Spy vs Spy

I just finished reading He's just not that into you. I wasn't going to post right away because I have a great day planned for tomorrow and I don't want to be up all night obsessing about this stupid site, but then I read a fine young lady's comment on my last post that said, "it's probably written in girl code." Let me explain something right now. This book is written by a [straight] guy who was a consultant for Sex and the City. It's officially co-written with a woman, but all the real advice to women comes from a man named Greg. It's written in dude language by a dude and gives uncompromising advice to women that is not only clear and concise, but it's the real deal. He's lived through most of these situations from the view of the guy not that into the girl and pulls no punches.

This book is a must read for any guy. Why? Because it gives girls the advice they should have recieved as soon as they realized boys existed. It tells them that they should expect more of dudes than they do, but it never says to be needy. It tells women to stop putting up with players and douche bags and get themselves to a point where they have found a guy that fits the bill. This was a great read for me because it outlined exactly why my prior relationships failed (I just wasn't that into any of them after a while and even though my heart said that I cared, my brain wouldn't let me). It explains to the women why they were better off, but I got the reverse and realized how much better off I was too by reading into my own behaviors. The single best piece of advice he gives is that being in a relationship that's not cutting it not only makes you feel shitty, but it keeps you from being available to the relationship that will make you feel great. He's telling this to the girls, which means a lot of girls should be newly single and ready for a man to actually treat them right, but as a guy, you also realize that if you are subconsciously sending out signals that you just aren't that into the girl you're with that it's time to get out and find someone you really are into.

I consider myself to be passionate and loving. I treat girls right, I'm a nice guy, I have my life on track, and even though I'm not going to take up the life of a male stripper, I don't think I'm a total trainwreck in the looks department. I know there are girls out there that I should meet that are currently in relationships with guys based on things that are not important and thus are off limits. They aren't happy but they won't leave because they make excuses for things that should not be okay. If all these girls that are unhappy or that are not getting what they deserved took a stand and stopped letting themselves get into relationships with guys that don't appreciate them, then we guys that WOULD appreciate them have a chance. That makes everyone happy and slows the progress of the "stupid guy who gets all the girls, treats them like shit, and still get's laid" virus.

I know this book wasn't written for me, but it does make me feel better because the advice given didn't tell girls to do anything that I wouldn't be cool with. It tells them to expect the guy to go out of his way to be with her, to call when he says he will, to treat her right, etc. One thing it never EVER does is try to get a girl to nag or become super needy. It really emphasises what's important without going over the top and becoming a feminist sledgehammer against men. That is definatly because it was written mostly by a man, but with the responses I've been reading from women on eharmony, this book has been changing lives.

Even if it's only a minor advantage, this book has given me a little insight into what the hell girls are thinking.

This is the worst review ever... if this review had a name, it'd be Larry.

I'll try to actually write something that sounds like I have a college degree later, but I have bigger things on my mind. Let's just say I went clothes shopping, my truck is spotless (interior armorall'd), and I actually sent an email to my work email address with the directions...

Barnes and Noble

I have an account on eharmony. 9 out of 10 single girls that are looking for meaningful relationships list the book, He Just Isn't That Into You as a book they've enjoyed. They all have their reasons, but they all take something different away from reading it. I decided to reverse engineer this situation and buy a copy for myself and give it a read. I'm going to know thy enemy and go at this all Sun Tzu style. According to the looks I got when I put it on the counter and the awkward avoidance of eye contact the dude gave me, I think they all think I'm gay now. Little do they know this is covert spy vs spy shit. If you want to know what dames are thinking, read what they base their thoughts on.

Anyways, I'm out to go read about guys and how to decipher their actions in relationships...

[update] another great talk on the phone... things are going very very well.

I Called first...

No answer.

Anyways, today I got blown up by Bill worse than I ever expected. I couldn't have been destroyed any worse if he had jamed a grenade down my pants and kicked me down the stairs Tango and Cash style. I had to do a presentation on two products that AG Edwards offers. One is an account that facilitates trading, and another was an asset allocation fund. I spent a total of 6 hours prepping for this and by the time I got in his office I felt like I had a really good thing going. Then he totally did everything in his power (and I mean EVERYTHING) to throw me off. I had two folders stuffed with useful information, exibits, diagrams and forms. I never made it into either folder. He was like, "ok, and go..." "Well, before I get into what I have today, I'd like to get a better idea of what you're looking for." "Stop, no. Do you have anything for me to fill out?" "Yes." [hand bill his questionaire] "So how do I fill this out? Do I do it in order? Are you going to ask me any questions?" "Well, first... [gulp] I'd like to know what you believe your investment goals are." "I don't know." [panic] "uh... um..." [bill stares at me with his signature confused look involving his brow crushing his eyes.] "OK, I'm worried about you're ability to close a deal. You don't even understand what you have to get across." And then for the next 59.5 minutes he proceded to lecture me and then go, "so... what would you say here?" "I'd say... uh... um.... How would you feel if..." "Stop, now you have to understand..." I didn't get one sentence out for one whole hour. I felt like I wanted to either hit someone or run away. Ye old Fight or Flight. There was nothing I could do. Bill had it in his powerful brain that he was going to crush me for all I'm worth and he did so mercilessly.

So after that I cheated my way through 4 online tests. I know the stuff inside and out, but that didn't stop me from saving about 3 hours of my life and doing it the easy way. Take that, AGE. I'm not wasting my time with stuff I've already proved to you.

I am getting the feeling that I'm retreating from things that are difficult. The hard stuff now is all review and bullshit. I have to train on our information system that is going to be replaced by a completely new one before I even go into production. Waste of time? Yes. Another waste of time indeed. I refuse to let myself have my time sucked into a black hole, so I just skim and cheat my way to sucess. Even though I believe whole heartedly that I don't need to do this stuff, it doesn't take away that feeling you get when you have homework to do as a kid and decide to stay out and ride your bike until after dark instead of buckling down and getting your work done. I really enjoy the stuff that I'm learning, but some of it is simply useless. Why should I practice using broker vision when it's not going to exist in 18 days? I can't even log into the system in full registered mode because AGE hasn't unlocked those priviledges yet. I have to just go through the training moduals and know it in theory without practice.

Well, I'm going to make another phone call. Let's hope this one goes through.

[update] got through.

I'll keep you posted.

Games are for Children

I haven't given these guys enough credit on this ol blog. These guys, Steve, LD, and Kate do a fantastic job on their site. It's a blog about relationships and breaking down the games that are played. It ends up more of a conversation via comments than anything else. It's really a fun site... check it out, damnit!

I also added a permalink to the side bar. Those links are falling deeper and deeper as I add shit to the bar. I had to add my southpark character after the amazing response I got from posting it in the first place. Anyways, either click this title or go down and click the link on the right.

One Small Step for Man...

One Giant Leap for Another Waste of Time!

And now, according to google.com and thanks to flickr.com, I am now the world's leading authority on balkakke.

I made it

I decided to abuse the priviledge of driving to work today and set my alarm for 7am. I should be out of the house by 7 to be there on time, but I was like, "I can drive... I'm sleeping in, damnit" and I did. I walked into the office at EXACTLY 9am. That is, after I woke up at the exact time I was supposed to leave all dirty and unshaved from a weekend of sloth. I showered, shaved, and ate breakfast before I left and I still got there on time. Lucky? You betcha!

Bill didn't kill me for failing the 66. I thought he was going to actually rise up and smack a bitch for a second because he all of a sudden had the need to start breaking shit on his desk when I told him, but he confined his destruction to a couple of paperclips as he told me, "You will not fuck up again." and dismissed me from his office. I think I got off light. I was actually ready for him to grab me like a strongman grabs a phonebook and tear me in half, but I just got one angry statement and an assignment to put together a presentation for tomorrow morning... which I haven't done yet. I'll get to that first thing.

So I finally get a ton of comments on a post. Is it because of my writing style? Did I make someone feel something through my amazing posts detailing the pain I have in my heart? Was it the humor I bring to the table? Did I offend someone with my trucker-like language and get an angry commenter begging for justice? No. I posted a pic of me as a southpark character. Such is life, right?

Anyways, I just was let in on the fact that Bungie released 4 new maps for Halo 2, so I'm going to go nerd it up with my buddy Brad. See you guys tomorrow.

Finally broke down and...

created myself as a southpark character

The bullshit in my wallet

OK, cleared out the old wallet and moved into a new one. Helder was busting my chops about my George Costanza wallet and I had a new one laying around. Can everyone tell how much fun I'm having today? I'm just going to keep having conversations out into space whilst I do NOTHING.

So here's what I found:

• 3 Metro cards
• 2 AAA cards
• Keven Kiesel's business card from MU
• Robo Tom's Membership Card
• 4 of my own business cards from Sprint
• Expired GameStop Card
• Ron&Fez Big A.S.S. Card
• Stop and Shop Card
• CVS Card
• 7 business cards
• Jury ID card
• Sears, Men's Wearhouse, ExxonMobil, Citibank credit cards
• Free Ticket to a Carolina Rays NIFL game (against the SI Xtreme... aka me)
• Expired CT fishing liscence
• Picture of Beth and I that has melted into the plastic picture holder (both picture and holder in garbage)
• Ticket from Ozzie Concert
• 5 fortunes from fortune cookies
• $34

The 5 fortunes:

"There is a true and sincere friendship between you both"

"Work hard and everything else will work out"

"Somebody loves you for who you are"

"Constant grinding can wear an iron bar into a needle"

"An angry man opens his mouth and shuts his eyes"

Another amazing post... BALKAKKE

Balkakke

I have decided that since I'm sure this is the only site on the World Wide Web that uses the word Balkakke on a regular basis that I'd like to see if I'm the only site that comes up on google when I search for the word balkakke. As you can see (or not see, click it to see it full size, dummy) no such luck. When I searched for balkakke I got asked if I'd like some bukakke. Still funny, but not what I was looking for. I wanted to see Another Waste of Time right after the google search for balkakke. So I'm going to start using the word balkakke more often until it shows up when I search for balkakke.

So if you actually read this whole post about how balkakke is OUR word and how balkakke has no search results when I search google for balkakke then you'd realize that the only reason this post even exists is to promote my usage of the word balkakke and hopefully get the google crawler to crawl up on balkakke and accociate it with my site... which uses the word balkakke often enough to warrant a #1 rating for my site in the eyes of everyone who searches for balkakke.

I'm sure it would be fun to put other words like young teen first blowjob in my blog or black dude bangs asian teen school girl (schoolgirl) to get whacky search results, but I'm focused on being number 1 when it comes to balkakke. I never thought I'd be a search engine whore slut cum dumpster but this is actually pretty funny... balkakke.

