MisterYuck

So this one's a bit heavy. I was my homeboy, KT's house tryin to pass out on his couch but unable due to a small black cat in heat, named Gucci. She just kept making that horrible screaming meow sound, so I decided to put something on the TV to try and make it less irritating. I decided a documentary might be mellow and thus some noise but not too distracting. I saw "Oregon" in the title of an HBO special documentary on demand and I pick it. "How to Die in Oregon" is the full title and as it starts, I realize that I've made a mistake.

In 1994, doctor assisted suicide became legalized. It was the third or fourth place in the world to make it legal. This doc is about that and it intimately tells the story some of the folks who opt for this and their families. In the opening scene, an old man is preparing to drink a concoction that will end his life. He's sitting on a bed surrounded by family and a few medical professionals as one of them explains the process. She says that she can hand him the medication after she says two things. Firstly, he can change his mind at any time, to which he says that his mind's made. Secondly, she asks if he knows what the medication will do to him. When he answers, he says something along the lines of "Kill me and make me happy."
She hand him a pill bottle-like container full of liquid and explains that it's taste is very unpleasant but he can use a chaser. He has cream soda. He drinks it and my stomach drops. Then he lays down.
He says a few things after this but before his eternal silence. One is that it doesn't taste so bad. He describes it as "woody." He then thanks all the voters who allowed him to do this along with the doctors and his family. He closes his eyes and breaths in. I know instantly that it's his last and he's dead, right there. The screen fades to black and "How to Die in Oregon" appears in white lettering.
Sleep came slow to me that night.
Anyway, it's a really strange, powerful thing to watch and worth checking out despite the morbid nature of watching someone die, even on film.
Be well,
-N.

Okay, okay, I won't blast you guys with my faggy poetry anymore. But here's the thing: I'm feelin' real introspective over here. Dave "The Softball Coach Wonder" always tells me, "Why don't you fucking blog about it." Well I think I will, Dave. So shut it, and I won't have to tell everyone that all those tricky psyche out pitches are just...well, shitty pitching. Ready for my first subject of bloggy reflection? Morality: what is it, where does it come from, and is this something that we're potentially going to have to bomb into submission? Well first off, I can tell you this: one thing about morals is that when you're a good person, if you get a glass of water, you fill up the fucking water pitcher in the fridge. You don't fill it up every time, and we're up shit creek with no ice cold filtered water to drink. Second thing: Get off the internet. The internet is just an invitation to kick morals right in the dick. Not only is it a pedophile harboring, narcissism perpetuating free-for-all, but it's a time sucking black hole. You ever accidentally googled google? The first five links are to Google.com. Why do they even have that option? Hopefully they're just trick links to a page that says "Get up and go outside, you knuckle dragging mouth breather." Anywho, one thing I love about morals is that there are enough of them to have a fresh set every day (no one likes crusty stale morals)! Crisp fall day? I'll take Islam for 500. Burkas are nice and toasty. The sun is high and you're sweatin' in August? I'll have the sheer flimsy morals of a suburbanite Christian family, please. I only point out religions as sets of morality because most people suck their morals out of the closest religion, like a thirsty wildebeast who can only find a mud puddle in the desert. Why? Because everyone is scared shitless of going to hell. You know, that place where you're eternally in public, and your asshole itches like crazy, but you still live in your home town and someone from high school might be watching, so there's nothing you can do? I don't blame them. I once heard a Christian ask, "If you don't think you're going to hell when you die, why do you try to be a good person." Thank Buddah this guy is a Christian. But death and hell seem to be inseperable butt buddies. No death is free from the blackmail of being cast into hell if you don't get the God-goods (remember the three Chuh's: Christ, Chastity and Church). And being in hell is something that only happens post-mortem? Quit your bitching, you war-torn, disease-ridden, starving African children. It gets worse. Be grateful that you can still scratch your asshole without your old dance team seeing. Death is a weird subject because nobody, fucking nobody, knows what it is, or what happens, but everyone is willing to accept an explanation from another human being. Who also has no idea. At what point did someone decide that they had an idea of what was going on? And for what reason did the people around that person decide, "You know what? I bet this guy knows. I don't know why, but I got a good feeling about this." I imagine it happened something like this: There were cavemen, right? Sitting around a fire. Eating a brontosaurus burger. They start grunting about death, and one is like, "Man, it's weird how we just stop like...talking, and moving, and not rotting." and another says, "Yeah, I bet we actually stay alive somehow after death, and the majority of the population gets tortured for...I don't know, like masturbating or something. Forever. We should just act like some parental figure is watching us all the time so we won't masturbate, and then we won't have to be tortured." And not one single person said, "Listen, I think that's the most retarded thing I've ever heard." And BOOM! Here we are with three major religions that stem from the same damn book, relentlessly trying to send eachother to hell, constantly trying to up the ante of whose morals are stiffer, and therefore more hell-avoiding. When will morals stem more widely from a more organic worldy place (...critical thought?)? Mystics and wise men shouldn't have the monopoly on this way of thinking.  It's all so very silly, you guys. So very silly.

