Friday, January 29, 2010

Vegas

No not going to be a long-winded post about how awesome Vegas is, especially on your birthday. I just wanted to tell everyone how awesome I am in the form of some good prose.

Upon returning from the Bahamas I did what any single guy in his mid 20's would do, I never unpacked it. In my drunken stupor this morning, I realized I had not packed, fortunately I am a lazy frat guy, and my Bahamas gear was packed and ready to go.

I figure it will be approximately the same weather, and if its above 45 you better fucking believe I'm wearing shorts and flops. Hopefully I shall return with some good war stories. Until then my friends.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

What would you do with $100,000

This is a question my boss asked my team members yesterday during out weekly meeting.

I suppose its a reasonable enough question. The reason people work is to make a living, and the point of his question is that he thinks we should all be making that much money in our third year. So the responses began:

Uh, I would buy a ferrari. Typical gdi response, go blow your whole load on some quick car that you won't know how to drive, afford the insurance for, or be able t fix when you crash into a lighpost doing burnouts in a parking lot with your one friend.

Next, I would put a down payment on a house...responsible, but GAY. Why would you ever want to own a house in the suburbs when yu are in your mid 20's? Is that what the American Dream has come to? Moving away from all your friends in the city, in with some chick who is going to make you miserable? Didn't this clown see Revolutioanry Road? That ended really well!

Pay off my student loans. OK, I know it sucks you weren't priviledged enough to have your parents pay for college...I've heard this sob story a thousand times, but for the perfect of this exercise would you pretend to not be an attention craving whore and just use some imagination. I do not feel sorry for you, and I will never apologize for the fortunate hand which I was dealt.

Go on a really nice vacation and invest the rest, don't even get me started. Put it in a college fund for my daughter...well at your daughter won't end up like the aforementioned Betsy Bluecollar who is in 6 figures of debt, but still a pathetic answer.

These pathetic, responsible, unimaginative responses continued until it was my turn to respond...I took a moment and surveyed the room and then said this:

Honestly, if I was handed $100,000 I would quit my job and stop working all together for the next 2 years. I would blow money on travel, alcohol, and other vices. I would sleep until about noon every day and go out every night, I would be constantly drinking. I would go on every road trip that was ever suggested. I would still buy Smirnoff instead of Grey Goose and still order off the McDonalds dollar menu. I would also buy a lottery ticket every day hoping that I would win so I could prolong this lifestyle. I would probably go somewhere new every weekend and rage. I would hire someone to do my laundry once a week. I feel like spending an average of a little more than $4000 a month I could sustain this lifestyle for a good 2 years. AT the end I would be broke and have nothing to show for my 2 year bender...but maybe, just maybe, I will have found some purpose in my life or found the will to grow up. Maybe in this time I will develop a passion or find someone that I truly care about...but if I had 100 grand RIGHT NOW...that's what I would do.


After a long silence my boss simply said..."Well that's one way to do it."

Monday, January 25, 2010

A new study shows...

...that every post grad visit to your alma mater decreases your life expectancy by a year. I mean it is one thing to go back for a tailgate or even a basketball game. However, blacking out within your first hour of drinking and having a staff member at a bar dedicated to following you around making sure you do a limited ammount of damage to yourself and/or others...well that is why my friends have started calling me the Toys R Us kid.

But why not? In this world where everyone is trying to fast forward through their life, i'm hitting the pause on my Tivo. Maybe I'm immature and my charming irresponsibility is starting to turn pathetic. I'm having a hell of a time doing it though, all you have to do is make it through the day...and if my antics bring a smile to someone's face or make someone feel a little alive again, then I'm not pathetic, I am a superhero. Really I am, my superpower is awesomeness. Superman can fly, Spiderman can shoot gizz out of his wrists, I can keep the dream alive one day at a time.

However, going back to the first line of this post, if that bullshit stat I made up has any truth to it, I've already shaved off a half decade in the past 6 months. I probably won't live forver, but the shit that I've knocked out in 22 years? Wouldn't change it for the world.

