Taste of a Golf Ball
Monday, June 28, 2004
So this weekend I went to the Chicago area which I sometimes do when I don't feel like going to a wedding. It wasn't because street performers are more entertaining than wedding DJ's, it was just because I wanted to be an opportunist and try to maximize my fun for the whole weekend rather than a short amount of time with people I hardly know.
So we went to a festival deal that they have in Chicago every year. It is probably like the summer fest in everyone's home town where fat people and hyperactive children suddenly stop walking in high traffic areas while they decide what kind of sauce they want to get all over their faces next, except there are about a million extra people. We tried to buy some food so we would fit in, but the festival had it's own currency - paper tickets.
Paper tickets are used because no one that works at a festival can be trusted. First of all, no change has to be made with cash and it prevents grafting by underpaid carnival who have no way of keeping track of how much food they sold. They're also designed to make sure that the money you spend on tickets only goes towards goods at the festival, but we saw that they could be used otherwise. There was a lady and her two kids eating bugs, standing by the orange plastic fence near the festival exit mumbling, "Extra tickets, any extra tickets..." We saw a man walk up to her and hand her a wad of 20 dollar bills wrapped in festival tickets. She gave him a bag of green plant things also wrapped in festival tickets. Tickets double as wrapping paper for presents!
The best thing about the tickets is that they try to use as many prime numbers as possible so you can't do any of the math in your head. You get 11 tickets for $7 and each ticket is "worth" 50 cents. Then each food item costs up to 9 tickets and was usually an odd number. You could not figure out how much you were actually paying for things unless you can do repeating number long division in your head. Also, it turns out that buying 22 tickets is not enough to fill you up but buying 33 tickets is enough to make you cry from the pain as your belly tries to snap your belt in half.
My new Health Insurance company using my money to
help cause a few auto accidents.
The only other thing I really did this weekend was go to the driving range with some friends. I kind of want to learn how to golf so when I'm hanging out with gas company fatcats I can avoid looking like a total retard. I spent a lot of the time swinging at the air but I was ok with that because I felt like I was getting a deal from my super $9 bucket because I was able to swing at each ball more than once.
Eventually I wanted to get serious with the things. I had my eyes focused on the ball. Hand positioned, left arm straight, wrists bent, knees bent but straight; I was ready to hit the thing. I took my swing. To my dismay, it sliced right in a line drive, 45 degrees off of where I was aiming.
KONK!!
Oops. I was so focused in my task that I didn't realize that the ball catcher tractor thing was right in front of me when I swung. The 50 something old man slammed on the brakes and stared at me. "You think that's pretty funny, don't you..." he said. He stared for a good 30 seconds. I hadn't laughed but he must have been using his stare to read my mind because I did think it was kind of funny. But, if he was reading my mind he would have known that I had no idea what I was doing and that I couldn't have hit him if he was driving around picking up balls in a barn.
Then I thought he was making fun of me - telling me that I should think the fact that I can't play golf should be pretty funny to myself and everyone else. I wanted to show him funny by running up and attacking him with the golf club but I realized if I was 50 years old and had to deal with 24 year olds that looked like they were 17 all day long I'd get mad pretty easily too.
posted by Ghengis @ 12:36 AM,
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Movin' on up
Tuesday, June 15, 2004
Today future roommate and I went to look for apartments. I guess future roommates should have names. From now on future roommate will be Ketchup. There is another future roommate who did not come with us. Magic obviously doesn't care where he is going to be living. Magic will live where we tell him and breathe only when he asks.
So we pulled up the the first place. We were welcomed with signs that say, "Future Resident Parking". I always fell uncomfortable parking at these spots because I don't know if I'm really going to live there or not - yet every place has them. I feel like I need to sign a contract just to park in that spot. I'd be much more comfortable parking in an unlabeled spot or a spot that says elevator to the center of the earth, because I don't think I'd have to fight for that one.
I guess if we decide on a place and sign the lease I will be able to have unlimited parking in the Future Resident spots since I'll be one. I'd probably park in my Future Resident spot and lean up against my car scopin' out the honies, bobbin' my head back and forth to some 50 Cent or something. I could probably wax my car in that spot too. Maybe I could set up a Kiosk and sell advice. The apartment people wouldn't be able to get rid of me until they made my apartment available for me to move in, where-by I would become a resident rather than a future one, so that would be a pretty good motivation tool.
The apartments we looked at were pretty nice. But, I think I could live in a cardboard box and be happier than at any college apartments. I learned that it pays to tell the apartment people that you don't really care about certain things. Since we didn't care about the fireplace he said he would not charge us for it because the only one he had left had a fireplace. When I saw him write a lower price down I told him that we did not really care for kitchens or doors or air vents either. He had to get a book out and check out how much those cost and marked it down accordingly. I wish I would have said more things that I didn't care for.
