There’s something… missing…

I know this has bothered a lot of you, and it’s something that needs to be addressed.  There’s a certain… favored word in this English language that is… profoundly represented in my conversational vocabulary.  If you don’t know what word I’m referencing, I’m betting that one of the following two things are true:

A:  You really don’t know me very well.
B:  You’re f***ing stupid.

Honestly, if you don’t get it now, please do this world (and the human genome) a favor and go beer bong some Drano to fix what your mother’s coat hanger clearly missed.  Your grab bag of genetic party favors is like the shitty door prize that nobody wants at a benefit dinner.  Stop laughing, this isn’t funny– I’m trying to prevent Idiocracy here.

Anyway.

Yeah. Duck.

Some of you may have noticed that I was back to throwing fuck around like a dog marking the neighborhood for the brunt of my Cracked.com article– and wondered why I still kept things PG-13 around here.  I’ve been asking myself the same question.  For fuck’s sake, I’ve been read over 834,00 times over there– why should I give a flying fuck about watching my language here?  This little collection of gimp, drunk, fart, and jobless jokes hasn’t even gone over 9,000 yet (8,600 and change).

Abstaining from the occasional “fuck” is about as moot as…  you know what?  You make this joke.  I’m declaring a “gimme” and this is one double entendre that just makes itself.  I’ve tossed this fucker up for grabs, somebody grab the alley-oop.  Knock yourselves out like a double roofie in a vodka tonic, fuck– why don’t you complete it in the comments below?  Let’s have a little contest to see who’s got wit.

Anyway, I digress.

Back to the topic at hand: one of my top three four-lettered “F words.”  Fuck, you’d think it’d be liberating to write as I am wont to speak (fuck you, that’s not a typo.  Grab a fucking dictionary, you’re not getting a link for this one.)   Since I edit as I go, I can’t help but feel like I’m toeing the line of gratuitous fuckery with every other sentence.

So yeah…  In other news, I went to look up the terms “gratuitous fuckery” and “gratuitous assholery” for this quasi-random image… first picture on Google Image Search for the latter came from this blog… then found 5 other pictures.  Therefore– Spiderman thread.

Yes, I have a thing for four-lettered F words.  My favorite three, in no particular order, are:  free, fuck, and food.  While you process that, I will now cue you in on the best 12-letter sentence I can think of, “Fuck– free food!”  For those of you who aren’t fans of the hyphenate sentence structure (fucking English teachers) I propose, “Free food?  Fuck!”

So yes, with Pandora’s Box wide open like a hooker working a 7-Eleven, there’s no turning back.  Play my music, Lunchbox.

Unplug.

Flashbacks of London… 1940…

I could open up with a Blitz joke– but the tale of Saturday, April 27, 2013 needs some foreplay.  Let’s kick it off at about, oh, 11am when Cortana headed to Rochester.  Granted, I knew that I was going to go out that night with the storied chuggernauts of drunken days of yore– so I slept in.  Sleeping in these days constitutes 10am, but I digress.  After a few specific admonitions to stay away from jail and the morgue, she hit the highway– and I started doing my checklist of things not to forget.

For the first time in a long freaking time, I actually didn’t forget anything… In fact, I waxed creative in the preparatory hours leading to the inevitably relentless liver punishment that is a TKE bachelor party.  This wasn’t, however, the kind of creativity that leads to new drinking games.  Oh no, this was that existential douchey type that makes you feel dirty like an unwashed hipster.

I decided to revel in that shit in a way that an unwashed neohippie would totally not approve of.  This didn’t, however, cleanse me of the initial sin– but the gastric satisfaction provided an excellent distraction.  Don’t worry, I paid for this disturbing faux pas, but that’s later.

I can haz cheezburger.

Oh yes, nothing says a day “all about me” like a guy, some sunlight, and a bag of Wendy’s on a road trip.  By the way, that’s only retrospectively sarcastic– because when I took that picture, I was all kinds of excited for those succulent Junior Bacon Cheeseburgers (I know, it’s not even a Goddamn Baconator.)  It was one of those gorgeous days that makes you want to be a pretentious tosser, and I still justify my actions by being the last Saturday I’d spend as a “single” man.

