So I’m going to have to take a short break from this blog because of imminent personal factors (AKA job searching 24/7). As I said before, I love doing it, but it takes a TON of my time. So much so that I can’t even play videogames for 6 hours a day. You are keeping me from that. How does that make you feel?

Although I won’t be posting anything new for about a month and a half (unless something big happens and I get punched in the face by inspiration), I will be doing some back-end updating to make the blog better.  Ha. Back-end updating.

I will be editing the About and Publications, now titled Other Stuff I’ve Written, pages to make them easier to read. You can check out the new OSIW page now if you’d like. In addition, I hope to be expanding the top menus with some interactive categories and stuff. People like interaction right?

Also, I’ve accepted a writing position at a new comedy website starting soon, so that could take some time to get into. I really just have so much crap to deal with. Unless someone wants to donate $10,000 to me for no reason, I’ll see you in July.

Yesterday was Mother’s Day. Here are the three stupidest things mine has ever said to me.

1. “Clean Your Plate”

I’m not fat. I never was and have no plans to be in the future. But I really, really like food. I have taken some steps to be healthier recently. Thankfully, they’ve since fixed the elevator.

“And what is up with airline food? Like, where the fuck is it?”

I’ve practically eliminated fast food from my diet, and very rarely drink soda, which is weird because I never realized how goddamn syrupy regular soda is when I used to chug it like a dog slurps toilet water. Meaning everyday, precisely at noon.

I’ve also started exercising! kindof occasionally maybe. Well, I have a gym membership. And I like to walk and do somersaults. I know what a deltoid is. I’ve got a whole box of ‘em.

Despite my efforts though, there is one hurdle I cannot get over when it comes to eating.

I HAVE to clean my plate. HAVE to.

Like most kids, I was probably a fussy eater. For a parent this is probably frustrating, because there is nothing you can do short of screaming “Hello!? You will fucking DIE if you don’t eat this food! Do you get that??” to actually explain why I should be eating those peas. So, they used the next best parental techniques: bribery and threats.

“If you eat all your carrots, you get 30 minutes of videogames.” “Clear your plate and you can play in the snow.” “Finish your salad or I’ll explain in detail how you were made. There will be a powerpoint.”

All these things have ingrained in me a cognitive conditioning that still to this day forces me to clean my plate. The problem with the rule is that it was nondiscriminatory.  It was always “finish everything, good or bad, because Africa and stuff,” unless she was trying to get me to eat a specific vegetable – like ugh brocolli.

I used to pretend I was a giant and I was eating trees. And the peas were soldiers. Shut up.

So today, I still eat everything I put on my plate, even though I’m now smart enough to know that some types of foods are worse for you than others. The easiest way to get myself to stop eating is to literally use a smaller plate. If I have a plate of spagetti, I’ll eat the whole thing. If the plate’s half the size, I’ll eat the whole thing, but I probably won’t bother going up for seconds. The fact that restaurant portion sizes have tripled since the last time we had a President named Woodrow has made things harder for me.

“Ya, I’ll probably just stick with the appetizer.”

What She Should Have Said Instead:

“Eat all the green stuff or your butt will fall off.”

2) “Listen to Adults, We Know What We’re Doing”

Sometime in your early 20′s, you have a realization: “I’m an adult, but I don’t really feel like an adult.” When you are a kid, there is a thick hairy line between an adult and a child. Then, the closer you come to adulthood yourself, that line blurs. There are smart kids mature for their age, and man-babies who watch the Disney Channel unironically. So, as you can imagine, it becomes very confusing for an adolescent who shares a classroom with a kid who already has a moustache and a teacher who gossips with the cool kids because OH MY GOD HE SAID THAT?

“And you still banged him?”

Now, you’re 22, 23, waiting for the magic moment that suddenly turns you into an adult. And it never comes. Because that is adulthood. And you realize, “holy shit, every adult feels exactly like this all the time.”

Pretty soon, you’re down the rabbit hole. Everyone is just as lazy as you, everyone is just as careless and tired and bored and apathetic as you. You realize that almost everything that has ever been created was based on a ton of things just working out well in a grand stroke of luck for the creators.

Even the accidents came out pretty good.

Almost no one knows what the hell they are doing. So when my mother told me that I’d know when I’m older it made it seem like I was going to be led to a dark chamber and initiated into adulthood, and all the wisdom of the grown-up world would be revealed to me in some kind of birds-and-the-bees baptism.

But that doesn’t happen. And you turn 24 and 25 and 35, and probably still never understand. We’ve been told so much about what to expect that we never appreciate just growing up gradually.

Now the good news about this of course, is the second realization: you never need to outgrow the things you love. You can still like Batman and videogames and LEGOS when you are 45, and no one will bat an eye, because everyone else is still just a kid inside, like you. How else can you explain superhero movies being responsible for 10 Billion box office dollars in the last 30 years? I’m sure your Dad totally hated you for dragging him to a place where he can sit in a chair for 90 minutes watching a man playing dress-up beat a bunch of thugs to smithereens. We don’t have to be sorry for any of that.

Except Batman Forever. We’re SO sorry for that.

What She Should Have Said Instead:

“As you get older, you’ll slowly come to understand the purpose of wine.”

3) “You Can Become Anything You Want To Be”

I blame the hippies for this one. Mostly because it’s easy since they won’t beat me up. But also because I feel like they were the generation that really wanted to be different. No wars, no corporate world takeovers, no bullshit politicians. They saw unprecedented civil change during the prime of their life. There was no reason to believe that would ever stop.

“And bell bottoms are never going away, either! We should smoke them.”

Slowly but surely, these same people got jobs and had kids and were forced to participate in what I call the The Great Reality Check, not to be confused with the The Great Reality Break Caused By Excessive Drug Use. They all sold out their principles, because those didn’t really concern them anymore. (The same exact thing happened with Generation X in the late 90′s, and it will probably happen to us, too.)

But then, every parent in the world got the same brilliant idea at once. What if we were to live through our children? Let them fulfill our dreams?

So they gave us trophies for showing up to the game. They let us win at Monopoly, (a game that was originally about how broken capitalism was, ironically). They made us join a church they never go to. They put plastic all over our swingsets and bought us bottled water because it sounded cleaner. On top of that, we were told that there was literally nothing stopping us from being astronauts as long as we wanted it hard enough, even though you can count the total number of people who have touched the moon ever in human history on both hands and your big toes. We all grew up with unrealistic expectations of what we were going to be, which inevitably has resulted in a whole generation with a skewed perception of entitlement living under a crippling sense of failure. And even though Occupy started out as a rushing social wave of activism, a generation of protesters left disappointed because, up until that point in their life, just showing up was good enough.

