As they say, BOAST POST

This photo may not look like anything special to you, but this was my greatest Scrabble moment of 2008.

The RoBeastress and I went to a holiday party a few weekends back, hosted by WallyChung.com and Alan Negativepop. The party was awesome. A lot of people were at the party. It was a jam session. It really whipped a horse's ass.

I drank a lot of beer and ate a lot of rad food that Wally and Alan whipped up, such as poutine and baked ziti for the 4th night in a row. Then I drank more beer. We also played a wacky party game called Werewolf which involved me getting constantly (and erroneously) killed. This gave me more time to drink more and more beer.

It was finally time to go, so we walked to the train. It was fuhreezing and the train was taking 4eva so I fired up the Scrabble app on my cell phone to distract us. We chose our sides and the phone chose the first player randomly. Then it threw me the right tiles to play SECRETS - double points and a bingo on the opening move! In retrospect, I should've ended with the S in the center square so I could have gotten some extra points for a double C, but whatever, I was drunk (like in the last post which I failed to mention)!

Anyway, it's not the first time I've gotten a bingo on the opening move, so it wasn't that big of a deal, but it definitely worth some bragging points over the RoBeastress. I passed her the phone and got a glare back. She dicked around for a few minutes while I wandered around the station taking lameass macro photos with my camera. GUAR, she hands me, whatever that means.

I discover that I now have a blank tile to work with, and because I placed an S in the center, I make it my mission to come up with a 7 letter noun. A few minutes later, I've got APRICOTS!, a second consecutive bingo!!, a triple word score!!!, 86 points!!!!, a happy dance!!!!!, and a solid lead in to what may be my best game against the RoBeastress!!!!!!

We have yet to finish this game, but I am currently leading 263 to 103. I am not going to rest on my laurels because the RoBeastress is a extraordinary Scrabble Assassin, though the odds are in my favor as many of the good letters are already on the board. She's logged more victories in our head-to-head battles, so I'm pleased to be chipping away at her lead.

Speaking of being an overcompetitive douchebag... I've been playing a shitpotload of Tetris online. Or Tetris Friends or whatever it's called these days. I saw some Facebook friends playing and figured I'd join in. I started by destroying all their high scores. Then Cindy reclaimed them and the war began. Despite having redeveloped Tetris Syndrome when I try to go to sleep, I have to say that the new Tetris versions are a lot of fun. It's not just "play as long as you can for a lot of points" any more. Now there are speed events to complement the endurance ones. It's like the decathalon of Tetris now, if "deca" meant 5 and "thalon" meant "don't do anything physical outside, just play Tetris online. And there is also a new feature (new to me at least) called "hold" which allows you (surprise) hold a piece for later (fellator). Also, there is a "ghost piece" that shows up on the bottom where your piece is projected to fall. I have learned that the old way of playing Tetris is not good enough anymore and I'm learning to evolve with the times. I would definitely prefer to play with a two-button Nintendo controller because I'm actually getting finger cramps from using the keyboard, especially in the speed rounds. This new Tetris is definitely easier and more forgiving than classic Tetris (you can infinitely rotate a piece to keep it from being permanently placed), but the new features and scoring opportunities keep the replayablility factor high. As long as I don't get to this point, I'll be fine.

I should also mention that I somehow pwned the RoBeastress' family at the Jewish Version of Apples to Apples. Score one for the Atheist Goy Wonder.

SATURDAY SHUTUP

Annoyingly wide awake on a late Saturday night. Gonna post one last email from a co-worker before I hibernate from this type of blog post for a while just in case facebook friend co-workers are reading my blog and thinking I'm going to expose them (albeit anonymously) on the Internettes.

Anywhy, a recent email ended thusly:

I have never left you hanging....

Dot dot dot dot....NON-IRONICALLY. Today's secret word is OPERATION: MINDCRIME.

ANyone ever see DOT AND THE KANGAROO? Unnecessary capitalization, yes. Dot and The Kangaroo was one of several Australian cartoons that were cartooned in Australia a double decade ago. I meant to blog about it eighteen hundred thousand years ago when I NETFLIXED it and REWATCHED it. It features a scary boogieman like creature called the BUNYIP which is a creature that is scary, boogie-filled, and has man parts possibly. Now that I think about it, I may have blogged about it after all I think. About it.

Maybe I did. Maybe i didn't did not. Same deferens.

The point about DOT was twofold:

1. That it was animation that featured real life background like such as for example: the animals were running through the forest, but the animals were animated (cause they both start with ANI) and the forest was for real (cause they both start with FOR). I thought this was cool and probably easy for the animators. Or maybe not easy per snickety, but was very effective in relation to the effort they had to put forth (which probably wasn't much, lazy asses).
   
2. DOT AND THE KANGAROO is redundant because titles of films don't need to be capitalized AND italicized to show that they're titles. This example would've featured underlining and italicizationally slanted texticles just to be extra ASSHOLISH but DUMB BLOGGER doesn't have UNDERLINE as a default in the not-so-rich text editor.
3. Now that I've gotten sidetracked by bitchassblogger, my numerals are inaccurate. I promised twofold and now you've gotten threefold.
4. Fuck it just gets worse.
5. USA TODAY puts song titles in Italics and it makes MISO ANGRY. I can not differentiate between song titles and album titles and I just want to choke the newspaper. It's not bad enough that the reviews are SUCK MY ASS, but then I gotta see all these fucking italics. THis past Tuesday there were several review capsules and every single one of them had the word "Soul" in it. Except one. And yes, I count the "Soul" in Soulja Boy. It's just so FEEDING MY REPETITIVE WORD COMPLEX.
6. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I should go. I've said too much. And I overcapitalized purposefully, but it's not even funny anymore. IT wasNT funny TO begIN with.

Igloobicle

Igloobicle - (noun) - The place you will be confined to when your company refuses to close during a snowstorm.

The RoBeast is currently sitting in his igloobicle because the powers-that-be refuse to ever officially close the building. 98% of his co-workers have already gone home, including the powers-that-be, but if the business is still technically open, he still needs to technically be there. At least the heat is still on and the internet works.

I'm going to protest now and dick around on Urban Dictionary to fulfill my editorial duties. A second one of my words was made Urban Dictionary Word of the Day, but it was one of my shitty words. Well, it's a good word (grandboss), but I after I found out that other people had coined it before me, I felt shitty. I'm not totally satisfied unless I enter a term on Google and zero results return.

