Why I Haven't Gotten That Frank Zappa Tattoo Yet

Figure 1. Some guy

Those who wish they didn't know me that well are very aware of, and annoyed by, my infatuation with Frank Zappa. "Shut up already" they all say to me. They brazenly say that right to my incredibly handsome, perfectly symmetrical face! Fair enough, obviously. To each his own, and all that. You don't have to like the guy, and who could blame you? He was ugly, his music was ugly, his catalog is huge and inaccessible, and he was kind of an asshole. My 17-year-old self found that all incredibly appealing, though, and once I bought myself that very first Zappa album I had an insatiable appetite for anything and everything else of his that I could get my hands on. For nearly 1.5 years straight he was the only artist I wanted to listen to. Zappa died on December 4th, 1993, 25 years ago today, from complications related to prostate cancer. He died 10 years before I even knew who he was. His music changed my life.

Blah blah blah blah blah blah *insert slow jack-off motion here that lasts longer than it needs to, making it awkward for everyone in the room*. Everyone has this story. You all have something from your teenage years that affected you in a way that would seem impossible to happen again in your life as a world-weary adult: Catcher in the Rye, Hunter S. Thompson, George Carlin, System of a Down, Final Fantasy, Nirvana, Miles Davis...My Little Pony, the Smurfs, Joel Osteen, Guy Fieri, Kim Jong-il, "Ernest Goes to Camp"...hey, who am I to judge? My obsession with Zappa was second to nothing else, and my obsession was/is so deep-seated that I've been seriously thinking about getting a Zappa tattoo for the last 10 years. His big ol' dumb iconic black mustachioed logo located on my left forearm just below the crook of my elbow. I know exactly what I want, I know where I want it, I haven't ever waffled on any of the details, and I have never pulled the trigger on it. Here are my reasons, all of them embarrassingly irrational:

Figure 2. A thing

1) Do I really look like I could pull off a goddamned tattoo?

I mean, really? Come on. If anyone reading this hasn't seen me since high school, I'm 5'9" and 150 lbs of skinny-fat dad bod in all its wondrous glory. I wear sad-looking plaid button-downs with khaki pants at work and American Apparel shirts with jeans at home. I didn't start shaving every day until I turned 24. I look like the kind of guy who collects anime pillows and gets all riled up about Bitcoins. Imagine if man-child Doug Funnie got a Beets tattoo. I don't need that extra level of potentially permanent self-consciousness in my life! I'd even have to wear a long-sleeved shirt every day in the shower to escape my inner torment.

2) I'd be a wimp through every aspect of the process

Obviously all the planning and the going and the doing, that's all the temporary part, but man everything about doing it sounds like a real drag. Finding a good and reputable tattoo artist, finding the right reference design and size for the tattoo artist, feeling fully comfortable with my choices, undergoing the actual process itself, keeping it clean and allowing it to heal property, I'm too lazy for all that shit. The needles don't scare me too much, but I'm an insufferable wuss about pain and I get overly emotional about paper cuts so I can't see myself handling the situation with the grace of anyone older than 2. Once it became a reality, I'd spend most of the days leading up to the event pacing and wringing my hands and annoying my loved ones with constant projections of my tiresome anxieties. "Shut up already" they would all say to me. They would brazenly say it right to my incredibly striking, pale gray eyes and my perfectly sculpted jawline.

3) Let's go back to the self-conscious thing again for a second...

OK, so let's forget all that shit earlier about looking like third-rate Doug Funnie. I'm also not personally too big anymore on using my own body as a billboard to advertise my interests to the world. I wore Simpsons shirts and khaki shorts every day during high school, even in the winter. Everyone in high school knew I liked the Simpsons, big fucking deal. Did I ever get laid in high school? Enough said. I kind of don't want to be the guy who likes Zappa so much he found it necessary to make this permanently known to a world full of people who couldn't care less. Do YOU care that I like Frank Zappa? No? Why are you even reading this? Go back to ebaumsworld, son!

4) I don't think Zappa has aged well

Zappa took a lot of pride in being purposefully controversial with respect to racism, sexism, religion, sexuality, and politics. It was always presented as satire, mostly level-headed and designed to provoke, but a lot of it was less thought-out than I'd like to admit (even at the time) and some of it certainly hasn't aged well in the last 50 years. In all honesty, in this day and age when our own president is a callous, ignorant, miserable piece of shit, I'm not thrilled with the idea of accidentally projecting any semblance of approval, as indirect as it might be, for such opinions through the medium of tattoo. As a white dude who was raised in the sheltered suburbs, fuck that noise. Even if Zappa may not have believed it all himself, it's still not a good look.

Almost all personal accounts of the real Zappa suggest that he was a decent man. He was a good husband and father who raised four kids who are all fairly well-adjusted human beings considering their celebrity upbringing. It would hurt me to hear evidence someday that Zappa was a complete misogynist or a Bill Cosby-level sexual predator, and then after that point I would still have an obvious homage to him forever on my arm? Yuck. I'm not above ditching my heroes if they turn out to be major shitheads, but I hear tattoo removal is just as painful as getting the actual tattoo. I'd procrastinate like a motherfucker and I'd sooner revise the tattoo by putting "I'M PLANNING ON GETTING RID OF THIS" in big, red block letters over it. Now that's funny!

Figure 3. Someone braver than I am

Yeah, so if anyone reading this has a vested interest in allowing me to make a fool out of myself, be sure to encourage me to go through with this without betraying a single hint of sarcasm or sinister ulterior motives and it may work out for ya! Maybe I'll finally get the tattoo when I'm 82 years old. Seacrest out.

Only 17 More Procrastination Days Until the Jesus Festival

Bah Humbug! Wake up! Time is running out! Embrace capitalism and buy some shit for your friends and family!

Are the roads swarmed with Christmas shoppers to the point where even backing out of your driveway takes 74 hours? Abandon your fucking car on the shoulder and hoof it to Kmart, genius. I don't care if you only have three payments left on it, consider it roadside scrap metal now. You've got more important things to worry about.

