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EleCivil

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Blog Entries posted by EleCivil

  1. EleCivil

    Black Friday (HLS pt. 2)

    By EleCivil,

    Second day on the Holiday Loser Squad. This time, it's me (security), a linehaul trucker (older dude with a bushy grey beard), and a dock worker (thirty-ish guy with lots of tattoos).
    So, I'm walking the parimiter, locking things up and such, and, thanks to listening to that Taj Motel Trio CD so much, I've got a song in my head - their cover of "My Girl" by The Temptations. Without realizing it, I start whistling.
    As I walk past where the others are standing, the linehauler starts singing the bassline - "bum, duh-duh-duh-duh-duh, bum...", and starts walking next to me. The dock worker follows.
    He does the bassline a few times, and when I catch on to what he's doing, I join in with "I got sunshiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine....on a cloudy daaaaaay. When it's cold outsiiiiiiiiiiiide...IIIIII got the month of Maaaaaay...."
    The dock worker joins in: "I guess you'll say...what could make me feel this way?"
    All three: "My girl!" "My girl!" "My girl!" "Talkin' 'bout myyyyy giiiiirl..." "My girl!"
    So we keep going until the song's over. Yes, we all knew it - when you live this close to Mo-Town, you pretty much have to. So, there we are, three tone-deaf white guys, belting out a Temptations song in an off-key attempt at three-part harmony (with occasional call-backs and improvisation).
    We finish the song, go our separate ways, and never mention it.
    Remember when I said that yesterday was the most fun I'd had at work? I think today just topped it. Once again, thank you, Taj Motel Trio.
    "I've got so much honey,
    The bees envy me.
    I've got a sweeter song, baby,
    Than the birds in the trees."


    -"My Girl" by The Temptations


  2. EleCivil

    Thanksgiving (HLS pt. 1)

    By EleCivil,

    I'm a member of the Holiday Loser Squad - the group that works on Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, Independence Day, and the rest. That means that on days like this, I get the whole place to myself. Well, usually. Sometimes I have to share it with one or two other HLS members, but that's cool.
    I brought my iPod along and, while walking around, doing my thing, I decided to listen to The Taj Motel Trio's album "Life of the Party". For those unfamiliar, they're a third-wave ska/punk band, and that's the single most dancable album I've ever heard. So, since no one was there, I saw no reason to abstain from an early-morning one-man skankfest. Yes, while in full uniform, complete with a tie, matching socks (ugh), and a long snow-patrol coat.
    As a result, it was easilly the best day I've had at work all year. Thank you, Taj Motel Trio.
    Also, I was able to smuggle in my laptop and finish a chapter of Laika. I sent it in just now.
  3. EleCivil
    My kickboxing instructor got kicked in the face. For some reason, this surprised him. Anyway, either his nose or his jaw was broken (conflicting reports), and he wants to take some time off. Completely understandable, since most people prefer to avoid situations that lead to them getting kicked in the face. As a result, my Wednesday night kickboxing classes have been canceled until further notice.
    Note to self: When changing in public locker rooms, do not wear novelty boxers. Those guys aren't checking you out, they're reading the words printed across your ass.
    Also, I got a second job as a tech gremlin in my school's computer lab. This mostly means that I'll be walking people through PowerPoint, over and over again. Should be fun.
    Oh, speaking of school, funny story. The other day, my science instructor (a sixty year old nun, mind you) was talking about pinecones - specifically, the difference between male and female pinecones. She's saying that the females "last a really long time, and can just keep doing their thing for as long as it takes", while the males "just blast their seeds all at once, then go limp, fall off, and roll away." I should also point out that I'm the only guy in this class. So I'm choking back the urge to laugh...because, come on, it's a NUN - you're not supposed to laugh at their innuendo. Then, this woman who sits in front of me turns around in her seat and gives me this big, exaggerated wink. That sets me off - not a huge, bellowing laugh, but just kind of a strangled chuckle. The woman in front of me turns around, acting completely innocent, just as everyone else turns to look at me. I hold up my textbook, trying to look extremely interested in the subject matter, but I'm not fooling anybody. The instructor looks over at me, gives this big sigh and rolls her eyes, telling everyone that that's another thing about pinecones - just like in humans, the females mature faster than the males.
    "In the clearing stands a boxer, and a fighter by his trade
    And he carries the reminder of every glove that laid him down or cut him
    'Til he cried out in his anger and his shame
    I am leaving, I am leaving, but the fighter still remains."


