Over Not Under!

It's the little things in life that matter the most. The tiny day to day issues that your normal, 9 to 5, carbon based life form tend to not notice, but that immediately raise red flags for you once they cross into your field of vision and are forced to interact with them.

I'm almost positive you, the gentle reader, already know exactly what I'm talking about:

the person who doesn't wipe the spit out of the corner of their mouth when they talk,

cars that take up two parking spaces,

pubic hair on a toothbrush.

The list could go on forever. Tiny little nuances that could be corrected oh so easily, but for some damnable reason they never are. They just sit there, staring you in the face, mocking you with their simple idiocy.

What makes it worse is having to be forced to stare at these faults knowing that you could easily correct any one of them in an instant. But, dare you?! Dare you invade someones personal facial space and wipe off their salivary shame? Dare you call out all those who would be proud enough to join you and lift a random strangers car and re park it properly in the lot of a TJ Maxx? Dare you risk the possibility of infection to remove the unsightly mess of curly love hair from a tooth brush just because it's the right thing to do?

Probably not.

Like you I have many, many little tangents that I run into in life that tend to piss me off to no end. The one that I seem to run into the most often, and hence piss me off the most, is one I think goes far too unnoticed.

Toilet Paper Placement.

When I sit down to take care of business, and I finish said business, I expect only one thing afterwards: to be able to place my hands on a clean roll of ivory, imitation cloth like splendor, and pull off as many sheets as easily as possible. Emphasis on easily.

Now in my mind, this should not be a hard thing to expect at all! It should be expected! Why am I complaining then? Because for some reason, some unexplainable god forsaken reason, there is a trove of human beings out there that cannot grasp the simple fundamental concept of properly placing a roll of basic fucking toilet paper onto it's little holder.

Am I going too fast for you? Am I getting too far ahead of myself? Well let's go back a step!

The basic design and physics of a roll of toilet paper, i.e. how it was ordained by God, is that when pulled, the sheets of butt cleansing paper must roll off the TOP of the roll of toilet paper. Let me reiterate.

The...Top.

"Why is this so important that it needs to be explained and also deems worthiness to be a Fact of your Life Bob?" I'm glad you asked!

Nothing irritates me more than when I have to wipe my tiny ass, and I go for a sheet or five, and lo and behold...there's nothing there! I see the paper, it's right there in front of me, yet nothing is coming into my slightly stained finger tips! How is this even humanly possible?

Because some Podunk fool didn't take the half second extra out of his/her life to think about me and use the horrible physical effort I'm sure it would have taken to actually turn the ungodly heavy roll of toilet paper around and put it in the dispenser properly.

Or to put it more eloquently, because some A-hole put the Toilet Paper in upside down.

Because of this I now have to sit on the toilet, feeling like a moron, either fingering the back of the toilet paper roll desperately trying to get just a shred of paper for my grimy ass, or spinning said roll with one hand and catching the extra paper from the back with the other. Either way I feel like a retired 70 year old woman at a casino desperately trying to get coins out of a slot machine. Except I'm on a toilet.

Fortunately for me I have the ability to change the world with this affliction of mine. Kinda. Obviously I have control of my Toilet Paper in my own personal surroundings, that goes without saying. BUT If I am at a friends house, and I happen to see the Toilet Paper upside down: around it goes buddy boy, around it goes. I will not have it in my presence.

Sadly there are instances where I cannot alter this bastardization in anyway: restaurants, grocery stores, firing ranges. Reason being because they smartly keep their TP under lock and key for protection. Protection from me.

So it's a Fact: Over not under folks. And if I find my Toilet Paper upside down in my house after this post I know that you did it!

Game Over *sniff*

I'm sure by now that you have all gotten the idea that I like to play videogames on a semi to fairly regular basis. In my younger more fertile youth filled days I played them quite a bit more. So I guess that would put them into a category of regular to unhealthy basis of play.

My point is that the wonderful world of video games has been a large mainstay of my life. Even as a child my parents would take me to arcades and waste their quarters on me so they could watch me mash the joysticks endlessly on Frogger as I squealed like an idiot, pretending like I knew what I was doing. They would smile and laugh at my happiness, the whole while hoping that I wasn't mentally handicapped and was just easily distracted by bright colors and loud noises instead(note: technically I am mentally handicapped).

