07/26/2004 - 11:24 p.m. | I believe the true function of age is mmeory. I'm rcoerding as fast as I can.

I'm sitting here trying to figure out what this entry should be about, and that should be setting off big bells and whistles in your head because my entries are rarely, if ever, about anything. I dunno - I have plenty of boring old anecdotes to tell you and plenty of foibles that need pointing out (Like, "Why is it than whenever you driving to work and need to be there on time, all the lights are red, but when you are driving there and are also trying to do something inapprorpiate at the same time - say, eating a rather large bowl of cereal or changing pants for no discernible reason - you get every green light in the city?") and plenty of that patented Nate Walsh Teenage Angst (TM) I'm sure you try and skim over... It just doesn't feel like it's the time.

But then, what is there to talk about? Saturday night? No. We shall not be talking about Saturday night. In fact, any inquiries into Saturday night will be met with vague, poorly-constructed poetry by yours truly. Not that it was a big deal or anything, just that I was in a condition where it seemed like a big deal. We wanted to write an entry that night, we did. But it would have been emoness beyond all belief. Actually, that's not true. It was a hell of a lot closer to uncontrolled, bitter, bile-inducing rage at that point. Seriously. Everyone has their thing they want to freak out and do, right? The more life-affirming children out there might well contemplate suicide, but that is based on the assumption that your life is worth something. Well, I have my box of blue-black hair dye, and I was about seconds away from busting that motherfucker out. Luckily, I saw reason in not trying to use the potentially blinding chemicals when my balance was less than superior. Also, I was shirtless and saw myself in the mirror and thought, "I am sexy. In a gawky way" and actually believed it at the time. My whole world is just casting nets to hold up my fragile self-esteem. No fires, please.

I have been punished any time I was anything less than aloof. Now, one might reason that because I let my guard down so rarely, maybe odds are just bad and that if I tried more often ("Grew as a person," they say), there might be more positive results. I would like to believe this, but negative reinforcement works, what can I say?

On to Predator 2, which I watched last night with Yousaf (as well as the original, but the focus here is upon the sequel). In the first movie, Arnold Schwarteneggar, pretty much at the height of his huge, badassinest, motherfuckinest, killingest period of the 80s, barely - just barely - defeated the predator, even with his mysterious exploding bow and arrows. In the second film, we are expected to believe that Danny Glover - yes, Angels in the Outfield Danny Glover - is somehow going to stop another one of these fuckers. With a magic frisbee or some shit (I fell asleep for a little bit). "I'm gettin' too old for this shit," etc. How much disbelief do you want me to suspend? Now, I'm not trying to besmirch Mr Glover here; if it were a gang of street toughs he had to take down, I'm sure there are few better for the job. But everytime I stop and think, my mind produces a back and forth image of the huge, disgusting predator with its dreads and mandibles and shit... and Danny Glover making some wacky face. I can't not laugh at that, I'm sorry. On the plus side, Yousaf and I have decided that we need BB gun pistols with sniper scopes on them, but I don't have even close to enough money to where I want to buy that shit. How does America survive on its minimum wage? Stealing. It survives on stealing.

I consider myself to be a very tolerant person. Laugh it up, fuzzball. I'm serious. I am an ignorant person, I'll give you that, and I could make fun of pretty much all of you at will (and do?), but I can tolerate shit like no one else. I always thought I had some natural musk or something that allowed me to attract such psychos, but I've gone on to decide that I just put up with a lot more than a lot of people would. Storing it for later, really. Anyway, this guy came into the candy store on Sunday, and he immediately starts talking to me like we're best friends, all world-weary and shit. "So... another day at the old Inside Scoop, huh?" So I play along because I think maybe I do know him from somewhere and watch as he walks towards the back of the store. Suddenly, he stops, puts at a wall, plays some air guitar and sings, "SMILE! You're on Candid Camera!" Oh. Then he tosses the air guitar behind him and goes, "I lose more guitars that way." He then proceeds to pull out a variety of air instruments, play them briefly, breaking them each time, and explaining how many he has wasted of each. "That is like my 500th pair of drumsticks there!" I ask him how he affords all these expensive, invisible equipment, and he begins a pantomime of robbing the store including some crazy device to "hijack the ejection sequence" on the cash register. Jen has run off long ago. Then he starts talking about his electric generator (also invisible) powered by 500 gallons of flavored sugar at 5 cents a gallon. I do the math for him, but he doesn't believe me. Then he starts talking about his Snorlax, and if it had been anyone else, he'd have been fucked, but luckily I know my Pokemon and immediately began playing along. He launched it out of his Pokeball and it gave him a wedgie, he said, because it loves nerd sweat. Then it did the atomic wedgie body slam on him. I had no idea. Some customers come to the register, obviously eager to leave, and he fiddles with the snake puppet while I am busy with them, making it eat its own tail and poop it out ("Poetic," I said). As soon as they leave, he goes, "Do you know how to cook?" I say that I can well enough. He asks me how long it would take to make a pizza. I say 30, 40 minutes maybe. He (as the snake now?) challenges me to a pizza-making contest. I am not even sure where to begin when he tosses some dough up in the air, snaps three times, and says, "It was magic dough. I'm done." How am I supposed to compete? Then he starts issuing me a series of other challenges, like what would I do if I were stuck in a giant cookie ("How big?" "As big as the whole mall!") - I said I would eat it all eventually - and only had 5 minutes to escape before poisonous gas was released. "I can actually breathe poisonous gas." He is dumbfounded for a moment and then begins typing frantically, searching for a better challenege. "Well, what if you only had five minutes until you were launched into space and you didn't have a space suit?" Then he walks out, yelling back, "I'll come back for an answer later. Run some holographic simulations." The entire store breathes a sigh of relief. Jen comes over. "He smelled very bad." "Good things come in small packages."

Not liking boobs has a steep learning curve. This one girl comes into the candy store pretty much everyday, and every time I'm through ringing her up, I glance at her and think, "What disproportionately large boobs!" Then I think for a moment and go, "Wait, you work at Abercrombie, don't you?" and she kind of sighs and says, "Yeah, you'll get it one of these days." So I cancel the sale and re-ring it, and she leaves. And then, in hindsight, it always seems obvious because her boobs are so huge and perky, and she is neither far nor tall, the opposite in fact, and I have a vague feeling that I am supposed to be attracted to her, and then *blink* I forget all about it again. "Man, I need to get my own button making machine! That would be sweet!" Thanks a ton, brain. I would like some normal sexual impulses for my birthday. Thank you much. RRRRR. I hate that phrase and wrote it deliberately to annoy myself. I can't even begin to explain the logic behind that one.

Every time I check my IMSA e-mail, I always mean to go in and try and block some of the spam I get, but then I start reading it and fall in love. Let me count the ways: 1) The fact that they always make a blind stab at my name. Helen Churchwood? Henry Foebeck? Alison Jeffries? Keep at it, guys. You'll get it. 2) The random inspiration quotes riddled with misspellings. The first three lines are like HOT CUM SLUTS UNDERAGE ANAL XXX MPEGS but then afterwards, it's all really weird quotes about life and friendship and shit. "Fotry is the odl age of yuoth and fifty is teh youht of old aeg." Thank you? OK, so just 2 ways. 3 if you count the cum sluts. DO I?