Ten things you'll NEVER hear on "24"

10. "Now, all we can do is wait."
9. "Oh, just let him do his own thing."
8. "No worries."
7. "Boy, I really gotta pee."
6. "Give me a minute, AOL keeps booting me off."
5. "Gee, the President sure seems to be taking this all in stride."
4. "Wanna play Warcraft over the network?"
3. "Oh, fiddlesticks!"
2. "What's that beeping? Is someone microwaving a burrito?"
1. "Does anyone else think it's weird that something really big always happens every hour on the hour? I mean, you could set your watch to any given crisis around here!"

Okay, I'm back

So, I've found the secret to making it through a night of working the door at a bar. Before I went in to work tonight, I stopped off at QuikTrip and got myself a Red Bull and one of those little herbal energy pill packets they have next to the register. I took one tablet at the start of my shift, another halfway through and so, it's was four in the morning before I got to sleep. They should really label those pills more truthfully: Time-release crack.

At one time, I promised myself I would try to post on the blog every day. Shortly after that promise, I made it a little more realistic...try to post at least every couple days and never go a full week without putting at least something up there. It's been exactly seven days. I'm just under the wire.

Last weekend I had a blast with my friends back in Arkansas. Only one of them knew I was coming down on Friday, so the rest were really surprised when I crashed the rehearsal dinner. These were the people I worked with at teh Wal-Mart home office for the two years I was in Arkansas. Many of them I also went to college with, so there's a lot of history shared with these folks. But what sets them apart from other people I knew at a certain time and a certain place is the fact that with them, it's not a pick-up-where-we-left-off kinda thing or a remembering-the-good-old-days thing...there's still a great connection there. And even though so much has changed in our respective lives, there's no awkwardness.

I've been thinking about this a lot this week, and I have come to this conclusion: 99 times out of a hundred, people drift apart because life takes them in different directions and many of the people you were once very close to just simply cannot follow you on that particular leg of the journey. With my friends, I feel we've avoided that ptifall because everything that has happened to us has followed a very natural progression. The friends that have hooked up as couples are all now married, those of us that once strived for something better in their lives now have that better life...no one has fallen from grace, no one has been ostracized, no one has strayed, and those of us that have left on their own joureys are still welcome back into the fold at any time for a visit.

After the wedding on Saturday, I had dinner with my friends, then opted to head back to Tulsa to catch Larkin playing at Arnie's. I drove from Northwest Arkansas non-stop to my parking space outside the bar. The place was packed. Libby was in the middle of the crowd and it took me what seemed liek forever to get through the maze of drunks to get to where she was.

Ah, Libby. I know I've been cryptic about her, but I'll try to fill you in as best I can. She and I first met on Myspace, wherein she had sent me messages asking me about the local art scene, but like an Idiot I cleaned out my emails and lost track of her when it was my turn to answer her questions. A few weeks later, i saw her at Arnie's. I was walking out as she was walking in. For a brief moment, I was gonna say something to her, but I thought that "Didn't we meet online?" was the worst pickup line I could've used.

The next day, during a lull in my work, I went online and started searching through friends' friends lists and I found her profile, so I sent her an email asking if she had been at the bar the night before. She replied yes and asked my why I didn't say something to her at the bar, so I pointed out the lousy pickup line I decided not to use. That little back-and-forth fizzled out rather quickly after that.

I ran into her at St. Patrick's Day at Arnies, and we finally spoke to each other face-to-face, even if it was just for a couple minutes. a couple days later, she sent me an email askiing me about my favorite artist, Toulouse-Lautrec. This started emails back and forth, which turned to AIM chats and finally hanging out at the bar.

Early on, I was taking the attitude of doing the thing I was most afraid of (dating) and getting scared afterwards. Surely enough, the fear reared it's ugly head, and that's what the fucked up postings last month were all about. Most of that, about 99.99%, has subsided and everything's great...except for that whole working 60 hours a week and still living with my ex-girlfriend thing, but both of those things will be fixed soon.

