January 2005
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Sin Cellphone.
03 January, 2005 at 10:53 AM by Ren | Permalink
So New Year's Eve was a rousing success, judging by what I recall, and the resulting hangover--which didn't show up until AFTER I had driven home from the Rio Grande Valley, thank you very much.
Anyway, I have a funny story about how I lost my cellphone on New Year's Eve this year.
So I go to meet the Beast because he's having this bitchin' party down in the Vall. I show up at his grandmothers' place, because all awesome parties are held at somebody else's house (it's so hot right now). Right, well I get there and am almost immediately handed a shot of Crown Royal by the Beast himself. Not one to say no to free liquor, I take the shot like the man with six chest hairs that I am. Emboldened, I go on to drink two Crown and Cokes before we leave for our next destination, Graham Central Station--and yes, I realize the place has a cheesy name.
We're going there because Tia Berta has a side gig singing Karaoke and thought to pick up some extra cash on NYE to better buy the Beast pretty, delicate underthings.
The Beast and I hit the Karaoke bar and watch Tia Berta sing his pretty little heart out--oh, and make a fool of himself during YMCA and uh...Love Shack. We get to the place just in time to have one drink before the Countdown. Tia Berta even gives me a shout-out during one of his numbers--how hot is that? Shortly after midnight RollerMog and his partner-in-crime, Lina (sorry! I don't have a nickname for you yet!) show up to round out our party posse. Important point: I attempt to make a few Happy New Year! phone calls to friends from the bar, but am rebuffed when 'all circuits are busy' so I put my phone back in my pocket and leave it at that. A glass of cheap champagne and a few drinks later we end up on our way back to the Beast's grandma's house; there's liquor still there and as RollerMog would say "momma needs to get her drink on."
Back at Grandma Beast's domicile, there's plenty of booze to be had and good times left. Somehow, in my own stupidity I guess, I end up becoming the plaything of the Beast's nephew, mini-beast. Drinking and merriment were the name of the game in the wee hours of the New Year and it's only at about 5 a.m. that we decide to head back to the Beast's place to regain sobriety sometime January 1st.
Arriving at his place, I go to my car, pick up my backpack and we all head inside. Inside everyone is plugging phones and iPods into their chargers and I look for my phone to put it away. Except, it's not there. Immediately, I began to freak out. Lina, the Beast, Tia Berta and RollerMog all call my phone futilely in attempt to locate it via ring tone. No dice.
I run to my car, maybe I left it there? Not a chance. Increasingly frustrated, somehow I manage to convince Tia Berta and RollerMog to take me to Grandma Beast's to see if it's there...after all, I was cavorting with mini-beast, so it stands to reason that it might have fallen out during the many, many piggyback rides. Except not. We call the phone several times and hear nothing. Tia Berta tries to reassure me that we'll find the phone in the morning, but I'm drunk enough to be pissed about it all the way back to the Beast's place.
Once we get there though, the Beast, Lina, RollerMog and Tia Berta all make me feel better. Someone even brings up the morning long ago when I uh, erected a circus tent to which the Beast and RollerMog awoke me with Thunder and Blazes. Bastards. But we all laugh and I start to forget that I lost my cellphone. Lina falls asleep to visions of Sourdough Jacks dancing in her head.
Next morning...alright, next afternoon we awaken to Lina's frantic cries for Jack in the Box. I remember that I lost my f*cking cell phone and start to complain that I don't have the money for a new phone; mostly because I want a slider phone and those are hella expensive right now. Tia Berta calls the bar and no one there has seen a lost cellphone. The Beast calls Grandma Beast; no phone there. Saddened, I realize I can't even call my family because all my numbers are in the damn cellphone which I no longer have. Tia Berta and the Beast decide that the best course of action is to go have lunch; the phone will show up soon enough.
Sure enough, as RollerMog, Tia Berta and the Beast are out of the bedroom I go rummaging through my backpack to find my change of clothes I feel the little cellphone pocket built in my backpack. And uh. I sort of found my cellphone.
I started to laugh so hard. Lina heard my laugh and said "You f*cker, you found your phone didn't you?" but I couldn't answer her back, I just kept laughing. The Beast even heard me laughing through the bathroom wall and his shower only to yell at me "PENDEJO! You found you phone didn't you?!!" Sheepishly, I answered him back in the affirmative.
