I’m So Vain I Probably Think This Blog is About Me

Which is why I’ve been ignoring it. I’m like an emotionally abusive husband to myself. What does that have to do with vanity? Well maybe I’m just so into myself I don’t even have time to pay attention to myself and sometimes when I jerk off I don’t even finish myself off because it’s all about me and once I get mine why do I care if I get mine? Get off or get off am I right me? Shit wtf am I talking about?

Oh yeah, me.

So yeah since I write this for me I’m like “whatever dude I’m not writing a blog today bitch” and I’m all like “but you never blog like you used to blog, remember when you’d hold me and we’d just blog all night?” And I’m like, “bitch I’m fucking your sister.” Then I’m like, “you know my sister is your sister right?” and then I sort of gross myself out. But then I remember what I was talking about and I’m like, “listen we just started seeing each other me, let’s not get all serious” and I’m all like, “but I thought we really had something” and then I’m all like… “sometimes I just need my space.”

This is getting out of control. I’ll get to the point.

I’m quitting my job. The one I talk shit about all the time. I’m not exaggerating in those posts, seriously it’s shit. I mean my job is kind of cool but this place is a cesspool. I’m doing the same job but for a different company (don’t worry I’m not blogging for a living I’m not that crazy hahahahahahahhahahhhahhaaahahahahhaha riight? RIGHT! <slaps himself and asks himself why he makes himself hit himself>

No for reals though I quit which means I have a mess to clean up before I go because I’m the only one here who does what I do, plus I have this whole search history thing I need to deal with (aka figure out how to delete from remote servers) and I’m trying to stockpile enough content for their blogs and whatnot so their optimization and social media doesn’t start to sink. Despite this being a cesspool I worked too hard to let that happen, at least not for a few months yet.

What I’m saying is, I’m not going to quit blogging because I do it for me.

But also, unless by some mistake of the universe my blog gets semi-popular, it really doesn’t warrant any excuse for not posting for a week or two weeks (and if the universe makes a cosmic mistake they will regret and this gets popular I’ll let people know I didn’t drop off the face of the earth… but that won’t happen because my next post is going to be about…)

WHY PARENTS SUCK AND SO DO TEACHERS! AND THAT’S OKAY ‘CAUSE YOUR KID WAS GOING TO GROW UP TO BE DUMB ANYWAY!

Still working on the title. See, this shit will never catch on.

Laterz yo. I’ll get more semi-daily about this shit once things settle down.

Because I Feel Bad About the Last Entry of the Week Being a Poem… HERE’S HOW NUMBERS WORK YEAH!

This is going to be really short.

Freshman Algebra for some reason we get into Social Security numbers. My guess why? Teacher was trying to steal some identities in retrospect, but who knows.

Obnoxious Kid (Me): Hey, what happens when there are more people than numbers?

Professor Math Genius: They’ll add more. Open your…

Me: No I mean there are nine spaces, 3-2-4. So what they just add another number like no big deal? 3-3-4? 4-2-4? 3-2-5?

Professor Math Genius: Why do you keep saying numbers? You know what, never mind, please…

Me: Numbers. Spaces. Place holders. That space is limited and in high demand. You know they’ll run out right? So where will the place holders go?

Professor Math Genius: They’ll start using zeros in there.

Me: O.o…   Um…   o.O…    I…   >.<….   I

Professor Math Genius: Moving along, please…

Me: WHAT THE FUCK!

Professor Math Genius: Language! <calms down> They’ll add zeros David it’s not important.

Me: <raises hand this time to make up for the cussing but forgets about the part where you need to be called on> Let’s test your little theory!

Professor Math Genius: <suddenly must have a headache because he takes off his glasses and starts rubbing his eyes>

Me: Put a zero anywhere you want in a Social Security number and I’ll bet I can name that number. And I’ll bet that number isn’t infiniti! WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THERE ARE MORE PEOPLE! 

Professor Math Genius: <I suspect he was hungover now that I think about it, I’d be hungover if I had to teach me math> They’ll move the numbers around can we get on with…

Me: FUCK!

Professor Math Genius: David! Office now!

Me: SHIT! <jumps out of desk, grabs chalk, starts writing out a Social Security numbers to prove a point. Professor Math Genius tries to take chalk from David. David throws chalk across room and marches straight to the office where he gets 3 days detention>

And….. scene!

The moral is you shouldn’t cuss in class kids, and apparently 9 digits is < or = to infinity. Either way no worries because you can always just stick a zero somewhere.

 

 

Every Business Person in Busyville Loved Being Busy a Lot… (Hey, don’t read this, I was bored. I see some people clicked here. I apologize. I’ll add something less lame in a bit.)

But David who writes advertising DOES NOT!

David hates business! The whole business season!

You can ask why, and he’ll probably tell you the reason.

Businesses are greedy and soulless, they can’t help it

But we’ve turned them into people with a vote and he don’t like it.

But most of all it’s because of you, busy business people who think it’s important

(And shit I can’t think of anything that rhymes with important!)

 

Whatever the reason, business people or their shoes

Writing business advice columns makes him snooze

 

So instead of doing his job like a good business cog

He jots down a poem about business in his blog.

