…or watch the paint dry.

Welcome back, longtime Forklifts Unlimited fans! You really are the greatest followers in all the galaxy. For surely you are those who discover the subtle nuances of greatness that the casual browser misses. Surely you are not bored and randomly reading the sprawled musings of a genius welder (and also those of my partner Rod). You’re not eating a burrito half-reading while glancing at season two of McGyver playing on your television screen! I know it to be otherwise. I have greater faith in the Forklifts Unlimited Fanbase (FUnbase USA for our domestic fans, FUnternationalbase for the out-of-towners). And despite what statistics may tell us, I know you’re out there fair readers; secretly viewing our words through some highly-technical method of concealment that tricks WordPress into not registering a unique hit. It’s okay man: I respect your privacy.

But to return to my unstated point: the above profession of pride in our readership was all based on the in-depth mental analysis of boredom I conducted while driving home from work this evening. “What could possibly bore THINKER?” I thought to myself aimlessly in the silent darkness of the wide-open spaces through which I was traveling. My mind went blank; could I possibly take a substantial interest in every situation, happenstance and context imaginable?

I trained my thoughts. “Alright THINKER, on the count of three, its time for some serious boredom” I said out loud to myself like a lunatic. “Three! Two! One! Wait, that wouldn’t be the count of three then would it? Damn it, anyway BORED!”

There I sat, completely immersed in the uncomfortable feeling of lamenting disinterest. Unsatisfied, uninspired, and certainly not entertained. “Success!” I cried out in my mind. “Now, how do I remedy this wanton inkling for something other than this?” I sat for a moment. Then it hit me like one ton of self-realization bricks.

“OCTOPUS JUGGLING! What?” Amazingly, I’d found the one response able to confuse me within my own mind. And in a rare state of sobriety nonetheless! And that, even more so than juggling several octopus, was enough to entertain me. Why is everyone in a dissatisfied state of immobility?

Friends, learn to become amused by yourself. Find ways to break a bad cycle of day-in-day-out rigidity that will eventually leave you in a state of live rigor mortis. Weening down your dependence on Jon Stewart is probably a good first step. Weening down your dependence on your friends is an excellent second step. Of course step three is enjoying life, and regularly reading this blog.

They are all connected to each other. In a circle, in a hoop that never ends. Pocahontas, bitches.

Thinker St. James
Endocrinologist (License Pending)

Thanks for Ruining It, Asshole

I like to do a lot of things with my life. This is partially because there are so many things in life to do. The other part is that there are so many things in life I want to do. The other part is that, while being unemployed and just out of high school, waiting for college courses to start, I have all the time in the world to do nothing. This was an interesting notion at first, but it quickly faded, somewhere between the seventh all-nighter, and the twelfth day without a shower, all spent glued to a computer monitor, playing internet roullette with Firefox’s StumbleUpon plugin. So I began looking for some other things to do, and found enough to keep me occupied, at least when I want to be occupied, and one of these things was bound to be movies.

Now, I like movies. Comedy films particularly, but that’s not to say I don’t enjoy a good thriller, superhero movie, etc. Naturally, I like to approach a movie, maybe knowing a little bit of what it’s about, but basically in the dark in general as to the goings-on. So would somebody please tell me, for the love of God, why the hell does every movie trailer spoil the ENTIRE movie for me!?

Reading that last passage, you may not fully understand my gripe with the movie trailer industry. I’m not quite sure if there’s an industry in particular that deals with just trailers specifically, or if it’s all blanketed into the movie industry itself, but my point stands. And my point is this. I don’t mind the trailer telling me what’s going to happen. Hell, that even helps sometimes. What I do mind is movie trailers essentially breaking my favorite wall, the fourth wall, the best, albeit least sturdy wall of all, in order to tell me something I wasn’t supposed to know. Forget the fact that I am supposed to know some things for the progression of the movie, I don’t want to be told these things by the characters themselves. Now let me explain with example.

I’m watching the trailer for Spiderman (I’m not really, but let’s pretend), and after that cool “wooshing” noise you hear that intros the trailer, I hear Peter Parker come on. Peter isn’t talking to Mary Jane, or Doctor Octopus, or somebody from the Justice League, or anything like that. He’s not saving a fucking civilian and advising them with a smirk beneath his spidey mask, “you should be more careful next time,” before placing them back down on the railroad tracks and swinging away. He’s talking to me. Peter Parker is talking to me. And that pisses me off. Why? I dunno, maybe it’s the fourth wall break, maybe it’s the fact that I am not a character in the Spiderman movie, but it’s more than likely because, for some reason, Peter approaches me, sitting there in my recliner with my bag of Nacho Doritos, as though I were some kind of wise man or guru. He spills his guts to me. He tells me “I am Peter Parker…(more wooshing sounds and a few screams)…also known as….Spiderman…”

…WELL WHAT THE HELL?! Thanks a lot, asshole! You just obliterated the immersive experience I was expecting to have at the theatre…and I wasn’t even at the theatre yet! Parker then goes into telling me that “nobody can know about my secret….not even the ones I love most.” Well if you can’t tell your secret to the ones you love most, why in the fuck would you tell it to ME! I’m a fucking spectator. I’m an unemployed student who writes for a blog on wordpress that nobody reads! I have long, knotted hair, and a goatee! Do I look like your fucking Sensai or something?!

