Nothing Is As It Appears To Be

So this morning I get up after a mere 4 hours sleep, there is no hot water in my building, so I am forced to splash icy cold water on myself. I then have to lather up the soap with icy cold water clinging to me, a nifty cool breeze blowing on me and no promise of anything warm whatsoever in my immediate future. Then comes the unbearable rinse. I make it out to my car and it would not start. It took me literally 15 minutes of wearing my battery down to almost nothing till it finally turned over. Clearly something is terribly wrong with it. Then there was the bus ride in to work... those of you who have been following this average life are well aware of my bus problems... I have some serious ass bus problems. However today was unique in that the bus I was on was clearly made for dwarfs. The seats had absolutly no room for your legs at all and yet the seats in front of you could recline back. You would literally have to have no legs at all to sit there with the seat in front of you leaned all the way back. And yet the woman in front of me attempted to recline fully. Quite simply this was not possible as my knees were already pressed up against the back of her seat, however, this would not deter her from trying with a tenacity rarely seen in a non life threatening situation. She was hurling herself and all of her weight against the back of the seat while looking at me, one hand on the lever that allows her seat to recline and the other on the head rest. Clearly she could see my body recoil and shake with each increasingly forceful attempt she made. The look of utter disbelief combined with the scary feeling one gets right before a bone snaps in ther leg was written on my face as I looked her in the eye during all of this. She did not care. She kept trying. The urge to drop all human rational thinking and embrace the purely animal instinct of killing was overwhelming, but I did what every guy does. I ignored her as best as possible and closed my eyes for some sleep. I arrive at my destination, good old Port Authority NYC. Every morning I get coffee at Au Bon Pain and walk the half a block to work. However this morning at the coffee shop they did not have those lovely littel cardboard sleeves the slide over the cup so that the scalding hot coffee does not remove skin or set you aflame while drinking what is markedly close to molten lead. So I held my cup of coffee as I walked to work, the fingers wrapped around the cup are tingling and no doubt forming blisters. So I get to work only to find out that our website is down and clients who pay us many thousands of dollars are not pleased with us.

Now... you would think that this would be a fucking terrible morning, right? But this is my world, and here baby... Nothing is as it appears to be. I am in a good mood and nothing can touch me. Thanks to quid I have a song stuck in my head... All ya need is love.

World of Warcraft

So I have been playing World of Warcraft pretty much since the day it came out. It is a massively multiplayer online role playing game, although its really kind of lacking in the roleplaying part since that is completly dependant upon the people playing it. They can chose not to roleplay anything and just be the normal obnoxious 12 year old brats they are in their normal life, only now they can do it while being 20 levels higher than me and kill me on site and dance on my corpse.

They have what is called "Guilds" in the game, where people can form a internal community of friends who all work together for a common goal. When I got to the server that I am currently playing on I decided that it would be a good idea to join the best guild available. The most active with the most players. 2 weeks into it the members revolt against the leader and kinda push ME into the position of leader. This is worse than being a full time nanny. You can not possibly imagine the seething cornicopia of drama that gets flung in my direction from the second I log in to enjoy my game till the last miserable moment when I log out to get some rest. It is non-stop he said she said he did, ninja looted me, pwnz0rz j00, n00b, "thats so gay", fag this and that... It incredible. The unfortunate part is that it is comprised of about 90 percent kids and maybe 10 percent respectable adults who are there to honestly enjoy themselfs and not "PWN" everyone. So its not like you can kick out all the kids, youd be left with nothing.

Tonight I am supposed to hold a guild meeting where we go over important goals and policy and I have a feeling that its going to be a circus of leet speak and trash talking. I wish I could show up at their houses and kick their doors in and grab them by the feet and swing them headfirst into a cement wall until I was only holding the bloody stumps of their feet. but alas.. I must lead by example and take the high road. Or they will kill me and dance on my corpse. *sigh*

I want a fast car.

