 1000x telescope, what are the odds you are going to see him? I mean, he clearly has no conception of scale, and must think that he's like super fucking important if you're going to notice his goddamn lighter from space.
That would be like being a random number between one and a fucking trillion, and if you threw a dart at the number line, being like, "It hits me every time!" Um, no it does, Einstein. It will probably hit you one in a TRILLION FUCKING TIMES. I mean, come on, the aliens, you know math, right? I was afraid to write this in my letter to the lead singer of Incubus, because he's like not really that smart (see: his tattoos, lyrics, and books--yes, books, can you believe that? what a jerkoff), but the circumference of the Earth is like 24,000 miles, and that means that we're talking like 80,000 square miles a hemisphere (pi times circumference, keep up, the aliens) to look at and see this dipshit with his lighter. If I say that you COULD see the lighter if you were looking at, I don't know, 100 square feet of land at a time, the odds are 1 in 4 million that you would spot him. So, can you tell Mr. Lottery Winning Alien Communicator that he needs to learn some science before he starts talking to you guys? I would greatly appreciate that. And by the way, his music is shitty, and I would appreciate if you would send a gift to Creed for not recording anything else. Thanks, the aliens.
Sincerely, Cheetah X
Dear Milton Bradley:
While taking a piss earlier, I wondered why you have waited so long to update the board game clue with new awesome characters, locations, and murder weapons. I am waiting for the day when I can say, "It was Professor Crackpipe, in the Meth Lab, with the Lynch Mob!" And someone is like, "No, I'm sorry, it was Clubbins McDeathdealer, in the Cider House, with the Cancer Baby." Also, I've got an idea for a new thriller board game for adults only called Date Rape Dorm Room (D.R.D.R.) where you try to avoid roofies and date rape, and in the process, become like head cheerleader. Actually, cancel that idea. I am suddenly concerned that you will take my suggestions about Clue less seriously. If that is the case, please use the self-addressed stamped envelope to express any concerns you have with my plans to create an empire based solely on board games, and won through board games. I have recently defeated the Mogul Emperor in a game of Stratego. That is all.
Sincerely, Cheetah X
Dear The Lead Singer of Creed:
I will try to keep this short, and all the words small. Your band is shitty. I hate your music. Thank you for not making it any longer. I hope your family has a wonderful Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Sincerely, Cheetah X
I was driving today, and I heard your song "I Wish You Were Here" on the radio, and I wanted to offer a minor critique of one line in particular in the second verse: you mention that you were like on the beach, and looking up at the sky which resembled a back-lit canopy, with holes punched in it. And you are counting UFOs, and then you say "I signal them with my lighter". Here is where I think a little lesson in physics and mathematics may help you out, and I wouldn't do this to, say, the lead singer of Creed, but you did use the word megalomaniac in a song, and that doesn't go unnoticed. What I'm trying to say is, respect.
OK: so, a lighter is actually not a good UFO signaling device. Your average lighter might be visible in a big concert hall, when it's dark, but then it only has to go a few hundred feet, instead of being viewed against, um, a GIANT FUCKING PLANET.
I don't know if you looked up in the sky tonight (December 1st, 2008), but there was a planetary conjunction. (Conjunction junction, what's my function? What the---the Electric Company? Next I'll be quoting shit from the Polka Dot Door. Can I get a childhood PBS-octemy? Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot I was writing a letter to you, the lead singer of Incubus.) In this conjunction, the planets Venus and Jupiter were close to each other, and the Moon to boot. Venus, by the way, is the third brightest object in the sky, after the Sun and the Moon. And it's like the same size and shape as Earth, approximately. Now, it's pretty close to Earth, but if you were to signal to it with YOUR FUCKING LIGHTER, I don't think people would see it. I'm just saying. They would be far more likely to hear your ear poison playing on their radios. If you wanted to signal aliens, why didn't you talk about like rocking the fuck out of their saucers or something? Your songs are dumb.
Sincerely, Cheetah X
Dear The Aliens from the Incubus Song:
Sorry about all that craziness about you being signaled by lighters and shit. I mean, the guy is clearly off his rocker, no pun intended. Even if you were in the sky above the beach, looking down, with like a 1000x telescope, what are the odds you are going to see him? I mean, he clearly has no conception of scale, and must think that he's like super fucking important if you're going to notice his goddamn lighter from space.
