Friday, December 31, 2010

Animals: Fears and Plurals

One day Stiver and I were discussing the pros and cons of various operating systems.  He mentioned offhandedly that one was a ram hog.  It used up a lot of your computers Random Access Memory, and kept it from being used elsewhere.  However, in a horrible flash, I got a vision of the Ram Hog.

The Ram Hog has the bulk of a boar with the athleticism of a ram.  It comes complete with boar tusks, ram horns, and a curly tail with a tuft at the end.  Its fur is just long enough to become disheveled, it's hooves shine like steel, and its eyes are furious embers.

The Ram Hog is the third most terrifying creature I'm pretty sure doesn't exist.

You may be wondering what the top two most terrifying, yet possibly imaginary creatures are.  I'll tell you.

#2: Cybernetic Polar Bears.  A group of Cybernetic Polar Bears is called a God Damned Tragedy.  It's a God Damned Tragedy of Cybernetic Polar Bears.  Let me explain.  The Polar Bear is the world's largest land carnivore, but it spends its days in the Arctic Circle, so no worries, right?  Wrong.  Everything's fine until some asshole moves to the Arctic Circle to do amoral cybernetic research without the prying eyes of any government regulation.  He needs test subjects, so he captures some of the local wildlife.  Fucking Polar Bears.  He enhances them far beyond their already deadly capacities.  Now they're smarter, deadlier, and hate humanity for turning them into monsters.  You think they'll settle for killing an entire research station?  They will not.  They'll come for the rest of us.

#1: Flying Scorpions.  Scorpions hate you.  Even the normal ones.  All they want is to kill you.  You could be 100ft away, and they will come at you as fast as their tiny legs will carry them, just to hear you scream from them injecting venom into your veins.  It's an aphrodisiac for them.  They get off on murdering you.  The only reprieve is being able to climb on a stool or something and kick them away as they get to you.  Not if they had wings.  You couldn't stop them.  They could get anywhere.  Entire swarms of them would sweep the world in a murderous rampage.  That's why a group of Flying Scorpions is called a Terror.  A Terror of Flying Scorpions.

One night Handsome Matt and Steampunk Boba Fett told me that there were Flying Scorpions.  I told them to shut their fucking lying faces, and not to be dirty liars, because that shit isn't funny.  No Sir.  Then they showed me this.

No.  Fucking.  Way.

My blood ran cold and I instantly yearned for death.  I no longer wanted to be in this world; Not in world with that.  But before I could plan my suicide, they let me know that they are not true scorpions, they're scorpionflies, and they're allegedly harmless.  They're insects, not arachnids, and that's not actually a stinger on its tail.  It's its genitalia.  Honestly, I couldn't figure out if I was more or less terrified.  Have fun sleeping for the rest of your life.

Oh, and happy New Year!


P.S. - I still don't know what a group of Ram Hogs is called.

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Shh! ...She's Everywhere!

I totally got bloggessed yesterday.  It was awesome, but slightly unnerving because I was just talking about her in that very post. 

It's kinda when you're telling a dead baby joke and everyone around you gets kinda nervous because there's a dead baby standing right behind you.  Only I was saying good things, so I guess it's more like telling your friend about this funny thing you heard Dane Cook say on TV, and Dane Cook walks up next to you and say, "Hey man, thanks!  That means a lot."  Only that scenario is doubly unbelievable because most people I know don't think Dane Cook has ever said anything funny.

The point is that she can hear your thoughts.  It's the only reason I can think that she would have shown up.  Or maybe she's more like the Beetle Juice* of blogging, and I just said her name enough.  In case it's the mind reading one, I would like to apologize for all those inappropriate thoughts about Kim Possible from last night over the years.


*Which is apparently two words.  I always thought it was one.

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Inappropriate Haiku #2

I've been looking for a new milestone so I can continue releasing my collection of inappropriate haiku.  It's been a little slow coming, but we've gotten another milestone: 1000 total page views!

I'm trying not to be sad. The lovely Jeni Hellum just announced that her blog, Multiculturalism for Steampunk, just enjoyed its 50,000th view, and it's only been up for about two months longer than mine.  To be fair, her blog deals with public interests in a popular sub-genre, and she is heavily involved in Llama related charities; While I mostly talk about ham, hookers, and my own over-inflated ego, so I find it only natural that she should pull in a wider fan base than myself.  So I am left to celebrate what victories I am left with, and here we are.  Your reward:


Inappropriate Haiku #2

She is very cute
She'll look real nice in my trunk
Next to the others


P.S. - I wrote these things seven years ago, and there's only a few more, so bear with me.  Once we get through three more milestones I'll start writing new ones.

