Note to self 441: 4/12/2020

2020 has proven to be even shittier than 2016. I didn't know that was possible. From global to national politics becoming even more ludicrous than ever before, to the shittiness of the most recent few anime seasons, to work just burying me alive... Oh, and also because of that coronavirus that's sweeping over the planet, bringing life to an absolute standstill, COVID-19.

I find myself (at this point) four weeks into working from home for fear of viral contamination, and only leaving the house once or twice a week in order to grab groceries for the family, or to get some carryout from a local restaurant. The rest of my time is spent watching TV, playing with my toddler, cleaning the house, firing up Smash Bros. or Mario Maker, or taking a long nap. So, nothing out of the ordinary.

Cupcake, who is a little more extroverted than myself, is taking the quarantine that we're all stuck in much worse than me. She's sewn together over 2,000 face masks for local hospitals and elderly-care facilities, baked more per week than your average episode of The Great British Baking Show, and has created an online community to track and buy toilet paper whenever it comes in stock at any Sam's, Walmart, Kroger, or CVS within a 30-mile radius. When the Rapture occurs at the end of the year, I'm super gluing myself to her as she gets pulled Good Place-bound.

I never thought that the most prevalent sign of the End of Days would be our societal lack of toilet tissue. What gets me is that bottled water is a rare commodity right now too, despite the fact that our water system is not damaged or contaminated in the least. People are just stupid. And greedy. And they apparently don't know how to cook, seeing as all deli-meats are sold out, along with every box of Hamburger Helper. Yet fruits, veggies, and other basic meal ingredients are available everywhere.

Going to the grocery store in Spring in the South, with a turtleneck pulled up and over my nose, walking through most aisles that are packed with food, but empty of other shoppers is a surreal experience. I feel like the gang in the second Urusei Yatsura movie, Beautiful Dreamer, when they go grocery shopping in their apocalyptic timeline, but the stores are all still fully stocked.

I have been getting a lot of movies and TV shows watched during this quarantine though, and that's nice. I thought it wouldn't be until my kids were teens that I'd be able to sit in front of my TV and veg out for long periods of time without worry or judgement of my family and friends. But nope, all I needed was a global pandemic to free up my days and weeks and months. So far, I've caught up on at least 24 movies I've been meaning to watch, as well as over a dozen full TV shows. IT Part 2, Birds of Prey: The Shitty Harley Quinn Movie, Frozen II, Guns Akimbo, and Onward were all let-downs or outright sucked, but Knives Out, Jojo Rabbit, Rocketman, Long Shot, and Uncut Gems were fantastic! As for TV series, stay the fuck away from Netflix's really dumb Locke & Key, but get stoned/drunk and check out Tiger King, and for the love of forking God, please watch The Good Place (drunk or sober)!

The Good Place is one of the greatest TV series ever made. It is on a whole 'nother level, even when compared to classics like Cheers, Seinfeld, Red Dwarf, Arrested Development (seasons 1-3), 30 Rock, The IT Crowd, and Parks & Rec. Those were all fun little series with enjoyable characters who find themselves in zany situations week after week. Not to say that they're a waste of your time (if you haven't watched any of them yet, get the fuck on it! I know you have time right now), just that comparing them to The Good Place is like trying to compare Star Wars: A New Hope to Schindler's List. Yeah, A New Hope is fun and all, but it's not a goddamn work of art that sticks with you and replays itself in your mind days after the final credits roll.

The Good Place is a comedy series first and foremost (and it is hilarious, more often than not), but it's also educational. Not like it learns you math or how to change a tire, but it instead teaches you about basic philosophy and what it means to be human. Now, I'll stop you right there. You're going to say "Fuck you, Rossman, I'm a human, and I'm better than you! A TV show can't teach me nothin' about bein' even better than I am! Now, I have to go out and buy some more toilet paper in bulk so that I can sell it on Ebay for a profit!" You, my friend (and I use that term loosely), need to watch this show more than anyone.

I'll not turn this into a full-blown review, but I do want to say that the final hour-long series finale of The Good Place hit me hard. It made me laugh, for forking sure, but goddamn did it make me think. I stayed up all night thinking about it. And then most of the next week. Eleanor, Michael, Chidi, Jason, Good Janet, and Tahani were the most perfect cast for anything I've ever had the pleasure of watching. And once you start, you will NEVER be able to guess what the next episode will bring with this thing. It will constantly keep you wondering, which in itself is an amazing feat in this day and age of cookie-cutter garbage on the tube.

That's enough of me kissing this show's arse. It's time I start prepping that glitter-bomb box to send to Jimmy Jammer with a note that says "Surprise! You got corona'd!" inside.

Or maybe I'll take Robot Pedro's advice and paint him in tiger stripes, tie a raw steak around a brick, throw the brick through Jimmy Jammer's window when he turns on Tiger King, and then have Robot "El Tigre" Pedro bust through the wall like the Kool-Aid Guy and shout, "First Carole's husband, now YOU!" before chasing him around the block while "roaring" so that Carl can make a TikTok video out of it. He's looking for at least 15 "likes." He might get that.

