Pissed & Petty

THIS BLOG HAS MOVED

2007-08-24T17:29:00.002-04:00

Fun with the DMA.

2007-08-21T10:10:00.001-04:00

By now, you should be aware of my deep seeded loathing of Patricia Kachura, the societal cancer that works for the Direct Marketing Association (DMA).

Since her job is to justify sending people millions upon millions of unsolicited advertisements and phone calls every day, I figured she would be happy to receive an unsolicited phone call from me. I left the following voicemail at her office today:

"Hello Pat. This is PissedAndPetty.com calling with a quick survey. How do you sleep at night? Thank you so much for your time and we look forward to hearing from you. Please give us a call at (646)XXX-XXXX with any insight you might be able to provide regarding this matter."

What's wrong, Pat? You don't like receiving unsolicited phone calls? Well, me neither, bitch.

Switching Over

2007-07-31T19:29:00.000-04:00

I did some more work towards switching over to Wordpress today.

Take a sneak peek.

Like it? Hate it? What do you think?

What Have I Become?

2007-07-30T22:19:00.000-04:00

Okay, damnit. I haven't posted on my blog since February.

Right when I came back, I checked my traffic stats as any good blogger would.

We have a problem... besides the stunning lack of traffic. What's the problem?

Do me a favor. Run a google search for "pooping grannies". What's the first result?

Yep, thanks to this post, my blog is the #1 search result for "pooping grannies".

Fuck.

Wait, I think this might be something to be proud of.

Really?

2007-07-27T09:32:00.000-04:00

I was flipping channels late last night while my girlfriend was sitting next to me. She has an interest in fashion. I flipped right by a DKNY runway fashion show and my girlfriend begged me to turn it back so she could watch.

The conversation went something like this:

Her: Ooo! Ooo! Turn it back turn it back pleeeeease!

Me: Why? You can see this in any department store.

Her: No, don't even start. I know way more about this than you. I like really like "Dackney" clothes.

Wait, what? Really?

Movin' On Up

2007-02-28T13:54:00.000-05:00

Like Gershwin, things are looking up.

There is an old-time gambling legend that lives in Texas, a man named Amarillo Slim. Amarillo Slim used to brag that he was so famous that you could send a letter from anywhere in the country addressed only to "Amarillo Slim in Texas" and the letter would find him. Tall tale? Maybe not.

In my never ending quest for global domination, I have taken a huge step. According to Google, I am the most relevant and/or important person named "Ryan" in all of Washington Heights, NYC.

Don't believe me?

Google search: ryan in washington heights

Yeah, that's right. You found me.

Numero uno, bitches!

Also just as exciting, I am now the top result for Google search: pissed and petty. I know you're thinking that that should have happened a long time ago, but Tom Petty wasn't giving up the top spot easily.

Also, readers, you may want to run a google search for: Pat Kachura

Yep, number one again(and two)! Poor Pat. Poor, poor Pat. It can't feel good knowing that if anyone ever runs a search on you, my rantings are the first things they're going to see. Ouch!

I have now thoroughly owned Ice-T, Washington Heights, Tom Petty, and Pat Katchura just to name a few.

Ahhhh, being bad feels goooood.

This Really Happens

2007-01-22T13:17:00.000-05:00

A story from work the other night:

Sometimes I work nights as a poker dealer. My boss’s name is Mike.

Me: Hey, Mike! C’mere for a second.

Boss: Yeah?

Me: Who’s the new girl?

Boss: Which one?

Me: The hot one setting up that blackjack table.

Boss: Which one?

Me: The one in the corner.

Boss: That’s my daughter…

Me: (silent)

Boss: …and she’s sixteen.

Me: (gulp)

A Letter From Oklahoma:

2006-12-29T05:07:00.000-05:00

I am currently in Oklahoma visiting my family for the holidays, a far cry from my home in NYC.

The following is an exact quote directed towards me from one of my darling twin nieces, eleven years old:

"The land you live on may be worth ten million dollars, but the land I live on is worth as many bullets as I can put in the air."

Cheers, little girl. You win.

Happy Holidays

2006-12-20T22:43:00.001-05:00

"Twas the week before Christmas when all through the house,
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse."

... because I smashed that bitch with my shoe right on the counter top and put it straight through the garbage disposal just to send a message to all his other mouse buddies who might have the gall to sit right in front of my face and eat out of the grease trap of my George Foreman Grill while there's a salmon steak cooking on it and I'm trying to finely chop garlic two inches away on that same counter top.

"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night."

Blowing of the Whistle

2006-12-19T07:25:00.000-05:00

I want to draw more attention to a post I wrote a while ago. Read the link if you haven't already.

The DMA are a horrible organization that decrease the quality of life worldwide on many levels. Basically, they are solely responsible for every type of junk mail on the planet. Spam and mailbox and telephone.

I have recently received several hits on this website from NYC and Washington government agencies via google searches for "Pat Kachura" of/and the "Direct Marketing Association", (DMA).

Anyway, due to the recent rush of hits I have received from government agencies relating to this post, I can't help but think that something is stewing. Cross your fingers.

I hope the prosecution calls me as a witness in front of the grand jury or some shit.

New Features & Connecting the Dots

2006-12-19T06:13:00.000-05:00

Yeah, ok. I haven't written in a while.

Fucking sue me.

As previously mentioned, I've been busy trying to research ways to make this site cooler.

I succeeded in taking a couple of small steps.

If you look at the address bar in your browser or browser tab, you should see the Pissed&Petty crab icon to the left. How awesome is that? It should also appear in your favorites/bookmarks list if you have me bookmarked. *ahem*

Also, I have a new comment box at the bottom of my sidebar. It's awesome. Now you guys can write whatever the hell you want at anytime on my website. Take a sec to test it out and let me know if it's too much of a hassle.

Plugging away...

"Ice-T" & Me? We have an understanding.

2006-11-30T00:53:00.000-05:00

Several years ago I was sharing a shoebox two-bedroom apartment with three friends on the upper-west-side of Manhattan. Two roommates had to sleep on an air mattress in the living room. They were allowed cheaper rent as they were responsible for moving furniture and inflating and deflating their mattress every night and morning. The apartment was right behind Lincoln Center at 63rd & West End Ave., NYC.

There is an ultra-luxury building right across the street from the far-less-than-luxury building I was living in at the time. The property across the street had huge windows that were always freshly Windex’ed. The people that came in and out of the building were always dressed impeccably, like senior level HR women, or investment bankers, or high priced prostitutes. There were always taxi cabs waiting outside of the building. The drivers knew that these people were loaded.

I know all this because I love to skateboard. The luxury building across the street had these amazing curbs with angle iron attached to them. For those of you that don’t speak “skateboard”, just believe me when I say that it was awesome.

On the weekends during spring and summer, I loved nothing more than to skateboard on the curbs of the luxury building across the street. The best parts of the curbs were right by the exit of the building’s parking garage. As such, I would often have to stop, pick up my skateboard and step aside as the garage door would raise and a resident would pull their car out of the garage.

There was one Saturday when I was skateboarding early in the afternoon and I heard the ‘click’ that I had come to know as the sound of the garage door beginning to open. I picked up my skateboard and stepped aside.

The garage door slowly rose to reveal a cherry red Ferrari, its engine purring in idle. I dreweled for a hot minute and then wanted the car to move so I could Skate-or-Die.

The car just sat there so I looked through the windshield to the driver’s side.

It was Ice-T.

Ice-Fucking-T.

Cop Killa.

He had his left hand on the wheel, and his right hand between the legs of a ho (literally a ho in every sense of the word, you’ll just have to trust me) that was sitting in the passenger seat. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. As he idled his Ferrari in the driveway of the garage, he seemed much more focused on his right hand than his left.

Ice looked up and seemed startled when he realized that the garage door was already open. His eyes immediately fixed on me standing there with my skateboard. I did the stoic-chin-raising-head-tilting-back gesture while I looked at him with my eyeballs as if to say, “I didn’t see nothin’ man. I can keep shit on the DL, for realz.” Ice nodded at me with stern eyes and he drove away with his ho.

I took a deep breath.

I spent the next hour nervously shifting my eyes in preparation for men in black ski masks carrying silenced oozies to come and silence me. They never came. I continued to skateboard.

Over the next year this became a regular occurrence. The only difference was that Ice had a new ho and a new car every week.

I think this is what they call “The American Dream.” A new ho and a new car every week.

So basically, here’s how I figure:

Ice-T is cool with me skateboarding on his curb as long as I’m willing to keep my mouth shut about his hoes and his cars.

Well, Mr. Ice:

I don’t live across the street from you anymore and I’m busting the lid off of this story. I’m not scared of your silenced-oozie-toting ski-mask-wearing goons anymore because I live in Washington Heights now and I just downloaded a freeware security suite for my computer so there’s no way you can find me. Not even on my myspace account.

Take that, Cop Killa!

No, assholes. NOW it's personal!

2006-11-28T15:28:00.000-05:00

Another tale from Washington Heights, NYC (the land of no-speak-y-english):

My neighborhood in NYC is populated about 99% by varying degrees of immigrants from The Dominican Republic. I love my neighborhood, but I would be lying if I said that the folks in my neighborhood didn’t occasionally make me want to pull my hair out.

As I jumped in the shower this morning I realized I was running dangerously low on soap, shampoo, conditioner, and whatnot. I made due with what little I had left. Meaning, I popped the tops off of all the bottles and filled them part way with water as to dilute each substance to get a little extra mileage, you know the drill.

After my shower, I decided to head over to Rite-Aid and restock on shower supplies. I like going to Rite-Aid in my neighborhood because they are a national chain and therefore usually manage to hire employees who are not complete retards. (I know this sounds counterintuitive but trust me, in my neighborhood, when compared to their privately owned contemporaries, Rite-Aid employees come off like NASA engineers).

I ran around the store for about half an hour collecting all my items in my little basket. As I was laying everything on the checkout counter I noticed an Adidas box-set way up high behind the counter. It had body wash, deodorant, aftershave, and a little bottle of Adidas cologne. I had just collected nearly all Adidas products one-by-one around the store. I figured I could just get the box-set and save a little money. I ask the woman at the check-out counter, “How much is that Adidas Sports Package?”

The woman turns her back and looks up at the display case. I don’t think I ever saw her look directly at the product I wanted, but regardless, she turns around and says, “nine-nine-nine”.

Not, “nine-ninety-nine”, mind you. No. Just, “nine-nine-nine”.

I figure she means “$9.99” because all the products separately would come to around “$16.00” and that would be a reasonable savings.

“Cool! I’m going to go put all this stuff back and just get that box-set instead. I’ll be right back.”

I ran around the store and put all the items back on the shelves exactly where I got them. I got in the back of the line and waited to check-out again. I figured someone would have taken the time while I was putting everything back to get my Adidas Sports Package down from the top shelf behind the check-out counter, and it would be waiting there for me. Of course not. That would have been far too logical.

Instead, when I got back to the register the cashier looked at me like she’d never seen me before. This is particularly ridiculous because aside from the fact that I shop there all the time, there isn’t another long-haired-white-dude besides myself within fucking miles of this place. Anyway, I decided to hold back my rage because I was certain that someone would give me better reason to unload, shortly.

The cashier continued to stand there with this confused “Can I help you?” look on her face.

A special note to readers: I hate when people have confused looks on their faces when they should be crystal clear as to what is going on. Seriously, it makes me want to start throwing things just so they’ll change their expression from confused to terrified, at least. Call me petty.

I looked back at her with a look of utter disbelief and said,

“Uh, yeah. Didn’t we just go over this two minutes ago?”
>
She still looked confused. I hate that.

I then gestured wildly up to the top shelf behind the check-out counter and said uber-curtly, “Can you get than down for me so I can buy it, please?!” The woman then looked over to her male co-worker who then walked over and asked me what he could help me with.

I grit my teeth and tell the man what I want. He nods knowingly and quickly runs to the back of the store. I assume he’s retrieving a ladder or something.

So I wait, and wait.

Finally he comes back with a step ladder and asks, “Ok, what do you need again, boss?”

Please tell me he didn’t just ask me again.

Oh. My. God.

Through my blinding rage, instead of smashing him, I somehow managed to make a joke that went directly over his head, of course.

“No man, not BOSS, ADIDAS!!!”

He gets up on his ladder and takes down an Axe Body Spray box-set and hands it down to the cashier, and she rings it up. I am now in complete and utter fucking disbelief. Fuse now burning dangerously short.

“No man! ADIDAS! ADIDAS! It’s right there! That big ass box that has “ADIDAS” written all the fuck over it! ADIDAS! Jesus!”

He looks back up at the display case still standing on his ladder and grabbed a really girly-like bath oil package. They oils were in a straw basket filled with hay or some shit.I gave him the benefit of the doubt and thought maybe he was moving the girly-like package so he could reach my package… although this didn’t really make sense because it wasn’t in the way.

But no. He handed the cashier the girly-like package and she rang it up.

I totally lost it.

“DUDE, JUST LOOK AT YOUR FUCKING SHOES, MAN!"

The idiot on the ladder looks down at his shoes, reads the emblem embroidered on the tongue and says,

“Oh! Adidas!”

I wanted to kick that ladder right out from under him.

Come the fuck on, people.

*After "OK", "Coke" and "Marlboro", surely "Adidas" is pretty high up on the list of most internationally recongnized words. Fuckin' seriously, man. Damn.

Three Steps Back (at least)

2006-11-23T00:58:00.000-05:00

(this post is not funny.)

"Pissed & Petty" is growing up, folks.

I started this blog as a way to kill time from 9-5 and it has since turned into, well, a bonified monster. As such, I decided that I am going to start taking serious steps to kick this website up to the next level.

I finally bought the domain "PissedAndPetty.com". I'm still figuring out what I'm going to do with it exactly, but it's a start. I finished completing the switchover from Blogger to Blogger Beta. This was possibly a total waste of time because I'm considering switching blog servers again, so I haven't really designated my newly owned domain to anything in particular yet.

I've started studying HTML and CSS coding.

I got in a little over my head with the coding and I lost my whole blog for about two hours today. I nearly had a fucking heart attack. I've run into several seemingly insurmountable problems while messing with my code before, but this time I thought I'd really done it. I thought that my whole blog had dissapeared forever. No shit. If that had happened, I don't know if I would have rebuilt the blog at all. It seemed like too much work, what with several thousand-word-plus posts and the picture links and god knows what else (none of which is backed up anywhere). It would have truly broken my heart/spirit.

One of the worst things about the situation is that the visual aspects of my site(aka, what makes it cool) were designed by someone else. I'm not fluent in HTML or CSS. I'm not even semi-litarate. A very kind individual had taken the time to design my site for me and I somehow managed to screw the whole thing up.

Ugh.

After hours of frustration, somehow, I managed to recover almost all of my writings and get the visual components back into place... almost. My margins and header are still screwed up and I have no fucking clue how to get my "latest posts" field back to the way it was. There are about six thousand other things wrong too but it feels great to know that all is not lost... literally.

Bear with me guys and girls. I love you all and the site will be bigger and better than ever before you know it!

MySpace: Telling It Like It Is

2006-11-20T02:47:00.000-05:00

[UPDATE: Bianca has responded in the comments section of this post.]

As some of you may have seen, I recently found it necessary to put a stop to some atrocious MySpace behavior.

My lovely friend Bianca has a little monkey on her back called “the myspace bulletin”. I swear to god that this chick posts no less than 400 myspace bulletins every single day.

I decided to post my own myspace bulletin titled: “Bianca: An Intervention”.

It read:

“Though I love Bianca with all my heart:

Bianca and I have known each other for many years and we dated briefly in the 7th grade, so I feel that I have suffiencient authority to step in
and say the following:

Bianca, sweetheart. You post entirely too many bulletins. I mean, really. It's kind of like the boy-who-cried-wolf theory, ya know? One must pick their spots carefully or one runs the risk of becoming nothing more than white noise, ambient.“

About half an hour later, Bianca fired back with a bulletin titled: “Ryan Needs More Myspace Friends”. I would post her response in its entirety, but it really doesn’t matter. You get the jist from the title.

Well, thankfully, I can address this pretty easily.

Being the open minded individual that I am, I would never immediately disregard a long-time friend’s advice as to how I could improve my life. So I went to Bianca’s myspace page and looked at some of her many many many “friends” and read what they had to say about her on her page.

