I made a fatal mistake.
I chose friends as business partners. In everyone's mind there resides a little fat opera singer who pops out from behind the scenes when things get bad and belts at the top of his lungs "MistAAAAAKE!!!", but in this case, I ignored mine.
I sent him backstage for some donuts and I'm paying for it.
I went into business with my good friend and his on-again off-again girlfriend (at this point the fat opera guy was pre-occupied chowing down on Krispy Kremes, and therefore unavailable to warn me again).
To all reading (and I know there are few if any of you): DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH FRIENDS. EVAR. kkthx.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Occasionally Back Down
Ok. So I may have been a bit hard on Brad. As I let this grind into fine powder this week, it occurred to me that Brad may have changed his ways. I haven't seen nor spoken to him for nearly a decade.
If someone starts on a path of change, a decade can leave them a completely different person. I have changed in those years, and I should give him the benefit of the doubt.
Peace and love, y'all.
PS - I still probably won't see that flaming turd of a movie.
If someone starts on a path of change, a decade can leave them a completely different person. I have changed in those years, and I should give him the benefit of the doubt.
Peace and love, y'all.
PS - I still probably won't see that flaming turd of a movie.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
9 Months Later
In 9 months, I have discovered it is possible to accomplish a great many things.
I've married my college sweetheart, bought a house, left my horrible consulting job for a much more palatable software engineering job, and am part owner of a martial arts association / internet startup. This has been a great year, a joyous year, with all the highs and lows of the human experience. Happiness, sorrow, anger and bitterness. Fear, anxiety, loathing and contempt. Rejection, acceptance, and the deepest of hatred and love.
And to think, I almost wrote my life off as wasted this morning.
Let me back up. Many of you out there may have seen the theatrical or television trailers for the upcoming movie, Never Back Down. This movie combines several elements of current pop culture that I dislike, for a number of very complex reasons. But I will spare you all that, and summarize why this is relevant.
From the time I first moved to what would become my "home town" to the time I left it to go to college, I was in school with a boy, who, for the purposes of this blog, we'll call Brad. That's not his real name. Brad and I never really got along. He was handsome, rich, and passably intelligent. He held sway with many of the cliques in school, and wielded his social influence like a chimp with a machete. He was not the brightest bulb, but he knew people. And he knew how to torment them, and persuade others to torment them in ways he could not.
While I was never an enduring target for his ridicule (despite being the fat kid in our school -- yeah, the only one, for real -- it was as awesome as it sounds), but I didn't have to be to see that Brad was a constant source of, as the French say, "douche-baggery." He was the kind of person that makes you glad to leave high school, and shudder at the thought of returning.
Imagine my chagrin as I flipped on the idiot box this morning to find his leathery grin beaming out at me amidst what, at first glance, appeared to be an Axe deodorant commercial, or some other closet-case prep school teen funk product. It was the trailer for Never Back Down, the story of some wayward douchebag who turns to MMA (muddy martial arts) to fill the void of an absent father and a micro-penis. (Or at least that's my guess from the general "feel" of the trailer).
At first I was shocked and horrified that someone as sociopathic as Brad had made it to the ripe old age of. And then I felt abysmal. What am I doing with my life, that a walking turd pile like Brad can find Hollywood stardom, and I'm a cog in the money machine. Oh the fame, the women, the money, the lifestyle. It must be awesome.
But then something happened. My brotha from anotha motha, we'll call him Keenan, responded to my earlier text message, informing him of this Doomsday news.
Here is exactly what he wrote: "That the sequel to brokeback mountain or something?"
It was then that three things occurred to me:
1. F*ck Brad. That guy is now working with a bunch of people just like him, and that's nothing to envy. The money....ok that might be something to envy, but again -- at what price...
2. That Keenan is my friend is proof that I have spent my life well. I will come into my own, and I will do it my way.
3. F*ck Brad. Seriously. Guy used to cry when he got fouled in basketball, and I vividly remember Keenan regularly kicking his ass throughout school.
I love my wife, I love my friends, and I love the life that I have worked hard to build for myself, and for my family to come.
