If Youtube Comments Were Truthful.

 

Deep Thoughts

Whenever I attempt to grow facial hair, I want it to define my manliness and highlight my testosterone-laden fantasies I've hatched while confined to a soulless, windowless drone-like environment. Something that'll make people think of Captain Nemo sticking it to a giant, tentacled Kraken while screaming "I've got dinner reservations for two at 8 o'clock and I'll be damned if a slimy sea beast makes me late!"
But the reality is that between the five o'clock shadow phase and the Captain Nemo phase, there's an awkward teenage-beard/facial hair phase that makes people think of vans with tinted windows and John Waters.
Maybe if I forced my facial hair to go out and get a job it would grow up. But until then, I wait.

The Merger

The setting is conference room with five people hunched over a telephone in the center. A man in a charcoal gray suit is punching in numbers on the phone and glances nervously at the other people.
Comptroller: [whispering] "Where's Siegel? He knows this is an important teleconference meeting"
Analyst: "I saw him in the parking lot screaming his head off, 'Why God, WHY?!'"
Comptroller: "Ah, great, that's just what we n-"
Phone: "Dan, are you there?"
Comptroller: "Yes, I'm here, we're all here. I have my three financial analysts sitting with me here, and my operations analyst, and we're just waiting on our lead project manager who should be with us shortly."
Phone: "Oh. Having trouble tracking your people, huh Dan?"
Comptroller: "That's...not it at all [whispering] you lousy, no good, rotten-"
Siegel: "Hey! I'm here! Sorry I'm late! I got tied up with something."
Comptroller: [whispering] "Where the hell have you been?!"
Siegel: [whispering back] "I had to confront my fears in the parking lot! This merger is a bad idea! A BAD IDEA!"
Phone: "Ok, I thought I heard your project manager's voice. Can we please start now?"
Comptroller: "Yes, of course. Alright we're here to discuss some of the final details of the merger and prospectus for this. My regards for our CFO he couldn't make it here today."
Financial Analyst 1: [whispers] "Where is he?"
Financial Analyst 2: [whispers, points to his head] "Hospital pysch ward."
Comptroller: "The merger is still planned to take place next Friday the 28th at 10:00 AM EST. We've inventoried our product lines and bought back 20,000 shares of common stock with the expectation of selling them back once we get our new business plan implemented and in operation which should take approximately 8 months."
Siegel: [whimpers]
Comptroller: "In the mean time, my financial analysts have determined our stocks are still retaining their value and are still being traded at approximately 10% above their sticker price despite, I mean, even after the news of the proposed merger broke. Um, Ms. Longfellow do you have anything to add?"
Financial Analyst 1 holds up a picture of people jumping out of a high rise building: "No, I have nothing to add."
Comptroller: "Alright, McJames anything with regards to corporate bonds or commercial paper?"
Financial Analyst 2 holds up a picture of a smiley face with tongue hanging out and x's for the eyes.
Comptroller: "Ok! He's looking at me right now and giving me the thumbs up! Our rating's still good! Fantastic!"
Phone: "Yeah, we got their reports and looked through them and it's definitely good work. I passed them on to my team and we've decided our best plan once the merger is finalized to maximize profits on a smaller budget for your area."
Comptroller: "Ok, care to share with the rest of the class?"
Phone: "Not until the merger's complete, Dan."
Comptroller pounds the table with his fist which causes the phone receiver to jump off the hook. He scrambles to get it back on its cradle.
Phone: "What was that? Did you just drop out?"
Comptroller: "No idea. So we don't have anything to talk about the investment and debt of the company, correct?"
Phone: "Right, let's move on to operations."
Comptroller: "Right, our senior analyst has been working with your senior analyst and he's drafted up a report that's still being hashed out between the two parties, but it brings up several valid points. Peabody the floor is yours."
Operations Analyst: "Yes, thank you, we looked at the possibilities of expanding our old line to accommodate a new customer base that would come with the merger, opening up a new line, or retooling the entire factory for the new products we have scheduled to roll out with the expectation that they'll be the next generation and the old generation will be obsolete, although we still have close to three months' worth of parts which we will be distributing to help ease the transition to the next generation. Expanding our old line would require us to purchase new machinery, employ more people, and the needed rewiring to accommodate another production unit. The only way the finance team and I could determine to implement this is to issue commercial paper for the first year and corporate bonds for the next five years in order to raise the cash for-"
Phone: "Not happening. Next scenario."
Operations Analyst: "Ok, we could open up a new line and have our old one operate at about 50% with the expectation that we would have a slightly reduced demand for our old product, and we would raise the prices on our old product to try and get people to switch over to our newer offering."
Phone: "Ok, that sounds good. I like that. How are you going to pay for the new line?"
Operations Analyst: "Well, we would issue commercial paper for the first year and corporate bonds for the-"
Phone: "EHHH! WRONG! Try again!"
Operations Analyst: "Well the final scenario is that we shut the factory down and begin retooling and replacing worn equipment and get everything set up so that we can start producing in approximately 8 months to coincide with us selling back the common stock that we bought back. We would finance this by issuing-"
Phone: "Ok, I get it. I like the idea of shutting the factory down. For retooling. Let's go with that scenario. What's your predicted growth with that scenario?"
Operations Analyst: "We expect growth to remain flat because of market saturation."
Comptroller spills his coffee all over his shirt while Siegel shakes his head and begins rocking back and forth.
Phone: "Ok. That's not really what I wanted to hear. Dan, is your operations officer on the line?"
Comptroller: "He should be, let me see if I can raise him. Mr. McGillicutty, are you there?"
Operations Officer: "Oh no Ms. Penny. My stapler seems to be out of staples. Can you recharge it for me?"
Secretary: "*giggle* Why of course Mr. McGillicutty, oh darling, why do we play these silly games?"
Operations Officer: "So that we can escape in each others' arms, away from this weary drudgery and cruel, cruel world. Now, take me to the moon and back!"
Secretary: "Oh, you animal! I have to have you! [kissing noises over the phone]"
Comptroller punches out of the line and is grating his teeth.
Phone: "So I can assume your COO is busy right now? All tied up? Has his hands full?"
Comptroller: "Yep. Yep. Yep."
Siegel: "I just have to break in and say something. You thieves think you can just come in here and hand our asses to us!"
Phone: "Well, unlike your company, ours can actually afford to hand you your ass on a silver platter. Anything else to say?"
Siegel looks around and walks out.
Comptroller: "Um, I think we're all done here. Sorry, tensions are little bit high."
Phone: "That's understandable considering the personnel cuts we'll have to make for this merger to be successful."
Comptroller: [whispering] "WHAT?!"
Financial Analyst 1: [whispering] "Hey guys, I'm planning on having a severance pay party tonight at Poor Yorick's. Shots are on me."
Financial Analyst 2: "Count me in."
Operations Analyst: "I'm 78% certain I can make it."
Phone: "Dan, are you still there?"
Comptroller: "Yes, I'm still here. What do you need?"
Phone: "I still really need to talk to your Operations Officer."
Comptroller pushes the button for the COO and only heavy panting is heard.
Phone: "You guys are going to the dogs. I have all the ammo I need. Thanks Dan."
Comptroller: "Thank you too, you [phone hangs up] @!#!@#$%!"
Comptroller looks around for a second and sees the Operation Analyst has drawn a picture of a ship with a bunch of rats leaping off it.
Comptroller: "Well, that went better than I thought."

