Monday wrap up

-This weekend I was completely worthless, missing a good friend of mine who was in from out of town and also the opportunity to watch some good French horror with other good friends. And whose fault is it? Dracula. Dracula and work. Both are kicking my butt and giving me just enough energy left over to search for gas and toaster my strudels. I’ve had the sinking suspicion I’ve been about to get sick for the last two weeks. So far, I’ve held it at bay but it’s been coming and going. Lots of vitamins and sleep.

-Speaking of Dracula and searching for gas, the two collided this weekend. See, we’re in rehearsals right now and that often means a lot of sitting around. Sitting around for me usually means (once I’ve got my lines memorized) reading comic books and goofing around trying to entertain myself. On Sunday, I was sitting around for an hour or so and started searching the theatre and found face markers for little kids. You can mark your face with them and wash them off (I presumed). Anywho, I gave myself kitty whiskers along with a flower on my forearm and the words “Renf” and “Ield” on my fingers. So when my hour and a half wait was over, I went on to hand Dracula a briefcase. No words, just a briefcase hand off. When he looked at me and smiled I meowed. Ha ha, time passed. Mission accomplished.

After rehearsal I begin my hunt for gas. One of the guys said there’s some on the edge of town so away I went. And there was! And only a minimal line! So I wait and eventually get a spot. Now I was so excited about finding gas that I didn’t pull up as close to the pump as I could have. I was close but no cigar. Unfortunately I was close enough to the car beside me that it would have been a tight squeeze for a car to get by me. A guy pulls up behind me and can’t get by. I wave and mouth “Sorry about that.” He waves back, sticks his head out the window and says, very friendly-like, “No worries, take your time.” I finish, wave, say ‘Thanks’, and with a huge smile waves back.

Now this is pretty rare right now. Everybody is pissed and on edge. Fist fights are happening at the pumps and gas stations with gas are hiring police officers to regulate people and are starting to use people to direct traffic because drivers don’t understand the idea of forming a line and waiting your turn. As I described it yesterday, when a crazy person meets an inconsiderate person, there’s going to be fireworks. But this little interaction went great. I get in my car and drive away.

Halfway down the road I realize I still have my kitty whiskers. Hey, who can get mad at a guy with kitty whiskers?

-Funny quotes recently.
Director gives the instruction to several ladies (Dracula’s disciples, the Vixens) in the cast: “The vixens do it on the ground.” I turn to my pal Steve and say, “Oddly, I have that bumper sticker on my car.”

A couple of minutes later, I kill an attendant, the very same attendant (Steve) who wheels us on and off stage. So he falls down dead and I say to him, “Hmmm….how are we going to get off when you’re dead?” And Steve says, “Oddly that’s what my bumper sticker says.” I know, I have the humor of a frat boy and a 5 year old mixed together but I laughed about it again today and smile everytime I think of it. What a creepy bumper sticker that would be.

-Speaking of comic books, just got finished reading “Fables: 1001 nights of snowfall.” Overall it’s a great book and fills in nicely some of the gaps left by the normal Fables series. But one guy in particularly blew me away: John Bolton. No, not the Republican guy, but rather the artist John Bolton. He has a realistic painted style similar to Alex Ross, but only slightly less hyper-real. He illustrated a story of Snow White and the Prince after that had been together and before they split up. Here’s a pic from it, taken from Mr. Bolton’s website, johnbolton.com.

For Andrew

Managed to catch the birds in my beard out for a stroll.

The 9 stages of my wife being away

I never figured myself for the co-dependent type but when my wife is away, I ride a mental rollercoaster. Oddly, I've noticed a lot of people who live with someone else experience these same stages. I think I’ve locked down the stages that we go through when we have the house to ourselves. I’ve chronicled them for your viewing/reading pleasure. It ain’t pretty. You’ve been warned.