This is our busy season at work, and I am in full swing. I'm making it a point to keep working until all i have left are unanswered questions, rather than just finding other things to do until my eyeballs feel like they're about to dry up. That's what's gotten me so burnt out in the past...trying to solve everything and working myself to death in order to find an answer...only to find myself to be wrong the next day.

I'm preparing myself for maybe 70 hours this coming week, plus my normal shift at the bar. Is is better to burn out or to fade away? We'll know by the time June comes around.

Full of curry and tired as hell

The posts are gonna be few and far between this month. We're behind on our big project of the year, and couple that with trying to fine tune the two new kick-ass computer systems we got at work, and triple that with the fact that I drove to and from Arkansas for my firend's wedding over the weekend, and quadruple that with my ever-expanding social schedule.

Many of the friends I've run into over the past few days were fairly concerned about me, given the negative nature of my posts of late. I had to assure them, as I will all of you in blogland, that things are really just great for Fritschie right now. Now, All I gotta do is find the time to write about them, which is not gonna be anytime real soon. For instance, today, I worked 12 hours without a lunch break and went straight to my friend's birthday dinner at an Indian restaurant.

Anyway, more on all this when I have the energy. My next post will be much longer and go into much greater detail. There's a wedding, there's intrigue, and most importantly, there's more about Libby.

Until next time, folks,

Am I gonna have to separate you two?

Today was a rough day. Not in the respect that I was swamped at work or anything, it's just the amount of distraction and sheer stupidity I had to contend with.

Imagine trying to type in three pages of hand-written grammatically-incorrect text, trying to correct yourself as you went along, all the while having two of your co-workers acting like total idiots three feet away from you and your boss having a loud discussion with a client just outside the doorway to your office. The client/boss conversation I can pretty much tune out, but those two co-workers were flicking pennies at my last nerve. And the real distraction for me is trying not to let it show that they were bugging the piss out of me, because getting a reaction out of me is just the icing on the cake for the two of them.

About a year ago, I had the opposite problem with one of those co-workers. She would be so quiet in the office that she would startle me big time when she did make a sound. So, to combat this, she started making little sounds: Whistling, scooting her feet when she walked, etc.

Well, that habit has mutated into a constant loop of meows, whistles, burps, fake fart sounds, and childish singing...kinda like if R2-D2 mated with a eight-year-old that was raised by cats. Seriously, it's like trying to work with a Spike Jones album playing on a perpetual loop.

But now, she's ganged up with the woman I share an office with, and now it's a competition to see who can be more annoying. It also doesn't help that R2-D2 girl brought in a talking Napoleon Dynamite figurine. Now, whenever they sense that I'm getting annoyed, they always say, "You know what I say to that?" and then push the button until they get Napoleon to say "I wish you'd get out of my life and shut up!" And that that damned thing has 18 different phrases, I usually have to listen to the entire collection until they're satisfied. One day, I took the batteries out and she yelled at me for messing with her stuff. It's enough for me that I NEVER want to see that fucking movie ever again. Hell, I can't even bring myself to wear the "Liger" shirt my neices bought me for Christmas because I now hate the movie so much.

Another fatal error on my part was to clue them in that I fucking HATE the smell of popcorn, because they cook several bags of it in the microwave every day. I'm sure they don't do it to annoy me, but it's a bit unnerving for me to walk into my own office and wish I had a couple of cat turds to shove up my nose because it's the only thing strong enough to mask the odor...and is actually better smelling in my opinion.

I mean, what the hell? How sad is it that a cholicky baby with Tourette's would be too MATURE of a comparison for the amount of stupidity that comes from these two every day?

I guess I just have to deal with it. I'm not gonna quit my job because of something like this because I was here first. Besides, a guy with a barrel of monkeys and a Obi-Wan Kenobi Beanie Baby resting on top of his monitor is the last one to tell you you're being immature. But at least none of my toys make noise, I don't funk up the entire office with Orville Redenbacher, and I'm at least somewhat aware when I'm annoying someone and actually take steps to stop it when I do. At least they're making me look so much more professional my contrast.

