Panera Bread

Yesterday, I finally broke the streak I had going when my mom forced me to eat lunch at Panera Bread. So far, I'd survived in the wild all by my lonesome without ever having actually eaten at Panera. Like I said, that streak was broken as of yesterday. As soon as I walked in, I knew I didn't belong there. The first person I saw standing in line was this stereotypical "coffee house guy." He was wearing leather shoes, boot cut jeans, a flowery long sleeve button-down shirt, black square-rimmed glasses, and had a trendy spiky haircut. It really freaked me out to see that. Then, I ordered.

I got a bowl of French onion soup and half a turkey bacon sandwich. I don't think it's possible for me to feel any more emasculated than I did at that moment. And if that wasn't enough, I stood at the end of their little sandwich assembly line and waited for my food. I swear to you, on all that is holy, those two guys handing out the sandwiches... well, let's just say they probably wouldn't be interested in the hot cash register girl. Mainly because they didn't look like they'd like "her type" (i.e. "someone with no y chromosome"). Yep, they were gayer than a three dollar bill. No there's a phrase I don't understand at all. What exactly is it about a three dollar bill that makes it gay? It couldn't be that it doesn't exist, because there are gay people all over the place. Oh well.

The next thing I noticed is that there was an extraordinarily fat woman rummaging around the pile of newspapers sitting by our table. After a few minutes of cutting out coupons, the fat woman up and left the restaurant! Later, my brother and sister pointed out to me that she had, in fact, just walked in before making a beeline for the newspapers. The woman stole coupons. That's about as pathetic as it gets. I thought I'd only see something like that in a poor neighborhood in Southern California, but not in Colorado Springs.

I've got an idea. Instead of, you know, trying to "help" poor people by forcing them to depend on the government to bail them out, we should just have a mid-century house cleaning and kill every one of them. Every fifty years, we could just take the people whose income is in the lowest ten percent, and chop their heads off. Then, they could be used as an inexpensive source of meat for the next lowest ten percent. Let's face it, those people are going to need all the help they can get for the next fifty years. To compensate for the loss in pure population, we'd just have to force all those blue-staters to start having kids. That should more than make up for it.

Eighth Grade "Continuation"

I just got back from my younger brother's "continuation" from eighth grade. "You see, the word 'graduation,' while still a perfect fit for what we're doing, just isn't funky enough for today's on-the-edge youth." That was a paraphrase of the principal's explanation for why we should give two craps about anything she says... Wait. What? That's not what I meant. Sorry. I was thinking about something else... Anyway, that was the principal's explanation for calling it a continuation. OK, not really, but trust me, mine was better than her lame-ass excuse. I bet it's just because no one on staff knew how to spell "graduation." I mean, come on. You don't get stuck teaching middle school English in Monument, Colorado if you know how to spell them fancy-schmancy words like "congrats" and "2005." The high quality we've come to expect from our public school system shone through today when I found myself cheering for Trevor Mofo and Pimp Jackson, due to the unintelligible distortion in the speakers. Whatever your real names are, good luck in that great social experiment we call "high school."

But seriously, though. Congratulations, Jacob. You're my most favoritest youngest brother in the whole wide neighborhood. And world.

10,000 Baby!

No, that's not "10,000 babies!" Why would I write that? I don't even like babies. They're just grumpy old men trapped in cute little packages. Seriously; they can't walk, talk, bathe, feed themselves, or go to the bathroom. Sounds like an old man to me. Anyways... Movin' on. Yesterday, the lifetime hit count on this blog rose to over 10,000. That's right. In just about seven months, I've had more than 10,000 separate hits! Sweet! It makes me proud that there are so many people out there who just happened to stumble on this site. Well, either that, or I have about nine friends who do nothing but read my blog. I'm guessing it's a moderate combination of both. It's obvious you people need to get out more. So, I've decided to put together a list of things that are a much better use of your time:

1. Lighting tennis balls on fire. It may seem kinda stupid, but trying to actually play a game with flaming tennis balls is pretty sweet.

