December 31: The End

Today is the last day of 2010. People all over the world will be counting down the hours, minutes, and seconds before their time zone flips to the new year. It's a time to start over. There is no rule that demands resolutions be made at the beginning of the calendar year, but January 1st has always been a nice solid, point in which goals and aspirations are declared. No more smoking. No more negativity. Healthier eating. More exercising and compassion toward others.

As millions of people begin planning for their New Year's resolutions, I am officially ending mine. 365 days ago, I made a promise (to myself more than anyone) that I would attempt to improve my writing by posting one entry to this blog every day for the duration of the year. As some of you might have discovered, I had dabbled with blogging before my project began. I enjoyed writing my thoughts and observations, but felt I had a lot of room for growth as a writer. Being a subscriber to the "Practice makes perfect" idea, I decided this was what I needed. 365 days. 365 posts.

There were times when my creative juices were flowing and I was extremely proud of the day's entry and then there were those nights that I literally sat and stared at the blinking, vertical cursor on the blank screen. On my creative nights I would read and re-read the article before posting to make sure my thoughts flowed, but for those other nights, sometimes I wouldn't even read through them once; I just wanted to be done with them.

As January turned to February turned to May turned to November, friends would tell me their thoughts about my posts and each mention of my work inspired me to continue. If it weren't for my readers, I don't know if I would have had the strength to make it the entire year. Many of you have left comments in response to a particular post that caught your attention and I'm truly thankful for each one.

The last thing I wanted this blog to be was a journal of my feelings and petty encounters I had with acquaintances. Occasionally the mood I was in while writing got the best of me and expressed itself within my writing, but I did the best I could to be as vague as possible and I tried to leave any names out of my posts. For those of you that I might have offended in anyway, please know that was never my intention.

Once talk of the holiday season began, friends started asking if I was going to continue my writing into the new year. Maybe. My daily writings will definitely end with today's post, but I may feel inclined to add a post in the future if the subject is intriguing enough. Instead of writing every day, I'm going back to the basics of resolutions. I will be combining a few of my past resolutions by going without soda or ice cream for the year and adding a daily dose of flossing and ab wheeling.

I will always remember 2010 for this project and the people that helped inspire me to fight until the end. Below, is a list of my most loyal readers and an individual thank you to each one. Their names are exactly as they appear in my list of followers on Blogger. For every one else, again, I thank you for all of your support and I wish you a very prosperous, healthy, and happy New Year.

Accebertink - I've always enjoyed sitting at my computer when your comments are emailed to me because I can expect three or four more in a row. Thank you.

Brian - Reading your daily Facebook posts inspired me to be funnier with my own writing and I thank you for that push.

Adam Brucker - Seeing that you joined my group of followers just days after you found me on Facebook was very rewarding. Thanks, Adam.

Darren - Always on the go and always sharing your stories of travel and adventure. Thank you, Darren for all of your tales.

Nicole Fraga - Other than my mom, I'm convinced you're the most loyal of my readers. I enjoyed reading your comments throughout the year. Thanks, Nicole.

Nicole Gasque - At one point in the year, I tried to call or text you to catch up and your response was that you felt like you were caught up by reading my blog. Hopefully now that it's over, I can hear about what you've been up to this past year!

Greg - Every so often a person will cross my path and laugh at everything I say or do. These people brighten my days and make me feel better about myself. You are one of those people, Greg. Thank you.

David Ireland - I haven't seen a post from you in a while. I want to read more of your thoughts!

Sara Jimerson-Giglio - One of the most caring and genuine people I know. 2010 was a rough one for you, but I know you will come out stronger and I hope 2011 will be your best. Thanks for everything, Sara.

Laura - You're at the edge of making a big step and I wish you all the luck in the world. I will miss your laughter and grammatical guidance.

Lindsay - The last I heard, you were in August of my blog. You still have a ways to go, but I'm glad that my writing will live on through the new year. You're the best, Lindsay!

Lizz - If it weren't for you, Lizz, I don't know if my mom would have ever known about this blog. Thanks for being one of my first readers.

Max - Almost every post this year that dealt with college memories was inspired by you. We had good times in college.

Megan Truett - I really think you should start writing. I've never read anything you've done, but I have a feeling you would be really good. Thanks for the support all year, Megan.

