you've got questions, we've got answers

by mg at 11:47 AM on July 31, 2001

Here is a question:

Is it better to “pretend” to be in love, and that everything is going swimmingly in a relationship or is it better to be alone?

Is it better to have someone to come home to every night, someone to cut up the carrots, while you prepare a nice marinade, to read the same books and talk about them later, to fall asleep next to someone at night, and know they will still be there in the morning, or is it better to be alone?

Is it better to have someone to go to the museums with on a Sunday afternoon, to take with you eyeglass shopping so that you don’t end up with a geeky pair of glasses, to go out to dinner with and have the obligatory candle most restaurants add to their table setting actually mean something, or is it better to be alone?

Happy Anniversary to Me!

by lizard at 05:56 AM on July 28, 2001

Am I the only one of the Bad Samaritan bunch that isn't single? I am very, very not single. I am so not-single, i actually have a hard time *remembering* being single. I've been with Chris for ten years now, or is it 11? We aren't married, though, and when I say anniversary, I mean wedding. Sometime in the month of August, I will *not* be celebrating twenty years of being married. Wait. Make that sometime early in September. I don't really remember all that well. However, I am here to tell you it's been an amazing couple of decades. I feel I must commemorate this milestone with a story, even if the telling makes me sound like a whacko, an alcoholic, and an idiot. Which it does:

Steven and I have been married since three days after we met, on a hot summer night at a gas station at about 2AM. My friend Bernie (a girl, Bernice) and I were supposed to go to (I am not making this up) a Billy Graham event (I was going to say, concert, but that can't be it) and ended up getting drunk, drunk, drunk. And yes, I was driving. Kids, do not try this at home. So, at this gas station (I don't remember, this is one of those ‘guess what you did last night’ tales that have been gleefully regaled to me on too many mornings after.) I walked up to this total stranger and wrapped my arms around his neck and gave him a big, wet, drunken kiss. We (me, future hubby Steven, his friend Chuck, and Bernie) ended up at a park, drinking all night. Steven was magnetic, smart, funny, and absolutely, amazingly gorgeous. My daughter got his big blue eyes, lucky girl.After three more days of hectic drinking (I may have gone home, but not for long. My fiancée, Charles, was living there with me at my parent's house, and I was trying to break free. Or something.) I'm not sure what I was thinking at the time.

It was more or less done on a dare. We tried and tried to get some money out of my bank to run off to Reno and get married on the second day, but that was back when ATM deposits took two or three days to post, so we had to wait. We agreed to meet at Jack In The Box in Castro Valley at 6PM the next day, and Steven taunted me about not being serious, about not showing up. Well I showed him, I showed up. So Steven, me, Chuck, and his girlfriend Julie drove up to Reno as fast we could manage in my little Toyota, (sober, this time), got double-married, did a little gambling, and drove back. I was only a little late for work. That night, I went home and informed my parents and (now ex-fiancée) Charles that I was leaving with Steven. We then went and slept in his van, which was at that point our home. I was late to work again the next day and, due to a long-established pattern of such irresponsible behavior, was fired.

Many adventures ensued. (As it turned out, he married me thinking I had money. What I had was a low-paying, extremely tenuous clerical job, a maxed American Express card and a brand new car, and no way of paying for either. Boy what a loser! Thinking I had money, ha ha, fooled him... Oh, alright, I was a bit of a loser myself, I guess. But not as bad as him!) We were unemployed, living in his van, and neither of us found this particularly distressing. We were a resourceful young couple, I was always able to find some sort of gainful employment, and he had no conscience whatsoever and was able to generate income by doing unto others things I still shudder to remember. A true sociopath, he was also a pathological liar and at various points in our travels, believed himself to be a painting contractor, a real estate agent and then a broker, and whatever else seemed like a good idea at the time. We had a daughter. And then a son, but that's too sad to go into at this juncture. Other things happened. He was abusive in the extreme. Have I mentioned my nose is crooked? He's the reason. That's another story.

I stayed with him four and a half years, mostly because I didn't want anyone telling me ‘I told you so’. I only left him after my parents had moved away from my childhood home and had an unlisted address in Ventura; only then was it safe to run home to Mommy and Daddy. They have since moved away, but I am still in Ventura. I love Ventura, it is a pleasant refuge. Not that I still need refuge; pretty much the entire USA and especially California are off limits to Steven because of some misunderstandings about the terms of his federal parole. I haven't seen him for over fifteen wonderful years. Ahh, the memories. My husband is now living in another country and has been married for about ten years to someone else, with two kids. (We are not legally divorced, but he maintains that since it happened in another country, it doesn't count). I have certainly considering filing for a divorce, but (unlike him), I regard the presence of a valid marriage license as an excellent preventative measure, a kind of an insurance policy...just making sure this sort of thing never happens again, you understand, because I have seen all of this firsthand (or at least been told about it the next morning).

read between the lines

by mg at 04:52 PM on July 27, 2001

Summer, for me, has always been a time to catch up on my reading.

As a kid, I’d take my first couple days of summer vacation to do nothing but watch daytime TV (you know; catch up on “my stories,” and see how much older Bob Barker was looking since I’d last watched Price is Right), run around in the park with my friends, sleep late, chase after the ice cream truck, and go to bed whenever I wanted.

As fun as that sounded and looked forward to throughout the entire school year, it got boring quick. Come summer, New York is one of the hottest places in the world. With the humidity, the heat index can reach 273 degrees Fahrenheit in August, and we were much too poor to afford air conditioning.

So, after the initial rush of being out at the park in the middle of the day (instead of after school), and once the oppressive heat made it impossible to move, I spent all my time inside, in the dark, reading.

During the school year, I hated reading. Even when we got to read books that otherwise would be fun, like Beverly Cleary and Judy Bloom, it just wasn’t fun when you had to read them. Something about being forced to do something by an authority figure, made something I normally enjoyed, thoroughly un-enjoyable.

But, once school ended, I would devour every damn book I could. I remember one summer, I went through Isaac Asimov’s entire Foundation and Robots series in a matter of a couple weeks. Those two series add up to about 57 books, of about 3000 pages each, and I went through them about a book a day.

And it didn’t stop when I got to college. I was an English Major. For some classes, I was forced to read about a novel a week, on top of all the reading I had to do for other classes. Usually we had to read some pretty interesting stuff, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Thurber, all of whom I love. But when you’ve got to go to the campus bookstore, pick up $300 of book in a single shot, and then read them according to some pre-defined syllabus, it just suddenly becomes very un-fun.

Throughout college, I usually had so much school related reading, that I did no other reading for the 10 months that class was in session. I didn’t read magazines, I didn’t read newspapers (not even the school paper, which I worked for), and definitely didn’t read any books. I had trouble even reading road signs when I was driving around in my Volkswagen Rabbit.

Then, summer would come along, I would go outside, play with my friends and chase the ice cream truck. I mean, beer truck. Then I’d get bored with that, and head indoors to read. I read the back of cereal boxes. I read every piece of junk mail I got, from cover to cover, and all the fine print. I even went back and read the instruction manuals for all the electronic devices I’d bought throughout the year.

For the last month or so, I’ve been unemployed, but I didn’t read at all. You know why? Because it wasn’t summer. My brain has become accustomed to only reading for fun during the months of July and August. So, as the heat’s become more and more unbearable, so has my body’s need for reading. In the last month, I’ve already read five books. Mind you, two and a half of them were Harry Potter and the other one and a half books were Bridget Jones’ Diary, hardly what you’d call intellectually stimulating.

But, crap, it is summer after all, should I be reading Herman Hesse or William Faulkner, two authors everyone raves about, but that I’ve never been able to stomach for more than a few chapters? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read the first chapter of Steppenwolfe hoping it had somehow gotten more interesting. I keep thinking that Hesse is like carrots; I hated them when I was younger, but now I always keep a bag around the house for healthy snacking.

I was only able to make it through Faulkner’s work because I was forced to. Ah, the tortures of being an English major. The entire time we were reading As I Lay Dying in my American Lit class, I bitched to anyone who’d listen about how bored I was and how I wished some coyotes would just come along and steal their mother’s body already. I didn’t make it more than about 60 pages into the book, but still managed to ace the test. Ah, the joys of being an English major and getting to take essay tests.

This summer, I ripped through the first two Harry Potter books in about 4 days. Then I got stuck, because I don’t have the third. I’d stolen the books from my mother, who is an elementary school teacher, when I went in to help her pack up her classroom for the summer. I got books 1, 2, and 4, but she didn’t have 3. As I am a poor and unemployed, I haven’t been able to convince myself spending $15 for the book is okay.

I didn’t think I would be, but I’ve become entirely addicted to Harry Potter. As I was reading the first two books, whenever I had to take a break, whether to eat, bathe, or sleep, all I could keep thinking was “I wonder Harry Potter is doing right now?”

When I got to end of book two, I was devastated. Since I can’t buy the book, and I can’t be bothered to go the library, I’ve taken to hanging out in the Barnes and Noble café, sipping my iced mocha as slowly as possible, and reading a chapter or two in a sitting. So far, I’ve made three trips to B&N, and read the first five chapters. Unfortunately, there are almost twenty more.

At this rate, I won’t finish the book until November 16, when the Harry Potter movie comes out. I’ll be so starved for Harry Potter by then, I’ll be waiting outside the theatre, days before the movie opens, with a bunch of 12 year-olds and their mothers, and that would just be wrong. Please, someone stop me from sleeping with adolescents; buy me a book.

Samaritan Stud de la Semana

by snaggle at 02:04 PM on July 27, 2001

Introducing a new weekly column from your friends at Bad Samaritan: Samaritan Stud de la Semana! It's a great way to combine three of your favorite things: boys and blogs and... Bad Samaritans! For those of you who complain about the frequency of our posting, well, here's your guarantee to hear witty repartée from myself, Shar, and kd at least once a week.

Here's how it works: send us your nominations of yourself or others to be a featured "boy and his blog." It's even better than just getting linky love; you'll have your own post complete with photo and all. So send us your nominations so that you can be the stud that everyone and their goldfish will gawk over and masturbate over for an entire week (incentive: we get triple- to quadruple-digit hitcounts a day. C'mon, you hitsluts. I know you're out there.)

Requirements:

1. The nominee must be male.
2. He must also have a blog and want to share it with Bad Samaritan readers.
3. The nominee must consent to being Samaritan Stud de la Semana and having his likeness displayed forever and ever on the web.

Here's how to do it. Email us at studfinders@badsamaritan.com with the following:

1. Blog URL. If you are nominating someone else, make sure their blog includes some type of contact information or that you provide us with an email address so we can confirm that the boy wants to be a Samaritan Stud.
2. A short description of yourself, your site, or other some amusing verbiage.
3. A photo of yourself (preferably pornographic) either as a GIF or jpeg attachment or a URL. The photo should be moderately high quality and moderately sized.

Once we receive submissions Snaggle, kd, and Shar will go through the pool of applicants to determine who will be that week's Samaritan Stud de la Semana. Our decision will be based on our judgement. Note: Don't take it personally if your submission isn't used that week or if it takes a while; these are based on nothing but our finicky opinions. Along with that, this is all meant for fun and to give a l'il something back to our readers. Don't complain to us about being superficial bitches or anything like that — it's all for fun.

We'll give you some time for the first one; submissions for the first Samaritan Stud de la Semana will be accepted until next Friday, 3 August 2001. That'll give us the weekend to review the applicants and come up with some amusing commentary. We'll have your Samaritan Stud de la Semana on Monday, 6 August 2001 and every Monday following that.

Magic Pills

by lizard at 09:07 PM on July 26, 2001

I am a medical guinea pig. Well, technically not exactly ‘medical’. “This product is a supplement, and as such, has not been evaluated by the FDA”. Ok, so I'm a supplemental guinea pig. I do tend to view rodents as snake food, but if being a test subject gives me something in common with small twitchy lab animals, well, I say, “bring on the free drugs”.

There are three pills a day. Morning pills, to (as far as I can determine) get me wired. Daytime pills, to supplement what I theoretically will not be eating. Night pills, so I can Burn Fat While I Sleep. A thinner, more energetic me. Sixty days and a couple hundred dollars worth of pills. In short, magic.

Wait. What's this? Sensible diet? *Exercise*?? If I were eating right and exercising, I wouldn't need the damn pills, now, would I? Well, at least it doesn't say anything about no beer. I guess I can give this a try.

Now, I have to report back to headquartes on a bi-weekly basis. They tell me to be honest, and warn me that by participating, I release my rights to my comments and my before and after pictures. What? Pictures? Full body pictures? Diet, exercise, and full body pictures. This better be good.

