Developments

***warning... after writing this I realize it is absurdly long... I should start writing a book... oh well... make sure you have a solid 20-30 minutes for it (that includes brief laughing breaks)*** Where to begin... perhaps I guess I'll start at the end and work my way backwards. So remember how I told you previously that the train exposes you to some pretty badass people watching, yet another example popped up yesterday which I have to share with you. 

       After yet another exhausting day at work (actually exhausting because I have been having trouble sleeping lately, I attribute this mostly to ghosts & the randomness of the temperature in the house i'm staying in). I boarded the train in hopes of getting a window seat, it's my custom to sit there, read as much as my body allows and pass out with my face pressed against the glass. I find a pretty nice 2 seater with a great spot where the window just ends so I have a little train wall pillow.. its hard to explain... but anyway. I sit down and whip out good ole LOTR ROTK and begin to get my reading in. After a couple minutes I see someone walk next to me and attempt to sit in the seat adjacent to me. As he is shimmying himself in I hear him say "Uhhh what the f**k... porn??" and he immediately backs out of the seat and leaves. So I look over instantly to see whats going on and lo n behold there on the seat are 4 porn DVDs. Naturally I got out of my seat and go to browse them (to see if I was missing any of them from my collection) but unlucky for me I already own Chrome Dome Does Daisy and The Hillybilly Shuffle-f***.... HA! I really hope nobody believes that I did that and/or own stuff like that.. or maybe I do?? (no..). I thought about going to look and taking a pic with my phone for the blog but it just seemed a little too sketchy. So after getting a solid glance in (and seeing the DVD on top had a dudes face between a chicks legs) I return to my book chuckling to myself as people continually file into the seat, see the DVDs, then back out and make some comment like "Ewww" or "Thats gross!" and leave. 

      A little bit later I start thinking to myself... all these people keep looking at me... as if I was the one who put the DVDs there as some kind of sick joke or some social experiment. I was tempted to move seats but at that point I wouldn't have gotten a window seat anywhere so I said HELLZ NAW to that and just decided to accept that I would get to see tons more of this funny stuff. Approx. 20 more people attempted the seat (mostly older guys) when an older lady (lets call her OL to move the story along), in her 60s maybe chanced upon the seat. Her first reaction was to try somewhere else but then a minute or two later the OL came back and sat down. I kid you not she actually picked up and looked at each individual DVD and then proceeded to place them on the floor next to her. Again I chuckle to myself, thinking how fortunate I am to experience such great train rides (they almost make up for the length of time the commute takes). 

      For about the next 30 minutes the ride is uneventful. The OL pulls out a book and is reading and people sit down next to her without even realizing anything is there. Then as luck would have it, an African American woman (AAW) with a very loud voice and very open opinions sat down in the seat next to this OL. She doesn't notice the porn right away but she does catch a wiff of one of the most pungent and disgusting farts that I have ever had the displeasure of smelling. The thing wafted in the train for a solid 5 minutes and I was literally gagging. So the AAW smelling this calls up her "guuurl frien" and starts talking EXTREMELY loudly about how someone "shat their pants" and how it smells worse than when her baby poops or something like that. No joke she talks to this other girl on the phone for at least 2 train stops (while holding her nose), just talking about the fart. Even though I can barely breath and think that I'm going to pass out from the lack of fresh oxygen I can't help but face the window and start laughing quietly out loud. 

     THANKFULLY the smell passes and things settle back to normal... until the OL has to excuse her self from the seat because it's her train stop. The AAW gets up and the OL quickly and leaves the seat and the train (with as much speed as she could muster I'm sure... she didn't want to still be on the train when the AAW spotted the videos, but oh she heard the AAW just as she was leaving... I saw her face hahaha!). So the OL is gone/leaving and the AAW sits down, sees the porn, and immediately starts to bug out. She was cursing and laughing and debating to herself why someone left the porn there (I swear she had no inner monologue, she literally just said everything that came to her mind as it happened without any regard). So finally she decides that it couldn't have been the OL's porn. Next she see's an open seat directly behind me so she hops in that and guess what, she's back on the phone with her girlfriend talking about how there's porn in the seat. 

