By popular request

Gather around children, for I have a story to spin.

We were on our way to get pizza, my chums and I. The two of them having polished off the bottle of SKYY Vodka from the refrigerator, and I am of course perfectly sober. I am very much the escort, to make sure they don't get arrested for public drunkenness or get murdered for making rude remarks about the wrong gang member's choice of attire.

(Aside: I regularly serve this role, in the perhaps unconscious hope that some young lady will note my responsibility and care for my friends and throw herself into my arms. This has not occurred and Cody tells me I am stupid for thinking this.)

In any case, the three of us walk along North Avenue at 1 in the morning and something catches our collective eyes. There is a dude (the bro type, on his way to a sick kegger, no doubt) in the drivers seat of a parked car, and the woman in the passenger seat seams to be doubled over. She is ill perhaps, head resting in the guy's lap. Then we note that her head is bobbing up and down, and yep that guy's getting his staff spit-shined by a comically drunk young woman.

For those of you who have never seen an act of public sex, it is one of those things that tears you between two sentiments. One that says "Ew. The nerve. Get a room, you animals" and one that says "Wow, just like in the movies!" It's very much a religious experience. I keep calm and continue walking with a grin, but my friends are snickering and laughing until one of them gives the guy the thumbs up. The dude in the car comically puts his finger to his lips, miming a librarian's "Quiet, please".

They later briefly entered the restaurant we settled on and I resisted the urge to loudly say something like: "BOY, THIS EVENING SURE BLOWS."



So working caused me to miss what was apparently a really swanky shindig. Focus Refilled, which I am told attracted somewhere in the neighborhood of fifty people, winded down basically right after I got off work. There would have been tons of artsy-fartsy people to mingle with. Some of these people would have probably been English majors that I could have mooched advice from. Some of them might even have bothered to talk to me.

It doesn't help that one roommate just quit his job and the other one hasn't bothered with one to begin with. So while I am shelving books for minimum wage they're (I can only assume) playing awesome video games, and meeting cool people, and eating nice food, and kissing beautiful women, and making new friends.

I need to do something about this annoying "responsibility" thing that causes me to do things like leave social functions early to study and refuse to ever call in sick to work.

George Clooney is so sick of this

Imagine you are working along a deserted street late at night, say one in the morning. Say that this street is N Farwell Avenue. It's a Saturday night (okay, Sunday morning I guess) and the bars are starting to let out. You are with your boyfriend perhaps. There's a minor fog, but nothing too bad. You pass a coffee shop, closed obviously because who buys coffee at such an hour?

This coffee shop is Brewing Grounds for Change, a local volunteer-run joint. In the large windows you see what appear to be mannequins. Very life-like ones. Why would a coffee shop put mannequins in the windows? Maybe it's some weird hipster thing. You go in for a closer look, when perhaps one of the statues moves a hand or appears to chuckle to itself or exchanges glances with its fellow.

Imagine that you proceed to FUCKING LOSE YOUR SHIT. I was one of those statuesque folks and if you were this person, let it be known that you, whoever you may be, made our night. Your boyfriend laughing at your fear was the icing on this terrifying cake.


Right, the Academy Awards. Hurt Locker won, which didn't really surprise me. In a startling upset, Up managed to win best animated picture. And Tarantino went home with jack squat save the best supporting actor for his man, Christoph Waltz. The best thing about the night, though? Cut to George Clooney for an instant.



There we are. Aaaaaaaand, George Clooney reaction shot.



I'm imagining the phrase "What the hell do you want from me?" in his voice and it works so well.

And I almost forgot about Neil Patrick Harris's surprise musical number. The other best thing about the show. Is there anything that can't benefit from a little Enn Pea Aitch?


My coworkers are often very concerned for my welfare. I'm not sure why this is, but I continue getting offers of food from them. It may be the fact that I work with a handful of what are basically stereotypical Jewish mothers, but I am never without a source of free food. It is thanks to one of these wonderful coworkers that I had to clear out a shelf in my refrigerator to fit a bunch of random Chinese leftovers tonight. After a party, they had nowhere to go, so she tried to see if anyone at work wanted them, insisting that I take it all off her hands. Radical.

Cody still hasn't got over his last battle with East Asian cuisine, so his reaction should be way hilarious.


What else is in the news? Oh yeah, a protest at school turned into way more of a clusterfuck than it should have been, and both the students and authorities can probably be blamed for this. Bothering the lawmakers in Madison who allocate funds to our schools might have a better chance of working, no matter how tiny that chance is.

