4:45 AM: Wal-Mart is a madhouse.  These people are out for blood.  Everything is already in disarray, and none of the employees have any idea what the hell I’m talking about when I ask them where to find the stuff I want.  Sensing the imminent collapse of the micro-society within, I abandon all hope and vow to use the flyer and Best Buy’s price match policy to get the DVDs I want instead.

4:49 AM: Pretty sure I just saw an old lady smack a tween with her cart while trying to get to the rapidly dwindling supply of “Friends” DVDs. There is an audible thumping sound.  Gotta get out of here and remember to stay the hell away from this place next year.

——-

5:18 AM: Target is sold out of the netbook I want, so I’ve driven over to Radio Shack, who advertised the same product for the same price.  The store opens in 12 minutes, and I’m the fourth person in line.  I should have no trouble getting one.

5:24 AM: The store manager greets the group, now about a dozen in number, with a bullhorn.  He’s a bit upset that using it isn’t necessary.  He uses it anyway.

5:31 AM: I get the only netbook that they have in stock. Suck it, Target!

——-

5:50 AM: Stopping by Staples to pick up a couple of external hard drives for my friends, who are sleeping in.  No sense of adventure, those guys.  Either that, or I’m an idiot, because I’m freezing my ass off and it’s still dark out.

5:51 AM: There must be at least six dozen people in line.  Hopefully, there’s enough hard drives to go around.  Starting to think that I should have worn thermal underoos.

6:03 AM: Finally got in!  After making a beeline towards the area with the hard drives, I find out that there’s a one-per-customer limit.  I buy one, drop it off at my car, then circle back.  Seems like they have a quantity of these things occasionally referred to as a “shit-load.”

6:15 AM: The line was significantly longer the second time around.  Was able to get hard drive #2, but I got the same cashier.  He kinda glares at me for a second, but the early hours plus the overriding sense of apathy ingrained in every retail employee leads him to ring me up without incident.

——-

10:15 AM: The lady in front of me at Best Buy gets the last claim ticket for a Nook.  The sales representative tells me to come back at 12:00, when they let people pick up the stragglers.

10:16 AM: I see the stack of unclaimed Nook boxes behind the “Geek Squad” desk and debate hurtling over the counter and just taking all of them.  I then see the armed security guards they’ve hired for the day.  And the security cameras.  And the fairly dense muscle tone of several of the employees.  I decide that this could end badly.

——-

11:50 AM: I return to Best Buy to see at least two-score people waiting in a line I didn’t know I was supposed to be in.  I hop in the back and immediately feel a sense of dread.  To pass the time, I pretend to be REALLY interested in laptop briefcases and play a game called “guess the country of origin of the funny accent belonging to the guy two people ahead of me.”

12: 20 PM: He’s from South Africa.

12:45 PM: I realize that it’s been 3/4ths of an hour and there has yet to be a person by with a clipboard to ask what we want to get.  This strikes me as horribly inefficient.  The older gentleman behind me discusses this with his wife and begins to rant and stammer about “fucking greedy corporate pig-bastards and their sniveling lackeys.”

12:58 PM: He’s still going.

1:04 PM: Apparently, there were several employees going to each person, asking them what they wanted, then running back to check if it was in stock.  I am now doubly upset with the management here.  Especially since one of the guys started in the BACK of the line, leaving us schlubs in the middle to wait it out.  Old dude behind me stopped ranting and is now just flaring his nostrils and glaring at everyone.

1:12 PM: After an hour and 20-odd minutes of waiting, I find out that I’m the first person to ask about a Nook, and they have three left.  Old dude behind me is crestfallen as a lady five people in front of me snags the last of the laptops he wanted.  Wit ha defiant roar of “This is bullshit!” he stomps away, his wife chasing after him to make sure he doesn’t wreck the Apple display.

1:34 PM: I finally reach the front of the line and buy the damn Nook.

All in all, it was a productive day.  But given the demeanor of the patrons, the chaos of the stores themselves, and the ridiculousness that comes with a bunch of people with food babies grumping around shopping malls at ungodly hours, maybe it would be better to just buy everything online next year…

The other issue I have with smells is that the more memorable ones are those that catch you by surprise, or are tagged to a certain memory – both of which can easily be unpleasant.  The bad smells that stick with you are the ones that are what I like to call the “sharing odors,” because once you get a whiff, you go up to a friend and say, “Man, this is awful!  Smell it!”