How do you expect me, Peter, to immerse myself within the movie, to “feel like I’m right there,” to be one with the fucking cinematic zen, if I know your untellable secret? If you couldn’t tell anybody, and you just fucking told me, you’re obviously perfectly aware that I am not in your stupid little radioactively enhanced dimension, and that it’s OK to tell me your secret because I’m not a threat, me being a real person, and you being the figment of another real person’s imagination. That pisses me off. I was all set to “feel like I’m there,” and then you, Peter Parker, the fucking HERO for Christ’s sake, had to go and spoil it all.

It’s not like we all don’t know superhero identities. It’s not like you don’t know that Bruce Wayne is Batman, Clark Kent is Superman, Peter Parker, obviously, is Spiderman. But that’s the thing. You didn’t need to tell me and go spoiling things – I ALREADY FUCKING KNEW! I would have been able to follow the film perfectly fine, without you having to directly tell me what your fucking identity is. Hell, I’d be more satisfied with Stan Lee opening the movie with the “Peter is Spiderman” monologue, than have Spiderman himself revealing his deepest, darkest, fucking secrets to the entire world! Fuck Stan Lee, you could go completely out of context and pull in Sam Elliot to narrate the opening as a cowboy who’s “been everywhere, man,” as the song goes. Sam Elliot could intro a movie about Space Robots in the year 3000, and it would still kick ass! You know what? Add that to my list of gripes with the movie industry: Gripe Number 759) Sam Elliot has not introduced the plot for every movie in existence.

“Well maybe Spidey is talking to his conscience, or to himself, and we’re just like flies on the wall, witnessing it all.” Well fucking hell man. Spidey’s gotta be more careful! I mean look at it. He was bitten by a radioactive spider, and turned into a superhuman. He fights half-humans based on every conceivable element, insect, and cephalopod, and yet it’s never occured to him that somewhere in that big radiocative mess of a city, there could be a FLY MAN?! If I was Spiderman and saw a fly on the wall while I was vocalizing my inner monologue, I would fucking smash that fly. I can’t risk the fly gliding back across the air to his fly buddies across the city to tell them that I am Spiderman. That would fucking blow. Granted, I guess flies’ natural enemy is the spider, and normal spiders that are barely the size of the fly in the first place do a pretty good job of owning them. Hell, flies are probably afraid of Spiderman. But they aren’t afraid of Peter Parker. And to my knowledge, Peter is the one talking, Spiderman is just a fucking suit.

My last thought on this subject is another “what if” scenario. Think about it Spiderman. If Stan Lee could create you, create your big, fucked up world, and create all those villains, couldn’t he, or anyone else, just as easily come and kill Peter Parker when he isn’t looking? Are you sure you’re safe telling the audience who you are? I mean, what if I, knowing that Peter Parker is Spiderman, decided to sneak into the comic printing room, and just draw a big fat sucker punch right around the corner as Peter is walking down the sidewalk. He TOTALLY would not expect that! Because he’s dressed as Peter Parker. Nobody knows who the hell he is. Except me. You know why? I’ll tell you why. It was your own fault Spidey. You’re the one who blabbed on that commercial. You’re the one who blabbed at the opening of the movie. You’re the one who spoiled it for me. And because you spoiled it for me, I decided to use the information you gave me to spoil you back. Thanks for ruining it, asshole.

This! Is! Alaska!

Fishing for crabs in the Bering Sea, under the craziest conditions possible by nature. Are you fucking kidding me? This Deadliest Catch show clearly exhibits the indomitable norseman in the hearts of all Alaskans. And its even got Bon Jovi’s “Dead or Alive” as its theme song; how clever is that!

I appreciate the shows display of honest heroism. The call of the wild beckons, but these days, who answers? These crazy bearded decedents of Thor, that’s who. While the other 49 states wait in line for Taco Bell, these warriors endure nearly freezing to death for 13 hours a day. While getting pelted with ice cold seawater. And nearly falling overboard every five minutes with the rough waves pushing their ship towards capsizing. These guys should have iron helmets and shields with dragons on them.

How many people do you know in your life that could possibly be an Alaskan King Crab fisherman? I myself only know a select handful of people who could rise to the epic call of the Flokennhorne (which may or may not be an actual instrument used to signify bravery). I don’t even believe that I, the most grandiose, most promixa centauri of all living humanity could answer the awe-inspiring Flokennhorne summons (as I believe DWC [Drinking While Crabfishing] is a misdemeanor in waters governed by Alaska). Think about that next time you’re snuggling up with your douchenozzle boyfriend Johnny after a rollicking six minutes of boisterously unpleasant sexual intercourse, sister. Would Johnny be scraping ice off his ballsack in the middle of the perfect storm, laughing in death’s face like a swashbuckling maverick with nothing to lose?! The answer is no, Claire. That’s also the answer to “is he special?”, “should a give my heart to this man?”, and “if we decided to get married, do you think he’d stop selling ecstasy?”

As Thinker St. James, a man who thinks more highly of himself than he does of most major world leaders, I tip my feathered bowler cap to the men, men and younger men of the USS Kickass: The Alaskan King Crab fishermen.