I used to have a fast car. One of my first vehicles was a 1971 Chevy Nova SS. That car was so fast that I used to get where I was going before I left. *blink blink* I would be crusin down the road and cars that I passed would stall because my intake manifold was suckin in so much air that there was not enough oxygen in the surrounding air to keep their cars running. In fact when I went by the vacuume created by my car passing through time and space would cause their head lights to explode and their eyes to burst out of their heads violently! I am sure you are familiar with the phrase "Burn Rubber" well I burned so much rubber it was crazy. You know how a gun has a clip for bullets and a new bullet pops into place when you shoot one? Well I had Tire Clips on the back of my car so that when I spent a set, *ca-click* a new set popped out of the clip. heh yeah thats some shit right there huh? And I had a blower and on top of that another blower and on top of that I had a nitrous kit that was forced into the blower and fed by a turbo. And then guess what happened to my car? My beloved Nova... My best friend coveted it, so much so that he begged me to sell it to him. Begged a lot.. on many occasions. I caved in because I like to see people happy, I like it when people get what they want. So I sold it to him for half of what it is worth, and he only paid me half of what I asked for it. A few years later he totaled it, adn sold it for scrap to a junk yard. There is a moral of this story, and I think that it is: If you love something set it free, if it comes back to you its yours. If it does not, its because someone wanted it more than you, stole it from you, shit all over it and threw it away.

Men: Pigs or Observant Telepaths?

Standing out on the sidewalk for my daily smoke break I am much to curious to keep my eyes on the ground. I like to look at people as they walk by. I look at men and women of course, both are equally as bizzare and I like to take note of social behavior patterns. One curious behavior that seems to dominate the street scene I will bring to light here for you today. There is a vast difference between women and men as they walk down the street to their destinations. Women walk fast and with their eyes straight ahead, they do not look up, or down, or sideways and they are usually tight liped as they walk. It is as if they are being chased by something terrible.

The men on the other hand are looking absolutly everywhere and at everyone. Their eyes are like radar dishes tracking incomming missles constantly swirling and bobbing and moving up and down. But also men are looking at eachother. For example: Guy A is walking behind Girl A, eyes furiously moving in multiple directions in Girl A's direction. Girl A is staring straight ahead and walking like a toy soldier avoiding eye contact with anything and everything with eyes on the street. Guy A see's Guy B approaching in an oncomming direction. Guy B's eyes are of course scanning the hell out of Girl A. Guy A nods to Guy B and they both know exactly what eachother is thinking. No words are shared or notes are passed. They just "know". A massive ammount of information was just transfered between Guy A and Guy B. Telepathically? Bio-Electrically? Pheremones? who knows... but if you ask me, Men seem to be far more aware and observant of their surroundings based on my initial discovery on the streets of New York. Maybe it is why we are better drivers... we can tell another guy just by looking at him "Hey, get the fuck out of my lane and wake the hell up!" While when we see a woman driving, there is no communication at all, except to Guy B who pulls up on the other side of this woman and again... both men.. just.. know.

(this post is for amusment purposes only)

A Day In The Life... At Work:

So now it is time for me to tell you about an average day at my work. Mind you this is not everyday, just an average day, a snapshot frozen in time and handed out to you, my lovely readers (hahaha like I have any) so that you may enjoy. Thus far I have taken you through my waking up, showering, and part of my commute. I do plan on finishing my commute for you, however more and more incredible things are happening to me daily while I travel that I have not had the time to put it to words, but rest assured, I shall. Ok.. work.. lets go.

As I arrive at my place of employment, knees and back sore from my iron maiden like surroundings, courtesy of NJTransit. This is a time of gathering ones strength as I stand outside, downstairs and sip blessed and soothing coffee. I am grasping the cup with both hands and holding it close to my face as if it was a life preserver and I was sinking in the sea of things that suck. A cigarette provides a little comfort as I prepare to enter work, but I am still very dissapointed with my cigarettes. I have smoked them for almost 10 years now and they still have not killed me as promised. But I continue to give them their day in court in hopes that they will soon take some fucking initiative and do what they are supposed to do. As I flick the spent butt out into the street and pivot on my heels towards the door I am suddenly greeted with a co-worker.

The innundation of questions I am the recipient of is staggering. Questions that I hate to answer because they are blaringly obvious and require zero thought. People tend to ask questions they already know the answer to, as if looking for confirmation. Yet sometimes they ask them of ME when there is no possible way I should know them. For insatance, this question always makes me grit my teeth. "Ok, is there anything I should know that I dont know?" That one always makes me take pause and consider it, because as a techie, we try to answer everything or at least analyze and respond. But this is my quintessential "divide by zero" question. If I were a robot and not a squishy organic life form, this would short my circuits and destroy my processors.. or at least a total system crash. However I am fortunate enough to not be a robot and this merely aggrivates me to the point of homocide. I would love to answer that question with "Yes, as a matter of fact there is something you should know, that you appearently don't know... You are a fucking idiot. That being said, now you know everything! You can die with a smile and now is a great time!" Followed by a pummeling that would compare to tossing someone into the back of a cement mixer truck with a few hundred bowling balls...

