SomethingSoWrong

I sit back and look at my options for blogging today and am flummoxed. I don’t know what to write about. My ultimately unfulfilling journey to Tyler over the weekend, chock full o’ ire? Playing billiards for hours and hours on Sunday? Getting way too drunk on Memorial Day and waking up with a pounding headache this morning?

The first option tempts me the most, but I won’t. Suffice to say, it’ll probably be a long, long time before I make myself go back to East Texas.

Instead, I’ll just leave you with a picture from White Rock last weekend…those are some interesting stats.

The Fort Worth ISD isn’t letting kids who fail the TAKS test (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills) participate in graduation. So the students that failed are protesting. I think the picture below nicely sums up why these kids are too stupid to graduate.

Look, if by the 12th grade, if you don’t know the difference between “are” and “our”, you deserve to spend the rest of your pointless life screwing up drive-thru orders for the rest of us.

Like a lot of people these days, I’ve been taken in by this new-fangled thing called THE INTERNET. THE INTERNET lets us research esoteric subjects, download our favorite music and acquire massive amounts of pornography. THE INTERNET also lets us communicate over vast differences via the magic of ELECTRONIC MAIL. As a result, I have accumulated several ELECTRONIC MAIL ADDRESSES for use on THE INTERNET. Unfortunately, I think someone might be giving out my ELECTRONIC MAIL ADDRESS as their on, possibly by mistake. Following are two recent ELECTRONIC MAILS I’ve received that don’t seem to be SPAM ADVERTISING as there are no links included, nor are they asking me to ELECTRONICALLY TRANSFER FUNDS to Africa.

Hello hello,

xoxo
(Not so) Tiny (these days) E

and

JJ, HAVEN’T HEARD FROM YOU. DID YOU GET MY LAST EMAIL??

FRIEND TOM

The “FRIEND TOM” part struck me as funny, like something that Tonto on the old Lone Ranger show would’ve said. It became even funnier when I noticed the sender’s email address: apachetom1@netscape.com.

Damn Indians.

Waaaay back in high school and college, I was somewhat of a photographer. Armed with my trusty Minolta Maxxum and Minolta SRT-101, I documented many things about my life and my loves. I also did some nifty fine art photography and even served as (and this is kind of geeky) photo editor for my high school yearbook.

Unfortunately, the high cost in both time and materials curtailed me from pursuing photography a couple of years into college, so I basically gave it up. Ever since then, I’ve missed being behind the lens of an SLR and the smells of T-Max, Dektol and Fixer. Able to afford to practice photography once again, I found myself without the room for a proper darkroom, but an alternative, thanks to technology, has presented itself. Digital SLRs.

I’ve been wanting one for a while and finally, last week, broke down and bought a Canon Digital Rebel XTi (400D).

So, in the interest of trying it out and beginning to learn its myriad of features, I dragged ‘Shank out to White Rock Lake in Dallas to shoot several hundred images. Some of my favorites can be found in this gallery.

The other day, I was craving a cheeseburger, so I thought I’d wander over to Whataburger to satiate my meaty desires. If you’re unfamiliar with Whataburger, think fast food burgers that don’t taste too much like fast food served in orange-painted stores staffed by surly minorities. Also, their breakfast taquitos are fucking awesome.

So, anyhow, I walk inside and to the counter to find that it’s staffed by an older Indian woman (the “staffs call centers on the Asian subcontinent” kind, not the “get drunk on the reservation and drive old pick-up trucks” kind). This struck me as a bit odd and the first thing I really wanted to say when ordering my cheeseburger was “I’ll have your grandmother with cheese, mayo instead of mustard”. But I didn’t. I ordered in the proper way. Because I respect other peoples’ beliefs. Or something like that.

Ayds was an appetite-suppressant candy which enjoyed strong sales in the 1970s and early 1980s. Unfortunately, a fun little disease we like to call AIDS came into the forefront of public thought in the early 80s, and it let you lose weight just by having unprotected sex and without having to eat that pesky candy.

Reminds me of a certain South Park episode.

Last night was Mexican Food Night. That’s right, with UPPERCASE LETTERS and everything, because my weekly dining has started to become way too structured. Already Tuesday night is Cheap Wings Night at Buffalo Wild Wings and Wednesday night (aka Lost night) is Deep Dish Pizza Night from Chicago Rick’s Pizza. Friday or Saturday nights are usually (but not always) German Night at the Black Forest.

The SSW staff (that’d be ‘Shank and I) don’t seek out much variety in our dining experiences. Why? Because we’re getting old and can’t accept change. Or something like that. Comfort in what you know, I guess.

The point of this is that it was Mexican Food Night and we went to Posado’s in Plano. And more importantly, we were able to eat an entire meal there without being interrupted by retarded kids throwing up.

Because that’s what happened the last time we went to this particular vendor of Latin comestibles. Wanna hear about it? Of course you do.

(This is the part in SSW: The Movie where the screen would get all wavy and a harp would start playing)…

We arrived at Posado’s, eager for tasty (T-A-S-T-E-Y if you’re illiterate and you perform under the name “Fergie”) Tex-Mex food to be shoved down our waiting gullets. After a short wait, the hostess seated us next to a father and his two kids, whom I barely noticed as we sat down. After ordering our drinks and being served chips and salsa, I decided that I’d wander over to the restroom to utilize it and wash up. Upon returning, I noticed that one of the kids with the father at the next table over was eating while putting his head down, which struck me as slightly odd.

She got us our ticket. I wondered how I could complain about the ‘tards without looking like a dick. I decided it wasn’t possible. Bah. Even though we lost our appetites, we still went home hungry. And angry. And maybe even some other word that ends in “-gry”.

Last night, though, we just had bad service. Which is okay, because we’re used to it. Somewhere along the line, ‘Shank and I got a bad service curse. I don’t know why or how, but it happened. It still annoys me at times, but somehow I’ve reached a Zen-like peace with it.

A Zen-like peace I might need tonight, because we always get shitty service on Cheap Wing Night at Buffalo Wild Wings.

As you may or may not know, waaaay back in January, ‘Shank and I headed out to one of the greatest cities in the world to gamble, drink ourselves silly and attend the Consumer Electronics Show. I’ve finally gotten around to putting together a photo gallery from our trip. You can find it here.