Monday, December 27, 2010

Yesterday I Felt Like a Blogger

Yesterday was bad-ass. I spent the entire thing with my long-lost sister. She is amazing. We finally found each other in the autumn of last year, and this was our first Christmas together. Our father was also there. It was the first time the three of us were in the same room together since 1982... But I think all that's for a different post. The point is, it was one awesome brother, and one awesome sister tearing up southern Michigan.

And I just couldn't stop thinking about blogging.

It's totally not my fault. It started with this:



Okay, I get that a few of you might not get the awesome of what's going on here, so I'll explain. You see, I'm not balls deep in the blogging community just yet. In fact, there's only two blogs that I read that aren't written by people I know IRL. That would be Jenny Lawson's, The Bloggess and Allie Brosh's Hyperbole and a Half. They are both beautiful, insane ladies who make me feel a little more beautiful and a little less insane.* Well, Allie's boyfriend's name is Duncan, and Jenny has a history of shouting out "Wolverines!" with little to no provocation. I was only sad that it was only a singular wolverine, and not plural. Anyway, I made my sister turn the car around and stand in the snow so she could take my picture with this blogging monument.

Later we were walking through Ann Arbor and came across this amazing little used bookstore called Kaleidoscope. They had a magical basement with all sorts of neat old books, comics, magazines, and collectables. There was even a box of old action figures, in which I found this:



I had done it. I had found another Wolverine. They were plural now. What had I found that day?

Wolverines!!!

Here's the clincher. We took to driving again and passed this:



And ALL I could think of was a senior's sea cruise for sex freaks. I could not stop giggling. Once again I made my sister turn around so I could photograph it, and share it with my dedicated and loyal followers. Turns out it was a car wash or something. Go figure.

So there it is. Not only did I apparently have blogging on the brain all day, but this is the first time I officially inconvenienced anyone to indulge my blogging habit. There's no going back now.

P.S. - And to top it off, I wrote this post on my phone on the flight home.


*I swear I'm not gay.

Saturday, December 25, 2010

And So It's Christmas - Part 2

Earlier this month I had planned to write many insightful points of view centered around what Christmas is like for an Atheist.  Since then, the wonderful Pecanita has written just about everything I wanted to say, but better... so fuck her.  I won't waste my time.  The only difference is she's an angry Atheist, and I'm a happy Atheist.  So take whatever she says, apply the principle, remove the bile, and you pretty much get my point of view.

Also I don't want to go on about the joys of Christmas, and how it's all really about family and togetherness.  It's not that I don't believe it, I do from the bottom of my heart.  It's just that it's a bit played out.  I don't want this blog to sound like it was sponsored by Hallmark, so I'm going to jump past that and remind you of my Whores in a Dump-Truck post.

So, after secular, spiritual, and familial insights, what's left?  What is Christmas about?

1. Exhaustion.  This is ridiculous.  In order to get Christmas Eve off I had to work extra long hours the week before.  This is on top of this being the most intense time of year for my company.  My entire life for the past three weeks has been put on hold while we all wait for Christmas' lazy ass to finally get here.  Then there was Christmas Eve, where I had to awaken at 4:00am in order to make my flight.  I'm not alone, either.  A lot of us bust our asses every year to make Christmas seem as effortless and natural as possible.  To everyone else who wakes up Christmas Morning and endures family and children for the sake of family and children, when all you want to do is kill everything until it's quiet enough to go back to sleep: I salute you.  I'm proud of you.  Good job.

2. Food.  I know there are starving people in Africa, and down the street, and whatever.  I grew up on food stamps in a single wide trailer, so fuck off.  I'm sorry, I didn't mean to snap at you.  I'm just trying to express that I know how lucky I am.  There is food everywhere.  EVERYWHERE.  There was a Christmas Eve feast.  There was a huge breakfast. There are already preparations for dinner.  There were handfuls of candy in the stockings.  There are cookies, candy, pies, cakes, and muffins all over the place.  I've made my peace with the fact that I'm going to gain five pounds before I leave here.  At this very moment I'm having egg nog and fruit cake.  Merry Christmas.

3. Awkwardness.  I don't care who you, this shit is weird.  This is my first Christmas that is anything like the Christmases I hear about.  There's family, and food, and a big tree with children opening gifts beneath it, and it's weird as hell.  Maybe it would be different if I had grown up with this family instead of tracking them down around the age of thirty and kinda wedging in, but I doubt it. From everything I've heard from people with families, it's always weird.  Before this Christmas was always Chinese restaurants with my mother.  That felt weird, because I knew that no one else had Christmases like those.  So I'm betting that no matter what, Christmas is some weird-ass junk.  No matter what.