Let me highlight a few particularly thoughtful entries from these “friends” that I apparently “need”:

Put on your safety goggles, readers.

In this comment, a gentleman is articulately addressing his concern regarding the quality of the comments of Bianca’s other male suitors, obviously trying to separate himself from the pack. Maybe it would have worked if it was a room full of retarded deaf mutes. But then again, some of them may be able to read lips, so that’s out. It’s on her picture with the star tattoo. This is fucking priceless.

“these fools is LAME as FUNK!!and thats all these fools about an tryin to shoot down dem stars and shoot for the stars.. as for me i am into ASTROLOGY!!soo i know my SUPA'STARS!! and uumm hmmm i see dem now... oooh eeeeeeee.. goose down blankee da best when u start gazing... hee hee hee“

This guy only confirms my position on mercy killings. If I were a doctor, I’d pull the plug on this fucktard in a heartbeat… or lack thereof.

This next comment was left on Bianca’s picture with the rabbit ears:

“HERE bunni bunni bunni!! HERE bunni bunni bunni.. shit.. what must i do to bring that bunni to smile or roll over or do a damn back flip.. and why is the bunny lookin alllllllllllll mad and shit.. HA THATS JUST TO dont have me get BUGS BUNNY ON YO ASSSSSSSSSS!! um hmmm lol“

I… I’m speechless. Really.

Last, there is a picture of my darling Bianca on her myspace page where she is donning a tasteful green sweater. I happen to think Bianca is a beautiful woman and I always have. But, regarding this last comment, all I have to say is this: With Friends Like These… (you know the rest):

“this looks like a herpes ad”

So, no Bianca. I do not think I need more MySpace “friends”. I’m perfectly happy knowing that no one in my network would tell me I look like a herpes ad.

"Daybreak" Shmaybreak

2006-11-16T11:59:00.000-05:00

For the past couple weeks, I’ve been looking forward to the series premiere of “Daybreak”, the new series on ABC. It’s about a top-notch-cop (Taye Diggs) who becomes entangled in an international conspiracy while for some reason, unbeknownst to us, he is living the same day over and over again. Only this day is one super shitty day.

Okay, I'm in.

“Daybreak” started with a bang. The writers wasted no time hurling the viewer straight into an action packed sequence that let you know immediately that this is going to be some wicked cool shit.

By the middle of the premiere, a few little bugs had gotten under my skin but I was definitely still enjoying my experience. It was clear that “Daybreak” wasn’t going to break any ground, but would be worth watching none the less.

Until the following happened:

There was a scene where Taye Diggs’ character is trying to explain to his girlfriend that he has been living the same day over and over again. Their conversation went something like this:

Girlfriend: Is everything okay? You look like something’s wrong.

Taye: I’m living the same day over and over.

Girfriend: What?

Taye: I’m living the same day over and over again.

Girlfriend: What?

Taye: This day is happening repeatedly. Over and over again.

Girlfriend: What?

And they went on and on like this for about 30 minutes, no shit. This is where they lost me because if this conversation had happened in the real world, I guaran-fucking-tee you it would have gone something like this:

Girlfriend: Is everything okay? You look like something’s wrong.

Taye: I’m living the same day over and over.

Girfriend: What?

Taye: I’m living the same day over and over again.

Girlfriend: What?

Taye: Damn, bitch! Haven’t you seen “Groundhog Day”?!

I mean, seriously. How funny would that have been? But instead, what they’re telling us is that “Groundhog Day” doesn’t exist in their world.

Yeah. Just for that ,“Daybreak” doesn’t exist in my world.

Adventure: North Brother Island

2006-11-13T15:17:00.000-05:00

I have a new adventure planned.

I am going to sail my ass on a makeshift raft to North Brother Island.

What is North Brother Island? Good question.

I was playing around with Google Earth and was checking out Riker’s Island Penitentiary in detail. You can see the recreation yards and guard towers and all kinds of cool shit. In my mind I always pictured Riker’s to be one massive fortress. This is not the case. It’s a huge multi-facility compound. I didn’t know that.

Anyway, as I swung my aerial view back towards the city I came across a full blown island that I had never heard of. North Brother Island.

North Brother Island is between Riker’s Island and The Bronx sitting in the East River, NYC. It’s a thirteen acre island in the middle of the East River, and lots of New Yorkers don’t even know it exists. There is a reason for that.

North Brother Island is abandoned and off-limits to the public. As such, one might imagine that it has a fascinating history. One would be right. From around 1880 until 1960 the island was home to several hospitals which warranted the quarantining of its patients. Epidemic diseases, mental patients, drug addicts. In 1960 the island was home to what was supposed to be a cutting edge treatment facility for teenage drug addicts. However, widespread staff corruption caused withdrawal of funding and the program closed, as did the island. Aside from the occasional Riker’s Island escapee who uses the island as a temporary haven after a long swim, North Brother Island has been completely abandoned ever since.

I am going to fucking go there.

I’ve done a little research(see: I've become completely obsessed) and apparently there are all kinds of cool remnants lying around the ruins of the hospital units. Beds, old medical instruments, solitary cells, padded rooms, all kinds of awesome shit.

I am so fucking jazzed about this.

Rafts will be built. Intel will be gathered. Risks will be taken.

Being that this adventure is absurdly dangerous, I will be recruiting a few more adventurers to come along. The usual adventure crew will be invited--Warren, Sam & Mat. I also invited Tynan of BetterThanYourBoyfriend to jet out from Austin if he’s interested, as I appreciate his taste for adventure.

It’s getting cold, so this may have to wait until spring. We’ll see.

Other interesting things about North Brother Island:

A major nautical disaster occured in the East River in 1904 when a ship of daytrippers burned. Over 1,000 of the 1,300 passengers on board were killed. Their bodies washed up on the shore of North Brother Island, as did the ship. Photos and accounts of this are easily accessible with a google search.

"Typhoid Mary" spent her last years quarantined in a private cottage on North Brother Island.

Since it's abandonment over 45 years ago, the island and ruins are overgrown with vegetation/vines/ivy and it has become a sanctuary for rare birds.

I am going to North Brother Island.
Fuck, I just might spend the night.

Seriously, how nuts would it be to spend the night in "Typhoid Mary's" old private cottage?

Subconscious: Your Contract is Under Review

2006-10-20T08:57:00.000-04:00

-To: My Subconscious
-Re: Last Night's Dream

Dear My Subconscious:

You are going too far.

Your latest dream made me very uncomfortable.

I understand that when I am asleep you have a specific purpose in mind when you impose a dream upon me. I understand that this is your own special way of sorting things out and that’s cool, but I really don’t see what you were getting at with your latest contribution.

Why the fuck did you have me spend my entire eight hours of sleep competing against The Cookie Monster for the affection of Mary-Kate Olsen?

I mean, what?

I… I honestly don’t know where to begin to address this.

I don’t care one iota about Mary-Kate Olsen, do I?

If I do, why is The Cookie Monster my main competition?

I’m not getting your hint, Subconscious, please clarify.

In the future, unless your directive is crystal clear, I would appreciate not dreaming about Mary-Kate Olsen or The Cookie Monster, or competing against one for the other.

Thanks in advance,

Your Conscious Counterpart

Girlfriend: Your Contract is Under Review

2006-10-13T05:06:00.000-04:00

-To: My Girlfriend
-Re: Your repeated attempts to cuddle while watching Ultimate Fighting Championship

Dear Girlfriend:

Have you ever been to a movie theatre to watch a movie that you were totally excited about, and then the big moment of the movie came and it really hit home with you and you started to cry? Then some jerk two rows back started laughing because he thought that that part of the movie was particularly ridiculous and deserving of his dismissive laughter? Did you feel like he just spat on what was supposed to be a great experience in your life?

Think about that, please.

This letter is intended to serve as a formal notice that it is absolutely not acceptable for you to attempt any sort of cuddling while I am watching Ultimate Fighting Championship. It is expected that from the date of this notice that you will adjust your actions accordingly and that there will be no further incidents.

Thanks in advance, and I look forward to improving our working relationship.

Best regards,

Your Boyfriend

You Just Never Know

2006-10-12T14:21:00.000-04:00

After the badass medieval festival at Fort Tryon last weekend, my roommate brought one of his friends over to hang out at the apartment.

My roommate is awesome, so I look forward to any of his company.

I am told that the friend is a doctor, an M.D. More specifically, he is a practicing substance abuse therapist and pain management expert.

Huh, okay.

Anyone who knows me knows that having an addiction specialist tooling around my apartment could quite possibly put a little cramp in my lifestyle.

I guess I won’t be sitting in the living room drinking beer and smoking bowls tonight.

Wrong.

Out of the blue, my roommate’s doctor friend whipped out a doctor's bag full of various substances.

Huh, okay.

Long story short:

Wait, hold on. Before I tell you this, I think I should preface by saying that I very rarely do drugs. Well, since high school anyways. But, man. This guy had some serious holdings. I'm not going to go into specifics, but this situation warranted an exception to anyone's convictions.

The good doctor, the roommate and I spent the whole night partying hard out of the doctor's magic bag, drinking, and…

…wait for it…

…watching several back-to-back episodes of “Intervention” while The Good Doctor, high as a fucking kite, diagnosed and treated all the patients from my living room couch.

Fucking priceless.

The Endeavor

2006-10-05T21:16:00.000-04:00

(This is my first attempt at a "live blog".)

It appears that online poker will soon be shut down in the good old free U.S. of A.

I logged into my online poker account today and surprisingly found $6 sitting there.

I now have a fucking mission.

The mission:

Turn $6 into $600 in 24 hours, playing poker... online.

This is going to be grueling and will most likely end in dissapointment. For you and me both, loyal reader.

Let's get started.

__

Account balance: $6.00

4:00pm: I sit down at a $6 single table tournament. I win. Hell yeah.

5:30pm-7:00pm: I played two more $6 single table tournaments and finished 2nd in both. Hell yeahs.

Account balance: $38.00

7:00pm: I run to get beer and cigarettes.

I decide that my best chance of achieving my goal lies in the strategy of playing and winning as many small($5/$10) tournaments as it takes to be able to enter a $100 tournament and still have a couple small buy-ins left. If I pad my stack correctly and win the $100 tournament, if I ever get there, I will reach my goal. I want to have a couple small buy-ins remaining so that if I lose the big tournament I can just start all over again. We'll see.

7:15pm: I enter a $10 single table tournament.

8:15pm: I finish in 2nd place.

Account balance: $54.00

This is going well. So far.

8:30pm: I take the time to write this blog.

9:45pm: I enter another $10 tournament.

10:30pm: I just went out on the bubble, 4th place. Lost money.

Account balance: $43.00

10:40pm: Entering another $10 tournament.

11:20pm: I just lost this tournament on the bubble, again. I took two horrendous beats in a row. I hate this game.

Account balance: $33.00

11:25pm: I am seriously pissed off. I am entering another $10 tournament now.

1:25am: I finished the tournament in 2nd place after the funnest and longest heads-up battle I've ever played. Great tournament. I don't even care that I didn't win because my oppenent was awesome. We showed each other several bluffs, nuts, folds, everything. This tournament exeplified what poker should be.

Account Balance: $41.00

1:30am: Okay, it's obvious. I'm going to have to seriously step up my game if I'm going to reach the $600 mark by tomorrow afternoon, and I am getting tired.

I've been playing for almost eight hours now.

And I am very drunk.

Of course.

2:00am: I'm going to play a $20 tournament at the risk of destroying my bankroll. Starting now.

2:50am: I busted out AGAIN. I seriously fucking hate this game.

Account balance: $19.00

I still have enough for a $10 and a $5 tournament.

I am not fucking giving up on my goal.

3:00am: I am starting another $1o tournament...

3:36am: Fucking lost again.

3:40am: Buying into my final tournament. Right back where I started. Six goddamn dollars.

3:53am: I hit four of a kind and played them hard to the river. I have a lot of chips.

4:49am: I WON!

Account balance: $25.00

5:00am: Entering a $10 tournament. Growing... weary.

Still have... lots of Red Stripe to drink.

5:10am: I just hit a huge hand and I am the clear chip leader.

5:46am: I just lost to a two-outer. I want to kill someone.

Account Balance: $14.00

5:51 am: $5 tournament, here we go. What choice do I have?

6:30am: I finished in 2nd place.

Account balance: $22.00

I am piss drunk and am going to pass out now. I failed.

I will try again in a couple days and will have the sense not to live blog when everyone in their right mind is dead asleep.

Till then...

No, I Am Not Dead

2006-10-03T16:21:00.000-04:00

Sorry for slacking lately, everyone.

I haven't felt like writing lately.

No reason really, just haven't felt like it.

I'll be back soon.

You can read the other blogs listed in my sidebar in the meantime.

Shhh! Don't Talk To Me.

2006-09-25T15:01:00.000-04:00

I went to Scruffy Duffy's with my awesome ex-corrections-officer roommate to watch football and drink beer and eat wings and nachos and mozzerella sticks and jalepenos and play pool yesterday. All day. Life really doesn't get much better than that. I saw a woman that was so drunk that I literally thought she was going to keel over and die right at the bar.

After all the games were finished my roommate and I went to the closing night cast party of "Smoking Bloomberg". They had the top floor/balcony reserved of a cool joint in midtown. I got to see several people I haven't seen in years. Great people. Good fucking times.

Lots of scotch.

God, kill me.

It's 3:00pm.

I just woke up and I want to die.

I wouldn't have it any other way.

Smoking Bloomberg

2006-09-22T13:26:00.000-04:00

A mammoth-ass thanks goes out to Warren for writing the first ever guest post on Pissed & Petty yesterday.

There was a huge response and the story is going viral.

A note about Warren, if you will: and you will.

Warren, in conjunction with a few other writers, has written a stage show that is currently running in NYC in a theatre on W. 46th St. between 9th/10th. There are only two performances left, one tomorrow and one Sunday.

The show is called "Smoking Bloomberg."

The entire run of the show sold out in 48 hours due to the pre-production buzz... and with good reason. Lucky for you, there may be a few no-show-reserved tickets available a few minutes before showtime. No guarantees, though.

-(from the official website)
"Smoking Bloomberg is a musical satire about a Korean dry cleaner's quest for revenge against Mayor Bloomberg and the smoking ban that has ruined her business. However the show runs much deeper than local politics and the current mayoral administration. It is a biting, irreverent lampoon of American democracy and the individual's place within it. This ain't your mom's musical theatre--unless you had one of those cool moms who burned her bra and let the kids come over to get drunk."

-and-

-(from the writers' blog)
"During a break in rehearsal today the cast [...] got into a discussion of who this show could potentially offend. As we were listing the potential offenders – Jews, Christians, Muslims, Left-Wingers, Right-Wingers – we came to the conclusion that it would be easier to name the demographic groups that would not be offended by the show. The list we came up with is as follows: Hispanics and retarded people. And frankly, we're not all that sure about the Hispanics."

I saw the show on opening night and I can assure you it is fucking brilliant. There are several huge jokes that require massive cojones to even write down on a piece of paper bearing one's own fingerprints. Leave it to say that none of these writers will be running for office anytime in the near future... and I mean that in the best way possible. Believe me, I know the feeling.

Oh, I almost forgot. Nick Nolte AND Gary Busey are in the show. No shit.

Read the glowing review from Backstage.

Have a great weekend everyone!

"Smoking Bloomberg" graphic by emblem creative.

The Messed Up-est Thing I've Ever Seen

2006-09-21T12:23:00.000-04:00

At long last, Warren's guest post:

I don’t know about you, but I moved to New York to see fucked up shit.

And like most mid-westerners who moved here in the Guiliani era, I was immediately and extremely disappointed. I got over it though, and fell into a normal routine, spending my weekends drinking in the same old bland-ass bars, and, with the not-really-an-exception exception of getting lost in Hasidic Williamsburg once, seeing exactly nothing that you would classify as “fucked up shit.”

But every couple of months I would remember my original reason for being here, and with a renewed spirit I’d drag a friend down to Coney Island or Chinatown, convinced there was something fucked up, something truly, deeply, fucked up to be seen in this city. Alas, those maze-like shops in Chinatown lead not to Deerhunter-style Russian Roulette matches but only to more paper dragons and fake jade. And the freak show at Coney Island? Fuck the freak show at Coney Island!!!!