That would be like being a random number between one and a fucking trillion, and if you threw a dart at the number line, being like, "It hits me every time!" Um, no it does, Einstein. It will probably hit you one in a TRILLION FUCKING TIMES. I mean, come on, the aliens, you know math, right? I was afraid to write this in my letter to the lead singer of Incubus, because he's like not really that smart (see: his tattoos, lyrics, and books--yes, books, can you believe that? what a jerkoff), but the circumference of the Earth is like 24,000 miles, and that means that we're talking like 80,000 square miles a hemisphere (pi times circumference, keep up, the aliens) to look at and see this dipshit with his lighter. If I say that you COULD see the lighter if you were looking at, I don't know, 100 square feet of land at a time, the odds are 1 in 4 million that you would spot him. So, can you tell Mr. Lottery Winning Alien Communicator that he needs to learn some science before he starts talking to you guys? I would greatly appreciate that. And by the way, his music is shitty, and I would appreciate if you would send a gift to Creed for not recording anything else. Thanks, the aliens.
Sincerely, Cheetah X
Dear Milton Bradley:
While taking a piss earlier, I wondered why you have waited so long to update the board game clue with new awesome characters, locations, and murder weapons. I am waiting for the day when I can say, "It was Professor Crackpipe, in the Meth Lab, with the Lynch Mob!" And someone is like, "No, I'm sorry, it was Clubbins McDeathdealer, in the Cider House, with the Cancer Baby." Also, I've got an idea for a new thriller board game for adults only called Date Rape Dorm Room (D.R.D.R.) where you try to avoid roofies and date rape, and in the process, become like head cheerleader. Actually, cancel that idea. I am suddenly concerned that you will take my suggestions about Clue less seriously. If that is the case, please use the self-addressed stamped envelope to express any concerns you have with my plans to create an empire based solely on board games, and won through board games. I have recently defeated the Mogul Emperor in a game of Stratego. That is all.
Sincerely, Cheetah X
Dear The Lead Singer of Creed:
I will try to keep this short, and all the words small. Your band is shitty. I hate your music. Thank you for not making it any longer. I hope your family has a wonderful Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Sincerely, Cheetah X
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Turkey Holocaust Day
Fact: Thanksgiving is one of the most patently evil of all holidays. I mean, thing of the elements of the thing: food; family; secret pictures of Adolf Hitler on the inside of every Butterball turkey; and two football games, one of which will involve the Detroit Lions (i.e. SUCK!).
Yeah, bet you didn't know the thing about the Detroit Lions.
Fact: I love evil. Therefore, I love evil holidays. Therefore, I love Thanksgiving. I mean, for me, Thanksgiving is always a time to stuff about five turkeys down my throat, plug it up with a piece of pumpkin pie, start an IV drip of mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce, and tell everyone near me that I love them, even though that's usually the booze talking. Just kidding! I don't drink. I should have thought about that before I went around telling everyone I loved them when I went to the grocery store the other day. They might have just thought I was weird or something.
Fact: Thanksgiving has not always been a national holiday. I think people have weird ideas about holidays, like they were celebrated annually since the event being celebrated. FYI: Christmas did not start the year after Jesus was born. (Yeah, actually, I guess it was, but it was a totally different holiday--it was Roman, and they welcomed back their dead ancestors. Don't most people try to avoid their dead ancestors, as a rule of thumb? I personally don't want zombie relatives showing up on Valentine's Day being all, "We missed you!" It would be time for some shotgun-wielding. Then again, when is it the wrong time to brandish a shotgun?)
Fact: I want to be elected Archduke of Thanksgiving. If they have parades, they should have nobility to preside over them, and I think I'm going to start a parade just to win the noble title. I mean, marshal? What a stupid title for the presiding officer of a parade. Maybe the Marquis de Parade would be cooler. Or not. How about Caesar of the Parades? These are getting worse and worse. Maybe I could be Brigadier General of Thanksgiving, or just Shah of Shahs of Thanksgiving. (That means king of kings to Persians. Totally sweet.)