Friday, January 22, 2010

I want to be a problem drinker when I grow up

I used to have these books when I was growing up that had a hole in the middle. It was one of my toddler pictures. The hole then created the illusion that I was the star of the book. The series was about what you want to do when you grow up. When I'm a major League Baseball Player... would show have a face cut-out of a person hitting a homerun...but with my picture it became me! They had fireman, athlete, cowboy, knight, you know all the shit that a 5 year old wants to be when they grow up.

What they didn't have was: When I'm heartless self-centered alcoholic. I think this would be a solid addition to the series, you could give this to underpriveledged children as a warning of what's to come. Can't you just picture it. There's a picture of a clearly drunken bafoon, cigs in one hand, his equally blacked out prize trophy for the night occupies his other. He is clearly unshowered, but is wearing at least a $200 wardrobe...and right in the middle of that beautiful facial cut-out is my smiling face circa age 5. You could have a whole series of these: When I'm in credit card debt, When I discover amphetamines, When I have a raging failure to launch and want to live with my friends in a mini frathouse forever and go back to the place that I went to college every other weekend...ok maybe that last one I'll save for the name of my autobiography. Moving on.

The point of these books was to inspire little kids to crave the real world. Growing up you are always told to be excited for the "next step." Next year I start first grade! Next time I go to King's Island I'll be tall enough to ride The Beast! My first pube! Middle School! High School! Sex! College! I was looking forward to all of these things long before they happened. But for the first time in my life, I'm not excited to be here. I don't want to be a cop or a firefighter or a ninja. I want to watch movies and get fucked up. I don't go out to the bar to make social connections or find a girl to bring home. I go because there are a bunch of like minded people there with the right attitude...the real world sucks, but as long as we are at this bar; nothing else matters.

Maybe I have a bill due...so what. Girlfriend dumped you? Who cares. Alcohol is like a stay of execution. You can use it to temporarily push your problems out of your head. If only I would have known about this little loophole when I was worried about a bad report card or had to get a detention slip signed by dad. I realize that eventually all of my friends are going to grow up, get married and I will end up just like Jason Segal from I Love You, Man. But until then I'm going to keep giving myself that temporary stay of life, and live in the moment. Some may say Seize the day....I say procrastinate the party.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Top 10: Why Thursdays in the real world rock

Once a week I will attempt to make some sort of top 10 list that will be shamelessly graphic and self-serving. Today we will focus on Thursdays, which one would think would block some major cock post college (when worst case scenario you had class...and even if you did...it was class.) The rush hour is the worst of the week, getting people to come out is like pulling teeth, and you have to wake up at 630 tomorrow morning. But it's not all bad, and these are a few reasons why:

10. Drink Specials- If you live in a big city you are no stranger to anal rape via the price of drinks. A round cost $80 for you and your 5 friends. Fortunately a few bars out there will still offer a good special Thursday night and everyone will congrugate there...cheap and packed, double whammy.

9. You don't have to be a hero- Most people on a Thursday night won't be dragging you to the 5 am bar unless its a particularly epic evening. This allows you to close early and still get a few hours of sleep.

8. A welcome hangover- Being hungover at work may suck to some...I love it. It makes time travel. You spend the morning joking with co-workers about how fucked up you got the night before, then after lunch you feel like a miracle and it is Friday afternoon. Bonus.

7. Warm ups- You ever see Lebron take the court without a brief shoot-around, or Peyton face an opponent without studying some film? Thursday is a perfect little preseason game to your weekend. The competition may use Friday as their warm-up, then they in turn have a much shorter season. If you play it conservative, you can plant the seeed Thursday, make-out Friday, and Saturday close...or you can always be a champion and go for the Threepeat.

6. Low key- Thursday nights are great for getting a booth with some friends and sipping on some pops and shooting the shit. You never remember the drug induced nights that you rage your face off on Friday and Saturday. Hey, your friends are pretty cool. This can be your chance to actually enjoy it...Warning: blackouts still regularly occur on low key evenings.

5. A Team- Everyone and their mother comes out on Friday and Saturday nights, similar to how even losers and GDI's get realllly pumped for New Years. Think of Thursday night as a members only event. You can trim the fat of the social scene because the dorks will be busy playing Madden in their parents' basement, god forbid going out on a work night.

