Good thing I've got options!

Every once and a while, I see a bulletin on Myspace that states that if I don't repost that message within five minutes, that The friend that posted it will dump me as a friend. As of yet, I have not reposted any of those bulletins. If someone's gonna dump me as a friend, albeit as an online friend, simply because I don't participate in their little chain letter, fine! Fuck 'em!

Despite my distaste for this type of bulletin, I have not been dumped yet. So, I guess I've called their bluff.

The reason I bring this up is because I found a better way to find out who your real friends are on Myspace. Post a bulletin like I did yesterday: Car Trouble - Need help!

I let people know the problems I'm having with the truck. I tell them how third gear is intermittant at best, and that going faster than 45 MPH is a nerve-racking experience. Within five hours, I had 14 messages from friends giving me advice. Most of them gave me advice on how I should just rev it up in second, pop the clutch and shift into fourth...reminding me that I forgot to explain that the truck is an automatic.

A couple of them told me that the transmission fluid might be low, and that filling the fluid back up should do the trick. I was told to add half a quart and try it out. If it worked, then I should add another half-quart and it should be fine. I did this, but I couldn't tell if it was working too well or if I was discovering a system of hitting the gas just right to get it to work a little bit better. I didn't add the rest of the quart because the fluid level on the dipstick was slightly past full at that point.

Another friend told me to just get the transmission flushed and see if that works. This, I have a problem with, because it'll be a waste of money if it doesn't work and I have to take it into the shop anyway and have the fluids dumped then.

The rest of the messages were of the shop recommendation variety. Two of these messages came from out of state. I have a few places I can call tomorrow morning, plus whatever places my bosses might suggest...and get me a discount to boot. I'll have to take a couple hours off to first clean out the weeks of fast-food bags from the cab, then take it around to get a couple estimates. I don't think my bosses will mind too much, because it's not like I won't have enough work to make up the lost time.

I spent some time on the phone with the folks discussing the contigency plans if this turns out to be the death rattle for the truck. I suggested that I just get a scooter. With gas prices rumored to reach $3.50 a gallon by mid-summer, getting 70 miles per gallon sounded pretty tempting. But my mom brought up questions like "What'll you do when you gotta do laundry?" Well, I'll get a laundry bag with shoulder straps. "What about groceries?" Shop light or tag along with a friend. "What about bad weather?" My ass'll be a bit damp. "What if you get a date?" I'm sure this hypothetical date will understand and offer to drive. "But you won't be able to drive to Little Rock on one of those things." Technically, I could get a scooter I could take on the interstate, but it'd take a little longer than my usual four hours. "I just don't think their safe." Maybe so, when I was asking for one when I was fourteen, but I think I can handle one now. "I just don't know..." FINE! I WON'T GET THE DAMNED SCOOTER!

Our little plan to have my stepbrother try to get me one through his wholesale used car contacts turns out to be a wash. He's now back in Little Rock, staying in my folk's garage apartment while he starts a new job there selling NEW cars.

While it helps to plan for the unexpected, I think I've done as much preparation as I possibly can at this point. The speculation as to how much this'll cost has ranged from $1,000 to "How much you got?". I'm done thinking about it for right now.

Stuck in second gear

I had a good day at work today, and I even got off at a normal hour. A full Friday night ahead of me. Dinner with friends, Enter the Dragon at the midnight movie at the Circle Cinema, a full night's sleep. Then the damned truck made sure I'd only get one out of three in good conscience.

I got on the expressway and the truck was having a hard time getting up to the speed limit. The wind was blowing really hard, and that caused me a few problems in my old car(s), but never in this half-ton pickup. I'd press on the gas, and the spedometer barely rose. I turned off the radio and listened to the engine rev when I would floor it. All noise, hardly any speed.

I got off at my exit, and everything was fine again...until I got up to 30 mph. The needle would rise at a snail's pace until I got to about 55 MPH. Then it hit me: I've lost my third gear. This happened in my old Jeep Pickup ten years ago and I was fine. However, that was an easy problem to ignore because I had a standard transmission on the Jeep. I'd rev up in second and go straight to fourth. This time, it's an automatic transmission.

I put myself in denial long enough to make it to the restaurant to have dinner with my friends. We talked about it over dinner, and from their experiences, I'm looking at some pricey repair work.

I called my folks about it, giving them the heads up that I may need some help getting this problem fixed. The thing that sucks worst about this is that it happened on a Friday night. I have to work this weekend, plus this was my last chance to do anything fun before the shitstorm ramps up next week, and I'm stuck with a vehicle that isn't fit to drive at a reasonable speed and can't get into the shop until Monday.

So, my driving is gonna be rationed. To and from work, and that's about it. Good thing I'm caught up on laundry and the fridge is stocked.

This one's gonna cost me a lot. The transmission isn't in the best condition in the first place. The maintenance record is spotty at best. I had hoped to drive this thing until early next year, but I may need to start looking around for a new vehicle. Oh, well...At least I had a few months of being debt-free.