After four or five years, I had given up any hope, resigned to the fact that New York had pretty much been enema-ized completely. That is until the day my girlfriend came home from her summer job at NYU with the news that some woman was going to be sewing her vagina shut and calling it art as part of an NYU festival. And we had free passes.

Let me say that again: sewing her vagina shut.

The event was labeled a “Hemispheric” festival that would be exploring various “Religiosities.” I wasn’t entirely clear on how some chick zipping up her nethers was in any way religious—in fact, it seems pretty fucking sacrilegious to me—but that’s the kind of shit NYU does, and thank god, because that’s precisely the kind of shit I was looking to see.

Worried that we wouldn’t be able to stomach this thing sober, Girlfriend and I had a few drinks beforehand, then dutifully and excitedly, well me more than her, made our way over to the school. We were soon ushered into an empty classroom, where we were instructed to sit on the floor against the wall. I was by this time figuring the odds of seeing an actual vulvic sewing at about 20/80, as everyone in the audience seemed normal-ish, we were in a classroom, and I mean, c’mon, how could anybody actually do that? Surely we had been misinformed!

Lights dim, and in comes a nice enough looking girl from South America. Music starts, one of those projectors you watched nature movies on in elementary school in the early 80’s cast blurry images against the wall, and the girl casually removed all of her clothes. Okay, naked girl. Cool enough, but, my mind isn’t blown.

She then laid her white shirt on the ground beneath her, placed a wine glass on top of the shirt, and proceeded to insert a round red ice cube, which we were later told was some of her blood that had been drawn and frozen, into her wee-wee. Okay, no needles and thread yet, but we’re definitely getting somewhere! She then crouches over the wine glass, her body heat melts the ice cube, and she dribbles the blood from her crotch into the glass, AND THEN DRINKS IT!!!

Music stops, she leaves the room, and the lights come back up. Girlfriend and I stare in silence. Wow! Score! I win! A woman five feet in front of me just faked her period and sipped it like a pinot. Fucked! Up! Shit!

We are all then led into another classroom down the hall, where we watch a bunch of foul-mouthed marionettes masturbate for 30 minutes while getting crucified. I guess this fulfilled the festival’s “religiosities” requirement, and like most things exploring “religiosities,”—church, Kevin Smith’s Dogma—it was boring as hell.

Once the puppet sketch ended, the crowd grew noticeably more excited. Short, squat, 19-year-old lesbians with pink hair and a penchant for the postmodern started whispering and giggling like the young, normal school girls they weren’t. A professor type in his mid-fifties remarked to another group of gothy nerds, “I came here for a revelation.”

Well, me too, Doc, so bring it on.

The proctor woman led us all down the hallway and into yet another classroom, and it is instantly evident that some crazy-ass shit is about to go down. Why? Because there’s a hospital bed with stirrups at the front of the room and a video camera pointed about vagina level at the bed and displaying this image on a big TV. You know, so we wouldn’t miss anything.

Now as I said, someone was allegedly going to be “sewing their vagina shut.” You might have been asking yourself this whole time why anyone would actually want to watch that. You, querying reader, don’t know me, and therefore might assume that I’m a grade-A voyeuristic nutjob. Nothing could be further from the truth. I don’t have any weird fetishes. I don’t have any suicidal or homicidal tendencies, and I’ve only googled “pooping grannies” once and I didn’t click on any of the links. I’m a pretty normal dude, I swear.

So I don’t know if I can really offer a proper explanation. Maybe it has something to do with growing up and getting a job and kind of hating it and learning that life isn’t really all that magical but kind of ho-hum about two-thirds of the time. Maybe it’s because I was in my early twenties and felt like I’d pretty much seen everything. I don’t know. But if you want to judge me for it, and you don’t really want me to baby sit your kids, I’m cool with that. I understand.

In walks a forty-or-so-year old woman in a hospital gown. She slowly and methodically sits down in the inclined bed—it looks comfy and posturpedic—and slips her feet into the stirrups. Up comes the gown, revealing the vulva we had all come to see. From the looks of it, this vulva has been involved in both performance art and battering rams for many years, and I felt sort of sad for this poor, tired vulva.

The woman then pulls out a statuette of Jesus—religiosities, anyone?—and cradles it in her arms for a couple of minutes. Once she’s given it a little love, she sets the Jesus doll on a side table next to the bed.

I’m warning you: this is going to get crazy.

She then swabs her left labia with iodine, pierces it with a hollow needle—OUCH—slips a long thread through, and ties it off. The TV is giving us a very clear and close-up picture of all this.

Then: Wash, rinse, repeat on the right.

She now has a long string tied to and dangling from each side. I’m no seamstress, and I don’t have female genitals, but this doesn’t strike me as the best way to accomplish the whole sewing it shut idea. Could it be she has something else planned?

I’m warning you again: this is going to get really fucking crazy.

She turns her attention back to the Jesus doll. Said doll is about 10 inches long, and its arms and legs are splayed. She pulls out a condom—hey, I warned you—and rolls it over and around the doll. She then douses the condomized Jesus with an absurd amount of lube and, you guessed it, spends five very long minutes, um, doing the opposite of giving birth to the statuette.

This woman has ample storage up there I guess, because she is unbelievably able to take in the entire doll, leaving only his little feet hanging out, flanked by the two dangling strings. She then ties the right string to the right foot and the left string to the left foot, just to make sure the doll can’t go anywhere.

Over the course of the next thirty minutes, she pulls out a compact mirror and applies her make-up, brushes her hair, and puts on a big rubber suit. A crotchless rubber suit, fyi. A crotchless rubber suit with a huge cartoon-like zipper running up the insides of both legs.

She zips up her legs, slips on some six-inch heels (!) and a big string of pearls and hops on up out of bed. We watch her walk around a little, legs zipped up, Jesus statue in her hoo-hoo, make-up meticulously applied.

As if she doesn’t have every possible impediment to being able to walk, she breaks the necklace and hundreds of pearls scatter all over the stage. Oddly, this produced the only audible gasp from the crowd the whole evening, and not, you know, when she was piercing her vulva or crotch-swallowing our lord and savior. She manages not to slip on the pearls, and she then walks slowly out of the classroom.

And that’s it. Lights up, and the NYU kids head over to Dojo’s to discuss the artistic merits of the evenings festivities.

Girlfriend and I, dumbfounded, disgusted, pretty fucking all around blown away, and oddly sated, head home.

But I was pleased. After all, I moved to New York to see fucked up shit.

Mission fucking accomplished.

Parker and Stone, what?

2006-09-21T02:20:00.000-04:00

Southpark?

Hire this guy.

I've known this guy since middle school and he is wicked goddamn funny.

For the third time, I'd like to point my readers towards Inti Tayta. This time it is about one of his theories of a practical reality.

I can't help but agree.

If you don't think that every word of his post is fucking hysterical, you need to think harder.

Dude is hilarious.

--The "best friend guest post" that I mentioned will be coming soon. He has some other priorities. Can't blame the jerk. Shit's fucked up, yo.

Craigslist Saved My Life

2006-09-20T17:51:00.000-04:00

I got a computer!

...from a Craigslist ad.

I found a wicked awesome offer on a laptop today on Craigslist. It was a dude in my neighborhood that was trying to get rid of a nice laptop for about a third of the retail price. I called the guy and asked all of the appropriate questions (so I say now), and he was totally knowledgeable. He agreed to meet me at my apartment in 30 minutes with the laptop.

About thirty minutes later, he called me and told me he was on the corner in a black Lincoln.

Nice.

The following conversations occurred:

Him: Hey man, I'm on the corner in a black Lincoln.

Me: Great. I'll give you the building number and you can come up.

Him: Eh, just come down to the car and you can check out the laptop. It'll hold a charge.

Me: You sure you don't wanna just come up to my apartment. I just wanna check out the computer for 10 or 15 minutes. Ya know, just to make sure the specs match up and everything.

Him: Sure ok, ok. What's the building number?

I tell him and go downstairs to get him.

For any of you that think I'm stupid for letting a (seemingly)shady computer salesman from Washington Heights into my apartment, think again. One of my roommates is an ex-corrections officer from Rikers Island. I'm not worried. At all.

On the way up the stairs (my elevator is broken), we make small talk and I ask him a couple basic questions about the computer. He answers them easily and tells me he's looking to buy a new computer and needs to sell this one to do it. Seems like a really nice guy.

Anyway, we come up to the apartment. He pulls out the computer. It looks brand fucking new, not a single scratch on it. I plug it in, start it up, launch several applications, make sure it can read a CD, open several internet windows to make sure it can handle it... and the thing runs like fucking magic. It is amazing... compared to what I'm used to, anyway.

He answered all my questions easily and truthfully. At my request he showed me the system specs at the F2 startup, and everything was exactly as he'd advertised.

This thing runs like a greased Spaniard at that bull thing they do.

My computer rules.

Rest assured:

Good things do happen to happen to bad people, and Craigslist sometimes won't rip you off.

I am living proof.

Seriously, I Need a Computer

2006-09-20T14:54:00.000-04:00

I've mentioned this before but didn't receive a single response.

I'm going to try again.

I need a fucking computer. I don't need anything too fancy. I'm looking to spend around $500. Less would be fantastic.

Laptop or desktop, I don't really care.

If anyone in the NYC area is looking to get rid of their old computer, please e-mail me.

Think of it as an extra bonus that the magic of "Pissed & Petty" will coming to you straight from your old computer, eh?

Hodge Podge

2006-09-20T01:22:00.000-04:00

I hung out with some wicked cool bloggers last weekend. Very fun. Great people.

Speaking of friends:

My best friend is at least 1.5 times the writer that I am. He will be writing a guest post today. Check back, it's going to be good.

Hold your breath.

Rain, Rain, Go Away. Don't Come Back.

2006-09-15T16:07:00.000-04:00

Three things I would rather deal with than rain on a Friday in NYC:

Anyway, I'm headed down to "On The C" to have a few beers and shoot a couple games of pool if anyone wants to join me. It's at Ave. C and 8th Street... basically.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Four Brothers

2006-09-14T12:37:00.000-04:00

Ok, here’s another “we’re wasted and leaving the bar at 4am story.”

(the crowd cheers)

Three friends and I closed down the Raccoon Lodge on the upper west side last summer, and as usual we were twelve sheets to the wind.

It was myself, a friend named Trevor (tattoo artist), a guy named Jason (pasty/dessert chef at Serendipity) and Mat. You may remember Mat from the swimming the lake in Central Park story. He was the tough guy in the bikini briefs.

We’re weaving down the sidewalk going home when Mat starts with his usual tough guy thing. He starts telling us about the time he was in on a remote Indian reservation hunting coyotes with his bare hands when he ran into a buffalo stampede. He says he puffed out his chest and stood fast like a brick wall while hundreds of buffalo traveling at full speed bounced off him like rubber balls. Then a tribe of wild Indians in full attack mode came galloping in on horses and swinging hatchets and shooting arrows. Mat wiped out the whole tribe with nothing more than a cold stare. The Indian chief was spared and recognized Mat’s warrior instinct. The chief took Mat to the top of a sacred mesa and performed a secret ritual that inducted Mat into the tribe as a true blood warrior.

Well, not really, but you get the point.

In the middle of the story Mat stops himself, turns to Trevor and I and says,

“Hey, I bet I could take both of you at the same time in a wrestling match.”

Trevor and I share a glance. We both look back at Mat.

“You’re on. Twenty bucks a man.”, I reply.

Considering how you look at it, this is probably a bad bet for me and Trevor. If Mat wins, he’ll win forty bucks, twenty from me and twenty from Trevor. If Trevor and I win, we’ll only receive ten bucks each as we would split Mat’s twenty. Whether or not this is a good or bad bet depends on how you calculate the odds that either party will win.

For it to be a good bet, I have to be certain that Trevor and I are at least twice as likely to beat Mat as he is to beat us. Do the math.

I could get into more details about the odds, but I’ll spare you.

So we find a side street that doesn’t have a lot of traffic and we discuss the rules.

Very simple, if we can pin Mat’s shoulders for three seconds, we win. If Mat can pin either one of us for three seconds, he wins. Period.

We assign Jason, who’s looking a little green in the face, to be the referee. Jason sits down on the curb and leans back against the fire hydrant.

Mat, Trevor and I all walk out into the middle of the street.

In case I haven’t mentioned this, Mat is huge. Like, 6’4”, 220 pounds, and athletic.

Trevor and I are about the same size, 5’11”, 145 pounds.

This is not going to be easy, to say the absolute least.

Mat takes his shirt off and starts pumping himself up.

Trevor and I look at each other with an eyebrow-raising head-tilting “here goes nothin’” kind of look.

Jason, our referee mumbles “Go.”

Trevor and I start circling Mat. Mat has his arms straight out to the sides turning around slowly as we circle, trying to keep us both in sight.

I shoot in and wrap up Mat’s legs and yell at Trevor to push him over from the top. Mat kicked me off like a small dog trying to hump his leg.

Ah crap, this is gonna suck.

A few more attempts at the same strategy and Trevor and I get our timing perfect and get Mat down on the street.

Trevor and I both jump on top of Mat and try to get him pinned.

Ain’t happenin’.

We were all rolling around in the middle of the street like one of those dust balls from the cartoons. You know, where an arm or leg can occasionally be seen emerging. We are all getting very tired.

Finally, I think I have Mat pinned and I yell for Jason to start the three-count.

I look down and I definitely have Mat pinned. The problem is that Mat has Trevor pinned at the same time.

We all struggle for a couple more minutes, but it’s not doing any good.

We agree to call a truce and let it go to a judge’s decision.

We slowly get to our feet while examining our bloody knees and elbows and foreheads and god knows what else. Mat’s shoulder blades looked like he’d been dragged by a car. I proudly take credit for that.

We take a moment to catch our breath.

Almost simultaneously we all look over to Jason to ask him who won.

Sure enough, Jason is passed out cold leaning up against the fire hydrant with his mouth hanging open and his eyes rolled back in his head.

Needless to say, as the three combatants, we were fairly pissed about this.

We made a deal and came to a reasonable agreement. We decided to call it a tie.

As such, Mat gave us each half of what he owed, and we each gave Mat half of what we owed. In the end, Mat was ten bucks richer. Funny thing is that ten bucks wasn’t going to come close to what he was going to have to spend to fix himself up.

Trevor and I didn’t look too pretty either. I had to wear long sleeves to work for a week in the middle of summer to cover my cuts and bruises.

Anyway, we slapped Jason in the face until he woke up and limped and hobbled home.

Wanna hang out with my friends and me this weekend?

*Aside: A rarity for me, I got through this whole post withough cursing once.

Our Nations Young(er) People

2006-09-13T17:23:00.001-04:00

I was reading random blogs today and leaving weird/funny/chastising comments whenever applicable.

After wading through hours and pages of inane bullshit I finally found a post on a 12-year-old girl's blog that I wanted to unload on.
(no inuendo here)

Anyway, believe it or not, I'm not a total asshole so I left the poor girl alone.

It was hard.

Very hard. (seriously, you need a psychiatrist)

Here is what's happening in Abbie's World:

7th Grade Dance (and more)

Okay, heres the situation. the dance is comeing up on friday and of course i dont have a date. I didnt expect to have one but... the guy that has a locker next to me lets call him jim (not his real name) Okay i dont know if jim likes me or not but hes kinda nice to me and sencitive (he thinks puppies arae cute). Problem he has only 1.5 arms. Im not being mean but if he asks me or asks me to dance i dont know what i would say. I dont think i love him maybe im wrong i dont know. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

I mean, I wouldn't even know where to start with this one.

An entire thesis could be written on this.

Low Brow Brown Cow

2006-09-12T10:32:00.000-04:00

I’m scraping the bottom of the blog barrel today in search of the lowest common denominator.

I don’t think it gets much lower than this:

My girlfriend told me specifically not to write about this, so of course it’s the first thing I do this morning.

Oh yeah, bring it on.

So my girlfriend started on a new diet a couple days ago, Nutri-System or some shit, and last night she had some awe inspiring gas.

Hey, I warned you we were going low with this one.

We were watching TV on the bed, and even though we were on opposite sides, she was repeatedly expelling butt smoke in my general direction.

It stunk.

Badly.

Over and over again.

Now, I’m pretty much a guy’s guy. I like football, beer and tits. I scratch my ass on occasion and have been known to toot indiscriminately so normally this wouldn’t bother me.

