There must be some way I can use this

The past couple weeks, people keep telling me that I look 17. Actually, the record low was 14, but that one was an outlier that was almost definitely the booze talking. I mean, I know you can't really tell what I look like from that picture I put up of me with the Kleenex in my nose, but if you were my Facebook friend or knew me in real life, you'd know that I have a serious five o' clock shadow no matter how closely I shave and the relaxed walking posture of someone who is obviously allowed to buy alcohol in the United States with his real drivers license. I own my own car--not exactly a good example of automotive perfection, that '96 Chevy Lumina of mine, but I proudly have a set of fuzzy Care Bear dice hanging from the mirror, and what 14-year-old would have fond memories of watching that show when he was little?

On the plane home from the Chip Burns thing, I was seated next to this woman who kept poking and making me take off my noise canceling headphones so she could tell me that she was awake or about to go to sleep. I naturally had her figured for a nut right from the start, but she sealed the deal when the plane started its final descent and she woke up and we started having one of those awkward plane conversations where you happen to glimpse the other person's name on their boarding pass but you aren't sure if you can call them by it because they haven't properly introduced themselves. It was one of those. She was being really flirty, and I knew she'd believe almost anything I said, so when she asked me what I had been doing in Atlanta, my world paused. I knew this was it. I had the opportunity to tell a ridiculous, once-in-a-lifetime lie about who I was, what I'd been doing in a strange city, and what I was returning to. My mind raced with possibilities. I've always wanted to convince a total stranger that I do something totally out-there for my job (like dog catching or a that I'm a writer for some unpopular sitcom they probably wouldn't have seen, like How I Met Your Mother), or that I just got out of jail, or that I was a high profile witness in a mafia murder trial. But all that cool stuff tripped over itself on the way out of my head, fell down, and snowballed out my mouth in the form of:

"Uh, business trip."

I wanted to smack myself in the forehead. That was almost the truth! Lifting boxes and making name tags at a trade show for nine days isn't exactly a business trip, but it isn't a sightseeing excursion either. I totally blew my chance to lie my ass off to a stranger on a plane. But it might not have mattered, because a few minutes deeper into our awkward plane conversation, she smiled and said, "So what kind of business do you do?" I told her I was in graphic design, which I guess is more or less accurate, and she gave me this weird, skeptical look.

"I was gonna say, because you look kinda young for a business trip! Like 17 or 18!"

"I'm 22!" I said, semi-defensively, before realizing that to this woman, who was obviously 30ish, I must have sounded like the little kid sucking on a lollipop and insisting that he's seven and a half.

And that's when it hit me; I knew that I look a little younger than I am. I could've used that in my lie! I could've been playing a guy holding a Nerf gun in a Nerf commercial that was filmed in Atlanta. I could've been taking part in a study about how young people are more approachable or something. But the window of opportunity for that had passed, and I had to finish the rest of the conversation using truthful stuff about myself, where I live, the college I attend, and what my cat's name is.

Next time, plane lady. Next time.

A wicked dream and a wicked burn

Everyone dreams every time. Some people just don't often remember, and some hardly ever do, prompting them to believe they do not dream. But they do.

Probably because of this weird summer cold I recently came down with and how I decided to go ahead and assume that it was the onset of Captain Trips, which was the apocalyptic strain of influenza from The Stand, I had a dream last night that was a mix of the book (version of The Stand), the movie version, Life After People, and I Shouldn't Be Alive.

I don't remember much of the beginning, but it eventually became apparent as I was getting off an airplane with a group of other people and walking through a huge, deserted airport, that most of the people on earth were gone. There weren't tons of bodies around, but everything looked to have been abandoned suddenly. Forks stuck in pieces of cake, knocked over trash cans, etc. We wandered outside and were talking about how it must have been the flu that everyone was suddenly coming down with a week ago. Outside was a jungle beach type area with pure white sand and a heavy network of vines serving as the ground near the beach's edge. We walked through the jungle and saw a snake attacking a dog's tail, which naturally offended all of our good senses, so we taunted the snake, which released the dog, turned into a dog itself, and leaped at me. Luckily I had a back pack to knock it out of the air with. This was far and away the most satisfying part of the dream. For some reason, I've always wanted to slam a flying, snarling wolf dog out of the air with something heavy. When we finally reached the end of the jungle, we came out on the beach. Tall, elegant skyscrapers could be seen on the far end; they were white and shaped like Sydney Opera House pieces. Plants were growing unchecked from all their windows, and suddenly I had a helicopter's view of the city, and everything was like that. Cars parked at crazy angles in the street, fire hydrants toppled over and spraying freely, and thick ivy growing through the tops of nearly every building. And the sky was so ridiculously, beautifully blue, which somehow added creepy points to the whole scenario. Then the scene faded to night, and I was out by some mermaid statues contemplating the future of the human race. As far as anyone knew, we were the only survivors of the plague. My boss from work came up to me and explained that we could eat as much as we wanted, because somehow our food supplies never went down, no matter how much we ate. It seemed to make sense to us both, since the only way we could have survived the plague was to have been chosen by God, that our food would also be powered by God and be endless. Then some people who were apparently my friends from before the plague came up and my boss left, and we were walking. And weirdly, my dream self managed to rattle off this giant monologue about what dangers might soon visit us. It was something like...