4. Weekend planning- How many times have you gone into a Thursday night without any definitive plan for the weekend, had a few shots and ended up planning a roadtrip to Nashville...not enough.

3. Statistics- The law of averages says that for each added attempt your chances of success >= 1 increase exponentially. Picture Roulette. You put your money on red twice...you have approximately a 25% of losing both times. 3 times...drops to 13%
You have an 87% chance of getting laid at least once if you go out Thursday. Can't argue with Math.

2. Wake up call- Ever wake up and your shacker is still there, and you want her to leave but are unsure how to broach the subject? Try this. "I'm going to work now...see ya."

and the number 1 reason Thursdays still rock and you should go out and seize the day...

1. Why the fuck not??? - You are young and fun and work performance doesn't really matter. With age it will become less and less socially acceptable to hit the town on a Thursday, but at this point society isn't quite calling it a felony. When you wake up 30 years from now there is no way you will say to yourself...I shouldn't have gone out that random Thursday in January of 2010...but you might ask yourself, I wonder what I missed out on. Don't ever let that question come into your life.

RT: @Bro Hey! @opinionatedBIM #shutup

In English that says: I agree with the Bro that told the opinionated bimbo to shut up.

This pretty much sums up how I feel about every person on Twitter who posts politically motivated links or makes statements about how they are horrified aboutt he earthquakes in Haiti. Worse even when they share little links from Ad Age about trends in social media and marketing forecasts ten years out. Listen here...tweeting Advertising/PR articles is not going to change that you are an unemployed Telecom major working an unpaid internship living on your parents' dime. It's almost as if these people think that the HR departments for Leo Burnett and 42 West are just scouring the twitterverse for intelligent people with relavent thoughts to DM: "Hey great Tweet! Would you like your dream job"

To all the wannabe Don Drapers of the world, let me share with you the inevitable, your best shot is to just go into sales. Then you can at least have a paycheck and lie to yourself about how it's only temporary and you will go after your dream once you make the adjustment to the real world. (Except for me, like REALLY I'm going to L.A. to write in less than 2 years #dreamon)

As for those political tweeters and those that talk about current events. All you are doing by trying to prove your intelligence is really leaving yourself vulnerable to the fact that posting a link does not show your knowledge of a topic...it just makes half of your so-called "followers" feel strong animosity towards you. Talking about catastophes internationally doesn't make you worldly, nor that you have a soul, it just proves that you couldn't think of anything clever to say, therefore you came with a very generic statement in which people agreed with in an attempt to stay relevant.

Then there are the egocentric bunch. These are the people that are convinced that until they inform you of their current whereabouts, you will be on the edge of your seat holding your breath until....@ArrogantBra Taking a nap. GASSSSSP! Almost started turning blue waiting on that tidbit of fun. Inside jokes, small-appeal picture posts, commenting on a trending topic, boasting an accomplishment, invoking the weekend, or taunting others about your paradise vacation...frowned upon, but then what would be the point of twitter?

Social sattire. That's what I think is great. Looking at the degenerates who talk about the trending topics, I find it incredible that some of these people have internet access. It is, however, a laugh riot to see what @LaRonDaMonstah has to say about #arealbabymama. I also have some general interest in what a few of my favorite friends, celebrities, and athletes are up to. I find John Mayer's immature feud with Perez Hilton to be fantastic, and if OchoCinco ever comes to a Chicago McDonalds to buy everyone a snackwrap, I want to be the first person to know about it...

...in fact the irony of this post is that I generally violate every single one of these rules reguularly. While I may find it nauseating to know that a buddy is getting off work early, or one of my ex-girlfriends is about to take surfing lessons in Hawaii; I will always be the first person to say..."Boss gone all week, blogging and reading scripts! AWESOME!" or "Mom just paif off my credit card, bet debt sucks!" but that is because I generally regard myself as a classless, tactless bafoon.

