Friday, April 21, 2006

NEWS FLASH - BETA STILL ALIVE


As many of you know, I recently acquired a beta fish, who I’ve named Hammer. Given my long sordid history of fish killing (really more like fish genocide, considering I literally wiped out Charlottesville’s entire population of puffer fish); I thought I would give you a Hammer Update.

This Week’s Hammer Update:

Hammer is doing fine and well. No recent suicide attempts. His bubble nest is quite large at the moment, although his water levels are a little low and brackish. The feces at the bottom of his tank was recently cleaned, however this has been some slight accumulation since. Judging by the way he looks at me when I masturbate, I’m guessing he’s one of those gay beta fish, but that’s cool.

At this moment he is taking a shit.

Stay tuned for more Hammer Updates.

Monday, April 17, 2006

CROAKED

The following is a paper I recently submitted for my Death and Dying class. The topic was "write about a time when you came face to face with death." This is what i wrote:
 
As a child, my parents did a pretty good job sheltering me from the concept of death. In my house, great grandma didn’t “die”—she “went to Heaven.” My pet cat wasn’t “dead”—he “ran away to live with little boys who went to bed on time.” Growing up, I never went to a wake – never went to a funeral. Death just wasn’t something we talked about. I wasn’t a stupid kid, not especially stupid anyway. I knew of death, but it wasn’t until my 7th grade biology class that I was forced to stare it face to froggy face.



I remember walking into class that morning with a mixture of apprehension and morbid excitement riding in my belly. We had been preparing for it for weeks, and here it was – the day when boys become men and girls become, well, squeamish girls. It was frog dissection day, and frankly, I was stoked.


The smell of formaldehyde stung my nostrils as I sat down in my chair. On top of the teacher’s desk was what from a distance looked to be a pickle jar, and in many ways I guess you could say it was. The bell rang, and my teacher rushed in like a small child on Christmas. I had never seen her so excited. She walked over to the pickle jar, popped the lid, and said, “Come get ’em while they’re hot!” No one laughed.


We all picked up the silver trays in front of us, and in cafeteria fashion, we each waited in line for our helping of frog. As I got up to the table, my teacher looked at me with devilish excitement.


“Bon appétit,” she said.
“Gross,” I said.


I couldn’t bring myself to look at it as I walked back to my table. Afraid making eye contact would bring it back to life, I decided to wait until I was with my lab partner to glance down – that way there would at least be two of us to subdue the potential zombie frog.


I put it down in front of my partner, and she recoiled in horror. “That’s all you!” she said. Apparently she didn’t share my teacher’s enthusiasm.


So it was just me and froggy. Mano y frogo. I gathered up the courage to look at it…at her. She laid on my cold tray in a seemingly unfroglike position – flat on her back and legs spread out. Her arms were up in the air with her fingers wide apart, as if she had died in the middle of showing everyone her jazz hands. Her belly lay motionless. It was easy to imagine life once breathing through her, moving the now still flesh slowly up and down. I was mesmerized.


For the first time I looked at the face of death: this frog had once been alive. She had little frog friends and did little frog things. She played and ate and croaked. She had parents, and siblings, and maybe even children. But now she was dead, lying in my tray with her cold dead eyes staring at the people sitting in front of me. The smell of formaldehyde brought tears to my eyes.


My teacher was now floating around the class room. “You need to pin the limbs down in your tray. This will keep them from jumping around while you’re cuttin’ into ’em.” Again, no one laughed.


My frog was stiff as a board and hard as a rock. I picked up one of the long pins sitting next to my tray, and timidly inserted it into her left jazz hand – being extra careful to touch as less frog as possible. I took another, and tried to pin down her right. As the pin pierced her right hand, her left popped up, just like a seesaw. I secured her right, and then pushed down her left again. Now the right came unpinned. My partner laughed at me. Pushing down the right, the left came back up. This went on, back and forth, for quite some time. I felt like I was middle of a Three Stooges bit. My partner laughed. “It’s like watching a clown trying to figure out a fitted-bed sheet.”


My teacher walked by and saw the difficultly I was having. “Oh Pumpkin,” she said as she snatched up my frog with her bare hand, “You have to put some muscle into it.” And with that, she snapped every bone of my frog’s body in two. It sounded like kindling breaking. She tossed it back onto my tray and easily placed the pins into her fragmented body.


I looked the frog, and then at my teacher, with horror. “You…you…you broke her!” I said.


“It’s called rigor mortis, Pumpkin. The same thing will happen to you when you die.”


The same thing will happen to me when I die? I continued along with the dissection, but these words stuck with me.


The same thing will happen to me when I die?


After I opened up the body cavity, we discovered our frog was in fact, a she, and filled to the brim with eggs. I began to scrape them out, as instructed. Potential-frog-babies-that-would-never-be piled up in my tray. My partner screamed as one little potential-frog-baby squirted into her eye. I hardly noticed though.


The same thing will happen to me when I die?


