posted by admin on Aug 28
Archive for the ‘Culture’ Category
posted by admin on Jan 14
Could that one anchor be any more judgmental? Sex can be a physical expression of love however people have sex for thousands of other reasons and $3.7 million is not even close to the worst.
I, however, have more important questions that CNN fails to address. Will she be examined by a medical professional to confirm her virginity? I’m sure it wouldn’t be the first time a guy fell for that line. Will the guy be tested for STD’s? What kind of birth control will they use? Does the girl have a boyfriend? What does he think of all this?
And what does this say about the cost of higher education in the US?
Really though, I’m just bitter that as a guy these kinds of life options are cut of to me. Well, I suppose not and I suppose in that sense I am a virgin. Hmm, I wonder what I would fetch on the open market? $3.7 million sure is alot of money…
At what amount of money does it become stupid not to whore yourself out? If Bill Gates drops $1 billion on your floor in exchange for 1 hour of anything goes sex are you really saying no?
posted by Mike on Jan 7
Saturday my Dad and I set out from Augusta, GA heading to Los Angeles and yesterday afternoon we finally arrived. The trip was not as bad or boring as I anticipated because your mind really does understand how god awful far of a distance it is. I wish we could have spent more time and hit a few more cities (and had shorter drives) but driving cross country was a cool experience that I recommend everyone do once (and only once).
Saturday night we stopped in Baton Rouge and watched the first NFL game at a Fox and Hound filled with depressing clientele. The crowd improved slightly but we went next door for dinner to Sullivans which was just a phenomenal decision. Great atmosphere, great food.
The next day was a shorter drive to San Antonio. We were excited because we’d both heard such good things about the Riverwalk area. Walking down the street it seemed okay, a few restaurants but nothing special. Finally, we figured out that the Riverwalk exists below street level. Tons of restaurants and bars. On the plus side our wanderings did bring us past The Alamo (which has really become run down).
Monday was the longest day of driving. But the 80 mph speed limits in west Texas totally made it better. Setting the cruise control at 85 with no worries feels right. This is the first convincing piece of evidence that Texas is remotely as good as Texans claim. We hit Tucson around 6 (I cannot overstate how essential the time zone changes were) and went to Gentle Ben’s Brewery for dinner, micro brews and the Fiesta Bowl. Tucson seemed like a cool place (U of A is there) but after 13 hours in a car Fallujah would have been a welcome rest stop.
Yesterday we pulled into my apartment’s garage at 2:36 PM and officially made it across the country. No tickets, no car trouble, never ran out of gas and saw some fun places. I would judge that a success!
Notes:
The mountains in Arizona seem the most likely place you could run out of gas.
I could NOT be an illegal immigrant. The Border Patrol already scares the crap out of me.
posted by Mike on Dec 17
Recently I tried Pizza Hut’s new “Panormous” pizza, billed as their biggest pizza ever, and was sorely disappointed.
The taste is on par with most any other Pizza Hut offering meaning it’s a grease covered mass of cheese and dough that tastes delicious initially but slowly spirals towards vomit inducing. As the pizza cools you can really taste the cheap, mass produced ingredients and the unhealthy amount of chemicals within, preserving them indefinitely. I found no part of the last two sentences disappointing. Probably because my heart pumps two decades worth of pure American fast food grease through my, likely clogged, veins.
The disappointing part to me was the inability of the marketing gimmick to live up to it’s billing. Pizza Huts biggest pizza ever? Combining the words Pan and Enormous? That should be a giant, awe-inspiring slab of heart disease, right? Unfortunately, they took the easy way out. The large, rectangular box is filled with an impressive amount of pizza but to accomplish this they cheat and simply make two average sized pizzas and place them side-by-side. They could have displayed a stunning achievement within that box, something to make you stop and reflect upon man’s place in the universe, something to chill your bones to live in a world where such a feat is possible but what they’ve done is common-place, pedestrian to the point of insult.
Don’t believe they hype. There can be no god in this unjust universe.
posted by Mike on Nov 4
Just got back from voting which was a surreal experience on many levels.
The local elementary school served as my polling place except there was nobody there. A few cars, a few people walking around giving me weird looks which would be understandable if I was at the wrong place. A 25-year old dude wandering unsupervised around an elementary school should raise some red flags. But it turned out I needed to find the gym which was located through a maze of buildings and seemed of no consequence.
Early voting lines have been insane around here so I was expecting a short wait at the very least. Aside from the volunteers there was not a single other person there. This was very weird but also made my vote seem disproportionately important. Like eight people took time out of their busy lives to help me cast my vote! In my mind as soon as I walked out the door the precinct shut down and CNN started breaking the news of who I voted for. Anyway, if you live in Martinez, GA go vote now, it won’t get any easier.
