Coveting of every kind

• Laptop - looking at an Apple MacBook Pro, or a Widescreen thinkpad - basically will cost $2,500
  
• Cintiq Drawing tablet -if you don't know what this is. It's basically a huge 22 inch monitor you can draw on. The price tag is ONLY $2,500
  
• Taylor Guitar - I've always wanted one, and they've been too expensive. Finally, the prices have .....INCREASED! OMG. I'm tempted even more to buy one now, before the price inflates anymore. It's seriously increased about 20% in the last 3 years. The price tag is only $2,500

That's a lot of money. I can hear my mother now. "Tim, that's a lot of money, you should save it". I don't blame her or hate her. In about 20 years when I'm talkin to some youngster "I remember when I earned my first $100,000. You whipper-snappers don't appreciate anything ..... gahhh!"

I remember my first $1000 dollars. I wanted to buy a guitar with it. And I did! I had a Gibson Les Paul Studio ....for one day. They made me return it the next day. Ah, what a sweet 24 hours. How I still dream of the ebony body and rosewood fretboard.

Seriously though, what is the point of saving, if you can't spend it? Having a large bank account but no material goods is practically being poor. I believe this is called the Midas fallacy. Gold is great, but only as a means to get other things. Poor guy wanted gold, but realized he couldn't trade it for anything. He starved to death; you can't eat gold.

Summary: Maybe I should just get 2000 hamburgers. You can't eat a MacBook Pro.

Unidentified Brushing Object

UFO abductees claim to be subjects of various horrifying tests. Strange metal objects, knives, and strange sensations are common in all descriptions. Bright lights are often cited, coupled with strange murmuring and off tone music.

Sounds like the dentist to me.

First, a masked man comes in with goggles and a white coat. If his outfit is a hint of my diagnosis, I already feel like I have SARS. Actually, I’m not sure if it’s a man. My vision is blurred. Dominating my vision is a strange light that looks like the laser from ID4. It’s not strong enough to pop my eyeballs, but it’s definitely slow roasting my brain.

A lead vest is placed on my torso to protect my body from gamma rays, x-rays, or maybe even superman’s leering eye. Apparently my dentist assumes my head is made of lead, because I don’t receive any protective equipment for my skull. It’s ok to fry brains, but not my lungs.

They then proceed to stick that nasty film in your mouth, and take a picture with their *camera*. The *camera* has a barrel that could shoot photon torpedoes. By the way, the only way to know if the film is in the correct position, is for the patient to gag uncontrollably. If I don’t gag, Mr. White Coat will continually position the film till I do. To add to the joke, I have to hold the film in a gagging position. There’s probably a good joke here, but I don’t know what it is.

Then the horror starts. The tray next to my head platters orc weapons from the Lord of the Rings movies. Tools that the Dentist is happy to smile about. Apparently, my dentist is a sadist. I won’t go into the details, but it’s quite scary to see random iron hooks and blades enter your mouth and to see liquid explode from the lip line. By the way, they say it’s toothpaste they use, but I suspect its just Vaseline.

This begs the question: Aliens or the dentist?

I leave the office feeling like I’ve gnawed on cedar for 2 years. Some of my friends returned with “braces”. They say its for your teeth, but I suspect parents impose metal on your teeth to keep dating potentials low. I’ve never left the dentist feeling good.

I’ve never heard anyone complaining about bad dental work after being abducted. Sure, my new pimple has seeds of an alien race. And yes, I’m a walking biological time bomb. But you’d never know it with this great smile.

*ting*

Summary: At least you don’t remember much from the UFO

Disappointing Fajitas

Roughly about twice a month I crave good Mexican food. And, since I can’t find good Mexican food, I go out and get bad Mexican food. Who wants fresh fajitas? I most certainly reject large burritos. At baja fresh, this giant is called the “dos manos”; but who can eat that much food? That’s why I only go to small empty Mexican restaurants named after Spanish Aunts and Uncles. Who wants an abundance of grilled meat, beans, and cheese for only 5 dollars? And definitely I don’t want fresh guacamole. I need old guacamole to protect against disease with it’s killer mold.

Fajita-loving losers need to be put in their place. Fajitas cost 10 dollars and burritos cost 5. Basically, the people order a open faced burrito, and pay an extra 5 dollars for a sweaty high-schooler to bring it out on a sizzling plate. Show offs. I know, I’ve got an idea! Let’s put super crappy meat in the fajitas. All the carne asada fat collect from lunch can be covered with vegetables, and no one is the wiser. They will envy the burrito people! And when the customers look like they are going to hurl, keep giving them more salsa to kill the taste of your own food.

