Observations From An Hour in the Seattle Airport Bookstore

I guess the Seattle airport is one of the best to spend three hours. Not  because my phone failed to update its time display, thus fooling me to believe I only had two hours left, right up until I was standing quite alone in gate N3. That could have happened in any airport. The Seattle airport had a violinist in the lunch court and a hundred retailers!

But 90% of them were restaurants which would only have serviced about 20% of my time, even if I ate slowly. I had been reading David Foster Wallace on the flight there…  one of his essays that makes me feel dumber and smarter for reading it, but mostly  dumber. There was also a good looking guy across the aisle reading Atlas Shrugged (I got it, asshole, you’ve got the brain and the look!). No – it was time for some easy reading. Time for the airport book store:

I know more than one stand-up comedian has riffed tiredly on this, but I am still amazed they sell pornography in these places… Yet I am still disappointed / relieved I have never seen any on the airplane… Do other people think like this? Should I buy some to make/ break someone  else’s day sitting next to me? this would be the only reason for such a purchase… Regardless, this book store redeems itself by offering six Kurt Vonnegut books on sale…

There are way more heavy metal bands/ lead singers from the eighties with autobiographies than I ever could have realized or wanted… the fifteen I’ve read tell the same story and I haven’t scratched the lacquered surface…

There are a shit load of good books I will never read… This makes me sad… It makes me happy there is a whole stanchion of Tom Clancy books I will never even pick up…

Enough people have read about “Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat to Change the World” to make it a bestseller…

It is still hard to type on a phone… TE.

www.killertrackman.com

“High Registering” – it is a bit like drunk registering, but instead of creating a website based on the drunk registration of a domain name, you take some Percocet and buy a domain name for a website you only created for educational purposes while following an HTML tutorial. Then you make it something that needs to updated weekly, so you can abandon it in one month, and that’s assuming you even remember making it the morning after. www.killertrackman.com

Nathan Vs. Nathan

Someone has spam attacked me by submitting my personal e-mail to various mailing lists, clubs, etc. I can only imagine that it is Nathan the Mover, upset that I have ruined his life by wittily replying to e-mails people mistakenly sent to me instead of him. The joke? Not on me, as I have had one of the most productive days of my life.

I have begun the early process of applying for the Army, subscribed to 11 magazines (including Good Housekeeping), will be receiving a trial sample of a penile enlargement wonder-pill, and have learned to read Spanish just by so much exposure.

Of course, it is also somewhat annoying that I now belong to 18 right-wing forums on the internet. So for that, Nathan the Mover will have to pay… dearly. Probably with his job, as the moving company I plan to form will be able to steal all the business I get from his misdirected e-mails… unless someone else did this, someone else who just doesn’t like me… oh, man, that could be anyone.

Ultimate Guide to Internet Dating

I tried Match.com and internet dating one year- that’s six months of paid time plus the six free months I got for being a total failure for the first half. I eventually found the secret to success, even though I suffered through many misfortunes, including this picture from a potential suitor:

Essentially, all you have to do is prepare correctly – do this one thing: make sure anyone you’re interested in has been at the internet thing for at least one month; in other words, long enough to have experienced plenty of winks, e-Harmony postings, and Match.com messages to have had their faith in the opposite sex completely destroyed. If they’ve actually been on some real life dates, even better. Then, all you have to do, is act normal. These are some actual stories that were shared with me by women on Match…

1.    “After not responding to his first inquiry, some guy e-mailed me a second time, promising that if I would talk to him he would send me a piece of fan-fiction he’d written about Garfield accidentally eating a ‘suicide lasagna’ that was meant for one of Jon’s terminally ill friends.” [ed. note - I’ve already searched the internet for this with no luck]

2.    “After appetizers at Applebees, he told me he was a photographer.  This line of conversation quickly lead to where I feared it would – he wanted me to come home with him that night for a fully nude session. I will give him credit for not bothering to lie when I jokingly asked him if they would be tasteful.”

3.    “Because I had listed ‘dogs’ on my profile under my ‘Likes’, he thought taking me to a dog park on our first date would be a good idea. It was quite awkward being there without a dog to begin with, but then he started wrestling with a border collie. And I do mean wrestling – he was covered in mud by the end. He also told me if he ever got a dog he would name it ‘Sexy Bitch’ and all the reasons why that would be funny.”

