Ninja Nervous Breakdown

aaAAAAGgGhGHGhGHGHAaAgHGhGhGHgH!

epiphany...

I don't have to do anything. I'm a fucking ninja.

Tranquil waves of joy
Carry happy autumn leaves
Through my blackened heart

Wordless Wednesday: Wacky

Unemployed but still hard at work

You might think being unemployed means you suddenly have all this free time but, strangely, unexpectedly, touching up a portfolio, updating a resume and contacting all yer peeps to spread the word and setup lunches is rather time consuming... especially when your so preoccupied with feline theoretical physics.

I promise more enlightened posts once I cough up this fur ball and get my feet back on the ground.

Back to Work

When making a costume for Saturday's Halloween party, I figured I should make something useful. At the end of the night, I had 2 one dollar bills, a bunch of change (totaling $3.73), 3 suckers, a cigarette and a condom (unused), all crammed into that little almond tin. I never knew it could be so easy.

Well, now I'm off to work.

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

OK, I know it's Sunday but I just have to give a shout out to one of the SMBC archives. You might be surprised how often this kind of thing happens in real ninja life:


That's all I've got for you after a night of drinking at a company Halloween party where everyone in the company was just laid off. My costume kicked ass though. Photos later.

Costco® - the Cheese Dip Fiasco

I hate people at Costco®.

I might have mentioned before how I dislike large groups of people colliding their oversized shopping carts into each other with a lab-grown need to consume an 8lb bag of potato chips. No? Well, here it goes:

At Costco®, you can get just about anything you want. You'll find 50lb tubs of cat litter, racks of Vitamin Water™, bottles of wine, all neatly arranged in towering aisles of selectable back pain.

But to make your trip more interesting, management provides massive shopping carts that narrowly squeeze two by two down the walkways, getting jammed up while some curious grandma stops to look at an 8 pack of sports bras. And the worst part? They don't even put blades on the carts. Nothing sharp at all, in fact. When you slam into another person's cart, you've got to really hit it running and even then you only get a metallic grill beating sound and maybe, if you are serious, a minuscule bounce off the ground, which is unlikely to cause any significant damage.

My least favorite part are those weekend taste-test tables that are scattered all over, blocking pathways and forming large lines of people waiting to get a taste of a cracker. It's a cracker! Oh, and look, there's some stir-fry. You think I'm touching that? Chicken in a warehouse? Um... no.

"Hey, uh, 'scuse me?" The man in front of me fails to respond. He's completely blocking my path, only so he can keep his place in line for the free sample of a 5,000 gallon jug of cheese dip. I'm in no mood for this. I start to shake my cart violently, like a kid in a playground. "AAaaaahhahahahahahahhhhHH!" My voice echoes deep within the cavernous walls of Costco® as I pick up the cart and slam it down on top of the man like a giant cheese grater guillotine, slicing him into bite sized bits and crashing the cart down hard against the unyielding floor. The seismic beating creates an avalanche of cheese dip, pouring from the massive vat at the front of the line. People begin to panic and flee but it's too late, the dip is upon them, making their feet slick and unstable. Countless legs fly into the air as the confused horde runs right into the slippery goop, landing with sludgy abandonment.

I too realize my escape is foiled by the hot orange gushing river. While searching for an alternate path, I see the drooling mass of weekend shoppers descend, diving willingly into the steamy lake, even as it forms. They slip and roll around in it, covering their clothes and licking it off their hands. A woman rips her shirt open, exposing herself to the dip. Others follow suit and soon the flowing melted cheese is an orgy of naked consumerism, writhing in a thick lather of aged and processed cattle spunk.

Leaping onto a nearby column of salsa and bean dip, I make my escape, flying from rack to rack, leaving the growing mass of orgasming food lusters to their fate.

Sleep Deprivation Ninja doesn't do cheese dip.

Ninja as Child - #10 - Beer

"Why is your beer light and his beer is so dark? They are both just beer, right?" I'm presenting this question to my mother and my first step dad (Nam vet dad or NVD). In my five-year-old mind, beer is all the same.

"Try 'em." NVD suggests.

I reach over to my mother's Pale Ale and fail to notice the absurdly uncertain look on her face as I take a sip.

