Names. We're each stuck with the same one for pretty much our whole life. And chances are that, at some point during your childhood, your name was mocked. But, it's also likely that, no matter how shitty your name is, there's someone else whose name is just a little more mockable. And, when you meet someone named "Dick Trickle" or "Harry Sack", you can't help but wonder what was wrong with their parents. Well, now that we live in the age of the internet, parents no longer have any excuses. With websites such as BabyNamer.com and BabyNames.com, expecting parents can learn about the drawbacks associated with potential names for their children. Watch and learn...
As an experiment, let's see what they've got for my name, Andrew. First we can swing by BabyNames.com and see what some other Andrews out there look like. It's safe to assume that, with a name that denotes masculinity, we'll be greeted by a band of dashingly handsome ruffians.
Crap! Look at this bunch of jokers. A total douch bag, every one. Except, of course, for that one smooth operator in the lower right. Cool as a cucumber.
But certainly a frickin' sweet name like Andrew will have some top-notch nicknames attached to it. Let's peruse the list provided by BabyNamer.com and see what treats await us...
Banjo! The perfect nickname! Andy 500 is pretty cool, and Neandythal is badass, but Banjo is clearly the winner. Finally, after a lifetime of never having had a cool nickname, I can now pride myself on being good old Banjo. And the best part is, there's clearly no other name to which the moniker "Banjo" can be applied. Unless...
ESTEBAN! WHY DID YOU HAVE TO STEAL THE ONE THING THAT MATTERS TO ME?!?!?!
Ok, Andrew, calm down. Just take your mind off it. Let's look at some names that will sentence their bearers to a lifetime of mockery. That'll make you feel better. How about....Richard!
Are you effing kidding me? Shouldn't there be like, 50 different incarnations of the word "Dick"? But no, there's not a single "Dickweed" or "Dick Blasteroid". Nothing. Ok, I know someone who always gets a raw deal. It's a little fella I like to call "Jesus".
Man, BabyNamer.com is really dropping the ball. Alright, I know one name that just plain sucks so hard that there's gotta be something mean written about it. Let's take a gander at...
Hehe, loser. Some people will always be at the bottom of the pecking order. And, thanks to a motherfucker named Esteban, I seem to be pretty close to the bottom myself. I gotta go. I have a date with my Poindexter. Hopefully this time I won't cry afterwards.
UPDATE
Here are some other terrible names I found at WhitePage.com:
I bet you can find one on Craigslist, Brosephine.
Dude, you are going to be the absolutely most popular person in prison.
I don't even want to know what this guy's dad was like.
Man, this guy's last name just plain sucks. But, you may notice, he's the director of Veterans of Foreign Wars International. That's kind of like appointing Kevin Bin Laden as the new VP of Delta or Dave Wilkes Booth as the President's head of security. Bad call, guys.
Jeez, I haven't seen this many Sandy Beavers since that time a monsoon hit our beach party.
We're getting 12 inches before dawn? Sounds like a normal Friday night to me! ZING!
But seriously folks, drive carefully. Police have put out a warning about a drunken 25-year-old sliding all over the streets of Lenox. If you encounter him, police advise that you make out with him and give him weed.
Since you, faithful reader, are a friend of 413some, my educated guess is that you do not suck. But this is not the case for all people. One of the magical qualities possessed by our world is diversity. This results in everything from the many colors of birds in the sky, to the many kinds of cheap beer at the supermarket ("Budweiser" is German for "carbonated tinkle". "Tecate" means the same thing in Spanish. "Coors", however, derives from an Apache word meaning "the wind of paradise". Go figure), to the many kinds of people we encounter every day. Some of these people are radiant beams of energy. Others are dark and brooding, full of artistic angst. But a lot of people just plain suck. Let's take an analytical look at several categories within this group.
1) Chads
Chads, also known to lay folk as "jocks" or "frat boys', are loud, dumb, and easily provoked into acts of violence. They are difficult to hate, however, due to their impish love of tomfoolery.
Chads feel most at home in the proximity of beer pong tables and Dave Matthews tribute nights. When they stray too far from their natural environments the results can be disastrous. Here are some chads who have no doubt become disoriented, and have found themselves atop a mountain.
Sadly for these chads, they will almost certainly fall victim to the physical inevitability known as "Chad Neck". It develops with age, and will ruin all of their turtleneck shirts.
