Nuisance Log Part 3 - Warm Brown Water

I love coffee. I mean, I freaking love coffee, can't go a day without it. I drink it usually first thing in the morning after getting dressed. If I don't get it first thing in the morning or reasonably thereafter my day is ruined beyond repair, and all hell will most certainly spill forth upon this earth.

Usually I make my own coffee at home, carefully, lovingly, using the finest beans I can afford, measuring precisely, adding just the right amount of cream and sugar. Sometimes hazelnut flavored cream is incorporated for a subtle note of praline nuttiness. The end result is a thick, dark, fragrant, hot mug of deliciousness. Guaranteed to jump start your day, like a pleasant, rich, sweet slap-in-the-face.

Sometimes I travel, which removes me from my home coffee laboratory. I am left to crawl begging and desperate from my hotel room to the nearest coffee shop, praying that what they have to offer will be a quality substitute. I prefer a local coffee shop over a Starbucks any day simply because of the consistent quality of the java from these establishments. Starbucks tends to burn their coffee, and it all tastes vaguely of kerosene for some reason.

Sometimes there are no coffee shops nearby. I will steadfastly scour the area looking for one, sometimes driving miles out of my way, enduring traffic jams, hostile neighborhoods, packs of wild animals. Dunkin Donuts is often my sanctuary in the cataclysmic zoo that is the American cityscape. There seems to be a Dunkin Donuts in every city I visit, and more often than not there are several of them strategically scattered around. Their coffee is always fresh, even at 3am on a Tuesday. Not very strong, but there is nothing like a "large hazelnut with cream and sugar."

Sometimes I spend an hour driving around looking for a coffee shop or a Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts only to have my spirits crushed and my plans cancelled. At this point I will resort to emergency tactics, which often bring me to the first gas station I see. This is the beginning of the end.

I frantically burst into the gas station market, and there, floating like a steaming oasis in the middle of the floor are various pots of coffee. My initial reaction is always the same: salvation at last! I rush over, knocking people out of the way, hockey-checking the rotating sunglasses kiosk, diving for that little styrofoam cup of morning sunshine. Panic stricken, I pour that black gold into my cup, find the piss-warm cream bottle laying on its side and dispense a generous dollop, and shovel in several scoops of sugar.

I pay the man.

I get back in my car.

I let the scalding coffee cool off for a few minutes.

Finally, after what seems like eons, I take a sip.

Warm brown french vanilla flavored water.

I toss the abomination out my car window aiming for the bus shelter full of commuters, vengeance in my eyes, an audible growl on my lips. I head back to the hotel at mach 4, breaking all known traffic laws, hurling obscenities at anything within earshot: people, animals, children, religious leaders, veterans of foreign wars, orange traffic cones, more commuters in bus shelters, etc.

I collapse in a heap of myself on the floor of my hotel room, broken, crestfallen, reaching to the ceiling with a claw-like hand. I manage to drag myself to the window, and there, shining like a beacon of victory, next to "Pams Flapjack Palace" a sign: "House of Java," behind the hotel on the street I didn't notice before.

So Much Fun

We recently found a letter from a child named Porry Din, or Perry Dun, or something illegible, addressed to someone named "Joe". After several minutes spent reading this letter outloud and laughing uncontrollably I decided to tackle the logic behind the letter. First, since I can't for some reason upload an image of the actual letter from this computer, here is a word-for-word reproduction.

Dear JOE,

Hi I am 9 years oldI like living in aparmes it is so fun. I like playing outside so much because it is so fun. I like playing outside with friends. It is so fun playing with friends friends are so fun to have arownd because it is so fun. I like playing outside with friends.

                           by perny duo (?!?!)

So, apparently:

1. Porry likes living in Aparmes. (Apartments? Parmesans?)

2. Aparmes are so fun to him.

3. Porry also likes playing outside, which is, again, so fun.

4. He continues by saying that playing with friends is so fun.

5. Elaborating on this idea, he assures us that friends are so fun to have around because, cryptically, it is so fun.

Thus:

• if Aparmes are so fun,
• playing outside is so fun, and
• playing with FRIENDS outside is so fun, then logically
• playing with friends in general is so fun.      