To Hell with you– don’t judge me.  I’m allowed to have a moment or five.

Yes, even the quasi-introspective auto-timer shot made deliberately out of focus by the open sunroof. Douchetacular.

Yes, my friends, I’d resigned myself to have an entire day revolve around me– because at that point, “single” me had less than a week to live.  That, in and of itself, is a mindwarp that defies logic, wisdom, and words.  Considering that I am almost never at a loss for words, that’s saying something.  Dead man walking, right?  Tack on a few hours, several errands, and a few snafus… and I ended up at our base of ops.

Special thanks to my TKE bro, Douggiestyles, for the use of the family/in-law’s cabin, and for the next touch of awesome that came our way.  After a few preparatory beers, Nacho showed up.  Nacho isn’t one of the brothers– but damned if he doesn’t fit in perfectly, and is accepted accordingly.  So there we are, the three of us, a few hours before the impending alcoholocaust.  What do we do?  Go to a goddamn brewery.  Why?  Because oddly enough, we’d never been there before– and it’s a brewery (need I say more?  Yes?  Ok…)…

If you’re not going to have strippers at a bachelor party (my decision, another WTF story for another time), well you’ve gotta go to a brewery.  It’s like… man law or something.

Wait, you mean to tell me that this craft brewery grows *all* of its own ingredients on site? Damn right my Scotchtoberfest was fantabulous. Cheers, bros!

We found it hard to believe that the Sprague Farm Brew Works had yet been undiscovered by our merry band of intrepid liver abusers.  Nacho loved the food, but Douggiestyles and I kept it to a decidedly liquid diet.  I have no freaking idea who the guy was that was on the open mic with the acoustic guitar– but damned if he wasn’t talented.  It was a very low-key beginning to a night that was expected to cause grievous organ damage.

Why yes, that’s a former grain silo with the top cut off– made to look like an TKE-sized beer mug. No, we weren’t able to go up there for a beer. Note the lawn chairs.

Fast forward, sending us hurtling into the heart of our storied stomping grounds.  We hadn’t been there two hours and I’d almost been thrown out of a bar for having non-standard glassware.  Then again, that’s what happens when The Doctor (not a real doctor) shows up with an epic beerstein and I pour my drink into it and start swaggering around like I own the joint.  Considering the fat chunk of change that I’d dropped there over the years, I probably should be part owner– but that’s beside the point.  After having had wings, beers, shots, and long islands (you already see where this one’s going)– we headed for The Boro, the dive bar with big drinks and a juke box with metal.

What they didn’t tell me was that it was $2 Bomb night.
They did tell me that they didn’t want me to know my name by 10pm.  That’s about the only task they didn’t succeed in completing.  Look below.

Carbombs. Two Dolla. Reason #160 why I love Edinboro– it’s one of the last bastions of cheap drinking, and real shotglasses.

So here’s where The Blitz gave me a blast from the past– except instead of Heinkel HE 111′s, Stukas, and a mess of Messerschmidts dropping explosive death on my head like I’ve got bad teeth and awesome diction— it was an assorted horde of my best buddies (TKE and otherwise) bombing my organs with… well you see the pictures.  Seriously, I’m not one to shirk my walking bar drain reputation, but these guys were on a mission.

This would have been a tale of karmic retribution (because I’m directly responsible for the drinking habits for at least half of the merry band of bastards that took me out), but I have a major issue with recalling the finer details of that night.  Fancy that, they literally Jaegerbombed me out of existence– and it took my once infallible memory with it.  Of what I can reconstruct of the latter parts of the evening, I recall wandering the bar with beer-in-hand (a universal diplomatic sign of continued intoxication adventures).  Every damn time I turned around–  this happened:

Jaegerbomb Blitzkreig takes its toll. Again. And again. And again.

It was a coordinated effort in a small bar.  I know I wasn’t out of sight of any of the besoffenflotten long enough to stabilize my BAC.  Every time I turned around– Jaegerbomb!!  Drinking a beer?  Jaegerbomb!!  Sitting at the table?  Jaegerbomb!!  Just did a Jaegerbomb?  Jaegerbomb!!