4. Doctor Who Christmas Special.

So go forth and love your family!  Love your food!  Whether  you've been together your entire lives, or just met... Whether there's turkey or egg rolls... get some sleep and smile a bit.  It's been a long year, and this is our reward.

Merry Christmas!  I love you all!

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Buried in Ham: Not as Fun as it Sounds

Okay, this has been shameful.

Starting a blog and not posting for a week is like getting a puppy and not feeding it.  But it's still better than getting a puppy and feeding it to an alligator*, so shut up.


The truth is that I've been buried in the ham business.  This is the busiest time of the ham year and I've been feeling the effects.  Working eleven hours a day and being so busy that you just forget to take your lunch breaks makes it hard to focus on blogging.  It has been in my head though, and so I steal these few moments to reach out to my small but loving community.


Even though work has been tough, and I was sick for a week straight, I have had a few moments to live life.  In between ham related emergencies I have my friends.  Last Friday I had a beautiful night out with my steampunk friends.  We went to go see the beautiful and talented Erin Bushko at one of her gigs.  You see, in addition to being a hideous zombie, she is sometimes a snow angel.


Yeah, that's her.  In the sky.

At some point people mentioned funnel cake, and I casually mentioned that I had never had funnel cake.  When confronted with this information people are usually confused and somewhat frightened.  They don't understand how someone could live in a world without funnel cake, and then they go retreat to a safe place.  Instead, my stalwart got me some damn funnel cake.

And some for everyone else too, I guess.


Then we casually strolled through a toy shop.  Then shit got weird.


This is shit being weird.


I'm a pretty liberal guy.  In fact, I would go so far as being just short of radically liberal... but this tests my boundaries.  Inter-species penguin-tiger marriage concerns me.  This challenges every notion I had about how man/woman - avian/feline - arctic/tropic - prey/predator relationships were supposed to work.  It looks like I still have a lot of growing up to do.



*Not that I'm accusing anyone of having done so, but I'm sure that in the history of everything, it's happened.  And to that person: Shame on you.  You need to seek help.**

**I'm implying psychiatric help; Not someone to help him feed puppies to alligators.***


***Though if he did find someone to help him feed puppies to alligators, that would likely be amongst the truest of loves.

Monday, December 13, 2010

You Know What? Apocalypse.

For many, many years now I've been having frequent and vivid dreams of the apocalypse.  I've had just about all kinds now.

In one the Earth in knocked slightly off path an our orbit becomes long and elliptical.  The problem is that at the far point of our orbit was so far away, that we would all freeze to death before it came back.  I just went outside and watched the world turn to frost, then go to sleep forever.

In another the moon came crashing down on us.  Only it took forever.  Even traveling at astronomical speeds, it still took a couple of days for it to get here.  It's the waiting that kills you.*

I've been there when the world's surface was torn apart by earthquakes and volcanoes erupting everywhere.  That one was a bit of an action/adventure.  I did a running jump to catch a rope ladder that was hanging from a helicopter.  Fun stuff.

And many more.  The one I get the most though, and my favorite, is Zombie Apocalypse.  I'm the King of Zombie Apocalypse.

So I know a thing or two about the end of the world, and I'm calling it.  This is it.  The end of days.  Not only have truly bizarre thing continued to happen all around me for months, now the final sign:

It's snowing.  In Georgia.  In December.  Two days in a row.

I can just imagine the conversation with any of my Yankee friends:

Them:  So what?  It's winter.  That's what it's supposed to do.  Besides, it's been snowing here for the last three months straight.

Me:  You know what?  Fuck you.

Them:  That's rude.  I thought you said we were friends.  And it's quite unbecoming of a southern gentleman.

Me:  You're right, I'm sorry.  Fuck you, Sir/Ma'am.  I know you live where snow comes from, but I don't.  You know what we have here?  Three months straight of 120 degree Fahrenheit, 98% humidity, swampy bullshit.  Sometimes I'm not sure if I'm sweating, or if water is simply condensing on me because I'm cooler than my surrounding area. (Note: I am always cooler than my surrounding area.)**  We may get a flurry or two in February, but that's it.  Many years it doesn't snow at all.

Them:  That was rather lengthy.  Wouldn't that have been better served in an essay format, rather than dialog?

Me.  Fuck you...  I get ranty sometimes...  Sir/Ma'am.

