Drink Drink Drunk

Happy New Year Everybody!

Could there be a better way to celebrate the end of what must be the worst week of the entire year than to get plastered with friends at your local imbibing hotspot? I think not. On Monday we can all get back to our favorite television programs, uplifting yoga lessons, important office meetings, and the like. But this weekend is reserved for forgetting auld acquaintance, so drink away drink away drink away all your troubles.

I, on the other hand, plan to observe the new year in moderation. The halls of JC Penney beckon at 9 AM on Sunday. That's not so early as to completely ruin my eve of bliss, but it is just early enough to prevent me from walking the streets, taking pictures of random people that I meet (with my brand new digital camera!) and asking them to make out with me -- which is something of a holiday tradition. Instead, I'll be chillin' with Chad and Justin at an undisclosed (as yet undetermined) destination. At least I think that's what I'm up to, but who knows really.

Everybody have fun!

PoE Logo 1.0

Here's the very first version of the official Patriots of Europe logo. In the future I hope to tinker with the look of the text, as I am not entirely satisfied. But it is a good first try at photoshop - which I haven't used in about 5 years. It takes a lot of re-learning to work that program well.

Doggers Unite

Google Current keyed me in on a new phenomenon known as dogging. Generally speaking, this term refers to making it in a public place while a group of onlookers ogle your sex act. It seems most popular in city parks and parking lots in the UK. Specifically, it appears to often involve sex in a parked car. At least that's what the pictures I've seen imply. There even appear to be rules of etiquette, here's a few of my favorites:

Lube will make everyone more comfortable. Single-use packets are available and you can hand them out with condoms.

Give clear signals. Flash your lights or leave the inside light on to invite voyeurs. Roll the windows down if you want them to get closer or join in.

Be a good neighbor. Don't block another dogger's view or box in their car.

So who wants to start Minneapolis' first dogging community? Or has this been done here already and I am just clueless? I do remember a story a couple years ago about a group of men who met at Minnesota rest areas to have sex. They made news because they were married, and many had kids, so they weren't the usual gay transients the public is used to. But dogging is for everyone, gay or straight. So c'mon everybody, lets go for a drive.

The Culprit

This adorable little bugger is the reason I have been curled up into a ball on my couch for the past two days. This is my 2-year-old niece Lauren. The product of my sister Michelle and her husband Steve.

On my way out the door of her parent's house, this one planted a wet, snotty kiss right on the mouth. For most parents, this kind of 'sick by child' is par for the course, but I am not used to being around children. The resulting head cold has reinforced my desire to live child-free for some time. Maybe as I get older and start worrying about my legacy I'll reconsider, but for now I'd rather have a Vodka martini.

What a Bummer

Two consecutive days off from work. I have been looking forward to these two days for literally the past 8 weeks. I made it though another holiday selling season, survived another visit to Iowa, and was really looking forward to getting tanked and generally misbehaving. And now I am sick.

Yesterday I laid on the couch for a full 12 hours watching no less than 4 James Bond movies because I couldn't be asked to change the channel. Today I at least got out of the house to take Joe to the airport. Now I am home watching English football. L'pool won against Everton today -- go Reds! Currently Chelsea and Man City are tied at nil-nil.

Often my best laid plans are ruined by my immune system's ability to go nutty just as I have some free time. Maybe I should quit smoking... or move to a warmer climate.

Doing the Things a Catalog Can

My techie brother-in-law introduced me to Media Man this weekend. It's a downloadable cataloguing program with all kinds of bells and whistles. You just enter the UPC from your favorite CD, DVD, Book, etc and it automatically pulls a picture off the web and displays your collection in a virtual bookshelf.

This looks like it is a great program if you are obsessive about tracking all of your material possessions. Personally I can't be bothered, but you go ahead.

Its Over!

Today officially ends the Holiday shopping season and I am overjoyed. Granted, now I have a mess of neglected problems to deal with at work for the next month and a half, but at least I will be home at a reasonable hour. Maybe I'll even have a social life again. Probably not.

The Eve of Christmas Day

I am back from visiting my family in Iowa. I had good intentions to post a lot from my parent's house, but their dial-up connection was unbearably slow. So instated I passed the time reading and listening to tunes on the ipod.