      Right after the AAW leaves the seat an unsuspecting Asian Kid (AK) sits down and notices the porn on the floor immeads. He starts sifting through it with his foot as to avoid detection from me.. great try. This is where it gets good because the AAW starts to narrate to her girlfriend (and to me, and to pretty much the entire train if they aren't asleep!!) about how this AK is "checkin' out da porn, I think he mite like it, ooooo is he gonna take it, he might do it, I think he might.. oh I guess he didn like that kind, too bad for him.. It wasn't my type either" Bahahaha! I was laughing so hard at this point that the AK thinks I deliberately placed the porn there, luckily I have my book in front of me so I point my finger at one of the pages and play it off as if I'm just reading something funny. So recap - OL gone, AAW narrating, AK confused & beginning to regret his seat choice. Sadly I had to leave the train at this point but I could still hear the AAW talking loudly (which confused me cause how could the AK not here what the AAW was saying... perplexing... she was definitely talking loud enough) about the porn. 

      Definitely my favorite train ride to date.

Moving on (.. into the past) let me share with you a quick picture & story. This section I'm titling: 

"Literally HOGS"

So on Saturday I went to visit my parent in Hartford CT for a couple hours (they met me mid-way from Jerz cause they were visiting friends up there). So I go and have a fantastic time seeing them, we catch up and share stories and speak of life. The return trip home is where things get interesting for me. Pretty much just driving and minding my own beeswax when I come up to a red light (a wish that these didn't exist at all). As I'm sitting at the light a biker gang at least 24 strong turns onto the road. Now there was no way in hell they were all going to make it through the light and of course they were all wearing leather jackets and looking all tough with the biddies on the seats behind them. So they use this little tactic where 2 bikers block each lane of the highway (yes a 50mph road) so that the light actually changes to green for us but there are 2 bikes in front of us so we cant go. We literally have to sit there until all their guys make it through (they have 1 car trailing at the end with hazards on... I don't think it was a a funeral procession.. no hearse). So now they are all in front of us taking up both lanes of the highway and the car trailing is running down the middle of this 2 lane road (2 lanes going our way that is). Here's the best pic I could nab of them. 

It's surprisingly clear for where I was and for my camera... luckily I didn't die either. Anyway so like the title suggests these HOGS were quite literally HOGGING the road. This went on for a solid 7 or 8 miles more. Then quite literally 2 things happened in quick succession. 1. As soon as the last biker had turned onto the side street a cop passed me going to opposite way.... he was just a few seconds too late!! That would have been so badass to see him pull over 24 bikers and try to write a ticket... guy would have been dead meat. Fo sure. 2. I passed by this hill on the side of the road (10 yards after the cop) which a pink bus and a pink car on the top. They both had pig snouts attached to the front. Had I been prepared I would have snagged a pic. But much to my saddness... I couldn't. But it was definitely fate that had me see Hogs Hogging the road while a 2 pig cars sat and watched another pig (how the bikers feel about cops I'm sure) go by. Just a lucky day up the wazz. Glad I witnessed it!

The last part of my post I know you'll love. It's a video I sent to Nate, the Strom, and Watz about a certain toilet at work (as you can clearly see... and no it isn't visually disgusting in any way so click play... you wont!). Prepare to hear one of the most gut wrenching sounds ever. I strongly suggest turning up the volume on your speakers now though so you can clearly hear what's going on. Enjoy.

Just imagine pooing (or for the ladies, trying to produce butterflies) with that noise going on.

!

Oh oh! Before you read my other new post below this one, check out what I was able to spell in Scrabble the other day...

Made me so damn proud of myself. <3

They really just don't make them like they used to.

