Tired and Sick

Tired and Sick

So I’m sick. Not really that sick, but enough to piss me off. And I’m so ridiculously inept at getting myself better, it’s ridiculous (I need a thesaurus). Like my throat has been scratchy for days and my solution was to eat more ice cream. I thought about gargling salt water for a sec, but there were ritz crackers by my bed which I figured would serve the same purpose. And when trying to figure out how I got sick, everybody asks if I have strange sleeping patterns. These people don’t know me. Or they do and are basically saying “duh.”

So I tracked it back to the night I drove to Cleveland and back and didn’t get to sleep until 8am and then had to get up the next… day(?) at 5am. Anyway, after waking up at about 4pm that day, I couldn’t fall back asleep until about 4:45am. I woke up 15 minutes later, confused as cranberries (that’s not a real saying – don’t use it and expect results) and unable to identify where that damn noise was coming from. Is it the alarm clock?... No, not the alarm clock… I glanced at my guitar... No, probably not the guitar… THE PHONE!!! Got it! It’s the phone… No, nope… it’s not the phone… Oh crap! It IS the alarm clock! Why the hell is it going off now? It’s still dark. I must have screwed something up somewhere. Oh no, wait a sec… No, I was right. Shit on a duck (also not a saying)…

So that is the origin of me being sick. It’s the residual effect of my favor. This favor is getting bigger with every day that passes by that I can’t choke down a yuengling.

The Maturation of the QOTD (content)

The Maturation of the QOTD (content)

I just finished writing at length the history of the quote of the day’s form. Now onto its content. The first couple years, it was glorified potty humor. Actually, it wasn’t even glorified. It was straight-up potty humor. I appropriated comments such as “you can’t fit that whole thing in your mouth” and “wow, you have a tiny head” from conversations and let them do they’re work out of context. It was easy. It was working. And it sucked. Oh, it was funny to the 10 people who were there when it happened or just to those people that knew whoever said it, but it was crap. And it has completely ruined close to any sexual innuendo that can possibly be made now. I can’t judge anymore. Somebody will make what might be a decent joke based on sexual innuendo and I can’t even tell if it’s funny anymore because I’ve become such a snob about it. I feel numb to the genre after living in it for so long. And so there came a point, I forget exactly where, that I decided this stuff was not funny anymore at all to anyone and I refused to be a party to aiding its success. But this did not make the people happy. Now if we were out at dinner and such a phrase was uttered, everyone would turn to me and say “Uh-oh! You’re gonna be on Dustin’s quote of the day.” This was an accomplishment for some people. They were proud to be mentioned on my quote of the day. Chris Meawad tried for years. He’d say something clever and look at me and his ears would perk up and he’d give a funky grin. It was quite comical. But anyway, it was time to put the potty humor to bed.

I started to accrue a pretty extensive audience after a little while. I had lots of people on this list. College friends, fellow employees, ex-girlfriends, current girlfriends, my family, other people’s parents, other people’s girlfriends, friends I made on the internet… the list was pretty impressive. So now I started to need to worry about the content. Do I want to talk about how wasted I got to my mom? Or the chicks I try to score with to my ex-girlfriends? Or current girlfriends? (joke) I was having a problem. And so I made a rouge list called the “x-rated quote of the day.” I only sent out one of those. Really, what I needed were several different security clearances for the messages I would send out. OK for ex-girlfriends, NOT OK for current bosses and certain student employees. OK for sister, NOT OK for mom. I struggle with that still to this day. I kind of started to have an approach of “just pretend this isn’t necessarily me, but a guy a lot like me who works at some college Rec Center somewhere else in the country.” That sounds great, but doesn’t really work out in practice. I wrote a story about kissing a girl on the Subway last year on New Years Eve (my birthday) and a girl got so offended that she asked to be taken off my “frequent bullshit list” and called me an asshole. Sometimes people just weed themselves out of my life depending on how well they can take a joke. And I’m not talking about the kind of joke where I hide cocaine in her jacket when she goes to the airport or anything. I really think that I lost a chance I had with one girl because of a joke I made in my column. Sure, it put me in a bad light, but that was the intent. I poke fun at myself. I make myself look like an ass. I am exaggeratingly critical and/or angry and/or pathetic. It’s a lot funnier, trust me. I do my best work when I’m unhappy, so even when I’m not, I need to pretend to be to stay on my game and keep my voice alive. Unfortunately, a lot of the content is self-depreciating. I wish more people would have a better understanding of the concept of voice before they judge me. Do you really think Steven Colbert thinks all democrats are terrorists? I doubted. But it’s damn funny. Do you think some democrat senator is going to write him and tell him that he’s out of line? Gosh, I hope so. Because it would prove politicians have no sense of humor. Anyway, I’ve gotten myself in trouble and I feel like I need to be a lot more careful now, so I am glad for this medium now. I will still give my adoring public what they want to read, but I can write it in here first and edit for content in the off chance I still have a chance with anybody on this list.

