It's been a while since I have taken the time to complain online with you. I blame the fact that I have been busy writing off-line, working a lot at work (where we aren't able to get onto MySpace, the bastards) and not really being that bitchy, come to think of it.
I DO appreciate the emails and the barrage of questions that make me feel famous even though I'm not. To answer a few of the more common queries:
YES, I cut my hair. I hadn't touched it for a full year, but I went ballistic in August and got it chopped off. My wife is thrilled. I no longer look or feel like a homeless person, and my personal temperature has dropped about 1000 degrees.
YES, we are still in the process of adopting a baby from China. The paperwork and hoops they require you to jump through are staggering and exhausting. It blows my goddamn mind how difficult the US and China make it to take an innocent child from a lifetime of hardship, slave labor, or sex work and give her the chance to be loved and raised in an environment that will actually elevate her to... you know... a GOOD LIFE.
NO, I haven't "gotten rid of" the cats. Someone wrote me and chewed me out for "getting rid of" my 4 fantastic cats. I still have 'em. They still wake me up 30 times a night. I am still covered from head to food in luscious, delicious fur. My cats still trip me every time I walk through my kitchen. They still cost me $50 a month to feed them. They still attack my fucking feet when I am trying to watch MAD MEN.
Jesus Christ. Does anyone want a cat?
YES, Rocky Horror is coming back to Belcourt on October 31st. If you plan on coming, I STRONGLY suggest that you get advanced tickets. Go to www.belcourt.org and poke around, you will find it. We had a show on July 4th and 5th and both shows sold out FAST. You have been warned.
All in all, I'm fine. Things are good. Nothing is wrong. My Lovely Wife™ has not kicked me out yet. No complaints.
Now here is a photo of Christina Hendricks. She is on a show called MAD MEN, and I am not exaggerating a bit when I say she is a mother fucking brick shit house. I figure you earned a look at her because this was a boring blog entry and you kids deserve more. She has more to spare. Holy crackers.
In an effort to NOT appear as a conglomerate that doesn't give a damn about the common consumer, McDonald's Corporation has been rolling out an interesting option to their franchises over the past few weeks. They call them "The Manager's Specials". The logic behind it is that McDonald's will look more like a non-corporate, non-by-the-book cancer factory and more like a big, lucky company that has a LOT of stores but who gives their local managers some leeway with the menu.
They destroy this concept by printing and selling six-foot-by-four-foot full-color posters that advertise the manager's specials on them, along with giant photos of whatever heart-attack-in-a-bag you happen to be able to purchase for a reasonable fee, but that's not really the point of this tale. I only needed to mention that the Manager's Specials are in play in order for you to appreciate the following true story.
Our local McDonald's is pretty heavy on the Mexican and pretty light on the "Ugh" factor. The "Ugh" factor usually consists of phantom poopie smells when you walk in and a general sense that you just missed the cockroach parade. I work in Brentwood, which is a pretty nice part of Nashville, and the McDonald's is in pretty good shape. It's forgivable that our servers don't speak English because at least there isn't a sticky floor is what I am saying. Stay with me, I'm almost ready to start making sense.
This week's "Manager's Special" is a doozy. TWO Triple Cheeseburgers for ONLY $3.15. Yes indeed! For only Three dollars and fifteen sense you can enjoy SIX all-beef patties smothered in pickles, re-hyrdated onions and processed cheeze-food. And don't get me wrong, I LOVE'S ME SOME CHOLESTEROL, so I am all for the deal. The only problem is that I don't like cheese on my burgers. There's something about the gooey, slimy, tangy taste of the slices of cheeze-food that McDonald's has opted to use on their products that reminds me of industrial lubricant. The cheeze-food they use is more adhesive than Super-Glue. I defy you to pry a bun off of a freshly-served cheebooga from The Scottish Bastard without ripping it's underside off. It's not natural, I tell you. Not a bit. What I am trying to say is that I am not a fan of cheese from McDonald's. I only hope I have made my point.
In the past, I have ordered a double-cheeseburger and asked them to "hold the cheese" and I have encountered no problems at all, apart from an occasional funny look. It's an understandable request; I want all the benefits that twice the meat will offer me, but without the messy, sticky goo. A double cheeseburger with no cheese? Comin' right up, pal! Thanks for shopping American!
But nothing could prepare my server for a request to hold the cheese on a TRIPLE CHEESEBURGER MANAGER'S SPECIAL.
I literally blew his circuits. I asked for the Two-Triple-Cheeseburger-Special with NO cheese and my Latin friend went blank and all the life drained from his eyes. I might as well have said that I didn't think 2 Fast, 2 Furious was a very good movie. Or that some companies offer insurance and dental care. Or that you don't need tinfoil to cook food on a grill.
