6 Picks, 6 Last Place Finishes

http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/030908/mensbb_2008030900275.shtml

I am not good at math, but I think my performance at the track last night might make even the greatest odds maker snap their TI-85 in half. I went to the horse track last night and I bet on six races. In those six races, I picked the last place horse every time. The only issue is that I picked those horses to win. In six picks, I picked the horse that would eventually finish last to win. They weren't even bad picks, a couple of times I picked longer odds, and a couple of times I picked one of the favorites, but every time that horse finished in last place. Even if I did a trifecta, the horse I picked to win would finish last (and once I even had second and third right). Six picks, six horses in dead last.

This is not the first time I have had weird gambling issues. Once, while playing three card poker, I lost four straight hands with a king, a jack, and a four. All four hands, two face cards, four decisive beatings.

I think being a Murphy makes me somehow immune to good luck. Sometimes I wonder if fate has put me in a position where, maybe, I just wasn't meant to have good fortune fall in my lap. Maybe I need to find a way to overcome this dreaded Irish curse and actually put some effort into things and not just rely on luck. I think my performance at the horse track is an excellent analogy for my life: Don't just expect things to happen in your favor, because they probably aren't going to.

I think it's somehow fitting that the story I linked to was about how bad the Georgia basketball team was this year. They were the same team that shocked everyone and won the SEC tournament, even winning two games in one day. Sometimes you need luck on your side, and sometimes you just have to actually outwork everyone, and sometimes, well, you need both. I guess maybe I need to start focusing on the outworking everyone and hope that luck finds its way to me.

Mentally Challenged Man Falls Down

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EIWOtbPoHI

There is a guy who walks the mall everyday. All day. He is pleasant enough, and sometimes I can hear him singing all the way down the hall. He is about six foot four and has a horseshoe haircut, or as my uncle's hat used to call it a "solar panel for brain energy." He wears the same grey sweatpants and purple shirt for Norwalk High School everyday and carries around two handfuls of cassettes that he listens to in his old school Walkman. He is also severely mentally handicapped.

I see him everyday, and every once in a while we have a conversation. Well, he yells words, and since I don't hear very well, I have a hard time telling what those words actually are, so I smile big and say things like, "Oh, wow," or "Okay" and try to be as polite as possible. I guess that's sort of a conversation. Anyway, I see him everyday and on most days, I duck behind the counter so I don't have to talk to him.

Today, as he was walking, he slipped and fell a few feet from my little booth. He wasn't hurt, but he was wailing and pounding on the ground. He was just really embarrassed that he fell more than anything, I think. He seemed like he was okay, but he just kept sitting on the ground. A customer that was here, an overly muscled guy with a Napoleon complex, a bad haircut and an awful Affliction knock off T-Shirt (on a side note, what is worse: an actual Affliction shirt, or the one that just rips off the style?), looked over at hm and said, "I'd help him up, but I don't want to touch him." Then he laughed and looked at me like I would think it was funny.

The sad part is, I wanted to help the guy if he was hurt, but I mostly just wanted him to go away. He wasn't hurt, and there wasn't anything I could do for him, but also I just didn't want to do anything for him. I am trying to figure out if that makes me as bad as the other guy making snide comments or if I was doing the right thing. Like not giving into a child throwing a tantrum. But, I feel like my general indifference meant that I am a bad person. Also, I feel like posting that link makes me a bad person, but I just do what the Googles tell me to.

On an unrelated note, I sold a phone today to a sixty-five year old Asian man who was covered in tattoos. They were all old fashioned designs, nothing intricate, but I could see them start on the top of his hands and go all the way up his arm. A large dragon snuck out of his mustard colored shirt at the sleeves and what I think was a portrait of someone was sort of visible peeking out of the neckline. I thought maybe he was yakuza, but instead of missing the tips of his pinkies, he had grown his pinkienails out so that it reached as high as any of his other fingers. I have nothing to add to this other than it was neat and "little old Asian man covered in tattoos" put into Google gives you this:

http://www.hanzismatter.com/2006/11/chucks-tattoos.html

That site makes me laugh.