Anyways, if you can’t tell, me and Jon Chen ate at the WORST Mexican restaurant ever. Even the waitress was mysteriously nice. It’s the same mysteriously nice that seen in a dark evil-browed men in dance clubs. So what if he’s evil, and so what he’s offering you a drink with a eerie lookin pill at the bottom, free drink right? Right?

I’ve never had a discipleship interrupted with regurgitating food. We must have looked like two mother birds pre-chewing all the meat for our kids at home. People must have stared in disgust. Oh wait. There are no customers because the restaurant is empty. Probably because they died from the belly-busting fajitas.

Don’t eat at Sarape. I think sarape means “you’ll hate our beef”

Summary: Why is it so hard to find good burritos in LA?

80/20

How much recycled conversation do you have?

Today is Sunday. Often on Sundays I play time machine with the week. I like to recall the top events, favorite moments, and chores of the week. What did I talk about this week? Food, girls, money, church, work, books; the list goes on. How many times did I reuse conversation? A lot.

Grace on Campus has increased in popularity and the resulting numbers for the last couple of years. I kid you not, our numbers on Friday nights average at about 290 with deviation of about 10 people. Grace on Campus doesn’t fit in Rolfe anymore.

And Grace on Campus doesn’t fit into my head anymore.

Not to be a prick, but I can’t track that many cool people. And yes, that many of them are cool. I’ve got my small group, my old small group, some CBM alumni, and that’s not counting new visitors, or freshmen that could use a visit or two. Realize, kind reader, I haven’t scheduled time for my friends yet.

After this Sunday evaluation, I realize I spend about 80% of my time talking about what I do for 20% of my time. My illustrations and stories rerun several times a day. It’s like watching old episodes of Seinfeld. Now, the disease is worsening, causing me mix stories together. I’ll start the story at a nice restaurant and end up in the middle of a bad high school dance experience. There is a definite increase in the question “have I told you this before?” Reporting the daily news on my life has become my new recreation.

I wonder if Brian and Greg Gumble ever develop a iterating syndrome from retelling the same story excessive times. I’m sure they boozed a lot during the Olympics when Kerri Strug won the gymnastics Gold back in the day. The story was played over and over and over…...And in the future, watch. While reporting some tragedy in Scottsdale, Greg Gumble’s brain will burn out like an old Dell laptop battery.

I need to re-vamp my life somehow.

This needs to stop. Monday through Saturday are not made to be news sessions for what happened on Sunday. And my 30s aren’t made to retell everything that happened in my 20’s and childhood. Life is meant to be lived and seized.

Maybe less people and more of life?

Maybe less reporting, and more living?

Summary: I bet Dan Rather would rather bathe and lather than sit and chatter.

High Resistance Skills

I like to curl iron from time to time. There’s nothing better knowing you can curl a lot of steel with one arm. Who cares if you have no shoulders, show those ladies your nice biceps. My new human trick is crushing cans with my hand. I haven’t mastered it yet, but trust me, it’ll be astounding.

Feats of strength are what I call high resistance skills. Another high resistance skill is drawing or reading. The more difficult the book or art piece, the better the person becomes. I’ve also noticed over-eating is a high resistance skill. The more food a person eats, the better he becomes at imitating Shamu. I’ve been told that abstaining from motor oil and tune ups makes your car work harder; thus makes it stronger. The jury’s still out on that one.

Even though no one will admit it, every group of friends houses one high resistance friend. There’s always one guy that exists just to make you funnier, nicer, smarter, etc. Simon was that friend for me. Simon had all the coolest electronics and toys, but was as boring as bricks. He had a mullet most of the time. The rest of the time, his hair was stylized for any early glam-rock bands. At least he made the rest of us cooler.

If you think that, “no, no that’s not true.” It’s probably because YOU are THAT friend.

My new theory is that Ugly company will give me the resistance I need to blossom to attractiveness. I am covertly conducting testing now. If you read my Xanga, you are not in the Uggo pool. (someone earlier was worried if they were my friend, because they wanted to be good looking. See earlier postings)

I used to think that blogging was also a High Resistance Skill, but looking at my earlier entries….

Summary: Guess not.

Centurions and April

When the the weather clears, the sun shines, and the grass is green, I rest in the Hills of UCLA. Reading in the Apartment dulls. Praying stales in closets. Perfect reasons and a perfect time to sit in some green.

For today’s devotional I looked at Matthew 8:

A centurion replies to Jesus: “I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I, too, am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. And I say to one, ‘Go’ and he goes, and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it. – Matthew 7

A centurion speaks a command, soldiers obey. No pause. No questions. Consider God’s authority, a mountain to the previous centurion pimple. God is a marshal of all living, all created, and all natural ( for lack of a better word ) things. If a centurion commands men and wars, then God commands all, from molecules to storms, if not even time itself.

Why not speak me to perfection? A simple word would make me tall, buff, wonderful, and excellent at any skill. I would be very Spartan-esc. My current body on the other hand….

