Hot dog disagreement (I'm moving to Chicago)

I move to Chicago on Wednesday. I'll share contact information once I'm settled.

I hear a lot of, 'So...Chicago, huh? You like those Chicago hot dogs?' Normally when people are making casual conversation with you you need to agree with them or disagree in a funny way, but so far all I've thought of is, 'No, I don't like Chicago hot dogs.' Then both of us will just stand there in hot dog disagreement. We might talk about hot dogs a little more, or one of us will walk away. Either way, I fucked up my end of the Chicago hot dog discussion.

My neighbor Dave took a unique approach to casual conversation when he heard about my move. 'Chicago, huh? That city fucking sucks. I hate it.'

What do I say to that?

'Yes, friendly neighbor, my future home is in a shitty place, and I moved there because I suck. It was nice talking with you, now I'm going to go into the garage and eat a bag of horse turds because I make bad decisions.'

(errands.)

I spent a couple minutes thinking about whether it'd be funnier if I was eating a bag of regular turds or eating a bag of horse turds. I eventually settled on horse turds because I decided that someone going out and actively looking for horse turds to put in a bag and bring home was funnier than someone just collecting turds they had lying around the house.

My roommate is short and I am mean

Yesterday my kinda short roommate Katz was showing me the robe he'll wear when he graduates with his master's degree.

Katz: 'Look what I got.' (holds up a bag from the book store) 'When are YOU graduating?'
Me: 'I graduated last year.'
Katz: 'Yeah, but did your robe look like THIS?' (holds up robe with a special red trim for graduate students)
Me: 'No, my robe was in an adult size.'
Katz: (the sound of scowling)

Now that I've typed this, I'm probably going to come home to a turd on my bed or, knowing the extent of Katz's (tiny, Napoleonic) rage, I'll return to an entire sentence spelled out with turds, elaborately planned from weeks prior and painstakingly molded with love and rubber gloves.

(work.)

Even if he were to spell something simple like "I hate you" he'd have to stockpile his poop for at least a couple of weeks. That's dedication.

Final Fantasy XII: Sci-Fi Fantasy Exposed Chest Adventure

Final Fantasy XII just came in the mail, and here's what I imagine the game is like based on the box alone.



Main character on cover of the box: 'Let's go on an adventure in a sci-fi fantasy world!'
Other guy: 'Whoa, why are you dressed like that? You're going to go on an adventure in that... half-vest? I can see most of your chest. What the hell?'
Main character: 'We're in the future! People probably dress like this. It's cool. See those airships in the background? I bet those are crazy, huh? I wonder if they're powered by magic!'
Other guy: 'What's crazy is that you're going to save the world and I can almost see your nipples. Why don't you cast Shirtaga and cover up? You look like an asshole.'
Main character: 'Wow, a sci-fi fantasy world. Maybe we'll see a dragon...made of robots! This game is going to be awesome.'

I hope the guy on the cover isn't dressed like that for the whole game. Spending countless hours on a video game is silly enough without forcing me to look at an inappropriately half-dressed man the whole time. It's like this is a joke played on us by the Japanese. 'Ha ha, America! In the Japanese version, he's wearing a suit! No exposed chest at all! Thanks again for those bombs in World War II, assholes!'

(work.)

The water cycle happens, landlord

The other day I was scraping ice off my car in the parking lot of my apartment when my landlord drove by. Now, my car has a leak in it, so sometimes the inside of all the windows get ice on them, too. So he sees me scraping ice with a door open and he yells out his window, 'What happen?'

When someone yells something out a car window at you, you've got about five syllables to make your point. After that, your response is too complicated and nobody listens to you.

With that said, I couldn't yell, 'My car has a leak and allows cold air into my car so I have to scrape ice off the inside.' He'd start driving away before I'm halfway done saying that.

'What happen?'
'My car has a leak and allows -'
'OK BYE!'
'Shit.'

Our exchange could have gone like this:

Landlord: 'What happen?'
Me: (I shrug and look at my car) 'The water cycle.'
Landlord: 'Oh, ok.'

(work.)

AIM convo: how do u know my name

Yesterday a stranger IMed me. His profile revealed his first and last name and he didn't seem to be aware of this, so I took advantage of the situation.

B P 1718: wat is your name
B P 1718: i hear about you from a freind
J aCkAs Skid: which friend? and what is your name, David?
B P 1718: how do u know my name
J aCkAs Skid: THE INTERNET!!!
B P 1718: ahhhhhhhh
B P 1718: SERIUSLY HOW THE FUCK DO YOU KNOW MY NAME
J aCkAs Skid: I had to call every Smith residence to get your first name. It was a lot of work
B P 1718: HOLY CRAP

And he was not kidding. Kid's kind of an idiot.

(bed.)

People ask me where I find these people, and the answer is that I don't. They find me. Usually they get my screen name from my old website. Back in 2004 when the website was in its hayday, I'd post AIM conversations, people would would read them and put me on their buddy list, then months, sometimes years later they'd send me instant messages wondering who I am because they'd forgotten. This often led to hilarity, or if I was feeling lazy, they just led to me sending Goatse.cx to people who may or may not be too young to drive. Whoops.