How Can My Answer Be a Lie When I Don't Know What the Question Is?

http://thatsmyanswer.com/

I was accused today of lying to try and make a sale, even though the sale was already made by someone else, and my answer was the truth. Some hillbilly wife called me and because she doesn't understand the concept of a phone bill, someone must have harmed her personally. When I explained what I thought was the answer to her problems, she called me a liar. And not just a liar, a fucking liar who only wants to make money off of her, even though I didn't make any money off of her and never will. There is only two possible explanations for why I might be a liar to this woman: either she is an idiot who doesn't know that you have to pay for services and assumed she could just skate by or in her drunken and/or meth addled rage, she wasn't asking me the right question. I am going to assume it is the former, although I assume the meth addled part about the latter was likely a factor too.

I don't understand people and I never will. Customer service will either destroy me, mess up the customer or possibly both at this point. I am so unbelieveably frustrated with not only my own profession, but with the enitre city of Des Moines, the entire state of Iowa, the enitre country, this whole planet, and even that one plant they just discovered that is similar to Earth simply because if there is life there, they are probably fucking rediculous, too.

Because of the actions of one or two people, I now assume the worst about everyone. The big breasted blond to my left; probably an asshole. The lady that works in the clothes store across from me; probably an asshole. This guy in the plaid shirt walking by me; probably an asshole. The newborn in the pink stroller; most likely an asshole. I am starting to feel very Kaczynski-ish about our society as a whole and am starting to wonder if we couldn't just use a good 40 days and 40 nights and start over again.

I am so frustrated, that my boss's boss's boss came to the store today and I didn't even pretend that I wasn't looking at Principal.com for a new job. I just smiled politely, hit the little "x" in the top right and looked him in the eye, waiting for the blowback. He just ran his hand through his gray flat top fade hair of his, congratulated me on my excellent mystery shop (mystery shops are the greatest load of crap this world has ever seen), gave me some new pamphlets to hand out and then gave me some tips on how to improve sales. Either he didn't notice the website I was on, or he is just so used to everyone quitting, that it just doesn't faze him at this point. I hope he noticed. I am planning an exit that will hopefully be quick and handled with a handshake, but deep down, I sort of feel like going out with such a blaze of glory that this kiosk burns to the ground.

Oh, and so I don't completely blow off my gimmick, I will now answer today's questions from that website I just posted:

I was baptized as a baby.

I would never send a neighbor an anonymous letter. If I had an issue with them I would mumble about it under my breath and then wait until they moved out, which will be soon knowing the place next to ours.

Women carry lots of stuff in their purses because they have lots of stuff. Men don't need makeup or tampons, but I carry pretty much everything else that a woman would, only in my pockets.

This weekend I went to an independent wrestling show, was woken up by my drunk wife and my drunk neighbors (at different times), and almost fell asleep on the couch at 730 pm.

I currently don't have a song in my head, but I will instead just type the first song that pops in. "Aeroplane" by The Red Hot Chili Peppers (one day I should write about how overlooked One Hot Minute is as an album).

Also, on an unrelated note, today is my sister's birthday. Since I couldn't find that one scene in Three Amgios where Jefe goes "Today, he turns, 33 years old" I chose this one instead.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=mEIZ_FFmjnw

(How come I can't embed videos anymore from Youtube? Why even have a youtube if you can't embed videos.)

(Also a tiny Asian man in his 60's just walked by singing Blondie really loudly. That is awesome.)

Kitchen Misadventures

http://www.realsimple.com/realsimple/content/0,21770,1105192,00.html

Yesterday was kitchen misdaventure day. I burned my hand on the toaster oven, overcooked the meat, burned the rolls, and scraped up my wife's nice skillet with a metal spatula before finally turning over the reigns to her. The bad news is I can't cook worth a damn and looked like a fool, but the good news is I was inept enough that I may not be asked to cook again for a while, which is nice.