2) Herbs
To clarify any misunderstandings, when the word "herb" is used to describe a person, the "h" is pronounced. This distinguishes it from its heteronymic counterpart used to describe a plant utilized for its flavoring qualities. You may be more familiar with the verb form of this word, such as is found in the sentence, "Dude, you just got herbed on!" To add to the confusion, "Herb" is also a common male first name. Can you fill in the blanks in the following sentence with the correct words?
"After eating a delicious piece of garlic and *BLANK* chicken and then smoking some *BLANK*, I discovered that that *BLANK* Eugene totally *BLANK* on my mellow by scratching my *BLANK* Alpert & The Tijuana Brass CD. What a dick."*
*Hint - Here are the correct answers. Now all you have to do is fit them into the sentence correctly: Herb Herb Herb Herbed Herb
A herb (as it relates to the subject of this blog post) is kind of like a dick, except more wussy. Picture someone who thinks they're always right even though they're actually always wrong. It's the same person who misses a belt loop on their pants, or who walks out of the bathroom with a string of toilet paper trailing behind them. Total herb. And this segues nicely into...
3) Dicks (see also: "Dickweeds", "Dickheads")
This man is a dick.
Dicks come in all shapes and sizes. What unites them is the quality of unprovoked meanness. Here is an example of a typical conversation one might have with a dick:
You: Good day, kind sir. Dick: Shut your cake hole, faggot! You: Why sir, you seem to have mistaken me for someone else. It is I, your old friendly acquaintance. Dick: *Punches you in the testies* You: *Gently weeps* Dick: Faggot.
As you can see, dicks are all-around unpleasant and should be avoided. The best way to deal with an aggressive dick is by being silent and ignoring them in the hope that they will just go away. Here is how such an interaction might play out:
Dick: Hey butt hole. You suck at being cool, idiot. You: *Silently directs eyes to the floor* Dick: Your grandmother fellated my anus. You: *Throws up mouth a little bit, continues looking at floor* Dick: *Defecates on your little sister* You: *Gently weeps. Tries to gain strength by reciting favorite passages from "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret"* Dick: Faggot.
There is clearly no way to win with these people. Which is why we are lucky to live in a world full of those weak pushovers known as...
4) Wieners
Wieners are the poor, pathetic souls for whom nothing seems to ever work out. They get taunted, bossed around, and rejected, but always seem to come back for more. Are you a wiener? Take the following quiz to find out!
It's friday night, and there's a big party at Raimundo's house. All the popular kids are going to be there. You... a) Are one of the first people to be invited. After all, it's barely a party unless you're there! b) Might stop by and check it out. But only if you feel like it. c) Overhear some people talking about the party, so you timidly attend in order to try to make some friends. But then you spill your Smirnoff Ice on the host's laptop and then fart super loud in front of that really hot girl who's two years older. You wake up in a puddle of your own pee.
Your older brother's favorite things to do while hanging out with you include... a) Playing a vigorous game of basketball. b) Buying a 6-pack and reminiscing about how much mischief you guys got into in middle school. c) Peeing on your face.
For your last birthday, your parents got you... a) An Xbox 360. b) A plane ticket to visit your friends in LA. c) Nothing. They peed on your face.
If you selected answer "c" for any of these questions then, buddy, it's not looking good. Wipe that pee off your face and then get outta here, cause 413some is a wiener-free zone. I guess life just can't work out for all of us.
Oooh. Sorry your name sucks, bro. At least you're not a chad.
I hope this has served to clarify the distinctions between some of the different types of shitty people who seem to lurk behind every corner. If there's a lesson to be taken from this dissection of people who suck, it is that any one of us could have been born a chad, a herb, a dick, or a wiener. There but for the grace of God go I, ya know? So next time some herb is herbing on my buzz I'm gonna look him square in the eye and, with complete compassion, say...
"The snow falls hard and don't you know The winds of Thor are blowing cold." - Robert Plant
Robert Plant was probably actually singing about The Hobbit or butt-plowing Janis Joplin, but the sentiment his lyrics convey is not lost on me on this frigid evening. After spending last winter in San Francisco, and much of the winter before that in New Orleans, I have become soft and weak. I was rudely snapped out of my tropical delirium earlier this week, however, when whoever controls the weather (Jesus? I'm guessing it's Jesus) decided to turn the thermostat all the way from "Let's hang out!" down past "I'm just gonna stay in tonight with a book" until it hit "I've got a bottle of bourbon and a fist full of Xanax. If I don't die, wake me up when it's June."
