Column, etc.

MY APOLOGIES

Busy. Sorry. Not much time to blog. Second week as an editorial assistant at the Gazette and it's reminiscent of when I began as an intern at AM 1500 radio: I clearly have a lot to learn about the industry.

It's interesting. I'll draw the line at calling it fun only because it's extremely stressful. By the time I leave there at 5:00 my eyes are blurry from staring at a tiny computer screen all day. It's the "little things" that drive me nuts. For instance, they use Apple computers rather than PC's, and though the differences are negligible they're just enough that I want to hurl my keyboard across the room at times. I feel like a total novice.

I have some ideas floating through my head regarding my writing that are interesting, to say the least. Usually I jinx it by spilling the beans and never coming through, so in this instance I'm going to bite my tongue, post my column, and go about my business.

I hope you're all doing extremely well.

COLUMN OF THE WEEK

There’s a folder on my desk containing tasks I reserve for when I’m in “Take no prisoners” mode. It’s no so much a “honey do” list as a “honey, make an individual or corporation wish they had never been granted the gift of life” list. If I have a bad day at work or if my wife and I have had words, I remove a task from the folder and proceed to destroy the self-worth of an unsuspecting customer service representative.

One of these tasks was a telephone call to an energy utility company. I won’t divulge their name; suffice it to say they xcel at what they do.

The company sent me a letter stating that for the past year they’ve been misreading my meter, which means my household owes an additional $200, due immediately. Happy Holidays.

My first thought was that perhaps the cross-eyed meter reader responsible for the debacle should have the $200 deducted from his year-end bonus check, so I picked up the phone and prepared to show no mercy.

The girl who answered the phone was amiable enough but clearly wasn’t the decision-maker. I couldn’t even ask “How are you today?” without her having to check with her supervisor, who told her to say she was fine, thanks. I was put on hold so many times I was treated to nearly the entire Air Supply catalog.

I put Amber through her paces for quite a while, and to her credit she held up well though I made her earn every cent of her $9 per hour wage. I was firm: Under no circumstances was I paying $200 for their meter-reading error. It’s not as if under cover of night I surreptitiously switched meters with the old lady next door who, thanks to her fixed income, doesn’t turn her heat over 40 degrees. “It was your mistake, Amber,” I insisted, “therefore it’s your problem.”

Amber reassured me in a pleasant voice that she understood completely, and that if I liked she could connect me with a Specialist.

Something in her voice capitalized it.

I told her that I would very much like to speak to a Specialist, and after a couple more minutes of hold music (more Air Supply, enough already) Amber came back on the line.

“I have Melissa on the line,” Amber said, “She’s a…Specialist.”

Amber’s previously eager-to-please lilt had been replaced with a tone similar to that Cleopatra might have used when sending a haughty servant to the lions.

“Mr. Bonnett,” the Specialist said as if annoyed already, “my name is Melissa. What’s the problem?”

Melissa’s demeanor made it clear that in order for Specialists to reach the ten dollars per hour threshold that had eluded them as customer service reps, they had to make certain concessions, namely their souls. Melissa’s voice was utterly devoid of inflection. One could picture her on the stand at the energy utility equivalent of the Nuremberg Trials, her face stoic, voice defiant: “I was merely following orders.”

Still, I wasn’t about to be threatened by some punk kid ten years my junior earning $11 per hour. Just because she makes more than me doesn’t make her a better person. After a full ten minutes of my insistence that I was not paying the bill, Melissa said something strange.

“Mr. Bonnett,” she said, “I have a button in front of me and I have no clue what it’s for. I think I’ll press it and see what happens.”

The lights in my town home flickered briefly.

“Funny thing, this button,” Melissa continued, “It seems to serve no purpose at all. I think I’ll press it again.”

The furnace stopped. My throat clenched.

“What a useless old button,” said Melissa, “I think I may just leave it pressed down permanently, unless there’s something you want to ask me. Is there something you want to ask me, Mr. Bonnett?”

“Yes, Melissa,” I replied meekly, “there is. May I pay the $200 on an installment plan?”

“Of course, Mr. Bonnett. We’re here to serve.” The furnace purred back to life.

The utility company is generously allowing me to pay for their $200 error over a period of 12 months, no interest. Once in a while I reflect upon my conversation with Melissa and get so angry I grab another item from the “Take no prisoners” folder, eager to reclaim my manhood.

But then the lights flicker or the fridge kicks off. Maybe it’s coincidence, but then again, maybe somewhere, somehow, someone is watching, ensuring that the snotty guy in Woodbury doesn’t get too cocky. Just in case, my post-holiday shopping includes a stop at Home Depot for a back-up generator.

Post-holiday stuff.

Well, another Christmas come and gone, thankfully.

I get depressed around holidays, as my writing last week illustrated. I can’t pinpoint exactly why, I just know that I’ve been that way for my entire adult life.

It’s not as if holidays were unenjoyable as a kid setting me up for depression later in life. To the contrary, despite the fact that our family was not well-to-do by any means, Christmas was our day to collect the loot, as it were. Not that that’s what the holiday is all about, of course. We were also dragged to church (which actually wasn’t so awful), forced to visit shut-in relatives (oh the god awful stench of 200 inbred cats and a houseful of a century’s worth of newspapers), all the standard stuff. But on the whole holidays were great when I was young.

As an adult, however, I have a malaise set in around Thanksgiving that lasts through Christmas. It was really tough on my wife this year. Christmas eve was tense in casa de Admin Worm, let me tell you, but she was very patient and as understanding as she could be and we wound up having a really good time at her family’s house. I have great in-laws. Not everyone can say that and mean it, and I’m not even saying that to satisfy my wife, ‘cuz she doesn’t read my blog.

Anyway, you might want to know what my “haul” was for the year. I got a pair of Nordstrom slippers which replaced the tattered, disgusting slippers my wife has hated since the day we met; a t-shirt to express my newfound Libertarian views; a fantastic coat; and the crowning glory of my gifts was the new Onion compilation book. I vowed to read it word-for-word from front cover to back, but as usual I’m flipping around like crazy. The Onion is the best thing in the world. You’ve got to love a wife who feeds your greatest desires: twisted humor and Libertarianism. Okay, she fed one or two of my other desires too, but this is a family blog.

I got her the books Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Sellevision, new valve stem covers for her Mini Cooper since the ones I got her last year were stolen, a Get Fuzzy calendar, a car wash gift certificate (she’s all about the Cooper) and a couple other odds and ends.

My mom got us a Perkins gift certificate so we made our yearly trek there to cash in, but the person who sold it to mom apparently forgot to activate it, so I wound up paying for breakfast out-of-pocket. Perkins was gracious enough to provide us a new gift card, but I’m hesitant to use it in case the debacle repeats itself and I’m forced to spend another $20 I don’t have.

Aaaaah, the problems of being American. God Bless this country.

POSTSCRIPT
Forgot to mention that last night, after King Kong, my wife and I drove all over Woodbury seeking pizza. All the pizza restaurants were closed and even the convenience stores were dark. Finally, a Kwik Trip appeared on the horizon, a soothing fluorescent glow emitting from inside. We purchased a generic brand rising crust pepperoni pizza and it was awesome.

