They Are Finally Paying Me For This God-Awful Tripe

I am getting paid to write blogs now. I write for The Wake and College On The Record, and they both give me actual money for writing some bullshit stuff about some bullshit things. This thing that I just kind of do is now just kind of making me some scratch, it is! Also, I just not ten minutes ago saved a bunch of time by turning in a previous blog post of mine instead of a paper for a class. Once, I said "Pfooie" to the blogs. That was before the blogs gave me things, like money, fancy titles like "Campus Editor", and an excuse to not do real work. Life is funny that way, you know? Ha ha, life! Good one!

The issue of course is that I'm on the damn computer all the time now. I have like fifteen (ed note: exaggeration) accounts and e-mail addresses to check and update now, and that keeps me on the computer often longer than I'd like to be. But fuck it, I'd rather do this job than cut open bagels any day. Even Tuesday.

So, I'm going to try to continue to be diligent in this blog and give you people who have all stopped reading some vaguely interesting things. Otherwise, you can read the other two blogs because they will definitely have things in them.

Bye.

Underappreciated Geniuses Of Low Humor

First off, by low humor, I am not speaking of those highbrow, elitist comedic ventures like Grandma's Boy or Disaster Movie, those intellectual comedies reserved for the literati. No, I'm talking true lowest-denominator chuckles, those scrawled on bathroom walls and in high school textbooks. Here are but a few of the most brilliant of shit-heel comedy, true low humor for the masses:

1. "Push Butt"

Though it probably can't be attributed to a single individual, whoever first took their keys to the hand warmer in the bathroom, scratching out letters such that the directions ask for you to apply pressure to your anus to begin the hand drying process... genius. Pure genius. A simple removal of the O and the N in the word "Button" turns a once innocent finish to the hand washing process into a dirty little jest, a raunchy delve into a world that cares not for what society deems is acceptable. True pioneers of the "Push Butt" defacing go the extra mile and actually draw butt-cheeks on the diagram depicting ones finger activating the dryer, thereby changing it from an unnecessarily informative pictoral to a glimpse into the ass-fingering one has been re-instructed to do. My hope is that some eternally literal bathroom user out there has actually proceeded to push in his butt upon reading this delightfully ribald graffiti. Oh, such sublime filth.

2. The "bONEr" Dollar

With but a few strokes of a marker (and a few strokes of genius), any dollar bill can become a dirty joke, and a conversation piece sure to fill hours of time with no-brainer laughs. It says "Boner!" On money! George Washington would roll around in his grave if he knew what we were doing to this country, desecrating his name with talks of erections and such. Go pay for something with a boner! "Hey, you got change for a boner?" Another instance of simple but effective low humor. No one is going to look at that dollar bill and not understand. It says boner. I cannot stress that enough, the fact that it was not intended to refer to penises but now it does. Think about it, but not too hard.

3. "Road Head"

Orange paint and ingenuity can turn any "Road Work Ahead" into a call for dangerous fellatio. "Honey, I'm just doing what the sign says. Watch your teeth as we go over this bump." What makes these so smart is that they are precisely not smart at all. The words "Road Head" on their own do not constitute a joke. But look at it. It is a sign, and it says a dirty sexual act on it. What more do you want? That's the lowest of low comedy, a beautifully simplistic reminder of a sexual act we have heard of. There's no need for context or anybody to walk into a bar or anything, this is pure dumb bad words yuks. The fact that someone took the time and effort to deface a sign for no reason other than that oral sex is funny, that takes heart. I salute you.

Not all graffiti is worth mention. Not all of it is funny or clever. I find the above to be enjoyable because they are mindless yet they take a certain level of thought to find the stupid in the everyday. I do not support drawing dicks in peoples mouths on billboards and stuff like that. First off, it's too easy. Most people draw dicks like they've never seen one, all looking like a cocktail wiener, and just putting a dick near someones picture does not tap into that brilliant side of idiocy. Secondly, I can't get over the sexist and homophobic undertones. The word "Boner" on a dollar bill is great to me because it does not to say Boner on it, it was not intended to say Boner on it, but all of a sudden, there is a dirty word on it and that's hilarious. But dicks in mouths does not pull from the source or try to find something in what is already there, they are used to insult the recipient. Stick with the classic mustache and glasses if you intend to do that. I don't like the implication, either, that having a dick in your mouth is degrading or insulting somehow. I've known many upstanding, intelligent and truly excellent people who have had dicks in their mouth, and all that means is that they're a giving person. Anyway, I digress. Maybe I'm just more of a wordplay man. I respect those that can see the pointlessly dirty in the everyday, and you geniuses of low humor deserve to be endlessly praised. Godspeed, ye dastard delinquents of the Sharpie set. Take us forward to the next generation of brainless entertainment.

How Many People Had To Die Before They Invented The Yellow Light?