I have some good blog entries planned, but I need my camera, which is in the car, which is outside, where I'm not allowed to go just yet. Maybe tomorrow.

Scream Really Loud

Today's Secret Word is CONFIRM.

Hi RoBeast:

As you can see, T----- possibly has a videoconference on Tuesday. It will be confirmed tomorrow. It will be with only one site, and I need to confirm that they will initiate the call. Please confirm that you can be there to help, if the videoconference is confirmed. Thanks.

Yes, if you're wondering, every email from this person reads this way. And every time I scream really loud.

Hi RoBeast:

I'm just confirming that you will be able to initiate the below videoconference with U------- tomorrow morning at 7:00 am. Please confirm. Thanks.

This next one is the greatest I've ever seen, but wasn't directed to me. For some reason though, I was still copied on it. Maybe she just didn't want me feeling left out:

I already ordered food from you for this and you confirmed my order - please see below and confirm. Here's a copy of the catering order and your confirmation. Please confirm it will now be in Conference Room C on the second floor. Please confirm.

The good thing is that PLEASE always accompanies CONFIRM, so I can't get too upset. It's just that I will get these Please Confirm requests every day up until the meeting. Is my original confirmation not good enough? Is my reputation so shitty that I need to follow up every ten minutes? Is it an OCD thing?

It may be on my part a bit. I was just pointing out to the RoBeastress recently that I have a aversion to repeated words in writing. So it's a style preference that just sets me off when I see other people repeating a lot. I realized a few years ago that I also have a problem repeating myself aloud the same way twice. If someone asks me to repeat myself, I will inevitably rearrange the sentence or choose different words completely.

I'm somewhere in between Jimmy Two Times,



and Anthony One Time.



In other related news, last Friday I signed my letter of intent to work for the company that is swooping in to take over my department. I can't say I'm 100% on board with the whole plan to hotsauce my department globally, nor was I a fan of the anxiety I've had for more than 6 months due to excruciatingly poor communication from my current company C-------* and my future company, J--*, but the incoming company did manage to do a good job matching up my benefits and compensation. Of course, I didn't have all my questions answered until about an hour before the signing deadline (which was already extended), but in the end we may have all gotten what we wanted.


Now go home and get yer fuckin' shinebox.




* I think it's a shame that I can't openly criticize my company despite all the shit they've put me through, but that's the law, eh? Some anti-corporate crime fighter I am. My buddy and former coworker Ethan gets around this by writing his company name backwards so the Co-Bots can't track him down. I haven't confirmed a fun codename yet for the company that I'm confirmed to start with in January, but I'll confirm a confirmation with you all soon enough.

PS - Trying to type this Blogger entry has been a complete pain in my ass, due to my attempts at blockquoting, font changes, embedding youtube clips, and copying some text from Microsoft Word. These are simple fucking things, but Blogger loves to be buggy, and to not respond to my complaints. Thanks again fuckers.

That's what he said she said he said.

The cycle of abuse:

RoBeast: they want so much credit when they "bend" for us and they think it makes up for anything shitty they do. both companies have their heads up their own asses and love the smell.

RoBeastress: hmm, i hadn't heard that turn of phrase before -- "loving the smell"

RoBeast: i'll turn your phrase

Certified Genius or Aesthetic Wacko?

This blurb was just sent out in my weekly company newsletter:

Winner Won’t Loose His Way Thanks to the United Way

T---- K----- from S&T won the 2008 United Way Campaign raffle prize - a GPS guaranteeing that he will never need to ask directions or loose his way again. The drive itself was a great success with a 9% increase in donations to $42K and a 3% increase in donors from 2007. Thanks to T----- and to everyone involved for proving that C------ Colleagues live untied.

The only edits I made were to the names, otherwise it was published exactly like that. It's fascinating to me that not only were the typos highlighted and formatted with bold, but they are also so poetically connected. Loose and untied. What a fun use of metaphor. Could it really just be a coincidence? It's so beautiful and subtly defiant. Live the United Way? No, live untied!

Oh, if anyone's wondering, I donated $10. I may be poor, but I'm knot a jerk!

A lot and a little to listen to

Play all three of these songs at once:







And then listen to these four at the same time:









I don't know, I chuckled.

(thanks to Mark Prindle pointing out the Lita Ford connection)

I was asleep

But now I'm awake and watching the most ridiculous shit on YouTube (watch your volumes, JOSH):

Babies R U

Unfortunately, there's no time for epic blogging today as I have a hot date with a big mall on a cold December day in a few minutes. Instead I will just take this space to wish two good friends and fellow bloggers the best of luck on the birth of their son today. Ethan and Vicki will finally welcome Tobin to the outside world in just a few hours. I'm pretty sure he's not being named after the fictional Tobin's Spirit Guide from Ghostbusters, but it will still be an exciting honor to meet him. Kick ass, you guys!

First Life Crisis, Second Life Action, Quarter Pound Mania

I will be starting 2009 with a new employer and a new residence. More details as those stories unfold.

In the meantime, to escape the messes in my current life, I downloaded Second Life. For those that don't know or were too lazy to click the link I just provided you bums, it's a virtual world with a real economy and property and activities and other things where you and your custom avatar can go buck wild (or buck serious as it were). I actually had never even heard of it until recently, mainly because I don't pay any attention to video games. But one night last week, the RoBeastress and I were watching MTV (I have no idea why) and the subject of the show was a kid who played music, but never performed in front of people. In front of real people, that is. You see, she performed at shows online, in the Second Life universe. This was fascinating to me.

So I downloaded the free software (there are also paid access levels if you want to dive in completely) and made my avatar: Slamdunk Jyraffe, a Dennis Rodman-looking rebel. I got some rad hightops, a mohawk, and a tattoo. I don't believe in reincarnation. Fortunately, I have Second Life to come back as a big-dicked basketball player.

Immediately overwhelmed by all the words and rules and options, I decided not take part in Second Life as a positive contributor to society. Instead, I would just walk around ignorantly and annoy people, just like real life. I tried to impress everyone by telling them I could slam dunk, and usually punctuated that statement with a leap, or "Bickety Bam!" It didn't take long before other characters started picking on me. The persecution went as far as being caged me while people took turns zapping me with lightning bolts. It was hilarious.

