Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Hey, how ya doin'?

So those of you who actually know me know that I crack myself up. No big surprise there. But every once in a while something pops into my little pea-brain that I feel is funny enough to share with people outside of my head. Now, 99% of the time it turns out to be a freaking bad idea. But every once in a while something sticks with someone, or an idea that gets batted around turns into something fun for a few folks (FTG List, Balls, Animal/Food List, "What Do You Call A Quadriplegic who..." List, The Awesome Tattoo List, etc.) so I blurt crap out and see what people gather around.

Today's "Blurt Du Jour"...

So there's a build up for this one. I'm trying to come up with replies for when someone asks "how are you?" The scenarios in my mind include meeting up with someone you already know, or the beginning of a phone conversation, but I find it infinitely more funny to imagine these when you are meeting someone for the very first time. Those scenarios are playing out like this...

Hey Dean, I want you to meet my friend Franklin.

"Hi Franklin, nice to meet you."

"Hey Dean, how you doin'?"

(Insert absurd greeting here)

Get it? Okay, so far I've come up with...

"Hey Dean, how you doin'?"
- "Oh man, I'm so full that your kids are going to be born burping."

That was the one that made me start writing these down for some reason. Here's a few more...

"Hey Dean, how you doin'?"
- "Your mom. Oh, HOW am I doing? Ask your mom."

"Hey Dean, how you doin'?"
- "I'm devising a plan to turn fossil fuels into edible door knobs so that we can doom our planet by chewing our way into rooms."


"Hey Dean, how you doin'?"
- "I think I just burped up a pine cone."


"Hey Dean, how you doin'?"
- "I have absolutely no idea."


"Hey Dean, how you doin'?"
- "I'm busy. Ask me again later."


"Hey Dean, how you doin'?"
- "Whatever, I'm going over there."


"Hey Dean, how you doin'?"
- "Hungry for pizza and root beer. Why, you got any?"


"Hey Dean, how you doin'?"
- "I'm a little weirded out by that thing floating behind you. Did you see it? Hey, that's weird... every time you turn your head, it moves. That thing is weird."


"Hey Dean, how you doin'?"
- "You got any money?"


"Hey Dean, how you doin'?"
- "That's a little rude, don't you think?"

Yeah, I crack myself up. I could go all day with this.





Some Kind of Freaking Record...

So yeah...

Latest post: December 2012. One before that: December 2011. I would attribute it to involuntary hibernation, but I'm pretty sure I've done stuff I wanted to talk about since then, for the love of Pete.

I was checking this place out today when Robert (pronounced "row-BEAR!") wandered into my office and said he needed a head shot for something. So of course, I showed him my EJO picks and told him to use those. Apparently those just aren't good enough or something. I think I've never looked better before or since. Well, obviously since.

So yeah, in the 6 years or whatever that I haven't been here a lot has been going on. I'll get to a lot of it in other posts, and some I'll want to write about but will never get to, so shut up. Up yours.

Biggest thing, I guess, well, the most recent thing anyway, is I no longer work in the warehouse where I work. Now I'm in the office. Just to get things straight, I liked my job, just could not fucking stand the tards I worked with. Even when I was back there I knew we were dysfunctional and kind of a joke - leadership does not exist in that dojo. Nor does pride or any kind of work ethic. But I thought that nobody in the office really knew or even cared, so long as we got their stuff out the door. But no. They know. And care. The warehouse is a huge freaking joke in the office. Like, even more than it was for the one or two of us who actually gave a crap out there. But that's all I'll say about that. For now...

Being out of the warehouse and in the office does have it's downsides though. For instance, I have my door open and out of nowhere (i.e.: the hallway) a freaking fly flew in here. He's just all buzzing around like a dick, getting in my face and landing on stuff long enough for me to see him but not long enough for me to reach over and smash his face into oblivion. Flys can be dicks. Most bugs, actually. Dick bugs. I hates 'em.

So yeah... working with dicks who don't give a poop, or a fly. There's downsides to everything.