-Alex

A while back, I heard this track and I laughed really hard. The self-proclaimed best rapper alive kills it on Soulja Boy's Crank That beat

I hope you enjoy it as I did.
-N

As you all may or may not know, I fuck up people's hair and get money for it. The people that I meet on my dreadventures range from greasy balding pockmarked old acid heads who want desperately to rub  my shoulders and to show me their "Portal to Another Dimension" (a.k.a. greasy pockmarked old folks orgy), to leather shop owning couples trying to get me into a threesome (Thanks for the spiked bracelet! By the way, your dog's muzzle gets the job done AND scares me in a strange sexually weird way. That's what you're going for right? So...kudos...I guess...), to fresh-out-of-high-school white girls with three inch hair (ignoring my four inch minimum rule) who want to know why they look like fucking Coolio when I'm done with them. It's not my fault that you can't live up to your idealized rastafarian, vegetarian, minimalist, stick-eating animal-humping lifestyle on your way into college! Get a job and maybe your dreads won't look so shitty. Anyway, Naudia Boyd is on the opposite side of the spectrum from these people. Like a needle in a fucking haystack, she is a rare gem of a normal person in my dreadscapades. And by normal I mean I don't suspect her of being a serial murderer, or a raper, or a coprapheliac, or an animal hoarder. Naudia and her husband Steve own a business called Mad Hatter Hoops in which they make all sorts of hula hoops. Hoops that sparkle, light up, shine and bedazzle their way right onto your hips, and can actually be a fantastic form of exercise. Since I found Mad Hatter Hoops a subject of interest, I knew you guys would want to hear about it, so on your behalf, Naudia and Steve agreed to answer a few questions about hooping the light fantastic.

-Alex

1) So how old were you when you first started hooping, and how did you
get into it?

I work for a college, and a couple of years ago one of our students came in with hula hoops one day. They weren't fancy, but they were nice and heavy, and it was so easy to keep it going. I remembered playing with hula hoops as a kid, but I never actually had one. I ended up buying three hoops from her. And was pretty much hooked instantly. Not even a month after buying her hoops, I set out to make my own, so I could spread the love.

2) You told me that you were able to lose a lot of weight hula hooping
and you are very fit and fine if I do say so myself. What makes
hooping a superior form of exercise? Tell me a little bit about that
whole period of time, how much you hooped, when you discovered hooping
was a good way to lose weight.

I have never been active. Ever. Even as a kid, I preferred books and art over going outside to play. I hated gym class with a passion(ate rage).  I remember one summer, my mom forced me to join a baseball team. It was a disaster. I loathed every single boring minute of it. And it wasn't just the activity, I was appalled by the competitive attitudes. I just didn't "get" sports. When I got those first hoops, I didn't even think about it being exercise. It was just fun, and silly, and goofy, and sexy... The whole time I was hooping, I was grinning. Ear to ear. Like a kid, playing with her favorite toy! Then, I realized one day that my heart was pumping, and I was a little out of breath. And I realized that this "toy" was a workout. I started looking up hula hooping, and realized there was whole hoop movement going on, and I had no idea. 

3) How/When did Mad Hatter Hoops come to be?

I got Naudia into it too, and we started hooping together a lot, and making hoops for friends. We half-heartedly joked about taking a batch of hoops down to the river and just selling them out of our cars. But we didn't. We got distracted by life, and paying bills. But we were still hooping, and losing weight. We love hooping so much, that it started consuming our consciousness. I was distracted at work with the tons of hoop tutorial videos on youtube. Meanwhile Naudia was out committing random acts of hooping all over Portland. In February of this year, we decided we were ready to try being professional hoop makers. We had honed our skills. We had wicked cool tape. We got the best tubing. And we were starting to play around with LEDs. Our hoops were plain kickin ass. We got our biz license, and we are ready to hoop the light fantastic.