As I classify myself as the poster-boy for hypocrisy I must sadly say: @blogreaders gotta go rock a stallnap #readyfortheweekend.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

You can't spell bro-hater without ER

My blogging has been sparatic as of late. After my week in paradise I returned to deal with alledged warrants, severe substance withdrawl and a storytelling experience that ended in the ER. By the way I'm not going to harp on the Bahamas because pretty much everyone that reads my blog was there, and if you weren't you for sure don't want me to spend 3,000 words talking about how much better my weekend was than yours. That said, I'm going to skip to this past Sunday when I made a very bad decision.

The decision was to drink during the football games. This may sound reasonable, normal people toss back a few dad pops while they watch playoff football. However, normal people don't take handle pulls at the same rate at which an average adult male sips his beer. Needless to say, by the 2nd half of game 2 I was grandstanding about, saying inappropriate things in front of women and dropping the C bomb in front of total strangers and talking about which of their friends I had plowed...not good.

So there I am in my Colts snuggie and my Spring break 09 cutoff, mid-story talking about some female that rubs me the wrong way. And in an attempt to channel my inner Edward Norton I describe and then act out how I would like to curb stomp this person...well I curbstomped my bare foot directly into a piece of broken glass.

Blood everywhere. My roommate performed an unsucessful surgery on me as I screamed obscenities and continued to paint our apartment with more dna than a moderate crime scene. After a while I calm myself down and wrap it up...somehow everyone decided to leave the blackout drunk at home alone while they all went out...perfect.

Wallowing in my misery and starting to feel a bit woosey I started to channel surf...when BAM Golden Globes. About the only thing I like as much as going out, is movies...I was set. Much like getting pulled over by a cop this moment was instantly sobering and I rattled off my picks on Twitter and went nearly 100% That's neither here nor there though...let's proceed shall we?

So the show is over, I have completely stopped bleeding and I am getting texts telling me that there has not been a more fun night out at a bar since the night I realized bottles of Cooks were only $15!

So I go out...it kinda sucks...I go to a diner and realize I have been dragging behind me a pool of blood all night. Not feeling like going to the ER for something that should be fixed with a wet rag and tweezers, I deny my injury and go to bed.

The next day I couldn't walk so I hopped to my car and drove to work. After about an hour of hopping around the office my boss sends me to the hospital. Of course I don't have my insurance card on me. I don't know where I officially live. I sleep in Illinois, but I think I still have everything billed to my parents...uhh whatever.

I check in, glass in foot sounds pretty routine...almost an embarassing procedure for someone who spent 8 years in med school. I get in there and the nurse gives me the awkward interogation...alcohol, sex, drugs, nicotine...duh. Let's have a look at that foot.

Three words you never want to hear the nurse say..."OH MY GOD!!!" WTF happened? I told you I stepped in some glass...ya I know I lost some blood. Then why didn't I come to the emergency room, how much was I drinking, why is there dead body tissue falling out of the bottom of your foot. After 45 minutes she has removed most of the dead tissue and blood off of my feet, using up 2 buckets and about 5 towels. In comes the Dr. He gives me 12 shots amidst me screaming. 1 tetanus, 1 horse steroid, 10 numbing shots. Then he digs for a while. I can't feel a thing, but I can hear how disgusting it sounds with him chopping my foot up.

A nickel sized piece of glass is removed. He asks if I want to keep it so I can show my friends. Show my fucking friends? Then he proceeds to tell me I can't drink on amoxicillin, blah blah fucking blah. I've heard the "you can't drink on this" argument for years and I'm doing great. On the way out the nurse tells me I shouldn't drink so much and that I may be young but it's time to grow up.

Thanks for your judgment...but bros never grow up...and I'm getting shitfaced tonight, hobbly foot and all.

Friday, January 15, 2010

Bathroom Attendants

...are the absolute worst thing in the world. If I am going to tip you a buck after my restroom visit you better hold my dick while I piss. Don't stand there with a paper towell and judge me when I walk past your tip jar and add nothing. At a rate of 30 seconds to pee, wash hands, and dry; if that idiot got a buck from every drunken twentysomething he would make $120 an hour. That is just nauseating...sometimes I just want to dart out while he's not looking and avoid washing my hands at all. Oh..?? A cologne sample? Fuck you...I'll spill a beer down my shirt and I'll smell like frat? A breath mint? I prefer camel crush!