And really, it’s all about trying to score with women anyway. But hey, it looks to be the best chance I got.

The History of the QOTD (form)

The History of the QOTD (form)

I want to take a little time here to address my writing style, as I think that it’s important I not only identify it, but actually dig in deeper to find out for myself what the hell I’m doing. I first started the “quote of the day” back in college and it was originally just meant to be a piece of nothing that would last from March until maybe the end of the semester. I sent out a message about something funny that my friend had said to 23 of the friends I had e-mail addresses for. It wasn’t really anything that impressive at all. It didn’t take me too long to begin to plug intramural games and tell short stories about stupid things my friends and I did. And that’s where it started. I don’t remember exactly how the transition came, probably on one particular subject that annoyed me (such as the art department at UMBC, my unimpressive dating habits or my plethora of injuries), but I started to rant about stuff that pissed me off. And it got popular. Too popular. People began to write back and reply to the whole group and e-mail was relatively new at the time, so some people got pissed off that they had this spam (though I don’t think it was called that yet) in their inbox from people they didn’t necessarily want to hear from. And so then I had to make rules. Like “Kady, don’t e-mail everybody just to say stuff like ‘that’s funny.’ It’s starting to piss people off.” And there were e-screaming matches back and forth on there about whether or not this was technically spam and who had the right to appropriate my e-mail list to voice their opinions and when it was proper and so on. I’ve lost friends over dumb things on this list. Like when ACDC Mike wrote back after I gave the new Star Wars a bad review. He apparently disagreed and shared that with all my friends. I went two days without checking my e-mail and finally checked it when a buddy of mine told me that I needed to see what was going on. Holy crap! There wasn’t just an argument that had ensued about the movie, but also a line of responses (once again) about “You don’t have the right to send this to everybody. We don’t want to hear your shit!” “These e-mail addresses are public and as such, I have as much of a right…” It got ugly. Basically, I almost had to make an example out of ACDC Mike and he didn’t appreciate it all that much. I don’t know how mean I was (I’ve become a lot more laid back about stuff since then), but it became awkward for me to see him again. And he’d still occasionally write back about how much of an ass I was to all those e-mail addresses he still had a list of. It was then that my computer nerd friends told me about this feature called the “blind carbon copy.” Well, the BCC: was my new best friend. Which was good timing, since ACDC Mike no longer was. Ebb and flow, ebb and flow. Anyway, I started to (as I already alluded to) make it more than just rants about stuff. Now I started to throw in movie reviews on every Friday and ratings of random things (breakfast cereal, ways to get money illegally and songs about women’s backsides) every Tuesday. Now it was turning into a legit “daily e-mail humor article” as I described it to people who I needed to describe it to. And like I said, it predates the blog. Well, once I entered the working world, it was a little difficult to find the time to write for 30-45 minutes a day. And I won’t pretend that I didn’t have 30 minutes a day to do it, but I began to get other priorities also. It became a weekly thing, but really just a “when I got around to it” thing. I’d take off 3-8 months at a time regularly and then jump back in where I left off. The first e-mail after I got back was always a funny one because I would get 5-35 messages back saying that certain friends didn’t exist anymore. That was always disturbing. Anyway, the entire time I would write all these, I’d include a quote at the bottom, which had started to become less and less what my writings were about. I would rant about a date I had but then I’d quote something that Tony said in a football game that we had. I was starting to be confined by the quote. I would have much more rant material than I had quotes to write. And I know that a lot of the people on my list don’t necessarily “have the time” to read the whole of whatever it is that I write. So they’ll scan down to the quote and just read that and really miss the good part. This is unfortunately where I still am now. I’m trying to find a way to divorce myself from the quote, though it’s tough because of the history I have behind it now. I have a website now that my friend got me for my birthday less than a month ago where I’m going to start publishing all these past and present QOTDs. I’m not making it public knowledge until I have something decent put together to show people. Anyway, this is the next step in the evolution of the “quote of the day.” And I’m somewhat confined to the title, which is misleading. I need to figure a way out of this. But mostly, I just need to keep writing.

