have you ever been experienced?

I worry too much about what I write. I realized this today while I read total strangers "25 Things" list that have been going around the blogosphere and facebook. They didn't even do good 25 things! They did stuff like, "once my mom beat me with a shovel, and thats why I walk with a limp and think of myself dirt"..... ZZZZZ.....borrrrringggggg.

Anyway, I figure if I can trod through other people's drivel because I am addicted to reading/listening whatever asinine thing you want to tell me, then you must read this because you are hopelessly addicted too. Shame on me for caring so much in the past.

I was listening to "How Stuff Works: How a coma works" and they were talking in depth about the circumstances that cause your brain and nervous system to go into a coma. Well they were describing how in a violent head collision, your brain slaps into the side of your skull. I don't know why, but while they were describing this I had a very vivid picture of my own brain moving around inside my skull. From the viscous fluid, to the pink fleshy brain, to the white slimy bones on the inside of my skull. I was very creeped out by this visualization and how very real it felt. Like I was looking from the inside of my brain out. I tried to recreate the sensation later in the day, but for some reason I couldn't get inside my own head again. Bummer.


That said it takes a lot of experience to be good enough at living alone so that you can not only enjoy it, but reap the benefits. Until about a year ago, I was just very satisfied with the idea of living alone. Comfortable in my own skin, ego and situation. But during that comfortable time, I had never really come to reap the possible benefits of zero rules. One secret is to be un-ashamed with being absolutely bat-shit crazy. Once you let yourself go, things can get wicked awesome. Say your jokes out loud, they always sound better in the open air. Wanna talk to the TV? Go right ahead, let 'er loose. There's no reason you can't sing along with the Subway 5 dollar footlong jingle (complete with hand motions!) or openly pine about how Ashley on Rock of Love Bus is the bomb. Perhaps you're angry? Go ahead a scream out a ton of colorful obscenities. Don't bottle them all in. This expressive behavior is what makes you an expert at expressive behaviors.

Why should you verbalize your thoughts? Well, practicing in the comfort of your own home is where you work out all the kinks so that you can use them on other people and blow their minds with your improvisation ability. Behind every "That swamp assed donkey fucker better watch his mouth or I'll turn his liver into paté" is countless in home repetitions of inflection and accents and slang. If you want to win on the battle field, you have to start on the practice field people.

In fact, just today I was watching an infomercial for the slim clip. Well the slim clip is basically a large dual sided money clip but advertised to look like the solution to all your problems. In describing this marvel of engineering, they begin to exclaim the numerous places you could keep the money clip discretely and comfortably where that bulky wallet could not be stored. Unfortunately for them, they forgot to include the most obvious place you could keep objects of value. Fear not, I added it in at the end of their list for the viewing pleasure of. Perhaps a fellow infomercial watcher may have been offended at my suggestion that you could shove a wallet in your lady parts, but they weren't there to object were they? So, I win! .....because........ I win!

I submitted my blog to be reviewed by a smarmy and snotty blog review service, so I am going to attempt to appease them by polishing (polish-ing? ha, no kielbasa around here) up this site and updating a few features. Hopefully a new header, but I don't have the time, resources, or education to make a super snazzy one, so don't get your hopes up. But once they finally get around to it, you guys can all laugh at me and I will join in with a fake laugh at myself while plotting your deaths. Ungrateful jerks.

got a bucket of ice water?

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This is me at my desk today, trying to keep out the light. The past week into weekend was rough on my sleep schedule since 430 morning wake up calls and 11pm bedtimes were the theme of this week with my work schedule getting another 3 hours added to it with the start of the spring semester.

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I find that I have a lot of trouble blogging when I put together a few consecutive nights of 5 or less hours sleep. The other responsibilities that I have I can push through, but it doesn't exactly take a creative intellect to verbally and emotionally abuse people all day long. Just a whole lot of bottled anger with a weakened conscience. I do my other responsibilities better when I am exhausted as a matter of fact.
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Unfortunately, even caffiene can't help stir the creative juices when you get this tired. It just keeps your eyes open. Which enables you to wish you could blog, but without the ability to put together coherent thoughts or sentences. When my schedule gets this full, more stuff gets done, but the quality starts to suffer. This means the long term goals are not met. So basically, I am a walking Circuit City. Day to day, I look up and running, but behind the closed doors, the S.Vincent corporation is hemorrhaging cash.