This animal is "hibernating". It is the animal equivalent of renting the first season of The Office, gaining 15 pounds, and sitting in the same spot on the couch until it becomes saturated with your pizza farts.
Who is to blame for the wretched fact that many of us live in a climate that, for 5 months of the year, tries as hard as it can to kill us? What buffoons would have been so foolish as to establish communities in such harsh natural surroundings? I like to blame a little group of idiots known as THE PURITANS. Look at this goof troop!
The Puritans' hobbies included religious freedom, stoning people for looking at them cross-ways, and freezing to death. The biggest question I have for John Winthrop and his merry band of fucking retards is, "After sailing across the Atlantic effing ocean, why didn't you just go, say, one week south and set up camp in Boca?" Keep in mind that the Puritans arrived in Salem in 1628, and they were English. By this year, the British Empire had colonies in Barbados, Virginia, Jamaica, Honduras, and so on. In other words, our pals the Puritans were well aware of the whole "further south = less freezing to death" thing. But for some harebrained reason they set up shop in Salem, Massachusetts. Then they froze to death.
After celebrating "The First Thanksgiving" with their new native friends, the Puritans celebrated "The First Wishing To Christ That They Could Just Die Already So That The Freezing Hell That Was Their Pathetic Lives Would Finally End". The Indians had a good chuckle at this, and then enjoyed jovial bouts of unprotected sex and wampum counting.
And so, because of the Puritans' catawampous-ass colony, many of us are very, very cold. But, unlike certain people I could mention (*COUGH*puritans*COUGH*), I am no fatalist. Despite being physically and emotionally snowed-in for the next half a year, I'm going to try to make the best out of it. Here are some wintertime activities that might make this dark period just a little bit brighter.
1) Skiing
Great idea...if you want to end up like this guy. Salvatore "Sonny" Bono: Musician, Senator, Guy Who Skis Into A Tree And Then Dies.
2) Building Snowmen Sounds like a blast...if your definition of "blast" is "getting cold water in my shoes and sand in my eye and totally ruining that white sweater from H&M". Screw that noise.
3) Ice Skating
Yeah, I think I'll pass
4) Lying In Bed And Drinking Heavily I think we have a winner!
If only there were a way to combine the freezing powers of snow with the relaxation of drinking and the rejuvenating effects of hibernation. If only I could be frozen for a period of time, and then be awoken when the world is a more pleasant place. If only I were some sort of..... .......ENCINO MAN! Paulie Shore, you had the answer this whole time! Let's rent Bio-Dome, whip out the scotch, and fire up the bong. It's gonna be a long fucking winter!
Today is voting day. I myself voted twice because I am very enthusiastic about politics. Some people, however, are not so lucky. This patriotic gentleman is named Justin, and today he suffered a little something called disenfranchisement. Do you see how one of the "America"s is covering his mouth? That actually happened by accident while I was hastily editing this photo in a haze of opium smoke and grain alcohol, but it still acts as a poignant symbol of the fact that Justin's voice was silenced by the uncaring bureaucracy of the American polling system. While I enthusiastically cast both of my votes for write-in candidate H. Ross Perot, Justin was told that he "wasn't on the list". Pfffffffft! If you don't think this has something to do with the color of his skin, you are living in a fantasy world! The powers that be claimed that Justin "wasn't registered in Lenox". Classic election fraud rhetoric.
Normally I would point at Justin and laugh while making a jerk-off gesture with my other hand, but this is a particularly important election and America has never before been so divided (at least since the last one). Depending on which candidate ends up in office, this country could steer in one of two very different directions.
These people are conservatives. They want to arm your children with semi-automatic weapons, but they don't want you to have an abortion. What they don't realize is that killing a 20 year old is just like aborting a fetus in the 83rd trimester. At this stage of development the fetus not only has fully formed fingers and eyes, but also often has a job and a fake ID. The family that preys together stays together.
This man is a liberal. He wants to freedom to both fish for trout and expose his semi-erect penis. "Keep your laws off of my wiener, MR. POLITICIAN!"
