Not In Service – Then Why the Hell Are You Here?

Standing underneath the foggy glass canopy at the wet bus stop yesterday morning waiting for the Q46 bus to Kew Gardens, rain falling in constant sheets, I realized something: Buses are a pain in the ass.
Usually in New York, from my experience, buses are punctual and efficient. However, yesterday morning, while standing at a bus stop clearly marked as a Q46 stop, it seemed that every bus that stopped was of the QM1 or the QM1a variety, or drove right on by and had “NOT IN SERVICE” flashing across their message boards. “Not in service”? Then why the hell are you driving a clearly marked bus route? Why can I see you when I’m looking impatiently down Union Turnpike back towards St. John’s, anxiously pulling out my Metro Card and praying to God that I have at least two dollars left on it because I don’t have money for a new one, only for your stupid “NOT IN SERVICE” message to crush my dreams and piss me the hell off? At two freakin’ dollars a pop for a ride – coupled with the sheer number of Metro Cards that are bought in any given day (hell, in any given hour) – can’t the MTA afford some sort of portable cloaking devices? You know – so I don’t see these freakin’ “Not in service” buses that flaunt their status as buses with their loud exhaust systems and squeaky-ass brakes, but don’t facilitate their purposes by actually stopping and picking me up? That’s like going to Coldstone for some ice cream, when the place is packed with employees and the ice cream tubs are full of creamy deliciousness, and opening your mouth to order, and one of the guys behind the counter tells you that he’s off-duty. What the hell? Off-duty? Then why are you wearing the Coldstone official uniform and standing in the on-duty employee-only area? That’s pretty damn misleading – not to mention annoying – and I, for one, would be pissed if that were to happen to me (especially because I like Coldstone).

So next time you see a bus with “NOT IN SERVICE” flashing across the top, throw a bottle of Poland Spring at it. Because, as we all know, that shit ain’t good for anything else.

Stay classy.

Rap Music - Non-existent?

Ok, now before I get all the "you better not be talkin' shit about rap" readers (haha like anybody reads this), let me just say I LIKE rap, and that's the reason why I'm bringing its current state into the light.

In my humble opinion, the musical art form known as "rap" all but died with Biggie Smalls and Tupac Shakur. Eminem, Dr. Dre, Fifty Cent and a few others tried valiantly to keep it going in the years following the two rap icons' untimely deaths, and I'll even go so far as to say for the most part they succeeded. However, in light of recent "rap" (coughSouljaboycough), I'm gonna have to put my foot down and call "EPIC FAILURE." I'm about 99% sure that if either Biggie or Tupac were alive to hear this bullshit that is being called "rap," they'd kick the shit out of the perpetrators, and I'm sorry to say (read: damn glad to say) that Soulja Boy would be at the top of the list. His "hit" song, as well as many other songs by many other artists, DON'T MAKE ANY FRIGGIN' SENSE. Whatever happened to that? You know, sense? Biggie used to rap about being in the club with his crew, or about how he used to have to hustle to survive, and the English language was strangled by his grasp of vocabulary - the man would rhyme things that I thought would be impossible, on a constant basis. And most of all, IT MADE SENSE.
Tupac had a way with words as well, but it wasn't in the technical sense - more in the content-sense. As was stated by a co-host on the "Greatest MC" countdown, "Tupac could convince you that the sky was orange. People would tell you 'yo the sky is blue' and you'd be like 'nah bro, it's orange. Tupac said so.'" Tupac rhymed about life on the streets, being a real gangsta shooting at the cops and all that shit. And again, IT MADE SENSE.
"Watch me YOOOOUUUUUUUUU!" What the hell does that mean? You can't turn "you" into a verb. That's ridiculous.
Oh, and I don't just put the blame on Soulja Boy, because he's just riding the wave of stupid-ass songs that have been wrongly-classified as "rap." "Shoulder Lean" and "White T" are both just as dumb. I mean, I can just picture how the songs were thought up: Guy gets pushed in the club by accident, his shoulder dips a bit and he's like "holy shit my shoulder just leaned . . . SHOOOULDA LEEAAAAN, SHOOULDA LEEAAAN." Seriously now?