Now, If you'll excuse me, I'm gonna crank up the Muppet Movie soundtrack, drink my juice box, and play some Nintendo while jumping on the bed in my feety pajamas...and where the hell is my wooby?!? I NEED MY WOOBY!

My sure-fire can't-miss movie pitch

This movie has everything!!!

It's a fish-out-of-water romantic gothic horror coming-of-age docu-dramedy period-piece historical science fiction children's 3-D slapstick action adventure summer blockbuster Oscar-caliber special effects extravaganza pre-sequel.

Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, girl overcomes incredible odds to win boy's love, boy gets abducted by a religious zealot alien and taken to small-town America where wackiness ensues. Then, a ruthless killer with supernatural powers holds girl hostage, so boy must search deep within himself to conquer this evil, as well as his debilitating mental condition he develops as a result of the aliens' brainwashing the boy to get him to assassinate the President.

To do so, he goes deep undercover and outside the law to redeem himself in the eyes of a precocious little girl and her talking dog that he meets on his way to the no-holds-barred martial arts tournament held on the ruthless killer's private island, which is, in fact, a computer-simulated world filled with pirates, warlocks and animated bunnies (for comic relief).

His epic struggle through the tournament leads him to doubt his feelings for the girl, so he goes back in time to prevent himself from meeting her in the first place. His plan backfires when he accidentally alters the course of human evolution and turns the whole world upside down. In a stunning twist, the boy then finds himself falling in love with the ruthless killer, and must fight the girl in the final round of the tournament.

With help from the alien, who was locked in a struggle against the girl the whole time, boy defeats girl. With her dying breath, the girl reveals that she is actually the boy's mother, the talking dog is his father, the precocious little girl was just a figment of his imagination, and that the ruthless killer, the love of boy's life (did I mention that the killer is a retarded deaf-mute groundskeeper?) is dying of cancer. The alien grants the boy one wish to save just one of them, in exchange for sexual favors.

So now, he must choose to save the mother he never knew or the ruthless killer he's fallen in love with. The boy chooses to save the killer, except now the killer is upset that the boy had accepted the alien's offer and betrayed their forbidden love. So begins the boy's journey of redemption, but with one more setback: He's now bankrupt.

He has to raise the cash it takes for settle his debts with the mobsters who financed his entry into the tournament. To that end, he steals from the alien, defeats the mob, and rushes home to declare his love for the ruthless killer. He discovers the killer in bed with the dog, and in a fit of blind rage, kills them both. After being sentenced to life in prison, boy hatches a plan to escape and fight the tournament again and reclaim his former glory.

(Insert training montage set to catchy rock music here)

The only problem is, the final round is a tag team match against mutated cyborg super-clones of the killer and the talking dog, and the boy's only choice for a fighting partner is the alien. He convinces the alien to fight with him because he's just an ex-con trying to go straight and win back custody of his kids.

The alien double-crosses the boy and teams up with the killer and the talking dog. The boy's only hope for victory is to use the magic crystals the girl (remember the girl?) had slipped into his pocket before she died. He unleashes the power of the crystals and defeats the killer, the talking dog and the alien.

Victorious, the boy is greeted by the President and granted a full pardon. Suddenly, shots ring out, and the President is killed. Because of his earlier experience of brainwashing the boy becomes the prime suspect (boy's life-long addiction to drugs doesn't help his credibility, and must set out to clear his name. But who could the real assassin be? The precocious little girl (who may or may NOT be real), the pirates, the warlocks, the European ninja terrorists, the Knights Templar, the owner of the haunted amusement park...or could it be someone or something else? Or was this all a dream...in the mind of an autistic kid...living on the moon? The real game of cat and mouse begins.

A title card reads TO BE CONTINUED.

Fade to black. Roll credits.

Newton's third law...of freaking out

Newton's third law: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

The morning after my last post, on my way to work, I turned on the radio and the first thing I heard was the NPR news reporter saying, "...and then he turned the gun on himself."

I never respond well to change...especially good change. Where Newton's third law comes into this whole mess is this: Everything in my life works in a delicate balance. My work, finances and social lives are usually on even levels. If one goes bad, then one or both of the others tend to get better to compensate.