I've hit the motherlode!

In terms of tea. Good Foods Grocery in Richmond recently renovated their Stonypoint center and one of the main benefits is that they still carry the nutritional yeast that smells like locker rooms. But, they also have loose leaf tea that's selling for rock bottom prices. I stocked up on Assam, rooibos, and an oolong that I think is Dan Cong or some other sort of high fired type oolong.
On a personal note my life is just plain getting weirder and weirder. I had the most surreal and bizarre job interview today that consisted of me misunderstanding every single thing my interviewer was asking because I couldn't understand him through his thick foreign accent. When it was over, I was frustrated and angry, but at the same time I couldn't help but think, "This utterly hilarious."
Sometimes I wonder if my life were turned into a movie everyone one would be laughing, but I'd be watching it, grinding my teeth, and grimacing.

Deep Thoughts

Last night I had a dream that I was riding my bike around Richmond and knocking people over with it, left and right, and every time I would knock someone over I'd yell "YES! 10 points for Slytherin!"

A Yin for every Yang

Lara and I were sitting down to supper just the other night and she looked slightly worried. "What's wrong?" I asked. "Well, there's this old lady who works at the library...and she hates me for some reason. The first time I noticed it she was chatting up with some other old lady for all of about 5 minutes and then when it was my turn, she looked at me and the smile fell from her face to the floor. She grabbed my books, slammed them on the counter and didn't say a word to me the entire time. And then when I went back a few days later, she saw me again and told me to stop browsing through the books that were about to be reshelved. They were just returned! They weren't in any particular order! I don't know what I did to her or why she marked me like that!"
I reflected on that for a minute before returning to my volcanic heartburn burger and searched the recesses of my memory to see if I'd ever encountered anything like that before.
And that's when my flashback started.
Back in my halcyon days at UNC, a new dining hall, Ramshead, was opened up. Once inside its halls, you were assaulted by various forms of junk food that would guarantee a Freshman 50 instead of Freshman 15. Pizza, hamburgers, fried chicken, pasta bowls, and breakfast all day long were the staples of its fare.
But it also had a decent coffee bar with two tall urns, hot water for tea, and usually hot cider or hot chocolate when it got cooler. I remember walking over to the coffee bar for the first time and seeing him. He looked like an older, uglier, and cock-eyed version of Duke Ellington who glared over the students pulling cups of coffee from the pyramid he'd stacked. I dutifully waited my turn and reached over to grab a mug from the top of the pyramid when he noticed me and spoke: "Uh uh uh. Grab one from the bottom."
I paused. Everyone else was grabbing from the top thus ensuring a stable base was present to support the other mugs. And yet this guy wanted me to grab from the bottom, for what? In the hopes that I might cause his mug pyramid to collapse and proceed to get banned from Ramshead for causing a ruckus? I was on to this guy. Using my jenga skills, I slowly slid a mug from the bottom and poured a cup of joe. My eyes met his. He looked at me. And then his bulbous eyes focused somewhere around my belt.
I got the creeps and looked down too, only to see a tiny speck of coffee that had dribbled out from the spout of the urn. Understanding what his eyes were boring holes at, I began walking away.
"EXCUSEMEEXCUSEMEEXCUSEME! You made a mess! You need to clean this up!" he hollered at me, all while other students were trying to get the spout to stop spraying coffee into their overflowing mugs.
I looked around for a napkin, and not seeing any, I used my hand to try and wipe the drop off the granite counter top, but that only succeeded in flinging tiny brown specks on the floor and the urn.
"AAAAH! Stop that! You need a sponge!" and with that he slinked off to find a wet sponge, and I hightailed it out of there. I'd be more than willing to clean up a spilled drink, an overturned tray, but c'mon, I have to draw the line somewhere or else the first thing you'd see when you walk into Ramshead is me with a bandana on my head waxing the floor with the coffee guy standing over me shouting, "I better see my face in that floor by the time you're through! And next time I won't be so nice!"
