Odds and Ends: Search Engine Edition

-For my blind readers who can’t see and are instead having this blog read to them (maybe by one of those cool automated computer voices), I got totally bored and decided to experiment with a layout change. Just for shits. I really liked the old one, but it bugged the heck out of me that the titles of posts were green when my scheme was trying to be bluish. WordPress would not let me change this. I like this one, apart from the frilly flowery things above the links and whatnot. Flowers don’t really say “Austin” (me or the city). But at least they aren’t fraking green.

-The Oscars!…. were a little boring this year. I only saw one of the best picture nominees, and it did not win. And while my two favroite movies from last year, Milk and The Dark Knight, did get a lot of love, I’m starting to wonder why I even care about this stupid show anymore. Every year I think, “Oh, this ceremony is gonna be off da hook!” By the time 3:30 CST rolls around (the average time the show ends), I’m mad, bleary-eyed, and reflecting on my wasted life not making movies. Such is the lot of a commie homo-loving son of a gun.

-I’ve been working on my Spanish. “Escoba” means “broom,” according to my Spanish Mac Dashboard Widget (or SMDW for short, which sounds like a sex act). Thus, what I should have said last week was “tenga escoba?” Yes? Si?

-So, running was going well for a while. I made it up to SIX MILES the other day, further than I have ever probably even WALKED in a single sitting (walking?) in my life. Maybe I pushed myself a little to hard, cause my knee hurts like a somabitch. It’s usually fine during the day, but the second I start running… disaster. I only made it 15 minutes today because of the knee, not even enough time to reach Lady GaGa on my “Rerning” playlist. Sigh. Something tells me a Knee Storm ‘09 is in my future, and a Chris Redfield is not.

-Chris Redfield.

-I’ve seen this done on other blogs, and I thought it was fun, and since I have nothing else to say right now, I’ll do this. Below is a list of some of the various terms people have used in search engines to get to this here blog. Some are quite funny. In the interest of public service, I will address a few of these queues with some helpful advice. Remember, these were all terms used to get here. Some make sense. Some prove the internet is weird.

1. Rihanna Austin review

By far my most popular search, along with Kanye. If you look around you can find it, but long story short: it was good and she was cute. And it was, like, a year ago so get over it. But we do all need to stay strong for our beloved Rihanna. This whole Chris Brown thing is kinda sick, and the only thing that comforts me is Rihanna has Jay-Z on her side. Double your pleasure, Chis Brown, double your PAIN!

2. Wearing an arm cast

Wear it on your arm. How fucking hard is that?

3. How to be a hipster elitist

Attend SXSW. Hate everyone else’s band. Yadda yadda yadda.

4. Men dicks/Big dick men

Okay, hey now! This is a G-rated blog, for fuck’s sake! I imagine these searchers where disappointed when they came here but, the internet being what it is, probably eventually found gratification somewhere else. But seriously, I don’t think I’ve mentioned a single dick on this site? Or have I? Was I posting in my sleep again?

5. Sling cast

I have a picture somewhere on here that explains this.

6. I’m melting!

I’m so sorry to hear that. Try jumping into water or, you know, not standing by the microwave with the door open.

7. Review chesney concert

I didn’t even go to this one. I imagine he wore a hat and sang.

8. I want to wear skinny jeans

You poor, poor thing.

9. My blue arm cast

Mine was probably prettier than yours AND probably had more signatures AND probably smelled worse. Advantage: me.

10. ^fullfuck

Seriously, huh? “You know, I’m really tired of those semifucks,” search engine guy says one day. “I need to find me one of those real, bona-fied fullfucks! Hmmm, Just Like the City? Maybe there’s a fullfuck in here!”

Two hours later… “Why did I need to read that much about a wedding? And E.T. shopping at American Apparel? WHERE THE HELL IS MY FULLFUCK!”

And scene.

11. family reunions

Fun fun fun! I hope this person wasn’t scared off from family reunions forever, though…

12. gymnastics 2008 pictures pictures/cut olympic gymnasts

I got a lot of these and their variations, and they are something I think I actually helped with! You are welcome! With that new search bar in the corner, see if you can find the picture again!