This is where my little freak-out this week came from. Things were really great with Libby this past weekend, which in my own fucked up way of thinking, worried me. Partly, because I knew that things were about to get really busy at work, so I was dreading the bad mojo. But then, I got to working this week and things were really good. With my finances finally on the right track, I knew things couldn't go wrong there. So, I was left with this huge uncertainty. Would the whole thing with Libby go straight to hell, or would my work life?

At first glance, I was thinking my love life was the area with the most strikes against me, so I guess I kinda stocked the storm shelter a little prematurely on that one. However, it was definitely a possibility that work could go in the crapper at the drop of the hat. I couldn't think straight with this huge unreasonable sense of dread, so my logical mind conpletely shut down. I didn't know what I was thinking, I couldn't stop myself from thinking that way, and worse yet, I couldn't stop myself from expressing the first thing that came to my mind at any given moment.

Libby, bless her, took a chance and rode it out. I was so sure that I had completely screwed things up, but I think things are gonna be okay...eventually. I have a lot of making up to do, but first, I need to quiet the little demons in my head that got me in this mess in the first place.

I'm thinking a lot clearer now, and I make no promises that this will be the last time this will ever happen. It's just an occasional phase I go through. From a historical perspective, this is nothing. Try and imagine how I reacted to my father's death 18 years ago, or my grandfather's over three years ago, or when my fiancee threw me out five years ago. I've made my peace with all of those things, but I won't deny that each of them took quite a bit of time. If you look at it on a sliding scale, I should be back to normal by the end of this week.

I know I over-think things, I know I get too worked up over the little things and I know I'm being irrational in my behavior. I've realized the problem, now I gotta take the steps towards stopping it from getting that bad. I've gotten tons of advice from my friends on this matter and I really appreciate it. However, telling a guy like me to stop worrying is like trying to convince Stephen Hawking to run a four-minute mile. Easier said than done.

VENTING!!!

Yes, this is another of those unneccessary, unreasonable and at times confusing little rants I occasionally do when I'm so worked up I can't think straight.

I'm tired of thinking, yet too tired to sleep. I've had a rough night having to explain things going on in my heart and my head that I cannot explain to save my life.

In light of recent events, I've had at least three people tell me that my main problem is that I cannot live in the present. Well, I've got news for you all...the present fucking sucks.

I've spent the past few years being mindful of my past while planning for the future. I've had problems for a while that I've been fixing one little bit at a time, and working on those problems every day. I am mindful of my past, and I have learned from my mistakes. I've learned to control my serious impulse control issues. With the way my world is right now, if I were to live for the moment, my bank account would be wiped out and I'd be calling my folks to wire me money because I've just woken up in the middle of a cornfield, severely hung over, naked with a half-spent kilo of pot laying at my feet and some woman I don't know asking me where I'm taking her for our honeymoon.

I freely admit, I fucked things up. Call it pathetic, call it panic, call it paranoid-delusional psychosis, call it any goddamned thing you want, but it happened and I can't take it back. I couldn't go through a single moment with her without some sort of worst-case scenario running through my head.

I at least had one breakthrough in all of this. My instincts at the first of this year were right on: I am not ready for any type of relationship, casual, serious or otherwise.

Sweet Jesus, I am so pissed right now that I'm breaking out in hives and my ears are so hot that my hair is liable to catch fire. I think about the catalysts that helped mold my mindset right now and all of those moments have only one thing in common: me. The problem is me and I have to try to fix it, along with so many other things in my life.

Well, one thing I've found that really works in these situations is to set a deadline. I've managed to do that with my workload at my job, I've done it with my debt, now I need to set one for my relationship issues. But how do I go about determining that? I mean, hell, they say one year is the standard for seriously greiving the loss of a loved one. Is this really that bad? No. Six months? Great, just in time for Oktoberfest...This kind of thing might be the one time I truly have to micro-manage. I need to seriously think about it, make a list of my main issues and deal with them one by one. I would ask you guys for help on this, but all of the comments might crash the server. So, if you must, make it brief.