I went back to my table and enjoyed the coffee and took it over to the dishes section and felt a horrible feeling. Like icewater in my veins. Like all the happiness and sunshine and fluffy puppies in the world had disappeared. I felt something like an ember on my neck and turned to see the coffee guy over at the coffee bar staring at me with a wet sponge in his hand. He continued staring at me with his eyes, twitched his pencil thin mustache, and then slowly squeezed the water out of the sponge onto the coffee bar.
I wasn't sure whether I should piss my pants or laugh. So I did both.
Walking back to my dorm with my jacket balled up in front of my crotch, I told myself, "Eh, this guy was just looking to push people around. He'll forget all about me the next time I go in and get coffee"
which unfortunately is along the same lines of "I'm sure my ruptured appendix will heal itself," or "perhaps that hooded man with the gun running straight towards me just wants directions."
The next time I went to Ramshead I was sitting down to a quiet supper after a 5 mile swim. I had a pretty decent view of the coffee bar, and was waiting for fresh urns to be brewed and brought out. I didn't have long to wait. I got up and wandered over to pour a mug only to have the coffee nazi walk across the room and yank both urns from the bar and place them under the counter. "Why did you do that?!" I sputtered.
"We need to make more fresh coffee and then we'll start serving thirty minutes prior to securing the ranges and grills."
"But I don't have time to sit around for 45 minutes for just one cup of measly coffee!"
"Measly!?"
"Well, I just want one cup, can you do that for me?"
And with that, he sighed, grabbed my mug, and poured something into it from underneath the bar that was completely out of my sight. He handed the mug back to me, smiled and said, "Enjoy!"
"Thanks," I mumbled and walked back to my seat. I looked at the liquid in my mug. I smelled the liquid in my mug. I took a small drop and rubbed it between my fingers. All of my senses were telling me that this was either used 40W heavy machine oil or coffee that had been boiled for about three days.
"What the heck," I told myself, "I need the caffeine," and poured cream into it. Dark particulate matter began floating up, displaced by the cream, and I took a sip of the substance. It reminded me of hot asphalt tar combined with burnt toast. I gagged it back into my mug and looked around to see if anyone saw that.
The coffee nazi did and he had an utterly disgusted look on his face with mouth wide open.
I gathered my tray while my tastebuds were reeling, and put it in the dishes section when suddenly World War III broke out in my stomach reducing me to take very ginger steps back to my dorm, not failing to notice that new coffee was put out 30 minutes earlier than promised.
After several hours worth of trips to the toilet, I had plenty of time to think and piece the facts together. But nothing definitively made sense. Why had this guy marked me as his mortal enemy? Did I cut him off in traffic? Step on his toe in the Harris Teeter? Was he back in his place right now sticking pins in a voodoo doll's stomach? Maybe he was just stressed out and lashed out at people. Who knows.
After that incident I stuck to eating at Lenoir where the coffee is fresh and piping hot. But with December exams the eating hours at Lenoir were reduced with mostly Ramshead staying open later. I had no choice.
Armed with excessive facial hair, bulky clothing, and a baseball cap, I strode into Ramshead, confident that the coffee nazi wouldn't recognize me. I even passed by him, and he looked up, puzzled and with a far off gaze as if he were trying to remember something, and then shrugged and returned to filling out his timesheet with coffee rings on it.
I snickered to myself and poured a mug of coffee and went to sit in the furthest room of the dining hall and saw that the jukebox wasn't playing. I looked around cautiously and thought, "What the hell?" which is along the same lines of "I'm sure if I ski down this hill I'll miss all those rocks and trees," or "do I really need fully functioning brakes on my car?"
I starting playing Judas Priest, Molly Hatchet, and Foghat, all while sipping my coffee. But out of the corner of my eye, I saw a blur streaming to the jukebox punching all of the motown hits. I peeked over and saw it was the coffee nazi who turned and looked at me. He had fire in his eyes and stormed back to his coffee bar and that's when it hit me. This guy just had it out for me because it was in his nature. He and I were entertwined in destiny's heartless spiderweb. He was my doppelganger, and I was the yin to his yang. And that's when a thought came to me. I marched up to him, put my cup down on the bar and barked, "This coffee is terrible!"
"I'm sorry, sir!" he whispered, to his utmost surprise. I put my dirty dishes away, leaving him puzzling over what just happened, and walked out of Ramshead, confident that I would never drink bad coffee and leave with soiled pants again.