I just think that whenever any of these so-called "rap songs" come on, Tupac and Biggie roll over in their graves.

Biggie with a little difficulty.

Stay classy.

Bottled Water - WTF?

Bottled water is something that's puzzled me for quite some time. According to my ol' man, bottled water came into existence because there were a few wiseasses in New York City who thought that their water tasted better than the water in about 99% of the rest of the country. So, being the wiseasses they were, they thought, "hey, why don't we bottle our water - the extravagance and tastiness of which is so much freakin' better than everyone else's - and, I dunno, sell it to everyone else?" And so they did.

Now, my ol' man likes messing with my head about dumb stuff like this, so there is a chance that that story is complete bullshit. Regardless, however, the fact remains that bottled water is quite possibly the stupidest product that has ever been - or ever will be - on the market (and yes, I am including this in that statement). But why is bottled water so dumb?

Why, you ask? It's quite simple, actually - so simple that I can even use your question in the answer: Why the hell would I leave my house, drive my car to a store (especially with gas prices these days), deal with parking, go inside, and wait on a long line to shell out a dollar fifty (and that's minimum) for a bottle of something that I COULD GET FROM THE FAUCET IN MY HOUSE FOR FREE!? In the words of a wise man (I'll let you guess who), "that makes about as much sense as wiping your ass before you take a shit." Also known as, NO SENSE AT ALL.

What's next? Are we going to go to the gas station and drop five bucks in quarters so we can get some air to breathe from the tire pump? That's ridiculous, right?

So is bottled water.

Stay classy.

Captain Obvious - Evil Master of the Self-Evidently Unequivocal?

NOTE: I'd just like to point out that this post is NOT about the Blue Line Comics character called "Captain Obvious," but about the idea of being an ass by calling someone "Captain Obvious," the conditions for doing so being listed below. End of commercial!

Have you ever stopped and tried to count how many times the infamous superhero known as Captain Obvious makes an appearance in your day-to-day life? If you know the nature of this beast, then skip the following paragraph.

For those still in the dark when it comes to this ubiquitous entity, allow me to shed some light on the whole thing: whenever someone says something that's so utterly obvious that it's slightly painful - yet says it as though they just had an epiphany to rival the one the people had at the sight of Jesus turning water to wine at that wedding - that's when you clear your throat, turn to face them with a genuine smile on your face and say, "Why, thank you, Captain Obvious." (I'm in Theology right now, if it wasn't obvious. And yes, I fully realize the irony of that statement. Anyway.)

Now that the recap is over, allow me to continue. Captain Obvious is a menace. Let's just get that out of the way. In any given day, between real-life and Internet conversations, the so-called "Captain" rears his ugly head numerous times. How many, exactly? Too many.

Why exactly is Captain Obvious such an evil force? Why do his nefarious actions directly counter his heroic title? Such astute questions, and the answers, in keeping with the irony inherent in this discussion, are quite . . . obvious.

As the notion of Captain Obvious spread - by word of mouth and through the almost viral mass-communcation abilities of any individual connected to the Internet - people began becoming more and more self-conscious of what they said and, perhaps more importantly, when and how they said it. How many times have you bit back saying something that you knew was important to the situation at hand - regardless of the situation itself - simply because you weren't sure if this important tidbit was already common knowledge amongst those involved? I know that that's happened to me more than once, and I'm not important - imagine if that were to happen to someone who was actually influential in the world? I mean, President Bush must have this happen on a daily basis, because I know he's a student of many of the ancient philosophers, so he's not a complete idiot, yet he sure seems to be about as sharp as a marble.

What I'm trying to say is, Captain Obvious might have had noble roots. Maybe some bored kid (who was somewhat of an asshole) had been having a bad day, and some well-to-do old guy on the street said to him something along the lines of, "wow, you look like you've been having a pretty bad day," to which he involuntarily replied, "thanks, Captain Obvious." The fact remains, however, that in his application, Captain Obvious has changed sides. Like an across-time-and-space version of the classic game of "telephone", what started out as a simple, innocent comment has morphed completely into an evil menace that strikes fear into the hearts of those unsure of the information possessed by their peers, lest Captain Obvious make an appearance at their next utterance.

