RTOTD #748.1

Day 748.1

So I'm going to do something that other people do sometimes...

It's Ask Me Anything Day.

So ask me anything.

Random Thought Of The Day #748

Day 748

Third Time Isn't A Charm

(When? - October 2009)

Most of my friends have known better than to invite me to their weddings. Maybe it's because they know I'm going to cause a spectacle. Maybe it's because they know I'll get boldly drunk and wildly out of control before trying to sleep with any reasonably attractive girl there, including the bride's mother if she's got that cougar thing going. They might know that I'm that guy that would yell at the DJ for playing the Chicken Dance, even if all the old people are loving it. Because the Chicken Dance sucks.

Or maybe because I'm just not a good enough friend that they're willing to tolerate my narcissistic attention whoring and just don't invite me.

I'm leaning towards this option.

However, a few of my friends have made the mistake of inviting me to weddings. My brother, of course, invited me to his. And as was expected, made me the Best Man. I mean... I might be a gigantic pain in the ass and a completely self-indulgent jackass, but I'm still his brother. Who the fuck ELSE would he pick? Though his wife DID demand that I write my Best Man speech ahead of time and give her a copy that she could proof read and have veto power over. I, of course, wrote one and turned it over. Then promptly ignored what I wrote and made something up on the spot because... fuck you, that's why.

My brother and I couldn't be more dissimilar. Wait, that's not entirely true. There was a time where we were very much alike. Then he got boring and I got awesomer and now we couldn't be more dissimilar. Where he might use fancy words like "moderation" and "mature" and "sober", I ignore those words and just do whatever I want while ignoring the consequences of my actions and denying any responsibility if things go badly. Nothing is ever my fault. Because I'm better than you.

Well, I had a feeling that my brother's wedding was going to be a total shit show from the first time he told me about it. It wasn't going to be here. It was going to be in middle-of-fucking-nowhere, Central PA because that's where my sister-in-law's family is from. And because they had more family than we do, apparently we had to do the wedding out there. This meant a few things. It meant that not many of our mutual friends would not bother making the 3 hour trek to Nowheresville, Pennsyltuckey. It also meant that there would be a minimal number of hot girls there. Because it was nowheresville, pennsyltuckey. I wasn't really super concerned about this second thing when I agreed to both GO and be the Best Man, because TheDevil was going to be coming as my Plus One.

Leading up to the wedding, I had exactly 1 thing on my mind. Bachelor Party. But my brother, being entirely dissimilar to me, said the 2 words that every Best Man dreads hearing. "No Strippers". What. The. Fuck. How does that even work? This was going to be the 3rd wedding that I'd been to in the past few years where the rule was "no strippers" for the bachelor party. And not even for the usual bullshit reason of "the Bride's dad/uncles/brothers/cousins were coming to the bachelor party". See, that one is easy to get around. You just do 2 Bachelor parties. One that is safe for them to come to, and you either do a different one on a different night that includes strippers that you don't tell them about, or you just say the bachelor party goes from 7-10 and then you move onto the bars and strip clubs from there.

No, in all 3 cases it was because the GROOM DIDN'T WANT STRIPPERS! How is this even fucking possible? Did that recently suffer a severe head trauma? Because what the fuck kind of bachelor party is it without strippers? Fuck, I almost feel like I have been spending the intervening years of strip club patronage just making up for the lack-there-of strippers at these 3 bachelor parties. This is bullshit and it's entirely unacceptable. Because fuck you,  I don't care if you're the groom. It's a night to go absolutely batshit fucking crazy, do the stupidest shit imaginable, have glitter-trailed whores plaster themselves to your lap, and generally act like a drunken fool all night. And not only is it acceptable, it's encouraged by everyone except for the most pious and prudish of evangelical assholes. And even those fucking people are just hypocritical assholes who just wish they had the balls to do the kind of shit that they preach against doing. Pussies.

Now how in the fuck am I supposed to organize a Bachelor Party that doesn't involve strippers? I had some ideas, but then he decided to throw yet another hurdle at me.

Not only were we not allowed to have strippers involved, but every time I suggested a time and location to do it in Pittsburgh, he had some bullshit excuse. I was running short on time to fit this fucking thing in, and he decided that we should wait and do it the weekend of the wedding. After the rehearsal dinner the night before the wedding. I think you know what that means. It's in bumfuck nowhere PA, with only a handful of our friends, and no strippers. This is going to fucking suck.

