July 17th, 2007

Possible Slogans for Other Brands of Beer, Assuming Miller High Life Truly is “The Champagne of Beers”

• Busch Light: “The Wine-in-a-Box of Beers”

• Miller Light: “The ‘Sparkling White Wine’ of Beers”

• Bud Light: “The Beer of Beers”

• PBR: “The Moderately-Priced Wine that You Pick Out Based on It’s Vaguely Familiar Name, Because You Don’t Know Anything About Wine of Beers”

• Newcastle: “The Rum of Beers”

• Yuengling: “The Cristal of Beers”

• Corona: “The Escargot of Beers”

• Blue Moon: “The Prescription Painkillers Containing Bits of Orange for Some Reason of Beers”

• Stella Artois: “The Weed You Smoked Once at a Party Because Everyone Else was Doing It of Beers”

• Bass: “The Charlize Theron of Beers”

• Guinness: “The Heroin of Beers”

A silly list with a ridiculously long premise/title? Yes, this concludes my most McSweeney’s-ish entry to date.

Tags: Ideas | No Comments »

July 10th, 2007

My Top Ten Least Favorite “Universal Dreams”

10. That I’m Using the Bathroom
I’ve heard so many stories about people having this dream and waking up with wet, disgusting sheets that whenever my subconscious decides to whip this out (so to speak), my conscious bursts in in a panic mid-way through screaming “Wake up! Wake up! You might actually be peeing right now!” and I’m jolted from my slumber. Fortunately, I’ve never actually been peeing in the bed (kicked that habit back in ’85). If I ever had, this dream would probably be higher on my list.

9. That I’m Doing Some Mundane Task From My Everyday Life
Sometimes I dream that I’m calmly and diligently paying my bills. Or washing my car. Since I’ve been employed as a web designer, I’ve had dreams about how I was going to write the code on a site at work…. Come on. I have to do this stuff when I’m lucid. All day long. Where are the tropical islands? And the dragons? And the Bond girls?

8. That I’m Already Up, Getting Ready to Go Wherever It is I Need to Go
For some reason, I always have this dream when I’m coming down with something. I guess because waking up is even less desirable then, so my brain wants to fool me into thinking…I’ve already done it…? As I am up, preparing for the day I usually come to the realization that it is a dream and that, in my actual life, I am still asleep. Then I say to myself “Uh-oh this is my sick dream. I am getting sick.” Then I allow myself to entertain the notion that I am not getting sick and I really am awake, just so I can sleep for 10 more minutes. Then I really wake up, I feel like crap, and I am running late. Totally sucks.

7. That I’m Back in College and Finding Out I was Supposed to be Attending a Class All Semester, but it’s the Very End of the Semester
I still have this dream all the time, probably due to the busy, stressful last semester of college I had. According to some site that came up when I googled “dream meanings” the in-depth research I carried out in preparation for this entry “this dream stems from the innate feeling that we need to achieve or compete.” Most people I know who have had this dream describe it as sitting down to a final exam they are totally unprepared to take, so that analysis makes sense. On the other hand, I never actually get that far. Mine stalls at the point where I’ve found out it’s way too late to drop this class that I have been unintentionally skipping and am most certainly now failing. I think my version is more about being stuck in a crappy situation, way past the point of being able to undo it. There’s nothing like the feeling that you are completely and utterly screwed, is there?

6. That I’ve Tripped and I’m Slamming into the Ground
Everyone has had this dream before, right? You’re running/power-walking/perhaps skipping (Kaiser?) down the sidewalk, then all of the sudden you’re taking a dive into the cement, and BAM! Remember the childish prank where you’d deftly tip-toe up behind someone, then clamp onto their waist and yell “Boo!” in their ear? This is your subconscious doing that to you. So annoying.

5. That I’ve Discovered a Secret Room Where I Live
My mom talks about having this dream quite a bit and I could never imagine what it was like, ’til recently when I had it for the first time. What will you do with this newfound space? The possibilities! It’s pretty cool…’til you wake up and realize it doesn’t actually exist. Anyway, I think, in a very subtle, complex way, this dream symbolizes not having enough places to put all your junk.

4. That I’m at School in My Underwear
Ah, the old standby. Appropriately, for this one I’m always transported back to my middle school days. It starts on the bus, which isn’t so bad, ’cause I can kind of hide in my seat. But then we get to school and all the buses have arrived in front and are unloading at the exact same time and I have to get out and walk to class in plain sight of everyone. How embarrassing.

3. That I’m in a Moving Car but No One is Driving
The set-up here is that somehow I’ve gotten into the backseat of the car I’m supposed to be operating, as it is cruising down the road, and I’ve fallen asleep. When I enter the scene I’m just waking from my nap and realizing that somehow I’ve gotten into the backseat of the car I’m supposed to be operating, as it is cruising down the road, and I’ve fallen asleep. The car has managed to stay in it’s lane — which is good, because we’re on a busy highway like I-40 — and it’s continuing to run by itself. Is there something seriously wrong with this vehicle? Is the car equipped with some sort of auto-pilot? These are the questions I’m asking myself as I madly lunge for the steering wheel and try to decide how I’m going to get my legs to over the seats to work the pedals.