Talked to my mom this morning and she had a similar evening. She and a friend drove all over Lincoln, Nebraska seeking a place to have coffee. They wound up at IHOP, along with the rest of the city, and had to wait a half hour for a table.

KING KONG
On Christmas, since we don’t have kids and the day is thus all ours, we went to see King Kong. It’s small wonder this movie is hemorrhaging money and will likely spell the demise of the studio. Not that it’s a horrible movie, but the word that came to mind is masturbatory. Director Peter Jackson, riding the coattails of his Lord of the Rings success, has obviously reached the stage where people are afraid to tell him “no.”

The film is well over an hour too long. By the time viewers actually see the monkey, the movie should be well on its way to the climax. Also, there are a couple of dinosaur sequences which are embarrassingly identical to Jurassic Park. I do mean identical, right down to the raptors and T-Rex’s. These sequences simply did not need to be made, and it’s a testament to Jackson’s arrogance and power that he was allowed to pack the movie with an hour of superfluous computer-generated filler.

By the time the movie made it to the parts intended to generate an emotional response I had willed myself not to let it happen. It nearly did, but I quelled it. There were some genuinely touching moments in the film, but they came two hours too late. My disgust with Jackson’s excess outweighed my ability to be sucked in by the heartstring tugs of the movie, and when Kong fell from the Empire State Building I saw it merely as a metaphor for the end of Jackson’s career and quite possibly the end of the movie studio. I believe King Kong cost $300 Million to make and has thus far taken in about forty dollars at the box office, so I see trouble ahead. Hopefully King Kong will serve as a cautionary tale to directors and studios alike that movies are supposed to entertain audiences, not satiate the egos of filmmakers.

I won’t go off on a tangent about the rudeness of people in theaters, but believe me that could fill a blog of its own. I stand by my contention that movie theaters are a microcosm for the state of our society, and it ain’t good.

WHO’S NEWS
This week’s Who’s News, the celebrity gossip section of USA Weekend, didn’t contain questions this week. Rather, it was chock full of memorable quotes from celebrities. In the spirit of the Admin Worm blog I’ve changed the quotes but left the descriptions of them as-is.

“Lord, I’m glad she keeled over before I became the embodiment of every lesbian stereotype known to man.” —Rosie O'Donnell, on her mother's death from cancer when O'Donnell was 10.

“I’ve changed so much physically, yet my music is still the same bland, boring country horseshit it ever was.” —Country singer Patty Loveless, on what she thinks when she sees her picture on album covers from the past 19 years.

“I had my childrens’ names legally changed to “Ages 4” and “Ages 2” because I kept forgetting them.” —Matt Lauer, on his children, ages 4 and 2.

“I intend to continue acting ‘til I’ve proven to the world that I’m more than a pair of tits and a pretty face, and I’m grateful to Fox for casting me in their sitcom ‘A pair of tits and a pretty face.’” —Jenny McCarthy, on continuing her acting career.

“Oddly, the Emmys haven’t yet become a target of Al Qaida, but probably because bin Laden realizes that would make him America’s best friend overnight.” —Stockard Channing, on what the Emmy award ceremony has become.

“Well, my agent concentrates on the studios who mention that they’re ‘so desperate they’d hire Patrick fucking Swayze.’” —Patrick Swayze, on how he navigates career choices.

“Sometimes I get so caught up in the role that I forget that the character was dreamed up by a roomful of coked-up writers doing lines off Domino’s boxes.” —John Spencer, on his “West Wing” character, Leo McGarry.

“Because I woke up in bed with a man. And he was Republican.” —Actress and Air America Radio host Janeane Garofalo, on why she gave up her “social lubricant,” alcohol.

“I developed a backstory for my character. Isn’t that cute? I actually take acting fucking seriously.” — “House” actress Lisa Edelstein, on the backstory she developed for her Dr. Cuddy and Hugh Laurie's Dr. House.

“Hey, Peter Jackson: Great opening for King Kong. You and the studio are going down faster than the fucking Titanic.” —“Titanic” and “Terminator” director James Cameron.

“Why do Madonna and Paul McCartney write children’s books? Why do actors run for office? Because we must do everything within our power to prevent common people with true talent from achieving anything remotely approaching success.” —Actress, talk-show host and red-carpet maven Lisa Rinna, on why she got into the retail fashion business.

“I can only assume it’s because an increasing percentage of the television viewing audience has Down’s Syndrome.” —Actor, talk-show host and new grandfather Tony Danza, on why he's a success.

Link of the Day.

Yesterday's post was a bit of a downer, so here's a fun link for you 80's metal fans.

Metal Sludge.

Will try to post Who's News this weekend. Have a good holiday.

Caution: Despair Ahead (again).

Shitty night.

I’ve blogged before about how I have the whole depression thing licked, but at times something happens in my brain that I just can’t account for.

I’m angry. Not merely angry but genuinely hostile this evening. I broke some stuff, screamed, and if someone crossed me right now I would probably rip their head off without a second thought. As quoted in American Psycho, "I feel lethal, on the verge of frenzy."

My new position at the newspaper is stressful, but that’s not it. I’ve dealt with stress before. I have more balls in the air than a tea bagging convention.

I don’t even know if that’s funny or analogous, but I also don’t give a fuck.

What I think bothers me the most is that my days revolve around creating news stories about the tedium that characterizes people’s lives. That and the fact that nothing I do—or that anyone does—matters not the slightest sliver of a fuck.

I have a genuine dislike for humanity. My regular readers might be somewhat hurt by that statement, and I can only attempt to assure them that it’s nothing personal. There are people I genuinely like—my regular readers and commenters among them—but humanity as a whole is, in my humble opinion, a pox on this planet, and I wish we were all gone.

I am so disturbed by the fact that not only is life utterly impossible, but that we’ve made such a fucking mess of it. I don’t give a goddamn whether you believe in the Big Bang and Evolution; Intelligent Design; or a literal interpretation of Creation: life is impossible. To all you Big Bang supporters who believe that the little chunk of whatever that exploded and created everything "just happened," I tell you your theory is utterly fucking impossible. To you God-believing folks who claim that God created it all and that God just “always was,” I tell you your theory is impossible.

I heard a saying once that said “When the possible has been ruled out, the impossible must be true.” However, all theories mentioned above are impossible, so we're back to square-motherfucking-one and that pisses me off to no end. If we are going to have the "privilege" of living on the sole planet capable of supporting life, and if we are burdened to be the lone species capable of even understanding that we are alive, then for fuck's sake the Universe owes it to us to explain why we're here.

Douglas Adams, in his Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, theorized that the Earth was plugging away nicely when a spaceship carrying the dregs of another planet crash-landed here. Another civilization had separated the wheat from the chaff and sent their morons into space; salesmen, hairdressers, people who create spreadsheets: you know the type. They wound up here, killed off the cavemen who were evolving, and that explains why humanity is such an utter waste of life.

The funny thing is, Adams’ theory makes as much sense as anything.

I call myself a Christian every other day, and if Christianity winds up being true, I’m in for a stern lecture from the man upstairs when I finally let loose this mortal coil. God is supposedly love and I feel anything but love for life, myself, or my fellow man. I am full of anger and resentment and rage and hatred.

