The Ford Motor Company Thinks We're Idiots.

I take notice when I see a brand new Ford F-150, in black, rolling up behind me at a stop sign or on the highway or whatever. It's a mean looking truck with a big grille. I'm actually kinda surprised that Michael Bay didn't use one in his Transformers film.

Oh that's right, GM footed the bill.

Anyway, Ford is kicking a whole lot of ass in the automobile manufacturing thing. Granted, they don't make their vehicles in the United States anymore, and well, there was that whole "Explorer Roll Over" thing from a few years ago but for the most part, their product design and marketing is smoking the competition.

That was, until I saw their latest series of television ads.

Instead of explaining the ads to you, let me break down the meeting between the ad exec and the CEO of Ford Motor Company:

"Ok, we got this whole new approach to our advertisements in the first quarter," says the ad exec.

"I'd love to hear it." Says the CEO.

"Ok, what's better than a customer testimonial?"

"I don't know, customer testimonials are pretty solid,"

"I know, but what if we could get non-Ford owners to say how much they love our cars, without them actually buying one?"

"My god, how could we pull off such a feet?"

"Well, we'll track down some 'average Americans', the shittier their car the better. If they drive a GM or a Toyota, even better! We'll lend them one of our brand new, top of the line automobiles for a week. I'm talking the best editions, with the in-dash video screens and leather interiors. You know, the 60K models."

"I think I see where you're going with this, but go on..."

"We'll lend them these cars, then take them back and then have them look into a camera and say how much they enjoyed the 'Ford Experience.' It's fool proof."

"You're right, American buyers will eat it up, because they're idiots. They'll never realize that we've taken someone's shitty, horrible, takes-three-good-hard-turns-of-the-key-to-start cars, with the paint peeling off of them, and replaced it with a brand new 2008 model of one of our pricier models. This is genius!"

So there, Ford thinks Americans are idiots. I mean, who else could possibly be hypnotized by some 'average Americans' thinking that a brand-new Ford is vastly superior to a GM that's 15 years older?

I enjoy the ride in a Ford, and I've had far too many bad experiences with GM vehicles to have much faith in them much longer. But still, if the Ford Motor Company really wants to sell more cars, I would recommend to them that they starting treating their perspective customers as more than complete imbeciles.

What It's Like To Be A Woman

This all starts early yesterday when I fielded a call from my recruiter. I'm less than a week away from going off to Basic Training and he wants to touch base with me and see how I'm doing.

"So uh, you've been staying out of trouble, huh? No problems with Johnny Law, right?" He says. I haven't had any trouble with the Man, in fact I haven't even so much as sped on the highway in the last month. I back my car down when it touches 75 mph, which is super out of character for me. "Good good, and you've been staying safe, no stupid injuries or anything like that?" And he goes on to tell me about how another recruit that was supposed to be leaving with my group smashed his fingers all to shit while moving boxes, so he's a no go. I don't dare tell him about my bum hip/thigh and figure I'll fuel up on pills before and after work outs if necessary.

"Ok, great, good to hear everything's on the up and up. Oh, and how's the weight?" And it starts. Now I know what it's like to be a woman.

Let me explain the whole "weight thing." See, in order to be admitted to basic training, you have to meet a certain weight limit based on your height, neck size, wrist size, shoe size, whatever they do. I'm about 199 right now as I write this article, which is three pounds over my limit, based on those previously mentioned parameters. It's gotten to the point where I'm obsessing like a woman about my figure.

I was weighed twice before and barely made weight the first time and the second time got under the wire by three pounds by starving myself for a weekend. I don't want to have to do that again. It's madness. So what I've been doing, along with my daily hour-plus work outs is consuming about twelve fluid ounces of pure grapefruit juice and drinking tons of water through the day. Also, I've tried cutting back on carbs. Actually I've cut back on eating all together.

I'm eating like a chick basically.

So fast forward a couple of hours later and I'm having lunch with one of my friends. We're sitting in a pub in Portsmouth looking over the lunch menus and I'm complaining about what I can and can't eat. The roast beef, turkey and bacon club sandwich looks great, especially with a side of waffle fries, but my dining partner suggests I try a bed of greens with grilled chicken. I look at her from over my menu with a look that probably could cut a glacier, like out of a scene from "Sex and the City."

I order the club with the fries. I'm my own worst enemy.

I didn't get to the gym either yesterday which frustrates me. The whole day I feel fat and slobbish and have to keep reminding myself that I'm a dude, I should feel fine in my own skin. So what if I have a little beer belly, so what if I like to eat crap, I'm a guy, there's no societal rules established that say I have to be trim and sexy.

I can think of all sorts of stereotypical archetypes of grossly fat dudes with hot wives, based on sitcom television: Kevin James, Jim Belushi, Homer Simpson, Jackie Gleason, Bill Clinton (though his wife isn't all that hot, he can score top shelf pussy at will), Peter Griffin, etc. Granted these people's lives are all based on pure fiction, society regularly agrees that fat funny dudes score smoking hot wives.

So why am I obsessing about my weight like a chick? ...Oh, because I have to go to boot camp.

At Basic it's often said you'll drop (and keep off) at least twenty pounds. As I write that last sentence, I'm thinking of myself at a trim 185. Then I snap out of it and hate myself a little more.

Fast forward again yesterday, and I've left my friend at the pub and met up with another friend at the mall. We're in the GAP and I'm trying on jeans. I put on a pair of 35/32s, standard fit. They fit fine, but I can't get a good look at my backside so I step out of the dressing room where my friend is waiting and turn around.

"How does it look?"

"How does what look?" They ask.

"...My ass.... how does it look?"

"What? I'm not looking at your ass dude."

"C'mooonnnnn..." I catch myself wining. My skin bristles. "I can't see how it looks back there. Just tell me if my wallet sticks out too much."

"Dude." He stops himself. "It's fine, really, can we go?" I frown and shuffle back into the dressing room to change back. I buy the jeans hoping my ass will look hot in them.

Ugh.

I think this is why women are so fucking crazy. They starve themselves and obsess about standards set by Hollywood and society. Every time they turn around, there's another picture of some chick modeling jeans or a coat or whatever, looking stick-thin. I mean, that plus they bleed from their crotches every couple of weeks is enough to send anyone off the deep end. Of course they don't care about sports or which friend can drink the most beer without puking into a 50 gallon drum outside of a sketchy night club, they've got way too much pressure on them to fit into a frame that easily 1/1000 maybe fit into.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to eat this pile of leaves.

Tips for Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse

Since joining Facebook about a week ago, I've come across a group called "The Hardest Part of the Zombie Apocalypse Will Be Pretending I'm Not Excited." This group has various discussions that are based around the idea of surviving the day and days after the zombies rise from the dead and start their slow shuffling march across the world.

What troubled me the most was how unprepared so many of these group members were. They all claimed they had "zombie knowledge" or a heightened sense of survival, but when I read through some of the posts, I could only shake my head and mutter "amateurs" under my breath.

I don't know why I would want to help instruct people on how to survive this biblical catastrophe, when the best part of the Zombie Apocalypse would be how the human race would be thinned out, but maybe it's just the nice guy in me. He's struggling from underneath that pillow I've put over his face, and he wants to help his readers have a slightly advantageous experience should the decayed flesh hit the fan. So here now, along with author Max Brooks (The Zombie Survival Guide) are some tips on what you can do to have a leg up over other survivors and of course the undead.


1. Choose your weapon wisely:

One of the topic threads in the facebook group was "If you could only take TWO weapons with you, what would they be?" There was a stipulation as well, your weapons could not include anything biological (such as flesh eating bacteria) or nuclear or a tank or a fighter jet or something unconventional. They wanted to keep to the spirit of the ground fighter, the survivor, the everyman. The everyman doesn't know how to fly a jet, but he does know how to swing a baseball bat. He's some of the responses to the question:

"I'd bring a crowbar because you can bash a zombie over the head with it, and also use it to open up doors and crates, etc."

"I'd bring a baseball bat because you can swing it faster, and then if I had to I would sharpen the end into a stabbing point,"

"I'd bring a katana blade because you can slice through zombies and the blade never gets dull,"

What troubles me most is that a lot of people mentioned the crowbar, probably because of the tool's appearance in the computer game "Half-Life," where the main character, Dr. Gordon Freeman wields one to smash open the heads of brain crabs. The thing is a crowbar is a horrible choice because it's a heavy, oblong shaped object. Yeah, you can smash a zombie's skull into mush with it, but carrying it is going to be cumbersome. A crowbar weighs, depending on it's size, between 5 and 15 lbs. Also if you drop it, it clatters very loudly. The crowbar is the deadman's choice.