What was going on here with my girlfriends gastro system was on another level entirely. I finally had enough.

Me: “Honey, can you please just light them on fire or something? It’ll burn off the methane and I won’t have to smell it anymore. Seriously, I can’t take it.”

Her: (shocked look) “No! Absolutely not.”

Me: “Why not? It’s only the courteous thing to do. I mean really, this is crazy.”

Her: “Are you serious?”

Me: “Yes. Or maybe just light every other one. That would at least help.”

Her: (speechless)

Me: “Hellooooo?”

Her: “I hate you.”

So anyway...

My girlfriend is so inconsiderate that she won’t even light her own farts on fire if it would mean improving my health.

I hate you too, honey.

Oh, The Humanity

2006-09-11T12:19:00.000-04:00

I will be reading about the Seattle Craigslist debacle all day today.

It doesn't get any better than this, folks.

Some guy named Jason in Seattle put up a fake Craigslist ad posing as a woman looking for some weird sex stuff with a man.

A couple hundred guys responded to Jason's fake ad with pictures of themselves(some nude), phone numbers, places of employment, etc.

Jason then turned around and posted all of the responses, including photos, up on Craigslist. Needless to say, there are lots of incredibly embarrassed, furious, soon-to-be-divorced, fired, etc., men in Seattle today.

The backlash and fallout from this have reached epic proportions.

You can read the whole thing on Jason's site, including his IM chats with angry husbands and dejected wives. Link above.

UPDATE:Oh man, seriously. This is fucking great.

UPDATE: Pat Kachura, DMA

2006-09-08T15:30:00.000-04:00

You have found this page because of this article I wrote involving Patrica Kachura.

Patricia (Pat) Kachura is the SVP, Ethics/Consumer Affairs for the Direct Marketing Association (DMA). This is the organization responsible for junk mail of all types; e-mail spam, telemarketing, paper junk mail mailed to your home, etc.

For starters, the terms "Ethics" and "Direct Marketing" being used together is hilarious.

Even more hilarious are some of the comments that Pat has made on record. See the above linked article.

First Response Wins

2006-09-08T11:46:00.000-04:00

I get tons of traffic from several different users all over the country that all work for these two companies.

Travis Correll & Company

Performance Systems International

As soon as someone shoots me an e-mail and explains it to me, I'll take this post down so none of you get in trouble.

Are these companies just that big, or are you guys passing my shit around to all your coworkers all the time?

I'm not complaining, believe me. I'm just really curious.

Thanks,
Management

Corky-1, Ryan-0

2006-09-07T12:59:00.000-04:00

I'm walking down Third Ave. on my lunch break, heading to the bank, when I see a big guy walking towards me who is swinging one arm rather enthusiastically with each step. With the sidewalk crowded, it becomes obvious that I'm going to have to walk right by this guy, building on one side, him on the other. I don't think anything of it as we see weirder shit than this everyday in New York, enough to where a guy swinging his arm doesn't qualify in the least as weird.

The guy gets closer and I just naturally assume when we pass each other he will curtail the over-the-top arm gymnastics.

But no.

POW! Right in the face! My $80 Puma sunglasses (which I got for $25 at Century 21)break and fall to the ground and I immediately respond quite reasonably with,

"Dude, what are you fucking retarded?!"

I take my eyes off my broken sunglasses on the ground to look the guy in the face, when my question is quickly answered.

Yes. He is very much retarded.

My bad, son.

Long Way Down

2006-09-07T10:07:00.000-04:00

I do pretty stupid shit on a regular basis.

However...

My buddy Tynan of BetterThanYourBoyfriend.com put me to shame last weekend.

He installed a swing on the balcony of his high rise apartment. It swings out over the edge and drops down 200 feet. You guys have to see this. Pictures and all.

FYI, Tynan also designed the graphic and layout for this site.

If anyones needs a web page designed or a swing installed, you know who to call.

Existence Justified

2006-09-06T11:07:00.000-04:00

I got an invitation to sit at the cool kids table.

My new blog buddy Kate invited me to a bar crawl later this month with all the cool kids of the highly incestuous NYC blogger scene. Yeah, wicked incestuous and bordering on cultish.

When I first started this site I wanted absolutely nothing to do with that scene. It was such a turn off for me to read these people's blog posts about their own blog and stupid shit like that. All the name dropping/linking of their blog friends in every pointless post irritated the shit out of me.

I still feel this way.

But, I'm actually looking forward to this get together.

I look forward to meeting the people I read everyday, like Larry and Chris and Payj and several others.

I also look forward to meeting some people whose blogs I don't read but probably should.

Larry is one of the reasons I started a blog in the first place. Thanks to his blogroll, my third post ever was picked up by Gawker.

Speaking of Gawker, Heather seems like a doll.

Even though Chris totally blew it on Cash Cab, I'm sure he's a decent human being that I won't hate. His blog is really fun. Of course if MySpace is any indicator, we're already 'friends'.

Last but certainly not least, I am so totally excited about giving Alice a hard time in person. Pulling her pigtails over the internet has lost its charm.

I'll let everyone know how it went and who I slept with.

C.E. O-Yeah!

2006-09-05T14:27:00.000-04:00

I start a new freelance job tomorrow working directly for a notorious advertising CEO.

This should be interesting.

Labour Like It's $19.99

2006-09-02T04:04:00.000-04:00

Have a good weekend everyone.

I will.

Nancy-Boy Media

2006-08-30T13:00:00.000-04:00

I read an article on the Consumerist a few minutes ago that has my blood boiling.

In a recent story, The Washington Post addressed concerns regarding the Direct Marketing Association from an environmental angle. The DMA is responsible for unsolicited advertising such as telemarketing and junk mail. Basically The WP was asking the DMA if the millions of pounds of junk mail that they distribute, almost all of which is immediately discarded by consumers, is harmful to our environment. Forest depletion, landfill usage, etc.

When asked to address the subject, DMA rep Pat Kachura had the following to say:

(regarding paper junk mail)
"The Direct Marketing Association [is] far from harming the environment; catalogues help it, by reducing the number of cars headed to shopping malls....”
(dude, are you fucking serious?)

-and-

(regarding the imposition of possible governmental regulation on junk mail, etc.)
"We certainly wouldn't want to see a drastic and expensive and unnecessary government program created that would probably do more harm than good."
(oh jesus christ, c’mon man)

Now, I don’t really care about the environment, because I have a bizarre inability to consider anything beyond tomorrow, or make plans for the future of any sort. What I’m really pissed off about goes way deeper than the DMA and the environment on this one.

Here’s my point:

(deep breath)

I don’t understand why the media allows companies and officials to serve them a mammoth-ass load of glaring bull shit which they, the media, regularly swallow whole and pass on to us, the consumer. I mean what the hell already? Isn’t it supposedly the news media’s job to find the truth and bring it to the news consuming public?

Listen, I didn’t go to college. That being said, I would assume the reporter from the Washington Post would have a good education, and is reasonably intelligent. Fair? I think so. So if uneducated me clearly sees the transparency in Mr. Kachura’s statements, as should anyone who is not retarded, it would be safe to assume that the Washington Post reporter knows it’s bullshit too.

Why didn’t this reporter say to Ms. Kachura, “That’s bullshit. We both know it and I don’t appreciate you insulting my intelligence. Want to try again, lady?”

I mean, would that be so hard? Isn't that their job? Wouldn’t it make for a better story anyway?!

But that’s not what they do. They stick their heads in the sand and go, “Duuuuh, okay.” And that’s it. Nothing is different, nothing is fixed, nothing is better.

The DMA’s behavior in this matter is mirrored by corporations, governments and other regulatory agencies on a daily basis. I don’t understand why the media doesn’t call “bullshit” when everyone with half a brain knows its bullshit. I know its bullshit, you know its bullshit, everyone knows its bullshit but that doesn’t matter one iota because as individuals we don’t have a loud enough voice. I mean, I could write something on my blog in attempts to expose lies, but what good would it do when I’m only going to reach a hundred or so people? Not much. It’s not that I’m scared or unwilling to do it, it’s just that I know it would be a waste of time.

As the media, they have the power to make change. They choose not to.

I don’t understand it.

Grow a pair you fucking clowns.

UPDATE: Someone from the DMA just ran a google search for Pat Kachura and found this blog. Ten bucks says it's Pat herself. Hi Pat! Jerk.

Click here to read full update.

Parents: Sidewalks Are Not Toilets For Children

2006-08-29T10:13:00.000-04:00

I’ve seen something happen twice in the past month that I don’t ever want to see again--

Parents allowing their children to urinate on public sidewalks in broad fucking daylight.

Has this been happening for a long time and I just haven’t noticed?

Last weekend I was on my way to Riverside Skatepark when I very nearly walked right through a stream of urine being expelled from a toddler. I was walking down the sidewalk staring up at the trees when I saw something out of the bottom corner of my eye(toddler). Luckily I looked down just in time to jump out of the way of this pissing little pissant’s piss. The kid was standing in the grass while pissing onto the sidewalk! And his CPS-case-in-the-making of a father was standing right there beside him. I don't mean that I almost stepped in a puddle of pee, I mean that had I not jumped out of the way, this kid would have pissed directly on me.

I mean, what the hell?

Would it really be that hard to take your kid twenty feet off the beaten path and find a tree or something? If that’s too hard, turn around 180 degrees and stand on the sidewalk and piss into the grass. I mean, what the hell is wrong with you?

Then yesterday I leave the office to head home. I’m walking down Third Ave. at 50th St. during rush hour when I see it again. There is a toddler pissing right in the middle of the goddamn sidewalk on Third Ave. At rush hour! His mother was standing right there behind him.

You can’t be fucking serious!

Maybe this kid is a reincarnation of Moses or something because he parted the traffic on a busy Manhattan sidewalk like it was nothing. People were scrambling to not only avoid trampling the kid, but more importantly to not be pissed on.

This shit has to stop, New York.

Let me be very clear--

Study the picture of my face at the top of this blog. If you see me on the street walking in your direction while your kid is pissing on the sidewalk, you’d better fucking run, motherfucker! I will drop kick your kid into the middle of the street and then grind your nose in their mess.

CLEAR?

Another New York Moment

2006-08-25T11:18:00.000-04:00

A few friends of mine and I shut down our local bar around 4AM on a Friday night last October. As tradition dictated, we walked a few blocks over to Central Park to find our favorite spot to cause trouble. The rocks by the lake always paid dividends in this respect. It’s somewhere in the area of 72nd St. on the west side of the park.

The path we usually take to get to our spot leads to a rock cliff with about a nine foot drop to a sand bar below. One has the option of jumping down to the level below or walking around and down to get to our little spot. Since I’m a really smart guy, I know that the shortest distance between two places is a straight line. I’m in for the jump. I turn to my friend Sam, who will rarely back down from a challenge, and say,

“Hey, if you do it, I’ll do it,” and I motioned towards the cliff. Sam must have known immediately from the look in my eye what I was going to say because before I could finish an eight word sentence, literally, Sam had hurled himself off the cliff without even looking over the edge first. Wow, balls.

Okay. I had jumped off this particular cliff a few times, and I know it’s something you have to prepare for. It’s dark, it’s a long way down and there is all kinds of nasty debris on the landing.

Sam is a reasonably fit guy, able bodied and strong willed. Even so, I was pretty sure that anyone who did what Sam just did would more than likely not be okay. They would be hurt. My notion was supported by the grunting and moaning coming from the bottom of the cliff.

I crouched on the edge of the cliff, found where I wanted to land and took flight. I landed a few feet away from Sam just as he was getting to his feet. He actually seemed to be okay with only a couple complaints about an aching foot. Good for Sam. Sam is man.

Sam and I got to our spot on the rocks by the lake before the other three guys did. Pat, Warren and Matt showed up a couple minutes later because they took the dress shoe route, around and down.

At our spot we all sat or stood on rocks, talking about whatever, when Warren turns to Mat and says,

“Mat, I’ll pay you $100 to swim across this lake right now. All the way across.”

Mat’s eyes got really big and he immediately starting taking his clothes off and got down to his bikini briefs. This is particularly funny because Mat is a really big tough guy. He’s got be at least 6’4”, 220 pounds, and not fat. Yep, big scary guy standing at the edge of the lake in Central Park at four in the morning wearing bikini briefs. This may not be as uncommon as I thought, as later in life I heard that this is a very popular “cruising spot”. I don’t wanna know.

I’m sure Mat’s enthusiasm in regards to the proposition had a lot to do with the fact that he was newly unemployed. In addition, he had managed to completely botch his state unemployment claim and now receives a total of $38/week income. By comparison, it would be like someone offering me around $3,000 to swim the lake. I don’t blame him for being excited. (See: Einstein's Theory of Relativity)

Remember, this is October in New York City. It was about 43 degrees fahrenheit outside. Warren argued it was in the low-50’s, at least.

Mat took a couple deep breaths. Even though he doesn’t believe in god Matt said a quick prayer where I overheard something about dirty needles in his feet. I don’t know.

Mat literally set one foot in the water, spun right around and said there was no way in hell he was going to do it. It was way too cold. Of course everyone started goading him but he wouldn’t budge. He said it was just too cold.

At that point I immediately offered to take the bet myself. Warren, who had originally offered the bet looked at me and said,

“No. I know you’ll do it. That’s not the point.”

I had a feeling that’s what he would say. But everybody in attendance was already worked up and wanted to see someone swim the lake.

Warren’s a very bright guy and proceeded to make everyone the following offer:

Warren, Pat, Mat & Sam would each pay me $25 to swim the lake. Someone would have to cover Matt’s portion as we already know he’s broke.

Warren has a gift for working a great deal for himself in any situation. He was ready to bet Mat $100 out of his pocket to swim the lake, and all the other guys would have gotten to enjoy the spectacle on Warren’s dime. Now Warren has worked a new deal to make everyone else pay to bet someone whom they already know will swim the lake. Nice work.

Of course, I take the deal. I strip down to my boxers and approach the water. The film on the top of the water containing algae and god know what else made it impossible to see the bottom. Great. I don’t believe in god either but I think I said the same prayer Mat did. I added broken glass to the prayer.

Mat was right. It was really cold, but probably manageable. I mean, we’re not talking about immmediate hypothermia or anything. I waded slowly into the water, being extremely careful with every step. My focus was so intensely concentrated on the nerves in my feet that I think I could have read a newspaper with my toes, no brail. I could have identified Coke over Pepsi with the soles of my goddamn feet right then, I swear.

Once the water got up to mid-thigh or so, I started swimming because I couldn’t fucking wait to get my feet off the bottom of this death trap. The bottom of the lake slowly dropped out from under me and the cold began to set in much faster than I thought it would.

I swam faster.

I got to the middle of the lake and was getting kind of tired. I stopped and treaded water for a few seconds to get my wind back. Apparently it worried my friends when they stopped seeing the splashes because they all starting screaming words of encouragement,

“You’re half way there man!”

“You can do it!”

“Keep going!”

I have pretty smart friends, but to this day I’m surprised at how scripted their encouragements seemed.

“Shut up dicks! I’m just resting!” I yelled back.

They shut up.

I started swimming again.

I was wearing a really old pair of boxer shorts in which the elastic in the waist was completely worn out and stretched. While I was swimming, the drag of the water kept pulling my boxers down. Accordingly, I had to stop swimming to pull up my stupid underwear several times. This began to take up a lot of precious energy and was completely killing my momentum.

I had to let the boxer shorts go.

I hated this idea for several incredibly obvious reasons, but the job had to be done. As hard as this decision was initially, I have to admit that it was a rather liberating experience when I finally roundhouse-kicked the boxer shorts off my left ankle with an aquatic propulsion force matched only by the finest U.S. made nuclear submarine.

I gargled through the last third of my swim across the lake at Central Park completely naked. The other side started getting closer and closer and finally I felt the bottom again. Oh god. Not again. Being the genius that I am, I didn’t think about having to deal with the bottom while getting out of the lake also. To make things worse, I am now naked. (See also: Completely Exhausted)

I stay in the lake, laying motionless in the shallow water with only my head sticking out. I look around for my friends, moving only my eyes.

I feel like a naked Navy Seal.

Fuck its cold.

I started shivering pretty badly and decided I had to get out of the water. I floated up as close as I could to the bank, where the water was only a few inches deep. I stood up and made a hot-coal'esque scramble through the shallow water to the shore where I found a sadly small tree for cover.

