Big things going on for me right now; the short but sweet version is: buying a new house, starting a new job, and desperately cobbling together money for said new house.  Now, anyone who knows me also knows that I grow weary speaking of such things unless there's some sort of situation involved.

There is a situation involved.

Considering that I need to come up with a fairly hefty amount of money in a short amount of time, I need to basically spend money on nothing.  Unfortunately, my lovely girlfriend's birthday falls 6 days before the dastardly holiday known as Valentine's day, meaning I have a double shot of "aw, fuck" headed my direction and fast.  This is where I call upon the powers of everyone reading this...

I need help figuring out what to do/get for her.  I can probably figure out a gift idea on my own, but I need some ideas for cheap (or free) Valentine's Day ideas.  Last year we did a picnic which I could do again this year, although I was hoping for a more creative idea.  You know, like putting scat porn in all the DVD players at Best Buy, or selling drugs to elementary kids, then beating them up and stealing it back.

Please, for my sake, offer up any suggestions you might have or share any stories of your past Valentine's dates, successful or not. 

Because one of these giant fuckers was crawling in my pants on the way to work the other morning. 

I felt something jab my inner thigh and proceeded to freak out and swerve all over the road after realizing that there was a large insect in my pants (trousers for those that aren't stateside).  After smashing the hell out of it and having between 8-10 heart attacks, I was calm enough to white knuckle the rest of the drive to work.  Needless to say I wasn't tired anymore, and I made the drive in record time.

Also, if you're having trouble visualizing how big three inches of beetle is, that's roughly the length of your middle finger.  This one was bigger than that.

Please tell me that this is just a pile of gober.

Several months ago, I received a very strange text message that was obviously not in English.  Usually I'm pretty good at figuring out what language something is in, but this one threw me hard.  The first word made me think German; the second sounded Greek; the third one Spanish; fourth was just the letter "q" (which, for some reason, made me think Portuguese); and the last one was like a hybrid word, made out of German, Spanish, spare robot parts and somebody's bones: "k0nteste."

Here's the message:
Dile akel mens0 q k0nteste

I'm thinking some kind of 1337 speak in Spanish.  Maybe "q" is short for "que," but I can't figure out "Dile" or "akel," and when I change "k0nteste" to "conteste" I get a few different possible translations.  "Menso" apparently means stupid (hear that, MENSA?).

Any ideas?

If you've never played/heard of ROCKSTAR ATE MY HAMSTER or IT CAME FROM THE DESERT, then you better get started or you're going to hell. Also, these downloads are FREE!

ROCKSTAR ATE MY HAMSTER
IT CAME FROM THE DESERT

I don't have much time to type this before "they" get me (actually, I just have to go to work), so I'll get right down to it.

My iPod Shuffle took a shit on me. No, not literally; it just quit working right. It doesn't bother me too much, as I need something with a bigger capacity anyway, but I've found a new problem: what should I replace it with?

Unless anyone has other suggestions, I've boiled it down to 2 choices:
- Creative's Zen Vision M
- Apple 80GB iPod

Obviously, the iPod has casts a huge shadow on the Zen Vision with its storage, but I'll mostly be using this at work over the course of 8-12 hours, meaning 30 GB is more than sufficient. Also, the Zen Vision has voice recorder and FM capabilities, 2 things that are extremely appealing to me. But... I DO have a lot of music, and 80 GB would be nice to have.

Does anyone here have either of these items or know of something better?

And #3!

I can't tell you how bizarre it was to come across that...

I'm feeling saucy right now.  I'm thinking tomato sauce, or maybe a Vietnamese plum sauce, or even some type of sauce made out of things that are illegal and smell highly flammable, but saucy nonetheless.  In honor of this, coupled with the fact that I've never felt inclined to describe myself as feeling "saucy," mostly because I have no idea what that means, we're gonna party.  Not just some boring "strippers, fire, clowns, and at least one visit from an ambulance" party.  No, this is a wild, crazy, "hey I'm on the internet by myself" party.  I know, be careful!

The first game of this party is a drinking game.  Okay, so it's only a drinking game for me because immediately after finishing this I'm gonna drink until I can't see, but it is a game.  Actually, it isn't really a game either since you can't win anything and no one's really competing...  but it does involve money, naked girls, and a yacht stuffed with cocaine.  Okay, okay...

Now that we've established the fact that I'm a bad liar, let's get right to it.  Rather than serve up a regular "caption me" featuring a picture with one or more [nouns] in an [adjective] predicament with a potentially hilarious outcome for you to write a short caption about, this features a picture with one or more [nouns] in an [adjective] predicament with a potentially hilarious outcome for you to write a short STORY about.  Might as well be in a band called "The New Originals," huh?