Alaska. I wonder what it’s like in Alaska. All I know of Alaska is The Iditarod (tracked that bitch in 5th grade; big ups to Ms. Johnson’s class). Oh, and hockey. And those crazy remote research facilities that serve some sort of geological purpose. It’d be nice to be in one of those little bases, but have it be a totally sweet pad with a fireplace and a polar bearskin rug. You’d have to have a hot research assistant though; the Alaskan tundra is a hard place to pick up chicks, I’ve heard.

Alaska also has periods of time where it is complete darkness for months at a time (something I learned from Steve Niles). I wonder if there are seasonal nightclubs that are open 24-hours during those times. People could be dancing to disco music at four o’clock in the afternoon! Isn’t that a world we’ve all dreamed about?

Mystery, Alaska: that’s like a movie, right?

And I’ve also heard that there is a lot of marijuana in Alaska, yet they still voted against the framework of legalization. Being a stoner in Alaska must be terrible: leaving a lighter in your car results in a 10-layer suit of freeze-resistant clothing. And no pot dealer is taking out the snowmobile at two in morning to go deliver an eighth of kush to you across a twelve-mile frozen lake. Though they are neighbors with those crazy Canadians and their scientifically modified hyperweed, so who knows! That’s Alaska for ya, baby.

I’d like to end this post by saying Alaska. Fuck Yeah. Today!

Fat Pimp

Seriously? Fat Pimp? Seriously. Are you fucking serious? You cannot possibly be serious, and yet you stand there, looking innocently and confused into my eyes, assuring me that you certainly, without a doubt, are serious. Hold on a second and let me make sure. I have to be completely positive that you are completely positive. Answer me one more time: Are. You. Motherfucking. Serious?… I was afraid of that.

One year ago, if I had signed on to Myspace and seen the name Fat Pimp as the featured musical artist, I can’t say I would have been particularly surprised. I would, however, have dismissed it as a tasteless, yet slightly amusing joke. Think about it. What immediately comes to your mind when you’re stereotyping the races and religions of the world? Blacks walk slow with saggy pants and talk gangsta talk. Whites say “dude” more on its own than all other words of the English language combined. Mexicans riding bikes are most certainly not riding a bike that they legally own. Jews scour the ground meticulously all day in search of loose change. And hip hop artists are called one of a few choice generic names: “Lil’ Gangsta,” “Outta Dis Wurld,” or “Fat Pimp.”

Now, I’d immediately like to point out that there is one possibly valid reason why Fat Pimp may have gotten his name. The only possible reason I would have allowed for Fat Pimp to exist under the moniker he currently possesses is if he was indeed a Fat Pimp. The image should be clear enough in your head, but for your convenience, I’ve drawn up a composite sketch of exactly what this type of person should look like:

Notice the big tits and purple suit, and the fact that he’s playfully sticking his tongue out.

If Fat Pimp the rapper was in fact a large (preferably 360 pounds or more) black man who literally dealt business with hookers, and had a badass “yeah, I’m a criminal and a rapper, but I’m also a human fucking being” kind of full-mouthed toothy smile, then I would totally be into him. The problem is that Fat Pimp absolutely does not live up to his name:

Notice the LIFE money, indie kid t-shirt, slut glasses, lack of obesity, and the fact that he is the living embodiment of a sack of douche.

Fuck man, my shitty MS Paint drawing looks more genuine than this guy. When a half-assed mash-up of shitty MS Paint and a 100 KB image of an obese black guy in an alley that I found on google look more believable than your sorry ass publicity photo, it is time to retire from whatever business it is you claim to conduct in your life; of which Fat Pimp most certainly does not actually conduct, being that his songs take about 50 seconds to write, since they are based solely on the generic industry standard for a hit hip hop single. Fat Pimp does not conduct actual pimp business. But he also does not conduct actual musician business. He conducts “get high as fuck legally, and stand in front of a camera making stupid poses for millions of dollars” business.

Not to knock Pimpo for that, being that I’m sure any human being would be utterly satisfied with living that way. At least until they realized that they were perfectly useless to society, and had been aiding in the progressive dumbing down of humanity all this time. Even worse, they’d soon realize that they weren’t actually a Fat Pimp. One day Fat Pimp (whose real name I’m going to assume is Charles Xavier Edwards III, or something similar) is going to be sitting in his home, drinking some nice herbal tea and watching ESPNews, when it hits him. “What the hell,” he’ll say. “I’m…I’m not really a Fat Pimp.” In his final moments he will have lost all sense of self and soul, knowing perfectly well that he is not a Fat Pimp. The news outlets will not be surprised that he died, because coming to the sudden realization that you are definitely not an awesome, obese prostitute dealer is enough to shock anyone into suicidal thoughts. At least Fat Pimp will be good enough to pull the trigger.

Oh wait. He probably doesn’t actually own a gun or know how to use one. Well. He’ll be good enough to drink a gallon of pure heroin then. And who wouldn’t want to die that way? I’m sure even the real Fat Pimp would be envious.

Rod Jenson; Registered Gynocologist

Unicorns aren’t real.

