sssshhhutup

i live in a weird place. for whatever reason, people have collectively accepted NETWORKING as a normal event to happen in pubs. lots of people even encourage it. these people, in my humble opinion, are awful. where i come from (neverneverland), the pubs serve a direct purpose. and the people within those pubs know the score and act in accordance with the pub's purpose. the purpose, of course, is to get silly. it's fun to get a little silly on booze and see what the night brings you. i've always felt that this is one of the great joys of alcohol (and to a greater extent, of life): you're never entirely sure of where it will take you; furthermore, if you try to steer it, it will take you in an entirely different direction, just to remind you who's in charge. that's my theory anyway. but my point is this: i don't like people who go out to pubs with a purpose other than to get silly and see where it takes them.

some go out to meet people to "try to get laid." it's my humble opinion that these wretched people not only should be refused entry into pubs, but they should be stripped of their alcohol rights. there are people here in hollywood, who go to pubs not only to get laid, but to NETWORK. dear god no. the verb network sends shivers down my spine. it goes hand in hand with "trying to get laid." both imply two (or more) persons' intentions to do nothing more than USE each other selfishly. both acts are despicable and severely lame. but to me, networking is even worse. to share a drawn-out, creative endeavor with someone who struck up a conversation with you in a bar makes me want to puke fire. ... like a dragon. but i guess with dragons, they call it "breathing" fire. i'd rather puke it. in this situation. for dramatic effect. this reminds me of when i was a freshman in college. we had like a "parents' weekend." one of the other parents asked my dad, "so what do you do?" and my dad nonchalantly said something like, "what do you mean? i do lots of things." and i felt a little embarrassed because it was clear what the other parent meant. but the other parent clarified, "i mean, your occupation, what do you do for a living?" and then my dad begrudgingly answered.

i JUST NOW remembered that situation, maybe for the first time since it happened, and it's kind of blowing my mind a little. because i didn't think i was very much like my dad. but i KNOW that people have asked me what i do and i have answered "lots of things," ... lots of times. because i HATE that question. and now i understand that my dad hates it too. because seriously, fuck that question. it's a fuckawful question. it's nobody's fucking business what i do, first of all. especially not some STRANGER AT A BAR. secondly, WHY is that a conversation starter? MOST people hate their jobs. plus, WHO the fuck wants to talk about their job when they're not at work? ...moreover, who the fuck wants to talk about their job even when they ARE at work? nobody. so fuck that stupid fucking question and fuck those people who ask it. it's a fuckawful question that those networkers introduced into normal conversation to try and make networking seem less despicable. DON'T BE FOOLED. networkers should be shot, hanged, and dragged through the mud by wild horses.

sike, nobody should be shot nor hanged. but seriously, let's expose networking as what it is: whorish handjobery.

from now on, when strangers ask me what i do, i'm telling them "laundry." OOOOR, when they ask, i'll say, "i do the robot." and then i dance the robot. and they laugh. and after like 20 seconds of me still doing the robot, they'll probably say, "seriously, what do you do." and i just WON'T stop doing the robot until they either: a)leave me alone; or b)change the subject.

let's weird it up

so yesterday, kyle gass (of tenacious d fame) came into the coffee shop. i'd never seen him in there before. i never know how to handle people like him. because he's someone i've always enjoyed and admired and he's not super famous, so like, maybe he'd really appreciate me expressing my admiration for him. on the other hand, geeks like me are a dime a dozen and he probably gets weird awkward praise enough as it is. so i didn't say anything about it. but i'm pretty sure he could tell from my awkward nervousness that i was a fan.

he was great and super weird. he was wearing a tilly hat and had really long hair and pretended his hand was like throbbing while he was waiting for me to give him change. basically, he looked like the type of dude who, if you didn't know who he was, you'd probably just leave him alone.

and i was thinking about that this morning and decided i need to be more like that. because when you just act nice and quiet, people bug the hell out of you. it's awful. being a weirdo is totally the way to go.

lavese las manos

so tonight i ate at this place called El Conquistador in Silverlake and in the bathroom, on the soap dispenser, was this sticker telling people to wash their hands. it's a skeleton talking on a phone, looking at some hands (with a lot of open sores) in the sink. i found that really strange. i took a picture of it with my cellphone but it's crummy and out of focus. if i ever go back there, i'll try to get a better photo.

