Well, at least I think I’m funny.

Spring is here! Finally I can schuck off this layer of skin that’s been battered by icy rains, slushy snows, and windy winds that didn’t bring a harsh winter, but a harshly long winter.

There’s something about Spring that I like way more than Fall. Lots of people I know will say “you’re crazy - Fall is great.” Then I push them and say “how was that fall?!” And we laugh and laugh as they cough up blood.

Stuff kind of stops happening in the winter time. People stay inside and become a ghost in both hue and recreation. In the fall it’s a big wind-down from all the traveling and heat of the summer and a gearing into family mode for going home often for holidays and buying warm clothes for winter. Spring is great because there’s always a feeling of something new.

The sun comes out and ideas start blossoming in my brain about all the cool stuff I’m interested in and what the next 6 months will bring until I run into my whole fending off the beating fists of winter’s chilly poundings.

What’s on my agenda for the summer? Hopefully a lot more music - playing and watching, maybe some more creative-writing side-projects and, if things go well, a potentially VERY cool thing that’d be a perfect fit for me.

I’m also looking forward to getting a second opinion on my shoulder and rehabbing the crap out of it. Because come this time next year, I not only want to be coaching Ultimate, but playing it again as well.

Happy Spring everyone!

I would like to give a big middle-finger to Al Gore.

I suppose you want me to explain, in some entertaining fashion, why I don’t like Mr. Gore. Alright, fine, I will.

Aside from the fact that he is the most boring man alive and imposes his boring qualities on others (I mean, a movie about Global Warming? Next thing you know we’ll have a movie about saying “no” to drugs. And not one of those crappy, in-school only movies, but a crappy, big-budget hollywood movie) but he has ruined spring.

That’s right. Al Gore has ruined Spring.

It is mid-April and yesterday it was so freakin’ freezing outside I wanted to blow people’s brains out. You see, I don’t have SAD. I have SAD. The difference is in the A (isn’t it always?) - I get Seasonal Agressive Disorder. But you know what really gets my chickens in a stew? What really rains on my parade? What really Imuses my championship?

Today. On the Today Show. On the weather. I mean, it’s kind of like Al Gore wants me to throw my TV out the window. A Nor’Easter (which, by the way, I had never heard of until like last year. Did they even exist before then?) is coming our way. On Sunday. Lots of rain. Lots of snow.

I am SICK of the cold. And I am SICK of the rain and I certainly don’t want to see any more snow.

And the reason I blame Al Gore for all of this is because of his stupid movie and his stupid global warming activism. Because if he preached about global warming and it were actually hotter, then people would be like “that Al Gore, he really nailed that one on the head!” But that will never happen. Because Al Gore has the curse of the unsavory douchebag. He will never be right. No one will ever take him seriously, and he will always be that guy who is “ok, but pretty annoying after a while.”

I even remember years ago, the first time I saw him, thinking “This guy is just useless. I bet he’s never right about anything and that any idea he has is a bad idea.”

So thanks a lot Al Gore. Why don’t you go preach about how awesome it is to be fat? Then maybe lots of people will lose weight. Or make a movie about how cool it is to have aids, and I bet that will single-handedly provide the cure. I hate you Al Gore.

Gmail is a pretty sweet tool and even sweeter are the text advertisements that come along with it. I’m blown away that I can be writing someone an email about Ultimate, music, or dogs in hilarious halloween costumes, and the advertisements that come up always seem to hit the mark…well not always, but when they don’t hit the mark, I always seem to say “I see your point text advertisement and I understand why you think I’d like this based on the text in a previous email, but you’re just dead wrong.” And then I take it out for a beer and try to hit on it and makeout with it.

The other cool thing is that it will put headlines up at the top of my messages from magazines or news sites. Again, these headlines are at least loosely related to the general topic of an email. This morning I clicked on a link to Wired online’s site. It was about video games or something but that’s beside the point. I decided I’d go check out Wired’s home page since I often get Wired headlines in Gmail and I figure Gmail knows what I like and I like what Gmail knows I know.

After reading a bit on the homepage I ran across the following article:

Basically some guy who calls himself “The Luddite” named Tony Long is sounding off about the “Blogosphere” and how we suck at writing and often lie and report news that isn’t true and that we’re all self-involved a-holes who are over-privledged, under-educated, and should be shot, every last one of us, and then be fed to robot dinosaurs while we watch our friends and family being roasted over a pyre of our own blog posts, printed out and set ablaze by monkeys dressed up as firemen.

He would also like us to cite sources and use our real names because not using your real name means you’re a coward:

If you’re going to fire a rocket at someone in a blog post, or anywhere else, at least have the class to use your real name and stand behind your vitriol. Anything less makes you a coward and invalidates whatever bile you’ve spewed.