So I’m talking with a friend of mine about the usual array of subjects: kidney beans, Venetian blinds, flamenco dancing. Randomly we began talking about unicorns (which, if you didn’t know, apparently don’t exist). This friend adamantly proclaimed that unicorns, like the Loch Ness Monster and Sasquatch, are completely real and scientifically documented.

After scouring dozens of journals and library databases, and contacting Dr. Heinrich von Deitts (Austria’s leading Zoologist), I concluded that my friend was probably just really stoned and most likely didn’t even realize he was speaking when he asserted that unicorns exist. I tried my best to forget the conversation (and subsequently wasted hours of pointless research) altogether. However, while playing a spirited round of polo last week, I once again began to contemplate the nature of unicorns.

It was then that I realized that unicorns really don’t exist. I mean, I was already pretty sure due to my long conversation with Dr. von Deitts, but it was during the polo match that I became fully convinced. And my main reason for this assertion is this: you cannot put a horn on an animal and then claim that it’s a totally new creature.

Look, I don’t particularly like horses. I used to fucking hate them, but now I work with a few and have learned to appreciate a number of their character traits. I can tolerate horses and at the very least, I wish them no ill will. So when a perfectly normal horse is completely devalued by some douchebag implanting a horn on it’s forehead and calling him by some made-up name, I take a certain level of offense.

Why is the horse the only lucky animal to get a horn slapped on its face, thus magically transforming it into something it’s not? I want a unicat, or a badgercorn! How about a mongoosicorn? Or a unipelican? The horse should be used for respectable purposes like the circus and field warfare; this horrid exploitation for the purpose of selling stickers and school binders has got to stop!

Speaking of horse exploitation, anyone remember Horace, the horse from the old Disney black and white shorts that mysteriously disappeared around the early 70’s? While Mickey Mouse had Minnie Mouse and Donald Duck had Daisy Duck, Horace the Horse had Clarabelle the Cow. What the fuck?

Some things are strange. Some things are weird. Some things don’t exist. Unicorns are one of those things.

The Fame Game

I’m a lookalike.

I’m one of an ever growing number of individuals whose only claim to fame is a vague likeness to someone who in many cases has a tenuous claim to their own fame. Such is the culture in which we live.

Let me tell you a little about myself.

I was born in a non-descript northern town, known for its modest industry and a relatively successful professional sports team. Life could be harsh in this dusty old town, but in my youth the difficulties went unseen through the lens of innocence.

Time moved on.

By my teens I had come to consider myself as “different” to my peers. Most young adolescents undergo feelings of alienation, but in my case I felt it went deeper. It was like a background noise that you couldn’t quite focus on. Hushed words, stiffled laughs.

Then, in my fifteenth year it happened.

It was at a school disco, a few short days before the break for the christmas holidays. Lax supervision had allowed several of the older boys to sneak in several bottles of cheap Russian vodka, which was generously added to the fruit punch. In no time at all the alcohol began to take effect on young bodies unaccustomed to its powers.

And that’s when it occured.

A spotty, redfaced girl, whose name remains etched upon my soul, half staggered over to the foot of the stage where I was nonchalantly leaning like a young James Dean. With her faltering step she caught my outstretched legs and nearly tripped into Mrs Peterson’s piano.

With a furious backwards glance she shot “Watch yourself, *********!!!”

A small titter began around the room at the name.

In a moment I realised through the semi-drunken haze that she had aimed that barb at me. Amid the derisive snickering I came to the realisation that I did bare a resemblance to that celebrity. It would be a life defining moment.

Over the next few years it became part of my every day life. My fellow pupils, followed by several of my teachers, would refer to me by this alternative moniker. At first I ignored it, but over the years a quiet acceptance florished. By the time that family members stopped using my given name my path had been laid out before me.

At college I attended fancydress parties “in character”, to the delight of my classmates. During the summer break I was approached to open a new store, and from there I made numerous television appearances.

Five years after leaving college I was performing as ********* in a theatre in New York. The New York Herald claimed my portrayal was better than the original. And the next day my world would never be the same again.

After that evenings show I found myself sitting in my dressingroom face to face with *********. We stared at each other as though looking thru a mirror of flesh and blood. Though a number of years younger the difference in age didn’t show. Only a slight nuance in our accents betrayed the truth.

Anyone who has seen the film Bubba Ho-tep can guess what came next. I walked out of that changing room and into the back of a waiting limo, to be driven away to live the life of my alter-ego. Tired at the excesses of fame, they, in turn, maintain a successful career mimicking themselves on stage.

The world is laughing at their antics, but who is having the last laugh? I’m just looking forward to the next school reunion.

*********,
Santa Monica

Traffic

The fact that you are reading this means that I have already called the police. I notified them that there was an incident of child molestation I have knowledge about, and that something should be done. I only wrote this article before actually calling the police because…well, you see, this intro was not originally a part of this article. In fact, when I began writing this article, I had no intentions of calling the police. I had no reason to call the police. That’s because I didn’t know then what I know now. But by the time I finished this article, I knew. Now, why would I take the time to type this intro then, if I in fact had perfect knowledge of the heinous crimes that were being committed? Well, I’m merely reassuring myself that this is in fact the case. But now that I’ve read over this several times, given it a week to mull over, and typed out this intro, I’m definitely about 99% certain that after writing this intro and making this post, I should pick up the phone and call the police (after I have a short shower, and maybe some Cheese Nips) to let them know that the entire population of Korea are in fact a lousy bunch of child molesters.