So I have already been aggrivated to the point of unleashing death and I have not even made it to the elevator. I know that a thousand more questions that should never be asked of me are coming and soon I will be expected to answer them all. Funny thing about careers, and you can test this theroy yourself... but ask someone, anyone, what they wanted to be when they "grew up" and probably all of them are going to tell you something completly different than what they are currently doing. I am no exception. Careers happen to you based on situation and opportunity.. but they are seldom what you want. I have to go now, I am being asked to go look at a set of speakers that are not playing on someones computer... I bet my life and all my worldly possessions that they are not plugged in properly and a simple ammount of investigation made by the user could solve this themselfs. However because it is attached to or within 500 miles of a computer, they consider this my territory and can not, and will not touch it. Like its a union job and they would be fired if they attempted to solve something on their own. Marvin the Paranoid Android... I feel you man... I feel you.

A New Idea...

It occured to me this morning while watching people move around that they tend to do so in a very un-hurried fashion. Now im not talking about your average human walking down the street in NYC, Im talking about people moving in and out of vehicles and buildings. When they encounter a complicated device .. like say... a door, they become befuddled. Why do people think that doors are the equivalent to a Yellow Light? Lets take a subway for instance. On a subway car, the train can not continue to move unless the doors are closed. Even if it is full to the brim with people, so much that youre practically dry humping the person in front of you, that one more person thinks they can squeeze in? This person wedges themself in the smallest possible palce and without fail, something of theirs is left hanging outside of the train. The doors try to close and they can not. So there we are stuck until we all suddenly become double jointed and preform contortionist acts to let this son of a bitch in. You know what would please me? If all doors in the city were hydrolic enhanced spring loaded objects and were razor sharp. Imagine then how fast people would get the frick in or out of a train or bus... no more taking your dam time and trying to make everyone late for work.. if part of you is sticking out, its going to be severed and left behind. I can see it now... someguy: excuse me, please make room, I have to get on this train, there has to be room I know you can all squeeze just a lit.. *SHUNK* All Aboard mother fucker! bwa ha ha ha ha... When I create an isolated island off the coast of Mexico some day.. this is the technology i will have in place.. in my perfect world. kthxbye

Fuckin' NJTRANSIT:

If any of you have taken NJTransit for any reason then you really don’t have to read much further down. You already know the hell it is to have no other viable option to get to the city from certain parts of New Jersey. I’m not fuckin around here, its pretty bad. There are certain people who are always on this forsaken form of transportation. A few key people who you can bet your last dollar that they are there. They are the following.

Mr.Knees – You see him walking down the aisle towards you, he looks decent enough. He does not reek of urine, this is a bonus. Your average looking guy all the way around, until he sits behind you. Suddenly you are propelled forward in your seat at just below the speed of sound and strike the seat in front of you with enough force to cause a domino effect on all the passengers on your side of the train. People striking the seats in front of them with such force and velocity that the poor guy at the end of this lethal assault explodes into a bloody mist of vapor gore and bone and hair! The guy behind you… his knees are so far up into the back of your seat you can look down at your chest and make out the pattern of the cloth on his pants because its poking through your skin. Its like leaning back on a javelin the whole ride and he constantly moves his feet around to cause maximum discomfort. Maximum Discomfort is a priority in the njtransit system.

Mr.Cuddles – No matter how empty your bus or train is, no matter what time of day you travel. Mr. Cuddles will want to sit with you. You could have a pyramid of eggs, a landmine and three cases of Rattlesnakes in the seat beside you that you are transporting. You could even have a tattoo on your forehead that reads “Poor Impulse Control”. This guy wants you to move everything out of his way so he can sit down next to you. It does not matter that the seat in front of and behind you are completely empty. It does not matter how harsh a look you cast at him. It does not matter what you say or do, because this man is getting that seat if he has to stand the whole way home while you clear it off for him. Mr. Cuddles is incapeable of riding any form of transportation while sitting in a seat by him self. This guy is a relative of Mr. Knees too. He is not content now with having the seat next to you, no not quite content yet. He wants your seat too. And he is going to inch over ever so slowly closer to you the entire trip. His knees and elbows will seem to be slowly expanding and taking up more and more of your room until you are pressed so tightly against the window that you yourself are becoming transparent. This is his goal. The irony of this guy is astounding. He can not sit without you, yet he can not stand you sitting next to him. This guy I would love to kill. I would love to place my hand on his forehead for leverage, reach into his mouth and take hold of his bottom jaw and yank it off. And then I would like to punch him in the neck and face with his own jaw continually. But before I get to violently agitated telling you about this guy, let me move on to…