There I was standing two feet from the main walking path, shivering violently and completely naked. More than the sole embarrassment of being naked in public, I was really concerned that a gaggle of hot twenty something chicks would walk by and think that my penis was really that small.

“No, no! It’s the cold, I swear!”

It's amazing how priorities change in extreme circumstances.

Thankfully there were no hot girls around as far as I could tell, and I could see my friends coming around the path carrying my clothes. They were still pretty far away.

I screamed at the top of my lungs,

“I WANT MY PANTS WITH MY FUCKING MONEY IN THE POCKET!”

I see my friends chuckle from a distance and continue to take their sweet ass time walking up the path. Sam seems to be limping.

Another sudden priority shift.

Let me try to explain something about being naked, cold, and alone in the middle of the night in a location where record numbers of murders and all kinds of mind-blowing violent crimes occur:

Every second seems like a fucking year. I cannot stress this enough, as the proper words do not exist in the English language.

The guys obviously didn’t understand the urgency of the matter.

“HURRY THE FUCK UP! I’M NAKED AND I AM GOING TO GET KILLED!”

This got their attention.

Speaking of getting attention, I realized that the exact words that I screamed should have been chosen more carefully. I mean, if some sicko really was lurking in the shadows of Central Park waiting for the right victim on which to pull off some crazy sex-murder, which guy would they target? Probably the one standing there screaming about being naked with money in his pants, right?

All my friends started laughing hysterically from a couple hundred feet away. I was not laughing. Warren, great guy that he is, starting jogging up the path with my clothes but he was laughing so hard that I wasn’t sure he was going to make it. It was the first time I'd seen someone almost fall down from running and laughing at the same time.

Finally he arrived to find me, sure enough, shivering and naked. He was laughing so hard he couldn’t even hand me my clothes. I had to snatch them from him and get them on as fast as possible, which isn’t easy when you’re wet.

Pat, Mat and Sam all found us a minute or so later. Sam was definitely limping.

We headed back up the path to leave the park and go home. I used the time to collect my winnings from everyone.

Warren was still laughing.

Sam wouldn't stop bitching about his stupid foot.

Pat complained that the whole thing wasn't worth his $25.
That’s Pat in a nutshell, but you gotta love Pat.

Mat had a silent defeat about him.

The sun was starting to come up.

Alas, the punchline:

We were all walking down Broadway, tired, drunk and just blocks from home. I was also getting a little queasy, and I wasn't sure why. We were passing by a group of tourists who were standing in front of thier hotel waiting for a cab with their luggage. At the exact moment that we walked by the tourists I vomited, while walking, never missing a beat. The tourists all gasped and looked shocked and a little scared.

Immediately, the tourists' shock turned to absolute confusion when I turned to them and quipped ever so matter-of-factly,

“What? It’s just lake water.”

***Later that morning, we all woke up to Sam's voice on the answering machine. He was in the hospital with a broken heel.

Read the original New York Moment.

Inti Tayta -vs.- Airport Security

2006-08-24T16:15:00.000-04:00

I was going to write a post about a blood boiling experience I had at the bank last week, but I'm not going to do that anymore... at least not right now.

Instead, I'll point you once again to Inti Tayta: Welcome Home. Read about his most recent trip to the airport. It's way funnier than my stupid bank story I was going to write... which I still might.

Anyway, I'm glad to be back, people.

Enjoy.

And we're back...

2006-08-24T10:40:00.000-04:00

I just started a new job today, so I now have access to a computer.

I figure that I should probably not spend my entire first day of work on the internet updating my blog, which is totally what I want to do.

Anyway, hopefully I'll find some time in the next few days to get a up a good quality post.

Word.

Ah crap.

2006-08-01T21:48:00.000-04:00

My computer is broken for real now.

The operating system won't start.

I'm writing from a friends computer to inform everyone that posts will be very spotty until I get a new computer, which may be a while.

Maybe I can get a friend to guest post in the meantime.

Keep checking in, we'll make it work somehow.

Thanks everybody.

Oh, seriously though... if anyone in the NYC area wants to give me a good deal on a laptop, I'm interested. I don't need anything fancy.

E-mail me.

The Ties That Bind

2006-07-29T10:39:00.000-04:00

For some reason I woke up wicked early this morning and couldn't go back to sleep.

It's Saturday and I woke up bright eyed at 7:30am.

Unacceptable.

I went into the kitchen to retrieve my lighter that I had left on the stove the night before so I could smoke my good morning cigarette.

I heard the TV on in the living room and realized my roommate(whom I have had a couple problems with) was already awake too.

I poked my head in and the following conversation commenced.

Me: "Hey man, what are you doing up this early?"

Roommate: "I don't know. I just woke up and I couldn't go back to sleep."

Me: "Weird, me too. Hey, I'm going downstairs to grab a sixer. You want anything?"

Roommate:(laughing) "So, you're just going to drink yourself back to sleep?"

Me: "Exactly. Why, is that weird?"

Roommate: "I'll take Corona."

Irreconcilable Differences

2006-07-28T21:34:00.000-04:00

Ever since my computer started hanging out with Limewire, I've noticed my computer has had a change in friends, is lazy and irrational, spends more time alone and has bloodshot eyes on a regular basis.

A few nights ago, my computer decided for the last time that it didn't want to do what I was asking of it, which is my computer's only job.

At that point, I may have accidentally (see: completely on purpose) beaten the ever loving shit out of my computer.

The 'Shift' key and the 'A' key popped off and I can't get them back on. There are no two worse keys to have missing. One key is a home row anchor and a very common letter. The other is a key you have to hit at the beginning of every sentence and proper nouns and crap. The keys still work, but the buttons are so small that I may as well be trying to touch the tip of my nose with my head tilted back and eyes closed.

If my computer hadn't decided to be more loyal to Limewire than it was to my commands, this whole situation could have been avoided.

It's as if someone called Child Protective Services on me for beating a child who totally deserved it.

Is anyone giving away a new laptop or a child?

Boyfriend & Girlfriend: A Knowing Conversation

2006-07-23T06:19:00.000-04:00

(This post is a serendipitous third installment of the "The Mace, The Axe and The Crowbar: A Love Story" series. If you are not familiar with the story, read it jerk. Everyone in the world thinks it is a great read.)

In hopes of making a long story short:

The former love of my life --the girl who the Mace/Axe/Crowbar story is about-- has contacted me after finding the aformentioned story on this blog.)

--

A few days ago, I was hanging out with my fabulous girlfriend in my bedroom as usual. She was watching America's Next Runway Nanny Factor, or some stupid shit. I was buried in my laptop sending long overdue replies to millions of e-mails.

Then I saw an e-mail from --the girl from the story--. I hadn't spoken to her in more than seven years.

My heart started beating ninety miles an hour and I started sweating.

I must have looked wicked guilty.

From across the room, my girlfriend whipped her head around to look at me in the most accusatory and condescending manner I can possibly imagine. The following conversation commenced:

Girlfriend: What are you doing?

Boyfriend: Nothing really, same shit.

Girlfriend: Really? Do I need to come over there and look for myself?

Boyfriend: What? No. There's someone I used to know, and...[interrupted]

Girlfriend: She must have been really special!

[a pause you could drive a truck through]

Boyfriend: What? Well, yeah, but...

Girlfriend: How far away does she live?

Boyfriend: What?

Girlfriend: HOW FAR AWAY DOES SHE LIVE?!

Boyfriend: Very very far away.

Girlfriend: Okay, go ahead.

Global Warming: Explained By Some Jerk Who Has No Idea What He's Talking About.

2006-07-21T03:13:00.000-04:00

Forget everything you’ve ever heard about the causes of global warming.

Hole in the ozone? EPA? My ass.

I don’t know anything about this subject, but the following is common sense if you have a middle-school education.

This is my well uninformed opinion--

Omitting several technicalities:
1)Gravity exists.

2)Earth is within the Sun’s gravitational pull, thus Earth is always moving closer to the Sun.

3)Earth gets warmer because the Sun is wicked fucking hot.

Am I completely off base here?

If you think this big ass ball of fire(pictured above) wouldn't love to devour each and every entity(see: sitting duck) in its orbit, you are insane.

Put Me In, Coach

2006-07-14T05:50:00.000-04:00

For those of you that don't know, I am a part-time poker dealer in NYC. I run all kinds of games ranging from your company Christmas party -- to underground high stakes Wall Street games -- to your run of the mill casino themed bar mizvah.

My agent(yeah, some part-time poker dealers have agents) called me yesterday and told me that a client is looking for a poker dealer for a photo shoot. She asked if I was interested.

Hell yeah. What a stupid question.

Normally, as a poker dealer I am contracted to be paid "x" amount of dollars per hour based solely on my poker dealing skills (combined with the likelihood that I will actually show up to the job). It seems reasonable to me that I could demand that my standard going rate be multiplied several times for the use of my "image and likeness" in this commercial publication.

My agent asked that I e-mail her a couple of appropriate photos that she could forward to the client for consideration. I told her that that wouldn't be a problem and that the photos where on their way.

I began looking through the depths of hell on my computer for appropriate photos. I soon realized that I didn't have one single picture of myself that accurately represents what I look like now.

Problem?

Solution.

I enlisted my girlfriend who has an amazing amateur eye for what looks good on film.

I sat down in a chair in my apartment with a deck of cards and a couple stacks of chips, and told her to start snapping while I fooled around with my tools.

Thanks to the mirror (and Caroline’s spooky-good photography skills), this picture catches me tracking the Ace of Spades to the middle of the deck and cutting it directly to the bottom with one hand.

(Click to enlarge, seriously.)

I have always been very hesitant to post clear pictures of my face on this blog, or anywhere online for that matter, but I couldn’t resist this one.

I Always Miss the Good Stuff

2006-07-12T19:08:00.000-04:00

How does this happen? I don’t get it.

I spent the first 19 years of my life in a part of the Midwest called Tornado Alley. Tornadoes are a dime a fucking dozen down there. I never actually saw one though. Several tornadoes a year for nearly twenty years and I never ever got to see one, as they never came within fifty miles of my house, which I guess is a good thing, but still… When I left that region of the country to come to NY, I also left my hopes of ever seeing a tornado in person.

I turned on the news today and saw that there was a fucking waterspout (tornado over water) in the Hudson River! I basically live on the bank of the Hudson River, and I didn’t see it. Are you telling me that I could have just walked outside and seen a fucking tornado on the Hudson River? You have to be fucking kidding me. How do I always miss this shit?

When the big head-butt of the World Cup final game went down, I was in the bathroom.

One Man's Crack is Another Man's Beer

2006-07-10T02:42:00.000-04:00

If the guy on last night's "Intervention" on A&E would have substituted "crack" with "beer" in his following quote, he would be my best friend.

"I am always thinking about crack. I dream about crack. I want some right now."
-the guy, "Intervention", A&E Network

Brilliant.

I feel you, brother. Cheers. (*clink*) Whoa, don't burn yourself.

Fourth of July

2006-07-04T04:15:00.000-04:00

(Click to enlarge)

Dear Britain:

Ha!

Best regards,
Ryan

Buy this CD or you will be sorry.

2006-07-02T21:06:00.000-04:00

(Click to enlarge)

My girlriend may or may not be the bass player for this band. The CD is in stores nationwide and you need one to make your days happy. Pick up a copy or order one online.

It will make you smile.

Check out the official Columbia Records website: http://www.SusanCagle.com

As seen on MTV's "You Hear It First": http://www.mtv.com/news/yhif/susan_cagle/

More Photos, Videos and Music here: http://myspace.com/susancagle

Susan also has a two page feature in the July issue of ELLE Magazine. Write a letter to ELLE's editors and tell them that next month they should do an article on Susan Cagle's bad ass bass playing sister.

America's Next Top Graphic Artist

2006-06-30T06:08:00.001-04:00

If any of my readers are graphic artists, professional or amateur, and care to take the time to submit a title graphic for this blog, I would really appreciate it.

I try to pretend that I know what I'm doing with my Serif Photo Plus application, but have been unable to create a graphic to which I can get married.

I'm shooting for something that resembles the professionality and sleekness of this title graphic: http://www.tynansangels.com/

Being that the title of my blog is rather tacky and low-brow, I would like a graphic that offsets this by being simple, sleek and classy... something that dignifies the tackiness of the title... if that makes any sense.

Bonus points may be awarded to graphics that subtly and tastefully include my name, [redacted].

You get the jist, right? I don't know, just send me your ideas.

Email an appropriately sized jpeg to: [redacted]

Feel free to disregard everything I've said and create whatever the hell you want.

Let the games begin,
Ryan

UPDATE: Thanks to Tynan of BetterThanYourBoyfriend.com and TynansAngels.com for the new theme and header graphic. Much appreciated sir, it looks great.

New York City Blackout

2006-06-27T23:02:00.000-04:00

Yes, I realize this happened a long time ago.

When the big NYC Blackout occurred, I remember that the first thing I thought was, “If I don’t come out of this with a great story, I’m pathetic.”

Well, not only did I get a story, I got some pictures too.

I was working for a pair of Oscar-winning movie-making-mogul brothers at the time. My office in Tribeca shut down around the time of the blackout, maybe two or three in the afternoon, I don’t remember. The local bar was unloading all of its beer for half price so I stayed there drowning myself in half-price love until around six o’clock. Knowing that I would never see this good of a deal again, I drank as many bottles of Budweiser as I possibly could, as fast as I possibly could. I got totally seriously hammered and decided I should probably start walking back to my apartment in Queens.

Yep, I had to walk from Tribeca to Astoria(for the non-New Yorkers, that’s really fucking far). I think it was pretty hot that day, too. Again, my memory of this day isn’t so sharp. Good times.

I stopped by a deli which was selling its cooler goods for basically nothing. I grabbed a 6-pack of Coors tall-boys to throw in my bag for the walk home to Queens.

After a couple hours of walking and rubbernecking, I finally got to the Queensboro Bridge.

This is the sea of people at the foot of the bridge, Manhattan side going to Queens.

I stood there for a while looking around and taking in the scene when I saw a lot of black smoke and what looked to be an apartment fire.

I’m really awesome when I’m drunk so I made a bee-line straight for the fire.

I saw the huge red brick wall that is at least four or five stories tall. It supports an overpass that runs right by the apartment building(pictured below). So what should I do? Climb the wall of course.

Drunk people should climb walls to get very close to fire.

I scaled the wall with my bag over my shoulder. I still had two beers left. No way in hell I was leaving those behind. I got scared a couple times on the way up because the finger-holds between the bricks got really small, and it was a long way down by that point. People were cheering for me. People tend to do that a lot.

Public Service Announcement: Never begin to climb anything which you are not certain that you can summit. Getting stuck sucks.

After a pretty shaky climb I finally threw my leg over the top of the wall and sat on the overpass to catch my breath. I repeatedly flexed and relaxed my fingers, as my fingers were very angry with me.

That’s when I saw where the fire was.

(Click to enlarge)

Oh fucking sweet!

I challenge anyone to tell me the last time they were completely alone in a pitch black NYC with a burning car twenty feet away. You can't. I am the only person this has ever happened to.

This is a real life car on real life fire and I was the only one there to see it… for about two minutes.

Then the NYPD and the FDNY ruined my party.

They had the sense to stay a block away from the burning car while they repeatedly instructed me over the PA on the fire engine to “leave immediately”. I was a little too busy messing with the settings on my crappy camera to take them seriously.

I realized they were serious when I looked up and saw a fleet of New York's Finest sprinting towards me with black steel batons shouting things that I would rather not repeat on record.

I got the fuck out of dodge and started to climb back down the wall, but not before I got this picture of New York’s Bravest putting out the fire.

(Click to enlarge)

I guaran-fucking-tee you that there is no way I would have made it down that wall without the adrenaline that came from running from the cops. I slipped off the wall with about 10 feet to go and somehow landed solid on my feet. A lot of people below were watching me come down the wall, and it drew a lot of attention. They were cheering again, I'm used to it. There were several gasps when I slipped, and several relieved sighs when I landed.

I immediately blended into the crowd and made my way home.

Several people went to great lengths to follow me into the crowd crossing the bridge. I guess there's really nothing better to do during a blackout. A few people who were trailing behind me while I was trying to make myself lost in the crowd congratulated me or asked me questions about what I was doing on the wall.