He was really shocked, that's all I am trying to say.
He was SO shocked, in fact, that he spent the next TWO SOLID MINUTES trying to type this into his food-ordering-thingy. Every twenty seconds he would raise his head back up and say "Okay... two triple cheeseburgers... no cheese?"
"No cheese," I would reply. "And a 6-piece chicken."
"No cheese?" He'd ask again, in awe and wonder.
"No cheese, and a 6-piece chicken."
That happened every twenty seconds. For two minutes.
A few minutes later, I got my to-go bag. I didn't remember to ask for it "to-go", and I am quite familiar with McDonald's unwritten policy of sending lunatics and homeless people on their way without a tray, so I let it slide.
I DID, however, want some sauces with my McNuggets.
Oh- hold on, I guess I should cover my reasoning and logic behind why I ordered TWO TRIPLE CHEESEBURGERS WITHOUT CHEESE and IN ADDITION, a 6-piece order of Chicken McNuggets.
I am a fat fucking pig, that's why. Ok, let's move on...
So my server, who has spent MORE than enough time judging me, hands me a bag with my food in it and says "Thank you". It is a known fact that it is impossible to eat Chicken McNuggets without sauce. It can't be done. My sauces of preference? For the last 20 years it can only be One Barbecue and One Hot Mustard, please. Marcello looks temporarily pained, opens my bag, reaches under the counter, and shoves his hand into my bag in a gesture of full pleasure to be serving such an upstanding and undemanding client. Then he very quickly turns his attention to the incredibly busty and financially questionable Latin-American Mom standing behind me. I leave the establishment.
Here's where it gets awesome.
Back in the office, I open my bag and plunge a hand into its steamy depths, and I retrieve the first of my two Cheese-Free-Triple Cheeseburgers.
You know, the one that is COVERED in cheese.
Frustration rising, I dive into the bag again and pull out the second burger. THIS one has so much cheese on it that it is almost impossible to separate it from the paper it is wrapped in.
MAAAAAARCELLLLLOOOOOOO!
It finally dawns on me how all this went down. My dude is behind a counter, working his ass off and hating every second of his life, and I stroll in and make a completely unreasonable demand for a cheese-free namesake. He can't find the buttons on his amazing ordering device and after TWO FULL MINUTES, he just says "fuck it" and decides I will be better off if he ignores my request completely. I can confirmed this by looking and the receipt and noticing that there is no account of "no cheese" on it. Marcello knew what was best for me. I can't possibly fault him for THAT.
But here's the best part...
The best part is that I decide to forgo the cheeseburger experience and I toss them aside... "oh well, I think to myself. I didn't really need two goddamn burgers AND Chicken McNuggets. I am supposed to be watching my weight as it is.
I know you are thinking that this ends with Marcello not giving me my chicken. Oh no, no the 6-piece was in there all right. Right on the bottom of the bag, all by itself.
Not a damn sauce packet in sight.
I wish you were there when I asked for the 2 sauces so you would believe me when I tell you that I LITERALLY WITNESSED MY SERVER PRETENDING TO INCLUDE SAUCE PACKS IN MY BAG JUST SO I WOULD GO AWAY.
I can't stress this visual enough! I was LOOKING across the counter to the prep area and I PHYSICALLY SAW several packs of sauce in containers back there. I ASKED my harried server for a couple of them and he REACHES below the counter as if he is grabbing some (All the while I am thinking "Oh, he must have a supply of them under there as well so he doesn't have to turn around")... and he MIMICS PUTTING CONTAINERS OF SAUCE INTO MY BAG.
Marcello... YOU are the Manager's Special in MY book.
A Pint Of Beer & A New Tattoo...
Current mood: cantankerous
Lebowskifest ended on Sunday. Saturday consisted of a rousing time in Louisville that included drinking far too many beer with my brother and friends and getting yet another tattoo on my already crowded leg. YOU WIN THIS ROUND, BOOZE!
And just to cut off whichever snotty sassafras decides to chime in with a "they won't give you a tattoo if you show up drunk" comment:
1) Yes they will. Money talks. And- 2) We weren't THAT sloppy.
We DID, however, find phrases like "I shot midget with a dwarf until the rain stopped" to be HILLLL-arious. Sorry, Louisville. We were the jackasses downtown Saturday.
Lebowskifest itself was just fine. Plenty of costumes and what have you. It was a good fest. And thurrah. I DID discover that you have to keep walking around and moving at a festival like that, though, because I am almost 34... and when I stand still and it is after 11pm my body is under the impression that it is asleep.
