Seeing Is Believing
Posted on July 14th, 2008
I used to love taking a shower.
Waking up in the morning has always sucked for me, I’ve never been what you’d call a morning person. Some of my best days began when I woke up after 11am, and I can’t think of a single night of fun that ended before 2am. I was what you might call a Night Owl, able to stay up and party all night without getting tired. Mornings though, are my personal kryptonite.
Until my morning shower.
My daily shower was the one thing that made my sleep addled brain start firing neurons again. I would stumble into that glass-encased box of pure morning bliss and wash the sleep right out of me. It was really quite amazing, actually. Kind of like that old Coast soap commercials where the guy wakes up in a grumpy mood but the scent of the soap wakes him up and he’s ready for his day. Hey, some people need their caffeine, some people need the morning newspaper and I need my morning shower.
Or at least I did.
You see, last year I got laser eye surgery and although you wouldn’t think it, that one thoughtless act has ruined my mornings forever. It used to be that I couldn’t see anything clearly until after my shower, when I put on my glasses to get dressed. But now… now, it’s all different. Now I can see when I take a shower. Now I know, and seeing and knowing has completely destroyed my life. You see, one year ago, for the first time I could clearly see my pubic hair… and the white hairs hiding there that were laughing at me because I’m old. Old, and possibly stupid. Maybe even senile. But definitely old.
I can only pray for early cataracts.
Filed under Childhood Memories, Geek Life | 2 Comments »
The Battle Continues?
Posted on August 29th, 2007
What ever happened to Battle of the Planets?
That’s what was going through my head this morning as I found myself humming the theme song I last heard maybe 20 years ago. I remember how much I loved that stupid show, with its horrible dubbed voice-work and convoluted storyline that made no sense at all, not even for kids. I also clearly recall being infatuated with the only female on the series, Princess. Not because I liked her, but because every episode there would be some silly, contrived reason for her to do a flip or other acrobatic move that would flash her nicely animated panties.
Yeah, I was a Geek even then.
After a quick look around the net imagine my surprise when I discovered that there just might be a movie based on the original Japanese cartoon coming out next year. I mean, the thought of once again seeing Mark, Jason, Tiny, Princess and that annoying bastard Keeyop in all their bird-based spandex glory is nearly enough to cause me to dance in glee. As it is, I’ve spent about an hour digging through some old boxes of junk searching for my 7-Zark-7 and 1-Rover-1 figurines. And yes, I know they’re not really part of the original series and were just added to the American version by the distributor to make the violent show more “kid-friendly.” But still, I don’t care.
Now, if only I could remember where my bird-cape and giant “G” belt were stored…
Filed under Childhood Memories | 1 Comment »
Grape Juice
Posted on March 20th, 2006
A little story, just for you.
When I was but a young lad of 8 or so, I was sent off to sleep-away camp in upstate NY. My second year of being sent to what I lovingly called ‘kiddie-prison’ I was introduced to a special ritual that had been passed down through the years, from camper to camper, until it finally reached my good friend David. Now David, it must be pointed out, was a good friend in the same way that Hannibal Lector was a good chef.
Meaning, they both scared the bejeebies out of me.
The method by which a Neanderthal like David managed to find the brain cells necessary to recall this ritual is of such astounding scientific importance that even now, decades after the event, some of our government’s greatest minds are attempting to discover it in the hopes of it leading to a cure for Alzheimer’s. Unfortunately for the Alzheimer sufferers of the world, at present the leading theory is, and I quote;
“Sometimes, even stupid gets lucky.”
Anywaste, back to our story. One fine day, David and his cronies managed to corner me outside of the main eating establishment of the camp, which was known far and wide as the “Mess Hall”. This building was called that due to its almost supernatural ability to cause all who passed through its doorway to become violently ill within 3 hours and empty their stomachs all over its floors, tables, chairs, walls and, in at least one case that I witnessed with my own eyes the year before, the rafters in the ceiling. The truly astonishing part was that the person who hit the ceiling for some odd reason actually stood up in their chair to do it.
And it was a 10 year old girl.
On the beautiful day at camp that I have been talking about now for about an hour, David, who liked to lovingly refer to me as, “Shrimp-Nerd”, cornered me outside the mess hall and thrust a plastic cup filled with fluid into my hands. This caused me pause for two reasons; first, when a timid, shy and tiny mouse is cornered by a giant, angry and menacing cat the very last thing the mouse would expect the cat to do is hand him a drink and invite him to dinner.
Secondly, the liquid was black.
I’m not talking brown and fuzzy, like a cola or root beer. I’m talking deep, deep, dark black. Like distilled midnight, or death’s blood, or liquid evil. It was a dark color the kind of which nightmares are made of and, not to put to fine a point on it, just by the look on David’s face I deduced that drinking the contents of that plastic cup would be Bad.
“Hey, Shrimp-Nerd. See what a good friend I am? I went and got you some grape juice to drink on such a hot day like today.”
“Gee, David. You shouldn’t have.”