Author Max Brooks, in his book "The Zombie Survival Guide" suggest the use of blunt instruments stating "blades don't need to be reloaded," and favors the ancient Chinese weapon of a half-moon shaped cutting blade on a long pole because it can be waved side to side at a great distance. Well Mr. Brooks, when the zombies start breaking into my apartment, I'll be sure to run down to the Chinese Historical Center and start looking for one of these things. Pfft.

Here's what I suggest: A blade is a good back up weapon. I would prefer taking a Ka-Bar military fighting knife, but a machete will work well too. They're very durable, hardly ever get dull and utilitarian. The Ka-Bar/machete can do everything a crowbar can do, but it's lighter and you can wear it in a sheath on your belt.

For a main weapon, I would choose either a compound bow and arrows, because it's silent and you can retrieve your ammunition, or I would take with me a battle rifle of some sort. Most likely, an AK47. The Kalashnikov rifle is world renowned for it's durability and light maintenance, its heavy but not cumbersome to carry due to it's sling. The ammo is a heavy 7.62x39mm round that has a high penetration potential that will allow you to shoot through barriers or multiple skulls, should your zombie prey line up in a straight line. If you run out of ammo, the weapon has a heavy butt-stock that can be used like a hammer, or held across your chest as a barrier to push zombies backwards.


2. Your Gear:

Brooks suggests cutting your hair short and wearing tight clothing, and here's where I agree. Should the zombie apocalypse start up and there's madness in the streets, I would let things simmer down for a few days before venturing out to outfit yourself at a sporting goods store or even Wal Mart.

Here's some things you should look out for:

First things first: You need good foot wear. Shoes and socks are going to be essential to your survival. I would suggest heavy duty tactical boots with lots of ankle support, but a good pair of cross trainers will do in a pinch. Bring plenty of socks, at least three pair and change them often. If you lose your feet, you lose your life.

You're going to need some sort of body armor. If you don't have privilege to a bullet proof vest, you can always wear multiple thin layers. I would start with a long-underwear or Underarmor-type base, and then a sturdy durable pair of rip-stop BDUs or heavy denim jeans. Then maybe a long sleeve cotton shirt, on top of that, a short sleeve shirt, and then maybe a non-hooded sweat shirt, depending on the time of the year. With all this on, your movements won't be as restrictive as wearing a coat or a jacket and with layers you can always take something off and put it into your bag should you get hot.

I would also suggest a MOLLE-system carrier. A MOLLE carrier is a tactical vest with these different spaced out velco-like straps that you can hang various pouches from. If you have a sporting goods store or vacant police station in your area, check them out for one of these vests. With this vest you can carry more supplies such as extra ammunition, grenades, canteens, etc, at ready access. The MOLLE system also prevents jingling and bustling, making you quieter as you move.

The next important thing to have is a durable backpack. Here's where it gets tricky though; you don't want a bag so big that it weighs you down, because you'll think you have to fill it, nor do you want a bag too small that you can't get all your essential equipment in to it. So I suggest carrying two medium sized bags. Label one with some designation on it so you know it's your "essentials bag," that in case of an emergency, where as the other bag can be left behind if need be. More on this in the next section.

Some other items to consider taking with you:

A Cambelbak, or canteens, compass, maps, flashlight, fingerless gloves, batteries, multi-channel radio/walkie-talkie with an ear piece, a small flat piece of metal to cook on, and anything else that will be small and seem handy in the future.


3. Pack Light.

As you're getting your gear together remember one thing, and one thing only: You have to stay mobile. A sitting survivor is a survivor no more. Even Brooks states that "no place is safe, only safer. Keep moving." So with that, I suggest taking with you the very bare essentials to your survival.

One thing to consider is food. Granted there could be a few days where you will be out of contact with anyone, including zombies, other survivors, even small towns or cities, believe it our not. You should keep without enough food to last you about two days. I would shy away from canned goods just because they're heavy and take up room in your pack, but sometimes you just have to suffer. If you can find MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) from a local army base or survival store, snatch them up. They're light and easy to pack and contain everything you need to stay healthy, as far as nutrition is concerned.

As I suggested in the last section, keeping two packs is ideal. In one, your "essentials" pack I would keep food for one day, plus your maps and compass, extra ammo, first aid stuff and any other hard to come by items that you need. In the secondary pack, keep the bulk of your food, extra blankets, the gear you can find any where else if need be. Remember, the zombies have taken over, and killed a large portion of the population, there's going to be supplies you can find anywhere. Don't become married to canned goods and blankets.

Also, there's absolutely no need for frivolous supplies like tent kits, mess kits, sleeping bags, etc. You can find that stuff anywhere and there's going to be plenty of vacated shelter you can spend a night in and then move on in the morning. Worse case scenario, you rough it out in the woods over night, or just keep moving til dawn. You don't need to be slowed down by a three man tent set because you love comfort.


4. It's Easier To Run:

Just because you have an assault rifle, found some grenades, or are wielding a chainsaw doesn't mean you can get all Bruce Campbell on some undead assholes. By packing light you can maneuver around zombies or escape if you have to.

Killing a zombie is tough work. Usually what's needed to put a member of the undead out for good is destroying their brain, either with blunt force or with a piercing. Zombies seldom wander about alone as well, so think of that before you engage. The time it takes an unprofessional zombie slayer to kill one zombie in a pack of four, allows the remaining three zombies to get that much closer. Only fight if you've run out of room to run in, and even then, keep looking for an escape.


5. Fire Bad - Explosives Good:

Fire won't kill a zombie, well not right away. As I stated in the last section, the only way to truly bring a zombie down is by destroying the brain. Eventually, if set to fire, a zombie's brain will catch and burn, but that could take precious minutes to happen. In the meantime, your wandering undead target that you've set ablaze is shuffling towards you, now on fire, setting fire to everything else he or she comes into contact with.

I would only use fire as a weapon if I could use it in a way to trap a number of zombies together. Say you've managed to lead a pack of zombies towards a structure. You get them to follow you inside, where you manage to get out, maybe from a second floor or back entrance, and then bar them in. Setting the structure on fire will kill them, but this is a rare case indeed.

Instead, I would suggest the use of timed explosives. Sticks of dynamite, hand grenades, land mines if you can get your hands on them are great tools to totally destroy a zombie. Even if you only manage to blow off their legs, you've at least incapacitated it long enough to get away. Also, explosives have a wider range of damage, allowing you to take out whole groups at a time.

Go to your local library and learn about home made explosives. ....The Government will be along shortly to help you with your search.


6. Fortifications:

If you do have to stop running and take refuge someplace, whether it be for a night or even for a longer stretch due to weather or medical reasons, get on to a second story. Brooks suggests this as well, advising that survivors smash out the stairs behind them. Zombies can't climb ladders (or so it's thought) and without access to the second story, the only thing you're going to have to put up with is there never-ending moans for your brains. Bring earplugs.

Brooks also suggests that if you remain perfectly silent for an extended period of time, zombies will usually lose interest in you or become engage in something/someone else and leave you alone. Zombies have excellent, almost preternatural hearing, so the slightest bump could bring them back on your tail.

If you can't find a second story, I would suggest a basement with a heavy door and very little outside access (such as windows or a storm door.). Barricade your door and set up a number of obstacles between yourself and the door so that if they should break through the door, you'll at least be able to slow them down enough to take a few head shots, before probably having to do yourself in with the last bullet.


7. Be Prepared.

This seems silly, especially at number seven on the list, but being physically and emotionally prepared for the zombie apocalypse will pay back in spades. I would advise getting into a regular exercise routine that involves cardiovascular training would be a good start. You should be able to run up to two miles with gear without getting too winded if you want to be able to survive out there amongst the never tiring undead. A lifting regimen is strongly advisable as well.

Learn how to use a firearm and an edged weapon with accuracy. Train so that your selected weapons become extensions of who you are, so there's no awkwardness in wielding that javelin you stole from a local high school or that rock hammer you swiped from a dead roommate's room in your house. Never hesitate to use your weapons either.

Emotionally, prepare yourself to see things you've never thought you'd ever see. The dead walking the streets, your long gone grandparents shuffling their way down Main Street in the tattered clothes they were buried in. Your old friends, young children, recently turned, thirsting for your blood. Think of it like this: You're giving these people the ultimate gift of release from these unholy shells they've become, by blasting their heads off with an automatic rifle. If you hesitate, you become one of them. That's likely how they got there in the first place.