Our reality check is that no one gives a shit about you unless you can provide something for them. Obviously, you can have interpersonal relationships that are not based on favor transactions. I’m talking about the macro. Like, the world will not take care of you. Realizing this actually frees you from the fear of messing up. For example, I can now find out who the best didgeridoo player in the world is with the click of a mouse, and no matter how much I practice, I will never be as good. And that is OK. 

In an effort to protect us from the evils of the world, we were sheltered from the fact that yes, you can basically do anything you want, but it requires taking risks that might not pay off. And you’re the one who will have to pick yourself back up if you fall.  Yes, you can totally start a Youtube channel about your sidewalk art made out of dog turds, but don’t come crying to everyone else if it fails, which it will because it’s a stupid fucking idea.

What She Should Have Said Instead:

“You can try anything you want, but only some get to be it.”

- – - – -

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom. Thanks for giving me life. And for not dropping me on my head and stuff.

I don’t know if you’ll read this, but I want you to know that I’m an adult now. But please don’t throw out my Blankey.

(Broccoli photo credit: Fir0002/Flagstaffotos)

For Part One, click here.

When we last left off, I said I was going to explain the main reason why no meaningful gun legislation will be passed anytime soon:

4. Our Representatives Are Not Actually Representative

During all the chaos in the last few weeks, it was easy to miss the fact that Congress failed to pass what was arguably the weakest gun control bill in history, which would have essentially clarified the fact that every gun sale, public or private, should include a background check as part of the process. Most of the votes fell within traditional party lines, which isn’t really surprising, just annoying. And because of pointless Senate rules, it got a majority of the votes but failed to pass. Which isn’t really annoying, just infuriating.

The Republicans are owed much of the blame here, of course, but the Democrats had zero backbone on the issue. Before the gun bill went to the senate floor for a vote, Harry Reid, The Democratic Majority Leader who filed the bill, removed the assault weapons ban, saying that he was unable to secure enough votes for it to pass, and instead used it’s removal as a compromise to try to gain the bill favor with Republicans. It was a cowardly political move. And here’s where it gets worse: when that part of the bill was voted on separately, only 70% of the Democratic senators voted “Yes.” Fifteen Democrats voted AGAINST the assault weapons ban. Even in the age of partisan politics, the D’s couldn’t even get their own party behind a landmark issue.

Meanwhile, multiple polls have shown around 90% support for universal background checks, across party lines.

How is this possible? If those poll numbers are accurate, our system is broken.

Where the hell do you go from here? I mean, let’s really evaluate how unsettling this is: A school full of children was gunned down by an assault rifle, and Congress could not even pass a severely watered down bill that would simply make it easier to keep crazy people from getting them. I stated after Sandy Hook that if child-murder wasn’t enough to get people to take real action, then nothing would likely ever get done. Looks like I was right. So take that, Mrs. Wider from First Grade, I was right about something! But sorry, again, for what happened to the class gerbil. I honestly thought he knew what a lawnmower was.

There are a couple of key reasons why this failed. For Democrats, it was all about playing politics. The Dems who voted against the bills were mostly from pro-gun states and didn’t want to seem weak. For the others, it was a failure to stand up for a slam dunk liberal issue. As Michael Moore stated on Piers Morgan soon after the vote was held, there is no way Harry Reid would have given up the fight like that if it was his grandson that was murdered at an elementary school. Ultimately, that compromise was pointless since the bill didn’t pass anyway.

For the Republicans, the problem is that they are inexplicably controlled by one of the most ridiculous organizations on the planet.

5. The NRA Shouldn’t Be As Powerful As They Are

The NRA has caused more problems for Congress than accidentally tweeted dick pics. They oppose everything and anything that even smells like gun control. Everyone is afraid of them. And this makes absolutely no sense.

Let’s start with the basics: The NRA boasts 4 million members. The USA boasts 350 million members. Even with their likely inflated member count, that’s nowhere near an influential percentage. They should have 1% of the say on gun control, not fifty. Hell, PETA has 2 million members, and you don’t hear them bitchin’ when Congress decides to regulate how much of their own shit pigs have to sleep in before they are slaughtered for bacon.

To be fair, 90% of Americans support bacon.

Secondly, a strong majority of NRA members actually support expanded background checks, according to multiple polls. This goes against all common knowledge of what the typical NRA member is probably like.

So, not this.

That’s probably because despite the rhetoric, the NRA used to be significantly more reasonable, focusing more on gun safety and less on gun insanity.

After Columbine, CEO Wayne LaPierre testified in Congress, urging them to expand background checks to all private sales, AKA THE VERY FUCKING THING THEY HAVE BEEN FIGHTING AGAINST RECENTLY. LaPierre also called for “no guns in America’s schools, period.” I’m serious. He fucking said that.

If you want to get a sense of how this transformation happened, check out this great visual history of NRA ads – starting with “rifle shooting is a mighty fine sport, be careful kids” all the way to literally using photos of goose-stepping Nazis to represent the FBI. (Of course, 4 years before those Columbine comments, LaPierre compared federal agents to Nazi storm troopers in a speech, which prompted George H.W. Bush to quit the NRA in protest, so take that as you will.)

So they are unrepresentative, hypocritical, and paranoid, and yet everyone listens to them. Why?

First, it’s the NRA that controls the gun manufacturers, not the other way around. When Smith & Wesson cuddled up to Bill Clinton in the 90′s and agreed to federal regulation, the NRA incited a boycott that nearly bankrupted the company. The gun manufacturers are afraid of retribution if they don’t follow LaPierre’s lead.

Secondly, in order to keep the money flowing, LaPierre has to keep the base happy. He received so much flack for his comments after Columbine that he had to pivot 180 degrees on the issues just to keep people from supporting even more conservative gun-rights groups. Just like with any political group, the ones who give the money are the ones who get their voices heard. I’m sure most NRA members are very reasonable people. But it’s hard to compete with the guy with 20 assault rifles who writes a check every year. Who is the NRA gonna fight for?

Of course, the NRA’s key issue – upholding the Second Amendment – shouldn’t be that controversial. After all, it’s a foundational right in our country and it’s clear as day.

6. The 2nd Amendment Is Unclear And Irrelevant

Here is the final version of the Second Amendment, ratified in 1791:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

It makes no grammatical sense.

It’s ridiculously unclear whether or not the framers meant that each state should have it’s own militia, which would be able to bear arms, or if the militia simply included the entire population by default. But if that was the case, how would they be “well-regulated?”

“Wait, so you’re saying…the militia…is just all the people? Fuck it, just write “guns for everyone play time.”

Even if we assume they literally meant that everyone has a right to bear personal arms, they could not have possibly envisioned the kind of world we live in now. They had 10-foot rifles that took 2 minutes to reload one shot. We have machine guns capable of firing 1000 rounds in a second. If you take their language at face value, what’s to stop you from claiming that buying a tank on the Internet is your right as an American? Other than the Supreme Court, who agree that the right is not unlimited?

