Birth Control to Major Tom

back when i was eighteen i came up a theory that i thought would've lead to male birth control and tasty sperm.

essentially, it works like this: when a male ejaculates, the testicles, prostate gland, and cowper's gland all go into fantastic spasms-- each one serving its own purpose. sperm comes from the testicles and semen comes from the prostate.

the cowper's gland, however, has no purpose outside coating sperm with a basic material so as to survive in the acidic vagina.

my plan was to find a way to trick the cowper's gland into thinking it had fired its wad in the same way we've managed to trick the female body into thinking it's already released an egg. or, at the very least, tie off the cowper's gland till babies were necessary (slightly better than a full-on vasectomy.)

this would not only decrease the chances of sperm surviving, but would make jizz taste less bitter and more sweet. like smoothies, if you will. warm smoothies.

most scientists ignored my letters and nasa informed me that it was not their field of expertise.

well, years later, they've created what's believed to be the first male birth control pill-- not the way i had thought it'd be done, it's been created nonetheless.

"The scientist behind the male pill discovery has developed a tablet that removes a vital protein in sperm that is required for a woman to conceive.

So while sperm still get through to the uterus they are unable to fertilise an egg.

A big drawback against men being in control of fertility is the fear they would forget to take a pill.

Polls have repeatedly shown wives and partners do not trust their men to remember to pop a pill every day."

[via telegraph]

that article hurts me as a male. a "big drawback" is that we'll forget to take the pill? nice. that's about as fair as saying, "a big drawback to the female birth control pill is that women fucking lie and could be taking a tic-tac for you all you know."

let me just say, i have never heard of a man intentionally getting a woman pregnant to keep her from breaking up with him.

it is true that women will have to bear most of the consequence if a man were to forget to take his pill, but i promise men don't want accidental babies any more than women do-- perhaps even less.

anyway, that aside, the scientists managed to manufacture the male pill so it can last anywhere from one to three months and we irresponsible can't-do-anything-right-without-the-help-of-our-wives men can forget all we want.

i do recognize that men will never be fully considered intellectual/responsible creatures by the majority of females until we can actually give birth ourselves, but this is at least a start.

i'm still waiting on more direct scientific proof that the man-period exists. i heard it has a three month cycle rather than a one month and i'm pretty sure i'm man-pmsing right now

Business Fly

for the life of me, i can't imagine how a fly made its way into my office on the 15th floor.

but it has been here the last three days, which not only surpasses the average adult fly life expectancy, but worries me it may be one of the new guys out to take my job.

E.T. Phone H2Ome

a while back i had a debate with a man who had been eavesdropping on my conversation regarding e.t.: the extra-terrestrial. i was arguing that whatever planet e.t. was from, it must've been either mostly covered in water or he at least spent a majority of his life in water the same way an amphibian does.

the eavesdropper was quick to tell me i was wrong because e.t. had no webbed toes or fingers and was shaped in a way that would prohibit proper swimming. he then proceeded to explain that there was no evidence that e.t. was from a watery planet and that the point of the movie was that the little waddling alien was actually jesus.

"he was crucified by scientists," the man stated, "and then brought back to life by love and faith."

i was, admittedly, impressed by his idea and even his later comparison of the e.t. movie poster and michelangelo's sistine chapel, but i didn't want to get into a lengthy conversation about the fact death and reincarnation do not always relate to jesus (zombies, for instance) and that spielberg (the writer) is jewish.

this was meant to be a theoretical conversation about the type of planet e.t. inhabited.

but no matter what i said to prove e.t. was an underwater creature, the eavesdropper pretended he couldn't remember what scene i was talking about and-- at times-- even insisted the scene didn't exist.

well, check it out: the scenes do exist and i have better things to do than lie about the happenings of a 1982 movie in order to impress a stranger.

i've taken the liberty of screenshotting a few of these scenes in hopes that some of you will agree that webbed-toes or not, e.t. loves water even more than humans do. in fact, elliot discovered e.t. just cold-chillin in mist-- which is basically air-water anyway.

anyway, the story begins with elliot anxious to explain what toys are and what they're used for and how absolutely fun it is to be violent. he shows e.t. how his two action figures can kill each other before realizing e.t. cannot take his eyes away from the nearby fishbowl. he actually points at it and elliot proceeds to tell him that the creature inside is a fish and that a shark can kill it.

...and then takes a shark toy and pretends to kill the fish.

later on, e.t. climbs into the bathtub and lays down under water. elliot freaks out and assumes e.t. is going to drown (again with the death. i know his dad died, but what the hell is with this kid?) but realizes e.t. is smiling a goofy smile.

"is this your idea of fun?"

yes, elliot. it is. e.t. loves water. FACT.

so, the movie continues and e.t. goes missing. they'd all gone out trick-or-treating and something happened that lead to e.t. just straight up not coming home. everyone panics, the flowers start dying and baby drew barrymore looks drunk.

elliot's older brother winds up finding e.t. mostly dead, laying at the edge of a creek.

it seems to me, the dying e.t. was trying to make it to the most comforting place possible and that-- for him-- was water. because, e.t. loves water. MOTHERFUCKIN FACT.

there is no saying whether or not his lack of water is what made him fall ill-- after all, it could have been the crazy amount of reeses and m&m's he ate throughout the earlier parts of the movie-- but i like to believe it's relevant considering how dried up the little guy looks.

in terms of his physical appearance, i don't think it's safe to say he would require fins, webbed-toes or anything similar to be considered capable under water. there are three things that help me believe his body has been engineered for aquatic activities:

1. when e.t. realizes he is shorter than elliot, he extends his neck to grow taller. and the image is extremely similar to that of a submarine's periscope.