[editor's note: I appologize for putting you all through this, but I'm bored and want my site to come up on naughty searches so I can make fun of people]

The Six Sided Ring of Fire

Hey, nerds. I just wanted to let everyone know that I have updated my other blog, The Six Sided Ring of Fire. It's just a little side project of mine where I review the video games I play. I've only reviewed two so far because I've only played two new games in the past 6 months. I will one day get my reviewing chops up to par and see if I can't get a freelance reviewing gig somewhere, but for now, it's all just practice. Give it a look if you are interested.

SSRoF's newest review: EA Sports Fight Night: Round 2

Best Comment Ever

I was just going through a ton of my old papers that I had saved on my old computer and came across a comment my professor sent me after I emailed him (it was an online class) one of my essays:



Your essays detail an unfolding drama that rivals
everything that has ever been written about anything.

I think he liked it.

I failed the Series 66 exam with a 70?

Again, dreams are coming true... but not in a good way. I had a dream that I took the test, was confident, and got a 70... 1 question shy of a passing grade of 71. So I go in there, I'm confident, I don't know any of the first 10 questions, start freaking out, and get a 70. I am still in shock, but it's not the end of the world. I can still take it again the week before I go out to St.Louis for the second time and be certified before my training is complete. What sucks is that I'm certified by the federal government, but not the state government. I can do a lot of things, but not everything. I am not sure what I can and can't do, but I'm sure I'll be painfully aware on monday morning when I have to go in and tell Bill that I failed.

This is the back of the truck I followed home on 80 west. If you can't read it, it says, "...but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles..." ISAIAH 40:31. For those of you who are not math majors, 40 + 31 = 71. Sometimes there are things in this world that cannot be dismissed as random chance. I didn't know what to do when I was freaking out about failing, and then I read that and felt OK. I'm sure the ridge runner piloting that rig had no idea I needed an uplifting quote from the bible, but there is a reason why I ended up stuck behind him. I won't be seeing you at church on sunday, but it's coincidents like this that make you feel like SOMEONE's got your back.

... and yes, I did pull out my camera, zoom all the way in, and take a pic of the back of a tractor trailor at 75mph on rt80 west.

Pope Badass I

I was reading about the pope today at work and realized that I might have to go into the clergy just so I can ascend to papal status and name myself "Badass the first." Then if I did cool stuff and people liked me there would be future popes named "Badass XXVI" etc. I dont' know why this makes me cry laughing, but I think it would be fun to have the pontif pick a new name that simply rocks.

The market was crazy today. The Dow was up 2% before the close and just about all my favorite stocks saw huge gains. UPS (+3), Google (+20), Catapillar (+5), Budweiser (+3), Cummins (+6), and the list goes on. You woudnt' believe how different the mood around the office is when the market is rocking like it was today as opposed to when it was in the shitter on friday. It's a cool place to be when things are good... I'll leave it at that.

Tomorrow is my series 66 exam. I was supposed to take 8 practice exams... I took 1... over 2 days. I am so burnt from the 7. I hope the 88% I got on Final #1 is indicative of what I'll get tomorrow. Even if it means a perfect 71% I don't care. I just want to pass so I don't have to explain myself.

I talked to Jimmy at Dodge today. The transmission #3 is in the truck. He drove it home last night and back to work today and it ran fine. He's going to log 150 miles on The Red Dragon before he brings it back to me, but if nothing bad happens, I'll have it tomorrow. I felt like giggling when he told me, but I also know what happens when I get too excited... straight disapointment.

eharmony rocks, btw. I am very satisfied with the results thus far. Once I'm deeper into this whole thing I'll write a formal review, but it's been up to expectations up to now.

I'm going to blow off some steam by shooting 12 year olds on xbox live. What a cool guy I am.


good talk, see you out there

Brainwashed

I have been brainwashed by the SEC. I am studying all this legal bullshit and it's all crept its way into my brain without me knowing it. I don't know how, but I'm able to rattle off answers to a variety of questions that I don't think I've ever seen before. Helder turned to me today and read some question. I was listening, but I didn't recognize one word he said, then he read the choices. I knew right away what the answer was and was able to spit out exactly why it was the best answer. Right after I was done explaining he checked and I was right. I had no idea what he said or what I said. I've been brainwashed!

So I'm down to one study day before another stupid test. I'm worried about this one because it's been a really hard week to study. I just passed the hardest test ever and had to go straight into another one that's not as hard, but is a billion times more boring and difficult to read. At least with the 7 I was learning ideas and strategies. With the 66 it's all just facts and rules. Nothing but straight memorization. Stuff like the difference between what's EXEMPT and what's EXCLUDED. WTF? If I ever need to know any of this crap all I have to do is call the help desk in St. Louis and they'll have someone who's job is only to answer this kind of question there and ready to give me exactly what I need to know. This stuff is like multiplication tables. Why learn them all by heart when you can just carry around a calculator? Yeah, I know, you don't always have one, but I think when it comes to complicated registration laws I won't have to utilize this information when I'm in the grocery store.

I don't have a ton to say, but I did take a few pics today, so I'll just end with these:


They seriously call this the "Butt Depot"


The top of this church looked cool over all the freshly flowered trees on my way into work this morning


You can see my office window in this pic. My office is in the middle of the center building on the top floor.

I will probably be back later when I think of what I was going to say, but for now... Brockman OUT!

The dreams in my head

I know things are changing in my life because I had a dream about the market on sunday. For those of you that don't know, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average drops or raises by 2% in one day it triggers all these alarms and kills the electronic order entry system known as SuperDOT. On Friday the Dow was down something like 1.5% and everyone in my office was freaking out watching it just plummet. Then on Sunday night I had a dream that I was in a cab on a sunny day passing by the stock exchange. There was a big ticker going across on top of the doorway and it was blank. I knew it was on, and the market was open, but nothing was happening. I asked the cab driver to stop and I got out and gawked at the ticker for a good minute. Then I reached and grabbed a "bat phone" and said, "Get me the pentagon!" and that was it. It was a funny little story to tell on a Monday morning at work.

Then last night I had the most horrible dreams I've ever survived in my whole life.


I can't even go into detail because it's that bad. It wasn't scary, it was just the worst emotional pain I've felt in a long long time. It felt just as bad as when she left me. I miss her, but this pain makes it blatently obvious I can never speak to her again. I can never know anything about her life, what she's doing, nothing.

My life is going really well now. I'm tight with my friends, my job is going as well as I could have ever hoped, Ari is opening accounts (I try to pace myself to his sucess because he's about 2 months ahead of me. If he can do it, I can do it), my apartment is right around the corner, I got a straight answer about my truck (it might be back by this weekend), the weather's perfect, I'm enjoying life for myself, and I'm putting money in the bank. I understand now what someone was saying when I heard, "you have to be happy with yourself first." I've never been happy... until now. I couldnt' ask for more than I have. I have suffered enough, it's my turn now.

Moving right along, I have made some connections on eharmony.com this week. I'm meeting some nice ladies and I think the site should be able to pay for itself sooner than later. I just like having someone to talk to. I will always have one in the chamber, J.Skizzie. Thank you for the knowledge.

I'm having a real hard time writting tonight. It's been a rough day and I just want to sleep. I'll be back.

wow, someone stop me, I've lost my mind

post 3. I had to take the "what country are you" test. Even though I don't like their rationale, I'm proud of the results:

You're the United States of America!
You were probably a big bully in school, and odds are that you're still a big bully. You make promises that you break, you manipulate everyone around you, and you're awfully materialistic. On the other hand, you're pretty inventive and have a really good sense of justice. You just never get around to applying the idea of justice to yourself. Incredible potential remains yours to take advantage of.
Take the Country Quiz at the Blue Pyramid

Double post day!

I figured I'd just make two posts out of this day because saturday night needed one of it's own. So this is my dilemma. I am growing my hair out for the first time since I was 12 and I feel like a fool. It's growing in fine, but I dont' know what the hell to do with it in the meantime. It poofs too much to leave it alone, combing it back makes me look silly because it's not really long enough yet, brushing it forward with gel has been working, but the sides of my hair are getting too long and I have to flatten the puffiness so my head doesn't look like the deck of an aircraft carrier. I'm going to be strong and keep growing it out, but I've been talking to some people I haven't seen forever and I don't really know if I want to see them like this. I need to find myself a new flex fit hat, but I still dont' have my damn truck, so it's work and home... work and home... work and home for me. I dont' think I'm going to get it back before I have to go out to St. Louis. Hopefully it will be waiting for me when I get home on the 7th.

I finally got some answers from my Uncle Russ. I've been harassing the fuck out of the guy in charge of Dodge to get answers, but he's been vague for whatever reason. If he told me what Uncle Russ told my mother, I would have been satisfied enough to not flip the fuck out 3 times daily. Uncle Russ told my mother that new transmissions have rough edges inside when they are new. They have a tendency to break off little bits of metal that have to be flushed out or they bust up the insides. Ford has a policy that they have to replace the filters and radiator to insure that the metal bits are cleared away properly, but chrystler does not. That doesn't mean they wont' do it, it just means that they will do everything in their power to get away with not replacing everything because it's not on Chrystler's budget. If Jimmy had told me the truth about what was going on instead of dropping blinker fluid answers on me I would have been ok with it staying until the problem was fixed. Uncle Russ also said that he doesnt' want it coming back until they've put 100 miles on the new trans. He said the last time the metal bits were so bad that they had to tow the truck back to the shop. It wasn't bullshit, but Jimmy didn't tell me the truth, so I was calling up freaking out thinking they were just fucking with me only to find out they're doing a decent job. Now it's looking like Thursday is the absolute earliest it could be back. I am going to call Jimmy out on all this tomorrow, but that should be the last time I talk to him for a while.

Again, I've been introduced to some amazing music by my friends. Drufus got me into a band called Bender. Their song Isolated is amazing. I've listened to it so many times and it keeps getting better. Then my buddy Scoob (Ryan) from England hooked me up with some 1337 ass toons that rox0rz. The band is called The Loud Capsule Markets. They are a japanese rock band that sing in english. They have a real cool sound that is very differnet than what you'd expect. The reason I say they are LEET like whoa is because their album is called, "CiSTM K0nFLiqt." Replacing letters with numbers and using strange caps is so L33T! Scoob tried to deny their l33tness, but he got served. [editors note: replacing letters with numbers or using silly caps sucks ass, you nerds!]

So that's it. Post 2. Double your pleasure, double your fun!

More on Saturday Night

For those of you who know me, you know I don't fight. I love fighting as long as it's inside a ring, on a football field, etc where afterwards you shake hands and everyone goes home in one piece, but in a bar... no fucking way. On Saturday night, the bouncer at this stupid bar, The Fat Black Pussycat, the bouncer was trying to pick a fight with me and Drufus for no identifiable reason. He constantly followed us around the bar and every time we'd stop to talk to someone or to get a drink he'd tell us we couldn't stand there or sit there or that we had to move down 10 feet.