Further down in the information packet: “If you experience particularly dramatic or satisfactory results, we may request your further participation in our Infomercial”. They would be paying me for that, right? Free drugs, money, and finally maybe the fifteen minutes of fame I've been waiting for? Now *that's* motivation.

special guest post : Ontology A-Go-Go

by guest at 12:13 PM on July 26, 2001

In order to fill the few coveted spots for new Bad Samaritans, I�m allowing some of the applicants to do a very special guest post. This is the fourth and last that I�ve received, from the ten people who have expressed interested. If any of those people, or anyone else, is still interested in applying, send your sample post NOW, because if I don�t get any more soon, I am closing the casting call.

This fourth of special guest spot is by Johnny Magic of Omnihedron. Please comment, rate, and judge him, because your feedback is one of the ways I�ll decide who gets lifted from obscurity to Internet Rock-Stardom � as the next Bad Samaritan.

---

You embody what you think. Your mind, soul, psyche, whatever, feeds and forms from all the various things you hear, see, smell, and otherwise experience. Other people created most of the things you experience nowadays; from TV, to books, to the buildings we inhabit, to the computers we download porn on.

Everything you do, say, and create carries a host of judgments, preconceptions, and biases, no matter how implicit or unconscious. Aside from simple measurements, you cannot achieve true objectivity, and neither can anyone else. This means everything made by people you experience contains all of this baggage, much of it so hidden that you don't even realize it. Why should you care about this? Because when you get told something enough times, you tend to believe it. So, you tend to take ideas and concepts that you experience all the time as gospel, even though they are just opinions, and nothing more. This happens to you all the time. Think about who or what gives you the most ideas and concepts to experience. More me, its organizations like the U.S. Government, big corporate news media, big corporate television, and that preserver or Western Civilization the Catholic Church (I'm not talking about the today's relatively benign post-Vatican II Catholic Church, I'm talking about the old school "kill 'em all, praise God, and pass the altar boy" Catholic Church.) I wouldn't trust those two entities to shine my shoes, let alone fill my head with their propaganda.

All this means that nitwits and bastards have been subtly influencing, and at times controlling what you say, do, and think. If you're fine with that, good for you. Frankly, I find the situation deplorable, and I intend to something about it. I intend to take back control of my mind, and I invite you to do the same.

To do this, to retake our minds, we need to identify some of the areas where the nitwits and bastards have been most invasive and prevalent in their propaganda, and then formulate means of countering that propaganda. Now, you may ask how anything we do could counteract the forces of organizations as big and powerful as, say, the U.S. Government and the Vatican. Well, we'll just use the same tool that the big boys used- constant repetition. We need to make our attempts at counter-acting them into a habit, so that it just comes naturally. Once you get into the habit of using your ideas and concepts before theirs, you've got it made.

This list will provide you with some concepts you can work on:

* Language- If you can't say it (or at least don't know the words), you can't think it. Controlling your vocabulary helps greatly in controlling your own mind. You can start taking control of your language immediately by using E-prime, a version of English that seeks to contain more precision than regular English. You can also create your own language in order to retake your mind. Why will a new language help make your mind your own? Because languages come with a host of connections and judgments programmed into them. The romance languages serve as an example, with genders (and all the social conventions that go with them) applied to all sorts of things. A new language will allow you to forge and explore new connections. Of course, to get the benefits of your new language, you'll have to use it. Do your private writing in it, or coin a few choice curses and use them frequently.

* Religion- Now, religion has gotten a bad rap, which it frankly deserves. In spite of that, religion, if done right, does serve one important and beneficial function in a person's life: the ability to live life artistically, and by doing so, maximize the beauty and joy your get from it. If we want to get out from under the propaganda of a religion, we need to creat our own. There are many examples of synthetic religions lying around the 'net for you to look for ideas and inspiration from, such as the Church of the Subgenius, the Discordians, The Church of the Virus, and the Church of Satan. A quick search on Google will reveal many more. Timothy Leary published a book called Start your own Religion. Good luck, and happy praying.

* History- I am confident that your History teachers knew about as much of the world's real history as a patch of Spraghaum moss, and taught you less. They say that, "He who controls the past, controls the present. He that controls the present, controls the future." Get control of your own past. Do some digging into history, and what you find will amaze you.

* Mathematics- you would think that mathematics would have no bias, seeing how people tout it as the universal language and all. Not so fast. While its true that algebra doesn't lend itself well to propaganda, you certainly aren't getting the whole picture. Buckminster Fuller, one of the greatest geniuses this species ever produced, invented a whole new geometry, one that made some fantastic advances possible. Check it out, and maybe you'll get inspired.

* Horology- Nothing I can say on this subject compares to what the great Robert Anton Wilson said here. His article will give you an excellent starting point.

Of course, if you have been actually following this article, you will probably treat it and my recommendations rather skeptically. Good. I might have no idea of what I'm talking about. Of course, in order to find out, you'll have to do some research and thinking for yourself �.. Happy hunting.

letters, words, sentences, paragraphs: a conversation

by mg at 09:59 AM on July 25, 2001

Last night, Amanda and I finally had “the talk.” If you’ve ever been in a relationship (is that what we have?), then you know about “the talk.” We’d both been putting this off for the three weeks since she’s gotten here.

If you don’t know, Amanda is my ex-girlfriend. We’ve had a rocky relationship, but things are civil now, and she is staying with me for the summer. She is trying to find a job here in New York, so that she could move here. Also, the real point of her coming out here is to decide if things could ever possibly work out between us.

She has already been here for three weeks, and things between us have sort of been in a state of limbo state. We’ve both, obviously, come to some initial conclusions about what is going on between us, but I don’t think either of us really wanted to have “the talk,” if only because her flight doesn’t leave for another month, and if things turned out badly, the rest of her stay would be filled with nothing but a never ending series of awkward moments.

But, something happened that sort of made it impossible to not talk about things. And no, it wasn’t sex, though, that might make for an entirely more interesting story.

When we were in college, my friends would always play the “What’s in your wallet game.” You know, you are sitting around the table in some greasy spoon, really late at night, smoking lots of cigarettes and drinking lots of coffee, and doing anything you can imagine to put off doing any actual studying. Everyone gets out their wallet to pay the $0.80 for their bottomless cup of coffee, and leaves it one the table. You reach across and quickly grab it, and make fun of the fact they’ve kept the movie ticket stub from when they went to see Battlefield Earth and then laugh at their horrible driver’s license photo, etc.

On Sunday morning, my mom wanted to take me, Amanda, our friend Kathryn, who was also visiting from Iowa last week (and which explains the dearth of MG related posts last week), out to brunch. Amanda got her wallet out to pay for her grilled cheese sandwich, and my mom dismissed her with a wave of the hand and a “Pshaw.” But Amanda left her wallet on the table.

I picked up her wallet to play the “What’s in you wallet game.” Of course, I came up with the usual horrible ID photos and was as amused as usual, but as I was going through the pictures she keeps in her wallet, I came across something that amused me less than an episode of Just Shoot Me. I came across a picture of Amanda and her ex-boyfriend.

If you didn’t already go back and read this post, as suggested above, you should do so now to understand how upsetting this would be. Go one.

Actually, I just kind of assumed it was her ex. I’d never met him or seen a picture of him before, though I had talked with him on the phone several times. And this wasn’t a picture of them making out or anything, just a simple picture, the kind you’d get from one of those little black and white picture booths they have at carnivals. I just knew it was him, though.

Unfortunately, we were in public, and with my mom, and even if we could get away and shake her off, my friend Kathryn was also staying in my apartment. I couldn’t ask about the picture because I didn’t want to cause a scene.

More even than that, I wasn’t sure why I was upset. Amanda and I aren’t going out now. She can keep a picture of whomever she wants in her wallet, even if we were going out. It’s just…

The toughest thing about someone having an affair is not forgiving that person. That part is east. I mean, Christ, how often have you been in a relationship and wished for the chance to just have a little fling? Everyone has those feelings, so being angry with someone for acting on them doesn’t make that much sense. No, the hardest part about someone cheating on you is seeing, in your head, your beloved with that person.

With Amanda here the last couple weeks, I was just getting over the urge to cringe every time she touched me, imagining those same hands having once touched him. Getting that image out my head has been tough enough, but when Amanda says that being with him was a mistake, and that it never could have worked out between them because she was still in love with, it almost seems possible.

But, stumbling across the picture of them together, well, not only did bring back all those bad feelings, but it put a real face to this person. The worst of it is, he isn’t even as good looking as I had imagined in my head. I’m better looking than he is; why would she dump me for him, twice?!

So, after brunch, we went back to the apartment. Luckily for “the talk”, Kathryn’s flight was leaving a couple of hours later. All I had to do was wait her visit out and be able to talk to Amanda and get this all cleared up.

When Kathryn left (a bad thing because my friend was leaving but a good thing conversation-wise) Amanda and I finally talked. What did we resolve?

Well, the problem, more than anything, is why I care who she has a picture of in her wallet. Things would make so much more sense, and be so much better between us if we could just figure out what the hell is going on.

I mean, if Amanda and I could say, “No way, this will never work between us,” or “Yes, let’s get back together right now, get married, and have lots of babies,” things would be so much easier. But we haven’t been able to come to that conclusion, so everything is just this confused mess of awkward moments and hurt feelings.

Did “the talk” solve anything? No. Could it possibly have solved anything? No. Was it good to have the talk? Yes. Are things better now, than they were a couple days ago? Yes. Will things keep getting better between us? I don’t know.

Procrastination : A Way to Productivity

by snaggle at 11:55 PM on July 24, 2001

Okay, okay. I freely admit it — I have been a bad Bad Samaritan. It's now the end of July and this is only my second post of the month. How could I have been so heartless and cruel to deprive you all of my words of unparalleled wit and wisdom?

Well, think of it this way — I am your special treat. Unless you're rolling in dough and have a full-time chef to appease every desire of your discriminating palate, you can't have filet mignon with a creme fraîche and morel mushroom sauce every day. Or, if you’re a vegetarian, truffle risotto with a light Pinot Grigio. Sometimes you have to have the Lipton noodle packets or Ramen noodles or macaroni & cheese. Not that I’m dissing Ramen — ooooh, no indeed. I love Ramen. I’m having some right now, in fact. However, it would take all the novelty out of fine foods if you had them every day. There are those stories of the rich nobleman who, by some twist of fate, ends up sharing a hearty peasant loaf with the very peasants he demeans every day. He finds out they’re good people, blah blah blah… but the food is great. You can’t have the best meal of your life every day. Think of me as that bottle of fine wine you pull out on special occasions or that rich, sinful dessert you indulge in on occasion or that exquisite four-course dinner your gourmet chef friend prepared that night you all had too much time and ended up having an orgy.

Truth be told, once school starts I'll most likely be posting more regularly again. This summer I don't have any classes or anything, so I have plenty of free time. Once classes begin and I'm pressed for time again, I'll be able to post more frequently. You know what I'm talking about. When do you blog the most? Whenever you have other things you should be doing. I don't know about the rest of you, but I always get the most done when I should be doing something else. Seriously — the most productive times in my life are those times when I should be doing something else entirely. Paper due tomorrow? Let's clean my room. Test tomorrow? Let's go through all my friends' blogs. Have to study? Let's write a new post for Bad Samaritan.

Oh, and no, I haven’t forgotten than I promised you all a story about me getting a little flava. It’s not a very exciting story, really, but it needs to be told since it officially reset my counter. Now, instead of it being almost two years since I’ve gotten any, it’s been almost two weeks. Alas, that story will once again have to wait until another day. (Watch me just building it up and really it’s about a paragraph’s length of a story. Heh.)

I’ll write again soon, I promise. You need a good meal.

special guest post : kicking a wasabi horse

by guest at 09:46 AM on July 24, 2001

In order to fill the few coveted spots for new Bad Samaritans, I’m allowing some of the applicants to do a very special guest post. Of the eight people who have expressed interest and the two people I’ve requested to express interest, only four have so far sent in their sample posts. I love those people. The rest of you are lazy gits and I hope they get into a near fatal bus accident.

This third of the special guest spot is by Minja Ninjarama of Wasabi Horse. Minja is one of the two people I asked to apply for BS and his site is one of my few daily visits. Please comment, rate, and judge him, because your feedback is one of the ways I’ll decide who gets lifted from obscurity to Internet Rock-Stardom © as the next Bad Samaritan.

If you are still interested in applying for one of the spots, send an email.

---

As the dear readers of bad samaritan may know, this site is currently in what we in the business call a "lull". Shar appears not to exist, Snaggle has spent the entire month of july face-down in his own puke, mg is too happy, and zia is still looking for her lost virginity. [Don't worry, zia, I'm still looking for it...]