4) Give me a low down of your fanciest schmanciest hoops.

Where do I start? I love love love my polypro hoops. They are so versatile for tricks. They have perfect bounce back for doing killer breaks. Since they're lighter, you have to work harder to keep them up which makes for a better cardio workout. And we can add a button to them to make them collapsible, which was a huge plus for me, for traveling. Although, I suppose the fanciest would have be our LED hoops. I'm a photographer and I absolutely love taking long exposure shots of the LED hoops in action. I love seeing the shapes and patterns unfold. But mostly I love losing myself in a galaxy of swirling lights.


5) What's your favorite song or artist to hoop to?

It really depends on my mood. In no particular order I enjoy, Beats Antique, Bassnectar, Silversun Pickups, Tool, Dirty Vegas, Goldfish, Feist, Massive Attack... I could go on and on.

6) Any tips for the hoop-tarded such as myself? Is there a special
key or secret to becoming a world-class hula hooper?

The biggest hurdle is yourself. If you set out to do something with an "I can't do this" attitude, you will start to believe yourself after awhile. If you set out to have fun, and you enjoy being silly, and are willing to keep trying, you WILL get it. Nobody is perfect, and you won't be able to bust out mad tricks until you've been hooping awhile. My single biggest piece of advice is Youtube baby! Search for "how to hula hoop". Once you've got the basics down, try searching for "hoop dance tutorial". You can thank me later :)
My favorite YouTube hoopers in no particular order;
http://www.youtube.com/user/seer5
http://www.youtube.com/user/babzrobinson
http://www.youtube.com/user/Groovinmegzz
http://www.youtube.com/user/ShpongledHoops


7)What are a few awesome tricks that you've learned?

I love the three beat weave, and threading the needle. Both are done with two hoops, large or small. They look so fancy, people are super impressed by them, and they're pretty easy. (Ok, so the three beat weave took me about three days to master... but it was so worth it.)

8) Contact information for people who wanna buy hoops from you guys?

Mad Hatter Hoops World Domination Headquarters is located in sunny (HA!) Portland, OR. We can be reached at 503-774-0512 or email us at [email protected]

9) What are your cats' names, and which one do you love the most?

I have two kittens, Biz Markie and Zed. And while I love them both, Biz is my homie. And Naudia has two step cats, Marbles (a.k.a chubs) and Bruce. She never liked cats until she meet Bruce… He really has softened that bitch up!  

