Ha ha ha.
Okay. Batfan. But a very eager and fawning batfan, stroking my titanic ego and asking me all about the Doomsday Document and Doug's construction-worker pickup lines and all that good stuff.
Listen up, batfan, here's your answer. Wisdom you'll treasure forever.
"About keeping your files on your company's server? Don't. Especially when it's your ex-company."
I'm trying to redo the design from memory. Grrrrr.
Do you ever feel like that? I do. It's like every day for me is a Xerox of the one before it. Some day I'm going to wake up and I'll just be a big fuzzy blob in the mirror.
Then I'll go get a job on Court TV to stand in front of witnesses whose identity is being protected. As a big fuzzy blob, I'll be perfect for the job.
Why does it always come back to geting out of my job?
God, I don't smoke. You of all people should know this. So why did you give me a smoker's cough?
Boss Man: If you're going to lie, could you at least lie convincingly?
Me: Sir, yes, sir!
My Brain: I'm going to put raisins in your coffee to see if you notice.
Stay home sick, get thinly-veiled shit about slacking when we're already short-staffed because TJ quit because HE DIDN'T LIKE BEING TREATED LIKE A FELLOW MORON, YOU MORON.
Go in to work, get thinly-veiled shit about making everyone else sick when we're already short-staffed because TJ quit to go back to clerking at Radio Shack because YOU'RE A MORON.
Oh, I guess my bitterness is showing. Tails. At least maybe I can give him this cough.
Did I really call God "people"? Guess I'm not going to find eternal salvation in my stocking this Christmas.
I don't value his opinion worth jack shit and besides, I'm a guy, and guys are supposed to be completely oblivious to criticism, so why do I always let it get to me so much? I don't even want to talk about it.
Instead, oh now we shall all run out in the street and jump for joy, more joy than our hardened little hearts can contain without bursting into little splattery pieces. Vinod is coming down from Sacramento tomorrow and he's going to stay with Doug and me. We're going to go see Almost Famous, which we have held off seeing because we are going to see it with Vinod. That's the kind of guy Vinod is. The word on the street is that he's dating some chick who came up to him at a party and took the drink out of his hand and drained it and then jumped him. That's the kind of guy Vinod is. He looks like some kind of Indian rock star. And he's going to come and stay with us and we're all going to be cool like Vinod and forget all about our stupid problems and our stupd jobs and our stupid lives.
Oh, yeah, Doug got moved to a desk next to the bathroom so now everyone coming out of the can drying their hands on their shirt makes small talk with him. Our apartment is just one big happy right now. He asked me to cough on him so he could call in sick.
Misery loves company. But everyone loves Vinod. Yay yay yay.
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My television is a jealous, Old Testament appliance. It hands down its commandments only once, and smites those who are called away during its services. It sets harsh tests for its followers; it delivers them not from commercials; it abandons them in the vast wasteland of today’s programming. “Thou shalt set no entertainment before me,” it says, and “Thou shalt sacrifice to me your prime-time hours, which you love, as a burnt offering.”
But Tivo? Tivo is a New Testament appliance, Tivo is the promise of redemption, Tivo is love. One needs only to call out – in any hour of day or night – and Tivo is there with one’s favorite shows. Tivo is the voice in the wilderness, leading the faithful to the Promised Programs. Tivo can stop time; Tivo can raise last week’s episodes from the dead. With Tivo, all things are possible.
I am an unworthy sinner. I have watched what was on because it was all that was on, I have lost my faith during commercial breaks and forgotten the program I was watching, I have allowed the television screen to flicker out because I could not be home in time to see my favorite program. But now Tivo has come to wash away my entertainment sins with its undying love. Have mercy on this poor lost soul, Tivo, and lead me to your Kingdom of Heavenly Television.
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Now I see why God gave me that cough.
More later. This is some fucked-up shit.
Get this: Vinod showed up with his girlfriend in tow. They're out there on our couch. Our couch isn't even the kind that opens up. I checked with Doug, and he was not expecting anything like this, either. This is some kind of major violation of the guy code. Ten yards and loss of down.
Do you know where the television is? The television is in the just-barely-living room, facing the couch where, no, let's not go there. I am a schizo patient, and saturday morning cartoons are my meds. They are going to find me roaming the Mission, talking to myself and sticking needles into tourists. I need my cartoons, man, you don't know what it's like in here without 'em, come on man, just a little bit, just a few minutes worth, it's gonna get real ugly if I don't get some cartoons soon.
Still quiet at the door. I'm afraid to go look. I don't hear the sounds of awakeness.
This Astrid, I'm thinking she cannot possibly be the same as the unnamed chick from the party-Vinod-jumped story that Doug said he heard from Dave, who was there. Astrid is six feet tall, and very gawky, and kind of shy. Pretty, but she looks like she startles easy. Didn't really get to talk to here long enoug to find out if she's nice or not. She looks more like VInod's tour accountant than a groupie.
Oh, yeah, sweet Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Vinod's cut his hair. It's like investment-banker length now. I never noticed it when he had glorious and flowing locks, but he has really small ears. He looks so adult and professional. Maybe this isn't Vinod at all. I bet something happened to the old body and it had to go into the shop, so they gave him a loaner body for a while.
Still quiet.
Almost Famous was pretty good. It's always weird seeing someone else's nostalgia movies, and this was especially that way beacuse the kid is like supposed to be Cameron Crowe himself. I want to stand up and shout, "Hey, man, I don't remember any of this! I'm glad you got to hang out with rock bands as a kid, but when I was your age, the music sucked and I was still getting beat up every few months." When I get to be forty, am I going to be that nostalgic for the late 80s and early 90s? If so, please shoot me before then. Still, it was a pretty good movie, and the acting was really good.
Fuck this. I need to take a crap. I'm going out there.