    -"The Boxer" by Simon and Garfunkel


  4. EleCivil

    Mothra Faulkner

    By EleCivil,

    I just remembered that I had this floating around in my Photobucket page from last year. I was driving home from Lit class, and it hit me - I had to come straight home and make this image, because if I didn't, who would? I've been using "Mothra Faulkner" as an expression ever since, but I didn't really have any place to put the image before now. See, this is why blogs are cool - if you hadn't been reading this, you never would have been introduced to Mothra Faulkner. Unless you live in Japan, where I imagine he flies around from town to town, telling everyone about the American South.
    Someone sprayed some tags on the sidewalk in front of my house. I put a frame around it in sidewalk chalk, wrote "(neighborhood name) Art Museum" above it, then added a small label at the bottom describing it as an example of neo-classical post-gangsterism. Hope they like it.
    Also, I found a bunch of old shirts from 7th grade that still fit. Maybe it's a little creepy for a twenty year old to be wearing a shirt from the local junior high, but hey...I'm too broke to turn down free clothes.
    "Kids! If you want to piss off your parents...show an interest in the arts!"


    -"Imaginary Places" by Busdriver


  5. EleCivil

    Halloween

    By EleCivil,

    Here's some pictures from Halloween:

    My first attempt at a Jolly Roger pumpkin. Pretty bad, but still, it gets its point across.

    This was supposed to be a werewolf howling at the moon, but it turned out more like a werewolf shooting a basketball. But, hey, remember the movie Teen Wolf, where Michael J. Fox was a basketball-playing werewolf? Yeah, I think it works.

    Usually I dress as a pirate. As in, on days other than Halloween, I dress as a pirate. So, this year, I dressed in all black, tied a shirt around my head, and went as a second-rate ninja, for irony's sake (because of the ancient pirate/ninja fued, of course). I went outside and juggled clubs while handing out candy. After an hour, my hands were numb, and I was dropping them all over the place. I place the blame on some kind of ninja curse.
    And an update on the handlebar moustache thing: it's a bust. I just can't grow decent facial hair. This is what I look like after five days without shaving:
    [image removed]
    At that rate, it'd take me roughly two years to get a decent handlebar going.
    Just got back from feeding my ballot to a Diebold touch-screen machine. Maybe now I'll stop getting calls from Robotic Bill Clinton, Robotic Mike DeWine, and Robotic Mike DeWine's Wife.
    Currently Listening: "I Am Ninja, My Life is Lonely and Difficult" by The Dauntless Elite
  6. EleCivil
    Handlebars!
    My roommate, my friend, and I have decided to grow handlebar moustaches. Given that none of us can really grow a decent moustache, it'll take a while...but it'll be worth it, because the handlebar moustache is possibly the funniest thing in the world.
    Now, I know that posting something like this without pictures is crazy, but I'm lacking in the digital camera department...so you'll have to settle for these quick CorelDRAW sketches.
    Current:
    [image removed]
    Soon:
    [image removed]
    Yes, I'm assuming that we'll form a barbershop quartet. And yes, I recognize the intrinsic numerical flaw contained within that prediction.
    "She broke up with me two days later. I think she met Don Juan in Italy. She has a new man, I have a new moustache!"


    -"Razor Burn" by Lagwagon


    ...it's hard finding relevant lyrics for a moustache-centric post.
  7. EleCivil

    Regarding Jackassery

    By EleCivil,

    My roommate and I went to see Jackass 2 the other day. That meant going to The Mall. Now, both of us were trailer park kids, so to us, the mall is pretty much the opposite of everything we grew up knowing. For instance, we KNEW that there was no way a clay pot could cost more than what our parents made in a month. We KNEW that t-shirts were 3 for $5 and came in bags. We KNEW that people don't actually act like they do on TV. The Mall, however, proves wrong every one of those beliefs. That's why we generally try to avoid it. Sadly, it has the only movie theater in town.
    We got there early, so we had to walk around for a while. My roommate (who's straight, by the way) heads for the bathroom. On the way in, he turns to me and jokingly asks "Do you want to help me?" I shake my head and tell him that I think he's got this one under control. About two seconds later, he walks back out.
    He looks around and says "Uh...some guys heard me say that."
    "Yeah?"
    "Yeah. One of 'em said 'fag', so I told him that that's not what his Dad said last night."
    I groan. "For fuck's sake...again?"
    He shrugs. "Can't help it. We should...uh, run."
    We start walking away, and two guys strut out of the restroom behind us. One calls out "Hey, faggot!"
    I take off my jacket and hand it to my roommate, then turn around, sighing heavilly. They kind of size us up, looking us up and down and then glancing between themselves. I get a good look at them - high school kids, dressed in "I think I'm a rebel but I paid two hundred dollars for these pants" clothes. I give them this look - just kind of cocking my head to one side, in a "did I hear you correctly?" kind of way. They shrug and walk the other way.
    I take my jacket back from my roommate. "How come I'm the one that has to protect you from gay bashers?"
    "'Cause you're intimidating, and I insult strangers."
    "Oh yeah."
    Then we saw Jackass 2, and laughed for the durration. It was better than the first one.
    "We say things we don't mean, but friends understand. Strength and humor don't always go hand-in-hand. A joke to you might not be so funny, so take the time and think it out before you open up your mouth."