I hadn’t realized how weird it would be to see the name Barack Obama on the ballot under President. I mean that’s the guy who’s been e-mailing me every few days for the past couple months! Oh, yeah, I guess he’s black or something. That coupled with Sarah Palin’s name made me pause for a second and think how badly George Bush fucked up. White men had a good run, but we got greedy. We thought we could send anyone out there to be President, run any candidate and keep the most powerful office in the world. At the next meeting we really need to talk about this.
But my favorite part was voting for all the tax hikes. I’ll be moving in a couple months so raising sales tax 1% for the next six years? Sure! $18 million for a swimming and tennis center? Why the hell not! I made sure to savor each of those votes for an especially long time.
Also, I got a sticker with a peach on it. So now I have that going for me.
posted by Mike on Nov 3
I finally feel recovered from this weekend.
Friday morning I drove six hours to my girlfriend’s in Harrisonburg, VA for Halloween party #1 of the weekend. Between my obsession with sports jerseys as a kid and a trip to townie Wal-Mart we were set on costumes. I went as a “Horny” Referee (people are always too politically correct to mention this part of long-distance relationships) and my girlfriend went as Steve Beuerlein. I’m partially anti-couple costumes but I am very anti-repeat costumes. I have to make an exception for my girlfriend going as Beuerlein. First, you have to understand, we’re not talking about some bullshit Champion mess jersey with decal designs you wore in the backyard. Wait, scratch that, first I need to explain that Steve Beuerlein was a journeyman QB in the early and mid-90’s. If he was playing today he’d be on Tampa Bay or San Francisco. People who drafted Tom Brady in Fantasy Football would have become very interested in Beuerlein. Anyway, this is an authentic jersey complete with stitched on numbers, logos and name my girlfriend wears. The jersey’s even cut to fit around pads! I cannot even begin to explain why I own this or how awesome it is that I own it.
Now this leads to the second reason the costume fills every Halloween with instant amusement: it is a lock every guy at a party hits on the girl wearing the insanely obscure, authentic football jersey. And nothing is as entertaining as watching drunk assholes being shot down by the girl you’re with. Seriously, by the end of the night I feel like George Clooney. The party this year wasn’t quite like that because we already knew most of the people but the memories live on in my ego from a year ago.
We started the night by ordering some Sicilian style pizza which is the greatest food ever. If you don’t know what I’m talking about imagine eating a slice of pizza that makes $100 dollar bills rain down from the ceiling every time you take a bite. Seriously, it is that good. (Can we take a moment to appreciate the fact I avoided the easy but crude “like eating a piece of pizza while you have an orgasm” joke? That took all of my self-restraint.) Somewhere around you probably delivers this pizza, get online and order immediately.
We arrived at the party and I mingled poorly before giving in and diving headfirst into the keg. Do you ever have those perfect drinking nights? Through some stroke of luck you manage to stay perpetually buzzed while never veering too far into the drunk category. I love those nights, you can talk about the same stupid shit for three hours and never be bored. Friday was one of those nights. Unfortunately, this led to some false confidence the next day. But we’ll get to that.
We have a great time at the party, probably left around 12:30 or 1. At which point I gave two other people rides home. I desperately want to buy a Breathalyzer for these situations because I had been drinking all night and felt fine. And not “I’m really drunk and think I can do anything” fine but normal fine. Maybe, that’s what happens when you talk to people at a party instead of standing in a corner drinking yourself into oblivion. This may warrant further research in the former since I have a PhD in the latter.
The next morning we ate Count Chocula for breakfast. I love America. I ate another slice of Sicilian for lunch and headed out for DC where I would be playing the part of Jan Wolfhouse from Beerfest in a group costume. We even had an Indian guy.
I spent the afternoon watching football and hanging out with a bunch of friends I hadn’t seen in five months. When my emotions run high I eat and drink whatever’s in front of me. Sometimes this creates problems. You can probably see where this is going given the over-confidence Friday night gave me in my drinking abilities.
We went to a huge Halloween party some friends of ours throw every year and as always it kicked ass. My old roommate Liz and I put up a decent showing on the Beer Pong table despite both having to shake off a significant amount of rust. I mingled for a bit before drunkenly thrusting myself into a flip cup game. Since I cheat at flip cup my skills returned much quicker and my team rolled through some victories. I was talking to the girl I was matched-up against when several things hit me all at once. Suddenly I was very drunk, depressed about being very drunk and could not tolerate talking to another annoying bitch at the flip cup table. I have a serious problem where if you aren’t entertaining me, I hate you.