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I could write about a dream that I had in which I was or was watching Kanye West go through hardship in the release of a Kanye West robot that plays Kanye West songs and comes up with Kanye West ideas to everyday situations. I think I was rotating back and forth between being Kanye and watching Kanye. But I can't write any more of the details because I did not stay in dreamland long enough to figure that out. I hope it ended with a version of me in a cartoon music video.

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Instead, I will post for you a "missed connection" listing posted in the PoVegas section of Craigslist.

"You clean the Main Street Bistro most nights... I'm not sure exactly which nights but I'm pretty sure Sundays and Wednesdays at the very least. I see you in there all the time. Maybe one of these nights you could stop by for a cup of coffee after you get done mopping."

Some of you know where PoVegas is, and some of you do not. It's not big, so there are'nt many "missed connections" on there, but the ones that do get posted are classic. I check everyday to improve my outlook on life through the hardships of others. I felt that this one wraps up the kind of displaced hope we have in a better future around here.
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Now I am going to slam my head in a desk drawer for my lunch break.

because you had a bad (hair) day

didn't think guys had bad hair days? Didn't think that if a guy did have a bad hair day, he would care? Well my friend, you have never met yours truly.

My hair and I should be in counseling.......well actually, the fact that I suggested that hair could be in counseling suggest that I should definitely be in counseling, and my hair is but an innocent by-stander made of nothing but dead protein or whatever it is that hair is made of.

I have shaved it all off, had my mom cut it, cut it myself, had a random friend of my fathers cut it, waxed it, gelled it, pomeaded it, dyed it pink (seriously), bleached it blonde, grown it into a pony-tail, and even had a fun night with a faux hawk.

Due to all this chaos and tragedy, my hair has some life experience. If my hair could talk, it would say "listen bro/bro-sita......I have seen some shit"

Aside from my ghastly face, my hair is my number one insecurity. If I have to go somewhere nice with people, my butthole will tighten right up when it comes time to "do my hair". Not what I am going to wear, not what shoes go with what, not my cologne choice or which pair of sunglasses. It's all hair, all day.

What's my deal? Well, I wish I could explain it better (Blogger FAIL) but as you can see, I can't seem to feel comfortable with any one thing. The problem with all this boloney is I need my hair to be at least be a stream of pee in the blaze of fire that is this hideous visage. Maybe if it was cool to walk around with a phantom of the opera mask I could worry less about my hair.......but I don't have a good enough singing voice, so my face is out there in the open and worry I must. Either that, or just board up my front door and discard all 3 of my friends. So what happens? Well I stand in front of the mirror till I can't stand to think or try anything else and just submit the public to my latest dog and poney show (what is that anyway?)

Bad hair + ugly face = Ashlee Simpson

Anyway, my routine for the past 2 years or so has been to just throw a little after-shower conditioner in there and let it fly. It's thinning out in my advance years and without a little substance to keep it together, my hair would look like one of those dust balls from the laundry room with the rogue hairs wrapped around it.

So todays dog and poney show is that I accidentally added a little too much conditioner and now I look like a less attractive version of this. Which, if you know your history, actually makes me THIS

Olde Time Internet humour

I had a buddy in college that used to find the best internet stuff ever. PS....this is before google and blogs and facebook were invented, so it was a major feat for us old timers.
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This is a copy paste job from http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=irule, so it's not my original material. However, since I have used it for years, I think I have some rights to it under the squatters rule. Readers Note: This is much funnier if you read it aloud. I work myself into a Robert Downey Jr. impression and then pause for dramatic effect before saying F!! real loud. Even better if you can read it while a friend looks on.
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I am better than your kids.