Unless it’s some perfume or certain flowers or cinnamon rolls or hickory burning, there are not a lot of smells that stay consistently enjoyable.  Several friends and family members loudly profess their distaste for the aroma of the orange blossom, finding it overly pervasive and sickeningly sweet.  Others have negative memories associated with pleasant things, like when a pumpkin pie wafts its way into one’s nostrils.  Depending on personal history, we can all like, dislike and tolerate different smells.

The reason that my nose is getting involved has more to do with another one of those horrible smells, but it’s one of those that could have been completely avoided.  It’s a man-made smell that, through common sense and a little effort, would not (and should not) exist: the smell of, well, poop.

I have the distinct “pleasure” of knowing a gentleman who is the very embodiment of a grown-up “Pig-Pen” from the Peanuts comics.  As mentioned above, he has a unique and horrifying odor about him.  I’ve heard from several sources that he cleans himself, at most, once per month.  He literally has stink lines coming off of his body.  I’ve come across hoboes who don’t smell anywhere near as bad.  The only way this guy could produce more noxious fumes would be if he sat in a sulfur-filled septic tank for a few hours.  Wait, I take that back – I think he already does.

I’m half-sure that the rank, horrible smell  cloud around him is actually sentient.

This is a guy who lives in a house with a working shower, has access to soap, and (presumably) owns a towel.  He’s in his mid-twenties, so it’s not like he hasn’t had time to learn about good personal hygiene.  And regardless of his actual personality, the force field of putrid poopy pestilence is enough to drive off even the most stalwart of friends.

All the dude needs to do is adjust that bathing schedule a bit.

At the same time, I’m almost fascinated by the whole thing – up until a century or so ago, bathing wasn’t something done all that regularly.  So maybe he’s using his odiferousness as a bit of performance art, reflecting society’s dependency on soap and chemicals.  Or maybe he’s a very dedicated re-enactor.  For someone to be so stalwart in their beliefs against being clean while having the awareness of their own circumstances (unless he’s smell-blind) is either an admirable show of determination or a horrible lack of self-awareness.

All I can tell you is that the dude straight-up stinks.

Every day is comprised of a million tiny decisions that define us: Should I get up on time or hit the snooze button?  Regular or decaf?  Paper or plastic? But the one question that should never define you is, Should I bathe myself today?

Trust me on this; even those of us who find smell to be our fifth-favorite sense will thank you.

Or maybe you’re like me, and you punch yourself in the face.

It’s one of those fairly obvious things – I go to bed without a black eye, but there’s one when I wake up.  Or my jaw is throbbing.  Or my knuckles are white from being clenched into a fist for so long.  Whatever it is, it seems like my body is reenacting that scene from Fight Club where Edward Norton beats the crap out of himself in his boss’ office.

There are no blunt objects in my immediate sleeping area.  The punchings do not occur with frequency, and there’s no set pattern.  But every once in a while, I’ll get up from a particularly restful sleep to find that I’ve performed a self-K.O.  Which raises several questions:

• Is there some correlation between the dreams and the hitting?
• Why only the face?
• Is this a symptom of something worse?
• Is there a way to stop it?
• Is there really no other explanation for this?
• Are my hands sentient and trying to take over my body?
• Who the #@$&%* hits himself in the face when he’s sleeping?

I’ve been looking into the fifth question the most lately, and it seems like there might be a few other ways to rationalize it:

• My dog is part kangaroo, and is training on my mug when I’m already out.
• Voodoo.
• A deranged ex found out where I live and occasionally breaks in to smack me around before disappearing like a ninja.
• Failed government mind control experiments.
• There are invisible blunt objects in my sleeping space that I hit with my face.
• Alien abduction.
• I once said unsavory things to a hobo, who turned out to be a mystical gypsy hobo who cursed me to hit myself in the face.

Our bodies can do many wonderful, strange things.  But playing a one-person version of the classic sibling game, “Stop Hittin’ Yourself” isn’t one of those.  So make sure to double-check for bruises before you go to bed – you never know when an alien voodoo priest hobo who works for the government who you used to date will sneak into your bedroom to use your kangaroo-dog hybrid to create invisible blunt objects to hit you in the face.