I stumbled away and summoned the friend who’s couch I was crashing on outside and informed him of my plan: I’d metro back to his apartment and drive two hours to see my girlfriend. Fortunately, he’s known me for a while so he took this in stride before slowly talking me down another path. Mainly, going to Ben’s Chili Bowl and getting chili dogs. He went inside to explain his disappearance to a few people while I debated my options. I called my girlfriend and woke her up to complain, “I want to come see you but Drew won’t let me.” This was at 12:15. She convinced me of several flaws in my plan, namely that if by some miracle I made it to her place when I drunkenly woke her up at 3 in the morning she would not be happy to see me. In hindsight this is understandable.
Anyway, this is my one regret of the night (scratch that, I also regret not eating Jumbo Slice). I bailed without saying bye to a bunch of people but considering that’s how I typically behaved while I lived in DC they shouldn’t be too surprised. Speaking of, does anyone else have this problem? And by this I mean the following (I may start using only pronouns, no more of that amateur shit for me). Sometimes I get bored-drunk. Everything feels pedestrian and beneath me and staying where I am another minute is torture beyond measure. I can only think of a handful of other times this has occurred (one being a rather unique New Years Eve in New Zealand) and I really don’t understand it. Within five seconds things switch from incredibly fun to unbearably boring. Level of drunkenness doesn’t seem to matter and it’s not that I’m tired but I have lost ALL interest in doing what I am doing. My only theory is that I hit a metaphorical “pitch count” when I’m talking to people I don’t know and can only be gregarious until I hit my count. At which I point the coach heads out to the mound and my night is done. How obvious is it that I already miss baseball? Does this happen to anyone else? Am I just really weird? That seems possible.
The next morning I left about 7:45 to drive the 8 1/2 hours back to Georgia. Because Virginia is run by fascists I got a fucking speeding ticket. It’s my first ever. It sucked, I really don’t recommend it. The worst part was having another six hours to drive where I 100% could not be pulled over. It was a very long drive.
But a fun weekend.
It’s not a habit, it’s cool I feel alive
posted by Mike on Oct 27
I spent the weekend in Charlotte at a good friend’s wedding and came away with several thoughts. Most importantly NEVER have a wedding in a place with shoddy public transportation. If you must, please provide a detailed schedule of events to all drinkers so we can start sobering up before driving back to the hotel for more drinking. Or rent some fucking vans. Seriously, would that be so hard?
Anyway, here are some unintentional things I love about weddings followed by a few ideas no one will ever follow.
1) The Bride’s Father - Nothing is funnier then watching the facial expressions of the Bride’s Father. You know for years he’s deluded himself into believing in his daughter’s innocence but now, well, in his mind that bedroom will have more violations then a Kelvin Sampson coached team. But at what point does he start worrying about the quality of the sex? You know he has to. Who wants their daughter dealing with a One-Pump Chump for the rest of their lives? What if the groom has the world’s smallest dick? Does that mean his grandson’s are doomed to small-dickdom? No amount of denial will ever convince me a father does not think about these things on his daughters wedding day. At the end of the day he’s still a guy and all guys think about weird shit like this.
2) Apathetic hotel security guards who keep asking you to quiet down but obviously would much rather join the party. If you can convince one to join the party the wedding receives +1,000,000 points.
3) The look on the face of the first person to accidentally drop an F-bomb in the church.
4) The one bridesmaid who insists on walking Muhammad Ali slow down the aisle. And the awkward groomsman accompanying her.
Super Awesome Wedding Tips
1) Do not have a religious service. I don’t care how deeply religion runs your life it’s really god damn creepy for anyone not part of your religion. This weekend the Priest/Minister/Pastor/Whatever urged the bride and groom to bring Jesus into their home. Thanks, asshole. Now all I can think about is the bride and groom going at it while John Turturro from The Big Lebowski sits in the corner watching. I don’t need that.
2) Have three separate receptions. One for old people who want to sit and reflect upon their squandered youth. One for the overly emotionally people. One for the assholes who only showed up for the free booze. Everyone would have much, much more fun
3) If you ask one of the bridesmaids to spend the night with you do NOT ask her boyfriend to be responsible for picking up the bride in the morning. I cannot even fathom how my girlfriend agreed to trust me with this. Not only did she ask me after I’d been drinking but she then sent me off with friends I hadn’t seen in four years to drink more. It’s a miracle I didn’t screw up the wedding. Fortunately, every now and then I behave like an adult because if I hadn’t the cops wouldn’t have found anything identifiable in the remains.
4) No weddings from September 1st through December 1st. Between football and the baseball playoffs anything in those three months is unacceptable. The groom this past weekend is a huge Phillies fan. Right now he’s in Italy missing what might be the only professional Philadelphia sports championship in his life. I’d rather get Syphilis from my bride on our wedding night then miss the Dodgers win the World Series. (Fun fact: I would also perform oral sex on every male in the Verizon Center during a Georgetown basketball game provided they were wearing condoms and it meant Wake Forest won either a football or basketball national championship. Talk about taking one for the team.)
posted by Mike on Aug 27
I don’t think people believe me when I tell them I find my life ridiculous. To them I say bullshit!