Perhaps I should explain. I’ll start from the beginning. Or rather, I started from the beginning. Seeing as I wrote this before this intro (seriously, I totally wrote it beforehand). Anyways, here you go:

Today, I was driving home from Orange County to Corona. If you know what that means in terms of driving on a Friday afternoon (editorial note: I wrote this on a Friday, I swear), then you know exactly what this article is going to be about. If you don’t know, well you probably could have figured it out from the blatant implication made in that last sentence. Provided you are an idiot (which you probably are) and you still don’t know what I’m talking about, what I’m trying to say is, there was a fucking lot of traffic. Far too much traffic. Enough traffic to make you scream. Enough traffic to drive a man off the deep end. Enough traffic to force a man to take the prescription pills sitting in his glove compartment in order to put himself out of his misery. Don’t worry, I didn’t. Well, I did, but there were only four pills left in the bottle (I was on my way to refill my prescription ironically), so all it seemed to do was make me rather drowsy. This normally would have some effect on my driving, but on a day like today, it didn’t matter. As I inched along I-91, losing confidence in my ability to reach my destination before nightfall with every second, I realized something. I had been following the same exact delivery truck for one hour. Through the haze in my vision caused by the pills, mixed with the fact the air conditioner was blowing my hair all around my face (it was 110 degrees out, which didn’t make things any better), I made out the name of the company on the back of the truck, as if I hadn’t memorized it by heart at this point: Hankook Performance Tires.

I know nothing about Hankook Performance Tires. My initial thought was that it could be some small company exclusive to the west coast. Conveniently, my ten year old laptop computer was sitting right next to me in the passenger seat. Taking my hands off the wheel (I’d already turned on the parking break 3 minutes prior), I booted up the laptop. Once the 256 megahertz processor finally finished booting, I removed the parking break so that I could scoot up about an inch on the road, not wanting to inadvertently lose my place in line. Back to the laptop, I opened up firefox, and searched for “Hankook” in the convenient wikipedia search bar on the upper right hand corner of the browser. I was taken to the Hankook Tire page. Apparently Hankook is “the seventh largest tire company in the world” and is based in Seoul, South Korea. Skimming the page, I was trying to find something having to do with their credibility, namely that it was bad, as by this point the haze of drowsiness mixed with my utter hatred for whatever happened to be in my way for all this time had completely convinced me that there has never been a form of evil more malicious than that of Hankook Performance Tires. “Eh, blah blah blah, exports to US, uh huh, blah blah, increasing notoriety, mmhmm, bias-ply protection, ok ok, hmmmm……AH HA!” I had found it! The section entitled “Hankook Controversy In Hungaria” did it. I was most certain these foul men were none other than war-mongers, genocidal maniacs operating in secret to destroy the Hungarian people. Assholes.

Now, despite the fact that Hungary really seems to contribute nothing to the world in general, and that it’s a relatively small, insignificant country, if a bit well known, mass genocide is still just not right. Closing the laptop, I could only shake my fist at the Hankook truck driver, though he was unable to see me. At least I could assume so, since “if you can’t see me I can’t see you” was written on his mirror. For all I knew though, I might not have been able to see his face all that way in the mirror through the hairy, hazy, mess in my eyes. Though looking back, he probably couldn’t see me, since I was actually able to read that writing on the mirror, but could not see him. Anyways, that’s when a thought dawned on me. “Oh my God,” I thought. “This truck driver must not know what he’s supporting. They wouldn’t just throw the main proprietors of this international genocide into the roads of America to do their dirty work.” Of course, by this point it was international, and definitely not limited to simply Hungary. Hungary was just a start. They were building their way up. You’ve got to start small, but once you get a taste of it, you can’t stop. You’ve got to kill more and more until everyone around you is dead, or you’re dead. And even if you’re dead, you may have a slight chance at becoming reanimated, and if I had so much as five seconds as a fucking zombie in this world, oh man, I’d kill every last human, I swear. Oh, fuck. Anyways.

I was now determined to tell this man exactly what he was completely unaware of. He was working for an international crime syndicate, bent on world domination and the destruction of the human species. The poor fucking tool. He had no clue. In the traffic, it was possible to get out of your car for a few minutes, perhaps if you needed a smoke, or maybe a bong hit, or perhaps a bottle of gin. Hell, I saw a guy sitting on his roof shooting up. Anyways, after I’d finished the bottle of gin, I hobbled drunkenly over to the high-rised truck and pounded on the door. I shouted at the driver that he had to listen to me, and that what I had to say was very important. I told him about his affiliation with the crime syndicate. Very clearly, I several times repeated “MAAAN, you gotta get OUT of this maaaaan….you’re killing people maaaaan!” He never responded. It was just as I feared. The man did not speak a word of English. Curses, foiled. I was determined though. I went back to my car and pulled the laptop out again. The browser was still on the Hankook page. I glanced at the top, where it said they were based in Korea. “Of course,” I thought. “Fucking Il Kong Jim and those fucking Koreans. They deliberately employed people who don’t speak my language so I couldn’t tell them about the unspeakable evils I found on the internet. It must suck to be a Mexican living in Korea. You’re not allowed to use the internet to find out how your country is killing everybody off, and you’re not allowed to learn English. Hell, they probably teach you Japanese or some shit. Fucking assholes” It went just like that. With the quotes and everything.