2. Watching lots and lots of tv. There's no telling the wealth of knowledge that awaits you. It's all just a few remote clicks away. You can learn how to cook a delicious meal in thirty minutes, discover the possibility of building a bridge across the Atlantic, watch undereducated "repressed" ethnic minorities repeat crappy lyrics to a tribal beat, catch reruns of thirty-year-old sitcoms... The possibilities are endless.

3. Go swimming. Swimming rocks. It rocks so much, I'm not even going to write anymore about it. I'm going swimming.

4. Read a book. There are tons of great books out there. Some of the ones that don't have pictures are OK, too.

5. Play croquet. Quite an underrated game.

6. Go tanning. There's no quicker way to get sexified.

7. Take a cue from Kevin McCallister. Build traps in your house from everyday common household items. Who knows? Maybe Joe Pesci will show up in your neighborhood looking for trouble. He hasn't been in a decent film in quite a while...

8. Paint an abstract sef-portrait. Translation: just splash some paint around on an empty canvas. You could probably get some jackass blue-stater to pay you thousands of dollars for it.

9. Invent your very own branch of martial arts. If you write a book about it, you'll be getting royalties from those right-wing survivalists up in Michigan for the rest of your fat, happy life.

10. Invent something. I'm sure there are a few more applications of duct tape those idiots haven't found yet.

11. Write a poem. Or a play. Or a short story. Anything. Maybe even start your own blog. I tell ya, it's quite a catharsis. Well, that is, if you actually know people are reading it.

Punks

Everywhere I look, there are guys dressed up like the faux-punk, wannabe-goth, emo jackasses they are, and they've got women all around them. OK, what's the deal with that? Is there something inherently sexy about a guy who mines the late 80's for an "original" style? "Look at me! Aren't I cool? It's obvious that I'm the first person EVER to steal a look from a bygone era and call it my own. I'm a depressed teenager. Instead of taking it out on my parents like normal people, I've decided to take it out on myself. That's right. I'm punishing myself by wearing the most hideous clothes I could possibly find in my older sister's closet." Yeah, that'll teach us well-adjusted people to make fun of your clearly disturbed behavior. Stick it to us.

OK, so you know I hate those emo freaks, but that's not really what this post is about. I'm wondering just how it is that these unoriginal teens who wouldn't know real angst if it manually castrated them can have so many girls following them around. For some reason, I was raised to believe girls didn't like to hear a guy complain more than Oscar the Grouch on a wicked hangover.

Girls who like regular guys with a somewhat dark sense of humor and a very well-adjusted outlook on life, where are you? Show yourselves! Trust me, it's in your best interest to let the world know you're still out there. Otherwise, the only type of guy you're going to run into is one who wears pants that are tighter than yours and writes such amazingly angst-filled lyrics as:

"This girl that I liked, well, she doesn't like me back. I'm so depressed, I think I'll move back into my parents' house and wait for the trust fund to kick in. Life is so hard. Now I can't find my bottle opener. Guess God doesn't want me to drink. I'll have to drown my sorrows in a roll of pre-made cookie dough and a 16-hour M*A*S*H marathon."

80% of the people who read this initially won't be able to tell if these lyrics are made up or real.

They're real.

No Effin' Way

I was at the mall recently when I was brutally accosted by an alarmingly persistent lotion saleswoman. She singled me out in a group of several guys, which really pissed me off, and said, "Would you like to try a new hand lotion?" I looked right back at her and said, "No, thanks. I'm a GUY." Apparently, this saucy little tart had no plans of backing down. She shot back at me with, "You know, lots of guys use lotion." At this point, she was completely behind me, because I hadn't broken my gait or slowed down at all. I turned around and said, "No guys I'm gonna want to hang out with." Man, that lady really made me mad. I don't want your stupid effin' lotion, you jerk. Instead, how 'bout you choke on it? That way, we both win. You don't have to go home and realize that you're selling lotion to guys at the mall for a living, and I never have to see you again. I can't see a downside.

Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge Of The Sith

I just woke up (at about 11:15 am) after getting home around 4:00 am from a midnight showing of the sixth and final chapter (that's right, Chris) in George Lucas' space saga. What a ride it's been. Mr Lucas has taken us from the low-budget beginnings of A New Hope to the darkness and unbelievable revelation of The Empire Strikes Back, to the (we thought) finality of Return Of The Jedi, then finally through one REALLY crappy movie, one moderate movie, and one final movie that has actually earned the right to join the rest of the Star Wars saga as a worthy addition. I'm not saying Episode III was perfect. Far from it.

Natalie Portman, for all the great work she's done in non-Star Wars movies, seems to have found her anti-muse in George Lucas. The man seriously seems to bring out the worst in her. I went into this film expecting to want to kill myself every time Hayden Christiansen opened his mouth. Remarkably, he was tolerable, even DECENT at some points in comparison to Portman's terrible, TERRIBLE delivery. Aside from any time Portman was on screen, I have to say I liked, and at some times even loved Revenge of the Sith. The lower-echelon bad guys were good, and the Emperor, played by the incomparable Ian McDairmid, was AWESOME.

It was actually a lot of fun just to be there for one of the first few dozen showings of the movie in the entire time zone. Some of the nerds in one particular row got together and decided to do the wave. Apparently, there were more people there with actual lives than I would have initialy guessed. The nerds in that row started yelling up at us, trying to get the whole theater to join in on their awesome timed routine of standing up and sitting down. One particularly sad looking uber-nerd yelled, "Come on, guys. Send it back!" One guy about five seats away from me screamed back at him, "Screw you!"

Other than that "dissenting" attitude, the place definitely had atmosphere. Some guys brought a bunch of beach balls, which we hit around the theater for what felt like nearly an hour before the movie started. It got cut short, though, by the fuzz. The manager, who bore a striking resemblance to the Baldwins, came in and screamed something about the fire alarms, then picked up all the balls and walked out. For such an obvious nerd, he seems to have a lot of aggression built up toward some of the lesser nerds in the audience. He also busted five or six guys for lightsaber-dueling at the front of the theater. Way to go, dude. You up for that promotion yet? Because the way you handled those harmless 14-year-olds wearing horse-printed light gray bathrobes with your badass managerial skills was wicked cool!

Everything I Know About Love, I Learned From The Movies

As I was sitting down to a nice dinner with my family, it dawned on me that most of what I think I know about love, dating, and romantic relationships, I know from the movies. Why that revelation came to me at dinner rather than during a movie or makeout session is beyond me (hey, cool it; I can hear you snickering from here). I decided to put together a list of everything I've learned about love from the movies:

1. All men who seem to get a lot of women are always perceived as being arrogant jerks, then the woman learns that he is, in fact, the only person who really "gets her."

2. Sex should be expected after three dates.

3. If you're a woman who is at a critical time in your career and your romantic life, the guy you're already engaged to is no good. Why can't you see that? Instead, you should seek out the quiet guy friend you've had since you were eight. He's the one for you.

4. All physically inept men can be taught to dance well enough to impress ANY woman within a period of ten minutes.

5. All women want to get married.

6. There is no man who wants to get married.

7. Hitting is good.

8. No matter how badly you screw things up between you and your date, if you're really meant to be together, you'll end up kissing in the hall outside your apartment.

9. Funny and charming men ALWAYS get hot women.

10. You know that "twitterpated" feeling you get at the beginning of a relationship? Yeah, well, as soon as that goes away, you should get divorced.

11. A solid, honest, meaningful relationship can easily be established through nothing but eye contact at a party, even though you're both already there with other people.

12. If there seems to be a force keeping you apart, it's probably a jealous friend. Interrogate ALL of them.

13. As long as there's physical chemistry, she can be as dumb as a post, and he can be the meanest bastard alive, and they'll still be able to "make it work."