We can also imply that playing WITH Aparmes is so fun, however, what exactly is an Aparmes?! Here are some suggestions:

• Apartments, since he lives in one.
• A chicken or eggplant parmesan sandwich, which I would happily live inside of.
• A permy: maybe someone addicted to getting their hair permed?
• A derogatory term for people from Parma, Italy. 
• A mythological Greco-Roman god, possibly of chicken parmesan sandwiches.                  

In the end we are left questioning the effectiveness of the American education system, and laughing spastically at an adorably hilarious and ridiculous 9 year old. I wonder if he spends his days sorting things into two neat little lists: what is so much fun and what is not so much fun. I would like to see his "what is not so much fun" list. Inferring his tastes and mirroring his style, I believe it would look something like this:

Dear DAVE,

Hi I am 9 years oldI hate living in Newurk it is not so much fun. I hate playing inside so much because it is not so fun. I hate playing inside with kitchen utensils. It is not so fun playing with kitchen utensils kitchen utensils are not so fun to have arownd because it is not so fun. I hate playing inside with kitchen utensils.

                             by Parry Dur

Flying Banana, Salamander Slide Show, Office Tent, Ghostbusters!!

I'm really bored at work right now. I'm looking around the room, and everyone I work with seems pretty bored too. It's 11pm, we're all really tired, and it's generally really slow. We've run out of conversation for the night.

I keep thinking of ways to interact with these people. Most of my ideas are terrible, and I would probably become a social outcast if I actually attempted any of this. Here are my ideas:

1) There is a large bunch of over-ripe bananas on my desk for some reason. I have no idea where these came from, or if anyone is going to eat them. Kristen is sitting directly across the room from me, staring off into space. Something inside my brain is telling me to heave one of these smushy bananas at her, immediately, and with terrific force.

2) Someone I don't know is sitting at our conference table watching ESPN. I am tempted to sit across from him at the table and begin an impromptu "meeting". He's been sitting there for hours now, in silence. I think I have time to prepare a Powerpoint slide show on something ridiculous, like the ecology of salamanders living in the Pacific Northwest. I will have handouts, and afterwards, I will ask for his input. I will limit my presentation to 20 minutes. I will keep a straight face throughout, and repeatedly make clear to him the importance of this information.

3) We have a large tent stashed in the back room for some reason. This sucker is HUGE, military grade, holds like 15 people or something like that. I want to set this bitch up right here in the office, then climb in, take a nap.

4) I want to start singing the Ghostbusters theme song, loudly, in its entirety, even the creepy weirdo lyrics that no one remembers.

I won't actually do any of these things because it is time for dinner.

Someone took the bananas off my desk while I was in the bathroom, which is pretty strange because it was an unnecessarily large bunch of over-ripe bananas and now they are missing.

Nuisance Log Part 2 - I Hate Wires and String

I haven't added to the Nuisance Log since December of last year for some reason. Honestly, there was so much that bothered me that I felt a better way to deal with it all was to go totally ape-shit, throw things violently at walls, curse a lot, and, as usual, shake my fist at the heavens. The last thing I wanted to do was find some creative outlet for my emotions, like a blog or something - there was a dire need for some unbridled outward pouring of anger, mostly directed towards inanimate objects (because I don't hurt animals, and fighting people would send me to jail).

And here I am, returning finally to this Nuisance Log with the long-awaited Part 2. My subject this time around is my supreme hatred of wires, string, yarn, and all things that get knotted and tangled. It totally drives me berzerk.

The other day I was in a passenger terminal at an airport waiting for my flight. The flight was delayed for several hours, so I was all ready pissed off that I had to spend the afternoon sitting in a smelly passenger terminal. I pulled my iPod out to listen to some tunes only to find that the whole iPod/headphone assembly had congealed into a tangled mess of wires, velcro, and strings.

I had stowed everything neatly and methodically the night before to avoid this situation. I positioned all of my wires and electronics and stringed things in such a way as to avoid other wires and stringed things. I carried my bag lovingly, delicately, like a birthday cake fresh from the bakery, to avoid any jostling of its contents.

Apparently, none of these precautions were of any use whatsoever. I might as well have just tossed everything in there haphazardly and started doing spastic jumping jacks.

The inside of my backpack must have gone through a cyclone or something - everything had come undone and knotted around everything else in my bag. My headphones were wrapped and knotted around themselves and my toiletry bag; the iPod armband had unvelcroed itself and reattached somehow to a pair of socks; my laptop charger was also knotted around itself several times, and the whole mess of wires was intertwined in an intricate, shitty dance of wires, velcro, string, yarn, and shoelaces somehow. Shoelaces?!