Sunday we drove home. I dropped my brother off at the airport and went to my house, ate lunch at a local Chinese place with My Lovely Wife™, and went home for a MSG-fueled nap when my brother calls me to tell me his flight is canceled (bad weather in Newark). D'OH.
So after a trip BACK to the airport, we had a lovely dinner and drinks, and went to bed in time to get 5 hours of sleep before going BACK to the airport yet again at 6am this morning.
You’re A Lebowski, I’m A Lebowski...
Current mood: cantankerous
Category: Jobs, Work, Careers
Day One of Lebowskifest here in Louisville is over, and it was a rousing time. Friday my bruddah Tommy and I drove from Nashville to KY to attend (Yes, he flew from Newark, NJ, to Nashville, and then drove with me to Louisville... because we are fools) along with friends Adam and Josh.
Friday night they showed a documentary on the whole Lebowskifest Phenomenon. Eh. Was okay. We skipped the band playing on the front lawn and ate dinner at an Irish pub downtown that doesn't know how to make fish & chips.
Brian Posehn did 40 minutes on the stage before the feature and did ok. He was obviously trying some new stuff and peppering in his old "rowdy crowd-pleasers". I didn't enjoy the majority of his set because we were treated to a loud, drunk, buffoonish oaf with an IN AND OUT BURGER T-shirt who decided to join his pals and stand RIGHT IN FUCKING FRONT OF US.
This is a good time to mention the high level of douchebaggery that we observed at Lebowskifest this year. Now granted, I have only been to one previous festival, so my frame of reference is a little skewered. But the amount of dipsticks and college frat-boy Yeager Bomb-Sinking "Whoo!"-Shouting guys who sort of miss the mellow point of the whole festival is pretty prevalent, and it didn't seem as dip-sticky last year. According to my fridns Josh and Adam, this is a growing problem. They blame the plug Lebowskifest got in Maxim a few issues ago. Ah, Maxim... the magazine for men who want to be hip in public and metrosexual in life, but without the worries of all that nudity...
So to recap: we have been here a day and I am pretty much miserable with the experience. Which means everything is just about right and I am having a fine time.
Here's an interesting factoid, according to epidemiologist Elizabeth Pisani, who has devoted her life to studying the AIDS epidemic and its' impact on global societies and culture:
The failure rate of "vows of celibacy" by U.S. teenagers is a little higher than 73%.
73 out of 100 dopey teens who stand up and raise their hand to "God" and pledge that nobody will touch their no-no spots until their wedding nights can't do it.
I mention this statistic for a couple of reasons:
1- The statistic is verified and my source is given (unlike the 90% of you TRUE CHRISTIANS won't be proud enough to pass this dogshit 'Pro God' message on).
2- Most people who hear this act shocked, even though THEY are the same folks who got their bubble burst in the back seat of their Dad's Ford after Homecoming.
3- We live in a culture where sex is the number one selling tool. We've been that way since the 30's. Many would argue that we've been that way since we were cave dwellers. Sex sells, but HAVING sex is a bad thing, kids... so JUST SAY NO.
We're hopeless as a species. I just want you to see that.
Here's another thing to mull over. The person working next to you; whether you are in a cube farm or at the counter at Subway- the person sitting next to you has though about what you are like when you are having sex.
I don't have the data to back that up, but it's true.
And right now, you are returning the favor. Way to go.
Oh... and if you reply to this post... I will be thinking about YOU.
Totally Rad Update, Dude
Current mood: annoyed
Category: Jobs, Work, Careers
I haven't blogged in a while for a few reasons. Mainly, I have nothing to say. Life has been okay and although people still annoy the shit out of me on a regular basis, I haven't got any interesting angles or unique perspectives with which to complain about them.
So what HAVE I been doing in my spare time?
THIS:
Go and have a read. The list is half done. You should get the Top 50 in another 10 or 12 months. I write slow. Blame my inhibiting hook-hands and lack of Qwerty layouts.
Ah yes, THAT’S the answer...
Current mood: annoyed
Category: Life
Last night at 10:30 I hear a terrific crash in my garage. My ladder fell off the wall and literally landed 2 inches from my new car. 2 INCHES.
I'm not making it up. Here's a photo:
I tell this story to a few co-workers this morning near our coffee machine. And GUESS WHAT one of the responses HAD to be...
"Well someone up there sure was looking out for you!"
Yes indeed. God in his infinite wisdom, majesty, and grace went forth, eschewed the standard pleas from suffering masses of starving children and dying retches, and STOPPED A LADDER FROM HITTING THE HOOD OF MY CAR.