Sunday, December 2, 2012

I Like To Party

So yeah, I figure that posting once a year might not be the way to keep everyone's attention. I know it's been a while, and I'm so very, very sorry. Lots of crap has (have?) happened, so I'll get you all up to speed soon enough, but I wanted to let everyone know that the second round of No Shave November was a big success at work. Everyone that started it actually saw it all the way to the end. I was able to put the wager into place this time, that anyone who started and quit before December 1st would have to chip in and buy lunch for all those who made it the whole way through. Everyone made it, which is a good thing because there were a few tards who were saying, "uhng, If I make it and you don't then I'm ordering prime rib for lunch, or lobsters." Wasn't gonna work like that, mongoloid. Get over yourself.

That's right... 29 days, no side burns. And I'm puffing out my cheeks, so shut up.
Anyway, got my hairs cut yesterday and shaved and everything so I look almost human again. Almost.

Other than that, not much has really happened in the last 12 months that I've been away from here. Let's see...

- Got hired on December 1st last year, so I've been with the company as an actual employee for 1 year and 1 day now. I've taken on a buttload of responsibilities and am in charge of a few things, but still have no title and no raise, so that means when the boss is out and I'm in charge, nobody listens to me. It's great. You should try it.

- Oh, got my car from California. It's still a stick and it still hates me, but we seem to have come to an understanding where I won't try to kill it and it won't try to kill me. Seems to be working, although I'm thinking all bets are off once it starts getting icy here in about a week.

- Went to the beach for 4th of July during what was apparently the lowest tide ever or something. Took a bunch of pics, will post soon.

- Actually, there are a ton of pics I'm going to be posting for random reasons, but we'll get to those later.

- Crap, I can't really think of anything else. I'm sure once GF reads this she'll say, "I can't believe you forgot to mention this," or, "why didn't you mention this," or whatever. Relax. It's a blog, I can write it down whenever I want! Jeez!

Okay, that's all for now. I got a lot of stuff I want to tell you all, so hang in there and be good to everyone. Except the dicks. Fuck those guys.

Sunday, December 11, 2011

No Shave November... Swanky Epilogue

So yeah, while I was shaving off a full month's worth of facial horror, I decided to see what I would look like with a craggy 'stache and a no-soul patch. I don't know why, I just thought it might be goofy looking or something.

Equal parts win and fail
I thought it looked pretty genius, but in a tard kind of way. If only it were thicker, then I could have walked around pretending to be hunting Jack the Ripper all the time. That would have been bad ass. Really though, it just kind of makes me look like Edward James Olmos or something.

E.J.O. impersonating me.
 But if I HAD to look like Ed J.O., I'd want to look like this cool drink of agua right freaking here...

Pimp
Hells yes, bitatches.

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

No Shave November ends...

Yeah, my face... AGAIN!
So it's November 30, 2011 at 7:20-ish pm. No Shave November 2011 is officially in the history books. I figured I should take one more picture before shaving it all off just to preserve my hobo-ness. And yeah, I need a haircut pretty freaking badly too.

All in all, the no shaving thing went okay. I don't like shaving anyway, but I have to be honest, after the first week it started driving me crazy. It just feels wrong, not to mention on my face it looks freaking retarded. It grows all stupid and erratic.

So goodbye No Shave November. I'm sure I'll see you again next year.

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

No Shave November

So the guys at work decided to celebrate November by not shaving. I decided to take it a step further and put a little wager on the table… anyone is welcome to participate in No Shave November, but if you start it and then fail, at the end of the month you have to buy lunch for those who actually stuck with it. Seems fair, no? It’s the 16th, and so far 3 people have dropped out, leaving 4 of us, possibly 5 (no one can really tell if #5 is playing along or just not shaving all on his own). One is a sales guy, so he gets to “shape” his beard, but the rest of us have to just let nature take its course. I have some pics of my growth, and let me just say that my asian heritage does me no favors in the facial hair department.