That's pretty much it. Republicans = semi-automatic weapons. Democrats = Semi-erect flesh swords. The rest is just a bunch of "you betcha" this and "terrorist" that. But despite the fact that that it's all one big shitshow drenched in fraud and deceit, it's very important that you cast your vote, if for no other reason that to speak up on behalf of those robbed of their voices.
Justin and all other disenfranchised voters, this beer is for you!
Everybody plays a character. Since the first day of kindergarten, each person has been fine-tuning the skills with which he or she executes their given role. Some play the clown, others the commanding asshole, and still others play the devilishly handsome mind-ninja who fucking rules at everything (me). The silliest part of the farce of identity is that most people refuse to acknowledge that they are wearing a grotesque costume. That is, of course, except for during a little holiday called Halloween (derived from the phrase "Heych Lowayhn", which is Gaelic for "Candy Grabathon").
During Halloween people traditionally wear a "scary" costume. The reason I put quotation marks around "scary" was to imply indignant sarcasm. And the cause for this sarcasm is the fact that, despite Halloween's apparent tradition of scariness, truly terrifying costumes are frowned upon. Dress up as a retarded ghost and people will love you. But dress up as, say, the airplane that crashed into the World Trade Center, or as infamous Nazi doctor Josef Mengele, and people call you insensitive.
"Trick or treat! Haha, what fun! I am evil Nazi doctor Josef Mengele. May I please have some fun-sized Snickers now? Wait, you're giving out APPLES?!? Fuck this shit." -Dr. Josef Mengele
I am personally of the belief that dressing up as your own worst fears, and thus symbolically becoming the thing that is terrifying due in no small part to its foreignness, is an excellent way to mollify the dread that constantly haunts you (me). But most people think that it's way more fun to dress as a slutty vampire or as a slutty zombie or as Britney Spears, who is slutty.
People tend to read fear into things that strike them as foreign or different. If you are scared of the man in this photo, you are a racist. Unless you are black, in which case you're just a pussy.
AssociatedContent.com lists the most popular Halloween costumes of 2007 as 1) Pirate, 2) Cowboy, 3) Grim Reaper, and so on. These are all stupid choices that aren't even scary at all. I would like to take this opportunity to look at some of my past costume choices and analyze the "Stimulus -> Fearful Response -> Brief Period of Weeping -> Reclaiming of my Own Fears" psychological mechanism that they betray.
Halloween 2004: The Cheshire Cat
Now, most people do not consider this "benevolent" cartoon jester to be a threat. These people are living in denial. Remember how Alice was trapped in a horrible psychedelic nightmare full of gruesome creatures who wanted to kill and/or grope her? And remember how the Cheshire Cat pretended to be her friend but actually played mind games with her, driving her ever closer to the brink of total insanity? Yeah, he was a motherfucker, and was clearly scarier than a pirate. I'm not going to go so far as to claim that the Cheshire Cat was the second coming of Dr. Josef Mengele (especially because Mengele was sipping mojitos and banging cabana boys in South America when Alice in Wonderland came out), but he was certainly more terrifying than a Power Ranger or whatever the hell else people dress up as.
Halloween 2005: A Biker
OK, I admit it. I threw this costume together at the last minute. But still, it's pretty scary, no? Remember in "The Hell's Angels" when Hunter S. Thompson talks about that one biker who grabbed a waitress in the middle of a diner and pulled out her teeth with a pair of pliers right in front of everyone, and then he pulled out his own teeth while cackling? That shit was hecka crazy. Bikers are scary.
Halloween 2006: Edward Scissorhands
May I draw your attention to the tight black leather outfit, the pallid cheeks, and the pursed lips? Edward Scissorhands is clearly a stand-in for AIDS-infected German operatic misfit Klaus Nomi. And what could be scarier than a disease that makes you vulnerable to all other diseases? This is why Edward Scissorhands is truly my scariest costume. It represents the horrifying possibility of unconscious self-destruction and, as Werner Herzog would say, "The overwhelming indifference of nature". It is the black, empty void that stands just behind every illusory experience of "reality". If you don't believe me, observe this video of Klaus Nomi's song "Lightning Strikes".
The wretched emptiness of the uncaring nature of reality is right there inside each one of us.