2. e.t. is hairless like most water animals.

3. in the one scene that we actually see e.t. run, he sucks at it. like, real bad.

TRIPLE GOD DAMN FACT.

if you're reading this, mr. eavesdropper, you're wrong and i'm right.

and, mr. spielberg, if you're reading this, please get my back on this one. i've always thought you were a cool guy. also, i hope you're not offended by the e.t. comic i drew above-- it's nothing personal, just had to be done.

Mr. Heptagon and the Hill

once upon a time there was a heptagon named mr. heptagon. he lived in a geometrical world and he was a geometrical girl... or boy.

everyday mr. heptagon would sit at the top of a large hill frowning a heptagonal frown. it's a hard thing to do: to frown heptagonally-- but it's hard to be a heptagon in general.

a life without true symmetry or popularity.

"i do wish i were a circle," he pouted,"then i could roll down the hills."

mr. heptagon cried a single heptagon-tear and watched as the circles bounced and rolled and sang ridiculous songs that circles might enjoy.

day after day, mr. heptagon would sit atop the hill, depressed and heptagonal. he would silently curse his seven sides every morning and verbally curse his seven sides every night.

but one morning, mr. heptagon woke up feeling inspired. he was sick of letting his physical attributes determine so much of his life. and he was sick of the circles having all the fun.

"i'm tired of always being so sad!" he exclaimed, "i'm just going to try rolling down!"

it seemed like a fantastic idea and so he climbed to the top of that large hill, took a deep breath, and began to roll down the other side slowly.

"by god, this is so much fun!" he shouted as his awkward body bounced down the hill.

but after several turns, his sharp corners began to hit hard, and his heptagonal body was thrown off balance. the combination of his increased speed and odd corners tossed him more and more awkwardly and he grew scared.

halfway down the hill, he began wishing he could stop the entire thing.

but he couldn't. and at the bottom of the hill-- right there in front of all the circles-- he vomited an embarrassing vomit.

"what an idiot," one of the circles said as it rolled by wearing douchebag sunglasses.

mr. heptagon looked up at the circle and grew very angry.

"well," he said as he returned to his feet, "at least i'm not a square."

somewhere in the distance, mr. square cried a squarish tear while looking down from a large hill.

the end.

i know... give me a break.

techboy and i were a bit intoxicated and i thought it would be a good exercise to write random words on pieces of paper and assign them to each other to force blog posts out.

he got "pizza cheese" and i got stuck with "heptagon"

i was pretty sure he wasn't actually going to follow through with it and so i basically threw my word in the trash. and then, out of nowhere, i see he's updated his blog with a god damn pizza cheese post.

i mean, keep in mind i had just bought a pizza for the team of us and there was plenty of pizza cheese inspiration that night. whereas i have trouble even drawing a heptagon and i certainly failed every math class i've ever taken.

so whatever, there it is. fucking heptagon.

i hate you, techboy.

Just a Whole New Level, France

i don't know that the below video is SFW or NSFW. i feel like it's just not safe for life. can someone please explain this advertisement for me?

i know i may be losing something in translation, but i would assume the subtitles are relatively accurate and it seems to me i am watching a mountain lion using orange juice as after-shave before having a somewhat homosexual moment with his human friend.

i'm all for experimental advertisements-- i generally enjoy them more than the mainstream ads-- but this commercial is just too much. i was told it was meant as a "gay-friendly" advertisement, and i can support that.

if i weren't alright with men dating men, i wouldn't be living in san francisco. i fully support same-sex relationships. however, i will have to draw the line at men dating mountain lions that use orange juice as after-shave.

i'm sorry, it's just everyone has their limit.

this is when i wish i hadn't published expedia's article naming french tourists the worst in the entire world and annihilated any chance of having french viewers who may be able to explain why orangina is airing beastialic bathroom-scenes in which the spokes-lion uses their product incorrectly.

the french really ought to stick to their safe sex ads and stay away from... everything else.

The Days Before ID

when it was finally my turn to take my junior year school photo, the school administration told me i'd need to remove the red bandanna from around my neck because it was "gang-related."

it wasn't. i was dressed as a cowboy and it was a part of my getup.

i suppose it could've been gang-related in an old western sort of way, but i certainly wasn't declaring myself a blood while wearing spurred boots and a ten-gallon stetson.

besides, i had a sheriff star. i was just a seventeen year-old wearing a costume and having fun.

i removed the red thing nonetheless and readied myself for my yearbook picture.

"no hats allowed," the photographer said.

well, god dammit. i removed the hat, too.