8. No One Is Your Friend:

Lastly, people will likely band together and reform societies. I mean, after all that's why you're fighting for survival in the first place: to rebuild. But in these uncertain days leading up to the rebuilding, trust no one. It's every man for him or herself, and everyone's an opportunist. There are no laws, and God's on vacation so watch your back. Never get so committed to anyone that you can't leave them in a hurry if you have to. Helping others is the fastest way to get yourself ripped to shreds and eaten.

Stay vigilant, stay tough. Eventually the zombies will walk themselves into an ocean or off a cliff or on to one of your home-made explosive devices. Cities will burn, but you're a survivor now, use the strength you gathered in the zombie wild to rebuild, and never forget.

October's Man of the Year: Sir Richard Branson

"Rebel Billionaire" Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson was born in England in 1950 and is currently worth over seven billion USD.

Branson first made his money at the age of 16 when he published a magazine called "Student" which he then rolled over into a record album mailing service, which he rolled over into record stores, which rolled over into a music label, which rolled into an airline, which rolled into him actually buying The Virgin Islands.

Everything, strangely for Branson, involves virgins.

But fame and fortune didn't just fall into Branson's lap. The Billionaire Rebel had to overcome dyslexia, and soon after turning 16 he left his third private school for the last time, instead focusing on his entrepreneurial ventures.

Since then, Branson's worked with the likes of Bono, Bishop Desmond Tutu, Pope John Paul II, Nelson Mandela, and the United Nations for humanitarian initiatives. Branson recently donated a large sum of money to the "Find Maddy" fund, a fund built to help raise money to help locate the missing Madeline McCann, a toddler who went missing while her parents were on vacation in Spain.

With his entrepreneurial efforts, his philanthropy, you wouldn't think that Sir Richard Branson would have time to do anything else.

Well you're wrong. Very wrong.

Sir Richard Branson has set numerous world records for traveling great distances in record times. He first crossed the Atlantic Ocean (after one failed attempt) in 1986, and then, with other "rebel billionaires" set about to circumnavigate the Earth in a hot air balloon. Sir Richard has yet to complete that record, failing numerous times, but setting record paces along the way.

Branson has garnered much media attention, and is a beloved figure in his home of the United Kingdom as well as around the world. A fun loving spirit, he recently appeared on Comedy Central's "Colbert Report" with Stephen Colbert, to announce that he had named one of his new aircrafts after Colbert. The two then engaged in an on-air water fight much to the puzzlement of the audience and stage crew in attendance.

Sir Richard Branson is October's Man of the Year for his hard-working spirit, philanthropy, and sheer balls. In a world that seems to be flooded with pompous asshole rich people, Sir Richard is truly the rebel amongst billionaires.

Un-mailed Letters, Pt. 5: Angrier Than The Last Four Combined!

A wise man once said that if something pisses you off, write a letter about it, but don't mail it. I now present to you, the fifth installment of my un-mailed letters.

To My Tenants:

Where do I begin with you pack of ungrateful assholes? After spending the whole summer fixing up this decrepit building, you turn your kids, or even you yourselves against it. Every morning when I wake up I find something else broken, trash strewn about the property, gum left on the brand new five-thousand dollar drive ways. We've spoken to you each separately, pleading with you to please mind the grass, don't let your kids rip up the posts that mark the property, please don't step in the wet paint and walk all over the place, please don't park your car across the goddamn lines we painted for parking spaces... etc etc.

So, instead of just making this a general proclamation of my discontent with you ingrates, I'll break down your specific crimes, so everyone can see exactly what you're doing.

First, to the couple who live underneath me. I won't even bring up the fact that I constantly hear random banging and crashing down there, and add the fact that your toddler is in an arm cast. I won't even mention that when I went into your apartment, I was knee deep in a sea of loose garbage and trash. Unpacked boxes cluttering the floor and counter spaces. Food left out, spoiled. You're animals. I can't believe you're even trying to raise a child down there.

You claim, sir, that you "teach break dancing" to local kids, using the end of the driveway as your studio. Not once, ever, have I seen you "teaching" break dancing to anyone. I see a bunch of punk kids disrespecting my property and loitering maybe... I also notice that they get really hush-hush when I'm around, probably because you're selling drugs to them. That would also explain the scent of burning marijuana that comes up into my apartment from below, because you're smoking it all the time.

Awesome, thanks for turning my beautiful apartment building into a crack den, asshole. I won't even mention how stupid and ugly you're live-in girlfriend is. How about next time you have a complaint against me, you come out from behind your fucking girlfriend's skirt and talk to me directly like a man would, you dickless bitch.

To the tenants who share a kitchen wall with me. Thanks for finally paying your electric bill that is still under my parents' name, that you seem to "forget" to change back to your names, you lying shitheels. Thanks too for cutting us a bad check and making my mom lose her pay check to cover the bounce. If you can't get your shit together, come to us and tell us. Don't literally cut and run - by cutting us a bad check and then getting the fuck out of town for the weekend. You're lucky that you did leave town though, because I probably would've kicked your skinny bi-sexual-looking ass off your freshly painted porch, jumped down after you, and continued to kick your ass across the freshly seeded lawn, you mother fucker. I don't care that you lost your job because you lost your license, I want my fucking money. In case you didn't hear that, I said: I WANT MY FUCKING MONEY!

You can't pay, you can't stay. Simple as that.

And also, you spineless coward, send your pregnant wife to beg us to let you back into your shitty apartment, and I'll give her the keys, walk over, and beat you in the street like the mangy dog you are.

To the asshole who lives on the first floor, front: Thanks for finally doing the bare minimum by hanging those doors we bought almost two months ago. You kept telling us and telling us that you were going to get them done "by this weekend" but every time I walked by your place, there you were on your couch drinking Coors Light. "Oh, I forgot my tools again," you'd whine, you sniveling bitch. We have a whole tool shop in our garage, maybe you missed us working our asses off every day on this building. Also, get your fucking destructive 8 year old under control. If I find one more post ripped up, I'm going to beat him with it. How do I know it's him? Because there's little toy cars left on the ground next to the ripped up post you schmuck. I'll ram one up your ass if it helps get the point across.

I know we paid you in advance to hang those doors, and that was our fault. But you took advantage of us and had that money spent before you even hung door one. We had to ride your ass for over a month to get them up, and they're not even done. I swear to go if I ever see you crossing a street, I'm going to swerve and hit you.

Sincerely,
Your Building Manager.

To The Lady At Church With The Staring Problem:

Ma'am, I do realize that I have a mohawk, and that I'm in a house of worship. But God doesn't care, so why should you? Does it disrupt your prayer, your communication with God? No? Good, then stop glancing at me from the corner of your eye. I'm a practicing Catholic just like you, I bring my grandmother here every Saturday- and she's proud to be on my arm- and I am probably the sharpest dressed motherfucker you've ever seen grace these hallowed halls, so stop looking at the top of my head.

Bitch, it's just hair. And I look badass.

Signed,
Your Worst Nightmare, Apparently.


To The Twat At Crapplebees Last Night:

Who the hell do you think you are, cheering for Cleveland? Do you not know you're in New England? I mean, I would stand the cheers for the Yankees, just because geographically it makes a little more sense than cheering for fucking Cleveland. I hope you heard me when my date asked me where I thought you and your party were from and I responded with "Bitchsburg."

I'm all for showing support for your favorite team, but at the excess that you were doing it was uncouth and irresponsible. I would send you a drink to get you to shut up, but I would be too compelled to smash the glass over your head and then kick you in the face as you took to the fetal position.

Sabathia, pfft.

Sincerely,
Red Sox Nation Member 14,098


To My Old Boss:

Hey ******, I want to send you a little note of thanks. Thanks? I know, it seems weird. Don't bother to check this paper for anything suspicious; the topical agents I use would pass a black light and a chromatography test.

Anyway, no I'm extending to you genuine thanks. Your bitchiness, unobtainable high standards, your constant double-speak, the way you tried to befriend me and then when I told you I wouldn't sleep with you because it was unprofessional-attitude gave me the push I needed to excel into a direction that I needed to head in.

I was wasting away behind that desk, in that office. I did nothing all day and never felt I was making an impact on the world or even my local society. I was just a drone, buzzing away in the hive under a malicious and pernicious queen. I hated that job, and I hated getting up every day to drag myself to it. I loved the people I worked with, but I couldn't stand your management style. You're a piss poor leader and I imagine, friendless.

You had a hot daughter though, kudos for that.

So, thanks for pushing me out the door with the boot and having security escort me out of the building in a humiliating fashion. Thanks for making me the topic of rumor in my mother's office across the hall too, might I add. But thanks, truly, for letting me see my true potential.