Take it sleazy, my friends.

Note to self 440: 12/21/2018

PROLOGUE:

A few months ago, Cupcake was out and about for some reason or another and came across a "free" packet that we could use to test our home's water for impurities. Since Cupcake is a conscientious mother, she took a water-tester package, filled up the small plastic bottles that were included with our tap water, and mailed it in to the company that did the testing...

FLASH FORWARD:

Last week Cupcake got an almost hysterical phone call from the water testing company (that I won't name, but I'll just call them "BullshitCo") essentially saying "Do NOT drink or bathe in your water! There may be minerals and chemicals in it! We will send someone over ASAP in order to run a full test and let you know how we can help save you and your family's LIVES!"

Cupcake was a little concerned at first (she'd been making the babby's formula with this water [filtered and boiled, but still] for the past eight months after all), but I calmed her down and reminded her that all water has minerals and some chemicals in it, and that this was probably just a con-job by BullshitCo to try and milk us for an extremely overpriced filtration system. She still insisted on having their sales guy/tester come over to run their scheme — I mean inspection — on our H2O and see if we were actually being poisoned by our own water. I once again told her that we lived in an upperclass suburb of Atlanta, and not Flint, MI, and that we were fine. But the test was free, and I would be working from home the day the guy was coming over, so I just went with it.

So, I was working in my home office on the day of the test, bouncing my baby on my knee while going through some spreadsheets. Cupcake was at the dentist. Suddenly the dog started barking like a hound from Hell at an escaping soul, and she ran to the front door, growling and howling the whole time. (She's a 70lb bully. She sounds vicious!)

The baby started crying and then the doorbell rang. It was the BullshitCo guy. Early, of course.

I locked the dog in the bathroom and opened the front door to a nervously smiling man in his twenties with the name Rashawn embroidered on a patch on the BullshitCo jacket he was wearing. I let him in and asked how long this inspection/test was going to take, as I lied and told him I had a business call in a half an hour. He told me that it would only be thirty to forty minutes tops, so I'd probably make my call. I told him to make it quick because if my wife wasn't home by the time of my call he had to leave. That's when he informed me that he HAD TO wait for both the home owners to be present in order to even start the presentation. I then said, "Well, then just to be safe you should leave NOW..." He then told me it was actually more of a guideline than a rule, and he proceeded to set up his water experiment station on the counter next to the kitchen sink. Keep in mind that the baby was still screaming her head off this entire time since I hadn't had a chance to check to see what she was crying about.

It turned out that just being stared at was enough to calm the baby down, and so I began to pay attention to what the BullshitCo guy was doing. He had a plastic place mat on the counter with a lot of circles on it set up in pairs: one blue circle always next to one red circle. I asked what that was about.

"Each circle represents a set of bottles where I will test certain elements in your water," Rashawn said. "The red ones... [he held up a bottle with a piece of red tape at the top to show me] are all unfiltered. And the blue [he showed me a blue] will be filled with water that passes through this BullshitCo purifier."

He then held up an eighteen inch clear plastic cylinder, with the top half containing pellets of something black, and the bottom half filled with little bits of something yellow. "This is the BullshitCo filter," he told me.

I asked if the black pellets were charcoal, to which Rashawn responded with, "Ummm.... I thing it's some kind of carbon."

"Fair enough," I responded.

He then hooked the cylinder up in our sink. As he was about to fill up the first red-taped bottle with our unfiltered tap water I stopped him with a question. "Hey," I said. "Could you do me a favor and let me see those two bottles?" I was pointing to the red bottle and it's blue bottle brother that I expect was going to be BullshitCo-filtered. Rashawn was extremely reluctant and claimed that nobody but him was allowed to even touch the bottles.

I swear on my great Grammy's grave that when Rashawn held the two bottles up to the sunlight before filling them, I could clearly see that the red bottle (the "unfiltered" one) had a very obvious resin (or something) coating it all around the inside that the blue bottle did not.

I stopped him from filling the bottles with water and said, "Let's switch them." He looked stunned. "Let's put the UNFILTERED water in the blue bottle and the FILTERED in the red. Okay? That should not mess up your 'experiment' in the least, right? Humor me. I just want to see what happens."

Rashawn did NOT humor me, and in fact heavily insisted that he could only put the unfiltered tap water in the red bottles. He had no reason to give, but made it sound like it was a law that he was 100% unwilling to break, like me stopping for fat chicks.

I calmed his borderline autistic, Rainman-like mantra of "Unfiltered in red! Only unfiltered in red!" down by saying, "Okay, okay, buddy. Fine. Unfiltered in red..." But then I asked him another question that didn't please the on-the-spectrum water-science man. "Say, how much is your 'filter' anyway?"

The only answer he would give was "I can only tell you in the end. After my presentation is over."

So... It was going to be one of THOSE sales pitches. Only no free lunch included. Uuuuuuuugh..