In short, oh dear reader, bad samaritan was in crisis.

The first person to use the internationally-recognised "SOS" distress signal was the radio operator on the ill-fated Titanic. The person to most recently use it was mg.

For those who don't know who I am, my name is minja ninjarama, and I run a crappy little blog by the name of wasabi horse. I am basicaly the skinny, Australian, underweight, ethnic, left-wing leaning version of bence. I also have better taste in music, which is a good thing, because when I'm not a university student (read: wasted), I am an electronic musician and sometime-DJ.

With the regular staff too "busy" to post, it was up to me to, once again, save the day. Having anticipated that this day would eventually come in advance, I made sure I was ready; to act as a "super-sub", if you will.

Contrary to popular belief, potential future members of the bad samaritan staff must undergo weeks of intense physical and mental preparation at the bad samaritan boot camp before they are even let anywhere near a computer keyboard. The bad samaritan boot camp, little known to those outside the community, is a top secret establishment dedicated to raising and training the bad samaritans of tomorrow, today. Many people spend their entire lives hoping to join the bad samaritan boot camp, but the truth is that no body chooses to join, for they are chosen.

More specifically, they are chosen because of a lack of applicants.

To be even more specific, I was drafted.

To even considered as "bad samaritan" material, one must first prove themselves. While the criteria potential bad samaritan boot camp participants are measured on are a closely held secret, making fun of idiots doesn't exactly harm one's chances.

At the bad samaritan boot camp, trainees are put though a baptism of fire. Those unworthy of the honour of being a staffer at bad samaritan are soon weeded out, much like a warped version of survivor, but without the hazing ceremony. Even getting to that stage involves toil, sacrifice, and much soul-searching, in order tofind "the bad samaritan within". Then, and only then, can one truly become a bad samaritan.

This is not to say that being a "bad samaritan" is more effort than it's worth. For one thing, staffers get as many free plugs as their heart desires, not to mention exclusive access to mg's collection of poorly-doctored Dick Cheney porn. Trust me, there's a very good reason he doesn't make it available for public "consumption".

The final step for potential graduates of the bad samaritan boot camp is to gain the acceptance of the greater public, which is the whole point of this post, for you, dear reader, play a central role in determining the future direction of this humble site. Your votes and comments will determine how successful I have been at performing oral pleasure on the collective genitalia of the reading public at large.

Was it as good for you as it was for me?

crack a smile

by lizard at 09:10 PM on July 23, 2001

look up. somewhere just above eye-level & below sky-level, is a level we will call, �camera level�. i recently made it a point to be observant of how much observation is going on, & i am dismayed to say, more than i had expected (which was quite a bit, considering my paranoia). i don't mind the honest ones, you know, the ones in the banks & convenience stores which let you watch yourself on the monitors. i want my banks & my seven-elevens to be safe, because i don't want to pay higher fees & prices to make up for what people steal.

i guess my major objection to being under constant surveillance of one sort or another, is the sneakiness of it. if you're watching me, just let me know, ok? it's not that i'm doing anything dishonest, but it is possible what i'm doing might be just a wee bit disgusting. like, for instance, not that i do this myself but people do pick their noses. & sometimes, when people wear certain combinations of clothing & undergarments, people's panties have the tendency to creep up & become wedged in very uncomfortable ways. it's difficult enough to remedy this situation without attracting any attention, & if you add these eyes in the sky to this equation, it's almost impossible to have moments of privacy. & let's not forget that sometimes people feel itchy in places it is not ladylike to scratch. there are all sorts of things you just wouldn't want to see yourself doing in an episode of �Caught on Tape XXVII - People Picking at Themselves�, not that i personally have anything to worry about, i just worry about it happening in general. to other people. not me.

another reason this whole camera issue bothers me so much is, i'm not very photogenic. i'm not ugly or anything, but the camera does not love me. it seems to magnify the crookedness of my nose, which you hardly notice if you meet me in person but on film it comes across as horribly disfigured. well maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, but still. knowing this, i have developed a heightened sensitivity to the presence of cameras - it's like they're on this wavelength that i detect, almost subconsciously, & react instinctively. if i'm in a particularly good mood, i respond by trying to present myself at the optimal angle (my �good� side). or, failing that, do what i usually do when someone points a camera at me against my will - they end up with a picture of my hair & my middle finger. there are very, very few pictures of me out there, & most of them are more of a duck & a gesture than a pose. either way, they interfere with my ability to just quietly & peacefully enjoy my life & to scratch what itches.

you might wonder why someone with such a �photo-phobia� has a webcam. sometimes i wonder myself. once, not too long ago, i was cleaning my room with the cam running. the cam software crashed the computer, as it does quite frequently, & i turned it off without thinking any more about it. the last picture it took before crashing was of my butt (clothed, thank god) as i bent over some laundry. i then left for the rest of the weekend, & i sure had some interesting emails waiting for me when i returned. & yeah, i can hear some of you smartass-types out there suggesting it was my butt that crashed the computer & ... well, ok, maybe that was it. but anyway.

so, the moral of the story is, let's see. hmmm. well, there isn't one, unless you want to take this as an excuse to go around mooning security video cameras for fun, in which case, i disavow any knowledge of your mission. but moon 'em once for me, ok?

MJ: Do it, just do it!

by zia at 01:41 AM on July 23, 2001

My Do-it-or-you-suck-list for the week:

1. Digital camera. I don't give a flying fcuk how to acquire one but I want one now! Just hate it when I caught some weird looking insect in the garden and can't show it to you guys. Argh!

2. Get an oil change.

3. Janice's Bday. Urm, when is it again. She reminded me two days ago. ( How thoughtful! ). Now when is it again....

4. Sort out lectures notes. Again.

5. Try not to be too antisocial to B.Seng ( Notice the initials? ). When he calls out your name for the 6th time in less than 2 minutes when the tutor IS YAKKING IN FRONT, don't ignore him and respond to the bewildered person next to you. Try barking at him instead. Barking is good for the lungs. Pee in front of him with one leg up if he's not convinced.

6. Donate my neoprints to those who want no shit to do with them. DO NOT give to those who wants them! Muahahahhaa!

7. Always try to remember what I last ate. Easier to put a name to those weird symptoms.

8. Bubbles fascinates me. Used to get those bubble maker from Warehouse but they don't seemed to sell them anymore. So sad. Harass the staff until they cook up with a bottle of bubble-O.

9. Bath the car. It stinks.

10. Beg $$$ from dad.

11. Find out who the hell is Harry Potter and why all the girls going gaga over him. And have lunch with him.

12. Try to make cartoon panties. Rainbow coloured ones. With don't-know-what's-the-name programme.

13. Try not to make rainbow coloured cartoon panties with don't-know-what's-the-name programme. Better start on my law essays!

14. Do laundry. Throw the cat in as well if it happens to be around. Nick ( my neighbour ) would love to come home to a spankin clean jasmine smelling tabby. Mom said, be nice to Nick. Ooer, okayyyy...

15. Try not to fall in love with kd. And stop kissing her picture on the screen for christ's sake !

Sister: Hmm, this is strange. The screen seemed to get dirtier and dirtier on its own!

Zia: * Pretend not to hear and points at the ceiling * Hey look, daddy long legs!

Don't hide it, be a doll and share some of your do-it-or-you-suck-my-ass-big-time list with me/us! And maybe I'll include them along with mine in my prayer. If I start praying that is.....

i have a bar, too

by lizard at 06:31 AM on July 22, 2001

imagine that? me having a bar. can't exactly say it's a ‘thumbs west’ though because it's not a dive (based on space's description). it's located on the promenade in ventura, an expensively faux-funky place with $3.50 16oz newcastle brown ales & walls painted with tropics-inspired images of vined windows with iguanas & the like peeking out of them. there is a restaruant with menu items including artichoke pizza (incredible!) & every sunday the jonathan raffetto band plays from 2-5, & people dance. they rarely dance in the traditional sense, as in, with one another, they (male/female) dance with the music. we get up, & we dance. & it is...transcendent. it is the salt air & the beauty of the place & the perfect perfect music. there are only three more sundays in the universe that will contain this transcendence. august 11, it will end. they are *that good* & going on tour & someday maybe greatness? & since i am at this point doing their website as a fan(atic) type of thing, maybe i will be able to be part of this? in some internetty sort of way. i can only hope.

my daugher introduced me to the band. one sunday several months ago she called me & said, ‘there is this guy playing guitar at the beach, come down & see him’. well at the time we were fussing at one another & initially i said ‘never mind’. then i was laying there in my resentful bed & realized what had just happened - my semi-estranged teenage daugher had just invited me to a beach. my mind changed, & i called her on our cellphones to say, ok. & i went down there to the banana belt cantina, & i heard this music. not necessarily my preferred sort of music but excellent & ... perfect. blues, bluegrass, folk, rock, etc. two guitars: one acoustic, one not; two drummers, one with drums, one with bongos & the windows & whatever else he could find to beat on; a locally semi-famous hippie playing harmonicas & singing ‘please mr. customs man’ (he's the go-to guy whenever the local conservative rag of a newspaper wants input on the lives of homeless/deadhead lifestylers) & a bass player named orest & a mandolin guy named danny. the band spans about three generations, the audience, at least five. babies dance. people in their seventies dance. everybody dances.

we dance in the perfect air & the ocean roars in our midst. we drink expensive beers & the bar is happy to have us, spending peacefully & tipping generously.

but it all ends on august 11, the scene that is, the bar will still be there, but it will not be the same.

i have a bar.

but not for long.

Too many chinese is too much for a chinese girl.

by zia at 12:07 AM on July 22, 2001

I woke up this morning trying to claw my way out of the heap of paperwork I’ve been working on the night before. Too many cases to be lodged into my head and my brain is rapidly running out of memory and space to accommodate them all. Oh bugger. Then I heard a series of loud giggling. For a split second, I instinctively grab my table lamp ( would otherwise be a bat if I had played baseball ) and inched slowly towards the door with growing apprehension. Then I recognized the chuckling. Shit, I forgot I have house mates damnnit. What the hell is wrong with me?

Now that I have two, I really have to get used to their presence. Her boyfriend just moved in a couple days ago. He needs the space I need the money she needs him. Fair enough. Both of them are from China. Urm, okay. Both are the only child. Hmm. Alright, no big deal. Both are major slobs. Now that surely explains the lack of house training!

I hate it how every time my heart had to wince in horror when I stepped on some squeaky stuff thinking I’ve just murdered some small animal with my big foot only to find some candy wrapper/some food covering squashed under my soles. Aww, that was mentally painful. Even that it wasn’t anything alive. Fcukers extraordinaire, don’t you fcuking know where the fcuking trash is?

We have amazing relationships though. Mostly because I am virtually hot on their heels picking up the rejects of those moving rubbish dispenser. I can qualify as a full time professional cleaner if it wasn’t for my academic commitments. Nothing annoys you more than messy living quarters. Especially when your house are specially built to accommodate anything above hodgepodges. I gave up complaining. My complaints are as sticky as runny honey. I nearly lost it this morning when my toes came in contact with something furry as I descend the stairs. There are no pets in my house and there shouldn’t be any. I remember me stopping dead at my track daring not to even look at ‘it’ before screaming all my way down. I remember everybody rushing out of their room. I remember my toes can’t stop wiggling in terror. I remember the girls approached the ‘furry devil’ with our longest kebab skewer. I remember how they laughed and how I cried. Fcukers extraodinaire, don’t you fcuking know fluffy bedroom slippers either meant to be confined in your room or on your feet, not in the middle of the fcuking stairs! You guys gave me everything short of a cardiac arrest!

Maybe you would say, why don’t you just kick their ass out of the house? And maybe I would say, holy cow, why didn’t I even think of that! But no. I can’t bring myself to do that. Dad has to support three varsity going kids in New Zealand, two in Malaysia, doing primary and high school respectively and a wife with a persistent fetish for leather. Oops…that is too much information already!

Many a times, driven mad by the outrageous hygienic standard of the kids ( Yes, that includes my botchy sister as well), I contemplated to move out. I would be most happy to work for my rent. I think my next door neighbor is really unfair. I cannot understand why he does not want me as a border. Haven’t I promise not to scratch his roof as I climb through my bedroom window at midnight?

Also many a times, I was forced to scheme strategies to get rid of them. But my conscience had to render those great blueprints redundant. What’s worse, did I say we get along annoyingly well? What a waste of my illustrious animus…

The year will wrap up in a matter of a couple months. The thought provides awesome comfort. Like any committed friendly host, I should make their stay a memorable one shouldn’t I? * Evil grin* You know what I mean….Hehe..