I hope when that office does finally collapse around you, your death is quick. You deserve that much.

Love,
Your Former Employee.

My Love For Karaoke Bars

Typically I'm not the type of person who loves the spotlight.

No that's a lie. I'm sorry, I didn't take my "truth pill" this morning. I've been running around town telling everyone I'm Andrew Jackson's great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandson. It's been a real mess.

Anyway, there's an amazing facet of American life that I think is all too often shadowed, if not outright ridiculed: The Karaoke Bar.

I know what you're thinking reader "haha, yeah ok, good one, let's all get drunk and yell into microphones all night. I got the first round of scorpion bowls!" No. No you don't and shut up while I tell you why you're wrong and I'm right.

Karaoke is a sport of shameless self promotion and exploitation. Like all sports it takes guts to get out in front of a crowd of people and give it all you got for their adoration and respect. And just like any other sport, if you blow it big, the crowd won't hesitate to let you know from the peanut gallery.

You wipe the sweat out of your eyes, the track (which, because of copyright issues, is always played in an different key) and you glance at the words as they scrawl across the little monitor in front of you. You hesitate, your stomach clenches, the sudden soberness of the situation strikes you due to the fact that this is a song you've selected because of your knowledge of the words- yet can't remember a damn lyric. I mean, you sing it almost everyday in the car on your way to work; this all seemed like such a good idea twenty minutes ago when you signed up. Now you're looking down the barrel of scorn and shame.

"Dontcha wish your girlfriend was hot like me..." comes a voice similar to yours from your own mouth, much to your own shock.

What also makes Karaoke like a sport is the fact that it's televised for our collective pleasure. "American Idol" is in it's 8th (or close to?) generation, and if anyone tells you that "American Idol" and the Karaoke night down at your local pub are different, you tell them to shut the fuck up, because they aren't. In fact, where else can you go to watch assholes screech out warble-y versions of your favorite tunes? Half the fun of both "American Idol" and Karaoke night is seeing how awful the people are. No one gives a shit for the mediocre masses that make up the bulk of both venues, because they're nameless, faceless entities that leave no impression. But we always remember the winners and the losers.

Who was that semi-retarded Chinaman from a few years ago? That motherfucker put out a Christmas album- I shit you not. And we all remember Kelly Clarkson, The fat black guy, that chick who looks and sounds like Lianne Rhymes, and the other chick who apparently couldn't read, if I remember correctly.

It's the same at Karaoke night; you watch a few people go through who have the bare minimum of talent and it's boring. But everyone once in a while you get someone who's really good, who maybe sings in your local church's choir or took lessons when they were in high school. And if you're really lucky, you get some inebriated fool who thinks he can harmonize to "Three Times a Lady." He has a pack of smokes rolled into his Ted Nugent' Live in '95'-concert t shirt, his jeans are tar stained, his lungs are beer stained, and he lets loose a salvo of off-tune notes from his beer belly, while showering the mic with gobs of partially digested food and spittle.

All of that, for the price of maybe two beers? It's almost as if I'm ripping off the bar.

My favorite song to sing at the bar? I'm glad you asked. If I could sing at all, it'd be Cory Heart's "Sunglasses at Night," but that's a little too emo-ish. I think songs at Karaoke night need to be fan favorites that everyone knows and can sing along with. The last thing you should do is sing a song from some indie-label, underground hipster band no one but you and your shitty friends have heard of. You can never go wrong with a classic rock selection, just make sure it's between two and three minutes, because much longer than that and you'll probably bore/drive the crowd into a riot with your awful rendition.

Another Do: Feel free to get into the crowd and walk around, sing to people sitting at tables if the mic cable stretches that far. This not only get the crowd more into your performance, but it also shows that you know the words and aren't anchored down by the monitor.

Don't: Drink and sing. Like drinking and driving, you're only going to manage to spill your drink all over yourself, and when holding a live mic, that can be bad for every one.

Don't: Do an encore. One song per night is enough.

Do: Take requests. See what people want to hear, feel out the crowd. As demonstrated in the 1980 film "The Blues Brothers" when the Band played a gig at some shit-kicker joint out in the wilderness, they nearly got killed by playing "negro music." Quickly, Jake and Elwood changed their sound to a more honky-tonk flavor for their audience. So take heed when selecting a song to perform, unless you like the idea of being dragged out into the woods chained to the back of a pick-up truck, and brutally raped by moonlight.

The Move

I've been toying around with the idea of getting rid of my Myspace.com account for probably about a year now. It started out as a thought, and then kinda bloomed into this whole ambitious undertaking that you see before you now.

My reasons for leaving myspace (for the second time) are far and wide: I was mostly tired of having to delete armies of cambot friend requests, the massive amounts of ads taking up space along the boarders of my home page, the frequent site crashes. I was pretty much disgusted with the site as a whole, from the people I would randomly come across and their shitty pages which made my urethra burn when I took the actual time to read what little they had to say; from fifteen year olds in parent's bathrooms wearing nothing but underwear, to creepy forty year olds sitting in front of their computer's web cam with goofy, sadistic looking grins on their faces, I had enough.

It was the cesspool of social networking sites. It was too big. It ballooned like a grotesque glutton, literally over two hundred-million pounds in size. The only thing that can save Myspace is self destruction. Tom needs to push the red button.

As I said before, this isn't the first time I've left myspace out of utter disgust. I left back in the summer of 2006 for a period of about ten weeks. I wanted to get away from the site for the above mentioned reasons and found it no longer useful to my day to day life.

But I went back, inexplicably; even now I can't imagine why I would've gone back. Maybe because people loved my writing and I had no other outlet that would let me write and post my pictures (both self portraits and random things, ad nauseum). Maybe I needed the attention? I'm not saying that I don't still need those things, I mean, c'mon people, this is me we're talking about. I just no longer want to piss in the same pool as hundred of millions of scrotes.

Call me an elitist. Whatever.

So I moved to Facebook, and started this new blog because Facebook doesn't support long drawn out ramblings filled with mixed metaphors and references to pharmaceutical abuse. I'm going to try to find a way to link both of these things together with some sort of feed or rss link, whatever, so I can keep fans informed of when I post.

Also, I took liberty in bringing over last months posts. Originally I wanted to bring over all my old articles so people could browse through at their leisure, especially after I'm gone off to training, but I hadn't realized how big my old blog was. And there was a lot of crap in their I didn't feel like re-visiting.

So below, there's maybe 5 or 6 recent posts, just to give this thing some momentum. Keep an eye out for new updates, maybe twice a week-maybe more, maybe less. And if you're on facebook, feel free to look me up.

Trends of the Last Century Present: ESPN

If you're like me, between the years of being in middle school and up until now, ESPN's been apart of your morning. You might leave it on in the background as you go through your morning routine of getting coffee and getting dressed. Also if you're like me, you've probably noticed how different ESPN's become over the years.

ESPN sucks now.

Sadly it's true, from the top down, the "World-Wide Leader in Sports" has a heavy crown to bear, and I believe the weight is slowly breaking the network's own neck.

Gone are the days of Rich Eisen (The NFL Network) and Keith Oberman (MSNBC's "Countdown with Keith Oberman) manning the helm of SportsCenter, cutting through highlights with one liners that you'd take to school or to the office with you and use all day. What we're left with is the one leftover from those days, Stewart Scott - an analyst as lazy as his own left eye.

It's true, the analysis of ESPN's desk people is shallow and uninspired at best. I routinely watch "Baseball Tonight" with Chris Burman and his panelists, and listen to the scraped-together facts provided by some statitician in the bowels of the ESPN Complex in Bristol, CT. For instance, "Baseball Tonight" panelist, and former first baseman John Kruk grunted and pushed out this gem a few nights ago:

"The Red Sox have such strong hitting in the middle of their line up with Ortiz, Ramierez and Lowell. You can't pitch around Ortiz without having to face the power of Manny or Mike Lowell's ability to bring in runs."

What the hell is that? I'm not getting anything that I couldn't readily figure out for myself by browsing the stat section of my local sports page.

I don't necessarily blame ESPN though, I think the problem mostly lies in the fact that ESPN has gotten too big. Literally, the network is a monster, and it has to be, because they claim to be the "World-Wide Leader of Sports" and that means something. That means, if there's a cricket match in Bombay, ESPN's there. If there's F1 Racing in Germany, ESPN's there. If there's women's basketball playoffs, ESPN2's there. They even cover competitive eating, I shit you not.

