I came home kind of late the other night and I was kind of tipsy. I needed food. I didn’t think that I had any. I checked the freezer just to be sure. I found a half-empty box of Bagel Bites. I was beyond stoked. I let out a cheer and did a victory dance. Finding forgotten food in the freezer is like hitting the late night munchie jackpot. A minute earlier and my stomach was growling and I was desperate for food. A minute later and I suddenly had five little bagel pizzas to scarf down. I popped that shit in the oven, because fuck the microwave. If you’re going to eat Bagel Bites, you have to do it right. Microwaving them leaves them soggy and bland. Baking them in the oven makes them crispy and delicious. They go great with a cold soda or a can of PBR. I didn’t mean for this post to turn into a commercial for Bagel Bites. These things write themselves, I just go along with it. There’s no denying that when pizza is on a bagel, you can eat pizza anytime.
Reincarnation seems like a good deal. When you die you get to come back to life as another person or as an animal. It’s kind of like being immortal without the guilt of cheating death. You still die, but at least you get to live again. I’m not sure if I believe in reincarnation because I haven’t died yet (as far as I know). But I’ve decided that I would come back as a gorilla in a nice zoo if I was ever given a chance at it. It would be a pretty sweet gig I think. I would get a customized habitat with enclosed living quarters and outdoor space complete with trees, plants, and grass. I would get delicious meals served daily. I wouldn’t have to pay rent or taxes. I’d get everything for free, including health care. I would have everything handed to me. I wouldn’t have to worry about anything. I wouldn’t have any responsibilities. And let’s not forget the amazing breeding program they have going over there. I’m not into gorilla vag right now, but I’m not a gorilla yet. I’m sure my gorilla D would love it.
A comb over is a hairstyle for bald/balding men who are either in denial about being bald or who have no shame. Whatever remaining hair on the head is grown long and then combed over the bald spot in a feeble attempt to hide the bald spot. I was having an intense bar conversation outside my favorite pub the other day. I was in the middle of proving my point when a newcomer walked into the bar with the most stunning comb over I’ve ever seen. It was beyond majestic. I completely lost my train of thought. I’m pretty sure my jaw actually dropped. To top it off, it was a breezy day so it waved in the wind as he entered. It was glorious. Words truly can’t describe how epic his comb over was. You could tell he took time to groom himself. Comb overs like that take a while to perfect. He was a professional. It was immaculate. It was just the right amount of wispy hair stretched over a perfectly polished scalp. I wish I took a picture but I was in shock. All I could do was stare. It was incredible. Seriously. I want you to know this.
Unfitted hats are baseball caps that are adjustable. There is typically a strap or plastic thing that you can use to tighten or loosen the fit. They are cheaper than regular fitted hats because they can go on anybody’s head, no matter how misshapen it is. There’s never a reason to pay for one. Every unfitted hat in my wardrobe has been from a promotional giveaway, like for opening up a new checking account. I’m not a hat guy. I hardly ever wear hats. But even I know that unfitted hats aren’t fashionable. They are cheap and they make you look cheap, especially when you turn your cap backwards and have the strap on display in the center of your forehead. You think you look cool. You don’t. You look cheap. And cheap is not a good look. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t wear unfitted hats. I’m saying that I’ll like you less if you do.
A passcode is a series of numbers that you enter into an electronic device for user authentication. When you drop five hundred bucks on an iPad, you want to make sure your shit is secure. You don’t want some stranger going through your contacts, pictures, and personal accounts. So you put a passcode on that bad boy. Now only you and your most observant friends can gain access to your electronics. I try to learn as many of my friends’ passcodes as I can. It’s fun to take selfies with their phone, status hack their Facebook accounts, or FaceTime a mutual friend. I don’t do anything too malicious (mostly so that they don’t change their passcode and I can keep pranking them).
