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So, as I mentioned in my last bloggitty thingy jobby deal, I’m trying to keep a record of all the things I learn each day.  Here, then, are the entries from the 2nd to the 5th of this month for those who are at all interested in the things I cram into the pieces of my silly little brain that aren’t already filled with dialogue from The Big Lebowski.  This isn’t going to be what you would call short, but I hope you enjoy my ramblings.

Jan. 2nd 2009

Today I learned that there is at least one cat out there who believes that “eighty percent of feeling good is looking good.”  Of course this guy was trying to sell me my own hair (the hair club for men) so I guess all I really learned from him is that some people are completely full of shit.  Which, I must admit, I already knew.

I do find it funny that these guys repeatedly, um, repeated that it was my own hair which i guess is to say it’s not a wig or a toupee or hair stolen from homeless people or chimps or ducks or, worse yet, from Trav.  But when I hear that all I think is, “It’s my fucking hair, man!  Give it back!”  I shouldn’t have to pay for that shit.  One of these days there’s gonna be a guy running around with a hacksaw lopping off dudes arms and then going on TV like, “It’s your real arm!  Nothing makes you more confident or more attractive to women than having two arms!  You can even swim with it! Come in to ‘Hacksaw Larry’s Club for People I Cut Up’ today for a free consultation.”

I’m just saying, I’m a little concerned about the idea of purchasing ourselves to completion.

That probably sounds a lot more deep than I meant for it to be.

Or maybe it doesn’t.

Today I also learned that someone I know smells like cheese.  Cheddar cheese, specifically, I’m told.  And this is not because he eats cheese regularly, it’s just the way he smells.

As a result of learning this, today I then learned what it feels like to throw up in your mouth a little.

I don’t know if this counts as learning but here’s something else I observed today.  I played a WWE video game with Xoph and realized that when you play, say, RBI Baseball (an example chosen to illustrate that i do, in fact, know my roots) you are basically fake-playing a sport.  But when you play WWE Smackdown or whatever the fuck we played you are playing a fake version of a fake sport but in an instance where the outcome is NOT predetermined so, in a sense, it is actually more real than real wrestling.  Or, real fake-wrestling at least.

If you are hearing popping sounds all around you right now don’t worry, that’s only all the minds I just blew.

Lastly, today I learned that there is rarely any Order at all in Law & Order SVU, that the character of Dr. House is based largely on Sherlock Holmes (note to self: find out if Sherlock Holmes had dreamy blue eyes.), and that the Statue of Liberty’s nose is four and a half feet long. 

Feel free to make up your own sinus infection/rhinovirus jokes at this time to save me the hassle.

Today’s random fact: Isaac Asimov is the only author to have a book in every Dewey-decimal category.

Jan 3rd 2009

Today I learned that lactose free milk on it’s own tastes an awful lot like the regular milk at the bottom of a bowl of corn flakes.  It’s got that slight sweetness to it that maybe milk shouldn’t have and little bits of things floating in it.  Now that I think about it, that milk may have just gone bad.  Hmmm.

Today, I suppose, I learned to look more closely at expiration dates.

I also learned that “butyraceous” is a word.  It means “of the nature of, resembling, or containing butter.”

The next time your girlfriend or boyfriend asks you how they look, try responding with, “butyraceous.” When they ask what that means, simply run away because they’re going to find out eventually.

Don’t know why so much of today’s learnings were dairy-centric but, you know, so it goes, I guess.

Today I also discovered that if I wink at myself in the mirror I can easily and consistently crack myself up and creep the shit out of myself simultaneously (and at the same time, too!).  Every single time I caught my reflection today I winked at me and every time I laughed and laughed while, on the inside, I totally understood why I’m single.

Next, if you are re-heating a taco in the microwave and it starts to sound like Jiffy Pop (What the fuck is Jiffy Pop?) it will probably hurt if you eat it immediately or really ever.  (Note to self: consider using tacos as heating source during winter.  Also, consider using tacos to cook other tacos, just because…)

Lastly, today I learned that sometimes new underwear comes with little plastic hooks attached to the fly for reasons passing understanding.  I learned that if you do not notice these hooks they can end up entwined in the zipper of your jeans leaving you standing around with your pants halfway up (or halfway down if you’re an optimist…get it?) and trying to slice a hook off your package with a boxcutter which, when you take a second to think about it, makes you realize you are a fucking moron.  I mean, damn.  Why the fuck you would ever put a box cutter that close to your piece? 

You’re gonna cut your bits off.

