Holding the Line

Twas the Week Before Christmas

2005-12-19T11:20:00.000-05:00

I've had a bit of a hard time getting into the "Holiday Spirit". Recent events have eclipsed the usual jovial feelings I am prone towards this time of year. Part of the reason is I haven't been home in about in a month or so. I've also seen the vast majority of my family prematurely this month, which has kind of shifted my yule axis out of kilter. So when I got to the office this morning I announced that Christmas music must be played for the remainder of the week. I was very adament about it to the point of several pairs of rolled eyes.

I still have about 60 percent of my shopping to do also. Not good. That means I'll be heading out to the mall at least twice this week. I look at trips to the mall in a tactical sense. I always have a plan. First, I pick an insertion point. Several factors play into this. Location of the stores I will be visiting. Proximity of the foodcourt. And proxmity to an easy escape route. I try to make a list of objectives. I'm in and out like a ninja. No lingering.

So, I'm five days away from my vacation. Five days of work, which has not slowed down but actually picked up. Five days where I have to stand in line at the post office everday for God knows how long. Five days of shopping, and fumbling with wrapping paper. Five days. I think I'll have to squeeze in a trip to the watering hole too.

-K

Gimme a Ripper

2005-12-07T11:29:00.000-05:00

OK, now I'm bordering on obsession. My hot dog infatuation continues. Last night the fates conspired against me once more. As I was watching TV I noticed a program called "Hot Dog Heaven". They had a piece about a place in Clifton NJ called Rutt's Hutt. This really kills me because if I had found out about this place a week ago I would have made a pilgrimage to this place on the way to NYC this past weekend. Nuts.

Heres what I missed:

They are the ugliest things ever. Beauty is skin deep though. I want them very badly.

Which brings me to my next great kitchen disaster, probably mitigated with the help of my roommate Jen. I'm gonna deep fry hot dogs. I swear to God I'm going to do this very soon. I will probably document the debacle and post it up here so stay tuned (all three of you).

I need to stop making posts about hot dogs. For real.

-K

Oh My! Oh Hotdog!

2005-12-06T10:43:00.000-05:00

Mission succesful. I had my precious hotdogs over the weekend. They were really good. OK, so the hot dogs I had first where from the Nathan's just over the state line to NJ, but they were good. Damn good. Though pricey. Prices are inflated along the NJ Turnpike. Fact of life. They have you right where they want you, though I don't let it bother me. Take a looksee.

Uh, Oh, Hot Dogs

Pictures of my 23 hours in NY can be found at Paul's Blog
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We stayed at the Red Roof Inn on 32nd and 5th Ave. Not a bad joint I guess, though we slept four guys and one gal to a room...with one bed. The logistics where humorous, though I did sleep well in the king sized bed. Thanks, suckers. Oh, and my brother snores. Loudly I guess to fend off creatures of the night.

As I stated in a previous entry we went up with no plan per usual. We didn't even get up there until mid-afternoon, a point which I was a little disapointed in. However, I think the desired outcomes were met. Paul and Jon got out of town for a day, and my brother got out of his town.

Thanks New York for not making me your bitch, and I'll see you again later this month.

-K

State of the Art

2005-12-01T10:50:00.000-05:00

Wow, get a load of this:

Cutting Edge

My friend Dave sent me a link to this website click here

They called it "Razzle Dazzle" and it was based on Cubism. It was a way to throw off German U-Boats in the first world war.

Art as a practical application. Now I've seen everything.

-K

Weekend Warrior

2005-11-30T11:02:00.000-05:00

I've got no willpower whatsoever. I'm going back to New York this weekend. We're just hopping in the car Saturday morning and driving up. No plan. I couldn't let them go it alone. I seldom go up to NY just for fun anymore either. It's usually centered around a family event which leaves little time to go exploring. I plan on eating my weight in hot dogs.

Bliss

I love them so. Seriously. The first thing I do when I arrive in the city via train or automobile is make my way to the nearest vendor. I could be on my way to a five star restaurant for a all expense paid meal. I still get me a hotdog with mustard and kraut. Ah. Bliss.

We ought to have a good time I'm thinking. If anyone would like to meet up with us, drop me a line!

-K

Where'd You Go?