There were a grand total of 6 people that I knew that were going that were not members of my family or hers. The other 3 groomsmen (Batman, BoyWonder, and some dude that I only kinda knew), of which only 2 of whom I could even tolerate by this point, a couple that I had had a falling out with about 6 months prior, and a female friend that I still hang out with occasionally today. Fucking great. Because it wasn't going to suck enough as-is, a bachelor party with 5 people plus the groom in the middle of nowhere was totally the way to redeem this dump truck fire of suck. Sure. It also means that getting a drunk bus was out of the question. And that people would actually have to drive to and from the bar. Which also means that it's MY JOB to make sure someone is sober enough to drive, and knows how to get back to the hotel. But because nobody actually had a van or SUV, it meant that 2 people would have to drive in order to even fit everyone in the cars. Fucking better.

But I am awesome and I will find a way to make this awesome. Because I'm better than everyone.

In addition to the piles of fucking great news I was getting about the state of Bachelor Party options that I was getting in the weeks leading up to the wedding, I was also getting some even better news at home. TheDevil was starting to hint about backing out of attending. And sure enough, the morning that we were set to leave, I got the not-entirely-unexpected news that she didn't feel up to going. She made up a handful of excuses about needing decompression time before doing something the following week, and about not knowing my friends or family and feeling uncomfortable, and any number of other poorly-reasoned justifications that amounted to typical whore-logic. I was already starting to get sick of her shit as it was, and this just served to increase my volatility towards her.

With that news, the wedding weekend potential was quickly sinking from salvageable to "where's the life-boats, cause this boat is taking on fucking water".

Let's do a quick count on the usual bachelor party things that we have and don't have:

A good group of friends? Nope. 90% of them weren't even coming.
Strippers? Nope. Because the groom apparently hates pussy.
The ability to stumble from bar-to-bar shithoused? Nope. Because we're in the fucking sticks.
A drunk bus to get us to and from the bars? Nope. Because it's the fucking sticks and those things don't exist there. Fuck. Maybe I can find a hillbilly to ride us around in the back of his pick-em-up truck?
Hot single girls that that get horny from weddings? Nope. Because it's in October and most 20-something girls are away at college, and those that are done with school and still live in rural PA are either ugly or married. Because no hot 20-something girl still lives in bumfuck nowhere after college voluntarily. They move to cities. We were at least an hour and a half outside of anything you could reasonably call a city.
Slutty brides-maids? Negative, Ghost-Rider. Because it was literally ALL 3 of the Bride's younger sisters. The only one that was legal was paired with me, and she had a kinda douchey boyfriend that was coming to the wedding with her.
A date that I could at least knew I was ending up in bed with that night? Nope. She bailed at literally the last minute.

This wedding was running out of ways to reach even greater levels of suck. And I hadn't even left the house for the 3 1/2 hour drive to it yet. The only thing I even had to look forward to was giving my Best Man speech. And the soon-to-be-sister-in-law wanted veto power over that too.

When I finally arrived, the only thing I wanted to do was get through it without being entirely miserable. And the only way to do that was going to be to drink heavily.

I got checked in and even though I had my dog with me, I knew that it was going to be less-than fun.

I was already running about 10 minutes late when I finally left for the rehearsal dinner. But fuck it, I'm the Best Man, they can't start without me. So they can live with it. And it was only about 10 minutes away. Using the GPS on my phone to guide my way, I was about half way there when I hit some traffic. And some construction. 1/4 mile from the only confusing part of the directions, my phone rang. I missed the turn as a result. There were 2 off-ramps within 200 yards of one another and I took the wrong one. Fuck. Well, this should be simple enough, right? All I need to to is get to the bottom, cross straight across the road onto the on-ramp, and get back off at the next off-ramp.

No such fucking luck. The on-ramp was closed. Shit. Well, I can just go back the other direction on the highway, get off at the previous exit, double back again and hit the right off-ramp this time, right? Yeah, not so much. In fact, when I hit the end of the off-ramp, I found out that I could only go one way, and it wasn't taking me anywhere close the highway. Seriously, who the fuck designs these detours? And why is it my luck that I have to hit the one that is so poorly designed?

Being forced to go in one direction, you'd think that there would be signs to indicate how you get back to the highway, right? Yeah, also too simple. There were absolutely zero detour signs. "Oh, you want to go to the highway? Fuck you". Thanks, PennDOT. Fuck you very much too.

And of course, any attempts to use the GPS to adjust my course were routinely interrupted by family members calling me, repeatedly, to find out where I was.