By this point, I had forgotten that my original intent on going to the car was in fact to find an online translator, so that I could give this man a rough description of what I was trying to say. Instead, I absentmindedly clicked my favorites toolbar, immediately hovered my mouse over to my favorite porn site (which at the time is Tube8, for all those interested), and sitting there in the middle of traffic (in my car at least), I jerked off to a 30-something woman pleasuring herself with a cucumber. It was not my most dignified moment. Then again, it was not my most level-minded moment. If I had had more fucking pills with me, it wouldn’t have even been a moment of any kind for me. Fucking ay…..God dammit! I just remembered, I never did refill my prescription. Fuck! Well, I’ll stop by the store on the way home from Orange County tomorrow and do it.

So now I sit here. Utterly pissed off at Jim Long Dong Kil and the Korean Mafia crime syndicate, bent on universal genocide and a world of tears. Well, metaphorically a world of tears. There won’t actually be any real tears, since everyone will be dead. Last time I checked, corpses don’t cry, and trust me on this, I’ve seen Dawn Of The Dead 54 times. Man, those God damn Communists. Shit, they’re probably Communists too, yeah. Wait a minute…..waaaiiiit a minute! I never saw that man. Holy shit. I know exactly what’s going on now! (editorial note: you see? This is where I peace it all together; I really am a fucking genius) That man in the truck wasn’t a fucking man! I couldn’t see him through that raised up window because he was too SHORT to be a man! He was…..he was a kid! OH MY GOD! Those fucking Korean Communist, anarchist, fucking anti-Christ Mafia members are employing MEXICAN CHILDREN to drive their tires to their malicious, vile, havock-causing destinations! Why didn’t I see it before! But wait. Children can’t deliver tires in a delivery truck…..they have no job experience. So….they must be….oh my God….oh my God, oh my God. Shit! They’re sending these kids in these trucks to places all over the US, thinking they’re going to fucking Disneyland or something (those poor, underprivileged, Mexican kids. We Californians are the only ones in the world who get to enjoy Disneyland. And they don’t let you in if you speak Japanese). When in reality, they’re being sent to their death! Not just their death, but to MOLESTATION! OH MY GOD! THOSE FILTHY KOREANS ARE MOLESTING CHILDREN!

FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! I’ve gotta call the police on this. Shit. Shit. Shit. Ok, I’m gonna think it over for a bit, finish this post, and then I’m going to call the police! God damn filthy Korean assholes!

Ah man, maybe I’ll take a shower or something and get some cheese nips beforehand actually. Fucking Koreans. Making me all stressed out and shit. I need to relax for a bit man. Fuckin…..fuckin shit man.

Computer Love

God, love can sweep away a young heart with the greatest of ease. So today, while not doing anything at work, I found a friend request in my Myspace inbox. “Oh joy!” I thought to myself, “perhaps another human being is actually interested in David Bowie and Roger Corman movies!” Eagerly I clicked away, anxious to greet my new friend. As I entered the friends request section, I saw a rather attractive female’s picture. “Ohhh, I know what’s going on here. Another hot Austrian girl wants to fuck me” I sighed. Lo and behold, I was right. A hot Austrian girl with semi-nude pictures and 1000+ friends. Like always, I went for the “DENY!” button, but at that very moment, a strange notion came over me: give this hot Austrian girl a chance Thinker! Why are you constantly denying hot Austrian girls your massive American penis?! I complied. This is what transpired (annotated in red):

THINKER: are you a robot or something? (This is generally how I test my women out. If they say they aren’t robots, I’ll probably sleep with them. If they say they are robots, I’ll DEFINITELY sleep with them.)

[Jamie deluxe]aka[Schneeflittchen]: are you an idiot or sth? (I knew what an idiot was, but I was perplexed by “sth.” Perhaps she was asking me if I was a sith lord? At this point I knew I was in love.)

THINKER: haHA! well i am definitely an idiot, but sth.. according to the internet, that could mean any of these things (the ones with * are things that i might be):

STH Save the Homeland (gaming, Harvest Moon series)
STH Schwab, Twitty Hanser Architectural Group, Inc
*STH Season Ticket Holder STH
Sequential Trunk Hunt (call assignment scheme)
STH Shadow the Hedgehog (game)
STH Sheffield Teaching Hospitals
STH Sheraton Towers Hotel
***STH So Totally Hot
STH Somatotropic Hormone (growth hormone)
STH Something (IRC/SMS)
*StH Sonic the Hedgehog
STH Speed Touch Home (Alcatel DSL)
*STH Stairway To Heaven (song and TV show)
STH Steeper Than Hell (ski run at Snowbird, Utah)
*STH Stockholm STH Store Halfword (IBM)
STH String Handle
STH Structural-Thermal Subsystem
*STh Student in Theology
*STH System Test Hardware (I would have also accepted Speed Touch Home, which sounds like something I might enjoy.)