2005-11-21T10:05:00.000-05:00

Well, I think this is a fine way to start a new week. Was browsing though the news of the day when I found this article on the most safe/dangerous cities in America. Here's the rundown;

Safest Cities:
1. Newton, Mass.
2. Clarkstown, N.Y.
3. Amherst, N.Y.
4. Mission Viejo, Calif.
5. Brick Township, N.J.
6. Troy, Mich.
7. Thousand Oaks, Calif.
8. Round Rock, Texas
9. Lake Forest, Calif.
10. Cary, N.C.
Most Dangerous Cities:
1. Camden, N.J.
2. Detroit
3. St. Louis
4. Flint, Mich.
5. Richmond, Va.
6. Baltimore
7. Atlanta
8. New Orleans
9. Gary, Ind.
10. Birmingham, Ala.
____
Source: Morgan Quitno Press

Nearly two decades ago I moved from the green highlighted city, which now happens to be the second most safe city in the U.S. Now I live in the sixth most dangerous. Go figure.

-K

Update:

Check out Paul's Blog for our drunken antics. Pretty tame actually...but we were very loud and the waitress liked us enough to bring us shots of booze. Oh, and Nick fell in love with Paul's camera Saturday. That's why it looks like we were whores to the camera.

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My Guitar Hero Shame...

The Scarborough Hall Poop Incident

2005-11-16T13:09:00.000-05:00

Here is tale I've told many times over the years. I had it posted on MySpace for awhile. Since I've made my vow to post more stuff, I'm going to cheat a little and post this here for posterity. Oh, and I know it needs to be edited, so feel free to not comment on grammar, punctuation, or plot holes (my memory is a bit clouded from that period of my life).

Now, our feature.

When I was a Freshman (1st year that is) I lived in Scarborough hall at Towson University. The first week I was there I befriended a young lady on the third floor by the name of Kate. Kate went on to hang out with the this hippy-fatguy who went by the name of Dwire. My friends and I didn't like the said fat hippy, but we tolerated his presence from time to time (I think cause he could buy us beer).

Anyway, my first semester at Towson was the only time that I had classes at 8am. I generally would roll out of bed around ten minutes before class and make my way a short distance to Linthicum hall. The morning started off groogy, but I offset this feeling by reminding myself that it was Friday. I was about to leave my dorm room when the phone rang.

"Uh-h-hello?"

"Kevin, you need to come up here. Now."

"I got class in like five minutes..."

"Seriously, you need to come up here," she said with more then a hint of panic in her voice.

"Whatsamatter? Is it an emergency?"

"Yes."

I didn't dare dally any longer. I rushed from the room and leaped up the stairs, blowing through the door into the third floor. Young ladies in various states of disrobment surrounded me, but I had no time to take in these welcome sights (well maybe one or two, and more then a few of them were not very welcome). I finally reached the end of the corridor to a door that was cracked open. I stood in front of the door before mustering up the courage to face whatever lay on the other side.

When I pushed the door open, darkness greeted me, punctuated by an erry yellow glow from the shrowded window. The air was pugnent with a foul smell.

"I'm here...what is--", I nearly gagged, "my God."

In a corner of the room, poor Kate stood with her arms hugging herself tightly rocking back and forth in place, unable to form coherent speech. She was nearly naked, which I found odd--but I digress. She kept staring at the floor, and I followed her gaze to the spot. That's when I saw the hideous sight.

A big pile of wet shit. Beer shit to be precise. Clear as day, right there on the playschool town and road rug. You know the kind. You'd play with matchbox cars on it's surface for hours. That memory is forever tainted for me now.

I didn't go to class that day. The heinous act left me with a thirst for knowledge at how just such an occurance could happen. With my keen detect skills and forensic ability I set to work. I closed off the room to the public, who was now clamouring to see just what had happened. A fresh faced girl in the hallway nearly vomited when she cought wiff of the foul smells coming from the room.

A short time later I had managed to calm poor Kate, and asked her to recount the events of the night before. She only remembered bits and pieces. From her recount of events I had a suspect. Dwire. There was drinking involved the previous evening, and he spent the night with her. I wasn't satisfied with just the suspect...I wanted motives, and a list of events leading up to this horrendous ordeal.