And yet, despite years of experience, I still have yet to fully understand the intricacies of the particular rituals of bar patronage.  Below are but a few of the observances that I’ve made recently regarding this most peculiar ecosystem:

• Unless you were previously drinking somewhere else, showing up at a bar after 11:30 PM sober is generally frowned upon.  Depending on the point at which their attendance began, all other patrons will be either pleasantly buzzed or completely belligerent.  They will view you as a pompous elitist, too good to mix in with the normal folks.  Tread carefully, and don’t talk about sports or politics (unless everyone there is cheering for your team).
• Never block the TV.  This is an offense punishable by cursing, booing, angry glares, and death.
• No man may hit on any woman if the woman in question is more than one degree of intoxicated away from him.  There are approximately ten levels, ranging from stone cold sober to projectile vomiting while stumbling around like a rag doll.  Judge accordingly.
• As soon as you’re feeling charming whilst drinking, stop drinking.  Another drink will lead to you “charming” all over someone’s shoes.
• If an incredibly plastered fellow approaches you to talk, listen and agree with what he says, but do not allow him to be in contact with you for more than three minutes.  After this point, he may feel that you are his New Best Friend, and he is therefore entitled to misrepresent you to his others, like That B*** In The Corner Who Thinks She’s All That.
• Although drunk driving is a serious and dangerous offense, many will say that they’re fine to drive.  If they then proceed to sing along to any of the hard rock tracks playing on a jukebox (men) or accidentally punch someone (women), this is in fact a lie.  Call a cab.
• It’s okay to drink alone.  Just avoid conversation and eye contact with everyone but the bartender until you have had two beverages.  After this point, it’s socially acceptable for you to randomly enter conversations, even if the people around you want you to go away.
• There must be at least one person on the premises who looks like either (a) a lush (b) a hobo (c) a tramp or (d) a celebrity, but only if you squint real hard.  If you cannot find said person, it’s probably you.
• If you run into your boss,  ex-girlfriend, acquaintance, employee, ex-boyfriend, cousin, sibling, parents, friends, clients, religious advisor, or others who you know personally, you are required to have at least one awkward conversation with them, and then both of you are required to discuss said conversation and people with those who you are in attendance with for at least three minutes.
• If there’s a discount on drinks (ie: a $5 pass for all-you-can-drink for two hours), you must still tip the bartenders in full.  In fact, they may resent you for participating in the discount program, glaring at you, messing up your order, or ignoring you completely.  If so, find other bartenders who are not as grumpy, or find another place to drink.
• If the music is so loud that you have to yell to be heard, the moment you yell something somewhat personal, the music must shut off so everyone can hear it.  Alternately, texting others is only permissible if there is at least one other person in your group already doing it.
• If a man orders a drink that is not a beer, a straight-up booze, a classic (ie: margarita, Tom Collins, sometimes a mojito) or something where its ingredients are listed in its name, he must be ridiculed by his friends until he has consumed the drink and brought back something more socially appropriate.  This rule does not apply if you are on the beach or at a tropical-themed bar.
• Any woman who orders beer, whiskey or scotch is automatically “hot.”
• If you order wine at a dive bar, you must be self-effacing about your purchase for the rest of the night.
• Regardless of how bad the live music is, you must still applaud the musician, even if you are only applauding the hope that it’s the last song that they will be playing.

These social norms and rules of conduct seem to exist across the entire bar spectrum: dive, sports, hotel, restaurant, upscale, wine, themed and pub.  Make sure that you follow them accordingly, lest you find yourself wondering why nobody asks if you want to go out to a bar anymore while you sip on your “Lite Ice” beer from a 30-pack.

Pretty much anyone who sends a text message out these days is using T9, a piece of software in your phone that predicts what words you’re typing.  It also stores some of the phrases you’ve used before, too.  And over time, it sorts out different words based on the frequency of their use.

So it was a bit surprising when I hit 66 yesterday and found that “on” came up.  Now, I’m aware that “on” comes before “no” according to this chart, but I’ve been pretty sure that I use “no” a bit more in my daily conversations.  In fact, I distinctly remember that “no” used to be my 66 default when I first got the phone.  Similarly, after I type out “how” (469), it follows with the phrase, “are you?”

Consider the implications of the T9 selections: just by typing out a message, we can gain insight into the most commonly used phrases and concepts that each person puts forth.  We could find out where they stand on scales like optimism versus pessimism, talk versus action, and personal interest versus altruism.  The T9 software itself works like a thorough personality test.

I’m not sure if anyone’s done a study on this.  After all, there are better uses of their time, like using math to predict when we will discover an Earth-like planet.  But at least one person seems to have caught on:

So when it comes to texting, maybe we’re revealing a bit more about ourselves than we’d thought.