"sayyyy mama!" the photographer said.

i didn't say mama, but i smiled a braces-filled smile.

the whole thing was not well thought out because i had failed to realize the picture would only show my upper torso and head, which had been stripped of anything remotely cowboy. the chaps, the boots with their authentic spurs and my big ol' belt buckle were all hidden out of frame.

all that was left was my brown leather vest and snappy off-white cowboy shirt.

i ended up looking much more like a late 70's homosexual back up dancer.

fail.

but the next year was actually worse.

i showed up to school the first day, ready and anxious, in my red dishwasher gloves, orange jumpsuit, red cape, and-- of course-- my traffic cone mask.

cone on the head man! duh nuhnunhunhunhunhunuh!

peers actually let me cut in line that year, probably curious to see exactly how all of this was going to go down between me and the photographer.

"you need to remove the traffic cone," the photographer said.

"why?"

"it obstructs the view of your face," he said.

"that's the point," i said, "it's a mask."

"you need to remove it for the purposes of the yearbook," he said sternly.

"i thought about that," i explained, "and because i'm a senior, i realized the photo that goes into the yearbook is not this photo-- it's my senior portrait with the tuxedo and all. this one will just be used for my school id, so just let me have some fun."

there was a pause.

"sayyyy mama!" he said before taking the shot of me as cone on the head man in full gear.

and for a moment, i thought i had beaten the system. i received my school id with my traffic-coned face and bright orange costume and it made me feel so very accomplished.

till the day i had to go to the bank and cash a check.

if you don't already know, it may be a good time for me to mention that i didn't get a california state id until i was twenty-three (2008.) and that meant any time i needed to prove who i was i'd do it with a mixture of back up cards. sometimes it was a burger king kids club card or a library card, but in cases of places like banks it was most commonly my school id and a social security card.

you have no idea what embarrassing is until you find yourself in a bank trying to cash a $10 check from your grandma with only a school id. a school id in which you are wearing a traffic cone over your face.

"do you have an actual id?" the teller asked.

"no," i said, "just my school id."

"this... doesn't even show your face. we need a government issued identification card that will allow us to... indentify you."

"yes," i said, "in hindsight, i recognize it was a pretty stupid move posing for this picture wearing a mask but all i have is this id."

"that's not a mask. it's a traffic cone," she said as she squinted her eyes at me.

"look, say what you will about my mask, but can i cash this check?"

"do you have any other id? even a different school id?"

"oh! good point," i said, "i have my junior year id here."

i handed the teller my second id and watched her eyebrows twist. she spent a good forty seconds just absorbing the awkward image of me in my failed cowboy costume before looking back at me.

in those days i had a school-boy crush on the teller. her name was georgia, she was slightly nordic-voiced, and just so elegantly sexy behind that counter that i couldn't help but imagine her and me in a bank porno.

but if there had ever been a chance of my eighteen year-old self hooking up with ms. georgia in the bank vault, it had been ruined entirely by my two high school identification cards and $10 grandma check.

"you should really get a california id," she said

"i know," i said, having heard this many times before, "i will."

"and don't wear any costumes to the dmv."

"thanks. i won't."

intoxicated poop segment: part lxxxii

this one is recycled from the days of gimptard.com. i've uncovered my hidden folder of every post ever written on that ridiculous website.

and you will find i have grown quite a bit since those days.

new year's eve was full of drunken hooliganisms, and on new year's day-night i was in the ER because i stopped breathing (toldya i was dying).

but onto more important issues.

it's weird when you poo because usually the thing you see after your poo is a mirror.

and usually, mirrors reflect your face.

it's like, immediately, i get to put a face to the poo.

and usually, it's my face.

i can't be the only one weirded out by that.

and i hate it when i think i have to poo and then it turns out i really just had to fart. and then it's like "well shit, i could've done that in class"

what's the rule on those anyway? i mean, do you wipe after that?

or what if you were dating a chick that was really into cleaveland steamers and you're squatting over her, you know, because she just kept fucking begging you to shit on her, and you're a nice boyfriend with an open mind, and then when you went to dump in the tit crevice, a fart came out instead?

i have this feeling even girls that've got the inkling for chest-craps aren't so down with being farted on.

it's even worse when you think you have to poo, but you actually have to puke.

you're sitting on the toilet and you realize there is waste inside of you, but it's not wanting to come out of that end.

because what do you do then?

you can't puke in the toilet if you're sitting on it. and i'm certainly not going to get up and bare-assed hurl where my butt just was.

i mean, i guess it wouldn't be any different than any other time, since butts are always touching toilets, but still.

i have no idea what i'm talking about right now.

did you know ninjas dipped their ninja stars in poo so their enemies would get infected and die of a horrible diarrhea-induced flu? that's intense.

oh, and to the people who've been asking me to draw more comics: no.

YOU GET VASELINE!!!@

i think i enjoyed this slightly more as someone who has never seen the non-animated version or any portion of the actual tyra banks show for that matter.

though i have a feeling having seen this clip in context wouldn't have made it any more sane.