I see people around me who are happy with their 9-5 predictable lives, and I don’t know whether to envy or despise them. I see people who deal with numbers, and dollars, and spreadsheets, and 401Ks, and pop fucking culture, and the whole worthless assortment of worthless horseshit that permeates our lives, and it makes me physically ill and nearly apoplectic.

I see people around me having child after child for no other apparent reason than that it’s the thing to do and an opportunity to dress them in cute clothes and have everyone “ooh” and “aah” and say “How fucking cute.”

When I look at children, I see young boys who will grow up to be testosterone-driven, hateful bullies who say whatever they need to in order to deflower girls in the backseat of their Trans Am then never call them again. I see girls who think that by shirking any semblance of morality and desensitizing themselves to the humiliation that will be willingly and regularly heaped upon them by males, that they are a step ahead of everyone. And I see the look of misery on their faces when they reach adulthood and realize that they had been systematically used, abused, and discarded like a piece of trash.

When I see children in general I think that in a few years they’ll be faced with sleepless nights over the misery that characterizes their existence. I see them confined to cubicles staring at gray walls without windows creating spreadsheets. I see them hardly able to eek out a moment’s pleasure from their one and only lives on the one and only planet seemingly capable of harboring life. I see one out of a million having the balls and good fortune to spend their days doing something they enjoy and becoming successful at it, then having the other 99% of pitiful humans resenting them for it and doing everything within their power to tear them down.

For Christ’s sake, people: whether you believe in Creation or Evolution, can’t we agree that we have fucked things up royally? We are to the point where the almighty dollar is more important than life. We live on a planet where children are regularly sexually abused and tortured on Internet sites for the prurient gratification of an increasing number of people devoid of any measure of conscience. We live on a planet where thousands of soldiers die every day because people choose to fight one another despite an ability to communicate verbally which is unique to our species.

People are being murdered and raped. Animals are being tortured. We are pillaging the resources this wonderful repository of life has afforded us. This planet was supposed to be paradise and we have made it a spreadsheet-generating, polluted perversion of what God or nature had in mind.

Physicists agree that eventually our planet will be engulfed by the sun as its final embers smolder and it becomes an enormous, pulsating giant, destroying everything in its path. The elephant in the room is that our species is doomed; that the spreadsheets we create, the blogs we write, the newspapers we print, the mindless political arguing that continues incessantly won’t matter one single fuck when all is said and done. We are a blip on the cosmic radar screen. We are a fraction of a second on the cosmic clock. Our very existence is meaningless. How then can the things we argue about and debate be important?

Do you honestly not want to say fuck this system we’ve created and do something insane, just for the sake of doing it? For Christ’s sake, have you always wanted to paint a picture? Write a book? Play in a rock and roll band? You have one life and it is ticking away one alarmingly rapid second after another. Do you really want to stare at a goddamned felt-covered cubicle wall one more second?

Is all we can hope for to squeeze but a moment at a time of pleasure from this life and cherish it, hoping it’s enough to get us through the pointlessness and misery that characterizes the other 99% of it? If so, is it worth it?

What the fuck is the point of all this? Honestly: Why in the fuck are we here?

WHY I’M CONSERVATIVE

I’ve had some good conversations with Crall lately about why I label myself conservative.

The biggest reason I consider myself as such is because I’m terribly uncomfortable with the sexual promiscuity that characterizes America.

Case and point, my favorite sex advice column in the world, Savage Love. Click the link, read the letters. Today’s subject is “Sexual First-Time Horror Stories,” and the common thread is that losing your virginity at a young age is no big deal; it’s just something you need to “get over with.” Sex is just a physical act, unless as in the case of the first letter-writer you get pregnant as a result, but that’s easily taken care of: she got an abortion.

Bear in mind your children are likely reading it, too. Savage Love is available on-line, in City Pages, in the Onion, in countless readily-accessible locations. The irony to me is delicious; conservative Christians are incessantly told they’re shoving their beliefs down everyone’s throats, yet I don’t recall the last time I heard a Christian glorifying behavior that is emotionally and physically risky to the point of potentially causing death.

I could (and eventually will) blog ad nauseum about this subject. Not just Savage, but all purveyors of degeneracy. I hate prime-time television; I loathe the fact that sex is portrayed as a recreational activity between virtual strangers, that it rarely if ever has repercussions of any sort, that people take it for granted that by the time they meet that special someone, both parties will have been with (in the Biblical sense) 50 people.

I’ve been called old-fashioned and I’ve been told that I have issues; I’m comfortable with either. The fact is I was always extremely careful and particular about my sexuality, and I’ve seen first-hand how wanton sexuality has destroyed people physically and emotionally. It breaks my heart that there are people reading this have teenagers who are being cushioned by popular culture into believing that sex is to be embarked upon the moment physical maturity is reached, and as long as a condom is available everything is hunky-dory.

I would encourage anyone with children to impress upon them that sex is not merely sex, despite what the world says. Believe it or not, when they're ready to settle down they may just meet someone who had some sexual scruples.

In brief.

I hope to post more at length this evening.

I am soooo tired. Didn't sleep at all last night. My brain wouldn't shut off.

My next lengthy blog will hopefully be about the primary reason I'm glad I had a vasectomy nearly a decade ago.

I see that a Pennsylvania judge has ruled that Intelligent Design cannot be taught in classrooms, and it may confound my conservative brethren that I'm okay with that. That's another thing I'd like to blog at length about again someday soon.

However, I think that when Evolution is taught, the class should begin with the disclaimer that "Scientists have no clue where all this shit came from. All this something...came from nothing. We truly believe that, and we're comfortable with it."

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Faith-based, indeed.

Man, I'm beat.

WALMART RADIO

Walmart has their own radio station.

I know this because I was there this morning at 7:30 a.m. buying jumper cables.

Today was supposed to be the first day in my “new life;” the day I embark upon my journalism career as an Editorial Assistant at the Stillwater Gazette. The plan was to work my current administrative job from 8:00 ‘til 11:30, then work at the Gazette from noon ‘til 5:00.

Well, you know what they say: The best mice and men plan to get laid. Or something like that.

My truck didn’t start this morning. I figured it was because I foolishly didn’t drive it or even start it for two days, even though it would have been prudent to do so given it was zero degrees the whole weekend.

Why do physics dictate that car batteries die when it’s cold outside, by the way? Why can’t they die when it gets hot? Jump-starting a vehicle in 90-degree sun I could handle. You could fucking tailgate while jump-starting a vehicle in the summer.

Anyway, my truck made a “clicking” sound when I tried to start it. If I had any mechanical inclination at all I’d have known that this indicates that the battery has juice but something else was wrong. But of course, when you’re a novice auto mechanic, the first impulse is to try jump-starting. That’s sort of like an Emergency Room doctor who insists on using the paddles first, regardless of the patient’s symptoms. Head crushed in a motorcycle accident? Paddles. Insulin shock? Paddles. Heart attack? Paddles. Hey, it worked. One out of three! Boo-yah!