the king of coffee

i was really proud of this thing i invented at work. i call him the King of Coffee. i should've taken a picture of him from the side too because it looks like he's wearing a bluetooth. and that cracks me up. a lot of old dudes come into the coffee shop wearing bluetooths. for those of you who don't know, a bluetooth is a tiny phone that nerds stick to one of their ears and then they walk around talking to themselves. it's hilarious.

nerds.

snoozer

Here's what's wrong with me: I set my cellphone/alarmclock for 10:20am. It plays the most annoying ringtone in the world. A little button on the front of the phone allows me to shut that noise up. The catch is that the alarm goes off again 5minutes later. That little button has a name. It's snooze. I am a snoozer. I fell back asleep every 5minutes from 10:20 to 10:50 this morning. And it wasn't just the phone that was waking me up. They're still shooting some TV show next door. So I was woken by that several times as well (both before my first alarm and throughout my snoozes). And I think they might be done shooting because the chick from Reno 911 kept yelling something and then people would cheer. And then a minute or two later, they'd do it again. So, I think the house is done getting a makeover or whatever. But anyway, my problem is that the idea of going back to sleep is ALWAYS more tempting than the idea of doing anything else. I don't want to be a snoozer anymore. I want to be a M.O.A.

MY wish

sincerely, i do.

it's supposed to look like a polar bear with a tattoo on his neck

when the internet sucks, everything sucks

the last couple of days, my internet has been BARELY working. mostly not working. and when it DOES work, it's SOOOOO slow. Time Warner is our cable/internet provider and they're simply lousy. they do a lousy job and they should be ashamed of themselves. they should be ashamed to admit to their children that they work for a company that does such a lousy job. they should lie awake all night worrying their children are teased at school for having a parent who does such a lousy job. they should cringe and sweat and cry at the thought of themselves on their deathbeds realizing what a wasted life they've led, doing a lousy job, for a crummy internet provider.

but it's not too late for you Time Warner. i've only described one of many possible futures. get your act together now. fix my internet. you'll sleep better at night. and you and your kids will lead better, fuller lives.

i hate my life

just kidding. i don't hate my life. right now.
but today, i was awoken at 1:47pm by the sounds of gas-powered generators, idling trucks, and the shouts and giggles of annoying production assistants. they're shooting something next door for the E! channel. more like the Bullshit! channel, am i right? just kidding. but not really. because, c'mon, that channel is marketed towards people who concern themselves primarily with the shit of the world, the most trivial and despicable of human beings, people like this who are famous for reasons i will never understand.
... but i enjoy talk soup. or the soup, as they now call it.
anyway, above is a collage, of what my morning felt like. though, the picture of me is from yesterday when i was woken by a fone-call from my friend patrick rule. i texted him that picture as a way of communicating exactly how inconvenienced i was by his call.

i'm not making fun of typos anymore

it has been brought to my attention that my making fun of typos is questionably mean-spirited. in an effort to better myself, i will try, from this moment on, to say nothing mean-spirited about anyone, ever. unless they deserve it.

starting ... now.

i'm not catching on fire today

some mornings i wake up and just know that it's not going to be an out-of-sight day for me. this morning i knew it and i said to myself "i'm not catching on fire today," which, i think, is a line from a Cake song. remember Cake? i quite liked Cake. i used to really enjoy listening to Cake on roadtrips. They're subtly clever, easy to sing along with, and they make good use of horns. i like horns. anyway, i typed "catching on fire today" into the google image search and this dude with a microphone stuck to his face appeared.
his name is danny small and he's a hypnotherapist in Swindon, Wiltshire, England. he's a quack. the term "quack" is hilarious. and the idea of a hynotherapist in Swindon who is a quack ... also hilarious.
he has a website: apparently with 'mind belief,' you can ignore all rules of grammar and diction. he says/asks "some things might appear to be an issue for you NOW?"

i read that sentence upwards of twenty times and i still can't figure out what he was going for. i assume the question mark was a mistake ... but that sentence has NOTHING to do with anything around it. also, two of his services are "power nap" and "indian head massage."

my new friend

this is Jimjam Brainerd. he's the man by the gas station who says Trick or Treat everyday of the year. if you call him Mijmaj Nerdbrain, he'll spit fake blood on you. if you give him potatoes au gratin, he'll call you friend and let you paint pictures of him.

i miss you Jimjam.

Don't do it Donny!

He's not worth it!