And for Chrissakes, did you really take marijuana to a place where there would be likely to be police officers? Are you a goddamn idiot? You might try laying off the weed.


Anime Milwaukee is this weekend and Vic "Edward Elric" Mignogna will be there. I may have some things for him to autograph. But I am staying away from the furries. These anime cons attract some frightening, and frankly terrible people. You may consider me entrenched, like a harried journalist reporting from inside a strange and alien cult.

YOU ACTIVATED MY TRAP CARD

Because the bookstore is being stingy with the hours, I'm looking into second jobs. I really like the bookstore and don't want to leave it, but it's not bringing in the green that it used to, especially now that I am living somewhat on my own. I don't plan on leaving the bookstore though, because the idea of having some control over what the masses read is incredibly attractive to me.

So I'm going to try the UWM library. I have a contact. And I've seen the people they have doing the shelving there, and I can tell you I can shelve CIRCLES around them. And it's actually a lot like the bookstore anyway! There's a multimedia area, a children's book area and a coffee shop! They both even have hobos come in sometimes!


This may come as a shock, but I was pretty big on the Yugioh scene, back in the day. Even had a gig as a columnist on a fairly prominent gaming web site. (No, I'm not linking it for you. If you really want to see how and what I wrote six years ago, you're gonna have to work to find it.) The game has improved somewhat over the time that I was away from the game once Konami got it through their heads that the game needs a little thing called BALANCE. So I've been tentatively dipping my feet back into the pond. I blame Andrew.

This means buying packs of cards. This is much easier to do when you're twenty-one compared with fourteen because you can drive, have income, and a certain disregard for what the register monkey thinks of you. Among the cards pulled, I grabbed this thing:



It's a Blackwing Tuner that can be used in a Synchro Summon even while it's in the graveyard so long as you're using it to summon a Blackwing Synchro monster like Blackwing Armor Master.

That's not important.

What is important is that this thing is selling for BIG BUCKS. A piece of shiny cardstock is selling for 50 bucks on the secondary market easy. And what's more, most players are predicting that the card will only skyrocket in value once the next Banned/Restricted Card List comes out next month.

That's a 1250% fucking return for something that I got out of a four dollar booster pack. What I am trying to get across to you, dear reader, is that I am now (proportionally speaking) FABULOUSLY WEALTHY.


Card game players have a tradition of shelling out insane amounts of currency for these pieces of paper. I remember when the only way to get a Mechanicalchaser was to fork over nearly half a grand for it. And of course, Magic the Gathering players are well familiar with the Black Lotus, a card that at one time could be auctioned for a final price well into the four figures.


No, I can't imagine why I'm single at the moment.

The guys in Intel really dropped the ball on this one

At my job, I sometimes have breaks. Much like you fine law-abiding Americans, I'm sure. There are a multitude of restaurants in the same strip mall as Borders and you usually pick one to go get lunch at.

I had just been told, after two and a half years of working at the store that the Noodles & Company down the way will totally give you a free soda if you mention that you work in the same mall as them. A. Whole. Free. Soda.

WHY HAD I NOT BEEN INFORMED OF THIS UNTIL NOW?

So, as my break started, I declared that I was indeed going down to prove this for myself. Co-workers gave me the look that Bruce Willis gets when he tells people that they're actually going to land the astronauts on the asteroid itself.

It would be risky for sure. What if this policy was no longer in effect? What if I tell them about it and they think I'm an idiot or some free-loader who just wants free soda? We simply could not have this. So it was with understandable apprehension that I strolled into the restaurant. It was busy, what with the dinner rush. Too many witnesses. Any one of these rubes would be there to witness my failure, or worse, call the authorities.

I idly fingered the Borders badge sitting in my coat pocket the same way that a novice criminal caresses his automatic on the way to his first armed robbery. And my badge was a lot like a gun. I could pull the trigger and BOOM free soda. The pistol was loaded with taste bullets, fully chambered with the hammer cocked ALL THE WAY BACK.

The counter. The clerk is slightly fatigued, but in good spirits. A good sign, but we mustn't allow ourselves to get overconfident. Too many X-factors at work here. The guy next to her is clearly a supervisor - I could see the "no" fully queued up behind his veneer of affability, his triumphant sneer waiting in the wings. And what of the people in line behind me? I can't hold up the line with my need for free beverages or things could get violent.

I laid out the deal and displayed the Borders badge - my symbol of authority and my only bargaining chip. Her poker face doesn't falter as she pulls out a cup and slides it across the counter asking if I would like anything else.

I felt like a cop holding up his badge to make his way into the crime scene. I smile inwardly and make my order.


This is what passes for excitement in my life.