Now I have to ask myself: What do I want in a new car? My needs are simple: Low payments, low insurance, good gas mileage. I could do without power anything, or without a CD player for that matter, if it meant getting around without shit like what I'm going through now.

Getting into heavy work mode

One of the projects that frustrated me so much last week came back to bite us in the ass today. Long story short, we were left with 30 hours to fix it (about 48 hours worth of work), when we were 10 hours away from completing the whole thing as it was. It was a mistake, and in the nature of mistakes with an unmovable and tight deadline, many voices and heart rates were raised on both sides of the client/printer border. After it was decided that we would have to correct the problem in record time, the client brought us some kick-ass homemade brownies for our troubles. Great. Now we've gotta give them twice as many brownies to make up for the mistake.

Before I got to work this morning, there apparently was a major confrontation between my boss and a regular client. I don't know many details, but from what I can tell, it was pretty fucking bad. It wasn't neccessarily a problem the client had with us, but rather this client making even more of a problem than normal, which is quite a lot. It was decided that it would be best to divorce ourselves from the client, much like an abused spouse. And to further this analogy, the client did come back later to have a much calmer break-up talk even though it was too late. We're moving on (sniff, sob) and there's no going back.

As for me, I'm getting through everything quite well, but the pressure is mounting. This is nothing new to me. This is my sixth year dealing with this, and as crazy as my methods sound, it works.

Step 1, before things start to get bad (namely NOW), I'm not going to bed before midnight, even if I'm off work before then. The trick is to let my body adjust early to the lack of sleep.

Step 2, get all the ducks in a row. I've raided the supply cabinet for manilla folders for every possible stage of production on the big project: In question, to do, in progress, easy to do when I need to look like I'm getting a lot more done, ready to proof, proof with client, changes to be made, approved with changes, approved, approved with the possibility of last minute changes, done, return info to client, please burn, save for competency hearing, use for murder defense, and miscellaneous.

Step 3, frequent eye-stress breaks. Every couple hours, I put in some eye drops and go outside and focus on something far away. I do this every day, and it's the reason my vision prescription hasn't changed in four years. However, with the amount of extra time I spend in front of the computer this time of year, This is needed much more often.

Step 4, controlled supply of caffeine and sugar. I tend to monitor my input much more during this time of year. Too much soda or coffee and I get too jittery and can't focus too well. Too little and I'm staring blankly at the same computer screen for God knows how long. The trick is to keep my work focus sharp. I used to have Ritalin for this stuff.

Step 5, audio/visual reinforcement. I tend to have movies playing in the background while I work. Low volume, at postage stamp size in the bottom corner of the screen. The rules are that it has to be something I've seen a million times before so I'm not distracted, and it has to be something that pumps me up. I've been trying several different flicks out, and the best movies to work to in my collection are Casino Royale, Batman Begins, Apollo 13, Braveheart, Gladiator, The Godfather, Spider-Man and any of the Star Wars movies. Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes are good for those wee hours of the night.

Step 6, manditory personal stuff. No IOUs will be written to myself for showers, laundry, bills, feeding the cat, etc.

Step 7, monitoring progress. Keeping track of everything I've done and everything left to do, and figuring out percentages of each. This comes in handy when an impatient boss asks how we're doing, and it's easier to say "25% left to go" than give every little detail.

Step 8, apologize to friends and family in advance for neglecting them.

Step 9, minimal internet use. And on the note, I'm logging off for the night.

Monday Night Caption Contest

Post your captions in the comment section below.

Here are mine for the week:

1. Deny the existence of global climate change all you want, but the fact remains that this was all hail damage.

2. Well, this was one way to dedicate the James Dean Memorial Expressway..he he he...what, too soon?


The winner of last week's caption contest will be announced next Monday.


The winner of April 9th's caption contest is Anonymous, who won by default because he/she was ONLY caption posted, with the caption: "Next time you flush a pet down the toilet, check for a pulse first. Now, it's payback time!"

Fritschie's impromtu day off

I made the decision not ot go into the office today. I got a lot done yesterday, and what's left for me to do will only take a little extra time this coming week. After getting off work at the bar last night, I went over to a friend's birthday party and stayed until the party was over at 4:00.

Getting up today at the crack of noon, I was not feeling too motivated to go into the office. Not that I was hung over or feeling shitty. I just needed this day to recharge my batteries for the week ahead. I needed to go do some things that didn't need to be done. Something out of my normal routine. I went to the mall.

I wasn't there to shop. There was nothing in particular that I needed, although I did almost splurge on a Nintendo Wii. Mostly I went there to watch the people as I walked around.

There was the very large woman going through the racks of bras at Victoria's Secret, and I saw the hope of finding something in her size diminish with each passing second.

There was a Cingular kiosk five feet away from a US Cellular kiosk. I sat on a bench eating a pretzel, wondering if the two clerks ever get into fights.

I saw a little boy sneak a peek up the dress of a mannequin at Lane Bryant.