TWO videos in one day!

not only did i make a video about that guy dancing in the street today ... i also made a video about Tom Hanks today! last night, for some reason, i drew a picture of Tom Hanks. this morning, i was looking at it, and felt inspired to make a movie for him.

Tom and i have a strange relationship. we met a year ago after he kicked my friend's dog. he was really cool about it and was very apologetic. he bought my friend a new dog and took us both out to eat at olive garden. tom couldn't decide what to order and the waiter suggested we all get something different and share. tom said, "now, THAT sounds good!" and we all laughed and laughed. it was JUST like the commercials!
:

hollyweird video

remember how i told you about that loony who was dancing in the street in front of my apartment? and remember how i told you how i took some video of him and maybe i'd do something with that video someday? ... well today was that day. here's my video of that crazy guy in the street:

seriously, gmail?

so i don't know exactly how gmail uses its advertisements. i know it has something to do with the contents of our emails. but i don't know whether it has humans or robots searching through the contents of our emails. all i know is this: about an hour ago, i sent an email to my friend kienan and in it, i included a joke piece of advice "don't wipe your nose with the tissue you used to wipe your ass." it's a weird joke and not all that funny. just supposed to be a play on "don't shit where you eat," or whatever that old adage is.
anyway, here's where it gets weirder. an hour later, the ad at the top had something about a "self wipe toilet aid." out of sheer curiousity i clicked and this is what i found: so i don't know what's more embarrassing; that someone (or something) is reading all my emails IMMEDIATELY after i write them ... or that they think i would pay 35 dollars to not have to wipe my own ass.

happy? saint paddy's day?

so what do you do on saint padraig's day when you live in a land that doesn't appreciate irish culture? simple, listen to some irish music and drink with a few friends. but wait, there's another kink in the plan: you don't have any friends. fair enough, just listen to some irish music and drink alone. but wait, yet another kink in the plan: you might be catching a cold.

now that's a real pickle. it's bad luck not to drink on st. paddy's day. so here's what you do: mix some pomegranate juice blend (antioxidents); some orange-pineapple juice (vitamin c); some banana slices (potassium); a splash of cran-raz (uh ... good for the kidneys?); and a healthy dose of vodka (st paddy's day). now you're drinking healthy.

by the way, i was kidding earlier when i said that was a real pickle. it's not a pickle at all. you're a sissy if a little "cold" is going to stop you from drinking. that reminds me of a time in college. a couple weeks before graduation, i caught what some doctors call "mono." for those of you who haven't heard of it, mono is a made-up disease that people use to get out of school. i had "mono" pretty bad for about 12 hours. it came for me in the middle of the night, in a hotel in louisville, kentucky (pronounced lulvll knuky). it caught me off guard and nearly killed me. the town of louisville and i have a bad history, so i wasn't altogether surprised that death ambushed me there. luckily, my then-girlfriend was able to nurse me back to health with wet face-cloths and glasses of tap water.
days later, back in indiana, some doctors took a bunch of blood out of my arm and put it in a tube. they put the tube in this device they called a centrifuge. it spun the tube of blood around in circles, and somehow told the doctors i had mono. they told me i should take it easy and that i didn't have to go to my classes. i still went to the classes i felt like going to and pretty much went about my life as i always had. except i tried to sleep a little more often and not drink any booze. but after a few days (and here's where it ties back into why a cold shouldn't scare you out of drinking), my buddy demetri challenged my sobriety by arguing that "alcoholics must get sick from time to time and they never stop drinking, but they eventually get better" ... you can't argue with that logic. so i drank a lot all the way through graduation and beyond. thank you demetri.

i think i want my money back

in graduate school, i took a class called "media theory and criticism." it was one of the most worthless classes i have taken since kindergarten. the professor was this gnarly old dude who would sweat and swig gatorade while jabbering on nervously and nonsensically for four hours straight, two nights a week. it was torture.

he taught us that there are three basic genres in television. here's a video about them:

that's not really what he taught us but everything in that class was either way too convoluted or way too oversimplified. and always always always in ways that weren't really applicable to real shows or movies.

kienan o'dork: former visionary

my friend Kienan O'Dork isn't like most people. he doesn't seem to play by the same set of rules. he does things that theoretically would cause him to be ostracized by society. yet he remains generally well-liked. i always found that inspiring.