To make an already long story short, Cupcake came home within twenty minutes and immediately picked up on the vibe that this was a total con job. Rashawn was on a roll with his spiel though, and we found out quickly that if we asked any question at all in the middle of it he was thrown off his game and needed almost a full minute to figure out where he was in order to start his lines up again. Oh, and there was a Power Point presentation on his iPad. It was condescending as shit, and boring as hell. Of course.

Oh, and that thirty minute quote to do this test that he initially gave me? Lies. Even with us rushing him at the end it took a full two hours. Two fucking hours... I forsook my made-up phone call in order to not leave Cupcake alone with this guy, and he wasted two hours of my day. We tried to get him to wrap things up or just leave at about an hour in, but he absolutely refused. We felt like prisoners in our own house. It was sooo uncomfortable.

Anyway, during that two hours I found out the following (everything from this point on is probably pure bullshit that Rashawn had pre-written in his cue cards):

Because one red-taped bottle turned cloudy after putting in a ton of drops of some unnamed chemical to react to the pre-installed resin, Rashawn let us know that our water is POISONED with chlorine.
(Yes, with something like 1-1.5ppm [parts per million] chlorine... The EPA says we're totally safe up to 4ppm. And yes, there is always chlorine in our drinking water in the U.S. since it kills the bad shit while at the water treatment plants that really CAN murder us.)

There are MINERALS in our water! HOLY SHIT, MARIE! MINERALS! Our unfiltered water turned BROWN when Rashawn put in some unknown drops of something else that interacted with whatever was already coating that specific red bottle!
(Yes... Minerals in water is universal. And yes, those minerals in nice suburbs in America are waaaay below what is acceptable according to the EPA.)

BullshitCo's filtration device will save us over $20,000 on water, soaps, and dishwasher and clothes-washer costs over 10 years!
(The math that Rashawn made me do was questionable at best, and simply made up with the most bogus numbers he came up with from the top of his head at worst. He was just telling me shit to plug into my calculator like, "Now, you spend $80 per month on soaps and detergents, right? So multiply 80 by 12, then multiply that by 10, Then you have to figure that a new dishwasher is $15,000. So add that, and then divide by 30. And your water bill must be over $500 per month too, right? So add that, then multiply it by your age... Now divide by 5.4589.... Then add in how much you think that I weigh... Now, turn your calculator upside down... That spells "B00BIES," right?)

BullshitCo would throw in over "$2,500" of their no-name soap, shampoo, dish detergent, and laundry detergent for free! 50 years-worth! FOR FREE!!! I immediately googled that no-name brand on my phone and found nothing anywhere online about it. Like Rashawn made it up on the spot. Yeah... I'll exchange my Cascade, Dawn, Ivory, and All for your shit-brand, K-mart special soaps. Sounds like a deal to me!

BullshitCo's filtration device NEVER NEEDS CLEANING, MAINTENANCE, OR REPLACING... I asked if that was scientifically possible, which stunned Rashawn into silence. Seriously, he didn't know what to say to recover from this question.
I then had to had to explain that by its very definition, filtering something like water would leave behind the impurities that one was filtering out. And those impurities were the same things that Rashawn carefully explained to us would "clog our pipes up if left untreated."

"So," I asked again, "where does your BullshitCo filtering system put these impurities that it takes out of our water if it never needs to be cleaned, emptied, or replaced?"

No answer was given except, "You just put salt in the filter every month. You buy it at Lowe's or something. That's it."

And finally, after two hours of my day were wasted, and after Cupcake and I shared over fifty "eye-rolls" with each other over the completely made up numbers and "science" presented to us as fact by Rashawn, we were asked the following. "After hearing how this product will save you over $20,000 in water, appliances, and soaps over ten years, and how it will take the poisons and minerals out of your tap water that are KILLING you and your baby [this was a low blow], how much would you expect to pay for it?"

I didn't hesitate for a second. "Fifteen dollars," I said. I was straight-faced and bored looking, staring intently at him as sincerely as I could. I was impressed that Cupcake kept up the same facade too... But she may have fallen asleep thirty minutes ago, I wasn't sure.

Rashawn's fake smile fell. "Um, no... No..." was all he could say at first before composing himself. "Guess again."

I stared at him for a full five seconds. "Ten. Ten dollars. That's my final offer."

Confusion and possibly betrayal played on Rashawn's face. "Umm, uh, did you not hear that this will save you over $20,000?...."

No response from us.

"Well then," Rashawn finally said. "I'll tell you. It will only cost $10,000!"

"Get the fuck out of my house!" Both Cupcake and I said at the same time with the same ferocity. We both startled the baby, and the poor dog (still in the bathroom) started barking and howling again. Rashawn tried to explain that we were fools for not taking him up on this! In fact, he could get our monthly payments for this BullshitCo water system down from $260/month to only $136/month! (I don't think he ever said how long we'd have to pay that.) How could we pass that up?!

