The Lazy Man's Blog

If you are like most folks, you have those little voices in your head influencing you towards selfish or kind acts. These are usually visualized as a Shoulder Angel and Devil.

Unlike most folks, I completely lack these two entities. My little voices would be better portrayed as Shoulder Admiral Ackbar and Jay&Silent Bob. Here is an example of conversation I would have:

FRIEND: Hey Lazy, we are going bowling tonight, wanna come?

*Poof* Shoulder Ackbar appears

ACKBAR: IT’S A TRAP!

ME: I agree, figment of my subconscious, they are going to make me put on someone else’s shoes and get all sweaty.

*Poof* Shoulder Jay&Silent Bob appears

JAY: That’s exactly what I did with your mom last night, nooch. (Silent Bob agreeably nods)

ME: Dude, cut it out with the mom-jokes, ok? They are lame.

JAY: Your mom says you’re lame, that’s why she called me over. (Silent Bob fist bumps Jay)

FRIEND: (Looking at me talking to my shoulders) What the hell is wrong with you?

JAY: Yeah, what the hell IS wrong with you? (Silent Bob looks at me like he smells a fart and thinks I did it)

ACKBAR: Your ego can’t repel ridicule of that magnitude!

You can probably guess how this ends. Just in case you are too lazy to guess, it ends with me not going bowling, or having any friends. Well, except for Shoulder Ackbar and Jaybob. They got my back.

Being lazy, I rarely am an active participant in my own entertainment. Good thing for me I was born in the modern era, too bad I have to share it with Lindsay Lohan.

The internets are a godsend to people like me, what with my attention span of a something that has a short attention span and my lazy always-late-to-the-meme-party timing.

By the time I finally get around to hearing about the new funnyness on the web there are 10 other things waiting when I get bored with it.

Currently, I am enjoying the Family Circus with Jersey Shore dialogue. What is really great about this is how true a portrayal of today’s family unit it is.

I can’t wait for the Paris Hilton/Jersey Shore generation to grow up. Once these worthless slackers are everywhere I will look like the most productive person in the world, without any effort whatsoever, which is just the way lazy likes it.

The other thing going around right now is photoshopping album covers to include tacos. I support this thing. I want this thing to take off. I want it to succeed so greatly that music companies take notice of how much more inciting their albums are with tacos and start selling CDs with real ones.

I pretty much get all my music online now because it is way easier than spending the 30 minutes to get all that packaging off the CD just so I can burn it to my computer anyway. But, if they sold tacos with them, I would be waiting outside of Best Buy every morning just to buy CDs I didn’t even like…

Yeah, I will take two Kanye Wests, enchilada style, Lady Gaga’s fish taco and a shredded chicken Taylor Swift with extra cheese. Oh, throw in a ground beef Kenny Chesney on the side, too.

Let’s talk about fives. You know, those things you give your friends when something awesome happens. I really think that fives are the currency of awesome.

And they come in all different types, too. Right now, the strongest five is the high variety. I can get this, when you are excited you just want to throw your hands up. It all fits together.

But, I long for the day of the low ones. They were subtle and smooth; low-key. I sneak a low one in now and again, but there is a danger in trying to bring them back into mass circulation.

That danger is the ‘too slow’ psych. These counterfeit fives really hurt the awesome-economy. With the abundance of ‘too slows’ you could never tell when something was truly awesome, or just a con to get you to throw away your hard earned fives into the wind.

I have put some thought into fiving and I wonder about etiquette in certain rare situations. Like, what if the person you are exchanging fives with is missing a digit on their fiving hand? Do they just get a discount on the five? Or should they have to give you a one with their other hand?

Also, what if the person has an extra digit? Now does the fiver have to give them an extra one to even things out, or should the six be considered a tip? Can the fiver keep the change?

I woke up this morning to the most persistent and irritating noise I have ever heard. It took me awhile, but I realized that it was my liver; screaming out in terror. This can mean only one thing: my buddy Steve is coming to town.

Arthur would have a hard time keeping up with Steve. Fish can’t out drink him. Humanity stands no chance.

It is a good thing that he lives in another state, because if I had to hang out with him more than one weekend a year, I would be dead right now.