So I went to Walmart, even though I hate Walmart, because I knew they’d be open at 7:30 a.m. As I trudged across the cavernous store to the automotive department and picked up the cables and then trudged back, I noticed the Walmart radio station. They played various adult contemporary and classic rock hits, interspersed with a disc jockey who was speaking directly to Walmart employees. “Hey, congratulations to Store Number 234 in Austin, Texas, celebrating 300 accident-free days today.” “Birthdays today include Betty in our West Des Moines store and Brad, Assistant Manager in Omaha.”

God.

I made it back home and attempted to tackle the first task, finding the hood release in my wife’s Mini Cooper. After several minutes of vain searching in five-below temperatures, I grabbed the owner’s manual with a gloved hand and flipped to the index. Headlights. Heater. Ignition.

Goddamit, are you kidding me? No hood latch entry? Three pages of single-spaced type explaining in detail operation of the headlights, but not even a hint as to where the hood release lies. Several more minutes of searching uncovered it in the most intuitive spot possible, by the passenger’s feet camouflaged to blend in with the plastic molding. Fucking Brits.

I popped the hood then embarked upon Task Two: finding the battery. This is no easy feat given that in a Mini Cooper, everything is mini. I looked for something the size of a 9-volt battery and eventually found it, but unfortunately it was encased in plastic. Two tabs are provided to remove the cover, but given the cold temperatures one of them promptly snapped off. As the tears welled in my eyes, an employee of my town home complex pulled up in her SUV. How ironic that just a week before I wrote a blistering anti-SUV column and now I was about to kiss the ass of an SUV owner in order to have access to a car battery that could light the White House Christmas tree, Las Vegas strip, and Florida’s infamous “Old Sparky” electric chair for good measure.

Of course, as I mentioned above the battery wasn’t the problem, but we gave it a shot anyway. The instructions for jump-starting were clearly outlined on the jumper cable packaging, but as is invariably the case in such situations, the process was dictated by committee.

“Connect it to the positive cable of the dead battery first.”

“No, start with the negative cable of the good battery.”

“I think you’re supposed to simultaneously hook up the positives of both batteries.”

“Yeah, that sounds right.”

“Okay. Which one is positive?”

We managed to get by without an explosion and also without success. After thanking the Good Samaritan, I contacted a local garage and tow truck company and negotiated with my wife on a commuting arrangement that would inconvenience us both equally, which as I recall was one of our wedding vows.

Now, as I type this I’m debating internally: Give in and have a good cry, or resist the temptation and just get the hell through the day as best I can? It’s not just the stress of these events but the financial implications that worry me. I took a considerable pay cut to work at the Gazette and was counting on the extra income from my administrative job to add to my already-small financial cushion. Now I’m dipping into that cushion to the tune of $300 or more.

Postscript
It’s now evening, and I’m wiped out.

I’m a bit discouraged tonight for several reasons. First, it struck me today that my truck has officially crossed the line from old reliable to piece of shit. Not that it’s wholly undependable, but it’s definitely to the point now where it will be increasingly held together with duct tape. I was counting on this vehicle to get me through college, but now I’m not convinced it will start tomorrow. That’s a sick feeling, knowing you’re going to sleep with uncertainty over whether your vehicle will start. Not that it’s the end of the world—God knows I’m the guy who regularly tries to impress upon people, Americans in particular, that problems are relative—but this morning is now officially number one on my all-time most stressful list, and if tomorrow is a repeat I don’t know if I can stand it.

Second, the new job is a mixed blessing. It’s trial by fire at the Gazette. One minute I was filling out New Employee Paperwork, next minute I was machine gunning through press releases and e-mails preparing stories for print. I literally went from being a once-a-week columnist to preparing several pieces for the next issue.

The down side is the pay. I’m making no money, and I feel awful relying on my wife. She’s willing and she makes a great living, and what’s more she realizes that this position is the best preparation I could possibly receive for a career in writing. And don’t fret, I’m not quitting or anything silly like that. It’s just that for the first time, I may have to admit to someone that I need them, not just in the googly-eyed “I need you” sense, but in the “Can you help me defray starvation?” sense.

I have a good wife. I really do. She is married to a 38-year old college sophomore who makes no money, and she loves the living daylights out of me.

This started out as an essay and wound up being a stream-of-consciousness, weariness-fueled word puke, for which I apologize. I’m truly wiped out and need to take a Xanax, turn my Sharper Image sound soother to “rain,” and read a couple chapters of “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.” For some reason, reading about the limitless of mankind’s propensity for horrific behavior puts things into perspective just enough to help me sleep.

Could be the Xanax, too.

A couple brief thoughts before I leave you for tonight…

ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT
Tonight’s episode of the best show you’re not watching may have been the funniest thing my wife and I have ever seen. We both laughed to the point of tears. It makes me sick that the best-written, best-acted show on television will soon be history, making way for another season of Stacked and According to Jim.

JOHNNY KNOXVILLE
Not familiar with the name? He’s an “actor” who appeared on MTV’s Jackass program and starred in the Dukes of Hazard movie. His new movie, The Ringer, is being heavily advertised. The Ringer appears to be about a person who pretends to be retarded in order to appear in the Special Olympics.

If I were given the choice between working my current low-paying position at the Gazette for the rest of my life or appearing in a movie like The Ringer, being paid enough for four month’s work to live comfortably for the rest of my life, I think I’d have to go with the former. Please tell me you’re not one of the people who have shelled out hard-earned money to make Johnny Knoxville a millionaire celebrity.

NEW LINK
I’ve added a link to The Crallspace. Many of you might find this a strange replacement for Not a Desperate Housewife, but I find it to be fascinating. Crall is a hard-core left-winger, but in the short time I’ve been leaving comments I’ve found the debate to be quite rational, which is missing all-too-often these days. Enjoy his site. I sure do.

Sunday stuff.

Sunday morning, 7:30 a.m. The best time of the week to write. My wife is still sound asleep and I’ve taken two sips from the first cup of coffee of the day. Buddy Lee, my enormous cat, is eating his breakfast and will soon collapse at my feet for one hour, two hours; however long before my wife wakes up and I join her on the couch to read the paper. The coffee is a tad bittersweet given that in two hours I’ll have downed well over eight cups and the caffeine levels in my blood will have long-since surpassed toxic levels.

Who’s News was posted last night, by the way. It’s something different, and I hope you enjoy it.

I have to tip my hat to Leab, whose prolific blogging nature has both inspired and shamed me. This time last week I was threatening that once the semester was over, watch out: I’d be posting thousands and thousands of words per day, making Leab’s posts look like postcards. Well, I don’t know if I necessarily accomplished that, but I did better than recent weeks, which is something, I guess.

Say, it’s my anniversary. December 2004 was the first official post of the Admin Worm blog. I don’t recall exactly what day, because a couple of times since then I committed “blog suicide” and deleted everything. As a depressed person who has vowed not to commit “real” suicide, I’ve had to satiate my urge to not exist by committing “faux” suicide numerous times, ridding myself of everything that reminds me of my past, from pictures to yearbooks to elementary school memorabilia to my blog posts. Once I even deleted the Admin Worm profile altogether, but then my proprietary nature kicked in and I re-claimed it. I’ll be damned if some unworthy person was going to claim the Admin Worm moniker as their own just because I made a rash decision.