I passed a group of teenage boys who were all wearing so much Tag Body Spray that there were fume lines coming off of them.

Overheard from a man leaving El Chico with his daughter, "Don't pick your nose. That's gross." Then, he himself let out a huge belch. The sad thing was, he wasn't being cute about it.


Around 2:30, I wound up in front of the movie theater. I was left with a choice: Do I wait for the 4:30 showing of Hot Fuzz, or go to the 3:00 Aqua Teen Hunger Force. I went with Meatwad, and enjoyed every second of it. I would go into a long review of the film, but the part of the human brain that enjoys this kind of movie is located on the opposite side from the part that reads movie reviews.

Now, I'm at home, eating an early dinner and rewatching the last few episodes of Heroes in preparation of the new episode tomorrow night.

Combining my entire DVD collection into one long story

I'm gonna go alphabetically. Try and guess what DVDs I'm talking about here:


In a bleak future where most of the world's population has been killed off by disease, a middle-aged man who has never known the touch of a woman finds himself lusting after a teenage girl. He tries everything to impress her. He tries to fly to the moon and fails...He tells the same dirty joke over and over...He rids the city of crime...He overcomes his psychosis and excels in mathematics...He hunts replicants...He spends a night in Vienna with her, followed by an afternoon in Paris...He makes a movie with her in it without her knowledge...He frees Scotland and wins a poker tournament, but to no avail. Then he finds out why: She's a lesbian.

Perfect. Not only are all women infertile, but the one woman he wants isn't attracted to him. He considers quitting his dead-end job at a convenience store to go work at that fast-food place, but only winds up right where he started. He writes a play that the government shuts down due to its pro-union message. This only fuels his deep-seeded racist feelings, especially towards the aliens who control the city. Sure, they landed here promising peace, but it only increased tensions between the police and the Irish mafia. Just when he's considering giving up on God, God calls on him to prevent a couple of angels from undoing existence as we know it. He shares his experiences with college students in a series of lectures, and it winds up being one long rant against the Bush administration.

Then he teams up with a perfect being and forms an underground boxing club determined to find the Holy Grail, which can only be obtained by winning a series of bloodsport battles in Rome. This, of course, brings us to the Italian mob, and all the history that brings with it. Meanwhile, a group of kids seek out the treasure of a wrongly condemned man with healing powers who owns a record store. They battle a shark, then they get sucked into the L.A. lifestyle with hilarious results. But soon they hear the call of Mordor, where they meet a scientist looking to accomplish the first brain transplant, but it turns out the guy has a memory disorder and can't remember that he's a folk singer on the run from the law for a crime he hasn't committed yet.

Their only hope for success lie in a bunch of monsters and animal puppets who think they're superheroes. They knock over a casino, then an art museum. They battle pirates, magicians, and more mobsters, as well as a group of washed-up geniuses/WWII veterans/serial killers who can only get off on videotaped confessions filmed in black and white with film noir style dialogue, talking about chopping off the heads of foul-mouthed Canadians.

Unexpectedly, our hero gets bitten by a radioactive spider, and sets off to fulfill the prophecy and defeat the Galactic Empire before midnight on New Year's Eve, or else a meglomaniacal bald guy will flood the earth creating a new continent. The only thing standing in his way now are terrorists, robots from the future, British secret agents, and a wacky group of characters trying to make deep, post-modern reflections on our society. Could this all be a dream? Or is the writer just too proud to admit he's blocked?

Shitty and shittier

This is the time of year I like to call "the closing of the flood gates". We're ramping up for our largest project of the year, and we have to attempt to curtail a lot of the work coming in so we can get through our big project. In a perfect world, this would mean they would find alternative ways to get their stuff printed. Instead, we get everything thrown in at once. It gets pretty chaotic.

This week, my stack of work has been immense. I've been working late, and I'll be working all this weekend to try to get caught up. It's been nearly impossible to make any progress because of two projects.

One of them, at least, offers some closure on a project that's been lingering for months now. However, the project ballooned to five times its orginal size, and they needed it done before they leave for a seminar overseas on Sunday.

When we started this project, they gave me four CDs full of photos to choose from. None of the images were named to give an indication of what the photo was, so when they told me to "just find something that looks cool", I've had to look at them all one by one. Let me further illustrate how frustrating this task really is: A lot of these pictures were taken during a breakfast meeting, and the guy taking the photos took twenty snapshots of his breakfast burrito (enough to do a time-lapse animation)...most of the office shots has at least one person in the background goofing off with a couple of the shots showing the vice-president of the company flexing, and he wanted to use one of those shots for their magazine ad.

Any time new info would come in on this porject this week, I had to drop everything in order to get them a new proof. My boss kept telling the client that I'd have it ready in five minutes, even when it would take me an hour. Any attempt to urge my boss to quit writing checks that my ass couldn't cash was met with the words, "What am I supposed to do, tell them to go to hell?!?"