There, happy? A picture of me. Deal with it.
I can’t wait to shave on Dec 1st. This is ridiculous. Plus I’ve needed a haircut for months, but I can’t get one now because I would look even more ridiculous with a scruffy/sparse weirdbeard and really short hair. Not that I look like a genius now. Whatever.

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Astoria

Earlier in October, GF and I decided to take a Sunday trip to Astoria. See, I've been hyping the crap out of that place for as long as I can remember. I've wanted to visit there ever since seeing Kindergarten Cop back in the early 90's (it might have had something to do with hoping that Penelope Ann Miller lived there, I don't know). And then after seeing The Ring 2 I knew I just had to go.


I had a chance to go there around the year 2000 when I was living in Portland, but it was one of those whirlwind trips where we went for a few hours with my sister and her husband, so we didn't really spend a whole lot of time in one place and never really felt like I was able to soak up anything for long enough to make any kind of impression. Seriously, the main thing I remember was stopping at a Walmart or some similar kind of place on our way back home. See, that's where we actually spent the longest amount of time, while buying snacks and using the restrooms.


I wanted to take GF there to show her how awesome it might be as a potential place to live one day. I mean come on, The Ring 2 was filmed and took place there. Couldn't be more perfect to me.


We roll into town at about 10:30am or something, and after stopping in at a McDonald's for a much needed pee break and purchasing of coffee-like beverages, we headed straight for the Astoria Column.




Astoria Column


Last time I was there, you couldn't have paid me enough to climb up that thing. But this time, GF and I went straight up to check out the views.


Downtown Astoria. Yeah, that's all of it.


The weather, by the way, was freaking perfect. It rained a little on the drive up, but by the time we got there it was a perfect shade of overcast. The Column is perched on top of a hill and you can pretty much see forever in all directions. When we first got there, there was a guy up on top talking to his daughter on the ground who was apparently too skittish to make the trek to the top. We went on about how he was pretty sure he could see Japan from his vantage point and that she was going to regret not being able to see Japan for herself. I don't know, it struck me as infinitely funny. But while he was up there I was amazed at how well I could hear him, even when he was obviously speaking in a relatively normal voice.


Facing west. Weird huge island thing in the distance.


The overcastness and foggness that was happening all over the place was pretty awesome. It made everything seem kind of spooky in a bad-ass kind of way. I love spooky. This was like a down-home spookiness.

Close up of huge island/peninsula. I like thinking it was biological in origin.


Oh and by the way, there were more trees visible from the top of this column thing than I have ever seen anywhere ever. Brazilian rain forest? You can have it. I'll take Northwest Ball Rocking Awesomeness any day of the week.



From the top, people looked like human-sized bipedal well-accessorized ants.


I really thought I'd be freaking out more up there, but it was relatively calm. I didn't really have any problems up there. Getting up there on the other hand was a bit of a workout for my old, tired legs and gasping, wheezing lungs. And don't even get me started on the trek down the steps. There were something like 700,000 stairs or some crap. Ridiculous. And uncalled for. If you're going to make something retardedly tall, try not to be such a douche and at least put an elevator in it or something. Rude.


GF is mighty.


I don't know why I didn't upload any pictures facing in other directions, since looking east was pretty cool too. Lots of trees and stuff. And clouds. They were being all epic and bad ass too. Oh wait...




Fifty thousand shades of grey in one sky. Thanks, nature!


This is a shot facing kind of southeast. See? Trees, right? Buttlodes of them. And sky as far as the eye could see. And I'm guessing even further than that, since there was a pretty thick cloud cover and all. Yup.

Our next stop was backtracking a bit to some beach where there was a shipwreck or something. On our way there we saw a sign for a military cemetary and just had to find out what that was all about. We ended up driving through some backwoods military housing dump with lots of houses with car parts in their yards and such crap. When we finally got to the "cemetary, it was at the end of a cul de sac (if you can actually have a cul de sac on a dirt road) and locked up. It looked like it had about 20 graves in it, none of them particularly interesting at all. I couldn't get over why they would even advertise it around town if a) you had to drive through a horror movie neighborhood to get to it, and b) you couldn't get into it at all anyway. Oh well, whatever.

