Planet Of The Apes: A Not Too Distant Future

It has been discovered that there are chimpanzees that hunt with spears. I don't know about you but this scares the shit out of me. They use these spears to hunt other primates. This could be the beginning of our downfall. How soon until they are hunting with guns? I feel it is imperative to our survival that we round up and kill all these "armed" chimpanzees. Chimps learn from the alpha females in the group. This means that soon all the chimp tribes will be privy to this technology.

When Things Come Out The Wrong End- Part Three

We left our story where I was just a high school lad, on a double date with a friend. (For those that need a recap, you can start from the beginning of my four part series, When Things Come Out the Wrong End, you might even have to go to a previous screen, but I hope you find it worthwhile.)

During my college years, at a small liberal arts school ten miles south of Lake Erie and 20 miles southwest of the Cleveland Airport, I didn't partake of alcoholic beverages in excess for the most part. I was busy honing my writing and editing skills at the school newspaper and getting Cs and not failing courses which my parents paid the big bucks for. My school had a pass/no-fail plan (I often took the no-fail option). Who would have thought a A- high school student would turn into a C+/B- student in college? Well, it wasn't because of the drink. But there was this one time....

As a freshman, actually my school didn't have freshman, we had first-years. Because if we did say, happen to sneak on in a freshman, we would also have to sneak in a freshwoman, too. It is much easier to go with the gender neutral first-year. A lesson that was rubbed into me, my first year on the newspaper, (my first-year year).

I played on the ultimate frisbee team as a first-year. I stood on the sideline (we didn't have benches to sit on) and watch my team play, not just during the games, but for some scrimmages in practice as well, even in sub-freezing Ohio winters. It wasn't like I was this over-looked talent. I just wasn't that fast nor than coordinated. But you wouldn't be surprised to find that when thirty first-years came to try out for the team, my sophomore year, that was enough for me. After that, I was the first one off the bench for our water polo team.

Don't get me wrong, it was fun going away to tournaments, especially my first year. I often rode "ultra-bitch". In the trunk of a station wagon, of course. And I got to catch up on my sleep, which I was not getting even as a first-year. Luck for me, we never got into an accident. It would have been gross, I mean I would have been toast.

The team traveled to compete in tournaments in Niagara Falls, Cincinnati, Athens, Ohio, Wilmington, NC, Clemson, SC. We got around.

Our final tournament of the season, was Regionals. If we placed in the top three teams at Regionals, we would go to Nationals. The team goal every year. That weekend, I watched my team lose a few games that deary day in West Lafayette, IN. I don't think I played very much, not that I would have helped our cause. So destroyed, humiliated, vanquished from the tournament.

Our team plan was to get something to eat and get wasted. After eating some Greek food. We went to the liquor store, where I saved some money by buying (in bulk) a forty.

So naturally, we went back to the hotel room. I was given the challenge of finishing my beverage in fifteen minutes. I did it in under seven. Then we went to another room to watch some TV. And for the first and only time in my life, I blacked out.

I woke up the next morning and someone (JB) claimed I threw up in the bathroom. I don't remember it at all. And that day I thought that they were just setting me up to clean up someone else's vomit. We were all drinking right? What' s the likelihood that I was the one that threw up? I think it was several years after I graduated college, that I realized that JB probably wasn't lying. I was the one who missed the toilet, they weren't just hazing me. GCNOF finished college with one puke to his name and a degree, which is sadly more than he can say for grad school.

Get caught up on all the times "Things Came Out The Wrong End," as our series ends with the final installment next week. Find out if GCNOF, loses his lunch as a young adult in the big cities and his adventures on his own.

Torah Scholar Pretender

Hey, a delay in the four part series-

When things come out the wrong end. Part 3 will have to wait until the weekend.

I've got data to look at for a small consulting gig, so small that I probably wouldn't be talking about it, if I had a real job. But since I don't... I'm busy crunching numbers for MLB (Major League Baseball). Ok, really a company that works for MLB. Still, it's top secret. Don't ask, because I can't tell.

About last weekend, does driving four hours to a New York suburban hotel in New Jersey and staying there for whole weekend, the best ski weekend on the East Coast this year, maybe this millennium ( with global warming and everything), ever make sense? GCNOF (that's me). found out.

On Friday, I rode in a PT Cruiser, in traffic with all the other A-Holes, leaving DC on a Friday afternoon to get away from a city, which definitely needs getting away from. we drove up over the Delaware Memorial Bridge through the New Jersey turnpike and got off at Exit 9, to stay at the Hilton of East Brunswick or New Brunswick, I'm not sure. we were 100 yards from the highway, it was cold. We were in the hotel the whole time. I sure hope we weren't somewhere interesting, because it would have been wasted on us.

