Goodbye 2015, Hello 2016..... and Stuff

Every year I have done this end of year recap. And every year I don't really care for it. So this year I'm not going to do it. 2015 wasn't like any other year. 2015 was a year of radical change and growth. And to top it off, this year will be the first time in years where I don't celebrate New Year at Joe and Randi's. The tradition has been broken. So I will break tradition by not writing the recap. I will write this short post about not writing the recap and call it good. So much has happened this year that writing a summary recap would be insulting. 

So there you have it. 

I'm not doing a recap. 

But I did manage to write on New Years Eve in here. That's at least one tradition I didn't break. 

Hair Like Joe Namath

It's that one time a year where I let my hair grow out a little. This year, it's driving me fucking crazy. It's uneven and I feel like a child. I feel like I should have a hat with a propeller on it at this point. For years, I've always thought of my long curly hair as a good sign of youth. As if it somehow made me look cool and free, when I'm actually kind of lame and boring. It was a good disguise. In my mind, my hair is the cool and rebellious hair of Joe Namath of the 60's and 70's. Long flowing hairy that commands a sense of awe and begrudging respect. Hair that reminds you of youth and fun.

Instead, if the wind catches my hair, I look like a dog that just got out of the bath on a windy day.

Which makes me feel grungy and stupid. Lately I feel like a lot of the patients and people I see treat me as if I'm at least 15 years younger. For most people that's a good thing. It's not as great at work. It's only a matter of time before I start wearing the propeller hat at work. 

If I'm ever caught wearing one, I am asking/begging someone to hit me in the nuts so hard that reproduction would become virtually impossible or too painful to attempt. It's really for the good of the human race that I don't reproduce if I'm wearing this. 

Anywho, it's not important. Joe Namath was sort of a douche anyway and not that great of a quarterback. But that hair was legendary. 

Mine is turning into a dried up quilt of lint from an abandoned dryer. 

(I know what you're thinking: Did I really just read another post about hair and hats and other pointless shit? Yep. You sure did. This blog has hit new lows.)

Hat and Hoodie Update

I'm sure many of you were wondering about the current hat and hoodie situation that was going on since I haven't update the public in a few days. So here's the juicy scoop. 

I have successfully worn a hat every day since October 6th. It's possibly the happiest I've ever been. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. My streak of wearing a hat will stop at 55 days when I return to work. I'm most upset about it. 

The hoodie situation has progressed substantially. I've gone from just one black U of U hoodie that I've worn 16 out of 30 days, to now owning 2 black hoodies to rotate. I don't want to work my hoodies too hard. That leads to hoodie fatigue and hoodie burnout. Both are top causes for Hoodie Spontaneous Combustion Disease. It's always fatal. 

Now that you know what I'm wearing lately, you can go back to sleeping comfortably. 

Non-Zip-Up Hoodie

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a huge proponent of zip up hoodies. They make up about 80% of my Fall/Winter/Spring clothing choices. From the dark grey hoodie to the dark black hoodie, I have a plethora of choices to compliment my poor choices to combat seasonal coldness. Recently, I have rediscovered my love for the original pull over hoodie. No zippers. No mercy. Just protective layering from the elements. It's been the best 26 dollars I've spent recently. This hoodie functions on just about every level possible. It satiates my desire for the utmost laziness that I'm known for. Just put it over my shirt and I'm out the door! It practically doesn't matter what I wear underneath. I could be wearing a bra or a shirt that says "I Love Anime Girls." No one would know because I never take off my hoodies unless I'm extremely hot. Which is rare. I embrace the heat and soak it up like a sponge and/or desert reptile. But I feel there is a strange stigma with pull over hoodies. With the zip up ones, it seems to create the illusion that I carefully picked it out of my closet to match whatever I'm wearing, even if I wear the same one for many days in a row. With the pull over kind, it seems that people think that I'm some sad sack of shit who just recently gave up on life. Something about pullover hoodies seems to signal to the rest of the world that I am no longer taking care of myself and might also possibly be hiding food within its deep pockets. If I wear the same one every day, people just assume I'm dirty as fuck. And they wouldn't be wrong but how is it different from the zip up hoodie?

No one has an answer for that.

