eBay is an amazing thang, ain’t it? you can find things on there that simply don’t exist, at least for sale, anywhere else in the world. someone damn close to me pinpointed the magic of the whole eBay experience, too…ask anybody who’s acquired something off the site, and they never say they BOUGHT it. oh no. never mind the fact that they got something, and paid money for the item, plus shipping, plus the mysterious handling costs that somehow get tacked onto absolutely anything. anywhere else in the world, cyber or otherwise, if you receive goods, and give up some currency for those goods, you BOUGHT them. on eBay, you won them. you’re a winner. good for you. your folks must be so proud.

now, don’t get me wrong…i’ve been guilty of buying some stuff on the all mighty world market place. nothing too strange, you understand. but hey, the simpson toy collection isn’t gonna build itself, ya know. i’ve seen academy awards on there (as in the actual oscar statue). hummers as well (yes, that kind and THAT kind). a search for “used thong” brought up five different items this afternoon. i’ve found stuff when i’ve put in the search phrase “crack pipe”. and i know you’re not supposed to be able to get something for nothing, but nothing for something? a search for “nothing” yields over 1,700 results. but NONE of them are free. do a search for “free” and you get over 90,000 returns. hell, even “worthless” yields five things…and they’ve ALL been bid on. just think…you can WIN something worthless. brag about THAT to your friends. can you tell i occasionally have a bit of down time at the old salt mine?

the best one, in my opinion, was the guy that offered a good ol’ fashioned ass whoopin’…complete with all the legal mumbo-jumbo such a deal would entail these days. that one was TOO fucking classic. i always wondered if all parties went through with it, or felt they got their money’s worth. oddly enough, the winner did NOT post feedback in the guys seller profile. but he must be doing something right…he was only a “5” when he posted it, and he’s at “141” now…that kicks my rating of “119” in the ass, don’t it?

2021 note – i’m now, eighteen years later, at a 1048

this all started, oddly enough, when our tech support line guy was asking me about paypal…and said he had an idea. he was gonna put his SOUL up for sale on eBay. he had plans to start bidding at $1,000,000. i pointed out to him that if he DID get a bid, and the guy stiffed him, or better still, BOUNCED A CHECK, that that was the ULTIMATE karmic fuck-up…to try and get someone’s soul is bad enough…but to stiff out on payment? they’re gonna NEED a new soul after that one.

plus, the thought of selling your soul on eBay? pretty sick, huh? but this IS a sick world. and someone beat his ass to it. and the opening bid is lower. so, who wants to own someone for REAL? and just when you thought it was safe to point and click…plus, the soul seller takes PAYPAL!!!

the title implies a bit more complexity than this entry will contain, i’m afraid…but i’ve used “nuggets” a few times too often, and “brain droppings” is the name of a carlin book. “chunks o’ mind” sounded like a soup straight out of “cooking by dahmer”, so you got something that sounded a bit more polished. sue me. the bottom line is, it’s groups of little shit further proving that i can’t hold a thought for too fucking long…

group i want to see die today

there’s always a new one, right? well, today’s group are the ones that see a tv commercial that we’ve all seen a hundred times for the first time…then laugh out loud at it. a lot. a WHOLE damn lot. like your buddy’s drunk girlfriend at the superbowl party a couple of years ago kinda lot…you know, where everybody pretty much agreed that she needed to get kicked to the curb based on that fact alone? well, add to that the fact that AFTER the laughter died down, they start repeating or describing out loud what happened to kick their laughter in again. did you know taking a tazer to someone at a delaware subs shop is illegal? neither did i ’till the cops informed me of it a bit too late. my court date is march 7th, for anyone who cares.

scary roadside snacks

when the san marcos outlet mall was in it’s infancy (i.e. NOT the size of a county in west texas, as it is now) the biggest store they had was eddie bauer. of course, this was also when people actually WORE eddie bauer. but amongst the polar fleece and deer skin gloves and various neutral colored frat boy wear was something that scared the hell out of me that i think i may have touched on here before…

salmon.

not in a cooler. not in a fridge. just smoked, vacuum-sealed fish. seasoned and smoked and sealed to be kept at room temperature. FISH that can be stored at room temperature. in a word, ick. why do i not trust that? and why do i not trust a sign that i saw on 360 out in rather ritzy west austin? it said…

“delicious beef jerky up ahead – ask about free samples!!!”

and sure enough, up ahead was a minivan with the back opened up and some guy in a lawn chair selling beef by the side of the road. and he’d let you try some for free. is this supposed to be a deal? would you trust roadside jerky with nary a grill or a fridge in sight? am i alone on this one? why do i sense a kramer comment coming out of this that will be FOR the jerky guy? i was just surprised…but not surprised that nobody was pulling over. something tells me the market for roadside jerky is kinda limited. but maybe that’s just me.