I only responded with, "I got lost."

All Eyes on Me

2006-06-27T20:35:00.000-04:00

This is me doing a wicked 540-back-flip three stories in the air with eight wheels attached to my feet... no net, just a plywood landing ramp(left).

I do shit like this all the time so I'm totally braver than you.

(Click picture to enlarge)

Whatever Floats Your Boat

2006-06-26T06:14:00.000-04:00

As this blog gains popularity, it seems to be climbing the search engine ladder.

These are some interesting search terms with which people have found my smashing ass blog.

___

Google: Awesome Shit.
I can't argue with this one.

Google: Alligator Rings Doorbell.
What?

MSN Search: Finest Niggas Phone Numbers.
Can't argue with this one either, though the cultural reference is highly inaccurate.

MSN Search: Malaysia Fucking.
Hmm... ok, I guess I could be into it. Wait... ok, yeah.

And my personal favorite-

MSN Search: Dicks Sticking Out of Shorts.
Uh, no thanks, but whatever floats your boat.

Hang Tight

2006-06-23T06:24:00.001-04:00

I'm percolating some new shit.

Oh, and if you haven't caught on yet, I constantly revise my old posts. If I haven't written anything new in a while, it's probably because I've been doing re-writes. If there's a post you haven't read in a while, read it again because there may some new material tucked in somewhere.

Also, I often write when I'm very drunk. If anyone sees any typos or any other glaring errors, no matter how small, please send me an e-mail and let me know.

Happy Friday everyone.

Immigration problem? Gee, I haven't noticed.

2006-06-16T14:00:00.000-04:00

My air mattress sprung a big ass leak last night.

I live in a primarily Dominican neighborhood in NYC and I am, on many levels, your average American white guy who speaks very little Spanish.

That being said:

I walked into a hardware store in my neighborhood today and was greeted by a pleasent and eager fellow.

Fellow: Que pasa, boss?

Me: I need an adhesive patch.

Fellow: Que?

Me: I'm looking for an adhesive patch. I have an air mattress and it has a hole in it. I need to fix it. Like, something you'd fix a bike tire with. Do you have something like that?

Fellow: Si, si, no problemo, amigo!

The gentleman disappeared into the back of the store, came out a few seconds later and met me at the cash register.

He handed me a plastic bag containing an electical powerstrip, smiled and asked,

"Es eso?" (Will that be all?)

I gave him a look that probably read something like...

--I mean you can't be serious, dude. What part of "adhesive patch" sounds like "three-prong/eight-outlet AC adapter"? I'm a fairly tolerant individual, but this is fucking ridiculous.--

After my eyes burned a hole through this poor sap's soul, he called for an English speaking manager.

The manager comes over, greets me and asks,

Manager: "What can I do for you?"

Me: "Hello, I need an adhesive patch to fix my air mattress."

The manager turns to the fellow I originally spoke with and says,

Manager to fellow: "Tenemos un patcho?" (Do we have a patch?)

Fellow: "Oh! UN PATCHO!"

Yes, you idiot. Try to get your brain to think outside of that tiny box. Take off the "o" and we're talking about the same thing, genius.

I mean, what the hell is going on here? Let's just suppose that for some reason I took a job in a hardware store in The Dominican Republic, okay? Let's also suppose that I speak relatively no Spanish.

If a native approached me in the store and asked for "un patcho", I would know that the customer wanted "a patch" of some sort. How would I know this? Because I'm not retarded.

I can almost understand being served the chicken soup instead of the chicken sandwich which I actually ordered, but c'mon.
(sigh)

Airport Secrets

2006-06-14T04:27:00.000-04:00

*This is a granite-rough-draft of a post that I want to publish within the next week. I just jotted down some thoughts. I will revise this and bring it up to standard. Maybe it will be interesting to compare the draft with the final product.

I hate flying because I like to smoke and drink.

I always arrive early and check into my gate with plenty of time to spare. Now what?

Hit the bar, of course.

My problem? I’m a smoker.

Not only do I love to smoke cigarettes, I need to smoke cigarettes… especially when I’m drinking. Unfortunately, most airports that I frequent are not conducive to my needs. They have banned smoking on the entire premises.

I cannot drink without smoking, and I cannot deal with the airline’s arbitrary bullshit unless I drink. Consequently, they have put me in one hell of a bind. I will go out on a limb here and guess that I am not alone in this respect.

Fear no more, smokers, for I have a secret that I have chosen to disclose to you.

This is the secret of the “Family Restroom”. Every airport has several of them, and they are completely private. There is at least one in every major terminal, but you have to know where to find them. Look for the non-descript door located near the general restrooms. It is a one-holer-bathroom with a lockable door that is almost always available.

Whether you use this information to have your sex or smoke your pot:

Just make sure you’re prepared for the shame that comes with leaving a smoke and sex filled “Family” restroom, when there is a family waiting right outside as you leave.

I Am Not Smart

2006-06-12T19:53:00.000-04:00

I have always prided myself on being a fairly intelligent person, both book-wise and street-wise. I can read big words and I can count pretty high. I know lots of random shit. I am able to assess and analyze a problem with which I’m completely unfamiliar, and realize a near optimal solution on a regular basis.

However, I am not smart. I have some incredibly smart friends, though.

Don't click this link yet, because I want to tell you some things about this guy first. Author of the new blog, Inti Tayta’s: Welcome Home, Inti Tayta, is verifiably one of the smartest people on Earth. Period. I have known this guy since I was twelve, and his intellect is bizzare and astounding.

As a twenty-five year-old professional mathematician and student, Inti Tayta has held instructional positions at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research(India), École Normale Supérieure(France), and Tohoku University(Japan).

He is also very popular in the Tokyo stand-up comedy scene, where he does his routine entirely in Japanese. The gimmick is that he doesn’t speak Japanese at all. With the help of a colleague at Tohoku University, Inti learned an entire stand-up routine, phonetically. He does a whole routine in Japanese and has no idea what he’s saying. The routine reportedly references this fact several times. How brilliant is that?

Inti Tayta is one of four people in the world to completely understand Freyd-Mitchell embeddings of abelian categories. He is currently working on a complete description of bio-physical phenomenality via Grothendieck topoi. Whatever that shit means.

Oddly, at 5’7”, 110 pounds, Inti is one of the world’s leading experts on alligator wrestling technique. Appparently using his mathematical aptitude, Inti created a scientific formula that isolates all variables of an alligator's natural attack instincts and tendencies. He developed an easy to understand system and teaches profitable seminars in weird places all over the world.

As his most recent accomplishment, Inti turned down a job offer as a CIA Code and Encryption Analyst. He said the job "sounded too stuffy".

Anyway, his blog is brand new and doesn’t have a lot of live content yet, but this serves as a formal notice to keep an eye on Inti Tayta’s: Welcome Home.

World Blogger Championship of Poker

2006-06-10T02:56:00.000-04:00

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 7712767

It should be really fun.

They're giving away nine seats to the main event at the World Series of Poker.

I want a seat. Wicked bad.

I'll let everyone know how I do.

The Tournmanent is on June 18th.

***Results:

I finished in 162nd Place out of 2239 players. I played very well, but lost a critical race for all of my chips in the third hour of the tournament.

I had 77, he had AK. All the money went in before the flop.

Flop came: AAK

Game over.

No prize.

Mace, an Axe and a Crowbar: A Love Story, Part II

2006-06-08T04:25:00.000-04:00

Read -Part I- first, if you haven't already.

About a week later, I was waiting outside in the back of my school, standing on a curb waiting for my father to pick me up. I had stayed after school for an extra curricular activity of some sort so almost everyone on the school grounds was long gone.

This was a particularly exciting day for me as my long distance girlfriend of over a year was in town and I was going to get to see her. I only got to see her once every couple months. This was a gigantic fucking deal.

As my father was running late, I shifted my focus east for a while, then west, as I didn’t know from which direction he might be coming. I was standing there, zoned out in my own little westward facing world, counting down the seconds until I get to make out with my furiously hot long distance girlfriend in the photo booth at the mall.

Then, out of nowhere, I heard a loud bang and I immediately fell unconscious. Knocked out cold.

I woke up a few seconds later staring straight at the dirt on the ground. I had no fucking clue what had just happened. Very groggy, I slowly got to my feet. When my eyes finally came into focus, I looked down to see a single red clay brick lying at my feet. I also felt an overwhelming pain on the back of my head.

My eyes rose from the ground and I saw a kid sitting on a bike in the middle of the street smiling from ear to ear.

“Where’s your mace now, motherfucker?” he asked.

I didn’t have a good answer for him, as I was completely fucked up from his generous brick to the head. I just stood there, looking like a boxer who had just returned from a trip to the canvas.

The little shit rode off on his bike, laughing. Fighting every fiber of my being, I had to let him go.

Even in my diminished state of awareness, not to mention my young age, I knew to cut my losses right there. If this kid was crazy enough to chase me with an axe and blindside me in the head with a brick, who fucking knows what he's capable of? I was happy to still be alive.

My father drove up in the family Buick a couple minutes later and I got into the car.

“Well, hell of a day to be late, Dad.” I said, while secretly wiping the blood from my head into the inside of my right front jeans pocket.

“Watch your language. Why? What happened?” He replied.

I didn’t even know where to start with the story, so I just said,

“Nothing. It’s no big deal.”

I was a little worried that if I told my dad what happened, he might make me go to the hospital and I wouldn’t be able to see Sarah at the mall, as she is only in town for one afternoon. I also didn’t want him to know that I had a habit of borrowing his can of mace when I went skating, as that part would be hard to work around if I were to tell him the story.

My Dad dropped me off at the mall, I met up with Sarah and her mother in the food court. We all sat and shared a giant pretzel before Sarah and I would go our own way(photo booth) while Sarah's mom shopped. I was really spaced out and rubbing my head on occasion. Sarah’s mom asked if something was wrong with me and if I was okay. I mumbled something about axes, crowbars, rollerblades, mace and bricks.

Sarah’s mother immediately excused herself and Sarah, they never came back.

Sarah’s mother never allowed Sarah to speak to me or see me again.

End of a chapter in life.

Untill...

Five years later I got a phone call from Sarah. No shit. We had both just graduated high school in our respective states and I was heading off to New York in the next month. Sarah told me that she was going to be in town overnight and she really wanted to see me, after five years. Holy shit. This was one of the happiest days of my life, especially because my parents had just left town on vacation and had left me home alone--something they had only done one other time in my life. Talk about some fantastic fucking timing.

As promised, Sarah showed up on my doorstep a few hours later. She looked incredible. I hadn't seen her or spoken to her in five years. Suffice to say that we were able to tie up a lot of loose ends, now that we were both consenting adults.

I saw Sarah off early the next morning. We haven't spoken since.

End of a chapter in life.

UPDATE: Holy Shit! Sarah found this post. See the comments. Possibly not the "end of a chapter in life" after all... again.

This insane development leads us to present day, and-Part III-. Click and enjoy.

Mace, an Axe and a Crowbar: A Love Story, Part I

2006-06-07T20:47:00.000-04:00

When I was about thirteen years old, I was going rollerblading with a friend. We were heading across town to go to a cooler older kid’s house. He was Oklahoma City’s stunt rollerblading answer to Tony Hawk, at least in our eyes.

We got all of our gear together. Knee pads, Gatorade, a couple granola bars, and a can of mace.

Why mace, you ask? Easy. There must be something strange in the water in Oklahoma City because every stray dog in town seems hellbent on attacking anything that moves on wheels at any cost, specifically rollerbladers and skateboarders.

Mace is a very effective deterrent against dog attacks.

Dear PETA:

This letter is meant to serve as a preemptive shut-the-fuck-up. Seriously, no one wants to hear it.

Best Regards,
Ryan

Moving on...

My friend and I set out on our trip. After a semi-uneventful trek of four or five miles we rounded the corner onto our friend's block. He lived at the end of the street.

We skated by a house where there were eight or ten kids playing in the front yard, ranging in age anywhere from two to maybe twelve. As we passed the house one of the oldest kids ran to the curb and yelled,

“Whutchu rollin’ through my hood fo', niggas?!”

I gave him a dismissive what-are-you-gonna-do-about-it glance and we kept skating. This was such a common type of occurrence that my friend and I both forgot it ever happened about thirty seconds later. I was attending an ultra inner city public school at the time, so I was used to dealing with stupid ghetto idiots. I had been punched in the face more times by age thirteen than most people have in their entire lives, if ever. Antics like his were old hat.

We got to our friend’s house and rang the doorbell. No answer. He wasn’t home. Oh well. We'll show him our new badass skate moves another day.

We decided to skate back across town to our neighborhood, so we headed back the way we came. About half way down the street I noticed that all the kids who were playing outside were gone. I didn’t think anything of it.

We had just passed the kids' house and were starting to skate up a big hill to leave the neighborhood when we heard from behind,

“I told you not to be rollin’ through my hood, niggas!”

We both turned around to see two kids running full speed straight at us, with the other eight kids cheering from the yard.

One kid was carrying a crowbar.

The other was carrying an axe. Not a hatchet, an axe.

He looked something like this, only with an axe in place of the gun.

Oh fuck. This is not old hat. This is some completely new shit.

We started hauling ass up this monster hill looking over our shoulders every couple seconds. The lords-of-the-flies were closing the gap on us at an incredible rate. This makes perfect sense because my friend and I were trying to rollerblade up a steep ass hill and the people who were chasing us were, well… black kids on foot. You tell me who wins that race.

We kept skating up the hill, but the kids were getting closer with every stride. It was useless. They were gaining on us and my friend and I were running out of gas with every push.

“I think I’m gonna have to do it, man.” I said to my friend.

“Fuck yeah man, do what you have to do!” He yelled, as if I’m retarded for having to say it in the first place.

Our attackers were close enough where I could hear their footsteps over the slow grinding of polyurethane wheels on asphalt. I took one more look over my shoulder. I stopped dead in my tracks, reached in my pocket and grabbed the mace.

I twisted the valve open and turned around. I held my arm straight out in front of me, squeezed, and let the little shit have it. He immediately stopped and covered his face with one hand and threw the axe in our direction with the other hand. Luckily, twleve-year-old kids can’t throw axes very well with one hand. His little brother was behind him and caught a lot of the spray too. He immediately turned and ran back home, smart kid. The older brother, the original aggressor, was still coming at us, or trying to. Leave it to say that I emptied the entire can of mace and stopped him in his tracks. The kid was just getting back to his feet when I looked back down from the top of the hill. He'd had enough. We made it out of the neighborhood and onto a main street.

I was in complete shock.

“Wow that was really fucked up.” I say to my friend in the understatement of the century.

My silent friend looks at me again as if I’m completely retarded for thinking its actually necessary to say that out loud.

As the adrenaline wore off, my mouth and eyes and face and skin and throat and hands started to burn. It really hurt, a lot. I guess emptying an entire can of mace upon a would-be axe murder on a windy day doesn’t come without its consequences. Who knew?

--To be continued in Part II.

Some Highly Entertaining Shit.

2006-05-31T14:30:00.000-04:00

I found the below blog a couple days ago:

BetterThanYourBoyfriend.com.

I can't decide which I want more, for this author to be my best friend for eternity, or if I want to wait for him to pull a replica firearm on me at which point I would be legally allowed to kick the ever loving shit out this guy.

Either way, blogger Tynan is some highly entertaining shit. Tynan is unusually compelling on so many levels. After reading some material on Tynan's site, I am seriously considering studying the ways of the international pickup artist or possibly polyphasic sleeping. I don't mean to sound gay or anything, but Tynan is a certifiable genius, like me. Only he's way geniuser. No shit. Because he doesn't drink. No seriously, he's still cool though. Weird, I know.

In other news, I have a few wicked sweet posts brewing and I promise that I will purge them out in the next couple of days.

If you are new here at Pissed&Petty, you should read my most popular articles below:

New York Moment

Dear Malaysia: Are You Retarded?

Me -vs.- Record Label

Poker Tournament: Part I / Part II

Upcoming posts include stories about me swimming the lake in NYC's Central Park in the middle of autumn for a cash bet, and how I was chased by two kids wielding very dangerous weapons when I was a young aggressive inline skater in Oklahoma City. A reluctant preview of the latter story may mention my can of mace beating their axe and crowbar, respectively.