And you ask me why I think religion is silly.
I know, I know, she was just making an off-handed comment about how lucky I was.
But it certainly indicates something deeper at work.
In other news, I am eating a bean burrito. So you see where I am standing on the weight of this issue.
Hi. It's been a while. Man, you look great. Sorry I haven't complained about anything to you for so long. I will try to catch you up to all the wonderful and exciting stuff that has been going on in my life as of late.
Very little.
My Lovely Wife™ and I spent the Memorial Day Weekend mostly on our hands and knees in our yard. My garden now boasts green peppers, tomatoes, assorted herbs and spices, and a patch of mystery gourds: the result of my throwing a rotting bucket of Thanksgiving Day centerpiece offal into the planter as fertilizer and watching it go nuts.
I also got a path laid out from my back porch to my garden and it is pine-bark-a-fied. Progress has never looked so square!
My Lovely Wife™ spent her time in the front yard digging and weeding and setting up our front beds to look nice and proper. While doing so, she slathered suntan lotion on every visible inch of her body... except for her lower back. Fun fact about My Lovely Wife™: when she works, she looks like a sexy plumber... complete with an exposed lower back and a pretty impressive view of whatever panties she happens to be wearing that day.
After four hours in the sun, she has earned a pretty ridiculous-looking sunburn. It looks like two parenthesis if they were sideways. Turn your head and look at this: ( ) ... now picture it being cooked-lobster red and right above My Lovely Wife's shapely fanny.
She's in a lot of pain. I think it's hilarious. Mostly because I'm a jerk.
The up-side? I get to smear aloe and lotion all over my wife's butt about 6 times a day. EVERYBODY WINS!
In other news, there IS no other news. See why I haven't written? My life is too boring for you to be interested in.
Now kindly stop thinking about My Lovely Wife™'s lower back.
the blog where I get political...
Current mood: bitchy
Category: Automotive
We are 6 months away and I am already sick of this shit.
I just spent a mere 10 minutes on YouTube, listening to left-wing and right-wing dipsticks take a grand shit all over each other in order to get the world out that anyone who might ascend to the White House next year is going to pretty much trigger an apocalypse.
All I can say at this point is this:
SHADDUP! SHADDUP SHADDUP SHADDUP!!
No matter who wins the election: we will be better off than we have been for the last eight years.
My name is Ryan Williams and I endorse this message.
Good N’ Bad N’ Just Plain Ugly...
Current mood: cranky
Category: Pets and Animals
A lot of folks wonder why I am such a cranky old sonovabitch. They rarely use THOSE words to describe me, but phrases like "Douchbag" and "Joyless Fuckstick" aren't as down-homey and folksey as I prefer to be today, so I am sticking to my guns and owning up to being "cranky" as a compromise.
I'm cranky because I always know what's a-comin'. And I know, from my track record on this planet, that every time I get swallowed up and enveloped by an incredible sense of happiness and contentment, the universe will end up donkey-punching me right before the ultimate climax and I will end up just as pissed off and emotionally bankrupt as I started at.
This week is a prime example of how good stuff that makes me happy will eventually not matter because of the universes' cosmic way of correcting itself and reminding me that life is fucking unfair.
Last weekend I got a new car, which I bragged about and showed off in my previous blog entry. Go me. It's a super-sweet 2008 Honda Civic and I am loopy about the damn thing. Yesterday I was halfway to work when I noticed that the "passenger's side airbag off" sign was lit on my dashboard. Since I couldn't think of anything I might have done to disengage it, I immediately muttered a few choice words about how shitty my luck was and how I was going to have to take the damn thing back to the dealer only 3 DAYS after I bought it.
BUT: A quick glance at the owner's manual informed me of something that is downright awesometacular.
See, when I get in my car in the morning, I put my backback (Yes, I still use a backpack because I am lugging around a MacBook Pro and a digital camera with me every day and they don't make a briefcase that fits SLR cameras AND laptops in one without looking, ironically, like a BACKPACK) in the passenger's seat. And get this: It turns out that when you put between 40-100 pounds of stuff in my passenger's seat, THE FUCKING CAR IS SMART ENOUGH TO DISENGAGE YOUR PASSENGER'S SIDE AIRBAG SO YOU WON'T BREAK YOUR BABY'S NECK IN AN ACCIDENT.
I love this damn car!
ANOTHER awesome thing in The Life O' Ryan:
My Canon 50mm F1.8 lens came in the mail yesterday afternoon! Now I will be able to take photos INDOORS without A DAMN FLASH.