If I'm feeling ambitious, I'll post the rest of my conversation with him because it was pretty funny.

Turducken is Russianly stackable food

I'm about to eat turducken. That's a bird inside a bird inside a bird. If I didn't know better, I'd assume a dish with this many levels is Russian.

As Russianly stackable as turducken is, I'm guessing it's American. It probably happened like this:
'We're having a turkey for Thanksgiving. What else should we have?'
'Duck.'
'No, that wouldn't work. Our table's not big enough.'
'Put it in the turkey.'
'That's absurd.'
'Not as absurd as the chicken I want to put inside the duck.'
'Okay, funny man, what goes inside the chicken, then?'
'A smaller bird... but what's smaller than a chicken? Hey, how about Marshmallow Peeps?'
'I'd hate you if that didn't sound delicious.'

'Hey, looks like Henry's running out of ideas.'
'Yes. Yes he is.'

(Turducken.)

I've provided a visual aid to help everyone understand what a Turducken is:

Looks appetizing, huh?

If there's any time in your life to think you're a failure, it's while you're searching the internet for the very best picture of a Marshmallow Peep. I went through about 10 pages of Peep-related search pages all the while thinking, "I graduated from college and now I'm doing this?!"

Conversations with law students in a loud bar

I'm glad Amy's become friends with some awesome people at law school, but sometimes I feel like always seeing them at the bar and not being a law student too makes the conversation between us not as good as it could be.

(We are in a bar. Very loud music is playing.)
Me: 'HEY GUYS.'
Them: 'LAW SCHOOL?'
Amy: 'OH YEAH, LAW SCHOOL!'
Them: 'HAHA, LAW SCHOOL!'
Amy: 'LAW SCHOOL, AND THEN LAW SCHOOL.'
Me: '...COMPUTERS?'
(pause)
Them: '...LAW SCHOOL? LAW SCHOOL!'

To be fair, all my coworkers and I do is yell 'COMPUTERS' at one another all day, and it's not even loud where we work.

(COMPUTERS!)

Gnome with a speech impediment checking IDs

Dominick's is a place in Ann Arbor which serves sangria outdoors. Generally, it is wonderful.

However, there's one guy at Dominick's that scares the piss right out of me. On your way in, they check your ID, and sometimes you get this guy with a bulbous gnome nose and glasses. And try as you might, but you cannot understand a goddamn thing he says.

One day I went there with Amy, and she walked right past the guy. So he checks my ID and barks something at Amy, then makes small talk with me while she's on her way over.

'Hibbity gibbity dye dee?' he laughs.
'Yeah,' I return, smiling politely.

Well, turns out he just jokingly asked me if she had a fake ID, so when Amy shows him her license, he starts quizzing her on it. And since you can't understand a fucking thing he says, she had trouble answering questions about herself. I hate that guy.

(work.)

Their dialogue went something like this:
'Oogity backa wonka wonk?'
'I, uh, don't know.'
'Blurrga haaaah!'

So then she looked like a liar, he looked like a scary gnome, and I looked like a guy who hangs out with liars and gnomes. It was bad.

Sipping sangria at Dominick's is like drinking heaven in little jars, and you don't care that one day they're going to run out of heaven, because now you're drunk.

Jesus puns to sell shoe repair

From an ad in the Olive Branch Press:

'Do your shoes look like this?
(clip art of cartoon shoe)
We will heel for you
We will save your soul (sic)
We will dye for you'

This ad cracks me up because it's obviously just making Jesus puns in order to sell shoe repair, and in doing so it trivializes Christianity.

'Hey, remember that time Jesus was tortured and crucified for the sins of humanity? How about we say that we'll dye for people? That way it sounds kind of like Jesus being mounted to a cross, only this time we're coloring shoes.'

'And let's not learn homophones and accidentally tell people we'll save their souls.'

'Great idea, Other Guy Who Wrote the Ad. We rock at shoe care and respecting religion.'

(Bed.)

These people italicized their puns, too, which is a good sign that they're really proud of themselves for being so clever. This results in them saying, "We'll save your soul, get it? Like a shoe." Only there's no one there to say, "You moron, that's the soul that lives in your chest and flies away when you die, not the one on your shoe."

Fruitcake lady

Fruitcake Lady

You need to watch this old woman. She is a gem.

When you're old, you can say whatever the hell you want, because everyone's afraid you're going to die and nobody wants to call you an idiot right before you pass away. People could look like assholes at your funeral.

'Yeah, Great Aunt Margerie was a sweetheart.'
'Didn't you call her a crazy bitch and then she died?'
'Shit.'
(pause)
'She is going to haunt the shit out of you.'

So keep on telling it like it is, old woman. Screw on the floor, next to the air conditioner.

(Livonia.)

I need to learn how to draw, 'cause webcomics will make a hell of a lot more internet money than text. People don't want to read "she is going to haunt the shit out of you." They want a cartoon character with big anime hair saying it. So when I stay poor, it's not because I don't have ideas. It's because I can't draw anything other than smiley faces and penises.