[Jamie deluxe]aka[Schneeflittchen]: uhm… ok i..m sorry i..m very angry cause a fucking idiot hacked my password and added many people , who i don..t know ok?
and i don..t know what he wrote, i looked at my profile and it wasn..t mine but it was my account and i don..t understand it please can you tell me what he/she wrote?
it would be very nice and i..m sorry for my behaviour
(Oh no! Someone hacked my girlfriend’s Myspace account! What a fuckhole!)

THINKER: i’m sorry your account got hacked; i thought you were just one of the hundreds of austrian women who fall in love with me regularly via myspace. i’ll understand if that isn’t the case. (Could I possibly be setting myself up for heartbreak?)

[Jamie deluxe]aka[Schneeflittchen]: thank you very much my account got hacked? biiiiaaatch… shit^^

what shell i do now?

i chnaged the password…??

fuck… do you know what he wrote? (Who is this mysterious Myspace-hacking asshole!? Better turn up the heat a bit, to calm her down and make her moist via the Babelfish translator.)

THINKER: i know! isn’t this completely insane? to think, an account getting hacked on myspace!!he told me that you love me, and that you want to come to america and be my wife. i got very excited, and almost made plane reservations! he said you wanted to cook me a traditional austrian meal (i was worried about it containing dead jews, but i would’ve been brave for you)!

i think you might be safe now that the password is new. MAYBE…! oh, and if you still want to come to america and be my wife, i can probably still put the order through on Expedia. (SOLID.)

[Jamie deluxe]aka[Schneeflittchen]: i..m so so rry

it..wasn..t me but is so nice from you totell me whatt happened

i..ll go to america soon but with my friends i..m going to be a nurs and a friend of mine nad me we fly to california … holiday

oh my god i..m so sorry did he say something else? (Not solid.)

THINKER: no, no.. he didn’t say anything else. though i am now, completely heartbroken. my heart, is broken. i am so sad, once again without a wife, who (in this case) would’ve been a hot austrian nurse.

nietzsche was right; god really is dead. 😦

when you get to california, be sure to eat at jack in the box. its my favorite fast food restaurant. think of me when you eat that double bacon and cheese ciabatta burger.i’m going to cry now. goodbye my love.

…and like that, she was gone forever. Well, I mean she’s not really gone gone, I’m sure she’s still in Austria, planning to come to California with friends, eating Jack in the Box…FUCK! Now with my luck, Rod is going to fuck my hot Austrian exfiance. FUCK YOU ROD!

The Gang’s All Here

Alright, look. If you, the reader, and I, the writer, of this “blog” are in fact going to “get along,” it is imperative that you know something about me. Something deeply telling of my personality and my life, that could literally make or break our reader-to-writer relationship. I, Rod Jenson, absolutely love Chinese food.

I don’t even love authentic, straight-from-China, Chinese food. I mean, that stuff is good too. I’ve had some here and there and let me tell you, it is some good food. Try some the next time you find yourself in a position to do so, because it’s not very often you get that chance, unless you happen to live in China. And who the fuck wants to live in China? I mean, this blog is probably already blocked by their government by now. Shit, all of WordPress is probably blocked by now.

But no, the Chinese food that I love so dearly is in fact the type of Chinese food you get from those little half fast-food, half legitimate “restaurant” style places, that are in the corner of the food court, next to the Togo’s and the Mongolian grill. One in particular, called Golden Chopsticks, has always tickled my taste buds, and is probably responsible for about one third of my body weight today. I go in there at least once a week, usually on Saturday’s, and lemme tell you, it’s fucking good food. Alas, there is one small problem with this restaurant. Well, not so much a problem, as it is a peculiarity. The place is fucking weird.

The inside of the store itself is actually very nice. Well organized, clean, and simple, it is the epitome of easy “get in, get out” fast food. It is for these and many more reasons that I have to wonder why, whenever I walk into this restaurant, be it noon, 5 in the morning, 8 at night, any time of the day, the place is fucking empty! Everybody I know, knows that Golden Chopsticks is a marvelous eating establishment, and yet to this day I have never seen one of them ever set foot into that fucking restaurant. I’ve never seen anybody in that restaurant before I get there. Sometimes I walk in and the employees aren’t even there. The money I’ve taken from the register in such situations is also probably responsible for about a third of the aforementioned weight that the restaurant accounts for in my overall body mass.

Now, the restaurant does not stay empty, not by any means. Usually right after I have placed my order and, as is the custom in this place, immediately received my meal, people start to walk in. Slowly at first, eventually building up to a rate the store can barely accommodate. Initially, an old, forty-something, born again Christian woman will walk into the store, and after very slowly and agonizingly ordering a plate of fat-free food (from a place that specializes in individually frying every grain of rice by hand), she sits down to her meal. Oddly enough, she then grabs the chili sauce bottle on the edge of the table, and begins dousing her food in what is essentially a liquefied heart attack. This is exactly what is weird about this place. The people.