The kids in front of me were making their hollowed out frog dance and sing. “Look everyone, it’s the WB frog! Hello my baby, hello my honey…”


But I wasn’t paying attention. Again, I thought, the same thing will happen to me when I die? Here, before me, was this little frog – just a regular frog mind you, not a special frog. She probably didn’t do anything too exciting with her life. She probably spent most of her time hopping from lily pad to lily pad, ate a fly or two. She was just a lame-o frog, and now she was dead. She was dead/gone/not coming back, and the same thing is going to happen to me. ME! Me, who was infinitely cooler than this stupid frog. Me who had learned how to read and write, who knew every capital of every state, who could stand on my hands in the pool, and knew exactly where to punch my brother to make him throw up. ME! I was going to end up just as dead, just as cold, and just as stiff and smelly as this frog.


It was a powerful realization. Never before this had I given much thought to death. It was at this moment I realized that death was not only inevitable, but natural. I was put on this earth with only one requirement of me – to die. It was a powerful moment, and frankly, it sucked. And here’s to the frog that brought it to me.

At least she’s dead.

Thursday, April 13, 2006

GENE SHALIT & ME

I’ve been brainstorming ideas for a sitcom to take to the networks. I’ve gone through a lot of rough drafts, but I think I finally have a concept that’s going to be big baby. BIG! Let me run it by you and tell me what you think.

I call it…Gene Shalit and Me! You haven’t seen a comic mismatching this wacky since Oscar and Felix!

See, it’s all about how I get stuck living with Today Show film critic Gene Shalit, and the zany misadventures that ensue. It will be filled with one-liners like

Gene Shalit- “Chris, thanks for the chicken marsala, but honestly, I haven’t seen anything this dry since the 1998 comedy ‘The Big Hit,’ staring Mark Walhberg and Christina Applegate.”

Cue trombone – WAHhHhHhHh wahhhhhHhHhH

…or…

Gene Shalit- “Chris, you keep this kitchen as clean as the language in ‘Casino,’ starring Robert De Niro and Sharon Stone. I give you’re cleaning rating R, for excessive dirty dishes and offensive odors.”

Cue trombone – WAHhHhHhHh wahhhhhHhHhH
Oh Gene! Think of the endless possibilities! I really think I’m on to something here. What do you think?

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

PEOPLE I DON'T LIKE - SADimPStACi4ML.


Oh, hello friend. I didn’t see you come in. Well, since you’re here, I would like to introduce you to a new segment in my blog. I call it PEOPLE I DON’T LIKE. And I think that pretty much says it all. So without further ado,

This week’s PEOPLE I DON’T LIKE:Scruffy Asian Dude in my Plap Seminar that Always Comes in 40 Minutes Late
(or SADimPStACi4ML for short).

So, SADimPStACi4ML, I have to tell you something. It’s a little secret. I hate you. I’ve hated you since the first day of class. And fuck, you were on time that day.

Why do I hate you, you may be wondering. I’ll tell you why. It’s not just because you’re scruffy. It’s not just because you’re always at least 40 minutes late to class every week. I’ll admit – those don’t help. But the REAL reason…the real reason that I hate you…is the fact that you’re an arrogant S.O.B who never shuts his mouth (despite being scruffy, and always at least 40 minutes late to class).

Why is it that every time you raise your hand to talk in class you have to mention a combination of the follow?

1- How many AP classes you took in high school. That was like 5 years ago dude. Get over yourself. Isn’t there a statute of limitation for these sorts of things?
2- How you’re going to a top law school next year. Who the hell announces that to a class…just like that? At least tell me WHICH top law school you’re going to so I know which basketball team to root against from now until the end of eternity.
3- How stupid the American public is…at least compared to you. I GET IT ALREADY! People are stupid, at least compared to you. Stop saying it. But you know something. As stupid as they are, at least they’re not scruffy or at least 40 minutes late everywhere they go.

And honestly, SADimPStACi4ML, I don’t want to harp on this 40 minutes late to every class thing, but I mean seriously. What the hell is that about? What the hell are you doing before class that’s making you at least 40 minutes late to every class? You’re sure as hell not spending that time SHAVING. I mean, granted, it is a 2.5 hour seminar, but 40 minutes consistently every week? That’s ridiculous. And that one week you showed up 2 hours and 15 minutes late? WHAT THE FUCK!? Why even bother. You show up hours late, with your enormous bobble head…and that one eye that is clearly bigger than the other, and you sit down, usually next to me…pull out your fucking laptop, and raise your hand and repeat everything that everyone just said (except the comment about how many AP classes you took in high school. That’s all you).

What really irks the shit out of me is that no matter how late you are, you always roll up with a little Starbucks bag and a cup of coffee. Please PLEASE PLEASE don’t tell me that you’re running 40 minutes late, but decide that you have time to swing into Starbucks and grab a nice warm latte and a croissant. Choke me with a fucking spoon. You got to be fucking kidding me. Starbucks? 40 minutes late? I’m lost for words. LOST.

You know what SADimPStACi4ML. That’s all I got. You suck at life, and you probably always will. But if it’s any consolation…you got to be my very first….

PEOPLE I DON’T LIKE.