After a couple days, I found myself being banned from everywhere possible. Clothing stores, nude beaches, strip clubs (are you detecting a theme?) I did find several nice people along the way. One chick gave me a package of ridiculous gestures, which gave me the opportunity to further annoy people by dancing around to "Everybody Dance Now." Another girl gave me a little black penis which I was never able to figure out how to use. Somewhere along the line I found a box full of animals, which enabled me to attach a giantic red crab to my body and piss off anyone in a 30 foot radius. I was not allowed into the "crime zone," so I tried to steal a car in one of the normal parcels of land. I failed to be able to start the car, but I was able to "take" the car and put it in my inventory. With the car successfully in my inventory, I was then able to "wear" it. I attached the car to my pelvis, then changed my skin to red to match. I then made my way to the orgy room.

Already having been banned from the orgy room for walking around as the giant crab, I was relegated to hanging out in the alley next door. I was quickly propositioned and of course, I took the girl up on it. She led me around the corner, took off her virtual clothes, and then we started banging against a garbage can. She kept telling me to take the car off (something no girl has ever asked me in real life), but I was busy fumbling around with the Second Life screen capture function. Before I could get a snapshot, she took off.

This scene was too hilarious to pass up though. I started begging girls for sex, but who wants to have sex with Herbie the Love Bug? I started telling them that I was a really a famous Transformer. Girls like celebrity robots, right? I mean, I picked up the RoBeastress dressed as Voltron.

Well, lightning struck twice--I found a girl that was interested in me while dressed like a freak. She took her place against the garbage can, as I again started to recreate this autoerotic fantasy.

"Are you taking pictures?" she asked.

"Yes. Take your shirt off." I'm so smooth.

"Ok, that will be 50."

"Come on. I'll give you a car."

"What kind of car?"

"An awesome one, just take off your shirt." She did. "She" is probably a dude in real life anyway. I snap some more photos.

"100 for the pants." Bah. I don't have any money. We stopped and I gave her a copy of the car I was wearing. She or he clearly wasn't impressed. "I'm gonna go find a third..." was the last thing she said before disappearing and never coming back.

I spent a few minutes laying on my back in the alley thinking about what I just did, while the RoBeastress gave me dirty looks from the other side of the couch. I think she was secretly hoping someone else would hitch a ride on the clown nose express, but she'll never admit that.

It didn't happen, and I was getting bored of waiting for girls to volunteer to have their vulvas violated by a Volvo, so I went to a strip club. This was also boring. I logged off, accomplishing what for now may be the highlight of my Second Life.

Ok, so I promised you something about Quarter Pound Mania too, huh? I saw a commercial today for a bizarre documentary, filmed by Stacy Peralta (the former skateboarder who made Dogtown and Z-Boys) and I guess produced by Burger King. It's called Whopper Virgins. The documentary (commercial) is basically a Whopper vs. Big Mac taste test, but the twist is, the test subjects are people in remote areas of the world where fast food doesn't seem to exist. This, like sex in Second Life, is simultaneously sad and fascinating. I'm always curious about semi-scientific surveys, but I don't want these poor innocent people to be exposed to garbage food. I'd prefer them just to go out into the woods and take a bite out of a cow, and not worry about artificial additives. The "documentary" will be "released" later this week. I think. The dates on the website keep changing. So professional.

Merry December, sluts.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Failure

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES KNIT HAT

WARNER BROTHERS

SIZE: BOYS ONE SIZE FITS ALL

NEW WITH TAGS

COLOR IS BLACK

I spotted this ebay auction last night while searching for a new winter hat. Something tells me this isn't an official Warner Brothers release. I myself have an obsession with symmetry, but that doesn't give me the right to tell 4 Teenage Mutant Turtles with lethal weapons that they are hereby relieved of their Ninja duties. I was tempted to bid anyway (they're only asking $0.99) thinking it may be a mistake and a future collector's item, but I'm quite sure it's a homemade and therefore, completely worthless.

On the other hand, it's possible that this was a hat abandoned by a disgruntled employee of Toyota Motor Manufacturing Turkey Inc. at the doorstep of Warner Brothers Studios, and just like Splinter adopted the 4 young Turtles, kshanks18 took the beanie in as his own and prepared it for the world. Kshanks18, not trained in the ways of Ninjitsu, still tried to be a good sensei and gave the cap a well-rounded education in the Martial Arts. Thus were born, the Teenage Mutant Martial-Art Turtles.

Ultimately, I decided to buy a different hat, so kshanks18 will not get to experience what I consider the Coolest Ebay Feedback In The History of Ebay Feedback That Gets Fed Back Via Ebay Feeback:

• Seller must be a Wizard. Transaction was magical. A+++ x A++++++ = A++++++++++++
• Supermegaultrafast. I would give you 18 hundred thousand stars if I could
• Item came awesomely fast in awesomely good condition. A++++++++++wesome Ebayer.
• The superproduct arrived superfast. Eraserhead21 is a super-ebayer. Superduper!!
• Thanks for bundling this set together. I love you.
• CD arrived quickly and in perfect condition. you rock the casbah.
• Good price and good shipping time! good! happy! buy! buy! buy!
• Fantastic transaction. A Plus Times Infinity. Exclamation points!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• Received DVD very very very very very very very very very very very very quickly

I CAN'T WAIT TO BUY MORE SHIT!!!!!!!!++++++++++++++++!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Until then, watch this TMNT animation. It gets really weird towards the end.

I don't know

Sorry I've been MIA. I had every intention to post more frequently after last week's flurry, but then I got all tied up with my hotsaucing and even more stress inducing, my apartment situation. Neither war is over yet. I will soldier on.

Speaking of the url www.urbandictionary.com, I got a personal email from the founder of Urban Dictionary after my latest bitchfest. It came just a few hours after the post and was, to my surprise, very calm. I usually take things very personal on the internet (insert cliche Special Olympics jpg) and probably would've flipped out if I read somewhere that "Beauty and the RoBeast is really going downhill." In fact, I'm getting fired up just seeing that sentence typed out.

Instead, he simply apologized for how long my submission took to be processed by editors (apparently there really is a backlog), and then asked me why I thought the site was going downhill. I wrote a long response email issuing my constructive criticism and thanked him for his diligence.