"There could be more survivors in other parts of the world, or even nearby. They're probably scattered and disorganized, and they might believe they're the only ones left, just like we did. They might trickle in slowly and join us, or they might form their own communities. The problem is that two communities that are large enough to lay claim to the same thing could eventually emerge. And even though we're all humans and have miraculously survived the end of the human world, fossil fuels or some body of water could prove more important in everyone's immediate minds, and there could be war. And since everyone is dead and all the measures of security that were previously enforced are now abandoned, all of mankind's most deadly weapons are just lying around, waiting to be picked back up again. Nuclear bombs could be lying ten feet below the ground, free for the taking, with no one to raise a hand in protest."

As our leader was passing out horribly fitted t-shirts so we'd all recognize one another, I was trying to trade the one I got with the one that had been given to Mya from Just Shoot Me, who also happened to be in the movie version of The Stand. Suddenly I realized that she was looking really good. And then we all looked around and realized that, in fact, everyone was somehow looking much more attractive than before. And it wasn't an "I'm drunk, you look hot all of a sudden" kind of thing, it was a much more legitimate "everyone actually does look leaner, more cleaned up, more bright-eyed and better dressed" type of thing. It seemed to dawn on everybody at the same time that this was probably to encourage us to mate and repopulate the world (and while this would surely be a bonus points part of the dream to many, it creeped me and everyone else on the beach the fuck out). So we took some awesome boats out on the water back to our jungle camp, and they kept scraping against the bottoms of the ivy-owned skyscrapers. This was somehow a tragedy to me, and I cried uncontrollably. When we finally got back into the jungle, there was a repeat of the dog scene (much to my excitement).

Then I woke up.

Total dream length: all night. Total dream estimated length during dream: three days.

TL;DR It was an awesome dream.

In other news: some wiener peeled the registration stickers off my license plate. You know, those '08, '09 things. I noticed yesterday when I was walking back to my car that there was a bright orange sliver of the '07 one laid over what remained of the '06 one. Neither of which, I feel I should mention, is the currently required '09 one. So now unless it's suddenly 2006 again, I'm not even legally allowed to drive to the DMV to get new ones. What a sick, unprovoked burn. It's a good thing I don't have any kids, because I would for sure be grounding them out of spite right now if I did.

The business world

I recently had an experience that made me feel super old. Way too old to play video games or eat Popsicles. Too old to steer with just one hand. Too old even to enjoy Band-Aids that have Peanuts or Scooby Doo characters. For those who don't know, I was just in Atlanta for ten days working as a grunt/peon at a trade show. My basic job responsibilities were to spend 12 hours a day making name tags, laminating name tags, scanning RFID tags to put into name tags, not breaking any name tags, and finally distributing the name tags. The last part required that we dress up nice, so naturally, I put on a tie for the first time in my life. Anyway, I was getting some coffee in the break room, and as I looked down to put the sugar in, I noticed that I could see my tie, dress shirt, and name tag in the same field of view as my hands putting sugar into coffee. And it hit me: I'm at work doing crappy office work, making coffee, and wearing business clothes including a name tag. I am old.

To combat my oldness, which seems to have visited me a bit prematurely at 22, I promptly set to work finding things which are funny. One of the best, funniest things was a name we discovered hidden deep in the name list. That name was Chip Burns. While not inherently all that funny, it did have a sort of Indiana Jones-esque quality. It seemed to us that Chip Burns would wear a monocle, a top hat, have an excessively masculine jawline, piercing eyes, a cape, possibly a jet pack, and certainly the power to throw things with his mind. When Willy picked up the untorn, unfolded name tag paper and said, "Dude, check this one out: 'Chip Burns!'," we all knew that we'd stumbled upon something that was going to get us through the next week and a half. And he did.