Those stores are completely clogged with the dregs of society, aren't they? Waiting in line to buy Grandma's new blender would've been a better idea at 3am when only half the town's population was there shuffling around aimlessly while frowning at price tags. In order to reach the cashier it looks like you're going to have to step on some necks. I kid you not, Christmas is a competition and you'll be damned if you're going to be falling behind because of pesky, weak-minded social behaviors such as "courtesy" or "decency".

This woman is doing it right

What did your morbidly obese 11-year-old son want again? Playstation 4? Xbox One (the aptly named third Xbox)? Shit, maybe it was a one of those new Nintendos where Mario only moves when you flail on the couch like an epileptic dog? You'd better get it right, his white-trash best friend Dylan says "one of them is for faggots" and we all know Dylan has his finger on the pulse of gaming culture and which $500 box of plastic and circuits is more homosexual than the other $500 box of plastic and circuits. But wait, every store within a 750-mile radius is completely sold out? This isn't good news at all. What did I just tell you about stepping on some necks? Geez, all right, well I hope your son will be happy with the "Mary Kate & Ashley Olsen: Get A Clue!" Gameboy Color game you found in the bottom of the bargain bin that hasn't been perused since 2001. He won't know the difference, right? Kids are stupid.

Are you finally done with all your shopping? Good, get that shit wrapped up. Wait, you didn't get them gift-wrapped at the store? What's the matter with you? All you had to do was donate five cents to the Boy Scouts of America and they would've fumbled with wrapping paper and scissors for 20 minutes while you go grab an Orange Julius, and now you're stuck doing it yourself. Who has the time for that? Just throw it under the tree unwrapped, who cares. Christmas isn't about effort.

Whew! That wasn't too hard, was it? Now you have the rest of the holiday season to gripe about Christmas commercials and the many fruitcakes offered by your elderly neighbors and relatives without worrying about shopping. See what can be accomplished with a positive attitude?

Merry Christmas

965 Miles For Shitty Dorito Tacos

If you're anything like me, then you spend your commercial breaks during 3:00am episodes of Full House on Nick at Nite sneering at every single ad for every single product or service in existence. There I am, trying to enjoy the wild antics of Uncle Joey and I get bombarded with awful advertisements. Prescription medication commercials that show an elderly couple playing with their dog on the lawn while a ten-page list of horrifying side effects such as "rectal bleeding" or "exploding fetus syndrome" is soothingly read in the voiceover. Dumb young women in pajamas and slippers telling you how easy it is to go through college the dumb way by sitting on your fat dumb ass and clicking through some dumb websites so you can earn your dumb "Harry Potter History" degree in only six dumb months.

Everyone in every commercial is completely full of shit. Nobody is that excited about anything. When was the last time you took a sip of V8, patted your stomach, and nodded approvingly at the bottle? When was the last time you grinned ear-to-ear while spraying Scrubbing Bubbles into your filthy toilet? When was the last time you voluntarily drove almost 1000 miles for fast food? For ANYTHING? Even the pedophiles on Dateline didn't drive 1000 miles.

I don't know if the following commercial is even on TV anymore. It most likely isn't. It's probably been off TV for over a month now. I probably shouldn't even bother writing about it. But I'm still irrationally mad at it so here we are. It's the Taco Bell "Doritos Locos Tacos" commercial.





The Legendary Tale of Nat Christiana's Journey! Here we have four people in a conveniently interracial friendship who are completely full of shit, as per the requirements for advertising on television, trekking across American for the sole purpose of purchasing Taco Bell tacos. But not just any Taco Bell tacos! These are Taco Bell tacos with some orange dust on them, which is decidedly better. Orange dust is certainly worth the 965 miles. If orange dust tacos don't make you want to drag three other wretched friends of yours on a meaningless road trip then I don't know what will.

Allow me to break down the commercial for you:
0:03 - "According to this map we're lost and also passed about 560 other Taco Bells so far."
0:04 - Nat Christiana is driving in the rain with the windows down like terrible friend.

0:06 - The kid who called shotgun also brought along a fucking harmonica, as if a 965-mile drive didn't feel long enough already. This, too, is a terrible friend.

0:08 - The road trip's only female passenger stares longingly out of the window, reflecting on the series of events that led her to this moment in her life and wondering what changes she should have made to prevent it from happening.
0:12 - Nat Christiana makes a funny face into a camera. This clocked in at three seconds of time when he wasn't watching the road and now an entire family of ducks who were trying to cross will never make it to the other side.
0:13 - In true "shitty friend" form, Nat proceeds to be irritating to his peacefully-sleeping passenger.

0:17 - We get to see someone make a facial expression that has never been made by anyone entering a Taco Bell parking lot. Ever.

0:19 - "Oh, after a 20-hour drive we don't get to go inside? OK FINE, Nat, you're the boss, I guess we'll continue to wait in the fucking car, then."

0:21 - Nat takes a bite and immediately poops his pants.

0:22 - "Well played, Nat." is said by the voiceover without a hint of much needed overt sarcasm.

0:28 - "We don't even get to find a hotel and rest for the night? Really? You're a huge asshole, Nat. We're not friends anymore."

I'd always assumed that the premise of this commercial was entirely invented by Taco Bell's advertisers, since I couldn't imagine that anybody could be so devoid of life that a road trip based only around tacos that taste like Doritos was an immediate priority. But no, the tale of Nat Christiana's road trip is true, and the following Youtube video was the inspiration for the commercial.

I like Taco Bell as much as the next guy, but a 2000-mile round-trip adventure for $0.90 tacos is stupid as hell. If he stayed home and spent that gas money on regular Taco Bell and a bag of Doritos he could have eaten all week. Well played, Nat.

I heard a Burger King in Alaska just put a 75-foot tall inflatable hamburger out front. Who's in?

BLOG OVERHAUL 2012 - THE BLOGGENING OF A LIFETIME

WHAT IS UP, JERKS?