Try to imagine the mindset of the fathers at the time of this writing. They just forcibly and violently gained their independence from an oppressive government. The first thing on their list was to make sure no one fucks with them again, and thought the best way to do that was to make sure each state was armed. At the time this made sense. Today, there is pretty much a zero percent chance that anyone in the U.S. will live under a tyrannical regime that would need to be destroyed, unless Congress makes Pop-Tarts illegal or something.

I’d die for you.

We have to get over this idea that the Constitution is some kind of precious document that can never be altered in any way. We shouldn’t be afraid to edit the Constitution, because the founders themselves gave us the ability to. They were smart. They expected things to change. Refusing to admit that is the least American thing you can do.

- – - – -

So, I’ve tried to present a reasonably objective look at gun control here. But where do I personally stand?

I’ve shot guns a handful of times before. In fact, I shot skeet the day I finished writing this. I know people that own guns, and most keep them safely, though I don’t personally own any or carry an NRA membership card. I truly believe that most gun owners are not crazy rednecks. Hell, Rachel Maddow shoots guns for God’s sake.

The problem is, some gun owners are crazy rednecks. It is a combination of this and the fact that a culture of gun-worship is perpetuated through all media (movies, videogames, etc) that everyone, including myself, is guilty of participating in. Everyone secretly likes guns a little bit, even just for the fantasy of it. Of course, no one thing causes gun violence (our mental health system is probably at fault too). But there are way too many gun murders every year to do nothing. I just hope I won’t eventually live in a world where I will have to explain to my kids that our cyborg neighbor has a Bazooka-mounted, 10,000-round minigun for an arm because George Washington said he could.

- – - – -

For more on this, including how crazy some of the assault rifle manufacturer’s ads are, and how gun suicides are more problematic than homicides, check out David Wong and Jack O’Brien’s take over at Cracked.

(top image source)

Back in December, I wrote a piece right after the Sandy Hook shootings that was partly about guns, and I stand by everything I said. However, I declined to emphasize a silver lining that occurs due to the media’s non-stop coverage of such tragedies – it gets people to at least talk about gun control.

I would like to consider this a pseudo-sequel to that last article, as a non-emotional response to the events that occurred last year, and also as a timely commentary on the current events surrounding gun control. I’m going to try and be as objective as possible, so here it goes: here are 6 things you will almost never see reported in the media about guns.

1. The Stats About Mass Shootings Are Confusing

After the Aurora movie theater shooting last year, Mother Jones published a guide to mass shootings in America, which found that they are clearly on the rise based on this chart (it has since been updated to include Sandy Hook data):

It clearly shows an upward trend culminating in a record number of deaths in 2012. This is startling, but how accurate are these measures?

It turns out the Mother Jones used an arbitrary definition of “mass shooting,” excluding things like robbery or gang violence. Their approach was to try to narrow it down to random killings in public places – shopping malls, schools, office buildings, etc. In fact, if you loosen the criteria, you actually come up with something more like this:

That was put together by James Allen Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University. Those stats are based on FBI reports and include all cases in which there were four victims killed, regardless of the number of shooters or motive. The Mother Jones data, he argues, was filled with inconsistencies – for example, they specified that there had to be a lone shooter, but made exceptions for high-profile cases like Columbine, which pretty much negates the point of having the rule in the first place. All their graph seems to prove is that the incidence of “media-friendly” mass killings have gone up, which isn’t really that helpful. The FBI graph is more accurate – the incidence rate of mass shootings has stayed roughly constant for 30 years, and the number of victims has been all over the place.

On top of that, both of these graphs seem to ignore shootings in which there were more injured than dead. For example, there was a shooting in Tennessee in 2008 that resulted in 2 people dead and 7 injured, but that didn’t count on either of those graphs.

The reason why these stats are so confusing is because no one can agree on what a mass shooting is – the FBI doesn’t even have an official definition. Despite this, Mother Jones rebutted with even more evidence, this time citing a new study that claims the number of “active shooter events” has risen considerably in the last ten years, which is again based on another, different, made-up set of criteria.

This a great example of how manipulating stats can be. By including or ignoring certain parameters, the meaning of the same numbers are completely different (we are having an epidemic of shootings vs. the trend is just as steady as before). Am I saying that the good people at Mother Jones are purposely fudging data to advance an agenda? No. But if I believe them, then I have to disregard the word of a leading criminologist, don’t I? It was certainly enough to confuse the Washington Post.

The year 2012 was either the next step in an increasingly unsettling pattern of violence or an outlier – an unusual data point that makes it look like there’s a larger trend. The only thing that seems definitively true is that 2012 had the highest number of mass shooting victims, which was enough to get people off their feet. That’s great, except:

2. It’s Basically Too Late

The recent Assault Weapons Ban bill seems to be a step in the right direction – it mainly bans assault style military weapons for civilian use and limits magazine size and accessories for all guns. Sounds good. The main problem is that this will basically do nothing in the grand scheme of things in terms of actually banning assault weapons.

Even though accurately measuring the number of guns in the country is impossible, it’s clear that the U.S. is absolutely drowning in guns, and that’s only the ones we know about. Most popular data suggest that there is about one gun for everyone – 300 million, with a third of those being rifles. Included in the assault weapons bill is a grandfather clause, meaning that the bill doesn’t apply to guns that have already been purchased legally. This bill would take zero guns off of the street. So, Obama is not coming for your guns. It’s not even in the law.

Now remember how gun sales skyrocketed after some crazy people got the slightest inkling that perhaps maybe possibly THE GOVERNMENT IS GOING TO CONFISCATE YOUR ARSENALS! Imagine what would happen if a bill like this was about to pass. The gun industry would see record sales. This bill would no doubt add even more guns to the market, since there is no consequence to purchasing anything before the ban takes effect. It would be like the Four Loko gold rush that happened right after all the college kids heard the government was coming for their favorite way to kill themselves.

Pictured: the nanny state at work.

On top of that, there is another important part of gun violence that no one talks about:

3. Handguns Are The Problem

Most of the recent coverage of gun control has been focused on banning assault weapons and/or reducing clip sizes, with the idea being that if such a tragedy were to occur again, the killer wouldn’t want to be bothered to reload a third time, because c’mon he’s got shit to do.

But all of this focus leaves out one huge issue:

Handguns are the real problem, and they always have been.

It’s true that gun homicide violence on the whole is down since 1980, but relatively speaking, handguns still cause the majority of deaths by far. According to the Department of Justice statistics, handguns account for about 10,000 homicides per year, while assault rifles, which are lumped into the “other guns” category, are less than 4,000, closer to the number of people killed by knives. But, you may argue, the most recent statistics are only from 2008. The trend line for handguns looked like it was decreasing, and the trend for other guns was increasing.

