Nerds Nerds Everywhere!

I’m a nerd and you’re probably a nerd too. I mean here you are reading opinions and observations of a 21-year old student when you could be reading something more interesting on the internet, like CatDog. Now I like all nerds everywhere, but since nerdom has become so popular over the last few years, I find myself forced to break nerds down into categories within themselves, sorry but in order to keep track of the ones I like and not-like so much, this had to be done.

Computer Nerd: Knows anything you’d need to know about hardware and software. Very cool to talk to even though you may not understand everything their talking about. These nerds somehow have maintained a way to download music/movies without destroying their computer with spyware.

Video Game Nerd: Think the computer nerd but less knowledgeable, more annoying, and with 100% more Red Bull. People that know games and games only are annoying because they tend to swear by one game for years at a time (I’m talking to you Mr. IreadthisblogwhileSteamupdatescounterstrike). Video game nerds ages 16+ can be cool sometimes, because they maybe able to calm them selves down long enough to have a conversation with. When they’re younger they tend to be similar to cocaine addict; jumpy, mood swings and talking way too much are ways to spot this type of nerd.

Book Nerd: Elitist to the end. They think that just because they read books they’re more read than you! Can you believe that? These nerds can be spotted by their pretentious looking glasses and possibly a sport jacket with a t-shirt underneath with jeans. Unless you also consider yourself a book nerd, you may want to avoid this person at all costs, they’ll only make you feel worse about your own life.

Super Hero/Comic Book Nerd: The absolute most annoying of all nerds everywhere. The first thing you’ll notice about this kind of nerd is that they’re OLD, very very old. Alternatively they could be only 35-40 years old, but look like they’re 70. What makes these guys so annoying is their attention to detail and their ability to start a conversation with themselves about anything at all. You may once accidentally ask this nerd a question that could be answered in a sentence or two, well you better have prepared yourself for a 45 minute conversation, because that’s what you’re going to get. That’s if you consider a conversation to be him talking and you responding with ‘yeah’ and ‘sure’ for 45 minutes.

Guide On How To Freak People Out

Just like everyone else, I often find myself bored and looking for ways to entertain myself. And if I’ve learned anything in my 21 years of existence then its that entertaining yourself at some one else’s expense is way better than just watching T.V or going to the movies. Now when I say ‘expense’ that doesn’t mean go out and get your kicks by beating an old man in the knees with a baseball bat; it’s much more fun to be subtle when having fun at someone else’s expense. Your goal is to leave a lasting impression that may cause your victim to miss a night or two of sleep while not doing any actual harm to them.

Step One: This is a simple yet effective way to freak someone out more than you could ever know. Drive your car over to a busy intersection while the light is red, as cars approach the light, line your window directly up with theirs and stare hypnotically into the driver of the car on your left. It won’t be long before the driver gets that feeling someone is watching him.

Watch closely as the driver will try to look your way to verify that someone is looking at them without actually looking at you (when they do this their head will resemble a spring action sprinkler). If for whatever reason the other driver does make eye contact with you, just nod your head slightly, they will think that there’s some kind of scheme in the works that someone forgot to tell them about. Eventually the other driver will cave in and pull up just slightly so that you don’t have line of sight into their window, when this happens simply follow ahead and continue to stare. If you have confidence in your driving then you may be able to never break your stare as you pull up. Variations to this tactic include using lots of black eye makeup and/or having a person in your passenger seat also stare to increase the effect by 100%.

Step Two: This one can be a little harder to pull off, but can really do some lasting damage and give your victim a story to tell for weeks to come. Go to the mall (and if you’re anything like me, you despise the mall but this is worth it) and find a group of three or four friends walking and talking together. Approach from behind without alerting them to your presence and just begin to walk very closely behind the group. Listen carefully to their conversation because sooner or later your presence will be mentioned.

The best part about this method is that most people are too embarrassed to ask what the hell you’re doing floating behind them. If they do confront you, just pretend like you were checking out some linens in the window and you didn’t even know you were too close to them. Or another option would be to throw on that Dutch accent you should have been practicing and reply that ‘in your country everyone walks this way’ and then smile. The most important thing to remember when facing a confrontation is that you have to keep it up afterwards. Once again the effect can be increased by lots of black eye makeup and/or a friend to help.