But suffice to say, I don't care. I have worn this hoodie as a pajama hoodie on my days off. A social hoodie when I'm out and about and a centerfold piece of my daily fashion choice. I haven't worn a hoodie like this since I was 16. And that one got stolen by a girl who didn't like me anyway. I don't think I've gone back to the pullover ones since. I believe it might stem from my general awkwardness of having to sometimes take it off in public. I risk having it pull up my shirt and blinding everyone in sight with my obscene paleness and currently unflattering physique. I don't want to see that. No one does. I don't blame them. But at this point in my life, I am embracing this next step in my lazy evolution. Victims be damned if I have to take this thing off in front of them.

They could never understand the convenient love I have for this sweater.

Age Appropriate Skateboarding

I walk my dog near a skate park a few days a week. It's fun to sometimes stop and watch people do tricks and practice. It reminds me of my time being a preteen/teenager skateboard wannabe punk. Those were fun times wandering to skate parks and other buildings that had some sweet stairs and rails. However, I would like to you remind you that I didn't make it big with skateboarding and do not do it as a lucrative living. Skateboarding is a lot like music, sports, and other forms of art or athletics in which only elite handfuls can make a successful living of it. Only handfuls of bands make it to the rockstar heights of AC/DC or the ideal thug rapper lifestyle. Major league sports may have thousands of players but many are lost to injury or do not have sustainable talent to progress in a certain league (Stay with me here, I'm going somewhere with this. I promise). Big name journalists, photographers and writers are the biggest grains of salt in bottomless salt shaker. Many wield a camera or a pen with hopes of being the biggest name. Yet only handfuls are household names or big names in their specific niche.

Skateboarding is the exact same way. Like various sports, writing, photography and other art forms, it's fun to do as a hobby. Some are lifelong hobbies and some are passing hobbies that come and go with age. Skateboarding is definitely transient. There are few professional skateboarders over 50. There are notable exceptions but they are EXCEPTIONS. It was the cool thing when I was young and all the young girls thought that careless grungy skateboarders were awesome. I was never one of those people. For I was rarely careless. I was the most up tight of all my friends, I attempted to be grungy but it wasn't the "hot" kind of grungy. I just looked like a misfit human in grunge attire. Some people carry out and live that dream of skateboarding professionally. And that's cool. I respect that. However, I feel there is a certain age where you can probably drop the idea of skateboarding professionally. Any age over 25 is probably an ideal age to stop trying and get a real job. If you've already made it by that point (and most professional skateboarders make it before that age and continue with it as a career) then good for you. You're the exception. For everyone one Tony Hawk or Bam Margera there is thousands of deadbeats chasing the skateboarding dream well into their late 20's and 30's .

So this is where I was going with all of this. Back to the skate park where I walk my dog. Once or twice a week there is a guy there who is easily my age if not older who skateboards there and hangs out with people at least 5-10 years younger. This in itself isn't egregious but it's a little weird. But on top of that, he brings his daughter with him who is definitely under 2 years of age. She sits there restless and confused as to why her dad doesn't pay attention to her while he hangs out with guys who look like they may not be able to legally drink. She cries and asks for him and he keeps telling her to hold on while he attempts trick after trick with no success. He wasn't very good at all. He had the look of a novice. He would skate back to his buddies and begrudgingly console his daughter while commenting about her "bitch mom" who couldn't even watch her for the day so he could skateboard. The most baffling are his remarks about when he "some day" makes it big skateboarding and he won't have to worry about anything anymore and he can pay for a babysitter so he can hang out and skate all day.

Dude, seriously? Are you fucking 10 years old? Are you still humming the "I don't want to grow up" song by Toys R Us in your head? Are you possibly retarded or just lazy? Probably just lazy but I'm not willing to exclude both as possibilities. I understand parents need hobbies and can't sacrifice everything. But the one thing you hold on to is skateboarding? You're almost fucking 30. Easily. How about you put down the board and pick up a job application. It's a little late to cling to your youth now. And what about that poor girl who somehow decided it was a good idea to sleep with you? Is she 18 and still thinks skaters are so hot? What a mistake for all parties involved. For the daughter who can't get her fathers attention so he can skateboard and live in Neverland. For the dad who may never grow up or give up on childish dreams. For the mother who carried a baby from a man that is incapable of facing reality. Now they are all inseparably intertwined. There is no winning situation here. In the movies, the dad would realize the foolishness and error of his ways. Get a job, go back to school maybe. The mother would be supportive but firm for the dad to do something besides skateboard, but still support the dream until it was harshly apparent that this wasn't the way. The daughter likes her dad's passion and picks up his mannerisms throughout childhood but realizes the reality of what her dad was and doesn't follow in his footsteps in chasing the stars.

