Pillowthief's Writings

Go Away, Jesus.
8-22-11
So Im watching pr0n this morning, and I look up. Bam, Jesus staring me in the face. What do you do, right?

I'll tell you what I did. I looked him dead in the eye and finished like a boss.


Which reminds me- and probably will answer your question better about how Im doing: I totally had a dream last night that I was trying to assassinate the pope. Or Cher. Or both- by the end of it I was convinced the pope was someones mom who had reconstructive surgery to turn into Cher, who I was trying to kill. On the dream scale, it reached about a 6 on confusing craziness on a scale of 1-10, which is good since Im been having some pretty boring dreams lately.

---

More Human Than Human
4-17-11
I was recently asked a question about an objective thing. On the Internet.

For those who haven't studied up and know the difference (or for those who didn't just Google it outright) between Objective and Subjective, Objective is based on outside (other than you) influences while Subjective would be based solely on you. For example, a Subjective opinion is your own opinion, an Objective opinion is someone else's.


Anyways, I'm not mad that I was posed the question, but it in itself brought on several other questions I didn't have answers to. The question itself isn't even pertinent. It was where it was asked.


The Old-timers have always said that the new generations take technology for granted. They've been saying it even when the Old-timers WERE the new generations. Who knows, maybe I'm getting old, but its true. The average 12yr old girl knows how to work her phone better than her parents that shelled out the cash for it, better than most of the people one of her parents would call and talk to if their own phone went on the fritz. I worked 3 years for two different phone companies- not once did I talk to someone under the age of 35 that didn't know how to work their phone completely. I did Tech Support- it consisted of telling the 70yr olds to go grab their grandchildren so I could explain it to them. Hell, most of the time, we had never laid eyes on these phones- had no clue what they looked like.

But we have the Internet.

The --- Hold on, I'm going to have to correct myself. I just looked that up, just now. Took 20 secs. "The Internets" is actually the name for the network itself and in no way implies that it's the same internet that I'm using. "Interweb" is a better word, even though I just now made that up. We'll stick with that.

Shit. Looks like I wasn't the first one that thought about using sarcasm in place of hitting CAPS and punching the letter W 2 or 3 times. Screw it, we're rolling with it anyways.

The Interwebs is a place you can find an answer to anything at. What the weathers like, what movies are playing, updates on new ways people are trying to screw us out of our money, where to get ninja lessons, anything. So I get a little confused when someone asks me a question over ET or the Book of Face or just a plain email that would take time for me to get back to and answer- possibly several days, maybe longer- when they could have easily have spent 20 secs, as the information was already in their hands.

Is it less fulfilling to get your information this way? Do you actually need the quasi-contact to feel more human? You- who more people know by your handle than by your real name? I sit here and ponder these questions. My first response was to scorn these... these cyborgs, these 'inefficient people'. But what if inefficiency WAS part of what made us human? I almost added a side note on needing human contact, but tossed it right out. Humans don't need human contact, they just need Objective contact. With anything. About anything.

This is why I get asked dumb questions over the internet, when they could have instead spent 20 secs. Somehow, I don't feel any more human than before.

---

Afro Samurai
10-9-10
In the end, it was the bacon that did him in and will forever imprint him on my memory. Well, that and him being a complete anal-retentive douche.


For those that STILL have yet to realize it, I moved to Denver. It was not a long lived moved, but it was a move (crap, I still owe Pizza money for rent and storage for all my crap thats still down there. Everything that I own, minus my record player). When I got there, after taking a leisurely forced vacation in Park City, Utah, Pizza informed me that she just had another guy move in. Granted, we probably should have talked a little more at length about what me coming to Denver was going to be- there was a little confusion about me actually moving in with her. No rainbows and sunshine (or lasers and grenades for that matter) coming out of anyone's cooch, thank you very much, Chance.


This guy was a friend of a friend of my friend, so basically he meant jack to me. I was a bit surprised she had taken him in, since he was obviously living on the streets/laundry mats before getting the RSPV to Pizza's house. I couldn't really say too much, I suppose, since I was pretty much a charity case as well, but that was just because I had broken my means of transportation and the primary tool I was going to use to find a job- on the way to Denver (hence the forced vacation. I love your face Manda, and your mom's too).


I didn't even see him for the first couple days I was staying there, but I will have to say I was pretty surprised that he was a 6'5" black dude. Don't get me wrong, I grew up in Denver so I shouldn't have been surprised- maybe it was living in Idaho for so long that I just wasn't used to seeing anybody that wasn't white or of Mexican decent. That also gives me an idea about a story I've been wanting to write about the border patrol missing all of the Mexicans that stroll over the border, from Canadia. Anyways, he seemed alright, especially since he was a gamer, and that fit right into Pizza's and my genre.


The problems didn't start coming to the surface until he decided he needed a job- one of those "work from home gigs. That required him to turn on the internet (which we didn't have at the time). After bartending for 2 and a half years, Im not a morning person. Of course, my luck, the internet cable comes directly in from the outside, to the room that I was staying in. That means I get woken up at (God) f*&%ing 8 o'clock in the f^#%ing morning.



To summarize weeks of pain and misery, he wanted my IP and MAC Address (NEVER GIVE THESE OUT. Trust me) to enable him to "safeguard" our internet from hackers or some such, that he was convinced were deliberately hacking our secure network (WAP/SA encrypt with a crazy 8 digit password containing letters and numbers that I was surprised he even remembered it was so random) in order to cause our internet to go "suspiciously" slow. Of course it couldn't be that we were using three different computers with three different WIFI connects that had to go through a WIFI router, then through a cable router/firewall before even getting out of the house. No, of course not, it was hackers. Damn them.


This leads to him calling the internet company. I'll tell you- I worked Back Office/Admin for T-mobile for two years. Our job description was that if you just received a brand new phone and it was fucking up, you called us. I handled a lot of angry people, some were justified, but some of them were just calling in to bitch just for the hell of it. You know the kind. The people who just got their pizza delivered in 31.2 minutes instead of the 30 that it's guaranteed. Some are even clever- my dad did it for years, moving up the supervisor chain in order to get free cable. Some are, well, just dumbass idiots that ruin your day for absolutely no reason. The Afro Samurai was one of these few. I cringed inside every time he picked up the phone to call them, which was almost everyday, sometimes a couple times a day. I felt their pain.


It was almost to the end, right before I took the bus back up to Idaho, when the shit really started to hit the fan. Weirdly enough, I couldn't get on the internet. Pizza could. Alex could, of course, being the paranoid schizo that he was he had full control of the internet. I asked what was going on, Alex said he knew what the problem was and he'd fix it as soon as he could. I wake up the next day to him yelling at me. Not the best wake up. I couldn't even figure out what he was yelling at me for, so I tell him to go to hell and promptly fell back asleep. Obviously it was something to do with a wired connection out of the cable router that totally bypassed his psycho "hacker blocker" programs that he had set up on his computer. I had no clue, I had already butted heads with him a couple times about it and I didn't want to "fuck up" the internet that he had set up and get yelled at again. I hadn't touched it. He went off about the cable "crawling over to the router and plugging itself in" and wouldn't believe me that I had no clue. Sooo... I told him to fuck off. He didn't like that. I went out to smoke and he ended up going round and round in circles that that "wasn't what he just said" and wanted me to apologize. Pbbbt. The next day, I calmly ask him if he would finally please fix my internet. I could fix it myself, but that would probably include a saw and a soldering iron, both of which weren't in my possession and Pizza would probably get mad at me for the hole I would have had to cut into her house. His response was "no". I asked why not. He was still butt hurt about the whole telling him to fuck off.


Took me about 2 hours to put everything together and realize HE had shut off my internet in the first place. There wasn't a problem. He just causally put my MAC Address on the block list for the router. Douche. I am so glad Pizza didn't know anything about it otherwise I would have felt so fucking betrayed I wouldn't have been able to look at her. At first he had pulled my MAC to run some diagnostics, then accidentally forgot to add it back on, but with the whole "fuck you" (for which I feel was justified) he intentionally refused to allow me back on the internet. Of course he didn't tell me. Douche x2. I moved out without every getting back on the intrawebs.