So, why am I the way I am? My shortcomings visit me daily performing any human task. Droughts of wisdom retard any hope of good judgment. The cavity in my skull has been filled with stupid. God made my inward parts. After the bathroom, sometimes I suspect they are used parts. My body is the envy of many circus-freaks. Long-arms, big nose, and thunder thighs don’t exactly earn me GQ cover shots. But, based on Matthew 8 God orders all things, so…..

It’ll have some purpose. Someday. It’s my only hope.

Summary: I’m not sure how pimples will be used. When they eventually play their part, I’ll laugh a lot.

Car Grunting

Car grunting

Home isn’t home without the sound effects. I am not referring to the TV, stereo, video games, or kitchen appliances. Let me explain a little history. The lee blood line is lax with adjectives. All topics and issues fall into four degrees of “Good”, “Bad”, “Terrible”, and Ugly.

“Good job on the Yardwork”
“The meat is bad”
“The car sounds terrible”
“Your (tim) grades are Ugly”

When adjectives prove insufficient, Lees will compensate with sound effects. Words can’t capture the incidental sound effects. Instead they will be written in. I will denote them in ( ).

Dad: “…. Yada, I backed up the car yesterday (eeeeeeeeerrrrrrrpppppphhhfff!!), and I hit a tree (kapooow!). Then the service crews came up to the tree and (bam bam bam bam) the tree is in pieces.”

Sister: “Well, that crazy story is nothing. Yesterday I forgot my computer for lab, I was like (wa-la-la-la-la-la) where is it? (ahhhhhhhhhr! Yybhhbyhply!).

And now I follow suit.

Employer: “Describe a difficult situation you have encountered. What solution did you apply?”

Me: “Once this guy would make me so (errrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggh!), you know? And he would always steal my pencils. His victory sound was like (muheeheheheeeheee!), pretty crazy, I know….”

Summary: I didn’t get that Job.

80/20

How much recycled conversation do you have?

Today is Sunday. Often on Sundays I play time machine with the week. I like to recall the top events, favorite moments, and chores of the week. What did I talk about this week? Food, girls, money, church, work, books; the list goes on. How many times did I reuse conversation? A lot.

Grace on Campus has increased in popularity and the resulting numbers for the last couple of years. I kid you not, our numbers on Friday nights average at about 290 with deviation of about 10 people. Grace on Campus doesn’t fit in Rolfe anymore.

And Grace on Campus doesn’t fit into my head anymore.

Not to be a prick, but I can’t track that many cool people. And yes, that many of them are cool. I’ve got my small group, my old small group, some CBM alumni, and that’s not counting new visitors, or freshmen that could use a visit or two. Realize, kind reader, I haven’t scheduled time for my friends yet.

After this Sunday evaluation, I realize I spend about 80% of my time talking about what I do for 20% of my time. My illustrations and stories rerun several times a day. It’s like watching old episodes of Seinfeld. Now, the disease is worsening, causing me mix stories together. I’ll start the story at a nice restaurant and end up in the middle of a bad high school dance experience. There is a definite increase in the question “have I told you this before?” Reporting the daily news on my life has become my new recreation.

I wonder if Brian and Greg Gumble ever develop a iterating syndrome from retelling the same story excessive times. I’m sure they drank a lot during the Olympics when Kerri Strug won the gymnastics Gold. The story was played over and over and over…... Reporting some tragedy in Scottsdale, Greg Gumble’s brain will burn out like an old Dell laptop battery.

I need to re-vamp my life somehow.

This needs to stop. Monday through Saturday are not made to be news sessions for what happened on Sunday. And my 30s aren’t made to retell everything that happened in my 20’s and childhood. Life is meant to be lived and seized.

Maybe less people and more of life?

Maybe less reporting, and more living?

Summary: I bet Dan Rather would rather bathe and lather than sit and chatter.

Reverse Showmanship

Showmanship - When in contact with other people, use your best stories, your best speech, and your best tricks. When its going good, leave, to make sure you end on a high note.

One of my apartment mates small group THINKS I'm hilarious.
They THINK so, but I KNOW better than them. Why do I seem funny? Here are some theories:

1. We interact freely after 4 hours of bible study
2. We interact after 11pm
3. I hate the world around 11pm. This goes on for an hour and begin my midnight rant.
4. I'm not their small group leader
5. I frankly don't care if I seem homeless or the king of england to their eyes. I say whatever i please.
   

I see this crowd about twice a month. They swear I'm better than ketchup on fries after 12. It would be an awesome feeling. If only I believed it too.