But it's not the movies. This is the real world and the odds are always against us. That family is fucked and never had a chance because some 30 year old dude is chasing a preteens dream.



Remember kids. Safe sex.

Irritation Issues

If you're looking for a juicy blog about my dry skin or dry eyes, or there minor medical problems having to do with mild irritation you'll have to look elsewhere. Instead, you'll get a thrilling post about my general frustrations over a couple of stupid things. Additionally, I just want to call it irritation and not something about anger. I feel that "anger issues" and "anger management" are severely overused words and concepts. I'm not angry. Just annoyed at really dumb things. However, this will all sound coincidentally angry.

So I'm walking through a few stores in search of a heavy jacket for the winter. In this particular store everything is about 4 sizes too big. I know I've written about this before. The plight for fashion of the short and skinny white guy (This plight is indeed real). But this is getting ridiculous. There were plenty of sweatshirts, jackets, hoodies and such that were quite appealing to me. Unfortunately the smallest size they had as a medium. But even so, the mediums were huge. To be fair, I've never seen a small size in this store ever so I shouldn't complain too much. And it's not because they are sold out. (And no this wasn't a store for "plus-sized gentleman") They just simply don't sell them. Their key demographic is for tall, fat guys apparently. Every article of clothing in there was generally large to triple extra large. The crazy thing is, employees were restocking those sizes heavily because they run out of them in a week. You could argue that I shouldn't shop there knowing they don't carry my size and seem to exclusively cater to their planetary sized clients. You could also suggest something equally horrible such as "order the small online." I'm going to politely shoot down those suggestions with a mad scientist-sized ray gun of destruction. True, I shouldn't shop there knowing that, but would it kill them to stock something that doesn't drown even an average man? And also why order it online? I'm just not a wild child who can order something online without having trying it on first. (Side argument: you could also say I could return it if it doesn't fit. Fuck that. Once I have it, I'm too lazy to send it back. What a hassle for a lazy piece of crap like myself)

I was going to write about something else that annoys me, but I've decided to save that for another day because I'm lazy and tired of writing.

I bid you a good day sir or madam!

Dumb Quotes and Choices

I cannot put this out there enough. I'm really old. I am rarely not annoyed by today's disingenous crop of youngsters. I've been blown away by a quote that's been making the rounds on the interwebs lately. It goes as follows:

"Don't judge people for the choices they make when you don't know the options they had to choose from."

First off: Shut the fuck up.

Secondly: See first point. 

I hate quotes like this because they are meant to sound deep and also make us reflect on how we judge others in our day to day lives. However, this quote doesn't reflect real life. Granted, we are all sometimes faced with difficult choices. Sometimes all the choices we have to choose from are all bad, but we still have to choose. But often, we choose the least awful of these choices and we usually carry on just fine. These types of choices are rare but they happen. However, I feel there are MANY situations by which this quote does not apply. This quote gives sympathetic readers a scapegoat. A way out. An excuse. That the choices we make are not without consequences or responsibility. There is always a better option or a better choice; even if the "better choice" is a slightly less shitty option. In a black and white scenario, lets choose drug addicts. You can either do heroine or NOT do heroine. Rarely are there real scenarios where you have a gun to your head and you have to either die or inject yourself with heroine. Peer pressure sucks but it's not life and death. You can either do addicting drugs or not. There's no in between. Which still, I understand these are murky waters. People often turn to these drugs to escape a not so bright reality. But there is still a clear cut choice. Your option is to either do the drugs or not. There is an option to not start doing the drugs. In other scenarios that are just as murky, there is always the option to not have unprotected sex. There is always the option to not get into that fight. There is always that option to not abuse a person or living thing. Sometimes we know the options people had and they chose poorly. And we have to acknowledge that. That bad decisions are actually bad decisions. Instead we are afraid of holding people accountable. We just say "We don't understand." While that may be we don't understand it doesn't undercut what a bad decision looks like. 

I'm probably talking in circles and this isn't a cohesive argument. I just get bothered by this entitled bullshit. There are bad decisions. We are not all tortured artists on stage. Others are not trying to understand you in particular as if you are culturally significant. We all make bad decisions. We all fail to choose a better option sometimes. But when we choose poorly, we cannot look away and tell ourselves and others that we had no other choice and shirk the responsibility of what we did. It's up to us to learn from those mistakes. Unfortunately and often tragically, most people don't.

20 Days of Hat Rotations

My dad recently got his kidney transplant so suffice to say I've been incredibly busy..........