So with all this coverage, of course analysis has to be shallow. The longest SportsCenter of the week comes on for two hours on Sunday. After all the highlights, score updates and recaps, the obligatory interview with some sports writer from some local town where something's happening, and a soft feature piece with some retiring college coach/NFL star giving back to his crack-addeled community/recently outed gay high diver, there's little room left over for in-depth sports analysis.

Of course if you're a fan of a huge, well known team say as the Red Sox or Yankees, The Patriots or Eagles, Tony Stewart or Tiger Woods, sure there's going to be just enough coverage of your team to sustain you. But what if you're a Padre's fan? Or a Bangels fan? Or a proud follower of the Montreal Canadiannes? You're just shit out of luck.

Also, the rest of the line up at ESPN are these adversarial topic shows, such as "Pardon The Interuption" or PTI as it's referred to, where two assholes scream over each other to the tick of a clock counting down before they have to move on to the next subject. It's literally like taking two drunks from a bar, giving them a list of talking points, and running an egg timer. I should also mention that they have two or three other shows that use this same format, one of which lovingly comes with a mute button (Around The Horn), thank god.

Again, if I want to watch a pack of dickheads yell at each other, over each other, about today's sports topics, I'll grab a stool down at Mulligan's, where someone will eventually get punched in the side of the head, and no one's wearing a pretentious-looking suit.

I really wish ESPN would back it down a bit. Not everything in the sports world needs 24/7 coverage. If you miss a Busch Series race or a college football game here and there, so what? Don't bear the burden on yourselves, hand off some to the local area sports networks like NESN or New England Sports Network (that is, if you're reading this and live in New England). I'm sure other regions have similar networks in place.

Go back, ESPN, to your roots of just doing highlights with witty commentary. Get rid of the college interns/boss's sons who sit behind their desk on set and read from the paper, sounding as if they're actually reading from a paper. Put a little heart into the shows you're putting on the air. And for the love of Christ, no one cares about those soft little feature pieces on the handicapped karate instructor or the Iraq War Vetrans Vollyball League.

Turn back before it's too late.

Etiquette Enforcement: The Gym

I've been spending an inordinate amount of time at the gym lately. I've probably mentioned this about a hundred times in the last few posts, so I'll spare you the details on how much time exactly I've been lifting. However, as I'm lifting, I wouldn't be me if I wasn't observing human interaction and behavior. So for you, the reader, I've broken out some rules that may or may not be in existence, to help facilitate a more productive and comfortable self-improvement session at your local trendy gymnasium.

1. Don't Be A Dick:
I can't stress this enough. No one likes a dick, not even the most semen stained pornstars. What people like a lot less is the dick at the gym. The dick is the guy wearing the tight Underarmor t shirt and leggings, bench pressing too much weight without a spot and letting everyone know in earshot because he'll be grunting through his hernia. He slams weights, yells and never wipes down benches and equipment when he's done, leaving a sweaty puddle/hand print every where he goes. When he's resting between sets, he's giving "pointers" to other gym goers on how their technique is off. He knows all about "isolating" certain muscle groups, and even though you've got earbuds in, he still talks to you in the middle of your set. The dick is no one's friend.

2. Don't Rest On The Equipment:
Even I do this, and I really try not to. Resting on the equipment, especially when you're at the gym during busy hours, is like being the selfish three-year old at day care hogging the 'good' blocks. If you notice someone hovering around, and they may not be right on top of you, get up and stretch. If they come over and ask to work in, let them. So what? You're going to rest between sets anyway, might as well let someone else get their work out done in a timely manner.

3. Change Back Settings:
If someone does allow you to work in between their sets, be the cool kid and set their weight and seat settings back to where they were at before you sat down. The seat settings might be tricky, but if you change them drastically, try to put it back as close as possible. Take note of what weight they were using, and set it back to that weight when you're done your set. They'll be sure to set yours back for you in return.

4. Wipe Down The Equipment:
As aforementioned, no one likes to sit in someone else's sweaty leavings. Nothing is less attractive than grabbing a handhold or bar or whatever, and seeing a big sweaty paw print on it. No one likes to climb up on the treadmill and see it soaked in your spray. So take a few seconds, get a towel, and wipe it down before the next guy uses it.

5. Be a Good Spotter:
If someone asks you to spot them, be a good spotter by being attentive and encouraging. Someone's trusting you to make sure they don't get hurt, so in the very least pull the plugs out of your ears and be focused on them. It's ok to give them encouragement as well, but watch what you say. Acceptable words or phrases would be "c'mon up", "go, push", or "almost there." Unacceptable words or phrases would be something like "Yeah baby, push it up there" and "Mmm yeah feel it, dig deep" because you'd sound like a total fag.

6. Eye Contact:
Don't make it with anyone. Ever. Especially if you're spotting them.

7. The Opposite Sex:
In 2007, chicks go to the gym too. It's usually considered poor taste to try to flirt with someone at the gym because we're all supposed to be there to be working out, not hooking up. But if someone does catch your eye (and on that, don't stare. A casual glance is acceptable), either if you're a guy or a girl, it's ok to talk to them in a non-threatening way. Bring up something about the excersise you're doing and ask how you can improve on it - ask for tips. Do not try to inform them of what they're doing. No one likes unsolicited advice. And wait until their done their set. If the other party is receptive, then take it from there as you normally would. If they kinda brush you off, because they're at a gym and not at a bar, walk away and get back to work.

Remember guys, you're basically looking at a chick as she would appear during rough doggystyle sex. Be a gentleman and try not to point that out as an ice breaker.

8. Cell Phones:
Most gyms today have policies restricting cell phone use on their property, so adhere to this. If your gym doesn't have a policy in place, do not, and I repeat, do not use your phone in the gym area. If you have to make/take a call do it outside. It's annoying for one, to have to listen to someone on the phone while you're working out, two how do I know you're not taking a picture of me while I look like I'm engaging in rough doggystyle sex? I don't.

9. Know your limits:
Don't push it. Grunting isn't sexy nor is leaving the gym on a stretcher because you've blown your testicles through your scrotum. No one likes to have to stop in mid set to save your ass because you had too much pride to ask for a spot. Also, no one likes to have to slow down their set to watch you struggle with weight that's too much for you to handle, in case you drop a bench bar across your throat. My tip for picking the best weight to work out with: Go up to an easy weight, where it's no problem for you to do ten reps, then simply add five to ten pounds to that weight. You'll have just enough resistance to build muscle without looking like a jackass who's trying too hard. No one's impressed, because no one's looking at you. Trust me.

10. Being a Regular:
If you find yourself at the gym more than three times a week, it's safe to say you've established yourself as a regular. Being a regular is nice because you get to know the people at the gym. But don't let it go to your head and turn you into a dick. Gyms are public places, open to whoever want to join. Remember, you were once the new guy that people wondered about too. If you notice someone new and they seem to be lost or confused by the equipment, no one says you can't walk up and introduce yourself. Ask if there's anything they need help with, or just offer a spot if they need one later. Having a friend at the gym is helpful and prevents you from looking like a total tool who lifts too much.

I hope these tips help give you some insight into behavior, acceptable and unacceptable, at your local gym. I can only educate, it's up to you guys to put it into practice.

Fear and Loathing at The Fryburg Fair

Nothing sits in the hearts of Americans, both your rural hayseed hick and your most jaded urbanite than the country fair. Something about the air, the animals, the crowds, the cotton candy and candy apples makes a collective of Americans jostle about with smiles pasted to faces as if we're all standing in the Free Hand Job Line behind the Denny's in Portland.

I wake up early and make myself breakfast, and then take to the road towards the hamlet of Fryeburg, Maine, it's only claim to fame is this fucking fair. But this isn't just a run of the mill, country-of-Maine-country fair, this is THE fair. This fair makes all other fairs in this state look like the cheap asbestos-stuffed stuffed animals hanging from the overhead displays of the crooked games that line the midway. The Fryeburg Fair is the gem of fairs in an otherwise mud puddle of competition.

Shortly after 930 Sunday morning I arrive in town, navigated by a Garmen computerized GPS device that I borrowed from a friend. I name the voice Meredith for some reason, and on my trip through rural backroads lined with red and orange foliage, the occassional wild turkey, banjo-plucking inbred, I'm instructed on distances before turns, direction of turns, all while a helpful orange citrus-colored display scrolls by, at center a red arrow indicating my presence in the all seeing eye that is the satellite looking down. I follow the directions as Meredith speaks them to me, and soon I'm paying five dollars to a rough-looking biker type in a leather vest and kahki-colored cargo shorts.