After this I set about the room looking for clues. In addition to "ground zero" (the pile of shit) I also discovered a Victoria Secret Brand silk robe crumpled and draped over the desk. Upon further examination I discovered fecal stains all over the inside and outside of the once seductive garment. A failed attempt to clean up the evidence? I didn't think so.

Once I had made my startling discovery I went out into the hallway to clear my lungs of the foul air from Kate's room. That's when I smelled another distinctive oddor. Urine, and it was comming from the door next to Kate's room. I looked at the name on the door. "Latrina." How ironic. I later met Latrina and she recounted an event from the night before as well.

Here is what I pieced together from my investigation:

1) Dwire and Kate, after a night of moderate to heavy drinking set out for an evening typical in the lives of college students; hooking up and passing out.

2) Sometime during the wee hours, Dwire felt that his blader was full. He stumbles out of Kate's room and decides that the bathroom is too far away (Scarborough hall has communal bathrooms only) and goes in the first available convienent spot, ie Latrina's dorm door.

3) Several minutes later, Latrina discovers the mess outside her door and decides to confront who she believes to be the culprit. She bangs loudly on Kate's door finally giving up after five minutes. Kate and Dwire ignore this and laugh back to sleep.

4) Even later on Dwire feels a bowl movement coming on. Remembering the ire of Latrina, he decides not to tempt fate, and figures that his best bet is to not leave the room. Being an experienced hippy, he drops his pants and makes good on the rug.

5) Deciding that it would not be hygenic to go around with shit in his droors, Dwire reaches for the first available thing with which to wipe his ass. Enter the Victoria Secret Brand Silk robe. He tosses it haphazardly on the desk near the bed.

6) Shortly after this transpires, Kate slowly begins to wake from her slumber due in no small part to the foul smell in the small room. Her vision slowly returns to her and she finds Dwire pulling on his pants, an look of satisfaction on his face. When Kate looks to what Dwire has done, she is horrified into inaction. Noticing this look on her face, Dwire speaks: "Yeah, it's a mess aint' it?" He then proceeds to leave calmly.

7) Kate get's out of bed, shaken but able to function at this point. She's half-naked and doesn't know what to do. She put's on the Victoria Secrets brand silk robe. That's when her sanity left her. She quickly removed it.

8) 7:55 AM, I receive the phone call.

Epilogue:

We never heard from Dwire again. That kinda of makes me sad, cause he was a dick and we had some good shit with which to ridicule him with. The rug that he had shat on was in fact Kate's roomates rug. My friend Justin and I removed the entire rug for the room, unwilling to touch the shit. We threw it away in the trash, not thinking what the September sun would do to it, and the fact that the custodial staff was gone till Monday. We were not well liked that weekend. Then we desperately tried to find a replacement rug, so that Kate's roomate would never know the truth. Till this day, she has never discovered the truth.

Kobayshi Maru

2005-11-15T20:05:00.000-05:00

Faith and Begora! It's been a long, long time. I'll be honest, it's taken me awhile to get used to the whole blogger thing, but more importantly it's that I just don't open up that well. I keep a lot of stuff private. I think that's been holding me back lately.

Now, don't cringe. I'm not here to spill my guts. There are parts of my life that I will hold onto for myself and a few others (and no, get your head out the gutter). Just thought I'd throw out that fact. I worry about my job and family finding out about stuff in my life that I'd rather not have them know. I let other people's perception of me cloud my judgement at times. In my family's case, it's so they don't worry about me. In my job's case, it's so I don't get fired. Isn't that prudent? Not that any thing I do anymore even warrants such secrecy. I mean, things are pretty mundane. I play video games, go out to bars on weekends, and make a semi-weekly trip to the comics store. Maybe I should have kept that last part secret.

Suffice to say, I've been a little too closed off these past few years. I have more friends and aquaintences than ever, and I feel pretty comfortable around them. Still, I hold back. There are a few that I would like to be a little more direct to (feel free to take that any way you want).

The point of all this though is that I think I've been playing it a bit too safe as of late. I often hear people complain that "they don't do drama". My drama is all internal. Drama is necessary or else we stagnate and die bored. I think I'm ready for something new...now what that is exactly, I know not.

-K