Ultraparadoxical

My move is basically over… sweet baby jesus, my move is OVER!  It has been a few days of aggravation but I have moved 99% of my crap over to the new pad and I just need to add a few little things and I will be all set at my new pad downtown.  For the past 4 days I have done 2 things – move my shit and drink heavily.  I’m not Mama Cleo or anything bu I have a feeling that “downtown me” is going to have a serious drinking problem.  My new apartment is a 3rd floor loft in the heart of downtown San Diego and there are just too many options.  In fact, on my first night in the new place I went to the Sound Tribe Sector Nine show at the House of Blues and got absolutely blown out.  I was to the point where even I knew that I should not be out in public being that trashed.  I eventually had to pull a “Houdini” halfway through the concert and took off without telling any of my friends.  I ended up stumbling back to my apartment and passing out in my shoes…. IN MY SHOES.  That is not a bad showing for the first night downtown.  I woke up in the morning to a text from my buddy that was received at 1AM: “Dude… I’m at the Ramada Inn. 24 HOUR FOOD… GOOD”.  Looks like they had a good time without me.  In addition to feeling like shit I frantically searched my apartment but couldn’t remember where I packed my bath towels so I had to dab myself dry with t-shirts after.  All time low or all time high… you make the call!  I lasted about 5 hours at work before I had to give up and  to curl up in the fetal position on my couch.  This could be dangerous for my professional career! Bottom line is that with my new living situation there is really no reason for me NOT to drink, except that my liver may decide to say fuck-off and leave me downtown by myself.  Barring a organ relocation I should be good to go though.

Aside from my drunkenness and towellessness, being downtown has been nothing but fantastic.  I can finally walk to the bars and restaurants that I most often go to and drunk driving will be down about 95%.  I should get a congratulatory letter from MADD for moving!  Another bonus that I did not realize until after I moved in was all of the interesting stuff I get to see while walking around downtown.  On my way to my car the first morning I overheard 2 bums talking.  One bum was trying to fish something out of the trash and the other stopped him short when he wanted his help and said “Hold on, I need to take a shit, then I will help you with that.”  Who said bums don’t have a schedule?  The next afternoon on my way back home I saw a guy wearing old school roller skates loading empty bottles into his 1970’s style cargo van.  It was magical, he even had the jewfro circa ‘72.  He was like Rollegirl from “Boogie Nights” except 10 times as dirty and not hot at all.  Wait… he was actually NOTHING like Rollergirl but that’s beside the point.  He could have being the star of “Rollerhobo 2: Electric Bugaloo”… damn you cruel fate!   What I am getting at is that life just got a bit drunker and more interesting for me.  Good times…

I am sick, and contrary to “Disturbed” I am NOT down with the sickness.  It is not fun, it always depresses me and right now I feel absolutely worthless.  Whenever someone says that they are sick and whines about it I never really have that much sympathy – I usually just wait for the complaining to stop and move to another topic as quickly as possible.  However, when I am sick I suddenly become sympathetic to everyone’s plight and I vow to be more considerate to others when they are not feeling well.  Then the sniffles go away and take that feeling with it – putting me right back to square one.  Whenever I get sick I always think of 2 things: read more »

New Years resolutions are total bullshit.  Nothing ever really comes of them 90% of the time.  Usually, they are weak attempts to reform some perceived shortcoming in a person’s life and usually fail miserably.  I have never made a resolution for myself and don’t intend to start now.  However, there are some people that should use this time of year to change a thing or two moving into next year.  I was thinking of some resolutions that certain people should take for their own good. read more »

A few random musings on a Monday afternoon:

• I went to a holiday party on Saturday at one my friend’s house and hung out for a few hours.  While we were having a few cocktails I noticed that there was a bottle of Triple Sec on the counter.  I didn’t think anything of it until someone mentioned that someone had brought that over.  WTF?  Who brings fucking Triple Sec to a party?  Is that not the oddest alcoholic beverage to bring to a party?  I thought I was going a bit off the reservation by bringing champagne but Triple Sec???  That would be like going to a pot-luck and bringing a few cloves of garlic.  I was completely taken aback by this – can you think of a weirder bottle to bring?  We were all laughing about this and then some guy came in with a bottle of Saki – granted this is not as retarded as Triple Sec, but again, who brings Saki to a party?  Needless to say I created another drink (2 weekends in a row that I have created a drink – I guess I am a bartender savant) called the Secsy Saki which was surprisingly tasty. read more »

I have already blogged about how Tiger could have avoided all of his troubles by adhering to a few simple rules.  It is too late for Tiger though, he has already shit his bed and now he has to wallow in it… or does he?  It looks pretty bad for him – his wife isn’t wearing her wedding ring, his sponsors are dropping him faster than Sammi Sweetheart dropped “The Situation” and each day it looks like  a new skank is coming forward to say that Tiger took her out for a round on her “back nine”.  It is an absolute media feeding frenzy that is probably slowly destroying his sanity – he is scrambling to save his sponsors, his career and his marriage.  My advice, Mr. Woods, is to let it all go – let it burn to the ground – and rise again out of the ashes of your former life as a new man to be know simply as… “T-Dub”. read more »

As I have mentioned before, I have the attention span of a hummingbird.  It is not my fault though – I blame the internet.  I used to be able to sit down for 45 minutes and enjoy reading a book.  Now I can barely sit still for 5 minutes in the bathroom and scan a magazine while I take care of business.  I am so used to seeing information in 30 word chucks that it has become difficult for me to focus for the amount of time it takes to read something longer than a standard CNN article.  It is pathetic but has become a reality.  The way we consume media has fundamentally changed.  Communications in general have moved from longer more in depth articles and ideas to bite size pieces of information we read, process and discard almost immediately.  Substance is sacrificed for immediacy and the information turns into a summary of a summary based on someone else’s summary.  This boils information down to almost nothing of any real importance. read more »

Tiger, Tiger, Tiger – you sorry son of a bitch. Actually, I don’t feel bad for him at all, he shat his bed and now he needs to lie in it (if you are not familiar with the story read it here and while you are at it leave the cave you are living in and get some sun… you look pale.)  I have never understood how celebrities cheat (or drunk drive or fuck tranny hookers or run illegal dog fighting rings) and think that they are going to get away with it.  Tiger was going to get caught, it was just a matter of time but if he was smart it didn’t have to come out like this. *sidenote* Tiger, I think you can do better than a member of the cast of Tool Academy 2.  I read that and was floored – you really can’t make this stuff up. *End sidenote*

I am sure that if I had a camera on me 24/7 people would catch me doing plenty of stupid things but celebrities KNOW that they are under intense media scrutiny and still make the decisions that they do.  If I was being constantly watched I would be an absolute boy scout in public and I certainly would not do anything that could land me in the jail.  That is the one thing that would fuck you if you were filthy rich – getting thrown in the pokey.  So listen up “celebrities” – here are my keys to not landing on TMZ.com looking like a total douche (Jon Gosselin – I am looking in your direction)… read more »

I wish I was passionate about something in life.  I could do with just about anything and not be too upset.  I am always jealous of people who can throw themselves into their work or have something that they can earnestly focus their energies on and have immense satisfaction upon reaching their goals.  I don’t think I have that gene in me for some reason… or maybe I have just not found the thing that I am passionate about.  Events happen and goals are achieved that I probably should be excited about but I don’t really care.  The reason why people watch sports, admire celebrities or look up to certain people in everyday life is because of the passion they exude (or we perceive them to exude) not necessarily their talent or the things they do.  Being passionate is admirable and can be good it is also something that can have very negative consequences.  I guess I choose to error on the side of caution and not get wrapped up in any one thing but I definitely wonder if I am missing out on an important part of life.