he’s not the prince of fucking darkness for nothing

so, loooooong before Mtv turned him into america’s favorite dad, there was a show on discovery (or tlc, or something that passes for educational on cable that stoned kids just LOVE, as do i) called fame and fortune and they did a bit on ozzy and the clan (which they replayed a day or two ago); with hottie daughter amy (who did not want her world invaded by Mtv crews and moved out when the series was filmed) and the other kids looking rather young and it featured their old house in england that they had renovated. amongst the renovations, was something that sharon INSISTED on to keep the marriage together because ozz kept getting up in the middle of the night and peeing all over seat…

URINALS!!!

damn, i knew i just had to respect that man for more than just the music, mayhem, and random decapitation…

Replies: 7 Comments

are you kidding me? RONCO FOOD DEHYDRATOR for jerky all the way! What kind of twisted-ass trailer park did you grow up in?

fredlet said @ 02/04/2003 11:14 PM CST

damn…who knew the jerky comment would bring so much reaction? there was a new jerky guy staking his turf on 360 today…and his sign said “FRESH jerky”, which he did keep in a cooler…but is there such a thing as fresh jerky?

sean M (again) said @ 02/04/2003 09:28 PM CST

you don;t need a fridge or a grill when jerky is involved. they salt and smoke the meat to preserve it. that’s what the settlers did. and, while it may seem strange to a texas boy like yourself, in other parts of the world, they jerky-fie meats other than beef. therefore, you see things like salmon jerky, turkey jerky, etc etc.

josh said @ 02/04/2003 08:58 PM CST

How do you preserve meat? Smoke it.

astrofishy said @ 02/04/2003 07:05 PM CST

maybe i’m missing something, but why do you need to see a grill or a fridge near jerky? Jerky is the perfect food: no cooking or refrigeration needed.

topenga said @ 02/04/2003 10:21 AM CST

well, yeah…who HASN’T eaten mexican food out of an ice chest used to keep it HOT? but that’s different…

sean said @ 02/04/2003 09:45 AM CST

Maybe not roadside jerky (I always want a dentist appointment after eating jerky), but I’ll stop almost anywhere in Texas for roadside tamales.

Scott Chaffin said @ 02/04/2003 09:01 AM CST

yesterday a dream of mine came crashing to the ground. if i may showcase my inner geekdom for a second, i was one of many kids who wanted to be an astronaut when i grew up. had no interest in being on a rocket. oh no, FAR too phallic for me, and i have no insecurities in that anatomical area…although some would argue that putting metal through it is trying to create my own “crotch rocket”, those people are undeniably oblivious to the whole destruction of the aerodynamics principle. but let’s move on…

no sir…i wanted to be on the space shuttle. the space shuttle columbia was first launched when i was a kid, and that was a big deal. it was sleek. it was cool. i had toys of it and models of it and posters of it and i wanted to ride in it. if i had grown up rich, i SO would have gone to space camp in houston. but then my voice changed, i decided i didn’t really like science all that much, and so i ended up in radio and such. go figure. plus, when they started coming out with more than ONE space shuttle, it didn’t seem as cool anymore. but i never forgot who was the O.S. (original shuttle). and it saddened me to hear about it burning up on re-entry.

but that wasn’t ALL that saddened me. oh no.

what REALLY saddened me was hearing nacadoches and palestine and jasper and other chunks of the deliverance-inspired communities near the LA border (NOT los angeles) referred to as “central texas” on cnn. what the fuck?

now look here.

any self-respecting i35 corridor texan KNOWS where central texas is. it’s just north of us. it’s temple. it’s waco. it’s killeen, and the biggest god damned military installation the free world has to offer. that’s why we’re referred to as SOUTH central texas (and never mind tons of our caucasian males getting roped into the rap lifestyle and thinking they’re “hard” when they hear dr. dre talk about how rough it is in south central like he’s talking about new braunfels and not compton…he means south central LOS ANGELES, kids…sorry. but, i digress…).

but the point is (yes, i DO have one) east texas is NOT central texas. not by a long shot. hell, they’re closer to being louisianans than one of us. ask anybody…picture a cross between the guys bobby from the waterboy went to high school with and your typical springer topic family. THAT’S closer to east texas, for the most part. where nothing says loving like marrying your cousin. where people who go to the dentist are looked at as “uppity”. where the presence of swarms of federal vehicles yesterday combing the davy crocket national forest looking for chunks o’ shuttle had shitloads of people throwing camo tarps over stills and hiding in the neighbor’s bunker that’s basically just an old school bus he buried back in the summer of ’99 prepping for when y2k hit and the whole place went shit house.