I fear that my aforementioned pal, Leab, might commit blog suicide because his writing has reflected a down mood and frustration with his writing, which are sure signs that a blog-ending act might occur. I’d like to strongly encourage him to resist the temptation. Leab, if you have to, have your wife change your password so you can't do something crazy. Leab had one post in particular that caused some consternation within his family, and last time I looked the post still remains. I recall that many months ago I posted something that I later regretted, and the reverberations sounded long afterward.

However, it was a benchmark moment in my writing “career.” It taught me several important lessons about being a writer, from changing names to protect the innocent to sticking to my strengths, or at least using a pseudonym when the urge to write something out of character strikes. My wife said something profound that day. During a conversation about the post, I defended my writing by saying “This is no more offensive than something a shock comedian like Sam Kinison or Bill Hicks would write.” My wife very calmly and correctly said “But you’re not a shock comedian.”

Touche.

Many of you might be wondering how I got the idea to start a blog in the first place. Well, long before the Admin Worm blog existed, the Admin Worm comic strip was online. Here’s a sample strip. For some reason it looks very small, but if its illegible, don't worry. It's not worth reading:

Atrocious, huh? Nonetheless, I had a surprising number of people checking out the strip on a daily basis. I also submitted it for consideration to all the major Syndicates, but since they receive an average of 3,000 submission each year and publish only two or three (not to mention their noble dedication towards keeping gems like Family Circus alive), Admin Worm did not strike them as marketable. As a friend of mine once said, "I like the strip, but the whole 'worm thing' is sort of creepy."

Actually, looking at the strip now I’m surprised how polished it looks, given that it’s pulling teeth for me to create a drawing. Art was never my forte; the worst grade I ever received in school (aside from advanced math) was art. It took me an average of three lunch hours at work to create a single strip, and towards the end it became very formulaic in that I would produce “new” cartoons by tracing characters from previous cartoons. The situations and drawings became predictable and the strips were far too wordy, and it quickly became clear it was time to bid adieu to Admin Worm, the strip.

However, a feature I added to the website towards the end was a section called Ramblings. My buddy Leab might argue who coined the phrase Ramblings, but if necessary I can produce documents proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that my website featured a section called Ramblings long before Ironic Teachings was a gleam in Leab’s eye (just messing with you, Leab). Once a week I would have my webmaster post a couple thousand words of my trademark ranting, and much to my surprise (and delight) this quickly became the most popular and rewarding part of the site.

Soon thereafter I parted company with a couple of business partners with whom I’d hatched the Admin Worm idea and hired a true webmaster. She streamlined the website and I vividly recall the unveiling; it was a proud moment in my life. The site had everything: pizzazz, color, animation, everything but heart and soul. By that time I was completely burned out on the prospect of drawing a comic strip and had decided to turn my attention to writing.

Then one day, while listening to AM 1280 The Patriot, a local right-wing talk radio station, I heard a show featuring several people who wrote various, prominent Twin Cities’ blogs. The subject of the show was “How do I get my own blog?” I grabbed a notebook preparing myself for the detailed instructions to follow, but the extent of their advice was this: Log onto http://www.blogger.com/, sign up, and you have a blog. And it’s truly just that easy. I did so that afternoon and began writing, and soon thereafter realized it was pointless paying my webmaster twenty bucks a month to maintain my cartoon site when I could blog for free and update it whenever I wanted. Thus the Admin Worm website was dissolved and the Admin Worm blog was born.

By the way, I want to take a moment to offer my sincere appreciation to the folks at Blogger. It’s true that periodically their services are frustrating; servers down, unable to load pictures, blah blah blah. I’ve had innumerable fellow bloggers complain about Blogger, but I’m loathe to slam them too much because their services are completely free, and after one year of blogging I can tell you that there appears to be no catch. An infinite number of previous posts can be saved. No advertisements have ever appeared, be they pop-up or banners. Content is not edited. Blogging seems to be the very manifestation of what the Founders had in mind when they came up with the whole Free Speech thing, and I’d put the folks at Blogger right up there with George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and the rest of the powdered wig crowd.

Along the way I’ve met some people who have turned out to be wonderful friends. Let me qualify that statement; I’ve never actually met any of these people, yet I feel closer to many of them than I do to my “real” friends. Something about the anonymity of blogging lends itself to total disclosure. Friends like Stacy of the now-defunct Not a Desperate Housewife blog has helped me through some truly trying times, and I hope that I provided her even a fraction of the support she lent me. Exile has provided not only words of encouragement, but he continues to churn out one articulate right-wing rant after another, making me feel considerably less guilty for leaving political writing behind several months ago. Not to mention Tu s Tin, a fellow Ecclesiastes lover like myself, and Wilhelmina who continues to surprise me with his/her dedication to making blogging a wholly unpredictable experience.

So, as I embark on Year Two of the Admin Worm blog, I make you this pledge: That I’ll do my utmost to avoid another act of Blog Suicide, and that I’ll try to write regularly despite a full-time school schedule and two part-time jobs. I’ll also keep my eyes peeled for other blogs you may find interesting, and with the help of regular commenters like Bill and Jules will provide links to bizarre news stories bolstering my contention that life is impossible and ridiculous and miraculous, and that human beings won’t recognize the gift they’ve been given until horsemen in the sky make the announcement that it’s too late.

Who's News...sort of.

It’s Sunday, and that historically means Who’s News, Admin Worm’s weekly sojourn into the horror that characterizes America’s preoccupation with celebrity. For the uninitiated, I take actual letters sent by actual readers to the Who’s News section of USA Weekend, and toss an Admin Worm spin on them, masking my contempt for popular culture with a thick coating of sarcasm and humor.

However, given that it’s Christmas week, I thought I’d do something special. The following are actual letters sent by actual children to Santa Claus in care of an unnamed Twin Cities newspaper. They've been printing them all week. You’d think it would do the heart of an old cynic like myself good to see that there is still innocence in the world, but no: the temptation to be a prick is too great. My apologies if your child wrote one of these letters. I'm not sorry for trashing them; I'm merely sorry you have such naive offspring.

Dear Santa:

This is what I want for Christmas: I want a bell from your sleigh. -Love, Lisa

P.S. I have been very good this year.

Hi, Lisa. You’ve got it. I’m over your house now. I’m dropping the bell. Perfect shot! Right down the chimney. Okay, Rudolph: get us out of here. Uh oh, do I see lights from an airliner? Oh well, no problem: I’ll just jingle the bells to alert them to our presence. Oh, fuck: we gave Lisa our last bell! Oh God, they’re closing in on us. Sweet Jesus, Donner just got sucked into the intake of a DC-10. Mayday! Mayday! We’re going down. Repeat, Santa One is going down in a field just outside of Mason City, Iowa. Oh, the humanity…

That was a dramatization, Lisa. Thankfully this won’t actually occur since I had the presence of mind to disregard your request out of hand. Do you have any clue of the liability I’d face were I to hand out the bells from my sleigh willy-nilly? OSHA is already on my ass 24/7, thanks to an “anonymous” complaint from an “anonymous” elf who was unhappy with conditions in the workshop (Thanks, Hermey, may you remain a misfit ‘til the end of your bitter days).