Otherwise, tide yourselves over with Tynan's http://BetterThanYourBoyfriend.com for now. He has an absurd amount of quality content.

Beer Is Some Awesome Shit.

2006-05-28T14:16:00.000-04:00

I love being fall-down-drunk in the middle of the day.

Seriously.

There is nothing better than being mere seconds away from an alcohol induced coma early on a Sunday afternoon.

***Disclaimer: Readers under the age of 18 residing in the United States of America are encouraged not to drink until at least noon on weekends.

How To Lose $400 in Five Minutes Playing Poker.

2006-05-22T17:27:00.000-04:00

The first step is to find an underground poker club in NYC and talk your way in past the extremely skeptical club owner who inevitably thinks you are a cop.

You did it? Great!

Once you’re inside, buy $300 in chips and take them to an available seat at a $1/$2 No-Limit table. Sit down in the seat.

You’re doing well. The hard part is now behind you.

You will be sitting at the table in late-middle position and you will be dealt J-J on your very first hand. Nice. For anyone interested in learning the best methods of losing all your money as quickly as possible, remember this hand. J-J works perfectly almost every time.

Someone before you will raise to $15 and you will then re-raise to $50. Everyone else at the table will fold, and the original raiser will call your re-raise. Aren’t you excited?

The flop will come: Q 10 10

Your opponent will check to you and you should bet out for $100 to try to take it down right there. If you’re lucky, your opponent will then check-raise all-in for your remaining $150. At this point you will have to fold because you know that you’re beat. Nice. You’re off to a great start losing money! Isn’t this fun?

Don’t worry about the fact that you didn’t lose all of your money on that one hand because you will get another chance on the very next deal. Life is awesome.

You know, at this point you should just go ahead and buy another $100 in chips, so that you have more to lose on the next hand. Good idea, right? Hell yeah. Let’s have some fun.

On the next hand, you will be dealt A-Q. I love this hand because its almost as good if not better than JJ for losing all your money, and I fucking love losing all my money. Keep a lookout for A-Q and when you have it you should play in hard all the way. I guarantee you will lose thousands eventually.

When it’s your turn to act, raise to $15. You’ll get two callers.

The flop will come. Q 6 8, two spades.

Since you’re first to act, lead at the pot with a $40 bet. One opponent will fold and the other will raise you to $120 total. Take time to relish in this moment, as you are very close to losing all your money. Re-raise your opponent all in for your last $200 or so. They will call your raise and will turn over 5-7 suited in spades. Your opponent will hit a 9 on the very next card, cinching a straight and taking away any chance you have of winning the pot.

Congratulations champ! You did it!

You just lost $400 in five minutes playing cards. That wasn’t so hard, was it?

The long train ride home will be the best part of this experience as it will give you nothing but time to relive every awesome second of what just happened to you.

Poker Tournament: Part II

2006-05-17T17:17:00.000-04:00

--If you haven't read Part I, read it first.
--If you don't care about poker, skip this post and the next one. You'll find something you like.

By the look of the competition I’d already decided that being a bully would give me the best chance of winning this thing. So I went in full steam ahead. Blinds start at 25-50.

I raised the first three hands from middle/late position with garbage and got a couple callers as could be expected. The flop came out, it was checked to me, I fired with nothing and everyone folded. Three hands in a row. Too easy.

The next hand I was dealt 7-5 off-suit and raised to $200 from early-middle position. Don’t tell me this a bad play because I know that it usually is. However, in this case I had already established control over the table and was willing to toss away $200 chips to keep that control. I needed them to think that anytime they get involved with me in a pot, that I would make them play for their entire stack on any given hand. That doesn’t work against solid competition, but I thought this was an exception. Anyway, the small blind called and I’m now going to play a pot out of position with a 7-5. Am I worried? Hell no.

The flop came: Q 6 8 rainbow. Not bad at all. Open ended.

The small blind checks to me and I bet $400 on a semi-bluff. He calls. Ah shit, now I’m a little worried.

Turn card comes a J. Small blind checks to me, I check as well.

River comes with a 2. Small blind checks to me again, I stop to think for sec. I have the feeling he wants to show this down without having to call a big bet, so I figure taking one more shot with a big bluff would earn me the pot. Alternatively, I consider that this guy doesn’t know enough about poker to be able to lay down his hand to a big bet, meaning he might call having paired only his 2 on the river. My instinct tells me to fire another shell. I bet $800 and he folds. I show him my bluff with 7 high and he looks sick. I think he folded a deuce. A-2 maybe.

Next hand. I’m in even earlier position and look down at a suited Jd-8d and I smooth call. Normally I would never play these hands this way, but I figure I can navigate the hand well enough to make these plays profitable against these opponents. I’m pretty sure I can get in the pot and see a flop without having to call a raise. I was right. Four players saw the flop.

The flop came out: 7 9 10 with two hearts. I flopped the nuts. Life is good.

I was first to act and I checked. It was checked all the way around to the button whom I had just bluffed with a 7-5 the previous hand. He bet out $100 and all folded around to me. I moved all in and the button starting sighing and moaning and shit. This guy had already lost a lot of chips to me and was visibly upset that I bluffed him out of the previous hand. He called my all-in bet for all of his chips and he turned over 2-2! I couldn’t help but laugh out loud as I turned over my cards. I thought in was hilarious. I showed him one bluff 2 minutes ago and the very next hand he calls off his whole stack with an under-pair to the board. Too classic. Wow. Anyway, he got no help on the turn of the turn or river and he was gone.

I have now taken down the first four hands of the tournament, including busting one player. Not bad for 15 minutes work.

Blinds are going up to $50-$100.

With me in the cutoff seat there was one limper to my right. I looked down at a suited Ad-10d. I raised to $300. All folded around to the limper on my right who called the raise.

The flop came: 8d Ac 7s.

My opponent checked to me and I bet $450. He called.

The turn card came Qd giving me top pair and the nut flush draw.

He checked to me again and I lead out for $500. I wanted to keep him around but I didn’t want to make a small bet as to make him suspicious. Much to my surprise, the guy check-raised me to $1000. Uh-oh. Now I am worried. An argument could be made for me re-raising all-in at this point, but that’s not what I did, so shut up.

I call the raise and the turn card comes out a 6. No diamond. All of sudden my opponent comes alive and goes all in for his remaining $850 or so. I sighed out loud and said, “Well, looks like I got myself into trouble, oh whatever, I call.” He turns over A-9. I flip over my A-10 and clap once with thunderous enthusiasm. Another player busted.

I had amounted a huge chip lead at this point and was throwing it around like the chips would expire if I didn’t get them all into the pot every hand. Okay, not really but you get the point.

I was moved to a new table. At my new table I limped with 2-3 and paired my deuce on the flop against one other player.

The flop was: 10 2 7
I bet $200. He calls.

Turn: A
I bet $500. He called.

River: A
I bet $800. He folds.

On the river I fired for a third time having not improved my pair of deuces. My opponent mucked his cards face up to show everyone his pocket 3’s. I also turned my cards face up as I was collecting the pot to show him my paired deuce on the board. He was livid. I could tell that this guy was going to gun for me the whole night now.

Blinds moving to $100-$200.

This was already too expensive for almost every player at the table because at this point I think I had nearly a third of the chips in play in the entire tournament sitting in front of me. Put it this way, the average stack on my table at this point was $1,000-$3,000 and I had over $22,000. Yeah, it was ridiculous. We hadn’t even gotten through the first hour of the tournament.

A couple hands later the guy that I bluffed with the deuce limped in before me and I raised to $600 with 9-9. The button called and so did the limper.

Flop came: 6 7 8.

The original limper, the guy I just bluffed, bet out first for $600. I moved all-in with my 9-9 and the button folded. The limper/bettor thought for about 2 seconds and called for all his chips. I was sure I had him beat and I said so out loud as I flipped over my nines. He looked completely shocked and turned over Q-J. He got not help on the turn or river. Another player down. He later told me how he was positive that I was bluffing on this hand after I showed him the deuce a few minutes before. He said it himself and still didn't seem to realize that that's exactly what I wanted to happen. Even after he told me himself, he didn't realize he'd been played.

Someone on the rail asked me in a tone that suggested I was stupid, “How did you think you had him beat with just a pair of nines?”

Yeah, that’s the type of player I was dealing with here. Hence my mammoth ass stack of chips. I explained to him why I was sure I had him beat.

“What’s he gonna have? 7-8? 9-10? An overpair to my 9’s? I don’t think so.” The guy still looked confused. Whatever, that’s why he’s on the rail.

Ok, at this point I have so many chips that I can literally afford to put the whole table all-in every hand and I won’t even be wounded if I lose. I look down at AsQs and push all-in, why the hell not? The player to my left immediately calls. Everyone else folded and he flips over KK. Okay, that’s fair. Ya know what’s not really fair though? I caught my fifth spade on the river to make the nuts. Nice. Another player busted.

There was another player at my table that capitalized on a few chances to grab some chips when I couldn’t justify it. He ended up building a pretty good stack fairly quickly, and I was pretty sure he was growing tired of my bullying. It seemed that I was infringing on his territory.

Blinds are now $200-$400.

I open raise to $2000 from early position with 7-7. Everyone folds around to the other big stack who re-raises to $6000. Hmmm, interesting. I have a feeling that this guy is putting a move on me. I think he has something like AJ, KQ, or maybe even AK. He’s seen me rob so many people blind that he figures I’m full of shit and wants to prove it to everyone. The best I give him credit for is AK, in which case I’m still slightly favored. So I say, “Well, let’s just put the rest of in then, I’ll all-in.” He thinks for about half a second and calls flipping over J-J. Oops. No help from the board for me.

I lost about half my stack on that hand. Not to worry, I still had a ton of chips.

Break time.

After the break we drew seats for the final table and I was happy to see that the guy that invited me to the tournament was still in, especially since he’s my boss of sorts. The tournament director skipped the next two blind levels and we went straight to $500-$1000 with $200 antes. What the hell? That’s bullshit! Oh well, it is not my club and I am winning so what the fuck do I care? It actually works out better for me that way. Obviously from this point on it was very rare for anyone to take a flop because of the outrageous blinds. Some players didn’t even have enough chips to cover the blind when it came to them. I continued to play a very aggressive preflop game and took down pot after pot preflop.

I moved all-in preflop with 8-8 and got called by a medium stack holding KdQd. The flop came out and the first card I saw was a K. Thankfully, the second card I saw on the flop was as an 8. Nice, it held up through the river and we’re down to five players.

Blinds up to $2000-$4000 with $500 antes.

Next hand I was on the small blind and everyone folded to me. I looked over and the big blind only had $600 backing up his blind, which is less than pennies at this point. I did not look at my cards because I didn’t need to. I had to put him all in with any two cards in this spot, so I didn’t even bother to look. So, from the small blind I say to the big blind,

“I’ll put you all-in”, as this was a no-brainer.

He confused me when said, “If you’re going to raise, then raise.”

I responded with, “I said I’m putting you all in, that’s all you need to know. I know what I’m doing.”

He said, “There is another player in the hand, if you’re going to raise, then raise.”

Sure enough, he was right. The other big stack at the table had limped in under the gun and somehow I didn’t notice. Shame on me. I’m not sure how that happened, but it was very embarrassing none the less. I sucked up my pride and said, “Well, maybe I don’t know what I'm doing after all.” I still have not looked at my cards but I’m positive that if I make a move on the big stack limper that he will not call without a premium hand, and if he had a premium hand he would have raised from the start, right? I’m sure of this because I’m been pushing him around all day with trash cards. The problem is, the guy had just gone on a wicked run and now has me slightly outchipped. Regardless, I immediately push all-in blind positive that he will fold. Wrong. He called and flipped over KQ. Oh shit, I’m in trouble now. I tell the table that I haven’t looked at my cards because I didn’t realize there was another player in the hand. I say this right as I flip over AQ. Wow, how lucky it that? The guy on the big blind turned over J-3. No one believed me that I didn’t look at my cards because they didn’t understand that I had no reason to, even after I realized the other big stack had limped and was still in the hand. Anyway, I won the pot and put some serious hurt on the big stack and eliminated the player on the big blind. I actually had to dodge a lot of cards on the river, but it worked out.

My buddy from work was still at the table and had less than two blinds worth of chips. On the next hand I knocked out a player, and on the hand after that I knocked out two more players and my friend flew in under the radar and cruised right into 2nd place without enough chips to even cover the blind on the next hand. How sweet is that? We dealt the next hand face-up and I won the pot and won the tournament.

As my friend and I left and were walking down the street to go home we were laughing about how they’re probably never going to let us set foot in that place again.

Poker Tournament: Part I

2006-05-15T12:22:00.000-04:00

Poker will be a reoccurring topic in this blog. If you don’t care about poker, you should skip this entry and move on to the next one of my posts about the stupid religious meathead kid or the next one about the huge-hearted junkie. You will like them both. I promise.

Moving on.

I started a new freelance job a couple weeks ago and one of the higher ups in the company invited me to a poker game. It was a No-Limit Hold’Em tournament at a social club, $40 buy-in and optional $25 add-on at the break after the first hour. $2000 starting chips, $1600 add-on. Yeah, a little weird but whatever, maybe they didn’t have enough chips in house. They expected 30-40 players. Does this sound like a soft game to anyone else but me?

I showed up to the game on time after a long commute to find that the tourney would be starting an hour late. No problem. This place had a pool table, ping-pong table, Budweisers for $2.50 and smoking was allowed. Plus, looking at the players waiting for the tourney to start, it was obvious that this was going to be like shooting fish in a barrel. I couldn’t wait.

I killed some time over a couple beers and a couple games of pool with the guy that invited me. Great guy by the way. We split the pool games 1/1. I wanted a rubber match but the poker tourney was starting and we had to sign up and pay entry.

The players were assigned their tables and I was the first at my table to sit down. The chip values were strange and I made a mental note to make sure not to throw out a black chip for an intended $100 bet when in this tourney the blacks were worth $500. All the chip values were ass backwards. Whatever, this only supported the notion I had prior that these guys have no idea what they’re doing on a card table. They are in serious fucking trouble. I’m going to be like the hurricane they never saw coming, no shit. They will all be standing on the rail trying to figure out how they got there, with only one thought in common—Ryan did it.

At this point I think I should qualify myself to the readers by saying that I have played thousands of hours of poker against some of the best young minds in the game. I have won or cashed in several tournaments of all shapes and sizes, live or online. I have taken several thousands of dollars out of circulation from the NYC underground poker scene—before the law stuck a corkscrew in its neck.

I believe that the following will ring a bell with a few readers. There was a poker club that sat on the corner of 72nd and Broadway that was a literal goldmine. On any given night of the week, there would be fifteen tables packed full of Columbia University students playing cards on daddy’s credit card just waiting to give their money away. It was a dream come true. All that a good poker had to do was stay awake at the table to make money. I have no idea how much money I took out of that place before it got shut down. How ever much money it was it obviously wasn’t enough, because somehow I’m writing about a $40 tournament right now. Don't ask.

Back to the tourney at hand, all players are seated.

The cards go in the air.

I feel good about this!

…to be continued.

Part II will discuss the overall outcome and key hands in detail.

Natural Selection

2006-05-11T11:59:00.000-04:00

This is an excerpt from a story that was in the news today. Some people are really fucking stupid:

"Officials say that 6-foot-3, 240-pound Mark Stetson (pictured on right) Monday afternoon became embroiled in a heated religious debate with another man at a small strip mall near the campus of Southern Connecticut State University. Stetson, who witnesses say was holding a Bible over his head, and the other man argued for several minutes, then things turned violent. It is believed Stetson may have pulled a pellet gun on the other man, who shot the 24-year-old Stetson in the chest, killing him."

Well, that's what you get for being a meathead Nazi, you moron.

Aside from the obvious irony of a fanatical Christian pulling a gun in the middle of a religious arguement, what blows my mind is the fact that this guy is 6'3", 240 pounds and he feels the need to brandish a replica firearm in order to intimidate someone smaller than himself. Are you serious? What a douche. Seriously.

New York Moment

2006-05-05T18:37:00.000-04:00

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The 4 Train.

I had just gotten off work and was walking up Broadway to catch the subway home when I realized I didn’t have any cigarettes. I stopped at a newsstand to see if they had any rolling papers. I roll my own cigarettes now because, here in NYC, cigarettes cost damn near $8.00 a pack, and you can’t even smoke them in bars but that’s another story entirely.

