Saturday, January 31, 2009
Editorial Correction
A simple fact-checking adventure would have led me to IMDB.com and would have indicated that Elijah Wood was not in Free Willy (1993), rather he pondered the glorious benefits of beastiality with that porpoise in the unforgettable Flipper (1996). My bad! It's hysterical that nobody even said anything when I associated Wood with Keiko the Orca. Proving my point once again, that Elijah Wood is a waste of sperm and egg. I apologize for deceiving you, the reader. That being said, does it even matter?
"Either / Or"
A brief apology to those of you that were expecting this yesterday, unfortunately I was detained by Yuengling at Ryan's and wasn't coherent enough to string together these sentences at 3:15AM. The latest chapter in the "Either / Or" saga is centered around two different fashionably ugly shoes, adored and worn by the entire spectrum of sheep from Yuppies to Fashionistas. Either Uggs or Crocs? *Disclaimer I worked as a shoe salesman for a brief time in college at a comfort shoe store in Boston, and I think it's a fair statement to say that there is a directly inverse correlation between the fit and comfort of a shoe and its aesthetic appeal. These two brands/shoes are prime examples.
Uggs. Oh how I hate that you've made wearing slippers with a dress, out in public, acceptable for hundreds and thousands of women. This year marks the 30th anniversary for the company from Down Under. While these heinous sheepskin lined boots have been around for approximately 200 years, I'd like to focus on the particularly crappy recent past for the branded company. Uggs became an epidemic throughout Australia when surfers would go skiing in the winter and started sporting the versatile boots (thank God for sheep and their merino wool and skin). Today, you can buy Uggs in these fine United States, but not too long ago getting your hands on authentic Uggs was like an exercise in smuggling contraband into a prison via your ass-crack. I'm all for comfortable shoes, but limit usage to around the house or running errands. Please don't try to convince yourself that you can wear these out when you're with your girlfriends at that swanky lounge, club or bar. I think the only thing more grotesque is when you see that flamboyant male sporting his pair that go perfectly with his faux-hawk and skinny jeans. The most frustrating aspect for me is that this isn't just a temporary craze. Mindless consumers have helped turn this fad into a must-have fashion staple. The staying power of the Ugg brand is something to envy, especially considering the raw looks of these dead animals on one's feet.
Uggs suck something awful, but Crocs are racing neck-and-neck with Uggs to win the race of the most comfortable/horrifically ugly shoe ever created. We can all thank three jackasses from Boulder , Colorado for committing this fashion felony. These silly bastards, excuse me - entrepreneurs, will claim that the shoes were originally created for a purpose, for boaters, suggesting that they were slip-resistant and non-marking. We all know that these people decided to capitalize on the "they're-so-ugly-they-have-to-be-cool" trend, which should be copyrighted by Uggs by now. Today you'll see morons wearing these glorified condoms on their feet in various industries like nursing, restaurants, and demanding jobs that require the individual to stand for long stretches. Soccer moms love to force their children into the SpongeBob SquarePants edition, and I just shake my head and consult the Webster's Dictionary for the precise definition of "karma." It's still too early to determine whether or not the Crocs brand will endure the test of time, and if I had my druthers one would only be able to remember Crocs as they flipped through a fashion history book and found Crocs sandwiched between Skidz and British Knights.
It's no surprise that nobody wins when you wear either of these two examples of footwear. Both brands tried to further whore their brands and have dabbled in normal-looking footwear, to no avail. I've grown a bit more tolerant of Uggs as they've become more prevalent, but I stand by my policy of: a girl dressed up and wearing Uggs is to be regarded as a leper and should be considered to have chlamydia and avoided at all costs.
*Note this "Either /Or" was hatched with the help of a regular reader, so I thank her for her input.
