Christmas Time

This Christmas was spent at my Aunt’s house, where her daughter-in-law’s family visited from Brazil. My cousin and his wife recently had a beautiful baby girl named Olivia. Normally, I find newborns repugnant. They all look the same and all they do is defecate whenever and wherever they please. This is usually accompanied by ear splitting screaming. Babies are the only things that we tolerate this from. If I sat on 7th Ave outside a Starbucks screaming and pooping, I’d be carted away.

So my father and I are in the kitchen talking when my cousin’s father, who, unlike his family from Brazil, speaks English fairly well, comes in and starts speaking to my dad.

“My mother wants me to tell you that you have beautiful sons.”

“Haha, oh thanks!”

“She says that they are so beautiful, they can never come to Brazil.”

“…What?”

“If they come to Brazil, the girls, they will be all over them because they are so beautiful. They will never go near Brazilian boys again and your boys will come back married.”

[hearty laughter] “Oh is that so! Well how about that! So what about me? Can I go to Brazil??”

[short silence] “Yes, you can go. You’ll be fine.”

Brazilians are hilarious.

T-Mobile Will Make You Bleed And/Or Steals Babies*

As of this Friday, you are going to be reading the blog of a Verizon Wireless customer. Those of you who wish to chat with me via cellular telephone and who have Verizon can talk with me for hours on end with no fear of a loss of minutes. If you don’t have Verizon, let me tell you why you should.

For about 6 years I’ve had T-Mobile. No real problems with them, other than some random no-service areas, which is something that everyone I’m sure suffers from. Even when I would break my phone, they’d be pretty responsive and help me through the process of extending my contract and getting a new one.

However, for the past month and a half, I’ve been attempting to switch from my current T-Mobile account [a shared one with my mother] to another one that can take full advantage of the corporate discounts I’m eligible for. Thus began the Cell Crisis of 2007.

When I first spoke with them, T-Mobile said that if I wanted to switch over to a new account and enact my benefits, then I’d lose my number. Having had the same number for 6 years, I would sooner saw my toes off and use them as door stops than lose it and have to start my life anew.

After some consideration [a couple of weeks] I decided that there must be a way I can argue my point and retain my number. After getting on the phone with them again, they said sure, I can keep the number no problem! Why would I not be able to keep it?

I should have realized this switch around was the beginning of a fun house mirror maze designed to make me weep with frustration.

So after having settled that, the customer care agents said that I needed to be send over to the account authorization people to start up a new account. I was put on hold. I was then told that I needed the account holder’s position to enable me to switch to a new account. My mother, who gave permission 3 weeks prior, was put on the phone and gave permission again.

Sidenote. There is nothing that makes me feel like less of a full grown man than having to put mommy on the phone so that the grown ups can talk and make sure everything is all right and ready to go.

So after my mother verified with them, they sent me over to the customer care people so I could set up which number on the account would be switched and what not. I was put on hold. After they answered, customer care told me I needed to go back to account authorization for some God awful reason. I was put on hold.

Seasons began to change.

Account authorization said that in order for me to switch over my number, I would need to upgrade my plan, since the contract ran out in July. Which is surprising, because no one told me about that at all. So I was sent to customer care. I was put on hold.

At this point I hope you’re getting the general idea of how my time was spent with them. I keep envisioning some sort of crazy square dancing party [is that redundant?] where “customer care’ and “account authorization” keep throwing me back and forth between the two while they each spin me around and dip me.

Customer care arrived and told me that in order for me to get an upgrade on my plan, they would need to speak with the account holder in order to verify this was okay. Which is when I started to go bat shit bonkers. I said that they had just talked to the account holder [mom] 20 minutes ago to ask for permission to let me move off the account. Why did they need to speak to her again, or at the very least, why did you not ask her for TWO permissions at the same time?

The customer care person said okay, but that if I wanted to keep my number and move to my new account with the corporate benefits, he would need to switch me over to account authorization so they could start a new account for me. I was put on hold.

Its like the “chicken vs. egg” scenario on cocaine, you guys. I couldn’t foresee any type of conclusion, because these people only wanted me to suffer until I died in obscurity. An obscurity caused by a lack of communication with the outside world due to the explosion of my cell phone and head.

Account authorization never came. They never came, you guys. The phone just disconnected. Probably because I had been on it for about an hour and the only thing that was accomplished was that I made about 8 moves on Scrabble, so either it or T-Mobile decided it was break time.

And in that moment, I said ‘FUCK T-Mobile’. I went online, headed to Verizon, called them up, and within 12 minutes, I had picked out a plan, a phone and secured my discount. Angels sang while GOD HIMSELF came down and gave the Verizon guy a high five and said ‘You rock’.

Suck it dry, T-Mobile. Suck it dry.

*Because in the end, isn’t that just as bad as poor cell service?

This Won’t Become Habit

But seriously, you guys, how can you not pee yourself just a little?

