The Game

2009/01/26
Joe: shit, i just lost the game
John: haha
Joe: i lost it last night too
Joe: i heard some guy on the first floor shouting “SHIT FUCK SON OF A BITCH FUCK…” on and on
Joe: and i thought “either he’s got tourrettes or he just lost something really important”
Joe: then i lost the game
2009/02/03
Joe: i lost the game again
Joe: ever since i walked past that guy’s room and he was swearing his ass off, any time i walk by that room and hear people shouting i lose the game
2009/02/08
Joe: i’ve been considering walking a different way to my room, but the first few times i try it i’m going to be too conscious of the fact i’m doing it just to avoid losing the game
Joe: just wondering once if that would be a good idea made me lose
John: if it becomes habit though, it could work
Joe: if i want to keep up in the game, i’m gonna have to stay out of my dorm
Joe: maybe stay off campus, to be safe
2009/02/09
Joe: i was reading a lot last night
Joe: even after i stopped talking to you
Joe: DAMMIT
Joe: lost the game again

Yes We Can (make erection jokes)

Joe: i have never been this excited about an election
John: I’ve never paid less attention to an election

Joe: btw, when i started this conversation, i couldn’t help but imagine our opening statements with the word “election” replaced by “erection”
John: you know, if I were more motivated, I’d write a script to pull google news clips and just replace those words
Joe: this is a truly historic erection
John: I was looking for good ones:
John: What Will It Take for a Smooth Erection?
Joe: U.S. Stocks Finish Solidly Higher After Erection
John: The world’s American erection?
Joe: US Erection Captivates the World
John: Erection ’08 coming home in HD like never before
Joe: World Watches US Erection with Excitement
and the winner…
Joe: Wall St Rises, End of Erection Brings Relief

I managed to avoid all the pre-decision conjecture that CNN spouts for hours longer than they should be allowed to, and worked on redesigning the Juan Way site. It should look a little more professional now, and maybe people will give me money.

Also, I worked on a new dish, though I don’t have a name for it yet. It is a hotdog with a pancake for a bun. It is really tasty:

GoodBetter


Crap

Joe: in general, the old one was really unsuccessful because it was crap
John: makes sense
Joe: whereas the new one was crap with special effects, so it was successful
John: new one wasn’t crap
Joe: it was visually astounding crap
John: ok
Joe: special effects
John: but shouldn’t that take it out of the realm of crap?
Joe: no, that’s kind of the point i’m making
John: I’m pretty sure a golden turd could be sold as a paperweight or something
Joe: like i said, it made it successful
Joe: but a golden turd is still a turd
John: :-/
Joe: you can sell golden turds, sure
John: its also a paperweight
Joe: a regular turd could be a paperweight too, it’d just be messier
John: I’m going to confuse this metaphor until I win

Fuck Holidays

Joe: i didn’t do anything for earth day
Joe: except the usual small miracles that make every day a celebration unto itself
John: good
John: fuck holidays
John: I was thinking about that today, and how much I dislike the idea of that
Joe: right, we don’t have to care about the earth any day but today
John: concentrating all this [whatever] for one day of a the year, and then going back to normal afterwards
Joe: i think it’s supposed to be more like new year’s
Joe: where you think about how you can more wisely spend your next year
John: and we all know how well that works out

I had been thinking about the worthlessness of holidays, then Joe chimed in on that, and a little later Dan did too. Good.

Rhino

Joe: someone told me the other day about their former pet iguana
Joe: who exploded
Joe: the iguana was constipated, so they took it to the vet
Joe: the vet took it in the next room, and came back to report that it had exploded
Joe: if not for the mess, i would have loved to be that vet
John: …I’m trying to wrap my head around that
Joe: don’t try to understand the exploding iguana
Joe: just enjoy the image
John: that’s easier
John: what if it wasn’t the iguana’s fault?
John: what if the vet put it down on something, like a grenade, and then it exploded
Joe: hahaha
Joe: those grenades are necessary for vets to have around
John: sure
Joe: they didn’t make sure that “vet” was short for veterinarian
John: haha
John: I’m told they usually use them for playing fetch with the annoying dogs
Joe: lol
Joe: or to show rhinos who’s boss
Joe: first thing you gotta do when they bring in their pet rhino
Joe: establish dominance
John: that’s where I always go wrong