While I’m working on another strategy for this very purpose ( Yay! ), feel free to contribute your 2 cents and make me one host they’ll never forget! In both of a more flattering and distorting way thank you. Not that I don’t flatter them enough. Ahem. No reputation injuring dignity vilifying propositions please ( though I would appreciate it! Two crucial qualities for most gratifying strategies but alas… ). Who knows I might still have to put up with them for another year?

Great, I felt like impaling my brain with a very blunt extremely low quality 2B pencil just for coming up with that appalling thought!

mocha jet fuel

by lizard at 03:55 AM on July 21, 2001

in my last post, i pissed some people off with an egregious grammatical faux pas, & i caught quite a bit of grief as a result. now, my decision (& it was deliberate) to choose that particular combination of words was was made under the influence of approximately a thousand milligrams of caffiene & who knows how much sugar, a combined high that contributed significantly to my lapse in judgement. that's not an excuse, but it is a reason.

so now i am two days older & about that much wiser, & would like to offer this cautionary tale of espresso abuse, in case anyone still harbors any lingering doubts about Demon Caffeine.

it was years ago, when chris & i were partners in this crazy coffehouse/theatre/punk rock venue, in an old movie theatre that had had the first 30 rows of seats torn out for a mosh pit. we only did punk (& ska, & grunge, & whatever else seemed like a good idea at the time) on weekends, & during the week we had the usual coffeehouse fare, acoustic music, poetry, art & the like. people would sit cross-legged in the pit & share creativity & of course, drink coffee.

we had a bit of a militant business philosophy - this was no decaf/nonfat/soy/herbal tea sort of coffeehouse. we only sold coffee with caffeine, & we had this enormous, old espresso machine that made the biggest, strongest shots of the darkest, thickest coffee i've ever seen, before or since. we were big with the ‘recovery’ community, as you can well imagine - nothing is fonder to the heart (& endocrine system) of an old speed freak, than a new connection that won't void his clean time & still can get him good & spun.

we also had an item on the menu called a mocha jet fuel. the description on the menu said something about sending spies to JPL/Pasadena & they came back with recipe for this drink. it was pretty simple: dump out two packets of hot chocolate in the bottom of a sixteen ounce cup. fill with four double shots of straight espresso (this filled the cup). top with whipped cream. that's it - no milk, no water, nothing but pure adrenaline.

so one night, one of our NA regulars came in for the poetry & ended up - i am not making this up - drinking *four* mocha jet fuels. four. really. he had intended to read some poetry, but around his third cup, he had a better idea. he would instead remove all his clothes & run screaming up & down the aisles. he said it was *performance art*. he was serious. it took awhile to talk him out of it, but i'm sure he was glad the next day - though we didn't see him again for at least a week, i'm guessing the caffeine poisoning came pretty close to killing him, though i didn't learn that it is actually possible to OD on coffee till just recently. (not personally, mind you. i just read it somewhere.)

if only someone had been looking over my shoulder the other day as my trembling fingers typed out that offensive phrase, so much of that painful aftermath could have been avoided. but if even one person says to their friends or their waiter/waitress tonight, ‘no thanks, i've had enough coffee’, well, it will all be worthwhile.

bad advice : you and me and her, simultaneous loving baby

by mg at 09:55 AM on July 20, 2001

April writes:

I'm considering organising an orgy with my fiancé and some close friends.

How do I get this plan underway?

Oh darling, you could not have asked a worse person for this kind of advice. If you haven’t noticed, I’ve not been having the best of luck recently in the vertical mambo department. My idea of an orgy would be using both hands. In fact, it has been so long since I’ve gotten any, I’m 80% sure that I’ve forgotten how. And believe me, you can forget how to do it; sex is not like riding a bicycle, though, the last time I did it, I seem to remember that a bicycle chain, spokes and a banana seat were involved.

Well, I’ll do my best. I was listening to Love Lines the other day, when Adam and Dr. Drew got a call from a woman contemplating a three-way (that’s a ménage à trois to my French speaking readers) with her best friend and her boyfriend. Dr. Drew, as he often does, advised her not to have any fun at all. He said that it is pretty tough to stay in a committed relationship after you’ve seen your significant other having sex with another person.

And while I can’t say I’ve ever had that experience, I have to agree. Though, I do feel I have to add one caveat. If you are in a heterosexual relationship, seeing your partner having heterosexual sex with another person is always always always a bad thing. Any guy who can continue to be with a woman after he’s seen another guy stick his junk in her most private of areas has some serious mental problems.

I can’t really speak for women here, but from what I understand, you ladies associate physical intimacy with emotional intimacy, so watching your man sticking his junk in another woman’s most private of areas is going to bother you, even if you thought it would be okay beforehand.

So, getting back to the caveat, seeing your significant other having a homosexual encounter is really not so bad, at least from a guy’s perspective. I don’t think any guy would ever be upset if he walked in on his woman kissing another woman. Women are just so damn beautiful. Two women, logically, would be twice as beautiful. But this is a case where logic is wrong.

Like on Star Trek you’d think Warp Two is twice as fast as Warp One, but it way more than twice as fast; two women together would, likewise, be exponentially more beautiful. Two women together would be two to the second power beautiful, which would actually be four times as beautiful as one woman alone. Three women together would be nine times as beautiful. Understand?

However, ladies, if your man is willing to have sex with another man for you, he is gay. Sorry. A fella may experiment with homosexuality, but he sure as hell isn’t going to do it in front of anyone else. Experimentation like that is best left to gym locker rooms and laundromats. Back me up on this one Snaggle.

If it isn’t painfully obvious, I agree with Dr. Drew; sex with multiple, simultaneous partners is always a bad thing if you want to continue to be in a healthy, stable relationship. April, you and your fiancé should not have an orgy (though, if you disregard my advice, please take pictures and send them to me.)

For the rest of you - those in unstable or unhealthy relationship, or in no relationship at all - I say go right ahead with the ménage à trois, the orgy, or the night on the farm, if that’s what you are into. And if you are going to do it, the question then becomes, how do you pull off the orgy?

Well, at first though, having an orgy with a group of complete strangers would be better than having an orgy with a group of friends. You’ll have to see your friends the next morning and it’s hard to look at someone the same way after you’ve had their genitals in your mouth, let me tell you. So, strangers are definitely the way to go.

Unfortunately, short of going to a sex club, or an Interstate rest stop, I can’t think of a way to convince a roomful of people to have sex with me. Christ, I can’t even convince a single person to have sex with me, much less an entire softball team’s worth of people.

So, friends it is then. And the way to get over that awkward feeling you’ll have the morning after, staring at your friend over a bowl of Lucky Charms, is to make sure none of you actually remember what happened the night before.

I suggest using ruphedenol for this task. Now, some of you may have trouble getting a hold of some roofies, since some people (we’ll call them “squares”) consider them “illegal.” Just because Rohypnol is commonly called the “date rape drug,” it seems to have gotten a bad rap. Damn political correctness always ruining my good time. In lieu of handful of roofies, I suggest providing copious amounts of alcohol to your orgy guests.

But, you can’t just call your friends up and invite them to an orgy. That would be silly. Maybe Jenna Jamison, could pull off that phone call cold, but I couldn’t, nor the likes of the troglodytes who read this site. The rest of us have to ease into the whole orgy idea. Start small. Maybe have a "Spin the Bottle" party. You can cast it in the light of being all retro, and kitschy, and reminiscent of your awkward junior high school days. Your friends will love this idea.

Next, you should, one night, when you and your friends have tossed back a couple shots of tequila, casually broach the idea of going skinny-dipping. If they are into it, this is a good sign. This will be a great chance for everyone to get comfortable being naked around each other in a non-sexual way.

Some ex-roommates of mine had always wanted to host a naked keg party. Nothing sexual; just an entire night of “watching the game, drinking a Bud,” only sans clothes. We were never able to actually have the party, but maybe you all will have better luck. Maybe you could even convince your friends to start up a game of naked Twister.

Hard as it may be to believe, if you’ve taken the above steps, everyone should be perfectly comfortable with the idea of having group sex. Did I mention you should involve alcohol? Lots and lots of alcohol.

If you need advice, and no one else can help, call the A-Team, I mean, get some bad advice.

special guest post : personal hygiene with space

by guest at 12:08 AM on July 20, 2001

In order to fill the few coveted spots for new Bad Samaritans, I’m allowing some of the applicants to do a very special guest post. Think of it like a trip to the casting couch, only everyone is less sticky afterward. This is the second of several such special guest spots, by fellow Iowan and Blind Date lover, Space of Space Cheese. Please comment, rate, and judge him, because your feedback is one of the ways I’ll decide who gets lifted from obscurity to Internet Rock-Stardom © as the next Bad Samaritan.

If you are still interested in applying for one of the spots, send an email.

---

Today after my workout, I was a little pressed for time, and I had to take some hygiene shortcuts. But it's a big day in SpaceCheeseLand, so I have to be sure to take the right shortcuts.

First of all, the shower. The shower's tough. I really need the shower to get through the day, so I don't take too many shortcuts in there. I wash my whole body. I'm good about this. Sometimes I even wash my penis twice. You might think that's excessive, but it doesn't take all that long, and I know if I don't get that gear clean, I really won't feel fresh the whole rest of the day. Today I sing J.Lo in the shower (yes, while I wash my penis, but also after): "Think I wanna drive your Benz, I don't. If I wanna floss I got my own." What does that mean?

But I do need to floss. It's been a fortnight or so.

Ok, now I'm done with the shower, but I've taken too long and I really have to rush to get through the rest of all this. I can get away without a shave. I shaved yesterday, and my facial hair is dark enough that no one can really tell when I've shaved anyway. We'll put the shaving stuff away again.

Contacts. I've got all kinds of solutions I'm supposed to use on them, but I usually just kind of swish them around in the case, them pop them in. Then at least one of them has something on it and hurts, and I have to take it out again, wash it, stick it back in, repeat. I could just wear glasses, but I'm not sure where they are. Oh well. It usually stops hurting after a while. I'll blink a lot till then.

Fingernails. They're a little long. I need to trim them. Some people do this over the sink, but I'm of the opinion that solid matter ideally (i.e. "when sober") should not go down the sink. Some people do them over the KITCHEN sink, which seems rather awful to me: aside from the occasional hand-washing, hygiene really ought to be conducted in private. Some people will argue that the bedroom is private and do them in there, but I don't like the idea of toenails in the carpet. How often do you vacuum, really?You can do them over the trash, sure, but the wastebasket in the bathroom is pretty small and they won't all make it in unless I crouch over it, and that's too weird when I'm naked. What I really think is that the perfect nail-clippings-receptacle has yet to be designed. So I do them over the toilet.

Isn't it funny how people don't want combine toilet uses? The idea of clipping my nails into urine-water, or, god forbid, a toilet with poop in it, is truly horrifying. It's only a little better than the thought of shitting onto someone else's shit. *Shudder* So, even though the toilet's clean, thinking about this has made me feel dirty, and I flush before I trim my nails.

But I've thought too hard about this and I don't have time for the nails. I'll just keep my hands clenched into fists today.

Teeth. Toothbrushing is something I kind of get lost in, sometimes. Today is one of those days. I move my lips around to make funny,foaming faces at myself in the mirror. That also changes the sound of it; by opening and closing your mouth, you can get a neat little flange effect going on. I brush them in a rhythm: Steve Miller's "The Joker" today. Swish swish. Swishswish swish swish. Swishswish swish spit. brush brush brushbrushbrushbrushbrushbrushbrush.

Shouldn't have done the whole song. Now I don't have time to floss.

Hair. Where's my brush? Fingers will have to do. I'll drive with the window down to work and tell everyone the AC's broken. I'm balding and no one expects my hair to look like much these days anyway.

That'll do for now. I'm late. I'll do some remedial hygiene when I get home.

Ok, getting dressed. Clean underwear, if you can swing it. Boxers are best, both because of feng shui concerns and the fact that the white, inconsistently hairy upper part of men's thighs is maybe the least attractive real estate on the planet, unless you wax and tan them, and that would be too involved to get with my own thighs. Yes, I do wear pants, but it's best to get as many layers on those things as possible.

Today is frog boxers day.

Socks. These are less likely to be clean. Fortunately, I wear shoes over them.

Pants. These have a dried dab of what looks like taco juice on them, but they'll have to do. I'll keep my hands in my lap all day, and no one will notice, though they may wonder if I'm hiding a boner.

Shirt. This still smells like the bar I was in four days ago, which is not good, but here near the armpit it kind of smells like deodorant, and that is very good, because I've run out of that.

I don't have time to iron it, and probably wouldn't anyway.