Now MY small group thinks I'm an idiot

1. They don't remember what i say after the first hour
2. I seem to wear the same clothing every small group (I have a rotation)
3. I mis-match faces and names
4. I give the "I'm clueless face" a lot.
5. I'm their small group leader

Small group is also the a serious time. I don't want to come to the end of my life and tell God that I used bible study time to try my new comedic stand-up routine. So once a week my small group gets serious Tim for 4 hours. Reverse showmanship. Not by choice.

I wonder what type of showmanship my parents get? My parents must suspect I have chronic mono, for my intense love of sleep. Maybe a rice addiction too.

I wonder what type of showmanship my friends get?

I is no write no good

I am reading a book called “Revised Prose”

6+ years ago I was liberated from the jail called High School English. Fast forward to the present, and I am writing again. I suck. My writing sucks. My prose is a suck. I lack many of the important components of English. I’ve lost my confidence. My fingers type the words, but my brain is divided. One half scans each letter and the other filters each word. Is this the right word?`

What is the big deal? Why fret over “just writing”?

I want to write about epic memories and monumental feelings. No drawing or song, or picture can capture fragile human moments. I want the capture to be clear, captivating, and, put simply, to be enjoyable to read.

So Why Fight? To fight sentences like this:

“It seems that I have no way to give quarter to the movements of my heart which are often captive to an over-sensitized standard of literary perfectionism for composition.”

And convert them to

“My perfection debilitates my written communication of emotion.”

I have a lot of sentence fat. Not solely in writing, but also in speaking. Here are my top useless phrases.

“I think” – Why say “I think?” There is a name on the paper. There is a body forming words. No one will have problems identifying who is talking or who is thinking. This phrase adds uncertainty to the following ideas. “I think I’m happy” sounds more shakey than “I’m happy”. “I’m uncertain” replaces “I think” as a good alternate.

“It seems” – Yet another phrase killed with overuse. The meaning of this particular phrase remains fugitive. The best paraphrase I can think of is – “I see something similar to X idea, but I’m not sure….

“is _____ed (past tense)” – “Is bettered”, “Is marked”, “Is used”, bah! It’s a present tense “to be” verb with a past tense modifier. All the previous phrases should be replaced with their active counterparts. This is called “who kicked who?” Keep the active verb, and place the object and subject in the correct places.

Any prepositional phrase. Of course, in all honesty with all respect, who could imagine an idea of such preposterous assumptions of pride above a statement so clear with clarity? Hee hee

Summary: This is why I hate journaling. I like my memories. I like having a complete record. I just don’t like the way I immortalized them with words.

New Kind of Profane

There are many things that should not enjoy. Many of them are on YouTube. Many of them are profane.

I am desensitized to profanity. It was used in the bathroom, in the classroom, in the gym, over lunch, and after school. Not all profanity is angry. Movies only show angry profanity. Profanity can be used for good. Here are some non-aggressive examples:

1. That is some funny (crude word for poo poo)
   
2. These fries are (foul language-ing) fantastic

This is the language of Oakland, my home town. Hearing someone getting cussed out in a funny video clip is just another warm memory of high school.

And now I am in Los Angeles.

Apparently there are other words you just can't say around here. I am not talking about profanity. Foul and filth pepper my 9-5 workplace with laughter and smiles, but once I talk about having children late in life, or having too much weight, someone starts warming up the electric chair. I once made a comment about my co-worker eating a large volume of girl scout cookies. I almost saw the lord that day. Apparently Jane the co worker doesn't being mind being called a skank or a ho, but Jane hates being called Jane the mature, or Jane the chocolate lover.

I always assumed that the term Maturity is associated with honor, knowledge, and respectability. Somewhere down the line Maturity turned into a synonym for bloated undateable lady prune.

Summary: I can't use the o-word or the f-word (the 3 letter one).

I'm not built for Highways

The parking garage was the first sign that today was going to suck like a hole in the hull of the space shuttle.

Ever get in a panic trying to decipher freeway and high way cuneiform? Those pesky arrows point at random lanes, none of which lead to your destination. Bright yellow boxes saying “exit only” indicate your current lane will hijack the path of your car. The gangster off-ramp crosses 2 residential areas and drops you like a cocaine shipment in the middle of the ghetto. Right behind a taco truck.

I don’t know why people worry about terrorists. First, it is common knowledge that all terrorists will strike at night. If they ever hit LA at night, the main highways 405 and the 10 will either be chuck full drunken party traffic, or all the off/on ramps will be closed for maintenance. Accompanying the maintenance are more cones than all the car commercials of the 90’s combined. At this point Terrorist A says to Terrorist B: “Wa-La-la-la! Why did we make demands for midnight! The 10 is not moving! We will never make it in time to blow up the staples center! And this taco truck is going SO slow. Wa-la-la-la-la! I know i could be going faster! Look at that red car, its like 4 cars ahead now! I should have stayed in that lane. If I take Olympic, that’ll still take me forever….Wa-la-la-la-la!”.