 

Dear guy who does payroll across the open floor,

Everyone sees you swilling mouthwash after lunch and before.

Breath is important, especially for the talkative type like you,

But man up and put vodka in your water bottle like I do.

 

Dear training manager lady who is about to get fired

I’d feel bad if you weren’t constantly gossiping since I was hired.

No one cares about dress code but you

And everyone knows all day you have nothing to do.

So stop sending people home for wearing the wrong shoes, pants and hat

No amount of being a bitch is going to change that.

 

Dear overseas office who is supposed to be making my new site

Next time I ask you for a design do it right.

I know you’re throwing a fit because you think your ideas are better,

But your ideas suck… I guess that’s all I have, a strongly worded letter!(fuck that was lame. I’m screwing this up. Where was I?)

 

Dear guy who hired me and thinks I care about procedure, management and pipeline

I fucking don’t and you’re making me lose my mind.

I provide you copy, ads, marketing and more

I’m not going to be your corporate whore.

 

Co-workers, I don’t really like any of you and it’s not your bad,

It’s just that you’re dumb and boring and you all make me sad.

Maybe one day my heart will grow three sizes or more,

Or just let me do what I was hired for.

 

 

 

Cool. Just in time for lunch. Busy busy busy.

Dear Judgmental Soccer Mom

Thanks for the comments! I was going to entertain myself for an hour or so until lunch got here with sarcasm and double entendre and time how long it took to catch on. I do enjoy those kinds of back and forth exchanges but I decided to make it a post instead.

First I want to start by saying you are probably correct. This may come as a surprise to you considering what low esteem you hold myself in and how highly (judging by posts) you esteem yourself–wait does that even work as a sentence–anyway, I was saying we have a lot in common, which may come as a surprise. I, like you, enjoy immensely judging others. After all how else are we to feel better about ourselves if we cannot put others below us? And who better to judge one’s entire being than one who spends their day in deep thought about purses and whose self-admitted most terrifying experience was a child locked in a car for a few minutes with an adult present? I don’t know but I’ve heard that large rocks and other blunt objects don’t really exist so thank goodness the fire department got there. It’s well documented most children do melt in 80 degree weather in 12 minutes so it was the nick of time. Not to belabor but truly natural disaster survivors, kidnap victims, rape victims, murder victims and Screech from Saved by the Bell have nothing on you when it comes to surviving tragedy.

I, as one who enjoys judging as well, too find that the most telling feature of another is their desire to participate in common human idiosyncrasies involving physical contact.

Why I once knew this woman, we’ll call her Candy, and Candy absolutely would not participate in kissing! I often thought to myself, what a horrible person this must be to not want to express this common human sign of intimacy even mid coitus! I feel a soccer mom would be the perfect individual to judge her. Would you like her number? You’ll need to speak to LeRoy first, and if he tries to get you to fly into Vegas in heels and a boa just ignore him. That goofy guy is always pulling those stunts. And actually once you’ve notified Candy of her poor kissing decisions in life you’ll likely get along wonderfully as you can both talk to each other endlessly about yourselves.

Did you happen to hear about this new “terrorist” fist bump many are participating in to avoid handshakes? Indeed. It seems germs are the worry but I see something more nefarious afoot. Particularly terribleness (as you put it). What kind of person would avoid such a long-honored tradition of human contact as a handshake you ask? The kind to be burned of course, preferably a stake I always say, not out of dislike of course but if the issue truly is germs, well nothing kills germs like a little fire.

My roommate adopted an abused cat and that bitch will not let you pet her! The nerve. Well she’ll let me now but it took years. And the trick is she has to see you first, palm out and give a sniff. No sneaky pets or she’ll freak out and claw. By comparison I’ve been caring for my mom’s cat as she recovers and Sophie is the ideal of outward affection truly. She’s all about pets which obviously makes Sophie a better person all around.

Did you know that abused kids have the habit of flinching prior to impending and certain human contact? Dirty little introverts. How terribly unsocial of them. Be sure to keep your kids away from that sort of refuse. I mean go get abused somewhere else you little anti-social termites! Am I right or am I right?

Another objectionable trait of course is stupidity, and as you’ve noted I have that in spades. This however is another trait of mine which I’ve learned to quite enjoy as low IQ is an excuse for all sorts of tomfoolery! Run on sentence? Not my fault low IQ. Need critical thinking skills for something? Sounds like work so good thing I’m too stupid. Is that sarcasm I detect? Of course not, detecting sarcasm requires a complex thought process. But, want to judge a complete stranger’s entire being based on a blog post in the “This really happened mostly” category by quickly skimming it and filling in the blanks with preconceived notions zero background and low reading comprehension? A low IQ is a free pass to do that and more. So when there is a sentence right at the end of the most questionable paragraph:

“I might be exaggerating all of that for comedic effect but there’s some truth to it I’m sure.”

That inconvenient caveat can be ignored utterly and let the judgy-ness begin!

Here’s the thing. Of all of the things I mentioned in that post a dislike of hugs is by far the very least objectionable. Especially considering that I, realizing that others do not have this quirk of mine, still give hugs when they can help others. A bit more comprehension on your part would have uncovered the parable however, and found that yes, in the end, the hug did help but in a different way. Which is often what makes a story I’m told.