Throughout all these years I have been able to do one thing for the majority of my game playing: keep my cool. By that I mean whenever I lost, or sucked absolute anus at a video game I didn't start yelling or screaming at the top of my lungs, or cry like the tips of my pinkies had been cut off. Nope, I just went on playing and generally kept an even keel.

Generally.

Unfortunately there are always exceptions to the rule. It could be something as simple as fatigue, caffeine or even a dead pet. For me, my own exceptions were just the games themselves. They were my breaking point, the things that were to cause me to briefly go insane.

I know it sounds sort of like an obvious reason, but the games that made me lose it weren't just any games. No, these were games that were so ungodly hard (or stupid) that they couldn't be beaten and the entire time you played them it felt like they were mocking you for even trying to do so. And for some stupid reason, even though I knew better, I kept trying to beat them regardless of how many times they spanked me in defeat. And when they spanked, they spanked hard.

Now when I say I reached my breaking point, I don't mean I raised my voice at the T.V. and said "Come On!" or threw my hands up in the air. Oh no. I broke down like a blubbering idiot. I stomped my feet, screamed like a girl, and after 2 hours of being bettered by an 8 to 16 bit machine I started to shed tears and blame the machine for cheating. Which it was.

What I would like to present to you now is a condensed list of the various games that have caused me irreparable mental anguish in my life, the ones that have done the most harm.

• Ghosts and Goblins (NES) - Why man was allowed to create this game I will never know. It's difficult to the point of embarrassing...literally. Any upgrades you receive are actually worse than the weapon you start out with, the equivalent of the mouth of hell opens up and is constantly out to rip you apart every two feet, and on top of that you are forced to walk around in your underwear if you underperformed. Difficult AND degrading. If you want your child to never play video games, force them to play this one over and over.
• Battletoads (NES) - Pretty fun game at first. It's a strange Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle knockoff whose main characters are named after bodily fluids. It's fun for the first five minutes, and then the game punishes you for enjoying those five minutes. Every moment you play after that is absolutely unforgiving to the point where you can't even play the damn game.
• The Super Star Wars Series (SNES) - It looks Awesome! It sounds Awesome! It's Star Wars! It must be the greatest thing ever, right?! Eat my butt. These are the games that actually made me burst into tears because it made me feel like I wasn't a good enough person to play them they were so effing hard. What made it worse was that it would give you glimpses of hope that you could actually progress further in the game, and then it would slap you down like a fool and crush those glimmers of hope, or do one better by letting you go to the next level and not even let you move five feet without killing you mercilessly. I loathe these games. I'm crying right now.
• Street Fighter Series (Arcade) - Now I wouldn't cry after playing these games, but just get pissed off. Why? Because any time you would go to an arcade to play one of these games, some A-hole would come up, put in a quarter, play Ken and beat the crap out of you because he memorized every special move and then he would go on and play for three more hours. So you just had to stand there without anymore quarters and not play as E-Honda for probably what would have been five more minutes, because some prick wanted to be just that: a prick. You know what, screw it, I hate all fighting games because of crap like that.

There are of course other games that I loathe and hate, that cause madness and anger to spring up inside me, but these are the ones that have caused me the most pain. These are the ones that have poisoned my life. I'm sure there are more than this, but I think that the traumatic impact of playing them has caused my mind to blank out that experience altogether.

So it's a Fact: Unless you want to see me turn into a blubbering idiot keep these games away from me.

Life, and The Facts Therein!

Alot has happened in the last month, enough in Fact to keep me from posting erroneous Facts on a regular basis for the last month. Miraculous things, scandalous things, and an amazing lack of erotic encounters! Yes, it has been an amazing month.

First I would like to start off on a positive high note and force you to explore some of the miraculous things that I experienced. Earlier this month I received a text message from one of my best friends informing me that he was in the hospital awaiting the birth of his second offspring. Being the dutiful friend that I am, I immediately sent a text message to him and his wife that was nothing short of girly giggles and the emoticon equivalent of spastic five year old jumping up and down in a frantic pixie stix high. Then I told him I'd be there after work.