First I should explain how we escaped: it was the pre-Buttafuco days of the Garden State, but Mom and Dad already seemed to have an inclination as to the horrible future that lay ahead, and were able to secure safe passage to Arizona, a relatively sane-seeming state (cue laughter from audience with foresight).  We flew out on Halloween, back when airplanes were still fun (so all of the flight attendants were in costumes), and proceeded to live out the following years in the desert.

So considering that I was around 2 years old when this all happened, I don’t have many fond memories of my times in NJ, though I do recall visits.  My most famous line came when, after leaving Newark Airport, I said, “Yuck! And it smells too!”  This phrase has been oft-quoted by anyone who’s ever been to Newark since, and I think that they put a plaque up near that spot to commemorate it.  But that’s Newark.

So pop culture has exposed me to all of these different bits and pieces of New Jersey life that I was never aware of.  The first time I ever saw the illustrious phenomenon known as “guido hair” was on Growing Up Gotti.  The first time I ever understood convenience store culture was with Clerks.  The first time I ever understood the painful and torturous addiction of spray-tanning was when I caught five minutes of Jerseylicious, thinking it was a strange news story.  And the first time I learned that Zach Braff makes bad movies with good soundtracks was when I saw Garden State.

Despite many visits over the years (mostly to North Jersey, and only once to the Shore), I found that it’s not that much different from most other places; I hardly saw any of the stereotypical Jersey denizens around.  This made me wonder for a time whether they were all hiding from me, on vacation in South Beach, or in any of the other regions of the state that I’d avoided.  It seemed strange that an entire culture was missing from its point of origin.

But then I realized where they all went, and it made perfect sense: they’re all on TV.

Just like in my experience in London trying to find a Cockney fellow or an ultra-posh lady, it came to my attention that those who belong to these groups of outliers have parlayed their stereotypes into entertainment careers.  So while they might seem pervasive on screens both large and small, they’re almost mythical creatures in the rest of their habitats.

After all, nobody would really act like that, right?

Or let’s say you’re still trying to write that post, but you realize you need to file a report for one of your jobs, so you get that cranked out in record time before realizing that you still haven’t made any headway on the post.

You could even have had an entire morning full of productivity: running errands, sorting laundry, exercising, researching upcoming events, looking into fun classes to take, sending birthday notes to friends and so on, and yet the post just sits there, empty.

So you get your full focus on, turning your muse into your bitch, and then you end up writing something so awesome, so amazing that you realize it has nothing whatsoever to do with a blog post, and is instead a part of the third chapter of that novel idea that’s been bouncing around in the back of your brain.

Maybe a nap will help!  You lay your head down and proceed to doze off for about 30 minutes.  You wake up feeling refreshed, but your brain is still a blank canvas, the “Add New Post” page on the WordPress back-end of your blog even more so.

Now, you’re feeling a bit panicked.  It’s well after noon, so the post is already late.  Maybe you can just put up some filler pictures – but then you remember that you wasted those a few weeks ago when you had a busy evening.  Or you could make up a list – but the only list you can think of is which restaurants you want to go to for restaurant week.

So you find a smooth section of the wall in your room, and proceed to bonk your head against it for the next three minutes, chanting “Think, think, think!”  Then your dog stops by, looks at you quizzically, and walks out.  So now you resort to stress-eating, pulling out a few chocolates left over from a baking expedition last weekend.  You stuff your face with a couple of them, then feel instant regret, since you haven’t had an actual lunch yet today, making the sugary, confectionery delight a Trojan Horse of unhealthiness seeping its way to your tummy.

Depressed and dejected, you slump your shoulders and shuffle back to your waiting laptop and begin to write about how you couldn’t think of anything to talk about today.  How cliché!  How overused!  How terrible!  You hate yourself more and more with each keystroke, cursing your feeble brain and hoping and praying that the results will be somehow acceptable.

Man, that sucks when it happens, huh?  Good thing I don’t have that problem.

My parents leave their answering machine blinking for weeks.  One of my best friends since preschool changed his greeting to, “TEXT ME.”  I can’t get a hold of an ex-roommate  because he hasn’t checked his messages in almost two months.

It’s quite frustrating.  So not too long ago, I decided to have fun with it.