The days leading up to Chip Burns' arrival to collect his name tag were tense. We all wondered what he would look like. I drew up a wanted poster of him looking like a burnt-out college kid with a pimp hat and a monocle, but we all knew in the backs of our minds that Chip would never let his hair get shaggy, for he needs to be aerodynamic while jet packing through the Amazon rain forest. Someone suggested we try to get high fives from Chip if he seemed even the slightest bit cool, but I kept quiet during this conversation. Truth be told, I was a little afraid that Chip Burns would pack a high five x-treme enough to permanently cripple any hand unprepared to receive him.

Even our supervisors were amped for Chip Burns. Other sweet names like Dominique Homo, Connie Concon, and John Pimpo, while awesome, were not as consuming to us as Chip Burns. We had just built him up too much and put way too much stock in his awesomeness to trust any other convention-goer to satisfy. We imagined him walking up to the counter playing a full orchestra's worth of instruments with Godlike talent, possibly juggling at the same time, and saying in a booming voice, "TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN: THIS... IS CHIP...... BUUUURNS. I BELIEVE YOU HAVE A NAME TAG FOR ME!" He would be able to sink the sun if he wanted. All the women would want him and all the men would want to be him.

Eventually, on the final day that name tags would be available for pickup, he came.

I was reading Nine Stories, which is perhaps Salinger's greatest work, when he showed up. It seemed almost fitting, since I was on the last story, "Teddy," which is about a boy with a startling mental capacity and a rich history of past lives (which we all assumed was also the case with Chip Burns). I remember flipping one of the final pages in the book as I heard a voice, gentle but somehow cunning, say to the girl seated beside me at her booth: "It's, ah, 'Burns.' Need a photo ID?"

My mouth fell open. We knew that Chip Burns would probably be coming to get his name tag today since it would be his last opportunity to do so, but it happened at exactly the right moment. It wasn't busy, so we had all the opportunity in the world to meet and greet. I stood up and looked at him. Although he didn't have a top hat or a monocle, Chip Burns was still somehow exactly like we thought he'd be. He had a massively cleft chin, sparkling blue eyes, a buzz cut, and was just the slightest bit muscular. He looked like someone who might strangle a boa constrictor just to prove he could do it.

Willy approached him. "Excuse me, sir," he said. "This might seem... really weird. But a few days ago, we chose a name to place on a pedestal and think was incredibly awesome. That was your name, sir."

Chip Burns turned to him and smiled. "You guys must be really bored back there!" he roared mannishly.

"We are, sir," Willy replied. "Would it be okay if we got a picture or two with you?"

Chip Burns seemed to ponder this for a moment. Finally, his eyes twinkling, he shouted, "Let's do it!"

I couldn't run around the booths to the lobby fast enough. I thought about cartwheeling over the window, but I knew Chip Burns' cartwheels would probably put mine to shame. Eventually, when we had all assembled behind Chip Burns and the camera was ready, we struck our Chip Burns poses and the flash went off. We took two or three more, and one girl got one of him hugging her, but everything after that first moment when he showed up is a bit of a blur for me. The adrenaline, you know.

We also stole his business card. You were supposed to get one from each convention-goer and staple it to the form they had to sign to pick up their name tag, but we kept Chip Burns'. We also photocopied and laminated it. Now it's stuck in Nine Stories as my bookmark.

Considering this epic office adventure, which might not sound as amazing in writing as it was in person, I think I'm finally ready to grow up. I might not ever be able to kick my Peanuts Band-Aids habit, but I think I can handle the white collar world. With a little help...

...from Chip Burns.

The future looks bleak, yo

Waking up with "We Are The Champions" by Queen stuck in your head is more than enough to get the gears turning and the wonder machine working on trying to figure out whatever happened to heartwarming, clever, well-written kids sports movies like The Mighty Ducks and The Sandlot. Airbud does not count, nor do the many sequels where Airbud has to play soccer or football. Somehow Beethoven is close, although that didn't really involve sports in any way. But seriously, where did these films go? When and why was it decided that all kids movies must be some type of animation? (And on that note, why are all animated movies now done in that Pixar style rather than drawn? Sorry, I just don't like that stuff. It feels effortless and generic, like the bad Flash animations Flash tutorials have you make.)

I think maybe part of it is that the actors who rocked those old school kids sports movies have all grown up into gross adults and stuff. For instance, I rented this awesomely bad-looking horror movie a while back because it had the fat kid from The Sandlot (he was also the goalie in The Big Green) in it, but it turns out he lost weight when he grew up. LAME. There are some people who just shouldn't be allowed to not be fat; Wayne Knight, better known as Newman from Seinfeld, is another one. That guy just would not be hilarious if he was thin. Who would want to see a dilophosaurus maul a thin guy? Not me. Not even if they played the same scream three times in a row.