and yes, josh, i know not ALL of them are that way. but everyone cnn seemed to talk to yesterday was…

“gawl dang…we were just lookin’ up and heard this loud boom and saw this little trail in the sky. the boom rattled the whole trailer and ‘ma just yelled, ‘sweet jesus…it’s the rapture upon us!!!’ and ran screaming outside nekid…”

okay, so maybe that’s not EXACTLY what was said. but you get the idea. east and central just aren’t the same. now, they did later correct it; but for those who only caught the earlier broadcast i wanted to make sure we were all clear.

and if you DO find a chunk o’ shuttle, don’t try and touch it. or go sell it for money. or try and start a religion based on this offering from the sky. actually, given the waco factor, i guess that last one might be a little more central texan than east.

but the cnn guy was too funny.

so, he’s trying to talk to east texans to tell them about the shuttle bit…and used large scientific terms for the fuel mixture, and phrases like “great peril” if you were to try and touch it. talk about not knowing your audience. just call it “nasty shit”. or better yet, just tell ’em it’ll inhibit you from drinking and make you lust after the idea of branching off your family tree. that oughta do it.

Replies: 2 Comments

(shamelessly lifted elsewhere)

A teacher asks her class where Jesus was born. Little Bubba raised his hand….

“Damascus.”

“No, it wasn’t Damascus.”

“Carthage?”

“No, it wasn’t Carthage, it was Palestine.”

“Shoot, I knew it was someplace in East Texas.”

astrofishy said @ 02/03/2003 06:18 PM CST

I was (and am) going to write about this very thing…

Nice to meet you, finally.

timbrat said @ 02/02/2003 10:49 PM CST

This was written on the flight BACK from Denver a couple of weeks ago…but the laptop gave me issues, so it was kinda “trapped” there. But now I’ll slap ya in the face with it…try not to get any on you…unless you’re into that kinda thing. Yeah, ya like that don’t ya bitch? Sorry…got caught up in the moment there. And now, to a time not so long ago, to a patch of sky somewhere over west texas…

first, why the long pause between parts two and three? no, i’m not trying to emulate some movie sequel bullshit. it’s just that the first installment was on my way OUT to denver, the second after a long day where we didn’t feel like going out. then came the other days, where we realized that booze and such were good ways to wrap up those long days…but not good ways to get things written on your web page. never mind that now.

where did we leave off, anyway? wednesday? does that sound right?

boulder, denver, colorado springs…it all started to look the same to me, just the mountains around me changed. so work trips go sometimes. i pulled a twelve hour day monday, eleven and a half tuesday, twelve wednesday, thirteen on thursday, and then friday was my “short day” with only ten hours of work. fuck ALL this. just see if my phone even gets answered on sunday. but thursday had it’s high points, and i’m not just speaking of colorado elevation. i finally found GOOD mexican food in the rocky mountain state. it’s in castle rock. and it’s called grumpy gringo. i am NOT making that up. i have the hat to prove it and everything (and as per your request josh, yes, you have a shirt).

on thornton, on parker, and greenwood village, too. when all i do is work, and deal with albertson’s, and spend the day fixing things, i really don’t have jack squat to write about. but THEN we decided to see if the diamond cabaret was all it was cracked up to be. we walk in and porn star jasmine st. claire is on stage. next thing i know, i’m pouring candle wax on her nipples in front of a raucous crowd. and the prime rib wasn’t bad either.

our waitress (all 4’10” of her) was a psych major working towards her masters. she spent long periods of the evening psycho-analyzing the dancers, other waitresses, and ms. anal 2002 in particular (a title ms. st claire achieved by recieving three simultaneous deliveries in her ‘service entrance’, a feat that boggled our imagination…how do you situate THREE guys to all…well….i still don’t get it..but keep in mind this is also the woman who was once done by 500 guys in a 24 hour period…a record since shattered, although i don’t know what the new number is…or why anyone would want it) sweet girl none the less, and she gave me (and justin) hugs on our way out the door and told me to have a safe trip. awwww….but back to catherine, the waitress. she and i were chatting about people in general, and it hit me. i came up with a theory that may surprise a few, as most of my ideas tend to. and it goes a little something like this…

we intellectuals are ruining the world.

we are. tis true. and i’ll tell you why…we tend to only fuck our own.