New Layout

I tossed up a new layout last night for the sake of everyone's eyes. The old one was a little too flashy/colorful, not really my style. Also this one is much easier to read...enjoy!

Book Review: The Alphabet of Manliness

Last Saturday as I was preparing for my early Monday morning flight, I thought to myself, “I’d better head down to the bookstore so that I have something to read on the plane.” So there I was when something immediately caught my eye; it was a bright read book cover with a drawing of a chiseled looking guy punching a gorilla in the face.

“Oh my god”

I actually think my pants got slightly tighter when I saw the cover. The book is titled “The Alphabet of Manliness” and was penned by one of the very first absurdist writers on the Internet, Maddox. For those of you who don’t know, Maddox is responsible for The Best Page in the Universe (which clearly hasn’t had a layout update since it launched 1997, but that’s part of its awesomeness).

Anyways, the book is pretty much a rundown of the alphabet, that’s A through Z for those of you who didn’t know of everything manly, for example A if for ass kicking and I is for irate. Now to be honest, I started to get a little worried when I was reading the chapter on boners next to a 70 year old woman at the airport terminal and I got even more worried when I began to laugh out loud and all the other 70 year olds heading to West Palm Beach were looking at me.

Honestly, this book is hilarious. There have maybe been 3 or 4 things that I’ve read on the Internet in my life that have made me laugh out loud and there have probably been zero books, but this one changed all that. I found myself laughing loudly to several chapters in the book, except the Chuck Norris chapter (only because the Chuck Norris fad has been so played out since last January).

So do yourself a favor and go out and buy the book and don’t check it out from your local library because libraries are for little kids and people that don’t own computers. And make sure you don’t take yourself too seriously when reading it, take it in stride and enjoy yourself. If you find yourself wanting to write some kind of hateful email to the author after reading the first few chapters go ahead and do it, I’m sure it will appear in his hate mail section. Following that you may want to consider suicide because you’re clearly incapable of having any sort of fun whatsoever.

P.S. 95% of the reviews you read on the Internet are bullshit. That’s because the reviewers usually get the book/movie/whatever they’re reviewing for free and if they want to continue to get free stuff from that publisher, they won’t be too scathing in their review. This isn’t one of those cases, I paid $15.95 for the book and so should you.

Dude, Let's Start A Band.

Starting a band is the way to go. I see all these bands on television and the Internet and it looks like an awesome life. There are lots of chicks, drugs and alcohol. To top it all off you never have to do any actual work, unless you consider sex and riding on a bus all day with chicks hanging off you work. People that think that way are assholes, because they don’t know how good they have it.

There’s one problem with my band though, I don’t know anything about music. All I know is what I learned in middle school band, where I played the snare drum. I think we were the only 12 year olds to be told that our performance was horrible by our own teacher afterwards. What a bitch. Not knowing anything about music won’t be a problem though, because my band will not be creating any music at all, we won’t even have instruments or equipment capable of making music or anything that may be mistaken or interpreted as music. And there are plenty of successful bands out there today making actual music and don’t know anything about music. Where the hell do these guys get off?

No, my band will just be me and three friends traveling across the country on a bus. We’ll have groupies, devoted fans and plenty of alcohol. Every time somebody asks me when the next album is coming out I’ll immediately slap him in the face for jeopardizing my artistic integrity. All of our live shows will be cancelled because our drummer has alcohol poisoning and we’ll all have on and off relationships with supermodels.

Now the first step to having a successful band is to have a catchy name. Today bands like Fall Out Boy have popularized names that are completely meaningless aside from having an emo sound to them. A few ones I came up with were Stab My Girlfriend, Meat for Dog, Kittens for Closure, and Toilet Paper My Tree House. Now for us the name is particularly important because if our name isn’t good then we don’t have any music to fall back on like all those other bands out there.