A wish that I had gotten a picture of this today. But take a ride with me on a little adventure. So I have been extremely unwilling to buy food lately, mostly I blame this on the fact that the left turn signal at the traffic light that lets me turn into the supermarket is always red when I get to it... and I simply refuse to take the time out of my day to sit at the light and wait. Stupid light... can a brotha get a light to change every once in a while. Its all HELL. But anyway, since I had essentially no lunch prepared for today I decided to take a stroll down the block (maybe 3/4 of a mile) to the Burger King that was so conveniently built with me in mind no doubt. Upon leaving my building a down pour ensues, which I happened to really enjoy thoroughly (the rain is my favorite). Let me give you a rundown of the route I took.

KEY
Thunderbolt - My place of employment
Star - The "Event"
Heart - Burger King (if only it was Wendy's... literally be there every day)

Okay so now that you know my route things will make much more sense (actually me telling you the route in fact serves little to no purpose other than for me to get in some fun drawing time on my computer). As I'm walking down the Star road that takes me straight to Burger King there seems to me to be construction ahead in the distance, in fact they have the road on lockdown. So naturally my curiosity is tickled and I increase my pace. As I approach the construction site I see many things that honestly wouldn't surprise anyone...
1. About 10-15 guys just standing about talking as if they're planning something but we all know that's not the case.
2. Two dudes standing in a hole in the road (probably speaking of Hot Register Girl at Wendy's in Deposit NY or playing rock paper scissor or some other such thing).
3. People honking because of traffic at the side streets and they realize they're ****ed cause they can't get to where they want to go.
4. Cops at either end staring at the ground/at their cell phones and doing nothing about the honking, not even giving helpful directions.
5. A guy delivering pizza to some other construction workers huddled in a different corner (apparently trying to hide the fact that they ordered pizza from their bosses or other coworkers?)

and the most amazing thing of all that I saw, which I literally had to do a double take for, was the 70 to 80 year old guy in construction working garb shoveling dirt off of the sidewalk. This guy was seriously old... and he was literally the only person doing ANYTHING there.... there must have been 3 or 4 guys not much older than myself, young strapping lads, not as strapping as me naturally, who were just watching him work and eating pizza like 10 feet away. Not to mention when I walked by the old guy gave me the saddest look in the world... like he was abused his entire life and I was the only one who could save him.... like he would share with me his entire life story and it would have been so majestic that I would take him into my home and take care of him forever.... like the only good left in the world depended on me simply saying hello to him and assisting him in shoveling the sidewalk. It took me all my strength not to punch the dudes watching him/grab him by the hand and take him to BK for a real meal.

And possibly the worst part about everything is that on the way back the old guy was yet again the only person doing something (this time trying to pry up a sewer cap, & having one hell of a time doing it... nobody even noticed he was having issues the entire time... the guy must hate his coworkers for real).

They seriously do not make people like they used to.

love?

This past weekend I received a phone call from my dearest most beloved friend Nate. Whilst the phone was ringing I heard the ringtone I had set for him for the first time in 2 years probably (he calls more often but due to phone drownings & changes I haven't heard it in some time). Many of you are probably familiar with the song, however for the newbs in the audience who haven't seen enough scrubs I will share it now --- 

--- The song reminded me of many days gone by. It was quite a wonderful moment for me. Then a few hours later I came across this little diddy on the web ---

--- And THEN I realized Love is a wonderful thing. No matter if its between two Bro's, or a Bro and a Ho, or two Ho's. It just makes sense sometimes. So then I noticed youtube was suggesting this for me ---

--- Which also makes sense to me. So i've decided that this song summarizes my feelings at the current moment ---

--- then I saw this and laughed quite a bit.

To My Dearest Fan...