So this is what I look like as I write my Bad Samaritan sample post: one eye squinty; facial hair sprouting patchily out of my face; hair uncombed, but mostly pushed in the right direction; shirt wrinkled and smelly, unless you have your nose in my armpit (you don't); and my hands in loose fists, resting in an awkward spot on my right thigh, almost like I'm holding the reigns of a covered wagon, leading a train of unwashed bodies across the prairie.

Fortunately, this is the internet, and you have to imagine this.

Well, do I get the job?

good morning, ventura...

by lizard at 01:58 PM on July 19, 2001

so i woke up this morning at around 7am, remembered i didn't have to get my son ready this morning, & went back to sleep. all the way asleep, with a full-on dream in which it was raining & i was looking at this amazing apartment, it was huge & cheap & had the biggest bathroom i'd ever seen & a deformed but very friendly poodle. there were lots of wonderful places for my computer to go, cozy little nookish places. i was enchanted. i started figuring out where i was going to come up with the deposit & then i woke up again, at 8:45, quite refreshed & well rested with only a little of that sinking feeling of being very late. no one's ever sat me down & said ‘be here at this time & work till this time’, & usually i'm semi-reliable in spite of that & well, that's all that can be expected of me without me being a disappointment, i'm afraid. however i do try to get there by 8:30, so 8:45 is not the optimal time to wake up.

i am nothing if not an efficient morning person, though, & years of being always running late for something have honed my getting ready skills to the fine science they are today. i am under 15 minutes from the time my feet hit the floor to walking in door at work. & that under fifteen minutes includes discovering the bathroom door locked, picking the lock & forcing the door open because my son has barricaded himself in there & is methodically peeling the backing off of a box of panty liners & stacking them on the toilet lid. i don't have time to get really mad & besides i'm more confused by this than anything else, so i quickly put the backings back on & scoot out the door.

feeling absurdly good, i begin my usual first-hour-of-the-day catching up on email & so forth & yeah i do weblogs from work & so what? then i realize what is missing in my system. coffee. easy enough, i mention the word starbucks to my boss, who gives me money & tells me to sneak out the side door because bringing him coffee is ‘official company business’. he's only the coolest boss in the world because [his words] he is in love with me. take advantage of this? me? someday i may explore the ethics of this situation but in the meantime i go for iced venti caramel macchiatos with extra shots & extra caramel & on the way back jammin’ with ratt, round & round, & hoping spilling sweet sticky milky coffee on the shift lever isn't a bad thing. time will tell. & do you have any idea what four shots of espresso will do to the well rested body & mind? oh my.

mg told me i should have something to say when i sat down to write on b.s. he didn't say i had to have a point.

the big picture

by lizard at 10:20 AM on July 18, 2001

one morning, recently, i opened up my newspaper to the most important part (the funnies) & discovered a new strip running, something called ‘get fuzzy’. now, under normal circumstances i might have liked get fuzzy, but in this case i became immediately & profoundly incensed. why, you ask (not that you care, but, you're hopefully at least marginally curious at this point)? well, because this get fuzzy nonsense was occupying the space of one of my absolute all time favorite comic strips, ‘the big picture’, by lennie peterson. the big picture is an autobiographical account of lennie's life, & being very webloggy in style, is very appealing to me (i do love weblogs). & it's not just because lennie peterson answers my borderline mad-stalker emails in such a prompt & charming fashion, though that in & of itself is significant. the only reason i don't just up & cancel that damn conservative rag (the ventura county star, who didn't hire me as a website assistant & otherwise regularly pisses me off), is because i don't actually pay for the thing.

so i let this transgression pass, & a few days later notice a letter to the editor praising the decision to drop the strip based in part on offense taken to the tagline for lennie's email monday feature: ‘send e-mails of love, lust, hate & obscenities to: cartoonboy@planetlennie.com...’

...so now i'm really pissed. so pissed, in fact, that i determined at that moment that i was going to write a rebuttal to that editorial & really give that idiot the what-for. oh yeah. i was on a mission now! i was going to point out the absurdity of his argument about comics in a quote family paper unquote, citing examples like 9 chickweed lane & dilbert & other decidedly adult-oriented fare, but then i realized i was too mad to compose a suitably scathing response without sounding like a complete lunatic, & then i got distracted, & then i misplaced the paper that had the idiot's name so i could make reference to it in my diatribe & then i run out of steam & well, here we are.

i am somewhat pacified by the fact that, just before the star discontinued the big picture, i subscribed to receive the strip via email, so i am not missing out on my big picture fix. then a week later, i get this email monday strip in which a lady named dayna from canada is featured, a long rambling sort of email that mentions her fondness for ‘get fuzzy’ & the irony just hits me like a wet sponge. & now it's too late to do anything about it except rant about it here, in my first post to badsamaritan.

special guest post : Paradoxes Are Fun

by guest at 09:35 AM on July 18, 2001

In order to fill the few coveted spots for new Bad Samaritans, I�m allowing some of the applicants to do a very special guest post. Think of it like a trip to the casting couch. This is the first of several such special guest spots, by our friend C. Dodd from Ipse Dixit. Please comment, rate, and judge him, because your feedback is one of the ways I�ll decide who gets lifted from obscurity to Internet Rock-Stardom � as the next Bad Samaritan.

If you are still interested in applying for one of the spots, send an email.

---

I am easily annoyed. Perhaps that's not the best way to introduce myself, but there it is. Lots of the little things I see every day just annoy the piss out of me: People, places, things, and - most of all - bureaucrats.

They all get to me.

Some of it no doubt comes from an exaggerated sense of my own ability to do things better than I see them being done. But sometimes there's no exaggeration required. I once heard a guy say that 80% of all questions that begin with the word "Why" can be adequately answered, "because people are stupid." Amen! Is that elitist? Probably. But the simply being elitist doesn't make something false.

I expect that anyone with an IQ above room temperature knows what I'm talking about.... Walk into any DMV office and the odds are better than even that that guy from high school who flunked shop class and now washes cars for a living could figure out a better way to run the place. Which leads one to wonder: What does that say about the people who are running them?

And you really do see it everywhere. Way too many places you go have at least one moron with a trifling little bit of power and the determination to use it to make your life miserable and thereby increase his own sense of importance. And it's always some guy who deserves even the tiny smidgen of power he has about as much as he deserves a knighthood. I've been talked down to by an attendant at the City Dump, but the Sheriff at the front door to the Courthouse is always polite and courteous to a fault.

The thing is, when you're as easily annoyed as I am, you have to develop strategies for coping with all the stupid stuff you see every day or you'll never leave the house. It's really quite a burden to be pissed off everywhere you go. Believe-it-or-don't, the best strategy I've come up with is to be really laid back about most things. Something happens near me. It annoys me. I notice that it's done so. But then I just say to myself, "Well, there's another one" and go on with my day. I only get really frustrated about the things that truly affect me. Anything that's not personal to me can tend to itself - I can avoid most and ignore the rest.

The long and the short of it is that, because I am so easily annoyed, I'm actually a very relaxed fellow. I have to be, or I'd be stark raving mad.

swm iso his ideal woman for fun, friendship and butt play

by mg at 12:37 AM on July 18, 2001

A couple of years ago one of my girl friends (read: friend who doesn’t have a penis, but that I have never stuck my penis into) kept telling me, after a particularly painful breakup and my subsequent bitching about how I’ll never find someone to love me (still haven’t), convinced me to make a list of the qualities I’m looking for in a girlfriend (read: girl I’d hopefully get to stick my penis into).

It actually wasn’t as easy as all that, and it took her mentioning the list over the course of several conversations until she finally wore me down enough so that I would actually sit down and write this list. I thought it was kind of a girly thing to do, but eventually caved, since I didn’t have an actual girlfriend to occupy my time.

So, I sat down and wrote a list. Then I put it somewhere and forgot all about it.

And then, a day or so ago, this guy on my favorite TV show, Blind Date, was telling his blind date about the list that he had made. He carried the list around with him, which is just about the most scary and twisted thing I’ve heard in a long while. Of course, she forced him to pull it out and read it to her. His list of things he was looking for in a woman consisted of, and this is kinda paraphrasing things: Long, dark hair, tall, athletic. He mentioned nothing about personality, which really disturbed me, considering I’m such a sensitive new-age man.

Well, the funny thing is, just today, I found my list. Seeing as I’m all about looking deeply into random coincidences, I felt compelled to post my list. In no particular order or grammatical structure, here is my list of desired (if not required) qualities in an ideal mate:

She must be self-confident. She must be able to make me laugh. She must laugh at my jokes (but not all of them because sometimes I can be pretty lame). She must be someone I wouldn’t mind losing at Jeopardy too. I don’t care what her religion is, but she must be morally uncompromising. She must challenge me to better person and expose me to new experiences. She must be open to new experiences herself. I don’t care about her politics, but she must be able to fight about them. She must be able to lose herself in a song (or an idea). She must be someone who is good at being alone. She must be someone good at being together. She must be someone who can help make me a better/stronger person and she must be someone who I can help to make a better/stronger person. She must know when I am bullshitting myself (or her) and doesn’t let me get away with it (except for sometimes when she does).

There they are. And not a single physical characteristic in the bunch. Hard to believe, but I’m less shallow than your average person on Blind Date. Amazing, I know!

If you fit those requirements, please send a naked picture of yourself to this address.

Word of the day: exegesis. It has nothing to do with this post.

by snaggle at 10:11 PM on July 17, 2001

Hi there. Remember me? How are you? I’m doing okay. My life’s been pretty uneventful lately. That’s actually a lie. My life has been more eventful than at other points in my life, but it’s almost acquired its own routine. Even Summer of Sin can’t have amusing things all the time. I’ve been adding a substance here and there to my list (I think I’m up to *eek* eight now) and drinking a good amount. Ever since my birthday I’ve been steadily increasing the number of drinking establishments of which I’ve seen the insides. The one I’ve frequented the most has been Thumbs, to which mg alluded when referring to Thumbs East. The first time I stepped foot in there, I was taken aback. I really had had no idea of what to expect, and I wasn’t really familiar with the whole concept of a dive bar. However, four or five visits later, it’s starting to get that homey feel to it.

I haven’t written in a long while. Why is that, you ask? I really don’t know, actually. I haven’t been incredibly busy lately. I think it’s just been one of those times where I just happened to not write for almost a month. Oh well. I’m, um, back now. Hopefully. I have an overdue review of Final Fantasy to share with you all (assuming of course that you really want to read it.) I suppose I could also tell you about the party we had at my place on Friday night where, at long last, Snaggle got a little piece!

And on that note, I’m going to leave you hanging. I’m tired and cranky and I think it’s time to call it an early night. Take care... try not to get into trouble.

no one fights without a reason, part two

by mg at 03:11 PM on July 16, 2001

So, after a year, I think I’ve found my local bar.

To describe the place is kind of tough. Well, so far I’ve been calling it (and this will only make sense for about five of you) Thumbs East. To explain, my favorite bar back at university was this total dive called Thumbs. It was just a block from my house, and away from the part of town where all the traditional college bars were. So Thumbs wasn’t just a place for drunken frat boys to pick up even drunker sorority girls. Thumbs was totally relaxed, the music was never too loud, the drinks were cheap, and there was a good mix of college students and townies. My new favorite bar, Legends is the New York City equivalent to Thumbs. Close, cheap, and casual.

Close; Legends is a block from my house. Cheap; Well, this is New York, so that might be too much to ask, but at least I’m not paying Manhattan prices for drinks. Casual; Probably the best aspect Legends is that it is a total working class bar. I don’t think that in my entire life I’ve ever been around so many off-duty police officers.

Since finding it a week ago, I’ve been back three times. Maybe it isn’t good to go out drinking three nights in one week, but I don’t care. Call me an alcoholic, if you want. I also went out drinking two other nights last week. Maybe I am an alcoholic.

Anyway, the first time I went in there, it was mid afternoon on a Monday and the place was kind of empty. Legends is a total working class, blue-collar bar. When I went in, there were maybe 10 people in there. It looked like a convention of off-duty police officers. I don’t think any of them actually were off duty police officers, but imagine the old school detectives from NYPD Blue, and you’ve got the clientele from Legends down pat. I kept thinking I’d turn around and see Dennis Franz’s ass at any second.

The people in there were very friendly. It was obvious that everyone in there knew each other, but they took the time out to welcome Amanda and I to the bar. If my name was Norm, and they knew that my name was Norm, I’m sure that they would have yelled out “Norm” when I walked in. And if the bartender had asked me what’d I say to nice cold beer, and I had responded with “What’s a nice beer like you doing in a face like this?” the entire studio audience would have erupted in laughter.

So, Amanda and I sat, had a couple beers, and soaked up the local color. We occasionally engaged the regulars in conversation, mostly about Lizzie Grubmann, and we laughed at some of their lame jokes and made a few of our own. It was all very nice and cozy.