If you work in an office with lots of people, chances are that you work with a person who hangs pictures up that their kids have drawn. The pictures are always of some stupid flower or a tree with wheels. These pictures suck; I could draw pictures much better. In fact, I can spell, do math and run faster than your kids. So being that my skills are obviously superior to those of children, I've taken the liberty to judge art work done by other kids on the internet. I'll be assigning a grade A through F for each piece:



Megan, age 4
First of all, I don't even know what this is. If it's supposed to be a dog, then it's the shittiest dog I've ever seen. F





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Kyle, age 8
You spelled America wrong asshole. Also, I could have sworn America's colors were red, white and blue. There's no yellow anywhere, traitor. F








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Lisa, age 6
Holy shit, I almost had a seizure when I saw this one. Three words: too many colors. Also, eggs aren't supposed to have ears, dipshit. F














Cameron, age 4
Terrible. F

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Bryce, age 10
This one wouldn't be too bad if the color were kept inside the lines, you picked a new perspective, used non-abrasive colors and asked someone with talent to paint it for you. On one hand I want to give an A for effort but.....F


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Jon, Age 8
Ding Ding! Here comes the shit-mobile. I've never seen a fire truck that needed to be shaved. I would rather be burned to death than be saved by this hairy piece of shit.

F


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Rachel, age 7
That's interesting, everyone in this picture is white. Even the rainbow is white. Perhaps in an ideal world, everyone would be white isn't that right, Rachel? Or should I call you RACIST?
Nice try, Hitler. F



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Jason, age 6
This one would receive an "A" if the assignment was to throw as much random shit onto a paper as poorly as you can.

I've pissed patterns on snow that look more coherent than this...F



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Seth, age 4
Vrrrroooooooooooommmmmm!!!...F!





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Kelly, age 9
This was a Christmas gift from Kelly to her parents. Good job Kelly, now pack up your shit and find a foster home. If my kids tried to pass this off as a gift, they'd come home from school and find all their shit outside in a box. What a lousy gift, seriously. You give them video games and toys, and they give you some half-assed drawing with a crooked tree. I wonder how much a gift like this would set someone back. Five, maybe ten minutes to find a napkin and some markers? F

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I win. When I go into work next, I'm going to surprise all my co-workers and put up pictures of myself instead of their ugly kids and their inane drawings.

get down with the sickness

no other way to describe this kind of activity

http://vimeo.com/1778399

through the eyes of s.vincent

Didn't have anything super to write about today, so we're going with a little photo blog. The blogging headquarters and author in a series of snap shots.....
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I call it my Edgar Allen Poe water bottle. In a certain stage of exhaustion at a certain time of day, I will zone out into the weaving gray. It's a very dark and moody water bottle, maybe I should just call it Robert Smith? The coffee cup is used for about 3 cups of green tea a day. And the orange is to remind you to eat plenty of fresh fruits, just like your favorite cartoon hero S.Vincent!
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Wearing one of my favorite t-shirts. Number 1: One of the greatest bands of all time 2: It's black 3: fits great and is 100% cotton. I hate blends. Bonus points for identification left in the comment box

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I am a compulsive page checker and will check sites that I like probably 15 times a day. Sometimes out of sheer hope that I missed something from when I checked it 5 minutes ago. Seriously, I click on the site, check my email, and then check back again. ESPN.com is one of these sites. Nice picture Lance. You look like Emporer Palpatine.

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If I was to have some sort of obscure marketing logo for myself, it would have to include this fleece somehow. I wear it from September to June every single day. Again, its black, it's warm but breathes very well in warmer conditions. Has awesome pockets and sits high enough so that it doesnt get all tangled near my waist. I feel naked without it.......and sometimes I am.

The tool of the trade. Rollerball mouse. I hate sliding my hand all over a desk. Blank keyboard for security purposes and all around geek points. Plus its metallic switches are like heaven to type with. So soothing on the senses. When the old ladies get cranky, when the co-workers start yelling, it's clicky clack noise calms me right down. Gets a little tricky with intricate passwords that come up as *'s on the screen, but otherwise 100% worth it. "Plus, its so choice. If you have the means, I highly suggest picking one up"

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The doorway back out to the real world. I made the lettering for this door back in high school. You can see now that it is beginning to crack. Just like my old and tired brain.