And I will never see that horrible abortion of a film.
I've married my college sweetheart, bought a house, left my horrible consulting job for a much more palatable software engineering job, and am part owner of a martial arts association / internet startup. This has been a great year, a joyous year, with all the highs and lows of the human experience. Happiness, sorrow, anger and bitterness. Fear, anxiety, loathing and contempt. Rejection, acceptance, and the deepest of hatred and love.
And to think, I almost wrote my life off as wasted this morning.
Let me back up. Many of you out there may have seen the theatrical or television trailers for the upcoming movie, Never Back Down. This movie combines several elements of current pop culture that I dislike, for a number of very complex reasons. But I will spare you all that, and summarize why this is relevant.
From the time I first moved to what would become my "home town" to the time I left it to go to college, I was in school with a boy, who, for the purposes of this blog, we'll call Brad. That's not his real name. Brad and I never really got along. He was handsome, rich, and passably intelligent. He held sway with many of the cliques in school, and wielded his social influence like a chimp with a machete. He was not the brightest bulb, but he knew people. And he knew how to torment them, and persuade others to torment them in ways he could not.
While I was never an enduring target for his ridicule (despite being the fat kid in our school -- yeah, the only one, for real -- it was as awesome as it sounds), but I didn't have to be to see that Brad was a constant source of, as the French say, "douche-baggery." He was the kind of person that makes you glad to leave high school, and shudder at the thought of returning.
Imagine my chagrin as I flipped on the idiot box this morning to find his leathery grin beaming out at me amidst what, at first glance, appeared to be an Axe deodorant commercial, or some other closet-case prep school teen funk product. It was the trailer for Never Back Down, the story of some wayward douchebag who turns to MMA (muddy martial arts) to fill the void of an absent father and a micro-penis. (Or at least that's my guess from the general "feel" of the trailer).
At first I was shocked and horrified that someone as sociopathic as Brad had made it to the ripe old age of
But then something happened. My brotha from anotha motha, we'll call him Keenan, responded to my earlier text message, informing him of this Doomsday news.
Here is exactly what he wrote: "That the sequel to brokeback mountain or something?"
It was then that three things occurred to me:
1. F*ck Brad. That guy is now working with a bunch of people just like him, and that's nothing to envy. The money....ok that might be something to envy, but again -- at what price...
2. That Keenan is my friend is proof that I have spent my life well. I will come into my own, and I will do it my way.
3. F*ck Brad. Seriously. Guy used to cry when he got fouled in basketball, and I vividly remember Keenan regularly kicking his ass throughout school.
I love my wife, I love my friends, and I love the life that I have worked hard to build for myself, and for my family to come.
And I will never see that horrible abortion of a film.
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Primer Poste
The internet is a common receptacle for the waste products of the mind. This is now accepted almost universally as common fact. I will do my best not to add to the pile, and instead to express myself in a concise, and hopefully somewhat entertaining manner. After all, if we cannot retell our lives as if they were a long, multi-faceted joke, what is the purpose in going on?
This is my first post on this blog. It is June of 2007, and I am, just now, a full 5 years after many would argue the last bubble of internet dotcom fluff nonsense has long burst. As a general rule, I think blogs serve three purposes: to spread very good and useful information, to spread very poor and useless (albeit entertaining) information, and to vent.
Mine is for the latter. I may mix in a few sprinkles of the former, and the prior at times, but don't count on much.
Welcome to my blog. Enjoy what you read -- it is my uncensored observation on a great many things that pass by the window sill of my mind during the day.
This is my first post on this blog. It is June of 2007, and I am, just now, a full 5 years after many would argue the last bubble of internet dotcom fluff nonsense has long burst. As a general rule, I think blogs serve three purposes: to spread very good and useful information, to spread very poor and useless (albeit entertaining) information, and to vent.
Mine is for the latter. I may mix in a few sprinkles of the former, and the prior at times, but don't count on much.
Welcome to my blog. Enjoy what you read -- it is my uncensored observation on a great many things that pass by the window sill of my mind during the day.
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