One of the things I hate about New York bars is how damn loud they turn the music up. If you get to a bar at say, 7 or 8, when no one else is around, any bar in the city will be great. Quiet, cheap, cozy. But as more people show up, and conversations start getting louder, so does the music. By around 11:30, it becomes impossible to hear a single thing anyone else is saying, which might be a good thing, considering how painfully vapid most people you meet in New York bars are. It’s as if the person running the music actually believes people go to bars to hear songs by Vertical Horizon and Christina Aguilerra, rather than to get stinking drunk and talk to people.

The music at Legends has never been too loud, and comes out of a jukebox. And whoever was putting their coins in the machine the first time I went in there sure had some weird taste. The first four songs that played were Ring of Fire by Johnny Cash, Bugaboo by Destiny’s Child, Hell’s Bells by AC/DC, and Dumb by Nirvana (from the unplugged disc). If that wasn’t enough to instantly seal my love for the place, it gets better.

Later in the afternoon one of the guys got up to leave, he said goodbye to everyone, and went outside to ride his bike home. He came back in seconds later, to tell the crowd that someone had stolen his bike. He went back outside to ask some of the neighborhood folks who hang outside the bodega at the corner and, in a true sign that you are in a good bar, the bartender, and a couple of the other guys who were chilling with their brews, went outside with him to provide back up if he needed it.

My neighborhood, while not the best, can be unsafe at times. It is New York, after all. But, when it comes down to it, while there might be crime, it really is pretty safe. The idea that the bartender, a big burly Irish guy, and a couple of the other bar regulars would be willing to go outside and get in a fight over a stolen bicycle is really cool. I want to go to a bar where I know if I got into a fight someone will have my back.

Not that I’ve ever gotten into a bar-fight before, or have that as one of the items on my life long goal list, but if I were to get into a fight, I’d like to know there was a big burly Irish guy who’d step up to help me out, especially considering what a big pussy I really am.

Oi! If you haven’t noticed, I’ve got this problem where I use entirely too many words to relate stories than is necessary in most cases. I really have only meant to spend one damn post on this bar, and I’ve already done three! I hope you don’t mind, but as this post is already creeping towards around 1000 words, I’ll save the recounting of the fight that actually did happen for another day.

how to: paula poundstone guide to childcare

by lizard at 03:07 PM on July 15, 2001

Some of you, hearing the recent news story about Paula Poundstone's arrest on child molestation charges, were horrified & outraged. Others (& you know who you are) were asking yourselves, "how do i get me some o' that hot preteen action, without bein' a famous comedian an' all?" Here are some helpful tips to assist you in your quest:

Try hanging out in the park with a bag of candy, or that other classic kid-magnet, a picture of your cute puppy. You can offer youngsters some candy, ask them to come help look for your puppy, or what the heck, offer the candy as a reward for help with the puppy! It's even more stimulating if you dress for the part: cut off a pair of pants & tie the pantlegs to your thighs, top this off with a trenchcoat & you've got *the look*, plus easy access if you find it necessary to whip out Mr. Winky.

Internet chat rooms are another fantastic resouce for those of you yearning to diddle children. Young people who seek out cyber-companionship are often socially awkward & lonely, vulnerable to the kindness of strangers. You can gradually win their trust as you wait for your opening; perhaps your young friend becomes unhappy at home - there you are, offering escape in the form of a bus ticket, or a cheap motel room if your little buddy is too young to travel alone.

But as we know, many children harbor a deep fear of strangers, so consider trying your luck with kids you know. It helps if you hail from the south, but even if you don't, you can always look to the family -- nieces, nephews, cousins & others already know you, so you don't have to go to all the trouble of tricking them or befriending them. Offer to babysit, give the kids a bath, tuck them in with a nice bedtime story & a little rubdown, & you'll have the satisfaction of knowing you gave mom & dad a break, as a bonus to any other personal satisfaction you derive from such efforts.

If you're willing to make more of a lifestyle commitment, nothing beats volunteer work - as a scoutmaster or camp counselor, you have the opportunity to be alone with your young charges, out in the woods where a sense of adventure lowers inhibitions. For those of you yearning for little boys, the circle jerk is legendary for getting everyone loosened up & making sure they have a little something to be ashamed of - shame is your best defense against kids running home to tell mommy or daddy.

What if that's not enough? What if you need more sweet young stuff than can possibly be had through a mere hobby or even an avocation? Those truly committed to their need for jailbait have often found their calling in a career as a teacher or clergyperson, especially the priesthood. These positions offer maximum control over young minds (& bodies), & assure you a position of trust. Trust is the key, & it will allow you to reach out & inappropriately touch the young flesh you so desperately need.

[disclaimer: this column is presented as a public service by the good folks at bad samaritan, who remind you to lock up your daughters--& your sons, for that matter, or, if you can't do that, for god's sake at least educate them in the ways of predators, so they won't become prey]

No title today.

by zia at 06:17 AM on July 14, 2001

24 hours a day is painfully lacking to accomodate my daily grinds. I'll spare you the same old shit everyone has gone through in University but this same old shit is robbing my revered indulgences in writing, posting and attempts to do both of these. Why? So that on one fine day, I will be captured on film with a scroll tucked under my arm, grinning widely with a what looks like a pizza box for a hat in a robe generous enough to accomodate a baby elephant? How glamorous.

Michael is posting like mad while we slack like crazy. Amazing stamina he has! If I could generate half as much yak as he does...jealous jealous..

Been hibernating long enough during the wintry weeks. There should be an abundant supply of chilly students around the varsity which means stiff nipples should be good and plenty. Yay! Have I ever tell you guys that my favourite winter past time is nipple spotting? Haha.

I have always thought young kids to be adorable little piece of meat, especially those physically challenged ones. Until today. An isolated case hopefully. A family friend called in for a favour. I couldn't escape fast enough. Anyone agreeing to babysit for her double terrors needs a very long theraphy session. Looks can be so deceiving. But knowing how occupied ( harassed! ) she can be with the two spunky sugar high brats, it would be rude and inconsiderate to turn her down since I can spare the time. And two steps from utter hell.

True enough. They discoloured my hands upon my arrival with marker pens. Marker inks are freakin hard to get rid of! Their mom was too busy preparing their lunch in the kitchen to come to my aid. And they thought it was hilarious to have a girl many times their age, height, weight to be running around animatedly desperately trying to duck the ink attack. ( I was running for my dear life! and vanity! ). It was until I couldn't even recognize my legs anymore I gave a roar so loud that startled the mother as well who quickly came out to check what happened. I was too mad to explain but to point persistently at the 'work of art' they have managed to deposit on my limbs. They were intimidated. For half a second. The mother spank both their asses what seemed to me more like a caress. Wtf? I was very tempted to take over and show them what any ruffian who messes with me gets. A real squeal inducing spank. But alas, the mom scuttled back to the kitchen and I was again left to fend for myself. To provoke them without adult supervision is less advisable for those who wants to preserve their existence...

After a very tiring struggle armed with only a giant colouring book, I jumped with joy when they finally ditched their pens and began to wail for food. Lunch was only 10 minutes away and they are already biting each other. I dare not go near them but to watch from a safe distance. Relishing every minute when either one of them yelp in pain when the other sank their square teeth into the flesh. Once in a while they will stop and look at me. I swear I saw evil glints in their eyes! God certainly have mercy on me for I doesn't appeal much to those savages. Halleluyah! Lunch was no better though. To feed the little girl with the little mouth with a little spoon provides little comfort my little frayed nerves. Seemed to take forever for her to masticate the sorry few grains of rice.....and the boy keeps on putting his hands into the soup bowl...

Afternoon nap was supposed to follow after lunch but the kids showed no signs of lassitude. Tearing through the house at break neck speed. Many a time I was swiped off my feet and landed right on my bum. Just couldn't dodge those chugging bullets fast enough. By 4pm, the mom was finally done with the house chores just in time to sabotage my attempt to plant my hands on their little head, give it a nice firm twist and relieve their necks of their fancy heads. I would kill to do that.

I felt a tinge of remorse so much as to think of causing grievous hurt to her children when she gave me some most wonderful home made buns. But the effect wasn't enduring even when the kids gave me tight hugs and showered my face with kisses ( read: saliva ) as I leave with my hands raised in gratitude.

I have a sickening feeling that I will have to face them again not too far into the future. Other than excuses like PMS, homework, Xena on TV, car that mysteriously disappeared, any convincing suggestion of any excuses that would get me off the hook? Yes, this is a call for help!

sex machines

by mg at 01:00 PM on July 13, 2001

The same doctors that believed leeches cured, well, just about everything, and that insanity was caused by demon possession believed that masturbation was a disease that could cause madness, consumption, blindness and death. Up until the 1900s, those caught masturbating were regularly incarcerated against their will in insane asylums. I know this doesn’t really need to be said, but I’m glad I wasn’t born a hundred years earlier.

So, when masturbation is considered a symptom and cause of insanity, it isn’t any wonder that in 1903 Albert Todd received protection from the U.S. Patent Office on a device that applied electricity to the task of deterring masturbation.

The device, a penis-and-testicle cage, was made from a wire-coil so as to “resist any reasonable effort on the part of the wearer in an attempt to break or cut“ his way out. The wire cage was designed to physically “limit longitudinal extension” of the organ within. Take a look (front view and side view), or just imagine wearing a slinky tight around your penis. Which doesn’t sound so bad, except if you happen to have a sudden change in blood pressure in your nether regions and your tinker toy expands against the slinky, which doesn’t slink at all to accommodate your member’s added mass.

Todd’s device also featured a galvanized belt composed of zinc and copper plates that generated a current of electricity when wetted with acids. The current could be generated either by “secretions of the body coming into contact with the belt,” or “by dipping the belt into a suitable acid solution for a few minutes” before cinching it around the masturbator.

Luckily, Todd was not insensitive to the potential effect of electricity applied directly to the genitals, and he noted that the cage and its wire testicle pouch “may be insulated, if desired, in order to protect the patient from the results of too powerful a current of electricity generated by the electric belt.” Todd wanted to apply electricity to your franks and beans, just not too much electricity. How nice of him.

no one fights without a reason, part one

by mg at 10:57 AM on July 13, 2001

Remember how, earlier this week, I said I’d tell you all about my favorite new local bar? Well, it’s about damn time I actually did, don’t you think?

I’ve lived back in New York City for a little more than a year, after six years in a small midwestern college town. Before I went to university, I had lived in New York City, and in the same neighborhood I live now, for all of my 18 years. I know what’s going on in the city, but except for the last year, I’ve not spent a lot of time in the city as someone of legal drinking age.

There are a lot of bars in New York City; that is pretty freaking obvious. But living in a college town, you get a whole different quality of bar. The bars I frequented back in school were small, dingy places, where the music was never turned up too loud, and you’d see the same people from one night to the next. I liked that. Alcohol should foster a sense of community, but in New York City, there are just so damn many people and so damn many bars that you are not likely to see the same person if you go back to the same bar every night for a month.

As mentioned yesterday, being unemployed and in a crappy work environment when I was employed, meant I didn’t have a lot of happy human contact. Additionally, when I moved back to New York just a little more than a year ago, I was expecting it to be just like Friends. Me and my mates even had this coffee shop all picked out to be our Central Perk. But, for some reason it just didn’t work out. New York is a great city for going out, but really awful for doing regular hanging out, especially if all your friends work and live in different parts of the city.

I mean if I lived across the hall from my best friends, I’d just be gloriously happy all the time. Bored? All I’d have to do is open my front door and cross the hall and there would be Monica and Rachel. But, unfortunately, the people in my apartment building are a bunch of old pants-loads, and my friends are scattered around in Queens, Brooklyn, and Manhattan. It’s always such a hassle to get together that I don’t see them nearly as much as I’d like.

Add to that the fact that we do all of our drinking in Manhattan, and me living in Queens, makes for some pretty drunken, lonesome, late-night trips home. I can’t tell how often I’ve left a bar before I was ready, just because hanging out any longer meant it’d take me 3 hours to get home, since trains run so infrequently during late nights. And let’s not even talk about the times I’ve fallen asleep, (okay, passed-out) on the train and woken up find myself having completely slept through my stop, ending up, finally, at the train terminal, with only the other sleeping drunks to convince me I wasn’t in an episode of The Twilight Zone.

All this leads up to the fact that I (a) need to find a local bar, so I can drink and stumble home, relying only on my feet and not the Metropolitan Transit Authority, and (b) that bar needs to be filled with friendly people, who’ll talk to strangers, since most of my friends won’t make the trek out to Queens to hang with me.