Once I managed to get to the birthing center I was greeted by friends/family and sat down in excited discomfort, waiting for the good news of the arrival of a freshly minted child. Sure enough in about ten minutes we got it! My arrival dawned the arrival of a new life!

After they hosed down the new spawn, branded it and made sure it wasn't allergic to red dye no. 5, they allowed everyone to take a peak. Nothing beats that new baby smell!

Afterwards I congratulated my best friends wife on surviving the process of birth (which isn't fair to call her 'Best Friend's Wife', because she's one of my best friends too. But for clarity purposes we'll just leave it as is for right now), went to eat with my best friend, then promptly went out to celebrate by having a few drinks and then urinated in an alleyway.

So It's a Fact: My arrival will guarantee the birth of a child.

Oh yeah, that other stuff.

Well, now that I think about it all the scandalous stuff that happened to me this past month...I can't really talk about it. Why? For legal purposes. If the person(s) involved were to stumble across this (ugh) blog, then everything that I rant against said person(s) could very well be used in a court of law against me. I think.

And honestly the last thing that I need is for my life to start turning out like an episode of Boston Legal. Actually no, that would be great because then I would probably be having sex on a regular basis and I would win in court!

So It's Another Fact: My life is filled with shadowy plots you could never comprehend! Is it blown out of proportion for entertainment purposes, or watered down so you can handle it in small portions? You decide!

EPILOGUE

So after a month that's about all I can think of writing in just one post! Exciting isn't it! Sadly, I truly did sit down with the intention of writing down all the details of the 'scandalou' goings on this past month, but then it dawned on me that I couldn't. For that I kind of apologize. But, as the blurb says underneath the title, I vow to not be so effing lazy and post more often. I mean I think I'm pretty interesting, I'm plenty eager to write about myself! It's like mental masturbation.

Get that image out of your head.

Brew Me Up a Cup

Coffee: You either love it or hate it. Personally I love it, and my tastes are very simple. My coffee does not need to be steamed, or latte'd to be adequate for my tastes. No, my coffee needs simply to be freshly ground, all American, imported Guatemalan Folgers beans. The kind John Wayne would drink. Black as midnight, hot as hell, pure swill...pure heaven!

While I've always loved coffee, I didn't really develop a true love for coffee until I became one of those annoying teenage dweebs who hangs out at the local Flying J late at night, every night, having long hourly sessions of senseless chatter with best friends, all the while consuming cup after cup of hot refillable coffee.

Even then it wasn't until I joined the Army that my love for coffee truly 'matured'. I still ended up slumming around at some local diner for untold hours with friends, consuming everflowing streams of hot ebony liquid, that much stayed the same. But there was something about the presence of coffee itself that changed in those years of service to the military.

Coffee had now become more than just something to drink to wake you up in the morning, or a late night beverage to pass time: coffee became culture!

It was everywhere you went, at work, at the chow hall, and regardless everybody had a damn cup in their hand. You would always end up drinking it at work, whether it was 20 degrees below zero or 150 degrees Fahrenheit. You just needed to have coffee, it kept you going. It was lifeblood.

Because coffee had become culture to me, having it at work and the occasional late night sessions just wasn't enough, I had to upgrade. One day i decided to buy a coffee pot so that I could enjoy the sweet nectar of the bean in the comfort of my 12x12 room. I don't remember who I bought it from, but it was the simplest of machines. A small, white coffee pot that could brew a maximum of two cups at a time. It was magnificent.

Now that I had this amazing little contraption I could have coffee any damn time I wanted! After I got done working out every morning with my fellow soldiers, I could brew up a cup. Every time I would sit down to write and needed a non-alcoholic stimulant, I could brew up a cup. Have a few friends over to watch some serious non pornographic film and discuss afterwards, brew up a cup.

That coffee pot got some serious mileage on it.

Now this coffee pot didn't just brew coffee though, it brewed the best damn coffee known to man. I don't know what it was about that damn coffee pot, but it got the job done and it got it done right. Every time, two cups, right to the brim, exactly. Fantastic.

After I got out of the military I brought it home with me to continue brewing the most satisfactory (two) cups of coffee known to man, and brew them it did. I got so used to this magnificent little machine that I could almost time to when it would complete the brewing process. It was almost like we were one.