Welcome to the completely remodeled blog of that one guy you know, what's his name? Tim Something? He spent a lot of time dragging every post, every update, every terribly put-together MSPaint image from the old Wordpress blog and moved it over to Blogspot. Hopefully this will be the beginning of a wonderful friendship, the kind where someone gets ignored and abandoned.

Check out that layout, isn't that snazzy as the dickens? Here, I'll post a picture of it. It's my blog and I can do what I want on it, including adding emoticons from 15-year-old internet forums when applicable.

So I feel that Blogspot gives me way more freedom to make a blog layout the way I want to make it, and to display the content I make in the way I want it to look. Not to knock Wordpress, but fuck Wordpress. I couldn't figure out how to make it SOMETHING ELSE OTHER THAN black text on a white background. Reading that kind of thing all day causes eye cancer and irritable bowels, you know. This was one of my many irrational problems with Wordpress, but let's put that in the past. We're moving on to bigger and better things now, my droogs.

Over on the left-hand column there are all of the categories you'll need to click through and find my content. I already have quite a few more ideas up my handsome Cedric Diggory from Twilight shirt sleeves, so I expect this left-hand column to be positively brimming with half-baked sections containing half-baked posts in the future.

So click around and enjoy. Tell your friends. Tell your parents. Tell your mail carrier. I'm sure he or she would love my work. Also, teach me how to make a lot of money really fast by doing this, all right? Deal? I'm looking forward to making tens of thousands of millions of tens of hundreds of dollars by blogging. Thanks!

-Tom

The 84th Annual Academy Awards Drinking Game

So people liked last year's Oscars drinking game. Good! That means I can be lazy with my ideas and rehash it! This year I present to you a fresh new game for you to partake in while you're completely bored and wish you were watching something more interesting. Here's a link to last year's drinking game if you haven't read it yet. You should. But this one's funnier. Maybe. Let the games begin!

Take a sip if...
...Billy Crystal spends about 15 seconds fumbling with an envelope and starts crying when he can't get it open.
...someone from the audience yells "WHO GIVES A SHIT?" during the "Best Sound Mixing" category.
...during his acceptance speech, Scott Rudin (producer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close) stands incredibly close the microphone and, as a result, is extremely loud.
...War Horse gets disqualified from the "Best Picture About War Whores" category due to a misunderstanding.
...Melissa McCarthy (Bridesmaids) is dragged off kicking and screaming after the sixth minute of her acceptance speech.
...Viola Davis (The Help) brings out a phone book and starts thanking everybody in it alphabetically during an acceptance speech.

Take three sips if...
...the camera cuts to a shot of Jack Nicholson and even his sunglasses are wearing sunglasses.
...Woody Allen (director, Midnight in Paris) gets married to a 12-year-old during an acceptance speech.
...The Help wins "Best Portrayal of Racism Solved By White People".
...someone from the audience yells out "Monsters Inc. sucked!" and Billy Crystal starts crying.
...Nick Nolte (Warrior) starts nervously chewing on the microphone and making orgasmic noises during an acceptance speech.
...Jonah Hill (Moneyball) brings a puppet that looks exactly like him on stage and uses it to tell incredibly homophobic jokes.
...Billy Crystal challenges the audience to a staring contest.


Finish your drink if...
...the camera that focuses on Jack Nicholson malfunctions and aims at his crotch for the rest of the night.
...a dragon with a girl tattoo accepts an award for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
...Midnight in Paris wins "Best Casting of Taiwanese Slave Children".
...the camera cuts to a shot of Martin Scorsese (director and producer, Hugo) and he's wearing an I'm With Stupid t-shirt and an "I don't give a FUCK" expression on his face.
...George Clooney (The Descendants) thinks he's winning an award for Ocean's Eleven and starts talking about a make-out scene with Brad Pitt that never happened.
...Gary Oldman (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) starts whipping Billy Crystal with an Oscar.
...during an acceptance speech Christopher Plummer (Beginners) leaps out into the audience expecting a mosh pit and nobody catches him.

Drink an entire new drink if...
...during Brad Pitt's (Moneyball) acceptance speech George Clooney runs up on stage and starts making out with him.
...the camera cuts to a shot of Meryl Streep and she's shooting up heroin.
...The Artist wins "Best Conversation About 'Harry Potter' During a Sex Scene".
...Robin Williams, dressed as Mrs. Doubtfire, accepts on Oscar on Meryl Streep's (The Iron Lady) behalf.
...Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close wins "Best Scene Involving Someone Shitting Herself in a Wedding Dress". Drink an extra drink if there's a shot of Maya Rudolph (Bridesmaids) applauding with a look of polite defeat.
...Glenn Close (Albert Nobbs) is drunk and walks up on stage dressed as Cruella DeVille from the live-action 101 Dalmatians adaptation. Drink an extra drink if she punches a puppy in the face.
...the camera cuts to a shot of Jack Nicholson's crotch and it's wearing sunglasses.

Snort a line of coke if...
...there is a special 45-minute powerpoint presentation entitled "George Takei's Favorite Internet Memes of 2011" and you can hear Jack Nicholson cackling at each one.
...the acceptance speech time-limit music is replaced with a sound clip of Cosmo Kramer's racist rant from 2006.
...Billy Crystal busts out a kazoo and starts playing Chariots of Fire while running across the stage in slow motion.
...Steven Spielberg (director and producer, War Horse) goes on stage to accept his award and Billy Crystal says "JUST KIDDING!" and then starts making fun of Spielberg for creating Tiny Toon Adventures.
...Inception, a movie from 2010, is brought back under consideration and renominated for another 283 awards including "Most Overrated Picture By College Students".
...'Occupy Academy Awards' protestors take the stage and start picketing. Snort an extra line if the security guards only mace Billy Crystal.
...Christian Bale bursts into the theater, screams "WHY WASN'T THE FLOWERS OF WAR NOMINATED??" and starts biting random people in the audience.
...someone you know on Facebook makes at least 8 statuses about the Oscars.

Man, doesn't all this sound absolutely boring? Good thing we have a drinking game! Have fun watching the Oscars, I'll be sitting at home not giving a shit and watching reruns of RuPaul's Drag Race on VH1.