Mrs. Mom – Mrs. Mom is the lady who sits next to you, infallibly, with a child or two who is not quite bus/train broken yet. While the majority of the haggard, desperate people on this form of transportation are hoping to catch a few minutes of peaceful sleep, or get some last minute work done, or perhaps to relax and read a nice book, Mrs. Mom has other plans. Mrs. Mom is going to inevitably do something to piss her kid off so bad that it is going to scream bloody murder for a full hour. You’ll be moments from peaceful sleep, or about to get to the most exciting part of your book, or developing a new formula for a undiscovered cure for cancer on your laptop when suddenly it sounds like someone ran over a sack of vocally enhanced cats. They will continue to yell and scream for the entire trip. Mrs.Mom will do absolutely nothing to stop this and get an attitude with anyone who looks at her sideways about the yelling. God forbid you actually mention it, she’ll fuckin kill you.There are more characters I will share with you as time goes on. For now I want these people to sink in to your psyche. Invariably, one or two or all of them are always on my bus or train and sitting infront, behind or next to me the whole time. I shit you not. I'll revisit this for you later.

The Dichotomies of Temperature:

My towel in hand, I am a brave adventurer. I know it is time once again to use this device, this chamber of suck. The shower at my apartment. I often think that it is a living thing. A demon thing. Something with a vicious vengeful spirit who’s only purpose is to cause hate and discontent in my world. Yes, true it gets me clean, but then again so would a sand blaster or some brillo pads. As I reach past the miracle curtain (Ill explain why I call it that in a moment) and pull the water nozzle out, the flow of water starts. This is all seemingly very normal. I adjust the nozzle between hot and cold to find a pleasingly gentle temperature. I step in and let the water cascade over my head and down my back and close the miracle curtain. It is at this point that all reality becomes unhinged. Egon in Ghostbusters said it best: “Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light”

Without warning or possible explanation, completely outside the realm of probability, the temperature shoots up. Wayyyy up. Like dangerously close to achieving nuclear fission hot. Of course my skin registers this, all the normal and expected pain messages are being sent, the brain is getting them but its mistakenly filed under “Bullshit” because nothing can be this hot. Before the annoying pain messages stack up to the point where the brain can no longer ignore this alarm, like a photographic negative the temperature shoots down. Wayyyy down. Even Lord William Thomson Kelvin, who developed the idea of the "Second Law of Thermodynamics", would be surprised and intrigued by this absence of heat. How does water stay liquid at absolute zero? How does my skin stay attached to my flesh? How am I possibly still alive? I did mention that reality becomes unhinged, didn’t I? I was not kidding. Then the granddaddy of all suck appears, the miracle curtain. Yes, that cheap piece of shit plastic curtain that I originally thought was a good idea at first. The curtain that is supposed to keep the shower water in the shower and off my floor. Supposed to keep a stable temperature between the rest of the bathroom and the interior of the shower. (hahahahahahaha… sorry). But what it does best would have the guys at Elmer’s, Crazy Glue, and Velcro pissing themselves for joy. It becomes a self propelled, intelligent predator. With the ability to keep its surface from sticking to anything at all, however bonding to my skin at a level so deep I can taste and cry polyvinyl chloride. No wait, stop and picture this. No, really its amusing. Me. The Dichotomies of Temperature blasting out of my shower head. My miracle curtain bonding to me and wrapping itself all over my limbs and leaking water all over my floor. You’re laughing aren’t you? Please god, laugh for me .. laugh or Ill cry.

There is one more thing to share about my showering experience. One final blow to my sanity. The last kick to the teeth before the day is ready to progress. As I fiddle with the nozzle in an attempt to stabilize the temperature, all the while fighting the curtain, and withholding the desire to scream and punch everything around me the curtain is whisked away. Pulled away from me as if by angels and I am free. Or am I? No.. I am not.. it was pulled off of me by my girlfriend who pokes her head in and removes every last shred of dignity I had, looks me up and down and yells in the aforementioned sonic blast voice “Hurry the fuck up, you take longer showers that a woman!” Having just suffered the scathingly cold air and fought the sub Kelvin scale temperatures of the water, you can well imagine, if you are a man, what that does to your nether region. I don’t care if your John motherfucking Holmes or Tommy Lee. When your “cock and ball housing group” is exposed to dangerously low temperatures it shrinks. Yeah.. so there I was. Shivering, naked, wet, not even fully awake, being yelled at. Pathetic. But the shower has ended and its time to dress. Heh.. talk to ya soon..