Why Computer Games Stress Me Out and How I Deal with It

I recently started playing computer games again. I often go through spurts where I'll play them frequently, and lay off for a month or two. This weekend I started up again, but mostly as a stress relief on my feeble attempts of replacing my brake master cylinder on my Taurus.
"!@#!@" I'd yell as my wrench slipped off the nut.
"&*^#@" I'd scream as the new master cylinder shot pressurized brake fluid over my transmission case and engine.
"!@#!@" I'd holler as the old master cylinder sprayed fluid all over the inside of the hood and my coveralls.
"You already used that one!" Lara would helpfully add.
I gave up and tightened one of the nuts on the master cylinder and drove to a garage going 15 miles per hour with the added excitement of Death riding shotgun.
Lara brought me back and for this afternoon I've been fitfully turning from my book on Arnold Rothstein to playing a Star Wars game that I'd bought two years previously.
The game is essentially one big capture-the-flag between two large teams with explosions, Storm Troopers, weapons, and Wookies. That in and of itself isn't bad, and a person would think it's a good way to relieve stress, or at the very least relive dorky pre-teen fantasies.
But there's a slight problem with the AI (artificial intelligence) in the game.
I'd often sneak up behind the enemy and get in a good position to wreak havoc on them, only to be undone by my imbecile fellow soldiers.