I HATE YOU AND LEAVE ME ALONE!

End rant

Thursday, January 7, 2010

The coolest guy in the world

Is former President George W. Bush.

Say what you will about his presidency, but this guy is a straight up DUDE. Let's take a look at his professional resume. State rep, governor, president, sports franchise owner, went to schools 1 AND 2 in the country and was in both a frat and a secret society. On top of this he has multiple DUI's was a major cokehead and the extent of his military service was testing out planes for the Air National Guard...which I would equate to the practice of going to nice car dealerships and test drive ferraris.

That said, Bush was HATED a year ago today. Now? He's kind of the man. He kicks it on his gigantic ranch in Texas all day drinking bourbon and dipping. He knows that his two daughters are raging socialite whores..."whatever, I'm worth billions" is what he thinks to himself. Most presidents retire and then die or support some miserable charity or do paid speaking engagements.

Not W. Bush went to throw a ceremonial first pitch at a baseball game...the 63 year old threw a 79 mph strike. Not a sissy 2 bouncer like other presidential hopefuls. Kerry basically lost the election on a pitcher's mound. Even the celebrity BRObama has a weak arm.

What will be George W Bush's legacy to the world? The war on terror? The collapse of the economy? Unpopular wars in the middle east based on fabricated reports of WMD's. Be that as it may. This is what I think...Bush went halfway across the world and killed a lot of bad guys. According to the Opinion Research Bureau (ORB) There have been about 1,000,000 violent deaths caused by the Iraqi war. Of those million about 4,000 were Americans or roughly .4%

Last year there was a college basketball coach fired for beating a team that bad. Albeit that is 4,000 American soldiers too many, you do have to admit it IS quite the ass-kicking. George Bush also got Saddam Hussein hung for the world to see and he was the most unintentionally funny public speaker of all time.

This is why from here on out in my life, I will ask...What would W do?

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

The Greatest Generation

Tom Brokaw wrote a book in the 90's by this very name. It described the generation of people who grew up in the great depression and went on to fight in world war II. These are most likely your grandparents. As your parents are classified as being Baby Boomers, your older cousins are members of generation X...and we are generation Y.

Reading about the trends that go along with every generation are very interesting. For example those who are members of the greatest generation were selfless and gave back to their country without thinking twice. The women bravely defended the home front by going to work and waiting patiently for their men to come home. Ted Williams and JFK were members of this generation, and this is described as the group that made America great...so says Mr. Brokaw.

While it is incredibly badass that people like Ted Williams took a little vacation from baseball to go kill the shit out of some Germans in the mid 40's. I would argue that my generation's frivolous spending, sense of entitlement, and affinity for partying purely encapsulates the American Dream.

Being born an American is like putting all of your money on the 0 on a roulette board and letting your money ride for 10 rounds. Your chances are extremely slim. In fact, betting on being born a poor Indian slum dog is like the red slots, about a 50% shot. The other 50% would have you born as one of the Chinese offstring that is slaughtered to avoid excessive governmental taxation. What I am saying is being born an American automatically makes you a stud. Moreover, there are plenty of Americans who weren't afforded the luxuries of a private school education, a hundred thousand dollar wardrobe and weekly sailing lessons growing up. The top .000000001% is what you are my friend! The average human probably doesn't even have a passport, let alone stamps on it? So why am I going on this lengthy tirade about how lucky you are to be you? Because generation Y has embraced this. They party every day and throw their egos around like a Viking and his club.

And the people in my generation typically have good jobs because of their father's golfing foursomes and no one works particularly hard. Because of the rapidly increasing dynamic world that is technology, someone who has grown up during the boom will always have a leg up on their older brethren. Selfishness has reached an all time high which would have Ayn Rand turning in her grave, in a good way.

Some may say that Generation Y is everything that is wrong with America, I claim that we are the greatest by default. We're going to end up a bit like Clinton, because of the efforts of those that ame before us we will just stumble upon the answers. When some slacker born in the 80's cures AIDS, Cancer, Diabetes and Swine Flu in one fell swoop ten years from now...I hypothesize that we as a whole will be forgiven for our liver destroying antics and worldwide apathy.