I would say, then, that today I learned that I am a moron but, come on, I’ve known that shit for years.

Todays random fact: Rhode Island is the smallest state with the longest name. The official name, used on all state documents, is “Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.”

Jan. 4th 2009

Today I learned that I lived “slanted” for far too long.

Here’s a little backstory:  A few years ago I moved in with my good friend Grant “Stemage” Henry who stars in my first flick “For Catherine.”  The day I moved in I noticed that all the doors in the house either open or shut on their own depending on where in the house they are located.  That day G said to me, “Welcome to slanted living.”  And he smiled the knowing smile of a used car salesman who has just sold you a Pontiac Fiero that he just knows will die within a hundred miles.

(And if that guy that sold me that Fiero is out there, by the way, I’m still not over that shit and these days I’ve got minions.  Oh, that’s right.  Minions, sir.  So suck on that shit as you sleep with one eye open!)

So cut to today and I still prop every single door open whether it needs it or not.  I will open a door and hold on to it like a life raft while I search for a shoe or a book or something that I can kick into place.  But today I couldn’t find a doorstop so I thought, “fuck it” and just left the door to close on it’s own.  Only I don’t live there anymore so the door stayed open and I stared at the damn thing mouth-agape for, like, a solid minute trying to figure out how such a thing was possible.  I thought at first it might be magic or maybe I’d finally figured out this whole telekinesis thing I’ve been working on for years until I then remembered that I am a fucking idiot.

Now that I’m reflecting on this, though, I’m thinking “slanted” may be Grant’s name for a ghost.  This requires further investigation.

I also watched “Independence Day” today for the first time in a few hundred years and realized that if the aliens in that flick had installed Norton Anti-Virus in their space ships we would all be well and truly fucked.  These motherfuckers had intergalactic travel down cold, they have technology that goes so far as to defy what we think are the LAWS of physics but didn’t think to, you know, run AVG or something.  And if I understand the movies resolution correctly, and I’m pretty sure I don’t, Malcom from Jurassic Park basically emailed the virus, probably with a heading that read something like, “Amaze her wichu enormous alien peep.”  So I guess what I “learned” is that if I ever try to wipe out all the life on a planet I should make sure my firewalls are in good shape, that my Virus protection is up to date and that I don’t open suspicious mail no matter how much I want to wow a chick with my alien peep.

Also, the great and awesome Will Smith’s name in ID4 (as the cool kids call it even though, mercifully, there is only the one and not three sequals) is, “Steve.”  What kind of alien killing name is “Steve” anyway?  Bloody Steve.

Lastly today I learned that it is very possible to feel homicidal rage toward someone you’ve never met.  Vince from the Sham-Wow commercials, I’m looking at you, dude.  And when I hang you by your toes and cut your stupid-ass throat I will mop up your blood while laughing hysterically and shouting “IT ACTS LIKE A VACUUM!  HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA OLOL!”

The irony threat level on that day will be “crimson.”

Today’s random fact: The first known contraceptive was crocodile dung, used by Egyptians in 2000 B.C.

Jan 5th 2009

Today I learned that giant inflatable slides are awesome.  And it’s even more awesome to play on them with your mom.  I’ve long endeavored to never ever ever grow up (I am, after all, a Toys R Us kid) but to see your too-often sad mother laughing and playing childlike is a gift, man.  Hang on to that shit if you get a chance.

I learned, also, that movies can still get a little tear action from me.  I didn’t cry, per se, but I could feel the moist pressure behind my eyes and if I weren’t cursed by being so thoroughly manly I’m sure I could have leaked at least a little eye-juice.  Twas “The Curious Case of Benjamen Button that got me which isn’t terribly surprising.  Two words: David Fincher.  Four more words: is a fucking genius.

And today I also learned that Maxim is a terrible magazine.  Or at least it was about a decade ago when I was a subscriber.  I found a small stack in my bathroom at my mothers house and leafed through them earlier thinking that a trip down memory lane may be in order.

I don’t know if Maxim is still around, even, (how many articles about the exact same thing can one mag possibly publish) and if it is still about it may have transformed into a reasonable publication but in 99…ooh boy.  I’m not concerned about a magazine being shitty, though.  The chances that “Dumb Angel” (a real magazine, apparently) doesn’t suck seem pretty damn slim and I couldn’t possibly give two tugs of a dead dogs dick if I did nothing else but try desperately to give those tugs over a long weekend.  A Labor Day or Thanksgiving weekend.  What does concern me is that I not only read this magazine, I read it voraciously.  For years.