Molly McDevittCole - I don't know how much of this you actually read, but it was a real honor when you signed up to be a follower. Thanks, Molly!

Pat - Those college memories I mentioned for Max? You were right there with him! Thanks for the good times.

Adrian Pinon - I went into the restaurant and a mutual friend told me that you told her about my blog. I don't know if she ever read it, but I'm glad that they were good enough for you to recommend. Thanks for the shout-out, Adrian.

RJ - I have to be honest here. I don't know who you are, but I'm still extremely thankful for your readership. Thank you.

Steve - I really enjoyed reading the Three Muskets, so do me a favor and start writing again. You're much better and more entertaining than I am.

Verna - I didn't receive any comments from you, but I did receive a few thumbs-up likes on Facebook so I'm glad you found some of the posts enjoyable. Thank you for reading, Verna!

Kristen Wurtz - The latest person to join the group of followers. Thank you, Kristen for your support and I hope you're doing well.

December 30: Declined

Throughout my twenty-seven years of living on this planet, I've been rejected, denied, and declined in every way imaginable. My grade-school crush never returned the favor and I missed the fifth grade presidency by a mere two votes. I follow one professional sports team religiously and another half-heartedly and neither one of them has ever won a championship. I wasn't cast in You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown and I didn't get the one role that I'm still convinced I was born to play in Little Shop of Horrors. Out of all the heartbreaks in my life, however, the most humiliating of them all is when the cash register attendant informs me that my credit card has been declined.

Like I wrote in my November 17th entry, I take my credit very seriously. I always pay my bills in full, still maintain a balanced checkbook, and just recently forked over my entire savings to expunge my college loans. I even keep a spreadsheet of every penny spent and earned that dates back a few years. So yeah, I don't mess around with the finances of my life which makes it that much more embarrassing when the attendant judges my personal habits as I scramble to retrieve my backup credit card.

The irony of it all is that I know exactly what he's thinking. Because I work in the service industry, I run credit cards every day. It's part of the job, but that doesn't make having to inform a guest that his card was declined any easier. Although I'm well aware there are a myriad of reasons why the card was denied, my first human instinct is to think that the guy maxed it out. Irresponsible spending.

I never use the word decline when returning the card because it's embarrassing enough to get the news in front of friends and/or family. I hope that by putting the blame on the restaurant's computers, it softens the blow a bit. "For some reason, our computers aren't reading this card. Do you have another form of payment?" Although I'm confident the guest knows what I'm really trying to say, my hope is that by phrasing it a little differently, the news will be easier to take.

Enough about him, though. Why was my card denied? How could a card belonging to someone as financially responsible and mature as me ever be denied? Apparently, it's just the bank doing their part to ensure my safety. Thanks. I get it. If someone had actually stolen my identity and went on a mad spending spree, I would have been genuinely grateful for the bank's procedures, but I would hope that they would treat the situation differently than they had with me earlier this week. If you see unusual activity with my account, please do me the favor of informing me before I go to the store without any cash.

Having a credit card denied is one of the most embarrassing moments a person can go through; especially if he knows he didn't do anything wrong. I guess what I'm trying to say here is that when it happens, you are definitely being judged, but if you're the informer, try to break the news in the most pleasant manner you can. Thank you.

December 29: Neil's Mission Part III

Continued from December 28, 2010
Chapter 3 of 3

The night transformed into the early moments of morning. Neil's once dark hiding spot was now illuminated in the sun's warm glow. Too excited to sleep during the late hours, his lack thereof had caught up to him. He was just about to let the blanket of exhaustion encompass him when the faint sound of jingling keys followed by the soft, yet high-pitched, bell on the door threw it off of him. The store was open.

Mr. Shipley propped the door open with the copper bucket holding the umbrellas and let the warm air in to start the day. Neil watched him as he made his way behind the counter, bent down out of sight to open the safe, and reappeared with the drawer of money. From his corner by the door's frame, he watched Mr. Shipley recount the drawer, yawn, stretch, lose his count, and start over before placing it into the register. Before the store's owner had finished with his daily routine, Shipley's Family Hardware had its first visitor and so began the observation period of Neil's escape.