14. In the eyes of every straight male, all lesbians are hot.

15. If your fiancee's ex-boyfriend shows up in town, just cancel the wedding, my friend, because she's going to end up with him, and there's not a thing you can do about it. (Apparently, all women are fickle, gold-digging whores who are only redeemed by their last-minute choice to go with "true" love.)

Let me just say that, if ANY of my real-life relationships ever had a single one of these characteristics, I'd be gone in a second, because that means she watches as much tv and movies as I do.

Summer!

Last night, I walked into my room and, for the first time, I smelled summer. I don't know what it is. Whether it's the smell of grilled meat, clear air, freshly cut grass, or just whatever's on the roof of my house, I love it. I love everything about summer in Colorado. It can get really nice during the day, and it always cools down as soon as the sun goes down. Summer rocks. I love hanging out with my friends, not having to bring a heavy coat or the four-wheel-drive car whenever I go somewhere, barbequing, playing kickball, etc... It's all good. Then, you've got the fourth of July. Fireworks, parades, barbeque. 'Nuff said. The best part about the fourth of July is the fact that you don't have to get anybody presents. No gifts of any kind. It's all just eating and watching fireworks. Suh-weet.

Failed Post Ideas

I get so many crappy ideas for posts on this blog, it's amazing I actually end up getting a good one about once a week. You see, the not-quite-so-crappy-as-to-merit-deletion quality posts are all still up here. The REALLY crappy ones, however, get filed away in my archives (read: a notebook next to my TV). Here are some actual post ideas that were just too crappy for words:

Why cockroaches suck.

The secret lives of dogs.

Diet Coke is for overweight grandmothers and wussy little faggots.

The gift of writing is like the gift of gab, minus all the spontaneity and eye contact.

The other side of the story: Satan got a raw deal.

Oprah sucks, and if you like her, I hate you.

If chess is the game of kings, then sign me up for jester.

If you like the show "Sheer Dallas," then I think it's considered a hate crime for me to make fun of you.

Dr. Phil learned how to suck from Oprah.

There. It feels good to get those out of my system. I promise you'll never have to hear anything from any of those abandoned posts. That stuff is gone forever.

Bill Of Rights

It seems that "women's rights" is quite a controversial topic in America today. I'm sure that right now, somewhere in a blue state, there's some woman who's fighting the good fight, trying to get women their Gaia-given rights. Well, to save her the time, I've decided to write up my very own Women's Bill of Rights (ladies, you're welcome):

1. All women have the right to emasculate ANY man, at ANY time, in ANY location. (Due to the negative connotation carried by the word "emasculate," and coupled with the wholly accurate nature of its use here, this first right will be henceforth known as "empowerment.")

2. All women have the right to work away from the home just as long as their husbands. (Let's face it, it'll actually end up being a blessing to just bring home KFC every night. You know, because eventually, the extra cost you would have normally incurred with medical and dental bills, clothing, food, and college, can go toward a vacation in Aruba after your morbidly obese child dies of a heart attack at his ninth birthday party.)

3. All women have the right to completely exclude all men from any decision involving the design or layout of a room or house. (This is a natural right, given the fact that all men have no sense of design, as demonstrated by such dreck as the Sistine Chapel, the Arc de Triomphe, the Eiffel Tower, Michelangelo's David, the Colosseum, St Peter's Basilica, and the Grand Canyon (Because God is obviously a man). Terrible. Just terrible.)

4. All women have the right to accuse any man of sexual harassment. (Obviously, men are the only one of the two parts of the sexual union necessary for procreation who actually have any sort of impulse to have sex. Women, on the other hand, are simply doing their duty to the Party.)

5. All women have the right to hit all men. (Clearly, since men didn't cry at "The Notebook," they have no central nervous system to speak of. Hit away, sister.)

And there you go. Just a few of the natural rights of what generally considers itself to be the greatest gender in the history of all bipedal mammals.

"I Just Hate You So Much."