As we were kicking him out the door (after he packed up all his bottles and beakers and drops), I remembered that he had taken out a twenty dollar bill as a physical example of how much money we'd save a day or a week or something, which he left on our counter. Figuring this could be used as a callback or a lawsuit ("Those people stole our employee's money!"), I ran back to the kitchen, grabbed the bill, and rushed back to the front porch where Rashawn was still arguing with my wife. I reached out my hand as if to shake his, and this seemed to make the man smile, apparently thinking that I had changed my mind. I then said, "Here's your twenty you forgot. Now get the fuck out." His smile went away like a rainbow disappearing in the face of a full-blown thunderstorm. He then hung his head low and retreated to his car where he then got on the phone with someone who apparently bitched him out for a while before he drove off.

EPILOGUE:

This magic show... excuse me, I meant ILLUSION show, was one of the worst con jobs that I've ever seen. After Rashawn left, I went online and looked up BullshitCo's track record and reviews. All I found was maaaaaaany negative reviews, one major class action lawsuit (brought about due to their "unfair and deceptive water-testing scheme"), and many local news teams exposés (one in which a Better Business Bureau agent was quoted as saying, “[Water testing kits are] historically… this is a well-known scam… [People] may be spending a lot of money for a water purification system… that they actually don’t need.”)

Cupcake and I laughed about the 2-hour waste of our precious time after the fact, but then we had to wonder if anybody was stupid enough to fall for the very obvious bullshit science and maths that were thrown at us, let alone dumb enough to actually purchase a $10,000 filtration system that never needed cleaning or replacing. So we went on Facebook and asked our friends if anybody got the same song and dance from BullshitCo, and what they thought about it.

Cupcake had a friend who said that the BullshitCo demonstration was "mind blowing," and that her and her husband were super smart and great negotiators, and got the salesman down from $10,000 to $7,500... And even though there were some issues with the filter at first, they only had to call in the repair workers 3 or 4 times the first year at $80 a pop per service call (any replacement parts were free!). I told Cupcake that we would never lend any money to that friend ever again.

Oh, and we eventually did let the dog out of the bathroom.

Note to self 439: 05/18/2018

I have to preface the following story with my beliefs on poor motherfuckers. Now, I'm not talking about poor people like your friend who's down on his luck and having to eat ramen for dinner every night for a few months until he finds a job. I'm talking about motherfuckers raised in poverty who have an absolute disdain for anyone who has even slightly more than they do, despite the fact that these people never even try to do anything with their lives beyond collecting their government checks for the six kids they've popped out in order to stay on the dole. Anyway, I find these motherfuckers to be scum.

Hear me out. I've spoken before about how I'd joined my brother's family in going to their church's almost ghetto neighborhood to hand out grilled burgers and hot dogs to the poor in that shitty section of town (I can be good sometimes. It's been known to happen). I've written about how these poor motherfuckers would waddle their obese asses (and their seven to nine fat-ass kids) down to the free cook-out, grab a dozen dogs and sodas (for free), and COMPLAIN "Hot dogs AGAIN?! Ugh. Why don't you get us pizza, or tacos, or steak?" I swear to god that is a goddamn quote, and not just from one poor family.

On top of that, I've seen too many homeless motherfuckers drugged out of their mind on street corners begging for cash — and ONLY cash; they get pissed if you offer them food — just so they can shoot up again, or smoke some crack to forget about only having 2/3rds of a coat, or one sock.

My caveat to my antipathy to the poor is when they are actually asking for food on a street corner. If they accept food (and don't knock it out of my hand saying "I don' need food! Gimme cash, bitch!" [which is another direct quote I've heard in my life]), I will always give them any doggy bag that I have on me, or, on occasion, I will actually walk into a restaurant with them, let them order a sandwich or something, and pay for it. I'm not a soulless robot.

So, my story begins in this way: I was walking around downtown Atlanta during my lunch break yesterday, and on a whim I decided to go into a small, family-run Italian hole-in-the-wall restaurant that I'd never been to before. They had a chicken parm sandwich on their menu that sounded good, so I ordered that, found a seat at the giant storefront window, and waited for the meal to be made.

It was at this point that I noticed a homeless guy outside on a park bench smoking a cigarette (not an unusual site in Atlanta), but he was constantly looking up at anybody walking past him with baggies or boxes from any of a number of local eateries. When people with food walked close enough to him he would actively raise a hand, and it looked like he was politely asking for any leftovers. My heart actually went out to the poor fucker.

Then my sandwich was brought to my table and I noticed that it was fucking huge! It was crammed with chopped up chicken, marinara sauce, and a shit-ton of cheese falling out between the top and bottom of the foot-long loaf. It wasn't exactly what I was hoping for in a chicken parm sandwich, but it was decent enough, and I knew I would barely be able to finish just half of it. So I immediately came up with a plan of action. After I was done with my lunch, I'd fill my to-go cup up with Coke and present the homeless guy outside with the food and drink on my way back to the office. I started to smile with how awesome I was.

As I ate though, I watched the homeless guy finish his cigarette and try to bum another one off of a passerby who was smoking as he hustled past the beggar, totally ignoring him. Homeless Tito, as I called him (as he looked like the Jackson 5 member), then stood up with reluctance and reached into his pocket only to pull his hand out with what appeared to be three scrunched-up twenty-dollar bills, several fives, and a ton of ones. Then he walked to my right, out of sight of my vantage point. I figured he was going to the sandwich shop a few doors down to get himself a bite to eat. I continued my meal, planning to give my leftovers to any other homeless guy or gal I saw on my way back to my office if Homeless Tito did in fact buy himself lunch with his mad stash of cash.