Maybe I have finally fucking lost my mind, but when I look back...I tend to do that about once ever 5-6 years, so I guess I'm due. So, rather than let this all eat me up like it normally does, I'm just gonna go for the full release and get it out of my system. I'm gonna have my little breakdown, lose control for a while and pick up the pieces when I'm done. Don't worry, I'm not aiming for rock-bottom, I'm just gonna repel down the cliff face until I reach the end of my rope and pull myself up again.

Of course, my perspective might change come tomorrow, but I will be re-reading this later and try to make some sense out of it. In the meantime, i think I can finally get some sleep.

Hello Square Two, my old friend

Once when I was little, I got it in my head to build a house of cards. I think I saw a really big one in a movie or TV show or something and I thought it would be cool to make one of my own. Hard as I tried, I never got higher than one story before the whole thing collapsed. I lacked the patience and the steady hand to build the house properly.

Then I had a brilliant idea: glue. I took a bottle of my trusty school glue and started gluing the cards in their place. I got through the first deck of cards and it looked great. Then, when I started to add on to it with a second deck and quickly built on about an extra foot and a half and left the room. As it turns out, I put on the second deck of cards too quickly, the new cards fell and the glue dried. I was left with a nicely stacked base and a huge pile of cards on top.

The reason I bring this up is that it's a metaphor for my life at this moment. I fucked things up-big time-with Libby.

You know that thing your brain does that filters the truth in such a way that it makes it sound a little better? Tact, I believe it's called. Yeah. I'm fresh out of that. Likewise, there's this thing normal people do where they stop talking before they say something really really stupid? Apparently, I can't do that.

I really like this girl, but whenever I'm around her, three thoughts are always floating around in my mind: 1) She lives at home with her folks. 2) I'm still living with my ex-girlfriend. 3) She will be moving away in a few months. At first, these felt like obstacles, but in being with her the past couple days, it's felt more like three strikes. No matter where I go with this girl, no matter what we're doing, I can't help but think about that day when I'm gonna have to say goodbye to her.

So, what do I do? Like a complete moron, I talk to her about it and suggest that she and I just be friends. It was a lot like locking your keys in the car...realizing you're doing it AS you're doing it, yet you can't stop the door from closing. All you can do is paw at the door and go "NOOOOOOO!"

I don't know what to say to her, or how long I should wait to say it. This girl was like a breath of fresh air, and my tactlessness went and opened up a vat of chlorine gas. And now, I'm left with a sunken feeling in my chest and the lyrics to John Mayer's "My Stupid Mouth" playing over and over again in my mind.

There's a this part of my brain that does this to me all the time. It makes certain things sound very logical and reasonable, but then sends a encrypted message to my mouth and promptly places me waist deep in shit. In this case, I was just pointing out what would be inevitable, and perhaps offer a get-out-of-jail-free card. Instead, I come off like Captain Asshole McPrickerslime.

I think that once I hit the "publish post" button, I'll do a little research about this part of my brain, try and locate it, then puncture it with an ice pick.

I guess you could say this is a return to form on the blog, so to speak. Instead of not posting for fear that I would jinx things, I'm back to whining about what's going wrong in my life. Welcome back, your dreams were your ticket out.

I politely agrued with the law and the law won

The past few days driving home from work, I kept seeing this one truck in my neighborhood that had a bumbersticker that reads, "If it has tits or wheels, it will cause you problems". What a charmer, huh? Gee, can you imagine what this guy's eHarmony.com profile must be like?

The past few days have been nuts to say the least. Tons of work, roommate's been out of town, and most of my free time have been spent with Libby. To tell the truth, I really like this girl, and she really likes me. I would've never expected either of those scenarios before I met her.

She's smart, funny, unbelievably sexy, and loads of fun to be around. For years, I've had it in my head that when I go out with a girl, we always have to be doing something, but with her it's different. Just being in the same room as her is exciting as hell. I have a feeling she feels the same way as me, judging from the fact that she hung out with me for almost two hours while I was working the door at Arnie's Saturday night.