It doesn’t take much of a stretch of the imagination to realize that my liver, though a storied item of legend with mythic properties, is out of practice.  When I say out of practice, it’s akin to pitting Jill 2.0 against Jill 1.0 in her prime in a beer pong shooting contest.

Let’s make that metaphor work for everyone else:  it’d be like dragging Kareem Abdul-Jabbar out of retirement, with no practice, and expecting him to dominate a championship game.  While that sinks in, there is another sign of age here that reared its ugly head…  I woke up, chipper and shitfaced, at 7:30am.

And here we are, back at the quasi-introspective, artsy-fartsy crap again. Then again, I have an excuse– I was still drunk.

With Nacho and Douggiestyles still passed out, I loaded my car…  took some pictures… loaded the car…  then realized that I was just too damned energetic to go face-down on the floor for another couple hours.  Of course, at the cabin, there’s no cell reception– so it wasn’t like I could surf the ‘net or text bomb the previous night’s “assailants.”  As it would turn out, even though I ended up incapacitated like a freshman at homecoming– apparently I ended up faring better than the rest the next morning.

When I returned to civilization, I found this:

Just like London.

A more appropriate typo, there never was–  assuming that is, in fact, a typo.

Unplug.

Rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated…

In fact, the exact opposite has happened–  Cortana and I tied the knot, and we’re not talking a noose around my neck.

Between that and two jobs (nifty nifty!), I’ve had my hands full– and I have three semi-finished posts that will probably show up en masse tonight.  Never fear, my friends, strangers, and frenemies… all is well, and is swell.

There shall be more shenanigans and tomfoolery soon!

Unplug.

Here’s what Brown can do for me…

After several months and one successful Cracked.com article, the infamous unemployment curse was broken.  I would have said “mercifully,” however that’d violate the pacing of this little tale.  Protip: one thing that writing and banging have in common– you don’t want to get to the finish prematurely.

Back to the curse breaking– I was stunned to find out that not only had I picked up a part time merchandising job, I had even got my foot in the door at UPS.  Scuttlebutt had it that UPS treated their employees right, and I figured that this could be a potential career move since the company appears to be as healthy as a strain of AIDS at a Kenyan orgy.  All arrows pointed at Brown, and I should have know that shit was about to splatter in my direction.

In other news: Murphy’s an assjack.

The first indicator that this might have been an imminent case of surprise buttsex was the pay rate: $8.50 per hour.  If you’re going to work for a company as large and successful as UPS, and you’re going to make as much as a McJob, start worrying.  I, being ecstatic that I had doubly become a taxpayer again (after having been treated like a leper with dysentery), didn’t think that worrying mattered– they took care of their employees, right?

Hell, they’re all Teamsters, so there had to be a silver lining of benefits and job security– right?

Right?

Falling for that shit was about as naive as falling for this.

Even including Jill 2.0′s handi-capable situation, I’m in pretty damn good shape.  I’m a Tough Mudder, for crying out loud, so I didn’t think about what the hiring lady was saying when she said that this job burns out 20 year olds.  What she didn’t say was that they treat unloading cargo semis like a good, ol’ fashioned, Egyptian pyramid raising.  I’m not sure how universal this is, but at this particular location–  they want a single person to empty an entire semi in under an hour.  The quoted rate by my (former) supervisor was 1000 packages per hour…  mostly solo.

Let’s do the math here:

1000 packages ÷ 60 minutes = 16.67 packages/minute

…for 3 freaking trailers.  Did I mention that the job starts before 5am?  Or that there’s only one 10 minute break between trailers two and three?

Now, let’s add in the fun part that these trailers are packed floor to ceiling– poorly– and the walls of cargo like to fall.  Let’s also add in that you can find anything from hot water heaters, to tires, to 50lb cases of copy paper, to electronics, to mail, to motor oil, to 45lb farming cases of onions… well shit, you get the point….  this kind of whip-cracking bullshit for the same pay rate as flipping a ¼ lb burger, potentially stoned.

Thanks to the way their benefits are figured– and the laughable total hours– I wasn’t going to qualify for even a bottle of ibuprofen for at least 5 months.  Something tells me that Jill 2.0 isn’t about to demonstrate some kind of bionic durability– and with that slave wage, there’s no way I’d be able to afford another surgery.