"YOUR WILDEST DREAMS HAVE COME TRUEEEE!!!!@$!@"

Just a Ramble

this is free-flow as it should be for thoughts like this. i've just realized something and i think i will type it now without edits and hopefully it will make sense tomorrow.

for the longest time i thought that if you could "read people" you could talk to people. i thought the ability to talk to people was very much the same as reading people.

but this is not true.

there is a subtle, yet distinct, difference between someone who can read people and someone who can talk to people.

be if their aura or their body language, whatever it is you read, it does not mean you know the words to choose and the sentences to form to woo said human.

it's like knowing all the rules and players of a basketball game intimately but still not having the ability to out-score kobe bryant.

and no matter how well a conversation goes when a talker talks it does not constitute the ability to read anyone. sometimes they may just be talking and perhaps that naive vulnerability is what charms people into responding appropriately and confusing the talker into thinking they've read someone.

i mentioned my troubles with the difference between shy and outgoing people in an earlier post and i suppose i had not yet come to this theory at that time. perhaps some shy people can read people so well it is in fact overwhelming and they are left wordless.

i'm starting to find a number of brilliant people-readers who are horribly shy and sometimes awkward in speech. yet they are infinitely more skilled at reading moods and feeling vibes than myself.

perhaps we who talk, and believe we read people, merely talk to people without concern of what the person's aura says.

those people respond and we talkers thinks we've read the person when all we've done is talked.

i need to re-work this idea.

It's a Start

i've had the same moleskine since the summer of 2007. it has 92 pages, i believe, half of which are four-framed comic strips and half of which are large boxes that fit two per page.

for the last month or so, i've been four drawings shy of finishing this three year old visual diary and on part of my previous self-hating post and my constant carmen-hating life, i've drawn a new toon.

now i'm only three drawings from complete. thank you, carmen the cat. thank you for being so relentlessly bitchy that you have actually inspired me to draw something for the first time in weeks.

i still hate you, though.

Git Art Done

the other day, while watching a stand up comedy act at the purple onion, i realized that i don't do nearly as much doing as i do talking. ego aside, i believe i have a lot of creative ideas, but rarely do i complete anything.

in fact, i have a folder on my desktop which has been named "incomplart"-- it's a mash-up of "incomplete" and "art", which is not only hardly creative, but ridiculously pathetic. no one should have so much half-finished artwork that it requires a cute folder.

i didn't exactly enjoy every comedian i saw that night and there were a few i actually disliked. but the point is they were standing on a stage, with lights in their eyes, and a microphone in their hand. i was sitting in a small chair, hoping they wouldn't ask me any questions, with a beer in my hand.

that's not me.

why have i never done stand up comedy? why have i never tried? why do i have a folder of things i've started and given up on?

that night, i text messaged myself, "dear mr. wishnack, find your art and do it. stop talking and do it. don't sleep, just do it."

and then i went to sleep.

yes, i did just reference batman begins. because batman is right. it's what you DOOOOOO.

god i hate bale's voice.

i suppose my problem is that i have no idea what sort of artist i'd like to be and i rarely believe i am an artist at all. first i'll want to be a cartoonist, then a comedian, then a writer, then a cinematographer, then a super-villain. and i'll try each one of those, maybe win some awards on the way or pick up gigs. and then, somewhere in there, i just quit and move on.

all i know is this: i want people to laugh. i don't think i'll ever change the world very much and even if i could, i wouldn't know where to begin or that my idea of a "better world" is any better than someone elses.

all i know is that if things aren't going to change for the better, we're going to need a lot of comedy to get through life without scaling a wall with an AK-47 and a mind full of vengeance.

and sometimes that comedy can only work via cartoons. other times it takes a man on a stage with a microphone, and still other times it can only be done in writing. i want to do them all and yet i'm sitting here doing nothing but eating chicken wings and typing on a blog while at work.

it's difficult to live as an "artist", when you have no idea what medium you prefer or if you're any good at any medium or if being any good is even relevant. and it doesn't help to be expected to manage whichever medium when i am barely capable of remembering to clip my own fingernails and shower regularly without reminders. i think the very concept of creativity and art goes against schedules and organization and that is a very unfortunate truth.

i mean, i can make creatures out of trash, but the minute i have to actually go out and buy supplies-- hell, the minute i have to write a list of supplies-- the entire thing falls apart. lists and errands are not very accommodating to the artistic process. i can't come up with a great idea and leave the house to go get tools or i'll lose the feel of it all before i'm even back inside.

and then i won't finish it and it'll just be one more thing in my incomplart folder.

i need to hire a very mathematical, schedule-oriented, assistant who just whips me in the face every time i come up with an idea and don't do shit about it.

this was a meaningless post for you all-- i think it was a little more for me. but you know, thanks for reading or pretending to have.

I Don't Enjoy All Conversation

i was in the line at cala foods just wanting a pack of smokes, but waiting for a couple in front of me to buy far more than the express line should allow.

"whoa," the man before me turned to say, "hey!"

i had no idea who this man was. i eyed him and all i came up with was that he was bald. he was short and he was bald. his shortness made his baldness more apparent because i could look down at the top of his head very easily. he was the sort of bald man that tried to look as though it were a styling choice, though it was clearly because he was going bald and shaving the rest away was better than a comb-over at age thirty.

i just want smokes and i don't know who you are. did we meet when i was drunk? i drink too much.

"have we met?" i asked, while shaking his hand.