And then... he made "bagside" the Urban Dictionary Word of the Day on November 15th. I had complained about the quality of the Word of the Day in the letter, so I don't know if he did this to appease me, or just to stick me out there with the wolves (aka whiners like me). Either way, I'm pleased to say that I've got more Thumbs Up than Thumbs Down. So far.

Dr. Pepper sent me a response too. First an automated one saying they'd respond to my email in 72 hours, then a more human, but still 99% automated (much like Darth Vader) email stating this:

Thank you for contacting us about Dr Pepper. We do apologize for the problem you experienced with our packaging.

We take great pride in producing high quality products and any experience to the contrary is cause for concern. Please be assured that high quality control standards and precautionary procedures are observed throughout the production of our products.

To ensure that appropriate action is taken to prevent future incidents such as yours, we have forwarded your comments to our quality assurance team for investigation.

We hope you continue to purchase and enjoy Dr Pepper products.

Sincerely,
Consumer Relations

I think it's amazing that Dr. Pepper has someone named Consumer Relations working in their Consumer Relations department. It's truly a match made in heaven. I doubt the quality assurance team will take my letter seriously, unfortunately, because there really is a problem with Dr. Pepper's plastic six-pack rings.

Now onto the most important company in the world, one that I constantly bitch about but refuses to make amends. I've complained a million times about Google's Blogger but they have yet to stumble upon my blog and respond to my constructive criticism, like Urban Dictionary. I did formally submit issues I discovered while using the beta version of Google Chrome (is it out of beta yet?) but received no response addressing my issues. I switched back to Mozilla's Firefox as a result.

I may finally need to compose a letter to the Google Blogger folks in order to get their attention, since I've been disinvited from their holiday party this year. I know, I know, it's a free service and I shouldn't cry about it. I hear it used to be worse. And what I mean by that is, when you Google "Blogger Sucks," a number of the complaints are from 2005.

Here, I used Google's search engine to rat out on itself:

(search term, using quotes) -- (number of results)
"Blogger Sucks" -- 43,500
"Wordpress Sucks" -- 8,310
"Myspace Blogs Suck" + "Myspace Blog Sucks" + "Myspace's Blog Sucks" + "Myspace's Blog Blows Dog Shit" -- 1,352
"Livejournal Sucks" - 1,160

Highly scientific, I know. In fact, just by typing these search terms and publishing this blog, I've already skewed the results. Yeah, yeah, it's possible that the number of people using Blogger is 5 times as many people using Wordpress, so the resulting complaints may be accurately proportional. I don't care. These are statistics, and I'm manipulate them anyway I want.

"Dr. Pepper's Plastic Six-Pack Rings Suck" -- 0 ???

Well, not for long, bitches.

Jrummers

While in Seattle last week, I dragged the RoBeastress out to see one of the awesomest fucking drummers, Zach Hill, perform a solo set. It was a 35-minute piece called "Necromancer" from his debut solo album Astrological Straits, which came out over the summer on Ipecac Records. The "Necromancer" track is a nonstop flurry of drumming. Really difficult to digest, but amazing to see in action. I don't know how he can it keep up for that long (arm Viagra, I presume), let alone remember all the parts and stay basically in synch with the backing avant garde piano track. Here's a clip that someone recorded from the Denver stop on Zach's Necromancer tour:



Now multiply that by three, and there's the set. I just got into Zach's former band Hella earlier this year, and they've quickly become one of my favorites now.

The point here is not just for me to pimp out Zach Hill. I was thinking while at the show, "Holy shit, I've really seen so many of the best drummers in the world." The Rock World at least. Here's a list of Rad Drummers I've gotten to see perform live (that I can think of right now at least):

Damon Che - Don Caballero
Brann Dailor - Mastodon
Chris Penne - formerly of The Dillinger Escape Plan
Danny Carey - Tool
Dale Crover - Melvins
John Stanier - Tomahawk, Battles (Never saw him with Helmet)
Dave Grohl - Queens of the Stone Age, Foo Fighters (Never saw him with Nirvana)
Matt Cameron - Pearl Jam (Never saw him with Soundgarden)
Mike "Puffy" Bordin - Ozzy Osbourne (Never saw him with Faith No More)
Dave Lombardo - Fantomas (Never saw him with Slayer)
Bill Ward - Black Sabbath
Janet Weiss - Sleater-Kinney
Vinnie Paul - Pantera
Joey Jordison - Slipknot
John Freese - A Perfect Circle
Abe Cunningham - Deftones

Oh, and how could I forget... Phil Collins.

So who is still alive that I need to see? Stewart Copeland, Neil Peart, Lars Ulrich? Any other recommendations, dear readers?

More Fights!

RoBeast vs. Blogger

I switched to Blogger because it was popular and everybody was doing it. It was also convenient because I was slowly moving all of my services over to Google anyway, and I would be able to just log myself in once while having continued access to Gmail, Picasa, Calendar, Blogger, etc. Blogging on Myspace was horrible and on Facebook, it's still non-existent. Here, it's pretty straightforward, but I still find plenty to bitch about.

Right now, I'd like to (possibly again) complain about the fact that I can't respond to individual blog comments. Four or five people responded to yesterday's entry, but I can't acknowledge their contributions without either commenting myself four of five times and hope that they keep desperately refreshing the talkback page (which no one should be expected to do) or start a whole new entry to respond. That's what I've chosen to do, but that's flawed for a few reasons. First, once I hit "publish post," the case is closed. If someone else responds to the last entry, then it's too late. I won't be editing this entry to reflect every new fucking comment that comes my way because then it gets back to the Desperate Refresh Theory. Also, I would never get to any actual content because I would spend the whole time going back and forth with comments. Not that we even get that many comments, but thanks to the flawed comment system, people are discouraged from commenting in the first place because they know a meaningful dialogue will not occur. And I'm not going to track down everyone's email address or blog and write back that way.

DEAR BLOGGER: JUST DO WHAT FUCKING LIVEJOURNAL DOES AND ALLOW ME TO REPLY PUBLICLY AND DIRECTLY TO A USER. SINCERELY, RAMBO.

RoBeast vs. Urban Dictionary

I submitted a word to Urban Dictionary on 8/29, and it was finally published/accepted on 10/18. What's the hold up all of the sudden? Am I to believe that the site is so popular now that the "editors" are deliberating on words for two months? Or are they just oversaturated with bullshit "words" that Teen Girl Squads and Juggalos keep submitting? I've mentioned before that the site has been going downhill for a while. Is it so hard to just require people to register in order to submit new words? You already need to be registered to edit anyway.