Well, the FBI has stats up to 2011 (ya, eff your arguments, I’m prepared). In that year, there were about 6200 murder victims by way of handguns. Rifles? 323. No, I didn’t forget a zero. Three hundred and twenty three people. Sure it’s a tragedy, but compared to handguns, assault rifles are not even close to being the real problem. According to that FBI chart, more people were beaten to death with hands and feet than killed by assault rifles, and it’s not like you have to register your fists with the government.

Well, most of us don’t.

So why is this important? Because it means that all of the assault rifle legislation in the world will do almost nothing to curb straight-up gun violence. You could round up every Bushmaster AR-15 and destroy them, and you’d just have a bunch of pissed-off rednecks. The reason they are targeted is because it’s easy (the argument against is pretty strong – why do you need 70 round clips and laser-guided silencers to shoot a deer?) and because it would likely prevent mass murderers from killing so many people on those rare occasions.

Look at it this way: from 2006-2011, there were 317 handgun murders in Connecticut, compared to 12 killings by rifles, all before Sandy Hook. Handguns are cheap, easy to get, and represent the majority of the problem, yet they are ignored. Assault rifle-specific legislation is reactionary: a short term solution ignoring a long term problem. It’s a band-AID.

Reading this, you might think I’m against this type of legislation, but that’s not the case at all. It’s way too weak. We need to admit that there’s no reason for anyone to own an assault rifle, period, and severely restrict other guns somehow. People have these fantasies of garrisoning up in their attic with an arsenal when the government breaks down their door, coming to take their guns from their cold, dead hands. Or maybe it’s just about bullet-storming what, an army of fucking robbers breaking into their house?

“Send in the next wave, and watch out for the land mines this time!”

Of course, there’s a big reason why real, substantial legislation will almost never be passed in the U.S., which we’ll get into in Part 2, along with discussion about why everyone listens to the NRA even though they are stupid, and how our forefathers completely fucked up the second amendment.

Part 2  next Monday, 4/29.

- – - – -

Update: I finished writing this article and published it at 9 AM on the 15th. Obviously, I had no idea about the horrible events that would unfold today. This has hit extremely close to my home, and I am still severely shaken. Although this writing is not directly related to the tragedy, I understand the unfortunate coincidence that this is in part about senseless violence. I am choosing not to take it down because I still think it’s important, but I have edited out a joke that I felt was inappropriate given the circumstances. Remember, in times of high emotion, it is more important than ever to keep a level head.

Please consider donating to The One Fund here to help the victims of this tragedy.

The Star Wars Prequels are hands-down the most underrated series of movies ever developed. I saw Episode I when I was 10 years old, and it changed my life. The drama. The tension. The light sabers. The Jar Jar.

Now, this may be a rather unpopular opinion, and I invite people to politely disagree. But I believe I have indisputable proof that these movies were simply better than the originals in almost every aspect. In this list, I will explain how all the characters that were introduced and then killed off in Episode I actually have full character arcs that rival The Godfather. I will analyze the dialog, and breakdown exactly why George Lucas’s writing chops shone brighter than ever, especially during Episode II’s pivotal scenes. I will argue why Hayden Christensen and that kid with the bowl cut couldn’t have been more perfect for their roles as Anakin, and why Yoda became way more interesting as an entirely computer generated whatever he is. Also, as an avid C-SPAN watcher, I thoroughly enjoyed the parts about the Galactic Senate, and if anything the movies needed some extra explanation as to how the trade embargoes affected the constituents of the voting majority.

But let’s start with the basics. What really made these movies so great?

1) The Love Story

The beautiful, organic love story that develops naturally between Anakin and Padme is goddammit, fuck it, I can’t even write this as a joke anymore.

April Fools.

(top photo source (don’t click this unless you love Jar Jar))

Once upon a time I went to Europe with some friends. Although the trip was filled with adventures, most of them are your typical “Wow, there is no way that would be legal in America” college kid stuff. Despite that, I honestly believe that I can claim that I got to do something that most Americans will never get the chance to do ever in their lives.

One of the spontaneous trips one friend and I decided to take was to Budapest, the capital of Hungary. (I’m just gonna clear the air right now – the correct pronunciation of the city is ‘Booda-pesh-t,’ but there is no way to say it like that without sounding like a pretentious douchecanoe.) The city itself was gorgeous, and this was amplified by the fact that I had no idea what to expect. The whole Soviet occupation thing has given Eastern Europe an unfortunate reputation. The truth is pretty much the opposite. When we got off the train, I was immediately taken aback by how clean and “Americanized” everything was. There was a McDonald’s and Starbucks on every corner. There’s even a Hooters downtown, for God’s sake. That’s like, the opposite of communism.

We got to our hostel, which was located in an alleyway that couldn’t have been creepier if it were ripped directly out of a Saw movie. Upon approaching the huge double doors and ringing the doorbell, we half-expected to be greeted by a Hungarian grandmother offering us goulash. Instead, the doors buzzed and we opened them, and climbed 3 flights of the ricketiest stairs ever made. The stairwell was dark and ominous looking. When the door opened at the top floor, we were greeted with what turned out to be one of the greatest hostels I’ve ever been to.

The caretakers could be most accurately described as young ex-pats – those who, for one reason or another, left their home country, usually by themselves, in search of a new experience. Most of them were college-age, from the U.S., or Canada, or Australia. Some had been working there for months, some for years. The hostel was free-spirited. Their list of ‘rules’ included the necessary recommendation to use a condom if you have sex in the shower. My favorite thing was a little clay bowl in the front hall that had a bunch of foreign coins in it. The idea was that you’d leave some change you didn’t need, and take some new ones from another country. I’m an avid coin collector, and spent the better part of an hour dumping and sorting the entire contents to find some new stuff. My rule was “If I can’t read the inscriptions, it must be foreign, and therefore cool.” (I’m not a very good coin collector.)

The hostel also had an events calendar. One of the days we were there, they were going paintballing. My friend who came with me on this journey preferred not to go, but I really wanted to. I had only played paintball a couple times before, and after multiple defeats and injuries made me realize that it’s nothing like Call of Duty, I needed to redeem myself. Also, they only did this event every few months. So I set my alarm for 9 AM and went to bed. We decided to meet back at the hostel the next afternoon. Here is the part where I clarify that A) we had no way of contacting each other because our phones didn’t work all the way out there and B) I literally had no idea where I was going. That’s called foreshadowing, amateur writers.

I was awakened in the wee hours of 8 AM by one of the hostel staff – we’ll call him J.P., because that was his name. And we’ll say he was from America. Even though he was actually from Vancouver. You know, for privacy.

I got up, grabbed my stuff, and joined our crew. I soon realized that I knew none of the people who were going with us. Our first trip was to rendevouz with another nearby hostel down the block. I assumed we were going to do some kind of hostel vs. hostel thing where the winner got to forcibly take over the other hostel’s land and add it to their own, in a ceremony known as “Hungarian Corporate Merging.” But unfortunately, the other hostel was filled with decent people who I was going to feel bad pummeling with paint later that day.

