2000

2000 used to be a futuristic sounding number, but now if somebody was born in the year 2000 they're old enough to be a misogynistic gamer-gate troll on some internet forum. If somebody gave me $2000 I would like it but to be fair if somebody gave me $2 I would also like that, or, really, I would appreciate any gift because it's the thought that counts. If you have a blog it might take you 10 months to write your first 1000 posts but then it would probably take you another six years to write your next thousand, but at least 800 people a month are still accidentally stumbling across your hodge-podge of time-wasting reviews (shoulda monetized back in 07, rats!).

RATING: Glenn, Loco, Nick, Laurie, Bryan, Internet John, Viking Andrew, Loren, Evan, Robyn, Ryan, Quammy %

A Month of Boring Things - Day Thirty-One: The Dakota [Building]

In my younger and more vulnerable years, I lived in a private dorm that looked like a very very very very very very poor-man's Dakota building, and since I already had a weird fascination with one of its former residents, I felt pretty cool. Then I was lonely, and I didn't have the gutz to start a heroin addiction or marry a chinaman, and nobody ever shot me. So I created new heroes, and I grew up and had kidney stones. Okay, New York. I'll come live in you (deep deep inside of you), but you gotta pay my rent.




Rating: 66.666666666%

The Toadies

I don't know much about The Toadies because I was like four years old when they were hott, but I know anytime some prick talks some shit about the Fatherland, I can say, "The Toadies," and they have to stfu for a sec. If they keep yapping, I just gotta say, Jeremy spoke in spoke in, and they cry a little. So.



Rating: 66%

The Pope Smokes Dope

Well so I watched this interview with Steve Almond and I saw he was wearing this weird shirt that claims the Pope smokes dope. For some reason the rhyme has stuck with me all week. Steve Almond is funny; he quit his job over a commencement speech given by Condoleezza Rice, and had to put up with the virile anger of Sean Hannity, who is a gay. Steve Almond is funny, but I'm not sure the pope smokes dope. I bet he drinks a lot. He's Catholic.



Rating: 77%

A Month of Boring Things - Day Twenty-nine: Phone Interviews

Phone interviews are the first step towards self-implosion, especially if you hate the phone and only use it to call your lover. Even if you know the people on the other end of the line, you still sweat like a mafucka and wish to YHWH there was some better way of doing stuff. But there ain't, and nobody likes this shit, and so we beat on, boats against the current and something or other, I forget now.






Rating: 5%

Lookin' Out the Screen Door

Lookin' Out the Screen Door is, so far as I know, East Texas' own Adam Carroll's first full length album, and boy does it kick some ass. Included here is a ballad to Ol' Milwaukee beer, a crazy-awesome song about Sno Cones, a ballad for Blondie and Dagwood and the best song about Galveston I know of (I'm looking at you, Glen Campbell). Like Bone, Carroll is a better writer than about half the people in MFA programs. So praise be to Allah!

Listen for yourself.


Rating: 88%

Harold Bloom

This review isn't about Harold Bloom. It's about Harold Bloom's Ratemyprofessor page. I hope it makes many of you feel nice and tingly inside to know that the difference between you and Yalies like me and Lollies is twofold: (1) The ability to spell; (2) A massive, literally incredible sense of entitlement.





Rating: 4%

Hott Nuts

These are great, if you don't feel like eating hot nuts. I suppose the artificial flavoring does chew through the lining of your stomach, so at least something's getting fed!






Rating: 9%

A Month of Boring Things - Day Twenty-Eight: Oil

No, I'm not talking about the Middle East, or American dependence on blah blah blah (though that would be totally boring). I'm talking about mixing prescription cough medicine with Sprite and Jolly Ranchers and then drinking it to get higher than a motherfucker. A lot of people credit DJ Screw and the Houston rap scene for this phenomena, though "sneaking grandpa's cough medicine" is a fairly old, poor white/black trash way of copping a buzz. I'm fine with a can of beer, thank you. Anyway, if you're gonna do something like this, you probably shouldn't post pictures of it via your Twitter feed, like one of my old high school pals does about twice a night.


Rating: 9%

E 1999 Eternal

In honor of the first of tha month of February, I'd like to recommend this album by the hip-hop artist group, the Bone Thugs 'N Harmony. These gentlemen are known for their abilities to speak very fast about killing people. But what I've always loved about Bone Thugs 'N Harmony (teens refer to the group as quote-unquote Bone) is their use of concrete imagery (they're the only music group I know that has made reference to Mossberg), their unblinking dedication to depicting life in a terrible neighborhood of Cleveland (redundant), and their hatred of police. Srsly, these guys are pretty much better writers than half the people in MFA programs.

Glenn reviewed Creepin' once.