FIRST! (and a bunch of shout outs)

Before we kick off on a weekend of blog related activities that I never thought would have blog related activities, I'll start by linking a much stronger argument to my original suspicion of Twitter being a questionable web resource. Think of her as Thomas Jefferson, and me being Thomas Jefferson's gardener saying "Hey T Jay-izzle, you know what sucks? People on the other side of the ocean." Anyway, I have said in previous posts that I always kick things off before anyone knows they are popular (moustaches, fashion trends, "pun intended", facebook at Marist College, etc. etc.) and now I will take at least partial credit for the start of a Twitter revolution. Le Resistance!

But seriously, for a more educated argument, go see Your Ill-Fitting Overcoat. If you are really interested, check out her comments for peoples rebuttals or agreements. Beamer, makes a good rebuttal against twitter hate. So that makes him the British......imperialistic bastard that he is.

On to the weekend! Spent some time down in New York City with strong YFYB supporter The Grzy and his first lady R-diculous (which I just made up). We wandered about out in the cold, rode on some subways, made a tally on the total number of animal fur related hats (15 I think), and ate some prime steak, ate some awesome burgers, coat-teased the coat check people at dance clubs, chatted up cab drivers, ate the best pancakes ever, got lost for 5 minutes in the Village, and didn't do 90% of the stuff we had planned. But we had fun never the less.

At the steak house, we met up with a friend of R-diculous who is a fashion entrepreneur and start up blogger; Mint Julep, who just launched a portion of her store online. Of course being in the presence of my blogging greatness, she offered to pay for dinner if I plugged her site. Since I knew that association with my blog often causes stores to go bankrupt, I counter-offered to pay for her dinner, give her a metro card, and take care of her children in the future when she is forced to dance the Charleston in the subway for quarters.

After I ate a cow, we all went out on the town to a place Mint Julep knew. A swanky little basement club on Bleeker that had "Finding Nemo" playing on 10 HD flatscreens and bass-laden electronic music blasting. There should have been tons of overly attractive people there, but most were very normal. So I was a little lost in the observation of it all till I spotted a victim for "Shirt or Dress" . She had to be mine! Oh yes, she will be mine. I wasn't sure how I was going to snap the picture at this small party without being more creepy than I am usually comfortable with, but then a sparkler appeared. She was entranced like a moth to the flame and whammy, blog duties complete. Keep an eye out, hopefully she posts it.

That's 4 blog shout outs for you. I bought a new camera this weekend, so once I have something thats not my shoes to photograph, we can bring back more visual entertainment for you.

Bless me father, for I have sinned

I have to admit a strange fetish. No, its not necrophilia or whips and chains or feet.......

I wanna see what's in your fridge......

I know, it's very strange, but I can't help it. I've sought help, but then the doctor said something like "we'll talk about that after you let me put my fingers in your colon to check for blah blah" I stopped listening and walked out of the office cause he wasn't going to help me. No one can.

For some, its the medicine cabinet, but that doesn't really rev my engine. I will look in there, perhaps borrow your tweezers and do a little manscaping, or check what type of toothpaste you use if I feel your teeth are spectacular, but otherwise it's an un-exciteable enterprise for me. If you are messed up, there's a good chance I have already considered what drugs you should be on or are currently on anyway, and I don't need to see a box of laxatives to confirm my suspicion that you are constipated. I can tell that by asking your thoughts on a spontaneous ab workout session.

But the medicine cabinet is for amateurs. You can close and lock the door in the bathroom and no one would ever know you looked in there. I prefer a much more personal item of the home.

Ahhhhh, the sensation of discovering treasure stored at a delicious 34-38 degrees. So many exotic and exciting items lie just behind that insulated door. With a pull of the handle that peels the rubber strip air locking the treasure; the barrier between me and your most personal items is broken.