Or do they just think my word sucks? If so, then editors should be required to reject words and specify a reason. I know it doesn't suck though. It's not a 5-star, but then neither am I. Anyway, here's bagside.

RoBeast vs. Dr. Pepper Snapple Group

Hello, I stock my company's cooler several times a week with quite a number of your products. I noticed several months ago that the packaging quality of a specific brand has gone downhill. We order dozens of cases of Snapple bottles, and cans of RC Cola, Diet Rite, 7-Up Diet 7-Up, and Dr. Pepper. It's been in my experience that the six packs of Dr. Pepper and Diet Dr. Pepper become unhinged much easier than your other line's soda cans. I suppose this would be considered a convenience if I were just dealing with a six pack in my fridge at home and I was in a hurry to get a can to drink, but I'm handling a large number of six-packs every day, and I'd really prefer consistent strength and flexibility over speed. I performed a very unscientific test earlier today make sure there was any basis for my informing you of this problem. I handled and shook 6-packs of all your different brands with different degrees of roughness and sure enough, the Dr. Pepper packs fell apart every time. This was especially evident if I removed one can from the pack, as if to simulate loading a cooler--another one would almost immediately fall out of the plastic holder. The other brands did not have the same result. I don't quite understand the problem because the cans and plastic holders all seem to look the same to me across brands. Are Dr. Pepper cans somehow heavier or differently shaped? Is there a difference in the six-pack rings not visible to the naked eye? Are they packaged in different plants? Does the shrink wrap or lack thereof make a difference? I'm genuinely curious. It's not a serious issue for my company because we order so much (and give them away to our employees rather than sell the drinks), but it's very annoying on a personal level when the Dr. Pepper can inevitably slips away from my grasp, explodes on the floor, and covers me in sweet shrapnel. I urge you to look into this before more lives are lost. I mean, Dr. Pepper cans are spilled. Thanks for listening.

RoBeast vs. RoBeastress

No, I did not forget the clever addition to our argument from your Award Winning Mother™. I just felt it detracted from the story. But here it is anyway for loyal BaTR readers:

When the RoBeastress' father offered up Two and Pair to the argument, and we could not immediately distinguish a difference, I brought up that we had considered amending the postulate to "No two adjectives have exactly the same definition." The RoBeastress' Award Winning Mother™ immediately challenged the backpeddle: "How about Two-y and Pair-y?"

Hilarious, but we must move on.

RoBeast vs. RoBeastress II: Special Guest Referee General Dowd

Hmm... sauce... This opens up a whole different can of worm dip.

Sauce - 1. flavorful relish or dressing or topping served as an accompaniment to food.

First, I forgot about topping, so now I want to know what the difference between dressing and topping is.

Topping - 1. A sauce, frosting, or garnish for food.

Holy fuck, this just gets worse.

Frosting - 1. a flavored sugar topping used to coat and decorate cakes

Ok, that's the end of the line for frosting, and it even came with a little picture of a cake.

Garnish - 1b. An embellishment added to a prepared food or drink for decoration or added flavor.

So a garnish is something that is not a required ingredient for the already prepared food. It may enhance the flavor, but it is distinguished as serving a decorative purpose. Frosting is a very specific garnish, requiring flavored sugar. Some may argue that frosting is a required ingredient for a cake, but they'd be wrong, motherfucker!

(By the way, the dictionary notes that frosting and icing are regional words meaning the same thing: "Regional Note: Although both frosting and icing are widespread, people in New England, the Upper Midwest, and the Western U.S. tend to put frosting on cake. In Pennsylvania, New Jersey, the Lower Midwest, and all of the South, the preferred term is icing. There is some overlap, especially in upstate New York, Michigan, and California, but the regions in which the two words predominate are surprisingly distinct. A few people in the South call it by a third name, filling, even when it goes on top." I have a few other things to talk about now...

1. You would think that with the dictionary basically saying frosting and icing are the same word with only "regional use" as the difference, it would completely invalidate my whole argument that no two words are the same. The RoBeastress and I, for a reason I can't remember, decided early on to excuse "regional use" as a valid difference. It's like saying "dog" and "perro" are two words that mean the exact same thing. I believe we've agreed that our argument needs to stay within one lexicon.
   
2. If you are from the South and you call a topping filling, what the fuck is wrong with you? Maybe in your belly it's filling, but as long as it remains atop the food, just choose a topping term, or secede from the Union already. Or subscribe to the RoBeastress' blog which also defies all logic by not existing.
   
3. Frosting and icing are also widespread in the Dessert Regions of the US Southwest. Huh huh, get it?! Yeah, not funny.)

Ok, we're done with the Garnish Crime Family, I think. (Sounds like a joke, I know, but I spent the other morning studying the hierarchy of the Sopranos families, a completely fictional universe.) Let's get back to the topping and sauce hiearchy. I'm putting topping befittingly at the top of the chain. Sauce refers to something with a liquid component. Topping can contain either or both (Oh Beauty, we need Venn diagrams!).

(I just read on Wikipedia that sauce for a salad is called salad dressing. They also have separate sections for Salad Dressing and Garnish on the salad page. There are now more arguments:

1. If Salad Dressing does not fall under the Garnish category (which correctly includes ingredients not required for a salad such as bacon bits, croutons, etc.) then does that mean Salad Dressing is in fact a requirement to call a dish a salad?
   
2. If that's true then the RoBeastress broke two laws of physics: A. dipping a carrot into a dressing, and B. eating a "salad" without salad dressing. Double Jeopardy!
   
3. And if that's the case, than I'm just as bad for calling it a "salad" myself. And even worse, I usually don't eat salad with dressing.
   
4. This is Wikipedia though and should really be discredited as a source.
   
5. I'm not italicizing anything for a while because this is starting to become real work, and I'm certainly not getting paid for this.)
   

I tend to treat salad dressing as a garnish, but if dressings are sauces, then here is the big classification question: Are sauces a necessary ingredient for a dish? If yes, then dressing falls safely under sauce. If no, then dressing and sauce are a garnish, just like frosting.