But let us get back to the whole reason why I nicknamed him the 'Afro Samurai'. For one, he was black. That'd be a necessity. But this black guy didn't really think of himself as a black dude. He thought of himself as a Japanese dude. Hardcore. He spoke Japanese, to our ever-living uncomfort, as he would constantly throw in words and even substitute entire sentences for Japanese ones that we (of course) had no chance of understanding. Everything that he could name, like his computer for example, had a obscure Otaku Japanese name. All of his shows that he had on DVD, we all in Japanese without English subtitles, of which he would watch (on MY Tv) for hours laughing at shit I had no hope of catching. Of course he would try to explain at every outburst, annoyingly. All of his music- Japanese.



At first, I thought it was some phase that he was going through. A really annoying phase that compelled him to buy 11 lbs bags of rice that he spilled on the linoleum then tried vacuuming up (which just kicked it into the far reaches of EVERYTHING. I can imagine Pizza cleaning up even now and coming across grains of it still in the carpet or behind the lamp, cursing his name vividly). He ate everything with chopsticks. I can't knock him too much for that, since I own my own pair and eat Chinese with them, spurning forks. But the kicker, the end-all, the moment when I knew him to BE the Afro Samurai, was when he cooked a pound of bacon and then proceeded to eat it with chop sticks. C'mon. Seriously? That right there is a finger food, never to be touched with utensils. Like, ever ever.


I feel almost sorry for Pizza, who had to deal with us- me for the month and a half that I was there and the, probably, outrageously time stretched time that she was alone with him after I left. She was gone most of the time I was there, mostly because she was the only one with a job, but I doubt she really knew about half the crap he was putting me through. He took it upon himself to act like my dad and try to "motivate" me to find a job. Excuse me, I wasn't the only one without one and the internet gig was a scam. He constantly put it upon himself to "try and ease the pressure off of Pizza" to talk to me because of our "close relations in the past was making it awkward for her". Fuck you, mister man. Pizza knows me well enough to say her mind, which she did several times. I did not need another parent, especially since I had just moved out of my parents house hearing the same crap he was pushing off on me. And all the little shit, like cleaning up the house and doing dishes. Goddamnit, I know when she's getting home and I'll DO THE FUCKING DISHES BEFORE SHE DOES. I don't need someone sighing over my shoulder for 4 hours before getting up in a huff at 5pm telling me he'll just do them himself because "he's the only one that does anything around here anyways".



Pizza, thanks for the link, but it looks like he deleted anything pertinent to your conversation so it looks like your just going to have to give me those spark notes after all. Sorry girl.


Afro Samurai - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1850280729#!/profile.php?id=1850280729&v=wall


**Attached Comment**
Lei Danneskjöld
God damnit, makes me wish that I had kept some of the stuff he'd written me, just to post on here for your amusement.

Oh he's gone. Good riddance. Yeah it was stressful living with two guys that couldn't help me make ends meet, but at least you contributed food.

SO get this- his dishes pile up and pile up and pile up. And I KNOW they're his, because I couldn't even afford to buy food, what the fuck was I going to eat on my own dishes, when there was nothing there?

Yeah. He ate all my ramen, and frozen shit, and hotdogs, and bread, and every affordable thing I could possibly buy... so I stopped buying it altogether. And stopped eating here altogether.

There was a kitchen full of dishes. My dishes. Some of my food. His mess. I went to Burning Man for a week, and figured it would be a good idea for him to have those done by the time I got back, as they'd already been out and about for up to 2 months anyway.

I get back from a week in the desert... lo and behold, the mountain has risen. Wait wait wait - back up a week or two. He didn't pay August rent. You remember that first month I had given to you and him for free? You remember how he paid anyway? And you remember how he had lived here for a month previous to that for free anyway? And then you remember how I told him that were there ever rough times for him, that that would work in his favor? Yeah. He waits for me to come to him half way through August, asking where rent is. "I figured that since I paid that first month and didn't have to, I should get this one free." Seriously. So this is when I told him if that were the case, he needed to do these dishes while I went to Burning Man. (He also had a pie upturned on my 2000$ brand new carpet in his room, but this is another story.)

So back to the story - they weren't done. Of COURSE I asked him about it. He told he he didn't do them because I was just using him, taking advantage of him, I believe was the way he put it. Uh what? So I asked him if he was going to do them, and he flat out told me no. (Oh. Please understand that I had already done a few of his batches myself here or there, simply to have a cup for drinking water. I figured I might as well do more of the dishes since I was cleaning one anyway.)

"Let me get this straight - you think you're going to live here a month. For free. And not do my fucking dishes? Because I'M using YOU?"

"Yep."

"Ok. That's fine. You're going to see me get a lot stricter on rent. If you come up late or short, you'll have a week to get your shit out and I'm changing the locks. And I'm not kidding or playing. Because I'M using YOU, you fucker."

"I didn't say I wouldn't do them. You misunderstood me."

"...? [Insert any WTF face you can imagine here. I definitely made it.]"

Oh. He never did them. AND only paid half of September's rent too. I went to jail for a week, came back and he was gone. My cat was half dead because he didn't feed the damn thing once while I was gone, and he seriously left about 2 days before I got back.

He wrote me a note essentially saying that he noticed I was gone, and that he was ducking out while he had the chance. He said he fed the cat (which is total bullshit, the bag was where I had left it, adjust for movement of Yeti's incessant attacking of it trying to feed herself - she never did manage to get it open). He took, lost, or broke half my dishes, he left my bedsheets in the washer to mold, and he left ANOTHER FUCKING PILE of dirty ass dishes. Not to mention the food he left in the fridge to mold for god knows how long.

The clincher - he left piles upon piles of his dirty niggerass toenail clippings on my fucking couch. When I sent him a text asking about it, he told me to stop harassing him. He left all my lights on to burn out. And I still get his effing mail. He expects me to keep it in there to he can pick it up? I'll have his ass arrested if I catch him in my mailbox. Or on my property.

To answer your question, I'm STILL getting rice out of my fucking carpet. Oh. And his toenails. I'd take rice any day. But there's goddamn rice everywhere.

---

Flat Rabbit Experience.
5-10-10
Park City, Utah. Some people will recognize it from the Winter Olympics back in 2002, but mostly its now home to the Sundance Film Festival.

Its 11 hours and 43 minutes away from CDA, Idaho.

Its a pretty quiet little town, probably something that most people would drive past, full of their own self purpose. But if you slow down, take it easy, or just plain wreck your car on your way to Denver, its not that bad of a place.

Its got public transport, which is kinda important to me right now, and tons of art galleries. The bar scene is lacking, but that might just be because their beer is 3% compared to the normal 6%, yet still at the 6% price. And the Mormons control everything, that too.

If you ever head up here though, there's one shop I would definitely recommend- Its called the Flat Rabbit. Pretty badass name, if I dont say so myself. The Flat Rabbit is a poster/print shop located in this hole in the wall on Mainstreet that is failing to contain it. Even before you're inside you need to watch your step and tred carefully as you meander through the maze of contemporary art, posters, and blown up photographs. Hosting to walk-ins and connoisseurs looking for limited edition art, like the yearly Sundance Film Festival posters.

The owner's real friendly too, after you bleed all over his floor from the high altitude. He knows his stuff, but careful, he'll talk your ear straight off if you left him.

I might just send him a tacky post card when I get to Denver.

---

Fucking Link
4-18-10
Goddammit.

Im sitting there, sunk in and slightly slouched over in a comfy chair, trying to play Legend of Zelda. Mt Dew within reach of my left hand, hot-and-spicy Cheez-its on the right. I have it paused, because I can stew over my thoughts easier when Im not trying to get eaten by shadow-monsters. Im mad.


Fucking Link.


The guy's like Trent Reznor- always gets the chicks. I mean, think about it. For one, he saves princess-ass as a profession. For two, he always gets all of the other hot single women in the game. All of them. Everyone of them. Without trying. Think about Ocarina of Time- All of the women who didn't hook up with Link (or at least wanted to) looked like they had mustaches. He even got that fish-princess, who was a pompous bitch when you first met her. And the farm owner's daughter? Oh yeah, Link was all over that. He has to basically fight them off. Horrible.