“But I did, Shrimp-Nerd. And since I was so nice, you wouldn’t wanna make me mad and not drink it, would you?”
“Heaven forbid.”
“So?”
“So?”
“Ain’t you going to drink it?”
“Now?”
“Yeah, now.” [knuckles cracking]
“Oh. Uhm, ok…”
Have you ever eaten or drunk something that you thought was tasty only to realize after it was in your mouth that it was something so horrible that Satan himself had a patent on it for use in Hell’s Kitchen? You know, like when you drink some milk only to discover that it has the texture of cottage cheese? Or when you think you’re eating a piece of delicious bread pudding only to realize afterwards that it was actually week-old mayo that had been sitting in the sun?
Oh yeah, you’re all with me now.
Well, as I brought that tiny plastic cup of demon-diarrhea to my lips I knew it would be bad, I just didn’t know how bad until that viscous liquid made its initial assault on my poor, defenseless tongue. David and his crew had never laughed so hard and for the next two weeks anytime they saw me they would ask if I needed a drink. And every time they did my eyes would fill with tears and my body would convulse as I began to dry-heave for the next hour or so at just the thought of what I could only imagine was the irreparable damage I had done to my gastrointestinal tract. And what was the disgusting liquid I had been forced to ingest? A mixture of salt, soy sauce, vinegar, coffee, chocolate syrup and, of all things, ground red pepper.
And to this day, grape juice still makes me gag.
Filed under Childhood Memories | 4 Comments »
GeekMan: StudMuffin Extraordinaire
Posted on October 6th, 2005
Death by embarrassment.
I don’t know what’s come over me, but for some reason I feel the need to once again publicly ridicule myself. And I can’t think of a better way than by showing all of you a picture of myself at a weak moment in my youth when I actually believed I was cool.
You might not remember, but I did write a story about the fiasco that followed this particular picture so if you feel so inclined you can read it and laugh at me. Part 1 is here and part 2 is here.
OMG. I just realized… I was King Dork, wasn’t I?
Filed under Childhood Memories, PhotoBloggery | 11 Comments »
GeekMan’s S3 – #3
Posted on September 1st, 2005
Even at age 11, Stacy was a goddess.
I didn’t quite understand the feelings that overcame me whenever she would look my way and smile, but on some instinctual level I knew I would do almost anything if she would just keep doing it forever. Stacy, being mature for her age, was the first girl in school to realize that boys could be manipulated into doing anything she wanted them to do just by smiling at them, or sometimes, if the boy was particularly dense, by touching their arm or shoulder in a ‘friendly’ way. I, on the other hand, being the cleverest boy in school, was the first one to play stupid with her on purpose so she would touch me.
Mama didn’t raise no dummy.
One day, as I sat in the school library, Stacy and two of her friends came over to where I was sitting and asked me if I wanted to play a game with them. Being smarter than the average bear I knew something was up by the wicked gleam in their collective eyes, but the warning my rational brain was sending was being overridden by the my libido screaming, “She’s wearing a low-cut shirt! A low-cut shirt!”
Stacy, for those who haven’t guessed, was an early bloomer.
And, like the rest of her, her young-lady boobies were perfect. Neither large nor small, they nevertheless were the envy of all the other girls in school. A few years later, she would be a solid C-cup, but at the time she was probably a small B. But to my mind they were a dream and she was all that and a bag of chips.
And she was leaning over the table to talk to me.
“GeekMan, would you like to play a game with us?”
[libido] “Boobs-AHOY!”
“Ahhh… errmm…buh-hurmmmm…”
“GeekMan?”
“Yeah! Game! Play! You! Yes!!!”
“OK, GeekMan. You need to come with us over to that corner out of the librarian’s view, though. Is that OK?”
[libido] “Ohboyohboyohboyohboy!”
“Gah… ermmm… uhhhh…”
“…giggle…”
“Ahem. Ok, let’s go play, shall we?”
I was like a lamb to the slaughter.
“OK GeekMan, here are the rules. You have to stand right here with your back to the wall. I’m going to name some animals and you say yes or no. Yes if you’ve ever had that animal as a pet and no if you haven’t. OK?”
“Uh, so what’s the fun in that?”
“Well, if you’re lucky, you could win a prize.”
[other two girls] “…giggle…”
[libido] “There is a god!”
[rational brain] “Danger!”
[libido] “Stacy’s not wearing a bra!”
“Game on!”
Yes, I know I’m an idiot. Shut up.
“OK GeekMan. Remember, only ‘yes’ or ‘no’.”
“OK.”
“Monkey.”
“No.”
“Dog.”
“Yes.”
“Whale.”
“No.”
“Mouse.”
“No.”
“Duck.”
“No.”
And that’s when the cutest girl in school punched me in the face.
As I lay on the ground, desperately trying to keep my left eyeball from popping out of its socket, Stacy leaned over me and, in a whisper I could barely hear over the peels of laughter coming from her two friends and the pounding headache I could feel building behind my soon-to-be horribly inflated eye, said…
“Silly boy. I told you to duck!”
Filed under Childhood Memories | 2 Comments »