The girl who ran the second hostel gathered her minions, and J.P. the Patriot led the way. There must have been at least 30 of us. We climbed aboard a tram car and were briefed about the transit system of Budapest. Apparently, the transit police have no authority whatsoever. People frequently steal rides because simply getting off the tram somehow exempts you from all prosecution. It’s like the cops have electric dog collars on and you can just stand outside the doors “Nah, Nah, Na-Nah, Nah”-ing at them because you know they can’t reach you. I have no idea if this is true, but it was convincing enough that none of us paid.

We got off the tram and onto a bus. I sat across from J.P., staring at his glorious t-shirt depicting a bald eagle soaring majestically. I didn’t know anyone, and because I clam up completely when I’m placed in uncomfortable situations, I listened carefully and barely talked. The bus ride seemed like it took forever. And then it occurred to me that it actually was taking forever. Like hours.

We got off at a stop. That’s non-descriptive because that’s all I knew about where we were. J.P. took out a map, his red, white, and blue cape billowing in the wind, and the rest of us realized something was wrong. He and the other girl were lost. Theyd’ve done this a bunch of times before, and couldn’t remember where the hell to go. So here I am, completely lost in a foreign country with no way of communicating to my friend about when I’d be back.

I don’t remember much about the rest of the trip besides waiting around a bus stop for over an hour, and watching the others fumble through maps while drinking beer on the buses. (So, public drinking = OK, stealing fares = OK. For those keeping score at home, Europe is a little different.)

Finally, we arrived at our destination. It was 1 PM. We were all hungry and dead tired. We were so far from the city proper that the road signs might as well have been in Klingon. I overheard from someone that we were almost over the border into Romania, and I didn’t know enough about geography to dispute it.

We walked through a gate, down a long dirt path, and settled down outside of a dilapidated building. This is when I found out that we were about to play paintball in a former Soviet military base. Literally, there were abandoned vehicles and outposts all over the area. They split us into teams and geared us up with full body suits, and for the next two hours we played the craziest games of paintball imaginable. We started in an open field that had a few cars and things you could hide behind. Next, we moved into an dug-in trench that was overflowing with brush and mosquitos. I’m pretty sure everyone got malaria from that one. Finally, the guys running the program asked us if we wanted to play inside the buildings. The only time I’ve ever said “yes” more enthusiastically was when I beat the Elite Four for the first time.

Needless to say, we had a blast. By the time I was done, I was chatting it up with a few of the people from my clan and made some new friends (“Red or Dead! Hoo-rah!”). The whole experience had cost the American equivalent of about 60 bucks, which in Hungarian was about 16 bagillian Florints. Of course there was the issue of getting back. We headed to the bustop and waited. Some of us hadn’t eaten all day, even though we had just played an intense sport for 2 straight hours. Then, one of us noticed a little mom-and-pop burger joint down the street. A few of us went to check it out and ordered cheeseburgers. Eventually, word must have got around, because all 30 people stormed through the doors looking for food. The cook’s face was priceless. All of a sudden he had to make 3 dozen burgers for a bunch of adrenaline-fueled animals. We all ordered and paid, and the second he wrapped up a burger someone grabbed it. He couldn’t keep up. Meanwhile, the bus had arrived. If we didn’t get on this bus, the next one wasn’t for hours (it was a weekend). So one of the other guys told him to just give us everything that was done, because we had no time to wait for them all. The scene was honestly cartoonish – three guys ran out of the doors carrying stacks of burgers wrapped in tinfoil, with me right behind them, running for a bus like it was the last one on Earth. We made it. I couldn’t wait to tell this story to my friend. It took an hour to get back.

- – - – -

Supplement to the Story:

Since this happened, I hadn’t really thought much about where I actually was (and until recently, I literally had no clue). Writing this story out gave me the idea to actually try and figure it out. With the few details I remember, and with little help I could get from Google Translate, I’m 99% sure I have found it. (Of course, the one time I should have taken my own pictures I didn’t. You’ll just have to believe me.)

The company we used was called paintball.hu. I found a couple of pictures of the place online, as well as this promotional video that includes footage of the buildings.

Here is the gate I remember going through:

Here is one of the buildings we played in. Notice the paint all over the fucking place.

Finally, this is definitely a picture of the tracks I was describing in the story. The back part is the first field we played on with the cars. The foreground is the overgrown trenched area. The little platform on the right was where you could watch from when you got out.

As for the Soviet military base, that appears to be true. Based on map data from the locations above, I discovered we were most likely in a town just south of Budapest called Tokol. The airbase that takes up most of the town was actually a former Soviet military base, at least according to a few random sources I found (It was also confusing because it looks like there are 2 paintball places in the same base, the other being Patriots Paintball.) At the very least, the history totally checks out: After the Revolutions of 1989 that brought down communism in Eastern Europe, the Soviet army just got up and left. They deserted most of their equipment and buildings and abandoned all the bases, and there were military forces stationed at Tokol. Now, this is far from concrete, but anecdotally, I’d say that’s good enough for me. Of course, this would mean we were nowhere near the Romanian border, but I’m willing to chalk that up to the fact that since we had been on a bus for 4 hours, that was the only logical conclusion that guy made.

So, yep. Paintball in an abandoned Cold War-era Soviet Military Base. Totally fucking did that.

(top image source)

At some point in my life, I realized pop music lyrics make no damn sense. Mostly because it’s more about the feel of the music and less about the poetry, so songwriters can get away with the most ridiculous assaults on the English language. In Breakdown, I overanalyze the shit of these lyrics and completely miss the point in the process.

This Week’s Breakdown:

“As Long As You Love Me” by the Biebs.

The Lyrics:

We’re under pressure,
Seven billion people in the world trying to fit in
Keep it together,
Smile on your face even though your heart is frowning (frowning)

Right away, JB has already ensured his inevitable irrelevancy. Consider this: of the 7 billion people in the world, half were added in the last 40 years. Since we are on track to reach 8 billion by approximately 2025, this song is going to be more laughably outdated than “Call Me, Beep Me” by the time he’s 30. I also can’t figure out how a heart can frown. It sounds like the way you would gently explain death to a five-year-old. “What’s happening to Grandpa?” “Well…his heart is frowning.”

But hey now, you know, girl,
We both know it’s a cruel world
But I will take my chances

Yes, please take your chances. Maybe try skydiving without a parachute. #YOLO

As long as you love me
We could be starving, we could be homeless, we could be broke
As long as you love me
I’ll be your platinum, I’ll be your silver, I’ll be your gold

As important as it is to have healthy relationships, I highly, highly doubt that checking to see if they were intact would be your first course of action if you suddenly found yourself homeless, or literally scavenging for food. Instead of transmorphing into precious metals, maybe you should focus on getting this poor girl some goddamn chicken nuggets.