So we bailed that failure and headed for the beach. It was GF's first time back to the ocean since March, and after living right up the street from it for forever back in San Diego, she kinda missed it a smidge.

Now when I hear the word "shipwreck," I'm expecting something the size of the Empire State Building laying on the beach. I had no idea what to expect. Apparently this thing has been sitting on the beach for literally over a hundred years. Seriously. Like I'm not even being funny. It's been there for over a hundred years. Let's just say that there's not a whole crap of a lot left of it anymore. But we saw pictures of it just after it happened, and it was pretty impressive and intimidating. I love history.


GF is a giant.


I love that picture more than most things ever. I have no idea where that little man came from, or what he wanted from us Earthlings at the beach. Maybe it was a midget Bigfoot. Midgetfoot.


Spies.


These two people were apparently hovering around us at the Column. GF noticed them atop a sand dune not far from us at the beach, and when I grabbed my camera and pointed it at them, the acted like they were paying attention to something else. I think they wanted my awesome hoodie. No, spies!! My hoodie!!


Sky being awesome.


The whole trip, the sky was rocking all kinds of sky balls.


The Pacific Ocean. The bully of the large bodies of water.


For the most part, the water was well-behaved. But every once in a while it would get a big kick out of chasing us up the beach because it thought it was funny. Very Jr High School there, sir. Not funny.


Weird Monkey-People Rock/Wood.


I was following behind GF (she liked to take off up the beach without warning, which I'm sure was fun for her) when I noticed a weird thing sitting on the beach in front of her. I waited to see what her reaction would be, but she never had one, so I decided to snap a pic just to make sure I wasn't hallucinating.

Monkey People Wood Rock (highlighted)


Seriously, click on the picture so it blows up to the size of New Hampshire and tell me what the freak I'm looking at!



Saving Private Crabby


There were all kinds of animal casualties on the beach. There were even multiple dead birds. I took pics, but GF thought they were "gross" so I'm trying to show good judgement and not put them here. You're welcome.


More crab carnage: Crabby head-head.


As I mentioned before, one of GF's favorite past times is to take off while I'm staring at something. Case in point: As I was taking a fantastic picture of the above crabby head, I had no idea where she was, other than the fact that before I looked down to take said pic, she was standing  right beside me. I snap 2 pictures, look up to say "Hey, got another pic of another crabby head," (there had been several at this point) and she was nowhere to be seen. I look waaay up the beach and see this...


She's actually about a half mile away.


Another thing we've started to notice along the beach are these weird small jelly balls. They totally didn't look bilogical, but I had no idea. I figured that all the fake whores with implants somehow knew when their implants were going to spit the implants out, so they instinctively headed for the sea to expel their fakeness only to have them all wash up here on this one beach just outside of Astoria. Oceans currents are weird, as we all well know. My other hypothesis, while far less logical, was just as entertaining to me in my own mind. It takes the form of a conversation between two of the jelly balls out at sea (in this scenario, they actually are biological creatures, and as a point of reference, really freaking dumb)...

jelly1 - Hey, I got an idea. Let's go to the beach!
jelly2 - Hey, yeah! Sounds awesome! Where should we go?
jelly1 - I hear Astoria is pretty awesome. Let's go check it out!
jelly2 -Yeah, let's go check it out! Come on everyone!
jellys3-infinity - Okay! Let's go!

After which they all wind up stuck on the beach...

jelly2 - Um, now what?
jelly1 - I don't know. I forgot that we're aquatic.

At which point, they all died. Sad, I know.

Baby jelly ball. About the size of my pinkie-nail. Dead.
Seriously, these things were everywhere. Some really freaking small, some not so small. I think the biggest one we noticed was about the size of a baby. Just kidding. It was a baby. Just kidding. It was about the size of a baby's hand.




Not the big one the size of a baby or it's hand.