Honestly, have you ever wanted to say that to someone? Yeah, sure, we're "not supposed to hate anyone," but really, you know you've wanted to. Even just as a joke. You know, like just walk up to someone you've seen around but never actually spoken to in your whole life, stare them straight in the eye, and tell them you hate them "so much." I think it'd be kinda funny. Seriously, say it to a friend of yours, and I DARE you not to smile. It can't be done. Amazing, isn't it? Something that sounds so terrible on paper actually sounds funny when you say it out loud. Guess it's one o' dem ironical things.

Star Wars Vs Star Trek

I got to thinking a few days ago, who would win in a fight between Star Wars fans and Trekkies? It may seem like a tough choice at first, but after a few seconds, you should realize that Trekkies don't stand a chance against Star Wars fans. I mean, come on. Trekkies sit at home in the middle of the day watching and rewatching the part of an episode where a female crew member has a low-cut dress. They're sick, sad little men with no social lives and degrees in electrical engineering. Fans of Star Wars actually have some normal people in their ranks. I'm not saying that they don't have their share of nutballs, but there are also a few regular people who just liked the movies when they were teenagers, and now they want to see all the prequels. Nothing wrong with that. So, let's say that a thousand Star Wars fans walked into Microsoft and Boeing offices across the country and simultaneously yelled, "Star Trek sucks!" at the top of their lungs. First, after the Trekkies wiped their tears and changed their diapers, they'd get together and try to build some sort of trebuchet they could use to hurl their giant calculators at the normals. They'd work tirelessly for hours, making sure everything is just right. Then, they'd all die horribly in the fire that the normals started at the other end of the building, and the world would be a better place.

PSA

If, by any chance, you ever see one of those boxes in a McDonald's that people are supposed to put aluminum can pull tabs into (apparently to be recycled and have the resulting money sent to a local Ronald McDonald House), don't put anything in it. You're wasting your time and energy. Aluminum recycling is, I'm sorry to say, horribly inefficient. It's not even cost effective. Next time you feel something tugging on your heartstrings, and you want to donate to a Ronald McDonald House, just write them a check. If you're still going to stick to giving them the tops of your aluminum cans, just know that you're not putting a DIME into a Ronald McDonald House. Now, I'm all for charity. In fact, that's actually what causes me to get so mad when I see a scam like that posing as a legitimately benevolent charity. If people who rob federally insured banks can get sent to prison, then people who run faux charities should be castrated.

Empire Asian Buffet

Last night, I went to this Asian buffet with some of my high school friends. It was AWESOME. Not because it's such an amazing experience or anything like that, but just because it was great to get together with friends after an entire semester of living at home and not knowing a single person in any one of my classes. Man, the owner/manager was one bored dude. I was the first of our party to arrive, so I sat there in the lobby for a good twenty minutes. In that time, all this guy did was walk from the desk (where he pretended to be checking figures over and over again) to the front door of the restaurant (where he literally stood six inches from the glass and stared off into space like a homesick dog at the pound). Apparently, white people sitting in their lobbies make Chinese restaurantuers very nervous. I can't tell you how many times the owner and the head seating hostess stared at me from across the room. I felt like a half-black, half-Jewish gay social worker at a country club. Since I was so bored, I began looking around.

They had some really funny signs up in that place. One was concerning their "dog restriction," though it seemed more like a procedure than a policy. The first line said, verbatim, "Ask owner of he can tide up 'The Dog' before being seeted." The next one said, "Ask to see training card." I have no earthly clue what that means. The next line said, I'm not making this up, "Ask owner to get some body else to come and watch 'The Dog' away from eating area while is taking food." Now, the thing I'd like to ask them is why are they writing signs in terrible English when they could just write them in perfect Chinese and be done with it? We as customers don't need to know your "dog restriction," so what's the benefit of putting it in English and making yourself look like the undereducated person you really are?