Uggs. Oh how I hate that you've made wearing slippers with a dress, out in public, acceptable for hundreds and thousands of women. This year marks the 30th anniversary for the company from Down Under. While these heinous sheepskin lined boots have been around for approximately 200 years, I'd like to focus on the particularly crappy recent past for the branded company. Uggs became an epidemic throughout Australia when surfers would go skiing in the winter and started sporting the versatile boots (thank God for sheep and their merino wool and skin). Today, you can buy Uggs in these fine United States, but not too long ago getting your hands on authentic Uggs was like an exercise in smuggling contraband into a prison via your ass-crack. I'm all for comfortable shoes, but limit usage to around the house or running errands. Please don't try to convince yourself that you can wear these out when you're with your girlfriends at that swanky lounge, club or bar. I think the only thing more grotesque is when you see that flamboyant male sporting his pair that go perfectly with his faux-hawk and skinny jeans. The most frustrating aspect for me is that this isn't just a temporary craze. Mindless consumers have helped turn this fad into a must-have fashion staple. The staying power of the Ugg brand is something to envy, especially considering the raw looks of these dead animals on one's feet.
Uggs suck something awful, but Crocs are racing neck-and-neck with Uggs to win the race of the most comfortable/horrifically ugly shoe ever created. We can all thank three jackasses from Boulder , Colorado for committing this fashion felony. These silly bastards, excuse me - entrepreneurs, will claim that the shoes were originally created for a purpose, for boaters, suggesting that they were slip-resistant and non-marking. We all know that these people decided to capitalize on the "they're-so-ugly-they-have-to-be-cool" trend, which should be copyrighted by Uggs by now. Today you'll see morons wearing these glorified condoms on their feet in various industries like nursing, restaurants, and demanding jobs that require the individual to stand for long stretches. Soccer moms love to force their children into the SpongeBob SquarePants edition, and I just shake my head and consult the Webster's Dictionary for the precise definition of "karma." It's still too early to determine whether or not the Crocs brand will endure the test of time, and if I had my druthers one would only be able to remember Crocs as they flipped through a fashion history book and found Crocs sandwiched between Skidz and British Knights.
It's no surprise that nobody wins when you wear either of these two examples of footwear. Both brands tried to further whore their brands and have dabbled in normal-looking footwear, to no avail. I've grown a bit more tolerant of Uggs as they've become more prevalent, but I stand by my policy of: a girl dressed up and wearing Uggs is to be regarded as a leper and should be considered to have chlamydia and avoided at all costs.
*Note this "Either /Or" was hatched with the help of a regular reader, so I thank her for her input.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Mistaken Identity
She sits at her desk, passing the time thumbing through her OK! Magazine, when she cries out in her involuntary Brooklyn-ese, "Oh. Moi. Gawd. You look exactly like Jake Gyllenhaal! Has anyone ever told you that before?"
I sit at my screen staring at Excel and check to see if my ears are bleeding, "No. I've never heard that before. You really think so?" [Do you think I was sarcastic?]
She then cuts out multiple pictures of the celebrity and affixes them to the outside of my otherwise barren cube. To each person that walks by, she makes it a point to illustrate the "striking resemblance." I keenly sense that girls at work begin to look at me differently, like they might be intrigued and slightly perturbed that they hadn't noticed earlier. The males that walk by my newly decorated cube look at me differently too, and usually comment, "Yeah, you do look like the queer from Brokeback Mountain. You know, the cowboy movie. God, that movie was SOOOOO gay."
Just another day and another dollar.
I sit at my screen staring at Excel and check to see if my ears are bleeding, "No. I've never heard that before. You really think so?" [Do you think I was sarcastic?]
She then cuts out multiple pictures of the celebrity and affixes them to the outside of my otherwise barren cube. To each person that walks by, she makes it a point to illustrate the "striking resemblance." I keenly sense that girls at work begin to look at me differently, like they might be intrigued and slightly perturbed that they hadn't noticed earlier. The males that walk by my newly decorated cube look at me differently too, and usually comment, "Yeah, you do look like the queer from Brokeback Mountain. You know, the cowboy movie. God, that movie was SOOOOO gay."
Just another day and another dollar.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
TxtSpk Grl
As if you needed further convincing that I will be making coffee runs for Satan upon my death, I would like to relate the following story. I met TxtSpk Grl at a mutual friend's birthday party, and I'm convinced our introduction couldn't be explained as anything other than destiny, or at least manipulated by the blog gods.