Me: "I would probably not be getting lost so much if you'd stop fucking calling, because I can't talk on my phone and use it's GPS at the same time"

Mom: "Oh"

5 minutes later

Mom: "where are you?"

Me: "What part of stop calling me didn't you understand? What part of my phone is my GPS is too complicated? And what part of every time you call, I get lost again was too fucking difficult. So stop calling me or I'll just wander around lost for another hour on purpose and fuck you, you can wait"

6 minutes later

*ring*

Me: "STOP FUCKING CALLING!" *click*

I was pissed by the time I finally got there. I was 45 minutes late. I had a look on my face that just said "the first person to cross me is getting hit with a chair WWF style". Normally I can take a joke, even when I'm pissed. When unfortunate things happen to me, my friends are great at giving me shit about it. I can laugh at myself. I can take a joke at my expense. Hell, I expect it. But not today. I was in no mood for any one's shit. TheDevil backing out on me at the last minute was my last straw. The 3 1/2 hour drive didn't help. And the traffic, construction, detours, getting lost, and constant phone calls that made me even more lost pushed me over the edge.

I got a look from both of my parents when I walked that said "we're displeased by your tardiness and the way you talked to us when we called you'. They were trying to "not make a scene". I didn't care about a scene and just said "fuck you both" as I walked past. There was an audible gasp from other people at the rehearsal dinner. I wasn't even in the mood to play it off as "I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of how awesome I am" and turn it into an excuse to put the spotlight back on me, like I usually would do. I was that angry.

I sat down at my table and was silent. Nobody even looked at me directly. They all glanced quickly out of the corners of their eyes. Apparently I had the "I'm going to stab you if you even look at me" expression on my face. They apparently didn't enjoy being stabbed. So it worked out.

About 10 minutes into dinner, Batman made the first mistake. I was already irritated, and hungry, and not only was there not even bread out, but the waiter hadn't even bothered to come over and ask me if I'd like a drink. I wanted 5. Immediately. To start. It might have been enough to take the edge off, but I couldn't be certain. I felt like 5 was low-balling the estimate on the quantity of alcohol I'd need to not be fuming anymore. But it was a safe enough bet. Plus, I didn't think he'd be able to carry more than 5 at once.

Everybody sensed how pissed off I was at the whole situation, but Batman is a fucking idiot. He has absolutely zero sense of tact. And has horrible situational awareness. Everyone else knew better than to talk to me. He apparently did not.

The waiter brought me my drinks. I pounded them down in  under 2 minutes. I was still not happy.

Batman: "Joe, you shouldn't get so upset about things. You need to learn to control your temper better. It's why you're so unsuccessful."

Me: *GLARE*

Batman: "I mean... with school and with..."

Me: {not even allowing him to finish his sentence and quite loudly} "If you say another fucking word to me, I'll beat you to death with this chair and before setting your corpse on fire and using your mouth for an ashtray while ignoring the smoking ban and drinking myself into a coma. So keep fucking talking, asshole. We'll see how well it works out for you"

Another audible gasp from the rest of the rehearsal dinner. You sell cabinets for your Dad and still live at home at 28. Don't give me shit, junior.

{writer's note: Batman and I didn't speak after this incident for 2 years. And only then, because he offered a great deal on my kitchen cabinets by proxy through my brother, after he found out I was going to re-do my kitchen last year. And we haven't spoken again since I wrote him the last check for the cabinets}

I stood up and walked out. I didn't say another word. I simply got in my car and drove back to my hotel. I immediately went to the hotel bar.

About 2 hours later, my brother and one of the few people I actually liked that was attending the wedding came in. We drank there. They wanted to do the bachelor party still. I was in no mood, but was willing to suffer through it if we could find something actually fun to do. The only options were townie biker and hillbilly bars, or a TGI Fridays near some strip mall. Apparently Batman and BoyWonder were only going to go if they went to the Townie dive bars. I was only willing to go to a place that the majority of patrons did not sleep with their sisters with any sort of regularity. They apparently didn't have standards because Batman is the cheapest fuck I've ever met, and BoyWonder is his sidekick and bitch with no ability to say no. It's like Steve-Dave and Walt Flannigan. But by this point, they were even more pathetic. There was a reason that I stopped hanging out with them a few years prior. They sucked now.

I made it perfectly clear that I was not going anywhere with Batman. If he was going, I was not. Because if I got drunker, I was going to throw him from a moving vehicle while gleefully singing the theme from Mary Poppins. I knew I'd need some proof of insanity for the ensuing trial. I wanted to avoid that.