But maybe I should just talk about purses and other dire first world problems careful never to write anything objectionable lest I be the victim of my own judgment, right?

I Killed My Tortoise

I have Dissociative Feelings Disorder.

And before you ask, yes I just made that up. THAT DOESN’T MEAN IT’S NOT REAL!

Dissociative Identity Disorder is multiple personalities, which is awesome in theory but probably in real life not as cool as it always seems on television. I don’t have that. I have one personality and it’s pretty shitty all around. I know, I know. Negative Nelly. I’m not asking for a fucking hug. Part of my shitty personality is that I like having a shitty personality. Hugs make me angry, and getting angry at hugs makes me laugh and laughing angrily while hugging makes me look psychotic and people avoid people who look psychotic which works out great because it’s hard to give someone a hug if you’re trying to avoid them because you think they might be psychotic. Until I need a good laugh and then it all backfires. I might be exaggerating all of that for comedic effect but there’s some truth to it I’m sure. Where was I?

Oh yeah my real fake disease. I call it Dissociative Feelings Disorder.

I killed my tortoise last week. I couldn’t write about it until now. I had her for about a decade which sounds cool until you realize that this tortoise should have lived to be 50-80 years old. It should have been happily eating greens and carrots and apples years after I was dead and buried–and how cool would it have been if I put in my will and bequeathed a tortoise habitat on my grave? That would have been bad ass. Anyway it’s for nothing because the tortoise is dead and it’s my fault.

I came home on Sunday and checked up on the little guy. Donentella’s shell had collapsed, blood everywhere, and to my horror she was still breathing and seemed in pain. I rushed her to the animal hospital honking at slow traffic, swerving, very pissed off and contemplating the best way to crush a human’s shell, but I didn’t have time to track down whatever asshole crushed my tortoise’s shell right then obviously because I had to get Donny better first.

The vet saw me pretty quickly, putting me in front of the old ladies with 100% healthy yipping little rat-dogs thankfully because I would have bitch slapped an old woman and kicked one of those disgustingly healthy muts right in their neutered crotch. Seriously old ladies. Seriously. The dog’s fine. Go home.

She spent about 2 minutes looking at the little guy and announced her bones were too brittle, she hadn’t had enough calcium, and there was nothing she could do but make her comfortable and put her to sleep.

Me: “Cool doc, so what like you put some pins in the shell and we prop that baby up? Haha! I’ll bet she’ll need some bed rest though huh? I’ve got some spinach leaves she seems to love and once we get home she’s getting an extra serving of carrots.”

Vet: “You’re not understanding. The bones are too weak. And how many carrots do you feed her?”

Me: “Yeah she loves them. But how did this happen? Like you think it was a neighbor kid because I’m not against post-birth abortion in extreme circumstances.”

Vet: “David, this is a Desert Tortoise, you know that right? It needs extra calcium. Carrots and apples should just be a treat. Mostly healthy greens with calcium supplements. You don’t have any other Desert Tortoises do you?”

Me: “The cat? My roommate has a taser. Don’t worry I’ll set it on low.”

Vet: “It’s important that you listen to me now David, you have to sign this. We need to put her to sleep. There won’t be any pain but it takes a long time.”

Me: “Swear to fucking god if I find out my roommate had some drunk asshole friend over who thought it would be fun to play with my tortoise. I TOLD that motherfucker the tortoise is off limits.”

Vet: “I know this is hard but we really need to…”

Me to Donny: Cheer up Donny, the fucker will get an ax to the spine and I’ll turn their skull into a nice water bowl for you. Don’t worry about the cops we’ll make it look like low calcium.

Vet: “Da…”

Me: “SHUT THE FUCK UP LADY AND PUT SOME PINS IN HER SHE’S FUCKING FINE!”

She wasn’t fine. It took about 2 hours for her to die but the vet promised about 50 times there was no pain. That didn’t help me. I feel so much fucking guilt it still gets caught in my throat when I think about it.

In my defense I actually didn’t know she was a Desert Tortoise. The pet shop that sold her to me said it was this type of African Tortoise and gave me care directions for this kind of African Tortoise. You see it’s illegal to sell Desert Tortoises and either they didn’t know what they had when they sold her, or they made the calculation that a couple hundred bucks was worth the eventual life of this animal, or maybe they figured most people don’t keep tortoises that long, or that I’d figure it out later.

Anyway she was eventually dead and she’d be alive and healthy if I had figured out what kind of tortoise she was. It’s not that difficult a mystery to unravel really. It seems hard at first but there are clear ways to tell and it’s my fault for not doing more research. She had been getting progressively slower over the last year, she had been sleeping more. But she always ate a lot. I honestly thought she was getting fat. Do tortoises get fat? Fuck if I know, but that’s what I thought. What was really happening was she was not getting the nutrients she needed no matter how much she ate and she was getting progressively weaker. It had basically been happening from the day I bought her, maybe it had been happening even at the pet shop, it was not until a year ago she started to show signs and I should have fucking known that but holy shit you can’t tell what the fuck a tortoise is feeling because they are reptiles and when you see one eating a buttload of food every day and getting slower why wouldn’t you blame obesity? Really David? An obese tortoise from eating fucking carrots and greens and apples?