But not busy enough to not write about hats again.


Since the transplant I have gone nearly 3 full weeks of wearing a hat. I haven't once styled my hair. I've even forgotten what hair product is and what it's used for. Every day, I wake up, shower, put on clothes and put on a hat. My biggest fashion decision used to be "which black shirt to wear" but now I find I've added another complex decision to my daily fashion choices. Now it's "which hat do I wear?" This might seem stupid to you but it's been a real struggle for me. I currently have 4 hats in my daily rotation. Four! I have a 25% chance of being happy with my daily hat-related decision. Do I wear my plain black hat? (Most popular choice lately) Or do I go with one of my Green Bay Packers hats, and if so the black one or the green one? (Depends on the day) Or finally do I go with my black University of Utah hat? I have one more hat in the mix but I call that one "the special teams" hat. It's a black hat that's stained with sun and sweat. It only comes off the bench for a few things. 1. The gym. 2. Manual labor. 3. Fishing. So it's not really a hard decision to know when to use it. I don't want to ruin the good ones with my sweat. Special teams hat knows its place. It's not a social hat.

But now I've come to worry about the well-being of my hair. It's now perpetually flat and bowl-shaped. I don't know much about hair but I'm almost certain that my hair is adapting to my hat marathon. It's growing in ways that are conducive to hat-wearing. It is quite possibly growing to accommodate my hats. It's not spilling out the sides. Rather it's just growing in a sphere-like way to fit the mold of a hat. Do I have to worry? What happens when I have to reappear in normal society again? Will my hair only be capable of being an oblong pseudo-afro? I can't go to work in a hat and scrubs. I actually have to style my hair for work to maintain the facade of professionalism. My hair won' t know what to do with being exposed to the environment for hours on end. Sure, I can try to style it, but it will resist and beg for a cover. Maybe I can start wearing surgical caps at work? Or I can just have the personality of jaded scientist and wipe it out. Shave my head and start anew. Let the this new crop of hair come into its own.


Do you see what I'm dealing with here? The struggle is real.

Hats and Indecision

I stood disappointed looking into the mirror as I attempted to style my hair. No matter what I did it would not cooperate.

"Fuck it. I'll deal with it later," I said to myself. 

I was in a rush to be out the door and at school before noon. As I got to my car, I caught a glimpse of myself in the reflection of my window. My hair was parted goofy. It was not the way I left it just a few minutes ago. 

I should have worn a hat. 

Driving to the coffee shop didn't help my indecision either. In my rear-view mirror I could see a few rogue hairs standing straight up. How did they get there? I didn't leave it like that, did I? At a stop light I inspected my hair further like some 16 year old diva queen. The hair situation had quickly deteriorated. I didn't do this! I most certainly had not left one side flat and another side bristling like a mutant pineapple. 

I should have worn a hat. 

By the time I left my usual coffee stop, the rain had come pouring in. No big deal, right? It wasn't a big deal until I had to park unreasonably far away at school. The rain was cold on my freshly cut hair. My scalp was more exposed than I've been used to in recent weeks. 

I definitely should have worn a hat. 

Luckily I was wearing a hoodie and was able to pull the hood over my head. Problem solved. No big deal. As I walked towards the main building I noticed some guy playing his music very loud from a stereo built into his backpack. This isn't 1984, jackass. We now live in a world where nice headphones are a coveted item. Headphones killed the boombox and buried them deep into the Earth's hot magma core in hopes they would never resurrect again. What a great inconvenience it is for everyone to have to listen to your objectively shitty taste in music. It's bad enough we have to hear it aloud in people's cars, but now we are bringing it back just so...........

A large raindrop fell on my forehead breaking my train of thought. The rain was coming down harder and nearly horizontal with the wind. Now my face I was getting soaked and there as nothing I could do about it. 

I definitely should have fucking worn a hat. 

This would have never happened if the bill of my hat was there to protect my fragile face. Wait. I'm not going to be negative about this. Just move on. I went to the restroom once I made it to the library so I could make room for more coffee and study-enhancing junk foods. As I washed my hands I looked up in the mirror only to discover my hair was now completely flat. Much flatter in the back where my hood was resting. It looks like I just woke up with exceptionally greasy hair and decided that was good enough to go out in public. It's not enough that I dress like Wal-Mart's poster boy for cheap plain clothes. But now I look the part of a Wal-Mart customer that came from the bowels of the nearest trailer park. The only thing missing at this point is barbecue stains on my clothes and a thick cigarette cologne. 