It also needs to be cheap. On average, a pint of beer in the city costs as much as a pitcher of the same back in college. Sure, I’m making a lot more money now (or at least I was making more money when I actually was making money) and can afford it; it’s just the principle of the thing.

So, after a year, I think I’ve found my bar.

sucks is just another word for blows

by mg at 12:28 PM on July 12, 2001

You know what sucks?

Lots of things, really, but in particular it sucks that I haven’t been giving the appropriate amount of attention to the site recently. After posting an average 3 times a day for a month (and these aren’t your typical blogs posts about boring crap that most people write about, but long, substantial posts, that affect and change the lives of all those who read them) I’ve posted less than once a day for the past two weeks.

How much does that suck?

So, if I know it sucks and you know it sucks, why haven’t I changed my sucky ways?

Well, it’s because my ex-girlfriend is here, as previously discussed, and to tell you the truth, as much as I love this site and all you wonderful people who read it and email and chat with me, I’d pretty much sell you out to the Nazis in exchange for some prolonged human contact.

I’ve spent 3 of the last 6 months unemployed. The three months I was employed this year, I was first on a sinking ship, where every day was torturous because you never knew if it’d be your last or whether someone would be stabbing you in the back to make sure that it wasn’t their last day. It was a great place when I first got there, but not exactly friendly towards the end.

Then there was another two months I spent at my new job, which was torturous… just because it was torturous. That place was never friendly. Back in college, I worked for about two years at Target (a K-Mart type superstore, pronounced Tar-jay, to the informed). If that isn’t bad enough, I worked the 10pm to 8am shift unloading trucks. Even that job was preferable to my last.

Rather than spend another day at my last job work, I’d even spend the rest of my life working overnight, getting sweaty and dirty, and not even in the sexual way!

But the point, if I can remember what it was, is that over the last half year I’ve not had any happy, normal, regular human content on a daily basis. Sure, I spend some time with my friends on some nights and weekends, but day in day out, I’ve been alone; which explains why I spend so much time on-line.

But now that I’ve got someone here that I can talk to, have lunch with, go out and have adventures with, I haven’t really had the inclination to sit in front of a computer monitor and be bombarded by radiation; that’s what my cell phone and 1950s microwave is for.

It’s tough to churn out 2000 words a day of bitter, melancholic, and (hopefully) funny prose. It’s even tougher to churn out 200 words of bitter, and melancholic prose if you aren’t feeling particularly bitter or melancholic.

Believe it or not, I’m happy. Something I can genuinely admit to not having been in a long while. And you can either be bitter yourselves about me not being around and writing everyday, or you can be happy for me. I know that is tough for anyone in this community to be happy, or to be happy for other people, but please, try.

Or not. Your hate and scorn is still better than being ignored, I guess.

And I know this sounds a bit like a good-bye, but this isn’t a farewell. I do love this site. I do love writing every day. I do love AIMing people. I love getting emails (even if I’m terribly negligent in replying to them). So, from this point forward, I am pledging to write every day again; to be as bitter as I can muster; and to post more porn then you can shake a stick at (or whatever).

Tomorrow, the Bad Samaritan returns, huzzah!

beers in the 'hood

by mg at 03:14 PM on July 10, 2001

The neighborhood I live in is pretty cool, but so untypical of what you expect New York to be.

For example, my apartment is only about seven stories. Okay, it is exactly seven stories. Anyway, it’s not that tall, but probably the largest building for blocks in any direction. My apartment building is also one of the few in the ‘hood. Most of the people who live around here dwell in houses, with yards and flowers and stuff like that.

And the apartment buildings that are around are not great big anonymous blocks of brick. Every apartment has a name. My friend Brion lives at the “Terrace View” apartments (they’ve got terraces and a nice view).

The apartment I live in is called the “Windsor.” I’m not actually sure why, but I don’t really care. One of my goals in live was to live in a house with a name. I’ve always wanted to be like Scarlet O’Hara chilling at Tara. All I need is a couple of slaves and a big puffy dress and I’m set.

Also, when you think of New York, you never think of foliage. But there are trees all over the place. Looking out my window, which looks out over all the backyards for the street behind me. What with the trees, and other assorted shrubs and bushes, it looks positively tropical back there. If you ignore all the cars.

There is even a family of squirrels that lives in the tree directly outside my window. And when there isn’t a Mets game at Shea Stadium, or if Anna Kornokova isn’t showing her panties at the U.S. Open, I can even hear birds singing (because I live relatively near the airport and when there are events out in Flushing, they route all the air traffic over my apartment),

There is a nice little shopping district a couple blocks away, full of almost exclusively local shops. There is a McDonalds, but there isn’t a Starbucks around for miles, which is great, except for the times I’m craving Chai Tea.

My ‘hood is also one of the most ethnically diverse neighborhoods in Queens, which is the most ethnically diverse borough in New York, which is the most ethnically diverse city in the world. There is one street that is famous throughout the city for the best Indian food, clothing, and entertainment you could hope for out side of Bombay. Walk a couple blocks, and you get into a really Latin American neighborhood; if you are into barbequed meat (which, I’m not, though I do enjoy the smell) this is the place to be.

There are also all the old time Eastern Europeans, who’ve lived here for 50+ years and will all most likely be dead soon, Asians, and every other possible nationality you can think of. In the maybe two square miles of Jackson Heights, there are representatives from nearly every country in the United Nations, and a couple that aren’t.

This neighborhood is also home to one of the highest concentrations of homosexuals outside of the Village. Growing up, I never knew this, but when I moved back last year, it happened to be the weekend before the big Gay Pride Parade they have here. They painted this big pink strip down the center of main commerce street.

Now, there are some bad things here. Usually, when I tell people where I live, they ask me if I’m Columbian. There is are some shady drug dealer types around, but luckily, this is where they live, not where they sell, so unless you happen to be a rival drug dealer, you should be pretty safe. Also, there are a lot of prostitutes around. Every couple months, there is a big bust. Actually, big busts hanging around all the time, but I meant bust as in a police raid.

I don’t know if that is a good or a bad thing, but I know what is a bad thing, and this is has bothered me about Jackson Heights for as long as I’ve lived here; there is a complete lack of a neighborhood bars.

But finally, yesterday, I found one. And hopefully, tomorrow I’ll talk about it.

there's a hole in my heart that can only be filled by you

by mg at 12:43 PM on July 09, 2001

Remember a couple days ago how I mentioned there was this smell of death around my bedroom? And how it had nothing to do with the complete and utter death of my sexuality?

Well, I finally figured out what it was that died, or rather, what it was that smelled like it had died. Luckily nothing had died, which made me feel much better, since, though I am a guy, I don’t really like finding dead things around my apartment. Bugs and mice and other creepy crawlies really freak me out. Sure, I’ll be able to put on a show and kill a spider if I need to impress a lady friend, but when I’m home alone, I’d really just rather leave my eight-legged friend to go on his way, and me to go on my own way.

So, after poking around the nooks and crannies of my sprawling bachelor pad, I wasn’t able to find anything dead and decomposing, which was very nice. I did happen to notice something else, though, which wasn’t very nice.

I don’t know if I ever mentioned it here, but when I moved into this apartment last June, the ceiling in my bathroom collapsed about the day before I moved in.

A very great way to feel at home and connected to your fellow apartment dwelling community is to go into your bathroom and see your neighbors walking around upstairs. Really. It gets to be kinda tough to pleasure yourself in the shower if you have to look at a strange pair of feet every time you look up. Unless, of course, you are into that sort of thing, you sick bastard.

The folks upstairs had been doing some work on their apartment and a pipe leaked and it caused the ceiling to collapse. About a four foot square of the ceiling (my neighbor’s floor) had fallen and was lying on my bathroom floor. And, because I live in a co-op, which means everyone who lives here owns their apartment, there was this whole rigmarole about how to get it fixed, so the hole was there for almost a month.

Well, it got fixed, and a year passed without problem. Until I woke up one morning last week and smelled something dying. As mentioned, nothing had actually died, but what I smelled turned out to be pools of moldy, fetid water inside my bathroom ceiling and walls, though, I didn’t know that at the time.

I couldn’t figure out where the smell was coming from for a few days. Luckily, after the initial stink-fest, the smell sort of died away, and I forgot about it. That is, I forgot about it until these giant cracks started to appear in my bathroom ceiling. It hasn’t collapsed yet, which is a good thing, because that means I’ve got a couple more days of unselfconscious shower pleasure. But the ceiling will fall in eventually, with my luck recently, I can almost guarantee it’ll hit me in the back of the head and knock me unconscious and the emergency medical technicians will find me with my pants ‘round my ankles.

So, while I know it will fall in, and even if it doesn’t, it still needs to be repaired because it just looks and smells rotten, there’ll probably be a Dude, Where’s My Car? sequel out before it gets fixed. When I contacted the building super to come look at the ceiling, he basically yelled at me for bothering him. He told me, in his broken English, that the proper channel was to call my Aunt and Uncle, who actually own the apartment, so that they can call the building managers, who will then call the tenants in the apartment upstairs who will then have to contact me to figure out when they can actually do the work.

The power mongers who run my building were also the people who, when I was trying to move in here last year, held up the process for more than a month, just because they could. Mind you, I was subletting the apartment from my aunt and uncle, who OWN it, and had lived here for 20+ years. And let’s not even mention that I was making 6 times the monthly rent, have great credit, and fabulous references from my former landlords.

This tenant board that runs the building are so drunk with their embarrassingly limited power that they need to lord it over every poor sap they can. Like me, but I’m not bitter about it, I’m more nostalgic for my time back in the 1950s communist Russia. Damn, those were the days. I miss them terribly; today’s bureaucrats just don’t have the same kind of unimpassioned furor that they did back then. I haven’t even been strip searched in years. *Sniff*

Fight fear with strength. Fight stupid thoughts with bubblegum.

by zia at 05:23 AM on July 07, 2001

Thoughts that have been running amok in zia’s head all day today:

1. How come I never screwed a celebrity before?

2. I will not conked out by midnight x 500 times.

3. My mandarin needs to be rescued.

4. ‘They call me bullshit! They call me bullshit!’ screamed the stupid neurons.

5. Guess who has been doing the air guitar thing for the whole afternoon to Weezer’s ‘Hash Pipe’ ?

6. Fainting goats.

7. Life is too short for bad food.

8. Yes, this is the land of the living dumb.

9. Hell – Place to pay your sins when you die. Hades – Resting place for lost souls. Okay, next stop: Hades.

10. Just a tattoo away being somebody’s dream girl.

11. * groggily * Huh? Trendy issues? Wazzat?

12. Does own words creates one’s attitude?

13. Mild bollocking?

14. No zia, just a giant hypothetical wank.

Dear ( insert your name ), open up your head and share what’s on your mind at this very moment.

when i think about you i touch myself

by mg at 12:55 AM on July 07, 2001

Wowzers, I haven’t posted in two days, what’s the deal with that?

Well, here is the deal; my ex is in town. Why would that effect my posting frequency? Well, if you had the choice between hanging out with someone you were once (and possibly still) madly in love with and sitting in front of a computer, which would you choose?

Right.

Amanda will be here, staying with me for a month, so, after this initial couple days, I’ll get back to posting nine times a day. Don’t worry; I’m not leaving you peeps. And to make it up to you, maybe I can even convince her to walk around nude on the webcam.

Well, now to the difficult task of explaining why my ex-girlfriend, the woman who broke my heart (twice), will be staying with me for the next month and a half. And, the answer is not that I’m a tool. Though, I certainly display some toolish qualities, that isn’t what this is about.

Amanda and I have been speaking pretty frequently for the last couple months. When I went out to San Francisco in May, I went with her. When I went to Iowa last month, it was to attend her brother’s wedding. Obviously, she was also in attendance.

We dated for about four years (living together for three years), and then were in a long distance relationship for a while. And then we broke up. And then back together, in a long distance relationship. Rinse, lather, repeat several times, and that brings us three years into the future, to where we are today.

It’s hard to have any kind of relationship if you don’t ever actually see the person, and at this point, I think, we’ve both got a really romanticized notion of what being with the other person was like. Looking back through years apart, you sort of forget all of those annoying little habits that drove you absolutely crazy.

More, even, than that, a lot has happened in the past three years. The same way I would never marry someone I’d just met the week before, it just doesn’t make sense for us to get back together, after all this time, if we don’t know whom we are really going to be dating. So, what this month together comes down to is a chance to figure things out. By the end of our allotted time together, we should (hopefully) be able to tell that things are going to work out, not, and be able to take the proper steps from there.

Sure, we are, generally speaking, the same people we were back then, but we are also both young enough that three years worth of experiences can have a great affect on the kind of person you are, and what you are looking for in a mate (not to mention a friend).