I’m an idiot.

And I felt like an absolute worthless piece of shit. Still do. What I did not feel is sad at all. I just felt self-hate really. Still do. Being sad means eventually you’ll feel better and I don’t deserve that and yeah, I get it it’s just a tortoise and if I’m on a desert island starving to death and there is some tortoise I don’t fucking know and there is no other food on the island I’m probably slitting that tortoise’s throat, drinking its blood and making soup.

But she wasn’t some random tortoise on an imaginary desert island.

She was my tortoise. And my responsibility. And I failed. So I don’t deserve to feel better and I won’t feel sad because that is fucking selfish bullshit.

Well as luck would have it two days later my mom had a heart attack and had to have a couple of stints put in. My mom has no problem feeling sad. In fact, she can feel sad even when she doesn’t have a heart attack so imagine how sad she feels when she does have a heart attack. It was pretty sad. Not quite as dramatic as, “This is so unfair I just started trying to get healthy.” No mom, unfair is small kids who die of cancer. Or tortoises murdered by people who are supposed to take care of them. I don’t say those kinds of things naturally I just say she’s exaggerating, she’ll be fine (which she will) and I give her a hug because for some reason hugs don’t make her angry. They do the opposite. They make her feel better. I thought that was pretty funny and started laughing. She did too but for a different reason.

But I felt better anyway. And so did she. I hope Donny does.

Happy late Mother’s Day.

And bah humbug.

Okay You’re a Mother, You’re Not My Fucking Mother

This is a short one and doesn’t really count as a post, but in my ever-spiraling descent into utter and complete anti-social hermitdom I find I need to step back, take a breath, and discern whether this newest thought I cannot shake is a legitimate point of view or another sign that the only thing keeping me out of permanent residence in a cave in a forest in the middle of nowhere so I never have to see or talk to another human again is the fact that the cave doesn’t get internet and I can’t hook up my PS4.

But seriously just because you’re a mother I happen to know I need to say Happy Mothers Day? Fuck you, you didn’t squeeze me out of your twat.

Is that crazy?

I have it on good authority that many have even taken to buying gifts for other people’s mothers ie grandmothers, wives (and okay that one might make the cut, maybe), step sisters, sisters, etc just because of some relation (often questionable relation… am I really related to my sister-in-law? REALLY?). Listen assholes, that’s my mom not yours don’t buy her shit. In fact shut your stupid mouth and give me that candy I’ll give it to her myself.

And I know, it’s just a nice thing, we should appreciate all mothers right!?!?

And most people would see that and see some deep meaningful truth or some shit but all I see is, “How do I know your mom isn’t a serial killer. Fuck your mom.”

Really I just feel manipulated I think. Like the flower and candy industry have teamed up to make Mother’s Day into All-Women-Who’ve-Popped-Out-A-Kid-Day to increase their bottom line.

Well this year I took a stand. I said fuckit all Sunday. Avoided all sisters/aunts/friends/in-laws-of-every-sort/extended family who are all mothers like plague and stuck to just my own mother. I did it! And I felt I made some meaningful point even if I was the only one who noticed until I had to go to dinner with the girl I’m seeing and to my surprise her mother was there (in retrospect of fucking course she was there it’s mother’s day you idiot) and I to my own eternal disappointment in myself blurted out because I absolutely had nothing else in my head except “hehehe I’m totally banging your daughter,”  “Happy Mother’s Day by the way” as I got the tab for Mother’s Day.

Fuck me. And this is why I need to live in a cave.

It’s Called Healing People

Warning: Don’t read this if you internalize insults made to strangers out of anger, or if you externalize those insults and apply them to entire groups of people, or just don’t read this because I get pretty offensive. But for a good reason. At least I think so. It’s called healing people. But don’t read it.

You ever have one of those days where you worked a really crappy job full time for about two years without a complaint and nearly perfect attendance while going to school full time majoring in an area where there happens to be an opening in the Hotel Casino you work for in marketing, and you have A’s and are about to graduate in a month or so with a degree in Advertising and so you apply for this opening which is an entry level position that you qualify the fuck out of and you’re sure you’ll at least get an interview and you’re ready because you know your shit and have worked your ass off but a month passes and you hear nothing so you go to the head of the housekeeping department because your shitty job is as a houseman and you bring it up and she informs you that she took it upon herself, she knowing you well since there are only like 200 people in this department and she’d been there like three months and never said two words to you, that you never went to Gonzaga and that you did not transfer to UNLV at all and that your application is a lie and that she told the marketing department that you should not even be considered for the position and it’s too late anyway because one of her son’s friends with worse grades, who didn’t have to work his way through college, and who isn’t already employed for years at the casino already got the job?

Yeah me too.