4.    This guy, who was 20 years older than me, asked me to come to his cabin for the weekend with him and his kid. He could tell I was reticent, to say the least, so he reassured me there was no reason to worry, ‘we would not be humping in front of his boy’”.

5.    “Well, one guy seemed totally normal for date number one, so I asked him over for a group dinner with friends.  The short version of the story is that he ended up passed out drunk in my bed after hitting on all the males in attendance and when that failed,  trying to stick his finger up my bum.”

As you can see, not only do these stories prove that you will have relative success on real-world meetings if you just manage to avoid humping up on strange dogs, but they are quite amusing in and of themselves. So much so, I think an ingenious proposal for a website would be called www.matchhell.com (I already registered it, so don’t bother trying) featuring horrific accounts of dates. It would be like a combination of Facebook, Amazon, and Twitter 3.0 for the lonely generation!  I doubt if that makes any sense, but I’m hoping buzzwords like ‘Twitter 3.0’ will keep the venture capitalists reading my e-mails a little longer than they normally would…  one response is all it takes.  Then, once I make my money, I can finally join www.dateamillionaire.com, where the rewards for not humping up on a strange dog will be greater than I ever imagined.

Doubt & Defiance: Taken

Those were the last 3 movies I had from Netflix – Doubt, Defiance, and Taken. I think you would have a pretty good movie by combining all 3 of the titles. Combining all 3 of the plots would be pretty good, too – a provincial nun and “progressive” priest butt heads and team up to rescue a kidnapped altar boy working as a sex slave in a Nazi forest. Given the awesome nature of such a movie, it would probably fail miserably at the box office. But the title should definitely be used for something – it has words that imply conflict, duality, and subtle ennui.  I know the public loves complex titles because Transformers 2 made 200 billion dollars on its opening weekend. Its subtitle is Revenge of the Fallen – it works on many levels because not only did the Decepticon robots “fall” in the first one, but there is apparently a transformer actually named “The Fallen”. That is fuckin’ brilliant, man.

Not a Prediction… A Recap From the Future

The 3^rd game between the Suns and Spurs in their 2007 playoff series happens about 2 hours from now. It is the first game since Amare Stoudemire called out the Spurs as a “bunch of dirty bitches”. What will happen tonight is inevitable. Stoudemire will make about 20 shots, kissing each one off the backboard. As we know from reading about Tim Duncan, this the coolest shot ever. Amare will follow each one by kissing somewhere on his arm- bicep, shoulder, finger, etc. The San Antonio crowd will boo because they think this is “whining”.

The Spurs will manage to keep it close because Michael Finley goes off for a bunch of 3-pointers. This is OK as he is still somewhat cool for calling current teammate Bruce Bowen “a dirty piece of fuck” when he was still with the Mavericks. Of course, just as Nash nails a three-pointer to tie the game late, Bowen will undercut him and break his ankle. As Bowen is thrown out, the crowd will boo because they think this is “just good defense”.

Eventually, the Suns will win on another backboard shot by Stoudemire at the end of overtime – a dunk! No one has ever seen or even envisioned what a dunk off the backboard looks like and it just shows what an unselfish player Amare is. Most players would have saved the first new dunk invented in 25 years for the All-Star dunk contest.

Nash comes back to play the next 2 games on a broken ankle averaging 50-20-10 (points – assists – blocks) and sending the Spurs home. Also, the NBA governing board of directors strips Dirk Nowitzki of his MVP trophy on the basis of “retardedness” and gives it to little Steve Nash and on the basis of “awesomeness.”

Blogging for Photos Erotiqué

I have no problem with stuffed animals. In fact, I have purchased a karate outfit for one stuffed bear and some knickers for another, neither of them mine. Once, I went into Build-a-Bear and a girl asked me if I needed some help. I replied, “Just shopping for a friend.” I had meant a human acquaintence of mine who owned a stuffed animal, but by the look on her face then and later when I was buying the pint-sized boxer briefs, she obviously thought I was talking about my “best friend in the world” – like maybe a stuffed monkey named Pepsi sitting on my couch waiting for me to get home with his present. It didn’t even bother me that much. What does bother me is the teddy bear sitting on a bookshelf in the classroom full of children at the school I work. She needs some underwear.

Missed Connection

Hi.