Rating: Let there be coffins for all of your offspring%

A Month of Boring Things - Day Twenty-Seven: Adium

Adium is this thing I sign onto sometimes. It theoretically combines all instant message type software into one, so that you can talk to all of your friends. But 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 still equals nada. I talk to Laurie sometimes, but she's always off to do something Big Apple-ish. I remember the days when everyone I knew was on AIM, and we'd get horny together.




Rating: 22%

JD Salinger

“I hope to hell that when I do die somebody has the sense to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetary. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you're dead? Nobody.”

So long, JD Salinger. You pretty much kicked ass.





Rating: 90%

A Month of Boring Things - Day Twenty-Six: Strong City

Strong City (or Lord Our Righteousness Church) is a cult in northern New Mexico led by Wayne Bent (who is now in prison for child molestation). They're no different, really, from a lot of end-of-days churches, except that rather than commit suicide on their Day of Judgment, a stranger, more pitiful thing occurred--something I can only describe as anti-climactic. Cults have a certain allure, so if you're interested in joining us, here is a brief online pamphlet (e-amphlet? ipamph?) worth considering.


Rating: Liberty!!!%

A Month of Boring Things - Day Twenty-Five: Jokes

Nobody tells jokes anymore. I don't know any jokes. I've never heard a good joke. Right after somebody has told me a joke, I'm apt to sort of smile or fake laugh. Inside, I'm thinking, "This person just told me a joke." And I lose a little bit of respect for them.





Rating: 15%

A Month of Boring Things - Day Twenty-Four: Ramen

Ramen noodles are pretty much depressing. They're cheap and easy to prepare. You can give them to children for lunch because, whatever, they're children--what are they gonna do about it? College kids like them because college kids are lazy and don't know shit. I swore I'd never eat them again after I graduated. But I just had some. Which means I'm pretty much a failure.



Rating: 22%

A Month of Boring Things - Day Twenty-Three: Jimmy Dean Sausage

Hey, assholes! I'm back, and here to bring you what you've been craving: a nice big sausage. Sausage is great. It's like bacon only meatier and twice the acid-reflux fun. Actually, I'm not going to say anymore. I'm going to let Randy Taylor, my new-found hero, take it over from here:

Rating: havemyowndamnsausagemadelikeIusedto%

A Month of Boring Things - Day Twenty-Two: Rankings

Ranking things is sometimes good. College football, for instance. And what about the Army, hmmmm? You ever think of that? But mostly when we say we've "ranked" something, we really mean we've classified stuff we like and/or hate according to some made-up system that's total bullshit, i.e., The Beatles are the greatest band ever followed by the Rolling Stones followed by The Silver Bullet Band, etc. Ranking involves all sorts of science and math and whathaveyou. Which is boring. So fuck it I love you.


Rating: I cannot rate rankings--that'd be silly. So I'll end this with a Q & A.

Q: Do the people who go around ranking things and then showing off their rankings foresee the storm of shit that begins when they make their rankings public?

A: You bet your sweet sweet can they do.

A Month of Boring Things - Day Twenty-one: The Phone in My Office

O phone! O blinking red light signifying fifty-eight unchecked voicemails! If only I knew how to use you! But no. And so you blink on, telecommunication device against the current, born back ceaselessly into the past.




RATING: 19%

A Month of Boring Things - Day Twenty: Academics

Academics like to complain. A lot. If you ask one of them to teach a 4:4 or a 5:5 or, as I did last year, a 6:3, they might vomit a little bit of bile into their complete-with-snarky-comment-on-the-outside coffee mugs. Is it somewhat soul crushing to spend your time explaining something you're passionate about to 15-40 terminally bored teenagers? Of course. Is your pay fairly lousy, your field of research generally unappreciated and even reviled by the general populace, and your very existence distrusted by the hoi polloi? Yes. But, shit. If you tripled your weekly in-class time, you'd still be spotting my father fourteen hours. Also, those bizarre eccentricities that make you lovable and unique within the Ivory Tower are often illegal in the real world, and worthy of layoff.


Rating: 65%

Stereotyping

The human brain often does things and sometimes these things can be weird. Like right now, I’m thinking of saying, “Canada blows—everyone’s a redneck, a cybaby or a total asshat, everyone is afraid to break from the teats of their former imperial mothers, no one knows how to tell a joke, there’s never an overly-fake-tanned-orange-looking girl at a beach, their mail doesn’t run on Saturdays, and look, they must be dumb because their money is multi-colo[u]red so they don’t even have to think about thumbing through their wallets.” If I didn’t already know that Canadians like beer and are generally nice and polite people, I’d probably think they were from Wisconsin. But I’m a pretty shitty person—in mind the of Jesus, I mean.

Rating: 50%