When this happens to you, it happens to all of us I’m sure, there is only one way to handle it. The first step is to stop working so hard. Fuck them and fuck what’s her name… she might still be there, something Italian, used to be head of the housekeeping department, you know her. Anyway fuck her and fuck the Mirage mystery hotel casino in Las Vegas I worked at. Time to vacuum those fucking 5,000 square feet of hallway carpeting? Screw that let’s hang out in the storage closet and take a nap. Awe, so sad guest forgot toothbrush, I’ll put it on my list of shit to do somewhere in between try to flirt with cute foreign housekeeper and take another nap. More openings in different departments at the kiosk by the cafeteria? Cool let’s show them what a fake application really looks like, “Hire me. I like Giraffes and play with my willy into the towels.”

Stuff like that. It’s called healing people, get with it. The point is, if you get fucked over by a large company, don’t quit, fuck them back.

And I realize it was not the entire Mirage’s casino’s fault that the head of a department is a fucking cunt hole between the legs who lies about an application that is none of her business either because she’s a vapid bitch who can’t be bothered to ask you or check the facts, or because she’s a conniving bitch who wants someone else to get the job, but the Mirage did hire this fat pile of rolls, caked-on makeup and gallons of perfume to cover the sewage scent I can only guess was emanating from her cavernous lady hole buried somewhere in between those hairy Goodyear blimp-sized thighs so wide she probably couldn’t even piss between them but instead had to wait till the pressure of stored urine reached critical mass and burst through flooding all of the moss and bacteria that had evolved to develop intelligent life and thus the circle of life begins anew.

They did hire her and I couldn’t very well take a piss in her office while she was having her 10^th lunch of the day… could I? Could I? COULD I!!!!

This is about healing people, not peeing in offices or degrading women or being insensitive about weight issues or lady smells usually easily cured with over the counter medication and a shower. That’s not the point. Healing. And okay a couple of those paragraphs are harsh, but did you ever hear about primal yell therapy? Look it up. Healing can get pretty weird.

And I’m all better now. No really I am that was like what? Over a decade ago? I totally don’t live for vengeance have an overdeveloped sense of justice and am utterly void of any inner self-editing mechanism when it comes to things like this. For fucks sake I’m a 100% legitimate adult not even a young adult anymore. I wouldn’t do something at the bar last night like…

Friend: “What time should I get up if I have to be at the airport at 7?”

Me: “Ooh! You know what would be funny? If you got a hotel to give your cell phone a wake-up call, no don’t worry I’ll do it wait this is funny <calls number to Mirage mystery hotel> Hi, my name is Seymour, can I get a wake-up call at…” “I’m sorry sir you need to call from your room to get a wake-up call” “No it’s okay this is my cell.” “Sir you need to…” <snores> “Ooh, so sorry, I have narcolepsy you see and I <snores>  sorry about that I have a… <snores> still there? Okay good… <etc. etc. till they finally hang up phone>

Me: “No wait I got this. Give me your phone.” <calls Mirage from friend’s phone, puts on old lady with emphysema voice> “My son has narcolepsy! And he fell asleep because you won’t give him a wakeup call! How dare you! Now I don’t know what kind of business you run but not giving my son a wakeup call just because he has a medical condition… I mean what is this now? I’m going to call my son and have him call you right back!” “Mam, your son needs to call from…” <hang up friend’s phone> <call from my phone as Seymour again. One thing leads to another. Their time is wasted wake-up calls are made, the world is a better place>

Healing people.

Zen Guide to Dealing with Traffic for the Fully Realized Individual

Traffic for fully realized conscious people like us can be a real drag. Who are these peasants in metal land ships delaying our important progress toward our destination? It’s uncivilized to say the least, we know. But sometimes when our driver has some pedestrian personal folly needing his attention we’re kind enough to allow him to attend his mother’s funeral as long as he makes it snappy or a child’s graduation if we’re feeling particularly charitable.

During these giving times we’ve noticed many things the average worker bee never considered. Don’t worry. We are going to grace you with our observation of traffic, and perhaps teach you how to deal.

First of all class is everything, and as such we’ve classified drivers for you so you can better gauge your own position in society.