Am I the only one that does psychological warfare with street signs and arrows? Everytime I see an sign like “Freeway ->” I can’t tell if it’s the closest right turn, or the next right turn? My mind starts doing battle with the imaginary sinister urban planner about which is the right turn? It's like a nasty trick. No matter what choice I take, and wah-la: again, I find myself in the middle of the ghetto behind a taco truck.

Don’t even get me started on downtown. Downtown’s streets were designed by a drunk factory designer. All those one way streets turn into a merging nightmare. Also, if a turn is missed, a simple U-turn transforms into a journey resembling an escape from the death star. And his time, Vadar shadowing you in fancy CEO sports car and is late for his 12pm sith lord lunch, assailing you with swearing torpedos, and horn laser blasts.

Summary: I’m wrote this entry because I missed the Garage, missed my ticket, missed my flight, and am squatting in the airport.

Edible Packaging

Fortune cookies are a marvelous man-made creation. The wrapper is edible and if the message was written on rice paper, the entire process would be waste-free.

The Chinese were on to something. It just needs to be finished. After a minor tax, all packaging would be woven structures of food. Dell computers would be packed with hard sugar and marshmallow contraptions. Your Nike Shoes would come with a burrito inside to help it hold shape, and the box would be made of graham crackers. You fancy Apple Mac computers would be shaped from Peppermint and white chocolate.

They could even use the basic fortune cookie and shape it for all sorts of uses.
“Sir, here is a delivery.” Hands larger cookie folder.
Munch Munch “Ack! It’s bitter! It must be a subpoena!” *Unroll* “Blast, they found my illegitimate cloned child!”

Or in a stock holder’s meeting –
“This year’s earnings are rolled up on rice paper in the middle of those large hostess ho-hos.”

And even best -
“Tom Cruise, here’s the secret codes. Here’s your secret mission. Proceed and destroy the evidence.” Munch munch “They gotta stop using MSG in the secret transmissions”

Flavors would be indicative of the mood of the message. “I got a message from my girl in California, it’s sweet like candy!”

“Really? I got a message from my mother in law, and I think I got food poisoning.”

Summary: I think that blogs would taste like Guacamole Chips.

I am a Pencil Snob

I picked up a Staedler the other day. Paid a healthy 6 dollars for led pencil and sharpener.

6 dollars for a pencil? Why would I do it? The answer starts with a Y. Youtube. I was browsing random videos like a drunk man checking bottles for booze. I clicked on a link to "Jim Lee".

At that time of day, "Jim Lee" didn't trigger any ideas. Haha, he has my last name, nothing to give a holler about. Then it struck me, Jim Lee danced with the stars! Not literally of course, he IS asian after all. Jim Lee is one of the finest comic book artists alive. His sketches have been over X-men for a while, and now he runs his own comic book studio, drawing and writing whatever his whimsical soy-sauced desires command.

In a low-resolution, homemade video, he sketches up a mean superhero in pencil. He literally makes it look like he waves a wand and the image appears for him to ink.

Now as every asian has done before, we try to emulate. This first involves imitating the master in every aspect possible. I'm chinese, he's korean, check one. He's a nerd, I'm a nerd. He has paper. I have paper. Check. So what is left? The pencil.

And that brings me to this moment. I'm finger rubbing and smelling this pencil like its a fine cigar. And my faith is that this is the missing component to my future comic book empire.

In harry potter fashion, I wave this thick pencil over my paper and wa la! A thick line. That's it? No fantastic adventure? No spirit of the paper? I feel cheapened somehow. It is as though I traded my soul for a gold statue, only to find that gold statue to be made of twinkies.

I guess as long as people thing equipment makes the artist, there will always be a huge market for useless products. How many people do you know that actually use the full capacity of their computer? Their laptop? Their fancy SLR? Their fancy instruments. How blind we are, how materialistic our view of commodities are.

When did skill fall off the charts?

Summary: What do you mean I can't buy skill?

Feelings?

When was the last time you cried?

For girls, it'll either be:
A. When your girlfriend got engaged.
B. When you got engaged
C. When you realized your diet wasn't working and you busted your favorite pair of pants.

For guys, naming the last crying instance isn't very easy. For me, crying transports me to a turbulent time. Transformers the movie opened in 86' (that just sounds old now). During Week Holy mass I watched the Autobots kick the screws out of the decepticons and loved every moment of it. But nothing could prepare me for the movie.

First of all, hi quality Japanese illustrations and colors replace the shoddy American work. In the opening scenes a driving rock track pulsed during a high speed driving scene of Hotrod. I almost coughed up candy from the previous week when i saw the animation. When combat ensued, I almost hacked up my innards. It was a frackin' war of 100s of robots !