GF did some research as to what the crap they were, and it turns out they actually were creatures. But they were clear. Those of you who know me know that I have this weird thing about clear stuff. But this stuff was completely clear and it was creatures. Not just kind of clear like a jellyfish, but completely clear, like bags of water. Weird. Here's a link to what they actually were:


And no, I have no idea why they light up at sea and not on beaches. Modesty, I'm guessing.

GF also provided me with another link about them:


... and then followed it with the info that Salps is at the end.


Next stop, the Flavel house. People seem to love this place because it was in the Goonies or something (I still haven't seen it). It was built by George Flavel, a bar pilot, who became the first millionaire in the region or something. Nice house. Lots of history. Read more about him online somewhere, and definitely go to this house if you're ever in Astoria.
The back of the Flavel House/Museum.


My favorite part of the house/museum was the lady in the gift shop, which used to be the stables on the southwest corner of the property. She was full of all kinds of trivia, and posed it all in the form of a quiz. "Which member of the Flavel family was on the Titanic?" How the crap should I know? I wasn't even sure of George's first name until a few days later when I was reading through the brochure. She was funny though. And helpful.


Facing northeast, with boats in the background.


The only thing I didn't like about this house were the spiders. Seriously, they were freaking everywhere!! You couldn't turn around without coming face to... when we walked back to the car we had to walk in the middle of the street because they were all over all the bushes. And they weren't the easily ignorable kind, either. Oh no, they had to be the weird, tiger-striped kind that were all twitchy and freaking gross. Good gog, why, lord, why?

After the Flavel house (which, by the way, is pronounced "fluh-VELL" - being a tard, I was pronouncing it "FLA-vl" where the FLA kind of rhymed with the "a" sound in "slap". And by the way, Astoria is pronounced "A-storia" where the "A" rhymes with, well, "ass". It's like "ASS-toria", not like "uh-STOR-ia" which is what I've been doing. Anyway...) we wandered over to the Maritime Museum. I was expecting all kinds of kick ass stuff about the Cloumbia river like all the creatures that lived there and junk, but the whole thing was about boats. I'm not that into boats and neither is GF, so we bailed after about 30 minutes. It was cool, but just not our thing. If you're into boats, go. You'll dig it.

After that we decided to grub it up a bit. We had decided to go to this place called Baked Alaska, so we go there and park. The menu seemed promising. We weren't really all that hungry yet, so we walked around for a bit. The people there are a hoot. OH! And we heard sea lions under the pier so we went to investigate. We were standing there trying to peer under the pier, when all of a sudden, one of them popped his head up right in front of us. Cute as balls, fo sho.

So we go back to the restaurant and are seated with a nice view of the river. GF immediately gets the impression that our waitress doesn't like her. I try to reassure her that the waitress probably has no opinions of us one way or another, as we are merely there to eat. But over the course of the meal GF keeps assuring me that there is indeed weirdness. At one point after we were finished with our entrees, the waitress comes out and says to GF, "are you finished there, because we were back there watching you and didn't think you'd finish your pasta." Weird, right? They were watching her? Weird. The food wasn't good enough for that kind of weirdness. But we decided that since we were in a place called Baked Alaska that we would be remiss of didn't have the baked alaska they had named themselves after. The chef himself brings this thing out, was very kind and cheerful and lays this thing down between us, and holy frog water, this thing was amazing. I need to have it at least once a year. More. MORE.

Our weird dining experience behind us and the sun setting further and further, we decide to take one last trek back up to the Column to see it all lit up and night and junk.


Lit up at night and junk.


There was no way I was going to climb that thing at night, so we walked around and took pics from the hill. Really, we just needed a bathroom before the 2 hour drive home.


Astoria at night. Quaint!!


The later it got, the more things lit up and became more awesome. Because it gets darker when it gets later, or so I'm told. Plus when it gets darker they light things up to make them noticeable and awesome.


Noticeable and awesome.


We never found the Kindergarten Cop school or the Ring 2 locations, but it's not like we're not going back. I want to live in Naomi Watt's house from the Ring. It's not a great house, but it's the Ring 2 house. I think I need to watch the Ring 2 again. Not even because of the Astoria trip, I just love that movie.

Yay, Astoria!