    -"Things We Say" by Gorilla Biscuits


  8. EleCivil

    TLAP Day

    By EleCivil,

    Talk Like a Pirate Day: Aftermath
    This year's Talk Like a Pirate Day went quite well. First, I flew a black flag from my car and drove around playing pirate songs with my windows down.
    Pirate playlist:
    Flogging Molly - Seven Deadly Sins
    David Rovics - Black Flag Flying
    Lazytown - You Are a Pirate
    Flogging Molly - Salty Dog
    Mutiny - Here's to Adventure
    Pirates of the Carribean Soundtrack - He's a Pirate
    Flogging Molly - Queen Anne's Revenge
    Murder by Death - Dead Men and Sinners
    Rockin' Chair - Wooden Boats, Iron Men
    Tom Smith - Talk Like a Pirate Day (official theme song)
    The Mad Caddies - Weird Beard
    Bread and Roses - Let the Wind and the Sea be my Grave
    After I finished with that, I dressed in full pirate garb (puffy shirt, feathered hat with a skull-and-bones insignia, stuffed parrot on shoulder, eyepatch, etc.) and went to the library, where I checked out Mutiny on the Bounty and Treasure Island. One of the librarians was celebrating, too (I guess you could call her a bookaneer...but it'd probably be best if you didn't), so we took a few pictures together.
    By that time my roommate was awake, so we went to a nearby grocery store and had a swordfight in the parking lot. All nearby buckles were sufficiently swashed. Aftewards, I did some juggling, picking up enough in tips to buy us some water.
    Then, we came back home to watch yesterday's episode of Wife Swap. No, that's not something I'd normally do, but one of the families was a pirate family, the husband being none other than Ol' Chumbucket, co-creator of Talk Like a Pirate Day and co-author of "Pirattitude!". Captain Slappy, the other co-creator, made an appearance as well.
    All in all, it was my best TLAP Day yet.
    "Anarchy! The scourge of every sea! The Antichrist abord a rig, with us, your cut-throat thieves!"


    -"Salty Dog" by Flogging Molly


  9. EleCivil
    Titles don't work when you make as little sense as this.
    As an arachnophobic agoraphobe, my two biggest fears in the world are spiders and humans, but not necessarily in that order. If I had to choose between being locked in a room full of spiders or a room full of people, though, I'd probably take the spiders. After all, not only is it more socially acceptable to kill spiders rather than people, but it's also a lot easier. I suppose it would be possible to kill a person with nothing but my shoe or a rolled-up newspaper, but it would take a lot longer, and the other people in the room would probably stop me before I got even halfway there.
    Which brings me to my job. My company has people working all kinds of places in all kinds of states, ranging from lumber yards in Virginia to skyscrapers full of lawyers in Michigan. After trying out a few different kinds of sites (a convent, a warehouse, a parking lot, an apartment building, etc.) I finally settled on a small trucking company. No people - completely deserted - but tons of spiders. I could deal with that - I just always brought along a copy of Steven King's book "The Tommyknockers". Whenever a spider came close, I'd introduce them to the mainstream horror genre with a mighty King Swing ™. Splattering spiders, I might add, it the best possible use for a copy of "The Tommyknockers" - beats the hell out of reading it.
    I just found out that my small, independent trucking company is being bought out by FedEx National. This means a lot more money for the owners, more work and less money for the drivers, and an end to my "Tons of spiders, but at least there's no people" compromise. Now, there's going to be spiders AND people. Which is almost as bad as working next to Spiderman. Sure, he's good at stopping runaway trains, but come on - a spider, AND a man? Screw you, Stan Lee. It's like you were specifically trying to get to me.
    ---
    The above was just an experiment to see what would happen if I typed for ten minutes without hitting backspace.
    Only two more days until TALK LIKE A PIRATE DAY. The greatest holiday in the history of holidays. I've got my pirate suit ready to go.
    Just the other day, my friend's little sister came over, because she wanted to play with my cat. She asked me "Why do you have so many skulls in your room?", referring to all the Jolly Roger flags that I've got hanging. I replied, "I'm a pirate." She gave me this awestruck look and said "Really? You were born a pirate?" I nodded. "Aye. I was flying the black flag way before Johnny Depp made it cool." Then, I switched to a gravely pirate accent and added "I also download music without the consent of the recording industry and completely disregard end-user license agreements, m'lass." She didn't get that part, so I gave her a stick of gum. Arrrrr.