My Job Application Cover Letter Looks Fine To Me, What's the Problem?

To the infallible and possibly sexually attractive hiring manager of Super Engineering Bros. Incorporated,

Sup homie? I spent the afternoon yesterday tearing Lost Dog posters off of telephone poles when I came across a flyer advertising an open position at your company. At first I was all "fuck that" but then I eventually became all "whatever". The only copy of my resume that I had available has a bunch of Arby's sauce stains and Homer Simpson doodles all over the back, so please overlook this if it may cause unfavorable judgment of my professionalism and work ethic. Don't be a tool.

So according to your posting it appears you need someone with a college degree. GOT ONE, HAHAHA, YOU CAN'T GET RID OF ME THAT EASILY. I've got a degree in TV/VCR Repair from one of those "earn your degree from home" commercials. I got it over the phone in 20 minutes when I accidentally dialed the wrong number. I wanted pizza.

Photographic PROOF of my certification from Graduation University. BOO-YAH.

So now that we got that out of the way we can move on to the really IMPORTANT shit. I got me a lot of engineering background so don't even TRY to pull that one on me. Here's a genius engineering idea freebie for you: Streaming Netflix to your contact lenses! That's engineering, right? I've got a million more like that. I had the idea for see-through Capri-Sun pouches before Kool-Aid did it! OK, all this bragging is making me hungry, I'm gonna go engineer me some dinner.

Gallagher was the greatest food engineer of our time

All right, I'm back! What other accomplishments should you know about? Well, sometimes I'm tempted to use my sexiness as a weapon, but I eventually learned that with great power comes great responsibility. I guess you could say that I'm the Spider-Man of sexiness. I once used that sexiness to win Miss North Dakota in 2009. I don't even live in North Dakota! That's how easy it is!

I run a famous blog on the internet that's viewed by up to seven people per day, two of them being my parents. My blog has been translated into over 200 languages! This was accomplished by using Google Translator on a day when I was really, really bored.

I can pat my head and rub my stomach simultaneously. Only on a good day.

I see you require a creative individual with a great imagination. Allow me to pull something relevant from my portfolio then, my good man. BAM! I drew this during class once using my creativity and imagination when I should have been paying attention to the lecture (the lecture was about how to write a job application cover letter).

So, in conclusion, I think I would be a perfect candidate for the job because I live right next door to your facility anyway and I'm close enough to try to throw rocks through your windows for fun. Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Your Next Employee (or else)

A Day in the Life of the World's Most Interesting and Successful Person

12:30 pm - Crack of dawn wake-up 

2:58 pm - A king's feast 

4:03 pm - Unraveling the mysteries of the universe 

7:40 pm - A bit of independent leisure time 

9:13 pm - Composing an audio masterpiece 

11:04 pm - Drifting into peaceful unconsciousness at the thought of another productive day in the books

Chicago and the Doorway to a World of Opportunity. Or Something.

So in case you've been living under a rock for the last month and half, or, more reasonably, I don't even make the top 1000 in your list of people to pay attention to, I live in Chicago now. Chicago (or "The Big Apple", as the locals call it) is much different from Detroit in many ways. For example, buildings here aren't constantly on fire. That's an important one. Also, people here aren't constantly being rudely murdered. That's what I always hated about Detroit, the fact that I kept getting rudely murdered. Since I've been in Chicago I haven't even been murdered once! A picture of a guy not getting murdered should be on their flag.

HOWEVER, I am currently living in Chicago while being unemployed. In theory, this is really awesome. In an even more recently researched theory that debunks the previous theory, it's not even close to awesome. Day-to-day life isn't very relaxing when you get buyer's remorse from purchasing a box of Hamburger Helper, so I've been going to the library everyday in order to research companies and apply for job postings. I have to go to library because if I stay in my apartment I'll end up getting distracted by the whiteness of the walls, errant oxygen molecules, and the deafening sound of dust particles slowly piling up on flat surfaces.

HOWEVER, I am currently at the library NOT looking for jobs and writing down all this shit, so you can see how motivated I am. Obviously I'm not too excited to be some sort of Moon Engineer or whatever it is I went to 18 years of college for. But, come on! This is Chicago! In a city as big as this there has to be tons of other hidden opportunities out there just waiting for me to purposefully ignore. Why limit myself to career choices related to my education? Here are some other options I've been considering:

Hot Dog Vendor

Leave it to Chicago to embrace nature's most perfect food, the hot dog. Of course, Chicagoans take their hot dogs very seriously. Don't expect to buy a hot dog from any Chicago street vendor unless it has all of the following ingredients: tomato wedges, onions, a pickle, neon green relish, mustard, celery salt, sesame seeds, marshmallows, lemons, french fries, and marbles. The all-beef hot dog must be blessed by the leaders of three different religions and buried for 12 hours in a graveyard on Halloween night. This ain't some shitty New York-style hot dog, where the ingredients are riddled with syphilis and all of the hot dogs that are used were originally packaged by 7-year-olds in a Bangladeshi sweatshop. Fuck New York! Booooooo!

Anyway, what was I talking about again? Selling hot dogs on the street? That idea sucks! What's next?

Professional CTA Passenger

CTA stands for "Chicago Transit Authority", which is a mass transit system involving buses and trains that can take you where you need to be conveniently. Let's say you need to be somewhere that is about ten miles away. All you need to do is transfer to seven different buses and ride for three hours while you make 244 different stops that are all 14 feet apart from each other. The system is very similar to the CATA system in East Lansing, except the drivers in Chicago don't hit the gas while you cross the street and try to run you over on purpose.

There's also the elevated train system, the 'L', which is even more convenient in that you can make unlimited free transfers over to other 'L' lines as long as you never leave the stations. This means that for an initial fare of $2.25 you can kill an entire day by just riding around the whole city and looking out the window with a senseless slack-jawed expression on your face. I have not taken advantage of this glorious activity as of yet, but rest assured that a day will come where I'll have to pretend that I have a job so that Erika won't come home at the end of the day and throw various appliances at my head. That's when I can put on my fancy workin' clothes, snap up my briefcase, and transfer between the Orange Line and the Brown Line over and over again for eight straight hours. No one will be the wiser.