Funny thing, heavy drinking. Apparently, when I got my backpack out of my car, I put my cellphone in the backpack pocket made just for a phone and turned it off; lord only knows why. By the time I got inside the Beast's apartment, I had forgotten--through drunken stupor-- that I had put it there for safekeeping. Oops. Also, I shut it off for some crazy reason, which made sure that I couldn't find it by ring tone. Again. Oops.
So now, I have a funny story for the rest of my life about how I lost my cellphone on New Year's Eve, but didn't.
You're welcome, Beast. Now you'll have a story to counter me whenever I bring up the Spring Break 2K Brownie incident.
Happy New Year!
Hope leaves the world...
10 January, 2005 at 02:00 PM by Ren | Permalink
You know, in this crazy, mixed-up world that we live in I was always glad that there were a few constants. I mean...Brad and Jen? They were one of them. If the two prettiest people on the planet could have a fabulous life together, all of us could hope for a piece of that pie.
But now that that harlot--NO, that Skootchie--Angelina Jolie tore asunder what the Baby Jesus himself once smiled upon, I simply don't know if I can continue going on.
If Brad and Jen can't make it work, what hope is there for us? It's like Sargie said to me earlier, "we'll all have to work through this together." Truer words were never spoken. My biggest dissapointment is that Brad and Jen won't be able to tour the Indian Ocean coast to bring the warming glow of celebrity upon the disaster wreaked by that horrible tsunami. Because as you know, only when Hollywood Celebrities shed light on human tragedy can we be really know how horrible the destruction really is. You know, because we haven't been constantly reminded of it yet.
Why God, Why??
Haiku for iPod
17 January, 2005 at 06:19 PM by Ren | Permalink
I'll write about my experience at Jury Duty today tomorrow, when I have a moment to really collect my thoughts on the experience. Plus, I'll mention one of my favorite teachers that I got to see for teh first time in nearly ten years.
Until then, I present to you Haiku for TastaPod:
Little white hard drive
Playing music all day long
Let's always be friends.
Enjoy!
I'll be uploading it to TastaPod as a love letter (in .txt format) sometime tomororw. Because I'm a total dork.
So, it's been about 5 years...
18 January, 2005 at 07:39 PM by Ren | Permalink
Is it ok for me to download Mambo No. 5 yet? You know, for the ironic reasons?
I'm just wondering, y'all.
Perhaps I shouldn't indulge all my guilty pleasures, though...
My distinguished career in public service
19 January, 2005 at 06:49 PM by Ren | Permalink
On Monday I had the ignominious task of serving the public interest by reporting to Jury Duty. I know many of you are thinking "Jury Duty? On Martin Luther King, Jr's. Birthday!!!" and I agree. Because seriously, it's my fucking day off Nueces County. Bastards. I bet they wouldn't ask me to serve on Cesar Chavez's birthday. Whatever.
Anyway, I showed up bright and shiny at 8 a.m. (I know! on a day off, no less!) to the central jury room of the courthouse. They had so many people show up there wasn't enough room for a wigga like me to get a seat. How lame is that?
Well, eventually they start assigning people to panels and in the commotion there's some seats to be had. You know my lazy ass zoomed in on one right away. Crazy thing is, I end up sitting next to my junior year (in HS) english teacher, Ms. Koepsel. Talk about coinkidink.
Immediately I recognize her so I said "hi!" and she recognized me; clearly though, she didn't remember my name, something I'm more than happy to overlook because at least she knew I had her in 6th period about eleven years ago.
We talked for a good 20 minutes about what we're doing these days. It was really nice; I made sure I told her how much I looked forward to her class every day in 11th grade which made her feel really good. We mentioned a few people the other would know. Mostly I was sad to hear what I had suspected about Carroll High School since I left. It's surprisingly different and not just because they put bars all over the breezeways. She told me she retired because she didn't like the way things were going. She also told me she didn't want to be buried in the school (Mr. Arnold, I'm looking at you).
I didn't even think she was old enough to retire. I swear, she looked exactly as she did that last day in class back in 1993. Early to mid 50's easy. Funny thing, the year she got to CHS it snowed and the year she left it snowed, so someone up there was telling her she made the right choice. Ms. Koepsel told me that she didn't like that the new administrations were pretty hell bent on changing what worked just for the sake of changing it; so much so that very little of the faculty there when I was there is still around.