Did I really need to know “how to have sex anywhere”? or how to turn her into a “scream machine”?  Did I really need to read “Take 69″? or “Bush Whacking?”  Probably not.

Looking over those magazines I don’t remember wanting to be like the kind of guys they want you to be, which is a blessing, but just the fact that I read about it over and over pains me.

Make sure the shoes are polished, chicks check out the shoes and won’t expect a fancy meal from a guy with scuffy kicks.  Stop in for a trim between haircuts, too much neck-hair is a sure sign to a girl that you’re salary is still in the five figures.  Shit like that.  Fuck, man.  Reading that shit today makes me want to PURPOSEFULLY grow out my neck hair and braid that shit because any girl who doesn’t dig me because maybe I make only 99,000 a year, she’s just saving me the trouble of dumping her ass an hour into our date.

Lemon Law.  It’s gonna be a thing.

Todays random fact: The numbers ‘172′ can be found on the back of the U.S. $5 dollar bill in the bushes at the base of the Lincoln Memorial.

Get a beverage of your choice and never stop learning…the more you know…bum du du du…

E

There’s never a pill strong enough to make me feel like all your fingers can do… 

I don’t normally make New Years Resolutions.  I lie to other people for a living, I have no need to lie to myself.  And I certainly have no need to do it on schedule with the rest of the world.  I am, after all, an iconoclast.  And if I am not, I am certainly a person who can spell, “iconoclast” given enough tries.

 

This year I have, however, decided to make a New Years…let’s call it a dedication.  I’m dedicating myself to each day writing down the things I’ve learned in the last 24 hours.  I put my chances of actually doing this every day somewhere around 0% give or take but I do hope to, in the end, have an entry for every day of ‘09 even if I have to do two or three days at a time and occasionally make shit up.

 

I’m doing this partly in the hopes that my observations might prove humorous to others but mostly I’m doing this to try to slow shit down.  I’m doing this to force myself to reflect on each day at least a little bit.  I’m doing this so that, hopefully, the best years of my life will not simply pass me by.

 

I had the idea a few months back but I’ve waited until Jan. 1st to start because I like the symmetry of it all.

 

This journal, if it is a journal and almost surely it’s not, will be kept in a small leather-bound notebook that my filthy assistant has given me but if there’s interest I’ll try to publish some of the entries in blog form here and there.

 

I’ll post the first entry below to prove that I’m wicked-serious about the whole thing.

 

January 1st, 2009

 

Today I learned that there is a tradition in this country, most prominent in the south, whereby people eat black eyed peas and collard greens on New Years Day to bring good luck to themselves throughout the year.  I learned, also, that I’m pretty much the only person on the planet who didn’t already know about this shit.

 

Apparently the peas represent copper and the greens represent dollars so this tradition is all about money.  At least that seems to be the denotation.  I choose to believe that many people observe this tradition for reasons beyond cash because, you know, fuck money.  I mean, money is fine and all, but if that’s your biggest concern for an entire year of your too-short life you should really consider becoming a more interesting person.  Get a hobby or something, man.

 

Anyway.I’m not a particularly superstitious person but I have very high hopes for aught nine, almost certainly the last aught I will see in this lifetime, there are many things I would like to accomplish and I’ll take all the help I can get so I decided to observe this weird-ass custom.

 

Of course I try very hard to avoid putting anything in my body that isn’t terrible for me and peas and greens can be healthy so the literal meal wasn’t going to happen.  Seriously, ick.

 

So here’s what I did: I decided to listen to music from the Los Angeles based hip hop/pop/soul group Black Eyed Peas while eating only the green Skittles out of a bag of candy my mother gave me for Christmas.   

 

 

Look, maybe I didn’t say every single little tiny syllable, no. But basically I said them, yeah. 

 

I believe that the universe will appreciate the spirit of the thing and reward me regardless.

 

Today I also learned that I am not a fan of the Los Angeles based hip hop/pop/soul group Black Eyed Peas and that if you leave Skittles in a car for several days of freezing temperatures they can cut the absolute shit out of the roof of your mouth when you bite into them. 

 

Much like Optimus Prime is able to transform into a Mac Truck frozen skittles are able to transform into lime-flavored razor blades.  Also like Optimus Prime they are august military commanders in possession of the matrix of leadership.

 

I may have made that last part up. 

 

 

So, anyway, that’s my new years deal.  What do you kids have going for the new year?

 

Get a beverage of your choice and make this the best year ever,

 

E 

 the truth at any cost…