As I’m standing at the newsstand trying to determine if they sell what I’m looking for, a rock star looking guy walks up beside me and asks the nice Indian man behind the counter,

“Hey bro, you got any magazines that tell me where I can find a good rock’n’roll show tonight?”

The nice Indian man looks at the rock star blankly as if to say, “Uh, just look at the magazines and figure it out yourself, tattoo boy.” The rock star picks up the latest copy of “Time Out New York” which is when I turn to rock star guy and say,

“Yeah, that’s the one you want. That will tell you what you want to know.”

He thanked me and began looking through the magazine. I turned to the nice Indian man behind the counter of the newsstand and asked him if he had any rolling papers. He said yes and the rock star that was still there flipping through the magazine turns to me and asks,

“Hey bro, you need some papers? I got some. You can have some if you want.”

“Uh, sure thanks.” I replied. “I really only need one though.”

The guy reached in his pocket and pulled out a pack of those EZ Double Wide monsters. You know, the papers that you never have enough of whatever you’re smoking to require such a mammoth ass rolling paper. Anyway, I gladly took a paper and pulled out my little pouch of tobacco to twist one up when the rock star says,

“Bro, do you just want a cigarette, bro?” And then he extends his open pack in my direction with one cigarette sticking out more than the rest as to make it even more convenient for me.

This guy obviously isn’t from around here.

I graciously accept the cigarette and light it. It was a shitty Parliament Light 100, but whatever.

As we both were about to go our separate ways, the rock star turns to me and asks,

“Bro, do you like beer?”

Ok, any readers that know me know for damn sure that I fucking love beer. I fucking love the shit.

Accordingly, I looked at the guy, hesitated and said,

“Yes.”

“Bro, you wanna grab a brew, bro? Brew-bro. Haha, you’re my brew-bro.” he chuckles.

Again, this guy obviously isn’t from around here. Coincidentally, earlier that day I was thinking of simple things I could do to break up my rhythm a little. Ya know, something besides wake up, go to work, come home, drink beer, go to sleep. I suppose throwing in a little “hang out with a complete stranger” would mix things up a bit. Why the hell not?

We started walking and he mentioned something about needing to stop by his mom’s hotel room and that he hopes she doesn’t have a customer in the room. Huh? Oh well, whatever. This guy was very chatty and seemed to have a few pieces missing from his noodle, like he would ask the same question twice in a row, weird things like that. So we walked into the Dream Hotel on 55th just off Broadway. If you’ve never been to this place, it’s awesome. A very beautiful place indeed.

We walk up the stairs to the third floor of the hotel and stop in front of room 309. He knocks on the door.

“Hey, it’s Derek!” This is the first time I have heard his name. He hadn’t asked for mine, and I didn’t ask for his.

The shockingly sexy young voice on the other side of the door replies, “I’ve got someone in here right now.”

“I just need to grab something real quick,” Derek says. The door opens and Derek slips into the room as I wait outside. Usually this is the point when I would wonder just what the hell is going on. Why does this guy’s mom have a “customer” in her hotel room and why does this guy’s mom sound like she’s a hot 25-year-old chick? What the fuck am I doing here when I could be home drinking beer and watching reruns of King of Queens? Yeah, fairly reasonable questions in my opinion. The truth of the matter is that I was too concerned about the fact that I did not yet have a beer in my face to seriously ponder the aforementioned concerns.

The door to room 309 opened again and out came my weird new buddy Derek with two frosty twenty-two ounce bottles of Corona and two wedges of lime, one of each in each hand. This is not quite what I had in mind when I agreed to grab a brew with rock star man. On the other hand, this was getting more interesting by the second and appeared to have all the ingredients of a true New York moment. The kettle was just waiting to be put on the fire.

Derek hands me my awesome cold beer and wedge of lime and we head down the stairs to the lobby of this immaculate hotel. At this point, I have no idea what the hell is going on and I have dropped the reigns. Derek is running this show now. We get to lobby and Derek asks one the doormen,

“Hey bro, how do I get to that one spot again, bro?”

The doorman tells him how to get to that “one spot” and I don’t really pay attention because I just want to drink my goddamn beer. I follow Derek to the elevator bank where we wait for an elevator. I have been living in NYC for several years and have worked in many of the tallest buildings in the world, and I have never had to wait longer for an elevator than I did on this day at this hotel with Derek. It took fucking ages. I guess this was okay as it gave Derek and I chance to talk. By the way, Derek still does not know my name and seems to be content with calling me “bro”. Sure, whatever. He gave me an awesome cold beer so he can call me Sally for all I care.

So there we are, waiting in the lobby of an elegant upscale hotel in midtown Manhattan surrounded by businessmen in incredibly nice suits waiting for the same elevator, twenty-two and lime wedge in hand. As we wait for this asshole elevator Derek begins to tell me his story. Derek is an ex-addict, a junkie. As in, he says he’s been clean for a month right as he pops two OxyContins and washes them down with a swig of Gatorade from his back pocket. The irony was not lost on him because he chuckled and said unprovoked,

“No, no. I don’t really do these anymore. They’re just for the pain. I had to have a tooth pulled a couple days ago. Those opiates really fuck up your teeth, see?” And he opens his mouth as wide as he can so I can take a good long look at his teeth. Aside from Derek’s teeth you could see the business men getting nervous, which in some weird way calmed me down. The elevator finally arrived and I watched Derek push the button to take us to the twelfth floor. When we reach our destination we get out of the elevator and Derek begins to look around in somewhat of a confused fashion, and of course I follow blindly down the hall, unopened Corona and lime wedge still in hand. We finally find a stairwell and I follow Derek up the stairs and out an exit door where we end up outside. Yes, outside on some sort of balcony on the thirteenth floor of the Dream Hotel. This, however, is no normal balcony. This is quite obviously a place in the building where they never intended any human being to set foot. How do I know? Easy. There are absolutely no measures in place to keep you from falling right off the goddamn roof. Seriously, you could just walk right off the edge.

So here I am standing on a roof in Manhattan with a junkie that I don’t know, and no one knows I’m here. Then it hits me. Oh shit. I am about five seconds away from getting robbed or thrown off this fucking roof, or both. Of course. I was a mark from the very beginning when this guy was supposedly looking for a magazine thirteen stories below me about 30 minutes ago. The rolling papers, the cigarette, the beer. It was all just a ploy to get me on this fucking roof so he could steal all my shit and throw me off! That explains the $250 Diesel jeans he’s wearing in contrast to the fact that he didn’t want to pay $3 for a magazine that contained the exact information he was looking for. Those jeans came from some idiot just like me whom he robbed and then fired their sorry ass right off the thirteenth floor.

Fuck me I am an idiot and now I am going to die.

Fuck.

I snap back into reality when Derek starts coming towards me with a bottle opener and says, “Lemme get that for you, bro.” This is where my life flashed before my eyes as I simultaneously shat myself. Derek reached over and popped the top off my beer and did the little snap thing with the cap and we watched it sail all the way down to the street below, which took a really long time by the way. Derek turns to me and looks me square in the eyes and says,

“Bro, that’s a really long way down!”

No fucking shit asshole and I have a feeling I’m about to find out first hand just how far down it is!

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Derek walks around the tiny balcony checking it out and whatnot, or making sure there are no witnesses. I stand there frozen with my back glued to a wall drinking my Corona as Derek continues to tell me his story. In my mind, I am positive that he is waiting for me to finish my beer so that my faculties will be impaired when he stomps me and shows me what it’s like to skydive without a parachute. I actually appreciated that he was letting me finish my beer before he killed me. Seems like being launched off a skyscraper would be less terrifying if I had a little buzz going, you know? Nice guy that Derek.

Over the awesome cold beer and a few cigarettes, which Derek bummed to me, I listened to his story. As we know, Derek is a junkie. Er, ex-junkie who’s been clean for a month and is popping OxyContin as a painkiller for his tooth. Derek is from LA/Hollywood and loves to talk about the wicked smack they have out there and the base heads and all kinds of nice things. Apparently Derek got into a little trouble in LA and got busted with a whole bottle full of OxyContins that he was not supposed to have. Derek told me about the arrest and all the details and shit and about how the five days he spent in jail weren’t that bad because he didn’t get fucked. Nice. It comes up that the woman from room 309 is not his mom, that’s just what he calls her. She is an ex-porn star from Hollywood that got hooked on meth and is now a hooker in NYC. That explains “mom’s customer”. Derek and MethHooker are old friends from LA so when MethHooker heard about Derek’s legal troubles she flew him out to NYC and is letting him stay with her for a while until his problems blow over.

With a proud smile Derek showed me some of the things that MethHooker bought for him like one of those wicked new Motorola phones, you know, the thin black ones, a really sweet Gucci watch, and the really badass jeans he was wearing. And don’t forget room 309. It’s his room for the week as long as MethHooker is allowed to use it to service her customers on occasion.

Dude, hookers make bank!

Obviously it became clear to me that Derek didn’t get all those nice things from pushing people off of roofs. All of this confusion could have been avoided had I not forgotten to factor in the MethHooker part of the equation from the beginning. I will never make that mistake again.

I wish there was a powerful ending to this story, but there really isn’t.

After I realized that Derek had no interest in stealing my jeans and launching me off the roof, I really got to like the guy. We hung out for a while on that roof. He is a really nice guy with a huge heart who just wanted a friend for a little while. Derek went out of his way to make a friend from a total stranger and give them whatever he could give to make them happy. In this case, an awesome cold beer, a couple cigarettes and a breathtaking view of the most beautiful city in the world was perfect.

Cheers, Derek. I sincerely wish you well.

Best regards,
Your "Brew-Bro"

Dear Malaysia: Are you retarded?

2006-04-27T10:12:00.000-04:00

Below is an excerpt from an article that ran on Reuters yesterday. This is fucking asinine:

BANGI, Malaysia (Reuters) - As Malaysia prepares to pick its first astronaut, the country's space agency is hunting for solutions to the problems it expects devout Muslims to face while in orbit, such as in which direction to pray.

One of the five pillars of Islam requires the faithful to pray five times a day, and to face Mecca, the birthplace of Islam, while doing so. Astronauts aboard spaceships could have difficulty meeting these requirements.

"Among the astronaut's needs, if he is a Muslim, are guidelines on performing prayers in space, and other aspects of life according to Islamic principles," Malaysian government official Mohd Ruddin Abdul Ghani told a two-day meeting of scientists and religious experts to thrash out solutions.

What the fuck? Please tell me you're kidding. Please just tell me that there aren't people on this planet that are that fucking stupid. God I don't even know where to start with this one.

Listen closely. If being in outer space throws the logistics of your religious practices into a tailspin then maybe, just maybe, you should reevaluate your beliefs. I'm not kidding. This whole "which-direction-to-pray-at-what-time-holy-shit-I'm-confused- because-I'm-in-space" thing is ridiculous. Not only do I think it's retarded for this to be a problem in the first place, I think it's retarded to not immediately see the solution to the problem. Here it is: Face down when you pray. Towards Earth. That's good enough, right? I mean, surely that counts as "facing Mecca". What else can you do? Oh, and just to be on the safe side, pray five times in a row just to make absolutely certain you meet your daily quota. Then you don't have to worry about it for a while. Or hey, keep a stopwatch nearby. Stopwatches work just fine in space. You could even throw in some extra prayers in between mouthfuls of dried ice cream for added insurance. There. Problem solved.

From what I know about Malaysia, which admittedly is not much, they provide cheap labor and manufacturing--like factories and workers and really fun shit like that. So apparently the head honcho over there in Malaysia, Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, is trying to pull Malaysia out of this pigeonhole and expand their technological industries. I think that's great. Good job Malaysia. But why the fuck are they sending someone into space? For what? There's absolutely nothing for Malaysia to accomplish in space. Really, think about it. This idiot Prime Minister may as well just masturbate in public. I'm far from an economist but I have a novel idea. Train some doctors. Put some resources into growth industries. What the hell are you going to do in space?

"Wow guys, it's really true... I'm totally floating!"

Yeah, great. Good work shitnuts.

Me -vs. Record Label

2006-04-25T11:53:00.000-04:00

I cannot remember the last time that I bought a CD either in a store, online or anywhere. This is particularly shameful because I work in the entertainment marketing industry, often for major record labels. More importantly, my girlfriend is a top-priority major label recording artist. No, I'm not telling.

This epiphany hit me recently and it nearly made me reevaluate my existence. I hadn't reflected on myself to this degree since Tommy Morrison knocked me unconscious in the 5th grade for saying to him in front of his toothless girlfriend,

"I don't care how big you are because sometime, somewhere down the road, I will own the grass that you will mow. Oh, and your girlfriend is disgusting but I bet she gives good... (POW!)" When I regained consciousness I recognized my error and put my jaw back into place like a real twelve year old man.

Moving on.

So, I decided that I would purchase a CD to kill the guilt of my professional negligence. I visited the website of the first major record label I could think of. The record label will remain nameless and will be referred to herein as "DumbDrum Records".

Like most websites, there are several options to choose from when exploring the site. I carefully weighed my options and decided to begin with the "New Releases" channel as this seemed logical. That's when I saw that the site hasn't been updated since 2005.

Put on your safety goggles.

Now, unless you have been sharing a hole with Hussein, you know that lately the recording industry has been raising holy hell in regards to declining record sales. They have even gone so far as to sue private citizens for file sharing. My question is this: What are these fucktards at DumbDrum Records doing over there when their most effective medium of reaching a worldwide market(their website) doesn't even bother to tell the consumer what products they are currently price-fixing? er, selling? And these shit eaters have the gall to bitch about declining sales!? Oh fuck, this really pissed me off and sent my wicked ass directly into orbit without passing "GO" and definitely without collecting my goddamn $200, which quite frankly I could really use right now. I digress.

Anyway, I decided to send DumbDrum Records an e-mail.

Verbatim, the e-mail went like this:
__
Greetings:

I am interested in the current happenings of DumbDrum Records' recording artists.

Upon visiting your website, I viewed both the "New Releases" and "Coming Soon" channels of http://www.DumbDrum Records.com., and was surprised to find that the most recent listing on either channel is dated Dec., 2005. It may surprise you to know that most reasonable people on this planet are under the impression that we are currently living in the third week of March, 2006.

Forgive me kind sirs, but I am confused. Does your company not distribute records for the first quarter of the year, or is this simply an oversight due to sloppy business practice? Again, I am confused.

Do you guys need some help over there at DumbDrum Records? If so, I might be willing to submit my resume for review by the appropriate parties, as I am certain that I would contribute to running a more effective operation.

Best Regards,
Ryan *****
**********@hotmail.com
(212)391.****
__

The very next day I received the below e-mail from DumbDrum Records:
__
Hello!
Thank you for sending us your letter - your comments are very important to us.
While we are receiving thousands of pieces of mail each day, we're sending you
this note as an automatic reply to let you know that we read each and every
letter, but do not often have the time and resources to write individual
replies.

That does not mean that we do not act upon your request(s)! Information is
passed on to the respective responsible parties to handle each and every
request.

Your submission is appreciated,
-DumbDrum Records
__
A simple equation for the readers: Automated response=Great way to piss me off more.

Eager to call their bluff and itching for a reason to blast off another wicked nasty e-mail to an industry leading corporation, I visited the website again to investigate their automated claim of impending action.

Well Holy Shit. It looks like someone at this company actually might not be chart toppingly retarded. All of a sudden the "New Releases" and "Coming Soon" channels of the DumbDrum Records Official Website were nowhere to be found. Gone. No doubt this is due to my wicked soul stomping e-mail that some nutfuck at this organization found to be of value. I'm sure these specific channels of the website will return to the page as soon as these shitclowns can pull their heads out of their asses long enough to actually tell their customers what they're selling, but that's not the point.

If I were an artist under contract to this label, I would be frothing at the mouth like a rabid bat on crack. Furthermore, if I were an artist whose record was released within the past four months which did not meet sales expectations, this company would have a serious problem on its hands in the form of a mammoth ass lawsuit.

I find it to be completely unacceptable that a forerunner in a multi-billion dollar industry who is not holding up their end of the bargain chooses not only to sue its customers but spends millions of additional dollars on massive media campaigns that whine about dwindling profit margins and piracy. Give me a fucking break.

***I have not been contacted by DumbDrum Records regarding a job interview. Go figure.