"Oh man," he starts in after we exchange early morning pleasantries. He smells like Parliment tobacco and after shave. "Yesterday was awful, what a mess. You picked a good day to come. People were getting pissed and trying to leave all at the same time. What a mess," he continues on. I watch his mouth move from behind my sunglasses and nod along in the right places. I turn my head to the side a little and fish-eye him, yet he still keeps talking. I wait for my change from the 20 dollar bill I gave him.

He guides me to a spot up front, right at the access point. I can't believe how great of a spot it is. No one blocking my egress, should I have to leave in a hurry.

I stash my pistol in the center console and shut down the GPS.

The walk to the fair grounds is short, five minutes tops. I find that traffic is snarled closer to the fair, obviously, as people are sacrificing a few extra dollars more for a spot two hundred yards closer, and five hours longer to get out of. I smirk, knowing the game ahead of the curve. Soon I'm in a parade of converging fair-goers, tourists, leafers, children in crocs with shiny plastic backpacks and juice boxes. Mothers pushing strollers, an inordinate amount of woodland camoflauge sweatshirts and Dale Jr. baseball caps. A man to my front and right spits a jet of black from his mouth into the woods.

Overhead comes the chopping of whirring blades. Jesus Christ! We're under attack! I think to myself. I look skyward and watch an old Sikorski Schweizer fly slow and lazy over head. A sign by the entrance advertizes "helicopter rides" with an arrow pointing to where to go. Throughout the day I would watch this helicopter encircle the fair grounds as if hunting VC amidst the tractor pulls and merry-go-rounds.

I pay my eight dollar entrance fee and instantly hand the ticket off to a sentry manning a gate. Literally the ticket stays in my hands for thirty-seven seconds, and brings to mind the point of even buying these tickets in the first place. Seems like an inefficient waste of money and time. I let it go when I see the gluttonous exhibition of hasheries circled literally like wagons defending an indian attack. Cotton Candy, Giant Turkey Legs, Blooming Onions, Soups in Bread Bowls, you name it, they have it. I approach a vendor, wallet in hand.

"What can I get you?" Says the man behind the glass. I look at the menu and exclaim aloud:

"Good god! Three dollars for a corn dog!" My shock is not wasted on the man behind the glass. He rolls his eyes a little and glances back.

"You want one?" I slowly step away, feeling eyes on me, burning holes into my back.

I spend the next few hours drifting from food vendors to animal exhibits. My mother gave me ten dollars to find a catnip pillow for her cats, but I find nothing that is worth spending the money on, so I pocket it for food later.

Nothing really excites me at the fair. There's a menagerie of wares and crafts that are extremely over priced. I can appriciate the artisanship and craftwork that went into a cabinet, but there's no way I can justify spending seventy-five dollars on a "knife caddy" painted in Hydromorphone-induced puke green. There's crystal balls that hang from leather teathers that spin to the slightest touch, intricate designs painted on them. There's wine bottles with Christmas lights in them. Vibrating pillows and super absorbant mops. Men with microphones affixed to their faces harken back to carnivale barkers, pitching their wares to the throngs that slowly shuffle by gawking like rubberneckers at a fatal car accident.

As I step out into the sun, a display catches my eye, and like that I become zombie-bitten like the rest of the horde in the craft house. A man is selling varying types of jerkies. Salted, marinated, sweetened, toughened, bits of chewy-dried meat displayed behind glass. It's in ropes and in sheets. I push my tongue into the corner of my mouth just as a salesperson approaches.

"Would you like to try a sample, sir?" He speaks to me. I pop an eyebrow over my sunglasses and I must grin because he's already got the tub of shredded sample pieces in hand, cover off. I dig in and take out a chip and chew. It tastes like the sole of a used boot fished out of a river. I manage a smile and tell him that it has a "kick," which makes me laugh inwardly, referencing the boot-like taste. He agrees, telling me it's blah-blah-blah marinated and that a rope would cost me three dollars.

"Man, three dollars gets me a whole corn dog," and he looks confused at my statement. I bid him farewell, still gnawing down on the chip of jerky and enter the sunlight.

The bit of jerky sparked my appetite and I find a wagon that sells french fries. A whole tub of fries with cheese costs eight dollars. I nearly choke the carney when I read that a medium soda is three dollars. I get nine dollars in change, take what I would believe would equate to five dollars in napkins and go enjoy my cheesey fries and coke.

After my snack I wander to the Alpaca section. Alpacas are not Llamas, as people often confuse them. There's a difference, and any Alpaca farmer will tell you what those are. But I am not an Alpaca farmer, so they basically look like Llamas, but you'll have to believe me when I tell you they were Alpacas and not Llamas.

I lean over and take a picture of one and a man approaches me.

"They sure are a precious beast," he says. He's about 40ish and in over alls. He picks at his teeth with, no joke, a toothpick that he has parked between his lip and gum.

"Are you the owner of these fine pack animals?" I ask.

"Sure as shit am," he responds with a nod. I nod along as well, feeling the fine Alpaca fur as the beast eats hay from a dispenser.

"How much," I say.

"How much for what? The wool? Well, a sweater's about 50-" he starts.

"No, no. How much for the Alpaca."

"The Alpaca?" He asks. I affirm. "Well, he's not... not for sale, sir" The man says somewhat bewilderedly.

"I know he's not for sale! How much does one cost!"

"Oh, well ok, um, a kid will cost between 1000 and 1500 depending on their genes and the quality of the mother's wool, you see-"

"Do they make good jerky?"

"What?"

"Alpaca jerky. I want to grow and sell Alpaca Jerky." He stares into my black sunglasses for a long time.

"You're a nutty shit, huh?" He says finally.

"Which way to the helicopter rides?" And I'm off on my way.

It's twenty-five dollars for what appears to be a five minute trip around the fair grounds from about five thousand feet. I wait my turn in line and watch as the Sikorski drops in low and fast, never shutting down it's rotors as it drops off and picks up new passengers. There's a minimal ground crew, and it seems to be a purely cash operation. While I wait in line I start to budget out the money made at the Fryeburg Fair for some of these people. This is what I come up with in a round about way of factoring:

If you charge some dickweed local three dollars for a corn dog that costs one dollar, you're making two dollars on every deep friend piece of styrofoam you sell. Plus you're selling soda at 1000% profit. Rental space is probably 1000 bucks for a week, costs for supplies are probably another two grand.

By my estimates these vendors have paid for their rental and supplies in the first day. More so if the weather cooperates.

But by now I've reached the front of the line and the chopper is coming in for a landing. The rotor wash is enough to rock me back in my tennis shoes and an attendant opens the gate and motions me through after taking my money. We duck walk over to the chopper as it sits running' the departing passengers egress from the opposite side, a very efficient operation indeed.

I sit in next to the pilot and put headphones on with a mic attatched.

"You it?" He says in a cowboy-twangy kinda way. I nod and he shuts the door. "We're gonna go up to about 7500, and I'ma swing around the whole grounds, let you see things from up above, ok?" The voice crackles in my ear. I give the thumbs up and we're off into the air.

It's jerky and you can feel the wind against the air-lite frame. Soon we're over trees and there's another jerk as we come out of the verticle climb and move forward. I lean over a bit and look through the glass floor down below.

"It's real nice up here, huh?" The crackle comes back. I nod.

"Good for hunting the VC?" I say back. The pilot is facing forward, stock still. His aviator sunglasses reflecting sunlight in a sunburst against my own dark sunglasses.

"Yeah" comes the delayed response, and suddenly my asshole clenches because I think he's flipped some switch and gone back to the jungle. The rest of the ride is very quiet and full of tension.

We land and I decide to call it a day. I have a turkey dinner and a piece of a friend dough before walking back to my truck. Meredith greets me and I ride home conversing with the robot steering my car.

The Problem With The Top-Whatever of Anything

I find myself driving down some back street in Saco yesterday listening to the classic rock station WBLM, "The Blimp" when something catches my ear.

No, it wasn't a deep cut from Led Zeppelin III, or that tartish bitch Celeste pitching her abomination of a morning show with the once cool Captain, but an advertisement for the radio station's "Top 500 Albums of All Time."

Let me break it down for you: You either go on their website or call in or ... fucking mail in something, breaking down your very favorite classic rock albums of all time, and some fucking intern at the radio station will tally up the votes and I guess the station will pick some weekend coming up where they will break down the list of fucking 500 (that's a five, with two, TWO! zeros...) albums. Now, I doubt they'll play each album in it's entirety because that would take way too long, but I'm sure there will be tracks from each record.

My problem is that radio stations like The Blimp feel that their listeners care about what the ... best 500 classic rock albums are. We don't. We don't even care what the top 100 best albums are. It'd be a stretch at 50, to be quite honest with you. So why are you going through all this bullshit to list out 500 albums?