You may have been good this year, Lisa, but you’re not terribly bright. Why can’t you ask for something traditional like a My Size Barbie? I’m delivering a few dozen to Gary Glitter, I'll toss one your way. He'll never miss it, he currently has bigger fish to fry.


(This next letter is transcribed verbatim, I swear to God)

Can you give some money to the pore and I want to help them and kan you help to so pore people can be happy to and I now you now how good I have been to so I will give you cards and a gift for, you to. Can you give me a videow plaire for game boy.

(Note: Here the letter-writer included a crayon rendering a smiling girl bearing a gift)

The pore girl she is happy bee cus she got a present for gricmes. -Love, Michael

My head hurts.

Mrs. Claus and I never had children, Michael, therefore I’m not an expert on where you should be developmentally. If your letter is any indication, however, the people of your town should be marching on City Hall with torches demanding a cent-by-cent accounting of the public school budget, not to mention delivering a stern indictment of your parents’ proofreading skills.

On the plus side, Michael, you’ve inadvertently stumbled upon the one holiday that couldn’t possibly offend anyone. "Gricmes" is an event that the ACLU, Walmart, Target, the U.S. Congress, Jews, blacks, and Muslims alike could agree on. It’s like a combination of Grimace from McDonald’s, the Grinch, and Christmas. It's a fucking marketing wet dream. I don’t know what the symbol of this new celebration could possibly be, but I damned sure wouldn’t want one in my living room.

Anyway, I’ll see to it that the “pore” people, as you call them, receive a year’s supply of Stridex. As for you, I’m saying ix-nay on the ameboy-Gay and instead getting you a Speak-and-Spell, a dictionary, an entire set of Hooked on Phonics, and just in case these fail, a piece of cardboard and a magic marker.

Wanted to tell you that I was a good girl. Please bring me a dog, a doll. Tell god to tell the angels to drop pennies to the poor people. -Love, Melissa

Well, you get the Most Creative Use of Commas Award, Melissa. “Please bring me a dog, a doll.” I'd almost say it's poetic, exept that you’re just a dumb kid who doesn't know any better.

Anyway, I’ll get right on your request: I’ll tell God to tell the angels to start throwing pennies at poor people. In fact, I recommend you do the same. Break open your piggy bank and pelt the next homeless fellow you see with pennies. Nothing is sure to rouse the spirits of an already down-on-their-luck person like being showered with the most worthless money imaginable, unless you were to throw Monopoly money, which I don’t recommend because when the family breaks out the board games on New Year’s Eve and discovers that the bank has been looted, there will be hell to pay. You know how cranky your dad gets when he knows there's only one more week 'til egg nog disappears from the shelves again for another year. He's just looking for an excuse to beat your sorry ass. Again.

For Christ’s sake, Melissa: you can’t even buy parking with pennies anymore. It's over for pennies. Besides, the U.S. unemployment rate currently hovers around 5% which means anyone that wants a job should have a job. Look at me: I’m a thousand Christing years old but I still manage to make my godawful worldwide trek every year, even though two hours into it my hemorrhoids are screaming like a couple little kids in the back of a minivan: Are we there yet? Are we there yet? It's called a work ethic, Melissa. Explain it to the next bum you see.

Throw pennies to the poor. Give me a break. How 'bout I throw ‘em a fucking job application? There’ll be an opportunity available at the North Pole once I get Hermey’s worthless ass out of my workshop. He claimed disability, but my attorney and three expert witness say "misfit" isn't included in the DSM IV, so I've got Mr. "Not Happy In My Work, I Guess" by his elfen short hairs.

This is for me and my sister. Our names are Amy and Ellen. I want a Polly pocket where you make jewelry and lots and lots of books. We both would like a teddy bear. I also want a horse and rider.

Ellen would like a new stuffed bunny and lamb to replace the ones she is eating all the fur off. She would also like some puzzles and books.

I have a very, very special request. I have a friend who thinks she does not fit in the world. Would you bring her a special gift of an art kit? Please write a note that says “This is from Santa at the request of your best friend, Amy.” -Love, Amy and Ellen

Am I wrong to be concerned that your sister is “eating all the fur off” her stuffed bunny and lamb? Methinks a visit from Social Services is a bit more pressing than my annual Christmas pop-in. Sounds like your dad is once again channeling the family's relief checks towards Powerball tickets rather than food, and he’s thus perilously close to being moved from the “Naughty” list to the “Let’s place him in the reindeer pen during rutting season and see how he likes a 12-point buck antler up his beer-swollen ass” list.

Anyway, regarding your touching request that I send an art kit to a “friend who thinks she does not fit in the world,” nice try. As part of the Patriot Act, I have unfettered access to e-mail and telephone records. I won’t go into details as to why; suffice it to say back in 2000 I delivered a Playstation Flight Simulator game to a certain “Billy” Bin Laden, who claimed he was a six-year old orphan whose parents had been killed in a suicide bombing, and Uncle Sam is understandibly reticent for that to happen again. My bad.

Anyway, I am fully aware that your “friend who thinks she does not fit in the world” is actually a “he,” none other than the above-referenced Hermey, and I’m fed up with his inability to stick to a career. First a dentist, now he wants to be the next Renoir. Make up your mind, you whiny little homo. And shame on you and your sister for aiding and abetting: No toys for you. I hope you have a coal-burning furnace, 'cuz I'm bringing you some fuel for it.

I think I'll have the boys in the workshop crank out an extra hunk of cardboard and marker for my boy, Hermey...

Well, that wraps it up for this week’s Who’s News. My apologies to the wonderful children who penned these touching letters to St. Nick. Believe me, if I had a heart or one shred of kindness in my soul, I would have focused on lambasting pop culture, as always, and allowed the Christmas Spirit to envelope me in a warming, calming cocoon. No such luck, however. Once a Scrooge, always a Scrooge. We here at the Admin Worm blog wish you and yours the happiest of whatever the fuck holiday you choose to celebrate, and if you don’t celebrate one at all, you’re the envy of us all. Don’t forget, every time an American says “Fuck it, I refuse to buy into the consumer culture this year, I’m making a donation to the Humane Society instead,” an angel gets its wings.

Of course, then that angels pelts a poor person with pennies, so either way the holidays are a big fat lose-lose. Donate to the Humane Society and the Animal Ark anyway, because animals need homes more than your spoiled, punk kid needs a fucking Game Cube.

Patriot Act.

Well, the United States Senate just blocked reauthorization of the Patriot Act, and it's about fucking time. Yeah, I said "fuck," and I'll continue to do so now that the United States is no longer a dictatorship.

As a writer, I can't tell you how pleased I am. It's been a rough couple of years, having every word I wrote channeled through the State Department. The volumes of paperwork necessary to obtain and maintain a daily blog was overwhelming; layer after layer of red tape that had to be authorized, notarized, and scrutinized. There were times that I considered giving up, but felt it was my duty as an American to persevere, knowing that one day the people would triumph.

This is a tremendous day for American civil liberties. We've let loose the shackles imposed by the fascist Bush Administration. Fight the power.

This has been weighing on my mind...

People get mad at me when I tell them I’m trying to lose weight.