You were standing in front of me in the Subway at Miller and Indian School. The only reason I noticed is because you were wearing a black tube top which revealed an ample and well-received chest. Perhaps you noticed me pretending not to stare at it? The only reason I mention it now is because you eventually smiled at me, which I’m fairly certain meant you were open to a relationship, even if it was just a brief, unplanned one shortly after your combo lunch deal.

I think you initially smiled because the sandwich maker refused to give me a foot-long steak with cold meat because “it was against store policy” and he “couldn’t let me walk out the door with unheated steak”. You wordlessly conveyed the familiar “What a Nazi!” sentiment with nothing but an expression. Of course, I had no idea how to follow up your receptive demeanor, a demeanor which was augmented by the amount of visible tattoos that clearly implied you did not take life so seriously that you were opposed to casual sex in the middle of the day with a stranger. Oh, I just stood there and nodded. I admit… I blew it.

At his point, I understand I don’t deserve a second chance. However, something about the length of your fingernails, absurd glossiness of your lipstick, pierced nose… I don’t really know, but something suggested there may at least be a wealth of pictures of you on the internet somewhere. Maybe you can send me a link and perhaps a free password?

Kevin’s Monkey of the Week

My name is Kevin Shaughnessy and I love monkeys. I don’t remember much about the NFL Superbowl this year because I accidentally had my TV turned to the Animal Planet channel as the game was starting. They were running something called Puppy Bowl. It was completely idiotic – just shots of dogs playing in a cage painted to look like a football field. I spent most of the next 3 hours on the phone trying to contact anyone at Animal Planet to pitch them my idea for a little something called Amazing Monkey Bowl. I can’t go into details for obvious reasons, but once I finally get a hold of them, I think next year’s Animal Planet lineup for Super Sunday will be a little more exciting.

I did catch most of the much heralded Superbowl commercials. As usual, some of them featured apes. The one that made me the angriest was the one where a guy is disgruntled because he has to work with a “bunch of monkeys”. Of course, they literally are monkeys. I’m not even sure what the ad was for – I’m assuming cell phones or beer. But if I could boycott both, I would. Most of the animal actors, stump tailed Macaques as far as I could tell, were reduced to whoopee cushion jokes. Meanwhile, it has been proven in a laboratory setting that these chimps are more than capable of stapling, three-hole punching, rearranging boxes to save space, and collating multiple sheets of paper.

I work with a guy who can barely make the coffee the in the morning. He would be easily replaceable by most any species of simian, and I would have much more fun playing Hearts over our computer network with it. Shoot the moon, Mr. Bananas! My name is Kevin Shaughnessy and I love monkeys.

Kevin’s Monkey of the Week

My name is Kevin Shaughnessy and I love monkeys. My monkey of the week goes out to any primate who is a service monkey (it’s not what you think, I don’t love monkeys that much). Service monkeys are like seeing eye dogs, but can perform roughly 170 more life tasks than an average canine. These include dialing the telephone, making the bed, and assisting in the loading of a DVD or audio tape. They also provide love and friendship to their helpmates. I like to say, “A dog can roll over, but can he do backwards and forward somersaults, too?”

Most service monkeys are capuchin monkeys, which are slender bodied, arboreal animals. It is poetic justice that the capuchin monkey has finally realized it’s potential as a useful contributor to society, as it was the capuchin monkey that labored for so many years as a punch line next to carnival organ grinders. Of course, most any ape is smart enough to be a service monkey. In the early eighties, though, when monkeys were first being trained for assistive purposes, an incident occurred and it was decided that giving control of a silverback gorilla (and it’s ability to snap limbs) to disabled people who also generally suffer from bi-polar disorder and manic mood swings was not a good idea.

It makes me angry when these primate friends of ours are mistreated even today, as demonstrated in the recent news story about a two-year old in a supermarket who kept pulling on a monkey’s hair until he got bit. Yet, for some reason, it is not the two-year old who is threatened with being locked up. I trace the disrespect back to the 80’s horror movie Monkey Shines, which featured a service monkey trying to butcher his human companion with a scalpel. All the good that Project X had done, like teaching us that chimps could fly jet planes, was wiped out. I think it’s about time this country reexamines it’s attitude toward these special creatures. I don’t even need a service monkey, but sometimes I wish I was a quadriplegic just so I could have one. If I did have one, I would name him Frodo. My name is Kevin Shaughnessy and I love monkeys.