Friday night, she and I went to see Hosty Duo at Arnie's. Man, those guys are good!. Normally, I tend to wimp out on shows before they finish playing, but I stayed because A) Libby was with me, and B) I was having a great time listening to the band.After leaving the bar, Libby was following my car when she got pulled over by a Sherrif's Deputy. So, being the concerned date, I pulled over with her. Big mistake, according to the deputy.

The cop toldme-nay, scolded me-that there's a lot of gang activity in this town, and that gang members are always looking for an excuse to ambush a cop. I was about to ask him if I honestly looked like a gang member to him, but then I remembered he was armed. He nearly drew his weapon when he saw me put my keys in my pockets. He asked me how much I had to drink that night, and I told him four beers since 8:30 (leaving out the two shots I also had), and that I had switched to sodas about an hour and a half earlier. He gave me this chewing out about how the alcohol would still be in my system and that I probably shouldn't be driving. He might have had a point if, say, I was 5'6", 120 lbs., but I'm 6"2", 250 lbs. I know my limits, but again, I wasn't gonna point that out to him. I just accepted my ass-chewing, got back in my car and drove off when he was done with both of us.

He also asked about my out-of-state tags as if I was some sort of car thief. When I explained that it was my stepdad's car that I'm just making the payments on, he dropped the accusatory tone.

I mean, I thought the credo was "to protect and serve". No where in those four words did I read, "and be a paranoid, unreasonable dickwad". At least I got off with a warning. Otherwise, I would've gone to the county lockup...and I'm too pretty to survive in prison.

Remembering Bill Hicks

This weekend I was at Borders and found a newly released comedy album by the late Bill Hicks. Now, if any of you out there hasn't yet heard of Bill Hicks...get off your ass.

Bill Hicks was quite possibly the funniest man who ever lived. He was fearless, crude, self-aware, honest, and fucking hilarious. Even though he died in over twelve years ago, and most of his recorded work is very topical with that time, it's so eerily relevant today. This newest release, recorded at Oxford University in 1992, rants about Bush Sr., trouble in the Middle East, and even Basic Instinct (wherein he rants about what Basic Instinct 2 should be like).

This new release is nothing too new. All of the material he uses you can find on all of his other albums. However, this is like listening to a live album of your favorite band...It's the same music you've heard before, only with a different order, a different spin, a different riff than what you've used to. Having practically memorized his other albums, I found myself starting to mouth along to the setup to each joke, but laughing my ass off hearing this alternate version.

This was recorded toward the end of his career, about a year before he found out he was dying, yet a little after he started to tire of the job. Even though he rants about how sick he was about living life on the road and having to deal with all of the brain-dead people he encountered who didn't understand his deep message and only wanted to hear the dick jokes (which he begrudgenly obliges), he still brought 100% to his performances. If Dane Cook wants to believe he's the comedic equivalent of a rock star, then Bill Hicks was the seasoned, road weary, Turn-the-Page rock legend who was tired of performing the same old hits to please the crowd when he believed his new ideas would change the world.

It's strange to think that he was only 32 when he passed away. On many of his recordings, he'd joke about his own death, not from the actual cancer that took him from this life, but from the non-smokers who beat the shit out of him. He joked about drugs from a level experience few people have ever survived. He spoke of alcohol like an old drunk hooked up to a kidney dialysis machine...he knew what risks he was taking, but had a great time doing it anyways. Even his rants about the dangers of smoking seemed less like a public service announcement and more like a desperate plea for someone to give him a cigarette.

He would talk about love and talk about hate with equal disdain for both. He would condemn racism with the same swagger as those who support it while at the same time paint broad generalizations about other races that left you to wonder which side he was on. There was never a fine line with Bill Hicks...He would jump over the line and back so much that no one cared what the line was anymore.

More than anything, he wasn't a "didjya' ever notice?" kind of comedian. He observed the world, turned in his report, and appropriately ripped it a new asshole. In the twelve years he's been gone, the world has gone to deeper levels of hell than even he could not have possibly imagined, and a great voice of dissent, honesty and BALLS like his is much needed in times like these. The bad news is, it can never be duplicated.