I would show you a picture of this fabulous coffee birthing machine if it weren't for one sad, sad fact: it died.

The damn thing just up and quit on me one day. It literally started spewing coffee out of the bottom of itself, like it just couldn't take anymore. All I could do was just stand there, stare at it, and let my mouth hang open in sadness. I knew fully well what was taking place before me, the death of a friend, a lifelong companion...I just couldn't believe it. I didn't want to believe it.

How many gallons of coffee had I brewed with this little machine? How many friends had I sat down and shared a cup of joe with because of this little guy? How many years did we have together? All of it gone, in an instant, all because of time.

Eventually I went off to get a new coffee pot, one that was bigger and could brew more than just two cups of coffee at a time. There were other brewers available that were exactly the same as the one that I had prior, but it just felt wrong to try and repeat the magic that we had. I knew that it wouldn't be the same.

I still reminisce about the good old days of brewing just two cups o' coffee with my percolator, I can never seem to get them out of my head and just leave them in the past. The coffee I have today just doesn't seem to taste the same.

I don't think it ever will.

So it's a Fact: I'm living proof that man can definitely learn to love machine.

8-Bit Love!

Innocence is something that we all have to lose eventually. For some of us it's something as simple as finding out that Santa Claus is not real (even though he is), or it can be as horrifying as walking into your parents bedroom to show them a drawing of a war picture you just made only to discover them completely naked in a reverse cowgirl. Sweet, sweet innocence.

Once it's gone you either never notice it was there in the first place, and instantly turn to a life of deep painful maturity, or you spend the rest of your life pining over how you did lose it and end up futily trying to get it back by dressing up in costumes based on bad Japanese RPG's with giant cardboard swords and fake spiky hair at every opportunity you get where it's semi socially acceptable. Or just cross dressing.

Luckily for me I've had the wonderful joy of losing my innocence at least three times that I can recall clearly. I won't go into walking into you know who doing you know what and I'm sure you unerstand why I won't do that. Well maybe I will later, but not right now. Actually what I would like to talk about is a different kind of copulation that had affected me in my early childhood.

In one of my earlier Facts I talked about my parents not having an effing clue about buying video games. In it I made a small reference to a "poorly translated japanese action/adventure game with RPG elements". That game was Golgo-13 for the Nintendo Entertainment System.

This game was definitely different. It had things in it that I had never seen before and were completely alien to me: Cut scenes, First Person levels, Badly Translated Drama, you name it! On top of that it was painfully difficult. You had no idea what you were supposed to be doing, there were bad guys AND civilians to deal with, and on top of that electrified seaweed that could kill your ass in an instant if you weren't too careful. And don't even get me started on the mazes.

Part of me was upset because all I ever wanted out of a videogame was to shoot things, jump on mushroom creatures and save helpless maidens named after fruit. Then again getting a new video game for me was such a monumental event that I forced myself to believe that this was an awesome game. You play with what your dealt, right?

After hours of playing this torturous and confusing game that was unlike any other I finally started to enjoy it for real, but that didn't stop the game from being any less difficult. One of the 'objectives' in the game is to stop at a variety of hotels to meet 'contacts' who would provide you with 'information' that would help you progress 'forward'. Pretty heavy stuff for an eleven year old to grasp who's used to walking left to right and holding down the B button and drooling on himself.

Anyway, I get to one of the hotels to meet my 'contact' and it is nothing less than a ravishing 8-bit green haired women in a matching 8-bit green mini skirt. We talk for a bit about how I'm to acquire a variety of Scuba Gear, so that I can jump in the city river and swim around and avoid seaweed like an idiot. Suddenly this amazing 2D green headed vixen says it's such a lovely night and that no one should be alone (or something along those lines).

And then it happened.

I saw it! I saw it happen right before my own eyes! Video Game characters on my Nintendo were having sex! Two miniscule 8-bit silhouetted characters embracing in the night! They were doing it!

My first thought was 'No...Way!' This could not be happening. Video Game people don't have sex? They just go left to right, shoot, jump and die at my hands. This was real world stuff, and what the hell was it doing in my 5x6 NES cartridge? But that whole thought vanished after five seconds and was replaced by a fit of the giggles, and I promptly started showing this scene to all of my friends. They giggled too.