Friday night, my last in LA for a little while, my friend Jay and I checked out the single most brilliant stage production in the history of American theatre: Point Break Live. Point Mother-Fucking Break. Live.
I understand if you need to sit down.
Over the top doesn’t even begin to describe the experience. We walk in the door and are strongly encouraged to purchase a “Point Break Live Survival Kit” for a buck. I’m already several beers in so of course we buy them. After a shot and a beer we open our survival kits and find:
(1) Poncho
(1) Napkin
(1) Fake $1 With Patrick Swayze’s Face
(1) Fake $5 With Keanu Reeves’ Face
The money’s for when we get robbed during the show. The poncho will also be important.
Jay and I grab another beer and wait for the show to start. The place fills up and you can tell everyone is half-drunk and ready to laugh their ass off.
The show starts. The director asks for audience members to come up on-stage and audition for the role of Johnny Utah aka Keanu Reeves. Jay goes up and fucking wins the role. It was close until he quoted a line from “A Walk In The Clouds”. The crowd went nuts and ever other contestant left the stage in shame. That’s why I fucking love Jay.
Fucking hilarious barely describes the next two hours. During intermission a few girls are asking me about Jay until they realize I care significantly more about my two Amstel Lights then anything they could possibly say. I’ll defend myself here because I have a girlfriend but in all honesty the building could have been on fire with Scarlett Johansson giving free blow jobs outside and you couldn’t have moved me from the bar. Anyway the show wraps up, I take a piss, grab two more beers and wait for Jay.
The place is emptying out when Jay comes out and says, “Hey, let’s hang out back stage for a bit.” Sounds good to me because that sounds like a place with beer. The next thing Jay says floors me, “They have free meatball sandwiches, oh, and Kirsten Dunst and Justin Long are back there too.”
“Holy shit, that’s awesome!”
And thirty seconds later my first meatball sandwich of the night is gone.
I look around and Jay’s taking pictures with the crew, trying to see how many free souvenirs he can walk off with and looking cool while his jackass friend wolf’s down sandwiches.
For the next thirty minutes about 15-20 people are hanging out backstage. Justin Long and Kirsten Dunst seemed cool enough, Kirsten gave me a high-five when she left because I must have looked like someone who didn’t have a meatball sandwich in his pants.
The next morning I wake up at 5:45, shower, throw on my pants from the previous night, say bye to Jay who gives me look that clearly says “Why the fuck would I want to see you at 6:30 in the morning?”, and head to the rental car place. After I drop off the car, I’m sitting on the shuttle to the airport shocked that I’m going to make my flight when I finally notice my right pants leg is covered in fake-fucking-blood.
I guess my poncho had shifted during the performance and failed to protect me from an explosion of surfer-dude blood. Hung-over, exhausted and seemingly covered in blood is 100% NOT the way to arrive at the airport. It’s also problematic if your destination after landing is a party thrown by one of your girlfriend’s professors. I rolled up about 40 minutes late because it’s one thing to tell a story but a whole different enchilada to be the story.
So, yeah, I’d recommend Point Break Live.
Dance, fucker!
posted by Mike on Jun 24
Just when you think human imagination has hit it’s limit a genius emerges from the masses.
Fresno St. has some smart kids over there.
posted by Mike on Jun 13
I met up with a few friends for some Happy Hour(s) unaware of the life transforming moment awaiting me. We were all a few beers in so the talk had become a little more lively. I was sipping my $2 Bud Light (which I think we as a society need to agree on as the only acceptable price for Bud Light) half following the conversation, half watching ESPN when my friend dropped a bombshell.
For her next birthday she wants to have a nugget party.
A nugget party.
Procure piles of chicken nuggets from as many establishments as possible (i.e. Chik-fil-a, McDonalds, Wendy’s) and vats of every dipping sauce imaginable. Lay out a huge spread and just go fucking nuts eating nuggets and dipping sauce.
My mind reeled for a moment as this insanity took form in my mind. Nuggets? From everywhere? The beauty spread through me and ever so briefly I saw a radiance in the universe that can only be described as divine. The mere possibility of such a thing made the world a better, happier place.
Certainly in wild moments of fantasy I would consider buying a Chik-fil-a Party Platter of nuggets but the idea was too ridiculous. Tantamount to eating waffles on the moon. Surely, such oppulence would incure karmic wrath beyond reckoning. But a nugget party? A gathering of all the nuggets as equals before my unsatiable appetite for battered and fried processed chicken? The shere democracy of it changes my perspective on the world.
I’m not sure if my life is ready for a nugget party, though. Surely, I would eat until my heart filled with grease, oil and fried chicken pieces bursting in one glorious moment birthing a new and better universe.
I don’t know if I’m ready for that. But, God, I want to be.
