Randomness

• The Michael Shea's Irish Amber Lager bottle tells me, "Strangers are only friends who have never met." I'd say that perfectly sums up the exact opposite of my thoughts on the matter.

• Stevie Ray Vaughan was the greatest guitar player ever. Prove me wrong.

• Since I decided I'm not going to keep giving Comcast my business, Verizon DSL will be my new internet provider starting 9/22. I had to sign up for a phone line to get DSL; I haven't had a phone other than my cell in over 2 years. I've already begun to be bombarded by unwelcome solicitation. This was how a conversation went today:

"Hello sir, this is Bitchy calling from Asshole Mortgage company. Are you interested in refinancing?"
"Actually I might be. Let me ask you a question though. I quit my job a few month ago and now I'm self-employed. Are you going to be able to underwrite a mortgage with this situation?"
"Well sir, what do you do now?"
"I'm a professional gambler."
"... Professional gambling??"
"Yes."
[derisive chuckle] "I don't think so."
"I suspected as much."
CLICK.

• I've been playing a disturbing amount of Risk online using the service from this site. It is the game of global domination!

• Young humans (infants and children) are built to survive to adulthood. Human adults are built to reproduce and care for young, while surviving and thriving in a complex social structure. These are two very different states, as drastically different as caterpillar/butterfly. No wonder teenagers and young adults are such moody bitches. Their entire being is changing, in preparation for a completely different mode of existence. They should be wrapped in a protective cocoon. What the hell am I talking about?

• Good luck had just stung me. To the racetrack I did go. She bet on one horse to win and I bet on another to show. The odds were in my favor! I had 'em 5 to 1. That nag to win came round the track, sure enough we had won. Up on cripple creek she sends me. If I spring a leak, she mends me. I don't have to speak, she defends me. A drunkard's dream if I ever did see one.

• Paul Phillip's blog. Larry David's Sitcom. Freakonomics. Adam & Dr. Drew's Radio Show. I love these guys because they speak their mind without apology, and don't put up with anyone's bullshit but their own. And I love how they delicately walk the line of not taking themeselves seriously at all, while simultaneously taking themselves completely seriously. The world needs more highly-principled, unabashedly selfish, ego-fueled bastards like these guys, and I mean "selfish" and "ego-fueled" in a completely respectful and complimentary way. Yes I am completely serious. These were just 4 examples I came up with. I hope there are more. Oooh, Southpark is on that list, whoever those guys are. (By the way, this add campaign for the new season of Curb Your Enthusiam is awesome. "Deep inside, you know you're him." Perfect. Except for me it isn't just deep inside. It is on the surface, in the middle, and throughout the depths of my soul.)

• NFL football is awesome. I wonder what is going to happen to me when NBA season starts.
  

• You don't need a penny just to hang around. But if you got a nickel, won't you lay your money down.

• I contemplate my own mortality at least once an hour. Is it unhealthy to spend so much of my mental energy obsessing about aging and death? Death is completely terrifying, and it is the only thing in life that is guaranteed. Shit. Shit. Hopefully I have 40 or 50 more years. Shit.

• I think next time a mortgage officer cold-calls me, I'm going to repeat the exact same conversation as the last one, but then at the end if they laugh at me, I'll say I was just joking. Then when they act all relieved and ask what I really do I'll say "You just laughed at me, and now you expect me to take you seriously?" I'll listen to them fumbling around in apology and then I'll just put the phone down without hanging up and go professionally gamble. I wonder how long they'll stay on the line before hanging up. STOP CALLING ME YOU FUCKS! DON'T CALL ME AND ASK ME FOR MONEY. I hate everyone. Except you. You're cool.