Somewhere along the way, the sincerity in kids movies just evaporated. Oh sure, there are probably some good ones that came out in recent years, but I seriously doubt that people will still be making t-shirts of their catch phrases twenty or thirty years from now. I bring that up because I saw an awesome "You're Killin' Me, Smalls!" shirt the other day and wanted the crap out of it, but I had to pass it up because I am poor. But that's okay, because I've got my memories, unlike today's kids. When they grow up and go to college and be poor, there's no way they're going to see shirts of Bolt or Cars and want them. There's just no way! I would seriously bet my roomie's right pinkie against it.

The year in review

As of 12:15 this afternoon, all of my lectures, labs, and studios were finally completed for the academic year. Finals week is still left, but that almost doesn't count as class because the schedule becomes so random and weird and there isn't really much work left to do. I'd like now to recap a few of the more memorable things that happened this year.

• In the big art history lecture hall, which was very dark and silent as we took an online test, someone's computer suddenly began blaring porno music and impassioned moans. Whoever it was took nearly thirty seconds to close the video.

• I saw a guy get kicked out of my intro to logical thinking class for replying "recess" when the professor asked him what his major was.

• My terrible theater professor, who was a pudgy, socially awkward jerk, was met with muffled laughter when he tried to casually toss it out there that he had had a girlfriend at one point. (Unrelated, but another funny thing with this guy was when we Googled him and found out he has a Geocities portfolio website that's done entirely in Papyrus.)

• In painting, our friend Stan's tradition of reading to the class from his Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark 3 book was eventually integrated into the course's official schedule as a 15-minute block every Tuesday and Thursday that became known as "Homeless Stan's Illicit Story Time."

• One of Jon's most recent offerings of foamcore (the musical genre), known officially as "Transcendence," became more affectionately known as "The Neighbor Song" because it was what we always blasted with the subwoofer face-down on the ground at 3am when we were feeling mischievous.

• Jonathan Taylor Thomas was named the King of the Mid-'90s Fadeaway Into Obscurity by President Obama as part of one of his lesser known campaign promises.

• The phrase "jive ass bitches" was inducted into the official vocabulary of our apartment one afternoon after Jon and I watched a especially enlightening episode of Fresh Prince.

I want that

It doesn't surprise me that in our ultra-material culture, there are a bunch of things that I find myself wanting throughout the day. What often does surprise me is how come Christmas time, I can never think of any of it, and I end up with some Barnes & Noble gift cards, a CD or two I could download for free, and a new collar for the cat (which, if you think about it, isn't really so much for the cat as it is for me).

I kind of want my own podcast. There are a few major problems with this idea, but before I get to them, I'll tell you why I'd enjoy having a podcast. I think it would be very cool to falsely assume I had a cult following. It would be blatantly obvious that I wouldn't have a popular following, but since I'd see one or two new downloads per month pop up, I could probably convince myself that my music selections and interesting musings on the state of whatever had earned me a special place in the hearts of at least a few perceptive individuals. I wouldn't really care about whether or not it was true so as long as I could name the podcast something like "Snack Break." Or "The Bus Stop."

Then again, I still am not really sure what a podcast is or how you make one, so that's probably out the window. Plus, it would pretty much be the same shit you can read here, except I wouldn't be able to put funny pictures I find on Google at the beginning of each installment like I can on a blog.

I want to like Twitter. It seems like something that should either come easily or not be a stressful thing to ignore, but somehow Twitter seems like such a cool, modern idea until I actually go to update my status with it. I never know what to say. "Met a hobo"? "Went 2 the hospital"? "Still using Twitter"? Why even "microblog" in the first place? Hardly anybody reads my long blog, let alone my carefully-worded-so-as-to-fit-into-the-140-character-limit microblog.

I want a giant White Stripes poster. I actually already have one that's nearly as tall as I am, but I think it would be super keen to have two of them right next to one another. Then people could come into my apartment and think I was some type of White Stripes goon, but I could just be like, "Naw, check it out--if you stand right here, it looks like that Meg White is whispering something to the other Meg White." And then I would be thought a visionary.

I also want to bore a tunnel from my living room to the basement so I could do laundry without having to walk all the way around the building, but I'm going to be moving out soon anyway so I may put that one on the back burner for a while.

Ten things you should definitely try to get ahold of

Today's post will be less about me and more about stuff that legitimately rocks. Some of it might not be for everybody, but that's okay, because chances are you aren't everybody anyway.

10. Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Season 1
Are You Afraid of the Dark was a tremendously great show. Not only did it teach us the value of mortal terror when we were children, but these days it hits the spot like no other when you're in the mood for some inadvertent humor from the ever-deep well of terrible '90s hairstyles and super baggy shirts. Are You Afraid of the Dark Season 1 can be found on YouTube, provided you know which episode you're looking for.