My friends were making small talk with her, when they decided to involve me in the conversation, and essentially handed her off to me as if I was Walter Payton. I decided we all needed another round, so like a sport I ordered the next round. I asked her what kind of beer she was drinking, when she claimed she was more of a wine girl. I goaded, "it must be your Catholic guilt." She started cracking up, "Yeah, something like that. I am Jewish. My people killed Jesus." My friends immediately fashioned a noose around their heads and watched as the blood flushed from my face. TxtSpk Grl didn't care, she was getting drunk off of her second wine. I was completely uninterested in this girl, and it was about 11:30PM when I slapped hands with my friends and tried to part with hugs claiming, "Outtie." They begged me to stay, to continue the entertainment. They even offered to pay for a couple more rounds and share a cab halfway back to the UES. I was just thinking that they saved me about 40 minutes of travel time and about $20 in beer. Of course I stayed.
We move to another bar, and by this time our group has dwindled to four. My friends keep talking to TxtSpk Grl, asking her questions that they know will make me want to kill myself. To each response, they start cracking up at me rolling my eyes. I try to act sober for a brief moment and get engaged in the conversation, when it hits me. This girl has the voice of Marge Simpson, and even beyond that her stories are accented by TxtSpk. I ask a question and she replies, "Obv." [What? What the hell did you just say to me? I know you didn't just TxtSpk me.] Flabbergasted, I decide to test her again "So you live in the city?" She replies, "Yeah I live on UES in a studio. It's expensive, but whatevs." I look to my friends, and the judges rule it a ten...this broad is, indeed, speaking TxtSpk. I pounded the second beer and pretended like I had to get home because it was a school night.
My friends cajole me to get into a cab, and at the last second offer it to TxtSpk Grl as well. So the four of us are in the cab headed home. My two friends stop at Gramercy, and I'm left with TxtSpk in the back of the cab as she's giving me a tour of the FDR Drive pointing out apartments that I shouldn't live in because of the guys that she's slept with in each building. The cabbie stops at 79th and York and we both get out, because I could use a good walk to sober up.
We walk to the corner, and she starts in with that voice, that smoker's voice, half-drunk, and fully horny. "I like you. You're cute," she claims right before she engulfs me in her arms and decides that my lips would fit perfectly on hers at that moment. I slowly back away as she becomes more frisky, but she cons me into taking her number down claiming, "we should get a drink sometime." I'm sitting there typing the digits into my phone, pretending to input her numbers, when she calls my bluff. She makes me call her. Buzzkill. So she takes my phone and saves her number. What did I care? I was never going to see her again.
Two weeks pass and she's giving me phenomenal text, I'm talking perfect grammar & perfect punctuation (and I'm thinking to myself this girl is quite the anomaly). She tells me she wants to get a drink at a winebar, which loosely translated means: I've been so horny for the last week and I don't think my vibrator will suffice. So I accompany her to a winebar on the UES, and endure two hours of TxtSpk sprinkled in the conversation about our jobs. By 11PM I decide that I'm either going to have to be completely shattered to continue any type of conversation with her, or just walk her home and head directly to Ryan's Daughter. Being the cheap bastard that I am, I decided to just walk her home and head to the pub.
We get to her door and she invites me in. I decide to get cute and mock her to her face, "Obv." It had gone completely over her head, and she commenced heavy petting. She tackles me onto her bed and things escalate. She's getting frisky, while we exchange bodily fluids and probably STDs, it dawns on me: WHAT THE FUCK AM I DOING? I can't do this. Sex would be a gchat conversation with her, and I'm not even attracted to her in the slightest. Dirty talk played over in my head like a broken record: LOL, Obv. Whatevs. I immediately started talking some sense to myself: no way. I can't & I'm pretty sure I will never be able to think of sex the same again.
Luckily TxtSpk Grl got the picture as I retied my Chuck Taylors on my way out of her studio. She realized our best conversations occurred via text and wasn't so delusional to think that we could ever be anything more than what that was - GREAT TEXT!
*Note: there seems to be confusion by many readers. Allow me to clarify that I did not sleep with TxtSpk Grl. Instead of re-writing the post, I thought I'd make it clear in this addendum.