"HEY! Get out of here! This is my hidey hole!" I'd yell to the blocky soldier who proved to understand what I was saying a little too well and shoved me out into the open where I was easy pickings for the insidious Storm Troopers. I began conconcting back stories to explain this whenever it would happen which usually involved me winning a large sum of money in a poker game the night before from the jackass who shoved me out of my spot. Or, I'd been sleeping with his wife and he'd found out about it and was biding his time until he could seek his revenge. Or he'd soiled his pants and just needed a private place to change.

As you can see, this happened pretty often as the game went on, and I ran out of backstories and just accepted that there was a self-preservation aspect of the AI with the weird quirk that all the other soldiers viewed me as expendable. That's understandable.

But then the dunces just started randomly walking into my line of fire. "Darth Windu? More like Darth Windon't!" I'd cackle as I'd unleash a hail of hurt on dark Jedi and Imperial goons only to be interrupted by the lone moron Republic soldier slowly, ploddingly walk straight into my sights, while the rest of the soldiers with brains went around or behind me. At first I took a sympathetic approach. This soldier clearly had heard about the Rebellion all his life, idolized it, and lied about his age to enlist, and with dewy-eyed innocence, marched straight into battle. Perhaps he was mentally revisiting all the amazing worlds that he had seen after enlisting, while being utterly oblivious to the one where I'd accidentally shot him.

"HEY! Get out of here you dummy!" I'd yell to the computer screen to try and wake the soldier up out of his daze. But either due to shellshock or some sort of deathwish, he'd veer straight into my path of blaster fire. The second time it happened, the dewy-eyed innocent I'd imagined was now just a buck-toothed Star Wars version of Gomer Pyle who went around the battlefield, drawling "SHAZAM!" and after I shot him, "GOLLLEEEEE!" The third time, I imagined that this particular soldier had some strange unexplained magnetism to blaster fire, and imagined him bouncing back and forth between sides like a pinball all the while screaming, "IT'S HAPPENING AGAAAAIN! OHHHH NOOOO! LAY DOWN YOUR ARMS! LAY DOWN YOUR ARMS!" But with the fourth happenstance, I assumed they thought I had superpowers which included a reaction time of .0005 seconds and could clearly see them in time to avert fratricide.

They thought wrong.

This incident quickly devolved into just running out into open space in full view of the enemy and then...running in place. Meanwhile, the Storm Troopers would mercilessly mow the calisthenically oriented soldier down.

"I have to DEAL WITH THIS TOO?!" I'd spout. "WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!"

The answer was pretty clear. The Storm Troopers had done their homework and watched a lot of Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner cartoons and had gotten a big barrel of oil marked ACME, and proceeded to slick down certain patches of terrain. "Hah! Those rebel scum won't know what hit them!" I pictured them saying to themselves while hiding in the inky shadows.

But then I wondered if my soldiers were to blame for this nonsense. I could just see them now, huddled behind a big rock and trying to come up with a plan, "Alright, men, I'm all out of ideas except for one...we run out there...we get within five feet of 'em, and then...WE START RUNNING LIKE HELL IN PLACE!"

When I witnessed the initial event, I tried pushing the stuck/desparate soldier. This only made him start running into circles ("I'm getting dizzy! I'm getting dizzy!") so I attempted to push him again and was promptly rewarded for my efforts by him giving me a full dose of thermal detonator which made me ponder just how many soldier's wives I'd slept with in this stupid Star Wars game or if I was a really good card shark.

This is all compounded by the fact that throughout the game there are various vehicles strewn about which you can commandeer or fly. The controls to work these are rather difficult, and instead of swiftly dealing punishment to Storm Troopers while flying loop-de-loops, I drive like a little old lady with her foot on the brake pedal and the right turn signal on. "Whoops! I think those wing things were extraneous anyway," I'd murmur as I'd plow straight into the ground with my snow speeder. "Where is everybody?!" I'd wonder, as I'd attempt to turn around and slam into the ground, destroying my X-wing. "GET OUT OF THE WAY!" I'd scream as I carromed straight towards a bridge inhabited by Storm Troopers who would heed my warning and beat it, only to be replaced by my stupid soldiers, most likely screaming, "WE CAN'T HEAR YOU!" right up until I'd crash into the bridge blowing myself up with most of my stupid soldiers.

Right now I'm letting my blood pressure drop back down into the triple digits and giving my hoarse voice a rest.

But what can you do? With stupid soldiers like the one in this game, who needs enemies. And with a stress relief like this game, a difficult job is a task I would gladly turn to.