13. rain cloud wii mario cart

You misspelled “cart,” you wii-tard. No wonder it’s always raining around you.

14. men and big dicks/big men with big dicks

Honestly, this has gotten out of hand. Or has it gotten… in hand? Mwa ha ha!

15. hipster douche

Hipster douche! Go ahead… go outside and scream it! I promise you will feel better. I think that was the answer you were looking for.

16. shirts to wear with skinny jeans

None.

17. how to wear skinny jeans

Don’t.

18. orson scott card

Now let’s talk about a douche. I didn’t literally throw his books away, but I did pack them up and turn them into Half Price for 12 big ones. It was quite emotional. There were like twenty of them, ask Morgan. With the twelve bucks, I purchased The New Joy of Gay Sex. Okay, not really, I bought a Michael Crichton (RIP) book. But wouldn’t that have been funny? I kind of thought it was wrong, potentially placing these books in other people’s hands. But I am no censor, people can read and say what they want. And 12 bucks!

19. nerd; all the ladies stranded in the lin

The ladies standing in the “lin” for the nerd show did not get in. Sorry to break it to you.

-And just as I go to post this, I see another search: “pictures of men with big dicks.” I suppose I’ve found this site’s calling…

-And in honor of my blog’s new “dark blue” look…

Gringo Loco, or Where Three Years of Spanish Got Me

This was an especially shitty week, and it could have had a shitty end except that a really funny story came out of it. 

Allow me to set the scene. It’s six ‘o clock Friday evening and I am leaving work. I have to run to the building next door to drop of two FedEx packages and one Lone Star package (a small regional delivery service). This is my job cause everyone I work with is too fucking lazy and too fucking fat to waddle their fat fucking asses over there when it takes no fucking effort at all (I said it was a bad week). But I don’t particularly care, it’s not like it’s a hard thing to do. 

So I enter the building next door and go to the mail room on the second floor. I’m tired and trying to think of all the adventures I am going to go onto that night. I have the FedEx things in one hand and the Lone Star in the other. And what do I do? Not paying any attention, I place the FedEx packages in the Lone Star box. 

Well, shit. The packages fall in slow motion, I yell out “NOOOOOOOO!” in slow motion, and the FedEx envelopes crash to the bottom of the Lone Star bin, far, far from arms length. I stick my hand in there to fish them out. They might as well be a mile away. There is no was I am getting to them. Have you ever had to fish something out of a standup mail box before? It’s kinda sorta impossible. 

I take heavy breaths and try to regain my composure. These packages HAVE to be in California by nine the next morning (this morning as I type this), or one of our pain-in-the-ass clients isn’t going to have their stupid little spot run at EXACTLY the right time. So I can’t just say, “Oh, well, cest la vie!” I have to get the packages out. 

I’m not MacGyver. I’m not even MacGruber. I can’t look around the room and try to put something together that will make this whole operation a piece of cake. The only way I can usually take care of things is with some sort of force. Like, if something is wrong with my computer. I don’t try to calmly restart it or force quit things. I just slap it a few times. If that doesn’t work, I kick it. 

I decide the best option is to turn this thing over to where the packages will fall out. No problem, right? Except that it’s really, really heavy. And it’s jammed up against a corner, scraping the edges of a UPS drop box and the wall. But I don’t think about these things. So I’m trying to tip this thing over and it’s not going well. It keeps getting stuck on the wall and threatening to topple over on top of me. Which technically is what I want it to do, but I don’t want to get stuck or anything. Imagine if I got pinned under a Lone Star mailbox? And no one came in cause it was the weekend? And I starved to death or my pinned leg got gangrene or rats came out of the walls and nibbled my face away? No, I couldn’t take those chances. I shoved the mail box back to the wall. 

Dammit, think, Austin, think! Rational plan one is to go to a bar, get a drink, and come back at eight when the pick up occurs and explain the situation. But I kinda want to go home and nap. Rational plan two is to leave a note. But then I figure the note might get lost, and the Lone Star guy and the FedEx guy probably hate each other and would not go out of their way to make sure a rival company gets a package. 