A minor problem here involves another type of dressing--stuffing (and we're back in italics again), and I mean both as nouns. I was thinking the root origins of dressing meant a protective coat, much like dressing a wound keeps the blood in, dressing your body keeps your junk in, and dressing a salad means keeping the, I don't know, I guess it doesn't mean that at all. Dressing a turkey means stuffing it (now I'm using verbs), where the turkey body is acting to protect the dressing/stuffing. And this is mostly solid matter as far as I'm concerned, which would make it not a sauce anymore. What is in dressing? I sort of want to eradicate the term dressing as a synonym for stuffing. Did someone in the fucking South popularize that too?

I'm going to back up a bit. A lot actually, because I know this is going too far. Most of my preconceived notions regarding what dressing is came from linking it to the definitions of dress that involve coating something, but I see that in the sense of a sauce, it does not necessarily mean that. Dip the Noun hearkens back to the definition of Dip the Verb. It can certainly be classified by its method of application. Dressing, I feel is so obviously the same, but I just can't find any evidence to back it up. The language world is so vague about dressing. Sauce can be defined with sensation (flavorful), consistency (liquid), and dimension (accompanying food), but I just can't get that out of Dressing. I feel like I'm in limbo.

Relish - 3. a. A spicy or savory condiment or appetizer, such as chutney or olives.

Condiment - A substance, such as a relish, vinegar, or spice, used to flavor or complement food.

I feel like I should put condiment atop the hierarchy now because it seems to encompass the universes of sensation and consistency. It neglects the dimension of topping though. And also, the fact that condiment is a compliment makes me think it's not a requirement, hence, a garnish when applied to a dish. So if a condiment is a garnish, and a relish is a condiment, and a sauce is a relish, and a topping is a sauce, and frosting is a topping, then ALL OF THESE THINGS ARE GARNISHES. What does that prove? Nothing! But now we know that Garnish tops the hierarchy.

Or does it?

Hey, let's see what Auguste Escoffier thinks!

In Le Guide culinaire,^[3] Auguste Escoffier divides Seasoning and Condiments into the following groups:

Seasonings:

1. Saline seasonings—Salt, spiced salt, saltpeter.
2. Acid seasonings—Plain vinegar, or same aromatized with tarragon; verjuice, lemon and orange juices.
3. Hot seasonings—Peppercorns, ground or coarsely chopped pepper, or mignonette pepper; paprika, curry, cayenne, and mixed pepper spices.
4. Saccharine seasonings—Sugar and honey.

Condiments:

1. The pungents—Onions, shallots, garlic, chives, and horseradish.
2. Hot condiments—Mustard, gherkins, capers, English sauces, such as Worcestershire, Harvey, ketchup, etc. and American sauces such as chili, Tabasco, A-1 Steak Sauce, etc.; the wines used in reductions and braisings; the finishing elements of sauces and soups.
3. Fatty substances—Most animal fats, butter, vegetable greases (edible oils and margarine).

This is especially awesome because on my little chart that I've been attempting to draw to go along with this ridiculous conversation, I had divided Garnish into Condiments and Seasonings. Clearly, I was onto something, though I had no idea what. From there, I was attempting to classify Condiments into Sensation (sweet, savory, sour, salty) or Consistency (solid, liquid), but I just could not come up with something consistent (ironically?). Auguste apparently could not either, as he divided his into two completely different forms of Sensation (one scent and one taste) and one Category of Consistency on its own. His Seasonings category, in my opinion, is more clearly classified, but still we have that "hot" category I hadn't even considered (and usually don't consider when I order food). I feel that logically, I can still put Garnish at the top of the food chain (the food chain that is served with food, at least), though I have no idea what Auguste would think about that.

All right... so how do we apply my questions to Auguste's system? Sauce, we can agree, is a condiment. Sauces can be divided up into 4 categories according to 19th century chef Antonin Carême (Auguste would later further change the categories):

• Tomato Sauce, Based on tomato thickeners used such as arrowroot, tomato puree, roux and slurries
• Béchamel, based on milk, thickened with roux.
• Espagnole, based on brown stock (usually veal), thickened with a dark roux.
• Velouté, based on a white stock, thickened with roux.

Dips can fall under many of these different categories though. Soy sauce... hot condiment. Melted butter or Olive Oil... fatty substances. Fondue... Bechamel. Salad dressings seem to be able to fit in all over the map too. Does any of this prove anything? Christ, I don't even know anymore. It seems that these great chefs really had no interest in dividing things into Dimension like I do. They cared more about Sensation and Consistency. And as much as I would love to claim the Dictionary is on my team, it's just not. It defines Dip clearly, but not Dressing.

So for now, General Dowd wins. Sauce for all.

If I still have the energy, maybe I'll get into Brunch for ya tomorrow, Ken.

Dip vs. Dressing

The RoBeastress and I often have ridiculously passionate arguments about words. These heated discussions never really end, they just mount up and eventually include more people.

First there was the Itch vs. Scratch debate. I regularly use itch as a verb, which makes her head explode. She insists that one can Scratch an Itch, but not Itch an Itch. Most, but not all, dictionaries agree with her viewpoint. I have not yet conceded victory in this race.

Then there the pronunciation of Vaginal. No, I don't know why the word comes up in our conversations so frequently, but when it does, she naturally stresses the second syllable with a long I (və jī′nəl). I am positive that it's the first syllable that requires the accent (vaj′ə nəl) and I don't even have a vagina. Turns out that both are acceptable, so everyone wins, vaginally.

We had a long, bizarre brunchtime conversation a couple weekends ago where I posed the rhetorical question "Do any two words have exactly the same definition?"* I played devil's advocate and said no. She started coming up with words that challenged me to try and find the subtle differences in definition. Far & Distant stumped me. Infinite and Endless could be differentiated with help from my dictionary, which also pointed out that Boundless and Limitless are also not the same exact word. Her father offered up Two and Pair, but a few days later I found that Pair refers to two things that are similar while Two does not require that specification.

* Originally, the question was "Are there any two words that are truly synonymous?" but we learned that Synonym actually means similar, not same, so the question was rephrased. We also learned that we're fucking dorks.