So many things to observe. Things such as cheese preferences, condiment selection, fruit choices, milk location. How full is the fridge? How many of each item is there? Are they running low on eggs? Do they refrigerate their bread? How fresh are the leftovers? WHAT are the leftovers? Do they know you don't have to refrigerate peanut butter?

And those are just a few of the questions I may have about you that can be answered in just 20 seconds of me getting inside your refrigerator. Or as I like to call it, the window of your SOUL.

How much junk food is there? Are you getting enough fiber? Do you use light salad dressing? How important is soda to your diet? Are there many organic items? Is there anything with mold on it? What brand of pasta sauce do you like? Do you have a lot of raw ingredients or do you have a lot of processed stuff?

Ohhhhhhh golly.......I am in heaven inside your fridge. My favorite part of MTV's cribs is when they show you what's in their fridge. The only way it could be better was if the celebrity didn't know we were looking in there. Can you imagine? That way they couldn't change it and you would know exactly their innermost secrets and needs.

And thus, this is why I sneak a peek.....I need it.......just a quick one.....I swear......you won't even know I did it.

write before you read

I decided to write today before I get myself locked into reading all the daily entertaining blog updates. I spend all my time reading and thus pigeon-hole myself into making a mad 3pm scramble for my own post. This "read before writing" activity often results in some of the un-edited trash I have been putting out. Only some of the trash, because the other trash is on purpose.

Was the origin of the word "Orange" a color or a fruit first?

I don't know how to use Twitter effectively. Everyone is apparently doing it, but after 5 months or so, I am still not seeing its obvious prevelance or effectiveness on the web except for everyone talking about it. I am begining to think its all a elaborate joke like something we'd do back in high school.
"Seriously dude? you're not putting Icy Hot on your balls? What's wrong with you, it's the best thing ever. I do it twice a day it's so awesome. It makes em feel like your balls are brand new balls. You could have fresh infant balls man! You GOTTA do it!"

I have been drinking a lot of tea lately. Does that make me effeminate? Anytime I pick up a "new thing", the possibility of that trait is the first thing I worry about. I do enough borderline effeminate things, so I feel compelled to monitor myself to make sure I am only tap dancing on that line and not into full on Pete Wentz territory. I feel once you cross that line there is no going back. Kind of like a tatoo of a unicorn on a woman. Even if she were to get a doctorate, buy a big house, drive a BMW, and get a lawyer husband, you would still know that deep down she was white trash enough to display her white trashiness on her body.

Anyway, the point to that confession is that I recently found out English Breakfast is nothing but plain black tea. What Tea Master of the Universe decided that black tea can be named after the most important meal of the english day? I am pretty sure that is just some kind of marketing to make plain black tea seem more exotic, but either way, from now on S.Vincent refuses to call it anything other than black tea. Fuck the british and their colonization of tea naming without adding any significant infrastructure to that tea. This BS has gone on long enough!

Speaking of tea......again. Starbuck's has thrown themselves into a more aggressive stance on tea-based hot drinks. Fantastic idea! Something we can't burn! Anyway, they have a drink called a "London Fog". Which features one of S.Vincent's favorite teas, "Earl Grey". (a tea name that I can get behind because The Earl added something unique to his tea) It's extra bergemont-y, so be warned that you gotta really like Earl Grey to like this starbucks concoction, but I thought it was lolli (british term for Money)

And I can't think about English anything without thinking about my favorite American Express commercial.



Indeed Jerry, that was a wicked googily

lip smackin

I have been away for longer than I thought I was. That's what happens when you go on vacation. If you don't use a computer daily and miss all the feeds, it takes you 2x as long to get back in the groove. 3 days in the blogging world is like a week in the real world. By the time I made my way consistently in front of a computer, caught up on all the feeds, came up with some material, and overcame laziness; it took like...... a whole bunch of days to make a post. So lets play catch up.

New Years Eve? zilch, zero, nada. Got no call back on my hopeful date, so I sat on my couch, did some laundry, watched a Dashboard Confessional concert on the "Best of Madison Square Garden", and was in bed by 11:30. Happy new year indeed. All I needed was some eye shadow, an eating disorder, and some cigarettes and I would have been a hit emo song. Good thing NYE has never been my thing anyway. I prefer Arbor Day!