I go over to the supply table on the wall and get a huge roll of Priority Mail tape. This is my big plan. I’m going to fish the tape down in there, attach it to a package, and reel it up. ‘Cause that’s fucking gonna’ fucking work. But I’m desperate. I unspool a line of tape and drop it into the abyss of the mail slot. And of course it attaches to everything BUT the package. It goes to other letters. It gets stuck on the wall. And the tape can’t get a good enough grip of the packages in the first place for me to hoist it up. So I’m screwed. This was my last big plan. 

Unless…

Unless I can find a broom to stick in there, or a vacuum cleaner pole or something. 

And wouldn’t you know it? At that point, a cleaning lady came in, only to find me with my head and hands stuck down the mail chute screaming, “Why, God, why?!?” 

I jerk to attention and smile at her. I don’t want her to think that I’m stealing mail, cause I’m sure she cares. “Hi!” I say. Maybe a little to friendly. She smiles back. 

I point at the mail box. “I got a package stuck in here and I was wondering if you have a broom or a large pole or anything I can use to fish it out?” 

She’s just staring at me like I’m speaking jibberish and I’m like, oh shit. I’m really going to have to do this, am I? I’m really going to have to try… Spanish?!?

I gather my composure. She hasn’t responded to anything, Maybe she’s just deaf? Very shyly, and with seemingly mounds more hick accent then I normally use, I ask her, “Habla Ingles?” God, I hope that was the right conjugation. 

I get a reaction. She shakes her head and says, “No, no.” 

So I say, “Um… I… uh… quiero… no, that’s not right… tenga…. tenga… how the fuck do I say broom… tenga big stick?” I shit you not. This is what I say. Cause it doesn’t matter if it’s a broom. I just need a big stick! And I make a motion with my arms, like when you are describing how big the fish you just caught was. This could not get anymore white. 

Another cleaning guy shows up. I ask him, “Habla Ingles?” He nods, “Si.” Well, if you speak English, why did you say “si”?!? I don’t tell him this and instead try to explain my predicament to him. More cleaning crew is coming into the room. And this other guy just looks at me. Something tells me that his English is probably about as good as my Spanish, and that this isn’t going to work. 

So I’ve exhausted my Spanish repertoire. How, HOW do I know so little Spanish? I mean, I know more and I guess I was just on the spot, but I literally COULD NOT FUNCTION. And I had even made a Spanish joke earlier in the day (a coworker told me that her kid was doing bad in Spanish class, and I was like “Don’t you mean muy malo?” Ha ha, fucking brilliant, Austin). And I order Mexican food all the time! And I have friends that are fluent in it! And I live in Texas! How, how am I this bad? Why did I think taking Japanese was a good idea? It’s not like there’s going to be a Japanese cleaning crew that I can converse with some day. That language is fucking USELESS! 

In that moment, I regret every decision I’ve ever made. 

But there’s hope! I see a duster on the side of one of their trash cans, one that’s kinda long. And I point at it. And I say, “Can I borrow this… uno momento?” Blank stares again. So I just grab it and say “Uno momento” and hold up one finger cause, you know, don’t want to confuse anyone. 

Okay, now they’re on board. They smile and nod and agree and I take this FUCKING DUSTER back to the mail box and start fishing the packages out again. It’s not quite long enough, but I managed to hit the packages up against the wall of the mail box and then slide them up and, just like that, they are in my hands again. 

I turn back to the cleaning crew. There’s like four of them now and they are just staring at me. I place the duster back in its holster and say, “Um.. muchos, muchos gracias!” I put all the packages in their respective bins. I high tail it out of there. I hear a little bit of laughter. I’m listening for the words “gringo loco,” but I don’t hear it. I sheepishly walk to my parking garage. I need that nap. 

Moral of the story: learn Spanish, not Japanese. And don’t be stupid.

The Killers Kill Austin

(This picture is not from last night’s show, nor did I take it. It was hijacked from the internet. His face looks funny.)