Great idea, huh?

Join an Improv Comedy Troupe

Chicago is one of, like, three cities in the entire fucking world where comedians come from. Seriously, look it up. Funny people don't make it big in Flushing, Michigan, that's for damn sure. While a city like New York (child labor hot dogs! Boooooo!) is known for stand-up, Chicago is more known for improvisational comedy. Except I've seen enough episodes of "Whose Line is it Anyway?" to know that I'd be absolutely terrible at it. Oh god, could you even imagine how shitty I'd be on stage?

Guy #1: So, I hear FLORIDA is a lovely place for a Sunday drive! Ha ha!
Tom: ...
Guy #2: ...right, I hope I don't get stuck behind some OLD PEOPLE! Ha ha!
Tom: ...
Guy #1: (angrily) ...'cause old people are awful drivers, and Florida's full of 'em, right Tom?
Tom: (cries)

All right, forget I ever had this idea.

Professional Blogger

Yeah right. I'm practically illiterate. All my blogs are written by having rats run around my keyboard for about an hour. I, of course, change a few of the adjectives afterwards. That's how I wrote all my papers and lab reports too.

In all seriousness, I have to figure out something to do, because when I'm bored and left to my own devices I spend that time making stupid animated GIFs like this:

And no one wants that.

AST 410 - Senior Thesis

Space is huge. Like, try holding out your arms as wide as you can. Space is even bigger than that! Crazy, right?

The universe has been around for almost 150 years. It was discovered by the ancient Greeks who enjoyed staring at the sky all day. Those who weren't blinded by staring at the sun all day were rewarded with a fantastic view of the stars, which was way cooler than the sun and less painful to look directly at. Scientists estimate that there are over a million trillion stars in the sky. Over a million BA-RILLION trillion! Dude, there are so many stars in the sky that if you tried to count them all you'd run out of fingers. Shit's insane.

I'm going to talk about all sorts of cool stuff in this thesis! I'm going to start by talking about the planets, and then the stars. If I have time I'll talk about galaxies. I don't know if I'll have time, though! LOL!

Note: For every hour I spent on my thesis I probably spent seven hours playing Hearts or Solitaire or Chess Titans. Fuck yeah.

SECTION 1: PLANETS

Figure 1. Venus, the 12th planet from our Sun

Planets are cool! You're standing on one right now, dude. I shit you not. Do you remember that one Magic School Bus where Ms. Frizzle took the class on a field trip through the solar system? I was going to use that book as one of my sources but then I realized that school buses don't really fly unless it was running on the Devil's Gasoline, but that's an issue for a different time. So instead I had to use "Baby's First Pop-Up Book: The Solar System" as a reference, but when I opened it up to Saturn one of the rings poked me in the eye. So I threw it in a fireplace.

Anyway, planets are the little dudes who constant orbit a star (the Bigger Dude). Some planets even have orbiting moons (the Littler Dudes). Some planets even have scary-ass aliens living on them. Those are the kinds of aliens who will act all friendly and shit at first but then stab you in the back later and dissolve your head or something! There are some cool aliens though, like Spock or the Grinch. Watch out for the bad ones!

Figure 2. Scary-ass alien

SECTION 2: STARS

"Well, I can put the trash into a landfill where's gonna stay for millions of years, or I can burn it up and get a nice smoky smell in here and let that smoke goes to the sky where it turns into stars." -- Charlie Kelly, Ph.D, Super-Astrophysicist from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Stars are cool! They are constantly getting orbited by Little Dudes and Littler Dudes. The sun is a star, didja know that? I bet you didn't, you fucker. WHO IS THE ASTROPHYSICIST, HERE? STEP OFF BRO.

Figure 3. The sun is like the Fonz, and he's so bright that he needs to shield his eyes from himself

Stars are constantly exploding all around us, too. They are like giant sticks of dynamite, dude. Once they explode they turn into even smaller stars called White Dwarfs. These stars are little bitches, they don't even produce energy anymore. And yet there's like a hundred quadrillion of them all over the place, all acting like drains on Space-Society. In that sense, compared to the other stars, white dwarfs are like the cast of Jersey Shore.

Figure 539. White Dwarfs

SECTION 3: GALAXIES

Whoops, out of time!


REFERENCES

-That damn pop-up book that has the planets with the sharp rings
-A Brief History of Space by Steven Hopkins
-Documentaries narrated by Morgan Freeman
-This other thesis I found that I copied stuff from word for word
-That old dude who begs for change outside of Kroger
-Episodes of that old Nickelodeon show Space Cases
-The back of a ketchup bottle
-That Zelda game where the moon slowly comes crashing down
-MosDef's Twitter page
-A Magic 8-Ball
-The voices in my head, but only the ones that talk about space

Quiz Qorner! How Much Are You Worth to Society?

  

If you're reading this, this means you accidentally clicked the wrong link instead of Liking a "JUSTIN BIEBER HAS A VAGINA FULL OF BEES" link on Facebook. Nevertheless, you're here now so why not take a couple of minutes out of your busy schedule to take a self-assessment quiz? Today's topic: How Much Are You Worth to Society? Go through and give one answer for each question that best describes your opinion of yourself. At the end, tally up your points, check your results, and then wait for depression to slowly sink in. Let's get the ball rolling, shall we?