Gonna start this guy off with a little shout out to one of my biggest fans. You know who you are. I just would like to emphasize the fact that she NEEDS people like me.... like the strombole, to blog. It literally fills her day with excitement, a day that would otherwise be spent studying and reading over tons of icky books trying to learn things. UGH. Who needs that??? Nobody. Everybody needs excitement... suspense... laughter. Fact.

To that end, I bring to you my next blog post, sub-titled "Boston: Chalk-up Another Homeless Person".

Over the past week I've learned that thanks to tons of free time sitting on the train waiting to get to work, I can enjoy some amazing people watching. From the people who don't know how to buy tickets (we've all been there), to the random little children who wander about going from car to car without a parent in sight (yes walking between cars where they could literally just hop right off the train and explode upon hitting the ground..), to the drunk old people who fall over into seats on top of people, there is just so much watching that one can do.. and some many great great stories that can come of it. Today I bring you one of those stories.

So after an exhausting day of work I board the train and try to find a seat as near to the end as possible... I obvi want to reduce my walking time / step distance as much as possible in getting to my car, some call it laziness and I would probably agree. As the train rumbles along I begin to slip in and out of sleep (I usually dream about sleeping on the train, which I know is bizarre... but not gonna lie, it's kinda nice). I get in little pockets of people watching here and there but mostly I'm passed out. Then I wake to hear one of the train conductor dudes talking to this woman in a semi-raised tone, he was saying something like - "Listen just get off at Welsley Farms, go right across the tracks and wait for the inbound train", basically telling the lady she had gotten on the wrong train and she needed to go back to South Station. The dude was frustrated up the wazz and even better for this lady, she didn't speak a word of English. Like none, whatsoever, and she could understand very little of what was being said... even with countless (and I was literally trying to count) hand motions. So apparently she's trying to figure out how to get on a train that was running from a completely different station and she keeps on badgering the conductor (found this info out later on from the gentleman described below). The conductor is peeved because he has to go punch peoples tickets and be the man (they're kinda cool) n what not so he starts fidgeting like hes going to walk away and leave her there at which point you could tell she would literally have broke down crying. Like Superman flying in to rescue Lois Lane, this random professor plaid suit wearing guy shows up and says he knows a little bit of Spanish. So for the next 20 - 30 minutes he is attempting to tell the lady that she needs to exit at Welsley Farms, cross the tracks, and take the inbound train. The conductor is walking back and forth down the train checking tickets and asking if the guy had gotten through to her. This is the point where I begin to laugh, because he passes about a zillion times and it seems like the guy trying to explain things to this lady only knows 4 or 5 Spanish words himself... one that I heard the most: 'ahora' or something like that. It starts getting really crazy and I'm basically on the edge of my seat peering over at these people excited to see how this is going to end (there are also about 50 other people watching). We eventually get to the stop and the lady shakes the dudes hand in one of those 'oh my god you saved my life' kinda ways and she gets off the train. To my astonishment I watch out the window as she proceeds to ask the conductor again how to find this certain station (in Spanish), literally am bent against the glass laughing. He hand motions (214th time) for her to walk around the tracks where she can cross over and wait for the next train. So she nods her head and begins to walk that way. The conductor quickly hops back on, pretty sure he was talking into his walkie talkie saying GO GO GO, and we start moving again. As we're floating away silently into the night I see the lady stop in her tracks and just look around perplexed after only taking 10 or 15 steps. She grabs the arm of a random girl that's walking by and it looks like shes asking the same kind of question shes been asking for the past 40 minutes. Then my last glimpse of her is her just opening her hand and dropping her purse as she stares at our train whisking away. I was giggling like a little kid, I know I should have felt bad... but this lady obviously had had no semblance of a plan when she boarded the train. So now you see why I subtitled this guy "Boston: Chalk-up Another Homeless Person". I think it's pretty safe to assume the lady is either, a. Dead from confusion on the side of some random road in Welsley Farms, b. hitchhiking back to where ever she came from in New York, or c. has adopted the homeless way of life here in Boston, and no doubt I will be seeing her on my train ride back into the city tomorrow morning, singing or playing some kind of instrument with a little bucket to catch whatever alms she may receive. Who knows, but I think she'll make a fine addition to the growing population. Wishing her the best of luck on a speedy walk home.