“What are you, anorexic?” they ask. It gets a little tiresome, truth be told. I’m to the point now where if it comes up, instead of argue I simply lift my shirt up and let them see “the roll.”

It’s not a huge roll; it probably doesn’t even qualify as a spare tire. More of an inner tube. Nonetheless, there it is, the result of too many years of Caribou blueberry muffins, nightly desserts, and daily visits to innumerable cubicles at work offering free candy.

I tried to lose my roll by dieting, specifically the Atkins Diet, and that was by far the worst seven hours of my life. I don’t see how people do it. How the Atkins Diet qualified as a medical breakthrough I’ll never understand. I mean, no offense, but a person with Down’s Syndrome could tell you you’ll lose weight if you don’t eat anything, for Christ’s sake.

“For breakfast,” says the Atkins Diet book, “have a single scrambled egg white, a grape, and half a cup of coffee made with low-fat water. For lunch, treat yourself to a single slice of lunch meat, a quarter-inch square cube of cheese, and a tablespoon of cottage cheese. For dinner, repeat lunch. For dessert, stick a gun barrel in your mouth, using low-cal cooking spray rather than traditional gun oil.” The book also recommends that you alert friends and family that you’re dieting and may thus be crabby; in other words, give them a heads up that at any given time you might without warning eat their face, ala Hannibal Lecter.

So I tried to compromise by cutting some of the crap out of my diet, like breads and sweets. The latter are my Achilles heel; somewhere along the line my wife and I found it necessary to start having dessert every night. Chocolate chip cookies, cake, and pudding have been staples in our diet for nigh on three years, and when there are only two folks under the roof that means larger helpings and leftovers for days at a time. It’s a wonder we don’t topple the scales at 200 pounds apiece, and I think we’d each suspect the other of secretly purging if it weren’t for the fact in a town home this size you can’t tweeze your eyebrows without your partner shouting “Will you keep it down?”

One day the specter of dieting struck me as ludicrous. Anyone reading this is aware that I’m a defeatist; that I truly believe that one day soon, Iran will lob nuclear weapons at Israel, spaceships will descend upon the earth, and we’ll all have a front-row seat to the Book of Revelation. I’ll be damned if I’m going to wave hello to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse gnawing on a stalk of celery. I want a plate of chocolate chip cookies in my hands when Christ returns, and none of that Hershey’s shit: Ghirardelli all the way.

What I ultimately decided upon was moderating my consumption and engaging in regular exercise. The former consists of calling it a night after six cookies rather than twelve. This may not seem like a sacrifice, but it takes all the self-control I have. As far as the exercise, for about a month now I’ve been working out semi-regularly, which means every other night I do three miles or so on the treadmill burning around 300 calories at a time, then I do leg lifts and squats to strengthen my back and tighten my abdomen.

The amazing thing is that it works. When I began, I weighed in at around 137 pounds. Tonight I weighed myself and am down to 133 pounds. And what I love is that I don’t look skinny, but rather am starting to appear toned. I’m nowhere near the six-pack abs I crave, but I’ll get there. My goal is to weigh 129 pounds and to have an abdomen that looks like Brad Pitt’s in “Fight Club.” Dream on, Admin Worm.

What I really dig is that I’m feeling more confident. This will sound strange, but for the first time since meeting my wife I feel “worthy” of her. She is stunningly beautiful and has an amazing body, and frankly I’ve always felt that I paled in comparison to her. Please don’t misunderstand; she loves me just as I am and would accept me if I weighed 300 pounds or 100. However, I think that she appreciates the fact that I’m doing something to feel better about myself. Confidence is a trait I’ve never exuded in large quantities, and to be honest I think she finds it a bit attractive.

The most important thing is that I’m not allowing myself to be discouraged by setbacks. If I go a week without exercising, no big deal. If I happen to down an entire batch of brownies in one sitting, se la vie. The longer I go on, the more of a habit doing the right thing becomes, and slowly but surely I’m seeing results. And if Christ happens to return during my lifetime, I’ll whip him up a pan of brownies, and as we munch them I’ll say “Yeah, you have nice hair, but check out these abs.”

Hey ho.

Earlier this week I teased that there might be developments in my writing "career."

Also, yesterday I wrote about how the company I work for is up for sale, and I will be out of a job when that occurs.

Well, today I received word that I've been hired as an Editorial Assistant at the Stillwater Gazette, the newspaper for which I write my barn-burner of a column.

Now, before the accolades begin, let me stress that this is a bottom-rung position. In fact, it pays considerably less than my current administrative position.

It's a great opportunity for any number of reasons, however. First, it's an entry-level position in the Communications field. Second, the person who previously held the position did so for only three months, at which point he was promoted to full-time staff writer, and the same could happen to me, especially given my desire to excel and the fact that the editor is already aware of my writing skills. Also, I may as well tell you that I'm already being considered for a full-time staff writer position at the Gazette. The editor is waiting until she sees some more resumes, but the fact that she brought it up to me tells me that she at least believes I'm qualified.

Look, I'm just pleased as punch to have received the part-time Editorial Assistant position. It's a great way to prove my mettle and learn the journalism profession from the bottom up. Plus, I can keep my column, which is a bonus. If I end up becoming a full-time staff writer, all the better.

So, there you have it: the first step towards what I hope is one day a successful writing career. I'm glad you're all here to share it.

Hey baby, found this site and wanted you to check it out.

Since my days are numbered at my current job, I thought I'd begin periodically posting the Spam E-mail of the Day I receive in the general mailbox. I won't post the actual link since Lord knows what you'll find there. Hard-core pornography, viruses...the mind reels. If these people would apply themselves to a real job, can you imagine what they could accomplish?

Hey baby, found this site and wanted you to check it out.

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Millions of men are taking advantage of this revolutionary new product - Don't be left behind!As an added incentive, they are offering huge discount specials right now, check out the site to see for yourself!

"Huge" discount specials. I thought that was ironic.

Gazette Column.

The following is this week's offering to the Stillwater Gazette. Like I said earlier in the week, I'm hoping that within a couple days I'll have some interesting news regarding my writing "career." Stay tuned.

By the way, I posted a rather lengthy stream-of-consciousness blog last night, and it's located underneath the current one. If you care, that is.

Pay a visit to My buddy Leab over at Ironic Teachings. He's a little down these days and could use a friendly comment or two.

SPORT UTILITY VEHICLES
Sport Utility Vehicles, how do I hate thee? Let me count the ways.

Perhaps it’s unfair to channel vitriol towards inanimate objects. It might be more accurate, therefore, to express disdain for the folks who drive their SUVs according to a set of rules foreign to the rest of us; the “rest of us” meaning people who possess a modicum of courtesy, common sense, and who aren’t chomping at the bit for General Motors to unveil the new GMC Furrow, so named for its ability to chew ruts into pavement.

By the way, I’m pro choice when it comes to automobiles. If you have the dough and fragile self-esteem required to drive a vehicle that could traverse an active volcano, more power to you. Bear in mind, however, that you are the target of growing animosity among people whose automobiles are not comprised of half the steel harvested from the Iron Range.