I swallowed my sarcasm and fought off my temptaion to simply answer, "Yep!". The point I was trying to make is that he's making promises on my behalf that are difficult to keep, and if I succeed, then we're only giving that client unrealistic expectations for whatever ripe slice of hell they bring us next time. They're gonna assume that they can wait until the last minute and expect us to drop everything for them. It's not fair to tell them to go to hell, but all of our other clients are waiting on their stuff, too!

Last night, my boss left to have dinner with his family, leaving me to deal with the clients myself while choking back the fact that I am severly pissed and critically stressed out. I about lost it when I got a call from the client who first debated out loud with herself about the proper way to show their toll-free number for five minutes (1-800 vs. (800) vs. 1 (800), etc.), but then thanked me for staying late "just for her". Yeah, quality is job one, but in this case, it's stinking like number two.

I left work around 9:00 last night, claiming a case of hysterical blindness. I went straight to Arnie's Bar and got drunk.

The other project started out fairly reasonable on Monday. I got a file from the client, it took some time to get it formatted to the way we needed to print it, and I made a proof for them. Later that day, my boss got a call from that client asking whether they should make the changes or should we. He wasn't sure, so he asked me. Not thinking about how much work it took to impose the file for printing, I told them to go ahead and make the changes and send us a new disk.

So, I did all that work again and gave them a new proof. They had a couple of changes, so I did them myself. The trouble was that I had to make the changes twice, once to our imposed file, and once to their file to send them a PDF. They approved the job with those changes, so I got it ready to go on the press. An hour later, they called back with more changes, so I ran more plates. Today, they called back four more times, each time needing a new PDF and requiring me to run more plates.

What kind of changes were these? In these long lists of names in the layout, many of the names were not in proper alphabetical order! The ironic thing is, this project was for a university! These people are in higher education, and they can't even alphabetize a list of donors' names properly. The last of those changes was juxtaposing two names, both of which were next to each other in the list, and both of which were listed as deceased. I'm all for making things right, but it not like those two people were gonna notice!

Somehow, I managed to get some other work done when I wasn't having to deal with these people.

Political cures that may be worse than the disease Vol.7: National Tragedies

It took less than six hours for the more fervent political talking heads to take the tragedy at Virginia Tech and twist it to support their positions. Does this mean we need tighter gun control? Does it mean we need to loosen concealed weapon laws so people can have guns to shoot back with? The gunman was an immigrant, do we need to close the borders?

The answer is the same for any question regarding the political impact of a tragedy like this: Shut the fuck up!

Do you want a political statement to come out of this? Fine! When something like this happens, it should be a law that ANYONE attempting to politicize it should first pose these questions to the families of the victims. Not that I wish any extra grief upon these people, but if someone wishes to be so insensitive by trying to make the victims into martyrs for causes they had absolutely nothing to do with, shouldn't they first get the permission of the next of kin?

That, and I'd love to see these self-important nozzleheads be beaten within an inch of their lives at the hands of a victim's mother. Believe me, if some guy had come to me within hours of my father's accident and tried to propose stricter hang gliding legistlation, even with my passive nature and the fact that I was only twelve, I would not have hesitated for a second to beat the life out of him.

And, to make matters worse, I read today that the Westboro Baptist Church is planning to protest at the funerals because America is a sinful place and they believe these people deserved to die.

Let these people grieve, for fuck's sake! It's a senseless tragedy. Key word being senseless. Nobody knows what set this guy off, but you can rest assured that his last words were not "This'll show those fuckheads in Washington, D.C.!!!"

No words or opinions ever brought someone back from the dead. In fact, in times like these, even the kindest words do very little to console the victims' families. And words like "See? SEE?!? There could've been LAWS to prevent this!!!" is not gonna change the fact that it happened. In addition to that, there's no certainty that if there were laws in place that this could've been prevented!

There's a reason we observe moments of silence. There are reasons there are five stages of grief, and it takes a little longer than six hours for those stages to pass...and for the record, righteous indignation is not one of those five stages.

Monday Night Caption Contest

Post you captions in the comment section below. The winner will be announced two weeks from tonight.

Here are mine for the week:

1. July 25, 2014: The Britney Spears Comeback Special.

2. Week by week, fewer people showed up for her yoga class, but Ethyl just kept on going.


There's still one more week on last week's caption contest. The winner will be announced next Monday.


The winner of April 2nd's contest is YoS with the caption: "Thank you for your generous gift of organic garlic and hand-tooled crosses, but we are unable to accept this donation at this time."

On a side note, two days after that picture was taken, I found it on numerous political t-shirts on CafePress.com.

Just what I need: More movies

Okay, Vintage Stock is pure evil. I've been there twice this week and I've bought five movies:

L.A. Story - I used to own this one. In fact it was the first DVD I ever bought. I think I lent it out before I moved back to Tulsa and forgot who I lent it out to. That was six years ago, and the reason I hadn't bought it again was that it was one of those movies I watched so much that owning it was kind of a moot point. The same holds true for Ghostbusters, Airplane!, Back to the Future, etc.