As long as you lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-love me (love me)
As long as you lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-love me (love me)

Oh fuck, forgot to delete that part. And now it’s stuck in my head.

I’ll be your soldier,
Fighting every second of the day for your dreams, girl
I’ll be your Hova
You can be my Destiny’s Child on the scene girl
So don’t stress, don’t cry, we don’t need no wings to fly
Just take my hand

I actually had to look up what “Hova” meant on Urban Dictionary. It’s stupider than I thought: it’s a reference to Jay-Z, who calls himself J-Hova, as in Jehovah. See, it’s a play on words! Jay-Z is the God of Rap, or something.

He’s got 99 Commandments.

It’s ridiculously lucky for Justin that Destiny’s Child actually did regroup for the Superbowl recently, otherwise he’d look pretty dumb with that line. They haven’t had a hit since he started potty-training (I’m basing this off of the assumption that he has let to complete his training).

And yes, every animal and machine on Earth needs wings to fly (except Superman). That’s what flying is. If you don’t believe me, that skydiving offer is still on the table.

Aw Yeah, here comes the rap part!

Yo, B-I-G
I don’t know if this makes sense, but you’re my hallelujah

It actually makes zero sense, Big Sean.

Give me a time and place, and I’ll rendezvous, and I’ll fly you to it,
I’ll beat you there
Girl you know I got you
Us, trust…

If you are flying her to a place, how are you also racing her?

A couple of things I can’t spell without ‘U’

“Volkswagen.” “Chimichanga.” “Microsoft Office 2013.” “New Hampshire.” “Stratego.” There’s five things.

Now we are on top of the world, ’cause that’s just how we do (do it)
Used to tell me, “Sky’s the limit”, now the sky’s our point of view (view)
Man now we stepping out like, “Whoa” (Oh God)
Cameras point and shoot (shoot)
Ask me what’s my best side, I stand back and point at you

Yes, we get it, you have a private jet. Or you are trying to make the best out of a mountain-climbing expedition where you lost the map and ran out of food.

You, you the one that I argue with, I feel like I need a new girl to be bothered with,
But the grass ain’t always greener on the other side,
It’s green where you water it

Here, Big Sean is expressing the fact that even though he and his girl fight, it isn’t worth trying to find another girl because he’s already watered all over her so much. I hope so badly that that was meant to be sexual.

So I know we got issues baby true, true, true,
But I’d rather work on this with you
Than to go ahead and start with someone new
As long as you love me

“And there’s no way in hell I’m gonna do it all over again because I’ve already given you 3 years worth of Valentine’s gifts and that’s only brought me to base number two.”

“Now my clothes and my balls are blue”

As long as you lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-love me
As long as you lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-love me
As long as you lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-love me

And now I can live life knowing what a fax machine threesome would sound like.

(top image source)

I pride myself on the fact that I am able to keep this blog up-to-date with current events and that I am timely with everything I write. Which is why I’ll be telling a story that happened at the end of last year.

In 2012, my girlfriend and I decided to get iPhones upon walking by an Apple store in the mall. It was a spontaneous and pointless decision in a moment of fancy, not unlike one made by any character ever played by Zooey Deshanel.

We both had the original Motorola Droid phones at the time, which we bought when the Droid 2 was already out. So already we were long overdue for an upgrade. We walked right into the store with the full intention of just doing buying one, even though I wasn’t even sure which model model I wanted. We’re just so whimsical!

But before we irreversibly typecasted ourselves as happy little fun-fairies, I wanted to do the research.

My girlfriend’s father runs his own small business, so he had a business plan on Verizon, which we would come to learn would cause us approximately 28,430 hours of frustration. When we went to buy her phone, she was told that she was not a manager on the account, and would have to add herself. While she was busy doing that on a store display iPad, I talked to the hipster and had him explain the new data plans to me. I’ll mark the parts where he lied to us. See if you can find them.

Me: So what’s this “share everything” plan?

Hipster: Oh, it’s basically a phone plan where you share all your minutes and data with everyone in your family. So instead of getting 10 gigabytes for yourself, you get to collectively share a bunch with all your family members, which probably ends up screwing you over somehow, otherwise why the hell would they do it?

Me: Do we have to do that?

Hipster: Yes. (<–THAT PART) And it’s only for Verizon customers. *plays Death Cab For Cutie song on store display*

Me: So, like, if one person in the family were to download a lot of…Netflixes…then they would be cutting into another person’s data? That’s kinda stupid. Hey! Death Cab.

Hipster: You’ve heard of them? *promptly deletes from iPod* Yes, that’s basically how it works.

My girlfriend came back over, and I explained how we’d have to talk to our parents, because the prices were going to change and we’d have to have each family pick a new data plan. So we walked out of the store a little disappointed and empty handed.

Upon talking to our parents and getting approval, we went back to the same store the next day to finally make our purchases. Half way through the process, we were told by Hipster #2 that updating the new business contract with Verizon required Apple to get verification from their offices or headquarters or space station or whatever, but that certain place was closed on Sundays. It was a Sunday.

We were visibly annoyed, especially since the next day there was a big storm projected to hit the East Coast. But Hipster #2 assured us that the mall had closed only once, literally, in the years that he had been there. That time it was because the SWAT team was called on a man who was running through the mall with a rifle. It turned out he just had an umbrella that looked like a Samarai sword on his back. Seriously, that happened. With his assurance, we said we’d be back the next morning.

But we couldn’t possibly wait. We were so close to an iPhone I could smell it. And I’m pretty sure it wasn’t because we had mall chinese food.

So that very day, we pulled a double whammy by driving all the way to New Hampshire to the Verizon store, bypassing Apple’s confirmation bullshit and saving the tax money. I forgot to mention that here in good ‘ol Massachusetts, you get taxed on the full retail price of your cell phone, even if you are buying it with a discount. So, for example, the new iPhone 5 cost around $600 at launch. Most sane people buy a contract plan that locks them in for 2 years in order to get the cheaper price of $199. But Massachusetts is one of the few states that charge their sales tax on the full, non-discounted price of the phone, which means driving one state away would save you $40.

At this point we were convinced that we were going to get an iPhone 4S. It was cheaper and we didn’t think the features of the 5 warranted another hundred bucks. Immediately upon entering the Verizon store, we were bombarded by a salesperson who really thought we were dumb for wanting the 4S, insisting we at least take a look a the 5. But I saw through his bullshit. I watched skeptically as he showed us the lightning speed of the 4G network. I laughed as he explained how beautiful the camera’s pictures were. I guffawed at how much more room there was on the screen for everything. I didn’t fall for any of that crap.

Just kidding, we caved immediately and changed our minds.