Trip to Chicago? Ooooo, I could go on and on, but I will try to keep it short and sweet.

Travel: The flight in over Lake Michigan was really cool. Seeing the ice sheets get thicker and thicker as they reached the shore was a highlight of the trip. It was also a less than 2 hour flight, so that's awesome too. O'Hare is a big airport, so the Chicago subway goes out to it, which is nice. The subway ticket machine nearly lost its life via my foot for being faulty, but the ticket prices are on par with NYC. The trains go FAST, are pretty clean, and have less homeless people on them then the Big Apple

Sidenote: The hotel was next to the biggest McDonalds I have ever seen. It was 2 floors, had escalators, flat screen TV's, an entire 1960 Corvette, and 2 drive thru lanes. It also had leather couches, a time capsule, gelato, cappuccino, and pastries.

City layout? Really good and is designed in almost a strict grid. (NYC'ers love this) The subway layout could use a little more work, but its efficient and logical enough. They have plenty of space to work with and have used it to accommodate big sidewalks, big streets, big parks, and big alley ways. There is a lack of non-franchise stores/restaurants, so just about every store is a chain. It's makes it feel a little bit like a giant mall, but its got everything so it's acceptable for S.Vincent.

Culture? I don't think I stayed long enough to get a feel for the true culture. I'm not sure it has much, and like I mentioned, there are a lot of chain stores and it makes it feel a little "un-unique?" The most signature Chicago thing I saw was Lake Michigan, Soldier Field, and the Bean. I don't know what separates a chicago-in, ite, er? from other major city residents, but I can say that everyone I talked to was super friendly and super helpful. Which is.....pretty cool to see in a big city.

Weather? Surprise! It's fuckin COLD in January. I hate using chapstick, (the muse for the title) and thankfully have never had to use it in the humid northeast in the winter, but Chicago is windy COLD, and DRY. So if you love using chapstick, this city is your "Graceland".

Food? Well, its not quite New York, but what is? The lack of specialty restaurants makes it easy to go to most of the signature places in one weekend. Alinea was awesome, but as the number 1 restaurant in Chicago, it ought to be, right? Portillo's hot dog? delicious, I wish NYC had these and I never thought of using lettuce and tomato on a hot dog. Didn't get a chance to go to The Weiner's Circle, but that looked really cool. Giordano's deep dish pizza? Overrated, but not a waste of time. I wish it had more sauce. I think if I spent another 2 days I could have gone to all the good places in Chicago. This is great if you are a visitor, but if I lived there, I would be upset.

Attractions? The Sears tower is really cool. Nice sky deck educational material and since no one was there it took 10 mins to get from ground floor to top floor. Aquarium: due to renovations there was no dolphins, no seals, no penguins, and therefore; no S.Vincent. Planetarium: as cool as any other planetarium, but I get as excited about planets as I get about botany so Zzzzzzz. Art Museum: is a very good one, and is featured in the movie "Ferris Buellers Day Off". I wish I spent more time in there because it has a ton of great peices. Second City: This was even better than I expected and I had a really good time there. The ticket price was only 20 bucks and was totally worth it. I highly suggest making it a stop if you go to Chicago.

I think that about covers my trip to Chicago. Did I mention it was really fucking COLD? I also noticed that every single building had apartments/condos for rent or sale. I could definitely see myself living there, but it doesn't have any rowing.....so it's "no go" for S.Vincent. On the bright side, you would totally get to taunt people from Milwaukee!

Random Travel Observation: I don't think it was just Blue Car syndrome, but there seemed to be a lot of young females on the move. The airport was full of old people, and young girls. So, if you're looking for a place to pick up girls, live next to a major airport, and dabble in skeevyness; dust off your suitcase and head to the Delta terminal.

New widget for Witnesses. Right now I only have one (much love to the VA), so I am the opposite of LeBron James, but I always thought putridity was better than mediocrity.