Then, a few minutes later, Homeless Tito came back. This time he sat in a chair right outside the restaurant I was in — only five feet away now — facing me. I then saw what he had just purchased with his pocket'o'cash: a pack of Marlboros and an honest to god bottle in a plain paper bag. He did not go to the sandwich shop next door, but he did go to the liquor store on the other side of it.

My first reaction was "what a goddamn waste of money, but at least he'll have my hot chicken sandwich to eat in a few minutes." But then I caught myself. This motherfucker had tons of cash in his pocket, and although he'd been begging for food for the last twenty minutes, he could have EASILY spent that money on a slice of pizza, a hot dog, or a sandwich. But instead, he got himself liquor and tobacco...

The gall of this greedy-as-hell bastard infuriated me. I just sat there staring at him as he pulled a sip or two from his rather large bottle of whatever-the-fuck he had in that paper package. Then he turned and made eye-contact with me. I glared at him. Then I stuffed the last bite of the first half of sandwich into my mouth and chewed it slowly, and swallowed it with menace. Then, I made sure that he could see that I still had a large portion of over-stuffed sandwich remaining, and kept eye contact with him as I walked over to the shop's trashcan near the front door. I was just about to drop the half of chicken parm in when a thought occurred to me. "This cock could easily run in and grab this meal out of the trash before anyone could say anything to him. No, sir. That won't do at all."

So then I took the remaining sandwich back to my seat, staring at Homeless Tito the whole time (noticing that he was actually slightly drooling by then). I sat down and I slowly and deliberately ate that fucking sandwich while never looking away from that cockburn's eyes. I chewed every bite around twenty times and swallowed every morsel as if it were mana from the heavens.

When I was done, I closed my eyes in full satisfaction, and actually had to loosen my belt by a belt-hole. I don't remember ever being that full in my life. I threw my napkins and cup away, and as I walked out the door just a few feet away from Homeless Tito, I belched the most amazing baritone burp that I was ever able to produce. It was like a mix of a whale song and a lion roaring. I wish I recorded it.

I never looked back at Homeless Tito, I just walked on down the street. Fuck the ever-motherfuckin'-poor. They're usually poor for a reason, and that reason is they are SHIT when it comes to money and finances... That or they're lazy... Or they have no family or friends to help them out because they're total assholes... Or a good combination of those things. Argue all you want and call me callous, but you know this to be true.

Note to self 438: 09/07/2017

This past weekend was our annual pilgrimage to Atlanta for Dragon Con. Despite the overwhelming crowds, we still like to go and hang out with good friends (namely Mick and Min), meet some guests of honor, and make fun of all the shitty cosplayers' costumes. Cupcake herself chose not to dress up this year, but I decided to go as Old Man, from The Legend of Neil, just so that I could be snarky and kind of a dick to all the Link cosplayers roaming around. I nailed it.

Other than the D*C being seemingly less populated than it has been in recent years (walkways and hotel lobby floors appeared to be much less congested), there were still a buttload of con-goers in attendance. This made the soul-crushing lines and wait times to see certain panels and meet some special guests almost not worth it. For example, Cupcake and I wanted to get a bunch of autographs from Matt Smith, Karen Gillan, Arthur Darvill, Billie Piper, and Alex Kingston (we'd met and got some shit signed by John Barrowman a few years back already), and we got the chance to meet, talk to, handshake, and get some official artwork signed by them all... but at the price of a LOT of time, and a shit-ton of our sanity. What made it all worth while though was when Karen Gillan got me to twirl around in my giant white beard and red bathrobe before asking me if I was Santa Claus. I, in my best Old Man impression, said, "No, I'm just the old man from the original Legend of Zelda... I am the one who gave Link his sword... I made it myself. Link didn't appreciate it though." She looked amusedly confused, even when I held up the super cheezy foam Master Sword that I had with me. I was ecstatic and beyond words with how happy I was. I was able to cosplay in front of Amy Pond. Who gets to say that?

Arthur Darvill was really cool too, and when Smith and Kingston all hit the special Doctor Who autograph room set up for them all, everybody stopped what they were doing and the 4 actors raced to give each other hugs in the back of the place. It was so special, I didn't even say anything sarcastic or saucy... So out of character for either or Old MAN or Ooold Man. 

And speaking of Arthur, we got to hang with him for a few minutes since there was nobody else in line waiting for him at the time (most everybody else in the crowded room was waiting for Smith or Gillan). He seemed very down to Earth, and he was cool to simply chill out with us while he asked about the large comic-book-styled print that we had him sign (drawn by a friend of Cupcake's who does official Doctor Who comic book art, because we're special) while we asked him what it was like working on Broadchurch with now TWO Doctors, and on Legends of Tomorrow (which we don't watch because it sucks, but which he is a part of nonetheless).