You were probably expecting the Double Deuce, but my grandma wanted me to be more like Jesus…  He used a thumb and index finger…. Come to think of it… so did I, when I called HR!  Grandma would be proud!

So, covered in contusions, minor cuts, and feeling like I had a run in with the Bear Jew–  I took my old man’s advice and cut my losses.  They’re looking for slave labor, and they got two back-breaking days out of me.  They’re not getting another moment, and I flat out told the girl on the phone about my concern for the inevitable injury.  It’s not like me to just cut out without a two week notice– but this is an at will state, and that shit is a two way street.

Guess who’s not waking up at 3AM to go get his ass beat for a slave wage– just to be told to work faster?

Thank all that is holy and/or alcohol-bearing that my other job, although part-time, at least has a decent pay rate… and can be made to look sexy on a resume.  As for Brown– you know what they can do for me?

They can get flushed along with the curse.

Unplug.

Bibo ergo sum… cave nil vino.

It’s no secret that I’m a fan of dead languages, but that little tidbit has absolutely nothing to do with this entry.  The translation does, but… I’ll let you figure that for yourself.  This has to do with the impending “Wedding of the Apocalypse”– the day Cortana and I take a little stroll down a very important aisle.  I’ve dubbed it this way (much to her chagrin), because it’ll be the day Hell itself calls a snow day.  Not just that, but Ol’ Mephistopheles will be serving complimentary hot toddies.

I’ve given you enough to catch the joke here…

Oh yes, this little stroll– the untold harbinger of Ragnarok itself– is an occasion that I expected even less than my friends.  They‘re the ones who have berated me with various marriage jokes for years.  In my defense, if I had gone and taken a plunge– I would not have stumbled over Cortana.  I really don’t need to say much more about my *ahem* past errors in judgement.  I learned from my mistakes, and Cortana’s proof positive.  We all have our *ahem* lapses in the past– but at least I didn’t bet half of my shit that one of those errors was the one.  Even better– there aren’t any genetic hybrids comprised of myself and *ahem* the past running around to permanently tie me to them.

Tangent reality aside, let’s come back to the downright Bacchanal brouhaha that usually precedes a wedding– that’s right, I’m talking about the bachelor party.  Let’s size up the situation for just a wee second, shall we?  My liver, according to legend, is harder than Superman’s dick after raiding Pfizer’s warehouses.  Couple that with my storied Aura of Intoxication that causes those around me to get utterly lambasted and do dumb shit in copious quantities– and you’ve got the ingredients for icon-tier insanity.

Now to ice the cake: did I mention that we maniacs are doing this twice?

All started by an errant Flaming Dr. Pepper….

I could have a cameo in this movie, considering that Hurricane Katrina was nothing but a coverup for the damage inflicted by the 2005 TKE conclave.  By all rights, I should have a cameo in this movie– but instead, we’re going to do damage improv style.  We’re not only going to do it once but twice.  It’s nothing short of a miracle that nobody has died in our presence– ever (let alone in memorable history.)  Interestingly enough, none of us have even been carted off to the hospital or jail during or after a night of licentious libations.

Anyone else smell an intentional jinx here?

But yes, nothing short of a double dose of drunken debauchery and distilled delirium will do for this crew.  The official party falls on a Sunday night– which coincides with Sullivan’s 2-for-1 wing night.  The place is usually a graveyard (because who drinks on a Sunday when there’s no football?) which guarantees that we have an entire bar for our very own private party.  Did I mention that this private party doesn’t come with a rental fee because of the epic use of creative scheduling?

Since most of the guys (myself included– Hells to the yes) have to work on Monday… a more rowdy version is slated for a Saturday in none other than our well-beaten stomping ground:  Edinboro.  We’re not alcoholics.  We’re professionals– which brings us back to the title of this entry.  See what I did there?

Start the shot tally, we old guys are gonna make this one for the record books.

Unplug.