Stage 1- “Party!”
This involves me making bratwurst and other smelly foods that would probably make my wife throw-up if she were home. Also, I drink crappy beer. One time I totally gave myself food-poisoning from eating food that was way too old to be eaten. I don't read expiration dates in this phase. This is also known as the “free wheeling bachelor” stage, and sometimes being a free wheeling bachelor means you throw up and wallow in your own filth.

Stage 2- “Quiet”
I’m usually sitting in the dark a lot during this phase, trying to figure out how to entertain myself. This stage involves me watching lots of wrestling, reading comic books, and exercising. As an aside, totally wrenched my back Sunday while exercising. Do you see a trend forming? When she’s gone, I hurt myself accidently a lot.

Stage 3- “Insomnia (also known as the “sitting in my underwear playing video games” phase)”
Pretty much what the title and addendum describes. I can’t sleep. I don’t shower. I play video games. And I sometimes wear overalls with no shirt. I have the urge to do productive things but not the energy to actually perform them.

Stage 4- “Paranoia”
Having someone else in the house, when you hear a noise, you can ask “did you hear that?” and “dial 9-1 (waiting to dial the other 1)while I go check it out.” When you are by yourself, however, you have to depend on your own senses. I also depend on dogs barking but they bark at EVERYTHING which makes me more paranoid because I think they’re hearing something I cannot, like a chainsaw murderer. Dogs can hear someone trying to crank a chainsaw.

Stage 5- “Dress up the dogs”
This is where things get a little weird. You’ve seen the dogs with their hats on, right? It’s like that, only a little bit worse. This distracts us both from the looming chainsaw murderer. And if the chainsaw murderer breaks in and sees Yoshi in a nurse’s uniform or Penelope with a ukulele, well how could he hack us up?

Stage 6- “I’m going to do everything!!!!”
This is where I decide to get focused and do everything that doesn’t get done while my wife is home. This includes: writing a play, playing guitar, weed-wacking the drive-way, flossing.

Stage 7- “I’m gonna get drunk!”
Stage 6 quickly dissipates and gives way to stage 7. Sometimes this means I’ll call folks to go get drunk with me and sometimes it means I’ll sit at home, get drunk and call people only to annoy them.

Stage 8- The “oh crap, she’ll be home soon, I gotta get this place cleaned up” phase. This is where I realize she’ll be home in a day or so and clean up all the fast food bags, pizza boxes, discarded socks in front of the couch, and wash the dishes. Sometimes I vacuum even. Also I feed the fish finally.

Stage 9- She's back.

She finally comes back and I take a shower and get a good night’s sleep, for once.

Hayder in 'Beast of Burden'

There was a time when I made happy comics.

Best,

mmyers

Mike said do it so I'm doing it.

1. Take a picture of yourself right now.
2. Don't change your clothes, don't fix your hair...just take a picture.
3. Post that picture with NO editing.
4. Post these instructions with your picture

VERSUS!!!!

Here’s a little column I like to call Versus, where I take two similar things and lock them in MORTALLLL CCOMMMMBBAAATTTT!

There is no mercy in these battles to the finish. To prove this point, I’ll start by pitting two of my favorite things against each other: me versus me. That’s right, it’s my 2004 headshot versus my 2008 headshot and it’s a heads-up battle between good and evil…or good and good 4 years ago. Maybe it’s just a battle of time itself! Yes! A battle ripping the very fabric of time and the fabric of cotton. Permanent press cotton!

The Surface:
Well, on the surface, the differences are obvious. In 2004, we didn’t have color yet. It wasn’t invented. Baseball games were played in super fast motion and fatty Arbuckle was the king of comedy. The days of yester-year. In 2008, Technicolor reigns. Yes, rain is now in Technicolor, as is everything, as am I. Unfortunately, with this addition of ‘color’, I have become gray and aged, taxed to the max by the coloration process. Also, I wear a coat now. The coloring of the Earth has created another Ice Age, and I am forced to wear a jacket now, a red corduroy jacket to be precise.

As far as what has not changed, well I still hold my hands in front of myself, forming a finger cage around my genitals. It protected my privates in 2004 and it still works today. If I’m out on the street looking contemplative, you know I’ll be forming my finger cage.