Last night, I returned to the Frank Erwin Center in beautiful Austin, Texas, to see one of my faves, The Killers, in concert. You’ve heard of them. Tickets were graciously provided by the vivacious Mprint, and I cannot thank her enough.

In short, the glamorous indy rock and roll show was amazing and we were on top of the world. Somebody told me that The Killers were no good live. Well, this show would change your mind. For reasons unknown, we smiled like we meant it. We went to the place where the white boys dance. And we danced like humans and like we used to when we were young. (see what I did there? Mr. Brightside.)

The seats were up in the mezzanine (which is just a fancy arena word for “if this were the Titanic you would die”), but it was still a decent vantage point. While I would have liked to have gotten closer to Brandon Flowers (cause, you know, his jacket is nice? And he finally shaved off that creep-ass mustache?), I certainly ain’t gonna complain. The opening act was M83, which is a band I always pretend to know but really have no idea. Apparently they are French. Anyway, I confess I didn’t pay much attention to them. I have this habit of being completely catatonic during opening acts. And late. But they were pleasant, something I might have to download someday if I can stop my current habit of listening to The Killers 24/7.

So anyway, The Killers! I will say up front that the set list relied a little too heavily on the new CD, Day and Age. Of the ten songs on it, eight were played (and “A Dustland Fairytale” was not one of them… le sigh). While I understand that this was the “Day and Age Tour,” and that the CD is new, come on. You could have gotten rid of “The World That We Live In,” to make room for something else (say… “On Top”? Pretty please?).

But this is a minor complaint, cause the rest of the show was hit after hit and the songs from Day and Age are, you know, good. I’m kinda constructing the set list from memory here, but they opened with “Spaceman” and “Losing Touch.” Good opener. This went into “Somebody Told Me,” which is a song people apparently like. You can probably guess the songs from there. No, they did not forget “Mr. Brightside.”

There were a few surprises, I thought. They played “Shadowplay,” the Joy Division cover, with footage from the Joy Division movie, Control, in the back. Travis provided a nice backing synth line to this. Also, they played “Bling” from Sam’s Town, which is a song I’ve always liked. Sadly, no “On Top.”

On to highlights from the concert! I thought “Human” was really good. Yes, I know, you are sick of the song. But when everyone is singing along (cause it’s the one song everyone knows the words to right now), it’s pretty cool. And they played my favorite, “Read My Mind,” which was beautiful. Then they “closed” with “All These Things That I’ve Done,” the song that made me really like The Killers in the first place (ya know, back in the day).

I say “closed” cause of course there was an encore. (Little side rant real quick: what’s the deal with encores? You know you are going to come back out. We know you are going to come back out. I’ve already blown my voice out singing “Smile Like You Mean It” at the top of my lungs. Please, just get back on stage! Quick! It’s all dark in here! Someone is touching me! Someone’s calling my name from the back of the restaurant! I think encores should not be a given. They should be earned). Anyway. The encore started with “Bones,” which is not my favorite song by them but whatev. However, they did finish it off with “Jenny Was A Friend of Mine.” It’s kinda creepy, everyone in the arena singing about strangling a girl at the top of their lungs. And finally, “When You Were Young.” You might have heard this one too.

So, fantastic show, and this was my first Killers concert. I’ve always liked them cause their songs are over the top, and they certainly sounded that way live. Stage design was good too, with lots of neon lights and pretty colors. This was complimented with occasional bursts of confetti, bubbles, tiger skin backdrops, and fireworks. Yay, fireworks!

No celebrity sitings this time. I guess they don’t buy nosebleed seats. At at the Erwin Center, they’re not really nosebleeds. More like a light sniffle. And how do people get drunk off of $7 beer? I mean, I thought we were in a recession. You probably had to mortgage your children just to afford tickets! How are you getting drunk on beer that’s that expensive? Seriously. Priorities, people!

Now I gotta work on those Bruce Springsteen tickets…

Also too, one of my dream trips: going to Japan with The Killers.