I am typing this right now while pretending to do work. That is always what I do , but literally this time I am pretending to set up a cell phone account for some guy. Hopefully, he doesn't look around the corner, but I don't think he will. I know for a fact that he is attempting to open up a fraudulent cell phone account, so I have no desire to actually try and help him. He is an hispanic gangsta with some sort of weird herpes on his lip that I can't help looking at, and he can't help but prod with his tongue. Now, I am going to tell him that he has a large deposit so he will go away.

I haven't updated this in a week or so mostly because I have been sick and mostly because I can't think of anything to write about, but if I am ever going to be a writer, I just need to write as much as I can. So I am going to go straight up Christmas letter style and just type about some stuff that has happened to me.

Last weekend was the poetry circus which went amazingly well. I sold some cotton candy, watched some belly dancers, learned about a few new awesome local bands, drank some good beer and then drank Bud Light, sold cotton candy to Morpheus from the Matrix, watched in awesome delight as two sisters in corsets got into a fight and learned that I think I hate theatre.

My sister's boyfriend put on the poetry circus and he and I have discussed possibly doing a play together. He says I would be a natural actor, and I got very excited and agreed. However, I watched two middle-aged people perform "Taming of the Shrew" to an indifferent audience and all I could think of was people making fun of them (because lord knows I was) and how that would probably be me if I were to ever do a play. Maybe this acting thing is for me after all.

The next day I was flattened by the worst sinus infection I think I have ever encountered. I was out for a few days, which was nice because I didn't have to go to work, but sucked because I didn't get paid.

I just realized that this is the worst thing I have ever written and will now end it abruptly.

Pineapple Cake and SCUD Missiles

http://www.good-time-charleys.com/drinks%20menu%20web.pdf


I am working with the girl today. She is a perfectly nice girl. She means very well. She is twenty years old, but her ID says shes twenty-two. Her breasts are large and she smells pretty. Again, a perfectly nice girl, but she's just not my thing.

She has blond hair and makes out with other girls when she drinks too much. She wears shirts that would be illegal if they were cut one half inch lower. She has too many guys stop and talk to her, which puts me on edge for some reason. I could probably get her to make out with me if I asked nice enough, not because she likes me, but because she likes the attention.

She has bad taste in music, but most people do. She has bad taste in men, but most girls do. She smokes, I think, or she just spends a lot of time completely off the face of the Earth. She also draws a lot of attention to me, which makes me sort of uncomforable because the attention she draws is from flithy meth addicts and gang memebers (which is pretty much this mall's clientel). It seems apropos that todays website is a drink menu from some Universtiy of Michigan bar. She would fit it perfectly with some drunken Wolverines. I bet Tom Brady would've nailed her, at the very least Harbaugh would've.

As a quick aside, pineapple cake and SCUD missiles have nothing to do with her. I had a dream that Tina Fey made me a pineapple cake and I took it outside, at which point I ran into Saddam Hussein and gave him my condolences on his own death. He said at least he still has SCUD missiles as his legacy and we chatted a bit about the war and about raising kids and about the NHL playoffs. He seemed pretty charming.

Good to See You're Still Living

http://yourestillyoung.blogspot.com/

A 40 something Jewish/Canuck (or JewNuck) couple is looking to conceive. Hopefully, that didn't run you off from clicking on the link because this is a well written, well thought out (if sometimes period heavy--both in punctuation and in menstration--eek) well intentioned blog that I actually read a great deal of before being weirded out by her constant mentions of her cycle (I didn't actually need to hear that her period returned with a vengence, makes me think of some sort of a tidal wave senario). But what is a little more disturbing to me is it feels like she thinks she will be a failure of a life if she isn't a mother. As if conception was poor Shlomit's only reason to exist. It is almost heartbreaking to not only see the level of despair she reaches because of her lack of children, but also the fact that she clearly is resting her entire existence on acheiving the elusive baby bump. It is sad to know that her psyche is so prevelant on acheiving this one goal, that her whole life feels like a failure because she hasn't. I was also weirded out because I kept thinking of old Jewish people having sex. Like Jackie Mason drilling Barbara Streisand or Gene Simmons spinning his dreidel inside of, I dunno, George Costanza's mom (is she Jewish, she seems like she should be).