Eventually, they settled on going to the townie dive bars because Batman is a fuck. I drank myself into a stumbling state at the hotel bar until getting thrown out for smoking after being refused an ashtray, ignoring the numerous no-smoking signs around the bar, and multiple warnings from the bartender and hotel manager. Fuck them. When I'm in that foul of a mood, even my normally uncanny ability to manipulate a situation and people into getting what I want doesn't work. I was going to be absolutely zero fun without slutty girls taking their clothes off or being black-out drunk. I honestly don't blame them. I was in a full-on Joe Smash alcohol-amplified rage. I didn't even want to drink with me that night. And there's nobody that loves me more than me.

The next day was the wedding. I arrived at the church and didn't catch fire. I have disproved god. Or I am a god of equal power. I think it may be the second case. But I'm fine with either options.

Batman was smart enough to not even look at me during the actual ceremony. The actual ceremony was typical and boring. I handed some rings over to my brother at one point, and kinda zoned out for the rest of the time. I had to be poked when it was time for me to fulfill the few duties that a Best Man actually has during a wedding. I was more interested in the open bar at the reception.

I got to the reception and was quickly disappointed. They had 1 white and 1 red wine, well liquor, and Clydesdale urine as their beer option. I was not pleased. I dove into the shitty vodka instead.

After an hour, I had moved from singles to doubles to triples for my drinks. The reason was simple. I was hating everyone there even more with every passing second. I expected the talent pool to be minimum at the ceremony, but I wasn't trying to fuck anyone in the church. I kinda was going to be busy with the whole 'standing on the stage thing"... thing. However, I hoped it would pick up at the reception. Even fractionally. It did not. In fact, if anything, it got worse. There were exactly 2 attractive girls there that were not my friends, and both of them had boyfriends or husbands with them. I wasn't even talking about hot women, I just meant attractive. Hell, there weren't even any that I didn't expect to see pulling a plow later that day.

Because you know, this couldn't get worse.

Finally, it reached the only part of the entire weekend that I was even marginally looking forward to. The part where everyone is watching me again. The speeches.

As I mentioned above, the bride had asked me to actually write a speech and then submit it to her ahead of time. I did. I also subsequently ignored everything I wrote and just said "fuck it, I'll make it up when I get up there". Like I pretty much always do.

The Maid Of Honor did her speech and got a few jokes about procrastinating because she had only written it the night before. Then it was my turn.

Me: "Well, she did ok for only writing it last night. But she still beat me. I didn't even write one. Well, that's not true. I wrote one because Wifey asked me to. She wanted veto power. Because she apparently knows me well enough to know that she should review things before I say them publicly. she apparently does not know me well enough to know that I would humor her and then still make something up when I got up here. I win."

I proceeded to give a meandering speech that involved spiders taking over the world if they had wings, how much human beings suck, moonshine, and internet gambling. You know... in that patented Joe style that somehow connects all of those things and you're not quite sure how, or if you're smarter or stupider for having read it when you're done. It was like a spoken-word Random Thought.

Somehow, when I was done, I got a standing ovation. I don't even know exactly what I said, but apparently it was quite moving. I don't even know how. I kept myself as the main topic of the whole thing, kind of ignored that there was a wedding going on, and rambled on about nothingness for 10 minutes. Yet apparently it was metaphor for love or something. Or at least that's what some old woman told me. I just smiled and nodded. Yeah, sure. Go ahead and think that. I'd go back and watch the video of it to figure out how the fuck they got that out of what I said, but I don't really care enough.

There's really nothing else funny that happened. I got blindly intoxicated, barely spoke to anyone, and was just generally a gigantic ass to everyone. By the time I left, the only people I was still speaking to were my brother and his wife, my one female friend that I'm still close with, and the other groomsman that I barely know. Hell, I ended up just hanging out with them through most of the reception.

I slept it off at the hotel later and ended up still leaving that night to drive back home. The ceremony was early. Around noon. The reception started at 2 and ended at around 7:00, so by the time I got back to the room, napped to sober up enough to drive, and headed home with my dog, it was around midnight. I walked in the door at around 4am and just went back to bed.

I blame it all on the lack of strippers. With strippers, or with a drunk bus, this could have been salvageable. But instead, it was a total shit show and would have required effort to make it suck more than it did. It was just filled to the gills with suck instead. And was entirely irredeemable.