With the exception of Wind Waker, because you play as a bi twelve year old with a wand.

---

Tribute To Pope John Paul II
4-1-10
Here's to you buddy, for the best almost April Fools Joke ever.


Once upon a time, there was this crazy old guy who everyone thought was real holy. They dressed him up in white and made him wear this really big hat, since everyone knows that the size of your hat determines how holy you are. Just look at Gods hat, its a frickin' sombrero. He was real old and did a lot of crazy things that no one could call him down for, since you can't yell at someone who has a bigger hat than you. Besides, he was Polish; Its hard to yell at Polish people, their accents just crack you up before you can berate them.

He was the more than John Paul to the people though- through all of his crazy doings, like kissing the Qur’an in an Islamic mosque, he was more like John Kennedy II than a John Paul II. But, like with Kennedy, there comes the need to kill the crazy cod. There were several attempts on his life- in the most threatening one, the guy was actually caught and kicked the crap out of by a nun, who had probably taken ninja lessons.

He lived a long time and did a lot of things. He pissed off a lot of people, and was generally know for doing crazy things popes would never think about, but then again, he was the first Polish pope. He died on April the second- which confused many people, including me, since we thought he had just forgotten what day it was and was trying to pull off a late April Fools joke.

It took me two weeks to realize the old codger was really dead. He was the only Pope that I actually liked (For my Senior Yearbook I signed everyone's as, 'I Hate The Pope, Sincerely Iszy").

Here's to you man, on the day that you should have pulled it on.

---

When I Say Extra Bacon, I Don't Mean Make It Plain!
1-13-09
I had a list of things I wanted to write about, but right now I just can’t seem to remember them- except the “I’m Gay!” one, but we’ll talk about that later.

-Wait a min. Haha! I am so completely awesome. I was smart enough to write them on a Post It and I just dug it out of a pile that I was going to throw away. Looks like its been through the wash a couple times, but it’s still readable. Let’s see what we have…


Ah, first up, “I have the ‘Get the Bug the Fuck Out of My Bar!’ Blues”. Heh, I’m going to have to thank Giggles for this one. Can’t remember who he came in with, I think it was Evenson, but they came in to the bar this last summer with one pissed off beetle. This thing was huge, cockroach size, and it didn’t want to take crap from no one, especially from a young bartender who didn’t want to serve it alcohol. Giggles thought it was hilarious, of course, and looking back- I’m even cracking up a bit. Who, that thing was angry. It kept making these hissing noises and flying around. Took forever to get Giggles to take it outside.

Hmm, next up we have “Half the Buns!” Seriously, it’s not that hard, but the fast food restaurants around Rathdrum seem to have a gigantic problem with it. Especially Micky D’s. I’m a BK fan myself, and sometimes I get really, really hungry. I’d order a triple Whopper if I was able to, but I don’t have that choice when I’m stuck in Rathdrum fucking Idaho. What do I do? Try to get my moneys worth out of something lesser- a trait that I seem to be unfortunately very good at, as I seem to be making a lot of those choices. Anyways, I’m trying to correct that, but that’s another story. Ahem.

So I’m sitting at Micky D’s, or Zips or A&W or whatever, and I’m starving. They seem to have nothing bigger than a double cheese and it’s just not going to cut it. I hate eating two burgers when I can just eat one (makes me feel fat- I know, a little humor for those who know my body-fat ratio) so I ask them to charge me for two double-cheeses and just put them together.

Simple. Right? …Right?!? Wrong. I always end up getting into an argument with the cook that pretty much consists of, ‘No, no, put them together! Half the buns! Yes, yes, both sandwiches. What? No, half the buns! I don’t care what you do with the other half of the buns. Yes. Yes… No! Half the buns! Half the… No! Half! Half! Yes, put both of those… Yes, together. No… You know what? Here- put those together- take these? Yeah, these- and you put them over here. See? Good, wrap it. Sheesh.’


Alright, what we have up next is something that I was cracking up on when I was drunk, don’t know what started the conversation, but I thought it was post worthy. We were talking about drug dogs and how they’re trained to, you know, sniff out drugs. We were sitting there contemplating on how they go about the whole training process and some guy pops up and spills his two cents. It was mostly the visual that went along with it, but his theory was that they pile up a good dose of coke or meth or whatever, push it to the dog, cut him off, push it again, and basically make this dog crazy about the stuff. A real tweaker dog. That gets me thinking back to when I had my car searched, and I put it all into perspective- that dog was all freaking out, twitching his nose all over the place and running around like some crack head looking for a fix. I hear they don’t have too long of a life expectancy either, probably from overdose when they find a stash. Blagggarggagaga! *Panting*

That reminds me, I just was told a crazy story by an ex-cop, not about a drug dog, but a Chewer. These are the dogs that the movies are always about- the ones you tell, ‘Sic!’. Now this is a Kootenai Valley dog, so I doubt he’s seen much action on the silver screen, which may explain what happens. The story starts off, I believe, in Spirit Lake or someplace close as the cops were involved in a low-speed pursuit of a drunk driver. Yes, I said “low-speed”. I had never heard of such a thing, usually it’s a highway chase that comes to mind when someone says ‘pursuit’. I guess these cops were chasing this guy down some two lane highway at an astounding speed of 40mph. Christ, the guy wasn’t even going the full speed limit- I can’t figure out why they hadn’t pulled him over sooner (I guess they took more than 15 mins to actually get him to stop).

When the guy finally pulls over (‘pulls over’ indicates the driver did so voluntary, not because of some freakin’ cop car in front of his truck) the cops don’t want to go up to the drivers side window- The guy had two shotguns in the passenger seat with 12 boxes of ammo on the floor and he wasn’t wanting to climb out of his truck- maybe because he was drunk, but I’m going with the combination of him being drunk and naked. The guy was just content with flipping off the cops and cursing. So these cops are sitting back talking to each other, trying to figure out what they’re going to do. One of them has a Bite Dog and they both agree to send it in instead maybe getting shot. They get on the bull-horn, tell the driver they’re sending in this Chewer, then take it off the chain.

This dog screams off towards the truck and does a full on Swat dive into the drivers side window. The cops sit there a minute, but none of the expected cursing or “arm-getting-chewed-off” sounds come back to them. So they grab shotguns and sneak up to the truck. They find this dog, sitting in the passenger side seat while this guy in his late forties, wearing nothing but a cowboy hat and boots, with a fifth of Jack between his legs, is sitting there taking swigs with one hand and petting the dog with the other. With all of the blunders these cops made, the guy got off with two misdemeanors- no DUI, no illegal weapons charges, no public nudity. Honestly, I’m still curious to actually ask a cop about it, as it’s supposedly a training video- that’s right, everything was caught on tape from the cop’s securi-cam.


I can’t remember what “Soul-less Robot People” was about, probably just a rant about society today. I’ll save the Anarchist’s Cookbook talk for later. It does remind me about another rant though, about idiots who can’t live without their SUVs, but seem to be unable to drive in the snow with them. Fuck! I’m tired of getting stuck in back of these people going 30mph every time it even halfway snows. This isn’t black ice! This is piddily little want-a-be black ice! You guys ain’t seen nothing until you try to cross Vail Pass (CO) in January, then across the Continental Divide into Denver. THAT’S black ice. Four lane highway that looks like it just got rained on, only it’s too cold to rain. Psh. Go buy a compact car so you won’t waste my gas when you crash and die.


Grr, I wish I had had enough time to write all this down, back when this stuff happened, ‘cause I can’t remember what “Confessions of a Biker Bar Joy Boy” was about either. Dammit, that was a good headline too. Should have used it for a title for my next entry, instead of “I’m Gay!”.


*Sigh* Alright, alright, it’s taken me long enough to write about this and I’m sure several people have been a little concerned with the outcome. Let me put the rumors to rest- I’m still straight. No, Luke and I never dated, nor did we ever think about it. No, Luke isn’t gay either. Took almost three months to kill those rumors, I’m going to kill whoever started them. Slowly.