Fact: someday, I would like to visit Turkey. Mostly to see the Church of Hagia Sophia, which, when the Byzantine Empire was defeated by the Ottoman Turks in 1453, was turned into a mosque, but still, it has some of the coolest architecture. Wikipedia it. The place has this dome with all these tiny windows supporting it, it's awesome. Ah, the Byzantines. Kick ass cathedrals. Giant iron chains across your harbor. Pretending to be the Roman Empire when you ruled like a half a sliver of land. Priceless.
Fact: someday, I would like to shoot a turkey. Whenever I go to this bowling alley, I always play Turkey Hunt!, a video game where the controller is a shotgun (see: above) and you blast turkeys with said shotgun. I am not sure if I ever bagged three turkeys on one level, but I know that I've gotten two several times. Of course, in the video game, you don't get to eat the turkey that you've blown out of the plains of New Mexico. Instead, it tells you how many points you got, and then you can keep going, killing turkeys for like twenty minutes. If you think this video game is retarded, then you are correct. However, I cannot resist it. I love video games with gun controllers. Remember Duck Hunt, that old Nintendo game? That game was fucking retarded with a capital Tar, but I would always want to play that when I was at a friend's house, just to use the gun controller.
Fact: I've just revealed way too much about my lust for gun controllers.
Fact: I need to start a band called Gun Controller.
Happy Turkey Holocaust Day, everyone.
Yeah, bet you didn't know the thing about the Detroit Lions.
Fact: I love evil. Therefore, I love evil holidays. Therefore, I love Thanksgiving. I mean, for me, Thanksgiving is always a time to stuff about five turkeys down my throat, plug it up with a piece of pumpkin pie, start an IV drip of mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce, and tell everyone near me that I love them, even though that's usually the booze talking. Just kidding! I don't drink. I should have thought about that before I went around telling everyone I loved them when I went to the grocery store the other day. They might have just thought I was weird or something.
Fact: Thanksgiving has not always been a national holiday. I think people have weird ideas about holidays, like they were celebrated annually since the event being celebrated. FYI: Christmas did not start the year after Jesus was born. (Yeah, actually, I guess it was, but it was a totally different holiday--it was Roman, and they welcomed back their dead ancestors. Don't most people try to avoid their dead ancestors, as a rule of thumb? I personally don't want zombie relatives showing up on Valentine's Day being all, "We missed you!" It would be time for some shotgun-wielding. Then again, when is it the wrong time to brandish a shotgun?)
Fact: I want to be elected Archduke of Thanksgiving. If they have parades, they should have nobility to preside over them, and I think I'm going to start a parade just to win the noble title. I mean, marshal? What a stupid title for the presiding officer of a parade. Maybe the Marquis de Parade would be cooler. Or not. How about Caesar of the Parades? These are getting worse and worse. Maybe I could be Brigadier General of Thanksgiving, or just Shah of Shahs of Thanksgiving. (That means king of kings to Persians. Totally sweet.)
Fact: someday, I would like to visit Turkey. Mostly to see the Church of Hagia Sophia, which, when the Byzantine Empire was defeated by the Ottoman Turks in 1453, was turned into a mosque, but still, it has some of the coolest architecture. Wikipedia it. The place has this dome with all these tiny windows supporting it, it's awesome. Ah, the Byzantines. Kick ass cathedrals. Giant iron chains across your harbor. Pretending to be the Roman Empire when you ruled like a half a sliver of land. Priceless.
Fact: someday, I would like to shoot a turkey. Whenever I go to this bowling alley, I always play Turkey Hunt!, a video game where the controller is a shotgun (see: above) and you blast turkeys with said shotgun. I am not sure if I ever bagged three turkeys on one level, but I know that I've gotten two several times. Of course, in the video game, you don't get to eat the turkey that you've blown out of the plains of New Mexico. Instead, it tells you how many points you got, and then you can keep going, killing turkeys for like twenty minutes. If you think this video game is retarded, then you are correct. However, I cannot resist it. I love video games with gun controllers. Remember Duck Hunt, that old Nintendo game? That game was fucking retarded with a capital Tar, but I would always want to play that when I was at a friend's house, just to use the gun controller.
Fact: I've just revealed way too much about my lust for gun controllers.
Fact: I need to start a band called Gun Controller.