When I learn that my local school district is organizing a bake sale in order to raise funds, my first reaction is to...
...volunteer to help. (+6 pts)
...contribute money. (+3 pts)
...organize a rival bake sale. (-1 pt)
...snort a third line of coke before lunchtime. (-5 pts)

If any of my friends were asked about the kind of person I am, they would probably say that...
...I am kind-hearted and well-respected. (+4 pts)
...I can be quite full of myself, but I mean well. (+1 pts)
...I get visibly angry about traffic lights. (+0 pts)
...I collect dead animals and Precious Moments figurines. (-2 pts)

  In my spare time I enjoy...
...volunteering at a soup kitchen. (+5 pts)
...staring at my knuckles. (+0 pts)
...throwing bricks at people in wheelchairs. (-8 pts)
...writing blogs and making awkward split-screen videos. (-19 pts)

  The celebrity I admire the most is...
...Bono. (+3 pts)
...Rachel Maddow. (+1 pt)
...Charlie Sheen. (+14 pts)
...the dude who played Fred Savage's geeky-ass friend on The Wonder Years. (-3 pts)

  I'd like to think that my biggest talent is...
...dry-heaving on command. (+3 pts)
...catching ALL the Pokemon. (+2 pts)
...singing along to music from white supremacist Myspace band pages. (-4 pts)
...finishes sentences correctly. (-7 pts)

  If my best friend started dating a person I had a crush on, I'd handle the situation by...
...throwing bricks at people in wheelchairs. (-9 pts)
...making roughly 900 depressing Facebook statuses every 35 nanoseconds. (-4 pts)
...watching reruns of Gilmore Girls. (-6 pts)
...carving a wooden stake out of one of my bedposts where I wrote "I LOVE <INSERT NAME OF CRUSH>" in blood. (+1 pt)

  The first thing I said when I woke up this morning was most likely...
..."I cannot wait to see how this day unfolds into a wonderful assortment of making choices, overcoming obstacles, and bettering myself as an individual in 21st century America!" (+12 pts)
..."I cannot wait until I catch up on all those episodes of Pawn Stars I DVRed." (-1 pt)
..."Fuck, I guess all that making out with Mila Kunis and Natalie Portman was just a dream." (+9 pt)
..."Which race of people should I try to exterminate today?" (-18 pts)

  I see a person on the side of the road struggling to fix a flat tire. I...
...honk four times and throw an empty Arby's soft drink cup out the window at him. (-2 pts)
...pull over to the side of the road, get out of the car, and throw an empty Arby's cup at him. (-3 pts)
...drive by while making an obscene hand gesture of a very sexual nature. (-3 pts)
...ignore him because I'm too busy watching SpongeBob Squarepants on the laptop I placed in the passenger's seat. (-7 pts)

 My most prized possession is...
...my collection of Pope skulls I stole from the Pope Graveyard. (+6 pts)
...my collection of anime. (-97 pts)
...my photo album full of pictures of me punching children in the face. (-8 pts)
...a fart in a jar I won in an eBay auction for $6.21 (+2 pts)

  My favorite band...
...gives money to charities. (+4 pts)
...has a name that rhymes with "Charles Barkley". (-3 pts)
...skins puppies alive on stage during concerts. (-8 pts)
...writes a lot of songs about God. (-12 pts)

  My dream job involves...
...hitting things with a wrench. (-1 pt)
...going to restaurants in order to eat a lot and get fat and then have a hit show on the Travel Channel about eating a lot and getting fat. (+4 pts)
...destroying my nemesis, the Moon, because it's inhabited by the nefarious Moon People who feed me thoughts that even my tinfoil window shades can't block. (+10 pts)
...writing a lot of songs about God. (-43 pts)

  My most productive days are when...
...I get to hang out on my reclining lounge chair which triples as a refrigerator and a toilet. (+5 pts)
...I cure yet another form of cancer. Yawn. (+20 pts)
...I wake up before 7:30pm. (+0 pts)
...I stare at my knuckles while singing along to racist Myspace music in order to drown out those goddamn Moon People who won't FUCKING SHUT UP UNTIL I START PUNCHING CHILDREN. WHY ME, YOU MOON BASTARDS?? (+1 pt)

  In 10 years I hope to have...
...amassed an even bigger collection of Pope skulls after the Zombie Pope Vatican overthrow of 2017. (+76 pts)
...earned enough money to buy a DeLorean with a built-in flux capacitor. (+9 pts)
...been to every country ending in "-ulgaria". (+3 pts)
...all my limbs. (+2 pts)


  IF YOU SCORED... 


100 points or more: Congratulations, you are an extremely valuable member of society but you are also very boring and chances are you are the kind of person who said to yourself "You don't spell 'Corner' with a Q!" at the beginning of this quiz.


Between 25 points and 100 points: You will get a degree from a good university but you will probably not make as much money as you want to unless someone invents a car that runs on Pope skulls.


Between -200 points and 25 points: You should probably stop being violent toward children and the handicapped and start focusing that violence toward the homeless and people with huge eyeglasses.


-200 points or less: Chances are good that you've seriously picked the anime option, and as a result we can't be friends anymore.

Sleeping Sucks

Not since I used a Domino's HeatWave bag as a backpack in 7th grade have I come up with such a brilliant idea! Are you ready for this? Are you and the rest of the world ready to listen to and absorb whatever possible nonsense I've got that will erupt forth from one of my various head orifices (hopefully the mouth, but it's not a guarantee)? Well, tough. Maybe you'll be ready in a few paragraphs.

I really, really hate sleeping, plain and simple. I hate going to bed at night and I hate getting up in the morning. I know some of you would probably respond to this by saying "Well, Chuck, how can you claim to hate sleeping and claim that you hate getting up in the morning?!!!?!!!???!!!?!?!!!!!??!?!?!?! LORLROLROL!!!!!! ROTGFLEGLFLE@!!!" Well, spaz, here's my answer: My name isn't Chuck.

If you're unsatisfied with the fact that I didn't answer the question, don't worry, I've comprised a list of reasons why I hate sleeping. If you're unsatisfied with the fact that my name isn't Chuck, then I'm at a loss for words at the moment.

-It gives me less time to do homework and study.
-It gives me less time to play all the video games I want to play.
-It gives me less time to read all the Kim Possible/Meet the Fockers crossover fan fiction that I want to read.
-It gives me less time to click Like buttons on Facebook.
-I keep having recurring nightmares about vampires.
-I keep having recurring nightmares where the people I love get dumped out of airplanes.
-I keep having recurring nightmares where my name isn't Chuck.
-People keep writing swear words and drawing male genitalia on my face with permanent marker.
-People keep doing that joke where they put my hand in a glass of warm water and then proceed to pee all over me.
-My organs keep disappearing.