P.S. - Sorry about all of the italics and cursing.  Just that kind of day.

*I've never even played Majora's Mask.
** That was a pun.

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Shared Memories

One of my favorite memories in life happened while there was no one around. This has always made me sad, so this post is about doing what I can to rectify that.

It was the holiday season. I was in a large cabin in the middle of the woods. The room was empty except for some tables and chairs... and a gingerbread house. On a table near the middle there was a gingerbread house. With a yard. And gingerbread men in that yard. It was beautiful. It had been there since the night before. If anyone was going to eat it, they would have done so by then.

I could not resist.

It was a dream come true, and no one was there to witness it. So I asked my friend Carrie to make me a similar setup. She did. So now I share with you a reenactment of what happened on that glorious night.



Also, imagine my surprise when I examined the remains and found a can of chicken noodle soup.




















I suppose it is important to eat healthy after devouring a pastry man and his pastry home.  So, thank you.

Monday, December 6, 2010

I Have a Problem

Allie Brosh is the person who made me want to start a blog.  I never intended to do anything in the vein of her work, but she made me want to explore my own voice.

Her blog touched me because we share a similar problem.  But where I go to great lengths to hide mine and never let anyone notice, she brings it out, tells everyone to take a great big look, and makes it hilarious.  I don't know if this is a natural, easy thing for her, but for me it would be terrifying.

I'm not perfect.  In fact, I would go so far as to say that I am deeply flawed... in many ways.  I know that anyone reading this must see this as a statement of blatant fact on par with announcing that the sky is blue, or that bitches be crazy.  I have always known that it is natural for people to be flawed, but for me I always considered it to be a temporary condition.  Given enough time I would identify all of my problems and fix them.  I've had a list for many years of the things that were wrong with me.  I've been working solidly to cross things off of that list.  Self improvement has become a way of life.  I've recently come to understand that it's also become an obsession.

Somewhere along the line I became convinced of my own worthlessness.  Since then I have been doing everything I can increase my own perceived value.  It's been pretty slow going overall, as this has all been subconscious, but its been happening.  I evaluate my own traits and judge them as either positive, negative, or irrelevant.  I've polarized my view of myself, and I'm only happy if I'm making what I consider to be significant progress.  Which brings me to my worst problem:

I'm a procrastinator.  Like bad.  There are things I will put off for no good reason, things that I need to do or I will suffer dire consequences.  I've never understood why I do that, but I think I have a clue now.  Whenever it happens I have already made a mistake, or at least what I consider to be one.  If I proceed, someone will see it, and I can scarcely bear calling attention to my flaws.

I don't know how people live with their flaws and do nothing to try to improve them.  If you're not happy with who you are, you should do everything you can to improve yourself.  That's what I've been saying to myself.  I've said it a lot.  Many times a day.  It never even occurred to me that I would never run out of problems; That one day I would just have to make a conscious decision that I was good enough, in spite of any remaining flaws.  Maybe it's not even about that, right?  Maybe I'm not a list of talents and flaws.  Maybe I'm a collection of traits.  Maybe I'm already good enough.

...

Or maybe I just need to learn more ukulele songs.  Clearly that will make me a better man!

 

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Besuited Voyeurs

I had a real post all written out and ready.  Then this happened and I had to share.  I'll post the other thing tomorrow.

So I started some laundry last night.  I was pretty much out of clothes.  I know I shouldn't wait that long to do laundry.  I know I should to laundry when I have enough clothes to fill a load.  However, this never happens.  I'm a dude.

Times have been exhausting, I was all tuckered out.  Almost immediately after starting my first load, I fell asleep.  I awoke this morning with nothing but dry dirty clothes and clean wet ones.

"Clean Wet Ones" would be a great album title.

I managed to put together an acceptable work outfit with stuff I had tucked away in my closet, but all of my gym clothes were unacceptable for use in their current condition.  I like to work out in the fitness center of my office building on my lunch break.  So I pulled out the only thing I had left, my cold weather outfit.  Long sleeved gym shirt and long pants.  When the time came, I felt ridiculous wearing them inside, and I knew it was going to get hot, but I thought to myself, "Hey, it's not like anyone's going to be watching me work out."

Five minutes into my treadmilling, a man in a suit walked it and said "Oh, hey.  We're going to watch you work out."  Then six more men in suits walked into the fitness center.

I soon remembered that my building has much unused space, and in fact my Specialty Ham Company was planning to move out soon.  As the men in suits diverted their attention from me and began inspecting the room, I concluded that they were likely prospective renters.

Still, just a glimpse into the everyday life of Adam Jones.