so it was a huge loss when i found out the Kienan I Knew was no more. Kienan O'Dork today not only plays by society's rules but also ANOTHER set of rules. the source of these new rules ... Marmily (his girlfriend). kienan got a brand new mustache last week. it looked great. everyone agreed. very funny. kienan was siked to show off the new addition to his face for a few weeks and take it with him to the Dominican Republic, where the mustache, undoubtedly, would make him instant friends with the Dominican people.

there was just one kink in his plans: marmily. she made him shave the mouthbrow. and the world has been a colder place ever since. rest in peace Kienan's Mustache. rest in peace Kienan America.

youtube insight: girls don't like me

so youtube has this thing now that's pretty cool. it shows how the popularity of your videos changes over time, where people are watching, who is watching, etc. in my case, it tells me that 20 dudes in the united states have watched some of my videos.
my favorite part of the insight page is the pie chart in the lower left corner. it says that 100% of the people who have seen my videos are males between the ages of 25 and 34. and just to drive the point home, it clarifies: "0% Female." do i believe this statistic? absolutely.

Rob Braub's weekly podcast video movie

Well, the good news is: i keep making videos. The bad news is: they keep getting weirder.
Or maybe those are both good news.
I had the idea for this video a couple of days ago in the shower. So I shot it immediately after I got out of the shower. It's pretty dumb.
I promise my videos will start to get better and cleverer.
But until then: enjoy this intentionally bad video from Rob Braub:

100th Blorg Post!

We made it, guys! We really did it! I'm proud of all of us. Especially me. This is my 100th blorg post. They said it couldn't be done. I said, "who are They?" There was no response. Then I remembered that no one, in fact, said that it couldn't be done.

And let that be a lesson to you: No one says stuff can't be done. Whenever you hear someone talking about what "They" say, replace the words "they say" with "no one says" and you'll probably get a truer version of whatever they're talking about. Because in Real Life, no one gives a crap about anything. And neither should you.

What am I getting at? No one knows. Furthermore: no one cares. Including me. And that's what's great. Or horrible. Depending on how you look at it.

I'm using proper Capitalization in my 100th blorg post. I don't know why. It wasn't here in the first 99.

But here's what I'm getting at: it's been 100 days since my first blog post. 100 days. Think of all that's happened in these first 100 days. Everything and Nothing. Pretty cool, eh? I'll say. Yee-haw.

fortune cookie

last night i ate chinese food. my fortune cookie told me that everybody feels lucky for having me as a friend. i hope that's true.

it made me feel pretty okay. because i feel lucky for having all my friends as friends. so it's good to hear that they all feel lucky to have me too. but then i thought about it some more. the wording of the fortune is peculiar. notice it doesn't say "all of your friends feel lucky for having you as a friend." it says EVERYBODY feels that way. this wording implies that EVERYBODY thinks of me as a friend. talk about terrific news. not only does everyone think of me as a friend but they all feel LUCKY to feel that way. wow. i'm on top of the world.

johnny-on-the-spot

yesterday morning at work, an old lady was asking us why there was no line. it's usually extremely busy in the morning. my colleague told her it was a weird morning. the crowd came early. it was very busy between 6 and 7am rather than 8 and 9am. she tried to make sense of the communal early rising, "well, i guess it's monday. everybody's johnny-on-the-spot."

i thought that was the greatest thing in the world that she could've said. so i grabbed a pastry bag and wrote it down right away. so as not to forget.

i got this rad nickel at work!

i was at work and some chump paid for something with this rad 1934 buffalo nickel. so i totally swiped it. i love nickels. especially old buffalo nickels. for three reasons: 1) the indian on the front. bad ass. i'm really into profile shots of indians for some reason. i think the washington redskins logo and the chicago blackhawks logo are the two coolest logos in american sport. 2) the buffalo. buffalos are supercool. partly because they look like they should be extinct. you look at these big burly vegetarians and you think "what's keepin' them alive?" i remember one time during one of the summers in college, we went to this girl's lake cottage in northern indiana. right by her garage was this huge buffalo farm. after spending a long drunken night at her place, i went out to my car and there was a buffalo standing RIGHT by the fence. and so i stood like 2 feet from it. and we just looked at each other for awhile. there was a lot of wisdom in those big dark buffalo eyes. then he got bored of looking at me and he walked away. 3) i've always thought nickels were lucky for some reason. my first winter in boston, i always carried three nickels in my right coat pocket. one was a buffalo nickel, one was one of those nickels that commemorates lewis & clark and says "ocean in view! o! the joy!" which i always thought was a hilarious quote, and the last was one of those weird ones, where jefferson's head isn't in profile but is at like a 30-degree angle. i don't like the last one.

