Apartment Hunting

Time to go find an apartment.  The word apartment comes from the Latin roots, "apart", to be away from, and "meant", where you meant to end up living.  There's also condos, which is short for "Confidence men do rip you off."  In this scenario the confidence men are landlords((Hairy land whales that were stuffed into a wife beater and are actually serfs)) and they'll rip off your arms and your wallet.

It's 98 degrees on the planes of the nieghborhood you hope to live in.  With a straw hat on your head, and an elephant gun in hand, you're ready to shoot a lot of land ladies.  You go to your first three apartments, and it goes pretty smoothly.  They only attempt to poison you with a tuna fish sandwich once, and their offers of obviously questionable "Poland Springs," aka "communist water," are met with stares that say you mean to call them idiots and question the deftness of how their mother dressed them.

After going back and forth between going to a run down place with no contract killers and a month-to-month lease, and a nice place that requires a year commitment and the signing of many forms you decide to sneak into your car and live there.  You can always jump the fence and use one of those fancy apartment hot tubs to shower, and have parties, and go to the bathroom.

Remember, drive safely, you only get one house.

Six Word Stories for Quick Reading

With no ado, here they are:

- Roommate wanted. No junkies.  Sorry Grandpa.

- Triplicate forms.  "Safety first."  Sleep well.

- Fly away.  Don't return.  Stupid jailbird.

Alright, and now for some ado. Over at Microfriction, there is a similar array of stories.  We thought, "Hey, if I can sometimes get my point across given a five page essay topic using an intro, body, and conclusion, why not try to do the same, but with only six words?"

We wanted to see who could cram the most meaning into as few words as possible. The goal?  To make stories.  Six word sentences are fun in their own way, but they don't necessarily make a whole story.  For instance, "Silence echoes through our loving memories." Is a lovely line.  Why, it's oxymoronic nature makes it all the more fun.  But it's just a line.  Just a thought, not a story.  Only a beginning, or middle.  Perhaps an end even!  Stories need more, and writing them in six words is all the rage.

So go on!  Head on over to Kongregate.com, play a flash game or two, pretend like you read the stories at Microfriction, then come back here and comment that after some deep delineation you think that my stories are surprisingly meaningful, and you'd like to buy me some coffee.

Tune in next week for our 6,000 word zero meaning extravaganzas.  We'll compete to see just how little we can say, while continuously saying it.

Crazy

I know a girl who has a dog.  She just barks all the time.  The girl that is, the dog just sort of sleeps a lot.  Like, after your friend just got married, and you got really drunk last night, and you woke up and had terrible McDonald's for breakfast, but didn't care because it was food, and then just sort of didn't want to move, so you didn't move.  That's what the dog is like.  If, of course, you did all that with a knitted sweater on, and feathers in your hair.  Because that's also what the dog is like.

But the girl, she's crazy as a loon.  She wakes up in the morning, and instead of brushing her teeth, goes straight to coffee.  The thing is, she has perfect teeth.  She's crazy.  Just like how psychopaths explode in the sunlight, psychopaths also have perfect teeth, no matter how often they do or don't clean them.  It's one of the perks of psychosis.  The downside being of course, people don't talk football with you anymore.  The upside is that they will talk a lot of blue-cheese-smiling-Winnebago with you.  They could talk about that all night, the crazy... people.

So anyways, she's got that dog.  The one with the feather and sweater.  So one day, it decides to run away.  Make a life for itself out on the streets, yah know?  Except, all the dog wants to do is sleep, like it did in the old days.  So it's gotta find motivation that may not exist.  Spent all her youth being sleepy and ignoring crazy people. So, now the dog's all losing it's mind, not knowing what to do, or how to live the life it always wanted to live.  Could drive yah crazy, it could.  Drove the dog crazy.  Drove the owner crazy.  Everyone got drove crazy, then ran out of gas.

How to Enjoy Beer

A guide to beer drinking:

So, you're a person of the opinion that beer is good for dousing your shoes with after your shoes have been particularly disrespectful.  Probably having to do with tying themselves together in knots, as shoes are constantly in want of doing.

Well, here is a handy guide to get you to change your opinions about beer!  First thing's first, go to college.  Be 19 or so when the drinking age is 21, and find a "friend"(Someone who wants to sleep with you) who is older than 21 to buy you beer.  They will by you awful beer.  It will be Coors Light.  Or, if you're unlucky, it might be Coors Light.  Don't worry, it's a million times better than Skoal Vodka.  Or, as they say in Russian, "Bitter awful terrible liquid, that's not even improved by the addition of Fun Dip" and Russians love their Fun Dip.

After partying on that for two to four months, you're going to either want to: (A) start studying and get a degree in your major, (B) find friends who are less cheap and bring you to better parties.  If you go with (A) you'll be driven to drinking heavily alone, as all your friends are out partying while you're studying.  So, for the sake bomb of being happy, go with (B).  

Here's where the starting to like beer comes into play.  Someone will give you a Guinness.  Hopefully, this person will be a Toucan with the beer on its beak.  You'll drink it and think, "My God Patty!  This is the most wonderful not Coors Light I think I've ever had, also, did I just eat four dinners?  Why am I so full?"  Done, you'll now enjoy beer.  You're also 75% more Irish.