That's kind of sad, because I know part of what made CHS such a great place was the longevity of the faculty, they provided a kind of continuity to the place that I, as a student, really got to appreciate. Plus, it was really cool to know all these people around town who had the same teachers that you had.
Oh well.
Here's another funny thing I saw at Jury Duty: sitting a few seats down from Ms. Koepsel and I was the middle school band director for Tom Browne MS. I swear I couldn't remember his name to save my life--the only thing that kept popping into my head was how my friend Johnny used to call him the Undertaker because he looks like he should be working in a mortuary. For real, y'all. He looks a lot like Lurch.
How strange is that? I end up in Jury Duty with two of my former teachers.
I even got selected for a panel. But I got out of the trial (attempted burglary and sexual assault) I would have been involved in mostly because (I think) I said I wouldn't consider probation for a first time sex offender. That's mostly true. I don't think I'd consider it; I know too many people that have been sexually assaulted and it screws you up REAL good. So I'm not sure that I would consider that as an option. But you never know, I tend to view everything with many degrees of nuance (hi John Kerry!).
But hey, that's not important. I just visited with a teacher who helped shape me to who I am today after not seeing her for almost eleven years. That's pretty cool, right?
One of my weird quirks
20 January, 2005 at 09:47 AM by Ren | Permalink
See, I have a few really weird habits. Most of them are pretty innocuous, like when I drive around in Ronessa to run errands, I always drive in a big circle, because I don't like driving up and down the same road if I can possibly avoid it. Or how when I take a shower, I rinse my hands of shampoo before I rinse off my hair. I know, it really makes me sound crazy. And you're probably right. I am pretty nutso.
But I'm not here to talk about those weird habits. I'm here to talk about another strange habit of mine: namely my obsession for properly naming my music files. Except I have one really peculiar habit in naming my music. When I have music from a movie that's performed by a character or a band in the movie, I don't list who the actual artist is, but rather the character/band who performs it in the film.
So that means that "Ballroom Blitz" isn't performed by Tia Carrere, but by Crucial Taunt, the band Tia Carrere's character was in. Same goes for "Howard the Duck". It's not performed by Lea Thompson and Thomas Dolby, but by Lea Thompson's character's band, Cherry Bomb.
Truly this is a weird obsession.
So imagine my surprise when I find a copy of "Anything Goes" off the Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom soundtrack...and the artist listed is Wilhelmina 'Willie' Scott and not Kate Capshaw. I was more than a little tickled. Apparently I'm not the only person in the world who likes to list fake recording artists in their music playlists.
How do you get to the front page?
20 January, 2005 at 11:21 PM by Ren | Permalink
This is so weird. For the most part, my magnum opus redesign has gone without a hitch. Sure there's problems here and there, but nothing a few moments of research and link correction doesn't fix. But today I got the strangest set of questions about it.
First off, this morning, I get an email from an acaedmic advisor on campus wanting to know the super secret process for selecting people to be featured as a "Be Somebody" on the front page. Really, there is no method to the madness, it's just what photo artwork I had available to myself at the time. There's 32 (soon to be 33) different Be Somebodys running on there.
Then she wanted to know why I wasn't featuring any faculty or staff. She wanted to know if I was ignoring the staff! Seriously. The immediate past president of the Staff Council overlooking staff. The reasoning is simple. The university employs countless alumni; we wanted to feature alumni who were successful outside the university community. I'm not ignoring you; don't be hatin', yo.
I took it as an aberration to the mostly problem-free launch of the site--until later today. I got another email asking roughly the same thing. Then, the campus TV station interviewed me about the new site (an aside: I looked like hell, hadn't shaved and have this ridiculous pimple on my forehead! EGADS, the horror! I'll never be a teen model now!) and the interviewer asked me the SAME THING! "How do you get on the front page?"
I responded that we used what photo artwork was available to us at the time and that we plan to continually add high quality images from outstanding students and alumni. Then--and here's the kicker--he asks "so if someone sent you a .jpg of themselves, you wouldn't use them?"
No. I'm afraid not, pardner.
So weird what people obsess over. At least my neuroses are slightly less bizarre. Right?
I should be embarrassed...but I'll tell you anyway.