I was a little worried that I might be in for an awkward Christmas, this being the first time I've seen any of my family since the whole coming out thing commenced a couple weeks ago. As it turns out, my news was overshadowed by the surprise announcement that I am an Uncle. Again. Twice over! Yep, my brother's wife is pregnant with twins and due in July. So yipee I was off the hook. Well mostly.

All in all the weekend transpired without much meaningful news to report. We all opened gifts on Friday night, as my brother and his wife and 3-year-old daughter were headed to Florida on Saturday. They are taking Abby to Disneyworld. The crazy part is that they are driving the 20 plus hours from their home in southeastern Iowa straight through. Abby is the niece I never get to see, and she is a shy one on top of that. So I got the stranger's treatment form her all weekend.

The other niece, 2-year-old Lauren, has seen me more often and is less shy. She'd let a complete stranger tickle her for hours. Which is basically what I did. These are both adorable kids, but the stress of raising a child has taken an obvious toll on all of my siblings. None of them look particularly trim these days, and all were in bed before 9. This left my mother and me with plenty of good chatting time, as she typically can't sleep, especially with a house full of children and grandchildren.

It was during this chatting time that I learned my mother is uncomfortable with the word 'gay.' I explained to her that, given all the other current possibilities, gay was probably her best choice, but she wouldn't budge. Now I have been charged with creating a new English word that means 'gay' but isn't gay. Any suggestions? Apparently, she doesn't like 'lesbian' either, so you might as well come up with an all encompassing word while you are at it. Part of me thinks this is a silly hang-up for her, but I guess I'm lucky we are only arguing about semantics.

I also bought myself a new digital camera from the Des Moines Costco. This is the most enormous Costco in the world, and seeing it nearly made me wet my pants. Unfortunately, I was shopping with my parents - an activity which ranks somewhere below having a cobra bite me in the ass on the list of things I enjoy. This meant that my enormous Costco experience was somewhat diminished, although I did manage to pick out this camera. New profile pic hopefully coming soon.

Today was lunch at my sister's house in Des Moines, a quick stop to say hello to Anne (can you believe IHOP was the only place open? Nothing else??), and then the 3.5 hour drive back home to Minneapolis. I need a drink...

Cheesecake!

I like cheesecake. Maybe not as much as Blance, Rose, Dorothy, and Sophia. But damn near as much. We've been doing a sort of "Twelve Days of Christmas" thing at work where we have a new snack everyday. Today's treat was Costco Cheesecake. Notice that the boss likes to shop at Costco -- so does Drew. They are both assholes.

Anyway, the cheesecake was good. And I am off work for three whole days! Of course, all of that time will be spent in Iowa, so it's not exactly a vacation, but at this point I'm just elated to not have to deal with people for a while. Handling the awkwardness of my first in-person encounter with the rents since the whole 'coming out' thing is nothing compared to the bitches I deal with at work. Bring on the Fam...

Next post will be from Iowa with Boredom.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Have a very special (belated) Ramadan, and may g-d be with you sir or madam of any other faith. To those without faith, enjoy your extra day off work next week. I know I will.

Row Row Row Your Boat

Yesterday the boss gave us our annual 'holiday' gift. Typically its a box of Costco chocolates. This year we got the chocolates, but we also got this book. I'm not a big fan of books about business or "business education" in general. There is surprisingly little Methodology in the world of business. It is a field of study driven almost exclusively by Ideology, or worse, Ideology masquerading as Methodology. "Get Everyone if Your Boat Rowing in the Same Direction" is an example of the latter.

To be sure, I read the first couple of chapters. I even contemplated filling out the worksheet in order to discover whether my values match with my company's values. I stopped when asked to fill out a detailed personality matrix for me and my key employees. Not to mention the concepts in the book are so basic that many 3-year-olds would be able to grasp, and yet the author offers his services as a consultant advising future leaders during his "Vision Quest" retreats. Yuck!

Now, I appreciate Mike's thought. And maybe someday I'll read the whole thing (just so I can answer honestly in case he ever asks if I have read it) but I would have preferred more chocolates. And I don't even like chocolate that much...

In the Dark Ages

Man do I need a digital camera. I'm tired of looking at that crap photo of me at Ben's house that acts as my profile pic for every web-type thingy I do. Plus it'd just be fun to post pics of good times to make this sight a little less drab.