When someone is doing something because they love doing that “thing” it is obvious.  Being waited on by some douche bag working at Chili’s who hates his job is far different than being helped by the owner of a restaurant who dreams of having a successful establishment.  The difference is passion.  If everyone had the same feelings as that restaurant owner we would be living in a far better world.  Imagine if everyone cared about what they did at a personal level – things would run smoothly and there would be fewer aggravations in everyday life.  Plus when you come home from doing something that you are passionate about you are a better person to deal with outside of the job.  I remember when I was working at the Salt Mine – I was an insufferable son of a bitch.  I spent over 8 hours a day doing something that I absolutely despised – unless I was coming home to a lingerie bra-and-panty tickle fight party (which I wasn’t)  there would be no way for me NOT to be in a bad mood.

*sidenote* I understand that everyone can’t always be passionate about what they do because there would be no ditch diggers or fast food workers but there are ways to artificially add passion to any position – by making them rewards based.  As I said I don’t really care about my job but I am in sales and my compensation is directly linked to how well I do.  Link  my performance to my pay and I instantly care about my job… its that easy.  Every single job should be commission based at some level.  It is the only way to make sure that someone does their job.  If the only threat of  not doing a job well is getting fired then a person will do just enough not to get canned which makes everyone’s lives far more difficult.  If you started paying the shithead clerk at the DMV a buck for every person that she helped I know that things would get done much faster. *end sidenote*

Addiction and neglect are the ugly sides of passion.  The same people who are great at what they do or excel in whatever they are interested in also tend to have substance abuse problems or focus too much of their energies on the things that they love.  The addiction aspect of passion is most evident in the creative fields like writing or music.  The biggest rock stars tend to have the biggest drug problems and the most cutting edge writers have a history of drug abuse.  The same things that make them fixate on their writing and obsess about getting everything perfect is the same force that causes them to fall into a drug of their choice and never recover.  I always find it ridiculous that people talk about eliminating addiction.  That is impossible – addiction is part of what makes us human – without people being addicted to something (read: passionate) we would not have the theory of relativity, skyscrapers or the “Snuggie”… now that is a world I do not want to live in.  Passionate people also have a tendency of losing control of other parts of their life due to focusing on the object of their passion.  Albert Einstein couldn’t balance his checkbook… he was too focused on the things that we remember him for like revolutionizing physics.  That worked out for Einstein but it can be bad for a CFO to neglect his family because all he is too focused on is his job.

I think that everyone has the ability to be passionate about SOMETHING so all is not lost for me.  I just need to find out what that SOMETHING is… and not get addicted to heroin in the process…

My laziness is infinite.  It is like the universe or a fat chick’s FUPA… always expanding and threatening to envelop everything.  Some people manipulate situations so they get their way or gain power in a  relationship… not me.  I manipulate things so I can sit on the couch longer, avoid work or get someone else to do something for me.  Is it pathetic?  Probably.  Is it childish?  Definitely.  Do I hate when people ask themselves rhetorical questions and immediately retort with one word answers?  Abso-fucking-lutely.  The problem is though that I have been this way for so long that I am most likely never going to change and I just need to live with it.

To give you an idea of my laziness here are a few examples: read more »

I have a suggestion for society.  It is groundbreaking and would change the nature of communication as we know it… We need to completely do away with small talk.  These conversations are so painful for me yet I find myself involved in them all the time at work or just with random people.  Do we really need to be babbling 24/7 about some bullshit that neither party really cares about?  I have a difficult time being really enthused about things that I ACTUALLY care about.  For me to feign enthusiasm about someone at work who cornered me in the break room regaling me with a story about their weekend is a pointless endeavor for both parties involved.

I’m not trying to be pretentious or say that everyone is boring and my daily life is one fascinating event after another.  I feel like there is no reason that we need to be communicating with each other all the time just for the sake of talking.  I know that most people could give a shit about what I did this weekend, how work is going or what the weather is like.  I am completely OK with not knowing things about someone who I am not really friends with and I am sure that they don’t want to hear my crappy story either.  We have just been trained by our culture and society to feel awkward if we do not converse with someone when we are placed in certain social settings (running into an acquaintance in public, stuck in a elevator or the work break room).  There are a few things that we can do to immediately cut down on this useless banter immediately. read more »