I’m not sure where to start- with the story (which I imagine I’m going to get in trouble for) or with the explanation/back-story. Fuck it, I’ll start with the back-story. This was something like four or five years ago, back at the Teahouse, down-town CDA. For you idiots that have no clue what I’m talking about, you missed out on a lot. Once the Cove Bowl shut down, the Teahouse was the only local rock venue without going to Spokane. We had shows every weekend, a lot of name brands came through or started there. Kaddisfly (big now, out of Portland), Linus and the Smelly Bastards (which I went on tour with), Smoking Joe, Starting Over, Lithium ID, Prostates, Dead Ones, STDs, Witch Doctors (which was a badass show, the whole KMC was there), and Foreshadow, just to name a few. All really good bands. Katelynn knows, I don’t think she missed a show- her and her checkered tri-hawk. DC was fucking awesome to get me into that shit, never did like any other job as much as I liked being a cable bitch, besides maybe being manager and booking shows for Linus.

On with the back-story. It was this one Friday night and we have Ray bouncing (douche). His girlfriend was there, short little girl, looked like she fell out of the Ugly Tree and hit every branch on the way down. She was all over me and I didn’t want anything to do with her. Looked like drama that I didn’t want a part of. I’m sitting at the bar reading the Anarchist’s Cookbook (funny, I had just mentioned that book earlier) when DC shows me this framed picture of Tim Curry from the Rocky Horror Picture Show all dressed up in drag (he loves that movie). She was sitting next to me, trying to hit on me, and I make this comment about looking better in drag than Tim Curry (which I do, by the way- Ask Chance or Lenny (DJ) and the girls down at Stateline). She had been about to comment on the picture herself when I had said that, the sound of her mouth closing made an audible click. She wasn’t too big of a fan of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, so it was probably for the best that she didn’t say anything.

We all head out for a cigarette (meaning DC and I went out, she followed. She doesn’t even smoke) and we sit there bullshitting. I don’t know what happened- maybe DC had distracted her, but I went back inside and the two of them stayed outside talking. DC, god I love him, slips in this comment about me being gay. She bites on the lie and makes this off-hand comment about it “explaining a lot”, which I didn’t exactly take kindly too, but maybe she was talking about the drag comment I had made earlier. Either way, she immediately stopped trying to hit on me and I don’t believe she even tried talking to me again. Talking to DC later, I confess that I should have been using that excuse for years- Worked like a charm. Too bad it doesn’t work on Stalkers… They don’t swallow that one too well, mostly because they don’t start Stalking me until after I’ve slept with them. :(

Fast forward four or five years. It’s another Friday night and I’m bartending with Matt. Heidi and Iris walk in with their boyfriends (oops, Heidi hadn’t told me she had had a boyfriend at the time, two weeks prior). I’m taking a break, playing this stupid-fucking-piece-of-shit-cheating-mother-fucking-douche of a pinball game which was located right across from the womens bathroom. Matt grabs some ice and on his way past me, he runs into Heidi and Iris on their way to the bathroom. He makes a crack about joining them and they play along and invite him in (Matt has a hilarious sense of humor, but he’s smart enough to leave it at jokes- his wife would kill him). When he declines (while I’m quietly cracking up) they shrug and close the door. I don’t think it was even shut two seconds when it’s thrown open and four hands yank me in. The way One Eyes is set up, it’s a big box with the horse-shoe bar splitting it into ¼ and ¾ sections, the ¼ section has a clear view of the womens bathroom. The boyfriends just had happened to pick seats two tables down from the pinball game I had been playing. Even if they had missed me getting yanked in, or my surprised yelp, they had to wonder where I had disappeared to with credits still left on the game. Not many places to go to in that cul-de-sac. I think I pulled off getting out of there unnoticed- the door swings outwards and towards the tables so you can’t see who’s coming out. I went straight down the hall and to the office so it looked like I came from there instead of from the closet of a bathroom which had just been occupied by two chicks.

The second time though, there was no way to hide it. Same situation, getting yanked in, without me yelping. I knew their boyfriends had been eying me (I could physically feel their eyes burning holes in the back of my head). We were in there maybe five minutes when someone started banging on the door. Of course Heidi and Iris both jump two feet and start going off about being in so much trouble, that it’s their boyfriends outside, blah d’blah (the door doesn’t block too much sound so I don’t think they made the situation any better). They open the door- I can just see it. Iris comes out first, followed by Heidi, then me. It was Jen, our karaoke girl. She see one, thankful that they’re out of the bathroom, then two, probably gets annoyed at more than one person in the pisser, then she sees me. Her first response is, “WHAT THE FUCK!?!” Nice. If I had avoided the boyfriends’ attention to this point, I definitely had it now.

When you get into a situation, like when you’re right about to die, your brain pumps in massive amounts of adrenalin which causes the world to feel like it’s moving slower. You’re able to think quicker, act faster, all designed to possibly save your life. This wasn’t a life or death situation, but I did some of the quickest thinking I had ever done in my life. In the space of two heartbeats, I pick up my voice just a bit so it carries and say, “It’s Ok, I can do that. I’m gay!”

Oh, they were pissed. They were very pissed. If Heidi's boyfriend ever finds out about the two weeks prior, he’ll be even madder, heh- I even almost de-virgin-ized the backseat of his truck. Since then, I haven’t seen hide no hair of any of them, so I imagine Heidi and Iris aren’t allowed to come back up to Rathdrum anymore. I just think the whole situation is hilarious.

---

A Videogame Asswhooping- Morrowind
7-3-09
Welcome to the Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind Ass-Whooping.



Yes, you are the one to be doing the actual ass-whooping, I in no way implied that you were going to be on the other end.

This is for all the people who did get their asses whooped or struggled through this game, and I want to make it clear that this is Morrowind- the old one for the original Xbox, not Oblivion for the Xbox 360. This is sort of a spoiler, as since I figured all this stuff out, I can't seem to play the game without doing it- It just makes everything sooo easy.


For example, at Lvl 5, I already had a full set of Glass Armor, an enchanted Glass Sword, and was rolling around with close to $500,000. Bam. Set for life, or at least until the end of the game (not including picking up Goldbrand and Sunder, I couldn't grab those just yet at Lvl 5).


This is a Snatch And Grab Job- A Heist- and being one, I recommend your character to have Security and maybe Alteration as Major and Minor skills (respectively). And dont worry about Alteration being a bitch to level up, you can always pay someone to train you when you have $700k.

First off, from the beginning of the game, you need some start up cash, about $1000 will do. Fargoth's Hiding spot and the Tax Collector guy on the shore to the west of Seyda Neen is a good way to get $500 and the rest you can just pick up stupid little stuff and sell it. There's a book in the lighthouse thats easy to nab, and should pocket you some nice dough. Got it? Good.

Next, we need to ride the Silt Strider thingy to Vivic and climb up to the Plaza on top of the Foreign Quarter. Once there we'll be entering into the Mage's Guild and finding someone who has the spell Mark. Then we can use the Mage's Guild Travel Agency to zoom clear over to Caldera, which for being an out of the way town, it has some nice beginners loot. A couple more Mage's have the spells we're looking for- one is Recall (which goes very well with Mark- can't figure out why they dont just sell them in a bundle package) and the other is Fedricks Doorjam. Then we're going out the door and around to the south to Verick Germain's little shop to pick up the Ring of Aversion. You can either steal this or buy it, but seriously, it's chump change to buy it and why get caught for stealing something so petty when you're going to be stealing hundreds of thousand of gold in an hour and a half?

Next we'll be taking the Mage Guild zoom over to Balmora and heading over to the Southwall Corner Club (Its where the Thieves Guild hangs out). Down in the basement is a cat that will sell you some lockpicks- get the cheap ones (20-30), but also make sure to grab some of the journeyman lockpicks too, 5 should be enough. Then talk to the man upstairs (not God, just the guy up at the top-top of the stairs) and rent the room for the night. Actually, we're not going to use the room for the night, we're going to use it for the next week or so, but he doesn't have to know that.