Happy Turkey Holocaust Day, everyone.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
I am a woolgatherer
Not that it should shock you, but a word exists for what I am, and for what I do. It's cool that there are words for like everything in existence. If you were to forge a toaster and an electric blanket together with a lizard egg, and somehow this Frankenstein creation performed anything at all, even like, um, smelling terrible on command, it would be named by somebody. According to Mitch Hedberg, this is done by adding "-er" to the end of the name. You would have created a smeller.
While reading about this really sweet album (In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel) I came across the pejorative term "woolgathering" used in a review of the album, and I was like, "Hmm, I would sure like a specific definition of that word." So I looked it up, and it turns out, it's something I engage in quite frequently.
Woolgathering: indulgence in idle fancies and in daydreaming; absentmindedness: "His woolgathering was a handicap in school." (PS: In case you wondered, dictionary.com says that this word is a combination of the words "wool" and "gather", and not "woolga" and "ther" like you thought. I mean, if we listened to you about word etymology, most people would still be communicating with semaphore. Ha! Just kidding. We're friends.)
I often find myself daydreaming about nearly impossible situations, some of which may come true, such as engaging in a sabre duel with terrorist leader Sayid abu Bakr and former Grand Wizard David Duke on a steel girder 80 floors above the ground. I came real close to that last year, and then David Duke was all, "Forget it, you guys, I just watched the Deerhunter last night, and I realize now how crazy it is that I've been shooting heroin and playing Russian roulette ever since I lost the race for governor of Louisiana." That guy is a pussy. Note to self: never again fantasize about duels with Klan members. They will always make some excuse and back out of it.
Sometimes I think about things that could happen for real, but most of the time, I think that I fantasize about things that are not real for a reason: they are much cooler than real things. Just as an example: in real life, I will never be President. But in my fantasy life, I'm like better than President. I'm the Emperor of California and Nevada, and we're poised to invade Arizona and northern Mexico. I drive around in a Cadillac that's had the top sawed off, and it has a chandelier on the hood, like the Duke of New York in Escape from New York. (If I ever meet Donald Pleasance, I will demand that he tell me that I am "the Duke of New York, "A" # 1!" Shit, he's dead. Oh well. See, better to live in fantasyland!) Actually, none of this is true. In reality, I come up with these blogs as I'm typing them, and that may be far more interesting, the fact that all this stuff kind of lives inside my head.
I mean, in real life, my fantasies are all about being interviewed by like Rolling Stone magazine, and people are like, "Cheetah X, your blog has become a touchstone for people who don't give a shit about the future of anything," and I'll be like, "The people who read my blog care about the future of things, they just don't care about the future of jalapeño pizza, Furby, or Diet Coke Plus." And the interviewer will be like, "Heavy." End of interview. Insert like twenty photos of me posing like a badass with the carcass of an animal that I've hunted and killed with my bear hands. I mean bear hands. This is another fantasy of mine, to kill a bear, and then hollow out his paws and wear them over my own hands. It will be sweet. I don't think my girlfriend will appreciate them, however, so I will need to judiciously choose when to wear the bear hands. Mainly when I'm hunting and killing animals with them.
How gathering wool came to be associated with idle fantasy seems a little strange. I mean, wool is a fucking commodity. Maybe if I was idly collecting cockroach feathers, then I would be guilty of idle fantasy. Again, because they don't exist. But that might be a little long. Cockroach-feather-gatherer. Also, gathering for a long time has gotten a bad rap. I mean, when it comes to hunter-gatherers, who were the badasses? That's right, the people with the bear hands. Gathering is a worthless activity. I mean, look at homeless people going through your recycling bin, and tell me that you have respect for their activity. But if those homeless people collected glass bottles, made them into weapons, and went around killing pigeons for food, you'd be like, "I'm calling the cops! There's a pigeon hunter on the loose in my neighborhood!" The cops, of course, would tase the shit out of you. Then they would violate all kinds of civil rights of everyone in a 20 block radius. That's the LAPD for you. Injustice much?