I really definitely should have worn that fucking hat.

As I sit here putting the finishing touches on this post, I realize how soaked my thin hoodie was for this sort of weather. 

I should have worn a thicker jacket.

In a World Where Errors Shouldn't Occur [Often]

I find it odd that people can misspell anything in today's world. Anything remotely electronic has a spell check program. It wouldn't surprise me if calculators had that function now. There is now always something to keep us from making heinous spelling mistakes. Yet, somehow people manage to misspell words. And I'm not talking about text slang that all the young people use nowadays (U R gr8!, LOL :)). I'm talking about words where the program calls you out on your mistakes. Words that are misspelled in a blog or word document program have the dreaded red underlining. On your phones and tablets, they actually take over and correct your mistake for you. How is any human being or hyper-intelligent chimpanzee misspelling words?! You literally have to tell the program you think it's wrong and spell it your own way. What kind of arrogant douche does that? Is it some sort of patriotic stand? Example: "I don't need no computer telling me how to spell disappointment. I'll spell it with two S's and one P if I want to. It's my right as an American to have freedom of speech!" Or are you somehow so confident in your spelling skills that you might have convinced yourselves that the computer programmers made a mistake and you can't be wrong? Example: "I took 3rd place in my 4th grade and 9th grade spellings bees. I think I know how to spell "rediculous." (Barf)

You literally have to go over the programs head and proclaim your righteousness on how right you are. Because that program tries to stop you multiple times before eventually just giving up and letting you spell it like a quasi-illiterate dumbass.

Now, I imagine you'll want to point out my numerous spelling errors in this blog. You would be right to. I do absolutely no editing other than obvious spelling mistakes. Otherwise, writing programs can't correct me when I leave off a letter that would make it plural, singular or show possession. In fact, my most egregious mistakes come from missing ENTIRE words! Words that are vital to a sentences composition and flow. In my mind, I wrote it. But my fingers did not type them. Or I spelled a word right but it was not the word I meant but spell programs can't correct for words that make a sentence cogent. Or I edited a sentence with a different word but didn't correct the other words to make the sentence flows. Everything I post here is basically a rough draft written and corrected by a lazy 11th grader with a penchant for criticizing everyone else on their writing.

Yes, I know the irony and hubris is both delicious and aggravating. In fact, I'm sure there is a minimum of 3 mistakes in this post alone that I won't bother correcting. It's not as though I have a reputation at stake. If I don't correct it, my vast readership might lose interest? I have a total of 3 people reading this blog anymore and that's a generous assessment. If I lose all 3, that just means I get to write completely judgment free!

You see, there is a silver lining to everything if you look for it.

Another First Day of School Stall

I know I write about this time of year every year. It's as reliable as time itself. But I can't help but find how funny it is to return to school during the fall semester. Grown-ass adults of all ages come fully dressed in their best clothes as if it were the first day of high school. 18-19 year olds barely qualify as adults. The only people who see these people as adults are the law and other 18-19 year olds. They are otherwise incompetent human beings and therefore I'm not counting them in this discussion. I'm talking about your mid 20's and older type of people dressing up to go to the first week of school. People old enough to know better. People old enough to not give a shit about dressing up to impress on the first day of school. Your 18-21 year olds can get away with it. They are still close enough to high school age that it's a habit. Beyond that, it's just sort of sad because who could possibly care at this age? Your 30-40 something year old mom going back to school is dressing up to relive her days of youth. Your 25-30 something is dressing up for a rather depressing source of attention.

Oh yes, people are out in their best clothes. Men and women alike are in their finest, pressed, button up plaid hipster shirt. Women are inexplicably sporting almost-too-revealing leggings despite the fact it's 92 fucking degrees outside. Men are wearing their douchiest color combination of "bro tank tops" to show off their slightly toned arms and pasty farmer tans. Skin is show everywhere to both pleasant and unpleasant degrees. I don't disagree with it necessarily. I just think it's funny how much people care about the opinion of other strangers. Strangers whom they avoid eye contact with. Strangers whom they don't acknowledge while their face is pressed into their phones. Strangers whom they are trying to impress without acknowledging any of them.

Am I just really old or does this make sense to anyone else?


Actually don' answer that. I already know that answer.