SUV drivers are easily categorized into several camps. The worst offenders are young, professional women who require two tons of steel to cart their 98-pound frames (20 of which are comprised of silicon and collagen) to their next real estate closing. They weave from lane to lane, nattering incessantly into cell phones. Turn signals are optional equipment for these geniuses, and signs warning “LANE ENDS ½ MILE” are ignored. After all, the shoulder is always an option, right? These women exude so much moxie that some enterprising drug company should develop Amoxiecillin™ to quell the irrepressible urge to purchase smartly-tailored business suits and force children to play soccer.

Then there are elderly ladies for whom their husbands clearly purchased SUVs for safety reasons. Unfortunately, now no one else is safe. These women accelerate from zero to 15 in just under ten minutes and then white-knuckle their way into the passing lane. There they stay, driving 20 miles under the posted speed limit just in case the aforementioned volcano suddenly materializes in-between their assisted living complex in St. Paul and their cross-stitch club in Minneapolis, thus necessitating evasive action.

As if that weren’t enough, there’s a new breed of SUV owners becoming all too prevalent. These are the folks whose behemoths are “tricked out” with bling. Bling, for the uninitiated, means abundant chrome, hypnotic wheel accessories (“spinners”), stereos designed to keep everyone within a 50 mile radius apprised of the latest developments in gangsta’ rap, and windows tinted to the point of complete opacity. The latter is not for coolness’ sake, but for fear that other drivers might identify the idiot behind the wheel, who is often a 40-something businessman who uses his SUV as a middle-finger to “the man,” blissfully unaware that he is, in fact, “the man.”

Here’s a tip: When you can afford to invest in after-market accessories the value of which is roughly equivalent to the Gross National Product of many third-world nations, perhaps it’s time to bypass the diamond-studded windshield wipers and instead toss an extra light saber in the Toys for Tots bin.

The bling crowd is comprised of the same people who proudly display “Urinating Calvin” stickers on their SUVs, which was once a privilege reserved for monster truck drivers. “Urinating Calvin” stickers are a way for drivers loyal to a particular vehicle manufacturer to express their disdain for rival manufacturers without having to rely on pesky nouns and verbs. Bill Waterson, creator of Calvin and Hobbes, poured his heart and soul into his comic strip for a decade. He must be brimming with pride knowing that his creation is being used as the sole means of communication for Neanderthals who sign their SUV leases with a big, clumsy “X.”

It’s the height of irony that the United States possesses the best-engineered roads in the world yet a staggering number of people drive vehicles that could successfully navigate the Serengeti. When gas prices briefly surpassed three dollars per gallon, I foolishly hoped that the number of SUVs on the road might decline, or at least cause their owners to drive with some degree of sanity in order to conserve fuel. I couldn’t have been more wrong, and this stands to reason. An extra twenty bucks per week in gas is a pittance in a nation where earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes and a looming bird flu pandemic aren’t enough to make people see beyond their opaque windshields.

Post finals blues.

I’m listening to music through headphones ‘cuz my wife is watching television. I hate television, really I do. So right now, I’m listening to “The Things We Do for Love” by 10CC, one of the coolest damned songs ever written.

Well, finals are done. This occasion lacks impact for a non-traditional student like me. The punk kids I have class with, they’re off to party for a month, perhaps work a shift or two at Best Buy, play video games, etc. Me, I was off to work as always after class. Same old same old.

Well, maybe not quite the same. Today was an interesting day at work. The company I work for is up for sale, and today we had a meeting where the head honchos filled the grunts in on events to date. A spreadsheet was distributed (I love spreadsheets) and one of the columns dealt with the fate of existing employees.

Now I’m listening to “Making Love Out of Nothing at All.” Great song. Similar to “Surf’s Up” by Meatloaf, which contains my second favorite guitar solo of all time. My favorite guitar solo is in “Love Hurts” by Nazareth. Listen to that solo closely someday. If you’re paying attention, you’ll notice that the guitarist strikes the string but twice during the whole solo. The rest of it is feedback, harmonics, and string bending. Very powerful and emotional.

Anyway, the spreadsheet column in question mentioned something to the effect of “Full-time employees are expected to remain employed.” Stress full-time.

I posited a question: Does that mean the part-time administrative assistant—me, Admin Worm—would be fired???

That would be a big ol' affirmative.

I could tell that the big wigs felt bad, as did the other grunts. The thing is, I’m fine with it. They need to do what they need to do, and I never thought I’d be drawing a pension from this company. I have a million irons in the fire, as you’re aware, and I’ve found jobs before. I will survive, as Gloria Gaynor said, though I’m not listening to that song. For some reason I’m listening to “Moon River” by Andy Williams. What the fuck?

Now I’m downloading “Surf’s Up” by Meatloaf. I need to hear that solo. And now “The Luckiest” by Ben Folds is playing. Have you heard this song? If not, you’re missing one of life’s great pleasures. I sang this song for my wife at our wedding reception. We hired a jazz trio to play, and the pianist was kind enough to learn this song for me. I serenaded my wife, and after 20 years of performing live this was the most frightening and rewarding performance of my life.

My mother-in-law videotaped most of our wedding day’s events and much of the reception, but for some reason she didn’t videotape the song. And I’m so glad. That’s one of those moments that is best relegated to memory, so that it’s always perfect. If we could watch it over and over, we might discover that I sucked. I want to think that for three minutes, I was Luciana Pavarotti, but 1/3 the weight and not as hairy.

I love you more than I have ever found a way to say to you.

Anyway, I was writing about my job, but somehow that doesn’t seem quite so important right now. I will say that the full-time people at my company deserve to remain employed. We have a great group of field folks and this could be a fantastic opportunity for them.

Now I’m listening to “Do You Believe In Love?” by Huey Lewis and the News. Great song, great harmonies.

Today I did three good deeds, so I’m hoping that God rewards me with something good.

Did you know that Deborah (formerly Debbie) Gibson, former teen pop idol, appeared nude in Playboy Magazine? A classmate told me that today, and I was mortified. Mind you, not so mortified that I didn’t track down the photographs tonight. I don’t know what to say. Tiffany I could see doing that—in fact did see—but Debbie Gibson? I thought she had class. That really bums me out.

Well, this was an earth-shattering blog, eh?

Now I’m listening to “Prowler” by Iron Maiden, a song about a Peeping Tom masturbating in the bushes while watching a young woman undress. And I’m the guy who complained about “My Humps” by Black Eyed Peas.

By the way, major kudos to Arnold Schwarzeneger for having the balls to allow Tookie Williams to be executed. I am so sick of seeing bleeding heart morons on the news shedding tears for a worthless murderer like Williams. We’re hearing details of the execution, but you have to search high and low for details of the murders Williams committed. Just so you know, he murdered a convenience store clerk by shooting him twice in the back with a shotgun. I don’t give a fuck how many children’s books you write after that, you’re a worthless shred of human debris and a waste of oxygen. Good riddance Tookie, and may your supporters like Ed Asner, Mike Farrell, and the Reverend without a church Jesse Jackson pull their heads out of their asses and realize they’re making utter fools of themselves.

Now I’m listening to “Wrathchild” by Iron Maiden. How fitting.

And I downloaded "Surf's Up" by Meatloaf...and it's a re-release, so the guitar solo is different.

Sigh. Good night.