  This would be day 4.  Besides the momentary discomfort that occurs when I realize that I cannot post my current status or location to my 200-odd friends at any given moment, I am also struck by friends’ reactions.  In real life, not via Facebook. “You deleted Facebook?” “Yes.” “Why would you do that?” “Because I spend too much time on it and it’s slowly eating away at my soul and free time.” “Well, there’s nothing wrong with that.” Really?  Because something in me believes there’s something wrong with that.  I spent a good amount of time reading as I was growing up and now that same amount of time is spent checking status updates, commenting on them, liking them, always putting a “may attend” on posted events(fear of commitment, you know how it is), etc.  Also, this feeling of discomfort is interesting on a couple levels. The first being that I am a psychology major.  It’s interesting how technology displayed through social networking sites, or lack thereof, influences culture.  This is a bit more sociology-oriented, so let me put the blanket of “social sciences” on it before any of you hipster assholes decide to start splitting hairs.  For thousands of years, man was content without electricity, computers, the internet, cellular devices, etc.  Something in me believes they didn’t walk through their days feeling as if they were missing something large.  They didn’t feel the need to update their status, hell they didn’t even know what a status was and they got on perfectly fine. So, currently, a person decides to live without social networking sites for a month and they are feeling generally uncomfortable.  What is the impact on the culture of developed societies that creates a feeling of discomfort when presented with the idea of limiting technology usage for a set amount of time?  I studied abroad for 2 months a couple years ago and wasn’t able to use my cell phone there(thanks, Cricket).  None of us could use our phones, actually. The general response in that venture proves to me that I’m not alone.  Everyone was so uncomfortable the majority of them purchased the kind of phone that you reload with minutes in a cell phone store.  I was in the minority of people who didn’t because I couldn’t afford it.  In that experience, the feeling of discomfort passed and I used a phone no more than 3 times in the entire 2 months I was there.  I used internet in cafes, and not too frequently at that.  So, given time, the discomfort that comes with withdrawal from technology passes.  I became a person who doesn’t watch TV, use the phone or own a computer and I was not only comfortable, but pretty damn peachy in my recollection. But why is that feeling there in the first place?  This is where psychology comes in, because it’s not because I look around the bus and realize that I’m one of the few people not on FB that makes me feel off.  My feeling of anxiety is completely unrelated to the people around me; there’s something in me that believes I’m missing something.  What so-and-so’s animals are doing and where I am in the longest poking war I’ve ever been in do cross my mind.  But am I really missing them?  FB has become the substitute for shooting the shit, I believe. Why call or text someone about how/what you’re doing when you can broadcast it in less than 140 characters to almost everyone you know?  See, when the option of broadcasting it disappears, that’s where it gets interesting.  A few paragraphs ago in writing this, I went downstairs and made some eggs.  Now these eggs were absolutely dank-tastic, I must say.  Chopped onions, a little milk(I like those bitches fluffy), copious amounts of medium cheddar cheese and salsa picante(fluffy, cheesy and spicy, where can you go wrong?). While I was never the sort to post pictures of the food I’m eating, I felt something in me want to inform the people I know of my egg-making abilities.  And the feeling of discomfort again at knowing for the next 26 days that I won’t.  At some point in the explosion of technology that my generation is the target audience of, we went from using technology to being connected to it in a way that makes us dependent on it.  Rather than being, oh say a puzzle or something else that fills time, technology and social networking have become things that, when taken away, has a noticeable psychological impact.  Frustration at not having a cell phone or discomfort at being as connected to my friends as most of the world’s population is to their friends. What is the impact of technology, specifically portable technology, on the psyche of a person in a modernized setting?  I’m talking laptops, cell phones, iPads, iPods, iPhones, etc.  If there was no dependence on these items, then there wouldn’t be the presence of anxiety and assorted feelings that come with their absence.  The idea of being unplugged from a site that isn’t exactly earthshattering in importance has made me into an anxious human being that is afraid of missing the status update or event invitation of a lifetime.  What the fuck is this shit?  What has technology done to people since its explosion?  How have we changed as a result of having everything we want at our fingertips at any given time? Why can’t we be comfortable with a good book and some coffee?  I know I used to be.  In 26 days, I’ll tell the whole world why that’s no longer good enough for comfort.

-Melanie

    From now on, I will answer to nothing less than "Jesus 'The fucking Martyr' Bring-the-Pain Christ".  Quiz time: Which is more likely to get you fired: a) saying your manager is a hefty lip-flapping, potato chip eating moo-cow, or b) asking which one of your geriatric co-workers has knocked back the most man-chowder? The answer is c) I got fired from Fabric Depot for both of those things. That's absolutely correct, ladies and gentlemen: My last blog got me fired from Fabric Depot. In my own defense, if The Grandmas are reading Mr. Yuck, then they have probably done things that warrant my public inquiry into their sexual lives. Also in my own defense: What, they can't take a joke? I'm sorry, I thought we got Saddam Husein, but no, he's alive and well, and working at Fabric Depot. Doesn't an employee have the right to rail mercilessly on their co-workers and bosses in their free time and put it in public for all to see? Well I call it a fucking infringement. I want the mo' fuckin' ACLU, The Supreme Court, and Johnny Cochran in this bitch. Also, I've hired a witchdoctor to summon George Carlin from his grave, because he needs to be in on this too. Old people must be evolving, because last I checked, they didn't have internet capabilities. Although, I should have known something was up when they hired me for the website department. The Website. Department. Because that's where I worked. The dick-suckiest part about all this is that I didn't even get to use my discount. And there's still things I want to buy there! But can I show my face in there? NO.  Here's what I'm thinking: Since I pretty much monetarily died for y'all's yucky reading sins, you guys basically owe me. And as Jesus needed you to believe that he existed as the son of god in exchange for his sacrafice, I'm going to need a mule. I send you in with some cash, you go in, you don't say a word to anyone, you buy that $7.99 corset pattern I want, smuggle it out in your stomach or ass hole, and I'll meet you around back wearing a mustache and trench coat. Then I'll give you some ipecac until you throw up the pattern. I might have to gut you to get it out, because it's pretty big, but you're right next to Fabric Depot, and they have needles and thread out the wazoo in there, so I don't want to hear any sass. I also want some vinyl, lace, and some passion suede, so...you might want to go to clown school and learn that trick where they pull all the handkerchiefs out of their throat, because it will help with me not gutting you. As for the rest of you, who won't be swallowing sewing paraphernalia and throwing them up for me, a simple middle finger to the man will suffice to repay me. So next time you're in Fabric Depot (or anywhere else that hates America, and everything that it stands for) scoot around on their carpet with your asshole. Take a long morning-after-New-Year's piss in their cash register. Use their candy aisle to shoot your own bukaki film. Tell 'em Alex set you. And tell 'em you're doin' it for good old Uncle Sam.