I thought about asking for one this Christmas, but decided that I didn't trust my parents to pick anything but the cheapest, shabbiest model available. I'm not looking for a top-of-the-line SLR camera or anything, just a point and shoot that fits nicely in my pocket without giving passersby a misleading impression. I hear canon power shots are popular these days. Anyone got any suggestions?

Take the Q to the 5/6 to the...

Well it looks like our pals in the Big Apple are really struggling with the transit strike. Just think what would happen if the Minneapolis light rail shut down. The entire city would grind to a screeching halt. Businesses would close, poor people would die of hunger, rioting would ensue. Its a good thing we haven't given up our dependency on personal transit here in the Midwest. Otherwise we'd be just like those poor blokes in NYC...

Do You Work Here?

Anyone who works in a service industry will recognize this as possibly the most annoying question in the world. I cannot count the number of times I am asked this question in a single day. Nevermind the bright red lanyard around my neck bearing the JC Penney insignia, nevermind the name badge attached to this lanyard. Not to mention the clothes I wear make it possible to distinguish me as either a high flying power broker out shopping JC Penney on my lunch break or an obvious employee. This question really gets my goat.

Now before you start jumping to conclusions, yes I realize that 99% of the people who ask me this already know the answer. In fact, there are only two general reasons a person would ever ask such a silly question. 1)They obviously know I am an employee and they need help with something, but they can't come up with a better line to get my attention or 2)They obviously know I am an employee and are upset with the lack of service in our store, and are asking cynically to make a point about our poor service.

Well, to the first group of folks I say

"Come on! Stop insulting your own intelligence and come up with a better line. I am more than willing to help, just ask me!"

To the second group I say

"Piss off you crazy bitch, this isn't the 50's anymore. We don't have a staff of 'sales clerks' to do your personal shopping."

I give you the finger ma'am

Magical Thinking

While in New York visiting friends about a month ago, Cupcake began hounding me about my lack of knowledge concerning contemporary literature. I defended myself as best I could, but it was no use. David Sedaris can give you only so much street cred until people start asking what you think about other authors, and your only reply is a blank face. Well Nancy being the good hijacked friend of mine that she is has decided to enlighten me by sending me the first of what I hope will be installments of regular books.

I have to confess that since I received it a week ago I have only had time to read one chapter, but so far I think it's great. I'm a stickler for memoirs and non-fiction comedic essays in general so this book is right up my alley. This is certainly a much more enjoyable read than my last book, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance." Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a good philosophy book every now and then, but sometimes a fella just wants to laugh, and Burroughs has made me do that so far. Way to go Cupcake. Keep sending me more books you like. We'll make it like a Netflix thing where you send me a book, I read it and send it back to you, and then you send me a new book. Sound good? I thought so.

The Cosmos

"The Cosmos is everything there is, everything there was, and everything there will be." - Carl Sagan

The Science channel has been airing episodes of a famous old television show about exploring the universe. The cosmos as hosted by Carl Sagan is a great tool for learning about the fundamental theories of nature as we have come to know them. Personally, I like the show because Sagan's voice is so unique. He could be describing the details of American tax law, and you would still be on the edge of your chair.

The show reminds me of an old roommate I had. Her name was Jennifer, and all of my friends thought she was a real bombshell. But she was in a relationship with a rather plain, almost dorky frat boy named Carl. Because Carl had no obvious personality traits, my other roomie Mary and I spent a lot of time trying to make him more interesting. Now, this was about the time when Sagan's "Contact" had just been made into a film. And Mary and I, for some unknown reason, started referring to Jennifer's boyfriend Carl as 'Carl Sagan.'

This upset the real Carl enormously, I suspect mostly because he didn't know who Carl Sagan was. Anyway, a year later we all moved to new places, and I lost track of Jennifer and Carl. I am pretty sure I heard they got married, but where they are now I have no clue. Jennifer and Carl, if you are still out there in this giant cosmos of ours, for god sakes start watching this show, you might learn something.

Take back your TV

There's a (fairly) new television station on your local cable provider. Google Current is a channel of independent featurettes and mini-docs that are created by regular everyday people trying to make a living in the harsh world of television and film production. Although the channel is a little rough around the edges, it can be a lot of fun to watch. It's sorta like watching the early MTV or Comedy Central and getting excited about what a great thing it might eventually become. You can even submit your own project, and if it gets aired they pay you in real currency. Amazing. Who wants to travel to Peru with me to shoot a mini-doc about the plight of South American waterfowl?