Then it happened, some of the characters started to die. My eyes have been scarred by some bad horror flix, or slasher films, but nothing is burns in comparison to watching purple energy put holes through your favorite Autobot.

And then it happen. Frackin' Hasbro killed Optimus Prime. The movie didn't just killed him, they mutilated him. He got shot, punched, hacked, stabbed with electronic stalactite; it may as well have been my dad. That was just some plain sad gangster crap. I cried and cried for a whole day and a half. I think a friend accompanied me, but I can't remember who because of all the snot and tears I was shedding. He was crying too. What do you expect? they KILLED Optimus! KILLED HIM!

But that was years ago......*sniff* *sniff*

Summary: If I drank booze, I'd pour out some for you Optimus, rest in peace.

The Ultimate Album

My current crack cocaine goes by the name Itunes.

In theory it's great. Instead of buying 13 tracks of underproduced, over-packaged music, you can buy the 1 track of accidental genius from all your favorite artists. And let's face it folks, I estimate about 8% of all music made is good. How old is the music industry? You would figure they would have it down by now, at least 20% or 15%.

In light of all how we despise at least one song on every Album we buy, I submit to you the ultimate album.

The ultimate album would have 4 essential characteristics.

1. A Triple Platinum or Zirconium number 1 hit single - the single would have to be short, like less than a minute, and would induce vomiting and drooling. Crowds would be awed by its power and songbird qualities. By awed i mean vomiting for joy.

2. A sleeper hit - It would have to be a song about God, the moodiness of females, or some other left-wing, non-PC topic. The content would keep it banned from Television and radio, but it would be sugar to all those internet kiddies on YouTube and Myspace. The sleeper hit would have catchy phrases coined in all AIM conversations, like "hey now........... you're a rock star..." (how old is that song, I still here people chime in to that one)

3. An Awesome Live Track - This track would be a copy of the sleeper hit or the hit single. It would be packed with screaming girls screaming requests for love: "I love you!", or "you make me want to scream!" or "stop making me cry!" or "be the father of my kids!"

• The artist must swear once when describing the awesome city he's playing "What's up f****** (insert city name here)!"
• The crowd must sing along to the chorus or bridge of the song. The sound
  
• The solo by the gangster guitarist has to melt all the faces of the front row, and throw in other phrasing from other pop tunes.

4. A Guest Appearance Collaboration - For the widest appeal, the guest would be either Elton John or Paul McCartney. For sheer music epiphany, a cross-genre guest would work better. Guy girl combos would activate God-designed harmony. Just make sure you choose the right people. Having Norah Jones sing for Metallica will suck the testosterone out of any man.

5. The Bleeder - The bleeder has one purpose and one purpose only. To kill the listener. This is usually done with intense guitar work and searing licks for the solo. If its a piano, it has to slowly lead the listener into a voluntary coma. The only singer that could possibly do a bleeder track is Mariah Carey, whose high notes would shatter your bones and pop your eyeballs like the death star. (She hasn't done this yet because dead listeners don't buy your next hoochie album).

Summary: I'm scared of Mariah Carey.

The Man?

Everyone wants to be the "man". The "man" has unbelievably good looks, good luck with women, and magically falls waist-deep into riches. Is there anyone who wouldn't want to be... the MAN?

I don't.

The MAN always has a great start. Some young country boy with rugged good looks charms his way into a commercial. Soon his innocence and quiet demeanor skyrockets him to the movie business. The MAN is wooed by fame and fortune and embraces it. Three wives will move in and out of his life, and then disaster will strike. He will either

A. Make a racist comment
B. Have illegitimate children
C. Start doing drugs
D. Try to play a professional drug

It will be an all time low. The crowd will not want him, no, more than that; despise him. the MAN has never faced rejection, he knows not how to deal with it. He will wallow in depression for years and gutter out in underground Has-been wrestling matches, begging for the attention and love of his pet animals.

Where will I be?

After getting rejected from stardom, high school girls, sports, and any type of muscle gang, I concede and accept my destiny as a Nerd. I sit myself in front of a computer. Confident in my calling and equipped with a thick skin of rejection, I dominate the world, gather riches, and marry the prettiest girl alive.

Summary: I'm in front of the computer, just waitin for the rest to kick into place....

Compensating for Idiots

I am an engineer. When designing anything, a large amount of time is spent on idiots.

Why is there rubber on the corners of your table? Idiots might hurt themselves.
Why do you have round-tipped scissors that can't cut s***? Idiots might hurt themselves.
Why do they make Macs? Idiots might hurt themselves.