I need to backtrack a bit and explain how the transistion to this bar happened. We were at a "fun" bar called "Off The Wagon" in the village and it was so packed that you couldn't move. Of course, it's NYC, so everyone and their mother is trying to prove how much of a tough guy they are. Even the girls were pushing and shoving every time they had to go somewhere. If you are at a happening bar and you have to use the lil boys' room you normally have to excuse yourself by at least 1 person on your way there or back. I'm overly conscious of my manners in that type of situation because I know if I bump someone they will immediately think that I have it in my head that I'm bigger and thus can throw people around. All I want to do is use the restroom... leave me alone! In NYC, standard opperating procedure is to put an angry look on your face and push the shit out of everyone in your way no matter where you're trying to go and wether or not the person you're pushing has anywhere to move to. I swear I had rug burn from people putting elbows in my lower back and pushing me to get by. I was getting so mad about this only because whenever I'm in Boston, it's not like that at all. In Boston, everyone at the bar is looking to have a good time. You see smiling dancing people laughing and having a great time. In New York, you get a bunch of wanna be thugs and losers trying to prove that they are the biggest douche bag around. I actually made an announcement at one point that Boston was the better of the two cities. It got so bad that I wanted to go out and buy a stupid B hat so I could show my allegiance to the greater of the two party cities... but that would just be wrong.

So "Off The Wagon" starts thinning out a bit and we finally have some room to move around... and the girls want to leave. They want to go to another bar with a cool lounge that they've heard is a lot of fun. So off we go to The Fat Black Pussycat. There was a McDs next door, so I went over and got a burger to fight my upcomming hangover by myself and then went to the bar. There were 2 bouncers. They were both fat and black. One was 6'6" and the other one was at least 6'10". The taller one didn't say a word, but the shorter one stopped me. I thought he wanted my ID so I pulled it out and happily extended it to him. He pushed it back at me and said, "no single guys." I thought I'd crack a joke so I said, "Wow, you're satisfied allready?" "No, single guys, beat it." I was trying to be nice so I said, "Hey, man. I'm not from around here and my friends went ahead while I was grabbing a bite to eat. I'll go in and get them if you'd like me to prove it." "no. You better call someone to come out here and get your ass." I didn't even want to go in at this point, but as I said, I'm not from NYC and I had no idea where the apartment was that we were staying at, or how to get back, or any solution whatsoever besides to call someone to come out and get me. I called Drufus, told him what was up, and he sent out all the girls to walk me in like a lil kid crossing the street. I go in and the short bouncer follows me in. Every single time we'd stop to talk to someone, get a drink, sit at the bar, etc this asshole would tell us to keep moving. "you can't sit here. No single guys at the bar. Move down 10 feet. You can't stand there. bla bla bla" He started really getting on my nerves, but I just passed the 7 and wasn't about to lose my job over some self important dickhead who is just looking for a fight. I decided I'd check out the scene and see what was up. The layout of the bar was shitty because there was no place to mingle. You were either standing at the bar or you were sitting at one of the many tiny lil tables in the back. We weren't allowed to talk to anyone sitting at the tables, so we just had to talk amongst ourselves. We were out with Drufus's friends from high school, and he has some pretty girls in his gang, but they weren't looking to party, so that wasn't going to happen. There was no chance of meeting any other girls because they were all at tables and that meant they were off limits. This was the worst place to meet girlies EVER!

So finally it happened. Drufus went into fight mode. If you know a guy for a long time you know what fight mode is and how serious a situation you've just been thrown into. Every time I've seen drufus in fight mode someone's been punched. Weather it was me, some teammate during practice, whatever, when he's in fight mode, we're fighting. What happened was the asshole bouncer came up to us while we were ordering drinks at the bar and told us to move down 10 feet. There were people lined up on both sides of us and there was nowhere to move. The guy wouldn't listen to reason, so Drufus finally loses it and goes, "Fuck it, you piece of shit. I"ll move 10 feet!" lowers his shoulder and runs over 10 feet worth of people. It took a good couple of seconds for him to blast everyone off the stools, so I figured the bouncer was going to grab him, the other bigger bouncer was going to grab him, or one of the dudes he just flattened was going to get up swinging. I took off my glasses and was just waiting to see who the most dangerous man was going to be. I was CERTAIN beyond any doubt that someone was going to attack my Drufus and that I was going to have to knock someone out. If it was certain who it was going to be I would have just swung at that moment, but with all the differnet places with bogeys, I didn't want to jump the gun. Me and drufus's other dude friend looked at each other, he put down his drink and we were both ready to rumble. Then, for whatever fucking reason (thank God) the guy walked away, the pushed people didn't do shit, and the other bouncer stayed where he was. I put my glasses back on after a few minutes just to make sure the guy wasn't coming back and now I was ready to get the fuck out. Of course the other half of our drinking party didn't see what happened and didnt' realize the importance of getting the hell out of there ASAP, so we ended up staying another hour. I kept my distance from that piece of shit as well as I could with him following me around and drufus went and sat in the lounge. I figured we were an intimidating factor together, so I stayed alone to defuse the situation. I ended up threatening one of Drufus's friends, Drufus threatened me, and we all went home together and laughed about it the next day.

To end the night we took a cab. On the way in we took the subway. For whatever reason, NYC transit figured it was a good time to shut down half of the freaken lines, so it took 2 hours to get to the bar. The cab was a welcome choice. I decided I'd be a gentleman and pay for the cab. It was $19 in change so I threw him a $20, told everyone I took care of the cab faire, and got out. I look back and gloria is still talking to the dude. Drufus and I both shout at her that I allready paid, but she was like, "wait, we have to pay the guy, we can't just leave without paying." "Gloria, I paid him $20." "nah, we have to pay the man." "Fine Gloria, you're funding terrorism."

There was a big group of black people screaming at each other outside Gloria's apartment, so she ran inside lickedy split. I decided I'd fuck with her so I was like, "yo, yell out to them 'You won't shoot him!" Gloria was freaking out, "nooooo! Don't say anything! What if they shoot in my window???" I saw what was going on being the most sober member of the party. It was just a guy and a girl yelling back and forth at each other, but Gloria figured it was the bloods and crypts having a scuffle. It was funny.

So the outcome of the weekend? I love Boston. I hate New York City.

One final note: My site is finally coming up on Google. I saw a few interesting searches that ended up here including "how to narrow a ford 9 inch" and "angry naked pat "The superbowl is gay" video." Someone googled my name "NJX70" I wish I knew who that was. Anyways, let the googling begin!

Weekends rule!

Dad's looooove quitters

Another great weekend. Friday was a night at the FU Beach scene. It was you typical night out and nothing really special happened, but it was a good time to be had by all. We did run into Mustache Rider. I got to call drufus out on that one in front of the girl that started it all. A couple of years ago Drufus had a sweet hockey mustache. We were at a party and he howled out "WHO WANTS A MUSTACHE RIDE?" To my shock, a chick walked up and said, "That sounds like fun. What is it?" "FIRST YOU HAVE TO GO BACK TO MY ROOM WITH ME!" "OK, then what?" At this point Drufus freaked out and ran away. I was left standing there with this dame while he high tailed it out like the place was on fire. I made sure to relive the story as colorfully as I could possibly muster up in front of her and we laughed and laughed and laughed. I got a pic with her, and we continued drinking.

Saturday we spent in NYC and we were on the verge of a battle royal with the bouncers at a bar for absolutely no reason for the entire night. I will get into this more tomorrow. I'm beat from all the drinking and traveling, so I'm going to cut this one short and go upload my pics.

At Drufus's

I don't really have much to say. I'm at drufus's house. I just wanted to say hello to everyone who reads this stupid blog. Well. I'm having trouble typing at drufus's place, so I'm going to just leave it at this. I still don't have my truck. Now they are saying it's my T Case. I don't trust them as far as I can throw them, but they have my truck, so there isn't much I can do. I'm trying real hard to not involve my Uncle Russ, but every time they tell me bullshit it gets harder. It feels like I'm tattle telling on them every time I talk to Unlce Russ, but I need my truck back so badly that I can't think of anything else.

I'm drunk as hell. I just want someone to care. It's been hard to not call beth on days like this, but I have so many friends that love me and look out for me that I'm OK. I was going to hit Allison's school this weekend, but Drufus contacted me first, so I'm up in CT. I took the stupid amtrak.

Oh Brunnen. I just wanted to say something, but I'm too drunk to type. I will be back in touch when I'm not shaking via the alcohol in my system.

Nothing but love for ya,

NJX70

[editors note: I just went through this post and removed a portion of the stupidity. I was blotto when writting it and it sounded bad, but it will stay up because it happened with some edits. enjoy]

series 66? Indicator Fork? WTF?

Wow, I got a total of a few hours to really enjoy my victory over the series 7 before I had to start studying for the 66. The 66 is written by lawyers and it is the test I have to take next friday to be certified to sell health insurance, life insurance, and annuities. I've never read a more boring set of bullshit in my life. I have something like 250 pages of legal briefs to go over before next friday. I'm supposed to start taking finals on wednesday, but I'm really going to have to push myself HARD to get ready by then.

So today I walked into the office a new man. EVERYONE came in to shake my hand and welcome me to the life of an RR. People who had never talked to me came up to say hello and give me a congratulatory handshake. I felt like one of the guys and it was fantastic. I finally got my itenerary together for St.Louis. I don't leave until Sunday the 1st of May and I'm back on Saturday the 7th. I never even bothered looking at it until today because I honestly didn't think I was going to make it through that test. It was a relief, but it became a burden. I don't want to study anymore and now I have the most boring stuff you could ever imagine ready to go. I want to get selling.

Again, thank you for all your support, guys. You all rock.