My name is on this, and I’m calling you gutless if you don’t sign yours. What are you going to do about it, blogger boy?¹

Oh no! Some old, ugly guy is out to get bloggers! Jeepers Scoob, let’s scram!

You know, you don’t HAVE to read blogs. Nor do you have to believe everything they say.

Just because you were cruising by Perez Hilton and looked like a real turd around all your lady-man friends at your “Tom’s Finally Mine!” tea-party because you misunderstood the headline “Tom Cruise has come out!” doesn’t mean you need to trash all non-professional bloggers.

And Tony, some advice - when you read a blog you should be prepared to do the following:

1) Be incredibly skeptical of anything presented as fact (this goes for all media, not just blogging, but especially blogging).
2) Lower your standard from “literature” to “amateur.” Many people write to keep a journal for THEMSELVES. Not so you can read it and think they’re the next F. Scott Fitzgerald and to get book and movie deals.
3) Try not to be angry that, even though we lie and haven’t taken a writing class, the majority of us are smarter and funnier than you are.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying blogs are awesome. I’m just saying MY blog is awesome. Because it’s here to entertain me. I get to write whatever I want. Stupid, zainy, mindless crap that keeps my creative juices flowing and that makes me laugh out loud and expresses my opinion.

If you don’t like it, don’t read it. If you read it, don’t believe it’s true or that the intentions are good journalism. And for God’s sake, lighten up.

I fire my rocket at you Tony Long. Huff it, chode-star.

¹Tony Long, 04.12.07 for Wired Magazine Online, submitted at 2:00 AM while crying and feasting on a tub of Ben&Jerry’s, blaming his slow metabolism for his obesity, and his obesity for his lack of friends. And crying because he looks like this:

I like Dave Foley as much as the next guy:

Not at all.

Kids in the Hall never made me laugh. Newsradio did, but not when Dave Foley was on screen, and I have to say that the idea of having Dave Foley as some sort of comedy judge on “Thank God You’re Here” is completely laughable.

There’s no way some untalented, easy-going Canadian is going to tell ME who’s funny. I knew from the get go this would be terrible and settled down to watch the first episode of the show the other day, just to prove myself right.

I watched the debut and, while it isn’t the funniest show I have ever seen, I certainly laughed more than I thought I would - particularly at Stifler’s Mom who I thought would suck. Also, the guy who hosts Soup on E! was on, and he surprised me with the amount of times he got a laugh out of me. Newman did a good job but nothing too stellar.

But you know who I thought was terrible? Malcolm’s Dad/Tim Watley. Awful. I’ve never seen a stupider, more unfunny improvisation in my life.

Guess who Dave Foley picked as the “winner?”

I can say with absolute certainty that of all the people who are involved in comedy on TV, Dave Foley is in the top 3 of “Most undeserving of a job requiring people to either be funny or gauge the humor of others.”

The day will come when Dave Foley will die, hopefully in some sort of fight-to-the-death cage-match with fellow moron Carlos Mencia¹ that renders them both lifeless from a lance that has pierced their brain, hurled by either Jack Bauer or myself making a surprise appearance.

Then I’ll host a show. And it’ll be called “Thank God you’re dead.” And Dave and Carlos will be the first to win an award. And I will pee on their graves. The end.

¹I really hope someone leaves me a grammatically horrendous comment telling me how great Carlos Mencia is because he isn’t “afraid” to “tell it like it is.”

My job requires that I keep in contact with many clients. Sometimes one particular company can contain literally hundreds of people I need to talk to. In order to do this I will occassionally resort to email.

The emails I send are about two sentences long and read something like this:

Dear Person’s Name,

Just wondering if you could use my goods/services for your goods/services. I’m always available to do x, y, or z. Let me know if I can help.

Andy

Occassionally some people get the email and they’re not supposed to, or they’ve switched to a different department. Such was the case with one particular woman who wrote back:

I am no longer doing X. Please take me off your list.

I did and then responded:

Done and done!

I didn’t get another response from her saying thanks or good luck or she’d pass my name along to the right people. Fine.

For some reason some people got the email twice. This woman was one of them, to which she responded (keep in mind, she didn’t respond to me removing her):

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!

Now, many of you know me to be a patient and caring man. You are all idiots and don’t know me very well. But since I can’t berate a client like I can a life-long friend or someone I hate but will never do business with, I had to respond nicely.

I suppose it’s possible person X may find this blog, but, I don’t really care. I think it would’ve been hilarious to write the following as my third response:

Dear Mrs. X,

I’m really sorry you got my email twice. I forgot about your debilitating bout with illiteracy and how long it takes you to read two sentences. This no doubt threw off your entire work-flow for the day, and caused you several hours of difficult “sounding-it-out,” embarassing you in front of your peers and superiors. I hope after a few years and some calming meditation you will be able to forgive me for this mentally assaulting, moronic oversight on my part. Tonight I plan on paying penance by cutting myself to the bone and carving your initials into my chest. Perhaps a prolonged hospital stay and the gigantic and hideous scar of your monogram over my heart will teach me my lesson.