networking, yuck!

in my personal opinion, networking is for schmucks. pardon my french. this is an actual email i received from one of the institutes of higher education that i attended. the thing i don't like about colleges and universities is that they actually promote being a schmuck. they want you to get out there and schmuck it up. i say, "balls to that!"
another thing i say, "stop sending me emails that don't pertain to me. i don't live in boston."
and yet another thing i say, "proofread your stupid effing emails." i changed some of the names, so as to not offend persons or colleges, but i did not change the bad grammar. "Join us for night of facilitated speed networking ..." and "...will lead the session, as well as providing an overview ..." come on, guys. you work for a college.
but that's not important. back to networking. to me, it seems like the slimiest, most despicable thing that nice, educated people can do to one another. sincerely, that's how i feel about it. but hey, look where my anti-networking sentiment got me: i have a masters degree and work at a coffee shop.
so, balls to me.
but i've got my principles. and now i feel inspired to make a video that satirizes networking. yes sir. i woke up early today. and i have some lofty plans. yee haw.

where is the sandworms?

this is probably my favorite movie of ALL-TIME. for those of you who don't know, "all-time" is a Danish filmmaker. He's a surrealist/docu-venturist who produces some of the best experimental videos in all of the Nordic countries. to work with All-Time on the period-piece/dream-sequence was literally a dream come true. LITERALLY ... a DREAM ... come true.

aaaaaaaaanyway. this movie was shot without a cameraman (or catamaran, for that matter) on halloween day 2007. there was no idea for a movie. just talking. this is how me and my friend patrick rule talk. and i think that's why other people don't like talking to us.

"cloning babes" saturday mornings on nbc

i was just watching television when the strangest programme came on. it took place in a lab filled with nerdy old scientists. one nerdy old scientist runs into the lab and says to the other scientist, "i just had an idea: instead of cloning sheep, we should be cloning babes!" then the theme song starts and during the opening credits it shows the two nerdy old scientists leading the only female nerdy old scientist to a cloning machine. a bunch of clones of the female nerdy scientist start marching out. then it cuts to the two nerdy old scientists high fiving for like nine minutes.

contest loser

so there was this contest for one of my favorite television programmes where they asked fans to make really arty posters for the band from the television programme. part of the joke of the show is that the band isn't so good. but in a nice way. like endearing. so i thought an appropriate poster would share the same qualities. so i made this poster. i thought it was pretty clever. i thought they'd like it. maybe they did. but it didn't win. and now i'm embarrassed. i made another poster for them that is similarly bad. i call the second one "denim on a cool autumn day."
it's embarrassing to make things that people don't like. i get embarrassed a lot. but i guess it's better this way. i wouldn't want to be one of those people who never gets embarrassed. those people are awful.

tickle machine

robots love tickle-fights. but they don't play fair.

memily's birdthay!

to-day is my "friend," marmily ratatat's birdthay. awhile back, i made a birdthay card for my friend, sam harkenharken. and even before that, i posted a video by my friend pete hose on his birdthay. at those times, i thought i was just following my whimsy but apparently i was setting an awful precedent. now it's marmily's birdthay and she wants something.
just kidding, she didn't ask for this. just kidding, she did. just kidding. now you don't know because of all the just kiddings.
anyway, i didn't wake up in a drawing-mood. i was in more of a collage-mood. the collage is an art form that was invented by an elementary school yearbook editor in 1987.
emily's been my friend for almost a year now. and i have a feeling that we are going to be friends for at least a few more months. maybe three. i don't know. just throwing a number out there. we met on a cruise of the mediterranean. i was doing my magic act. she was working as a cocktail waitress. after a week or so on the cruise, i guess she figured out how most of my tricks worked. because after every trick, she would scream out how it was done and yell something like "that's not magic! that's bullshit! this guy's bullshit!" and every night she'd get all the people in the audience into this huge frenzy where they'd all chant "bullshit" and throw drinks at me. it became a regular part of the act. we've been close friends ever since.
she had a thing for me for awhile. but i can't be tied down. so i was like "sorry babe, there's just too many fish in the sea. and by 'fish,' i mean 'babes.' and by 'the sea,' i mean 'babetown.'" so i introduced her to my ugly friend kienan. now they're sort of dating. but kienan's still dates other babes. he's a pretty cool dude.