Frank Zappa and the Homosexual Gene

In case you missed it in 'a rollercoaster ride,' I came out to my family last week. I'm only about four years behind the rest of the world, but at lest I am Hypocrite no more. Everyone has a good story to tell from their first conversation with their parents, and like everything else in my love life, mine includes Drew.

What you may or may not know about Drew is that he owns a picture of Frank Zappa posing nude, except for a fig leaf covering his potentially morally reprehensible areas. This picture, while not ever actually hanging on the wall in any of our places, has always been dropped in an awkwardly common area. A couple years ago, when we first moved to the city of Ice, my parents stumbled (literally, it was on the floor next to the living room door) into this picture. My mom was under the mistaken impression that it belonged to me, and that is what first led her to believe that I might prefer the company of gentlemen.

Although there is nothing specifically gay about this photo, my parents having not heard of Frank Zappa assumed it was some bizarre gay sex picture. Which, taking into consideration my knowledge of Frank Zappa may be more accurate than I first implied. My mom was beyond relief when I explained that it was in fact Drew's poster, and that it in no way belonged to me. This did however make it harder to sound convincing when I explained that Drew is straight. A fact that my parents seemed to take harder than my own revelation. But who could blame them, they'd been transferring all the gay in me onto Drew for the past three years.

So does my humorous anecdote compare to Anne's mother's famous 'skin cancer' remarks, or her dad's innocent confusion of derogatory words for lesbians and people of the Jewish faith? Probably not, but I'm going with the material I have here.

All seriousness, my parents are brave people who took the news about as well as they could have. Way to go mom and dad. I should have told you much sooner. Peace.

Songs I Like to Like

I've been "tagged" by Cupcake and apparently am now compelled to list the top seven songs that I am "into" right now. I am also supposed to tag 7 of my friends to find out what they are into right now, but I don't have seven friends, so we'll just leave it at my list.

I'm fairly certain that I got tagged so Cupcake would know what CD to buy next. Her taste in music is crap. Anyway, here's my list:

1)Hung Up(Madonna) - I realize this might be an unexpected one, but damn if I don't think that song is catchy.

2)Happy Holidays/Its the Holiday Season (Andy Williams) -- what can I say, I hear it 20 times a day right now, of course I'm innu it (wink)

3)Soul Meets Body (Deathcab for Cutie) - emo rockers make it big, hooray little guy!

4)We Will Become Sihouettes (Postal Service) - I like my melancholy with a cute keyboard on the side.

5)My Wandering Days are Over(Belle & Sebastian) - no matter where I go, no matter what I am doing B&S are not far away. How could I not put them on the list?

6)A Good Man is Easy to Kill (Beulah) - this one is an older song, but I'm back into it right now for no particular reason.

7)My Humps (Black Eyed Peas) - Wha' cha' gonna do wit all that junk? All that junk inside that trunk. Imma get get get get you drunk, get you love drunk off my hump.

Its All Inside

To borrow from the world of sports analogies, its the bottom of the ninth with two out and we're clinging to a one run lead at work. Today was the worst snowfall we've had this season, and it couldn't have come at a worse time for us. There's nothing like a snowy freeway to keep people out of the mall.

Consequently, my boss was driving everyone mad today fretting and nearly losing his temper on a couple of occasions. I'm pretty sure everyone from my team got reprimanded at least once today. But the store is on the cusp of not making our sales and profit plans, so its understandable that he's a little on edge I guess.

This time of year is also strange because I can't always tell who works for us and who is a customer. Something like 60% of our staff are new, temporary workers. This can be very confusing and sometimes embarrassing. Especially when you accidentally ask a customer to go straighten in Dockers. You get a great face with that one. A real Polaroid moment.

Today was also our annual catered "Holiday Dinner." Not much to speak of here, we just have lunch catered in for the associates, and ask them to enjoy, but not to eat too much 'cause this party was expensive, and if you eat too much we just won't have a party next year, but your all doing a fabulous job (except the ones we fired this week), keep up the good work!

Is it January yet?