    "We have no nation but the sea, no creed but that we will live free!
    We'll loot and burn all that we can that's run by a dishonest man.
    Their end is near, and there is no denying...when they see the black flag flying!"


    -"Black Flag Flying" by David Rovics


  10. EleCivil
    Heist
    A friend of mine lives in his car, in a parking lot that's about five minutes from my place. Well, a couple days ago, his car was stolen. Which means that, when it comes down to it, his house was stolen. So he's been living here for the last day or two, claiming the floor in my room.
    Well, yesterday, we found out the location of his car. It turns out his parents had stolen it, using some spare keys that he had given them years earlier. It was parked in front of his mom's house a couple of cities to the south. Apparently, they stole the car in order to take away his options for independent living and force him to live with his dad.
    Now, if he was younger, I would probably side with his parents...but he's twenty. He has a job, and could be living in an apartment if he wanted to, but he just prefers his car. Since he's a legal adult, that's his choice to make.
    So, my roommate and I found ourselves driving him a couple hours south, under cover of darkness, to steal back his car. This made me think about my uncle.
    My uncle only gave me two pieces of advice: Never play cards with a man whose name ends in "y", and never take an intellectual along on a heist.
    I questioned both of these at the time, asking what was so bad about smart guys and guys with "-y" names. The first, he said, was because guys with a "y" at the end of their name are more likely to go by epithets like "Slick" or "Big" or the like, and that the last thing you want to find out when you're down five hundred bucks is that you've been slappin' jacks with "Smooth Jimmy Two-Shakes" or "Little Willy One-Thumb". That made sense. The intellectual business was a bit confusing to me. After all, I asked, isn't it better to have a smart guy with you to think of a way out of a jam?
    "Absolutely not," He said. "When you're doing something as stupid as robbing a bank, the last thing you need is someone smart around to let you know how stupid it is."
    I always kind of doubted his authority on that matter, though. He wasn't in trouble for robbing a bank; he was in trouble for having about two thousand parking tickets and for ramming his '93 Taurus through a lot barricade when the attendant refused to let him out without paying. He was no big-shot criminal, just a motorist with a penchant for parallel parking four feet from the curb and a reckless disregard for handicap-only signs. I never had the guts to tell him that much, of course.
    So I looked around the car - no one with a "-y" name, no "big" or "slick" nicknames. So far, so good. Then, I realized - out of this group, I was "the intellectual one". I was the only one in the car who hadn't dropped out of college, the only one who read books and had a philosophy on life that didn?t revolve around pot and Doritos. Yes, if asked to pick an "intellectual one" out of our group, most people would point at me. And that was no good at all.
    So, I thought, how do I remove any hint of intellectualism from myself in order to make this mission a success? It hit me: The Three Stooges.
    I pulled over at the next grocery store and purchased a pie tin and a bottle of generic canned whipped cream. I handed these to my currently car-less friend.
    ?What are these for??
    ?Obviously,? I said, ?If we get spotted, we?ll have to distract them while you get your car back. And nothing?s more distracting than a face full of dairy and aluminum.?
    ?Dude, I?m not going to hit my mom with a pie. This is the dumbest idea ever.?
    Mission accomplished.
    "Tonight, these streets belong to us, and we've been doing this for years, but soon that will be different. Tonight, we'll liberate them. Tonight, we'll liberate ourselves!"


    -"Parking Lot Punks Rule" by the Gainsville Liberation Orchestra


  11. EleCivil

    Standard Opening Post

    By EleCivil,

    Putting a Title Here Might Look Good
    A friend of mine describes personal blogging as, elegantly enough, "the text equivalent of peeing on the internet itself". This, of course, made me want to give it a try.
    This post is basically here for me to get more familiar with the system and see what happens when I play around with the settings.
    Images work like this:

    Aye...that was easy enough. Looks like it's just bbcode.
    Anyway, I'll be back to post something more interesting later. Well, I can't guarantee it'll be interesting...but it'll be longer.

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