2. That I’m Trying to Run Away from a Bad Guy but I Can’t Run Fast Enough
See also: That I’m Trying to Punch a Bad Guy, but I Can’t Punch Hard Enough. This is scary because there’s a bad guy after me, but it’s also just really aggravating because I know I’m capable of running faster/punching harder than I am in the dream. For whatever reason, my subconscious just isn’t letting me. It’s like it wants the bad guy to get me. Jerk.

1. That All My Teeth are Falling Out
On a scale of 1–10, the cringe factor here is approximately 100,000,000,000. My molars start to break apart, and, when I reach in to feel what is happening, one comes out in my hand, leaving a bloody socket behind. I try another and the same thing happens. Then another. Same. Then another. Same. Then I stop and seek medical assistance. Haha! Just kidding! Then another. Then another. And I continue bewilderingly investigating until all my teeth are gone and I am officially freaking out. I have to say, this would probably be how I reacted in real life too (I have yet to master the ability to “leave well enough alone”), thus there is a real air of believability to this one.

Tags: Ideas, Recollections | No Comments »

July 7th, 2007

Clothesing Time

In our “quaint,” “historic” apartment, Steph and I don’t have the proper hook-ups for a washer or dryer, or the space for them, so we can’t do our laundry in-house. Thankfully there is a laundromat across the street from us, about 30 yards from our front door. We never use it, but it’s nice knowing it’s there. The way we get our laundry done instead, is to fill our hampers ’til they are bulging at the sides like cans infected with botulism, load them all in the car (a task which requires many trips), drive to Cary, and casually pop in on Mom and Dad. (This is also how we provide meals for ourselves on many Saturdays or Sundays.) Then — you know, since we’re there — we spend a few hours transferring the mounds of cloth from our laundry bags to the washer, from the washer to the dryer, and from the dryer back to the laundry bags.

For the past six weeks or so, we hadn’t had time for this process. We’ve gone out of town, or had obligations in town, that have prevented it. We had gotten into a bad place. I had nothing left to wear but a blazer that is two sizes too big for me with spaghetti stains on it, and a small collection of ultra-lame t-shirts that even the most ironic of hipsters wouldn’t go near (“1996 Morrisville Job Fair,” etc.). My hangers were so sparsely populated that hyperactive magical creatures playing lutes were springing out whenever I opened the closet door. Taking advantage of the weak clothing barrier, they were escaping from some sort of magical realm in the rear of the closet. What’s that? “Nar-nia,” you say? I have no idea what you’re taking about, but I can definitely tell you that this realm has never been featured in a masterwork of literature that is probably vigilantly protected by copyright law. Anyway, we then had to chase these little buggers around our apartment with nets, climbing over the furniture and knocking over sidetables with antique lamps on them. It was all quite frustrating.

Even worse, I was down to “tighty-whitey” style unmentionables.

And there was no end to the clothing drought in sight, since we were supposed to go out of town this past Saturday too, to visit a high school friend of Steph’s who recently had a baby, so we could look at this baby and probably have Steph’s hormones receive the small boost they need to fully conquer the rational part of her brain and start her stealing children from people on the street. What happened instead, though, was Steph got horribly sick and tethered us to the apartment all weekend.

I used this opportunity to get some housecleaning done, and I also took a sizable load of laundry to the laundromat. I thought I’d spend an hour or an hour-and-a-half there and get them done. As I headed over, however, I came to the conclusion — expedited by the fact that I did not want to spend part of my day off hanging around in a laundromat — that my time would be better spent running errands, so…I turned them in for wash-dry-fold.

This is where you drop a basketful of your filthy, stinky clothing off and have others wash, dry, and, yes, fold them for you. I have never used this service before in my life. I grew up learning that you change your own oil, you sew your own buttons back on your own shirts, you mow your own lawn, and you wash your own clothes your own self. My family does not support the idea of having someone else take care of your stuff. Particularly when you have to pay them a ridiculous amount of money for it. Which you always do.

I can hear them now “Were they laundered to your liking, your majesty?”

Well, exaggerated in-my-head family: yes, they were. There is something to be said for the work of true professionals. This is the cleanest my shirts and pants have ever been. They smell like they’ve had tiny strands of fabric-softener-sheet woven into their fibers. And the folding! Instead of taking a bunch of, sure, clean, but, let’s face it, still wrinkled and inside-out t-shirts, and, as long as I’m being honest, just cramming them in my dresser as I do, I easily deposited a perfectly symmetrical column of cotton-blend into my drawer. I accidentally dropped one on the bedroom floor, and it plopped gently onto the hardwood, nary a centimeter of fabric falling out of place. They even fold up your underwear! (Yes, I took our underwear to them. I had to. I’m trying my best not to think about it.)

Of course we can’t make a habit out of wash-dry-fold, because we had to pay them a ridiculous amount of money for it. At .89/lb., that large load really cost us. You might say they “took us to the cleaners” over it.

And I sincerely hope that you do.

Tags: Happenings | No Comments »