This reminds me of the “I found some blood in my stool today” debacle.

I Thought I Was Beyond This Stuff

Back in college when I was an RA, one of the biggest complaints I received on a steady basis was the bathrooms. I never had to suffer this, as I had my own bathroom, so there was never the risk of me walking into some sort of bio-hazard.

It was surprising though, because all the complaints were coming from the women. The men complained a few times, but for the most part, the women were the ones who came forward with some of the most DISGUSTING gripes I’ve ever heard.

“John, there is hair all over the walls in the shower!”
“John, there are tampons all over the floor!”
“John, someone tried to flush their pad and now the bathroom is overflowing!”

Seriously, you guys. Girls are gross.

So after leaving college, I figured I’d be long past handling bathroom issues. Because, you know, adults are smarter and more mature and know how to operated common indoor utilities, such as toilets.

I couldn’t be more wrong if I tried.

The men’s room at my work is nothing more than a cesspit of water logged poo and smells that could choke a donkey.

For the life of me I can’t understand what happens in there. Its like that scene in Dumb and Dumber when Harry forcefully expunges his entire existence into the toilet. Times four. I consider myself lucky if I can find one stall in my bathroom that doesn’t look like a nightmare on crack.

And it isn’t just the not flushing issue. Oh no, internet, it is SO much more. I feel like whenever someone goes into the bathroom they turn into a 5 year old in the ball pit at McDonald’s. There are magazines and newspapers and articles strewn across the floor like a giant birdcage. There are rolls of toilet paper [ROLLS!] sitting in the toilets. THIS I can’t understand. What can possibly be going through your mind when you are sitting on the crapper and decide to top off the trip with over 1000 sheets of two ply right in the center. It makes no sense.

The only thing that I consider to be a bonus when it comes to the bathroom is that in the last stall, there is sometimes articles printed out from websites stapled and tucked safely behind the toilet. I don’t know who prints them out and I don’t know leaves them there, but I know that many a trip has gone by a lot faster with something to distract me from the carnage that is taking place in the next stall.

**And before you ask. I tend to not use the handicap bathroom because it is either a) always taken or b) currently designated as a breast pumping station. Breast pumping, you guys. Breast pumping.

That Really Hurt!

I alone am responsible for about 5,000 of these video views.

Endless Obsession

On the internet, there is this site.

This site is Facebook.

On this site, there is this application.

This application is called “Scrabulous”.

Internet, I could be canonized for the miracle I perform EVERY DAY of not playing this game until my eyes swell shut.

Scrabulous, you guys. Seriously.

It is the exact same thing as Scrabble, only you play online in Facebook with ANYONE WHO WANTS TO PLAY WITH YOU. ANYWHERE. On the entire world wide web. It is that crazy. And I’ll be honest, I’ve begun to measure my day by not how much work I get done, but by how many words I put down and points I score.

At this very moment, I’m playing Scrabble with Nicole, and the game is tight. I have one letter left. She has 3. I’m up by 3 points. What’s gonna happen? WHO’S GONNA WIN?? HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO REFRESH THIS BOARD FOR ME TO PLAY MY TURN???

I feel the same way right now as when everyone found out who killed JR on that show, Dallas. I’ve never seen the show, nor know what the general consensus on JR’s death or the revelation of his killer was, but I can only assume it’s something akin to what I am feeling right now.

[Won the game against Nicole just now, by the way, and we've already started another]

To be honest, I don’t have many talents in life. I’m not notable in sports. I can’t sing. I can’t play an instrument too well. The only thing that comes to mind is that my tongue can morph from being normal sized to ridiculously large with just a thought. And it gets to the point where everyone I know has already been exposed to it, so the glamour in it has kind of faded.

Scrabble, though. Wow. There’s nothing like randomly receiving letters that spell out the word ‘FUCK’ and getting to put them down on a double letter / triple word score tile, scoring you 54 points.

I bet this is what it feels like to be a junkie.

I KNOW!!!

I’m sorry. There is no excuse what so ever.

So I’m setting a schedule and sticking to it. This is what I will write about…

*Karaoke on the lower east side [come to NYC, we can sing!]
*My love/hate relationship with my work bathroom
*The Golden Compass
*Scrabulous on Facebook, my new all encompassing obsession

Until then, I’ll leave you with a complaint. I have decided that I would rather belly flop into a pool of rubbing alcohol and thumbtacks that hear one more “You had me at hello” joke.

Have you noticed this? This phenomenon? How, in many movies, they butcher this one line from Jerry McGuire in such a fashion that it makes you more or less want to turn Amish for the soul reason you won’t every have to hear it again?

You had me at ‘cheeseburger’.
He had me at ‘waffle iron’.
She had me at ‘birth canal’.

I don’t know if these are ones that are actually used, but I do know that if given a few months, we will see one if not all of them in an upcoming movie. Whereupon I go insane and give up on humanity forever.