Daredevil (or Marvel’s Daredevil) is an original Netflix series about the Marvel Comics superhero. If you don’t know who Daredevil is, I’ll give you a brief little introduction. Daredevil is the alias of Matt Murdock, lawyer by day and vigilante at night. He’s also blind because every superhero needs a schtick. I know the concept of a blind guy fighting crime in a costume sounds stupid, but he’s one of the coolest Marvel characters when he’s done right. This Netflix show gets it right.
Daredevil was first created by Stan Lee, Bill Everett, and Jack Kirby in 1964, but it was really Frank Miller’s work on the series that changed the tone. It became darker and more complex. It was no longer aimed at kids. The stories were filled with violence, sex, drugs, and crime. This show takes inspiration from the Frank Miller era, and that was a good choice.
The first season introduces us to Daredevil (Charlie Cox): who he is, what he does, and why he does what he does. We meet Foggy Nelson (Elden Henson), his best friend/law partner. We meet Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll), a young lady with a thirst for justice who ends up working at the law firm. We also meet Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio), because no superhero is complete without a supervillain. Fisk is one of the better villains of the Marvel Universe. He’s a ruthless criminal mastermind who runs his empire like a business.
Solid writing and established characters are the foundation to any good show, but you can’t skimp out on the action and fight scenes if you’re doing a project about a superhero. This show has some of the best fight choreography I’ve ever seen. The fights are realistic. The punches have impact. The characters get hurt. They get tired. They get winded. They slow down. And you actually see what is going on. They frame everything correctly. There’s no shaky camera work or rapid cuts to distract you. Check out this fight scene and tell me you’re not exhausted after watching it.
Watch Daredevil. It’s worth it. And it’s the first of four intertwined Marvel shows on Netflix. Soon Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, and Luke Cage will have series of their own, culminating in a supershow based upon the Defenders which will unite all the characters. It’s like the Netflix version of The Avengers, only with TV shows instead of movies. You don’t want to be left behind. Get on it now if you haven’t already.
I clipped my toenails the other night for the first time in a few weeks. I put off cutting them for a lot longer than I should have. They were starting to look like little claws. I could hear them clacking on the hardwood floor whenever I walked around the house barefoot. They would dig into my socks and hook together like Velcro. It was not a pretty sight and it was not a good feeling. Neglecting your toenails is easy to do because your feet are hardly seen (especially if you’re a guy in cold city like San Francisco). I wake up, shower, get dressed, put on some socks, put on some shoes, and head out the door. I come home ten to twelve hours later usually. Then I crack open a beer, turn on the TV, and relax. Relaxing doesn’t typically include clipping my toenails. So they get long. I don’t mean for it to happen. It just does. Don’t insult my neglected toenails. I will scratch you with them.
I spent last weekend sleeping on my friend’s air mattress in San Diego. It wasn’t a very good air mattress. It had a hole in it. It was a pinhole leak so the air would slowly seep out during the night. I’d fall asleep in relative comfort, only to wake up a few hours later sprawled out painfully on the floor, at which point I’d have to reinflate the air mattress. Luckily it had an electric pump so I didn’t have to use any lung power. Sleeping on a deflated air mattress is like trying to relax on a sinking ship while pretending nothing is wrong. Sooner or later you’ll have to deal with the problem or else you will drown. Or have a sore back in the morning. Either way it’s going to suck. I don’t recommend sleeping on a deflated air mattress. I’d rather sleep on the couch, in the car, or even on the floor. At least you don’t end up on the floor when you start out on the floor.
I’ve decided that I’m going to open up my own shoe store. I know that sounds crazy with today’s economy, but I have a killer idea. It’s revolutionary in fact. I’m going to open a shoe store that specializes in single shoes only. You buy the left or right shoe individually and you’re not allowed to buy a pair. Think about it. Shit happens and sometimes you lose a shoe. You still have the other one, only now it’s worthless because it’s missing its brother. You have to throw it away because nobody sells single shoes. Until now. Doesn’t seem so stupid now, does it? Trust me, I have it figured out. I’m even going to sell socks individually as well at the counter. That’s what they call an impulse buy. You can even buy socks is odd-numbered bundles so you can save even more money. I haven’t decided on a name yet, but rest assured it will involve a terrible pun.