"Holy shit, Billy Squire came in at 278?!" Someone will say, and then put the barrel of their shotgun into their mouths and kill themselves because life has come to a grinding halt for them. No. No that situation will not occur because this is all meaningless promotional bullshit. The design, on some level, is to get people to do exactly what I'm doing right now, which is talk about the station. Though I'm certain few people are taking the same approach I am. It's most likely like this:

"Wow, did you hear that BLM is going to play the top 500 albums of all time?"

"...No,"

"Well they are."

And there you have it. BLM further shoots itself in the foot by posting the results online, negating the listener from having to sit through everything, which in the end, robs the station of it's core duty, which is getting yokels to sit through poorly acted, tedius advertisements on it's station.

I really hate Top-Whatever Lists, for the same reason I hate Christmas: The beauty and the magic is lost on the actual day, because as comedian Lewis Black suggests, it's all in the anticipation. Christmas time is all about running around and buying gifts for people and waiting for them to open them, at the same time wondering what other people got you. You look at Christmas from Thanksgiving and it's a beautiful mecca on the horizon. Top-Whatever Lists work on the same basic principle. Because when we get to Number 1, we all collectively say:

"The Blizzard of Ozz was the number one album?" The equivelant to getting a pair of fucking wool socks on Christmas Morning.

(Editor's Note: James originally ended the article there, with the Ozzy reference, but then he went on forty-five minute tirade around the office talking about how The Beatles 'Sgt. Peppers' album will likely be number one, and kept crying 'bullshit' and then kicked over a rack of coffee mugs in our break room. He then left the building. If anyone knows how to get in contact with James, let us know. There's a pile of broken mugs, and a busted computer chair the janitorial staff would like to talk to him about.)

New Short Fiction: Minimalist Canada

The sweat in his body smelled richly like cigarette smoke, but his dazed disposition didn't allow him to take that bit of information into his brain. Neuron receptors were effectively blocked from receiving signals like smells, touches, the whole bit. He drove though, endlessly north, he'd been on US Rt 89 for what felt like a week, through it'd been only about two hours.

He felt that if he could share this with anyone, he'd share it with her. The pills he swallowed, two every forty-five minutes – just when the affects would be starting to unhinge and he could feel again – did allow him to take in the rich fall colors that were spreading across the Vermont landscape like the wildfires in California. The switch backs he found himself driving on, narrowly going over a guard rail, displayed god's grace readily. God's grace or a rogue glacier. His brain was too fried to really differentiate between the two ideas.

He chuckled to himself then, the idea of going off the edge of a switch back in northern Vermont seemed to get through the Klonopin and tickle the funny nerve in his brain. He sucked on his Camel and pressed the gas pedal down a little harder, down shifted, and passed a slow moving Honda CRV on the right.

Brian Vicks was twenty-eight, college educated, graduated with a degree in sociology from a decent, but not ivy league, New England school. For the five or so years he was out of school he worked in a variety of different jobs: Court Houses, out-patient clinics, metal shops, printing shops, and two years ago he took a thirteen-dollar-an-hour gig at his local bank branch working at the counter. He didn't think he'd stay more than the usual six months, which was par for Vicks. He was never happy with the idea of working, and he never stayed around long enough to actually feel like he was in a career. He often thought about going back to school for maybe something in law or something that he could actually put to use, other than a degree in sociology, which he only took because it was a pretty easy major and left him a lot of room to bullshit in papers for classes.

But then Brian Vicks got into a horrible car accident, and had to undergo surgery to repair a snapped femur, and a set of shattered ribs. He spent a year out of work going through rehabilitation and developing a hidden, if not crippling, addiction to different flavors of pain killers.

When he returned to work at the bank he learned that two of the senior tellers had retired and quit respectively. Instantly the branch manager elevated Vicks to a senior teller position which had less to do with dealing with the public and more to do with the goings-on behind the scenes with people's money. That lasted about two months when a loan officer's position opened and Brian went in and interviewed for it.

He didn't think he'd have a shot, but much to his surprise about a week later, the branch manager called him at home on his day off and told him if he wanted the loan officer job he could have it. Vicks, who had just taken on a fresh load moments before barely answering his phone, croaked that he'd be thrilled.

He was now making between forty and forty-two thousand dollars a year, and granted his own loan to buy a house on the outskirts of town. He also granted his own loan to buy a new truck, which he was currently driving towards Montreal.

He had asked for about two weeks off after working tirelessly for the last fourteen months. That morning he took two bottles of pills, each with two hundred count of his favorite pain killers, packed a light bag with a change of clothes, passport, money, a paperback book, digital camera and an extra prescription pad that he'd stolen from a doctor's office a few months ago when he went in for a check up. That's how he got his pills you see. He'd been "weaned" off from prescription pain killers over a year ago, but his addiction ran too deep. He tried at first to drown it with booze, but it wasn't the same feeling. He hated feeling weighed down by the alcohol; that boot on top of his head slowly pushing him down into the earth. With pills he had the same slowed responsiveness and floaty feeling, without the hangovers. With the pills, the anxiety of life would just fizzle away and slowly seep back into the picture. And when it did, he just swallowed another handful of the white chalky pills and returned to a blissful existence where the lens had a careful smudge of Vaseline around the outside edge.

He'd never been to Montreal and so that was the draw. His friends told him that it was a fun time, the girls were hot and flirty, the food was good, and people generally treated Americans like retarded school children: condescendingly nice. He just wanted to get away from his existence in a way the pills couldn't do it for him. He needed to see new scenery and different people. The faces of the people he saw every day were enough to drive him to blow his brains out in the back of his new home.

He routinely turned the same people down for loans from the bank. That was his job, that's why he got picked to be the new loan officer. The same sorry sack of shit would walk into his office, sit down across from his impressive oak desk, hat in hand and plead for help. It was always the same story, just with different components involved.

"Gee sir," they'd start nervously, already knowing what the outcome of this charade would be in the parking lot, sitting in their rusted out fifteen year old car that wouldn't pass it's next inspection. "We could really use about five thousand dollars to fix up our place. You see, we need a new roof, the one we have now leaks like a sumabitch – excuse me – and the furnace don't always kick on, and winter's comin' and the kids – " and they always paraded the kids in front of him. They always came with pictures of grubby faced, dirty-shirt-wearing children sitting in a dirt pile playing with trucks. They'd mostly be shoeless but gleeful. Vicks always thought that if it weren't for the pills, he'd probably have quit the position by now.

Because it was always no, that was the answer. He'd go through the motions, even if it was the same people every week. He'd dig into their credit history, he'd go through their work history, he'd even look into how much they spent on groceries every week and the answer was always no. It was too risky for the bank, and he even had his own rejection speech memorized by rote to tell these people. He sounded like a broken record, like a denial-bot set on automatic.

"The bank can't give you the loan Mr/Mrs whoever, because we just feel that it's too risky of an investment for us. We need to make money on the interest you're paying us back, and we feel, based on your finances, you wouldn't be able to make the minimum loan payments," and he'd stare through them, at some point in the wall behind them, passed their broken hearts and crushed egos.

Yes he sometimes got death threats in the mail, on his office voice mail, and it was always readily identifiable. He'd just dealt with the people and likely they were calling from the road or even the parking lot on pre-paid track phones, telling him he'd "regret it" or they'd "see" him "soon." He went through the usual motions and reported the threats to the police, who would or wouldn't take action. All he knew was what his boss, the branch manager told him when he first took the position.

"It's tough work Brian, you're gonna say no to some really hard-up people, and they're not always going to want to take no for an answer…" and then Vicks faded out from the conversation. The pills working their magic like always, whisking him away from a harsh scene that was his reality. He giggled at the thought of "harsh scene" like he was some hippie.

He was about ten minutes from the boarder, where I-89 became Canadian 133. He finished his cigarette and took a quick glance in his rearview mirror to make sure he didn't look too stoned out of his mind to not pass customs. The last thing he wanted some was Nazi boarder agent with a sense of self-entitlement to go rummaging through his shit, killing his buzz, making him sweat more than he had to.

He was fine, at least so he thought. With the pills in his system it was hard to keep track of thoughts. It made him feel stupid but he'd soon forget that too. He fiddled for a rock station on the radio, tired of his cds he burned for the trip and came across 97.7 the "CHOM" or something to that affect, Montreal's Classic Rock Station, the radio said at him. He thought for a second that he should invest in one of those fancy satellite radio rigs so he wouldn't have to fiddle with radio knobs, but then forgot about it too.