Tomorrow night is confirmed. Going to FU with Drufus straight from work... wait? Does that mean I have my truck back??? NO. I DON'T! I called Jimmy at dodge this morning and all I said was, "Where's my fucking truck, jimmy?" "huh?" "Where's my fucking truck... you still have my truck don't you, jimmy?" "oh, yeah, Hi, NJX70.... uh... I took it for a nice long road test and it's runnign great, but the... uh... "indicator fork" isnt' running quite right. I had to re adjust the fork and I'll be taking it out for another test tonight to make sure everything's running to spec." I don't remember what I said, but then he was talking and I started thinking. Wait a second, this guy is an old mechanic. What does he mean by indicator fork? Wait a second... isn't that the stupid orange bar that shows what gear the truck is in? Are you fucking serious? That takes a whole day? I better say something... "Jimmy, do you honestly want me to believe that a fucking little orange bar is going to take you all fucking day to fix? Bring back my truck as fast as you can. I'm getting a little tired of your bullshit. Do I have to explain how much of an inconvenience you are?" "Uh... yeah... that's what the indicator fork is. And it's going to take some time..." "No, it's not. Bring my truck back today." "well... ok, the guy with the tow truck is busy. That's why it's here. I'll have it back to you tomorrow for sure." "You will drop it off at my job and have someone call me to go downstairs and pick it up personally so I can drive it around a bit before the truck even leaves." "OK, NJX70, will do. I'll have him call you tomorrow morning." "I'll be in the office at quarter to 8. I will not miss this call and if I don't hear from you by 9 I'll find you." "No, problem. I'll talk to you tomorrow." CLICK. I'm a little tired of this guy's bullshiting. There's no way my truck was in pieces when he told me it was. There's no way it was done when he said it was done. There's no way the "indicator fork" was messed up. And there's no way I'll believe that my truck will be back until I'm sitting in it. All I know is that if it doesn't show up, I'm going down there on saturday morning and it won't be pretty.

So if everything works out I'll have my truck, it will be fixed, and I will go up to CT to hang with drufus at FU on friday and either keg races or the city on saturday. I think keg races were cancelled... by drufus and the current Beav occupants, but NYC should be fun. I have been in either NYC or Boston every single weekend since that wonderful weekend in philadelphia. I'm doing aiight for myself.

OK, this post is over. I'm going to try and get to sleep early tonight so I don't die tomorrow.

goodbye

Series 7... CHECK!

I PASSED THE SERIES 7 EXAM WITH A 78%!

I did it! What a day! I got there around 8:15 and finished the test after 4:30. My day started just a few minutes after 5AM. I asked Helder to call my cell phone when he was getting in his jeep to go to the test because we are just about the same distance apart, but in different directions. I wanted every check I could get to make sure that I was up in time to make it. No way was I oversleeping today. So my phone rings... and it's dark outside. I immediately freak out, hop out of bed and grab the phone. I hear Helder on the other end, "dude, I'm leaving." "what? wait... what time is it? Did I sleep through my alarm? WTF is going on?" "Nah, I'm just leaving early." I closed the phone, set it down, and flopped back into my nice warm sheets. My alarm wasn't set to go off for at least another half hour. That half hour of sleep might be the difference, so I'm sleeping, gosh darn it! My alarm goes off, I jump out of bed, throw on my new cargo shorts from Old Navy, my favorite FU Football practice shirt, my favorite sweat shirt, a set of sneakers, my "Rock Out with your Cock Out" Trucker hat, my glasses, and run out the door. I originally decided on MU football, but I thought the trucker hat (being too small for my massive dome piece and half retarded) would at least get a laugh out of people who were about to take the most brutal test ever. Last minute I looked in the mirror and decided against rocking out with my cock out, but I brought it anyways just to put in the back window of my mom's lame-o Hyundai that I had to borrow because... you guessed it... no truck yet. It has a Yankee Candle air freshner, a snoopy doll on the dashboard, and a rock out with your cock out hat in the back window. People were confused.

The directions I got to the place were top knotch. I got there without incident, and pulled on in. Helder was in his jeep still because the doors were locked and we couldn't go in until quarter to 9. We sat in the parking lot and bullshitted a while and finally the doors were opened. We hoped in the vader and went down to LL. The place was basically the chamber of solitude from Get Smart. There were so many security procedures to go through. We had to have our picture taken, take everything out of our pockets, no watches, no bracelets, no hats, no sweatshirts, no jackets, nothing. Then we had to get digitally fingerprinted and show ID. While we were getting this all done I was nervous, so I decided I'd try and figure out who else was taking the 7. 2 other guys were taking it, there were 2 nurses taking some nursing test, and some other bullshit continuing ed test takers. Other than the 4 of us taking the 7, the others were all done before we even hit our lunch break. So one guy says he's testing to be a whole saler and my office is in his territory. Cool. So we start talking about the insanity of this test. I say, "Everyone knows right from wrong here. It's not hard to tell what you shouldnt' be doing. This test is bullshit." to which the wholesaler replied, "well, you have to look out for people that are only out to scam their way into a lot of money." I made it clear how serious about this exam I was by replying, "A man's gotta eat, you know." That got a laugh out of the guys there and broke a bit of the tension.

So then they call us one at a time to get cleared to go in. We hadn't left their immediate line of sight since we were checked into the building, but we had to show ID one more time and have our fingerprints verified before we could go start the test. Then one of the ladies had to type in a bunch of codes and shit to unlock the computers. I was the second person in, and I was shitting myself.

So then I'm off. I read the first question and immediately knew the answer. I clicked next, and to my supprize, I knew the next one too. I couldn't help smiling like an idiot because this kept up for the first 30 questions. I was so happy that I knew what the fuck was going on that I must have looked like a retard with a gas problem with that stupid grin on my face. Then they started getting hard. All of a sudden it was back to that old feeling of "what the fuck is that? And that? When the fuck did I learn this? Are they fucking serious?" for the next 70 or so questions. The last 30 were just as easy as the first 30, so I didn't feel all THAT bad, but I wasn't feeling all that confident either. It was just as hard as the hardest finals I took over the past two weeks and it used language I'd never seen in ways I could have never imagined. The stuff I studied all this time meant nothing. The way my prep material worked I thought I'd know every word that they could possibly throw at me... man was I wrong. The test had a really cool feature that worked like this. When you clicked an answer, you got three options: Accept, Accept and mark as 'review', Cancell. If you marked the question as review it would go to a list of questions you wanted to go back and look over again. With 270 questions, it made life easier. The thing that sucked was that when I was about half way through the first part I decided that I'd figure out what percentage of the test I marked as review because those are the ones that I truely guessed. I was at something like 68% that I knew and 32% that I was very unsure of. When you need a 70% to pass, that is a real mind fuck. So I finish the first part and decide I'm going to wave for a woman to come in and set my computer to "break mode" so I can go use the bathroom. Now the room is bugged all over the place, every sound is being recorded, and there is a video camera over everyone's head that is recorded to a computer in the fish tank like room where the woman who was watching us was sitting. All we had to do was "raise our hand" and someone was supposed to come in and help us. The woman that was in there wasn't paying attention, so I basically had to make a scene for her to come in and let me out. I bet it made for some interesting video. I come back from the lil boys' room and I had 77 minutes left to complete the first section. I went back and started going over the ones I had marked for review. All of a sudden a clock pops up on the window that says, "5 minute warning." I had been sucked into a vortex and quantom leaped into the future. That test is a black hole. If you were given 24 hours to finish it you'd use every second of it. I ran out of time before I was 100% satisfied with my answers, but there was nothing I could do. Helder was the second person into the room, so we went outside for our break together. We had one hour before the test would automatically start again, so we were very conscious of the time. I was beyond worrying anymore. I had received total consciousness... so I had that going for me, but Helder was freaking the fuck out. We started the conversation I never wanted to have... what are we going to tell Bill if we don't pass? What if neither of us pass? Or worse, what if only one of us passes? Helder hit it right on the head when he said, "It's not failing this test that bothers me. I know how hard it is and how many people don't pass it. It's the shame of having to go in there tomorrow not knowing if I'm going to be asked to clean out my desk in front of everyone." I figured if I wasn't passing that I was real close. We threw a few questions we remembered off each other and before we knew it, halftime was over and it was time for the second half.

We sauntered back in, went through the Get Smart doors, got scanned, passed through the air lock, and sat back at our computers. This section was the same as the first one. The first couple dozen were easy, the middle was a cluster fuck, and the last few were simple. I guess I figured out more of them this time than I did last time because I was done and went through all the ones I wasn't sure of and still had 30min left. This scared me because there were a lot of questions that came off the "review" list because staring at them any more would be a waste of time. I went back and struggled with a few more, then I heard Helder moving around. He was sitting next to me, so I leaned back and saw him getting up out of his chair and quietly walking out of the room. I couldn't wait any longer, so I hit exit, confirmed I wanted to exit by clicking a button that said, "clicking this button is not reversable. Once you exit, you cannot go back." Then the screen went black. Both of my legs were tapping so fast that I thought I was going to run out of breath. Then a window pops up that says, "SORRY for the inconvenience, but the test is still being scored. It should be another 10 seconds before your score is posted to the screen." When I saw the word sorry I was ready to shoot myself in the head. Then I waited for the longest 10 seconds of my life and WHAM! Score pops up. The screen was full of numbers and explanations and I couldnt' figure out what the final score was. Then I saw it... 78% - Pass! I jumped up, fists pumping, and in that second everything was perfect. I thought I was going to throw up for a second, then I turned and saw Helder looking through the fishbowl screaming "We did it!"

The last time I can remember being this proud of an accomplishment was on December 6th, 1998 when the clocked ticked zero at Giants Stadium and we had accomplished the impossible... state championship. I didn't know what to do with myself. I wanted to just scream like an idiot and bang my chest like a chimp. I felt like I was king of the world. I have a job. I'm a Financial Consultant at AG Edwards and Sons! I'm a Registered Representative at a NYSE member firm. I passed the worst that the NASD could throw at me. I did it. I did it through heatbreak. I did it through pain. I did it myself. This victory is mine. Getting this designation is amazing. It's like being knighted. Even though you walk out like you walked in, you're a different person. Sir NJX70, Registered Representative. This is now a part of me. I've grown stronger. I'm so happy I could cry. Nobody can ever take this away. I've done it and now I'm able to be a FC anywhere in the country. I've achieved a milestone in my life at one of the worst times I've ever lived through. Speaking of... my mother got a letter...

She wrote a letter to my mom. She was a part of my family. My mother looked out for her like she looked out for me and my sister Angela. Nobody was happier than my mom seeing me and beth together. So, she sent a letter. I don't have it in front of me, but it said something like, "I wanted to write this forever, but just got to it. I want to thank you for the time we spent together. I feel bad things didn't work out, but I think this will be the best in the long run. I'd like to keep in touch with you in the future." Bullshit. Stay out of my life. You wanted out, you're out. Don't go writting letters to my mom so she can get them on the best day I've had in years and throw them in front of me and bring a dark cloud over my temperment. I'm having a hard time with all this and the only solice I have is that you are truely gone. Don't go poking your comitment terrified head into my business. I gave you everything. Let me have my time in the sun. Thanks. You've ruined all the plans I had for my life and now you're going to do your best to ruin the day I'm 7 certified? Fuck that shit. I couldn't feel any worse about us. If you're not going to communicate with me, then don't go bringing my mother/carly/brad anyone else into this.