JUST KIDDING! Halloween is actually nothing more than an excuse to get wasted and dress like a ho. Knock 'em dead!
BAM! This is the kind of shit they shoveled at us back before the millennium changed. It is very, very difficult to watch, so I will draw your attention to several points of interest. 1) Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes is kind enough to use sign language throughout the video so that even deaf people will be able to appreciate the poetry of her lyrics. 2) Observe the young woman's reaction at minute 1:59. Touching and thought provoking. 3) Minute 2:04. Just watch it.
Pure 'tude.
I freakin' swear that I'll write something of substance soon, so please don't give up on me. What should I write about? I'm thinking Halloween or guns or Barack Obama. Help me out here.
I know, I know. It's been a while. You probably don't even remember me. And guess what? I don't have anything even remotely interesting to write about today. If I were a good blogger, I would have a fantastical entry ready, full of laughs, pictures, and a general disdain for my audience. But I am a terrible blogger. In lieu of actual content, here is a link to a story about a racist receipt.
Also, here are some photos for your viewing pleasure
This man has a very long arm.
This package of snacks has clearly never heard of a little thing called "tolerance".
I'll writing something soon, I swear. I think it's going to be about guns.
"Back when I was young, I was a grade A poonslayer. Here's a photo of me enjoying a cup of coffee and a cigarette after fingerblasting the entire Delta Sigma Theta sorority house. It was swell!"
"One time I banged Michelle Obama's grandmother. I didn't even call her the next day. But that's OK, cause she was a Colored. After graduating from the Academy I became a soldier!"
"I went to Vietnam where they let me hold a REAL GUN! But then I got captured and they yelled at me and hit me with sticks a lot. Here's a picture of the Gook who hit me. I HATE HIM I HATE HIM I HATE HIM!"
"But that was a long time ago. Now I look like a strange little crustacean. Excuse me for a moment while I lay eggs in your ear."
Get this: I was working at the antique shop alone today when a woman with a thick French accent came in. She gushed on and on about how she, too, works in a gallery. She insisted on showing me her gallery's website, and directed me to Gallart.com. The gallery is in Florida, is gargantuan, and sells an unbelievable amount of shitty art. But, and here's where it gets good, there's a live webcam overlooking the gallery that YOU CAN CONTROL FROM YOUR COMPUTER! Doesn't sound particularly exciting? Well it makes me feel like James fucking Bond! Oh, and I forgot to mention that it let's you take SNAP SHOTS. Here are some super stealthy spy photos I took:
This is what the gallery looks like.
Our attention is best focused on the art, right? WRONG! If you make the camera move to the left, you see this fellow hard at work.
"But", you might say, "I want to see what that man's FACE look like!" No problemo.
Gotcha! But what good is a face without a name. Let's see what happens when we take a gander at his computer screen.
Mood. The man's name is Mood. Seriously. I can guarantee that he's been getting shit for his name since he was born. It almost makes me feel guilty for spying on him. Almost. Out of curiosity, let's just see what Mood is writing about.
Holy crap! What kind of operation is this, anyway? We must find out together. I urge all of you to spy on Mood and his coworkers and see what you can come up with. Here's how you take spy photos:
1) Click HERE, which will take you to the webcam homepage. 2) Select a viewer from the list. I've been using "Java applet viewer". Once you select one, you will be taken to a live shot of the gallery. 3) Click on "Control" from the toolbar at the top. Arrows will appear that allow you to control the movements of the camera. Click "Tele" to zoom in and "Wide" to zoom out. The camera reacts slowly, but it's totally freakin worth it. 4) Finally, when you find a frame you want to immortalize, click "Capture" on the toolbar at the top.
The woman who told me about this gallery also mentioned that they'd gotten robbed recently. The thief got away with tens of thousands of dollars worth of sculptures. I asked if the webcam was already installed when the robbery took place, and she said that yes, it was. I wonder how he cased the joint?
That's it. Snoop around and find out what you can. If you take photos that are particularly interesting, send them to 413some@gmail.com and I will post them here. You have no idea how much fun this is.
Here are some more interesting things I found:
There's a woman who sits at the desk next to Mood. Let's take a peek under her desk. BUSTED! Drinkin' on the job. Tisk tisk.
Let's look over by the register. Why, it's the credit card machine!