It's funny that people can be so focused and so set on acheiving one particular thing, that if they don't, their life is hopeless. I fall into that trap sometimes too, although, my goal is a little less noble than child bearing. I just want to get a different job so bad, that I feel like my life doesn't have any meaning because I sit at a computer all day and type on this blog and then occasionally sell a cell phone to people who generally have an attitude problem. I know, it's not as good as a Jewish couple trying desperatly to conceive, but I still have my own problems too, dammit.

The words I typed into Google today were words I actually just said to my cousin. He and my aunt stopped by the kiosk I work at, and while we were really close as children, we sort of fell out of touch by the time I reached high school. He became a straight edge punk and I became a guy who wished I was but couldn't stand to get into fights because someone was sipping on a white wine spritzer (also, I'm a man who loves his beer, mmmmm beer). Since we haven't been close for a while, I slipped into awkward conversation mode, which sucks because he and my aunt are family and awkward conversation mode should only be reserved for people I went to high school with and truly don't want to see.

Anyway, they stopped by and I started out okay, but I had a hard time thinking of things to say. and by started out okay I mean I had a sentence or two that came out without a stutter, then I started blinking rapidly and saying "uh" a lot. It is particularly awkward because he cleaned up his punk act (although the tats on his forearms say he still has a little of that in him) and has spent the last few years in the US Army. He was in Japan for a while, which made the family a little more comfortable, but the inevitable happaned and he was sent to Afghanistan.

He looked good when I saw him, although a little thin. I imgained he would be a little more buff, but I guess he has a little more of a desk position than an infantry position so it's understandable. He was on an eighteen day leave, with only a few days left, and then back to Afghanistan, so I really wanted to make him feel wlesomced and that it was nice to see him and that I wished for his safety. Instead after all of my stuttering a stammering, I told him he looked good and it was "Good to see you're still living." I don't know why I felt like I shoved my foot in my mouth, but it just felt that way. I guess it may be on the same lines as a pitcher throwing a no hitter; you don't tell a mother her son could die any at any second, and it likely won't happen.

I guess I'm not sure what I am really rambling about, but I guess it is just weird to see what people's goals are. I wonder if my cousin will feel like a failure if he is a bad soldier. I wonder if my aunt will feel like a failure if he somehow (God forbid) doesn't make it back from this tour. I wonder if Sariel and Shlomit will actually feel like failures if they don't make a tiny JewNuck. But most of all, I wonder why I still feel like I will be a failure if I don't get out of my dead end job and why real struggles of life and death haven't put things a little more in perspective.

Quack, I'm Zeus

http://www.bebo.com/Profile.jsp?MemberId=2013349731

Ever wanted to pick up random chicks? Ever wanted to be some sort of barnyard fowl? Ever wanted to pick up chicks as some sort of barnyard fowl? Are you the God of Thunder? If you answered yes to all of those questions, then do I have the pick up line for you. All you do is turn into a swan, find some young bitty relaxing by the lake and say "Quack, I'm Zeus." And just like that, you have created a relationship that will no doubt lead to some sort of half man/half god creature that is unfortunately also not half duck.

