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You Can’t Trust the System

I’d like to tell you that this story is true, and that you need to believe it because I’m telling the truth here. This is not a work of fiction! But how do you say that at the beginning of a column, when the entire purpose of the site upon which you write is entertainment? A lot of what I write here is fiction. Heck, everything Haycomet writes is fiction. But this, my friends, is real. This is true. And it really happened. And I have witnesses.

So I’d like to tell you the ridiculous story of how my pals and I ran into a series of events governed by Murphy’s Law, and were unable to get out from under his oppresive thumb. If I ever meet Harvey Murphy, I have a few words for him, I assure you. And alls we were doing was trying to have a little lunch.

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  • Post category:diary
  • Reading time:8 mins read

Would it kill you to smile?

I am not a pessimist, well not completely… yet. I try to have a positive attitude at all times. Especially times that involve people who do not know me. I like to make a good first impression. With that said, there are some actions that just deserve reciprocation. Actions that try to promote a positive setting like a friendly wave or saying hello. My major expectation? If I smile at you, please do me the courtesy of smiling back.

I was very shy when I was younger, and I would keep my eyes pointed down when I was in public. I would never make eye contact. I would walk past friends in a mall and never know it until they yelled my name. Now that I’m older and I have a job where I work around hundreds of people, I try to be more personable. I work in a warehouse that has been converted into office space, and I work in the very back of that huge building. Every morning I walk from the middle of the large parking lot to my desk; it’s about the equivalent of two and a half blocks. I pass quite a few people while walking and I look at each one, in the eyes, and smile. Heck, sometimes I even say, “Good morning!” or “How are you doing?”

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  • Post category:rant
  • Reading time:4 mins read

Old People Like Applebee’s

There’s an old man who lives in my neighborhood, right across the street. He and his wife are probably in their late 70s, early 80s, possibly late 80s. I’m not very good at judging ages on old people. But yeah, they’re old. He’s a cool old dude. He was a sailor back in his day, so I know he’s got some guns in that house. I’m trying to get on his good side so maybe he’ll put me in his will, because I like guns too.

Anyway, he has this tree in front of his house that is notorious for losing branches. I mean, they’re easily found – it’s like it loses one, we look for a brief period, and say, “Oh, there it is, right beneath the tree from where it fell. How about that.” So it’s not really losing them as such… maybe not even really misplacing them. We’ll just say that branches have a tendency to fall off that damn tree quite often. More than the rest of the trees in the neighborhood.

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  • Post category:diary
  • Reading time:5 mins read

Retirement Party: This Weekend

So when I heard the news that Brett Farve was finally retiring, I sighed and shook my head, then went to sit on the sofa with a beer. As I was in motion dropping into sitting position, a news flash came on saying he had changed his mind. Again. Now I don’t actually have television service of any kind, and the radio was not on. But a news flash surely did happen, and – well, I just knew he wasn’t really retiring. And now I’m kind of getting a little tired of his Barbra Streisand-like retirement hoopla. Dude, I don’t care how many times you “retire”, you’re only getting one party.

Seriously, how many times can one really ‘retire’ anyway? Take the Eagles, for instance. When Don Henley said, “We’ll get back together when hell freezes over…” everyone believed him. But does anyone believe you can get a snowcone in hell right now? From what I hear they’re touring again, and they’ve even got a new quarterback. Wait. Not that the Eagles. It’s like the ‘in’ thing to do right now is to retire, take a few months off, and come back acting like it’s a whole new gig. Sorry though, Poison. No one wants to hear your new stuff. They only want to hear Unskinny Bop and Talk Dirty to Me.

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  • Post category:rant
  • Reading time:4 mins read

Universal Solvents

Have you ever heard of the universal solvent? Well basically it’s a solvent that will eat through anything. Or rather, everything. You pour it on the concrete and it will just fizzle away until it all burns up eating stuff. See that’s the thing, it won’t eat its way all the way through the earth. Think about it. As it eats away at whatever it’s eating away, it uses itself up. So if you pour some on a steel table, it will eat through it, then whatever drips to the floor beneath will be a little less. It then eats through the tile, then the concrete, then some soil, and it’s pretty much down to nothing left at that point. But you do have a nice little hole through your table, foundation and the ground beneath.

So, of course, the question at the end of the riddle is, “What do you put it in?” The old anecdote mentions a guy walking into his boss’s office and saying, “Hey, boss, I finally did it! I finally created the universal solvent!” And his boss looks him up and down and says, “Why isn’t it eating through the beaker?”

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  • Post category:diary
  • Reading time:5 mins read

You Ruined My Friday

Just so you have a frame of reference, you need to know I am lying in bed right now writing this on my SpaceBook. It is Friday night, 18:05 and I’m lying in bed on my laptop. You’re probably out painting the town, tearing it up, getting some trim, drinking some Cold Ones, and I’m lying here in bed. On my computer. On a Friday night. Have I emphasized that enough yet? Well allow me to pour a little salt in the wound. Even though it’s just after 1800 hours – six for you non-military types – my evening is already set in stone. There won’t be a break. I’ll be doing the same thing in two hours, and in six hours. My night is ruined.