Throughout the day, he remained in his spot of hiding and took note of every visitor's walking pattern. He noticed that only the children stepped on the threshold and every adult landed his or her last step approximately six inches from its raised surface before exiting into the daylight. He was amazed to discover that when a customer paid for his or her items with the right hand, it was the right foot that made this last step and vice versa if the person paid using the left hand. By mid-afternoon, Neil had all he needed to achieve his goal.

When the silver pickup came to a stop in the dirt lot, Neil watched the overweight man slide out and slam the door with his right arm. He felt the ground tremble as the man stepped onto the first step with his right foot. He looked up as the man walked in, waved to Mr. Shipley with his right hand, and made his way to the framing hammers before testing their weight in his hand; the right.

Repeating the process he used to get to his hiding spot, Neil swung his point away from the floor-to-ceiling window and rolled himself around. Within minutes, he was precisely at the estimated location of contact in front of the open door. He could feel the warm breeze of the outside world as he raised his point over his head and balanced upside down. Carefully, he swiveled himself around to gauge the progress of the overweight man that was now standing on the ceiling and handing money under the top of the upside-down counter.

As Neil verified the man was paying with his right hand, a movement on the counter caught his attention. Allowing himself to glance toward the upside-down cardboard miscellaneous bin, Neil saw a familiar aluminum and heartbreaking face. He had not expected this last moment and his heart swelled with pain by the idea of goodbye but the feeling of triumph overshadowed and he waved his point proudly at his brother just before the overweight man's left foot landed directly beside him. As the man swung his right foot to land just before the threshold of the store, his shoe's toe made perfectly calculated contact with Neil's slender and weightless body.

The spinning world that Neil was introduced to the previous evening was nothing compared to this revolving feeling. Head over point over head over point he flew through the store's door and into the afternoon. He soared through the air for what seemed like eternity before finally landing with a soft thud in the hot powdery dirt. No crashing or banging like the night before; just one painless flop as the ground absorbed everything before sending a tiny cloud of dust around his body.

It was in this very spot that Neil remained until he heard the jingling keys from the morning. It was here that he watched a tired Mr. Shipley slowly descend the steps of Shipley's Family Hardware and climb into the dusty station wagon before its taillights made their way over the horizon and toward Mrs. Shipley's home-cooked beef stew.

The dust, dirt, rocks, and sticks made his travel a bit more difficult than the night before, but a few hours later he was there. He had made it. The journey was over. After all of his planning and after his hours of watching the habits of people in the store. After the months of having his family taken from him by careless people, Neil was on the precipice of revenge.

He watched as one last car flew by a mere few inches from where he waited before rolling himself on to the dark asphalt and over the white, reflective paint. The road was vacant and quiet as he positioned himself on the still-warm road, raised his point over his head, and waited.

December 28: Neil's Mission Part II

Continued from December 27, 2010

Chapter 2 of 3

That night, Neil scratched and clawed his way through the rusty bolts that had been residents of the miscellaneous bin since before his own arrival. He climbed past the requests to stay from his sisters and continued through the cheers of support from his brothers. This was the night of his great escape and nothing was going stop him.

The cries from his sisters tugged at his heart and part of him wanted to stay, but he knew the truth behind their future together. Sooner or later, every member of his scattered family would be gone. Gone into different homes across the old town. If he didn't act now, he would soon find himself alone and behind a picture frame regretting his failure to avenge his family.

From the top of the pile of nuts, screws, washers, bolts, and family, Neil peered over the edge of the cardboard and into the dark expanse that was the store's floor. He had taken the fall before, but he had done so unexpectedly. The fall had been a surprise and he was within the company of his brothers and sisters. Now he had to voluntarily jump; alone. The box was filled to capacity and it was just a matter of rolling over the edge. It was just a matter of psyching himself out for the inevitable. As his brothers cheered and his sisters wailed, Neil took a deep breath, pushed his head over the edge and let its weight do the rest.

With a metallic ping, his round, flat head smacked against the cold Formica counter and his pointed rear flipped him upside down as he continued his silent journey to the ground. His second landing was more violent as his point made contact with the floor at an angle forcing it to slide out from beneath him but slamming his head into the (figuratively) soft floorboard. As violent as the fall was, however, it was still quiet enough not to rouse the tools in the early evening. When he came to a halt and the room had ceased its spin, Neil let out an exhausted breath. He had done it. His mission was underway.


