Homeless lady's got commercials

There's this homeless lady who walks around Ann Arbor screaming to herself and let me tell you, it's incredible.

I'm not exactly sure how she operates. Yesterday I was walking past her while talking on the phone and she started yelling. She wasn't yelling directly AT me, but she was yelling like she wanted me to overhear her.

I was on the phone talking to my buddy Dan when I hear her yell, 'IT WAS A LOVELY TIME,' and I pause because I want to know what exactly was such a lovely time.

'ARRGH THAT BITCH!' she yelled next. Hmmm. Maybe it wasn't a lovely time.

Then she walked past me and yelled, I shit you not, 'AFLAC!'

This woman entertains me more than most TV shows, but hearing that last part got me to think, 'Ah shit, she's got commercials, the most capitalist of homeless person disorders.'

(work.)

I have to wonder when she saw a commercial for Aflac. When does a schizophrenic homeless person find the time to watch television or listen to the radio enough to hear Gilbert Gottfried yelling "Aflac!"? Was she off-duty?

Alumni donations, homeless man tits

I just got a call from the Michigan Alumni Association. I, being naive, thought what began as casual conversation with the female representative would end in survey.

Turns out, the bitch just wanted my money.

But that didn't stop her from making small talk first.
'What are you doing now?'
'Working for Campus Computing Sites.'
'Where is that?'
'Basement of the Union.'
'OH! I went there because my graphics card was having problems. They couldn't fix it.'

We don't fix computers. This lady had us mistaken for the Computer Showcase, which is similar, but not the same. I can imagine this lady calling other people at 9pm and saying stuff like:
'Oh, you work at Wendy's! I LOVE the Big Mac. Can I have all your money now?'

That bitch.

(around.)

What bothers me about that whole exchange was that she was chatting me up the way a stripper chats up a potential client (or so I've heard).

"Hey! How are you? What do you do? That's cool, that's cool... So you want me to put my breasts in your face? Because that's why I'm talking to you. I rub my breasts on people to pay my landlord and buy food."

Only instead of something fun like a proposed boobs-to-face interaction, all I got was "you got any change?" only over the phone and on a much larger scale.

Let me tell you, you put a pleasant-sounding woman on the phone and I'm a lot more likely to give several dollars to her than I am to give a couple quarters to a hungry man who sleeps in the streets. It's illogical and wrong, but that just drives home the point that homeless men would make a lot more money if they had nice tits.

Homeless people and Sea Monkeys

In this blog entry I talked about what would happen if I put homeless people in my car and then pushed it into a river. I wanted to create a graphic of homeless people in Sea Monkeys-like situations, but I don't have Photoshop on this computer, so all I did was save pictures of homeless people and Sea Monkeys to the desktop.

I've debated taking everything else off and just leaving hobo jpgs 1-5 and seamonkeys.jpg alone on the desktop, so that the next time my girlfriend uses this laptop she can wonder what the hell is wrong with me. And while she's doing that, I'm stealing her TV.

I am a genius.

(bed.)

Unfortunately for me, there are currently no academic institutions that define "genius" as "robbing your girlfriend." However, I've got some free time today, so maybe with a few phone calls I can make that happen.

I hate the Ann Arbor Art Fair, Part 2: a vase made of dinosaur fossils

The Art Fair, as fun to browse as it is, isn't as fun if you're buying the art.

'Wow, sir, this is a nice bowl.'
'That's no bowl! It's a vase made out of dinosaur fossils!'
'Sorry, my mistake. Well, the price tag says it's 8 dollars. I'll take it?'
'Where does it say it's 8 dollars?'
'Right there, on this tag.'
'That's an infinity sign.'
'I...am going to get a funnel cake now.'

Another thing: If Art is supposedly a classy thing, why is the Art Fair catered by every Fried Meat and Funnel Cakery in the state?

(Friday.)

Today I was supposed to sell the barely-functioning Crown Victoria to Ron, a man who owns a local garage. This involved the following steps:

1. I drove to Murray's to get a new bottle of power steering fluid. The Crown Vic leaks power steering fluid like a cranky, incontinent old man leaks urine. So I guess this means I was buying urine for the old man sitting in the street outside my house.
2. I went home and filled the Crown Vic with power steering fluid. The funnel I used dripped fluid on the front of the car, though. I didn't know if Ron would offer me less money if the car had some red stains on the front of it (I don't understand car people), so I figured this had to be fixed.
   
3. I wiped fluid off the front of the car, put away the funnel, and put the leftover power steering fluid in the trunk for future use.
4. I started the car and, to my surprise, realized the steering wheel would not turn. Turns out, Step 3 gave the power steering fluid enough time to leak out of my car.
5. I filled the car with old man urine again.
6. I jumped in the car and drove to Ron's Garage like it was some bizarre mission in a video game. "Drive your rusty noisebox to the garage while it's able to turn. The mission is failed when the fluid is gone and you've crashed into something. You may or may not be injured."
7. The guy at Ron's Garage told me that Ron had gone home. Yesterday he told me he'd be there until 5. I got there a little after 4.
8. I left the car at Ron's and walked home.
9. I wrote out the steps in my blog.
10. I included writing the list in the list itself because I'm so goddamn clever.