Then we got in line for Karen Gillan. She was still amused by my costume, but she was blown away by the fact that Cupcake actually made the cake for her little cousin Caitlin's 16th birthday when she came down to Con Kasterborous a few years back (we had pics to share). Karen even wrote a special message for us on the print: "If he tells you to run, RUN!" I promised myself I wouldn't geek out over shit like this, but it was indeed awesome.

Then we hopped on over to Matt Smith's autograph line. His people who kept the line going chastised me for trying to take a picture of Smith (despite how much we shelled out for the autograph in the first place), but Smith himself was really approachable. He even signed "To my favorite American companions..." Which was quite the statement. Then, as we were leaving the autograph room with our signed prizes, I quickly turned around and snapped a shot of the 11th Doctor as he signed away on other people's stuff. I like to fight the system any way that I can.

As I was saying before, despite the con being noticeably less packed in the hallways and main hotel floors this year compared to previous years, some of the big lines were still unpossible to wait in. Cupcake and I did get lucky with the Georgia Philharmonic concert on Saturday night though. The line to get in wrapped outside of the Hyatt, down the street, and around the corner when we got in it about an hour before the show was to begin. We got dehydrated in the sun, got cigarette smoke blown in our faces by two douchebags who refused to put them out (even in the face of the impotent con security), and I got asked if I was Santa, God, or Moses multiple times by passers-by as we got ourselves all worked up for the aural pleasures that were soon to follow.

Eventually the line started moving, and after a few minutes of organized walking, we all made it into the giant conference/auditorium in the Hyatt's basement. Our seats were actually only halfway back from the stage despite our place in line! Most impressive. 

They of course filled the entire audience chamber up (over 2,400 available chairs), and soon the concert of movie and TV songs began, conducted by the Philharmonic conductor dressed in very well-done Darth Maul makeup and horn prosthetics. They played music from Star Wars, Star Trek, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Game of Thrones, Westworld, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Outlander, Austin Powers, and Beauty & the Beast. And it was pretty goddamn magical. 

The concert was a good example of how the D*C did a line right: everybody was in single file, and they had line counters coming around telling us where we were in the scheme of things, and how many seats the auditorium could hold... The Evening With the Ponds (featuring Karen Gillan, Alex Kingston, and Arthur Darvill) panel was a shitshow of catastrophic proportions though (as well as almost every other queue for a popular panel this year, and for the past 10 years).

Things started out poorly for us at around 3:00 PM on Sunday, when Cupcake and I found ourselves in line for the Billie Piper autograph session (which was supposed to start at 3:30). When Billy still hadn't arrived by 3:25 PM, Cupcake got nervous about us missing the Evening With the Ponds panel, and so she sacrificed her chance to meet Ms. Piper in order to find the "Unofficial Official Line" for the Ponds' panel (that wasn't even to begin until 5:30 PM that day). She texted me that she was securely in the queue, and that we were good. I then got our Ms. Piper autograph at around 4:20 (stumbling through what I wanted her to write on our art print while she called me "Luv") and then ran up two flights of stairs to find Cupcake in the Ponds' line. I was actually pretty happy at how far up we were (maybe 150 people back... Not bad by Dragon Con standards). Over the next few minutes we were told by D*C staff that yes, we were indeed in the unofficial-official line for the Ponds' panel (they wouldn't allow us to officially start lining up until an hour before the panel began), and all was well... But then at 4:30, they came around again and told us that the "OFFICIAL Line" was now starting, and we had to move.

"WHAT THE FUCK?!" somebody (surprisingly not me) yelled. "What does that mean? We've been here for over an hour already!" The D*C staffers just ignored us and forced us out a side door where we could see a new line forming that already snaked down some stairs and around a corner. 

Cupcake and I went with the flow, even though it forced us to leave the glorious air-conditioning of the Marriott. But when we got to the bottom of the stairs and we saw what had become of the "Official Line," well, we got a little pissed. Chaos had ensued as soon as the line hit the ground level, and the organized single file line we had been a part of had turned into a 20-people-wide clusterfuck of retardation. And this line wrapped around the building, and then around the building again. It was like as soon as the line was forced outside it was flash-mobbed by whoever was closest to it without regard for manners, decency, or intelligence... On either the con-goers' side or the staffers' side. 

Once a quick calculation showed us that there were far more people in line than would ever fit into the panel hall, we abandoned all hope. Seriously, FUCK YOU, Dragon Con... You've been around for 30 years... THIRTY FUCKING YEARS... Please learn how to queue your attendees, you cock-gobblers.

Other than the shit lines, the only other thing that we had to complain about this weekend was the overabundance of the Harley Quinns, Deadpools, and the Ricks. Please, people try some originality in your cosplays. I was very pleased to see a Chrono Trigger group, Sean Connery and Burt Reynolds/Turd Ferguson, and a Vin (from the Mistborn series). That's not to say that the Council of Ricks group, or the Jesus Deadpool (who mocked the Evangelical protesters outside of the con with his unending Macarena) weren't an interesting twist on their overused mold... But just doing a Harley in her shitty Suicide Squad costume is pathetic. We did see a Birdperson with Tammy. Tammy was hot, so I can see what Birdperson saw in her. But still, fuck Tammy.