The good news was that we found out we could keep our existing plan, meaning we didn’t have to change over to that “Share Everything” bull. There was a slight problem, however. Because it had just come out, Apple wasn’t allowing anyone else, including Verizon, to carry the iPhone 5′s for another few weeks. We would have to go back to the Apple store the next day, in the rain.

The storm ended up being so big that they named it: Sandy.

Of course, this didn’t stop us or a handful of other people from lining up in front of the Apple store before it opened, while, and I can’t stress this enough, A FUCKING HURRICANE WAS HAPPENING OUTSIDE. When it became clear to us and the other people in line that the store probably wasn’t going to open due to the weather, a friendly security guard informed us that the store was indeed closed. The second time that had ever happened. At this point in the adventure, I laughed. We had gone to multiple Apple stores, multiple times, all weekend, and each time something went wrong. So fuck it, we were already out in a superstorm. Might as well go for broke. We drove all the way back up to New Hampshire.

The mall was surprisingly crowded considering the fact that Mother Nature was scheduled to wreck everyone’s shit that day (they must get their news on a 12-hour delay due to the fact that everyone lives in the woods). We walked into the Apple store with no intention of leaving until we had an iPhone 5, sternly approaching the saleshipsters and politely demanding one in our hands. They asked us if we had pre-ordered. We answered with an optimistic “no.” They proceeded to laugh in our face. If we pre-ordered that night, they said, we could come and pick it up the next day.

Finally, we went home defeated. My girlfriend tried to order one on Apple’s website but was told that you couldn’t do it with a business account. She was forced to buy it through Verizon and had to wait the 2 weeks. After generously waiting so that we could buy ours at the same time, I decided to screw it and just pre-order one at Apple. Both of which were things we could have just as easily done right from the beginning. To add insult to injury, we both had to pay the full sales tax.

And that, friends, is why you should never do anything spontaneous and fun because nothing ever works out like it does in those stupid movies. As for the iPhone: it’s good, but I wasted more time trying to get to it than I did building a 200-story golden penis in Minecraft, and even then the end product was somehow more satisfying.

(top photo source)

Omegle is an anonymous insta-chat site, and it’s it’s fun and easy to mess with people. Read these if you want a quick laugh.

If you are not familiar, the “you” is me, the “stranger” is a random person, and the question is written by another random person, who just watches the conversation (in horror). These are all real, edited for clarity because people can’t type.

- – - – -

You are now chatting with a random stranger. Say Hi!

Question to discuss:

Hi. I am physically beautiful and intelligent. I need to make twenty thousand dollars in four months. What are my options?

YOU: ha

Stranger: hmmm

YOU: ur not gonna like the options

Stranger: prostitution..

YOU: 2 words – Web. Cam.

Your conversational partner has disconnected.

- – - – -

Question to discuss:

Your gender just changed, what do you do?

Stranger: i love myself like i was never able to love a woman before

YOU: hasn’t happened before

YOU: i’m sure that will nev*

YOU: AHHHHHH

YOU: HHHHHHDHHDHD

Stranger: NOOO

YOU: IT BURNNNSS OHH GODDD

YOU: WHHHHHAAA ………AHHGG*…….

YOU: Well, hello boys!!!

Stranger: you’ll find getting laid easier, but making it to management harder

Your conversational partner has disconnected.

- – - – -

Question to discuss:

what would you do if you were the president of the usa for a day?

YOU: i would use my powers for good

YOU: pizza day…every day

Stranger: nice

Stranger: so nice

YOU: it’s a real humanitarian issue for me

YOU: would solve world hunger i think

Stranger: hehe

Stranger: where r u from

YOU: My Name Is Rick Santorum. Please Join The Fight To Make This A Reality! I’m Fighting For Your Rights! (Also, please refrain from Googling my last name)

YOU: Santorum: “Pizza Day…Every Day”

Stranger: I just know a little english

You have disconnected.

- – - – -

Question to discuss:

Be Honest. Have you ever acted like you’re on a cooking show when you were at home cooking?

YOU: i am on a show

YOU: this is Guy Fieri

Stranger: I make my wife act like she’s on the show, because real men don’t cook.

YOU: HA! I’m laughing in my red convertible

YOU: and stroking my goatee

Stranger: Sorry for the delay, my wife asked permission to pee for the fourth fucking time

Stranger: Jesus, when will she learn? No…

Stranger: Go on the floor bitch, amirite?

YOU: YA MAN TOTALLY

YOU: now lets go hilariously review this restaurant that three people know about!

YOU: and dye my spiked tips even blonder! It’s not even possible but fuck it!

Stranger: I’m not following…

YOU: I’M FUCKING GUY FUCKING FIERIIIII

Stranger: Do you speak dubstep?

YOU: wub wub wubbb wub wub wubbb

Stranger: wubwubwub wubbbubububbbuububbb wub wub

YOU: WU WUBBAAA WUB WUBBAAA WUBBBAAAAAAA

Stranger: SCREEEEEEEEEE

Strange: sorry

Stranger: skipped

YOU: (Translation: “I’M FUCKING GUY FUCKING FIERIIIII”)

You have disconnected.

- – - – -

Question to discuss:

Paste whatever you have copied, then discuss

Stranger: I just love how people are dumb these days

YOU: horseporn.com

Stranger: lol

YOU: caught me at a bad time

Stranger: haha

Your conversational partner has disconnected.

- – - – -

(top image source)

So, I have finally moved out of my parents house. The good news is HOLY CRAP FINALLY I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS MY WHOLE LIFE. The bad news is nothing, it’s perfect.

Sorry, I’m still a little overjoyed. Let me start by describing my new situation.

First, it’s the Goldilocks of apartments.

For a little background, I’m moving in with my long-time girlfriend, and of course my invisible friend Jeff.

Not seen here.

We found this place completely by accident on Craigslist and somehow it didn’t turn out to be a meth lab. At first I was afraid (I was petrified) that it was too small, but with a little paint and some decorations…

it looked nothing like that!

And more like this:

We found that we could fit everything we needed and nothing else, and still have room for guests to walk around the furniture. Which is perfect.

When you are given too much space (a house with an attic) you naturally accumulate more shit because you know you have the room. 95% of it will never get moved from the place you end up leaving it the day you bring it home. In my apartment, I took everything I needed only, and I’m about 20 times better for it. Cleaning the entire place takes minutes, and everything has a nice little spot. Even when the room is a “mess” it’s really just because we have miscellaneous stuff on the table that can be moved in 2 seconds. Every piece of empty space is utilized meaningfully.

For example, here is my liquor cabinet.

Also, for some inexplicable reason, our unit owns the entire floor’s balcony. Like, no one else can get on it. It’s pretty cool, but it’s almost too much: it’s way too narrow to put a lot of furniture on, but it’s way too long to do anything meaningful with it, unless you wanted to play the world’s longest game of beer pong.

Secondly, it’s true that location is everything. The town I moved to has a downtown area that is so nice it makes Disney look like a scene from a Goosebumps Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book.