"Ugh! Gah! Blech! Nyeeyeyeyyeyeyeyeah...." I shake my face in horrific disgust. My tongue is starting to lose all feeling but my sense of taste!

"Now try mine." NVD says, nudging his beer closer to me. I'm urgent to get the taste of the first beer out of my mouth so I hastily grab his with the senseless, caution-throwing curiosity that children are known for having.

"UUGGGHHH." I rub my tongue with my hands and shake spastically like a rat that's just been electrocuted. "I'm gonna throw up! Ew. How can you drink that?"

"It's an acquired taste." NVD says triumphant, sitting back and giving my mother a sophisticated glance.

Needless to say, my first time getting drunk wasn't on beer; it was cinnamon schnapps, interspersed with peach schnapps sips to wash it down. Peach pie. The cinnamon burned a little extra and the peach smoothed it out. This is a story for another time.

Anyway, I now have grown a taste for some beer but I still can't take the light hoppy kind. And I have still not found my dream beer:

Imagine a Guinness or some other thick, dark, bread-like stout, brewed with fennel and sarsaparilla, nice and heavy with the black licorice overtones and a subtle flax grain finish to wash it down. Maybe a dash of clove.

Until I find this brew or convince someone to brew it for me, I usually drink a Guinness with a shot of one of the following on the side so I can blend it together as I drink them both:

1. Kahlua
2. Sambuca, Ouzo or Pernod
3. Galliano

Yeah, call me whatever heathen name you can think for me. I'm just all messed up from that beer experience as a child.

Good News / Bad News

Well baby girl, times are getting tough.

Investors are putting the hold order on my company. Some of them got beaten bloody by the market turn but others have saved cash up for this occasion and they are ready to buy in--but they need to see us run on nothing for a while first. They want to bleed us dry, so they can get maximum value. They want us to become so parched that we will be willing to give up all our worldly possessions just for a sip of what they have to offer.

Regardless of the intended outcome, I am as of now officially laid off (along with the entire staff).

I may not be able to get you that trip into earth's orbit this year. What does it run now, aoubt $250K? Hmmm.... let me check my account balance... nope... I might be able to buy you a book on space... Being hoisted into the air with the sounds of mock explosions and thrusters thrusting will have to be enough for now.

But on the bright side, I get to stay home while I collect unemployment look for work cross my fingers wait for financing to come through.

If everything works out, maybe I'll even get a bonus. If it doesn't work out, I'll get to spend more time with you. This sounds like a win/win.

Either way, baby girl, someday, we will dance in Zero G.

... or at least we can go swimming and pretend we are in space...

Wordless Wednesday

This Just in: Advertisements Lie

I'm not one to frequent MySpace, but I'm working on a MySpace app for my work and, in testing it, I happened to glance over in the corner of the page and notice this:

Wait, that looks like Jared™! <- sellout. Wait... quick google images search. That is Jared™! <- lying sellout

I'm also not one to go to Subway® very often but there is one right by my office and I walk by it nearly everyday. From the street, a passerby is confronted by a massive photo of skinny Jared™ <- bitch-ass sellout. I've noticed his smile has gone soft over the years. He looks sad now or maybe annoyed. He wears a "take the damn picture" face.

And, now I find out that this guy totally lied. The truth has been hiding in an internet ad. He didn't lose all that weight eating sandwiches; he was drinking juice! Sweet, gut cleaning, pee inducing juice.

Now it all makes sense.

Haiku

I long for sunshine;

In the darkness, autumn falls.

Time to hibernate.

The mighty bear yawns.
Ninja stays awake;
Sleep is for the weak.

100 Word Challenge: Adjustment

"I think what we need here is an adjustment."

"What kind of mint is a Just Mint?"

"No, no, um... it's not a Just Mint; it's an Ad-justment."

"Oh. What kind of mint is an Adjust Mint? Does it have orange in the middle?"

"Uh, no, there's no orange at all..."

"Is it like an Advertise Mint. I don't like them. I don't like Govern Mints or Punish Mints either."

"Well, I guess it's kinda like all those things in that none of them are actually mints, but..."

"Ok. No adjustment then."

"It sounds like we're having a disagreement."

"You can have a Disagree Mint. I don't want any."