Our longest standing battle is unequivocally Dip vs. Dressing. There has been no give on either side with this one. I maintain that the liquid that gets poured onto a bowl of salad is dressing, but if I were to take a part of that salad and put it into a bowl of that liquid instead, the liquid would then become dip. It is the method of application that dictates the word usage. To me, butter is fucking butter, but it could still be called a spread when it's dragged across a warm bagel, a spray when it's squirted onto corn, a dip when melted in a bowl for mussels to be dropped in. The RoBeastress posits that if the liquid is still the same combination of ingredients, then the words can be used interchangeably and indiscriminately. Clearly, I am stubborn and inconsistant at being a strict interpreters of the English language, but in this case she is standing firmly on the side of the Rebels.

Look at this defiance of all laws of physics and semantics:





Can you believe the nerve of her?! The cover clearly states "DRESSING - POUR IT ON" and she dares to dip her baby carrots in it. I did not take pictures of what happened to my dressing, but I can assure you, it was poured on top my salad and ingested properly, with zero Ranch left for my baby carrot ration. I am surprised she wasn't immediately dragged off the airplane by US Air Marshals and placed on the Do Not Fly List. TSA must be going soft.

All right, I know what you're saying... you have time to post pictures of your girlfriend eating carrots, but not the Halloween costume that we've been demanding to see for over a week. The truth is, I did upload all my Halloween and Vacation photos to my computer, but none of them contain a photo of me in costume. So if you want to complain, yell at the RoBeastress instead because she's got the photos. And while you've got her attention, tell her what you think a dip is.

Unless you're telling her the dip is me, smartypants.

Heyo

I just realized that 90% of my outgoing messages have the subject title "Hey," "Yo," or my favorite, "Heyo."

That's really all I have to share today. The RoBeastress and I are on vacation in Seattle this week. Hopefully on Monday (our designated Day of Decompression), I'll be able to post the Halloween pictures as well as some inspired ruminations on rain, grunge, and volcanoes.

Maybe if I'm feeling antagonistic, I'll bring up some post-election thoughts about Ralph Nader and Fox Pussy News.

All Hallow's Eve's Eve

I've been thinking about my Halloween costume since probably January, but didn't make my final decision until last week. I started working on it last night, which means I've got a lot of work once I get home tonight. I'm not going to tell anyone what it is just yet, so you'll have to wait until the annual Lucky 7's costume contest on Friday.


I will be defending my Costume Contest Championship, though I'll be honest, I'm not as confident this year. I won as Voltron in '07 (just over Zac's Pee-Wee Herman, I believe), and my Hacksaw Jim Duggan was second to Bob Ross in '06. Nostalgia clearly reigns supreme at Lucky 7's, but this year I am taking a different direction. All I will say is that my costume will appeal to a sense other than purely visual this time.

Not that I wasn't considering the nostalgic route. My second choice last year, Teen Wolf Too, was also my second choice this year. I Netflixed it though last week and was reminded of how terrible the film and the character was. I don't think it will make it to the brainstorm board next year, regardless of how hairy I am. (The brainstorm board, by the way, is my Far Side calendar, which is still stuck on October 2007.)

Another possibility was Rocky, since I already have the Red, White, and Blue Balboa trunks. And the Robeastress could easily be Adrian, but that wouldn't be much fun for her. Plus, my beard limits me to Training-in-Siberia Rocky (IV).



Not that T.I.S. Rocky isn't awesome, but the beard and the shorts never happened at the same time, and I'm a stickler for historical accuracy (despite Rocky IV's silly Cold War rhetoric). Plus I'm just not ready to shave my beard yet because I'm going to Seattle next week and I don't want to look like a tourist.

I'm happy with my costume anyway. Win or lose, nothing will top the mighty victory kiss I received last year from Rosie the Riveting Future RoBeastress.


USA! USA!

Let's Play Funny/Not Funny

Funny:
Frank the Pizza Man is running for Councilman in Jersey City.

Not Funny:
Frank the Pizza Man is trying to "articulate" his "platform" on JCList.


Funny:
Plowing Mud Forever covers a billboard advertisement with its own stickers, intending to both thwart the trend of yuppie overcrowding in Jersey City and promote its performance at the 4th Street Art & Music Festival.

Not Funny:
Plowing Mud Forever neglects to read the 4th Street Art & Music Festival press release which mentions the billboard size "ad" that fellow local artist Steve Dressler is displaying for the exhibition.


Funny:
Getting to eat all the leftover candy my company gives me to hand out for Halloween, after 0 Trick-or-Treaters show up at my doorstep.

Not Funny:
"While I am very proud to announce that for the first time in company history we have 0 cases in remaining inventory for this selling season, unfortunately that does not allow us to do a desk drop to colleagues... Again, sorry. Have a safe Halloween."


Funny:


Not Funny:


Ok, that was funny.

Overheard on the sidewalk last night...

Father: Boo-hoo-hoo, your face is blue.
Son: Boo-hoo-hoo, your face looks like poo.

It reminds me of the time I said to my father, "If you were in Octopussy, you'd be the pussy." Being 6 or 7 at the time, I wasn't yet aware of all the connotations of "pussy" (I meant it like sour puss), but I'm glad I said it. James Bond would have been proud.

HORSE APPLES!

d00d n00dz

This is not the semi-retroactively-plagiarized post I promised last week, nor the epic magnetic toy post that I have yet to promise to post (unless you count that as a promise). This blog will be both a publicly unproposed, yet positively plagiarized post, followed by a sketchy sketch request from an original artist of a potential plagiarist.

First, yet another slanderous scoop that I've been beaten to tenfold--the accusation that Dean Graziosi, late night financial and real estate infomercial author and bullshitter, is actually a woman. I know you've heard this sob story from me a thousand times recently ("I've been saying this for a while, just never posted it, blah blah blah, wah wah vomit"), so just go read the testimonials from the internetskis. It seems that a lot of folks were thinking the same thing as me.

Personally, I don't care if dude looks like a lady or vice versa, I just think this distracting issue needs to be officially addressed by The Deaner so I can go back to believing I'm being deceived by your average scam artist regardless of their gender.

The other thing I wanted to post was a great way to make millions through tiny classified ads.

No, no, not really. I just wanted to post a sketch that a internet pal named Ashley made for me. She was offering up quick pencil drawings of folks, so I took her up on it, with a special twist--I wanted to be immortalized nude, on a bed of nails, surrounded by 3-legged collies. Amazingly, she did it!