23 January, 2005 at 09:51 PM by Ren | Permalink
But I was uh, partaking in some of the more adult delights the internet has to offer and I get to one that I thought I might enjoy (hi mom and dad!).
So I download it and start to watch it. Except I totally can't get into it. Why? Because the music playing in the background sounds exactly like the music from the old 80's cartoon M.A.S.K.
Of course, the music only lasted into the first few minutes of the clip (before the uh, actors? uh, start acting?) and then the director let the uh, sounds of passion take over. But I couldn't watch the rest of the clip because seriously? I was singing the theme song in my head.
MASK Crusaders, workin overtime,
fighting crime;
FIGHTING CRIME!Secret Raiders who will neutralize, so just save your eyes!
Trakker's gonna lead the mission!
And SPECTRUM's got such super-vision!(M-M-M-MASK!) MASK! Is the mighty power that can save the day!
(M-M-M-MASK!) MASK! No one knows what lies behind their masquerade!
(M-M-M-MASK!) MASK! Always riding on VENOM's trail...Come see the laser rays...ANYWAY!
And there you have it ladies and gentlemen; I can no longer watch internet porn because of my vast repository of cheesy 80's cartoon theme songs.
Thanks trivia-addled brain!
For my next trick...
26 January, 2005 at 01:37 PM by Ren | Permalink
I really don't have anything to talk about that I can say in a few sentences, so enjoy this.
I wouldn't necessarily disagree with any of it's findings. ; ) That's right bitches. I'm a fantastic lay! Take that, you know who you are!
Incisor, we meet again!
28 January, 2005 at 11:56 AM by Ren | Permalink
So I'm mindin' my own this morning and Crody IMs me out of nowhere reminding me that he tried to send me a picture yesterday but it didn't go through. The email he attempted to send reads like this:
Ren,
I'm still without an iPod, and NOW I'm missing one of my two front teeth!
This is quite possibly the most unattractive photo I've ever taken in my
life, so don't go spreadin it around. It's for your laugh exculsively.
Tomorrow I am getting my two front permanent crowns put in, and since my
teeth were bleached about a week ago, I'm GONNA HAVE A CREST SMILE! YAY!
Then I'll be SuperSexy! But for now all I can say is Thhhuperthexthy.
Love,
Crody
For fear of FCC prosecution, I'm not including the horrifying photo. Suffice it to say, Crody looks like he belongs on the farm. Totally unflattering...which is why I bet you'll see it on his online profiles within the next 3 days.
Of course, I'm shocked and appalled at Crody's apparent lack of incisors and immediately have to find out what happened.
Ren: Crody, what happened to your tooth? What did you do?
Crody: um...well when I was 16 years old I got two root canals... one on each of my front teeth.[CRODY pauses for a beat]
cuz I didn't take care of them back then...they put temp fillings in. TEMPS! And I wore them from then 'til just the other day when my left front tooth popped out while I was trying to close a bag at the fish store broke off completely.
Ren: Oh dear lord. [REN begins laughing uncontrollably]
Crody: and the reason?....I was trying to hurry up and give these people their fish so I could help out this incredibly hot guy that looked like he rolled of the page of an International Male catalog...so I went ant talked to him after my tooth broke outcuz yeah, he was THAT HOT.
and I told him what had happened...hey says, "all mine are fake..." and he smiled real big--
[CRODYS heart melts; cue HEARTWARMING MUSIC]
Then he says it's because he played RUGBY for 4 years.
Ren: [still laughing uncontrollably] Oh my God, Crody.
Crody: and then I just jizzed my pants.
Ren: I would have run out of the store crying: "Don't look at me! IM HIDEOUS!"
Crody: I know. That's why I like being me sometimes; I don't give a fuck. I knew that the chances of him being gay.. or me ever seeing him again were astronomical, so I enjoyed the fact that he was part of my life's journey that day when my tooth popped out in the fish store--
[CUE MORAL OF THE STORY MUSIC]
and at least he got a kick out of it, so I offered him some pleasure...even though it wasn't going down on him with my fabulously white new crowns.
I didn't bother asking what the pleasure was, because with Crody it could have involved something as innocent as a free tin of fish food to, well, I'd just rather not say. Besides, haven't I embarrassed him enough with repeating this story here?