The second step is to find ourselves a tour bus. Now most bands use custom made coach buses with all the amenities from home: kitchen, beds, bathroom etc. We’re going to throw that all out the window, we need a special bus. That’s right, those short buses with the wheelchair lift that always took way too long just to get that handicapped kid to school, as if he’s going to learn anything besides how to not drool on himself as much. Aboard this short bus will be me, the three band mates and the driver. No managers, assistants, or agents; they all quit after repeated beatings when they kept asking me when the album was coming out; not to mention having them around is totally selling out, which was the whole point from the beginning. The most important person on the bus is the driver, it’s very important that he’s old, really old, like mid 90’s or something. That way we can use him for his infinite wisdom of the road and we can play quirky practical jokes on him and he can’t fight back.

The third step is the fans. How are we going to get fans when we don’t have any music? Well that’s what the bus is for, people will see us with a bus and because people automatically associate having a tour bus with being popular, anyone who drives by us will be our fans. Naturally they will flock to see what the buzz is all about and because we’re naturally likable people, they will be considered fans. But gaining a following today is all about the Internet. Generating false Internet hype is easier than you think, just slap “Coming Soon” on any website or MySpace, and people will bookmark it just to see what the hell it is when the music is released, which it never will be.

Bands like Pink Floyd generated so much popularity because of their long breaks between albums, which was justified because the music was so good on each one. Additionally each album was more popular than the one before it because of the hype generated during the breaks. Using this logic, my band would be the most popular band the world has ever seen. If all we do is take breaks and generate hype about our forthcoming album, how could we not be? And when everyone in the band dies in a mysterious fiery bus accident, we’ll go down in history as the best band that never was.

Procrastination is possibly the most amazing thing the human race ever came up with, way better than fire and certainly better than the wheel.

That be said, I'm back from my short trip to Florida and I'll have some stuff put together this weekend, sit tight.

Procrastination...

Gone Fishin'

I'll be away until Friday morning, so don't expecy anything significant in the world of updates until then. See you when I get back!

So here I am, sitting at work. Now I work at a LAN center, which is a place where alot of sweaty/smelly nerds come to play computer games and whatnot, but there's also alot of very cool people here as well. But here I am looking at something that I've never seen before, no more than 10 feet in front of me is a thing, a thing playing Call of Duty 2 on the highest possible volume setting (which is getting pretty annoying). Now I refer to this person as a 'thing' because I am unable to determine whether or not it is a male or female. Of course I've seen It's Pat , but this is a whole nother breed of animal we're talking about here.

The 'shim' as they will be referred to throughout the rest of this story, has a very feminie face, aside from the thin grayish moustache on shim's upper lip. Atop shim's head is very straight gray hair that lands on shim's neck in a very bizarre way and a few minutes ago shim asked me where the bathroom is, now we only have one bathroom here so I was unable to discover shim's sex from shim's choice in restroom. Shim is wearing bright blue denim overalls which cover what can only be a pair of breasts. Honestly I've heard of man-boobs and such, but what resides on shim's chest is not like anything I've ever seen on a male. What shim's got are female breasts, plain and simple.

Also take into consideration that we don't get alot of girls down here to begin with, let alone ones that look like they're in their mid sixties. Any girls that we do get down here are usually like,"OMG where's the DDR!1". And of course they suck at it, but it's fun to watch them jump/try.

Anyways, I'm taking bets on shim's gender. Right now the odds are 2:1 in favor of shim being a male. Let the e-betting begin!

Midterm Exam Time

So I’ve been doing this blog for about a month and a half and as far as I’m concerned I’ve proven myself to be just about the best guy on the internet. I’ve written, complained, and made fun of everything from television shows to secret hobo villages; and I couldn’t be prouder of it. So in order to celebrate our 6^th week anniversary here at the sock spot here’s a few things you’ve learned about me since our relationship began. There will be a test at the end, so play close attention.

• Room Raiders has helped my dating philosophy more than you could ever know.
• A&E has become one of the best channels on cable.
• Tourgasm has left a permanent scar on HBO, which may never be healed.
• Wikipedia is ruining the Internet, one topic at a time.
• The new Pirates of the Caribbean was wayyy too long.
• Connecticut kinda blows, but is kinda awesome at the same time.
• My dream job would to be a park ranger.
• Los Angeles is my least favorite place on the planet.
• Beards are awesome.
• I am the master of e-popularity.
• Being good at musical chairs says a lot about you.
• I’ve never ever been in woman’s bathroom, but I think I know everything about them.
• It’s okay to alienate your friends, family, and your own computer for a free ipod.
• Google Video now sucks because it’s been flooded with videos of Mentos and Diet Coke and soccer.
• Comedy Central has cancelled way too many good shows.
• A Kennedy is built in a very very specific way.