OK, if you're going to steal this day from me, then here we go. If you want to communicate with people in my life, let's try to keep it to just me. If you want to talk, send me an email. Keep my friends and family out of this shit. I hurt enough. I don't need people who love me hurting too. I want more than anything to be mad at you, but I can't be. I still care about you a lot, but even if we wanted it to work out at this point, it never would. I know that. It's not what I want. You are not what I need in my life and I thank you for showing me that even though it hurts. I'm doing my best with this and have been doing a good job. Don't ruin this for me. I think breaking my heart into a billion pieces should have been enough torture for you. Don't start this now. If you think you can validate anything you've done through my family or my friends you are setting yourself up to get burned. Send something to my sister, see what happens. Talk to my boys, see what happens. Try and talk to my mother, see what happens. Everyone in my life who you want to give you some satisfaction is frightningly loyal to me. You don't want to hear what they have to say about what you did, trust me.

ahem... back to this day being mine. I PASSED THE FUCKING 7! I can go back into the office tomorrow with my chest out like I own the place. Duckwalk style. I didn't want to go to work tomorrow at first, but now I can't wait to get in there and be one of the guys. I'm in now. I've passed through the fire and now I'm on the inside. I have 2 more tests and 3 weeks in St.Louis before I start selling, but the worst is behind me. Now I get to begin worrying about how to make money... just like everyone else. All the fear I had is gone. Now I can start living my life for real. There is nothing that can stop me. Today I was bullet proof, handsome, and could dance without even getting blotto. So this is what it's like to feel good about youself, eh?

This friday, I'm going back up to CT to hang with Drufus for the weekend. FU is always a good time and then saturday we're going to NYC. I was wondering if I was going to get drunk because it was a celebration (like cut blocking) or if I was going to be drinking myself to death to forget... I'm so fucking happy that I might have to cut someone, roll up his body, and choke him out for old time's sake.

I'm a RR for life!

Tomorrow morning... it's on

I'm down to only a few skinny lil hours until I'm at the pearson vue testing center in somerville to finally pass my series 7 exam. I'm feeling good about all this now. I got a 94% on my debt exam today and debt is the biggest piece of the test. I got a few high 80s on the finals and I believe I"m ready to go in there and mix it up. According to the tests I have at least a 15 point buffer to work with. One thing that sucks is that they test out 10 questions a test. That means that you will have 10 questions that don't count scatttered around in the body of the test. You can get 75 wrong and still pass, but if I am unsure of more than 20 I'm going to stay and make sure I'm sure before I go. Tests like this are so hard to prepare for because I'm very strong at some sections and very weak at others. If I get most of my questions from trading markets and customer accounts it will be a barn burner. If I get most from debt and options I'll see you here at your same bat time, same bat URL for my victory lap. I'm not sure how I'll handle it, but when I pass I'm going to freak out. This means the world to me and once it's over with I automatically jump up 10 notches around the office. I'm one of the guys once I've been through this trial by fire. I was planning on going home and pounding some jagermeister that I have chilling in my fridge and as of now, it sounds like that's what will happen. I haven't slept well for a month thinking about this piece of shit exam. Last night was the first time I've layed my head on my pillow and felt right. I finally released all the tension and said to myself, "Isaac, you've done everything you could do. It's over now. It's go time." Today I went in for about a 3/4 day and came home to relax. I brought a bunch of study material with me to go over, but I'll probably just skim them after dinner to calm my nerves... and then scrap a bit.

Drufus sent me a link to a page that is all about used motorcycles. Talk about some awesome shit right in my backyard! I also did some research and motorcycle classes are offered by the NJDOT for free! I'm going to sign up once I pass my 7. I told myself that everything else in my life is on hold until that test is over. I can make plans, but nothing is done until I see that 70+ pop up on the screen. Once that 70 flies up... hold onto your hats! It's quarter life crisis time! 1/4 life crisis = bike + tat + Ramcharger work restarting... oh, wait, I didn't mention that, did I? I decided last night while laying in bed that I was going to try my best to finance the bike and then start putting all the money I get my fat hands on in the bank so I can start building up the ramcharger. The ramcharger is what I really want for life... the bike is what I want right now.

OK, I'm getting ready for bed now. I got one hell of an important day tomorrow.

Another day closer

Tomorrow is my last day to study before I hit the 7 hour, 250 quesion, series 7 exam that will make or break my career. Holy shit I'm nervous. I'm yet to fail a final. In fact, I've been scoring well over 15% in the black, so I'm all good, but that test is freaking me out. 7 hours sitting at a computer answering multiple choice questions. I just hope the adrenaline keeps me sharp for the whole exam. I've been using an obscene ammount of coffee to do the trick these days, but I dont' want to do that during the test.

I was also worried about the whole length of the test because lately I've been having a hard time keeping my focus for the whole day. Today was a good sign though because I tested from 8am to 5pm and had no problems. I took an hour lunch at 12:45 and chatted for a few minutes when I got back, but for the most part, I was testing for the entire day.

OK, work is boring. Here is the first thing I'd like to mention:

Zakk Wylde is the greatest rocker of our time. I have been listening to his solo work and black label society non stop since I was introduced to them by The Boston Strangler. Awesome as hell, rocks it like whoa. Parties like a pirate. Total maniac and I love it. Every song of his is awesome and when you get tired of one for a minute, you just get caught up on another one. Buy everything he's ever done (including his time with ozzie). He fucking RULES! I saw him live when I went to see Ozzie at the garden. I've never enjoyed a 10 minute guitar solo, but holy shit, he is so amazing that it could have went an hour and I would have been on the edge of my seat the whole time. He's the best. SDMF, Mr. Wylde!

I linked to that post about sluts a post or so down, but I'd like to comment on the topic a bit here as well. The good people at Shoemakers Villiage "Games are for Children" have had some really great topics recently. This one, Sluts, got me angry. I HATE the word slut. I've never used it in a negative way, nor will I ever. I've NEVER met a girl that I didn't like because of her sexual aggression. It's called being honest. I hate chicks who are uptight and get all squeemish when someone cracks a sexual joke, says something dirty, etc. If I was a chick and I had the power to get laid whenever the fuck I wanted you can bet your ass I would. Of course I wouldn't if I grew up in the same world where women who are sexually active are demonized by their peers and looked down upon for God knows what reason. When a dude sees a hot chick at a bar, what is he thinking? "Boy, I bet her and I would have a lot to talk about." "Guys, see that dame over there? I would love to sit down and talk politics with her for a while. She would be a real sparkplug during a debate." NO! Are guys looking for a girl that's going to pretend she's an angel for a year before they even consider sexual relations? NOOO!!!! I'm not saying that everyone (myself included) is looking for some one night no strings attached sexual romp, but the reality that we're all grown ups here and we all know what we want should be enough motivation to have a good time when you want to without feeling bad about it later on. Of course everyone makes judgement errors (how else would I ever have hooked up with any chicks?) when it comes to who they should hook up with, but as long as your safe, who gives a shit?

I have to go against the last paragraph and say a little something about msyelf. I am a traditional guy. When I'm into a girl, I could care less if she is holding out for marriage or is ready to rumble on day 1. It's so much more important what she's like than what she does. It's nice to have a girl who's honest about her sexuality, but it's better to meet someone you really enjoy. I plan on attacking the preconceived notions about sex and reputations and whatever in this blog, but don't read this wrong. I'm as traditional as they come, I just can't stand the bullshit that surrounds dating and relationships. That's why I frequent Shoemakersvillage. It gives me somewhere to vent about all the shit I have in my head.

Well, I did it. I reactivated my membership at eharmony.com. I still haven't paid to have a full subscription, but I'm able to recieve new matches and have been sending out communications (with no responses yet). I dont' know what I'm looking for, but I know what J. Mother Fucking Scott always says, "Always have one in the chamber and be ready for anything."

Still no truck. That old piece of shit's getting a piece of my mind tomorrow. I wanted to start back at the gym 2 weeks ago, but I have no fucking way to get there.

Oh Brunnen. I have a ton of shit to say, but I'm tapped out right now.

new search box!

I just added the Technorati search box to the ol blog. Check it out. It makes going through my archives sooooo much easier. I was just typing in words like "Balkakke" and seeing how many times I've used them.

Oh, and leave me a comment you lazy bastards. I enjoy reading comments greatly and you 3 toed sloth like jerks don't leave me more than a handful a week. I know you're waiting for that timer to get down to zero so you can get another .5 points, but come on, say something!

I liked this post, so I'm linking it

Check this out. The people at Shoemaker village did a lil post about sluts. I have a huge problem with that word and it's useage, so I threw in my two cents. I just wanted to put a link up here.

http://www.shoemakervillage.org/games/index.php?url=archives/119-Sluts.html&serendipity[csuccess]=true

Enjoy

OPPERATION MOTORCYCLE

Hear ye! Hear ye! I'm officially on the hunt for a bike. I have been pricing them all weekend and have decided that it's either going to be a used bike through some connections of mine or I'm going to go get myself something from a dealer in town. Basically, I'll have a bike this summer. As I've briefly mentioned in the past, I don't know how to ride, but when you wake up and it's a beautiful sunny 70 degrees and you live on a country road it's hard not to want to get on a bike and go. I wanted to drive today so badly that I got my dad to chuck his keys my way just so I could get a taste of the fresh air. I've wanted a bike for years and now that I have a job and bills and rent, why not? I was pushin the diesel up Shades of Death road and realized how much cooler this afternoon's ride would have been on a bike. For the road being called Shades of Death it's really a beautiful place. Farms, barns, cows, horses, the whole 9. I was expecting at least a few run down barns or an abandoned house. Nothing. I guess I'll have to search through Wierd NJ to find something interesting about it.

So this afternoon I decided I'd cruise ebay motors to see what the motorcycle market was like... it sucks ass. ebay is cool for simple stuff, but when you're looking for a broad picture of a market you don't really know a lot about, it's rough. I was just typing in stuff like "honda motorcycle" and coming up with a thousand dirt bikes. I couldn't figure out how to narrow my search down to just street bikes and just in my price range. According to the finance calculators on a few dealer sites, I could get a bike for as low as $50 a month for 24 months. That was on a new bike too. I know of a bunch of dealerships around that would most likely do a financing deal on a used bike. I bet I can get away with only financing a few grand and riding off into the sunset.

Look at me. I have my tatoo ready to go and am looking for a bike. I'm going to be the biggest badass in my office full of jewish financial consultants. The tat is going to go down soon, but I'd really like to make sure I have lots of money in the bank first. I want to get it all done in one shot and I know that it's not going to be cheap. That on top of all the bills I'm taking on once I move out (car insurance, food, rent) plus the bills I have now (cell phone, loan payments, college loans) will be killer. But when would be a better time for me to do things for myself? Now, or years down the road when I'm too old to enjoy my toys? There has always been a voice of reason stepping in and fucking up my plans for one reason or another. Now that I'm single and moving out I will be without the need to sneak anything by anyone. I am free.