Anyway, I'm sure there's something else that could be gathered instead of wool. What about those plastic grocery bags? I will admit to having a collection of them, and it is a fantastical collection, because I always imagine as I ball up yet another plastic bag that I will someday find a purpose for it and the other 60 bags under my sink. Of course, since I don't make a habit of needing to put things in plastic bags, this never happens. So really, let's say that from now on, woolgatherers just got themselves a pardon, and people engaged in absentminded idle fantasies shall henceforth be known as baggatherers. I like the way the two g's looks in there. Bagga. Therers. No, it's bag and gatherers, silly dictionary. Oh, fine, we'll keep it the way it is. Jerk.
While reading about this really sweet album (In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel) I came across the pejorative term "woolgathering" used in a review of the album, and I was like, "Hmm, I would sure like a specific definition of that word." So I looked it up, and it turns out, it's something I engage in quite frequently.
Woolgathering: indulgence in idle fancies and in daydreaming; absentmindedness: "His woolgathering was a handicap in school." (PS: In case you wondered, dictionary.com says that this word is a combination of the words "wool" and "gather", and not "woolga" and "ther" like you thought. I mean, if we listened to you about word etymology, most people would still be communicating with semaphore. Ha! Just kidding. We're friends.)
I often find myself daydreaming about nearly impossible situations, some of which may come true, such as engaging in a sabre duel with terrorist leader Sayid abu Bakr and former Grand Wizard David Duke on a steel girder 80 floors above the ground. I came real close to that last year, and then David Duke was all, "Forget it, you guys, I just watched the Deerhunter last night, and I realize now how crazy it is that I've been shooting heroin and playing Russian roulette ever since I lost the race for governor of Louisiana." That guy is a pussy. Note to self: never again fantasize about duels with Klan members. They will always make some excuse and back out of it.
Sometimes I think about things that could happen for real, but most of the time, I think that I fantasize about things that are not real for a reason: they are much cooler than real things. Just as an example: in real life, I will never be President. But in my fantasy life, I'm like better than President. I'm the Emperor of California and Nevada, and we're poised to invade Arizona and northern Mexico. I drive around in a Cadillac that's had the top sawed off, and it has a chandelier on the hood, like the Duke of New York in Escape from New York. (If I ever meet Donald Pleasance, I will demand that he tell me that I am "the Duke of New York, "A" # 1!" Shit, he's dead. Oh well. See, better to live in fantasyland!) Actually, none of this is true. In reality, I come up with these blogs as I'm typing them, and that may be far more interesting, the fact that all this stuff kind of lives inside my head.
I mean, in real life, my fantasies are all about being interviewed by like Rolling Stone magazine, and people are like, "Cheetah X, your blog has become a touchstone for people who don't give a shit about the future of anything," and I'll be like, "The people who read my blog care about the future of things, they just don't care about the future of jalapeño pizza, Furby, or Diet Coke Plus." And the interviewer will be like, "Heavy." End of interview. Insert like twenty photos of me posing like a badass with the carcass of an animal that I've hunted and killed with my bear hands. I mean bear hands. This is another fantasy of mine, to kill a bear, and then hollow out his paws and wear them over my own hands. It will be sweet. I don't think my girlfriend will appreciate them, however, so I will need to judiciously choose when to wear the bear hands. Mainly when I'm hunting and killing animals with them.
How gathering wool came to be associated with idle fantasy seems a little strange. I mean, wool is a fucking commodity. Maybe if I was idly collecting cockroach feathers, then I would be guilty of idle fantasy. Again, because they don't exist. But that might be a little long. Cockroach-feather-gatherer. Also, gathering for a long time has gotten a bad rap. I mean, when it comes to hunter-gatherers, who were the badasses? That's right, the people with the bear hands. Gathering is a worthless activity. I mean, look at homeless people going through your recycling bin, and tell me that you have respect for their activity. But if those homeless people collected glass bottles, made them into weapons, and went around killing pigeons for food, you'd be like, "I'm calling the cops! There's a pigeon hunter on the loose in my neighborhood!" The cops, of course, would tase the shit out of you. Then they would violate all kinds of civil rights of everyone in a 20 block radius. That's the LAPD for you. Injustice much?