"oh! no," he stuttered, "no! hi. yeah, hi. my name is zach. 750! 750 bush?"

i stared at this man. his sentences made no sense to me. for a brief moment, something about his nervousness around me made me feel like a celebrity in some form. he was so anxious to speak but so unready to do so and none of it seemed to matter to him so long as we spoke.

"hi, zach," i said, "it's nice to meet you..."

"yeah, well. yeah. but 750? you work there-- or no! no! you live," he looked in the air confused by his own sentences and then looked at his girlfriend.

"i'm sorry?"

"the parking garage! 750 bush. you live across the street! it's you!" he exclaimed proudly.

oh, you've got to be kidding me.

this stammering bald-headed man was one of the workers at the parking garage from my last apartment. the guys who used my bedroom window as their personal pornographic television on certain nights. and there he was: in front of me, preventing me from getting my smokes and forcing me into a conversation that should've never taken place.

"ahhh," i said, looking at the cala foods cashier while trying to telepathically convince him to speed up the check-out and get this weird man away from me, "yeah. i used to live there. i moved."

"oh!" he seemed alarmed by something, "yeah we would see you. yeah. where did you move?"

this man, and every man at the parking garage, made a point of watching my personal life. i never had curtains because-- at a time-- i slept on the windowsill and had no way of doing so with curtains hanging. this man and his coworkers have probably seen my ballsack more times than certain girls i've been with.

and there was no way in hell he was finding out where my new apartment is. that would only be step 1 toward him asking that we hang out sometime.

"well," i said slowly, "away from the parking garage."

you may have to be me for this post to really make sense.

just. gross.

Discarded Goods

happy hump-day, 9-5ers! [bad pun about hump and the below image and blah blah blah whatever]

i found this on the way to work the other day and i love that someone actually completed the erotic dot-to-dot. though, i am slightly curious if the dot-to-dot-ee was aroused by the process or the completion in any way.

it's like porn for people who really like counting. or constellations. or being lame.

what's really funny [besides the fact this quasi-porn reminds your perverted self that february 15 is president's day (observed) as if you're the type to care] is that the back-side of the dot-to-dot has a completed version of the puzzle in case you just... couldn't count high enough to find the image yourself.

if you can't count to ninety-nine, in order, you don't deserve porn. even if it's only a rigid line drawing with squarish boobs.

though, if you are so dumb and easily frustrated, maybe it is best your sperm shoots into a tube sock rather than up a uterus.

How I Imagine it

i wonder if there was ever a lawsuit involving someone who self-destructively proved there is a wrong way to eat a reese's.

i was thinking about it while i enjoyed a pair of reese's peanut butter cups on my fifteen minute break.

by the way, there is something very lonely about not having someone to give the second cup.

see, throughout the history of reese's, their slogan has only changed three times:

1. "two great tastes that taste great together." (1970's-1980's)
2. "there's no wrong way to eat a reese's." (1990-2000)

the second slogan spawned tons of clever advertisements-- both print and television. and it wasn't until yesterday that i realized they had dropped it for their third, and current, slogan:

3. "perfect."

for the life of me, i can't imagine why a company would throw away such a solid slogan for something that is not only a bold exaggeration, but not even a complete sentence. it can't just be that they were tired of saying, "there's no wrong way to eat a reese's."

you can't get tired of that! it was a god damn gold mine and everyone knows that. it's the only thing more genius than tap, tap plastic. the fantastic plastic place! because it not only opened the doors for endlessly creative advertisements, but it actually tom sawyered kids into creating advertisements for the company.

it doesn't get better than that.

what kind of slogan is "perfect"?

and no matter how much i think about the reasons behind changing the phrase, my mind keeps circling right back to one burning thought: someone broke their neck while doing a backflip and trying to swallow a reese's at the same time.

from there, reese's might have tried, "there are a few wrong ways to eat a reese's" but given up when they realized it just didn't have the same ring.

or a very classy, lawsuit-dodging, "there is no wrong* way to eat a reese's" with a paragraph of warnings at the bottom of every ad and that micro machine voice actor speeding through a list of potential ways a reese's peanut butter cup might kill you.

but after trying and trying to re-work their genius catch-phrase, i imagine they gave up. they probably had one more meeting with their advertising gurus-- who had since become alcoholics-- in which they expressed how much they hated when gymnasts knew much about the judicial system.

"that fucking guy. that fucking guy. we had the slogan."

"what else have we got? we can come up with another."

"no we can't. that gymnast fucked us. we need a slogan by tomorrow or we're all fired and all because some jackass thought he could do a backflip while eating our candy."

"we need one by tomorrow? no one told me this!"

"by tomorrow. or we're all fired."

"perfect."

"...perfect?"

Raffles and Me

courtesy of our dedicated ticket team, i've scored a free seat at the golden gate theatre's showing of young frankenstein.

i'm on a winning streak (outside of the world of bank of america) and i have a feeling this one is going to be a lot more fun than watching ten people stand in a large field while two play catch and one carries a stick too hesitant to swing.

anyway, the show is june 30th.

today will be quite the opposite, as our ceo(s) will be hooking their ears up to our phones and sitting next to us at our desks to listen in on live calls and generally make us feel awkward and stressed about simple things like making a dinner reservation.

i hope this goes well.