That pretty much sums it up for where we are right now. The test will be later this afternoon, multiple choice and please bring your own #2 pencil.

My Trip to the Secret Hobo Village

The hobo is an established American tradition. Our less fortunate brothers in rags have the ability to make even the most mundane of dates freak-tastic and interesting. With their long raggedy beards and incoherent sentences, hobos have made themselves one of the most recognizable American figures. Some hobos have made it to the big time; such as Wesley Willis and Mel Gibson. So you maybe able to understand the excitement I experienced when I found out there was a secret hobo village located behind the Price Copper nearby. Now what would I plan to do at the hobo village you may ask? Well at first I thought I may try to blend in; toss on some old clothes, roll around in the mud, develop a crack addiction for four or five years, and then live among them and learn their hobo ways. Or I could just walk in and see how they react to a suburban 20-something crashing their hobo party or on the other hand I could just forget about the whole thing and never explore the hobo village.

After some long days of thinking about this potentially life altering decision, I decided that the only way to properly do this was to crash their hobo party. I know some people may see this as a very dangerous and risky choice, but I really didn’t want to develop a crack addiction and I don’t think I could live with myself if I never saw the hobo village with my own two eyes.

So on a sunny Sunday afternoon I parked my car behind the Price Chopper and headed off into the woods. There was no discernable trail or path I could take to the hobo village, so I was pretty much winging it. After about 20 minutes of looking I was more than ready to give up; that was until I heard something fall behind me. From the sound I could tell that it was something light, I looked to see an apple core rolling across the dirt. Jackpot. I look to my right and I see exactly what I’m looking for, a hobo slumped against a tree. Now I don’t approach because I don’t want to startle him, apparently they attack when scared. So I must quietly walk past him as he glares at me every step of the way. I keep looking in the area of my first hobo encounter for the village for another five or ten minutes, and just when I was ready to pack my rag tied to the end of a stick I found what just had to be the hobo village.

Actually that’s a lie. Calling this place a ‘village’ would be an overstatement, a hideous hideous overstatement. It looked a lot more like the scene of an airplane crash; there was debris and fires scattered about and even a body or two. It was not long until I was spotted and became the target of hobo ramblings I could not understand, I don’t even think the other hobo’s could understand it, but they were all joining in. Then I was approached by what was clearly the Hobo leader. My life had just peaked.

He introduced himself as Hobonicus; at least that’s what I could make out from what he was saying. He said that he landed here on Earth in the year 2062 when he was expelled from the Moon Corps for refusing to kill one of his own men. Now here on this planet he is gathering his own army behind Price Chopper to go back and seek his vengeance on the Moon Corps Commander Carl. This man was my idol. He sensed my admiration and asked me to join ‘la resistance’ and fight Command Carl along side with him. I enthusiastically agreed. Then I mentioned that I had forgotten my laser in my car and I just had to run and get it.

I got the hell out of there so fast you couldn’t believe it. MOON CORPS, what the fuck was this guy talking about? The guy’s name was Hobonicus for God’s sake; never trust anyone who’s name ends in ‘nicus’ because I can guarantee you it’s a fake and that the person is insane. If this story does one thing for you, it’s a testament to the dangers of smoking crack, or in some cases a testament to the awesomeness of smoking crack. Either way I came away from this experience having felt more enlightened than ever before on the world of hobo’s and a more complete person overall. I’m also the only one who knows the secret location of the secret hobo village and if you fancy yourself an adventure of hobo proportions, seek one out for yourself.

Childhood Games Gone Wrong

If you were anything like me you went to a lot of dumb birthday parties between ages 4 and 9 and if you’re even more like me these parties continued into your 20’s (except the girls dressed hotter, there was less flashlight tag, the presents were replaced with 30 packs and if the party ended in a sleepover if was a really good night). These parties included lots of funny hats, a gift that your parents bought and if you were lucky a hobo clown would make an appearance with some balloon animals and a shopping cart.