The brooms had not started their sweeping so he had some time to recover from the fall. In the stillness of the night, Neil rolled over and around his planted point. It only took four rotations before he had made a 90-degree turn. Now that he thought about it, he never had the freedom to move like this before. As far back as he could remember, he was always wedged between a sibling or a foreign nut. In the few moments of his traumatic inventory accident, he had been too stunned to experiment with the idea of rolling and moving. To his surprise, it was much easier than he would have guessed.

After doing a 360-degree turn, he effortlessly raised his point from the ground and stood on his head before lowering it back to the ground. Because his head outweighed the rest of his body by so much and there was an overall lack of friction between his point and the floor, he was unable to stand upright, but he had no problem raising, lowering, and swinging his point over his head. His mission, he realized, was going to be a lot easier than he had planned and he couldn't wait to get started.

Within the duration of his experimental movements he had maneuvered himself a good twelve to fifteen inches from his original landing spot. By focusing more on the task at hand, Neil aimed his point at the exit of the store and made a 180-degree roll. With the point now facing the opposite direction of his target, he raised it and swung it around before repeating the process. An hour was all it took. He didn't need the brooms. He didn't need to explain why he wanted to be swept toward the door or why he didn't want to be a part of a home renovation.

With a feeling of pure adrenaline, Neil rolled himself into the darkest shadow just to the right of the door's frame and waited for the remainder of the night. He watched the brooms do their thing. He listened to the hacksaws and box cutters. He heard the songs of the dancing ceiling fans in the back and he smiled to himself when he remembered the gossiping toilet seats that were housed two aisles away from their soft breeze.

December 27: Neil's Mission

Chapter 1 of 3

Just off the old state highway right outside of the eastern borders of town is a dirt lot. On that lot there is an old and tired one-story building; Shipley's Family Hardware. The malnourished hinges of the heavy door creak loudly with every visitor that pushes through and steps on to the dusty wood floor. As they browse the aisles, every tool and item holds its breath.

The straw-bristle brooms lean in their cubbies and yearn for the store to close so they can sweep the floors. The lubricants long to put an end to the noise coming from the hinges. Each aisle houses a different member of the hardware family that craves to be put to good use. The snow shovels and weather stripping both become antsy every winter. The leaf blowers can't wait for autumn and the hoses wait patiently for summer. The flashlight is king after hours, and if you listen carefully, you just might be able to hear the hacksaws arguing with the box cutters over who reigns supreme.

Every day while waiting to be that one item needed for a home improvement project, the tools and various parts make the best of their time by visiting with each other. The Allen wrenches and screwdrivers discuss tightening methods while the electric heaters flirt with the thermostats. The spackle and putty knives are all business all the time. Just like the other items in Shipley's they know that every visitor's project is a team effort, but their every thought and conversation topic revolves around the future job at hand. Although the items have their fun, each knows where his or her place in the world is; every item, that is, except for Neil.

Ever since inventory day when he and the rest of the 190-pack of his 6D Aluminum Sinker Nail brothers and sisters were dropped and scattered by an inexperienced employee, Neil has been hungry for revenge. Most of his family was reunited in the miscellaneous bin with the various nuts, bolts, and screws that can be purchased individually, but it wasn't the relocation that bothered him. What irritated Neil more than anything was knowing that his family would never work on a project together. Some were lost forever under the shelves of tools and others were wedged between the dusty floorboards. Along with the "saved" family members, Neil sat in the crowded cardboard box on the counter at the front of the store and watched as one by one his brothers and sisters were being taken away from him on a daily basis to replace other lost nails.

In his mind, the only thing that could make up for his loss was causing pain to the humans that did this to him and his family. From the moment his first sister was taken out of the box and out of his life, he vowed to make his way to the state highway anyway possible and wait for an unsuspecting driver's tire to "pick him up."