I bought myself another lil pocket knife. I stopped to get cash from the ATM at the local filling station so I could pay for the train tomorrow morning and saw a little black lockback, 2in knife in a fishbowl at the counter. I liked it, so I bought it. It's a piece of shit, but it's the little things like this that make me happy.

Shit, if I had my truck right now I'd be out at the harley dealership in town. Then I'd be running down to the 4 other bike shops I know of and then probably stopping by Brad's place to weld shit for fun. Today is just such an awesome day and I'm trapped here in my cave. I hate not having my truck.

For those of you that don't know, if there are 3 bikes sitting side by side that all look basically the same and have similar performance numbers with no one clear winner, but have different brands on the tanks this is how it goes. Harley: $22,000, Honda: $6,000, Yamaha: $6,000. Why? Because rich middle aged men buy Harley's to prove they are still men. If you look at the landscape of bikes these days, the badasses have moved on from Harleys to building their own bikes while the yuppies and average folk have moved onto HD. What does this mean to me? It means I'll buy the best bike I can afford no matter what name is on the side because Harley Davidson doesnt' mean what it used to anymore. I am not knocking HD, but seriously, why pay 3 times the price for the same bike just so you can say you ride a Harley? How would you sleep at night? "On top of a pile of money with many beautiful women." Shut the fuck up Mr. Wolfcastle.

I'm done for now... will probably post again later.

Realizations and Reflections on a Lonely Saturday NIght

I didn't make plans for tonight so I'm at home alone. I thought it would feel great to have a relaxing night after the past few weekends have kicked my ass. I was wrong. I'm going crazy sitting here. I did have plans, but they fell through last minute. You never realize how nice it is to have someone to fall back on until you fall back and there's nobody there to catch you.

I do have to thank all my friends for being supportive. So far everyone I've needed to be there has been there. I can't thank you guys enough. If I had my truck, I would have probably gone somewhere tonight even if I went out alone just to get out of my house, but another day has gone by without my chariot in the driveway. I guess I'm hitting the train again on monday. Let's hope that's the last day.

Being single for a while now has taught me a lot about myself. I'm learning more and more what weaknesses I have. They are annoying because I never could have known how little I've done a lot of them. Things I never realized are coming up more and more. No ammount of preparation can ever get you ready for gameday. You always find out what you should have worked on when you're out on the field. For one, I have no idea how to approach a chick. None. The times I've found myself talking to girlies has been fun, but i have no idea how to take it from, "hey, great party." to "hey, let me get your number." Last night I was out with Heather and Dave Kapplan. We started out in Hoboken and worked out way to SoHo. I saw plenty of girls I would have liked to introduce myself to, and Heather was trying to convince me to do so, but then I'd tell myself, "ok, dude, just go say hi." and I wouldn't move. I'd just stand there and wonder what the fuck do I do next? It's been so damn long since I've been single that I have no idea how to meet people. I've been hanging out with some lovely ladies, but they are all friends of mine that I've known for a long time. Meeting new people is hard.

You know what else is hard? Driving home when you've been up for 24 hours. I only had a few drinks, but I was so fucking tired on my ride home that I didn't think I was going to make it. I almost stopped in randolph to crash at brad's place. Then I started thinking and realized he'd never have answered his phone and there was no way I was waking up his family by slamming on the door. I just kept driving. Then a guardian angel showed up. An 18 wheeler was behind me and must have realized I was having a hard time keeping my eyes open. He put on his brights and blew the horn. I was scared out of my head because I knew he knew what was going on and that's not good. Anyways, he followed me all the way to my exit and if I slowed down or drifted in the lane he'd give a quick blast of the horn. I wanted to see if that's what he was doing so I let myself start to drift out of the lane. The second I hit the line he tooted the ol horn to make sure I was awake. I know that over the road truckers are notorious for having to deal with drowsiness behind the wheel. I'm just glad one of them took me under the ol wing to make sure I was awake for my whole ride. I really didn't know what the plan was for the night, but I kind of figured that if I was going to be out until 4am that someone would have offered me a floor for to crash on. When we were almost home and nobody'd mentioned anything I just got back in the car and started home. I was just so fucking tired all day on friday. I knew it was a bad idea to be out so late, but I had a great time and saw a couple people I haven't seen in years, so it was worth it.

Speaking of, the first bar we went to in Hoboken was a real good time. It was packed, but they were playing great music to dance to and people were having a great time. It was the right vibe to meet someone. Then we went over to SoHo and the first place we stopped was an old speakeasy. It was a really cool looking place, but they were really expensive and they didnt' take plastic, so we moved on without even buying one drink. The next bar was another cool place, but it was small, the music sucked ass, and it had a strange vibe. I lost interest in partying around the time we walked in the door, but I was enjoying the people I was with, so I had no problem with this either. I was really feeling like I was going to fall asleep sitting in the back room, so I ate a NRG and it wasn't enough to really wake me up like I had hoped. I need at least 2 and I forgot to grab some before I left. I was just lucky to have 1 in my pocket.

So that was another fun night out in NYC. I have never... EVER wanted to go to NYC before, but the last two times I was there it turned out to be a blast. I still dont' think I could ever live there, but I can see myself going there from time to time. The only bad part about NYC for me is that if I did in fact meet a dame at a bar there, I live so far away that it really would be counter productive. I don't know what I expect to meet at a bar anyways, but if some miracle happened and I met some broad I'd like to see again the odds she lives in NYC or the immediate surrounding area are high. That puts about an hour between me and this mystery girl. Not acceptable (unless she was amazing... but I digress).

Another thing I learned was that if I was only going out to meet girls I'd have struck out horribly for the past few weeks. I barely even spoke to anyone any weekend I've been out. I've not really met anyone. Basically, in financial consultant words: I've not generated any leads. I know I'm not totally over her yet because writting stuff like this still doesn't feel right, but with the odds I'm working against, I can't fall behind. The more I go out and the more I meet NOBODY the more I realize that I'm going to be single for a long time. It's scary. I don't know where or how I'm going to meet the next girl that will have any interest in me at all. That's a crushing statement. I just want to go out and feel like I'm not going to be alone forever. Even if it's not girls I'm interested in. Just seeing some interest in me would be such a confidence builder.

Now I'm going to put the truth in clear english: Ladies, I don't care how you view yourselves, if you ever want to find a guy, you can. It doesn't matter what you're looking for. Sex, relationships, friendship, whatever. As long as you aren't some 500 lb disaster, all you have to do is wake up in the morning and leave the house and some guy would be into meeting you. It's that simple.

I'm realizing how hard this is.

Some people looooooove quoting Ben Folds... here's one for ya:

Song for the Dumped by Ben Folds and Darren Jessee

So you wanted to take a break
Slow it down some and have some space
Well fuck you too!

Give me my money back
Give me my money back, you bitch
I want my money back

Wish I hadn't bought you dinner
Right before you dumped me on your front porch

Give me my money back
Give me my money back, you bitch
I want my money back...
and don't forget my black T-shirt

I'm back online... for now

allright, I'm back online. I typed that last post last night when my computer was pretending to be online. So now it's Friday. I got another 80 on a final. I talked to a guy on the train that will most likely invest with me once I pass the 7. I'm beat from work.

I had so much to say yesterday, but now I can't remember any of it. Great lunch today. Good ol fashioned italian food and a meeting about closed end funds. w00t! I'm really growing into this financial consultant thing. I'm enjoying doing research on stocks, the news, etc all day between tests and complaining about tests. It's a cool knowledge to have and I think I'm really going to like this. Plus, I got paid today. It's a beautiful thing to see my gross pay... then I get over a third of it deducted for all the shit I have going on (401k, stock purchase program, heath care, etc) and I have a mediocre net payout. I have plenty, but not as plenty as I had originally thought.

I might actually have plans for tonight... but then again, I have no truck. I'll have to beg my way into a hyundai or borrow my lil sister's truck. I swear I'm going to get the ramcharger up and running before The Red Dragon's back in my driveway.

Speaking of, I called my new buddy Jimmy at Sansone today. He's the gnarled old codger that is working on my truck. I called him yesterday and he was a little short with me. I just wanted to know what the story was with my truck and he got a tad snippy. Something changed overnight though. Something tells me Uncle Russ had a talk with him because he was falling all over himself to appologize for my truck not being ready yet today. He was like, "I'm so sorry it's not done yet. We're still waiting on the part, but when it's done I'm going to take it out for a road test personally and we won't bring it back until it's perfect. I hope this isn't too much of an inconvenience?" "Well, now that you mention it, this has been a totally uncessesary and inexcusable pain in my ass. I was not leant a car, I rented for 2 weeks totalling way over $700, and this time I didn't have the cash to get another rental, so I'm forced to beg for rides and on top of that, the last train to my town is at 5:30 so I'm not able to stay late to get my work done. This is unacceptable and I hope this time you guys have figured out what to do so that we don't have to go through any unpleasentness." "Oh, no, I'm sorry to hear it. I will personally make sure everything is done right. I feel awful we've put you through this. I mean it's never good, but YOU? You paid so much and for us to not do it right is a shame." "Yes it is. As I've said, this better be the last time I see you for a very long time." "It will be."

I got off the phone and laughed and laughed and laughed. He got served big time. Not by me, by his boss, and now he had to kiss my ass when before he wouldnt' even talk to me because my old man's name is on the title. See you in hell, jimmy... from heaven.

My stupid ass didn't charge my phone last night, so as I'm having a nice conversation waiting for the train the phone decided no mas. I have it all plugged in now, I just need to figure out what's going on with a set of wheels for tonight. If The Boston Strangler had sold me his bike (and if I knew how to ride...) I'd be able to arrive in style, but that will have to wait until I find somethign else because Strangler's old man decided he'd buy the bike and it's understandable that blood comes first.

I have to talk about current events for just one second. I know that every time I read somethign from a wanna be newscaster on blogexplosion I'd immediately hit NEXT, but I do have to say something. I am a Catholic. The Pope has never been a reality to me. My grandmother saw him once when he was in the US and it made her very happy, but I never really knew how much pull the pontiff had these days. The outpour of sympathy, mourners, news, etc has been refreshing. I couldnt' tell you the last time I was in a church, but I am a spiratual man. When I heard the pope died, I was waiting to see his story next to a story on Terri Shiavo's funeral and Jacko's kid touching on Google News. What I did see was a link that said, "Show all 5,956 related stories." For one minute I felt like the world had it's priorities straight. It felt great.

I am using firefox now. I guess I've joined the highest echelon of nerd. I still need to figure out why this one is so special, but I'm sure everyone who has it allready will have some tip or another. If there's a glaring reason why this is so much better that I can see with my own eyes, let me know. Right now it just seems like IE with a different logo.

