Commiserate Panda

My job is in a corporate office park. That doesn't really bother me so much, I bike in, lock up, do my job, and ride on home. I glare at the people who glare at me, flick off the cars that try to kill me, and wave and/or nod at everyone else. It's a good system. I'm aware that somewhere in this little set of buildings there is a bike rack. I've heard rumors of it, I have no reason to doubt it's around somewhere, but I haven't been able to easily locate it. Combined with my obscene amount of laziness, I lock my bike to a no parking sign in front of the building. I've doing this for over a year now with problems whatsoever. This remained true until last week when the Securitas decided to assert some fictions authority.

I feel like a little background is needed to really to appreciate the Securitas, but, really, there's not that much to say. They are your typical rent-a-cops except, unlike most rent-a-cops, they drive around in a little car that says, "Securitas," on it. What the significance of the Spanish is will elude me until my dying day. Of course, by then I'm hoping to not give a damn, but I hope it involves Mexico and daring boarder crossings. Anyway, the Securitas spend all day driving around in their car putting fake orange parking tickets on people that park in the fire lane. Amusing, but pointless. Back to our story already in progress.

I come out of my job after a long shift of dealing with morons and see a little orange thing wrapped around my bike. I go over and pull it off and discover it is the parking ticket telling me to use the bike rack. I look around and double check that there are no signs telling me not to park my bike there and seeing none, stuff the ticket in my pocket, laugh, and speed away. I figure the story ends here, since I'm not going top stop locking my bike to the no parking sign (go irony!) and they probably won't hassle me. Two weeks later, I'm working and someone comes over and tells me the Securitas are snooping around my bike. I keep an eye on this because the, "ticket," says they'll impound my bike and that's my way of getting home. Nothing happens, but it's pretty irritating to know that I'm getting hassled for locking my bike somewhere convenient. Still, I'm hoping for the inevitable dramatic confrontation. I imagine it something akin to a Clint Eastwood western: Securias twitching their fingers over their ticket book and pencil, me with my bike lock key out, and an the sonic mastery of an epic soundtrack of the likes none have ever heard will fill the air. Of course these things always look better in my head, but it doesn't seem right for the Securitas to play it any other way. Live up to that potential, damn it.

Tacked on discussion topic: Waffles vs. Pancakes vs. Crepes, with your choice of filling/toppings, which is superior? Go!

-Thomas

Some People Cut It and Some People Scratch

I was in the bathroom the other day and came to an odd predicament. I'm aware this is not the best way to start out, but if you've read this before you know I tend to talk about my adventures in the bathroom (that would probably have made a batter name for the whole blog in a lot of ways) and if you're back for more, then you have no one to blame, but yourself. So, I go into the bathroom because I have to poop up a storm. I had eaten four burritos in the past two days so I was ready to go in every sense of the phrase. I open the door and go to the stall closest to me. No dice, there is toilet paper hanging on the seat. Not the actual black plastic itself, but front and center, top part of the "U" where the plastic decides to take a break and it's pure porcelain. The next stall's door is locked shut, but doing a quick foot check reveals that some hooligan has decided to be clever. Since this probably involved standing on the commode, I make a mental note to never use that stall again. I'm left with one option: the handicapped stall.

I usually don't like to use the handicapped stall. It has nothing to do with some moral sense that I may impeding some guy in a chair's ability to get his shit on, I just don't like the feel of them. I like to have my feet planted when I poop, and the handicapped toilets are just a little to tall for this purpose, but I'm out of options at this point. I sit down, do my business and reach for some toilet paper. At his moment I realize that, unlike most stalls, this one has toilet paper dispensers on both sides of the stall. Aside from being officially crazy talk, I started to wonder about how somebody chooses. They were the same distance apart, so there wasn't an advantage to going to one or the other, but I went for the one to my right. Is this because I saw it first or do I have an innate tendency to check my right first? I'm not really sure. I'd like to see some data on which way people turn to wipe their butts. I demand this research be undertaken.

-Thomas

You Are No Longer Welcome in My Country

I have begun to worry about becoming too insular. Insular isn't even really the right word for it, but it's close enough. It's an odd fear, one I'm not really sure I should even have, but it exists nonetheless. Of late, I've felt more cut off from a lot of people and things. My life is feels like a giant ocean and I'm floating in it instead of swimming across it; waves move me about and I have to dodge floating chunks of shit, but I mostly remain as static as possible to avoid sinking.

Mmm... Unoriginal metaphors.

I tend to look forward to my bike rides these days because it gives me the most time to think. I look forward to things, but I feel the most stable and secure when I'm by myself or with a few other people. I've always had a bit of an introvert streak, but I don't think it's ever been this bad. I hate it. I used to be all about hanging out with a bunch of friends and I used to be way more proactive in getting things done. I'm pretty sure the fear this generates is due to the absolute weirdness of it all, but I also think it's an good old fashioned fear of dying. I've always seen getting more isolated as a sign of getting old.