No one wants to read a ghost blog, all they do is whine and bitch and moan about all the stuff they didn’t get done in life. Instead you get to hear me whine and bitch and moan about the stuff I can get done in life but don’t.

So, if you don’t hear from me for awhile, you can blame Steve… or praise him, depending on how you feel about my site.

I hear dancing is good exercise. I also hear that sharks are less deadly than vending machines. Well, I am not going to give a great white a buck for a snickers anytime soon…

Dancing is a spectator sport for me. I understand it takes a lot of talent to do it well. I even compare a good dance routine to a well choreographed kung-fu fight scene. No offence to Jackie Chan, but I would rather stare at Kylie Minogue any day of the week. Of course, Michelle Yeoh would kick Kylie’s ass all day, literally.

I hope I have bored you enough that you have stopped reading by now, because I have a confession to make. I listen to dance music. It is a guilty pleasure… and just listening to pulse-pounding beats makes me short on breath, so I consider it a workout.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not just thinking about dancing while listening to dance music. I am thinking about kung-fu fighting. Choreographing fight scenes to dance music is a virtual hobby of mine.

I fear now if I were to ever get into shape and actually learn a martial art I would go into some Pavlovian fugue state and commit a massacre at the disco.

So, me staying out of shape is my way of safeguarding dance halls everywhere. I do what I can, for you.

There really is nothing better than the indie scene (if you doubt this, then go read Questionable Content. If you aren’t hooked, I will give you your money back).

Indie folks know how to hold their liquor, have their finger on the pulse of good music, and are generally well read. But, you may have trouble finding your local indie hangouts, so I have come up with a system to track them down.

I call it the 3 Ribbon Scale. It is quite simple really, just look at how many ways the bar you are in serves Pabst Blue Ribbon. Now before all you beer snobs scoff at this, just remember, PBR was winning awards before you were even born. Don’t knock your heritage.

Using how many vectors a bar serves PBR as a scale of 1-3, here is the usual breakdown:

1 Vector (Usually cans or bottles): Fauxsters
Establishments that serve PBR one way usually do so to try to capture the indie and hipster feel, but don’t want to scare away their college top40 crowd.

You will probably be surrounded by a lot of fauxsters (Faux Hipsters, pronounced ‘fox-sters’) who get their Justin Bieber haircut meticulously styled every two weeks (yet still think it is ‘shaggy and unkempt’) and bump Lady Gaga in their cars up until they get into ear-shot of the bar.

It is doubtful that you will find anything remotely resembling an intelligent conversation or fun in one of these places. Your best bet is to start a conversation about Kanye West and slip out while they babble incoherently.

2 Vectors (Bottles and cans): Good People
If the watering hole serves PBR in two ways, and probably for a buck fiddy or less, then settle in and get ready for a good night.

This place is devoting a substantial chunk of cooler space to the indie fav so you can expect a good smattering of hipsters and indie kids. Most of these folks will be working service jobs and be in a band (even if the band is ‘taking a break right now before we hit the studio, you know, get the creative juices flowing’).

These folks know how to party, every night, thus why they don’t spend more than 2 bucks per beer. They have to make that entertainment budget last.

If you are looking for a place to chill on a Tuesday night or a good after-party, then this is a good place to start.

3 Vectors (Add the tap): Holy Land
Once an establishment opts in to take up tap space with PBR then they have reached the Mecca-level of the indie scene. If you are going to make a pilgrimage to one of these sites you should also stop at some other indie-holy sites on the way, like Goodwill and your local record store.

Also, whatever live music is playing at one of these places is going to be a local favorite and would totally get signed if they were in a big city like Seattle, Portland or anywhere in Canada.

Though, you better do your research before stepping into one of these places. At any time someone may call your indie-cred into question. If they whip out the word Mogwai and you start quoting Zach Galligan, prepare to be shunned.

Now, this system will help you find indie folk, but anywhere you have beer that cheap you are bound to attract… other elements. Don’t be too shocked if you enter a 2 or 3 ribbon establishment to find a proliferation of missing teeth, crazy old spinsters and shifty grifters.

To me, this just adds to the appeal of these establishments. You haven’t lived until you have been propositioned by an 80-year old woman, or man… or both.

I would take a picture to show you what I am holding in my hand right now, but then I would have to figure out how to get that onto my computer and then uploaded to my blog and I have already bored myself just thinking about the steps I would need to take.