Who would Win in a fight?:
AGE: 2004 Me
-Well for obvious reasons, I was 4 years younger so of course 2004 Me would have the advantage. There’s no way I’ve become younger in the last 4 years. Sheesh what a stupid question.

STRENGTH: 2008 Me
-Definitely stronger than I was then. I weigh about 20 pounds more now with 10 pounds of it being exercise strength and 10 of it being combo meal #1 at Krystals and Dr Pepper. Oh, in 2004 I was doing a show where I wanted to be smaller so I probably would have been drained.

SKILL: 2008 Me
-I went through a period of wrestling a lot in 2007, so yeah, I’d totally take 2004 Me with a StoneCold Stunner, yo!!

OPTIMISM: 2004 Me
-2004, I was hitting on all cylinders. Things were really taking off. Little did I know that 2008 would be a dandy kick in the balls. 2007 was no bowl of peaches either. But in 2004, I was hitting my stride.

Financial: 2008 Me
-Oh that’s me allright, but that’s because I’m working a lot more. Good grief, I work a lot. But I have a house now. And two more dogs. Now that's living. And my old dog has to eat special food now. You think I could have afforded that special food in 2004? No way, Jose Conseco.

THE RESULT:
If it’s a battle of strength, it’s 2008 Me, but if 2004 Me zeroed in on 2008’s exhausted/fragile mental state, I think he’d win by TKO as 2008 me would start crying from watching Ric Flair’s retirement speech.

IF THEY MET:
Warnings 2008 Me would give 2004 Me:
-You’re going to lose your job in 2007. It’s a shitty job, but you’ll lose it nonetheless so start planning for that so you can go out on your own terms. Of course the severance will be nice but the subsequent panic after the severance will turn your once bouncy and luxurious brown hair thinner and greyer.

-Don’t collide with Logan at wrestling practice. It’ll give you scar tissue over that eye and just plain suck in the middle of you losing your job.

-Don’t expect Deadwood to end in a way that you’ll be happy with. Enjoy the ride but skip the ending.

-P Diddy’s Vote or Die campaign will have absolutely no bearing on the election.


Things 2004 Me would say if he saw 2008 Me:
-Lay off the fast food, huh? That jacket isn’t hiding the fact that you’ve chubbed up, beardy. Bytheway, you’re kind of starting to look like the dad from Family Ties. Is that what you’re ‘going for’?

-Wow, our hair just keeps getting shorter and shorter, huh? I don’t need a fortune teller to see where this is going.

-Do the Star Wars movies ever get any better? ….oh.
A cartoon spin-off?! That sounds awesome!...oh.


See? Pretty brutal.

A small thing

My pal Justin and I are writing a little story (about a guy in space) and I'm a nerd who loves little tidbits so this is a piece of the story I made that has tickled me over the last few days. Enjoy.

I think you can click on it to make it bigger. That's what she said.

Alabama fine dining

Took a little trip this weekend to visit my mom in Florida. If there’s one thing I love about visiting Florida, it’s driving through backwoods Alabama. Alabama convenience stores are a huge draw for me. I don’t know of a state that takes more pride in its gas stations. You can buy denim jean there and boots and assorted hats, along with boiled peanuts and fried chicken. I honestly love stopping off there and it usually adds some time on to my trip but it’s well worth it.

Another thing to love is they always have tester products, stuff that they’re thinking about releasing to the general populace but they want to see how it sells in Alabama (and possibly if someone will die from ingesting it). I also can usually find Cheerwine (if you don’t know this soda, do yourself a favor and go to a convenience store in the middle of nowhere and get one) there and I usually opt for a mystery soda. Peanut butter Chex mix, Almond MnM’s and pickle flavored potato chips all started in Alabama convenience stores. And Alabama gave them a passing grade (like they do with all children who attend school) and now we can have them too. However, worlds collided when I found this little nugget:





Dr. Wham. You know how I feel about the surnamed sodas, right? Well, I saw this little treasure and had to get it. I wanted to know what the next step in the Dr-Mr Pibb-Pepper evolution would be. So I bought it and drank it.