Lieing is bad:

It is at this time that I convince myself that I am in the process of getting up. Getting up out of bed and going to take my morning shower. But I just lied to my girlfriend, I am lieing to myself and its going to cost me. I can not help myself, my eyes just close and I am fast asleep once again, dreaming that wonderful dream. After all, why not catch a few more winks, right? I am partially deaf now so I should sleep even better. But what I do not expect, what I should not expect, but what is inevitable is… pain. Pain is coming. It is arriving on a galloping white mare, full plate mail armor and a sword of shining steel. Suddenly, without warning, the nerves in my big toe send an immediate SOS message to the brain stem.

“Holy shit, were taking heavy damage down here, I think were done for. Tendons are popping, the bone is creaking and I am pretty sure were being pulled completely off. Tell the other toes, Ill miss them, I never wanted it to end this way.. Good bye… good bye… aigggh”

This of course, no living being could sleep through and I spring immediately awake and check my surroundings. Confident that I am no longer in possession of my big toe and that it has been unceremoniously removed by violent means; I spot the face of my girlfriend. She is not smiling, this is good I suppose, I mean what kind of woman would be smiling while holding the recently severed big toe of her boyfriend, right? Don’t answer that… But I’m shocked to realize it is still attached and I know this because it is throbbing. This is the point where I realize that to remain in bed would probably result in further unpleasant abuse and I begin the attempt to move. First I roll over on my stomach. This way I can put my hands under my chest and give a half hearted push so I will slide down off the bed and onto the floor. Hopefully on my feet, but my knees will work if I get that far. I know, this sounds strange, but bear with me. Believe me, I am not a huge fat guy who can not get out of bed, I am amazingly spry when I am wide awake. But before my smoke and 2 cups of coffee, I am about as mobile as a cement truck with square wheels. This method is tried and true and seems to work for me. Try it sometime you might be surprised.. or not. So, here I am, hands under my chest and I am pushing. But ya know… it’s so comfortable like this. I mean.. the warmth of the blankets still covering me, the slight chill of the outside air dancing over the tips of my toes.. Well my one good toe and my nearly mutilated toe, that is. The throbbing is now a comfortable thud, singing in time with my heart beat. So… relaxing… and…

….. The Ears: “Ahem… wake up dude. I hear foot steps. No seriously she is coming back to check on you. Dear god, don’t let her see you fell back to sleep. Jesus, we saw what happened to the toe, we are just spongy cartilage, were your ears man... You need us!”

Fortunately I manage one last push and I feel the icy cold wooden floor make contact with my feet just as she pokes her head in and casts me a look that surely would have turned Medusa to stone and blasted her into tiny fragments of sand and blown her out the door and down the street. So off it is.. off to the shower. This is another adventure in itself.

Welcome to my hell! :)

Thanks for coming by and checking this out. You probably got here because you were doing a web search on something that interested you and this is what the search engine gave you. If that’s the case and you did not find what you are looking for, I am sorry in advance. If you were looking for this site, then I think it is safe to say either I know you personally or you have a penchant for self abuse. Maybe you can use the info you find here for self-discovery or maybe even a little chuckle at my pain. Make no mistake this site is about my pain. Why should you care? I don’t know. Maybe you will merely become quickly bored and make up your mind that I am in need of counseling... Deep, intensive counseling. Let me give you a little background on the author (that’s me) so maybe you can better appreciate what you will read.

I am a 34 year old Male. That alone speaks volumes for me I am sure. I am Eric Everybody, Christopher Common, Matthew Mundane. The most exciting thing I do everyday is to successfully get my deodorant on in the morning without getting any on the outside of my shirt. But I didn’t used to be a “nobody”. I used to have a pretty good life! But I’ll get more into that later. For now all you really need to know is that I live in New Jersey and I work in New York City. I am going to bring you up to speed on what my day is like soon enough, don’t you worry. But first we are going to have to cover some important facets of my day. Set the stage so to speak. It is important to me to get all this off my chest, share with you, the general public, my pain. You do of course remember that I told you this site is all about my pain, right? Well, if you’re still reading, this is the part you have been waiting for, the good stuff, the meat, the cream filling, all that and the bag of chips. Lets get started, shall we?