Slightly fictionalized accounts of real conversations in my life.

I enter the corner store down the street, totally covered in sweat and out of breath. The girl behind the counter looks at me as I thunk some beer on the counter.

Girl: Are you okay?
Me: (huffing): Yeah... I'm fine. I just ran home from work.
Girl: in that? (indicates my wool sweater, jeans)
Me: Yup.
Girl: Are you... late for something?
Me: Nope. Just... running.
Girl: You should get like a running outfit. It's a lot easier.
Me: Pffft. What's the point in that? What are the odds of someone chasing me while I'm sitting around wearing dinky shorts?
Girl: What?
Me: I'm gonna run in the clothes I usually wear. If I get chased around in one of those little outfits, I'd be better off letting them overtake me and murder me.
Girl: Do you get chased by murderers a lot?
Me: No, but I'm one small step towards being prepared when I am.
Girl: There's other reasons to run, you know.
Me: Listen lady, I'm not chasing anyone. I don't murder. You must be thinking of someone else.
Girl: No, like getting in shape?
Me: Now you're just being naive.


not exactly how it went, but it would've been a lot funnier if it was.
oh, also I was carrying a giant thermos.

More police blotter hilarity

A samurai sword attacker serving an 11-year prison sentence wants to be your friend.

I feel like I've been doggin' it over here lately. Things are just insane at work and I've got a lot on the side burners. so I send a lot of ridiculous pictures.

The news this morning is all over the place, none of it particularly uplifting.
Baghdad is still on fire, Hillary might have gone insane (Mark Penn is retarded, by the way), people are still racist, Blackwater's contract extended, John Kerry is still talking. Dylan is a thief,
the KBR/Halliburton rape issue remains.

the last link is particularly devastating. I've been following this story for some time and while it's good to see that more people are hearing about how awful this is (albeit at a rate that's too slow), sweet fuckall seems to have been done about it. I'm hoping that some headway is made on this (Hey Biden, we love your zingers, but hold these fuckers accountable, PLEASE). It's up to these people to make this count.

So yeah, now that you're as depressed as me, here's a pretty hilarious news story.

I'll be back later with something less soul crushing, I swear.

NOTE: NEVER GOOGLE IMAGE SEARCH "DEAD CAT" AGAIN. EVER.

The incorrect mail i get.

Stare Wars

Lying in an opposing sunbeam, he had a staring contest with the cat. He was beaten soundly.

I'm sitting in bed reading my weekly stack of comic books and listening to Langhorne Slim. If I could somehow get a cup of coffee to walk over here, I'll be a happy man.

update on last night's post. I'm going to allow myself 1 Hour to clean it up and try to shave down some of the warts on there, but that's all I'm giving myself so maybe I'll get to it tonight. We'll see. For now, back to my awesome morning.

It started as an experiment.

to stay up all night and force myself to write something. It's basically a thread in a much larger story, but I sat in front of the computer 8 hours ago with the intent of writing a love story. and that's all I had to work with until about midnight.
So it's pretty on the fly and I'm sure it's riddled with typos, but I'm considering posting it here. or maybe send it to anyone that wants to read it. I dunno, we'll see what I think when I've had sleep and all that.But for now it's to bed with me.

Underoos in the parking lot

Yikes. I can't think of a single reason this is a good thing.

Is "good listener" a job skill?
man, I wish it was.

I wonder if that'd help me after the zombocalypse and we have no technology.

"Zombie Therapist" is a job I should totally get behind.

Also, I am now an unstoppable juggernaut of health.
fear me.

Next week, a study will find that the sound of the sound of Donald Pleasance's voice gives people rectal cancer and I'm gonna be PISSED.

Your Weirdly Entertaining Album Cover of the Day

Hey stupid, beatniks smoke. You're not gonna smoke, you gotta stand over there and look at us forlornly. Next time don't be such a square.

I dropped the cable box off yesterday. We've been without cable for 10 days, and thus able only to watch network and furniture commercials in Spanish. and the documentary about Alzheimer's that I'm staring at wide eyed in fear.
It's like a mix of terror and sadness being pumped through a feeding tube.
oh god.
I can't even keep the sound on. The sound of traffic and my clicking and clacking fill the apartment.
This is not very typical of me. normally I go as so far out of my way as possible in order to avoid something like this.
and yet.
here I am.
"cotton, why don't you turn it off. Read a book! write something. Join a softball league with lax expectations."
shut up.* I'm watching this horrific program until I feel the urge to go on a severely misguided mercy killing spree, and then I'm going to have a glass of milk and go to bed.
oh man this is painful.
Anyway, my major concern with this is that I become one of those dinks that talk about how they don't watch TV. I still watch TV. It's just a pain in the ass now. Anyway, I hope this is the last you hear about it.


after writing through most of last night.
and planning on writing through all of tomorrow night.
I stared at the screen for a half hour and then gave up to pet the cat and close my eyes. Then dinner. Then the Thai place, now I'm back here and too tired to do anything but sit here and tell myself I need to sleep.
Which I'm doing now.

What skill(s) do you have that would be helpful if suddenly electronic technology as we know it were rendered completely us

I thought I'd have an answer by now for this and I don't. I'm nowhere close to one. which certainly makes me wonder how I would've enjoyed the 7 or 8 minutes I'd survived in an era before the industrial revolution.