That's right. Cross-walk signals. Instructions for hot pockets. An Entire industry feeds on the lack of intelligence from dum dum america. Idiots often sound like this:

"What I'm trying to say is..."
"That's not what i mean, what i mean is..."
"It's like a boat...."
"Ok, it's like when you were in kindergarden"

We don't live in a Democracy, we live in an Idiocracy. People even fear intelligence because "it'll make me and nerd", "it'll make my hair fall out", or "your head grows big when you get smart right? I like the Big-Alien look". Did you get that? People CHOOSE to be dumb.

My new business idea is to capitalize on idiots. My dad did. Every year he convinced into yanking the same set of weeds for $1/hour. Great ideas have already flourished under idiocracy: Bottled Water, Chicken in a Biscuit (how the heck did they pull that one off), Chick of the sea, anything made by Ore-Ida, Trans-fat, No-carb Cereal, fruit snacks, and the list of unnatural pointless projects goes on.

i think Electronics insurance would be a great field. I would sell insurance plans covering desktops, laptops, and mp3 players. Of course Idiots will flock to my great company, fearing separation from their internet addictions. Also, the protection from obselete technology would drive them to throw carts of cash. They would think they are getting a great deal.

But I would be much sneakier. I would get out of paying people their claims by adding loopholes in the paperwork not covering certain "patches and updates", or "new" hardware. It would sound all tech-ish in the documentation, obscuring any cognition of blithering idiot America. Basically anything that causes problems won't be covered.

But they won't know that, cuz they're idiots.

Summary: Fight Stupidity. Read a book

People are crappy.

Stress and fatigue are top two reasons for personality dysfunction.

Funny Bob suddenly isn't funny. And naturally Bob is asked "Why are you being a loser now, Bob?" Choose your favorite answer

A. I'm stressed out from _______
B. I'm very tired from _______
C. I ate at an odd hour
D. Maybe you suck.
E. Yo momma's a loser now
F. Yo face

"Yo face" is my current favorite. All my friends use this in all situations.

Interviewer: "Would you like this job, working for us?"
College Friend: " Yo face is working for us".

Dean: "You are in a very serious situation, mr. lee"
College Friend: "Yo face is a very serious situation."

Girlfriend: "My face has a lot of pimples"
College Friend: "Yo face has a lot of pimples"

For everything else there is VISA. And when VISA doesn't work. Stress is blamed. Bob is no longer funny. Bob isn't the reason stress over taxes is the culprit. Perhaps the criminal is fatigue from carrying the wife's many shopping bags from the marble outlet. It couldn't be Bob. Bob being uncool and not funny? Impossible!

So here's the new Utopia: no one has stress, and everyone has their maximium performance personality on display. All stress has been eliminated. There is no work, no marriage, no girlfriends, no boyfriends, no sales, no used cars, no broccoli, that's right; paradise. But wait? I just got rid of a lot of good things too.

When answers to questions start eliminating love, eating, and bargaining people to straw huts, the theory is pretty much poo poo.

Whatever happened to just being a crappy person? Apparently the next generation of mirrors broke, because a majority people's faces aren't exactly adding a lot of value to society. Foul mouthing is also driving contributions into the red.

Is there any reason to hide your hideous personality? Plenty of reasons. But if considered long enough, you will realize that everyone has a bit of medusa under their skin. The only loser will be the one who continually looks in the mirror and claims that he does not.

Summary: You think I'm wrong? Well, yo face is wrong!

Are they nice or are they dumb?

Ever wonder if people are giving you courtesy sounds? I remember giving several bad jokes with a lot of joy, and receiving a lot chuckles. Where they honest? or was I receiving social pity?

There are only 3 possibilities.

1. They are being nice.
2. They are being idiots.
3. They are idiots.

Now, considering that my friends could do stand ins for cave men, items 2 and 3 are actually very different. I am also not saying I shun those of the idioacracy, for it is a great nation which allows us to sue ladder companies for our lack of literacy, gives us In-and-Out drive throughs, and Amazon 1-click ordering. I am a just saying it would be nice to know who is stupid.

Simple question, right? Who is dumb, or who is smart? Homer or O.J. Simpson (this should be easy). Except that it isn't an easy question. For instance, what about our famous Nobel Prize-Winning Physicist who can't find the glasses on his very own forehead, or perhaps a better example is a brilliant chess prodigy who can't stop crapping in his pants?

Forget finding clean power, forget finding ways to habitate the moon. Idiots will always roam the earth, slowing down our DSL, growing on gym locker room floors, why don't we have better security against them? Anyone that looks remotely like the taliban is constantly harrassed yet Bobo who grew up eating yellow crayons thinking they were french fries gets to take care of your children for years at a time?

All I'm saying is, I'd like to know if the girl laughing with me is either being really nice at my obvious neanderthal heritage, or has breathed in too much hairspray.