A road trip is a trip in which you drive a vehicle a long distance, typically from Point A to Point B. It takes a lot longer than flying, but it’s a whole lot faster than walking. I just went on a road trip over the weekend for a wedding in San Diego. It took me a little less than nine hours to drive the five hundred plus miles from San Francisco. It would have been less than eight hours but Los Angeles is a traffic cesspool.
That was my first road trip in a couple of years. It’s a lot easier to go on road trips when you actually have a car. It wasn’t a bad drive, but I was driving solo so I got a little bored from time to time. I definitely went a little crazy. I know that I was talking to myself and splashing cold water on my face to keep from drifting off the road. It didn’t help that I was driving on the I-5, which is one of the most boring interstates in California. There’s no scenery and practically no landmarks (the one exception being the massive cow slaughtering house that reeks of death for miles around).
When you driving down the same stretch of highway for hundreds of miles, you make friends. They aren’t really friends, they are simply other cars, trucks, and busses that are keeping the same pace as you. Every now and then you pull off to get some gas, go to the bathroom, and stretch out your legs. Then you jump back out on the road and try to catch up to them again. I also like to use fast moving trucks or busses as mobile reference points. I followed a giant purple tour bus like a minnow for over seventy miles because the driver was cruising at 85 mph. I figured that he would be the one to get a ticket if any cops saw us speeding.
I have a few tips for a successful road trip. First off, make sure your car is up to the task. Make sure the oil is changed, the tires are ok, and that you have a full tank of gas. Nothing sucks out the momentum from hitting the road like needing to get gas twenty minutes into the trip. Also make sure that you have drinks and snacks. You can’t go wrong with a bag of trail mix and some beef jerky. For drinks, I’d recommend some energy drinks to keep you awake and a few bottles of cold water. I like to freeze a couple of bottles the night before so they stay as cold as possible. Every now and then I’ll splash water on my face when the energy drinks aren’t enough. And make sure you have music or a podcast or something to listen to. It helps to break up the monotony.
Road trips are fun. Flying saves you a lot of time, but driving is how you really discover things.
It’s my birthday today. You don’t have to get me anything; I just want you to know that it’s my birthday. And it’s kind of a milestone. It’s my thirtieth. The big 3-0. The Dirty Thirty. My twenties are over. It’s the start of a new era. Your thirties can be whatever you want them to be. I want mine to be a lot like my twenties, but with more money. A lot more.
My birthday has been pretty uneventful so far. I woke up, I took a shit, I took a shower, I drank a beer, I hung out with my roommates and we watched internet videos, I drank another beer, and then I left the house to run some errands before I go out of town for a weekend wedding in San Diego.
One of the things I had to do was pick up my rental suit. I was trying it on and the lady asked if I was going to prom on Saturday. I told her it was for a wedding. She apologized and I told her that I just turned thirty so I’d take it as a compliment. Her jaw dropped. The best part was when a high school senior approached me in disbelief. “You’re thirty?!? I’m seventeen. You look like a baby.”
I’m thirty. I don’t feel like a baby. But I know that I have good genes and alcohol makes a great preservative. In fact, I plan on drinking copious amounts of alcohol tonight while I watch the Giants hopefully beat the Dodgers. Nothing makes a better birthday gift than beating LA.