Homey Airport

Joe: Homey Airport?
Joe: WTF????
John: ya:(
Joe: it’s still Area 51
Joe: fuck homey airport
John: I think they’re trying to accomplish the same thing they’re doing at UConn
John: we have Community Assistants instead of Resident Assistants
John: they’re trying to identify aliens as our homeys
Joe: i think we should take a moment to remember the definition of “alien”

Instant Gratification

John: I just realized that I don’t get to chat with the rest of your family by proxy anymore
Joe: sometimes i relay quotes from our IMs to other people, on IM or in conversation later
John: but I want instant gratification!
Joe: maybe later

No More Phone

Keilbasa by Tenacious D
[audio:http://www.archive.org/download/tenaciousd2006-12-03.mk4v.flac16/tenaciousd2006-12-03_mk4v_d1t02_64kb.mp3]

So, I’m no longer working at the Center for Survey Rsearch and Analysis, and I’m happy about that. Wasn’t a bad job, but it was pretty stupid. Easy, but stupid. So while I was wasting time waiting for the end to come, I remembered one my favorite exchanges that I had with someone on the phone.

We have these questions that are asked at the end of every survey, no matter what the subject of the survey was. One of these is ‘How many phone numbers do you have?’. The question is trying to ask about landlines, but its phrased badly enough that it confuses a lot of people. The worst of which went as follows:
Me: “And how many phone numbers do you have?”
Her: “What?”
Me: “How many phone numbers…landlines. How many landlines do you have?”
Her: “…None.”
Me: “No no, phone numbers, how many phone numbers do you have?”
Her: “Oh. Seven.”
It took me a second to realize what she had said, and a little more to realize what she meant. I sigh and mark her down as having one.

There are other stories, but none of them work well if I was to retell them. It isn’t a very funny job, you need to make your own humor.

I had a really difficult time starting phone calls after I realized that once my opening line became lazy, it changed from “Hi, my name is John” to “Hi, my name-a-John” in true Borat fashion. That’s the first thing I say, and I had to keep from laughing for a while afterwards.

But its over now. On to bigger and better things.

Retarded Poetry

Stranger Than Fiction by moe.
[audio:http://www.archive.org/download/moe.1997-03-12.flac/moe1997-03-12d1t02_64kb.mp3]

John: I just wrote a fun blog entry
John: I like putting line breaks at the end of a thought, even if it is mid sentence
Joe: haha nice
John: ya, I enjoyed it
John: almost makes it look like some sort of retarded poetry
Joe: retard poetry
Joe: it’s a whole new genre
John: lets take it literally, and just make poetry meant to be read really slowly
Joe: i don’t know how you would write something that communicates to the reader that it should be read slowly
John: just specify that it is retard poetry
Joe: that sounds a little circular
John: I’m thinking that when read slowly, it makes sounds and meanings that wouldn’t be apparent when read at normal speed
John: kind of like hidden messages
John: but retarded
Joe: hahahaha
Joe: i think you can find retarded hidden messages in any poetry if you read it right
John: then we ought to work on that
John: give this genre some legs
Joe: that seemed to be what my creative writing teacher was teaching
Joe: i don’t think i’d trust a poem with legs
Joe: “keep that creepy mutant poem away from me!”
Joe: before you know it they’ll have eyeballs and angry eyebrows
Joe: maybe a scraggly mouth
John: we could race poems against each other
Joe: the retard poems would always finish last
John: not if they were the only ones with legs
Joe: okay, so now it’s the poetry special olympics
Joe: “even if you win, you’re still retarded”
Joe: i’m pretty sure that’s the official special olympics slogan now
John: I’d go to the poetry special olympics
Joe: i think it’s at the same event as the physics special olympics
John: I don’t know where else to go with this joke
Joe: garbageman, garbageman…