However, the best part of the party was always the party games, and not much has changed today. Instead of beer pong we had pin the tail on the donkey, instead of Edward 40-hands we had a piñata (Edward 40-hands is where you duct tape a 40oz to each of your hands, rendering you unable to urinate until you finish both). Remember, ages 4 through 9 are very impressionable ages and kids who taking these seemingly innocent party games too seriously can lead to life long problems

· Musical Chairs – be as selfish as possible. Take out anyone you have to in order to advance, and remember you don’t have time for this shit.

· Piñata - anyone who is colorful or different must be ritually beaten with a stick by a group of people. They also have candy inside them.

· Pin the Tail on the Donkey – stabbing wild animals in the ass is okay, as long as you’re blindfolded. Doesn’t matter if they attack, you won’t see it coming.

· Scavenger Hunt – a kiddie version of what inevitably leads to pictures of girls topless and statues of the Virgin Mary when you’re in your teens.

· Hot Potato – this isn’t my problem, you take care of it.

· Tag – eliminate the fat, weak, and stupid in the least amount of time.

One thing those parties as a kid lacked was that annoying kid who ended every sentence with ‘bro’ or ‘dude’ such as, “I just puked all over your bathroom wall bro!” Wow, thanks man, I always wanted to clean up someone else’s vomit, especially a person who has probably contracted Hepatitis A through E from all those hookers he’s been having over. But I guess him having hookers makes him an interesting person (because I don’t know many people that see hookers…ever), so I’m off to ritually beat him with a stick until he drops his sweet Hepatitis C…andy.

Review of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

Last night I was treated to a midnight screening of the new film Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest and I have to admit it was fantastic on about every possible level. Although some scenes were a little drawn out, I would absolutely recommend this film to anyone with a soul.

The movie starts out with the Caribbean having been taken over by 18^th century socialists. Yeah, I totally didn’t see that one coming either. William Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swan (Keira Knightley) have been taken captive for their crimes against the Supreme Chancellor Beckett (Tom Hollander) and helping capitalist Captain Jack Sparrow escape to safety. Despite his absolute authority throughout the Caribbean, Chancellor Beckett sees trouble with letting Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) live and charges Will with seeking out Jack and returning him or he and his fiancé face certain death.

So along with a newly introduced character in the form of a half-man half-dolphin named Murphy, Will sets off onto a Caribbean road trip that’s sure to make for the best post-graduation summer ever! Will and Murphy first encounter a group of Caribbean natives and are quick to befriend them. You see, these natives have had their banana crop destroyed by the socialists and face extermination if they don’t hand over their first born sons to the regime; it’s this animosity that leads to the natives aligning themselves with Will and Murphy to bring Jack Sparrow back to Port Royal.

Meanwhile, Jack is off in Mexico wanting to ‘Get away from it all’ and is writing his memoirs in hopes of leading a revolution back to the Caribbean and bring capitalism back to the masses. Through a tip from an unlikely source Will, Murphy and the natives track Jack down in Mexico in their bamboo helicopters and slaughter anyone who gets in their way, included the mythical shark army. Despite William’s plea to Jack from him to return to Port Royal, Jack refuses because he has not yet finished his scathing memoir on the flaws in socialism.

In the meantime Supreme Chancellor Beckett has grown impatient with William and the return of Jack Sparrow. In order to expedite his discovery he hires an elite group of assassins known only as ‘Mantrain’ to find Jack, Will, and Murphy and kill them immediately.

At that point in the movie I was so overcome with excitement and glee that the blood capillaries burst is both my eyes, rendering me permanently blind. I now have to write my blog using voice recognition software and a microphone. Thanks a lot Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, you’ve ruined my life.

My Love/Hate With MySpace

Earlier today I was clicking around on MySpace, which is the equivalent to cocaine as far as e-addictions go. Now don’t ask me how I got all these 16-19 year old girls on my friends list because frankly I don’t know, I honestly think they all appeared there on their own. Now incase you didn’t know MySpace has its own blogging community, now imagine LiveJournal with twice the angst and double the users and you’ve now experienced My Space’s bloggers. If you are somehow possessed (which I apparently was) to explore random blogs there, you’ll find more titled “My Mom is Such a pos” than you can shake that rusty razor blade at. Seriously, put it down, life’s not that bad.