So why would seeing a bunch of crappy two dimensional action heroes suggestively copulate on my Nintendo cause me to lose my innocence (1 of 3 at least)? Because nothing in the video game world could ever match that moment, not one thing.

Every video game experience I had from that point on was kind of 'meh'. Hordes of demons charging me head on, exploring new worlds in true 3-D while brandishing nail guns, shooting watermelons on a countertop on an oil rig while avoiding terrorists, all of what could have been truly amazing video game experiences had been turned into merely 'meh'.

Why? Because I saw two people hump on my NES.

So it's a Fact: What could have been a life filled with wonderful, eye opening experiences of video game glory, had been lost because two horny 8-bit people decided to go at it on in front of my innocent eyes. Most likely in a reverse cowgirl too.

Bonus Fact: After they embrace, the lights go out and your life meter regenerates. If only that were true in real life.

The Geek Must Speak!

Let's spice things up a bit for this Fact, shall we? How about we get a little bit more intimate this time around. I would like to talk to you about a Fact that is more personal, yet strangely entertaining: My Geek Self.

I can already hear your goosebumps tingling with excitement! I know mine are.

For the vast, VAST, majority of my life I have been a geek. Not a full fledged homogenized geek to where I sleep with a lightsaber at night, but a well maintained and balanced geek. A rare breed that is able to sustain a semi-normal life, yet embrace the utter joy and bliss that is the world of the geek without being utterly consumed by it.

Contradictory? Perhaps. Is it? No.

I consider myself to having the staple geek credentials/material objects, like having an UNGODLY amount of books, films, comics, video games and the strangest collection of...paraphernalia adorning my basement, all related to various subjects in the geek realm. I enjoy, dabble, play and roll around in all of my geek things regularly, and enjoy in doing so. It's great stuff.

Being a well-balanced geek isn't easy though. There are temptations, shiny objects, that beckon your name. they call to you and beg you to become part of their brood and become one with them. I have dabbled in some of these temptations, and found that they became more like habits. Some of my geek habits have included:

• Role Playing Games - The bug hit me in Junior High. I hardly played them, but I had a shitload of them.
• Hacking - I used to be an avid to poor computer hacker and spent the majority of my life on my computer learning how not to be a hacker.
• Magic the Gathering, et al - Oh Jesus. I spent hardly any money on it, hardly played it, but somehow I had an assload of these fricking cards. UNFORTUNATELY, there was a crapload of other crappy ass card games coming out at the same that this game came out that I got into for about the length of a week. On a side note I wish this game would just die.
• Tabletop Gaming - You know those tiny little metal figurines of Orcs carrying machine guns that are painted with amazing detail? Well I gave my hand at that and couldn't cut it, as in I couldn't paint.
• Tabletop Gaming Pt. II - They were called heroclix. They were fun. They were addictive. They were expensive.
• Star Trek - I still love Star Trek, but I used to be obsessed with it. A long time ago I went through the methadone clinic for Trekkies and now I can just enjoy Star Trek when I feel like it.
• Star Wars - The less said the better.

To those of you who have never dipped their fingers in the world of geekdom I'm sure this all seems bizarre, fascinating and stupid. But to those of us you who are geeks this doesn't seem like a big deal at all, and you're saying to yourself "What's the big effing deal Bob? Who hasn't painted a miniature future Orc, and cursed George Lucas' name at the same time? I Pwn ur G3k Crdntl5!"

Fair enough, but please allow me to explain further.

The above list are all geek habits that I consider to be ones that push you over the edge. Once you embrace them to the fullest, start to kneel down and worship them and offer sacrificial ken dolls to you can rarely ever recover from their effects. I on the other hand have been very lucky to have dabbled in all of the above deadly addictions, taste their sweet nectar, and then leave them behind like Spock on the Genesis Planet.

As mentioned earlier I consider myself a geek, but a geek that is well balanced and is able to maintain a semi-normal life. I have been able to walk that fine line to where I can keep my geek credentials, yet not fall into that dismal abyss of geekdom that would require me to dress up like Prince Colwyn from Krull on a daily basis, or do something even more drastic like speak Klingon and use it to order six Jr. Bacon Cheeseburgers from Wendy's for my daily life sustaining binge.