1. Old people. I rarely look at old people except on accident and then I usually try to wash the image from my brain by throwing fruit at them, but they drive with their windows up so it’s harder to do while on the road. Instead what you need to do when you see an old person drive is honk insanely and swerve toward them. In this way while they are going 25 mph on the freeway you will succeed in either giving them a heart attack or scaring them off the road so others can drive in a more reasonable fashion.
2. Trucks. There are only two reasons to drive a truck in a city, a very small penis or to put shit in the back. There’s never shit in the back so all of you have small penises. The thing about small penises is that proximity is essential, which is why you tailgate. You need to be smashed right up against the object for any sensation at all. If there is a truck behind you they will try to fuck you in the ass, and probably with their brights on. It’s not because they’re dicks but rather because their dicks are so small. You won’t feel anything of course, but you will see it and it will be disturbing.
3. Teenagers. These kids have it down actually. The proper way to drive is while texting and with total disregard for life. YOLO right kids? Just pretend it’s a video game. Some people complain that more teenagers die in car wrecks in civilized countries than from every disease and other type of accident combined. We call those buzz kills n00bs right kids? Keep up the good work.
4. Asians. Some people consider it racist to point out the fact that Asians can’t drive. That’s just dumb because the proof is in the pudding people, or in this case the proof is in the fact that it takes approximately 15 minutes to parallel park into a spot that isn’t even fucking parallel (just pull into the spot goddamnit! NOOOO! Why the fuck are you turning the wheel that way?! What mythical laws of physics are you operating under?!)
5. Turn signal snobs. We all know that turn signals are just decorative items, something festive for the holidays. That person deciding if he/she has time to pull into traffic? Don’t worry, the fact that you didn’t use your turn signal and so they missed their opportunity doesn’t bother them at all. It’s totally not an inconvenient-ass move that makes everyone else on the road hate your guts and hope you spontaneously burst into flames. Everyone realizes you’re too busy texting or being old or being Asian or having a small penis to be bothered with common human fucking decency. I mean, it takes .05 seconds to hit the turn signal, and most of us do it as natural instinct without even thinking about it because for most humans there is a thing called muscle memory and a brain. But totally don’t worry about it.
6. Cab drivers. Everyone knows that the goal of driving is to be as unpredictable as humanly possible. Keep ‘em on their toes. This means that it is very important at all times to either be going 10 mph under the speed limit or 10 mph over the speed limit and to fluctuate wildly in between. Also everyone knows that turn signals have been removed from all cabs and if your vision is better than 20/200 you can’t get your cab license. Put down the fucking tuna melt, quit trying to be conversational, and get from point A to point B.
7. Women. Ahahahahahaha! Lolz. Women can’t drive silly.
8. Ambulances. Seriously, who the fuck do you think you are?
9. Exhaust. Like most fashion, thick plumes of toxic waste go in and out of style. 2014? Black smog hurled directly into neighboring vehicle windows is totes in.
10. Red light naps. Don’t worry, people drive for fun, not to get someplace. Take your sweetass time waking up from that red light, just enough time so that you’re the only one who can get through it and everyone behind you is stuck there for another 5 minutes until the light changes again.
11. “OMG I have no fucking idea what all these lanes are for it’s so exciting!” Just because something is not a law does not mean it does not serve a purpose. For example, there is no law against collecting your own feces and using it as a bed comforter to keep you warm in the winter. But people don’t do that usually because of diseases and shit, and it’s disgusting. You know what else is disgusting? Slow drivers in the fast lane, or the passing lane. Look at the speed limit, observe the speed of others around you, then choose your lane based on that instead of roll of the dice or your fucking horoscope or whatever other random thing is compelling you to fuck up traffic flow.
12. Ragers. If you get so blood-curdling mad at any of the previous drivers that you begin driving recklessly, flipping people off, shouting, and generally acting like a two-year old who lost their pacifier, grow the fuck up asshole.

I say all of that to say this, we all drive like asses sometimes and we all observe others driving like asses sometimes. If you think you drive perfect all the time, all it probably means is that you can never get better at it since you haven’t acknowledged your own faults. Me too. And that’s how everything in the world works, driving included.

Asians aren’t really worse drivers statistically, but we see a white person, brown, red, green, male, female, hipster, whatever driving poorly, well that pre-existing stereotype is not there, so it’s less memorable. There’s a bigger stereotype behind the wheel though, it encompasses all other drivers on earth. They’re all old blind Asian women assholes with small penises, and I’m the only one on the road who knows what the fuck he’s doing.

Some people are better at driving than others. Some probably really are worthless asses who shouldn’t be allowed to drive, but probably not as many as we think because you forget your turn signal sometimes, you are slow on the light sometimes, you at some time in your life had an old junker that shot plumes of smoke now and then. Me too.

And of the 20 to 50 cars in rush hour traffic sardined in between this red light and the previous all waiting to go, well 1 of them is you, but at that point in your life when you were the one who forgot their turn signal.

Most likely. But some people are just asses as we’ve established so let’s talk about the real problem.

I’ve encountered 3 true ragers in my 2.5 decades of driving. I don’t mean the guy who makes an ass of himself, I mean “my life is in legitimate danger” ragers.