Sporty Spites

Sporty Spites

The only thing David Beckham can do well is kick a ball. Really. That’s it. Sure he looks good and he’s probably not an idiot or an ass hole, but the only reason I know his name is because he can kick a ball. Now sure, I know he’s married to Posh Spice, but does anybody out there think he still would be if he never learned how to kick a ball? If not, he probably couldn’t even have bagged Scary Spice. Or Ginger. And yes, I know Ginger isn’t even a Spice Girl anymore. It cracked me up when she left the band because she was the only one who was actually a spice. When’s the last time any of you put posh on your cobb salad? So yeah, David Beckham is making about 1 million bucks a week for the next 5 years because he can kick a ball pretty good. And that pisses me off. It doesn’t piss me off that he makes more money than I do, most people do and will continue to do so, but it pisses me off that sports contracts have gotten that ridiculously out of hand. I know that the LA Galaxy actually only has to pay him like $51 million of his $250 million, but I don’t care. Again, I’d like to reiterate that I’m not jealous, I don’t regret my life path (well, not for that reason), but it’s literally unfathomable to me. How much money is that? What in the hell is he going to spend it on? He’s apparently not even as good as most people thinks he is. I hate him. He’s probably an ass hole after all.

            OK, so here’s what I’m going to do about this. I’m going to raise my children to be the best ball kickers in the world. That’s all I’m going to teach them how to do. Or better yet, I’ll teach them how to throw an 80-mph knuckle ball. Fuck math. Fuck history. Fuck facts. If he can throw a decent curve ball both right and left handed, he won’t need to know facts. I guess I have to also consider the slim possibility that I may have a girl. If I have a girl, I’ll just teach her how to flirt and she’ll at least never have to buy a drink at a bar.

That last line may have been written with ulterior motives. I’ve decided I’m never buying a drink for any women ever again. Because they strictly use their femininity and our gullibility and desperation (at least mine) to their advantage and at my expense just to earn themselves a drink they really didn’t earn and definitely don’t deserve. Even if we wind up “dancing” (the use of this term to describe what happens at Brick Street and Stadium is an entirely different subject I’ll expound upon at a later date) for a few songs. The “dancing” can and should be considered a mutually beneficial exchange. No need for any extra favors or money to exchange hands. I wouldn’t pay you to “dance,” so why should I buy you a drink? In fact, a friend was walking into Stadium and I was already in there with a few friends. She said I needed to buy her a drink when I got inside. I asked why. She said because she had boobs. So did over half the fucking people in the bar. And I sure as shit ain’t buying drinks for all of them. You and all of them can kiss my ass. Go get David Fucking Beckham to buy you a drink. And I’ll bet he would. Ass hole.

 

 

Quote of the Day 2/11/07

 

“Barbaros Condition Downgraded To Glue”

                        -Mikey Conover (stolen from fark.com)

 

Now he was a REAL athlete.

 

 

                                    Kicking Beckham in the ball,

                                    Extendo.

 

 

Still Standing Right Here…

 

The 9th Day of Quotemas 2006

Fashion Nonsense

I know Christmas or whichever equivalent holiday that you celebrate, whether it’s a made up one or not, is a distant memory by now and you’ve either gone back to work or school or if you’re lucky, neither. But I still have a few holiday-related stories to share, and for those of you that don’t know, I like to live in the past. I was born two weeks late and I really never caught up. Oh, and I apparently am taking the night off of sleep. I’m getting back into this incredibly annoying, however productive habit of sleeping every other night. This is evidently the one where I don’t sleep.

My Aunt Karen got wind of the fact that I was looking for clothes this year that would make me look cool. It looks like at least somebody on this list reads the text body. It’s cool. I know most of you don’t. I love having conversations like the one I had with Leah about how I went a whole year without drinking soda.

