Ultraparadoxical

Throughout my dating existence I have been in many different types of relationships and each one has its own quirks and eccentricities.  Everyone is different and when those people pair up it creates unique circumstances and scenarios for the people involved making every relationship its own special entity.  Amongst these differences though there are similarities that an outsider can see working in all of these different pairings.  I have observed these similarities in my own and my friend’s relationships and most of the time I see someone’s actions and a song starts playing in my head – these are the relationships and their appropriate lyrics.  So here we go…

Top Nine “Musical” Relationships

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For the remainder of December I will be dedicating Top Nine Friday to a “Best of” series for the decade (I know its fucking crazy, the 00’s are over and no flying cars, wtf?) I am going to start with something very close to my heart – the Top Nine Albums. I have pretty much stopped listening to the radio at this point – the shit they play is brutal. I have resorted to combing Amazon, pitchfork.com (read: hipster douchebag), seeing live shows and friends recommendations for all of my tunes. The only time I ever hear the music I like is on commercials and it annoys the shit out of me. It always happens the same way – some indie band that I started liking a few months prior is on a Cadillac or GE commercial – fuck that. I am all for the bands cashing in but it is sad that the best music that we have today is the soundtrack to shitty commercials. *end rant*

Top Nine Albums of the 00’s (In no particular order) read more »

I am going to be moving soon (kill me now).  It is not a long distance move but I am still dreading the whole process.  My sensitivity to aggravating situations and extreme laziness make moving an experience akin to passing a kidney stone and getting my wisdom teeth removed at the same time.  I have been at the same place for over 5 years now so I am a bit out of practice with the whole process.  This Top Nine Friday is an exploration into the top things that someone needs to focus on when looking for a new place and making a move. read more »

There are not that many things that suck about living in Southern California but the holiday season is one of them.  The holidays come and go and it is pretty much unnoticed except a few decorations at the mall or the shitty Adult Contemporary music being replaced by shitty Christmas music at Starbucks.  Southern Californians make some pathetic attempts at holiday activities that never really turn out right.  In Del Mar they put up Christmas decorations at the horse track and people pay 15 bucks to take their car around the track and look at shitty light displays.  I did it the first year I moved here and it was so lame that halfway through we decided to “Tokyo Drift” the rest of the track and get out as soon as possible.  No cold + No snow = No REAL holiday feel.  This is the one time in the year where I wish it was a bit colder so it would FEEL more like the holidays (Only I could find something to bitch about with the beautiful weather here.)  Since I am selfish and I want to feel more holiday-ish I am dedicating this Top Nine Friday to the random things I love/hate about the  holiday season. read more »

There are times in life where you wonder why you ever waste your time drinking and going out… then your friend makes an ass of themselves and it is all worthwhile.  These are a collection of those incidents…

Top 9 Drunken Moments (In no particular order)

Cabo Cantina, San Diego – 2 for 1 drinks sound like a great deal but it can get ugly fast.  One of my friends was hitting on some blond at the bar and she started to playfully slap him in the face.  In his mind it turned from playful to annoying quickly.  He asked her to stop 3 times and when she didn’t he made her pay the price with a buy-one-get-one-free-corona-douching.  He unloaded both beers over her head… when I looked over I thought they were celebrating winning the World Series – the bouncers did not think it was so funny and booted him. read more »

I work in a salt mine…  Actually, I used to work in a salt mine.  Wait… that’s not true either.

The term salt mine was coined by my brother about 6 years ago when I was working at a shitty call center grinding through my 7-4 shift Tuesday through Saturday slinging Direct TV equipment.  He was visiting me for a couple of days and I let him borrow my car while I was working.  True to form he was about a half hour late picking me up from that God-forsaken hell hole.  Waiting for him on the uncomfortable plastic break room chairs while watching the other call center losers heat up their microwave burritos put me in an especially foul mood.  After reading pretty much everything on the bulletin board (within that half hour I became an expert in the occupational hazard law in California) I finally spotted my jackass brother pull up outside fresh from a surf.  The day had apparently beat me down because as I shambled out to the car (shirt half untucked, head hanging low) he said “Salt mine beating you down?”  I hopped into the car and looked at myself in the mirror.  Although I have never seen a salt miner I swear that I looked like I just clocked out of a 12 hour shift in the salt pit.  That’s how much a bad job can bring you down.  I have long since left that job for greener pastures to a less aggravating job but thinking back on it now it was certianly a true salt mine, but there is a little salt mine in every job.  Even if you love your job there are some days that you don’t want to be there or your co-workers suck.  Every salt mine has a crew of people that you would not normally spend 8 hours a day of your own volition and this Top Nine Friday is dedicated to the douchie-est of these familiar salt mine inhabitants. read more »

For this edition of Top Nine Friday I wanted to examine a television show that has been close to my heart ever since I was just a youngster playing with GI Joes and avoiding getting my ass beat by my older brothers.   That show is MASH… just kidding, I hate that fucking show.  Just hearing the first few notes of the opening song of MASH makes me wish the Korean War never happened, just so that show was never made.  Anyways, the show I am really referring to is The Simpsons.

I watched that it religiously all through grade school and into high school.  Then it became syndicated and I was able to watch it every day.  This continued through high school and even into college where the 2 hours that the reruns played were dedicated solely to Simpsons viewing.  In college my house would literally shut down during this time of the day.  To be honest though I have not watched a new Simpson’s episode in a few years and disavow all knowledge of any new episodes being created after 2002.    My hours of couch time spent watching this show has given me an encyclopedic knowledge of any Simpsons episode from seasons 3-13 (the early episodes have not aged well).  So in honor of Marge Simpson appearing on the cover of Playboy I will examine the best of the best Simpsons episodes from those years: read more »

If I am looking to buy a book, rent a movie, or watch a TV show there is one subject that I will choose over anything else – the apocalypse.  From your standard 99.99% deadly virus to a global infestation of zombies to a nuclear holocaust I love me some world destruction.  Basically they are all the same premise:

• The protagonist gets thrown into a chaotic situation and the standard rules of the world are thrown out of the window as they stumble blindly around familiar environments that are made unfamiliar by their new scenario’s “rules”.
• The confusion and loneliness of their situation slowly worn away by finding others or learning why or how they ended up in their current situation.
• At the peak of their self-realization a plan is made to solve their problem or relocate to a realm of safety.
• Battles are won and lost, more people die and they arrive to a solution or a place of perceived safety only to yield more uncertainty.
• The credits roll and the audience is unsatisfied.

There are a few things here that are worth exploring: read more »