It was tough though. Not only did he have to take that terrifying fall again, but he had to convince the brooms to sweep him toward the closed and locked door; otherwise his flat head made it impossible to do anything but roll in circles. On top of that, the door opened inward which meant he would have to rest outside of its swing if he wanted any unobstructed chance at escape. From this resting point, Mr. Shipley was sure to find him the next morning when he opened the store and would simply return him to the box. Neil had a lot to consider.

December 26: PS3 Recommendation

Christmas is over and if your relatives are anything like mine, you might find yourself with a little extra spending money. What do you buy? Do you put it away for a rainy day? Do you throw it at your student loans? Or do you go on a post-holiday sale shopping spree? If you're into movies and technology, let me give you my two cents.

In November of 2009, I splurged a bit and bought a 120 GB Playstation 3 and I could not be happier with my decision. Their slogan is "It Only Does Everything" and I have found that to be more accurate as time goes by. It really does seem to do everything and it has become just as intrical a part of my home theatre set up as the TV and speakers.

I've never been a big gamer. Sure, I had the 32-Bit Super Nintendo and the Nintendo 64. I still have my Nintendo Gamecube, but I rarely play it. The reason I don't consider myself a "gamer" is because I'll get the consoles at the height of their popularity, buy a few games and then sell it for less than half of what I paid for years after I stop playing. I don't play World of Warcraft or Defense of the Ancients. I've never played Halo and if you ask me to join your Call of Duty league, you'll be extremely disappointed in my lack of marksmanship skills. I was more into games like the Donkey Kong Country series and Mario Kart, but even then I'm not terrific.

The reason for my PS3 purchase was not necessarily for the gaming aspect of the console. It was based more on the reviews of the system as a Blu-Ray player. Consistently rated as one of the top performers in its price range, for me, the gaming was just a cool add-on. I have since purchased a few games (the Uncharted series is by far my favorite) and have been very satisfied with the gameplay within a surround sound environment, but that was just the tip of the iceberg.

When I was out of work for my first surgery in August, I was able to instantly stream the first two seasons of Dexter through my Playstation and watch them on my TV. For whatever reason, though, Netflix didn't have the next two seasons available for streaming and I found myself downloading the episodes and watching them on my computer. After a little tinkering, I discovered that the PS3 could act as a media server which meant that I could download an episode on to my computer, wirelessly connect the gaming console and stream the downloaded content to my TV. Now it was just like I was streaming from Netflix. But wait, there's more!

I bought my TV in 2007 and my speakers and receiver the next year. The following year (after I had forked over nearly $2,000 on audio equipment alone) high definition movies were making their entrance into the realm of home theatre. My equipment was suddenly obsolete. Dolby Digital-HD and DTS-HD were being introduced, but the best I could get with my receiver was Dolby Digital-EX.

Fast forward to my days of PS3 ownership and now I have it all. With the same receiver and speakers I had a few years ago, I'm able to open the lines of communication between my components and let my Playstation do the decoding straight from the Blu-Ray disc. In layman's terms, this simply means that if a disc can deliver a specific signal, I can receive it without any new equipment; and Avatar on a 50" in Blu-Ray with DTS-HD Master Audio is glorious.

Although my outdated equipment was saved by the powers of Sony, getting involved with technology can be a dangerous hobby. When I purchased the console, I was afraid that a Playstation 4 was just around the corner. I know one is in the works, but another fantastic feature of the 3 is that it has the ability to be updated for free. Gone is the streaming disc Netflix used to require when watching their instant content and as of October of this year, Playstation is the only console with the ability to stream in 5.1 surround sound. Other upgrades have included new audio formats and have even converted my PS3 into a 3D-DVD player! I don't anticipate getting a 3D TV any time soon, but it's cool to know I have the player.

When Sony says the Playstation 3 only does everything, they're not jerkin' your chain. Games, movies, upgrades, decoding, Internet, and more. I discover something new and amazing about my system every few months and I can't wait to find out what else it can do. If you're looking for a new toy to spend your hard-earned Christmas money on, let me recommend the Playstation 3. It only does everything.

December 25: Christmas Traditions

Movies and television shows traditionally have children waking up before sunrise on Christmas morning, yelling for Mom and Dad to wake up, and tearing through their gifts in mass hysteria. In their onesie pajamas, they crouch by the toy train making laps around the tree and search desperately for the next gift addressed to them. Still in his robes and slippers, Dad holds Mom in his arms on the couch as the mugs of hot chocolate warm their hands and they both admire the little ones. I always liked to think of my neighbors going through this same routine every December 25th while my family did things a little differently.