All right, so what's my idea? THE ARTIFICIAL REM SLEEP SIMULATION MACHINE (U.S. Patent No. 4819292, aka "REM Sleep Simulator", "REM Sleep-N-Save", and "That Stupid Fucking Machine With the Unnecessary Buttons and Racing Stripes") Basically, it's an idea that thousands of people have probably already thought of in the past, but it involves some sort of voodoo magic resulting in a restful night's sleep in a fraction of the usual time.

Of course, my knowledge of methods to achieve this without the aid of some machine is severely limited. I'm sure caffeine and heroin are involved, and other esoteric methods such as "going to bed" have worked for some in the past, let's not get into that right now. My life goal at this moment and maybe for the next three hours of moments is to develop a machine that does all the magic of REM sleep without having to actually sleep. Which means the machine will make your eyes flutter and stuff while you're awake cooking breakfast, jogging down the street, performing open heart surgery, or acting in a box-office top film! By the next five years you'll get to see both Matt Damon and Scarlett Johansson flirting across a candlelit dinner with their eyes going a mile a minute. Now that's technological progress!

Figure 1. Artificial REM Sleep Simulation Machine prototype.

As you can see, using the machine would be as easy as drilling through your skull with a Makita power drill! But instead of a harmful piece of metal becoming located where there once was no metal at all, the machine would instead fill your head with completely painless gamma radiation! These gamma rays home in on the areas of the brain responsible for REM sleep and then attack them like a firing squad. NOTE: Tests have shown that the resultant "eye-fluttering" from this process may not be REM sleep at all, but in fact an epileptic seizure. Since all of our scientists are just grizzly bears wearing lab coats, the jury is still out on this issue.

So there's some kinks to work out, big deal. The future looks bright for REM sleep simulation and once that happens, I'll finally have all the time in the world to live out my dream...building a birdcage out of many smaller birdcages.

[INSERT JOKE HERE ABOUT HOW LISTENING TO "IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT (AND I FEEL FINE)" IS THE TRUE R.E.M. SLEEP]

[DELETE SHITTY JOKE, CRY]

The 83rd Annual Academy Award Drinking Game

What's more fun than watching the Oscars? Everything. If you are the kind of person who can actually watch the mind-numbing 4 to 900 hours of the superfluous Hollywood masturbatory spectacle that is the Academy Awards, then this isn't for you. For the rest of you, I've developed a drinking game that will make the Oscars infinitely more entertaining. You know what they say, infinity times zero is still zero! Actually, this may not actually be true, but I don't know how to do math, so suck it. For those of you who don't drink you can substitute alcohol for warm milk, or Squeezits, or Pine-Sol, or whatever you can force down your gullet. Let the games begin!

Take a sip if...
...someone trips as they take the stage to accept the award.
...James Franco belches loudly into the microphone.
...Anne Hathaway gets a paper cut while opening an envelope.
...the camera cuts to a shot of Jack Nicholson.
...someone uses "127 Hours" as a joke to refer to the length of the awards show.
...the speech cut-off music starts playing and it sounds like Thriller by Michael Jackson.

Take three sips if...
...the camera cuts to a shot of Jack Nicholson and he's not wearing sunglasses.
...James Franco starts humping the podium.
...Tim Allen (Toy Story 3) accepts an award completely drunk and dressed up as Buzz Lightyear.
...Anne Hathaway says something rude about James Franco's mother.
...Natalie Portman (Black Swan) gets Pizza Hut delivered during an acceptance speech.
...a live-action rendition of a Toy Story 3 scene is acted on stage with Steve Martin as Woody and Dick Clark as Andy.
...How to Train Your Dragon wins Best Use Of The Word "Rapist".

Finish your drink if...
...Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network) says at least nine racial slurs during an acceptance speech.
...The King's Speech wins "Best Portrayal of Graphic Public Defecation".
...the camera cuts to a shot of Jack Nicholson and he's drooling.
...James Franco suffers a "wardrobe malfunction" as a result of visibly and deliberately unbuttoning his shirt.
...Christian Bale (The Fighter) throws up on the podium and walks off stage with a huge grin on his face.
...the entire audience leaves for the lobby to stretch their legs during the Best Foreign Film category.
...Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Inception) has sex with Zooey Deschanel on stage during the Coen brothers' acceptance speech.

Drink an entire new drink if...
...Anne Hathaway eats an entire rib roast.
...Jeff Bridges (True Grit) spends half an acceptance speech pimping out Duracell batteries.
...the camera cuts to a shot of Jack Nicholson and he's looking at porn on his laptop.
...Anne Hathaway mispronounces "The Social Network" as "The Princess Diaries".
...someone shines a laser pointer at James Franco every time he speaks.
...Helena Bonham Carter (The King's Speech) loses more than three teeth during an acceptance speech.
...James Franco (127 Hours) announces that he himself won Best Actor and then acts all smug about it.

Snort a line of coke if...
...Colin Firth (The King's Speech) murders a hostage during an acceptance speech.
...James Franco cuts off his own arm during the opening monologue.
...the camera cuts to a shot Jack Nicholson and his hair is on fire.
...the camera cuts to a shot of Mel Gibson slaughtering a rabbit with his car keys.
...Kodak Theatre, the location of the ceremony, gets attacked by a blimp.
...Amy Adams (The Fighter) whips out her penis during an acceptance speech.
...Inception actually, miraculously, wins something.

With this set of drinking game rules you can definitely spice up an otherwise <em>absolutely boring</em> run-of-the-mill awards ceremony! Have fun, and don't forget to keep the telephone number for the Poison Control Center handy.

A Journey Through the Incomprehensible Mess that is my "My Pictures" Folder

Back in the good ol' LiveJournal days of 2005, a time when LiveJournal hadn't been cool for 6 years, I made an entry about how I found some weird pictures saved on my computer. Even though my old laptop has been exhibiting a death rattle for quite some time now (quite literally, it sounds like it's chewing up pieces of itself and spitting it back out), I'm a nerdy packrat about the useless files I save on my computers. As a result, all the pictures I've saved on my computer since 2005 have been backed up on my external hard drive. Let me share with you, the "loyal" reader, a healthy batch of WTF pictures that I've made over the years. And yes, I didn't rip any of these off from somewhere else.