I know that I’m a much different person than I was three years ago; more confident, secure, verbal, open and caring. Of course, those are all good things, and should really only make me more attractive than I was back then, than openness and security, for example, results in me being able to verbalize the kind of things that I say here on the website, that I probably never would have before. Considering that Amanda found religion while we were apart, me being more the Bad Samaritan in real life may not exactly rub her the right way.

Speaking, of being rubbed, the physical attraction is still there, for sure. Unfortunately (or not, whether we are talking good emotional health, or being able relieve the pressure in my pipes) we’ve made a deal. No sex, for sure. And we aren’t going to be sleeping in the same bed. In fact, we’ve agreed to not even touch each other.

I’ve found that not touching someone else is hard (almost as hard as not touching myself). To me, it just seems so unnatural not to touch people. When I was living in Iowa, I found it so strange that no one ever really touched anyone else. I mean, with my group of friends from high school, everyone was very touchy-feely. Whenever we’d get together there’d always be lots of hugging involved, usually clothed. Guys and gals would walk arm in arm, and rest on each other’s shoulders.

Even between the guys, we’d always somehow touch each other (a hand-shake, or, during the era of the Oakland Athletics’ “Bash Brothers,” a forearm bash). And, if I haven’t seen one of my guy-friends in a while, they might even get a hug too. But I’ll only do that sometimes; I may be friendly, but I’m not gay, after all.

I’m just very used to touching people. It seems like a normal part of daily life, and something I’ve missed being unemployed and not hanging around people that often. That human contact just seems so necessary to mental health. It seems so natural to hug someone when you meet them, or to touch their arm during conversation, or to perform oral on them after you’ve both had too much to drink.

Touching is just such a natural part of daily life.

With Amanda around the house every day, it seems awkward to not to touch her. It is this total conscious effort I have to make, to not hold her hand, or put my arm around her waist, or to kiss her all over. Especially since she’s someone I’ve have had a very intimate relationship with. I mean, we’ve touched every part of each other’s bodies. To now fervently avoid brushing shoulders with her as we’re walking down the street just seems so wrong.

It’s hard, but so far it’s working. Amanda and I were walking around in midtown New York yesterday, and Amanda got the heal of her clogs caught in a crack in the sidewalk and she fell down. I didn’t even put out a hand to help her up. That’s fortitude.

casting call

by mg at 09:53 AM on July 06, 2001

Well, the results are overwhelming. Disregarding the “Banana” votes (and really, I knew when I added that to the poll how stupid it was of me to think my readers wouldn’t all vote that way), about 90% of the people who voted thought it was time to add some new blood to the Bad Samaritan staff.

And, since I’m nothing if not a populist. So, it’s time to add some new authors. To add new authors, I need some new authors. If you are interested in writing for Bad Samaritan, and becoming an Internet Rockstar ©, like me, MG, just send of an email, and I’ll get back at ya. If you already wrote, and I never responded, please send another note, I've been having a dodgy time with my internet service provider recently and I can rely on them about as much as I'm relying on hitting the lottery this week.

Burping head. This is not good....

by zia at 05:41 AM on July 04, 2001

Eee, the tumor in slack heads web wide is more malignant than I imagined. Amazing. The past days for me has been horribly uneventful with infinite space fcuking with my head, thus explains the unwarranted slack. And this one too.

Calling all slackers extraordinaire, punch some lines into your sites! Never mind me but at least for the eschewal from lame brains in the making. People need to read about other people’s crap ( or otherwise ) to render their mother wit operative. For instance, me. I’m a fat sucker for demiurgic expression and words. From others and myself. It just brings me out in a rash. I wish I can quote some but I’m THIS lazy to. Come and screw my neck. It has been a strange ride to get to this point since I joined BS, forcing listener ( and sometimes, yours truly ) to be a voyeur as I wring my emotions out in the public. And I kept falling for the incongruous themes of this site from each contributor. It is like a large emotional minefield where each displays their part of the brain for public consumption, to gnaw at, to relish and maybe sometimes to be spitted out only to be redirected back to where it first came. Yes! The feedback generated only mirrors too well the fact that our recitals indeed touch somewhere of someone or someone of somewhere can somewhat relate to what we see, feel and think. Yay, go us!!

I still have big empty bubbles swirling around in my cosmos. I thought of writing something political that may appeal to certain amongst you, but the furthest I’ve have done for politics so far was to take up Law. So that sort of speaks for itself…

Brain is lying in a coma. I feel like I am falling apart. I don’t get much sleep and when I do, I get it in a chair. Law of physics no longer applies to me. My traffic patterns are as adept as that of a gravity-challenged crab. Great, another reason why guys like Zia so much.

I thought holidays were fun. It was, until I got myself into my current double major courses. Seems like a not so smart decision to seem smart. I am seriously passionate about law, although I couldn’t be arsed to read up all the cases prescribed. Somebody, try make me!

My sister refuses to talk to me. You see, I can hurl books at small moving objects with deadly accuracy but of late, the books seemed to like my sister a lot. They ‘threw’ themselves at her instead of the intended target. What, I have no part in it….really….really!!

Psychology is simply fascinating. I never miss a single lecture. Okay, so my favorite lecturer is an American with an endearing American accent but hey, I’m an ardent student, what can I say? *Coughs*. I digress. Children used to trust me. They really did. But until yesterday, they absolutely refused to surrender their jellybeans to me when I asked. Very politely. Now, what is going on…? Usually force isn’t really necessary you know…I’ve always have this impression that I’m the most pristine looking girl ever to pop out of a sachet of purest cane sugar! * kitty chokes* Alright alright…saccharine then…

Hmm, maybe I don’t look as innocent as I used to anymore, you know, since you know when about you know what. Unless, you think there is something else that I should know....

*blinks* new layout ?! Hooray!!!!

i bet her shit don't stink

by mg at 02:45 AM on July 04, 2001

I think I saw the hottest ass in New York City yesterday. And considering how many hot people there are in New York City, this girl must have been pretty damn hot.

We were both on the downtown F train at about 5pm, though I didn’t notice her until we had both gotten off. The train, that is. Gotten off the train.

I didn’t spot her until 14th street, on the platform. She, like me, was transferring from the F to the one of the trains on the red line (1/9, 2, 3). I noticed her, because when I got off the train and started walking, I saw one of these really confusing signs, that said a U turn sign, and said the 1/9, 2, 3 were at the other end of the platform. Being as stupid as I can sometimes be, it took me a second to realize that I needed to turn around. When I finally figure it out, I was totally disgusted with myself (I imagine I made a face, or at the very least rolled my eyes) and then spun around.

As I was spinning around, I caught sight of the hottest ass in New York City. She, like me, was having difficulty with the sign, and she like me, figured it out and was either disgusted with herself, or the Metropolitan Transit Authority for making her have to change direction. She made a face, rolled her eyes, and spun around.

If that wasn’t enough to make me fall instantly in love with her, she also had a great ass.

She was a tall girl, like 5’10” or so. Short, dirty blonde hair. She was wearing this one-piece, tight gray dress made of stretchy material that was stretching in all the right places. Like I said, she had a fantastic ass, great legs, and one of those faces that isn’t drop-dead gorgeous in the model kind of way, or totally sluty in that totally sluty kind of way, but totally cute in that girl-next-door kind of way.

The transfer between the F, and the red line at 14th street is really a long walk. There are three flights of stairs involved, and about a 100-meter trek. Now, I normally walk pretty fast. If it had been anyone else in front of me, I would have passed them pretty quickly. But an ass like that is a beautiful thing; something that really should be appreciated for as long as possible. Maybe, following an ass like that takes you three or four blocks out of your way, but it is worth it. And really, this was worth it.

Normally, my taste in women is far from average, but for once, I was validated.

In the couple minute walk transferring between lines, probably around 200 people must have passed us coming from the other direction. Since I was much too bust to make a proper statistical analysis, let’s just assume that half of them were men. So, we passed 100 guys. OF those hundred guys, 80% stared at this woman as they were walking toward her. Of that 80%, probably about 20% did the typical guy head-turn as they passed her, to make sure they got a good look, not just from the front side, but from the backside as well.

And what a backside it was. Damn. Normally, I’m not into ass’ that much. But this was such a great ass. I’m telling you, man. And, not only that, she had a great walk. This girl wasn’t Hispanic, but she had that Latina hip shake working. I swear her hips were swaying so much her ass crack was parallel to the floor. I didn’t take a video, but imagine this is her ass: ( | )

Now, this would be the different configurations of her ass as she took a full stride:

( | ) to ( \ ) to ( - ) to ( \ ) to ( | ) to ( / ) to ( - ) to ( / ) to ( | )

Understand? Isn’t that beautiful? Come on now; use your imaginations here people.

Well, I followed her as long as I could, but eventually she got to her apartment in New Jersey and it just would have been weird if I followed her in.

new toys are fun until you break them

by mg at 09:27 AM on July 03, 2001

In case you couldn’t tell, it’s a whole new layout! And, for those of you who checked (and commented) on the one I sneak-peaked a couple weeks ago, the one I’ve actually brought up live is completely different. I can’t say I’m entirely happy with it, but its done, and on time.

What, you ask? This is your personal site, who sets the deadlines? I do, Mr. Nosy Face. I set deadlines for myself. I’ve also got a schedule of what I’m going to write about for about a week in advance. I hardly ever stick to that schedule, but I make schedules nonetheless.

My design schedule includes a completely new layout every third month. The first came in October, then January, March, and now July. I don’t know why I’ve set that timeline for myself, but I have. And, for the most part, it’s worked out well.

A lot of people who run sites like this change their layouts on a near weekly basis. I know if I hadn’t set my “Three Month Rule” I would have redesigned this site at lest 50 times by now, instead of just 4. And, believe me, taking a look back at the older layouts; I really should have spent a little less time holding onto them.

Considering I’ve been doing web stuff for a good eight years now, it’s amazing how bad the initial design for this site was. I’m really very embarrassed by it, but for the sake of full disclosure, I’ll show it here again. Please don’t pelt me with rotten fruit.

Sure, I’ve done just the four major refreshes, but I’ve made a lot of little tweaks in between. Mainly because I’m lazy and sometimes I write messy code that doesn’t work on Netscape (stupid Netscape) or Mac (stupid Mac) and have to fix it. Other times I have to tweak because I did something so ugly that having to look at it day in and day out eventually drives me crazy and I have to make the change.

If the first thing above is true, and something doesn’t it work for 15% of the people who check out this site using Netscape/Mozilla browsers, let me know. If there is something that’ll make you crazy looking at it day in and day out, please let me know, and I’ll probably change it since I don’t want any of you going crazy. No siree, I don’t. Also, if you just want to write and tell me how smart, talented, creative, and hot I am, I’ll also accept those emails.

So, the site’s been around for nine months now. Amazing. If someone had gotten impregnated on the day this site started, way back on October 3, 2000, she is most likely in the hospital right now, with her legs up in stirrups, and a baby’s head poking out of her most private of areas. Amazing.

In those nine months, a lot has changed. But I don’t want to talk about it. I write way too much about this site. It must be getting boring for people, and today, at least, I don’t want to bore people. I have to say, though, that the site is much better than it was back then. And not just the design is better. The writing is much better, too. But most importantly and best of all, my readers are better. Or at the very least, more numerous.

Unfortunately, the one thing that isn’t better, are my stupid ISP’s servers. The site was slow, or just plain broken, for the majority of yesterday (and so far today). I know I say this every couple months, but I need to find a new host. Anyone know of someone (reliable) who can host me?

dreamt is too a word

by mg at 08:56 AM on July 02, 2001

I once heard that no one cares what you dreamt about unless you dreamt about them. I don't know if that is true or not. But if it is than maybe you should leave now 'cause unless your name is Cokie Roberts I haven't been dreaming about you.

Okay?

Still here? Good.

This is really only as much about my dream life as anything on this site is really about -me-. Which is to say, I guess, a lot.

I am not a person to ever remember my dreams. When I was younger I was forced to go to psychotherapy. Every week the shrink would ask, "So, what are you dreaming about?" I’d always say, "I don't dream." He'd say that is impossible because every body dreams. And I’d say, "Well, there you go."

As an aside, he'd also frequently and randomly ask what I was thinking about at any given moment. I'd usually say "nothing" which would bring about a conversation similar to the one recounted above.

Despite the consternation it caused my shrink at the time, it was, on most occasions, the truth. And despite what you might think, my non-thought didn't so much suggest mental retardation as it did to belie and foreshadow my current Buddhist leanings.

On the other occasions, however, it was a lie. I was thinking. I just didn't want to talk about it.

… continued later today