Random Thought Of The Day #747

Day 747

I got a couple small thoughts for you today. Nothing super in-depth. Here we go:

1. So... I've realized something else that I hate about the Star Wars Prequels...

Basically, it cheapens the Empire. As a bad guy. They're basically around for only about 20 years as a result of the prequels. It makes them a minor inconvenience. A blip in history. A Nixon regime. Or one of the 2 evil Presidents that were on 24. That's pretty much it. And as a result, it kinda cheapens the victory of the Rebellion. They didn't really do any serious Empire-toppling. The Empire wasn't all super-established as being the status-quo of the galazy for many hundreds of years. The Empire wasn't a dark-age. It was basically a thing where most people just kinda said "meh, fuck it. they'll get replaced soon enough" instead of really LIVING under tyranny for many decades or millenia or whatever.

I don't know why this just popped into my head. But I felt like sharing.

2. And an entirely unrelated thing.

 

So the CIA director's affair got outed and he's quitting. I'm pretty sure I see a Clinton joke in here. But the thing is, I keep hearing about how this could have posed a national security threat and there's all this pontificating about if his fuckbuddy was privy to intelligence info. Those are probably really fascinating questions, but they shouldn't really matter on the question of "should this happening mean that he should quit?".

I think the guy should quit because his job is to keep secrets. If he can't keep it a secret that he's banging a reporter on the side, he's probably not that good at his job. I mean... "keep secrets on who are your spies in another country with an intelligence gathering service trying to find out who they are" vs. "who am I fucking"... you tell ME which one sounds harder.

 

3. So there's a porn condom law in LA County now. This doesn't effect anywhere outside of LA county, so as long as you're not filming IN that county, you're golden. Goodbye tax revenue, County of Los Angeles.

 

But it begs the question... how do you implement this law? Will there be Condom Cops running from set to set and inspecting your... equipment... before and after a shoot? Will there be an Office Of Porn in the county that gathers copies of every movie made in their county, as well as any amateur stuff made in the county too? And if so, do they then sit around and watch regional porn? If so... HOW DO I GET THAT JOB?  Not only is it a job where you're paid to watch porn to keep an eye out for condom violations, but it's a government gig where you get paid an assload more money than the private sector for the same job... maybe assload wasn't the best word in this case.

But regardless, it does give new meaning to "rubber stamp approval".

 

4. The book is ALMOST available in the Nook store. Another few days. It's still "pending"... it's also available in the iBookstore. Which I found out, much to my chagrin this morning, is NOT the iBooks Store. Fucking christ. It's apparently a site that sells eBooks that are iOS and iBooks compatible but are not actually distributed by the iBooks store. So it looks like I know how I'm going to be spending my evening this week. Copying it all back up and spending like forever and a day learnign how to use the iBooks Author software that Apple has. Jesus fucking christ.

 

5. That's pretty much all I got for you today. I'm going to go off and suffer a little acute stabby brain pain and pretend to do some work while trying to remember stories for the next book. I've already got about 15 that I've remembered that I know I should put in. And probably another dozen or so once I think more about the stupid shit my friends used to do too.

RTOTD #746.1

Day 746.1

Oh jesus mother fucking christ. We're only in the first full week of November and I already see shit about previews for the Black Friday sales.

And Walmart is now starting Black Friday sales... at like... fucking... dinnertime on Thanksgiving. How does that even work?? That's not fucking Friday! In fact, it's about 7 hours BEFORE friday. Fuck you Walmart.

See, I once made the really stupid decision to go black friday shopping. Well, technically I went twice... but the one time was with an ex girlfriend and her family and they weren't insane about it. They were just in the spirit of Christmas.

No... one time I did actual black friday shopping... In fact, it was entirely spur of the moment.

My friends and I used to have a tradiation. We'd do our Thanksgiving stuff with family and whatnot. The usual thing that everyon does. Then, later in the evening, we would all get together and go see a movie. That's what we did. Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter. We would go catch a movie after spending all day with our families. Simple enough.

This year, there were no movies we actually wanted to see. So we said "fuck it, let's go to the bar". And on the way to the bar, we saw a dozen people standing outside Best Buy. We laughed at them. It was very cold and they were fucking idiots for sitting out in that bullshit. But we also said "fuck it.. .if the line is less than double what it is now when we get out of the bar, we'll join them"

About 3 hours later we were all done at the bar. It was only around 10 so I don't know why we were done at the bar so early, but we were. On the way back around to the main road, passing Best Buy again,we noticed that only a handful of people had added onto the existing group. There were maybe 20 people in line total. We decided... "well, I've never done this... let's do this"

We did. For some reason, I still had 2 of those folding park chairs in my trunk. I also had a bottle of vodka. The vodka was about to become useful.