The Man with Two Brains - I saw this on the shelf and decided that I need to go ahead and get every movie written by Steve Martin. I'm now three down (along with Bowfinger), and I've got eight more to go.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind - I owned this once on VHS. I got it as a present from someone who remembered this one time when I started sculpting my mashed potatoes at dinner in reference to the film. They gift wrapped it with a box of instant mashed potatoes. Plus, this flick settles my problem linking Jaws in with my other films through co-stars.

A Mighty Wind - This film seems so much funnier the more folk musicians I meet.

Before Sunset - The prequel to this film, Before Sunrise, is one of the films I always have someone I'm involved in watch or know that they've watched in the past. They don't have to like it...I'm not that shallow. They just have to understand why I like it. I was kinda jazzed when I found out they were doing a sequel, but at the time I watched it for the first time, a lot of what they were talking about in the film, particularly the heavy moments, hit a little too close to home. Julie Delpy's character's more cynical views on love were almost word for word what this one girl I was trying to date had told me when she shot me down. Enough time has passed now that I can view this film from a healthier perspective.


Now, I have to get a new DVD shelf to hold all the extra movies.

Five little things

1. Great, the one time I receive pain by NOT having gas...Yesterday, I got home and found a note on my door from the gas company saying that the service in my building has been cut off due to work on the lines. So much for washing dishes was my first thought. It wasn't until this morning, when I had about two minutes of warm water in the shower, that it really sunk in how much I've taken natural gas for granted. But I gotta say, a cold shower is better than the strongest cup of coffee.

I couldn't get a straight answer from the gas company as to when it will be back on. Looks like I'll have another cold shower in the morning. I might wait until my testicles descend again before I start the angry phone calls to ONG. Nothing worse than trying to kick someone's ass on the phone with a squeaky voice.


2. Fritschie in charge...This week, I got a new assistant at work. She's part-time, only 25 hours a week, but that'll be a great help. The best part is, my boss is actually letting me be a manager, not just a trainer. It's been only four days, but I can tell things'll work out just fine.


3. Life imitates Don Henley lyrics...This morning, on the expressway, I actually saw a deadhead sticker on a Cadillac.


4. There are so many things wrong with that statement...I had a lady ask me today to fax her this one form she needed. She said she knew she could just make a photocopy of it herself, but in her own words, "I'm just not that computer literate."


5. Pre-order your "nappy-headed ho" t-shirt now...Now that the media has the answer to the question they've been asking for the past week: Should Don Imus be fired?, they're now asking if being fired is too stiff of a penalty. I'm not condoning what he said, but I do believe that while the situation has been blown a bit out of proportion. That's hardly the worst thing he has ever said on the air, but I am glad it was the straw that broke the camel's back. Why do the biggest assholes always get the most popular radio shows?

One way to justify having a good travel agent

1. Go to google.com.

2. Click on Maps.

3. Click on Get Directions.

4. From: New York, New York.

5. To: Paris, France.

6. Then, read step #23.

7. Laugh your ass off.

Monday Night Caption Contest

Post your captions in the comments section below.

Here are mine for the week:

1. He's not much for conversation, but his wine is spectacular!

2. "Here are my demands: Two million in small bills, A pound of fresh flies, safe passage to Cuba and a large mayonaisse jar with a twig in it for transport. And God help you if there aren't hole poked in the lid. Your move, Mr. President."


The winner of last week's contest will be named next Monday. Get your captions in now!


March 26th's contest winner is Xanaboobs, with the caption/skit:
"Hey there... We're looking for Fritschie..."
"Well, actually, just her. She's looking for Fritschie."
"Yeah, just her, we're just here for support."
"It wasn't my idea. Somebody owes someone a favor, I think."
"Where the hell is my mineral water?"
"Does... anyone here know Fritschie? I need to get this over with."
"Totally. I have to wax my legs before my next shoot."
"But you waxed them this morning."
"I know, I wax them before and after every shoot. I hate hair."
"Then I don't know if you'll be pleased when you see Fritschie."
"Someone, please, tell me, where is Fritschie?"

Xanaboobs knows how to win these contests...catering to my ego by suggesting at least one of those hot chicks are there to see me for any reason.

One quick, weird thing

On the expressway today, I saw a car cut across three lanes of traffic to make their exit. The funny thing is the car had a bumper sticker that read, "Why worry? God's in Control!" And some people wonder why car insurance rates are so high in this town.

When Kerouac hits a little close to home

Every once and a while, I look through the "missed connections" section of Craigslist. Not that I ever expect to see anything about myself, but it's fun to see what people post on there. People who think they found their soul mate in line at Carl's Jr. and are lamenting being too much of a chickenshit to say anything at the time, or some guy apologizing to the guy at the rest stop who was actually there to use the restroom but wish he could've rocked their world instead, or something like this:

"hey Charley I'm pregnant and living on 3rd street right above a dirty bookstore off Elgin avenue. And I stopped taking dope, and I quit drinking whiskey and my old man plays the trombone and works out at the track.