Painstakingly yours,

Andy

A group of men exist under the guise of employment by my office building’s owners. They wear a uniform: a beige shirt almost as bland as I imagine their existence to be, and dark dickies. They are an everyman. They are Jacks-of-all trades. Sometimes they clean the bathrooms (and sometimes they don’t), sometimes they vacuum the elevators, sometimes they replace the toilet paper (and sometimes they don’t), and other times they extort you for using the freight lift.

The FLM has 3 main members. 1 of these 3 is on duty at all times to operate the freight lift. At any hour of the day you can go and ring for the lift and have an unfriendly immigrant answer your call. The freight lift in my building looks much like any other freight lift, other than the fact that it also seems to serve as an office for whichever of the three freight lift trolls (or mafiosi if you prefer) decides to actually work¹. It is equipped with a single-speaker radio from 1992, a calendar (obtained for free at a bank), and a small table and office chair. The majority of the table’s space is occupied by the radio and a copy of a newspaper in a foreign language.

During business hours (9-6) you can use the lift as much as you want, free of charge. However if it is even 1 minute before 9 or past 6, you have to pay $5 per trip on the lift.

When asked to explain this fee it was explained to me that even though they are there and it is their job, it is after 6. Apparently since no one else is working after 6, they feel they shouldn’t have to work after 6 either. Please keep in mind that these men seldom work during regular working hours as well.

As some of you may have guessed we also have regular elevators in our building. Regular elevators that normal people are allowed to operate (There’s something about throwing a lever that says “hire unskilled laborer” to a building employer). You might wonder why one might bother to use the freight lift at all when you could just take whatever box or large, though wheeled, crate you have onto the regular elevator. Especially after 6. When most people have gone home.

There is a man who stands at the door all day long. I can’t properly label him a doorman as he is largely in charge of nothing and takes pride in allowing most anyone to stroll into the building. His English is terrible and he speaks with an extremely heavy Indian accent. His job appears to be to stand around and confuse people, and occasionally bother them with trivial matters. He has no computer, doesn’t make people sign-in, doesn’t have one of those fancy badge-makers found at HBO or other large companies, and quite frankly stands and stares most of the day. Recently a monitor was installed that shows what 4 cameras are looking at - so he looks at that monitor now. When it was first installed he would actually stand with his back to the door and stare at the monitor to watch who was coming and going. Keep in mind he is literally 5 feet from the front door. There is nothing obstructing his sight line from the front desk to the door. He merely prefers to stand and stare at the LCD monitor, than to stand and stare at the doors.

One day I thought I could just wheel the large crate in which my company keeps a TV and some studio monitors (used for trade shows) onto the elevator. As I wheeled the flight case into the lobby and onto the elevator, the tiny Indian man came after me insisting I have to use the freight lift.

“You cannot take dis on de elevator! Freight lift! Freight lift!”

I tried to make my case stating that the crate would easily fit on the elevator, there was no one else in the lobby waiting to go upstairs, and it weighed far less than the average human. This logic seemed to drive him mad as he began shouting louder. I figured I’d comply with his demand because I’m fairly certain he couldn’t understand me anyway.

Wheeling the crate down a few doors to the freight entrance and struggling to fit it in the door as one of the mafiosi offered his assistance to help by staring and blinking, I worked my way over to the freight lift. The mafioso followed me onto the elevator and proceeded to explain to me their system of payment.

“But what does it matter if its after 6? You’re still here aren’t you? And you’re being paid to be here, right?”

This caused him, let’s call him Jose, this caused Jose to become very angry with me.

“It dohsent matter! I take you up after 6, you pay me $5!”

I figured there really wasn’t much of a choice here and well-knowing that I didn’t have $5, or any cash for that matter, I figured I’d accept his terms.

We reached my floor and I fumbled my wallet from my jeans and did my best to look surprised, “Oh heck! Would you look at that? I don’t have any cash.”

“Is okay. I come by your office tomorrow. Number?”

I stupidly gave him the correct number.

The next day there was a knock on the door and the glorified janitor walked into my office just after the sound deadend in the room. “Come in.” I quipped as he was already standing just a few feet from my desk.

“You owe me five dollar!”

“No. I don’t. Please leave. I’m on a conference call.”

“You owe me five dollar! You have to pay! I brought you up after six.”

I responded not to him, but to the people on my call, “Yeah. No there’s just some guy in here. Yeah I think that’s a great idea.”

“Oh you just ignore me!?”

“HEY. JACKASS. I’m ON a CONFERENCE call! You can’t just walk into someone’s office and start demanding things of them! Please leave!”