Let me break TK1's Theory of Old Folks down for you. As folks get older, their circle of friends narrows and they become more inclined to work with the status quo. This happens for a variety of reasons, and, "status quo," is relative to the individual. As I seem to be following this pattern, my tiny lizard brain conclusion (yeah, tiny lizard brain be all philosophizing and shit, screw you) is that the end is coming.

That's much more depressing typed out than it was in my head.

What I am choosing to believe is that I'm just a little burned out. This seems to happen every spring and is just extra bad this year because I'm doing so much more. I'm not crazy just because I get depressed in spring and happy in the fall/winter, right?

-Thomas

I Think You Would Shoot a Baby

As I've discussed before, I get a lot of spam. This is the nature of having a publicly posted email address linked to my email. My spam filter takes a lot of it, but a bunch will still get through. Every once and while as I slide over to my spam filter to delete these shit-raft bastards forever I'll feel a little guilty. I mean, what if Adam is really honestly trying to make my penis bigger? What if Kent F. Constance meant to tell his friend about civil rights and include a picture with info about stock tips, but instead he sent it to me? Then I laugh at myself and remember these are scamming money grubbing whores and I don't really give a shit. Sure, maybe they're trying to make a bunch of money, but does it have to be done in the worst way possible? I mean surely there's a better way to pass on your fortune.

So today, I flip open my email and I see this message:

From: Cornell Pina
to: me
subject: anti-spammers are lamers

Upon opening this bounty of hilarity, I am rewarded with:

subj

regards, spammer.

Take a stand Cornell. Take a stand. If you don't stand up for your right to make your cash, then the anti-spammers have already won. God bless you Cornell Pina, you are a beacon for freedom-lovers around the world

-Thomas

I Promise, You're Only Half Fat

You know who I hate?

Fuckers.

-Thomas

Let's Talk Royalty Structures

I bike a lot, but I didn't used to, especially in the winter. Back in the day I would walk or bus pretty much everywhere. This was fine with me because I had time to read or listen to music, it was great. Since I started biking this hasn't really been possible. I mean, sure I could read while I bike, but I don't really see that as a viable alternative to living. Listening to music while I ride is sort of mixed bag. I know people that do it, and I'd be lying if I said I'd never done it, but I'm afraid of dying. I just have this thing about wanting to hear things as they approach or something. Yeah, it's pretty whinny of me, but that's how it goes. Anyway, the end result of all of this is my life is a little less well-read and music-ridden than before. This makes me sad.

So what's a bike hooligan to do? My latest attempt to save myself is to listen to my object of shame under my headset at my tech-support job. So far that's worked pretty well. The one downside is that I tend to worry about how loud my music is. I always worry about customers hearing it and wondering what's going on. I mean, I know I'm still giving them the same amount of attention as I would if I had music on or not, but they don't know that. So far there's been no problems except for a couple of days ago when I was listening to Dessa and out of no where, she (the customer) started singing everything "Everything Floats" while she was waiting for me to process her account.

To say I freaked out is misleading because it implies I was far less terrified than I was.

Aside from that there haven't been any problems and it's definitely made work that much more bearable. I still haven't figured how to get my reading back (I miss you too, crappy weekly papers!), but who knows. I guess I can make time out of my non-transportation time to to read them or something. Still, I used to pace my trips on how much of the Onion I could get through, so that's sort of sad. Albeit, it wasn't a very accurate system, especially on trips that went longer than one issue, but I still miss it. Myabe I should just convert to the Jack system of measurements. Wait, that doesn't work either. I guess I doomed to measuring things in time traveled without having a difficult to compare measuring system. Stupid time.

-Thomas

Talons Fly as a Last Disguise

Happy no-sun day, yous people.

I finally have sold out. No I haven't started bombing orphans for fun and profit, but I have acquired an mp3 player. Not just nay mp3 player, but a an iPod. I know it hurts me too. Oh the shame, the terrible, terrible shame. In my defense, this one was free, and I haven't had a CD player in forever. Not to mention my minidisc recorder has long since destroyed itself in a fit of rage. So, in order to retain my love of portable music, I succumbed. But it was free, so I feel justified, or least pardoned in some small way.

I am also learning to hate compromise. Not in the sense that I hate reaching a mutually acceptable agreement with someone else, but I hate having to delve up the benefits of something to the satisfaction of everyone involved.

Say I have a jelly donut and I've got two friends that want a piece. That's cool, but both of them are going to feel shafted if I give them too small a piece, and inherently feel like the other friend got the better part of the deal. So, I end up cutting my delectable jelly donut into two huge pieces and one tiny piece for me. The net result of which is that both of my friends will hate me and I will be miserable since I didn't get to eat jack squat of my donut. I'd probably end up with all flaky crust and no gooey filling.

No. Fucking. Gooey. Filling.

So, next time I'm gonna decide to screw it and eat my donut my god damn self. That way everybody is still filled with a thirst for my blood, but I'm left happy.

I think I took that metaphor to a point where it ceased to make sense. For that I am probably sorry. If you're lucky.

-Thomas