Christmas morning always started the same way for my sister and me. We would be tucked warmly away in our beds as sugar plums danced in our heads when from out of nowhere, my mom would start shouting, "Ho ho ho!" at seven in the morning. It wasn't a jolly "Ho ho ho" that one might hear Santa chanting, but more like the sound of a drunken vagabond impersonating a screeching alley cat. Of course, my mom was never actually intoxicated first thing in the morning, but for whatever reason, she tried to make her "Ho ho ho"s as obnoxious as possible. They were great.

After taking inventory of what Santa had left, we would get dressed, Dad would mix hot chocolate in the thermos and Mom would be putting together a satchel of pistachios and homegrown tangerines. We would then tie Sport (our Yellow Labrador) in the back of the truck before getting in ourselves. As the neighboring families were ripping through their Christmases, we were on our way to the mountains for a quiet Christmas morning hike.

Being from San Diego, we didn't get snow very often, but we drove far enough east to occasionally catch glimpses of white patches and on a very rare occasion, we would actually get quite a bit of snow. Even though we didn't always see it, the air was always pretty cold nonetheless. We would hike for a couple hours, take a few breaks now and then and laugh as Sport would chase sticks and eat our tangerine peelings. When our hike was over, we would sit on the tailgate of the truck and sip the always over-chocolaty hot cocoa.

More times than not, we would come back home from our hikes and witness the neighbors in the cul-de-sac playing with their new remote-controlled cars and airplanes. We knew their Christmas was over and we hadn't even started yet; it was a good feeling.

After showers, our annual "Farmer's" breakfast, and phone calls to family, we would rearrange the furniture in the living room and slowly open our gifts; never all at once. My sister would open one, followed by me, followed by Mom, followed by Dad and it would continue until three or four in the afternoon when the last gift was unwrapped. Grandma and Grandpa would often make an appearance about halfway through and we would drink champagne, laugh and simply enjoy the company.

I think what I liked most about Christmas was the tradition in which we celebrated. It was unique and different from how our friends did it. Christmas is never just a one day affair. It's a build up that ends on the 25th and I loved how we never rushed the ending. There is so much buildup and if you aren't careful, it will fly by in the blink of an eye.

Some people celebrate Christmas the way the movies portray. Others open gifts the night before and go to the movies on Christmas morning. However you choose to celebrate, cherish it. Take pictures and soak it all in. Take time to reflect on the past year and count your blessings. Merry Christmas!

December 24: Punctuality Punks

I guess I can understand not arriving on time for certain events. Even though the invitation clearly has the party beginning at 7:00 pm, no one wants to be the first one to arrive. I've done it and trust me, it's not the cool thing to do. Getting to your seat just before the first pitch of a nine-inning ballgame at 7:05 isn't technically necessary, but if you're my ride, you better make arrangements to get yourself a new friend. For everything else, why is punctuality so difficult for certain individuals?

I recently arranged a time to meet with a girl for some coffee and the conversation found its way to our pet peeves; the conversation, that is, that started a half an hour late because of her tardiness. Because I was a tad nervous and I didn't want to offend her, I didn't mention my biggest pet peeve of all. Meeting a person for the first time and then criticizing her right away usually doesn't bode well for either party; I try to save my pessimism for at least the second date.

Today the man that was buying my refrigerator called and asked if I would be around in twenty minutes so he and his roommate could come and pick it up. An hour and a half later, they came and hauled the eyesore away. Now, I didn't have anything to do. I didn't have anywhere to be, so making me wait wasn't a big deal, but he didn't know that. When he arrived, no apologies were issued and no excuses were made.

I don't understand. When a person makes plans to be somewhere at a specific time, why can't he stick to those plans? People do it all the time, though, and nobody seems to ever care. "I'll be by your place at six to pick you up." "Let's do lunch. I'll meet you there at 1:30." These are specifics. "I will be wearing a red shirt." When a person makes a precise declaration, others have expectations.