I had the day off today. I didn’t do anything fun though. I had to renew my license at the DMV. I made an appointment a few weeks ago, but that didn’t save me much time. I got to the DMV a half hour before my scheduled appointment. I waited in the line for people with appointments for about fifteen minutes just so the DMV guy could give me a number and tell me to wait until they call it. I found a chair and waited for about ten minutes. Then they called my number, I went to a window, and the DMV lady went over my paperwork. Then I had to take a vision test. I have terrible Asian eyesight, so that was pretty nerve-wracking. I did ok with both eyes, but everything went blurry when I had to cover my left eye. I thought I would fail right then and there, but I wasn’t as blind in my other eye. My vision was good enough for me to pass. That’s kind of scary. It makes me wonder how many blind drivers there are on the road. After I eeked out my narrow vision victory they took a copy of my thumbprint. Then I had to pay thirty-three bucks because that’s how much renewing your license costs. Then I had to wait in another line to get my picture taken. That line took the longest. It was only five people deep but it took about thirty-five minutes for me to get to the front. It only took about forty-five seconds for them to take my picture. I don’t know why it took so long. Renewing your license at the DMV sucks. I’m glad I don’t have to worry about it again for another ten years or so.
Pigeons are disgusting city creatures. They are the sewer rats of the avian world. They live in the dirtiest parts of downtown and feast on the remnants of our garbage. And they have fucked up feet. Pigeon feet are a treasure trove of gnarled toes and mangled stumps. I don’t know if fucked up pigeon feet are genetic or simply a result of life on the street, but I see a lot of pigeons with fucked up feet. There are a lot of other city birds that eat our trash. Seagulls, crows, ravens all rely on dirty humans for survival. They don’t have fucked up feet. It seems like strictly a pigeon thing. The next time you see a pigeon, look at its feet. Be prepared to lose your appetite.
I recently moved to a new spot and today was the first chance I had to do laundry. Needless to say, I took advantage of the opportunity and I went to the local laundromat. I had to do a couple loads, so I put a few bucks into the change machine to get some quarters. As the quarters fell out, it dawned on me that it shouldn’t be called a change machine. It doesn’t give you change. It only gives you quarters. Change is more a mixture or combination of coins. It should be called a quarter machine. It’s a more accurate name. A change machine is that thing at the grocery store checkout counter. It was hard to concentrate on my laundry after a revelation like that, but I managed not to slip anything red into my whites.
I was at the local dive bar after work and was watching the game on TV. There was a couple of girls playing music on the jukebox. They played a bunch of bar staples like Journey, Queen, Tupac, etc. They were doing a decent job until one of them put on the bonus track from Sublime’s Robbin’ the Hood. It’s not much of a bonus track. It’s a simple reggae beat playing in the background as Brad Nowell thanks a random bunch of people. It’s only about two and a half minutes long, but two and a half minutes is a long time to listen to a stoned guy mumbling barely coherent thank yous instead of an actual song. I don’t recommend playing the bonus track on the jukebox unless you want to piss off the whole bar. Pay attention to what you’re playing, and don’t play tracks you aren’t familiar with. You’d think that would be obvious to most people, but I learned a long time ago that common sense is a lot more rare than you’d expect.
The next time you go out to a bar or a restaurant and it’s a bit too busy, try using the phrase whenever you get a chance rather than saying please. It’s just as polite and far less stressful for them. Your server or bartender will be far more inclined to help you if you just show a little kindness. Saying whenever you get a chance shows that you are aware that they have other customers and that you know you aren’t the center of the universe. It shows that you have sympathy for the person who is running around trying to satisfy as many people as possible. It means that you’re more likely to tip. And generally speaking, people in the service industry like customers that tip. They are more motivated to help the ones that compensate them monetarily or who treat them with some mutual respect.
I was hanging out with some friends the other day. It was a fun time up until they started bickering about some minor bullshit that occurred between the two of them a few weeks earlier. They started hurling accusations and insults at each other and the tension was rising. I had to intervene to calm them down. I gave them a reminder that they were in public and told them to kindly shut the fuck up. I hate getting stuck in the middle of an argument, especially stupid ones. Luckily I didn’t have to choose sides this time. People are going to argue and butt heads from time to time. Sometime innocent people get stuck in the crossfire. You can either turn a blind eye or you can try to be the voice of reason. Either choice has potential repercussions. Choose wisely. It’s a terrible feeling when people you care about don’t get along and showcase it in front of you. Especially when it’s your parents and you’re the topic of discussion.
criticallyrated 