So, despite this apparently being the most attended D*C yet, the hallways and walkways between buildings felt emptier than the past 5 years. My only guess as to why this was the case goes to the weather, which was unseasonably cooler this past weekend, which led people to walk around outside the hotels more.

Still, I long for the days when I first started going to the Con of Dragon, back in the mid to late nineties... I was able to walk right in to panels featuring big names, and then hang out and chat with them for an hour after their panel was over, get them to sign stuff, and then walk right over to the next panel I wanted to see with no lines whatsoever.

Dragon Con has ballooned from around 14,000 when I first started going, to over 77,000 now. That is in-fucking-sane. It's like the San Diego Comic Con in that if you don't pick ONE panel to go to on a certain day, and then line up for it hours in advance, you won't get in, and then you've pissed away however much time you did spend in line in the hot, hot sun that you could have been doing something else in air-conditioning. And even if you DO get in line early enough, Dragon Con may decide that your line isn't the official line anymore, and you've still pissed away your afternoon. 

What annoyed me the most though was pretty much every Dragon Con staffer telling us "We don't know what's going on" whenever we'd ask a specific question about when a certain star would be there for autographs, or where a line started, or why anything was the way it was. Piss-poor management there, especially for a "For Profit" convention like this.

Oh, and FUCK whoever was throwing chairs off the 10th floor of the Marriott late Sunday night and almost killed a girl. Whatever you were on that night, I hope it killed you.

Anyway, my entire point to this is WE ARE GIANT DORKS. (Cupcake says that she isn't, but she is too.)

Note to self 437: 08/24/2017

So, the big news this past week was the fact that a total solar eclipse occurred. Yeah, it was cool. Yeah, it got a little dark at the apex. And yeah, President Trump looked STRAIGHT AT THE SUN three times without his special eclipse glasses on (even despite people yelling at him to NOT LOOK STRAIGHT AT THE SUN)... So you know, typical Monday.

My entire office went outside with our special glasses and watched the last twenty minutes of the moon blocking out the sun, and on the elevator ride back up to our floor Janet in Human Resources looked at all of us and said (in all honesty), "This should show you all the beauty of God! I mean, that we were alive to witness such a glorious event of nature! I mean, when will something even close to this happen again?"

I looked around at everybody in the crowded elevator car and noticed they were all as confused as I was.

"Um, Janet," I said. "You do know that there are something like five or six total eclipses that will occur in the next seven or eight years, right?"

To which Janet huffed out, "Well, maybe... But when will one come by US again? 20,000 years?! See! We are living in a God-given glorious age--"

But she was cut off by the VP of Finance who simply said, "2026.... The next one is 2026."

Then somebody (I can't say for certain, but I think it was Angry Amy) said, "Your god can suck it, Jan," under her breath, but loud enough for Janet and I to hear.

The best part of Eclipse Day though was 2 hours later, well after the sun was back in full force, we noticed a lone woman in the parking lot looking straight up at the giant fiery orb in the sky with eclipse glasses on. After a few minutes, she ripped the shades from her face and hurled them at the ground in disgust before stomping away to enter another building. Not a clue if she was pissed that she missed the celestial event, or if she was pissed because she thought the glasses were defective. I don't care, since she was retarded either way.

After all that, I came home to find my neighborhood destroyed again. This time by the portal to the Dark Dimension of Xenu (or whatever) that Doctor Dave apparently opened at the zenith of the eclipse. The beings that came through from the other side were too smart to stay contained in the prison that the good doctor built to hold them, but that was only because he miscalculated and thought that he'd only need something that could hold physical entities and not the celestial nightmares that he ended up getting.

The good news is that they all died and vaporized as soon as a quarter of the sun reappeared from behind the moon. The bad news is that my homeowners' insurance premiums are going to go through the roof again. This is like the seventh or thirteenth time I'm going to have to put a claim in for a complete rebuild of my house, not to mention my $450,000 worth of destroyed Rembrandts and my original copy of The Gutenberg Bible... As far as my insurance agent knows.

Note to self 436: 06/14/2017

So this weekend I decided to try and catch up on a bunch of things that I've been putting off for a while. Things like watching some movies I've meant to watch, catching up on some TV and anime, and finally driving over that very expensive insulin to Jimmy Jammer (that he couldn't afford to replace, that he left at my house 4 months ago).

First up, I finally caught Guy Ritchie's King Arthur movie, starring Jude Law as an evil douche, and Charlie Hunnam as a ripped, kick-ass version of Arthur himself. All in all, it was entertaining, just not as entertaining as Ritchie's earlier films (like Lock, Stock, & Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch, Sherlock Holmes, and even Man From UNCLE). It was everything that I thought and hoped it'd be though, meaning it was a Guy Ritchie King Arthur movie, filled with magic and knights and crazy camera work, and Ritchie's trademarked quick banter. Yes, it could have been a LOT better, but it could have been a lot worse.