“You’re on the quote of the day list, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t read the damn thing at all, do you?”
“Well, it’s not…” – Don’t bother, I know how that sentence ends.

Boy, this message lost its focus a while back. If this is the first one you’ve read in a while, I swear they get better. So Aunt Karen made it a mission of some sort to find clothes that would make me look cool. This would prove to be a learning experience for her. She at least had the benefit of low expectations as far as her fashion sense. I have no real excuse. She could and did walk up to random young people who I assume she thought looked hip enough (which is a subplot I may get into later) and asked them what people about 4-7 years younger than me wore these days. She was hit with a barrage of rules and guidelines that I really wish she had written down. Ripped and worn clothes are in. Let them see the shirts you’re wearing underneath your shirt. Nothing with seams. Wear long underwear on under your other clothes. She basically described Bill’s wardrobe. If I’m gonna hang out with him and wear the same exact clothes, I’m gonna need to hit the gym everyday for the next 4 months. Speaking of which, she asked this guy to try some of this stuff on since he looked approximately like my size. After seeing his abs, she asked him to try on some more stuff and used him as a kind of personal model for as long as she could. I’m going to try to use that strategy next year when shopping for lingerie. And bath soaps. So Aunt Karen started to attract crowds of people all trying their hardest to find clothes for this wannabe hip guy they never met. I don’t even know if these people worked at the store. It was great to hear about the Christmas spirit that manifested itself in the desperate attempts of a college graduate to fit in with the cool crowd. And God forbid I try to take this stuff back and these people actually meet me. “Oh, this guy? How about a Phil Collins shirt and a pastel colored blazer?” Well, my aunt stepped away from her posse for a moment to check with my sister about something…

The 9th Day of Quotemas 2006

“I’m here in… Aerospace.”

-Aunt Karen.

I think she meant Aeropostle, but I’m sure it seemed the same at the time.

Finally cool,

Seamless in Cincinatti.

Still Standing Right Here…

The 8th Day of Quotemas

Crocs of Crap

About a year ago, I was at our national conference for intramurals (a 4-day binge of networking, alcohol and exercise equipment) when I saw these stupid ass shoes. This guy in a relatively important position with khakis and a polo shirt on was wearing these rubber things on his feet that had holes all through them. Like Swiss shoes. You may now know what I’m describing are called “Crocs.” As my colleague Debi said back then, “They better be comfortable because they look ridiculous.” And she couldn’t have been more correct. I was amazed that these shoes were trying to be taken seriously by this man. We were not on the beach or trying to cross a creek or anything. Later on, I started to see them popping up every once in a while here at Miami. And Char gave me shit for wearing socks with sandals. I tried a pair of them on. As it turns out, they’re not all that comfortable. That’s just what people say to justify looking that ridiculous. Needless to say, I’m not a big fan of Crocs. Subconsciously, I think I actually lose respect for people that wear them. I know is a little over the top, but I am as God created me.

So I went down to Joe’s place on Christmas night after briefly playing pink-hat Santa Claus to a few friends in the PA area. Only, instead of being led around reindeer, I was driving around in a deer-killing machine. Just a little Christmas paradox for you. Anyway, I got down to Joe’s place and his brother was unwrapping this neat joystick that plugs into the TV and plays all the classic arcade games like Ms Pac-man and Pitfall. And it was wireless. This is an awesome idea for a gift. And I made that known apparently a little too well. Joe said he probably should have gotten me that thing. Instead he got me something that I probably wouldn’t like. When he said that, I just figured he was giving me the Corona lava lamp back. I was wrong. It was much worse. He got me a pair of very comfortable, holey rubber shoes. Apparently they come in neon orange too. Good for me. Have I heard of these? Oh, yeah Joe. I’ve heard of these. Do I like them? Sorry, I can’t even pretend I like them…

The 8th Day of Quotemas 2006

“Well, you don’t have to like them, you just have to accept them as a gift.”

- Good Joe

And that’s the theme of this year’s Christmas. I’m happy to see you’ve embraced it and managed to sum it up in one very apropos phrase.

Comfy in Crocs,

D Rec.

Still Standing Right Here…