So why not give up being a geek completely, curb the habit all the way? Quite simply because I love being a geek! I love all of the crap I have, all of the useless geek knowledge I've acquired and being able to have conversations about what you would do if you had the Infinity Gauntlet. If I got rid of my geek self I would be forced to do things with my spare time like watch college football, or worry about constantly 'pimping my ride'.

No thanks, I'll stick with my useless TRON knowledge. Which is totally applicable to the real world.

So it's a Fact: If I were to give up being a geek in any way, shape or form, my life would be filled with abnormal normality. And we can't have that.

Bonus Fact: I don't speak Klingon.

Once Eaten

Some foods you just end up growing out of as a child. It's an unavoidable aspect of life that you cannot escape: one day you love it, the next day you hate it. It's just a Fact of life (ha!). Now I don't mean any genre of food per-se, as in "I loved cereal as a child, now I vomit in my bowl at the mere sight of it.", though I'm sure there are people who do that. No I am referring to specific food types.

A prime example of this would be Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches, or as they're more commonly known in the hood, PB&J sammiches. Almost everybody I have known in my life loved them, they were a staple part of their diet as a child. Then one day something just happened and they stopped being cool. Now as adults they are a reviled part of their diet and they vomit at the mere sight of them.

What is the main driver behind that sudden twist in taste? Could it be hormones? Violence? Wanting to be part of the "In Crowd"? Blossom on weeknights on NBC? If you wanted my guess (which is why you're reading this) it would be something far more complicated, like having it day-in and day-out for the vast majority of your childhood. I'm pretty sure that would have something to do with it, but hey that's just me.

For me, my love/hate relationship with food isn't quite so simple.

My food love/hate thing definitely stems from the child to adult scenario I've established, unfortunately it's not as easy to describe as "I Love Broccoli...I Hate Broccoli". Actually, the more thought I've put into this Fact-Theory hybrid the more complicated it gets for me. Would you like to know more? Of course you would!

In my youthfulness I definitely remember eating Tuna Fish sandwiches, which is funny because I hate seafood in all of it's forms (this will definitely be a future Facts, so be prepared). I can't even remember the last time I ate a tuna fish anything, whether it be a sandwich, casserole or surprise. I'm sure one or two have slipped past me and made its way into my stomach in the days that have gone by, but not because I went out of my to do so.

Tuna is just nasty: it smells funny, it's covered in water and only tastes good when bathed in mayonnaise. Not necessarily the best of combos, making a food delicious by forcing it to swim around in man made fat. Of course when you're eight years old things like that don't really cross your mind. Plus kids eat paste.

But that's where things get conflicting for me with my hate theory. I really can't put my finger on the fact whether or not I really did like Tuna in the first place as a young lad.

Like I said prior, I know I ate the crap when it was put in front of me, but I don't remember actually enjoying the process. I can't bring up any kind of emotional based memories to associate with this food whatsoever. So did I eat this food in my youth out of pleasure, or was it out of sheer obligation?

This in turns brings moral dilemma: how can I go around preaching on and on about foods one loves as a youth, but hates as an adult, and yet be morally confused about the one that I bring up as an example in my own life? Can I use the canned Tuna as an example in my Fact just because I have a memory of eating as a child, but no clear recollection of having any emotional attachment to it whatsoever? I think about this every time I see a can of Starkist or a dolphin doing tricks on television.

I feel the only way to really clear the air on this one is to just buckle down, pull $.75 out of thin air, walk down to the Dolphin Free section of the supermarket, grab a can of Charlie's favorite brand and take the plunge. That's right, take the plunge and get at least one strange pathetic theory out of the way!

If I make a Tuna Sandwich, eat it, and hate it I can stay in my unnecessary moral dilemma that bothers me only once every four years. BUT, if I eat it and like it, then I can develop a reverse theory that I did always hate Tuna, and my tastes have matured and I can write another Fact's of Bob's Life based on my adventure!

But I'm cheap, and I can't stand the smell of that crap.

So it's a Fact: Do I like Tuna? Not really. Did I ever like Tuna? I dunno. Will I ever dive head long into a fresh can of chopped fish to see if I still hate it, or if I have developed new tastes for it? No, that shit stinks.