So after we looked at 5 places or so, Ketchup and I kind of rehashed which ones were our favorites and kind of ranked them aloud. I told him my list and he told me that I had them in the wrong order. It turns out that ranking apartments based on the hotness level or the person showing them to you is not the best way - they do not come with the apartment.
I would much rather pay rent money to a hot woman once a month.
posted by Ghengis @ 7:13 PM,
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Sorry for all of that Killing
Friday, June 11, 2004
I forgot to mention that I killed Brad Pitt earlier this week. I had a dream that the gas company sent me to do my first job and it was to kill Achilles from the movie Troy because he was doing some menacing things to the gas pipes. First we were fighting in the tree tops. I jabbed at him with a stick and then jumped at him, pushing him off into a deep ditch.
We thought the fall killed him so everyone was celebrating another triumphant company assassination. They made me feel like a Made Man. However, I saw him wriggling from the tree so I didn't think he was gone yet. Sure enough he came walking up the ditch but I was too quick for him and I stabbed him in the chest - giving a new name to a body part, The Achilles Chest Tendon.
I felt pretty bad about it after I did it. I had never killed anyone in a dream before. Plus, I know that if you kill someone in a dream that no one can ever have a dream about that person again unless it is about their grave stone and I know Brad Pitt was some women's favorite person to dream about - so like I said, I'm sorry.
It's ok though. Revenge was knocking on the door of the exam room when I got my physical yesterday. The doctor that saw me was a certifiable serial killer. Extra large glasses and long hair, this short man moved deliberatly in short bursts that scared the bejesus about of me. When he went to check my lymph nodes he swooped in behind me and squeezed my neck. I knew it was over then unless I acted.
I laughed. It was a church-laugh that you are trying to hold back but can't so the pressure behind it was great. He released his hands in response. I wanted to ask him which serial killer he reminded me of. Most of the big time killers were before my time like Dahmer and Manson so I get them confused sometimes.
Later in the exam he wanted to know what was so funny. I played dumb and told him I thought that he said to turn my head and laugh.
posted by Ghengis @ 12:36 PM,
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Pineapple Grass Spacehats
Sunday, June 06, 2004
I play basketball every Sunday night. I'm not very good but I keep doing it. Since I'm not very good, I usually do something I'm good at before I go which is drive. However, this time I did not drive and played the role of a passenger on the way to basketball.
We stopped at a red light next to some girls. They were to the left so I had to look over my driver to see them. Since he partially blocked my view all I could really see was their rearview mirror - and hanging from it was what looked like underwear.
We were taking turns half glancing at it, trying not to make it obvious that we were trying to see some underwear. It is not everyday that you get to see girl underwear hanging from car parts, if that's what really it was.
Well the light turned green and we started moving. I was still not satisfied! I had to know what she had hanging there. By this time it was obvious that we were not so sly and they had noticed our ogling. That's when I did what I had to do. I tore my own underwear off through my shorts and hung it up from the rearview mirror in our car.
The occupants of the girl car went wild and the tables had turned as they were trying to figure out what I had hung there. At this time they had moved to the right side of us. I screamed at them, "Are you staring at my underwear??" That's when I got mad and threw it at them. It hit the windshield and got stuck on her wiper when she tried to flip it off. They were screaming the whole time while her car jumped the curb and flew into a pond.
Geez, can't a guy hang his underwear from his friend's rearview mirror without the whole world staring?
posted by Ghengis @ 11:55 PM,
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Missing in Action
Saturday, June 05, 2004
Last night when I got home I got ready to take my contacts out. Sometimes I open my contact case and I see that I've left solution in it from last time. Last night was one of those nights, so I dumped the solution on the floor to prepare the case for some fresh solution. I put my finger to my eye and started to pull to the side.
I kept pulling but no contact came out! I knew from experience that no matter how long you pull at your eye, your eye will not make new contacts. This can be very confusing when you've been drinking. It is easy to forget that contacts come from a box that is made in a factory and they do not come from a factory inside of your brain.
Well after a short amount of time I realized that I had already taken my contacts out! I would have known sooner if there was a plastic warning placard attached to them that was chained to each lens that said, "NOT CURRENTLY IN YOUR EYE". You would be able to turn it over when it was in your eye to say, "IN YOUR EYE". However, the flappy chains coming out of your eye while you're walking around in the wind. It might flip the loose label over that hangs down to your cheek - and it's anybody's game to know if the contacts are in your eyes or not once that label is flipped over. I guess you could glue them to your cheek everyday.
Ok, seeing as how I took my contacts out and had poured the solution on the floor, I quickly realized that my contacts were on the floor with the solution. I lied on the floor for awhile trying to find them. I brushed my fingers through the carpet hoping that they would rake across something gooey. I found one of them but passed out trying to find the other.
I sure hope it is ok. I'll miss that little guy. Please, left contact, if you read this - please call or write soon. Good bye.
posted by Ghengis @ 2:59 PM,
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