Can't wait to see what tomorrow has in store for me!

True Life.

2 very interesting things have most recently come to my attention.

1. Bendy straws are the new 'Tamagotchis'
2. Triple Double Stuffed Oreos are not as good as you would think.

Let me break things down for you by #

1. This one is pretty self explanatory therefore I'm going to refrain from explaining... however I will add that  thanks to this article from 2005, bendy straws may in fact protect your teeth from cavities while drinking from them. Not to go into too much detail about the complexities and why the bend is essential but, the curved shape allows air pockets called "bendibulous bubblosous" to be injected into your drink. You may be thinking... duh carbonated stuff already has air in it, well you're wrong. Mostly it's science. Complicated to explain but those bubbles literally put a coating of protective goo on your teeth: hence good for them.

2. Upon seeing the Oreo package marked Triple Double Stuffed Oreos, my curiosity was aroused. Now I was assuming one of two things. Either there would be 3 separate fillings that contained double stuffed cream, or 2 fillings that were triple stuffed. Makes sense right? Well guess what.. 2 fillings, single stuffed with a damn wafer between them. Aka double stuffed with extra cookie to make it a regular cookie. And here's the rub.... they are 100 calories a pop. Outrageous. Completely INSANE. I'm used to guzzling Oreo's like a Hummer guzzles gas (oh you're lucky I didn't go with the explicit analogy). I'm so frustrated at these cookies for really sucking up the wazz and ruining my night that I actually contemplated throwing them out. Then out of sadness I ate the whole pack... thanks a lot Nabisco. Jackasses.

In other news, 10 year anniversary of 9/11 yesterday. God Bless America - Never Forget. 

KBye Bin Laden. KBye Saddam.

R.I.H

Moving crap, sleeplessness, 30 hours of driving and Wal-Marting...

So basically I lied to you. I thought I would have a chance to post something super awesome on that Wednesday last week but guess what... certain circumstances pertaining to a pseudo-roommate led to a 'blog-post cock-block' which really put a damper on the weekend and really on the entire blog. HOWEVER, I just managed to get internet access at my new temporary abode so I'm back and blogging up a storm. I have a ton of stuff I could say but due to the fact that this new room literally has no place for me to sleep currently (stuff everywhere) I will try to keep things short and succinct.

Okay here's the deal with the roommate debacle. I finished up work on Tuesday night and I had originally wanted to pack up everything into my car that night and basically roll out to Jerz to get in around 2am. It was a stunning plan cause who doesn't like driving at 1am when nobody's on the road and you can cruise. Instead I ended up staying until 730PM the next day because the girl whose room I was in left a crap ton of her stuff in the house (to pick up later so she said) and my landlord wouldn't give me my $900 deposit until she had removed everything. Well guess what, she decided to wait till the last minute coming to get her crap. She literally had a mountain of garbo that she should have taken. She shows up at 2pm (told me shed be there at 1030am) with her sister or something and she's all happy go lucky... so she starts grabbing stuff and loading things into a truck she had brought. About an hour in she's like wow I have a ton of stuff (NO KIDDING) and she starts slowing her progress, taking longer to pack and she is just talking up the wazz. Im thinking lets get this show on the road ya dumb girl I want to get home some time this millenium!! So after I empty out the living room of all her crap and toss it in the hallway I start wiping down the floors (stuff she probably should have friggin been responsible for). Next thing you know I notice that the place is just quiet as a lamb chewing on a snail in the dead of winter. Obviously something is wrong cause she was blabbering away for an hour so I head into the hallway and my assumption was correct that she's disappeared along with her help. I hop outside real quick just in time to see her driving off. I'm thinkin wow okay so PLEASE GOD let her being going to unload that stuff and come back for the 221382 tons of other stuff. Of course she doesn't come back at all and she didn't have plans to. It took me and my other roommate about 2 hours to get her to come back and move the rest of her shit (oh yea did I mention that she basically was moving so slow when she came back that I got pissed and did everything pretty much myself). There's so much more stuff I could tell you about her, but maybe it's for another blog post when I remember it and it fires me up again.