“You owe me–!”

“I AM NOT PAYING YOU! YOU HAVE INTRUDED MY OFFICE. IF YOU STAY ANOTHER SECOND, I AM CALLING BUILDING MANAGEMENT TO SETTLE THIS DEBATE OVER YOUR PAYMENT!”

“YOU CALL THEM! THEY WILL TELL YOU YOU HAVE TO PAY! CALL NOW!”

At this point I was really pissed off. I stood up from my desk, got as close to the guy as I possibly could, and said “leave. now.” It’s nice to be 6′2″ sometimes. The mafioso stormed out.

After some chiding from my co-workers who heard every word of this on the call and were laughing hysterically, I decided to call building management.

“They what? No, they’re not allowed to do that.”

The guy came back later and I explained that his boss said he wasn’t allowed to do that. He called him from his cell phone and angrily stormed off arguing into the phone. Minutes later he returned.

“This time is okay. But boss says from now on you pay us $5 for using lift after 6!”

“Fine. Just tell him to put it in writing and submit it to me, and I’ll gladly pay you.”

This took place months ago and I have yet to see anything that even remotely resembles a contract, invoice request, or even a piece of paper with a fake signature on it. Eat it chumps.

So if anyone would like to visit me at work, I highly recommend coming after 6 and using the freight lift. It’s spacious, there’s a radio, and you can check to see what day it is. Oh, and piss off immigrants running an illegal racket. And really, what’s more fun than that?

¹Working is loosely defined as “doing something other than listening to the radio, standing around talking to the “doorman,” or harassing someone to use the freight lift.

There is a floor in my building that the elevator frequently stops on. It’s the fourth floor. The fourth floor isn’t unlike any other floor on my building; it blends right in. But the tenants on that floor, the people who always are leaving it or going to it, are typically retarded. They travel in fairly large groups as there are usually at least 4 of them and they flood the small cabin of the elevator odoriferously testing both its maximum occupancy and the tolerance of personal space of those waiting to go to lunch or go home or head up to their office.

I really like the retarded people. They always seem to be in good spirits, they tell each other “I love you” a lot, they’re enthusiastic about pretty much everything (except maybe personal hygene and doing laundry - but I know I don’t shower everyday and there have certainly been some morning-afters where I know my pores are seeping with whatever the by-product of my body cleansing itself of a straopheric BAC is). But today as I took a trip down the elevator and lamented as it passed the 4th floor without hesitation I wondered what retarded people think of each other.

Last night on Cold Case (which was the first, and most likely last time I have watched it) there was a story of a high school cheerleader fending off the demons of peer pressure. This came to mind as the glowing numerator above me blinked off from 4 and on to 3 and for some reason I thought “I really like those retarded people. I wonder if they like each other?” And then I started wondering if maybe there are clicks just like all of us experienced in high school.

Could there be a retarded nerd, or a retarded bad-ass? I have actually seen 2 or 3 of them smoking cigarettes - maybe they’re the bad-ass retarded people? Maybe there are retarded cheerleaders and retarded jocks, retarded band nerds and retarded hot vocal jazz chicks? Do they make fun of each other? If so, how? Is it okay to make fun of people with the same degree of mental retardation as you and uncool to pick on the “retarded retarded” people no matter how cool of a retarded person you are?

Then I really started to fixate on the idea of “cool retarded” people. What makes them cool? Do they have the best shoes? Or maybe their motor skills are slightly better. It could possibly be they pick up the most chicks - like maybe one of the cool retarded people’s claim to fame is “Yeah, I totally made out with an average person the other night.”

Or maybe they have cool catch phrases like “Are you down with my syndrome?!” and “that’s average!”

None of this is probably the case. Why? Because I’m the retarded one. My social upbringing was such that I learned somewhere to not like people because of the way they looked. Or to judge someone because of the clothes they wear, the back-pack they have, or how attractive they are. If someone is good at sports I’m supposed to think they’re awesome but if they’re good at math, I’m supposed to call them a dork. If someone’s better than me at something I should make fun of them so they can feel inferior in some way.

I’m guessing those people on the fourth floor wouldn’t ever call you a name and I bet you any money they don’t care how good you are at sports. If you’re good at math I bet they think that’s pretty cool. There are most likely a lot of things that the average person does that they think is really neat and if you said hello and smiled at them they’d return it in kind and not walk away thinking “man that guy was a real douche” or “ohmyGod! Did you see that girl’s jeans? SHA! AS IF!” Nope. They walk away thinking “What a cool guy, he said hello to me and smiled!” or “Man that lady smelled nice!”

And while perhaps they’re not able to make the most complex of thoughts I’m going to make it my goal to be a little bit more retarded from now on, and I hope you’ll join me in getting down with the syndrome.