My friends were making small talk with her, when they decided to involve me in the conversation, and essentially handed her off to me as if I was Walter Payton. I decided we all needed another round, so like a sport I ordered the next round. I asked her what kind of beer she was drinking, when she claimed she was more of a wine girl. I goaded, "it must be your Catholic guilt." She started cracking up, "Yeah, something like that. I am Jewish. My people killed Jesus." My friends immediately fashioned a noose around their heads and watched as the blood flushed from my face. TxtSpk Grl didn't care, she was getting drunk off of her second wine. I was completely uninterested in this girl, and it was about 11:30PM when I slapped hands with my friends and tried to part with hugs claiming, "Outtie." They begged me to stay, to continue the entertainment. They even offered to pay for a couple more rounds and share a cab halfway back to the UES. I was just thinking that they saved me about 40 minutes of travel time and about $20 in beer. Of course I stayed.
We move to another bar, and by this time our group has dwindled to four. My friends keep talking to TxtSpk Grl, asking her questions that they know will make me want to kill myself. To each response, they start cracking up at me rolling my eyes. I try to act sober for a brief moment and get engaged in the conversation, when it hits me. This girl has the voice of Marge Simpson, and even beyond that her stories are accented by TxtSpk. I ask a question and she replies, "Obv." [What? What the hell did you just say to me? I know you didn't just TxtSpk me.] Flabbergasted, I decide to test her again "So you live in the city?" She replies, "Yeah I live on UES in a studio. It's expensive, but whatevs." I look to my friends, and the judges rule it a ten...this broad is, indeed, speaking TxtSpk. I pounded the second beer and pretended like I had to get home because it was a school night.
My friends cajole me to get into a cab, and at the last second offer it to TxtSpk Grl as well. So the four of us are in the cab headed home. My two friends stop at Gramercy, and I'm left with TxtSpk in the back of the cab as she's giving me a tour of the FDR Drive pointing out apartments that I shouldn't live in because of the guys that she's slept with in each building. The cabbie stops at 79th and York and we both get out, because I could use a good walk to sober up.
We walk to the corner, and she starts in with that voice, that smoker's voice, half-drunk, and fully horny. "I like you. You're cute," she claims right before she engulfs me in her arms and decides that my lips would fit perfectly on hers at that moment. I slowly back away as she becomes more frisky, but she cons me into taking her number down claiming, "we should get a drink sometime." I'm sitting there typing the digits into my phone, pretending to input her numbers, when she calls my bluff. She makes me call her. Buzzkill. So she takes my phone and saves her number. What did I care? I was never going to see her again.
Two weeks pass and she's giving me phenomenal text, I'm talking perfect grammar & perfect punctuation (and I'm thinking to myself this girl is quite the anomaly). She tells me she wants to get a drink at a winebar, which loosely translated means: I've been so horny for the last week and I don't think my vibrator will suffice. So I accompany her to a winebar on the UES, and endure two hours of TxtSpk sprinkled in the conversation about our jobs. By 11PM I decide that I'm either going to have to be completely shattered to continue any type of conversation with her, or just walk her home and head directly to Ryan's Daughter. Being the cheap bastard that I am, I decided to just walk her home and head to the pub.
We get to her door and she invites me in. I decide to get cute and mock her to her face, "Obv." It had gone completely over her head, and she commenced heavy petting. She tackles me onto her bed and things escalate. She's getting frisky, while we exchange bodily fluids and probably STDs, it dawns on me: WHAT THE FUCK AM I DOING? I can't do this. Sex would be a gchat conversation with her, and I'm not even attracted to her in the slightest. Dirty talk played over in my head like a broken record: LOL, Obv. Whatevs. I immediately started talking some sense to myself: no way. I can't & I'm pretty sure I will never be able to think of sex the same again.
Luckily TxtSpk Grl got the picture as I retied my Chuck Taylors on my way out of her studio. She realized our best conversations occurred via text and wasn't so delusional to think that we could ever be anything more than what that was - GREAT TEXT!
*Note: there seems to be confusion by many readers. Allow me to clarify that I did not sleep with TxtSpk Grl. Instead of re-writing the post, I thought I'd make it clear in this addendum.