He says that he loves me, even though it’s not his baby. He says that he'll raise him up like he would his own son and he gave me a ring that was worn by his mother and he takes me out dancing every Saturday nite.

And hey Charley I think about you every time I pass a fillin' station on account of all the grease you used to wear in your hair. and I still have that record of little Anthony & the imperials, but someone stole my record player. how do you like that?

hey Charley I almost went crazy after Mario got busted so I went back to Omaha to live with my folks but everyone I used to know was either dead or in prison so I came back in to Tulsa this time I think I'm gonna stay.

Hey Charley I think I'm happy for the first time since my accident. And I wish I had all the money that we used to spend on dope. I'd buy me a used car lot and I wouldn't sell any of em. I'd just drive a different car every day dependin' on how I feel.

Hey Charley, for chrissakes, do you want to know the truth of it? I don't have a husband and he don't play the trombone. And I need to borrow money to pay this lawyer and Charley, hey I'll be eligible for parole come Valentines Day."


It's also important to note the location given on the post was the Tulsa County Jail, and the pics attached to the post were of a man shooting smack into a naked woman's arm and one of a shirtless man holding a gun.

Does Charley have internet access in jail? What is the significance of the trombone? A used car lot?!? Aim high, sister! She's detoxing, pregnant, living above a porn shop with a musician she doesn't love as much as this mysterious Charley, in debt to a lawyer and facing jail time, apparently. However, I do like the hopefulness she has about being out in time for Valentine's Day. Is the same true for poor Charley? We may never know.

This kind of shit makes even my own most tortured romance feel like a fairy-tale ending. On the other hand, I have a feeling this message is one really long secret agent code. By re-posting it means I'll be getting a message from a foreign operative telling me, "Plant your bulbs early. The red dog requires a yellow umbrella."


UPDATE: It's been brought to my attention that the whole post on Craigslist was a slightly altered set of lyrics from an old Tom Waits tune. Damn! I thought I found a real gem of weirdness on the internet, and instead, I found a knock-off. Still, you gotta wonder what kind of person is touched so much by those words that they just HAVE to post it on Craigslist. You know, aside from making a square like me look like an idiot.

Fritschie: Party monster

This morning, I observed Easter Sunday in the most traditional way possible: By waking up feeling like I'd been dead for three days and asking God to take me home.

After spending nearly all day doing a thoroughly half-assed job cleaning my apartment, I planned to go to Arnie's to see Cairde na Gael play and have a few beers. Afterwards, I was gonna stop by a friend's apartment for he and his girlfriend's party.

Well, the band cancelled, and the bar was nearly empty, so I went to the party much earlier than I had planned. The party was supposed to start at 9:00, and I showed up at 10:30 to find that I was one of only three people there. To make things even more interesting, the host's girlfriend had dumped him that afternoon, so you can understand the beer started flowing much earlier in the evening for him.

And that's saying a lot for this guy. He works for a liquor distributer, so he gets a shitload of booze at wholesale prices, if not for free. In his apartment, there were three sets of seven-foot bookshelves, all full of various types of beer, all nicely organized and to my surprise, not alphabetized. On another table, there was a huge selection of hard liquor and wines. I guess the best way to describe it would be the Leaving Las Vegas Home Hobby Kit.

His apartment building was pretty much party central. No one in the building is over 24 years old, loud music blares from every apartment, and the landlord seem to be okay with all of that. Most of the other tenants came by the party over the course of the night, and each group seemed to have had their own party drugs before coming over.

The host and the other guy who was there when I arrived broke out a few cans of spray paint and did a little re-decoration...security deposit be damned. Someone broke out a game of Twister, but that only lasted a few minutes. A guy came to the party wearing a dog costume and he passed out cold within thirty minutes. In true party fashion, they painted on him while he was asleep, then laid him down in the guest room (thankfully on his stomach), and the host took his dog costume and wore it for the rest of the night. At the height of my inebriation, somehow I got suckered into helping to carry this guys to the apartment downstairs. He was just a little guy, but the kid was essentially dead weight, me and the other guy carrying him were drunk, so it was like trying to move a sofa down four flights of stairs.

How much did I drink? God only knows, but I do remember the kinds of alcohol I had over the course of the night: Beer, hard cider, brandy, whisky, sake, and I think there was some raspberry liquour at some point. How I didn't end up spewing like the fountains at the Bellagio, I haven't the faintest clue.

Other things I'm a bit hazy about:

• I'm pretty sure I followed the host outside and he spray-painted the words "Doggie Style" on the sidewalk...and misspelled it.
• Someone threw a full, unopened can of Corona at me, hitting me in the shoulder.
• I think I tried to get a game of hacky sack started...in the dining room.
• I commented to the host about him having a Girls Gone Wild DVD out in the open, and his defense was, "Yeah, but that's the one with Snoop Dogg, man!" as if that elevates it in stature. Kinda like saying, "Sure, it's a meth lab, but all of the ingredients I use are name brand products...no knockoffs."