I used to live very close to the 35W bridge which collapsed. This was annoying, because all the traffic was rerouted right in front of my apartment, meaning loud noises and near-collisions with cars basically all the time. People in cars don't seem to like to look for pedestrians or bikers. I'll admit watching the road while driving is a pretty big inconvenience, but so is picking someones scalp off your windshield. Most of the redirected cars are not used to having to look for people because they normally would be driving on the highway, so things like stop signs and bike riders are ignored. Every day I thought I was going to die on that intersection where the highway met my street. Literally not a day passed where there wasn't some near-miss from some old lady or some turd in a giant car. I hate giant cars. They're very large. At the speed that most people "stop" at stop signs, those cars could kill a human and vaporise a small animal. Typically, the people who buy big cars are also the ones who are less likely to look out for pedestrians. Most of the people who can afford such monstrosities live in the suburbs, where walking is not only unfashionable but impossible; there are no sidewalks, which baffles me to no end, and everyone is so far away from anything except houses that similar to theirs that driving becomes their only mode of doing anything. They forget that some people actually walk places, and anyone using other means of transportation are an inconvenience to them and are regarded as very inconsiderate for wishing to share the road.

After the bridge collapse, there's been a mad scramble to build a new one. I suspected they wanted to get it finished before the Republican National Convention which was hosted in St. Paul, my hometown, so that John McCain could stand in front of it and lie about how our country is actually not falling apart. The fucknuts came and left before the thing was done, but they're still going to make somewhere in the neighborhood of $20,000 for every day ahead of schedule they finish by. The project was pretty huge: There were loud noises and people in orange jackets all over my neighborhood, and they brought in a simply gigantic crane for constructing. This crane was massive. I'm talking big-ass crazy crane the size of something Superman would fight. The bridge is now almost complete. I worry about using something so rushed.

Other bridges all over the city are being renovated, because, hey, apparently you have to do that in order to keep them from falling down. Funny how we're just getting to it now; I feel like this is a trend in America. If a bridge collapses, we rush like crazy to build the new one and make sure it never happens again. But would we try to make sure it didn't happen in the first place? Someone always has to die in order for something to be looked into. Any drug or food recall, any unsafe substance or building threatening lives, none of it is dangerous enough to deal with until someone actually gets killed; suddenly, it's the most important thing. Think Bush would be visiting New Orleans (or, more precisely, Texas) to help with hurricane relief if he hadn't fucked up so publicly with Katrina? Of course not. The press associated with the disaster is more important than the devastation. The 35 W bridge is a sad example of the neglect this country has been receiving from our government thanks to this unjust war, petty squabbles over stem-cells and gay marriage, and plain-and-simple incompetence. I'm fucking tired of it.

For a while I thought I was without a doubt going to be killed by getting run over by a bus. I'm much more optimistic these days; instead, I just think I'm going to be badly injured by a car. I've already been hit by a car on my bike, the same way this shit always almost-happens: As I'm making my way down the sidewalk on a one-way street, a car attempts to turn off the highway, looking only for cars coming from the other direction, ignoring any pedestrians or bikers that might be going the opposite way on the sidewalk. This particular event has happened so frequently that I'm surprised I've only been hit once. Another situation I always get is cars trying to turn as I'm trying to walk through the crosswalk. They turn, assuming of course that you'll no longer be in their way by the time you get across the street. It winds up being like running into someone in a hallway, awkwardly dancing back and forth, unsure if you should go and let the other person past or if their trying to do the same for you. Only this time the other person weighs about 5000 pounds, has bumper stickers all over their ass and is made of metal. There's no winning in a awkward face-off with a car. They are very big. The best I can hope to do is take off their mirror or bend a windshield wiper as I go down, screaming and clenching my exposed bone.

In short: Boo cars! Boo!

Bagel Bargaining

Oh man. I totally just quit my job. Two hours ago I was working at my job, and now I have quit my job. I don't have to work at that job now. Oh man. This is exciting. I'm excited, and this is exciting. I feel really good. This is great, like a high. I should just apply to a bunch of jobs so i can quit them right away and continue feeling like this all the time, cuz, man. Wow. If they could make a pill or some sort of leaf that could make you feel like you had just quit your job moments ago, I would be on that shit all the time. "Unemployatan", they could call it, or even something better than that. I don't care. Because I just quit my job. The telephone is really an amazing little device, as it has the unique ability to be used for calling someone, then telling them that you are quitting working for them. I like the telephone, I used it to quit my job. I also like the fact that I just quit my job. Oh man.

Well, I another job at a competing bagel place, so I didn't exactly quit working; I merely traded my current job for a better job. No more waking up at 4:30 AM to work for a measly 3 hours for a scrawny amount of money. Instead, I'm doing essentially the exact same thing I was doing, but with more convenient hours, no weekends, better pay and free meal options. Oh shit. I was planning on working at Bagel Place A (names changed to protect, um, I dunno) and picking up one or two shifts at Bagel Place B when I could, but when I went in today to talk to the boss at B, he offered me a better deal and I had to take it. I had no idea that job negotiation stuff like that took place at this level of employment, I thought you had to be some big shit Wall Street dink or work at a place that lets you sit down. Anybody can do my job, it's not terribly difficult. "Jack, you are such a natural talent at taking a bagel, cutting it open and then putting things on the bagel, that we just can't afford to lose you. Let's talk stock options." Uh, sure. So now I'm working less hours for the same amount of money, I get weekends free and I don't have take dumps all over myself worrying about the 2 hours of sleep I get every week. Oh man.

So, things are going swimmingly. I am relieved about the future, now that I have rearranged my situation. I was starting to feel burnt out with my schedule this semester, and it has only been the first week. That's usually a bad sign. Now I am happy, having quit my job. It won't even feel like it: I go straight to the new job from the old job with no breaks, but still. The act of quitting felt so good that it doesn't even matter that I still have a job. I smell terrible right now. Don't smell me.