It tasted terrible. It tasted like melted Nerds. You know, the Willy Wonka candy? It was like that in soda form. I don’t expect to see Dr. Wham making a big splash anytime soon. The only positive I can think of for it is that it gave me an excuse to sing Wham songs and George Michael songs, which I’m always looking for an excuse to do. “Careless Whisper” got me to Brewton. “Wake me up before you go-go” to Flomaton. A weird side-effect was wanting to stop off at a rest area and pick up some dude, which is pretty dangerous in Alabama, Dr. Wham or no. But I fought that off with some Bob Seeger. I ‘turned the page’ so to speak.

Final Verdict: If you’re confident in your manhood and don’t need an excuse to sing George Michael, avoid this soda.

You should listen

This makes my heart hurt.

CD Swap

Hey guys and gals,
So, a thought. At one of my old favorite haunts, stripcreator.com, we did a thing called a CD swap, wherein we would make compilation of songs we dug and trade them with folks who you may or may not know. Then we'd all mail the disks to each other. Then you'd get some new CDs in the mail, and getting mail is fun no mater what anyone says and new tunes are even more fun.

So I've got mates from a couple different spots in the world, although I think most friends who read this are Georgians, so what does everyone think of a CD swap? You'd have to burn a couple copies of your disk, or heck, send it to me and I'd burn off a couple copies and send them out. It's a great way to be exposed to some new tunes and it's fun to see what people are digging on. If the group got too big, which I doubt it would but if it did, we could divide into groups so you're not burning 10 copies of your CD. Groups of 4 was how the stripcreator did it. I dunno, mull it over.

If it's something that sounds fun, shoot me an email over at matt@mr-pixel.com.

Random stuff plucked from scraps of paper around my desk

-Today I’m wearing my Spider-Man shirt. My wife dried it and she hung it with a clothes-pin on the right shoulder. Unfortunately, it stretched it and now I have a weird hump there, small and pointy. So I now I need to go to the gym and work out that particular muscle so the shirt won’t look weird. So if anyone knows what that muscle is over the right shoulder and what I can do to work it out and bring it to a spiny point, I’d be grateful.

Oddly this shirt might be cursed as it had a toothpaste stain that didn’t seem to want to go away. Now that it has, I have a pointy hump.

-After watching so much political crap I’m beginning to think that the only thing America exports anymore is sarcasm.

-I’m a connoisseur of sodas with sir names. Dr Pepper and Mr. Pibb (now deemed Pibb Xtra because being a Mister and not a Doctor wasn’t X-treme enough) being the leaders, but I enjoy the knock-offs more. Of them, I’ve enjoyed Dr. Thunder (Wal-Mart brand and nickname for Thor), Dr. K (Publix, and lesser known brother of Julius Irving), Dr. Chek (Winn-Dixie I think, and Czechoslovakian discount surgeon), but undoubtedly my favorite is Piggly-Wiggly’s Mr. Pigg. I like it because Mr. Pigg demands your respect, like Sidney Portier in In the Heat of the Night. “They call me MR. Pigg.” I couldn’t tell you if it’s any better than the others, ingredient-wise, but the joy I get from it is 10-fold better. A pig who’s a doctor, what a country!

Good luck finding a Piggly Wiggly, though. Fortunately there’s one by my pal Steve’s place, so Mr. Pigg in the house.

-Current word I’m enjoying: recalcitrant. I think because I’m feeling a bit like that, although I’d much rather be compliant, I think. I’m just bad at it.

-Current phrase in a book I’m hating: “It was like nothing she had ever felt before.” That’s just lazy. And bad. Instead of wasting my time reading that sentence, why not write a sentence that explains how she DID feel? Silly.