I barely remember getting home, but apparently I had the wherewithall to get to my bed and not sleep in my clothes. This morning, I found that my truck was parked properly in the parking lot with no damage, everything was as it should be in my apartment, and everything else in my life was intact. A Gatorade and Tylenol breakfast, and I was right as rain.

A glimpse into my movie-freaked mind

A quick thing that made me laugh this week: Clifford Irving, the man who inspired the new movie The Hoax, about his complete fabrication of the Autobiography of Howard Hughes back in the seventies, has been complaining in interviews about the filmmakers taking creative liberties with his story. Some people have no sense of irony.


I stopped off at Vintage Stock this week and got a hell of a deal on four DVDs. I got the firest two Spider-Man movies for $6 a pop...a bargain considering these were both the 2-disc special editions. I also picked up Tomorrow Never Dies and The Fisher King. Needless to say, Fiday night was one weird quadruple feature at Casa de Fritschie.

I saw each of the Spider-Man movies once in theaters, and I had forgotten how good those movies are. My fear is, from what I've seen of Spider-Man 3, that they may be trying to fit too much into one movie. Venom, Sandman AND Hobgoblin?!? Plus, trying to fit in Mary Jane and Gwen Stacy? I worry that this story will be all over the place.

However, it warms my geek-boy heart to see that they're finally getting the right people to bring comic books to the big screen. Bryan Singer worked great for X-Men and Superman. Robert Rodriguez could make nothing but Sin City movies for the rest of his career and I'd be more than happy. Zack Snider did a great job with 300, and I hear he's doing Watchmen next.

Don't get me wrong, I thought Tim Burton did a pretty good job with Batman, but it really didn't do the stories much justice. Chistopher Nolan did the backstory right with Batman Begins, and I look forward to seeing The Dark Knight next year to see how well they do the Joker (Heath Ledger) and set up the story of Two-Face (Aaron Eckhart).


Tomorrow Never Dies was one of the most underappreciated Bond films. It had all of the elements that make a good Bond film, and proved that Pierce Brosnan was still a great choice to play Bond...Goldeneye was not just a fluke. Plus, it did pretty well considering the weekend it opened it was up against a little film called Titanic. I remember seeing four movies that week. The first was Titanic, simply by virtue of being outvoted by all those I went to the theater with. The second was Tomorrow Never Dies. The third was Titanic again, because my girlfriend at the time loved it so much. The fourth was Scream 2, because Titanic was sold out when we got there.

And, my girlfriend dragged me to see Titanic another seven times before it left theaters. Yes, I spent the equivalent of a day and a half sitting in a theater watching that movie. By the sixth time, I found myself cheering when Leo sank to the bottom of the North Atlantic.


The Fisher King was the first R-rated film I paid to see in theaters on my own. Before that time, I had snuck in to see them, or had my folks with me. Although, The Fisher King took two tries to get in. I was 15 at the time, and this hardass working the box office refused to sell me a ticket the first time. I tried to talk him into giving me the ticket, but he not only refused, but also had an usher keep an eye on me to make sure I didn't sneak in after buying a ticket to Neccessary Roughness instead.

I've been on a real Terry Gilliam kick lately. I bought 12 Monkeys a few months ago out of the bargain rack at Target. I saw Brazil at the midnight movie at the Circle Cinema last month. Now, I've made it my quest in life to own all of his movies. However, I'm having a hell of a time finding them. Brazil, Adventures of Baron Munchausen, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas are nowhere to be found. Brazil and Fear and Loathing each came out in Criterion Editions a few years ago, and that makes any bare-bones DVD versions out there not worth having. That's like having a craving for fine vintage wine and settling for Mad Dog 20/20 instead.


With these movies, I'm one step closer to completing what I call "the co-star connection". It's a variation of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, in which I try to connect all of the DVDs in my collection through co-stars. Tomorrow Never Dies helps me tie in my Mystery Science Theater DVDs through Joe Don Baker, who was in my favorite all-time episode of MST3K, Mitchell. Plus, it ties in Casino Royale via Judi Dench.

Likewise, I've been having some trouble tying in the 40-Year-Old Virgin. But now, the freaky chick from the bookstore also played Jameson's Secretary in both Spider-Man movies. The Fisher King settles in nicely thanks to Pulp Fiction (Amanda Plummer) and Mystery Men (Tom Waits).

The only two movies I'm having zero luck with are Jaws and The Day The Earth Stood Still. Jaws is easy...All I need is American Graffiti (ties in through Harrison Ford in Star Wars), The Rainmaker (Matt Damon in Dogma, or Mickey Rourke in Sin City) or the Sting (Paul Newman in Road to Perdition). I just need to decide if I wanna go the Dreyfuss, Scheider or Shaw routes. The Day The Earth Stood Still is gonna be more difficult. None of the actors in that film did anything else I wanna see, much less own. On the other hand, a clip from that movie is in Independence Day, but when am I ever gonna watch that piece of shit again...If I find a copy for fifty cents at a garage sale, I might consider it.