The Painful End of Things

i saw this search query that lead to the accidental finding of my blog. it was four words strung together and went as follows:

"bank of america dildo"

at first glance, i brushed it aside as one of the many dildo-related searches that somehow funnelled down to my meaningless writings. giraffe dildos and such. it's all the same and it's all accidental.

then, shortly after, i received a letter in the mail from none other than my bank: bank of america. they painted the letter to appear as though it were a follow up to my many recent complaints regarding their methods of stealing my money.

"After several attempts to reach you by phone, we have resolved the issue." it began. to me, that is where it began and ended. the rest was standardized and said things like "we want to thank you" and "loyal customer" and other corporate verbiage that may have been written by a computer somewhere off in the far lands of banking and thieving.

of their "several attempts" to reach me, my phone says nothing. my phone says the only form of contact bank of america and i ever had was the time i called them asking why they had not called me. and during that call, i was politely and swiftly informed i would never be receiving the money they rightfully stole from me because-- after all-- they stole it rightfully.

there were no explanations or understandings or anything of the sort. just one hundred and five of my american dollars taken silently out of my account never to be returned. why? because we can and because we will and because we know you can't do a whole lot more than call to complain and perhaps write about it on your blog.

i went through two bank visits, two phone calls, and a whole lot of useless waiting. and out of it all, i regained just thirty-five dollars.

i held that letter in my hand feeling like a mighty fool. or perhaps a mighty tool. i'm not sure which 'ool it was and in hindsight i'm not sure i even felt mighty at all. what i do know is i had been man-handled by a bank and there was a large stack of nothing i could do about it.

what took me six hours to earn took them one minute to take.

and now, through letter, they kindly informed me that they were so completely alright with taking my earnings that they would only go as far as pretending they'd tried to follow up and would move forward by calling the thievery of my pay "resolved."

at the moment in which i realized i had been beaten, that perhaps the day when intelligent complaints were absorbed with listening ears had long since died in a flurry if lazy digital "fuck you"s and gentlemen in ties, i sat down and looked back at my computer screen.

"bank of america dildo," it said to me.

and it all made sense in a brilliant way.

the bank of america dildo: for those of you who don't have a checking account but still want to be fucked in the ass by the bank.

World's Saddest IMDB Page

that was the subject line in an email i received from one mr. chris rhee. and at first glance, i thought he was sending me my own imdb profile as a cruel joke.

but after my stolen internet gimped its way through the world wide web and to its final destination, i found it to be something much better:

anne sellors' page-- complete with just one credit for one show.

i also have only one credit on the internet movie database, but i suppose its all about what that one credit is. mine is "production assistant" or "filmmaker's bitch" in other terms.

ms. sellors' credit is "woman who urinates herself" and, for your viewing pleasure, i've taken the liberty to include her acting abilities below. (4m 34s is her acting debut!)

you really just don't see this kind of acting anymore.

Corporate Snippets 7

when i trained for this job, our two temporary bosses created imaginary scenarios that generally involved a vacation going horribly wrong and we, as soon-to-be-concierge, exercised calming the imaginary clients down.

it was like a very professional game of improv and i was very good at it. in the heat of panic, i can generally calm anyone down and perhaps because i'm only ever panicking when things are calm. chaos is my expertise.

but, like any training, it had little to do with what we were actually about to do. needless to say, most calls did not involve a vacation falling to horrible pieces. in fact, the majority of our calls are really rather calm and it's something that i do not deal with nearly as charmingly.

either way, i've compiled a semi-short list of requests i've overheard from colleagues. these are calls i wish i had taken but -- by the luck of the draw-- did not wind up with.

1. will my card pay for my bail?

first off: no. it may cover all kinds of car insurance, but that-- believe it or not-- is not the same as covering your ass when you get taken to jail. i wish i were in the holding cell during which this client used his phone call to call his concierge. it reminds me of the will arnett movie, let's go to prison.

2. can you find out when my sister-in-law's funeral is?

if you don't know when your sister-in-law's funeral is, there is likely a reason and no amount of money is going to solve that problem for you.

3. can you get me tickets to my grandsons graduation?

unfortunately, our dedicated ticket team does not carry tickets to things like graduation ceremonies. while we may advertise that we can get you tickets to sold-out shows, this just doesn't come in to play when you're looking for tickets to something you were clearly not invited. your grandson picked who he wanted to be at the ceremony and you just weren't one of those people. maybe you should've written him a $22 check on his twenty-second birthday rather than talking to him about the youth of today doesn't work hard for what they get and you would've made the cut.

4. will you find me a battery for my helicopter?

believe it or not, one of our concierge actually did find a replacement battery for the client's helicopter. this man is probably the best concierge we have-- i can't even begin to tell you what else he's found for people.

5. please call me two hours, one hour and half an hour before my flight to remind me i need to be on the plane at 5pm.

augh.

6. i think i have lyme disease and i need to know what doctor's prescribe for that and where i can get it.

i guess, if you're going to be a hypochondriac, having a concierge service is probably very nice. and at least he was only asking about lyme disease and not something worse. "what do you do when you get crabs in your mustache?"