As it turns out, "Quack, I'm Zeus" also sends you to a bebo.com profile. Bebo.com appears to be a sort of myspace for Kiwis who spend too much time bungee jumping and are all descended from criminals (I didn't do any other research to find out if it was just New Zealanders, but I like to think that it is). I know these are all stereotypes, but that's the downside of the new social networking craze. You get some jackass with a high speed modem making racist comments on his new blog. Poor Rich Kaio. Although great picture. As it turns out, "Quack, I'm Zeus" also works on large ladies, but I think you have to have dance skills if you can't turn into a swan.

Rich Kaio seems like a good dude, even though I have no idea what he's talking about for most of his page. Also, he doesn't like sports, which makes me think he doesn't like bungee jumping which shatters all my preconceived notions of New Zealanders (all of which I have gotten entirely from Flight of the Conchords). Also, I want to talk to him to ask him if he remembers when there used to be penguins. I would also like to point out that Moira McFarland and Amy Chestnutt are hot and in his friends list which leads me to believe that Rich Kaio has hot Internet friends, but then again, don't we all.

I chose Quack, I'm Zeus because I have been thinking about religion a little bit lately, and Zeus is King of the Gods after all. I have been perusing (literally, I kind of stopped reading it and just sort of started looking at it) AJ Jacobs's new book where he tries to live the bible as literally as possible. Also, I had a job interview at a Christian Rock radio station the other day, which sort of creeped me out.

The station was in the back of one of those mega churches that are all the rage right now. One of those places with big jumbotrons to show the charismatic, yet creepy preacher in high def and he wears one of those Backstreet Boys/Old Navy earpiece microphones and they put their hands in the air when they sing songs for some reason.

I interviewed with a guy who I described to my wife as swarthy. Swarthy seemed like one of those words that should mean "slick" or "used car salesman", because that was definitely what he was. He had earrings in both of his ears and a weird Van Dyke beard. He spoke loudly with a lot of confidence. I bet at one time he considered running for congress. He was a little slimy. Unfortunately, swarthy only sounds like a word that should mean slimy. It actually means dark skinned. I want to start one of those online petitions to get the meaning of that word changed because it made me look stupid in front of my wife.

After an awkward interview where I pretended to like some dude named Toby Mac (whoever that is), and flaunted my religious background (used to go to church as a kid, read the bible once, was once awoken by the Hour of Power at full blast) he shook my hand and led me out the door. I received a rejection letter so fast, I am pretty sure his secretary was typing the letter as I was leaving. I wasn't angry about the rejection, because it was kind of a shitty job anyway, but to be rejected in a church sort of made me feel like Jesus himself was rejecting me, which wouldn't be the first time.

My mother, who is Evangelical, is undoubtedly my most religious relative. She was the one who woke me up with the Hour of Power and she once tricked me into getting anointed with oil while some televangelist spoke in tongues to me. All the other kids next to me passed out, apparently overcome with the holy spirit. But I stayed perfectly vertical. I wondered if maybe I was missing something, if somehow Jesus didn't want to fill me with his love through the fingers of a highly paid TV star. I am sort of convinced they were all faking it, but I can't be so sure about it, maybe Jesus didn't love me as much as the cute girl in the pink low cut dress who stood next to me. Maybe he didn't allow the power of Him to flow through me because I was staring at some girl's chest. Although, maybe still it was something I did in the past or perhaps will do in the future. I am pretty sure the televangelist's fingers sizzled when she touched me, so maybe I am just a lot more evil then I like to think. I left the church thinking either all those kids were a bunch of fakers, or Jesus just doesn't love me.

So, if Jesus doesn't love you, then who do you have left? My hopes is that he loves me enough to find me a new job, but not enough to have that job be with any sort of religious group. Maybe as a way to show me that he loves me, but he doesn't want me to have anything to do with his religion, like Chris Farley and Tim Matheson in Black Sheep. Sort of a "I love you, but I'm not in love with you" position, which is nice. Jesus and I could probably be friends if we just sat down and shared a beer and watched the Red Wings game or something. I don't want him to write me off yet, unless he knows something I don't.