Another one of their funny signs was the sign that displays their hours. Aparently, this place is open from 11-3:30 for lunch, and 4-9 for dinner. So, do they just shut down the whole restaurant for a half hour? If I were to come in at 3:45, what price would I have to pay? Dinner prices haven't started yet, but the lunch schedule is over. Stupid restaurant people. I guess it's a prerequisite for restaurant managers to have poor math skills and/or a complete inability to tell time. Then again, maybe he's just used to digital clocks...

Free Inventor's Kit

If you've ever seen those commercials that begin, "Attention inventors," you'll know what I'm talking about. I love those cheesy ads. There's always some guy who sees some new type of sponge hanging on the corner of a Home Depot aisle, and he's like, "Man! I should've gotten a patent. That was MY idea!" So great. Then, the real ad starts, and the voice-over guy eagerly tells you that operators are literally sitting by their phones in trembling anticipation of your order. And what is it exactly that you're ordering? "A free inventor's kit." I have no idea what that is. Whe I was a kid I thought it was just a toolbox. Hey, it made sense to my ten-year-old brain. Then, when I got a little older, I finally realized what a "free inventor's kit" is. OK, it's got to be nothing more than a huge book with the number for the US patent office written in it over and over again. Apparently, it's far more important to get a patent than it is to actually have a quality idea that's just a little better than "something I created with Play-Doh, toothpicks, and crack cocaine when I was four." Oh yeah, I remember that. Good times, good times.

At Last, Some Honesty

I really admire Hanes for going where no major brand has gone before. They've actually resorted to full-on unabashed image marketing, and they aren't apologetic about it in the least. In fact, they seem to have embraced it. Their newest ad campaign features the slogan, "Look who we've got our Hanes on now." That says it all, my friend. So far, I've seen Matthew Perry, Michael Jordan, and Marissa Tomei in Hanes commercials. There's no telling how many more celebrities they've got lined up to just stand there in front of the camera and literally do nothing but lend Hanes their image. If a nonprofit like ONE.ORG can do it, it's a sure bet Hanes can keep up. They don't even specify what Hanes products the celebrities are wearing. Now THAT's image marketing in its purest form. Bravo, Hanes. Bravo. Now, we just need to sit back and see what other major brands follow suit. I can't wait for commercials featuring slogans like, "McDonald's is the place where cool kids go to die," and "Che Guevara drank a liter of Gatorade every day," and "Jesus was buried wearing ADIDAS." Stuff like that.

Monopoly

I love playing Monopoly. It's so unrealistic. It's awesome. Playing with my family is especially fun. A few days ago, we played for the first time in quite a while. We had to review the rules, once again, for things like buying houses and auctions. The one thing I love about Monopoly is the fact that every single family in America probably has a different way to play it. It's sort of like spaghetti. (I should explain. I've always said that the major difference between different mothers' cooking is how they make spaghetti. I myself can actually tell a lot about a family based on what the mother's spaghetti tastes like. It's seriously like an unofficial social litmus test.) Some families play according to the description of the free parking space: you get nothing when you land on it. Other families play with the free parking space as a jackpot, with all the fines from the game so far going into the pot in the middle of the board. One thing I think is really cool about Monopoly is all the outside deals you can make. "I'll give you Marvin Gardens if you promise not to charge me rent for the next five times I land on your properties." "I'll trade you this 'get out of jail free' card and a hundred bucks for immunity on all your properties with houses on them." That's just plain fun. It's really funny, though, to see someone trying desperately to trade with some other person who doesn't want to trade anything. I saw that first hand when we played a few nights ago. *poking the person constantly* "Hey... hey... hey... hey... hey... hey... give me some money for this." "No! For the last time, I don't want the waterworks! Stop bothering me!" Cheating is also really fun in Monopoly. (Oh, right, like you've never taken advantage of being the banker. You can't judge me until you've taken the huge stack of 500's out of your own eye.) It's not like other games, where you feel really cheap and guilty, you know, like chess or taxes. I highly recommend playing Monopoly with your family. Right now. Go!