After King Arthur ended, I figured that I'd movie hop into the new Tom Cruise flick in the theater across the hall. The Mummy had been getting panned by critics, and nobody I knew wanted to see it, so I figured that it might be worth it if I didn't have to pay for it. So, when the hallway was empty, I made a deliberate saunter from the bathroom that I was hiding in to the theater showing the Cruise vehicle. I figured I'd have missed the first 2 or 3 minutes due to my caution, but whatever. How much exposition could that be?

I then walked through the front door of the theater and was greeted by 5 theater employees just standing in the hallway leading to the seats. I almost froze when the fattest one closest to me looked like he was about to ask for my ticket. I kept my cool though and smiled to them all as I pushed past them, noting that the movie was already in the middle of a huge sandstorm on the screen. I then hustled to the end of the hall, and looked over to the pretty empty theater (it was maybe 1/10th full), and saw even MORE employees standing around the room, staring at a group of teenagers in the middle of the room.

Just as the fat employee who I brushed past at the door approached me, I turned and half ran, half jogged back to the entrance while muttering "Damn it.... Where IS she?!" In hindsight this made no sense (was I looking for somebody who I was supposed to be meeting for that movie? If so, why did I not just sit and wait?), but it got me out out of that pickle of a situation, and I never looked back.

This is the first time in over 20 years that I've almost gotten caught theater-hopping... It was quite the rush! But man, to get busted sneaking into an apparently really shitty movie... That would have sucked. Normally, if you theater hop, you're supposed to buy a ticket to the newest release that you plan to see that day, and then jump over to an older flick that's less likely to be guarded after that. But this time, there was only one showing of King Arthur that day, and I had no choice.

From what all my fave movie reviewers are saying though, I just saved 2 hours of my day at least. I might end up giving The Mummy a shot with the inevitable Riff Trax coverage of it.

After that, I ran to the local Sam's Club to pick up some things and eat a lot of free samples of various food and drink items. It didn't take long, and as I walked back to my truck, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that some old woman (wearing clothes that looked like they were stolen from the wardrobe for the cast of Les Miserable, and then shat on by a cow) was approaching me. I was able to shut the door behind me and lock it just as the crone knocked on my driver-side window. I looked at her (about 6 inches from my face, and uglier than I at first thought), and she raised up a large jar with a sign taped to it. It read (and I shit you not) "I am deaf. I need money. Please help!"

I wanted to say "I have a beard and need money more than you. Please give!" But I didn't. Instead I just mouthed "I have no cash. Sorry!" This was true. I never carry cash. This is mostly because when I have cash I spend it.

She grimaced and then turned away from me to start waddling towards a couple packing up their car a couple of rows over. That's when a thought hit me. I rolled down my window and yelled to the deaf woman's back, "Hey, I found a five dollar bill for you!" She turned around. I just stared at her. She flicked me off.

Fuck panhandlers. At least, fuck the lying douchie ones. "Oh, I don't want to work, but I want money!" Yeah, well, buck up, buttercup. That's ALL of us. But the rest of us usually bust our asses day in and day out to earn our fucking way. Why do YOU get to be a lazy shitstain on the underpants of society? Fuck off.

After that, I went home and met Cupcake after she got out of work, and we started to catch up on the new American Gods TV show. We both loved the book, and the casting looked pretty spot on from all the ads that we'd seen, but I think that Cupcake is giving up on it after we made it just 2 episodes in. I don't think that she appreciates the series' tone, but the only thing that nearly killed it for me was Anansi's tale of how he arrived in America. Anansi was one of the best characters in the book. He was a small, skinny old man who could charm the pants off of anybody. He was an African trickster god who never really intervened in his worshipers' lives, but gave them divine inspiration when he deemed it the right time to do so.

Anansi's TV persona went against EVERYTHING that made his character so lovable in the novel. He is now a tall, young, brash, ANGRY as all fuck, intervener who would have his worshipers immolate themselves because he can see the future, and sees that the police in the far, far future will shoot black people on the streets of America!... Oh, and he dresses like a 1970s blackspoitation movie pimp, even though it's the 1690s when he appears to his followers in the bowels of a slave ship.

Everything about that scene was both wrong and terrible. It was the first part of the TV series that changed something dramatically for NO reason. I mean, Anansi (or as his friends call him, "Mr. Nancy" in the book) was a really nice, laid back, and funny, likable guy. So much so that he got his own spin-off novel (Anansi Boys)! His portrayal in this show is a kick to the crotch. Totally unnecessary, and appears to be changed for the sake of change... Which is made even more horrible by the fact that pretty much every other character in this thing is spot on! Why change one of the best parts of the story like that? Fuck you, TV writers. I want MY Anansi back.

Other than that though, I love Ian McShane, Gillian Anderson, Cloris Leachman, and the guy who plays Czernobog. Even if Cupcake bails though, I will probably continue with the show (the good so far does outweigh the bad)... At least for a few more episodes. But dammit, I hate what they did to Anansi...

That's about been my week. Oh, and Nintendo totally won E3 2017. God how I miss going to those.

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