...I just realized that that last segment might be used as evidence against me if I'm ever committed to an asylum. But, as Jonathon Pryce said in Tomorrow Never Dies, "The difference between madness and genius is success."

Poor Kermit...

You'd think this would be a slap in the face to my inner child, my idol worship of Johnny Cash and my strict "no one makes fun of the Muppets" policy...but this is fucking hilarious:

Fixing the truck with minimal effort

For a few weeks, the truck has been acting up on me. It started when I was in Fort Smith. A car stopped short in front of me, and I narowly avoided hitting them by mere inches. Anyway, since then, whenever I get past 45 MPH, the steering column would shake uncontrolably. But, if I got past 65 MPH, it would be fine again.

I described the problem to a guy at work, and he thought it was a problem with the wheel being unbalanced. That made sense because I have been riding around on the spare tire since the last ice storm. It's a full-size spare, but it probably hadn't been used since the car was made...back in '96. The tread was cracked and the wheel itself was in pretty bad shape.

Today, I noticed the tire was a little low, so I stopped at QuikTrip to fill it up. After the compressor timed out, I heard hissing from the tire, and found that not only did it have an audible leak, but part of the tread was peeling away...so much so that I figured out that was the cause of the shaking. Once I got up enough speed, the tread would pop out and throw the whole wheel off-balance.

I got back to work with only a little air left in the tire. I got the original tire fixed and swapped them out before heading for home. Now, the truck handles great! If only the other problems on the truck were that easy to fix. The A/C needs to be fixed, but with the forecast calling for frost this weekend, I may have bought some extra time to get it fixed.

What if everything else was as easy as the tire? I'd find a CD changer behind the tape deck! A flip of a switch to change it to a hybrid! Plush leather heated seats under the torn pleather upholstery! Equal trade-in for a car I'd actually want to drive!

A man can dream.

Short Takes

-My boss has hired a new artist to work part time. I have until Monday to get her computer set up properly.

-I was a little bit late for work this morning because a goose crossing the access road to my office stopped right in front of my truck and held a standoff with me...kinda like an avian Tienamen Square.

-I fell for the Aqua Teen Hunger Force April Fool's Joke. I tuned in thinking they would be showing the whole movie last night...the movie that'll be in theaters April 13th...which they did, for about three minutes, then shrunk the movie down to the size of a postage stamp at the bottom of the screen and killed the sound while they showed their normal programming.

-I found a new game last night that kept me enthralled for at least two hours: Five Minutes to Kill (Yourself). Really fun, while at the same time, a little sad that I would be sucked into such a concept.

-Daily Show and Colbert Report are repeats this week. Heroes doesn't return for three weeks. 24 is getting a little tiresome. CSI: Miami isn't on because of the NCAA tournament. And, I hate doing dishes.

Monday Night Caption Contest

Clearly I'm tipping my hand and declaring my endorsement for Obama, here. Post your captions in the comment section below.

Here are mine for the week:

1. John McCain's latest strategy: Trick Hillary into opening the Arc of the Covenant.

2. I know politicians have to do weirtd things to win over voters in the South, but a belching contest? Seriously?


The winner of last week's caption contest will be announced next Monday. Get your captions in now.


The winner of March 20th's contest is CleverName with the caption: Headline from "Middle Earth Times" : Orcs Unionize, rally against Sauron's "Silly Hat" policy.

Introspection alert level: yellow

Yesterday's little sphincter-pucker turned into a whole day of visits from the ghost of relationships past. Everything is okay now, any and all serious problems has been taken care of. However, the emotions it has brought to light, for me, is here and I have to deal with them.

Remember all of those montages they do on America's Funniest Home Videos of guys getting hit in the balls? Well, stretch all those out over the course of a day, without the laugh tracks, and superimpose my face on everyone in those clips...the hitters and the hittees alike. That's how my day was yesterday. One long flashback sequence of me being hurt, me doing the hurting, and everytime being unable to avoid any of it.

Why should this have any bearing on how I conduct myself today? After all, I'm not in a relationship right now for this to have an impact on. Everything that happened yesterday has worked itself out. Things should be back to normal, right? Well, half yes and half no.

My wish at this moment is that the end justified the means. I'm fuctioning quite well being single right now, but I wouldn't have been in this position if I hadn't had so many of these bad situations cause me to want to have nothing to do with it for a while. And while the events of yesterday have given me the kick in the ass I needed to finally realize what I did wrong all this time, it has also shed new light on those events, namely the extra blame that should've been placed on me this whole time. I've been bullshitting myself into thinking that I've just been unlucky this whole time, but instead, I've been bringing this bad luck on myself.

The trick now is to change my luck. However, I've always been a horrible gambler, and when the chips are down, I've always looked for the nearest ATM. That all changes now. I'm only willing to gamble what I know I can not live without if I lose. No more going all in in the hope that it'll double my money, only to find myself fishing coins out of the fountain for cab fare home.