Ah, this is a good start. This obnoxious animation I made was the background image of my old LiveJournal. Keep in mind that I have never taken any psychoactive drugs in my life, but clearly I don't need to. If you stare at this image long enough you'll start to get a beat stuck in your head that doesn't even exist! Now that's trippy!

JAY LENO HEADLINES! AH HA HA HA HA HA! GET IT?!

So way back in freshman year a buddy from high school was transferring over from Oakland University to MSU. I made a LiveJournal entry where I posted this map of MSU that I lovingly handcrafted and explained to him all the fantastic sights to be seen. I believe the area labelled with a 5 says "Bus Transaut Vafrt".

You know those Celebrity Look-Alike generators and how incredibly inaccurate they are? Every time you put in an actual celebrity you never get a match. But then again, maybe Uncle Joey from Full House does look exactly like Patrick Ewing, and I'm the stupid one here.

This appears to be a HILARIOUS graph that exemplifies, perhaps, my commitment to this blog entry I'm currently writing up! HA HA HA! I bet I can start my own hit xkcd-esque webcomic!

One of the greatest books ever written by one of the most fascinating minds of our time, Stephen Hawking takes you through an incredible journey involving black holes, dark matter, dark energy, black energy, and dark holes. As you can plainly see, my copy is well-worn.

Back when The Simpsons Movie came out in 2007 (which I have not seen nor do I plan on it) they had a promotional website where you could "Simpsonify" yourself. This is the one I made of myself!

More celebrity look-alike fun! Morpheus would be a cool guy to hang out with in real life, he'd be all like "What is this, whut, am I looking in a mirror here what's going on"

MODIFIED SEGWAY SCOOTERS, FUCK YES (ok, so this one I didn't make myself, but come on. Modified segway scooters.)

I posted this one back on the old LiveJournal, but it's too great to pass up again! Of course, no one knows who the hell Ken Jennings is anymore, but this is my vision of what it would be like if a ghost took over Jeopardy!

All right, I'm done here, go home.

How I Braved The Great Blizzard of 2011

The following is an excerpt from a journal recovered by archaeologists who were looking for Tyrannosaurus bones in the area between Wells Hall and the International Center. The journal was recovered on February 3, 2011. The excerpt dates all the way back to February 2, 2011, when life on Earth was never the same again. The journal belonged to one Tom "Buff McMuscles" Santizzle, according to the signature written at the top of the first page of the journal. Who he was will remain a mystery for years to come, especially since a cursory Facebook search turns up nothing. Nothing has been abridged, except for some of the more boring stuff. And trust me, there was a whole hell of a lot of boring stuff. The guy couldn't write for shit.

-----February 2, 2011-----


9:34 am: Oh hey, that rash finally cleared up. In other news, the Great Blizzard of 2011 has finally hit. I can't wait to tell my future nerdy children and delinquent grandchildren all about how I survived the amazing...uh...8 inches of frightening snow we received over the course of the night. Classes have been canceled! Buses aren't running today! There's a snowball fight going on at Munn Field later today. It starts at 6:30, but I better head out now if I want to make it. 9 hours might not be enough time to walk half a mile. There's a lot of scary snow out there!

9:57 am: Oh my God! Oh son of a biscuit! I have fallen victim to an avalanche between Wells Hall and the International Center. I was chasing a dumb squirrel because he stole MY acorn that I was saving for later. MINE. And then all of a sudden a friggin' 10 tons of snow comes crashing down on me. And there's not even a hill or mountain in sight! Talk about shitty luck. I was able to wrestle my way out, but now my leg is trapped under a huge rock and I'm stuck.

9:59 am: Hunger is starting to overtake me. I've been stuck for almost three minutes now. All I have in my possession is a Swiss army knife and a Game Boy Pocket with a Pokemon Blue cartridge. That's some old school shit right there, son! Looks like I'm going to have to catch my lunch since that bitch squirrel stole my acorn.

10:30 am: I wasn't able to catch any food so I've been eating clods of dirt and pieces of my own North Face jacket in order to satisfy my ever-growing hunger. I'm starting to fear that I might die out here alone in the wilderness if I don't find a way to escape.

10:46 am: People keep laughing at me as they walk by. IT'S NOT FUNNY. IT'S NOT FUNNY AT ALL, YOU CRETINS. NNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!

<strong>11:17 am</strong>: There's no end to the blizzard in sight. I'm now covered in an additional quarter-inch of snow. I'd be eating the snow for nourishment but all the squirrels keep <em>peeing</em> all over it. This is not my day.

4:31 pm: ....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZ- *snork* *choke* *cough* hmm? Wha-...? Oh, I must have fallen asleep. I can tell because the last eight pages of my journal is just a bunch of z's written out over and over again. Man, am I cold. This is like that one movie about the guy who was trapped in an avalanche that was based on a true story. Except this is real. The sun is starting to go down. I need to get out of here before the chill of the night sets in.

5:42 pm: Getting...weak.....hard...to...write.......without.......ellipses.....

6:09 pm: Coughing up blood. Hurts to breathe. Rash coming back.

7:12 pm: Aw hell yeah, I caught a Jigglypuff, son! Fuckin' A.

8:55 pm: Too...weak......too........weak....blahg....balghabf.......ahghhagabahghaavava.....

9:13 pm: Oh wait, the rock on my leg isn't even that heavy. Oh wait, it's not even a rock, it's my winter hat. Whoops. Oh well, time to blow this popsicle stand and never look back!

9:18 pm: On second thought, I've grown quite accustomed to this little area that has been my home for the last 12 hours or so. I think I'll build a nice little abode here and live off the land for many years to come.


-----February 3, 2011-----


10:03 am: OH SHIT, ARCHAEOLOGISTS ARE COMING. BETTER GET OUT OF HERE.