-Alex

    Someone told me about Blakroc shortly after the Black Keys hit single, "Tighten Up" came out. He said that it was the Black Keys and various hip-hop artists. It caught my interest and eventually it was on my Ipod. 
    Here's the story, as I understand it. Damon Dash, co-founder of Rock-a-fella records heard a few songs and fell in love with the Black Keys sound. He reached out to them while in Atlanta to record a song with Jim Jones. Somewhere along the lines, Mos Def interupted them and ended up on the song. This worked out so well that they decided to do a couple more tracks. They ended recording for eleven days and ended up with eleven tracks featuring Ludacris, ODB, Raekwon, and others. One of my favorite side projects ever.
    Now, that was released in 2009 and I bring it to your attention now not only because it's fuckin rad but because I hear there's a follow-up coming. On said follow-up, artists such as Wiz Khalifa, Curen$y, and the Cool Kids are said to be involved. It's definitely worth keeping an eye out for and who knows, it could be amazing.

-N. Sanders

^^They also have a series of webisodes to take a look at^^

Guess what? I have a new job, that's what. I don't know if you've ever heard of it, just a little place called FABRIC DEPOT. That's right. The place where your grandma and gay friend go to buy their bra extenders and stretch metallic glitter mesh (respectively). It's just a job, I'm humble. It's not like I get my own desk and am in charge of all the faux fur orders-OH WAIT YEAH IT IS. Not only that, but if you place an order on line with us and get one. Just one. Single. Fucking. Digit. ONE wrong on the credit card number you give us, I will find your address and phone number, you son of a bitch. I will fucking call you. I call my phone Thunder, and my dialing finger Lightening. Let's just say you don't wanna get struck. In case you are a simpleton, and you're not impressed by the prestige my position holds, maybe you'll be impressed by a little thing called 40% off all store merchandise. Yeah. I got that. The animal print vinyl section is scared of my first paycheck. Now I know you guys are asking, "But Alex, what about all the designer savvy fashionistas you must work with? That's what we really want to know about!" I know you do, darlings. And I will tell you all about them. I will tell you tales of over-sized cardigans and beaded spectacle chains that your wildest dreams never dared depict.
FIRST is my manager. We'll call her Debbie. Because that's her name. If you saw Debbie walking down the street, I guarantee that your (and indeed, anyone's) first thought would be "Damn. That bitch look like she eats hot dog flavored potato chips." And you'd be correct. She offered me some one time. The salty greasy meaty after-taste is simply delectable. Debbie can usually be heard throughout the entire department flapping what is anatomically known as her huge-ass mouth hole to anyone who will listen on how she brought her snot-nosed son to a park and a dog barked at him, whereupon she courageously put herself between the dog and her son, and proceded to tell the dog owners that it's just wrong to bring a violent dog like that to a park where they KNOW children are going to be. The nerve of some assholes. I would have given those dog-owning-park-going sons of bitches a piece of my mind too. Debbie is a veritable wealth of moral information and wise food choices. MOVING ONWARD TO....Cindy, so far my favorite of the millions of people that work in that store/underground city. Cindy is an Asian of the Chinese sort (as I soon learned) and I am an Asian of the Cauc persuasion. But sometimes silently knowing isn't enough to clear perceived racial tension in the work place. Here's how it came to be that she's forced me to think of her solely as "Chinese Cindy": I'm sitting in the lunch room, just be-boppin' along, and a little Asian girl comes up to me and asks, with vaguely broken Engrish, what my name is. I tell her I'm Alex and wait for her to introduce herself, explain why she walked up on me in such an abrupt and awkward manner, or at the very least give me some info, tips, or suggestions for a newcomer to the workplace, none of which she did, so I looked at her name tag and said "...And you're Cindy?" and she says, "Yeah, you can read that on my name tag." Like she assumed I was psychic, but wanted me to know that there were much simpler ways of ascertaining that kind of information. So from here on out, I'm not really sure where the conversation is going, or what this chick wants from me. But being uncertain doesn't prepare you for