intelligent people are typically drawn to intelligent people. that’s not to say some dumb as hell hot thing isn’t gonna get tapped every once in a while, but overall, we tend to keep to our own. especially when it comes to long-term, “hey, let’s have kids and shit” types of relationships. you get a bright guy and a bright girl together, and next thing you know, bright kids. but that takes TWO of us out of the running for others, so what does that leave? next thing you know, the lava lamp’s going in the trailer, the frederick’s thong is lying on the padded foot board of the water bed, and pour some sugar on me is blaring from the boom box…nine months later, and they’re having to rethink their sophomore year in high school ’cause now they’re a threesome. and not in that stripper fantasy threesome sort of way. smart people tend to have smart kids, er go stupid people must tend to have stupid kids, right? of course, they also tend to hear the phrase “er go” and think it’s a new nike shoe. but never mind that now.

if only a few of us smarter ones would take one for the team we could start to level the curve a bit. i don’t know if i could take it on the long term, ’cause no matter how hot you look naked, eventually i’m gonna wanna actually TALK to you…and if that makes the magic go away, we have a problem. but i have a plan, and this is where the REAL controversy starts.

operation “DUMB FUCK”. where we smart guys go out and fuck the hell out of the ditziest skanks we can find. all in the name of improving the human race, of course. purely for scientific purposes. no pleasure will be drawn from this. we may LOOK like we’re enjoying ourselves, but we’re really not…it’s all just for the benefit of everyone involved. make it seem more real and all. mullet not required, boys. but it may help the cause more. same can be said for a camaro or trans am. but once again, i digress. hell, if we’re REALLY bright we’ll find out a way to write this off on our taxes. some sort of charity exemption. and with that, we have the extra money to help out with the raising of thurston billy ray bob junior. remember, he’s only looking at a fifty-fifty chance of getting a good scholarship. am i sounding to elitist here?

…and was this worth waiting for?

2021 note – 2006, over three years after this bit came out, saw the release of “idiocracy” AND me purchasing a camaro…coincidence?

Replies: 7 Comments

Hey, I’ve been doing my share to implement this concept with the male half of the population for decades!
— Trailer Park Girl

dragonfly jenny said @ 01/31/2003 10:02 AM CST

OH this is good!

Melissa said @ 01/29/2003 11:20 PM CST

oh, and…
“we intellectuals are ruining the world.”
are you kidding me? have you SEEN the chimp in office?

fredlet said @ 01/29/2003 02:55 PM CST

are you sure nurture vs. nature won’t level the curve? I’m not trying to keep you from getting laid, but dude, are you ready for the constant care of kids (and dealing with Lurlene’s 40 brothers, sisters and cousins) ?
Can you afford all the paternity suits that skanky-ho’s will riddle the justice system with?

fredlet said @ 01/29/2003 02:36 PM CST

Brilliant idea. I am, naturally, volunteering to offer my services – for the cause, of course.

astrofishy said @ 01/29/2003 08:09 AM CST

Fantastic!
Hey, you’ll probably find this amusing…years ago i wrote a song, “Dumb Fuck”..you might say it was the price I paid for “taking one for the team.” 🙂

Greg said @ 01/29/2003 02:39 AM CST

It was MORE than worth waiting for!

Da Goddess said @ 01/29/2003 02:30 AM CST

so, yesterday was all about the united colours of money. tons spent on ads, tons spent on merch, tons spent on snacks, and almost just as much spent on silver and black paint that ended up washed away in tears as the raiders drowned in the crimson tide that was tampa bay.
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a few things you can do with nothing more than a valid texas driver’s license…
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don’t blame me. i didn’t bring this sack-shriveling cold shit to texas. didn’t happen. i SWEAR. personally, i think it’s kinda sad that i’m almost HOPING to have to go back to colorado next week just so i can warm up. but these things happen, i suppose…
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no, i don’t mean that in the mexican border town sex show kinda way…unless you’re into that kinda thing, then more power to ya. and try not to EVER date anyone affiliated with P.E.T.A. that will open up a can of worms you don’t EVEN wanna deal with…
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so, check THIS shit out. we’re in denver, we get our work done (twelve hour day…one of many), and we decide that neither of us has ANY interest in driving ANYWHERE to get food. i point out that we ARE right across the street from papa john’s, and we decide pizza MUST be the dietary call for the evening.
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so forgive the shortness of this one, but it was a long, shitty day where nothing worked, and save for my health and automotive catastrophe, all went wrong. and even though clerks IS on cinemax right now, it’s almost 1:30 am mountain time, and i have to get up in a bit more than five hours. combine that with great pizza, gentleman jack, and a good nicaraguan cigar and i’m surprised i’m still upright…but back to the terror that was tuesday in the rockies…
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