We called a friend and told him what we were doing. There were 3 of us. This friend made us a deal. If we would pick up the one simple thing he wanted to get his mom for Christmas (and didn't want to fight crowds to get it), he would bring us pizza. I demanded a half gallon jug of orange juice too. We accepted this deal.

I ended up spending from about 11:00 until 5 am (when they opened) drinking about 2/3 of a gallon of screwdriver.

Let me tell you... going Black Friday shopping at 5 am, lit the fuck up on almost a gallon of screwdriver and most of a bottle of vodka is REALLY the way to shop. It makes humans almost tolerable.

But see... that was fun. It was ok to do once. It was also stupid and pointless. But you know what made sense about it? It actually started on FRIDAY. I walked into the fucking store on FRIDAY and bought my shit. I did my shopping on FRIDAY. Not fucking THURSDAY half-way through dinner. Then it wouldn't be black mother fucking FRIDAY.

So fuck you Walmart and fuck all of the websites hyping the shit out of christmas shopping already. I hate you. I hope you all die in a fire.

Random Thought Of The Day #746

Day 746

So you mean to tell me that Abe Lincoln did NOT fight vampires?

Next, you're gonna try telling me that all the 80's and 90's action movie stars don't hang out on the weekends and hire themselves out as mercenaries.

pshhhh... I don't believe you. That shit was totally a documentary on how they spend the weekend.

Oh... and here is a bunch more gratuitious cuteness. Because it's Friday, I'm tired, and I'm still burnt out. This is about the best you're gonna get. Enjoy gratuitious cuteness.

Random Thought Of The Day #745

Day 745

So... just so we're clear  here... we pretty much voted for exactly the same thing we had for the last 2 years, right? Cause you all voted for the same people. Literally nothing changed. So whatever has been going on for 2 years now? Same shit's gonna go on for the next 2 (at least)... so really... let's not be all excited or too dejected everyone. Literally nothing is going to change and nothing has changed. Nothing will get done, whatever direction we're going now is the exact same one we will be going in in 2 years. Maybe faster. Maybe slower. But it'll be the exact same direction.  (I really wish I could fine a meme of the elephant and the jackass Eiffel Tower-ing a regular citizen. Cause that's kinda what is going to happen)

Actually one thing will... I'll get a tax increase in January. So will about 62% of the country. Unless something gives one way or another. Which is unlikely to happen unless it's another 2-year extension of the exact same rates we have now. I think the Elephants are going to be hard-line on this and the Jackasses will be too. And everyone else will get fucked in the process. Except for the lowest 38% that didn't pay income taxes in the 90's and still don't pay anything now. Maybe the jackasses will eventually give in to get SOMETHING done and hope to re-take the House in 2014, or the elephants will give in to get something done and hope to do the same, but I doubt it.

But hey... it doesn't really matter.... You know why? BECAUSE I WILL BE TAKING OVER THE WORLD ON DECEMBER 21ST! I will be bringing forth the coming apocalypse. And I shall be immanentizing the eschaton. Many will fall. The world will be purged of the impure. And the ScienceJesus shall rise above you.

Bow before your future overlord. And bring him a sandwich. But not that chicken salad sandwich bullshit. Deli meats. But if you give me bologna or turkey loaf, I will fucking cut you. And if you really want me to like you, throw some Dorito's on the sandwich. It gives it texture. Tell me you didn't do that shit too, right? Or maybe one of those Dorito's Locos Tacos. Has anyone even tried one of them yet? I kinda want to.

And while I'm at it, if you didn't buy the book yet, you should. It's already getting good feedback from the few people that have told me that they bought it in ebook format. And if you have bought it, you should tell other people to buy it too. And maybe give the other day's RTOTD some love or something... gimme a hand here. For all the people telling me how much they were looking forward to it, a little word-of-mouth or just a "love" to the RTOTD announcing that it was released and where to buy it would be helpful. Get other people to notice it kinda thing. I wrote the damn thing. I could use the assistance with a little of the promotion.

Oh jesus... I really HATE pandering. But I love pandas. The short-bus student of the bear world. 