1. I was at the spaghetti bowl going south on the 95 at 7:30 a.m. in Las Vegas NV when I had to swerve out of my lane and into the next to avoid someone else who swerved into my lane. I don’t know why the other person swerved but had I not reacted there would have been an accident and no doubt there would have been more subsequent carnage since few it seems at 7:30 a.m. on the freeway observe the three second rule. I swerved without turn signal less than a car length in front of a large SUV with a middle-aged man in a suit and tie driving it. Now in that split second I did see I had room in the next lane and I did see the original swerver’s rear tire get about an inch from my front tire in their hurry to get into my lane. There was no other escape route. But perhaps to the middle-aged man in suit and tie and SUV it just looked like I cut in front of him because for the next 15-20 miles he tailgated, honked, cut-off,  slammed breaks, opened windows, cursed, repeated. That for 15-20 miles on a busy freeway. Some people would say to exit early or pull over, and that is what I thought I should do at first, but then I thought, “Assholes who are brave enough to act this retarded are usually assholes with guns.” So I decided not to. I did slowdown in the meantime to about 10 under the speed limit and left emergency blinkers on hoping a highway patrol might see and pull me or him over. That would have been great.
2. I thought of guns at the time and mentioned it there because of an incident of rage from years before which involved a young gentleman in an Escalade with very loud rap music who didn’t like the way I was driving it seemed, and pulled up next to me on Maryland Parkway and Tropicana and pointed a gun at me. I’m not sure what I did to this person. I had no recollection of them in traffic, which yeah, probably means I wasn’t paying attention and maybe cut him off?  When I saw the gun I made a right on red onto a street I had not planned on driving on and went well over the speed limit until I was satisfied they had not followed me. Getting pulled over in that instance would have been nice as well. It made me pretty wary, like in the case of the SUV above, I always think to myself “Assholes brave enough to act like this are probably assholes with guns.”
3. My first run in with pure murderous rage in another driver though was about 1 year before that. I was driving it on a bit of a dilapidated street in Las Vegas called Industrial and what I can only describe as a mountain man who’d stumbled into a time machine and a very old pickup truck sped up next to me and started shouting at me to go back to CA you fucking faggot liberal, honking and trying to drive me off the road. I had a little red car at the time, guess that’s a tell? Literally, I had to go off the road in order to avoid getting hit. As to his psychic abilities, my plates were clearly NV, I’ve never lived in CA, and despite my sometimes effeminate writing style I have no idea how to dress myself, can’t hold a conversation or remember stuff that’s important to other people, and have only ever been attracted to boobs and vagina, so those super powers of observation stopped at moderate political leaning apparently? This however did nothing to quell his rage, or maybe his insanity who knows.

Which brings us to puppies and how the self-realized Zen individual handles traffic.

I’m neither self-realized nor Zen. I now and then can let traffic, or anything really, get to me.

But one day it occurred to me that people are not really people behind the wheel. We’re more primitive. We are balancing our sense of invulnerability incased in steel with fear and distrust and trust and pack mentality which somehow magically dictates just about everyone follows the rules almost all of the time no matter how pissed, in a hurry, or distracted they get. We’re mute animals who can only communicate via sharp loud honks and body language operating on instinct and holding simultaneously conflicting thoughts of both primal fear and immortality we evolved out of hundreds of thousands of years ago. We are cavemen and women who need each other to act accordingly for our own survival carrying clubs and ready to use them for self-gain despite it all.

Then I started thinking about puppies naturally, maybe unnaturally, anyway. I think we think they are awesome not because they are awesome but because they are pack animals just like us and we recognize that and it’s what makes them awesome and why we love them. We give them human feelings and emotions and thoughts despite their limited capacity for that, so we only see the good no matter what. Puppies are always blameless unless you’re a sociopath, because it’s our nature not theirs.

I hate spiders, but if spiders always had looked like puppies and puppies had always looked like spiders our perception would have been different and it would be tiny puppy-looking web spinners that sent so many of us into terror and eight-legged exoskeleton dogs who would be our best friend.

Maybe fur has more to do with it than that, but that’s my thought on it.

Back to the thought I had that helped me, these people aren’t acting like assholes.

They’re acting like puppies.

Cars are like big metal puppies. Yes more dangerous I know, but it helps to think about it if traffic sometimes bothers you.

Puppies sometimes piss on your carpet. Sometimes they chew up your PS3 controller. But they’re just puppies. You can’t stay mad at them.

Feel free to share your traffic nightmares, stories, or advice.

Smart Business Advice for Smart Minded Business Go-Getters, Movers and Shakers. Go Get ‘Em Tiger!

As an important marketer at an important internet marketing company I’m often required to write important advice pieces for less important non-marketing businesses who are our lucky clients. These insightful articles to insignificant businesses consist of our research and development department’s newsletter about technical stuff I don’t read and taking inspiration from headlines I don’t see because it gets deleted from my mail box. I play a game and time how long it stays in my inbox before I notice it and delete it. For every 30 minutes it remains in my inbox that is one less drink of alcohol I’m allowed to take at lunch. It’s fun. You should try it, but no cheating.

When it comes time write one of these I think to myself, “What the fuck am I going to write about now? If only there was some inner office newsletter that covered the highly technical aspects of online marketing I could break down into something useful for our clients…” But by then I’m too drunk to make any relevant connections so I sip on the vodka in my water bottle instead and just make up some bullshit brilliant art based on some bullshit  fascinating advice some other marketer already wrote and they were probably drunker than me when they wrote this because wtf you managed to say nothing in like 1,000 words amazing!

To expand the number of topics I’ve begun including business advice pieces. And as a marketer who knows and cares nothing about business and the idiots insightful individuals who write advice columns about it, (insipid shit-eating brown-nosed sycophants)–Damn turrets. Ignore that… Anyway I feel I’m singularly qualified to tell people what to do in this area and call them stupid misguided when they don’t listen to me.

With that established I’d like to get to the crux of this post, why I’ve called you all into my office today <flushes toilet, leaves stall, begins washing hands, turns on that air blower thingy> please take a seat, it’s still warm.

Okay one piece of business advice that never gets old is to make a list of your goals, and an action plan. Action plan is important because as we all know a plain jane plan never implies action, you have to call it an action plan for it to work. If you call it a fucking plan you’ll get fucking fired. It’s an action plan drink the Kool-Aid bitches.