Now if MySpace is e-cocaine, then bulletins are that annoying friend that’s always looking for a free score. Seriously, back off, I’m not going to comment your pictures ‘Ms. I’m 17 and love to put pictures of myself in my bra on the internet I sure won’t regret this when I’m 30 lol’. Bulletins, which I’m guilty of using to promote this blog, are usually just spam of survey followed by survey followed by survey. Now here’s a tip for my underage friends, if you want to feel more adult and independent, perhaps you should skip that survey that asks how often you ‘sneak out of your house’. In fact, skip surveys all together; no one on the interweb cares whether you prefer Pepsi or Coke, whether you’ve been to church this year, or who the last person you hugged is.

Now don’t get me wrong. MySpace is great for some things; such as promoting this blog and catching up with some old friends from high school. If you’re looking for local comedians or bands, nothing beats it in terms of accessibility. It’s even better for finding random hookups, if you’ve into that sort of thing. And by 'that sort of thing' I mean STD's and stalkers.

Los Angeles city officials have criticized the Hooters restaurant chain for its city sponsored “Hooters for Neuters” campaign to raise money to spay and neuter homeless animals throughout the city according to a Yahoo! article. City Controller Laura Chick (lol) said, “Are we going backward here…” in her criticism of a program that she claims degrades women everywhere.

Councilwoman Jan Perry believes that the fliers handed out to promote the event ‘crossed the line’. “I was surprised and amazed with the photograph on the flier, and I don't think it projects a good image for the city of Los Angeles," Perry said.

Perhaps someone else should design a promotional photograph to represent America’s most-hated city. Above you can see my new design for a flier to promote tourism to LA. I foresee at least a 200% increase in tourism to the City of Angels based solely on my awesome piece of work. No need to thank me, just mail all checks my way. Here are some other things perhaps Los Angeles should consider removing before criticizing Hooters for hurting their image.

• Some of the worst pollution in the world
• Paris Hilton
• The absolute worst traffic in the world
• Earthquakes
• It's hot
• It's too fucking hot
• Holy hell why is it so hot here?
• That City of Angels thing is just a front for the production of more and more Adam Sandler movies.
  
• There's a MySpace theater in LA. I'm going to write that again...
• There's a MySpace theater in LA.
  
• Not a lot of people know this, but Satan lives in LA. I don't know how you feel about that. If you <3 Satan, maybe this is the place for you.
  

At least Satan supports controlling the homeless pet population. Satan even supports Hooters girls supporting homeless pets, who in turn support their own spaying and neutering, which is supported by me because if its hot as hell and I’m stuck in traffic, I really don’t want a rabid Paris Hilton attacking me.

I’ve been inspired. And my muse is not what you think it would be (although I wish it was Selma Hayek or that girl from that Albert Brooks movie). Instead my muse is right here on my face, it’s my new beard.

Now I have a love/hate relationship with the new fuzz. It makes me look manlier as well as giving me something to stroke when I’m thinking, similar to another part of my body. However, at the same time it burns late at night and it occasionally makes me want to die; also similar to another part of my body. So I did what I always do when I have something new to think about. I look it up on Wikipedia. Now just because I wrote a scathing article about the free online encyclopedia doesn’t mean that I don’t enjoy reading it (for example, I spent my last Sunday, when I was very hung over, reading about Jedi for about three hours). However, I found something troubling on Wikipedia when it came to beards; which was a book written by Allan Peterkin titled One Thousand Beards.

This book claims to chronicle the history of beards throughout civilization, but I wouldn’t know because I never got past the title (not to mention that I didn’t actually buy the book, I rather just looked at the cover picture on Wikipedia) because of the picture in the bottom right corner. Now out of all the beard styles in the world, why in the world would you select the Adolf Hitler for the cover picture? Especially with the legendary burnside being left out in a surprise turn of events.

In conclusion, beards are awesome in just about every possible way, unless your beard is universally associated with genocide and world domination.