DO NOT do this from inside the room. We are going to be repeatedly locking and unlocking that door and if you run out of lockpicks and lock yourself inside that room, you're screwed. Like pooch-screwed. This is going to take a little more than an hour, depending on where your lock picking stats are from the Char Select. We are wanting to get your Security skill up to 70. You could in fact not have Security or Alteration as Major/Minor skills and do this whole heist from Lvl 1, of which I have never attempted and want an email and screenshot if anybody does. Score for you if you do, I don't have the balls to actually try it.

Just sit there and lock with the Doorjam spell then switch and unlock it with your lockpicks. *yawn* Fuck, why does level grinding always have to be so boring? I suggest paying your little brother $5 to do it for the next hour and go grab some chow. C'mon, its better than killing rats (Why does it always have to be rats?) for the Fighter's Guild.


Hurray! Locking picking is now at 70. Head out and back towards the Silt Strider- right across the street from there is a place called Lucky's Lockup. VERY IMPORTANTE! Take off everything and shove it all into one of the crates next to the door. I mean everything. Make sure you have at least $400 on you or you're screwed. Again, pooch-screwed. Head in the door and on the second level there is a tiny room with a foul tempered chick in it. Notice on the table are both a Grandmaster's Lockpick and a Grandmaster's Probe. Yes, we're going to steal them. No, the current residents are not going to like it. What do I mean by 'current residents' as in plural? I mean as soon as you snatch them EVERYONE in the building is going to scream at the same time and do their best to try to kill you. That's ok. They're Camma Tong and don't really like you regardless of what you do. Definitely save beforehand. Don't worry, the door to the tiny room just happens to be right next to the GTFO exit and you just need to spin around and reach it. (Note! It happens that this kinda messes up a mission later, where you have to pinch/bribe a key off of one of the guys downstairs. I said kinda- if you were actually the nice type. It doesnt mess anything up if you were just going to walk in and kill them all to get it, which is what I usually do. I don't take shit from the Camma Tong. Im Morag Tong, bitches.)

Ok. Now we have both the pick and the probe. And we're naked. Time to stash the loot. Good thing you put everything else right down at the bottom of the stairs because it's very convenient. No, don't pick up your crap, drop the stolen shit. Leave it there. We're going to go look for a guard and try turning ourselves in, because, well, its just cheaper than getting caught. Pay the guy, and since you stashed the loot and have nothing else on you, there's no possible way the guard can grab any of your possessions as "reclaimed stolen shit". Good. NOW you can go back and grab your shit.


Now for the hardest part of this whole thing. Take a Silt Strider down to Vivic. If you still have the map that came with this game- We are looking for the Talking Mudcrab. He's located on a tiny island that is JUST off the South-Eastern corner of Mzahnch, to the East of Vivic. SAVE. Its quite a trek, especially if you're a Lvl 1 char, and you're going to have to walk back once you get there. He's a bitch to find, but once you do, use your Mark spell. This way you never have to go looking for him again and trust me, it's necessary for bringing all the loot that you're going to be selling him. I apologize for not having better directions, but its a bitch for ME to find him, and I've been playing this game for years.

Yes, after probably reloading several times, unless you get crazy lucky, you'll make it back to Vivic and not run into some kind of horrible monster that pooch-screwed you. First stop, the easiest, is the Hlaalu Canton Upper Waistworks, which is on the western most edge of Vivic. You already realize that this is a heist, so hopefully you've already picked the obvious destination as the Hlaalu Vaults/Treasury (duh). Don't worry about the guards right now, they dont really have to be facing away from you (although the closer they are to you the more of a chance they will realize what the fuck you're doing, which is of course stealing all of their shit). Definitely SAVE. Equip your Ring of Aversion and go into sneak mode. Hit the 'cast Ring of Aversion' and wait a half a second for it to pop up the "you're not seen" little signal.
Lockpick that shit.

If you fail, repeat. If by some cosmic chance you got seen, reload. Once you lock pick (and use your probe to disarm the trap, believe me the trap DOES have some kick to it and it will kill you if you don't disarm it) the door, move to the next. Rinse and repeat on the next door. Once done your only problem is a pesky guard that doesn't leave- he just sits close to the door and gives you a bad temper. Easy way to fix that is jump on the chair next to him so he focuses his attention on you (and consequentially turns his back on the vault itself)- wait a couple of seconds and he should stay in place, facing away form the vault. If you have problems with extra guards in the vault itself, rest for an hour (you may have to do it several times) until they're gone. Remember this trick, it'll help you out on the Telvanni vault as well. Save often. I can not stress this enough. Its not fun trying to pick up all of the loot when you have five Lvl 50 guards trying to arrest/kill you.

A good way to to this, since you cant obviously carry all of the shit all at the same time, is to pile it all into the middle until you can pick it all up at the same time. Yeah, you're over-encumbered. Do me a favor- tell your television to fuck off and hit your Recall spell. Wham, Bam, Thank you Ma'am, you're back at the Talking Mudcrab. Drop everything until you can move around then start selling. He has the most money of anyone in the game, which is at $10,000g. I know, some of the shit you might have (and will have once you hit the other vaults) is over $10k, but sell your cheap shit (this does not include the gems- diamonds, emeralds, etc, he won't buy them). If you hit something worth $20k, sell it then buy back something worth $10k. That way you make the $10k for the transaction and can still sell back the same thing you bought back for another $10k. Same thing for a sword worth $50k- Sell it and at the same time buy 4 things worth $10k a piece.

SAVE. You realize at this point that he only has $10k and you're carrying quite a bit more than that. Here's the trick- you wait 24 hours, and magically he has $10k again. Yes, he probably sells drugs. C'mon, he's a talking mudcrab who's obviously a major drunk. Going by my experience, most talking mudcrabs who are consequently drunks, usually sell drugs. Maybe not to you, but the black market is something that you can't just jump into. You MUST realize that when you rest, you have a chance of getting attacked while you sleep.

If you accidentally kill the mudcrab, he- in no way- will ever be coming back. Yeah, at that point its the end of the line and you are pooch-screwed again. Always rest AWAY from him and always make sure he's still alive before you rest/save.

The Rendoran Vault is next, and even though you are awesome, it will be a bitch to move everything up/down to the next vault (there's two rooms, with stairs between them), you should pretty much have the gist of the gig. On the Telvanni Vault however, I recommend you to spend some money leveling up to at least Lvl 15 before tackling it- it has two doors which both magically transport you into the same tiny room occupied by two Storm Atronachs who will do the best to basically turn you into a pooch. I think we can see where that will lead you. It goes Hall (either door) to room with the Storm Atronachs to Vault. Thankfully it doesn't have the grate-barred door that lets the guards see through, so as soon as you rest-rid the guards, you're home free to take everything.

At this point you should have close to $700k, maybe minus about $100k for some training.

Now to start enchanting. Fuck yes. This is where you become unstoppable.


We need several things for enchanting.
One is Grand Soul Gems.

-We can find them at Tel Fyr, which is a good place to stop, kind of a bitch to get to, but worth it. Definitely pick up some stupid Rising Force potions, you're going to need them. In Tel Fyr you can easily pick up two Grand Soul Gems, plus unlock the big wardrobe to get a legendary item- the Cuirass of the Saviors Hide which has 60% magic resist.

-Dren's Villa has another two, although you have to kill a couple of Camma Tong assassins to get to them in the basement. Nice- if you poke around in the basement you also get another $10k or so of loose change.

-Tel Naga in Sadith Mora has another unguarded one.

-And if you want to buy one, you can travel to the Rendoran Canton and purchase one from the Rendoran Trader in the Waistworks.


Next, we need Exquisite clothes. Tel Mora has some, although you want to make sure you leave a exquisite shirt, ring, shoes, and skirt for the main quest. Balmora has an amulet, which is handy.

Balmora is the next stop, you'll be heading towards the temple- we'll be looking for a guy selling Summon Golden Saint scrolls. He only will sell one at a time, but don't worry, buy one, say goodbye, then talk to him again. Presto, he has another. Hurray.

Make sure you pick up some spells as well- Soul Trap is a must, but you're going to need the others as well.