So here's some gratuitous panda cuteness. Because... you know... why the fuck not. Maybe it'll calm down the idiots hyperventilating that the evil black man is still in office. And maybe it'll calm down the lunatics that think the messiah has been re-elected and that we should make it a national fucking holiday or something.

 

 



Random Thought Of The Day #744

Day 744

Hey... since I know that absolutely nobody else is going to remind you... today is Election Day.

I know... crazy right? I bet you didn't even realize it, right? If it wasn't for that sign I saw on my way to work today, and that solitary commercial I saw on tv last night, I never would have even known. I bet the news didn't even cover it.

So since I was kind enough to remind you to run like hell away from every school, municipal building, church, bingo hall, and VFW so that you're not swarmed by idiots with a tree-killing fetish, arms loaded with more fliers than a lady with a 6 year old who lost their dog... I want you to vote for the only REAL candidate out there.

Vote Bailey 2012

Because if your elected officials are going to piss all over you, at least they can afford you the decency of walking over and lifting a leg on your foot to do it.

Random Thought Of The Day #743

Day 743

Cue gratuitious self-indulgence and whoring of myself in... 3.. 2... 1... GO

The book is done and released.

Here are all the ways to get it:

eBook formats:

Amazon Kindle

ePub format ONLY (does NOT work on a Kindle, as far as I can tell. Does work in iBooks and Stanza. Not sure about Android OS based software. Check your eReader software or hardware to be sure)

iBooks & Barnes & Noble Nook store - Coming Soon. It's been submitted, but is currently awaiting approval and, as of writing this, was still "under review" in each of those stores.

Print formats. Sorry everyone, I made it as cheap as I possibly could. The print-on-demand pricing is not exactly spectacular per unit. If you're local and want to just hand me cash instead, I can get them cheaper than you can buy them for, but I legitimately made them as cheap as possible without actually losing money on it. I'm making pennies (seriously. not even a dollar) per unit on the POD version.

Hardback Print-On-Demand

Paperback Print-On-Demand

There should be an Amazon/CreateSpace version of the print-on-demand that should be out later this week or next week. While I have the cover photos for the Lulu print-on-demand version and all the eBook versions done, I have to make an entirely different one (even if I use the same photos and art) because CreateSpace/Amazon does not have the same cover-creator system that Lulu does or even the Kindle Direct services do. So I have to sit down, learn how to use Adobe InDesign this week (I'm already getting there) and do a bunch of math while creating a professional level full wrap cover/dust jacket/whatever in InDesign instead of just slapping a handful of pictures and some text in a cover designer window and calling it a day.

This reminds me... I need to set aside money next time around and just hire a professional designer to put this shit together. Between making sure ISBN numbers match each different format version interior and exterior (each version seriously has it's own ISBN, including the same versions from different retailers), doing full cover designs, and creating entirely new formatting templates in Word just to make a motherfucking book look right... I'm going to kill myself or someone else if I have to do it again. That's fucking tedious. I wrote a book to do something creative. And after all that creative stuff with writing a book, how do you finish it off? With something creative? Nope... it's like a trip to the auditor.

Fun creative writing time, fun creative writing time, fun creative writing time, yay I'm done, oh, and now let's become an accountant for the next 3 weeks until you want to punch the computer to do what you want it to do and now you have a book. WTF? Where the fuck did that last part come from?

Or instead of setting aside the couple hundred bucks for a professional designer... let's hope enough of you all out there buy the book to give it some attention in the sales department and a publishing house comes calling. Please? Maybe? More fucked up things have happened, right? I mean... Ke$ha got a record deal, right?

Random Thought Of The Day #742

Day 742

I'm pissed at myself. I missed my self-imposed deadline. I wanted this fucking thing done by Halloween. That was 2 days ago.

Also... I'm hoping to hear back from my friends that are proofing it at some point this week or early next, otherwise... fuck it... I'm just calling it done and uploading it.

I still don't have a god damn clue what the fuck to do with the cover. It seems like a number of people just don't like what I already put together, I don't have any pictures that are high enough resolution to do anything with, and I suck at photoshop. All of the online simple versions of it down-convert the images to too small of a pixel count or DPI that they just won't work for the print versions. Sure, they'll work fine for the eBook, but not the damn print version. And I would really like to NOT have different covers for the print and eBook. It'll be confusing and shitty.

I might just pour myself a gigantic beer and a half-dozen shots when I get home this evening, take a picture of it, throw a simple filter on it, and call that a fucking day too. I'm at that point where I just don't fucking care and I want it done and over with and no longer hanging over my head or worrying about if this or that thing is right. I just want it over. And also... I fucking hate self-publishing after this. Don't even get me started on some of the bullshit crap that goes along with it.