To ride the River of Blood to the Torture Castle, turn to page 86.

The reason I like it is because everything you’d ever need is in one place. On our Main Street there are 5 different banks, a grocery store, coffee shops, pharmacies, a ton of restaurants, and a bunch of those insanely specific mom-and-pop stores that somehow stay in business (someone’s American Dream was to sell slippers to dogs). There’s probably a sex shop somewhere in there, for good measure. I live a tiny walking distance away from everything I could want.

I will admit one major negative: the town is dry (as in “no liquor stores,” not “middle of the Sahara”). But considering that taking a right at the end of our street instead of a left brings us to a town where people are willing to take taxis to their neighborhood liquor store (I’ve seen this happen), I think I’ll be fine.

If not, there’s always another option.

Finally, my backyard is a train station. Obviously, this can be rather loud, but for me, the convenience of being able to roll out of bed onto the train in the morning more than makes up for a couple of “dings,” “toots” and “Get the hell off the tracks, you asshole! I will run you over! Literally, I will, on principle! “

And now, back to our regularly scheduled program about things no one tells you about moving into your first apartment.

1. A Meal Takes A Week To Prepare

In my parentally guided days, a simple question of “What’s for dinner?” usually was answered with the meal I could expect to see on my plate when I got home. Now I’m responsible for making sure there is a meal there. Sure, you can go out to dinner every night, but your body and wallet will thank you if you don’t.

When I want to prepare a meal I have to go through the same steps every time. Let’s say I’m making Chicken Paninis:

i. Purchase the required meat way before I need it and freeze it. Be sure to be so in tune with myself that I can predict what I will want to eat about a week in advance. I can barely predict if I’ll actually go to the gym tomorrow.

ii. Defrost the meat in a timely fashion. Meaning I can’t just nuke it in the microwave 30 seconds before I cook it.

iii. Purchase the required vegetables and remaining ingredients. Make sure to include the one ridiculously specific yet essential ingredient that I will never use for anything else, but it’s like, 8 dollars.

iv. Start the cooking process, and make the biggest mess possible, while inefficiently using at least 3 pots and pans, mostly because I don’t really know what any of them are for.

v. Realize halfway through that I am missing an obvious thing, like bread. Go get it at convenience store down the street. Pay double price.

vi. Overcook the chicken, but it’s still edible, we’ll just throw some extra cheese on top.

vii. Shit, forgot the cheese.

viii. “Finish” cooking. Just eat whatever you have, you’re working with diminishing returns here.

ix. Leave dishes for at least a day.

You never know, the bacteria might have made a new meal for you by the time you get back.

2. Your Neighbors Might As Well Be Serial Killers

There is a fundamental difference between moving into the suburbs vs. an apartment building. In the ‘burbs, it’s incredibly obvious when someone new moves in. The new neighbors are adorned with gifts and cookies, and everyone tries to be their friend first, lest a neighborhood war breaks out.

Welcome to our street! Now, can I count on you as a grunt in the Johnson Uprising?

Now, I’m not saying my neighbors are baby-murderers, I’m just saying that they might as well be, because they would act the same exact way if they were. No one greets a new apartment neighbor because people come and go. It’s not like college, where everyone knocks on each other’s door because you’re all the same age and in need of new friends. In an apartment, you have no idea if the door will open to a nice couple with a cute 1-year-old or the U.S. Headquarters of the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic Furry Fan Club. And frankly, it’s not worth the risk.

I can’t even hear anything through the walls, even though I’m 90 percent sure there are people on the other side. It would actually make me more comfortable if I heard someone watching loud porn, because then I’d at least know when they weren’t masturbating.

Even a serial killer would make small talk in the hallway to save face. Just remember that next time Old Man Herbert asks you if it’s raining out when you are clearly covered in water.

3. Your Attitude Toward Money Changes Completely

Have you ever lost something so expensive that it actually made you realize that money is just a made up amount we put upon objects to indicate social value? In other words, have you ever said to yourself “Fuck it, I’m using dollar bills as toilet paper, because they are already shitty. And apparently covered in cocaine.”

That’s not a joke.

One time in college I lost my iPod near the front of an auditorium-sized lecture hall. I immediately went out and bought a new one for four hundred dollars, because music was the only way I could convince myself to walk 20 minutes to class. And then, about a week later, I left the iPod in the same class, in the same goddamn chair. If it wasn’t so relevant to what I’m taking about I’d be pretty embarrassed to admit that happened.

This sense of money not meaning a thing completely swept over me. I lost 400 dollars. Just lost, with no way of getting it back. I might as well have invested it in Facebook stock.

Ohhhh Zucker-burned!

Maybe it was the frustration, but it changed how I saw anything that was valuable. It didn’t matter at all. And that was almost a liberating feeling. And then I found the iPod at the Lost & Found, and I went back to loving money.

Even when I lived at home, I liked having dinero. It wasn’t even about spending it. I liked just knowing that I had it, and it was skewing my perspective. I never needed to spend anything unless I wanted to. Now, I have $900 every month that comes right out of my account, and I can’t do shit about it. Even though I’m getting a month’s rent for it, it’s not a physical thing that I can see. Once the month’s over, the money’s gone and spent, and that fucks with my brain because it doesn’t understand that I received non-tangible goods in exchange. I just paid to be alive in a space. And it feels like I lose my iPod every month. And this of course makes me care less about money, which, although freeing, could be detrimental to the whole “savings so that I can have a life in the future” thing.

4. It’s Home, But Not Really

It’s hard to define the word “home.” Webster’s would say that “it’s the place you live, dumbass.” But in the abstract, I see it as a place that you can always go to that’s yours. A place where you can basically do anything you want short of…actually you can pretty much do whatever, and some person on the Internet will buy a copy if you film it.

One of the reasons I was reluctant to get an apartment in the first place was because I felt like I couldn’t make it my own. Because I know I won’t live there forever, it always feels temporary. I can decorate, move furniture, or draw dicks on the walls in purple crayon, but it feels pointless, because I don’t actually own it. And you’re never sure if the Landlord will approve, or if what your doing is against some kind of building code.

“What part of ‘no pets’ do you not…you know what, just keep it.”

I think everyone has this grand vision of what they would do to their own place. I wanna build a home studio, and a bar, and a room with a sign that says “The Ugly Room” and it’s just made of mirrors, because I would go that far for a visual gag. All these things have to be postponed until I get a real house. But would that feel more permanent? Even then, unless I throw down 600-grand in cash, it wouldn’t be mine for 30 years.

Home is a dynamic word. You don’t chase after it, it comes with you. A house, as in the physical structure, is an achievement. Once those are combined, I’ll have something that I can call my own. Until then, I’ll have to live with not being able to draw penises on my walls. Which should not have even been a requirement in the first place.

I should probably see a therapist.

(top photo source)