This is how you get someone’s attention…

So I was surfing around, looking for a new job, and found out that Bungie’s hiring in Seattle, WA.  I’m a bit of a Halo junkie (hence the Cortana reference), and I am pretty much over the whole Eastern Time Zone thing.  So I figured, why the Hell not?  Gretzky said, “You miss 100% of the shots you never take.”  Assuming I quoted and attributed that correctly, here’s my shot– and believe you me, it’s a freaking doozie.

Boom. Headshot.

So yeah, they needed a production assistant– and realizing that Bungie rules because they don’t use some bastard third-party ATS– I decided to stick out of the crowd with my cover letter….

To whomever is blessed with fielding this email address:

Since I cannot juggle chainsaws, the staff will be thoroughly entertained when I try to snag the first one out of the air.  Since I have a degree in English, you can guarantee that the resulting obscenity-laden tirade could very well be in sonnet form (I prefer Petrarchan)– complete with Elizabethan epithets.  I possess two keen eyes for detail when not masquerading as a pirate, and an attention span that doesn’t make that bi-ocular detail-orientation seem like OCD.  When it comes to seeking a multifaceted production assistant that can handle anything and everything that can be thrown in their general direction, not including multiple chainsaws, look no further.

Obvious reasons for wanting to work at Bungie aside (ascending beyond a glorified free-kill in Halo), my versatility and talents are not finding useful outlets in the corner of the nation that I have known all my life.  Desire for a challenge mentally equivalent to a Tough Mudder (I’ve already completed one) is what’s pushing me towards Bungie– and the manner the job posting was worded was too geared towards my personality to resist.  I’ve worked with people from the most humble bumpkin to well-educated engineers and doctors (as well as wealthy sycophants less intelligent than the aforementioned bumpkins.)  I have a natural ability to figure out what makes people tick, and adapting to those quirks like a Borg on crack is my key to being an exceptional team player.

This specific production assistant job is something I was made for, and having a look at the attached resume might provide a tip about all I could bring to Bungie.  That said– it’s never just the tip, and just like any similar enticement– this is about the whole package.  I want to relocate to the Seattle, WA area as I said before– and I can’t think of a better way to usher in a new era of growth than by throwing myself face-first into a dynamic career at Bungie.  I’m looking forward to hearing from whomever may eventually end up with my credentials, and I do sincerely hope said contact is not just a generic form letter befitting lesser, generic applications.

After that, I attached my updated resume, signed off, and figured this might set me apart from the thousands of other emails that flooded their centralized “careers@bungie.com” address.  A couple minutes later–  here’s the reply I got:

Thanks for your interest in opportunities at Bungie. We’re flattered—sincerely!  We promise that your resume hasn’t gone into the dark void; it’s actually being pored over by a real, live person.  We’ll contact you as soon as possible if there’s a match between your skills and our opening(s).  If there’s not a match at this time, promise to keep your information on hand and reach out as appropriate opportunities pop up. In the meantime, thanks again!

 

PS: If you’re an artist and have not yet submitted your reel, please do. We’d love to see your work! A detailed description of the work you performed or a comprehensive shot breakdown should accompany your submission.

My general reaction.

I don’t think much more needs to be said here…

… in other news, click this link to my first publication– 6 Ways Companies Are Secretly Screwing Job Applicants

Why?  Because my broke ass could use the monetary site-traffic bonus, and I’m in direct competition with every other Cracked article posted this month– and I was started with an 18 day handicap.

Help a brother out, post that link everywhere, and click on it as often as possible.
Do work, people, I may write because I love it– but dammit, I want something back this time!

(This has been my shameless plug of the night)

Unplug.

 

Good news, everyone!

… not only did you read that title in Professor Farnsworth’s voice, my Cracked.com article is finally published!  Yes, it was thoroughly edited (and goddamn awesome regardless)– and was missing my trademark unplug, but… as promised earlier when my holy-shit-o-meter blew the cover off the dashboard:

http://www.cracked.com/article_20322_6-ways-companies-are-secretly-screwing-job-applicants.html

In other news, was killing myself in the gym today and my muscles are ready to train at above my body weight again…  Jill 2.0‘s gimpy ass wasn’t having it.  I’ll put a proper post up once my adrenaline has dropped below mortal-slaying levels.

Unplug.