Last night my red-haired wife and I were sitting out on the back patio just enjoying the cool summer breeze and a couple of Ones that were – at least to the best of my recollection – pretty Cold. When all of a sudden, from out of the corner of the backyard, I spotted something terrible and sinister. And before I could gather my senses and react appropriately (which would be to grab my Browning from the deep-conceal holster in the small of my back and put two in dead center mass), it was on me. I’ve never been attacked and overcome with such rapid efficiency or tactical precision in my life. My defenses were useless.

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  • Post category:rant
  • Reading time:7 mins read

Meal Ticket for a Bad Meal

We were talking last night about the concept of the discount coupon, the refund and the free meal ticket. So say you go into a restaurant, you order a nice big meal, you eat it, then you get sick and end up spending the next nine hours pinwheeling in your bathtub. For those of you who don’t know what pinwheeling is, imagine you’re spraying out of both ends. If you were to take a spear and stick it through your side into the wall, the force of the liquids coming out of you would propel you to spin, doing backflips on the spear.

After you spend all night in the shitter, you call the restaurant, or even better – go back up there, and they give you a free meal ticket to make it up to you. Ahem. Like you really want to eat there again? That was one shitty cookie! Can I have a discount on my next shitty cookie? Yeah it really doesn’t make much sense. Same thing with shitty haircuts. You might get a coupon for a free haircut since they effed your head up this time. Uh huh. That is one valuable coupon. I know I don’t keep going back to places that don’t do their job right.

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  • Post category:review
  • Reading time:6 mins read

End Stupid Construction

As I was driving back from the clinic today, I came across a few things that made me frown a little, tilt my head to the side, wrinkle my nose, and quite possibly quote the phrase that started the now world-famous acronym you all know as WTF. You see, I have to go to the clinic an average of two to three times a week. That’s how bad my genital centipedes have gotten. Oh wait. No, no, you see, I work for a company that has 22 clinics. Phew. Thank God it’s that. So maybe I don’t have genital centipedes after all.

Anyway, as I was driving I saw a couple of things that I thought I should let you guys know about, and see if you have the same reactions I do. Since I’m what some call an ‘intellectual’, and I’m terribly smart, I catch some things most people don’t. For instance, you know those concrete barriers they line up beside highways? They’re about 20 feet long and weigh like 40 tons. Yeah. Well, I thought about something, guys. Before they rebar those things together on the side of the highway, they just leave them all stacked in grids over on the grass, usually near the starting section of where they’re going to install them. I mean, no fence, no guard dog, no security cameras… Dude, we could totally just walk away with a couple of those. And who couldn’t use a twenty-foot concrete barrier to toss in his driveway? See? Told you I was smart, guys.

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  • Post category:diary
  • Reading time:4 mins read

Team-Building Events That Work

The other night, while sitting outside with Siege, our discussion rounded upon the topic of women at work. We work with some cute women. Don’t know how many of them are “chicks” by Haycomet’s definition, but there are probably eleven women to every one man in our building. I’d say that’s pretty good odds if you’re single. Which he is. Ahem, ladies. So anyway, I came up with what I think is an excellent idea to break the ice a little and get things moving if you’re wanting to meet some people and find out more about them.

This also applies to building that “team feeling” you get at one of them really good jobs. A lot of companies out there are really suffering in the trust and teamwork departments. Now don’t go looking for the “teamwork department”. It’s just a phrase, dude. But if you work in one of these unfortunate places where the sexual tension is just through the roof and the executives oppress your right to free love in the bathroom stalls and network closets, you should definitely read on.

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  • Reading time:5 mins read

No More Nuts On My Elbows

Well I hope you all enjoyed the last two days, with our two newest writers. What a delightful treat, yeah? Now if we can get them to keep writing, that will be the trick. But you know what encourages them? What motivates them? Responses. Keep posting your comments and letting us know how we’re doing here. I know, I know, Siege ranted about a traffic incident. It’s long been an unspoken law around here that we don’t talk about traffic. But I quite like his perspective on it, not actually coming out and calling the guy a douchebag, but rather implying he is one by saying his helicopter is in the shop. I see those every morning. And they’re usually driving H2s or H3s. Yeah, I said it. You drive a Hummer, you’re a douche. Simple math.

Stout and I were talking last night about the haircut, and how it costs so much damn money. You know, the price of the haircut is going up every year. And I should know, because I only get mine cut twice a year. I despise going to the barber shop. Again, I don’t mind a male barber, or necessarily prefer a female barber… It all comes down to the one question you face when you’re about to have to choose though: “Do I want nuts on the elbow, or boobs on the shoulder?” And of course, at that point, I always have to swing toward the she-barber’s chair. But the nuts on the elbow isn’t why I hate getting my hair cut. I think it’s the act of sitting there for fifteen minutes, paying fifteen dollars for a shitty haircut that I could have done myself, better. Seriously. No, really. I really do cut my own hair most of the time. I don’t do a great job on the fade in the back, but the top part with the scissors? Man I got that shit down.

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  • Post category:rant
  • Reading time:7 mins read