-Horrible name of the week: Nicewonger. It isn’t ‘Nice-wanger’ fortunately, but it’s just a bad sounding last name. Not that you can do much about your last name but still, go into Witness Relo or something.

Blue canary in the outlet by the lightswitch...

I'll tell you a secret. I don't think it's a secret anymore however...

I'm directing (next Summer) a little show called Fingertips. The premise being that playwrights write songs inspired by They Might be Giants' series of songs called Fingertips, 21 short songs. Maybe I'll tell you more later. I don't want to bore you.

Anywho, I've been emailing with their manager. That may sound like nothing to you, but for me, and this is gross, after my last email I went and took a nervous poop. Yep, that's how excited I am. He seems like a cool guy so I went ahead with the question, "Is it cool if we do this show?" Now I wait. I'm not sure what I'll say if They say no. I think it's already planned as part of the season, but the idea of sneaking by doing the show seems...wrong. So I asked. Now I wait.

Hayder

Life imitates art imitates stupid.

xo,

mmyers

Too Fast for Love (The Fasting part 2)

September 5th 9:05 am- Am starting to add up how long until I get to go back to sleep. In sleep, no one can hear you scream. Or your stomach grumble. In sleep I forget I'm hungry.

10:36 am- Beginning to think that I could reenact that scene from The Fly with all of the stomach acid that is building up in my system. Grapefruit acid+lemon acid+orange acid= a mutant power for me. Is there a hero who spit acid? Hunter S. Thompson?

11:12 am- Have to keep reminding myself that I’m not drunk. Seriously. It feels like being drunk and I’m carrying this bottle of weird tasting stuff around. Keep thinking I’m giving folks the ‘alcohol-breath’ and covering my mouth when I talk to them.

12:00 pm- Time has lost all meaning. I blink my eyes, it’s 9 o’clock, then again and it’s 1:30. I am a time traveler. A hungry, hungry time traveler. I should go back to the day they invented corn dogs. Note to self: Google that. And to the guy who invented grape fruit juice and spit acid on him.

11:45 am- Went back in time 15 minutes and tried to tell myself to Google who invented. Had problems communicating with myself because we both covered our mouths thinking our breath smelled like alcohol. Gave up and went back to the present.

2:07 pm- Went back to the gym. Much more tired today. The line of what I’m trying to prove is getting blurry, along with most other lines.

3:42 pm- Things are much more ridiculously funny when you’re loopy from hunger. It’s a wonder that all those people in starving countries aren’t laughing themselves silly all the time. This conversation just occurred a few rows over and I’ve been trying to stifle laughter for minutes upon minutes.
Boss: Hey Adrian... Adrian: Yes? Boss: (giggle) "Yo Adrian!" (pause) You probably get that alot with a name like Adrian. (long pause) Adrian: It was a good movie.

3:45 pm- Supposed to read folks for the show tonight. If my attitude persists, I shall be very difficult to read with tonight. Maybe actors aren’t divas. Maybe they’re just fasting. Starving artists!! It all makes sense.

4:40 pm- The big mistake seems to be talking about food instead of reveling in the euphoria that starving causes. My coworker just brought by MnMs for me to smell. She was getting me back for drawing on her cream of wheat box. I drew a little talking bubble coming from the chef’s mouth that says, ‘This stuff tastes terrible but Nikki likes it anyway.’ I suppose I deserve an ‘MnM-by’ (which is like a drive-by except they’re walking and instead of a hail of bullets it’s the smell of MnMs).

6:15 pm- Went to read possible future candidates for the next show (Mojo). Started off by letting possible co-workers now I was hungry and they’d get nothing from me. Flat, lifeless readings all the way. Called my friend Brent “Brett” multiple times.

7:35 pm- Like the hot-button debate “When does life begin?” we engaged in a hot debate about “When does the fast end?” The wife thought the fast began at 10:00 two nights prior when we took our last bites and ended at 10:00 as well. I thought it began when we had digested our food in the night and began to be hungry. That would tack another 6-7 hours onto the fast. I went and played video games to take my mind off of food.