Oh, making an e-book is fucking EASY. That's not a problem. No, I'm talking about the print-on-demand shit. Covers. Layout. Formatting. Page size. Etc.

And if you ever think about doing the same thing, don't even get into the "well, I want to stick this picture in there" thing. Just kill yourself now and save yourself the hassle. It's not worth it.

And by the look of it, I'm not even going to get it done in time to get my dog elected President.

I was really kinda looking forward to being the First Owner. Oh well, I guess there's always 2016.

I guess I could theoretically just get the eBook out now, deal with having 2 different covers, and say "fuck it" just to get it done. I just hate the idea of half-assing the final product. Though I guess that's what I do for most things anyway.

Screw it... I'll be releasing the eBook over the weekend probably. Fuck it. You'll just have to wait for the print version for a week or so and deal with being confused that the covers are different between the 2 versions. I don't care. I now understand what software people feel like when they get to that point where they just say:

Random Thought Of The Day #741

Day 741

So we're getting down to the last week or so before the election.

First of all ... we're all voting for Bailey, right? I mean... the robot and the flying elephant both kinda suck, right?

So, even though we're all locked up for out vote and the next President of the United States is my dog, I think we should determine new criteria for who gets elected. As a result, I've decided that we need a wholesale change in theory to the way that the debates work.

We need to start asking the questions that actually matter to voters. I have a few of them, but I think you can add your own questions at the end:

1. So how much of a load of bullshit is it that we aren't allowed to show old-school Looney Tunes on TV anymore during the day? Can't we all agree that they're totally better for childhood development than this fucking acid trip Japanimation bullshit about kids running around having card game battles or throwing balls at each other with imaginary animals inside? Can't we also agree that Looney Tunes are fucking great?

2. If you could bring  back one cancelled TV show, what would it be? The first person to say Arrested Development is officially black-listed from ever running for public office. That show fucking sucked, and if you enjoyed it, you should put yourself on the list of people desperately waiting for a sense of humor transplant. You will be below the vegans and feminists of the world for priority though. You are, however, above hipsters. Because they need to just die.

3. What is  your favorite beer? If you say anything manufactured by Anheuser-Busch, Coors, or Miller, you are also permanently black-listed from public office. There are also a lot of wrong answers to this question.

4. Seriously, when is the last time you carried a wallet or had enough small bills on you that you could break a 20 for someone?

5. How much would you love to participate in a Midget Tossing contest?

6. What's the most painful thing you've ever had happen to you? (hint: if it isn't "I stepped on a LEGO", you don't know what REAL pain is)

7. Come on, you know that you're sick of seeing those fucking Jersey barriers up in front of every single government building everywhere... would you please take them away so we can drive down Pennsylvania Ave again or look at these buildings the way that were intended to be seen? Cause you can't tell me that looking at the White House without cars driving past it and with those hideous barriers in the way looks appealing, right?

8. Why is my birthday not a Federal holiday yet?

9. Star Wars or Star Trek?

10. Have you ever accidentally stepped on a Stink Bug?

11. Do you remember Fraggle Rock? What the fuck was going on on that show? Cause it seemed like a Jim Henson nightmare version of The Muppets meets the Smurfs inside of Oscar the Grouch's garbage can world.

12. Aren't you sick of this "let's make a movie version of 80's nostalgia cartoons as life-action or CGI" trend too? Except for GI Joe 2... whenever it comes out... because the Rock is totally a perfect Roadblock. And if you saw twitter yesterday, he's also totally a perfect Incredible Hulk. I have a man-crush on the Rock.

13. Also... 70's cartoons or 80's cartoons or early 90's cartoons? Which were better. I'm going with the late-80's through early 90's myself. GI Joe. He-Man. X-Men. Ghostbusters. Inspector Gadget. Thundercats. MASK. Rescue Rangers. Duck Tales. TMNT. Transformers. And more.

14. Do you like Lady Gaga? There is also a wrong answer to this question.

15. Favorite pejorative term towards a group of people? I'm going with Honky.

16. Favorite 80's and early 90's Professional Wrestler? I'm gonna go with the Ultimate Warrior or Macho Man Randy Savage.

17. How much would you like to go back and erase hair-metal from history? Worse than going back to erase Hitler? Come on, you know that shit sucked, right?

Add your own questions for the 2012 supplemental debates!