Gray Hair

Long ago, I reached a point in my life where I could openly criticize the stupid trends of today's youth. It's a part of my 20's I have not looked forward to but got to very early in my 20's (Which just confirms my suspicions that I'm really just some sort interdimensional grandpa capable of transcending time and space).  If you have read this blog at all the last few years, you'll find that it is indeed ripe with complaints about the problems of the savagely inept generations that have proceeded mine. 

So without further ado, let's jump into it. What the fuck is with all these chicks changing their hair color to gray? That's like looking directly at the concept of youth and spitting in it's face. Sure you could argue that this fights our youth obsessed culture's values. It's hip to look gray and young. 

Um, why? You have literally the 2nd half of your life to look forward to all the gray you want. You'll have so much gray hair, you won't even know what to do with it. I can't say that I personally dig this look. There is something vaguely Freudian about finding a gray haired woman attractive, as if anyone might have thought "I would totally jump on a grandma if only they looked younger in the face." What about all these young puberty stricken guys out there? For the rest of their lives they will have several confusion-based boners. They will growing thinking women with gray hair are hot. They will be walking around in their 20's/30's/40's and see a skinny gray haired lady from the distance from the back. Only to find it's an elderly lady who is as wrinkled as time itself. They will perhaps question themselves "Am I attracted to women in gray hair or do I really have a thing for old ladies?" (Also insert other stereotypical males are dumb/vaguely sexist/inderscernibly offensive jokes) 

There are millions of old people who are dying their hair the original color their hair actually was because gray hair sucks. You're literally spitting in the face of the elderly. As if to say "Yeah, we know have energy, strength, tight skin, white teeth and vibrant hair. But fuck it. We don't want it. Let's just skip to the end and dye my hair gray." I'm sure that's what these hot rogues are thinking. So like today's generation. Don't want to work for that sweet gray hair and loose bowels. Gotta have it now. 

To be honest this is probably one fad that won't last long anyway. When we look back on this time in the future for satire and spoofing by obnoxious washed up celebrities, the gray hair trend will shine bright again. Followed by the usually comments of "What were they thinking?!" I'm sure there is some sort of explanation for this that I'm way too out of tune with the young people to get. I'm happy living in my bubble of ignorance so I can remark how my generation was cool. My generation was all about dudes wearing girl pants, emo haircuts, skateboard products, and pretending to be a stoner.  

Yeah. 

That was the real ticket to cool right there.

5 Posts

Well hello again valued citizens of the interweb,


I have posted barely 4 times this year; this post now making 5 (For all you people incapable of counting). I have heard murmurings of people missing my "no-talent hack" brand of writing (No one has said that). So I decided to come back. For you. My loving readers who have no doubt missed my sense of humor and grammatically correct literature. That's right, I called my work "literature." You'll just have to deal with it.

Anyway, as I was saying; My literary genius has been away from the internet for far too long. I suspect, it will still be brilliantly talentless in posts to com. Shining as bright as a talc stone and as uncomfortable to read as Dora the Explorer fan fiction. You won't like it. I'l love to write it. You'll love to ignore it soon.


Actually I'm kind of figuring my posts will probably stay sporadic. It's not that I've had nothing to write. I've had a lot to write that I've regretted not writing. But time has not been on my side. Nor the motivation to make time for it. I'll write when I can....... or want. Don't count on it consistently.


So with all that said, I'll end this pointless post with an empty lie.


I love you.

Games and Puzzles

Maybe I'm just a product of my braindead, wifi-powered generation but I've never cared much for board games, card games or puzzles. On occasion, I can play them and have fun. But playing such games more than 5 times a year is more than enough for me.

Let's start with puzzles, crosswords, and sudoku. Puzzles are ok. Putting together a picture has never been my idea of fun. More than that, I hate taking them apart after I'm finished. It seems like such a waste of work and time if I'm just going to take it apart once I'm finished. And don't you dare suggest that I glue the puzzle together so I can frame it. What am I? A serial killer? I don't care for crosswords or sudoku either. Both games breed pretentiousness virulently. Any person who openly admits to playing these games without being asked or prompted inevitably follows that up with sentences like "It help keeps my mind sharp," or worse "It helps increase my illustrious vocabulary....... I learned the word illustrious yesterday thanks to the crosswords." Or the worst offense of them all is "It makes me feel super smart. I notice a big difference in my intelligence when I do them." While studies do show that puzzles of these kinds do help keep your mind sharp and also help stave off dementia and Alzheimers, the risk of developing into a heinous douchebag as a result is simply too great of a risk for me to ignore. I'll take my chances with debilitating brain plaque, thank you very much.