Opperation do something on a friday night officially underway.

Comcast "High Speed" Internet can lick my balls

I have been trying to get on to post for about 5 hours now. All I have ever wanted from Comcast was for them to provide the service I'm paying for. I've had issues with their speeds being nowhere near advertized and their service being terrible, but at the very least, what would make me happy, all it would take, would be to guarantee that 99 times out of 100 that I can get online, check my email, post a lil something here, and sign off. I'd enjoy being able to use Xbox Live from time to time as well. Tried to get a few minutes of Halo 2 in with Brad today and couldnt' get on. The only thing I could do was get on AIM for a minute or two at a time. Stupid shit like this makes me so mad. I also had a few people on my hitlist for conversations tonight and couldn't even sign on long enough to see if I could catch them. Oh Brunnen. I'll have to try again tomorrow.

The best part of all this is that I am connected to the internet. I can get to google on and off, search the internet, but then when I click a link, I get the page not found error. Then I can get on AIM, but not google, then I can get on google, but no AIM. I'm on a home network with the digital equivilent of a 70lb AIDS patient connected to the same router. I'll turn off that computer, and mine comes right on. Then I lose connection, turn his on, and they both work, then his stops, but mine keeps running. I powercycle the network, then nothing works. There is no rhyme or reason to why Comcast High Speed Internet is or is not working.

Try calling up Comcast and see if they'll help. Here's how it goes:
me: my computer will only partially connect to the internet.
Comcast: You have spyware.
Me: I have 3 different spyware detectors. I have Ad-Aware SE, Spybot Search and Destroy, and PC-Cillin which is the highest ranking spyware/antivirus out there.
Comcast: OK, sir, are you on a router?
Me: Yes.
Comcast: Easy! Simply disconnect your router and run a direct connection.
Me: But I live in a house with 3 computers and an Xbox. I need to keep the network running. That's one of the main reasons we subscribed to begin with.
Comcast: Well, the problem is your router.
Me: What should I do to fix it?
Comcast: Disconnect the router and direct connect.
Me: Listen, lady, I'm not going to disconnect my router. I NEED to have more than one thing running at once.
Comcast: Well, we can't help you then.
Me: Who can?
Comcast: How am I supposed to know?
Me: Your product is garbage, your service is garbage, your knowledge is garbage, and you are garbage.
Comcast: thank you, sir, goodbye.
Me: I hope you die young.
Comcast: **click**

I hate Comcast. I hope mentioning the word Comcast enough times will make this post show up when people are searching for high speed internet. Well, they said it would be something like 7meg down and 500k up. I get about 3meg down and 112 up and pay about $60 a month. If there was any competition out here in the woods I would have cancelled this shit years ago.

Well, I just wanted to sign on and say a few things and look what happened.

Here's what I wanted to say:

88.6% on final 2

Heather, sorry I didn't call back. I'll try you again tomorrow.

Watched The Incredibles tonight. It's now one of my favorite movies.

Still need someone to step up to the plate and see Sin City. I'd just stay after work and watch it, but...

My truck is still not home yet.

Sivana, you better tell that story you told me on your blog, or I'm going to just type it the way I saw it here and use creative liscence to make it even better... and I have a wonderful imagination.

The end.

oh, and Comcast, eat my shit you fucking losers. Any company that rolls in here is going to wipe you off the map even if they only offer half the speed you fucking assholes.

Still recovering from this weekend

it's wednesday, 7 days from my series 7 exam, 4 days since I was in boston, and I'm still trying to straighten out my sleeping patterns enough to get through a day without dozing off while trying to do compicated finance tests for hours on end. To make things worse, still no word on my truck, so I'm still on the train. Taking the train isn't bad, but I have to be up an hour and a half earlier to make sure I catch it. Then I get to Morristown at 7:45 and have 2 choices: 1. Walk directly to work and start studying at 8 or sit at burger king and have a coffee. I have been watching my money super close recently and really don't want to get in a habbit of buying breakfast every day. I eat before I leave thanks to some great decisions at the supermarket. Today I chose to just go straight to work. I didn't want any more coffee or food and didn't want to be some wierdo just chilling without buying anything. I had no choice. There is a 3rd choice, but it's not applicable. I could just get my WSJ and sit in the park and read, but that fails for a few reasons. First of all, all the illegals hang out all over the place looking for work, so I'd be surrounded by a bunch of tiny spanish speaking dudes covered in paint. Another problem with that would be that everyone would drive by my perch while they were coming to work or if they didn't see me on their drive, they'd be able to see me from their offices. Anyways... today I went straight to work. I was still dazed and sleepy but I tried to start my testing off right. I'm supposed to take two book finals a day... I barely finished one today and got a 70.7%. I simply can't put up with this shit. It's boring times frustrating at best. If I had my truck today I probably would have bounced on out before 4 o'clock.

I got an IM from The Boston Strangler that I really don't know how to paraphraze, so here it is:
you should some how incorporate into your blog how you "rose up and got your travel on" or how you floss and flew that mofo (the stroke) all up in this bitch, also, you ran up in Boston so deep it be cryin, and u thought it was rain.

Bravo! fantastic message.

I also remembered another reason why I love my friends. I stopped at a toll booth in Mass on the way up to Boston and accidentally bumped the horn with my elboe while putting my wallet back in my pocket. The second Drufus and Hot Carl heard the horn they were ready to hop out of the truck and kill the guy behind me. I had no idea why they were freaking the fuck out, but they were on fire. Then they were talking about how big an asshole that guy was and that he was only being a dick because I had jersey plates. Then I realized why they had flipped into killer mode and let them know it was just me bumping the horn. Nothing like friends who are deadly loyal maniacs who would smack the shit out of some poor bastard for beeping his horn.

I have to be sad for a second. Last night was the first night I've heard the frogs outside. They are chirping away happily as I type. Tonight the air was perfect, the sun was in that happy "not dark, not bright" state, but I was not happy. Something is missing. It sucks to relate happiness to someone. I've realized that I hate a lot of things because of who I associate them with and that's cool with me. I decided that anything west of the mississippi river is dead to me. I hate the chicago bears because of my freshman roommate who was a huge bears fan and a douche bag. I hate Brain Urlacher because I have heard his name 10,000,000,676 times. I hate Jimmy Eat World because CPD was uber gay for them. I hate 100 yard sprints because "heavies, ready, HUP!" And now I hate when things feel right. Why? Because every single time I'd be outside working out, driving, etc and I just took a deep breath and realized that everything was perfect I had to call the final piece to the happiness puzzle and tell her how happy I was to be in love. Now the things that make me feel good bring me right back to thinking about her. Today I was sick from drinking too much coffee and decided for my lunch I'd just take a walk. I was just sauntering through motown and the sun plus the breeze made everything feel perfect. I sweat more than any living creature, but today the breeze was dry and cool even though the sun was hot so I stayed sweat free even though I was in my suit and my trenchcoat. Everything was right with the world. Then I was just soaking it all in and actually reached for my phone before I realized that there was something missing. I was enjoying life, but I was enjoying it alone. I know this isnt' a bad thing. In fact, I think that is the most important thing in life. I never really let myself enjoy things just because I personally enjoyed them. I needed someone to share them with. I had noone to share my happiness with today and that made me feel frustrated. Not sad, just frustrated. I wanted to just call someone... ANYONE... that would appreciate how good I felt and just brag about how happy I am, but there was nobody to call. That and I forgot my cell phone on my desk in my rush to catch the train this morning, but I digress. I seriously was thinking about people who'd really feel happy knowing I was happy. I have the best friends that I could ever wish for, but there are some emotions you don't really want to validate with your dude friends. Then I thought about the women in my life. I have a bunch of lady friends out there, but bothering any of them just to say, "hey, guess what? I'm so happy right now!" wouldn't be right. They wouln't understand the gravity of that statement, nor would I expect them to.

When I was a kid we had a summer house in North Carolina. It was only about 5 blocks from the beach on foot (two blocks as the crow flies...) and it would take about 15 minutes to walk to or from the beach. The blacktop would be cool in the morning before the sun really kicked it's ass, but it was a guarantee if you went back to the house for lunch or if you were leaving in the late afternoon that the road was going to be a smoldering death trap. For that reason we'd always bring flip flops or sneakers with us to the beach. Of course there were times when we'd be in a hurry to go down to the water early in the week either to get some fishing in before the beach got crowded or just because we were kids and couldn't sleep with a beach nearby. Without fail I'd forget my shoes. I'll never forget the pain in my feet walking back. You couldn't walk in the sand because there was cactii all over the place, so you were doomed to walk the 5 blocks on the blacktop.

It hurts like fucking hell to have your bear feet on the scortching hot pavement, but you have to get home. There is nothing you can do but be frustrated you let yourself get in this situation and then just keep on walking no matter how much it hurts. Stopping and freaking out isn't going to make it any better (ask Fil). Getting mad/upset/depressed/whatever isn't going to make the road cool off or your feet stop burning. Screaming, crying, cursing, nothing will make it any faster, but eventually you'll get home. That night your feet would throb from being roasted, but the next day you were that much tougher. Then when we'd come home to Jersey I'd show off to my friends how I could stand in my driveway no matter how hot it was because I'd made my feet turn into stone. This situation I'm in now reminds me of the burning blacktop. No matter how much I hurt inside and how much I wish it would go away there is nothing I can do that will make it easier. I just need to keep trudging ahead and eventually I'll be home safe and better for surviving the torture.

Ari asked me how I was doing today. The only thing I could say is that I'm not used to things the way they are. I miss her terribly, but then again, I don't. I just miss being in love. It's hard to flip that switch, but I think I'm doing a great job at trying.

On a lighter note, I turned on my air conditioner (on fan) tonight because my room was powerful hot. Don't expect it to be off until sometime around November.

For those of you keeping score at home: I used the old man slang "as the crow flies" in a sentence.

Still working on getting the videos up. They are pretty good, but drufus is watching caddy shack with some dame so I have to wait for him to get home to get the website from him.

Skipoles Manhands

I was surfing blogesplosion just now when I ran accross this gem of a post by a guy named matt:
http://buttsexgoneawry.blogspot.com/2005/03/koko-goes-berserk.html

It's about a chick he calls "koko" because she has gorrilla hands. Why did I have to come back and post again? Because Pete hooked up with a girl at the bar he knew from school who he calls "Skipoles Manhands." She is called that because she has enourmous hands and him and ed were going to make her give them skipoles. He was making out with her at the bar when he noticed I was standing behind her. He broke off the loving kiss to point at her from above and scream, "I'm hooking up with Skipoles Manhands!" laugh, point some more, and then go right back at it. If there was a way to explain how he mimics her in words that would do the impression any justice I would.