I Hate "The World"

Most of my quality NPR time is spent driving to or from work. In the mornings, I get either Morning Edition, or Mid-Morning (Minnesota's version of Talk of the Nation), on the way home it's almost always ATC, sometimes Marketplace. My biggest beef with Minnesota Public Radio is that they always preempt the good parts of the national programs for crappy local news. I know it's hard to please everyone, but the D & E segments of Morning Edition are the fun ones, and we almost NEVER get to hear them because we need to know about the mayor's new plan for sweeping the streets. Personally, I'd rather hear about the newsroom that sold its soul, err, name to a corporate sponsor.

It seems that the only other time I hear any public radio is between 7 & 8 PM. I can't explain why, but as stated before almost all of my NPR time is in the car, and I'm usually on my way out for the evening around 7 I guess, who knows. This is where The World becomes a factor. I hate this show. I hate the presenter's delivery, I hate the stories, I just plain hate it. Not to mention that one of my favorite daily shows, Fresh Air, is on here in Minnesota at 8, just when I'm stepping out of the car for dinner or drinks or whatever. Ugh. I miss you Terry Gross.

And the winner is...

As part of my membership to the filmmaking organization IFP, I get to vote in the upcoming independent Spirit movie awards. I saw these awards on IFC one year, and actually thought they were legitimate. That was before I knew that you could buy a vote for just $80 a year by becoming a member of IFP. Now, one might argue that only a legit filmmaker would bother to pay money to be in a filmmaking organization. I stand here today as the ultimate counter to that argument. I have not yet, and likely will never be considered legitimate in any way, let alone as a filmmaker. So there you have it, the independent Spirit awards are bogus. Who should I vote for?

The extra bonus is that, in order to be able to see all the nominated movies, I got a free 3 month subscription to NetFlix. They automatically send me the movies that are up for awards, and as I understand it some of them are not widely available to the public. So thats kinda neat right? I have a gut feeling that NetFlix offers all of it's new customers 3 free months, but I like the idea of an exclusive offer just for people like me (or at least for people whom I aspire to be like)so I'm running with that. Don't burst my bubble.

A Rollercoaster Ride

Here's a list of some of the things I did this weekend, in chronological order:

Broke it off with Jeff (big nasty fight)
Came out to my family (long melodramatic email)
Dinner with friends (Chad's Birthday)
Saw a bad play (The Little Prince)
Babysat a drunk 50 year-old co-worker (at a gay bar)
Recovered from super hangover (See dinner through babysitting above)
Lost two games of Settlers (One to Drew, One to Joe)
Received boxer brief gift (as coming out present form Justin/Chad)
Ate Lasagna (cause I was hungry)

So, what did you do this past weekend??

The Movies (for your PC)

I have a new pastime in the form of PC gaming. Now, I've never considered myself a hardcore PC gamer, but I do like a couple of well made series. I grew up playing the Civilization games, and now Sid has released Civ IV. In the past month I have wasted many a night playing this game, even though it just barely runs on my not-so-old notebook.

On top of that,I just discovered a new game called The Movies. This is a game that allows you to build and run your very own Hollywood-style move studio. You also have the option to create your own movies within the game, which you can export to your computer and the web. Granted, you are basically just arranging a number of stock clips in order and calling it a movie, but there seem to be a number of unique clips, and there are some interesting customization options. I haven't mastered the art of in-game movie making just yet, but when I do I'll try to post some of the best ones here.

Bravo Project Bravo.

Project Runway is back on the air, and I love Bravo again! I'll be busy this weekend watching the premiere episode on repeat. You can even buy clothes from your favorite designer at the Project Runway store. Looks like they are still doing the annoying overdubbing though; someone should really teach Heidi Klum how to speak into a microphone.

PR2 Great Moment #1: Totally annoying southern girl gets the boot in the first episode, and as usual Heidi says "Auf Wiedersehen." Totally annoying southern girl says "I don't know what that means, but thank you" and walks off. Awesome

PR2 Great Moment #2: Klum is PREGNANT !?!

Patriots of Europe?

A lot of you have been asking what the Patriots of Europe is all about. OK, no one has asked what the Patriots of Europe is all about. Come to think of it, to my knowledge no one but me has read this blog. But someday someone might stumble onto this site out of complete and utter boredom, so I might as well explain it now.