whatever may happen, and I'm at a bit of a loss when the next thing she says is, "I'm the only Chinese here. Working here, I mean." I'm not sure if she was expecting me to be like, "WHAT THE FUCK?!" or what, but all I could think of to say was, "...Are you sure? I mean it's a big place. There's not even ONE other Chinese person working here?" And here is where it gets a little sad because I had to inform the poor girl (who is herself Chinese) that not all Asians are the same damn nationality, because her reply was an astonishing, "Well, there's one other girl, but she's Thai." to which I quickly got indignant about this girl's obvious lack of education on Asian cultures, and said, "Well, that's different...isn't it?" And I swear to you that was the end of the conversation. She said bye and left because her break was over. At the risk of surpassing your daily recommended intake of boring old lady descriptions, I'm just going to lump the rest of the people at my work in the "Grandma" category. Granted, there are many subdivisions in that category: The Fashionable Lipstick-Wearing Grandma, The Red-Dyed-Hair, Stripey-socked Funky Grandma, The Long-Haired, Ex-Hippy Cigarette-Smoking Grandma, and any other kind of grandma you can think of. But they's all grandmas. That's why one of my favorite games to play throughout the work day is "Who sucked the most dicks in her day?" If you are someday around this many old ladies, and it doesn't force you to wonder what weird freaky sexual shit these saddle bags got into when they were in their prime, then I guess you just don't think of grandmas as real people, and I just feel sorry for your narcissistic ass. But for the record, the one who usually wins these little mental contests of mine is a certain special grandma I like to call Pearl Necklace Grandma. She wears a different pearl necklace every day, usually accompanied by elaborate dangly pearl earrings, coral lipstick (Racy!) and an over-sized flower clip in her hair. She told me she has over three hundred pairs of those dangly earrings. Anywho, I gotta rest up. Some dead beat who had their card declined when I tried to ring their order for flannel and a rotary cutter is about to get their ASS handed to them tomorrow, and I gotta be nice and rested. May your scissors never dull, nor your arthritis interfere with your latch hooking, as we say in the biz.

-Alex

    Where do I begin? The actual attack? Do I go back to the first incident that raised my eye brow? What would Quentin Tarantino do (besides a lot of dialogue)? I guess I could do what I normally do. Just shit it out and let it take stinky shape on it's own...
    Let's go back, even before the beginning. I never hated birds. In fact, I loved them. My pop had a book that showed all the birds that thrived in the great Northwest and I would use it to identify the ones we fed on the balconey. We had a neat-at-first-but-later-infuriating clock that had a different birdcall every hour, on the hour and that was just fine by me. In fact, the bird I used to not like was the Starling. A non-indigineous European winged asshole who has taken over. (http://www.nae.usace.army.mil/recreati/bml/bmleuropeanstarling.html)
    Anyway, I liked birds up until maybe a month ago, when I had a little run-in with one. I was on the front porch of my friends' house when I happen to look over and see this rodent with wings coming straight at me. Full force, a strange angry look in it's normally emotionless, souless eyes. I had just enough time to duck down and feel it flying right where my head had been. I was with a good friend and I know that because as I felt the wings of death almost cut my hair, I see my buddy throwing a punch. He missed the tweeter but as a broke fella once said, it's the thought that counts.
    Between then and yesterday, the day of the attack, I've had one or two little confrontations but they never got physical. A small feathered fuck would fly a little too low, right above me or seem to be diving right towards me and then puss out at the last minute and head skyward once more. I started to make a connection that would later be confirmed by one beak-wearing nuisance.
    Let me set the scene of our climax, here. It's maybe 3:30 on a Tuesday afternoon. A beautiful day; the sun is shining and the ugly, gay birds are tweeting. I'm walking home from our friendly neighborhood Fred Meyers with a backpack full of groceries and a plastic bag full of top ramen that wouldn't fit into the said pack. I'm minding my own business, making a conscience effort to thoroughly enjoy the sun and my own good fortune when it happens.