Just read that fucking blog because it's hilarious.

Finally

wow, ok, where do I begin? Well, first let me explain how I was kept away from posting for the past 2 days. My father has a computer on our network. My father downloads aprox. 50 viruses a night because he doesn't know better. Something he has on his computer is affecting our whole network, so I bought a copy of Trend Micro's PC-Cillan. I think I'm going to be ok now.

I am going to try and organize my thoughts chronologically to give this post some sense of order. Friday morning I had to take my truck which was still fucked up to work because I had no ride. If I was smart I would have hopped on the train, but I wanted to be sure that my truck was really broken before bringing it back down to Sansone. I was made painfully aware that the transmission is a piece of junk when it blew out every single gear and was stuck on 287 south. The truck downshifted, never got back in gear, and then sounded like I was dragging a 5 gallon pail full of wrenches along under the truck. Somehow I got lucky and it caught first gear long enough to get me almost to work. It fell out of gear again on a hill and I was stuck. Why people were piling up behind me instead of going around is anyone's guess, but there was some biotch so close to my bumper that I was afraid to even try to engage the gears because I only had inches before I would have rolled up on her hood. I was just about to put it in park and dial AAA when it magically caught first gear again. This time I barely even rolled myself to make sure I didn't lose momentum again. I parked in the parking garage, and called the old man to get back in touch of my uncle and tell him what's up. Needless to say, I've heard nothing from the shop and it's still down in Strada Bones's territory. My next call was AJ to see if he'd pick me up from work so I could still go to the NYC Autoshow. He was cool with it, so now I had a ride to NYC and back to Roxbury, but how was I getting home? My dad must have called my mom to tell her and she called me to let me know she was going to see a concert in Morristown with Mrs. Robinson (nick name) and could leave her car at my grandmother's house (side note: My grandmother has a day in her honor in morristown. Rose Decaro day is in May I believe). So now the plan was as follows: Run out of work at 5, AJ would pick me up in morristown, go to NYC, come back to morristown, drive back to great meadows. I never thought it would work. I figured something would find a way to fuck itself up. Supprizingly, it all went off without a hitch.

OK, first of all, AJ has some awesomo tats now. I think I'm going to make a journey out to PA to get mine done by the same guy while he's still out at hotrod school. AJ also rolled up in his sweet caddy. He got himself a late 60s caddy from the original owner that only has 40,000 miles. It's one of the best cruisers I've ever been in. Awesome. Anyways, we go off to hoboken to catch the ferry to the Jacob Javits Center for the NYC Autoshow. The show rocked, only problem was that it was full of gangstas and children who were sitting/laying/standing all over the cars and making it IMPOSSIBLE to get a good pic. I wanted to get pics of a lot more of the luxury cars and the italian sports cars, but they were surrounded by crack pushing gangstas who thought it made them cool to lean all over these cars like they were their own and this was their hot new rap video. By the time you got close enough to take a good pic you were too close and all you could see were fingerprints and stratches. There were people stationed with shammies to wipe the cars down, but most couldn't get close enough to get the job done. Let's just say it was packed with trash.

This year was very different from the one I went to a couple years back. The last show was full of concept cars that were so far out there that you just knew you'd never see one in production [see buick bengali]. This year it was a lot of cars that were either going to be in production in 06 or were allready being cranked off the line. Of course, the star of the show for me was the SRT10. I had to wait a half hour for some degenerates to finish hanging out in the cab to get inside and take a look around, but it was sooooooo worth it. I will have one of those. There is no question in my mind. I don't even put the SRT10 in the same class as the other cars at the show. It is in a place all it's own. So the other stars of the show were the Dodge Charger and the Ford Mustang. I didn't get a good pic of the mustang due to distance and crowding, but the charger and I were eye to eye and I got plenty of shots. Check out my photostream for more. I would post them here, but there is just too much to talk about. Both cars are straight performance with great musclecar looks. The charger (besides the fact that it's 4door) looks like it should be orange with an 01 on the side and a rebel flag on the roof. The mustang looks like they shined up a late 60s stang and threw it out there. I have nothing but love for car makers that realize that there is a generation of people like me that never had a chance to buy a reasonably priced performance car and are putting them out now. It's going to be hard, but I'm going to find a reason to buy a charger along with my SRT10.

After the autoshow, koWALA, AJ, and Allison decided we'd hop back on the ferry and see what was going on in Jersey. koWALA is the worst person ever, but he's always a good time. He mentioned a party going on in landing and we decided we'd check it out. At this point we picked up my mom's car, went to AJs to pick up WPE's car, and then went to landing. There were only a couple cars in the driveway and nothing looked like it was going on so we sent WPE to check it out. He called Jen (it was her house) and she said that it was still happening, so we went in. There were only a few people there, but I hadn't seen any of them in years and it actually turned out to be a great time. Somehow I got delt into a game of asshole, so I ended up playing a few hands. Now we got there super late and they had been drinking for a long long time, so you can only imagine how hard it was to get through a card game. After about 3 hands it broke down into people throwing cards and yelling about some ho that cheated with someone's man or some shit. This is where I learned my XMen power. I can throw playing cards like Gambit. I was blasting AJ in the face with cards from about 10 feet away consistantly. After the yelling and throwing shit finally cooled down AJ, Allison, and WPE decided it was time to go. I had just started talking with Amy and Jen in the kitchen and decided I'd hang around a bit. A bit turned into hours and I didn't get home until after 5AM. I have to say, not drinking has some serious benefits. I had a great time, got to hang out with some chicks I hadn't seen in years, and could still drive home. Why was this a bad idea? Because saturday night I was slated to drive up to Boston...

So I finally wake up due to a near exploding bladder at about noon. I should have been on the road at this point, but whatever. I call Drufus who was out even later than I was and was even more beat up. We were going to meet up at his place in CT and he was going to drive the rest of the way seeing as I didn't have my truck and had to borrow a ride from the parents. Plans changed when I realized it was almost 5PM and he still couldn't speak due to exhaustion. I would have to drive the whole way. My father proudly offered his F250 longbed, powerstroke diesel 4 door pickup for the journey. He knew I didn't want to roll up in my mother's hyundai and was proud to let me borrow his ride. I jumped in, filled both tanks, and was off. I got to drufus's house around 7, picked him up, and continued on up to boston. About 20 minutes from Shelton we get a call from Hot Carl who had previously decided not to come to Boston due to the horrific day he'd had. He had his volvo cracked up by some idiot that morning. He was T boned trying to make a right. It wasn't his fault, but he loved that car and was pretty upset. So Hot Carl decided he would like to come to Boston anyways and we turned around and got him. The three of us were riding up and we were talking about cover bands. I mentioned to Hot Carl (from rhode island... GO BOLTS!) that he should check out Great White covering Zeppelin. His response, "no way, Great White killed half of Rhode Island." Drufus caught this priceless exchange on video, but the site I was going to use to host it is down for maintenence, so I'll post the vid later.

We get to boston around 11pm. I was pissed because we were so late and everyone was giving us a hard time, so I was thinking this might be the first time we ever have a lame night. Holy shit was I wrong. It was pouring rain and we decided to walk from Grace's apartment to the bar. Of course I had to pound a half dozen beers before we left, so I was fine in the rain. We stopped at an ATM, and some dude was passed out in there:


Then we're waiting outside of a bar and got bored, so we threw Grace up a street pole:

Pete is about 6'4", so the pic doesn't really show how high lil Grace is. It was funny.

The line wasn't moving and the chicks were freezing, so we went accross the street to a bar without a line. The downstairs portion was just a bar and some tables. They had a lousy cover band playing shitty music, so we went upstairs to the dance floor. If by going you mean danced up the stairs. It was just a massive group of massive men beebopping up a flight of stairs. We then proceded to take the place over. I'm going to just make reference to a bunch of funny shit because there's no logical way to present this all. Pete was buying testtube shots, dropping them on the floor, stomping them to bits and screaming Mozeltov! Drufus met up with some bacholorette party and was chilliing with a bunch of married women:

I ran into a midget:

Nicole hooked up with a chick and bit her tongue badly enough to hurt her:
(that's her dancing with laura, but I needed a visual)
And we all got blotto.


So all of a sudden, Capt. Knopantz, Drufus, Hot Carl, and I were standing there on the dancefloor talking and the music switched from hip hop to hardcore dance music. We then innitated Dude Dance Party. All at once we all freaked out and started doing our signature moves. The dance floor opened up, and we freaked out the entire bar. Imagine about 1200lbs of dude dancing like idiots in the middle of the dancefloor. Now multiply that by awesome and you have just about what happened. One of the funniest moments at a bar ever.

So that time comes and we all leave the bar. We end up back at Grace's apartment and Grace and I are both talking about how hungry we are. She brings up a 711 nearby so we go. Grace ran cross country in college, so she decided to do her best boston marathon impression. I did my best to keep up with Grace while wearing boots and jeans in the rain. Note to self: Hang out with slower chicks. She had a great time turning around and yelling stuff like, "I expected better from you! Suck it up and run!" Shit like that. It was like having a pretty lil gunnery sargent hartman yelling at my Priate Pyle ass (if God wanted me to run to 711 he would have miricled my ass there). I buy a ton of food including a bag of something or other called "pirate's booty." Needless to say, that got a hearty chuckle from the boston strangler, and we run back home.

I was passing out in a chair and Hot Carl decided it was time to mess with me. He was going to spray mustard on my face, so I one upped him and drank it. I have a video of that too, but like I said, host site is down. The night ended with me wearing a pink bra and pete wearing this:


With Bobby all settled down, someone's got to wear women's clothing for a laugh.

Some drunken drama went down, and we all went to sleep. The next morning rolls around and we are at our ritual day after breakfast/lunch to laugh and laugh and laugh. We were hanging out outside the restaraunt and decided we were a street gang. Of course we weren't the badass streetgangs with guns, we were the dancing street gangs from west side story snapping our fingers like lunatics.




And so ended another fantastic weekend. I no longer believe it's possible to have a bad time with these psycos.

I'll wrap this up quickly. Daylight savings damn near killed me on monday. I ended up falling asleep at my desk at work only to wake up to people making fun of me through the window and my name over the loudspeaker. It's the price you have to pay to live like a pirate. I survived monday somehow and came back to work today to KICK THE SHIT OUT OF MY FINAL! I passed my proctored final with an 86!!!! I'm well on my way to series 7 mastery.

As of now the plans for this weekend involve visiting Allison at school with the PMFs. I'm not sure which day yet, but it should be a great time.

And anyone who hasn't seen Sin City let me know. I want to see that flick this week, but don't really feel like going alone.

I'm sure there's a lot of shit that I am still going to have to talk about from this weekend, but this is long enough.