Board games just foster contempt, especially if you're competitive like most people claim to be. Want to know a person's true colors? Have them play Monopoly with you. You will truly see someone's cut throat nature when competing for fake currency and land. People will not hesitate to run you into bankruptcy and rape your self-esteem in this strategic family game of hate. Although the stakes are technically low since winning or losing money and property don't affect the course of your real life, the mental effects stay with you for a lifetime. I'm betting you can think of at least one game of Monopoly that got a little too heated for your comfort as you read this. If you haven't had a game like that yet, just wait. Your time is coming.

Card games bore the holy shit out of me. Sure there is just about equal parts strategy and luck involved. But when I find myself holding cards in my hand for more than 45 minutes, I begin to wonder "Why do I even care about this again?" Card games often take both time and a pinch of talent to learn. I lack both in vast amounts. I've tried giving all variations of card games a try with some success. But most of the time I just shrug my shoulders and find something else to do. Something that doesn't require me to be frustrated and pissed off for the rest of the day.

What I Thought I'd be When I Grew Up

When I was a kid, I had always wondered what it would be like to be a "grown up." I predicted quite inaccurately what I'd look like and how I would act. I still remember this image of what I embodied my adulthood to be.

I remember as a kid, I had thought I would be tall, skinny, a pony tail, a scraggly goatee, with a backwards black hat and black shirt with a skull on it. Oh and did I mention I thought I would be blonde? Unfortunately, my parents didn't explain to me the concepts and laws of genetics. Which is a shame. Maybe I would have been less disappointed later on when I figured out that I wouldn't grow up to be the white trash scumbag I had envisioned. I had always envisioned myself in a cigarette smoke filled room, hanging out with scuzzy looking dudes, being loud and making jokes that would make everyone else boisterously laugh.

How in the hell did I ever come up with this vision? It's not like my parents were taking me to sleazy bars full of these people. I can't even remember meeting someone like that as a kid. But for as long as I can remember, I was certain this is the man I would grow up to be. My best guess is that I learned this from Star Trek: The Next Generation. My dad made it a point to raise me properly and made sure that I was well acquainted with the Star Trek universe. I theorize that I must have watched an episode with Klingons being involved. That was their type of behavior.

(I was trying to find a still shot of Klingons drinking on an episode to illustrate my point. Unfortunately, my image searches only yielded pictures of nerds dressed as Klingons drinking beer. Don't get me wrong, I'm seriously a huge, fucked up nerd. But come on, Google. I don't even want to see that. You know what I want! Give me pictures of Klingons interacting and being shady!)


Anywho, maybe it's just me who has these weird images still stuck in my head for whatever reason. But I've always wondered if other people had similar predictions about themselves that turned out to be very wrong.

I guess I did get one thing right. My affinity for black clothes is still going strong.

Laboratory

As I was walking through some school buildings the other day, I realized how overused the words "lab" and "laboratory" were. Now when you think of those words, what do you immediately think of? For the majority of people, it seems that people think of a science lab. You know, a place where science and scientific research takes place. You might even go as far as to imagine test tubes, lab coats, protective goggles, computers, complex machinery and math. All of which are completely reasonable (and factual).

But I've recently noticed that schools and universities, academic institutions that are often obsessed with having the most accurate and factual information, are overusing the words "lab" and "laboratory." But how, you might ask? How can you possibly overuse a word with such a specific connotation and association. I'll tell you how:

By using the word as loosely as possibly to describe a place where things are made.

Does that sound vague? That's because it is.

I walked by a long hallway full of all kinds of "labs." Labs that are not particularly scientific such as the "fashion design lab," or the "haircut lab" or the "kitchen lab" or even my personal favorite, the "sewing lab."

Are you fucking kidding me? If you are using the broadest and most ambiguous definition of lab, some half-brained asshole might be able to convince you that a lab is where experimentation and creation takes place. Ok fine. Let's just say that is the case. Then why isn't there a cereal lab where the creation and experimentation of cereal takes place? Or how about a shoelace lab? Why the fuck not? We've already come this far. Or how about the wood carving lab or the pottery lab?

Now, don't try and bullshit me with technicalities such as "Well there is actually a lot of science in cooking/pottery/cereal making." Fuck that. Unless you have a masters or Ph.D in chemistry or physics to explain those things, great. I'm sure there is a cereal lab at a corporation where chemists quite literally get together, use chemicals to concoct and test new cereals. I know for a fact there is a cooking/kitchen lab out there. Cooks with Ph.D's who study why chemicals react to heat or cold the way they do in attempts to test the safety of cooking certain foods. That makes sense. But unless you're applying advanced physics and chemistry down to the molecular and atomic level for the purposes of cooking, don't call it a fucking laboratory or lab. Why can't it just be "A kitchen" or even "kitchen simulator."