He crested a small hill and came upon a very official looking structure that seemed to sprout from no where in the wilderness. He took his foot off the gas pedal and the truck, a rather large truck, seemed to slow with it's own weight. He sweated a little and loosened up the collar on his shirt, pushing his sleeves up to the middle of his forearms. One of the nasty side effects of the pills, that over time he'd gotten used to, was his bladder would become so full it'd be painful. And it'd be at very inopportune times that he'd need to empty it. But with being hooked for over a year, he'd develop an early warning system, a little tick that would let the rest of him know he was about five minutes away from pissing himself.

He'd had one nasty accident during a loan meeting where he wet himself from behind his desk. He didn't see it coming and right during a prospective borrower's speech he let loose in his trousers. He tried to not notice the smell of his own urine in a puddle under him, but the pills had just worn off at the same time he let go, and the stank dry smell for something so wet filled his office. The man across from him stopped not in mid sentence, but in mid word and looked at Vicks. Vicks just smiled slowly and didn't even bother to get up, the man let himself out with his hand over his mouth.

It became known at that point that Brian Vicks had a problem with incontinence.

If you asked his co-workers or even his boss, no one would suspect that Vicks was addicted to pills. They just thought he was a little eccentric or forgetful. One or two of the newer tellers, young girls fresh out of college were hip to the idea that he was probably on something, but never narc-ed him out to any of the other bank employees. And besides, they both would occasionally hang out with him if they had days off together, and all get high at his place.

At the boarder there's toll booths, but you have to stop about five meters from the actual booth while the person manning the booth takes your photograph. This for some reason made Vicks nervous, and he could feel his bladder at it's straining point. He waited with his foot pressed into the brake pedal, his other leg twisted against himself, trying to trap the end of his dick between his thighs, as if to physically pinch it off. The guard in the booth then motioned with her hand for him to drive up.

He slowly approached, feeling the sweat trickle down into his eyes. He removed his Ray-Ban sunglasses and put on his best professional smile. He glanced at the clock on his radio and saw it read two in the afternoon. Licking his lips he said,

"Good morning," the boarder agent didn't miss a beat.

"Good morning to you too sir," her accent was heavy Canadian and she had only a slight pleasantness about her. Vicks took a shallow breath through his mouth and wondered to himself what was taking her so long. He figured that as soon as he got clear of customs he was going to pull over and piss all over this hunk of the Great White North. "What brings you to Canada today?"

"Just on vacation," he answered. The sound of his own voice was as if he was yelling across a lake and only able to hear the faint echo. The boarder agent didn't seem all that affected.

"And how long will you be staying?"

"About a day or so," he said, the sweat feeling like it was being applied with a hose. She punched a few things into her computer and then asked to see his ID, and he dug into his bag and produced his passport. He took a look at it, and then at him, and punched a few more things into her computer. She handed it back and told him to enjoy himself. He thanked her and sped off down the road.

About a twenty second mile later, he pulled over to the side of the road, threw the door open and ran into the woods, ripping his jeans open. He reached down into his boxers, produced his dick and sprayed a long yellow jet of piss all over the ground in front of him, sighing out in a near orgasm as he leaned forward on a pine tree. Every muscle in his body seemed to relax and constrict at the same time, and a wave of nausea hit him and while he was pissing he managed to puke all over the place too.

He changed his clothes outside of the truck, throwing his soiled clothing into the woods, dousing off with a bottle of water he'd been sipping on.

He immediately popped two new pills and drove off up 133 North towards Iberville and Montreal.

He knew a girl in Montreal, her name was Marie and they met on the internet. They'd become close and she kept hinting that she'd like to meet him in real life. He always kinda kept her at arms length, unsure of himself that he would really want her to see him as the person he really was, which in his own mind registered as a pill addicted bed wetter who was a stone faced loan officer for a local bank in his own town. But with the idea of getting away from it all, he thought that why not surprise her. Why not see if she's who she really is. The last thought he had before his world went back to the cotton candy version of things was that she probably had her faults too. We're all human beings, and if anyone could see past anyone else's faults, it was Brian Vicks.

About two miles outside of Iberville, twenty miles south of Montreal, he pulled over at some roadside diner and dialed her phone. He let it ring through until a female voice in French told him that he should leave a message after the tone.

He closed his phone and went inside the diner and sat at the booth towards the back. A hard-faced lesbian of a waitress came up to him and asked him what he wanted in French. He plucked a menu up and tried to read it, but it too was all in French. He set it down and looked up at the waitress who looked impatient and asked for a cheeseburger and fries and a coke. She nodded, not bothering to write anything down. He sat looking out the window, and noticed how much grain they grew out in this part of the world. It looked like the American mid west, with the grain silos dotting the horizon, endless fields of gold at a hundred and 180 degrees. He tried her number again, and still got no answer. This time it didn't even ring, it just went right to voicemail.

He cursed, rubbing his numb face with the flat of his hand, pinching his nose, hearing the clatter of the kitchen, the voice in French. He wondered if they'd spit in his food, but that thought was chased away by the flood of endorphin releasing chemicals. He dug for a cigarette and found a fresh camel, then his lighter and lit up, blowing the smoke roofward.

A moment later the waitress returned and set his food down in front of him. The burger looked raw and the fries were soggy. Distastefully she said something to him which he couldn't quite make out, but when she pointed across the way to a sign that was slightly different than the no smoking signs in America but got the idea across just the same. Vicks plaintively looked for a place to put out his smoke, and found none, so the waitress just plucked it from his fingers and walked out the front door to the porch and smoked it herself.

"Fucking bitch," Vicks cursed under his breath as he lifted the bun off the top of his burger and inspected it for signs of expectorate. He glanced back up at the no smoking sign and marveled at how different it was than the ones in America. But that was the case throughout Canada, things were slightly off kilter. They were almost minimalist in a sense, strangle and unfamiliar. There wasn't a red circle with the line through it, in the middle a cartoon cigarette, what he'd be used to in the US, but instead a picture of a cigarette with a red X over it. No circle, and even the lines that made up the X were inoffensively thin, the cigarette was basically just a white stick with a black scribble for smoke coming out of an end.

Minimalist Canada. And he couldn't even blame the pills this time.

He bit into his burger after putting some ketchup on the meat and replacing the bun. He watched the hard edge waitress finish his camel and pitch the butt into the dirt drive way by his truck. The door jingled when she came back in and she shot him a look that dared him to ask for something else. He'd never so much felt like a stranger in a strange land before, and for that he blamed the drugs. He inspected his coke next, found it to be what he could consider spit-free and sipped from the edge, because there was no straw. He wondered what was going to happen when he paid in American currency.

He finished, leaving a twenty on the table without asking for a bill and got the hell out of there. He was wondering if he was going through a bad trip or not. He had them from time to time, usually when he chased too many pills too close together. The puking in the woods was a good sign that he had too much of the synthetic dopamine and now he was running a cold sweat. He got into his truck and continued north towards the city.

Twice more he tried her number and got nothing. He was developing the shakes and had to pull over anyway to get gas. The sun was starting to set and he thought to himself it might be a good idea to deal with the rural Canadian hicks while he could still see them clearly.

The gas station, again, was something out of a stereotypical American mid-western scene. Only two pumps, dirt driveway, big trucks rumbling by on the road. He pumped forty dollars worth of gas, noticing how it was in litres and not gallons. An older model van packed with middle aged women wearing designer knock-off clothing pulled in behind his truck and he gave them a once over. The driver got out and struggled with getting the hood open. Vicks went inside to pay.

Once inside he picked up a fresh bottle of water and went to the counter to pay. Ahead of him was another French woman, maybe from the van, buying lottery scratch tickets and carrying on with a loose conversation with the 14 year old girl wearing a cheap Guess shirt behind the counter. When he finally got up to the cashier, he told her about the gas and she rung him up for the water too. He thanked her with a heavy American "mercy" and not the stylized sounding Canadian "Merci."

The woman was still struggling with the hood and his pills were wearing off. He cleared his throat behind her and she turned and saw him standing. He motioned towards and hood and silently she stepped aside. He glanced and saw the little yellow button that would release the hood and jiggled it. The hood came free and the woman expressed her pleasure with several "mercies." Vicks smiled and shrugged it off, opening his water and getting back into his truck.

By now, night had fallen and she still hadn't answered her phone. He popped two more pills and sat in his truck on a hill top looking down on the city that was once built to be a fortress. The lights shined so bright because unlike every other American city, this one was purely surrounded by blackness, wilderness, god's unknown country of untamable mystery. His eyes narrowed down as he slipped into a Klonopin sleep, his mouth dry but hanging open.

He had no place to go, but he was in no hurry to get there.