    You know the spot on your head where you would have a bald spot, if you had one? The crown, maybe. Right where the back of your head and the top meet. That's where I feel the strangest mix of claws and violently moving feathers. I feel all the rage of a being who exists almost solely to eat insects, finish our fries and moldy bread for us and be killed by cats, let loose on my scalp. To be fair, that rage should've hurt more I think.
    I feel this and im reminded instantly of holding a pannicked chicken in some world far off in my past, and I make the connection. The birds have finally decided to take action against me for unknown sins. They've come for what they feel they deserve. Some kind of avian revenge, I think. 
    Both heads shoot to the top of my head like the police have drawn guns on me, but I feel no bird. I assume that it attacked and fled like the coward it surely was but when I look over my shoulder, I see it there. Two feet above me, it's black wings outstretched and beating to keep it in a sort of wavering hover. When I see this gross warrior, I know it's not over and that I must turn into a coward and flea. This motherfucker means business and he's not going to just let me walk on.
    I take a couple quick steps, still covering my bald spot, when I see an old Asian man across the street with a big smile. I had to ask if he saw what had happened, just to be sure I wasn't losing it. I'll be damned if I get labeled a 'cluck'. He starts laughing and nods. At this point, I'm laughing too even though I still hear the aerial warrior above and behind me someplace until I turn the corner.

    Understand me when I say that it didn't really hurt me but I still am holding this grudge and hating birds now anyway. It may not have brought me pain but as I believe I've mentioned, it's the thought that counts.
-N. Sanders
  

Well, it seems that when it rains, ladies and gentlemen, it pours. After a long drought, we're back to quench you thirsty bitches with what only be described as a juicy, balls-out, nonstop Yuck-a-thon. So you want to know what's up with it? Where have the nuggets of literary gold been that you've all come to count on from the Mister Yuck crew? I can't speak for my colleagues, but personally, I've been squandering those nuggets on that monkey on my back called Facebook. You all know it, I'm just putting it in the open. And don't act like you're better than me, with your smack cocaine and your hashish suppositories, you motherless dope-shooting hobos. I know who reads this blog. But it just became too easy once I got a droid. A picture of some new shoes here, a humorous quote there, and next thing you know I'm trying to suck the Starbucks barista's dick for five minutes of wi-fi. I know it's free, but that's just how grateful I was, y'know? So here's what's in it for me: all the sweet delicious morsels of attention I can glean from my boring-as-unsweetened-oatmeal day to day activities. I'm trading, what is essentially a constant stream of mental diarrhea for all the "likes" and "lol"s and "God you're amazing, let me have your baby"s I can get. And believe me. I get a lot. A LOT. In the words of the ever-eloquent Melleefresh, I'm a big attention whore. *Note that I admitted it, so if you're planning on putting me on intervention, you can just fuck right off, because that admission puts me officially in the "recovery zone" (not as fun as the Discovery Zone, or the Danger Zone, but fun enough to earn some pansy-ass-don't-know-JACK-about-REAL-addiction alcoholics a freakin' medallion). I wish I could tell you that in the middle of this hellish whirlwind world of fast cars, loose women and witty status updates that there's a complex case of emotional or psychological trauma, that it stems from some kind of neglect, or the fact that my mother never got me a Tamagotchi as a child (True story, actually. I don't want to say she's heartless, but she literally didn't even buy me ONE. Make your own decisions about my childhood.). But really, it stems from the fact that I'm too lazy to develop a real hobby. Think of a cool invention? Facebook it. Frustrated with the governmental system? Writing letters is for fags and old people. Facebook that shit. Hungry for a sandwich? You know, not enough to make AND eat one per se, but enough that I'd like for people to know I'm considering it, and input would be nice? Facebook's got my back, and can get the word out without a single bit of strenuous thought on my part. But ah, me, where'd the time go? Look at me, just wasting the day away, blabbing to you a-holes when my new roommates have a ferret and a kitty that cuddle, and I haven't uploaded a single pic. I know some people that would totally lol their dicks off! Shit, I might just "like" my own upload! Word to all your mothers. 

        -Alex