Anyway, I'm sure there's something else that could be gathered instead of wool. What about those plastic grocery bags? I will admit to having a collection of them, and it is a fantastical collection, because I always imagine as I ball up yet another plastic bag that I will someday find a purpose for it and the other 60 bags under my sink. Of course, since I don't make a habit of needing to put things in plastic bags, this never happens. So really, let's say that from now on, woolgatherers just got themselves a pardon, and people engaged in absentminded idle fantasies shall henceforth be known as baggatherers. I like the way the two g's looks in there. Bagga. Therers. No, it's bag and gatherers, silly dictionary. Oh, fine, we'll keep it the way it is. Jerk.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
I apologize for never making sense ever
I was over at my friend's apartment last night, and we were surfing on the Youtube, and came across a thing about cup stacking. If you are unaware, cup stacking is this huge phenom on the Youtube, where children stack cups up and then unstack them, and then claim that they have the world record for cup stacking. This may be one of the most useless hobbies ever invented. I make fun of my little brother all the time because he plays so many hours and hours of computer games, but at least he's at least engaged in something that was designed by other people to be entertaining. Who was the first person who took a look at a stack of plastic cups and went, "You know, I bet I'd be awesome at making these into little cup pyramids, and then stacking them up into different pyramids, and then doing this all to a shitty techno beat!" Because that person needs to receive a beating, and then be handed a Playstation. "Here, you stupid dumbfuck, if you want to mindlessly entertain yourself, we have a number of inventions to do that with already. Put those fucking cups away."
It makes you question whether America can last long enough for me to carry out my scheme where I become Governor of Colorado and then dig through an abandoned silver mine to the underground Rio Grande and escape to Mexico with the state treasury. I stole this from the plot of a novel...called...Grover's Cleveland...yeah, that's it. Um, I mean, it was called the Our Omelet. I love those Denver omelets. I do. I need to get back in the habit of making omelets. And stealing state treasuries.
But still, that probably will never happen, none of it, me writing a novel about it, stealing the state treasury, or even the underground Rio Grande escape. Such a bummer. And all because a bunch of people in this country have pretty much given up on their lives. What happened, America? It's like everyone has been swallowing glass for years, and it's finally catching up with us. "Ow, my insides are bleeding again. I guess I should just go back to this reality television program where cancer patients fight for their survival. Chemo Island."
What a brilliant idea. No one is allowed to steal that one from me. (PS: After writing this, I saw an ad in this magazine that says "Tayln vs. Eye Cancer" and I immediately felt bad for this.)
I often wonder what people have been thinking about when they give up on their lives, and start pursuing things like cup stacking as a way to boost their self-esteem. I mean, for one thing, if I ever had a child, and they showed me their special talent for spinning plates, I would fucking hack off their arm. I would be like, "Why don't you do something useful? What is this plate spinning? America is at war with insectoid aliens that sucked out your mom's brains! Help me finish building this x-ray laser already!"
(X-ray lasers are the coolest, everyone. If you are unsure how to make a high-tech beam weapon, I'll let you in on the first secret of high-tech beam weapon manufacture: you can't be scared of a little radiation. And by a little, I mean, you'll never grow hair again.)
Stupid insectoid aliens. I mean, what if that happened? What if Hitler comes back from the dead, and we have World War II: Part 2--Israel's Revenge? These American cup stacker children and life-wasting people everywhere will be completely useless. Again, at least my little brother will probably be recruited to pilot a remote drone of some sort, like a fifty-foot battlebot that spits fire and uses a flaming sword to cut through Israelis. I mean Nazis. I always forget which side I'm on in future conflicts that I invented.
I mean, I can tell you what side I would have been on in wars in the past, given the chance. Hundred Years' War: England. Thirty Years' War: Sweden. Russo-Japanese-Grizzly Bear War: the Grizzlies. American Revolution: Mitsubishi (they have paid me to say this, in exchange for a free Galant). Just a few more, I promise. The Seven Years' War: The not-French-and-Indian side. Man, why don't we get into more wars that are like time specific? I mean, way back when, it seems like they were kind of free-form, and England and France were like, "What, should we take, um, like a hundred years to fight over whether your king is really our king? How's that sound? Good?" But eventually, by the 1700s, people had it figured out. England and France were like, "Yeah, seven sounds like a good number to me, we'll fight until 1763."