You're going to need:
Chameleon
Restore Fatigue
Restore Health
Jump
Slowfall
Waterwalk
Nighteye

Walk outside of town, save, the summon a Golden Saint. Cast Soul Trap, then try to beat the shit out of it. Careful, it'll try to take the Soul Trap off- kill it or recast as necessary. Once you have all of your collected Grand Soul Gems full of trapped Golden Saints, time to go to the Enchanter. You can pick any one, I, for some reason, have a loyalty to the Enchanter in the Mage Guild at Vivic- and I recommend going there. Trust me, after you make the Amulet of Big Fucking Jump you'll see why. Tall buildings, jumping hundreds of feet in the air... fuck yes.

Here's some must have badass items:

Amulet of Big Fucking Jump
Jump 100pts on Self
1 sec Duration
Cast When Used
Cost- $9k

Awesome item, inspired by Icarus himself. You only need a one second duration on it, anymore and it reduces how many times you can use it in a row. Just set it as your Active Spell, Cast then Jump- it should be a 'One-Two' pull of the trigger buttons. Now you can cross the entire map in 7 minutes instead of 45. Very useful inside Daedric ruins as well, because nobody likes hauling those stupid Levitate potions around. NOTE- You MUST have on the next item (with slowfall) or else you're going to be in a lot of trouble.


Aerith's Ring of Parachute (Must have with the Amulet of Big Fucking Jump or else you die. A lot)
Slowfall on Self
Area=0
Waterwalking on Self
Area=0
Restore Health 1pt on Self
Area=0
Constant
Cost- $34k

Multi-purpose ring, mostly for use with the Amulet of Big Fucking Jump. The Slowfall will save you from dying as you come down from hundreds of feet up in the air and it really doesn't need to be set at any bigger area than '0' unless you can convince a couple of NPCs to jump along with you (Haha). Waterwalking is a must and you can play with the area effect on that as it does help when youre escorting someone around, but I prefer to be selfish and set it to just myself ('0') as it allows me to add on a Restore Health. Can't do anything more than '+1 health point per sec', but add it to another ring that does constant heal and nobody can touch you.

Pants of the Chain Smoker
Restore Fatigue 12pts on Self
Area=0
Constant
Cost- $37k

Must have pants. These sweet babies refuse to let you get tired, ever. Fatigue effects a lot of different things too, like how much damage you do, accuracy, how far you can jump, chance of spell cast/hit, and efficiency at Speechcraft and Armory.

Amulet of Your Shit is Now Mine
Chameleon 100pts on Self
9 sec Duration
Cast When Used
Cost- $27k

I used to put a 17 sec duration on this baby, but really, when you want to steal something its usually just one item, or one door. I really didn't find anyplace that I could put to use 17 seconds of 'grab anything you want'. 9 seconds is much better and allows more uses before the amulet needs to recharge (which by the way, only takes about 3 days waiting around or sleeping). NOTE- make sure to always be in the Sneak Position as the game usually freaks out when you steal standing up and says someone saw you stealing, even though you know that there's no possible freaking way.

Shirt of Celestial Light
Nighteye 45pts on Self
Constant
Cost- $27k

Please, please-please, do not use more than 45pts of Nighteye. Trust me, you don't want anymore, it gets really painful anywhere above 45. Its constant and I know that you'll think that 45pts is even painful when you first put it on, but you get used to it pretty quick and then you never want to take it off. I thought about using Light when I first thought this item up, but with the area effect it lights everything up for you- AND everybody else. Sneaking was out of the question. Anywhere. Nighteye is much better as it only effects you and no one else. Dungeon delving was never easier and thankfully you don't have to worry about Oblivion's stupid version of Nighteye thats all 'washed in blue' and makes it a pain to see anything. Seriously, I'd rather see in 'black-white' than that melo-chromatic blue.


There you go. You are now pretty much invincible. Whip some shit, whoop a lot of bad guys' asses, and enjoy the grainy graphic game. Whoo.

---

Courthouse Archives- Where Librarians Go To Die
6-7-09
Growing up we have all understood that it happens, if maybe not why, some animals decide to leave the herd to die their gruesome deaths on their own ground. Whether they're old or sick or just plain lonesome, they find their way to a grave yard, like elephants they lie down and just give up.

Even now, images go through your minds of scenes from the Lion King- of bones stacked on top of each other and scavengers still gnawing on the newer ones, making it appear as if monsters really did exist- and that they were staring you in the face.

Now, normally, we dont just walk around downtown stumbling upon these "elephant graveyards". Hmph, most people hear about them over in Africa and say, 'its a long way away, I'll never have to deal with it' and put the thought out of mind. I did the same, just didn't think that having an unhealthy knowledge of animal graveyards would ever benefit me later in life.

But I was wrong.


I recently walked into the local county courthouse to pull out some records, when I looked up and became aware of my surroundings. 'Archives' it was called. Monstrous wood shelves loomed, ready to spill folders and boxes of books on any unwary traveler. Knobby old women shuffled around wearing wire-frame glasses that, stereotypically, point them out as being librarians. They would paw through boxes, moving from one shelf to the next, never looking happy about what was inside. Silence had fallen sometime after I had entered making it seem like clouds had ominously obscured the flickering florescent lights, shrouding the room with despair.

You imagine yourself trying to back, wide eyed, out of the gloom- back into the safe hallway with people and witnesses and cameras, only to bump into one of the towering bookshelves. You watch lethargically, feeling like you're moving through jelly, only to find you can't avoid the rocking wooden giant as it spills death in the form of cardboard and paper- trapping you just as surely as the books themselves.


I never gave too much thought about what happens to librarians when they grow too old to continue on. Fade away, I supposed, since it wasn't exactly the kind of profession you can rock-star burn out on. Since that day though, my whole perception has changed. There is a place where they leave to. Protected by glass and a key-locked door, they have no fear of predators gnawing on their bones and the carpet covers the dangerous pits of tar and treacherous undergrowth- ready to ensnare an unsteady knobby foot. No, their final rest seems to be a quiet place that they can go to live out the rest of their lives, to pine away, apart from the rest of the herd...

---

Bar Etiquette
1-30-08
Current mood: Bit In The Face

It was a cold, brisk Tuesday, the night of the terrible incident. Snow lay on the ground covering the clever ice that thrived underneath. It sought to capture feet and tires and lives.


But snow wasn't to blame this dreadful night, no- It was drunkards.



Tuesdays are one of my few nights off- my first night off for the week. Coey works Tuesdays, her only day, and I like to head in for a beer and keep her company. I had planned on visiting the Westwood, our sole competitor (sad as it is), to have a shot before heading over the One Eyes and having a beer. After my beer Id head up the Curly's and say hello to some of the bartenders over there.

But the Westwood was closed. I glanced at my dashboard to catch the time; 10pm. I shook my head softly and paid it little mind, the Westwood often closed before we did. So I turned my car up the street and slogged up the few blocks that separated the Westwood from One Eyes. I plodded through the snow to the door and surprise crossed my mind, for as I opened the door it was clogged with people. I squeezed by as people turned in their seats to examine their newcomer. Shouts were raised and I grasped hands and arms with some of the regulars who knew me well.

After the welcome, I of course said hello to Coey, but it only took one glance to see that if there wasnt anybody in the bar- she was ready to close. All the dishes done, mats cleaned, stools for the outlying tables already put up, it looked as if she had nothing else to do but the till and she was gone. Seems like the Westwood had had a full house when they kicked them out and closed shop; and they all came to the only other bar in town, who had had a very slow night and just wasnt fast enough to lock its door before they came through it.