7. what is the back up plan about? can you read me the synopsis?

i think it was somewhere around "...Never before has love seen a courtship where a wild night of sex involves three in a bed - Stan, Zoe and the ever-present massive pregnancy pillow. Or, where 'date night' consists of being the 'focal point' at a near-stranger's water birth which does for kiddie pools what "Jaws" did for swimming in the ocean." that the concierge completely stopped reading the synopsis.

8. i divorced my husband and he spent all of my points and i need to know if i can be reimbursed.

that there is one quick, clever, move. while some may argue about the kids, the couch, the decorative russian dolls they got in that one antique store-- this man, without blinking an eye, called his concierge and used every one of his wife's credit card points toward an airline ticket. and when she called, all that could be said was, "well, you should have removed him from your authorized redeemers list... is there anything else we can assist you with?"

We Never Got Him Ties

the only thing worse than going through puberty is trying to do it right after your dad has died. something about it renders you neither an adult or a child and you feel like you're floating and drowning at the same time; you feel like the narrator of a story-- a part of everything, but never interacting with any of the main characters.

it's like showing up to a party sober and finding out that you don't know anyone and everyone is already drunk. except 500 times worse.

junior high started for me with friends and acquaintances asking, "is it true your dad died?" and the conversation would mostly end at "yes." where was it meant to go from there?

and then there was father's day. we would make metal napkin holders in shop and the teacher would approach me knowing what was going on in my home-life. my dad was a teacher, too, so the news spread fast.

"don't worry," he'd say, "this can be for your grandpa."

"i don't have a grandpa," i would say, "they're dead, too."

"well," he would say very nervously,"it can be for anyone you like."

i've always had a problem with this. i don't want to hide the fact my dad is gone and i don't want to spring it on you at the wrong time, but i can't stand the way the fact changes a mood and forces everyone around to dance nervously with the phrasing of things.

it makes me feel like a jerk for mentioning his death simply because of the position it puts everyone else in.

chances are, if you've been through a death, you're less delicate than everyone assumes you are and you've gotten used to admitting it and talking about it a lot sooner than everyone who has never experienced it. i mean, there are phases: why did my dad have to die? i guess i'm alone. things will be okay. i wonder what he would think about me now. i think i would like debate him, etc.

there are things you can ignore and there are things you can just learn to cope with. i think deaths are generally not something you can ignore. and at times, they can be hard to cope with.

i've found that about once every three to five years, i have a small fit of depression, feeling cheated by the world. when i was eighteen, it really got me because i was a "man" without a dad. and now in my twenties, i think i wish i could just sit down and have a philosophical conversation with my dad and pick his brain. but that will never happen and that's sometimes hard to handle.

holidays are the worst because they're more like upsetting milestones. how many people have died this year?

and this year, as father's day approached, i tried mostly to ignore the holiday. this was made more difficult by my job, which requires me to change my outgoing signature to something that mentions how we concierge might be able to assist clients in a perfect father's day.

someone needs to write a handbook on surviving holidays like father's day with no dad, or christmas with a christmas birthday, or holidays in general because they can be pretty awful all around.

this father's day, though, has got to be the first father's day i've experienced since 1997 in which i feel perfectly calm and content.

my grandparents are dead and so is my dad, but my older brother has an amazing daughter and is a father now.

in some way, that balance makes me feel like everything is going to be alright.

Working for the Weekend

i feel like somewhat of a traitor because i hardly update with much here on weekends. it's simple fact that most of you are only checking this from work and most of you work a standardized 9-5. i appreciate your coming and that's why my posts happen 8am and 2pm weekdays. and the weekend just suffers.

the weekend is when i catch up on the upcoming week.

but i feel bad, because i know some of you work weekends just like me. and all we do is scour the internet for cool things to watch or interesting things to read and no one has updated their blogs. and everyone else is off having a bbq or going to a show that we will miss.

i feel for those of you still at work today. i feel from you from my tiny desk and cubicle.

but i'm not about to change my posting schedule.

i would, however, like to present you with a few short films i've enjoyed for various reasons.

that's one of my favorites.

this next one is alright, as well. i think i like any animated short that takes place in san francisco-- especially if it's based on a true story.

[via tiny inventions]

and, possibly the best auto-tuned news yet:

lastly, this game will keep you busy for at least two shifts.

though you may want to go to the actual site and play it-- where you can see the entire screen.

kbye.

I Do Care if I Never Get Back

i am not a fan of baseball mostly because it reminds me of my dad interrupting wyle e. coyote's newest crackpot scheme to "check the score real quickly" which always meant i'd never see if the earthquake pills were going to work or not.

but i am a fan of experience and i am a fan of free things.

either way, my silly job awarded me with two club box tickets to the giants game wednesday.

i don't know anything about baseball except that "stealing third base" is not considered sexual harassment and punishable by law like it is in real life. however, there seems to be only two groups of people in the world of baseball-related happenings.