9. Robot Dinosaurs That Shoot Beams When They Roar
Not only does this short Flash game combine at least four of the most awesome things on planet Earth (that being dinosaurs, robots, flying, and roaring), but it does so with a hilarious soundtrack and a strangely satisfying intro video. Highly recommended, especially since it's free to play and to love. Robot Dinosaurs That Shoot Beams When They Roar can be found here.

8. Middle Cyclone, by Neko Case
Neko Case is the co-front (wo)man of The New Pornographers, and also has about a billion albums from her solo career, which is more alt country than indie rock but still somehow manages to rule (for more on this phenomenon, consult bands like Jenny Lewis and She & Him). "This Tornado Loves You," the first track, is especially dece. Way more dece than Pat Benatar, and that's saying something. "Middle Cyclone" can be stolen off the internet in any number of creative ways or bought in an actual store.

7. Gak
Not sure if Gak even still exists, or how one could come across it even if it did, but it's too great not to be mentioned. Once I wrapped Gak around my cat's tail back when he was only a kitten, and my mom had to shave the tail to get the Gak out.

6. Super Metroid
Super Metroid is Super Dece. Basically, you're an ass-kicking female robotron named Samus whose main goal in life is to kill every animal that ever existed. You run around shooting blobs of slime and blasting doors open with missiles, and every so often you have to jump over lava or solve little puzzles. As far as SNES games go, it's one of the better ones. Super Metroid can be downloaded from www.vimm.net or bought on Ebay.

5. From Dusk Till Dawn
I still haven't picked my jaw up off the floor from the first time I saw this intentionally awesomely bad trans-genre Tarantino project, and I think it still stands as one of the most hilarious and most strangely satisfying super violent movies ever made. I won't spoil anything about the plot, because it's 900 times funnier if you go into it without knowing a single thing about it, but I will say that it's as just about as close to perfect as any movie could ever come. From Dusk Till Dawn can be downloaded from any number of sites or rented at Family Video from the two for a dollar section.

4. My Maudlin Career, by Camera Obscura
Many bands do the "I am sad, but sound very happy" thing with a fair amount of success, but Camera Obscura are masters of the art. Tracy Ann Campbell and friends came out with this record yesterday (April 21st, for the record) and I've had it on repeat between classes and Are You Afraid of the Dark viewing sessions. I think it's a pretty solid one-up on their last album, "Let's Get Out Of This Country," which was also great, and again I get a perfect mental picture of a slasher movie set in a high school from the 1950s. Argyle socks and everything. "My Maudlin Career" can be bought in a store or downloaded just like any other CD.

3. Franny and Zooey, by J.D. Salinger
Although you are reading this right now, it is possible that you do not like to read. And while that's perfectly acceptable, the fact remains that this would prevent you from ever reading this book, which is only like 100 pages long and could be said to be a pretty profound part of American literary culture. It originally appeared as two short stories in the New Yorker, for chrissakes! It was the last book the man ever wrote! I plan to name my future dog after Zooey! Franny and Zooey can be gotten from any library worth its salt and probably found someplace on the innanet as well.

2. Crank 2
It's rare that a bad movie spawns a sequel that takes extreme (and by that I mean XTREME!!!!) advantage of the original's badness. Crank 2 is that movie. Although it did seem a little like they were trying to channel the spirit of Kill Bill by casting David Carradine, interjecting quirky typographic design into random scenes, and occasionally featuring bizarre flash backs reminscent of Beatrix Kiddo calling out, "Present!" in her 3rd grade classroom, it was still a pretty damn hilarious and dece movie. And I won't even go into the absurdly stupid (but somehow very compelling) plot that follows Chev Chelios as he clobbers an infinity of badguys in order to get his stolen heart back. It scores a solid 3 Pat Benatars out of 4, at least. Crank 2 can be seen in theaters or probably downloaded.

1. Army men
Not the stupid video game series, I mean the actual toys. The little green plastic guys who were supposedly designed to be able to stand but never needed much help when it came to falling over. Army men are truly great. Not only are they literally hours and hours and hours of entertainment on their own, but they're entirely recyclable if you have an open fireplace at your disposal. Sometimes that's the most fun thing to do with them, actually. Army men earn a perfect score of 4 Pat Benatars out of 4, and the official Jack Lawrence seal of approval. Army men can be bought in creepy old toy stores, and as soon as the required technological leaps are made by the computer science nerds of the world, there will be a way to download them off the internet. You heard it here first.