And don't get me started on the "fashion design lab." The hard sciences consist of physics, chemistry, and biology. Plus the sub-sections of those hard sciences such as astronomy and geology. You know what those have in common? They are all intertwined and make up the components of the known universe. Additionally they are testable by the scientific method. Even our soft sciences such as psychology, sociology, and anthropology are bound by the scientific method even if they aren't always easily measured. Now did you notice anywhere in those categories of science that I mentioned fashion science? If you answered no then that's no coincidence and that's largely because fashion isn't a fucking science.

Surprise!

In what world do you somehow convince yourself that you need to call it a fashion lab? Why cant it just be the "fashion design room"? It doesn't make fashion design any less prestigious or serious. I don't have anything against it. People make their livings off of it. But I would say it's more of an art than a science. There are no studies on fashion. And don't bother bringing up that stupid dress that went viral or marketing studies about what people would wear. The dress debate is a matter of medical science studying the cone receptors in your eyes, not the undiscovered properties of fashion design. And marketing falls more into social science based on the constructs of interpreting human wants, needs and behavior.

In conclusion, let's leave the words "lab" and "laboratory" to the sciences and not use it interchangeably to merely convey a place where things are created. Otherwise we might some day be excusing ourselves from the table to go visit the "restroom lab." Because that's where feces and urine are created and excreted, you see.

Noises

The ER can be a busy and noisy place to work in. That seems like a pretty obvious assertion. Yet, as a lifelong hermit/introvert I still find that I am easily overstimulated by too much noise. Much more so in the morning. There were conversations happening all around me. Some of them were important. Others less important. But it was too much. Too much for my mind to handle this morning. Too much stimulation.

It's no secret that I'm not a good morning person. Which doesn't mean that I hate working mornings, it just means I don't adjust to them easily or readily at first. This is the time that I'm most easily overstimulated. When I'm tired. When my mind isn't ready for it. I couldn't take it. I had only been here for an hour and it was already too much to handle. I decided to go for a walk. Just for 5 minutes. That was all. Something to clear my head from all the loud static noise happening all around me.

Instantly the rest of the hospital was more quiet than where I was. Yet, I was still hyper-aware of all the noises around me. Subtle and not subtle. I walked through a long stretch of hallway, my favorite hallway. It was quiet here. Though it was a major thoroughfare for foot traffic, it wasn't busy for this time of the morning. I could hear the air of the heating system blow past me as if it were a wind tunnel. It masked a lot of other small noises happening around me. I took my time as a walked down this hallway. No one was in front of me. No faces to greet me. No strangers to acknowledge. Just me, theair tunnel and the light hum of fluorescent lighting. Behind me, a lady loudly rummaged through her plastic sack. Normally that wouldn't have bothered me in a normal state. But right then, it felt like she was ruffling the sack right next to my ears. I tried to ignore it and press forward. I was mostly alone in a building that contained easily hundreds of people. No one in that entire building could have appreciated that fact more than me. I passed by old lights where the hum was high pitched. I could feel it pierce my eardrums. The 10 seconds of complete uninterupted silence I had in that long hallway was bliss and I sorely missed it already.

I reached the end of the hallway where it was quiet, isolating and yet weird to be here. No one comes back here. But what if someone did? What the hell was I doing there. There was no logical explanation that could make sense to them. I couldn't explain to them that I needed to get away from the noise of the job I willingly signed up for. I turned around and started walking back, again at my own pace. That long hallway stretch came again. It was quieter this time. No ruffling bags, the high pitched hum of the lighting had suddenly went away. No people or faces to acknowledge. Just me and the relative silence. The most silent a hospital can get. I relished this fleeting moment. From the time I stepped into that long silent hallway to the very second the silence ended, I savored it. I savored it like a well made chocolate, or a well aged wine. I had to take it all in for what it is worth. What I was going back to would be the exact opposite. Loud conversation. Loud footsteps. Small talk. Important information. Noise just to be noise. People competing for the attention of others. It was too much. I wasn't ready to go back.

I'm not always like this. But when I am, I would give almost anything to be isolated and alone. Right now, no price seems too high for the simple luxury of silence.