Right so moving on to the sleeplessness. I drove approximately 30 hours this past weekend (unintentionally). I wanted the weekend to be one of rest and relaxation... It turned into a driving marathon with approximately 18 hours of sleep total in 6 days. So like 3 hours of sleep a night. I can't really go into the deets with you little blog, but it was quite an experience. A wish to get some sleep tonight.

Let me also touch on a great driving experience. On my way up to Boston from Jerz I decided to bring along my bicycle (aka Neuman's bike) because I thought it might come in handy up here. Chris' parents let me borrow their bike rack in order to bring the guy up here but I guess we didn't attach it to the back of my car properly the first time. Mid-Tappanzee Bridge the rack decides to give-way and it falls off of my bumper. I was driving along and pumping beats, just jamming out at the top of my lungs when I look up and notice that instead of seeing the entire body of the bike, I only see the seat popping up and bouncing up and down. Naturally i'm like OMFG THIS IS NOT HAPPENING AFTER 60 MILES OF EVERYTHING BEING FINE... IT WOULD HAPPEN WHILE IM DRIVING OVER A HUGEASS BRIDGE AND I CANT STOP!!!@*&#!. So luckily a couple of the extra straps held the bike to my car and it didn't fly away into someone else (which would have made them crash (probably off the bridge to their death which would have made me pretty mad)) . I'm dragging the thing for about a mile as its bouncing on the road, people are literally honking as if they think I don't realize i'm dragging it along or that I purposely attached it crappily so it would bounce along and give me some laughs on the road. The stares and glares continue for about a mile until I get to the toll booth at which point I pay the lady and gun it to the side of the road (she yelled something at me which I assume was something like "Hey you're bike is dragging on the ground"... gawd. So I reattach the bike on the trunk, get grease all over my shirt, and have to drive the last 3 miles in fear that it would happen again. Could have been the worst drive of my life... except the KFC stop which made things a bit better.

Lastly I just had one of those moments where you realize somethings are too good to be true. I went to Wal-Mart about and hour ago and picked up a table and chair for my room. The table is a folding one (Just like yours Strom.. yes you're a genious and I fully intend to copy your transportation idea with it) and the chair is one of the beach chair kinda guys with the cup holder in the arm. I know you're thinking why would you get that chair as a desk chair... the reasoning is quite simple... it has a beer bottle holder built into it... why wouldn't I get it???? Common, rookies. Well anyway, when I was buying the chair I noticed it was the only one of its kind that was on sale for about 10 dollars. I thought it was a bit strange that it was alone but I figured it must have been a great deal and everyone bought the rest of them. So I get home a bit ago and open up the chair. Everything is looking good, right color, texture is perf, cup holder 100% intact... but then... SPOTTED... sand everywhere on the damn chair. All over the seat, stuck to the back of it. It was just like... wtf someone bought this guy to go to the beach and then returned it the next day... honestly... who does that with a $10-$20 chair. Its like... COMMON. So I'm gonna keep the damn thing... not like it's ruined.. just gonna take time for my lazy butt to clean it up. Oh well...

So there it is, the exciting points of my "restful" weekend. If I could I'm confident I could sleep until 5pm tomorrow starting now. Oh well. P.S. my new house's location to the job site required me to buy a $185 dollar monthly train ticket (includes subway and local bus privileges)... you can bet your ass I'm going to be using this damn thing up the wazzz to get my moneys worth.

Enjoy your week people... I know I won't.