I've got a few weekend tradations, one of them is drunk dialing. Drunk dialing is a true artform. It's got a basic structure, but upon this framework the dialer is provided the opportunity to express themselves.

There's only one rule of drunkdialing:
Don't dial unless you're happy drunk. If you're depressed or angry drunk, not only are you a shitty wingman, but you've got no business drunkdialing.

My personal style of drunk dialing is a little more nuanced, I like to think. Usually, I dial long distance. This makes it more of an event, becuase you're calling a friend that you probably don't see that often. Sometimes I'll dial family too, because the family that calls you drunk off their face at two am is the family that loves you. But most of the time I dial non-family folks. Like Jenelle.

Another thing I stick to is weekends. Although there's something to the weeknight drunkdial, it kind of makes you look like a soak if you're not on vacation. Plus, you can be pretty sure that if you drunk dial someone on Saturday night, they're probably not going to be too irritated with you since they don't have to work in the morning.

The length of the conversation is up to you. I tend to talk a long time, mostly because I'm drunk, but also because I'm just a windbag in general. If no one answers, I usually feel obligated to weave an extremely loud, obscenity laced screed that usually climaxes with an insuation that the callee's mother is a loose woman.

The other of my weekend traditions is cooking. Aside from the obvious benefits of cooking (having something to eat, thusly avoiding death by starvation), it's a great way to spend some time with people. With the amount of spare time in the weekends, it also affords one the opportunity to make a stock of leftovers from which to choose for weekday lunches.

This weekend, it's fried chicken. In the South, fried chicken is serious business; so it takes a little time to prepare. I just put it in the fridge for it's buttermilk soak. I have no idea why pepole do that, my grandmother showed it to me so I just do it. well, sort of. I've mutilated her recipe a little by adding hot sauce to the soak; but hey, that's progress for ya.

After soaking, it gets seasoned heavily with a blend of spices, coated lightly in flour, and fried in Crisco. Grandma always said that frying chicken in anything other than shortening was just plain old Yankee bullshit.

After frying, the peices are cooled and served. Grandma also said that eating fried chicken while it's still hot from the fryer is plain old corporate bullshit that KFC came up with to save money. I think it's just as fine either way, but it seems pointless to argue with a former Screven County Women's Baseball League pitcher who's holding ten pounds of cast iron kitchenware in her hands.

Why post about fried chicken and drunk dialing in the same post? Because absolutely nothing soothes a hangover like great fried chicken.

Posted by: shank at 09:26 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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These two co-workers walked into my office today and started speaking spanish to eachother. Normally it wouldn't bother me, but they basically sat at my desk and made themselves at home. Personally, I thought it was pretty damn rude.

So I stabbed them with my letter opener. Just kidding, but I did go over to their desks and 'crop dust' it. If you know what I mean.
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We do people insist on coming to bother you when you're obviously busy? Dude, I'm happy that you're able to get paid a salary for doing nothing of value; but I was not offered that job. So please, go take the trash out or something.
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How frigging hard is it to lay carpet? Why the hell is it taking 3 weeks to recarpet my office? Seriously, I'd be in a much better mood if I could have my door back. Then I wouldn't have to sit out here in this damn cubicle and get bothered by foreigners and lazy, clock-milking layabouts.
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24 days until I go on vacation. 576 hours. 34,560 minutes. 2,073,600 seconds.

And counting.

Posted by: shank at 05:23 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I've had it with all these health products that are sold as panaceas. Someone I know was talking about how they went on this '30-day cleanse' and lost all kinds of weight. Yeah dude, I had a friend that tried that right after we finished up a 12-day backpacking trip. It's fucking called giardia.

Or the guy on TV selling a book of home cures for everything from high blood pressure to erectile disfunction. Hey, I got an idea I'll sell you: QUIT HAVING A SODA AND A BIGMAC AT EVERY MEAL, YOU WILDEBEEST! Really people; if you're so concerned about your weight or your health; take a look at your shitty lifestyle and maybe cutdown on the bonbon's or something.

Or the pills that are basically ten glasses of juice condensed into a capsule. People go out and buy all this shit that's supposed to be 'natural' or organic or whatever. I mean, if you want to be naturally healthy maybe you should try, I don't know, eating some fruits and vegetables. Maybe a little fish too. "Step away from the SlimJim and no one gets hurt."

And don't get me started on diet sodas. That's like smoking light cigarettes - all the cancer, and only half the fun. If you're going to drink soda every day, just drink theregular shit; because when your adult-onset diabetes develops, at least you can say it tasted good.

People fuckin' baffle me. If you're a lazy fucker who stuffs your face with shitty foods and doesn't exercise; you're gonna get hopelessly fat. Trying to circumvent this by giving yourself a month-long case of the shits or taking a few vitamins isn't going to change the fact that you're a lazy fucker who stuffs your face with shitty foods and doesn't exercise. There's no pill for that.

On some crappy reality show recently they had this obese girl who wanted to be thinner, right? The course of the show is like 40 days or something. I'm not sure what kind of logical association disorder this girl has; but woman, you're not going to drop 150lbs in 40 days. We could put you on an all-crack diet and we wouldn't get those results. To me, even airing the show just reinforces for some people that weight can be dropped easily. Listen, even Jared had to walk to Subway everyday. Let's try and be honest with ourselves, okay?

Posted by: shank at 07:13 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I'm sorta the king of snap judgments. When I know what I want, I don't want to have to wait for it, or beat around the bush, or be strung along like some fucking halfwitted dunce. Cut the shit, because if this line of shit is your way of telling me my offer isn't acceptable, then counter-offer and let's finish this up.

Like car shopping. I do a lot of preliminary independant research before I go car shopping; so you can beat your bottom dollar I know everything about the car before I ever even show up at the dealership. But car salesmen are the fucking worst people to deal with. Most car salesmen don't know shit except the rules of Frustrating Negotiation. Chances are, the salesman you're talking to has been selling cars for years at all kinds of different dealerships; so when you ask him a question (Is this a totally new model, or was it sold in overseas markets before it came to the US? Does it share a platform with any other model?) he's probably going to be clueless. These people have effectively masterd the art of generalization. I don't even bother talking to them unless I'm buying a used vehicle. When I want something new, I bring in my trade and a couple grand and get the hell out. Oh, but shank, what about incentives? Dude, those are predetermined and they're going to give you every single one you qualify for. Of course, to do that, you'd have to be a senior citizen who's a retired military vet and a teacher with Farmer's Insurance. But most of the time they'll offer about 3 grand in dealer incentives off the price of a car with a 27K or more sticker price. I'm telling you, talking to these people is like talking to Mickey Mouse - they just smile and shake their heads.

My big brother, on the other hand, is the complete opposite. He's got the persistence of a Bangkok watch salesman and the calm perseverance of a kindegarten teacher. I went shopping for trucks with the guy once (on a whim mind you, he wasn't even seriously considering a purchase) for four fucking hours. Four hours! Towards the end I became hungry, which meant I was a scowling little bitch. Our search for the right truck with the right motor and transmission and the right kind of seats and the right kind of bed spanned probably 70-80 miles of driving, three dealerships, and what must have been a parade of these asshole salesmen. One of them was so shitty, we ended up using the damn sales manager as a go between.

Of course, being a snap judger means sometimes I have to acknowledge that I made a mistake, or that I jumped too soon. But that's okay with me, because I figure that's good for a person - gives them a sense of humility. Which a guy like me really needs sometimes since I'm always so goddamn right about everything.

Posted by: shank at 03:34 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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