We were four thirty-something males, in search of a religious retreat. The company, Gateways, puts on this religious revivals, that to be honest, made me think, my religion was not that different from that other Judeo-Christian religion, because they seemed to be selling the religion. My general take is that my religion doesn't and can't be sold, I'm either in or out. As I'm going on a retreat, I'm already in, don't sell me, help me, educate me. Overall, the rabbis were talented, well except for the physicist would believe in Creationism.

People aren't so stupid to think that because you are a great physicist, you know evolution. That's like expecting a biologist to come up with the theory of relativity or the name, date and type of rock that you found in a quarry. Get an evolutionary biologist to talk about why we should teach creationism and not evolution and am all ears. I might not be convinced, but at least I would listen, but a physicist, yeah right.

The other rabbis talked about happiness (be happy for what you have and quit whining for more, but go ahead and work for it anyway), shabbat and how you only have to honor your mother "and/or" father. It's really up to interpretation, you can choose one or the other, you don't have to do both. ok, I'm kidding, they didn't say that, they just pointed it out, that the word used in the commandment could be either "and" or "or."

Otherwise the lectures and the rabbis were entertaining; the food was amazing. you had to have some self control, though. there was a little too much of it. And the nondairy stuff, is hard to digest and may accidentally produce some methane gas, which has the potential to cause some embarrassment.

but the lectures, weren't as good as the torah study I go to on Wednesdays. in an hour today, we talked about humility, why we exist and what it takes to be a real jew, or rather factors that if one doesn't possess which will make one a fraudulent jew. You know to be a true jew, you have to believe in g-d, and believe in an afterlife, there are 11 other things you have to believe or do or you are not really a jew. (You can call yourself whatever you like, but G-d won't be protecting you) at least not as a jew, you'll get the gentile-issued protection.

I'm not sure about where I fall myself, which is why I titled this blog, the torah scholar pretender and no I am not just doing it for the girls, although I find myself very attracted to jewish women. they just seem hotter than average. the more religious the prettier. what a dilemma, a life of righteous virtue and a beautiful wife and no pepperoni pizza, meat lasagna and bacon cheeseburgers, observing all 613 mitzvahs, saying prayer three times a day and having to support up to ten kids or a homely gentile wife, eating anything you want, having 2.5 kids and praying it when you feel like it? I guess when I put it that way the decision is obvious.
Good night, Lila Tov.

For all those who are waiting, the continuation of the four-part series When Things Come Out The Wrong End will come out in my next blog.

Peace Out- GCNOF

Freaky Cartoon

Just goes to show, only unimaginative people need drugs...


By Don Hertzfeldt

When things come out the wrong end-Part Two

When I left off my series, I mentioned an episode that started at Burger King. I lead a pretty uneventful life and don't remember anything passing out the wrong end, until I was a senior in high school. My mom and dad would be proud, I was a very controlled drinker when I was young. Never having more than two or three drinks at any of the parties I went to in high school. Never getting in a car with a drunk driver and shrewedly avoiding the cops that invariably broke up our suburban high school parties. One time hiding discretely behind some bushes, when the cops came, while others ran all the way to 7-11 and those that stayed got written up and had their parents called. So if alcohol rarely or never causes you to vomit, what does?

So genius here, took the SATs three times before he got it right. This event happened the night before I took the SATs for the third time. The night before the SAT and my final high school water polo game, it was an afternoon game, my friend invited me on a double date. My philosophy in high school was to go out every weekend night regardless of whether or not I had important stuff the next day. Don't get me wrong, there where a lot of weekend nights I stayed at home. Which is why when I had plans I always went.

So my friend had conned two freshman girls to go out with us seniors. We went to the carnival that was in the Pleasant Hill movie theatre parking lot. I ate some food at the carnival, maybe a burger or something I don't quite remember. And I was wearing my green Pomona sweatshirt. So being a carnival, we of course, had to go on the rides. First is a "Revolution"- like ride, where two capsules swing in vertical circles. So you are upside down for a few seconds at one hundred and fifty feet or so. It was really fun. Then we went on the gravity inducing spin, where it spins horizontally to the ground, until you are pushed against the wall and up it, by centrifugal force. So far, having a blast. Enjoying the girls, having a good time.

I don't remember that I just ate and everything is going fine. We decide to go on the Ferris Wheel, the wimpiest ride around. Invented for the Chicago's World Fair in 1893. Use to be such a cool thing when it first came out, read "Devil in the White City" if you want to find more things invent for that Chicago's World Fair.