Seems I had shown up right after they moved in, like nomads to water. 5 minutes later showed signs of distress out of Coey- two guys, who had taken more of their fill of hops, had tried to buy sex and a blowjob off one of our regulars. I was shocked to see that she hadn't bashed their brains in yet. Lora's a big girl, not fat, but definitely the "bash your head in" type. Two more, a mother/daughter, were obviously as inebriated as the two guys. I quietly asked how much she had served them, not questioning her judgment, but more of trying to get a feel for how they might act for the rest of the night. She replied, "Hardly anything. Half a drink at best. Him (she points to a guy in a red hat, one of the head-not-yet-bashed-in-guys), hes already cut off and I haven't served him anything." It soon came apparent why the Westwood had closed early. Patience had probably worn pretty thin with this crowd, as it was starting to do here. A taxi was called for the worst ones, Red Hat and the mother/daughter combo. Seems like the taxi cab driver couldn't even handle their stress as she refused to drive them, or call anybody else over to do it for her. Tough luck- Im going to have to add Taxi Cab Drivers to my list of people not to piss off, right under bartenders. And convenience store clerks. Yeah. Convenience store clerks can be real tricky sometimes.

I felt out the crowd, decided everyone was having fun and relinquished my watch for a pinball game. A pirate pinball game, of course, in a pirate bar. I could play that stupid thing for hours. After a couple games, I took a glance over my shoulder... into chaos. They all must have taken 2 or 3 shots before getting kicked out of Westwood, because it looks like they were getting steadily drunker- and not off our alcohol. A crowd had formed and it seemed mostly consisting of 5 or 6 old rednecks trying to convince the daughter to take off her shirt- and doing a pretty good job at it too. Coey was in the middle of it all, trying to both yank her shirt back on and round on the rest of them at the same time. Having done that- It turned ugly. I took one look at Coey and all she could say was, "Im done. We're closing." Good thing that was all I needed.

Many of you who used to know me, I would hope, thought of me as a nice guy. I was told by the guy who hired me as a bartender, that he'd give me two months working this job, in a Biker/Hick dive bar in the middle of nowhere, before I started turning mean. I laughed him off and secretly thought of what I was going to do if I was ever hit across the face with a pool cue, like what happened to another bartended just that last week. Im not a big guy. I would never survive as a bouncer.

Turns out he was right though. I started yelling for them to suck 'em up with a no-bullshit stare and announced we'd be closing shortly. Very shortly. No sooner then I say that then the ugly got worse- not directed at me, but at the mother/daughter. Seems that not taking your shirt off is an offense worthy of racism. Racists start coming out of the walls yelling for them to get out, someone throws the mothers shoes out the door (apparently she had taken them off for some reason and had forgotten them), another heads them out and slams and locks the door in their faces. Cat calls are shouted through the door and you could faintly hear two very mad and close to tears women who were now convinced that the world was against them. They weren't going anywhere either, neither could stand very well, much less walk and after pounding on the door for a bit seemed to endeavor themselves into tumbling and falling from snowbank to snowbank. Me and Coey, thinking like bartenders, were quick to see a serious problem. Two very, very, inebriated people were out in the street and on our sidewalk in front of a still lit up bar. All it would take was one cop to drive by and we would be in serious trouble, doesn't matter if we swore up and down that we didn't serve them.

I volunteered to drive them home, which seemed the lesser of two evils. I was still a little taken back on the ugliness that I had seen come out of faces I knew and trusted. I went out the back and set myself with trying to round up two angry drunk people. After trying to herd them over to my car, as they could barely walk, I brought my car around front. Getting them in the car seemed harder to get them to my car and one look at the windows showed most of the bar looking on with what was probably laughter and more racist comments. Lora opened to door to confirm my doubts and started in again on them. Very unlike me, my temper flared and I coldly told Lora to shut up and get the fuck back in the bar. Surprising how well that line works.

Getting the mother in the car was the easiest part.


Getting her out of my drivers side and into the passenger side? A little bit harder. After convincing them she couldn't drive, we took our slow roll down the street towards their house. No way was I going to have them puke in my car. It was also a bit of good luck that the mother had tried to write a check at the bar, which thankfully had her address on it. It wasn't too far away, which as I later found out was far enough.

I don't know what started it, but the mother seemed to have it in her head that I was driving her car. Yeah. The inside upholstery of an SUV definitely could be easily mistaken for the cramped, trashed out punk strewn quarters of my Honda Accord. And Nine Inch Nails playing in my CD player wasn't helping either, Im sure that's exactly what she listens to. I quickly convinced her that her car was back at the bar and they could come back and get it tomorrow. They were nice ladies, started going off about how nice it was for me to take them home, blah de blah blah.

If you know Rathdrum, picture this. Im on Hwy 41, right between the High school and Taco Bell when she tries to put on a pair of extra shoes I had laying around in my car. I laugh and tell her that her shoes are in the back seat with her daughter and those are my shoes. "Your shoes? What are your shoes doing in my car?!?" Shit goes to hell. She starts off punching me, then grabs my pair of aviators off the dashboard (Huh? Oh, she must keep aviators on her dashboard as well, I suppose) and tries to stab my groin into oblivion. She then springs for the keys, turns the car off and starts attacking me. My car is dead in the water in the middle of the street at 12 o'clock at night and I have a wailing drunk daughter in the back seat crying her eyes out and a crazy drunk bitch wrestling me for MY keys. She punched, tried headbutting me- at this time Im more worrying about cops coming up behind me, cars are getting held up, having to pass into the opposite snowy lane to get around me. Sure wasn't expecting her to do what she did. She fainted a head butt and latched onto my cheek instead.

With her teeth.


Now Im mildly pissed. I unethically, yet very successfully, elbow her in the face. As I yanked my keys out of her hand and to the sound of her hysterical daughter, I slowly explained exactly what was going to happen. She shut up for a while after that. She lived in the town houses across the way from Super One and we got there with little in the way of conversation, besides the still hysterical daughter.

6971, Apt 2. A Landrover had just pulled into the driveway of Apt 1 and me, wanting to get them home as quickly as possible and out of my car as quickly as possible, stop to ask where Apt 2 is. Both people point next door with curious looks on their faces. I thank them and make for the next house over. Both of my passengers turn gleeful for a moment as we passed them to shout out hellos. I pull into the drive way and they both agree that they're home. I leave the car running, expecting a quick drop off and I was gone. Wrong. The mother wont open her door. So I get out, let the daughter get out and go back to try and coax the remaining baggage out of my car. I find her trying to put my shoes on again.

After explaining, again, that they were my shoes and pointing out that her daughter was still carrying hers (which she was banging on the garage door very annoyingly). I see movement in the window of the house- someone looking pissed. Suddenly, I realize I cant see the address on the house and come to the conclusion that this very well could not be their house at all. And they were woken and annoyed and angry to find a strange car outside and some drunk chick banging on their house. I get out and try to make it through the snow to their door. When they made no move to their door, I tried asking apologetically where 6971 Apt 2 was. Maybe they were just angry or perhaps they just didn't care, but all I got back was a WTF look and a "I Don't Know!". The daughter takes off running down the incline of the narrow driveway, which was lined to either side with about 4 feet of packed snow. She doesn't hesitate, but runs off down the street back the way we came. I turn around to offer my apologies again to the home owners when I heard it. The distinct sound of a drunk person manning my car.

Son of a bitch.


I cant imagine what we looked like to that poor home owner, but it must have been pretty hysterical. I jumped two feet in the air, spun around and started yelling, "NOOOOO!!!!" at the top of my lungs. She didn't get very far, probably because the parking brake was still on, but it was enough to spin my car sideways wedging it at the bottom of the driveway between two 4 foot tall snowbanks.

Now Im annoyed and barely keeping my calm. I yank open my drivers side door and yell at her to move over, hoping the owners of said driveway don't call the cops. I get in and get it mostly back into the street, but it was still pretty well high centered on the back- took all the speed coming down the drive way I expect. I look up to someone running towards us up the street with a dog- my hopes lifted, possible rescue! Nope. The daughter seemed to have gotten hot in the stifling 20 degree weather and took off her sweatshirt. Guess she found her house too and was kind enough to bring her dog. How nice. The cold must of sobered her a little because she instantly went about to helping me get my car unstuck. Freed, she opens up the door to let her mom get out- Nope, wrong again. She grabs the dog, shoves him inside then leaps into my back seat, temporarily squashing the dog. So much for sobriety.