9:00 pm- Decided the fast would end at 10:00. Got dressed and went to get sushi.

10:00 pm- Everything smelled so potent. Best ginger salad I’ve ever had. Best Miso I’ve ever slurped. Best FutoMaki I’ve ever soaked in wasabi and soy and ate. Best napkin I’ve ever wiped my mouth with.


September 8th 8:30 am- Now that it’s over it’s nice to be able to watch commercials again. Dang a lot of fast food commercials come on when you’re hungry. I dropped 4 pounds pretty quickly but I imagine I have them all back now that I’m enjoying this fine toaster pastry. Still it’s good to remind yourself how good you have it now and again and it’s good to let your body rest and process all the caked on crap that hangs out in there because we’re too busy to pass that junk.

Time goes by so very slow while you are fasting

Well, I’m fasting. I won’t get into the logistics of it but I’ve done a couple fasts over the last few years. Anyway, this time, I’ve decided to keep a little diary about it. I know it will get weird before it gets normal.

September 3 10:00 PM- Had last bite of baked ziti and finished off a tasty beverage to bid myself bon voyage to food for a few days.

September 4th 7:00 AM- Woke up earlier than normal. Also woke up hungry which is weird because I’m usually not hungry until I’ve been awake a few hours. Doesn’t bode well.

8:00 AM- Begin drinking the bile-like solution that will sustain me the next few days. Think my stomach is beginning to sense something is amiss.

10:45 AM- OK, my stomach is not pleased and is now aware that food isn’t coming. Stomach growling beginning to make some sort of weird sense. Excel spreadsheets, however, are starting to make less sense.

11:00 AM- It’s really amazing how I live from one meal to the next. One ends and I immediately begin planning the next one. It would be great if I could utilize the time I’m saving by not eating but I think I’m going to be losing energy and coherency soon.

11:16 AM- Getting a headache. Is aspirin considered food?

11:44 AM- Reviewing the account of a girl named Krystal. Why did her name have to be Krystal and why oh why is it spelled like the hamburger?

12:15 PM- Normally I’d be taking my vitamin right now. Are vitamins considered food?

12:45 pm- Someone got McDonald's. Considered having sex with sandwich while they were away from their desk but am afraid to lose any more bodily fluids. Oddly in this case, eating WOULD be cheating but having sex with the sandwich would not be, disproving the old adage, “Eating is not cheating."

1:15 pm- Ridiculous idea to go and exercise on my break to keep my mind off food. Handles of the elliptical look vaguely like chicken legs.

3:00 pm- Coughed up hastily scribbled letter. Presumably written by my stomach. Stomach is threatening other organs if food isn’t forthcoming. Mentions how he never really liked the gallbladder.

3:55 pm- Beginning to ask myself ridiculous questions like, “Is Food considered food?”

4:15 pm- Someone popped popcorn. Creamy beige. Think my olfactory senses are shutting down for self-preservation.

6:00 pm- The misses, who is also fasting (except with carrot juice instead of the bile-esque concoction I’m drinking), and I have an argument about who is having the easier fast. I feel she has the edge on easiness because her carrot juice have bits in them. Bits of carrot but bits nonetheless. She thinks mine is easier because I’m at work where there isn’t as much food.

8:30 pm- We both begin to realize how much the other looks like food. Hers is much less ominous as I look like tofu-steaks and veggie patties. Mine is more scary as she looks like a rack of ribs, a slice of pizza, and oddly a Campbell’s soup can.

10:15 pm- Watching politicians talk frightens what’s left of my appetite away and I figure I should run to bed while I’m not hungry.

11:00 pm- Watch a documentary on Sgt Slaughter. Why does he look so much like a pickle?

September 5th 7:30 am- Toothpaste has never tasted so delicious.

7:45 am- Locked myself out of the house.

8:10 am- Hit my head on refrigerator putting my juices in.
This is day 2. I’ll keep you posted.

Political Madlib

Hey all.