If anyone wants to get this incredible scene tattooed on their back or etched into a gravestone, please don't forget to credit Ashley. And, no, if you're wondering, I did not actually pose for this sketch. The only person I know that owns a bed of nails is Wally Chung, and he wouldn't let me get naked on it.

For the second time this month

I was poised to post an awesome blog entry, but did a little research first and found that someone else beat me to it. Again.

http://brokeymcpoverty.wordpress.com/2008/10/03/the-white-al-sharpton/

I had been saying "The White Al Sharpton" every time I've seen that dude for the past couple months, but it doesn't matter. "If it's not in writing, it doesn't exist." I put this in quotes because, even though I've been saying this for a while too, a thousand other people beat me to publishing it on the Spiderwebs.

Brain to keyboard from now on.

I'll be back tomorrow with another entry that is retroactively plagiarized, sort of.

NO U

You say this:

But all I see is this:

What is my disorder? This is why I don't read anymore. I see letters and I automatically want to rearrange them. Is it some sort of dyslexia? Scrabblerackitis? Granted, I'm not really transposing any letters here, I'm just respacing them, but still. I can't be the only person that thinks it was a bad idea for these folks to start a food business with the word SHIT in the middle of their name.

I also refuse to pronounce PETSMART as "Pet Smart."


I prefer "Pets' Mart," like it's a market for pets. Which it is.


Your dog could be dumb, after all.

And now, two technical notes.

1. Blogger took it upon itself to underline the first sentence in this blog entry. Underline, as far as I can see, is not even an option in this text editor. There is bold, and italicize, but that's it. This means Blogger's underlining prank can't even be undone without going into the html editor and deleting the /u tag. Which I could do. But I'm not going to. I'm just going to bitch instead.

2. I'm also blocking all anonymous comments from now on. I received one the other day about a PETA bumper sticker post I made several months ago. It's not that I can't take the heat, it's just that I want to know who's in my kitchen. If you want to argue about abortion or animal rights, go right ahead. If you want to just call me names, please do. Just sign your fucking name, coward, so I can direct a brilliant retort back to you.

Waaaaaah.

Robeast Rollie Wuz Here

Some of my non-Wikipedia vandalism:

Biden forgot Poland!

Oh Shit!



Fortunately, Palin's debate team of Scriptwriters, Memorization Specialists, Beauty Pageant Coaches, and other assorted Brainwarshers must not have covered that in the 5-week Talk-Point drill-session, so I don't think this will be a serious setback.

Beauty and the Lame-Beast

An old friend from grade school and more recently, Myspace, made the big leap to Facebook today, attributing the social networking jump to "Retiring from MySpace."

I accepted his friend request, and responded with "Retiring, eh? Will you now be collecting Social Network Security?"

She Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth

I was going to make a quick post this morning about something I saw on the way to work this morning, but I didn't have the all-important picture to accompany it (no camera in the car strikes again). I did a quick search online for a usable related photo and ended up finding the exact blog entry I had planned to type myself...

Batesville Motel

I don't know why death is suddenly following me all around, but at least I'm not the only one.

Never Forget

(I completely forgot to comment on this after the Presidential Debate last Friday as I was busy eating a shitload of sushi)

Say what you will about John McCain, but he did not forget Poland (@ 1:17 in the video):




John Kerry, as we recall, was not so lucky.



I don't know what it is with these fucking Republicans, but man, do they know how to remember Poland!

Cat People

I had a super shitty day at work yesterday. I went home pissed off and blasted lots of loud music for several hours, then finally passed out and had a sound 6-hour night's sleep.

I woke up with a different attitude. Believe me, it's far from an optimistic one, but just the fact that I got up and got ready which the intention of going back to my job instead of tossing in the towel is an improvement from the night before. I'm still angry, and disappointed, but I think I have some priorities and objectives to now realign and reclassify. Either way, I think I need a day of silence. A little peace before action.

I walked down the stairs and out the door. It may have rained last night. I don't know--I don't have a window in my bedroom. Definitely a cool September day, but I left my jacket in the car the night before. I clicked my keys to unlock the Honda across the street in front of the vacant lot. Normally this action is an alarm clock for the pair of stray cats that live on block, and always seem to sleep under my car. I crossed the street trying to figure out what music I would listen to on the way to work now that my non-iPod came back to life.

I knew one of the cats was under the car. I saw his outline. I knelt down and peeked under. It was the orange and black one, and he was still sleeping. Well I don't really know if he is a he. I always assume that when I see two cats that one is a boy cat and the other is a girl cat. I just learned that how false this assumption was last week when the RoBeastress told me that Pooka, (one of Kirk and Cindy's cats I had been taking care of while they were on vacation) was a girl, not a boy like I insisted. I've known Pooka and her sister Zoe (who I correctly believed was a girl) for 4 or 5 years now and have probably heard her referred to as "her" a million times, but I just put a complete mental block on her gender. Part of it is probably due to my obsession with symmetry and the inability of my brain to perceive Kirk as outnumbered 3-to-1 in the household, but Pooka is a girl's name for chrissakes! I was in complete denial.

I was also in denial that the stray cat under my car was dead. I whistled at him and begged him to wake up. I used to have a cat that was an alarmingly heavy sleeper. When he was a kitten, he used to dream and twitch in his sleep and it scared the shit out of me. I would shake him and he would sleep right through it. Then he would just wake up and look at me as if I were crazy.

I was afraid to touch the stray though. I've wanted to pet him so bad in the 3 and a half years we've lived on the block together, but I think we both knew that wasn't going to happen. I'm horribly allergic to cats as it is, but who knows what diseases these mangy strays have living under their claws? The two cats were always together though and took care of whatever physical affection each other needed, without any help from humans. And someone on the block, I don't know who, always put out some vittles for them a couple times a week. And if they weren't happy with that, there was always the Vietnamese restaurant a few doors down.

I got in the car and turned it on in vain. He didn't wake up.

I just finished watching Less Than Zero last night, and knew how it was going to end as soon as I put it on. A young Robert Downey, Jr. , estranged from his family with no regular place to stay, easily falls prey to the dangers of the streets. He's charming and pleasant to his acquaintences, but he's caught in a cycle that has a predictable and inevitable finish. He was a human stray.

In Art and Life, I guess I can't really claim to be surprised by this outcome either. Maybe just far from optimistic, still angry, disappointed...


Here he is in happier times. RIP Kitty Kat.