Now I have a strange dog in my car and two people who I have no clue where they live. The mother does the dumbest thing I have ever heard and quietly asks how Im getting home. I cracked. I went off on them. The daughter, not surprisingly, starts to wail again. The mother is sitting there thinking Im trying to screw her over by stealing her car. The dog? He smelled. He was cool, but that was probably because he wasn't a blithering idiot who gets drunk. I still cant get the smell of that dog out of my car. I finish my tirade and light up a cigarette to absolute complete silence. I notice the mailbox right next to me and realize that the Landrover was pointing to the right side of their house, which was split into two- a townhouse. I pull into the driveway, careful to turn the car off and pocket the keys before letting the dog and the daughter out. Another narrow driveway, and it looks like the Landrover had left for a quick errand- they're coming home again and now Im in their parking spot. Great. The mother still wont get out.

You know the quickest way to get sympathy from someone when you're in their parking spot? Tell them you're a bartender and their neighbors are raving alcoholics and they're convinced that your car is their car. I didn't even feel guilty about saying it. Thankfully I enlisted one of them to help me round up the dog and the daughter (both needed rounding up) and get the mother finally out of my car. I thanked him and quickly explained the fiasco at the neighbors house and asked him to please apologize to them when he gets the chance.

And I made my escape to a drink that I desperately needed right then.


Heh. I get back to the bar to find it thankfully closed up, but with one addition. A lawn gnome with a red hat banging on the front door, pleading to get in. I didn't even mess with him, my drink was blessedly close. I sauntered past, around the corner, and in the back door (which I quickly locked behind me). I must have scared the piss out of Coey- She heard the door slam and had figured it was Red Hat. God, I came around the corner to a blessed scene though- Alcohol and Heidi. Hurray for Heidi.

My face still hurts. I cant believe that bitch bit me.


P.S.
Two days later while searching through my car I discovered that she stole one of my shoes. One. Shoe. Im going back to her house for it tomorrow.

P.S.S.
The Daughter came back in to the bar tonight when I was working, sober this time. Thankfully the others that were in there two days ago couldn't remember how much of fucking racist pigs they were and got along with her fine. They remember her from that night, but still were friendly.

Now, Im cool with the daughter. She didn't hit me, claw me, stab me, or bite me. I am fighting the Managers ruling on 86'ing her (kicked out indefinitely) and arguing that she had little part in the fiasco that night.

She didn't remember hardly a thing. After explaining briefly, she was so embarrassed that she insisted on buying me a new pair of shoes, even though all I wanted was just my one shoe back. I take it they must have gone "Wtf?" the next morning and fragged it. I also reminded her that her mother owes me an apology and still has a tab of $25, due to an "illegible check".

Finally, Im thankful she didn't piss on my back seat, as it seems she did on one of our bar stools that fateful night.

P.S.S.S
I got in trouble for giving the daughter- who had come in again- the bad check that we couldn't cash. Now it was up to me to return to the fateful house and 1) Recover the check 2) Recover the money, or 3) Recover another check, this time not written by a drunk person. And my shoe. Cant forget about my shoe.

I arrive and the daughter answers the door. Unfortunately she doesn't have the check anymore. She unfortunately doesn't have the money either. Or a new check. Or my shoe.

Too bad. Now it's $25 out of my pocket and a shoe.

I calmly let her know that, even though she wasn't too much of a part that fateful night, the owner had spoken and both her and her mom should go to Westwood from now on- They we're 86'ed. Hopefully the daughter comes back in when she gets paid and at least reimburses me for my $25.

My cheek has healed, but the pain over my shoe will last a lifetime. Well, at least till I get another pair.

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WARNING: CONTENTS MAY ATTACK YOUR RELIGIOUS BELIEFS
4-13-06
For you that don't know your religious preferences, there's Religious (belief in God faith), Agnostic (belief in god not faith), and Atheist (no God no faith).
I, am agnostic. Sorry.

Before I start, I would like to take some time to state a little fine print...
1) I believe in god (lowercase), but no God (uppercase) that I've come across fits the bill.
2) I believe in faith, but not religion. I believe that everyone has to have faith in something, anything. It's what keeps everything together, why everyone strives to fit themselves to religion in general. I just keep myself out of the box.
3) The rest of my family is Christian, I have religious conversations with them without yelling.
4) I have never, and will never, try to persuade someone against their will to weaken their beliefs, no matter how ridiculous I think their religion is.
5) This blog is not an attack on your relig - wait. yes it is. I take back number 4 too. This is an attack on the bible, in all translations, of all religions that use it to teach.




I was once told by a youth minister, that was on a rant at the time and tried supporting it, that historical books are cross referenced by other books to validate their historical value. He went on to say that you can not prove a book true by the same book. Makes sense. But I ask you, how to prove the bible? It's the oldest book in history and it's very hard to find books of any reputable value as truth seems to get fuzzy the longer it stays around. (the rest of the sermon I wont go into, he tried to prove the bible true by itself, no matter that he took half an hour saying you couldn't do that) That lead me to take historical and religious classes to try to help me prove the bible, if only for myself. Unfortunately that just lead me to forgo religion altogether. You can not prove the bible.

I've read the bible, although I wasn't at the maturity level needed to understand it at the time. I've decided it's time to reread it. Unfortunately it has strengthened my resolve as an agnostic instead of making me more religious. Here are some excerpts that you can look up and see how fucked the bible really is.


Genesis 19:1-36
These two angels (Bartleby and Loki, which some of you might recognize from Dogma) show up at the gates of Sodom one day and are greeted by this guy named Lot. He recognizes them (somehow) and invites them into his house. Before too long, all of the men from the city (young and old) surround the house and demand that Lot gives them over to them so they can have sex with them. Lot refuses (of course), but then offers up both of his virgin daughters instead, "to do whatever they please" (WTF?). The town refuses the two virgin daughters, as them would rather have sex with two male angel guys (WTF?). Anyways, the angels blind them, blah blah, then tell Lot to get out of town and don't look back. They're going to rain sulfur down on this sad, sad, sick town (I'd do the same). Lot leaves with his wife and daughters, his wife accidentally looks back and gets turned into a pillar of salt (kinda harsh) and they head into the mountains. Sodom gets destroyed (sulfur has that effect). Lot's daughters realize that now that their husbands are gone (I guess they got added into the "young and old" of Sodom, but the bible doesn't mention that. Not much of a relationship if they would rather take having sex with guys over their own wives) and now they're man-less. The only guy around is their father, so they get him drunk and get pregnant. That's it. Nothing else, the chapter ends there, I guess god doesn't frown upon incest as much as we all thought, but that's not the point. The point is that Lot was willing to offer up his own daughters to get gang-raped and the bible still calls him a righteous man. And another thing- I thought they were supposed to be virgins? Fat chance if they were married, unless their husbands really were gay.


Genesis 20:1-11
Abraham, a well known prophet, married his sister (here's that incest thing again, weird).


Deuteronomy 27:22
Hmm. It seems the bible contradicts itself. Here it has Moses stating that incest is a "cursable offense" (hopefully not by bears)


2 Kings 2:23-25
Elisha, a very holy man who it was said that touching his bones (after he was dead, of course. Too bad he couldn't use the whole 'bring back the dead' thing on himself) restored a dead man to life, got mocked by 42 kids. I guess he didn't like getting called a "bald guy", so he called a curse down upon them in the name of God - 2 bears popped out of nowhere to rip them to shreds (Shit! I thought the pillar of salt was harsh!).


Deuteronomy 22:5
This one Im quoting outright. Here it goes. "The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the LORD thy God." Guess god doesn't think Im sexy in a butterfly halter-top, even if I do.


Deuteronomy 23:2
If you're a bastard, or your father was, or your fathers father, or your fathers fathers father, etc. up to the 10th generation; you're all going to hell. Sorry. Bummer.



These are just some of them that I've found. Crazy religious people. I think Im safer being agnostic then trying to walk this tightrope you call religion. For Christ's sake! My grandma prayed for years for my step brother because he was Jewish and she thought he was going to hell! Wasn't Jesus a jew? WTF?

These excerpts were generally taken from the King James version of the bible, but were cross-referenced by several other 
versions to make sure that there wasn't any gap of mis-translation. All versions agreed with each other.

Please contact me if you find a version that states different passages than the ones I put down.

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