Walking into a McDonald’s, you may find a screaming child or two; you may find a redneck, or even something very out of the ordinary like a firefighter or an astronaut. Meanwhile, at the Chinese place, a pirate with two wooden legs has just stumbled in the door, and is using the support of the tables to move him along the tile floor without slipping. As he struggles to keep his balance, the parrot on his shoulder lets out a squawk and flies over to peck at the forty-something woman’s head. Rather than become annoyed, she takes no notice, instead realizing that the nozzle on her chili sauce bottle is hindering the progress of the chili sauce mountain currently residing atop her side of kung pao chicken. She unscrews the nozzle and continues to pour chili sauce, now through the well-sized hole in the top of the bottle that the nozzle formerly sat upon.

While your adventures at Jack-in-the-Box (or Sonic Burger, for those of you unfortunate east-coasters who don’t possess the privilege of having your very own neighborhood Jack-in-the-Box) have amounted to Bimbo the Clown walking in, squeaky shoes and all, and calmly ordering a Bacon Ultimate Cheeseburger with a side salad, I’m sitting over at the Golden Chopsticks, surrounded by the entire fucking rest of the circus, who apparently decided to kick Bimbo out of the clown car a few blocks down the road because he was making racist jokes. As the pirate sits down, ever so carefully due to his wooden appendages, a circus man sits across from him, asking him to pick a card. Glancing past their dull game of solitaire, I notice that the woman in the corner of the restaurant has abandoned her kung pao chicken altogether, and has taken to pouring the chili sauce on her face and body, savoring every last drop of the scalding liquid spices. That is weird. Bimbo’s preference for a delicious sandwich at a famous west-coast restaurant is not.

So the next time you’re sitting in your cozy, normal, fast-food place, and take note at the peculiarity of the sweaty construction worker team that strolled so calmly in, think of me, sitting in the Chinese food place. Because, unknown to you, the same construction workers forgot to put the parking break on their dumptruck, and it is now rolling down the hill, about to crash into the Golden Chopsticks. Peaking through the rubble of the collision, I can see that the pirate, severely weirded out by this point, is crawling back to the parking lot, terrified. It also looks like he’s going to need a wooden right arm to replace the one he just lost in the dumptruck accident. He’ll be back next week.

By this point, fire woman over here is naked, rolling around in a puddle of fucking chili sauce created by all of the bottles having broken during the crash. It was only a matter of time before she would have done it herself. The circus people are busy trying to find a way to all fit into the dumptruck (you’d think they’d be able to, having just come out of that toy car that the truck flattened upon entry). At a time like this, the only thing left to do is to casually step by and snatch sauce-girl’s untouched plate of Chinese food, and walk out the door. Next time, I’m going to fucking Jack-in-the-Box.

Hi There!

My name is Thinker St. James, and I really don’t want to talk to you!

Seriously. I sit in an office building from 9-5 sporting a smile so phony that when I pass mirrors, I mistake myself for Joan Rivers. A masculine, sexy male version of Joan Rivers. A Joan Rivers Phoenix, if you will. I can stretch for jokes with the best of ’em: thank you corporate America.

Anyway like I said, I really don’t want to talk to you, but knowing you, you’re going to talk anyway. And as luck would have it, I get to be the target of your oratory projections. Yay me! I tip my hat to you, annoying asshole; you fill the gap between my internet porn searches (ie. those vane attempts to get fired from this shithole job) and my daily contemplation of suicide (ie. literally getting “fired,” also an attempt to escape this shithole job). Like a good cubicle neighbor, you know all the right ways to invoke coworker necktie strangulation, or perhaps a letter-opener to the jugular, or even the rare but completely satisfying staplegun to the face (repeatedly). Of course I’ve only heard about such therapeutic qualities. No, I don’t know why Ted hasn’t been to work for the last week and a half.

Why do my vague threats always fail to make you sit the fuck down and leave me alone? Silly me, I can easily answer that question: no one else in the office is willing to listen to your marvelous (dare you say heroic) tales of last night’s cuisine a la Ralph, and at this point, it’s gotten so bad that you’re willing to forego the risk of bodily injury by unloading upon the last (captive) audience at your disposal. Ralph, let me be the one to break this to you in a way that every single living organism in this building wishes they could: NO ONE GIVES A FUCK ABOUT YOUR USE OF OREGANO. Not one, single, fucking, person, in this entire building, gives a rat’s ass about what types of tomatoes you used in your penne prima vera al dente minestrone lamponi fuckin’ prosciutto pimento specialé! Ralph, you’re Polish, okay? Stop pretending that you understand the Italian words you’re using! Jesus fucking Christ man!

Lucky me. God must’ve caressed my beautiful Joan Rivers Phoenix face, seating me in this cardboard square just a few feet away from you. Clowns to the left of me, the Iron Chef to my right. I wish I was Chairman Kaga, revealing that today’s secret ingredient is a 17th century war cannon, aimed squarely at your prematurely balding forehead. But no. No, no no, no…no. I just smile. Thank God I never come to work sober.

One day, this world is going to end. And on that day, every person will face a higher power, however you define it. Ralph, you’re going to be the one talking about linguine. Perhaps that’ll gain you entrance into the kingdom of the angels. As for me, I’ll be the gin-soaked drug user that looks Vishnu in the eye and says “Hey pal, you gave me this life. Fuckin’ ay, I lived it.” Courage before the flames of hell.

Now all I have to do is get the network administrator to notice the foot fetish porn I so very much enjoy and end my arduous tenure at this stupid fucking job.