Shut up, it's exciting as hell for me.
YET ANOTHER awesome thing... a thing that SHOULD make me vibrate with glee and elation and happiness to be alive:
My FREE copy of Adobe CS3 Web Premium came to me today. It's a 'thank you' from a friend who I did a bit of work for a few months back. There is something delightful about having the CEO of a company send you a free copy of his $1700 industry-standard software suite. It's better than stealing it, which is what I had been doing up 'till now in order to edit my websites and graphics.
So HELL... life should be GREAT, right?
Sure thing.
Oh, but my Mother calls me yesterday afternoon. She broke her leg and sprained the other one... "Crossing the street". I quoted that part because I think the woman is lying. I think she owes someone money.
Regardless, I want to send The Universe a BIG shout-out for reminding me that even when things are going GREAT for me, there will always be a price to pay if I start actually feeling GOOD about anything.
Friday My Lovely Wife™ and I found ourselves over at the local Honda dealership.
She bought a Civic 3 or 4 years ago, based mostly on Consumer Reports' recommendation. I have been jealous of it for quite a while, as I have been driving an Exorcist-puke-green Nissan Sentra since '03 and I hate it. 'Solange' was clunky, she creaked, and her belts and joints were starting to slip.
We do most of our traveling in my car, because I am a control freak and I prefer to drive (also because My Lovely Wife™ drives like she's living in an incarnation of Grand Theft Auto... and yes, I have seen her actually kill a hooker who just restored her heart meter to 100%... IN REAL LIFE) we end up putting the bulk of our mileage onto whatever I am currently in charge of.
So when our booger-green/gold Nissan was flirting with 100,000 miles, I started to get antsy about getting a new car. A NEW car. I'm 33 years old and I have been driving used ones since I was 16. NEW. No miles on it. A car where the first seat-cushion fart will be MINE.
There's something that you should know about My Lovely Wife™, when it comes to making a major purchase; she's very difficult to convince. She will go without buying microwave popcorn if it is more than $3 a box. Any mention of spending a few hundred on a TV set or a new lens for my camera sends her into overdrive.
BUT- she IS an accountant. And one thing that an accountant can never resist is a low interest rate.
Seriously. Draw a pentagram onto your floor with a stick of chalk. Drop a slide-rule on the north point and write "4.7% APR for 30 Months" in the center of it. My wife will appear in your home with a burning ledger in her left hand and a roll of adding machine tape in her right.
She had NO intention of letting us get a new car this weekend. But we test drove 3 or 4 of them anyway, just to get a feel.
When the Honda dealership offered her 2.9% Financing for a 2008 Civic or Accord, her eyes popped out of her skull and her hair stood on end.
For normal people, I am just trying to explain that we got a hell of a deal.
I picked the 08' Civic EX. Its' not as 'showy' (read: vain) as the Accord. But it's packed with features and it's the sexiest gray/silver/charcoal color ever made. Our guy 'gave' us the sun roof visor, door guards, splash guards and trunk liner for free, and I spent an hour scraping the double pinstripe off the sides of it, because pin stripes are dumb.
I don't know if this is an old thing and if I have just never seen it before, but I was grabbing coffee in my break room a few minutes ago and I was staring blankly at the 'you have to post this in your work area break room' board. You know the 'how to help a choking guy out' poster?
Someone (brilliantly) put this on it:
Like I said, I dunno if this is an old internet meme that I missed or if it's just someone's subtle attempt at humor.
If so, whomever it is in my office who is fucking funny enough to put that on the poster and not draw attention to it: I salute you!
Two things for you, my dear loyal fans, before I step out of my executive cubicle (they are 6 feet tall here! Classy!) and sully forth to End the Week.
Firstly, a note about Spam.
My spam filter catches quite a bit of the dreck that comes through my in-box. Every once and a while a solicitation from an exiled third-world prince or a notification regarding Mexican Viagra slips through.
Today's caught my eye right before I hit the DELETE button:
SHARON STONE CAUGHT NUDE ON BEACH! EXCLUSIVE PICS! MUST SEE!
...
...
... really? You are trying to entice me to go see something naughty and horny on the internet by advertising pictures of Sharon Stone?
Sharon Stone?!
A fifty year-old crazy lady who looks like the Vice Principal of your high school?
...
...
FAIL!
On to my SECOND bit of newsworthy fun:
Shelley sent me this and I chuckled in a geeky way for quite a while.
See if you can spot the kid who's parents don't love him:
apathetic
cantankerous
melancholy
bitchy
annoyed
artistic
cranky
accomplished
amused