1. people who hate baseball.
2. people who can't believe i've never been to a game.

and so i found myself there with a friend, flask and camera, waiting to experience my first ball game.

and i could not believe how mind-blowingly boring the entire thing was.

i mean i would say for the first twenty minutes of the game i was literally just trying to adjust to the fact that all these orange characters were actually playing something despite the fact the majority of them were standing motionless.

i would say the batters only swing at about 20% of the pitches and out of that 20%, they only actually succeed in hitting the ball 10% of the time-- 5% of which are still fouls.

i have a difficult time enjoying any sport that is so inactive the athletes actually have to wear pants so their legs will stay warm while they stand around and wait for the opposing team to actually do something.

but i wanted to experience it first hand and see if i still hated. sort of like dating a vegan.

and we ended up leaving within the first hour. it was that bad.

it's not like when people say "english humor is dry." baseball is boring and that's that. it's one of the few spectator sports that are probably better heard than seen. i promise you "swing and a miss!" sounds a lot better than it looks. a swing and a miss is a pitch that lead to nothing.

the very problem lies in the fact that when your team is playing the field, you are literally hoping nothing happens. please don't hit the ball, please don't hit the ball.

so literally half the game, you're hoping that everyone continues to stand perfectly still while the pitcher and the catcher flirt with each other.

i'm glad i can now say i've been to a baseball game, and i will say i learned that fans wear panda hats because sandoval (#48 and the batter above) is nicknamed "the panda". pandoval, maybe? and i discovered that waving foam K's are fans hoping the batter will strike out. apparently K means strikeout.

but trivia aside, i had been told that even if i wasn't a baseball fan, being at the game would be fun.

it wasn't. i had rum with me, and it was still boring.

maybe that's what too much orange does: just bores the shit out of you until you leave. after all it was the giants and the orioles.

Green, Purple and Gold

the lakers beat the celtics and i work with two people in one cubicle:

1. a lakers fan.
2. a celtics fan.

i think today i'll come into work and just say "kobe" and let things go from there.

this is going to be a fun shift.

The Flubbery Future Fridge

while some people are worried about disease, poverty, the climate, and other more boring things, the real scientists are spending their time and money on revolutionizing the refrigerator.

i never thought there was a problem with the way fridges worked, but apparently a team of lab-workers in russia disagree and feel the biggest problem is that regular fridges of the year 2010 have silly out of date things like doors and shelves rather than... futuristic green goo.

Bio Robot Refrigerator, Yuriy Dmitriev, Russia – Cool, Green, Food Preservation

Four times smaller than a conventional refrigerator, the Bio Robot cools biopolymer gel through luminescence. Rather than shelves, the non sticky, odourless gel morphs around products to create a separate pod that suspends items for easy access. Without doors, draws and a motor 90% of the appliance is solely given over to its intended purpose. At the same time, all food, drink and cooled products are readily available, odours are contained, and items are kept individually at their optimal temperature by bio robots. The fridge is adaptable – it can be hung vertically, horizontally, and even on the ceiling. Different sizes and dimensions allow it to perfectly fit the accordant dwelling.

[via electrolux]

without even mentioning how completely unnecessary an advance this is, i would like to just list a few problems i foresee.

1. carmen the cat was hungry and now she's partially frozen in a big rectangle of neon jello.

2. i was really hungry but, to my surprise, the idea of eating out of a slimy trap and the odd sucking sound the bio-gel makes when you pull an apple from its depths made me unusually sick to my stomach. i threw up all over the place and now a lot of my vomit is trapped in my gel-fridge.

3. this just in: an alarming number of star wars fans have suffocated in various cities while trying to reenact han solo's carbonite scene.

4. "hey man, do you have any food? oh, nevermind, i can totally see that you do have food and now there's nothing you can say to prevent me from eating it without looking rude."

5. this just in: five high schoolers have contracted cancer while trying to see what it would feel like to put their penis into the bio robot fridge gel.

okay, those last few may be a stretch, but the fridge is still a wholey unnecessary invention and i would much rather see scientists spend their knowledge and research on creating a microorganism that feasts on plastic and emits clean air.

if they can make glow-in-the-dark tobacco plants by crossing spors with firefly genes, they can sure as fuck stop making ridiculous refrigerators and start engineering some useful balances to our ecosystem.

My Childhood Yet More Shattery

i have no idea how this managed to get past me the last two decades.

Mr. Fussy is the twenty-first book in the Mr. Men series by Roger Hargreaves. Mr. Fussy is a perfectionist fascist. He would not tolerate anything imperfect Jewish. Mr. Fussy keeps his hair combed, his mustache trimmed, his shoelaces tied and his house very neat concentration camps filled. One evening, he is working being a Nazi when his cousin enemy from Australia Europe comes for a visit, Mr. Clumsy Great Britain. Mr. Clumsy Great Britain causes chaos and at the end of his stay, everything in the house Germany is disastrous. However, things just get worse for Mr. Fussy as then another friend comes to visit, Mr. Bump The United States of America.

Sonal Chauhan looking Slim and Gorgeous in Beautiful Saree's

 Sonal Chauhan looking Slim and Gorgeous in Beautiful Saree's

Bollywood actress Zarine Khan in saree promotes Veer at Big FM

Bollywood actress Zarine Khan in saree promotes Veer at Big FM

Trisha in Red Transparent Saree Photos

Trisha in Red Transparent Saree Photos