Getting rid of that dead car is exhausting. Maybe I would have been better off filling it with homeless people and driving it into a lake.

I don't even know why I typed that. It's just mean, and putting the homeless people in the car doesn't add anything to the car disposal process. Except maybe laughter.

I just mentally pictured homeless people being locked in my car and pushed into a lake. Then I pictured them growing gills and living happily at the bottom of the lake like the packaging for Sea Monkeys.

I wish that would really happen so I could justify dumping my vagrant-filled car into a body of water.

Great, another entry about poop

Anne O' Nym's palatial estate has 7 bathrooms. I had no idea rich people spent that much time pooping.

I guess when you have enough money you can take a dump with variety. Although when you're poor, you've got to mix it up, too. If your toilet's clogged and you can't afford to call a plumber, sometimes you poop in the sink, or in your back yard!

Hooray pooping!

(work 'til 11:30.)

This away message prompted my buddy Future to tell me a story about how today he saw a homeless man pinch off a loaf on the side of Woodward Ave. in Detroit. Funny how my friend's mansion gets me to create an open forum on places people can poop. One second I'm saying "There are toilets everywhere!" and the next I'm reading a story about a homeless man squatting behind a bush near a main road.

We call him Future because at one point we believed he didn't have one, only now he's in med school, so I feel like we should call him something else. I figure we won't be able to give him another nickname until he graduates, becomes a respected doctor, and inevitably gets caught feeling up a patient during surgery. He can stay Future for now, but that's only because he'll be Fondler within 5 years.

Enjoy your cool nickname while you can, Future, because soon you'll accidentally bang an unconscious lady on an operating table, and then what? You're the Fondler, and that doesn't sound cool at all.

T-Bone is everywhere because he lives nowhere

Last night I was with some friends and we saw T-Bone, the homeless man who wandered into the fishbowl one fateful night and told me he wanted to learn about computers.
Had we all openly shared our actual past experiences with this man, our exchange would have gone like this:
One friend said, 'Awww, man, that guy sleeps in my apartment's hallway.'
The other one said, 'That guy had sex in my apartment's laundry room.'
And I said, 'I showed that guy pornography and then he asked me if I had AIDS.'

Then this morning a coworker came in late because T-Bone was sleeping in her hallway and she had to wait for the cops to arrive and shoo him away.

This guy's like a celebrity, only he's not rich and he doesn't have a mansion (or even a condo!).

No real point to this, other than to say 'Wow, homeless guy, you sure are busy. What with all the sleeping and sexing and porno-watching. Good for you.'

(Out.)

I think about homeless people a lot, and I think there isn't really much left for me to say about them. They smell bad and they're usually drunk. Sure, there's that tragic aspect of them that includes facts like "Nobody cares about them" and "They have sad stories" but I don't care about that stuff because if someone smells awful and bothers me, then I'm not going to ask any more questions. You're already on my shit list, mister, so you should go sleep in your box and leave me alone.

I think I'm going to litter every away message with links to other stuff so that you have to click on eight things to understand one sentence. This is an internet technique known as "being a dickhead" and it's popular on websites such as Metafilter.com. (Also, for the record, I like MeFi, I just don't like clicking fifty links to get one joke.)

Anyway, I just wanted to catch everybody up on my hobo fixation. I think I've done that pretty well. Also this was another night where I came home drunk and decided to update the ol' blog. I imagine Hemingway would have done the same if he was around right now. But if Hemingway was around right now he'd be a freaking zombie and we'd have to chop his head off.

Do you have any idea how much money Hemingway's zombie head would go for on Ebay? No you don't, because a number that high hasn't even been invented yet.

3 in every 1 homeless men

Did you know that 3 in every 1 homeless men suffer from schizophrenia?

That's not a typo. I am making fun of homeless people and schizophrenia in one quick insensitive remark over the internet.

Good night!

(Bed.)

Fun fact: Schizophrenia is not the same as multiple personality disorder. Schizophrenia is paranoia and hearing voices; multiple personality disorder is when one person has different personalities, but only uses one at a time.

Funner fact: Confusing the two really pisses off psych majors.

To succeed in life, fill some bags with newspaper

This weekend Amy and I went out for ice cream. While waiting, this guy started talking to me about his revolutionary ideas about business. He told me that he'd started 14 companies and that hard work doesn't pay off after all. And wow, was he right! He had like 10 shopping bags with him, so obviously he was rich.

Then he bade me farewell and told me to go to his website, thewowfactor.com, where I could buy his book. He picked up his bags and left.