As an example I’ve written some action plans. Action being the operative word.

1. Make one billion dollars
2. Become Batman

Did you catch the action there? Batman. That motherfucker is all about action. I have more.

1. Invent a light saber
2. Learn the force
3. Kick some ass

Few things imply as much action as kicking ass and you can’t kick ass any harder than with a light saber and some force.

1. Find a hobbit
2. Go on some adventures with wizards and shit

Another common denominator here, other than action, is simplicity. Simple is essential because no one likes to be confused and it’s really easy to get confused in the business world. To avoid confusion I like to make thought diagrams. Here’s one to go with our first action plan.

Simplicity is key. Next time your boss asks for an action plan feel free to use this one. It’s all yours… but only if you give it to your boss as an action plan. You can’t repost this anywhere for any reason except as an action plan to be handed to your boss unless full credit is given along with a link back to this website.

Brown Trout Only Swim Down Stream – Hint, there may be murder rakes involved.

In High School during the summers I had an interesting job. You might call it a dirty job, even a… shitty job.

I was really bad at it. It involved waking up about an hour before first tide, putting on heavy rubber hip waiters, layers of heavy clothing, and going either to the dock to take a boat to one of the clam beds, or straight to the shore.

We’d wait for the tide to go out, take our heavy steel tools which I can only describe as a short murder rakes, and for four nonstop hours that felt like 24 hours, stab into a gravely mix of sand, pull back, toss clams into bags, move forward four inches, repeat until every muscle was cramped and neck kinked permanently into the most uncomfortable position possible. Necks are meant to swivel not dislocate, fyi.

Occasionally you’d find a crab instead of a clam. You might imagine that a mammal weighing 100 times more armed with a murder rake and a relatively giant brain would be able to fend off this tiny beast. You’d be wrong. Crabs are fearless bastard creatures, ugly as they are angry, and they’ll kill you if you’re not on your toes. This is going to sound harsh but the only way to survive is to stab it as hard as you can with your murder rake until it is dead. Repeated stabs. It won’t stop trying to kill you until it is dead and sometimes you will think it is dead, you’ll turn your back, and it will try to kill you again. This is survival of the fittest bitches. It’s you or the crab and you have a murder rake. You might think to yourself, “Ah cute nature and I invaded its home I should try to go around it…” No motherfucker. You will die. Kill it.

It was nice though, overall. Beautiful really except for the trout.

I worked with a Goliath of an ex semi driver who laughed like that green dude from those cans of vegetables. And a science journal-reading modern pirate prankster with an excellent sense of humor… usually. More about that in a second. There was an old man. Old like facial recognition tools would not have been able to unravel the maze of lines and wrinkles to identify who this relic had once been, how he could manage this job I had no idea, but he did quite well. The boss/owner was probably one of the nicest guys anyone could work for. I was by far the least interesting person of the group.

I had youth though. I was in better shape by decades, faster, more agile, there was less distance in between me and the clams. According to every law of nature and physics I should have been a clam-digging machine. The pirate and the giant always had more at the end of the day though. When the boss dug, he always got more. The relic usually dug on a different plot of land, but when it came time to weigh in, sure enough he had more. I was not very good at it, never did figure out how they pulled it off.

Normally I slept on the boat while waiting for the tide. The pirate liked to tell fish tales. They were usually pretty funny. He told a story about brown trout over a period of weeks.

“Brown Trout are rare, but valuable. If you see one David, try to get it.”

“They love salty water and fresh water, really any water. You can tell they love it because you just feel so much better after.”

“Sure you can grab it if you ever see one. No need for bait and poll and all that. You see the trick is to pin it to the bottom of shallow water and gently… very gently lift it back to the surface. Don’t worry they’re slow, and dumb. Why do you think they’re so rare?”

“Brown Trout aren’t like other trout, they swim downstream only. It’s weird but true.” (Remember he read science journals, these things interest him.)

“They are an acquired taste David, but believe it or not some people will eat anything,” and maybe the giant or the boss would chime in, “Dogs love it.” And the pirate would give them a look like they had gone too far with it which was weird.

“David, wake up. Think I saw a brown trout… ah too late ya just missed it.”

One early morning as the receding tide lulled me back to sleep I noticed something odd going on in the corner of the boat between the three, something about trout and grizzled middle-aged men giggling, too tired to be interested it just served to lead my dreams to this mythical creature when I heard the pirate shout at me, “David it’s right by you damnit, get that bastard!”

My eyes snapped open. There it was, barely visible beneath the murky water, brown, long with ample girth floating with the tide. I stabbed my whole arm into the sandy 12 inches left of receding water, nearly falling out of the boat onto my prey but saved by some hand on my leg, I pinning that brown trout to the bottom with the agility of youth, pulling it back to the surface gently, lovingly—my mind not quite awake enough to identify the problem, slowly realizing in that split second this trout truly does not act like a trout, delicate as it is rare it seemed as parts were literally disintegrating as I lifted the mushy beast to the surface.

The laughter of the giant, pirate, and boss first registered to me as victory until my mind fully bridged the gap in between semi-conscious and awake, with the prize in hand. I in that moment realized finally what they’d been baiting me for.

Well, shit.