Summary: I'd take the hairspray girl, she'd be easier to keep happy, and probably wouldn't lace my cereal with impotency pills to make sure I don't procreate. Implying? Me? Nawwwww

Eloquence from Afar

It's very frustrating that I can't write like my favorite writers. Gosh, I've read numerous accounts of their adventures in the everyday life. How can I not nab or grab part of their writing style? I'm still stuck in my mediocre block by block Ideas. Maybe if i start exegeting their work, I'll understand what it is that makes a great wit, or a great writer.

Some people say: "just write how you talk". Cowdung. Have you been to my hometown? Seems like people unanimously replaced the period and commas with "foo" or "sucka".

Some common Grocery Store language.

"how much are these tomatos foo?"
"Milanos are on sale Sucka!"
"There's a two for one sale, foo."
"I'm hungry Pete, come on foo."

Would that not increase you, the reader's chance for lowered IQ?

At the same time i find i have great difficulty keeping my sentences concise. I want to add an idea to an idea to an idea to an idea and so on. I'll also used "it seems", or "almost", or "similar to". I'm not sure what that is called. Is it passive-whatchamacallit? or Active tense-3rd observer?

Blast, i despise my lack of language. You know what great writing is? Great writing is this:

• What’s the longest you’ve ever worn a shirt backwards without knowing? I don’t mean inside-out. That happens all the time, and you can go all day like that. People might even think it’s intentional. I’m talking about backwards, where the little label in the collar ends up under your chin.
  
  I usually catch myself after the first five minutes of wearing a shirt backward. I call that my mean-time-to-backward-shirt-awareness, or MTBSA. I monitor that metric because once it hits 15 minutes I know it’s time to start wearing a fishing hat and driving slowly in the passing lane.
  
  My tennis partner once showed up for our match with his shorts on backwards. It didn’t make much difference except when he tried to put his balls in his pocket. [Insert your own joke here. But don’t use “That’s gotta hurt” because I just did.]

That's Scott Adams, my hero! Agggggggg! This lack of English literature and prose-sensing ability really gets on my nerves.

Summary: I hate my chinese genetic English language cap.

My body hates me

I'll be honest.
I started to find hair in the shower. I think it's mine.

My follicle buddies seem to think I'm done for, and they are jumping ship. My little snake hairs have decided to gather at the summit on my knees, waiting for UFOs to come and rescue them from impending doom.

I think my body hates me.

For most people, they have great relationship with their body. "I need to nap right now." or "This isn't going to sit very well, I can tell already". My body is not happy until I've been successful incapacitated or destoryed.

About a week ago I happily gave my body some traditional Sak's Teriyaki place. My body was resented me, but like many girls I know, it didn't tell me. It hinted and nagged with chest pains as I was eating delicious spicy chicken. For two hours, my stomach decides to store up some anger and unleash its revenge in middle of a big joke, out of range of any bathroom.

Also for you Wii-er's out there. Everything is all fun and Nintendo-y, for weeks at a time. Oh the joy of Wii bowling and tennis. Then one day you try to flip your LG phone to call back a Laurie, a hot date. Your wrist decides to give you a celebrity intense wrist sprain. It also remembers some thoughtless weight lifting and imposes and life-changing sprain.

It's weird what habits make me do.

That's right. I used to be in control of habits. I would look what I needed to do for work, and note, "gee, a lot of those things are the same". My brain would then shove all those actions and motions into "chemical memory".

Chemical memory is the same stuff kicks in when I'm about to touch a red hot iron poker. I am not actively thinking "this iron is hot. hot things burn. Burning things are bad, remember that hemorrhoids commercial?". But my hand chemically knows better than me.

My body automates booting up and waking up activities. Example: Somewhere in my early occupational years, I began to sit in the shower. It was out of sheer exhaustion; during that week I got 4 hours of sleep and worked factory hours of 16 hours a day. And to this hour, my body automatically just plops itself like a fat gorilla in the shower, and proceed with my monkey arms to clean my whole bodice.

Also, my legs automatically go into sneaky mode outside of the bedroom. This tip toe walk makes my legs bow-legged, giving Frank, my other roommate, the impression I have saddle burn. I brush my teeth in the kitchen, again not to be noisey, and then proceed to go to work.

I have de-centralized my tasks, all my body parts do what they are supposed to. This leaves my head to worry about the big things, like balding, growing shorter, or slowly becoming a bitter old man.

The only thing I fear is that one day I'll wake up, and my body will forget how old I am, the fingers will switch to saturday morning cartoons, I miss work, and my stomach will eat oreos till I puke. The hands will grab mis-matched clothing, and the bowels will crap in my pants like I just got out the womb. Not the best way to start a Monday. I would then use the feet to kick myself, but the feet would remember, and continually kick myself for the rest of the century.

Summary: Don't eat cheese at night, your body will remember the taste, and proceed to fart everyday at about the same time.