On our way out, Amy and I saw that he had left his bags near the door, and they were all filled with newspaper. And when we got home we discovered that his website did not exist.

And that settles it: all you need is a bunch of shopping bags and a sales pitch and people will assume you're successful. At least until they see that you're full of shit and your fancy Lord & Taylor bags are full of garbage.

(PowerPoint.)

I felt like such a chump when I saw the bags and bags of old newspaper in the exit of the ice cream shop. He said he had a list of 25 false assumptions people had about life, the first of which being 'hard work pays off.' Apparently the second item on that list was 'carry trash with you.'

Up until his website 404'd, I thought he had a business empire. Turns out, he probably doesn't even have a place to live! LOL!

Hobo flesh

I'm eating dinner with Brad and Lauren.

However, tonight I'm in the mood for food I've earned, ya know? I could go to Wendy's and order a pollo sandwich from the vato working el casho registeristo, but that's not fulfilling.

Has anyone ever tried hobo flesh? I think it'd be delicious after you ran a hose over it. Think of it this way: hobos drink almost nothing but alcohol, so it's basically like they've been marinating their internal organs for years and years. You grill up some of that and you're in for a taste sensation. Plus, think of all the treasures to be had in those shopping carts!

And yes, I am a dick for typing this, so I'll tell you what, Karma: next real, non-eaten hobo who asks for change gets it (change, not eaten).

That way, my saying horrible things feeds people. Or marinates their organs.

(Food.)

I'm a bad person for even putting this on the internet, but I've dealt with some shitty homeless people in my day, and I'd be a lot less angry at them if they were hamburgers instead.

Laundry room hobo sex

While being done with class is nice, being broke is crappy, so I picked up 8 hours of work today.

Remember the homeless guy in the computing site from last week? Turns out his name is T-Bone, like the steak, and he was caught having sex with his girlfriend in my friend Russell's laundry room.

Not, like, the one in his house. The one in his apartment complex. If you let a hobo in your actual apartment, I say he's allowed to screw on your dryer due to your negligence.

I'm glad the hobos in Ann Arbor aren't notorious for things like singing or being sassy, but rather smelling awful and fucking in public places.

(Work 'til 7.)

Homeless assassins

Sometimes I think about the secret lives of homeless men. The hobo who came into the computer lab last week would be the ideal secret agent.

Think about it. He's got no family, he has no identity, he won't get homesick because the motherfucker sleeps in laundry rooms. Who would you want to send on a deadly mission: your 18 year old son or a drunk killing machine with nothing to lose?

Maybe all the hobos out there are secret assassins, living double lives.

Then I think about how hobos eat garbage and puke in public, and I think to myself, maybe not.

I work from 3:30am to 3pm, so leave a message while I hate myself for picking up so many sub shifts.

(Bad decisions.)

Looks like the Bourne series of books stole my idea before I even had it. Damn.

If you show a hobo porn...

The other day I was showing a homeless guy a sexy picture of the topless redhead on the motorcycle. He had asked me if I could get pictures of women 'on that thing' (referring either to my computer or the internet), so naturally I said, 'Of course you can get pictures of women here,' then I waved my arms all around me, because that's where the internet is.

I guess I thought that if I showed him enough sexy women he'd say, 'Thank you, good sir, I appreciate your assistance' and then he'd kindly leave the computer lab and take a bath. Instead, he just sat there even longer and waited for me to bring up more pictures.

I guess what I learned is this: You show a hobo porn, he can beat off for a day, but teach a hobo to find his own porn, he can beat off forever. In public.

(work party.)

Hobo in the fishbowl

This morning at work a homeless guy came into the computer site. The man smelled like he'd slept in his clothes, wet himself, then rubbed vomit in his hair so he looked hot enough to pick up ladiez. He asked me if I could get any pictures of ladies on the computer and told me he liked redheads, so I brought up this picture.

After a while I got sick of him being smelly, so I asked him to leave. Before he left, he asked me if that was my cup in the garbage can. I said, 'Yep, there it is. In the garbage.' Then he picked it up and I said, 'There it is. In your hand.' and my new magical friend left, never to be seen again.*

(nap.)

*he was later apprehended by campus police.

I'll admit it: I showed a homeless guy what is essentially pornography in a university computing site.

Chicago demands one dollar bills

Chicago taught me that anybody can ask for money, no matter how small a favor they do you. If a guy is juggling in a subway station and you happen to look at him, you owe him a dollar. If a man takes your suitcase out of the trunk once your taxi stops and you didn't even ask him to, you owe him a dollar. It's like people think I'm made of generosity and small bills.

And that makes ME want to do stupid shit so I can get all my goddamn dollars back. I'll learn how to ride a unicycle and then go around town on my one wheel demanding money for my unique trick.

I also thought about inventing a counterfeit money machine that only makes one dollar bills, but that's stupid because you should at least make 20s. Also giving homeless people fake money is really mean.

By the way, you owe me a dollar for reading this.

(Bed.)