Captain Obvious went from hero to villain. That's not supposed to happen. He shall be known from now until eternity's end as Evil Master of the Self-Evidently Unequivocal. And now that he has become a villain, I'm going to have to get Batman to kick his ass, because I don't trust Superman. In fact, after class I was thinking of going down to Walgreens and buying some Kryptonite, because for a mineral that only existed on a planet that, ironically, no longer exists, Superman's enemies sure seem to have no trouble procuring large amounts of it.

But that's another observation, that I'll maybe talk about next time, but in the meantime, I hope you think twice about invoking the name of the hero-formerly-known-as "Captain Obvious."

. . . because I have Batman on speed dial.

Stay classy.

A Little Poetic . . .

Here's a little self-reflection. There's an observation in there somewhere. I swear.


"I Don't Know"

When time and space converge, upon the verge of irrelevance
That’s where I am, standing torn, between ill will and benevolence
I try and try as the seconds go by to strike a balance
Hanging over the edge of reason like a brown-skinned valance
With mind and soul, using eyes unseen
To view an unclear world through glasses that are scratched and unclean
Standing on the precipice of an upward plunge to heaven above
Loving life but knowing nothing of living in love
Why does it seem that the faithless can always rely on the facts,
When the fact is, they don’t fear failure, but failure to act?
I don’t fear either, but I do fear or a lot
As in, do I know why I’m here, or not?
God knows I’m trying to discover the reason
That I wake up every morning – that I’m still breathing
I don’t know.

First and a Half Observation

Okay, so that was Maria. She's freakin' awesome (that's another observation, you get that one for free).

But the actual observation here is kind of depressing.

I'm sorry guys, but we're idiots. That's one thing that at least 99.99999% of dudes have in common, and I'm including myself in that one.

See, when (not if) we mess up and our lady friends get that "why'd you say/do that" teary-eye look that tells us we've messed up pretty fucking royally, we don't get it. Not immediately anyway. So right off the bat we're 0 for 2; not only have we fucked up, but we haven't realized it. Actually, 0 for 3, because in addition to those, we haven't started trying to fix whatever we did.

I said that we don't get it, at least not immediately. But we get it eventually. There will be a time where it'll hit you, and when it does, it won't matter what you're doing. You can be brushing your teeth, mowing the lawn, playing Halo, hell - you can be curing cancer. But when that realization hits you, you'll freak the hell out. You'll try and do and say anything in your power to get back what you've lost. And in doing so, 9 out of 10 times you're going to fuck it up even worse.

So what can you do? The only thing you can do is wait.
Yup.
Wait.
It's probably the hardest thing to do in that situation, but it's the smartest thing to do, and the only thing to do if you want there to be a chance in hell for you to get back on any sort of good terms with your lady friend that you hitherto unknowingly hurt intensely. The ladies know things, man. They know themselves better than we know them (an obvious statement that seems to puzzle most when they're in this situation). They know when they'll be ready to say something to you about it. So shut the hell up and wait.

If this sounds a lot like "don't be a 'man' and let the chick handle it" to you, then congratulations, you're getting the gist. If you really want this chick around, you'll be willing to lose a few man points - and maybe gain them back later. ;-)

That's it. I'm out.

Stay classy.

First Observation

maaaaaariaaaaaaaaaa is fucking amazinggggg.

=]

the end.

First Post!

Hey. I'm Fred, currently a college freshman at St. John's University in Queens, NY, majoring in Psychology.

I'm actually (like seriously) legally blind in both eyes without my glasses. However, it seems that because I can't see the fine details, I get to see the big picture - the forest for the trees and all that jive - and in doing so, I see things that most people either don't see or pretend not to see.

So that's the purpose of this blog. I'm going to try to update this whenever I witness or hear something that would be a "what the hell . . .?" sort of thing. Oh yeah. There will probably be a bit of profanity (it's something that I've been working on limiting though, so I'll try to keep it to a minimum), as well as a few not-for-youngsters situations (I mean, hell, I'm in college).

Anyway, I'm in class here, so I'm going to have to get on this assignment.

Until next time.

Stay classy.