Thanks to inventions like caller ID, phone number playback, and recognizable phone voices, the actual content of the message, unless it’s something rather pressing or serious, doesn’t need to be much.  After all, most voicemail messages boil down to one thing: “call me back.”  So with that being the implied content of every message, there’s no way to stick to the script.  So in the past, I’ve left messages as:

• A GI JOE sleep-away camp counselor warning parents about a possible COBRA spy
• A guy who thought that his bad date went really well
• An old man who keeps randomly pressing the buttons on the phone because he thinks he’s ordering his prescription refills
• A monkey with terrible gas
• A phone-in game show host who was offering fabulous prizes, like a pair of used flip-flops
• A representative of the financial aid department of a university that discovered that they had moved the zero one decimal place to the left on a report that they sent
• A pocket-dialer telling secrets about the recipients to their friends
• A faith healer who heals people over the phone
• A person who thinks they’re getting great signal reception, but it keeps cutting out

There are lots more, but the problem is that by the time most people listen to the messages, they’re just confused.  So while it might be funny right away, or even a couple of days later, once it passes the one-week mark, the message just seems out of place.  However, it does lead to some great calls back.  And I’ve noticed that I get quicker replies these days, too…

The movie did not disappoint.  If you like good movies, you should see it.**

The one thing I wasn’t sure if I would like, though, was the music.  The eponymous character inhabits a world in which there are a good number of bands (including his own).  Turns out I didn’t have anything to worry about, since there are some great tunes in the flick, from performers and groups like Beck, Broken Social Scene, Frank Black, and Metric.

The soundtrack is pretty rad.  If you like music, you should get it.**

The reason I’m bringing all of this up is because I get songs stuck in my head.  Frequently.  And my usual practices of song-stuck-in-my-head-removingness have failed.  In fact, three songs have been stuck in my head: “Invisible Gurlz,” a so-odd-it-works mashup of Katy Perry’s “California Gurlz” and Genesis’ “Invisible Touch,”  the horrible and crazy “Caramelldansen,” and most loudly, Scott Pilgrim‘s own “Threshold,” performed by movie band Sex Bob-Omb.

So, I’m gonna try to pass them all off on you, Internet readers!  Click the videos below and prepare to have music stream in through your ear-holes and never leave. Hum the songs in public places like a crazy person!

“Threshold”

“Invisible Gurlz”

“Caramelldansen”

Sorry about this, guys.  It’s like that part in The Ring when what’s-her-face makes all the duplicates of the tape to save herself and her family…

* I also went to see The Expendables, but that doesn’t really apply to this story.  They both are good movies, though!

** Unpaid endorsements, I swear.

After several days in Kingston, I was planning to leave at the crack of 5:00 AM to take a flight back to Toronto to take another flight back to Phoenix.  While the previous three days were filled with a lot of drinking, rabblerousing and general tomfoolery, the last had been a time for lazing about, doing some bits of work and just enjoying myself.  Lunch at a local favorite had been stellar, though the room service meal I’d decided on was a poor showing.  Nevertheless, the day had been filled with walking around town and across a bit of Lake Ontario, checking out the local scene and writing.  It was fairly exhausting.

And yet I couldn’t fall asleep.

I tell people that I have morning amnesia – I wake up and am a bit unaware of my surroundings, the date, the time, or (on occasion) how long I’ve been asleep.  This was especially fun for one particular ex-girlfriend, who made the mistake of falling asleep on my arm.  But that’s another story.

The thing I don’t tell people is that I can get evening amnesia, too.  If I’m up for too long, my mind will enter a drunk-like state, where I’ll still be fairly lucid, but will sometimes black out and wake up the next morning with no clear indication of what I’d done.  Usually, my evening amnesia-addled mind does stuff that I’ve been holding off on, to mixed results.

So at 1:15 AM, I had the last moment of lucidity before I woke up at 4:15 to get ready for the flights back.  I took a quick glance at my laptop, and apparently, there were several pages of notes scribbled down about a new site idea that I’d had, and my Gmail page open to a receipt showing that I’d bought a domain for the site.  I don’t remember any of this.

But the notes were solid, and the domain is a good one.  So I guess that I’m all right with this sort of behavior…for now.  But what happens when my evening amnesia starts to take on ambien-like properties?  Will I wake up one morning to find myself in another country, married to a woman who I’ve never seen before?  Will I have a stack of pancakes made and waiting for my consumption?  Will I have decided to run for public office?

There’s something strange going on in my head, and I don’t know where it’s going to lead.  All I can do is try to get a little more sleep time in, so I don’t wind up doing anything stupid, like buying a massage table on eBay.

Oh, wait.  I did that six years ago when I was in a similar state.  Shit.  This is worse than I thought.