Prematurely Gray
At twenty four, I'm what my hair stylist dearly refers to as salt and pepper, but I'm afraid that by my 25th birthday I will be completely gray. Part of my job description reads: interact with financial scum of the universe on a daily basis. As if that wasn't bad enough, I'm baffled by how these assholes could be trusted with others' monies, dreams, and financial health. It's really astonishing that they have no idea what's going on. I'm convinced 90% of these stock jockeys trade based off of "Cramer's Picks." I love breaking their balls on a day when they think the world is coming to an end:
S.A.: Hey Jim, how's it going?
Jim: The market is down 340 points. The good thing is this could be a great opportunity for a bear market rally.
These slightly-evolved chimps stare at the tape all day long hoping to see triple bottoms (and trying to convince themselves that certain technical charts look like a woman's breasts), and haven't realized that it's not the equity markets that people should fear. It's the credit markets and the immeasurable derivatives exposure that will ultimately be the demise of the global "financial machine." Now I could try to explain to these idiots that the Dow and the S&P are really quite inconsequential in the grand scheme of things (just based on the sheer amount of assets), but they would never listen because Ludlow hasn't mentioned it on CNBC yet. I won't make a peep though, because nobody likes a cocky, piss-ant, 24 year old.
S.A.: Hey Jim, how's it going?
Jim: The market is down 340 points. The good thing is this could be a great opportunity for a bear market rally.
These slightly-evolved chimps stare at the tape all day long hoping to see triple bottoms (and trying to convince themselves that certain technical charts look like a woman's breasts), and haven't realized that it's not the equity markets that people should fear. It's the credit markets and the immeasurable derivatives exposure that will ultimately be the demise of the global "financial machine." Now I could try to explain to these idiots that the Dow and the S&P are really quite inconsequential in the grand scheme of things (just based on the sheer amount of assets), but they would never listen because Ludlow hasn't mentioned it on CNBC yet. I won't make a peep though, because nobody likes a cocky, piss-ant, 24 year old.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Pamela Beer
...was my Junior year Trigonometry/Pre-calculus teacher. No joke, that was her name. She was one of those awful people that couldn't master writing with the red pen cradled between her thumb and index finger, while letting it rest on her middle finger. She concealed the entire pen in her fist. I would always picture her correcting my 73% tests and quizzes with that obnoxiously vertical and militant handwriting. I would laugh at the thought of my quizzes and tests being a warm up to a bout with Mike Tyson, that would usually ease the sting of my mediocre grades. She was such an uppity and pretentious broad, and she had a nose and face like a character from a Tim Burton movie. She didn't know it at the time, but she taught me a lot about myself.
Amidst all the meaningless calculations and TI-85 calculator work (playing Super Mario Bros.), log(35), and everything else that I've since forgotten, she made us compute sines, cosines, and tangents. She was so stupid, I can't believe I'm giving her credit, but this valley girl turned high school teacher inadvertently hit on the importance of waves and cycles.
Everything is cyclical. The economy, the S.A.'s emotions, the relationship between the Earth and the rest of the universe, the economy, the reproductive patterns of salmon, the weather, etc. Since living in NYC I've noticed that everything about me is cyclical, including: my emotions, the way I feel about work, the work itself, my willingness to date, the trends of Manhattan rents. Everything has its own rhythm and cycle. I'm just writing this to thank you, Ms. Beer. I get it. I still generally couldn't tolerate you, but at least I get it. I'll feel better tomorrow.
Amidst all the meaningless calculations and TI-85 calculator work (playing Super Mario Bros.), log(35), and everything else that I've since forgotten, she made us compute sines, cosines, and tangents. She was so stupid, I can't believe I'm giving her credit, but this valley girl turned high school teacher inadvertently hit on the importance of waves and cycles.
Everything is cyclical. The economy, the S.A.'s emotions, the relationship between the Earth and the rest of the universe, the economy, the reproductive patterns of salmon, the weather, etc. Since living in NYC I've noticed that everything about me is cyclical, including: my emotions, the way I feel about work, the work itself, my willingness to date, the trends of Manhattan rents. Everything has its own rhythm and cycle. I'm just writing this to thank you, Ms. Beer. I get it. I still generally couldn't tolerate you, but at least I get it. I'll feel better tomorrow.
Reader Contribution
"I read you shit everyday, good stuff
love to hear you bitch..." -Brian (via gchat) currently dwelling in Boston & works at State Street.
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