Quick and to the Point

I've been reading a lot about writing lately.  (Writing early is such a drag. Who can think in a coherent fashion prior to two cups of coffee, a good hour-long walk, a shower, perhaps a bit to eat, a nap, some fleeting ruminations on writing, lunch, a time of messing around on the computer, and then a good period of mental preparation before launching into a serious bout of procrastination, before being ready to write?)  I've also been writing recently(It's such a good word) about reading a bit, as I've always felt it important for my ridiculousness to come full circle, no matter how square or straight the track it's on appears to be.

So with that in mind, I say, "I am a fan of the subordinating style."  Or Hypotaxis if you will.  Which comes from the ancient Greek conjunction of "Hippo," a large cruel water-dwelling cow-horse abomination, and "Taxi," a way to get from point A to point B and take in the most scenery while still managing to give a good walloping to your wallet.  Those Greeks did get awful colorful in their definitions. Chartreuse has been spotted in eight to ten classic Greek dictionaries.

We shall now, if your patience does permit, though understandably there may be other considerations upon your time, take a moment and return to the style of writing in which one does, as quickly as humanly possible, but with a willingness to take a detour here or there, get to the very depths of what it is that could potentially be mumbled or uttered.  My only hope is that after  going through all of the things I have said, and taking some time to yourself to divine the truthiness of what you've read, you will both gain an understanding, and appreciate the ridiculousness language can, if used in just such a way, provide to you.

That's what I've spent my time doing.  Reading, and writing.  Hope it entertains you.  Who can say for sure?(Oh!  Oh!  I can!  "For sure!")

Classic Literature

Recently I've been reading a lot of classic literature. A Tale of Two Cities(1859), George Orwell's 1984(1949), and Junk in the Badonkadonk(1923).  That's just the list!  I could go on.

My goal is to write George Orwell's 1949, and get in Jules Verne's Time Machine, so I can write it in 1984 and have a good chuckle about extravagant means of wasting time.((I'm perfectly aware that H.G. Wells wrote a novel "The Time Machine."  Jules Verne had a real one, and that's the one I intend to use.  Go ahead ask him, he'll tell you.  I'll wait here.))

Reading all of these books though has been teaching me a lot.  For one thing, to quote a particularly cogent and well phrased novel, "If the red is rose and there is a gate surrounding it, if inside is let in and there places change then certainly something is upright."  Before Tender Buttons I had no idea what it would mean if the red was rose.  I hate to say it, but my mind never even went on to the next logical assumption that there would be a gate surrounding it.  What a shallow and pedantic brain I have.

Also, it's a fact that Charlotte's Web was originally going to be Raleigh's Web, but after too much lying, cheating, and stealing at the bars Raleigh got sent away up north, and Charlotte became the main character.  You can look it up if you want.  I found that information at http://www.ifiwereawriter.com/2012/08/classic-literature.html.  The guy who writes everything, son of the guy who read some things and wrote some other things, son of the guy who made some telephone calls, seems really intelligent, and does a lot of hard research.((I also learned that familial relationships are quite impotent in ye old thymey bookkes.))

Also, another little known author fact is that Fyodor Dostoevsky tried publishing a number of titles under the moniker "Unotoevsky" but was sued by a certain card game for trademark violation.  Thankfully the Toevsky Card Company went out of business.  For his second attempt at publishing he changed his name prefix to the word, "Dos."  Which is Spanish for, "Failed at publishing the first time or two."

Many people, I fear, are of the opinion that classic books are, "going the way of the dodo."  But it's better than going the way of the don'tdon't if you ask me.  And to those people, I say, "this."  Then I walk away quite smugly.  They don't know what hit them, and I got to be nonsensical.  A win for everyone, specifically everyone who is me.

Cover Letter

(Perhaps your name is Bill?  If so, pretend it says, "Dear Billy Boy".)
Dear Hiring Manager,

When I saw you were hiring for the position of QA Tester, I thought, "That's me!"  Not because I am good at QA, or even know what it means.  I just need a job.  After reading the description though, I'm sure I'm more than qualified.  I've found bugs in my own soup!  I'm sure I can locate them in your software.

Also, I noticed it was an entry level position that requires 1 year of professional QA experience.  Which I thought was quite reasonable, as otherwise, too many inexperienced people would apply.

However, I am one of "those people" as they say.  The ones that leave the toilet seat up in bathrooms that is.  I'm also inexperienced.  But, what I lack in experience I make up for with a complete lack of morals!  I'll lie about how much work I've done pretty regularly.  As far as you'll ever know, I'll be on task or ahead of schedule!  "Doing great Bill!" is my go to phrase whenever anyone says anything to me. ("About those STDs you got...?" "Doing great Bill!"  "Yes, doing "The Great Bill", I told you to avoid hookers with titles.  But, are they clearing up?...")

Now, recently I've run into the tactic, where a company asks me if I want to come in for an interview, and then doesn't respond again.  I'm sure they just wanted to know if it was, in fact, something I wanted.  I know how much time is wasted interviewing potential candidates, and why do it if you can just *not* do it, am I right?  So, just let me know if that's a method that your company employs too.  And how much does it make an hour?

As you can see I'm incredibly fucking qualified for the position.  I'm sure I'd do great, because I'm non-stop fucking awesome all over.  With that in mind, I'd like to humbly request an interview with you at your earliest(for real! ha-ha!) convenience.

Sincerely,

-Kevin Stevenson