The Patriots of Europe was formerly the name of a band my roomate, Drew, and I were going to start. Actually, that is not entirely accurate -- it is the name of a ficticious band that Drew and I were planning to promote. The idea was to see if we could generate any publicity for a band that didn't even exist, and ideally we would have found a way to make money off the fake band as well. But, like most of our ideas, we never developed it to its full potential. So, I stole the name for my blog and there it is.

VFW KARAOKE

One of the hip new things to do in Minneapolis is to go sing Karaoke at the VFW in Uptown. Now before any of you readers on the coasts moan, yes we have had karaoke for the past twenty five years, even in the middle west. Nontheless, the uptown VFW is the place to be and be seen, at least if you are a poor twentysomething hipster, hipster wannabie, or a middle aged veteran. Saturday night my good friend Will was in town from Des Moines to visit Ben, Rajasree, and Me. Well, i think its fair to say that we are all hipster wannabies, plus "the rock" really loves her karaoke. So we piled into the car and headed to the VFW for a couple rounds. Rajasree did all of the singing from our group, but she did more than enough for all of us. I got drunk, and we all had a great time. Maybe someone has some pictures, if I find any out there I'll post 'em.

It's the Holiday Season

One of the interesting things about my job, aside from getting to listen to Andy Williams sing "Happy Holidays" ten times everyday, is that very rarely an angy customer generates a great story. Most of the customer complaints I deal with are of the rather trite, throw away variety; however, yesterday i stumbled into a real whopper of a story .

It started with a phone call from one of my associates, asking me to come deal with an angry customer. I tend to get nervous when I get these calls because you never know just exactly what you are about to encounter. It could be a simple misunderstanding that is easy to clear up, or it could be an all-out customer v. associate cat fight compelte with hair pulling and eye poking. As I walked to the shoe department this time, I noticed immediately the woman whom I was about to confront; 5'7" tall with short,dark hair and thick-framed glasses. Oh yeah, and she's white.

She was standing in the aisle, leaning across the threshold that separates the tiled aisle form the carpeted sales floor, preparing to hurl her next insult at my staff. I walk toward her and begin speaking in the concilliatory tone I often take when first approaching an upset customer.

Me: Hello ma-

Lady: THEY SHOULD BE FIRED, ALL OF THEM THEY THEY DONT THEY ARE INTIMIDATED BY ME THEY DONT LIKE TO HELP BEAUTIFUL WHITE WOMEN

Me: Maam, please calm down. Is there something i can help with?

Lady: YES, FIRE ALL OF THE MEN ON YOUR STAFF

Innocent Customer: Will you shut up already? I'm tired of listening to you, you crazy bitch. You're making me mad, and I don't even work here.

Lady: WHAT THE WHO ARE YOU YOU DONT KNOW MY BUSINESS IS THIS YOUR BUSINESS WHY DONT YOU SHUT UP GET OUTTA MY FACE IS THIS YOUR BUSINESS?

Me: Maam, can you tell me what happened?

Lady: I SHOP FOR SHOES AND ALL THE TIME I SHOP EVERYWHERE IT SEEMS ONLY IN SHOES BUT MEN DONT WANT TO HELP A BEAUTIFUL TALL WHITE WOMAN I DONT KNOW IF THEY ARE INTIMIDATED OR WHAT BUT THEY WOULDNT HELP ME HE SAID I ASKED FOR HELP AND HE SAID HE WAS WITH ANOTHER CUSTOMER AND I NEEDED TO WAIT AND THE ONLY ONE WHO IS ANY GOOD HERE IS THAT LITTLE DARK GIRL SHES GOOD AND THAT GUY TOO HE SAID HE WAS HELPING SOMEONE BUT HE WASNT HELPING SOMEONE AND HE IS INTIMIDATED I AM BEAUTIFUL YOU DONT LIKE HELPING BEAUTIFUL TALL WOMEN LIKE ME...

Anyway, this exchange went on for a minute or two before she finally decided that I was not going to fire all the men on my staff because she told me I should. And then, as if someone switched her off, she turned and walked out of the store. It's a shame really, because I was about 30 seconds away from kicking her out -- something that we almost never get to do, but I would have taken great pleasure in it. "And stay out of Woolworths!"