In a fit of pure, scarlet rage I yanked everything out of there. It was all balled up, so everthing emptied out onto the terminal floor with one good pull. I spent about twenty seconds trying to untangle the mess before I got frustrated to the point of no return to sanity. My next step was to reach for my trusty Gerber multitool with the wire-clipping attachment. Yup, time to say goodby to my fancy Bose headphones, the shoelaces that magically appeared in my bag (I swear I didn't pack any spare shoelaces), and that lone-wolf sock that just didn't jive with the others in my checked bag and had to be sequestered in my carry-on.

I started snipping away, giggling, on the floor of the passenger terminal. I reduced my Bose headphones to a neat pile of tiny wire fragments, the shoelaces became nothing more than a pleasant mound of fuzz, the sock was mutilated beyond recognition. I sat on the floor admiring my destruction. I had effectively lightened my load, relieved all stress, and inched ever closer to becoming a full-time mental patient.

Movie Review: Cloverfield

I had no idea what to expect with this movie. I knew it was mostly shot with a hand-held camera, and I was kind of wary of this. However, the movie plays out so naturally that I was visibly shaking from all the action and afterward I noticed I had chewed all my fingernails. Apart from practically giving me an anxiety attack, this movie satisfied my urgent craving for a good action movie and scared the crap out of me for some reason. I still can't figure out what was so terrifying about this movie - maybe it's the utter realism, the fact that once again my hometown is destroyed, or my innate fear of giant, slobbering reptile-like space mutants.

J.J. Abrams really has a penchant for subtlety and mysterious material - this movie leaves a lot of questions for the viewer. Rather than tell the story from some vague perspective up in the sky or something, we are right there on the ground with the "common folk", piecing things together for ourselves. We don't know why things are happening, we barely even see what is causing all the mayhem until the very end of the movie.

Good movie, if you like movies where stuff blows up, people die, and lots is left for the imagination, this is for you.

Cloverfield - IMDb

Movie Review: The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

You would think a movie about Jesse James would be full of action, drama, suspense, violence. Think again. This movie offers very little to Western fans. There are moments where some stuff explodes, but somehow this movie removes the fun from these scenes - instead of "Kablooeey!!", you get "boom, fizzle, whimper". Most of the movie revolves around watching Casey Afleck's character Robert Ford stare blankly out of a dirty window. Unless you have endless patience and an extreme thirst for subdued, whispering dialogue skip this movie. Maybe I need to watch it again? Meh, too long and boring. I gotta say, the cinematography is great, the film is artfully captured.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford - IMDb

Movie Review: Blazing Saddles

If you don't laugh out loud during the entirety of this film, there is something wrong with you and you need to have your mental health evaluated immediately. I only write this because I care about you.

This is by far, in my opinion, Mel Brooks' best work, incorporating all of his usual deft with slapstick and nonsense, mixing in a little social commentary, and of course, some amazing song and dance routines.

The plot runs something like this: a shady politico and his cohorts plan to destroy the town of Rockridge in order to make room for a new railroad line. The town is in need of a new sheriff, and in an attempt to quicken the destruction of the town, the corrupt politician appoints a...wait for it...black sheriff!! The sheriff turns out to be more than awesome at his job, eventually foiling the evil plot, saving the town, and riding off into the sunset in a limo.

I've heard some people say that this movie is "slow" - this is ridiculous. There are scenes that seem to drag a bit, but this is done on purpose: listen to the dialogue during these scenes, it's freaking hilarious. If you find any part of this movie boring, it's because you, in fact, are boring. Simple and boring. I've literally changed my opinion of people based on their reaction to this movie. Seems shallow, I know, but this is serious business here. Shnitzengruben!! Hahaha.

This is also one of those films that you can return to and find new things that you missed during previous viewings. There is a lot of subtle humor in this film; there is also a lot of not-so-subtle humor in this film.

To me, some of the funniest scenes are towards the end with an outrageous song-and-dance number and a  great food fight. Also, look out for tons of classic lines, like "Badges? We don't need no stinkin badges!", "Hey, where the white women at?", and so forth.

And remember, "Mongo only pawn in game of life."

Blazing Saddles - IMDb