Bill Macy: Okay in my book

Just thinking about that scene in Fargo where William H. Macy sees that his proposed scheme to kidnap his own wife starts turning to dust before his eyes, and as he starts scraping the ice off his windshield he just loses his shit. He starts slamming his ice scraper against his car. He's crying and sniveling and the fact that he's wearing a super fat movement-restricting coat only makes him seem even more pathetic. If only the Coens had clipped mittens to those triple-fat sleeves.
I can't even picture the word I'd use to describe it, though the best might be a complete hissyfit. I want to say that in the end he just crumples to his knees in the snowy parking lot, but to be honest I can't remember. It's been a long time since I've seen that movie, and for the most part I remember that scene, Steve Buscemi getting whipped on the ass in Brainerd*, and the guy who later went on to play the homicidal maniac in Carnivale carving ducks...
But my point is it's a scene with pretty much no dialogue, set outdoors in a snowstorm. and it remains one of the most powerful things I've ever seen in a movie. I think because it was such an intimate moment for the character that it felt almost pornographic (the non-erotic definition, thanks) to be watching it.
I can't spot an actor for shit. Sure, I can tell bad acting when I see it, but when it comes to the difference between good acting and great acting, I'm pretty much useless. This is the point where good acting and good writing are easy to mix up. or good storytelling. or good makeup.
and I think that this is something that pretty much everyone else does to a larger degree than they'd admit or realize. But when I think of good acting, I think of scenes like this. Just the normal guy who's slightly cracked, having a moment. I think it's easy to act great when you've got the movie on your side. My eighth grade retainer could've won the Oscar for Gladiator (which wasn't even the best Ridley Scott OR gladiator movie ever). Remember how terrible Joaquin Phoenix was in that, though?
When you find yourself empathizing with a man who volunteered his wife for kidnapping, though, someone's doing their goddamn job. and this breaks me up even more when I look it up and find out that he lost that year to Cuba Gooding Jr. I wonder who from the MPAA would ever admit to casting that vote.
and thinking about it now, Macy had a pretty similar scene in Magnolia**, and while he could've pretty much done the same thing there, he managed to make it a completely different scene. so good for him.
So I'd just like to raise a glass to Bill Macy, the best damn supporting actor in town. Give him the damned statue already. I'll always forgive his Jurassic Park IIIs and his Reversible Errors for his wiser moves, Like Fargo and State & Main, and House of Games. In another 20 years I'll be able to forgive you for Road Hogs.
Appearances in The Last Dragon, Happy, Texas, and the upcoming House of the Re-Animator(!) are too damned mind blowing to consider here. Though I will state that Macy/Wendt is a better presidential team than any I've heard since... EVER.

Notice that I only link to films I like, now. Call it selective linking. or just say I'm lazy, I don't care.

*I still have a mug from Brainerd that I bought just because of the association with that movie.
**the third most overrated movie of all time

Slightly better day so far. I'm feeling like a slightly less hammered sack of shit, for what that's worth. I guess we'll see how much gets thrown at me today. I should've come in to work this morning with a dart in my head and shaking bullets out of my clothes.

Also, it's raining so I feel it's a little more excused.

I got some work done on something that will hopefully take some of my attention from here, or at least it will tomorrow night.

So I'm going to listen to the first Jayhawks album and dive headfirst into the maelstrom of paperwork on my desk right now.

I should probably point out:

that I hate. this. fucking. day.

It's never been a favorite of mine, and this one in particular has been embarrassingly awful. Why is it these shitty fake holidays get to me so much? Maybe it's just my subconsciously resisting being told what to feel.
If I'm supposed to be feeling romantic, I swear lifelong hatred for the city of Anaheim and get drunk.
If I'm supposed to feel Irish I go to the Mexican joint.
If I'm supposed to be feeling silly, I actively want to smash both of my office computers, Southern California Edison, the guys that brought me Knocked Up, the internet, Kimmy Gibbler, several restricted blackout dates, the Indian Ocean, Sir Bernard Fitzalan-Howard the 16th Duke of Norfolk, Christopher McDonald for some reason, and a Time Warner Cable office.
oh, and my phone. Oh, how I want to smash my phone right now. I sort of already did.
Arbor Day is coming up* and there's lively odds that I will burn down a rainforest and on Flag Day.... oh, Flag Day. Those veterans will never speak to me again.

*Not the one that California made up for itself. Don't start me up on that right now.

Springsteen once sang that sometimes he just wants to explode, to take a knife and cut the pain from his heart. Sometimes I just want to go to Lowe's, get my keys sharpened, and jam them into the side of my neck. Everything's relative I guess.

Hope yours is better than mine.

Mt. T Brings Boy Out of Coma

Police arrest anti-war protester, 80, at mall

An 80-year-old church deacon was removed from the Smith Haven Mall yesterday in a wheelchair and arrested by police for refusing to remove a T-shirt protesting the Iraq War.

Sadly, this is not an April Fool's prank.

Tonight, filling out an application for a part time job:

list 3 references and their occupations. Mine were:
producer, professional rock guitarist, and unemployed*
it's so awesome. Like Russian Roulette on my cell phone contacts. If you're reading this, there's a good chance you might be next.
(to be fair, these are all legitimate claims and phone numbers).

Also, on my qualities of an ideal worker, I put:
friendly, helpful, not trying to set you on fire.

I know I should take it more seriously, but it's not really anything where I feel like I need to make an impression.




thinking about this today: What skill(s) do you have that would be helpful if suddenly electronic technology as we know it were rendered completely useless?

More on this later.