Don’t talk to me

I have a dream.

I dream that one day no one will be able to talk to me without registration cards. Lifetime cards would be handed out on a case-by-case basis: my wife would have one, my sister would have one that limited her to 3 or fewer calls a day, my brother would have one for video game discussions, my parents would have one restricted to Sunday use (the only day they ever call anyway), and my 5-10 friends would have one. I would also carry a few temporary cards for those from whom I need an immediate response (e.g., waiters, bathroom attendants, cops), but responses would be limited to short or boolean responses of 10 words or less and would melt into carbonic acid after 15 seconds, permanently maiming the once-cardholder.

Everyone else would be forbidden to talk to me, thus:
Some Dude/Chick: “Excuse me, sir?”
Me: “Do you have a IAATTTK [I Am Allowed To Talk To Khren] card?”
Some Dude/Chick: “A what? Um, no.”
Me: “THEN SHUT THE FUCK UP! SHUT YOUR GODDAMN MOUTH, YOU SON OF A BITCH PIGFUCKER!”

I would then hand Dude/Chick an application for an IAATTTK card: 50 pages, entirely in Sanskrit. If the person really wanted to talk to me that badly, they would have to learn Sanskrit and proceed to fill it out only to have me lose it in a fire I started.

In this way, peace and silence will surround me at all times and the world will be a better place. Have a happy holiday season.

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

I’ve been playing FFTA for a long time. I got the game years ago, and am on my third replay through it. ‘Replay’ may not be the perfect word, because I’ve never actually won the game. I don’t want to write too much about my first two attempts, because those are long stories in themselves. To summarize them in a word: disaster. You can customize your characters to a very high degree in FFTA, and I made all the wrong choices with my first attempts.

With all the practice I’ve had, you’d figure that I’d be very good at the game by now. You’d be right. I’m so good. My party consists of ten of the baddest asses you’ve ever met in a fantasy turn-based strategy game.

I’m so good, that today, when I was laying some hurting on this semi-boss guy, the game paused for minute, and the boss said, “Shit. Holy shit, you’re so fucking good. I’m honored to be on the receiving end of this ass-kicking.” He teared up a bit as I hit him for twice his hit points and he died. I’m so good that I make the game go into random dialogues about me. You can’t beat that.

I’m never reading again

I’m absolutely exhausted today because I stayed up until 1:30 last night. What was I doing? Now don’t all of you shout “playing video games” at once because you’d all be wrong. I was actually up expanding my mind reading. As I crawled into bed last night, already tired from working until 9:00, I fully expected to read 5-10 pages of Son of a Witch and pass out. Unfortunately, Son of a Witch is a compelling, well-written book that does an excellent job developing the personality of the main character. Thus, I never reached a good stopping point last night and read into the wee hours of the night, despite being so very tired. The result is that I’m miserable now, and have tons of work to do left over from yesterday, even though I was here late. Also, it’s only Wednesday. Being as tired as I am now with more than half the week remaining is like an extra hard kick in the pants.

The moral here is simple: never read. Kids, if you’re reading this, play video games instead of reading, especially ones that allow you to save at any time. You’ll thank me when you’re older and getting enough sleep at night.

Hangovers

This weekend marked the beginning of the holiday party season, rung in by my firm’s party on Friday. The combination of free booze and rooms of people that I hate forced me to consume as much vodka as the fine people at the hotel where the party was held could pour. By the end of the night, I was stumbling drunk but finally able to feel love for all my colleagues, or at least less hate to the point where I stopped insulting them to their faces.

Of course, as all drunken parties with gratis booze must do, this one turned into a vicious hangover on Saturday. While chugging Gatorade and Diet Sunkist to relieve my upset stomach and headache, respectively, I had some time to think (I couldn’t very well move for fear of vomiting) and, given my state, I began to dwell on hangovers. It seems to me that all hangovers can be categorized by the type of alcohol that caused the hangover. I detail my analysis below:

• Vodka hangover: This is what I had on Saturday. It consists of a mild headache and an unforgiving upset stomach caused by the lingering taste of vodka in your mouth that no amount of oral cleansing can remove. You may say this sounds like a lot of hangovers, but the lingering taste, in my experience, is unique to vodka.
• Beer hangover: This is the type of hangover most familiar to me, given my affinity for the brewed stuff. Beer hangovers are much easier than those of other types, with no headache and no upset stomach. Instead, you will generally suffer severe bloating that causes intense stomach pain. Also, all that grain makes you poop at least a dozen times, though this will at least relieve some of the stomach pain.
• Tequila hangover: Disclaimer: because tequila is the drink of the devil, I’ve made it my duty to avoid this liquor, and for the most part have been successful, so my experience with this particular type of hangover is limited. That said, I think tequila hangovers are some of the lightest out there, given the fact that tequila causes profuse vomiting almost immediately after imbibement. This leaves nothing in your stomach to make you nauseous and purges your body of most of the alcohol you drank before it has time to absorb it.
• Rum hangover: You will smell like rum until you bath in turpentine.
• Whiskey/scotch hangover: There is no worse feeling in the world.

Those are the types of hangovers with which I am most familiar and which I feel are distinct enough from one another to deserve mentioning. Feel free to add to the list or disagree with my findings in the comments.