So cheers to you twentysomethings of the country...continue your tomfoolery and nonsense past a socially acceptable age and celebrate that you weren't born in a Romanian sewer, and have an ironic laugh that one day you will be remembered as the "Greatest Generation."

Monday, January 4, 2010

2012 reasons to party

According to the latest effort from Roland Emmerich, we are all going to be peaced in less than 2 years anyway. So go drink, smoke and if you get fired from your job just take out a big loan and start spending aggressively. Of course I say this in jest, however...happy New Year everybody. I hope 2010 is your best year yet. This could be the year that you meet the one, but it could also be the year that you contract "the clap." So be realistic in your goal setting up 2010, and if you survived 2009 with a roof over your head and no life-threatening diseases, do a small fist pump and give someone a high five. (Ironically in some circles high five is slang for HIV positive. Hi-V get it?)

As I take a ponder at the year in revue, lots of things changed. I moved cities, I graduated college, and I am now REALLY on my own. I suppose it doesn't count as being on your own when your parents pay your tuition, rent, credit card bills and constantly replenish your checking account. So on the surface of 2010 sans all of those things and adding on a 50 hour a week job, one would think I am going to be pretty miserable...however I am going to look at the ice-scooper transformed into a shovel- shaped shot-glass half full (of $400 a bottle bar-bought Grey Goose) as opposed to half empty.

I used to go out roughly 5 nights a week and jet-set all over the country whenever I saw fit. I literally had no responsibility, because going to class is optional at best. The fact that you actually have to go to work and call someone up if you aren't going is a bit of a drag, but it really makes you appreciate the slightly diminished ammount of fun that you still do have. Let me make the following irrelevant and completely abstract analogy as I attempt to describe the transformation. In college my life was 20 ounces large with about 4 shots poured in. Now it is like an 8 ounce cocktail with 3 ounces poured in. While the former was larger and essentially had more alcohol in it...now there is more of a kick to it. With less time to lounge around, nap, play videogames, nearly all of my free time is consumed with awesomeness.

2010 will not be the year that I grow up, mature, move into my own place or even make an effort at finding a girlfriend. It will be the year that I prove that a 50 hour work week, long commutes and bad pay do not guarantee you a miserable plot in life. 4 years ago I thoroughly believed that the key to happiness was material things and money. 2 years ago I thought it was status, popularity, social clout. Now I'm pretty sure that the key to happiness is a positive attitude. One may say that I have transformed from an empty self-obsessed economic consumerist socialite into a hippie. I finally do understand why hippies are generally so happy. They do not give a FUCK about anything. If you can go around with a smile on your face, hanging out with the people that make you laugh and do exactly what you want to do with the time you have to do it...nothing else really matters. Now its time for some lists about what was great about 09 and what will be better in 2010.

5 little things I am looking forward to this year:
1. I will hook up with at least one of the girls who has blown me off in the past and go into extreme detail about it on this site for all to read.
2. I will finally send something I have written to a publisher, if they tell me it sucks, I will tell them that I am cooler than them.
3. I am going to sit down and watch the Godfather trilogy.
4. Colts superbowl, Blackhawks Stanley Cup
5. Probably 50 more Italian Beefs from Portillo's

My 5 favorite movies of 2009:
1. Up in the Air
2. Inglorious Basterds
3. District 9
4. (500) Days of Summer
5. Avatar

5 I'm looking forward to in 2010:
1. Shutter Island
2. Inception
3. Iron Man 2
4. Toy Story 3
5. Eclipse

5 things I really want to do in Chicago in 2010
1. Trivia night at a bar
2. See the Blue Man group
3. Wrigley Rooftop
4. Amateur night stand-up
5. (tie) Fix my sauna and see every musical that comes through.

Last List...5 ridiculously normal things that I have never done, that I will attempt in 2010
1. Eat a green vegetable
2. Do laundry
3. Take a girl on a non-college date
4. Give a homeless person a buck
5. Stay in an a weekend night

Ok number 5 on that last list isn't going to happen.

Good luck not dying before 2011 everyone!