So instead, I will just describe it. It is red, cylindrical and full of meaty goodness.

No, not a dachshund. And, no, not that either, you dirty birds.

It is a solo cup full of meatballs. Awesome, right? If you know about me and meatballs, you know that this is about the best thing ever. If you don’t know just search my blog about meatballs. The only thing that could really top this would be meatball tacos… Man, I am so inventing meatball tacos.

Anyway, back to the story at hand. It all started with a potluck. Let me tell you about my potluck strategy. I am way too lazy to make anything for potlucks, so I just show up really late to them. Kinda like I just want to hang out.

Now, nobody wants to deal with large containers of leftovers for the rest of the day, so that is where the beauty of this strategy comes in. The potluck participants all but beg me to eat their food and take plates for later.

So there I am, grazing some homemade goodness, when I spot the crockpot full of meatbally goodness. I had to think fast to maximize my meatball intake. Plates just don’t do, they roll around and are generally unruly. If there is one thing nobody wants, it’s an unruly meatball.

Then I see the stack of red solo cups. Jackpot. The perfect meatball corralling container. So, here I sit with a big cup full of meatballs. Don’t hate.

If you don’t know what a hyperbole is, well I don’t blame you. Who knows what types of words or phrases are called anyway? I guess English teachers and pedantic forum trolls would be a good answer to that.

Anyway, a hyperbole is basically when you use a word to exaggerate. Like, “Your cat weighs a ton!” You see, no cat weighs a ton, unless it belongs to Lum.

There are a list of words that when used as hyperboles really need to be seen as completely different words altogether. The list is: Love, murder, and rape.

We use the l-word every day to describe our passion for various thing. If your significant other were to take your use of the word ‘love’ to heart, they wouldn’t be as flattered when you told them you loved them.

When I tell a girl I love her it is obviously a lot more meaningful than the way I love tacos. Ok, bad example, cause I love tacos. I really love tacos. Sorry, ladies.

Murder is pretty self explanatory. If someone called the police every time someone used the word murder then Wrigley Field would be under police surveillance 24/7.

The last word is something of a sore subject for some people, as evidenced by recent Penny Arcade comics and subsequent reactions. Of course, they weren’t using it as a hyperbole, but it was still a fantastical and comedic use of the word.

Here is the deal with rape: the word is now synonymous with screwed. So, I got raped by the IRS last year, and every time I try to play Modern Warfare 2 online I get raped.

This does not mean that a government employed worker and the programmers from Infinity Ward came over to my house and ran the train on me all night. Neither does this mean that I condone any trains running on anyone without their express consent.

Also, use of the word as slang doesn’t desensitize anyone to the actual act. If anyone confided in me that they were raped I would not respond, “Oh, I know exactly how you feel. Last night, on Highrise, this one rocketbitch raped me all night.”

So, to sum up: No one condones rape, except rapists… and maybe the Pope.

Scott Pilgrim would totally be my IVL (in virtual life) if I had a real life to escape from.

If you are a nerd, geek, /b/tard, lolcat, basement-dweller, haxor, 8-bit musician, old schooler, IT Nazi, dork, gamer, gamer grrl, techie, trekkie (or trekker), browncoat, fanboy, MMOer, hipster, rocket surgeon, or pwner then you owe it to yourself to spends some time in the dark with Scott Pilgrim.

Converse, you are my hero. Thank you for making the All Star Easy Slip.

If you don’t know what these are, well, you were like me 10 minutes ago. Once I saw these babies I knew I had to tell someone about it. That someone is you by the way, so feel special.

The first line of the description for these things is: “Laces are for people with too much time on their hands.” Amen Converse, I am making you honorary sponsor of my blog.

They look exactly like a good ol’ pair of Chucks, except the heel tears down so you can just slip in and out of them. Epic. I am putting a pair of these in my shopping cart right now…

What. The. Hell.

Only for kids? Only for kids, Converse? What were you thinking? Kids have energy, and their whole lives ahead of them, why do they need slip on shoes?

No no no, this is all wrong. These things scream ‘lazy middle-aged fat gamer still trying to look cool so he can impress hipster college girls’.

Well, you know what this means, Converse. Sponsorship revoked.