So here I am alone with one of the girls, a brunette. I don't remember her name. Things were going fine at first, the Ferris Wheel would stop every few seconds to let someone on.

Then all on a sudden I started feeling sick. The wheel started going backwards. I knew I was losing it. First the vomit comes up to my mouth and I swallow it back down. I was debating whether it was better to throw up over the edge of the seat and take a chance of getting my ass kicked by someone that I hit, or throwing up in the seat and getting the vomit on me and my "date". I decided to throw up next to me, (and away from the girl) in the seat. My green sweat shirt was covered in vomit. The vomit slowly began to spread towards my date's side of the seat. Then the conductor of the Ferris Wheel gave me the look of disgust, as he stopped the ride to let me out. I think he would have preferred for me to throw up over the edge of the seat, rather than having to clean it all up off the seat. For those curious, it was particularly pink.

That pretty much ended the date with that girl. I don't think I ever saw her again. She asked me if I was alright, and I said yes. So I drove home, leaving my friend alone with two hot freshman girls. I went right to sleep when I got home and actually did finally do my best on the SAT. But then later that day, I let Mike Avery score the first goal in my team's loss to Acalanes in the third place game. It was also the only game I started of my entire four-year water polo career. I did win some coaches award at the end of the season.

This concludes Part Two of our four part series. When things come out the wrong end. Part Three to come out later this week.

San Diego or Bust

It hasn't been above freezing for a week. I feel like I am in hibernation mode. Too damn cold. and it is not really. It's just at freezing. Not dangerously cold. The suffering is suppose to make you strong. I have all these questions about that, and dream of moving to San Diego. The reason I avoided SD in the first place was skin cancer and I just thought, what if I get skin cancer anyways. I decided to live in New England or Seattle. What a waste. I want the sun to be a friend I can count on. As I am unemployed and out of school, I can work anywhere and who knows, maybe it's time I head back to Cali. In my next blog, I will continue the stories of my vomiting, a chronology of the major events in the life of me, George Costanza's number one fan.

Why writers drink

First I want to apologize for those waiting for the continuation of my series of vomit stories. We will get back to them, I promise. I figured out why I haven't been writing. It's not because I don't have interesting stories. A lot has happened, my housemate's girlfriend car got stolen twice. The &*$*%$ security guard at the airport stole my toothpaste. I just haven't felt in the mood. What I mean by that is I haven't been drinking.

Drinking is an inhibitor-reducer, it allows people to sleep with people they wouldn't let themselves sleep with when they are sober or marry people they woudn't marry sober. It allows writers to release their inhibitors so the words flow without second thoughts. Of course the problem is when you like drinking too much, then you have a problem, which I think a lot of writers have. I don't. I have my master's swim team and a book club. I feel like I become a pretty dull person when drinking anyways. For example, whenever I drink I don't think about sleeping with anyone, I just can't wait to get home and write.
So here I am passing up a ménage à trois with two beautiful Swedish twins to go home and write. Ok, so they weren't really twins and I didn't really have a chance with them. I could have tried.

TRUE LOVE

From the Ranted Files of Dr. G,
brought to you at great cost...

IN A FOXHOLE OUTSIDE MOZAMBIQUE, PINNED BY CROSSFIRE, DOWN TO MY LAST JUICY JUICE - I’ve seen the best little piggies of my generation starving, hysterical, naked in a tinny, rancid cubicle where a life enters this inhuman world, like a rough beast lurching towards a Bethlehem swimming in blood and methane. This babe, pink and fat, ripped from it’s mother’s teat, squealing and gasping, no chance it will live, but then again, who ever does…transported to foreign lands, tattooed and bartered over like a poly-cotton blend Walmart sweater. Eviscerated, bound prone by mentholated, saffronated tormentors who laugh and drool and puke and laugh again like short-skirted cheerleaders at a kegger. The UNMITIGATED HORROR of the UNSOUND METHODS by which this creature’s hide is charred to resemble the very mesquite briquettes that bake it slowly underground. It steams and pops for hours upon hours upon hours until it is pulled from the earth, a second birth, like the gross things in that movie, and laid out on a plastic folding table in a dim, muddy, saw-dusty garage, spewing it’s aborted innards, desiccated, resiccated bread and tropical, acidic fruit and smoky, rendered fat over the concrete, whence it will be the gruesome centerpiece of a star-crossed, sulphurous ceremony, overseen by men with sword and axe and knife, a testament to life and death and life again, a turning wheel driven and derided by vanity, but redeemed by love.