I'll serve up the picture.  Your job is to write about the events preceding or subsequent to the moment the picture was snapped. 

Also, it is perfectly acceptable to do it "Shaun of the Dead" style where you simply tell who each person is and give a brief bio ("Ooooooh... cockacidal maniac. Ex-porn star. She's done it all. They say she starred in the world's first interracial hardcore loop").

Have at it.

For those of you keeping score, I took the Postal exam this morning.  Err, umm... yesterday morning (insomnia's back for another round, apparently.  Bring it on, beeitch).  The "general knowledge" questions I assumed would be there weren't; rather, it was more of a visual comprehension test, followed by a memory test, followed by the "are you likely to wind up shooting coworkers, and if so which ones" psych test.  I think I did pretty well... gracias and donkey cheese to everyone for attempting to help my no longer sober and questionably existent soul in its quest to kick yet another obstacle in the face and steal its Lamborghini, only to crash it into a Children's Hospital down the street from one of the Drive-Thru Liquor stores that are so prominent in Phoenix.

What I'm really trying to say, I guess, is that every one of you is as special to me as getting a full size Snickers bar on Halloween is.  I know you shouldn't end a sentence with "is," but that just shows how special all of you are to me.  Gold stars for everyone!

Also, just to make this "blog" (I still hate that word) entry more exciting and less introverted, we're going to play a little game: Post an unknown fact about the last person to reply, starting with me.  For example, the first person who feels like replying will make some shit up about me, the next person makes some shit up about them, etc. 

If you don't feel like participating, well then... I don't blame you, actually.

A horse walks into a bar.  The bartender says, "why is your face elongated?"

It's spelled T-O-N-G-U-E.

With all the time I spend at work with my headphones on, I can't seem to downlo-- that is to say, I can't seem to buy enough music to keep me entertained. I recently starting listening to stand up comedy all day, but I'm running low on good comedians.

My personal favorites are both dead: Bill Hicks and Mitch Hedberg, so there's no chance of new material. Whenever I ask people for suggestions, they say the same two people: George Carlin and Dane Cook. Now, I like them both... but not THAT much. That is to say, I haven't really laughed at a Carlin routine for a long time, and Dane Cook just doesn't appeal to me like he does to the throngs of 16 year old girls that devote their myspace page to him and that creepy girl-looking dude from HIM.

But you guys know comedy. Who is your favorite comedian of the last few decades?

I'm looking for a way to record messages from my cell phone onto my computer for my own amusement.  I have a message that is made out of pure gold dipped in platinum, and I really need to get it on here before my lame ass phone company deletes it.  I've found some peripherals that would probably work, but I figured some of you tech savvy peoples would know of a much easier/cheaper way to handle it.  If I can get it done, you will all reap the benefits.

So, anyone got a solution?

Years of neglect and abuse through alcohol, drugs and lethargy have left my mental capacity... uhh... not so good.  Me feel stupid.

Anyway, I have a test coming up in the next -- actually, I don't know when it is, but it could be anytime in the next few months.  It's a general knowledge test; we'll pretend it's something like the SAT's for the sake of argument.  However, my math/english (or is it English?  Is "english" a proper noun?  See what I mean?) skills are rusty to say the least, and I'd like to polish them up a bit before I take the aforementioned test.  I'm looking for any kind of FREE programs/tests online that will at least sweep up some of the dust in my mental attic, but I can't seem to find anything other than the MENSA practice test.

Does anyone here know of anything to help?  Or, if you're particularly bored, I would appreciate any help searching.

Let's say hypothetically that someone, we'll say "me" in this case, had a super fast connection and was downloading a lot of mp3s. Hypothetically.

What artists/songs would you recommend to that person (in this hypothetical situation, me) to check out, hypothetically?

...wasn't the Bible.

It was an 18 page comic about a man with tiny nipples


.

Has anyone else noticed this?

Edit: I just noticed "poing."  What the fuck?

Many of you may have heard references from me regarding my brother, Phil, and how awesome he is. These are all complete lies and you should know that he is the epitome of evil, responsible for death and vomit and people who eat babies. I think he once beat a priest to death with a crucifix, but the witness that was supposed to testify was found stuffed with ball bearings and green paint at the bottom a lake, so we may never know.

Either way, he has arrived on multiply, mainly due to our illicit music trading plans, but I'm sure he'll toss up some posts here and there. After all, this is the person who spawned the Robot Marching Band idea, and probably a few other things I've stolen, so you might as well know who he is.

Yes, you now have to deal with TWO OF US.

I'm probably going to be uploading a bunch of music in the next few days, since it appears there isn't a limit anymore (if this is incorrect, please let me know).

Is there any style/type of music anyone wants? If you have a particular band or song request, there is a chance I may have it... but don't count on it.