America, if there's two things I've learned from this rambling blog, it's that 1) I'm going to pitch a show called Chemo Island to the Oxygen channel, and 2) we need to start telling people how long we'll be at war with them again. Maybe we peace out of Afghanistan and Iraq, and then we'll just go to Iran and be like, "Hey, Mahmoud whateveryournameis, we're going to come invade your country, because of those nukes and your funny hats. How's three years of war sound? Just 20 months? I think we can arrange that? Yo, China! You want a piece of this in two years time? We'll fight you for a year and a fortnight?"
The Year and a Fortnight War. It is epic.
Oh wait, war kinda sucks, doesn't it? Well, I'm still looking for some help constructing this x-ray laser in my basement. Don't worry, we can't use it until I launch it into space. I mean, ha ha! Shooting an x-ray laser off on the ground. Are you crazy?
It makes you question whether America can last long enough for me to carry out my scheme where I become Governor of Colorado and then dig through an abandoned silver mine to the underground Rio Grande and escape to Mexico with the state treasury. I stole this from the plot of a novel...called...Grover's Cleveland...yeah, that's it. Um, I mean, it was called the Our Omelet. I love those Denver omelets. I do. I need to get back in the habit of making omelets. And stealing state treasuries.
But still, that probably will never happen, none of it, me writing a novel about it, stealing the state treasury, or even the underground Rio Grande escape. Such a bummer. And all because a bunch of people in this country have pretty much given up on their lives. What happened, America? It's like everyone has been swallowing glass for years, and it's finally catching up with us. "Ow, my insides are bleeding again. I guess I should just go back to this reality television program where cancer patients fight for their survival. Chemo Island."
What a brilliant idea. No one is allowed to steal that one from me. (PS: After writing this, I saw an ad in this magazine that says "Tayln vs. Eye Cancer" and I immediately felt bad for this.)
I often wonder what people have been thinking about when they give up on their lives, and start pursuing things like cup stacking as a way to boost their self-esteem. I mean, for one thing, if I ever had a child, and they showed me their special talent for spinning plates, I would fucking hack off their arm. I would be like, "Why don't you do something useful? What is this plate spinning? America is at war with insectoid aliens that sucked out your mom's brains! Help me finish building this x-ray laser already!"
(X-ray lasers are the coolest, everyone. If you are unsure how to make a high-tech beam weapon, I'll let you in on the first secret of high-tech beam weapon manufacture: you can't be scared of a little radiation. And by a little, I mean, you'll never grow hair again.)
Stupid insectoid aliens. I mean, what if that happened? What if Hitler comes back from the dead, and we have World War II: Part 2--Israel's Revenge? These American cup stacker children and life-wasting people everywhere will be completely useless. Again, at least my little brother will probably be recruited to pilot a remote drone of some sort, like a fifty-foot battlebot that spits fire and uses a flaming sword to cut through Israelis. I mean Nazis. I always forget which side I'm on in future conflicts that I invented.
I mean, I can tell you what side I would have been on in wars in the past, given the chance. Hundred Years' War: England. Thirty Years' War: Sweden. Russo-Japanese-Grizzly Bear War: the Grizzlies. American Revolution: Mitsubishi (they have paid me to say this, in exchange for a free Galant). Just a few more, I promise. The Seven Years' War: The not-French-and-Indian side. Man, why don't we get into more wars that are like time specific? I mean, way back when, it seems like they were kind of free-form, and England and France were like, "What, should we take, um, like a hundred years to fight over whether your king is really our king? How's that sound? Good?" But eventually, by the 1700s, people had it figured out. England and France were like, "Yeah, seven sounds like a good number to me, we'll fight until 1763."
America, if there's two things I've learned from this rambling blog, it's that 1) I'm going to pitch a show called Chemo Island to the Oxygen channel, and 2) we need to start telling people how long we'll be at war with them again. Maybe we peace out of Afghanistan and Iraq, and then we'll just go to Iran and be like, "Hey, Mahmoud whateveryournameis, we're going to come invade your country, because of those nukes and your funny hats. How's three years of war sound? Just 20 months? I think we can arrange that? Yo, China! You want a piece of this in two years time? We'll fight you for a year and a fortnight?"
The Year and a Fortnight War. It is epic.
Oh wait, war kinda sucks, doesn't it? Well, I'm still looking for some help constructing this x-ray laser in my basement. Don't worry, we can't use it until I launch it into space. I mean, ha ha! Shooting an x-ray laser off on the ground. Are you crazy?
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