I've been watching a good portion of the political conventions as of late. I'm not going to get all politically on you but I will say that I've invented this fun little Madlib to help you out if you're planning on giving a speech at any of these conventions. It's fun and easy.

Greetings my fellow (political party). I met a (gender noun) the other day who was down on their luck. You see they used to work at a (noun) in (city known for hard workers). They said to me, “Jack, my name is (normal sounding name). I’ve got (number) kids. I’ve been out of work for (number) years.” They said to me, they said, “Jack, you’ve got to help us. I used to be an (adjective) (job), (verb)ing for an honest day’s work, until those darn (opposing political party) came in and start taking all our (noun) jobs.”

You see, the (opposing political party) seem to love (adjective) spending. They seem to enjoy making you pay for (noun). Everytime we think of a (noun) to help people, they shut us down and expect (adjective) government to step in, and expect (nouns) like you and me to pick up the bill for their (adjective) spending.

We say no. We (our political party)s see opportunities, not necessarily (verbing) for oil, but rather using (adjective) resources. We don’t want to (verb) terrorists, but rather use (adverb) (nouns) to stop anymore terrorist attacks. We say, let’s work together, unlike the (opposing political party), who seem to want to (negative verb) us. They’re content arguing like (dated pop culture reference to couple who split up in a public way). We say No. We say, “Let’s build up and stop tearing down,” and let’s make sure the (normal sounding name from the beginning)’s of the US can insure an (adjective) future for their (number) children.

Quiche me, quick

I’ve been playing a little experiment at work. You see, in our office refrigerator, folks steal food. It’s usually small things that I guess they think no one will miss but if you’d like to see me pissed off, steal my jell-o cup with fruit in it. That’s like taking the Pissed Off Express, no waiting.

Anywho, once this little ritual was established, I decided to test it abit. What would someone deem worthy of stealing and what would they by-pass. Well, we have a winner in this refrigerator battle royal and it is frozen quiche. Yes, the frozen quiche has been deemed unstealable by the discerning tastes of my office.

For the record, the frozen quiches aren’t bad, you just shouldn’t microwave them. Oven all the way, baby.

I’m fascinated by the quiche, actually, because the box claims that it has a ‘hint of nutmeg’, which is very funny to me because, although I’m sure the implication is supposed to be that someone’s grandma is pinching that nutmeg and throwing it in there, the reality is a machine pinches that nutmeg and throws it in the vat of quiche fixin’s, just like Mom used to.

Well, curiosity overpowering me, I tracked down this machine, the Nut Meg Bot 5000 and got an interview with it because I wanted to know what makes it tick. Here’s the transcript:

MM: Thank you for joining me, NutMeg Bot 5000.
NUTMEG BOT: It is a pleasure to be here with you, mmyers. Greetings to the internet nerds who enjoy your self-indulgent musings. Would your tasting senses enjoy a pinch of nutmeg?
MM: Um, no, that won’t be necessary. So how did you get started in this…business?
NMB: I was created in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Pittsburgh’s dialect is made up of Scottish-Irish, Welsh, German, and a pinch of Central and Eastern European.
MM: Really? I didn’t know that. What about you? What are you made up of?
NMB: 57% steel and aluminum alloys, 22% plastic and metal wires covered in plastic, 15% hydraulic tubing with steel reinforcement, and a pinch of electronics.
MM: I see. OUCH! (at this point in the interview, NutMeg Bot pinches me) What the hell, dude? What the hell???
NMB: Your human skin is not covered in a single article of clothing composed of the color green.
MM: No, dude, I’m not. Good grief, I think you broke the skin.
NMB: It is St. Patrick’s Day. This is the day humans are required to be covered in green adornments. You are not wearing green.
MM: Are you kidding me? It isn’t St Patrick’s Day, you freak!
NMB: Kiss me.
MM: What?! Why?
NMB: I am Irish, therefore it is imperative that you kiss me. Perform this task or I will pinch you again.
MM: Wait, wait, wait, OK, look. You seem to be a little confused on humans and St. Patrick’s day. It is not today. Humans are not REQUIRED to wear green on that day even if it were St Patty’s Day. And you are not Irish.
NMB: Kiss me, human, for I have been programmed to be Irish. See, human? (At this point, NutMeg Bot picked up a mug of green beer and poured it in the direction of where a mouth would be, if it had a mouth. It also slung some at me.) Drink up, human-Irish drinking buddy. Let us become intoxicated and make human females uncomfortable with speculations on what they would look like purged of their human garments.


Everything degenerated from there so I ran away but not before Nut Meg Bot 5000 tore off my pants. Or rather pinched them off.

Old stuff

Found this while net searching. If my dialogue sucks, it's because I was improvising, as was everyone else. If you look closely, you'll see Zombie Sitcom.

Promises, promises...

I work in the exciting world of debt collections. I don’t talk about it much, except in comic strip form, because it sucks donkey balls. I’ll go into the sucky bits of it at a later date. However, every now and again, something will come to my attention that collection industry folk take for granted but makes for an interesting case study about the underlying tactics of collections.

When you owe money (and who doesn’t) and are late on paying, they generally outsource to a company who does the collections for them. Sometimes the debt collection company buys the debt from the company that money is owed (student loans, credit cards, medical expenses, anything that’s owed that people can refuse to pay back) out right, under the assumption that they can get the person who owed the $$$ to pay it back better than the original company.

Anywho, I don’t deal with that side of things. I audit the accounts, listening to these collectors on the phones and checking their accounts to make sure no laws are being violated. It’s tedious at best, nauseating at worst. When I first started working there, I thought of a short story where a guy finds a radio with a radio station that tunes into Hell. All it is is people screaming and crying, begging for mercy. That’s what monitoring calls is like. For me, at least. Some people seem to enjoy it, but there are probably also people who might enjoy Hell or at the very least listening to it. (The story turned out not to be as great as it sounded and also was a little too similar to a Kurt Vonnegut short story from Snuffbox for my tastes.)

So this brings me to the funny part. When a collector speaks to you and you say, “Gosh golly, I’ll pay $100 by the end of the month on my late account” this is called a PTP, or a Promise To Pay. They’re not requiring you to send in checks (yet) or put payments on a credit card (yet). They assume that you’ll hold to your promise and pay your bill from now on on-time. Of course when you don’t pay and give them the slip, this is called a ‘Broken’ Promise. This suddenly implies a level of intimacy in the ‘relationship’ of collector-debtor. See before that, you were just that jerk who owed money (and a lot of times they have no problem telling you something to that effect), but then you became friends when you fessed up to owing and ‘promised’ to get back on the straight and narrow. You guys were buddies, hanging out and going for drinks and then that ‘friendship’ went down the tubes when you broke your Promise. You didn’t pay when you said you would.

I love that! I love the implication that the collection industry is now the victim, all because the debtor has broken their promise. I’m not a guy who thinks people with debt are ‘victims’ by any means. Hey, I got debt. Parts of it occurred when I needed something immediately that I didn’t have cash for and couldn’t survive without, like new tires or dental work. That stuff makes sense. It’s a ‘gotta-have’. But not all my debt is that kind of selfless act. Some of it was ‘wanna-haves’ like a Playstation, or some comic books, or fast food. Therefore, if the Four Horsemen of the Debtocalypse come down for me, I’ll know that I deserve the reaming that’s coming my way. But I wouldn’t call the collections industry victims by any means. More like mercenaries.

Anyway, this leads me to the fact that some accounts say ’15 broken promises’ or even more, which says that the collection industry is not only your friend but your friend who you keep screwing over. I thought it’d be funny if there was a chart for all humans that said how many promises you’d broken in your lifetime, as if that was the worst thing you could do to someone. It’s very childlike but simple and pretty in that way. You broke your promise= you are a bad human being. Simple and direct.

We better hope God isn’t a debt collector.