One of my best friends has got to be one of the worst people in the world when it comes to punctuality and it used to drive me absolutely crazy. He was notoriously off by one to two hours with any arranged plans. There were times when I wanted to throw my hands in the air and never talk to him again and everyone else would just laugh it off. I hated that no one else ever got mad at him or ever seemed to be upset. It was just "who he was" and that was that.

I have since fallen victim to his lovable ways and am able to look past this excruciatingly annoying fault of his, but that's more than I can say for the rest of you. When you tell me to go to a bar at 10:30, guess what time I'm going to be there! Waiting for an hour while everyone else takes their time on Facebook is really irritating.

How do these people get by in life? I'm terrified of showing up to work late and some people do it every single day without so much as a slap on the wrist. That's probably the problem! No one enforces these rules anymore. I just don't find the humor in seeing a manager laugh at a girls excessive tardiness. How can you take yourself seriously in a role of leadership when you don't enforce the rules?

When a party starts at 7:00, it's acceptable to arrive up to a half an hour late. Depending upon your interest in a sporting event, it's alright to arrive late. But when a person is expecting you at a certain time or within a specific amount of time, be there! If you're always late, call and let them know when you're on your way so they have a rough idea of when you'll be there. It's common courtesy.

December 23: It's Not DiGiorno; It's Sh*t!

DiGiorno has got it all figured out. The frozen pizza giants have something great and it may not be what you think it is. Good value? Convenient? Easy? The pizza itself? All wrong. DiGiorno's slogan is, "It's not delivery. It's DiGiorno" and it gets me every time.

A candle-lit table is set. The Chianti is pored and the salad is waiting patiently to be served. Two people (most of the time lovers) sit down with a piping hot pizza to share. The female takes a bite, slowly chews, and exhales a slow, satisfied breath. "I didn't even hear the doorbell," she exclaims. It's the perfect time for our protagonist male to smugly announce the slogan. The woman grabs her pizza and storms out of the room while making accusations of her lover being a liar.

You see, DiGiorno pizza is supposed to be so good that people think it's delivery. But that's not the case. It's DiGiorno - purchased in the freezer section of the neighborhood grocery store. Here's the catch, though: DiGiorno pizza is terrible. For only $4.95 and fifteen minutes, you can have a large pizza; a large pizza that tastes of dog breath, that is. Anyone that would confuse the steaming disc of processed meats and cheeses I pulled out of my oven tonight with delivered pizza must dine at some pretty lousy venues.

I don't know if it gets its sawdust flavor from the cardboard box it comes in or if that's its natural taste, but I'm not a fan. The pepperoni is rubbery, the cheese is greasy, and the sauce is too deceivingly hot! I have never had a DiGiorno pizza without burning the roof of my mouth. Not only do I have a bad-tasting dinner, but now I have a piece of skin for my tongue to play with for the next few days. What a deal!

So what's so great about DiGiorno, you ask? Well their slogan is, of course. Either that, or their ability to market their product to jerks like me. I've purchased the pizza at least five times before tonight and hated every experience, yet here I am blogging about another one. Somehow, the advertisers at the frozen pizza company have found a way to fool me into buying their product over and over again. Who cares if that product is crap? As long as people buy it, right? So yeah. I would say DiGiorno has it all figured out.

December 22: Exit Through the Gift Shop

I love bubble writing. I like how the letters are all puffed up and squished together in tight spaces. In grade school, it was cool to be able to write your name in the style, but now the only time I ever see it is when it's spray painted on a freeway overpass or in the back alleyways of an abandoned brick factory building. To me, graffiti has never been anything more than bubble writing on crack because I can't tell what it's trying to say. I can occasionally make out the letter "E" or maybe an "S," but full words? No clue.

A few months ago, I overheard a co-worker talking about a new documentary that he had seen called, Exit Through the Gift Shop. I didn't think much of it because A. he wasn't talking to me and B. because the subject of street art didn't spark my interest given my extreme disgust for graffiti. A few weeks ago, I was on the Netflix website browsing the recently added titles to their Instant Streaming library and I stumbled across the documentary. Again, I didn't really pay much attention to it. Instead, I jumped to conclusions by assuming it was terrible based solely on the fact that it was already available for streaming. It wasn't until one of the main film critics of Entertainment Weekly declared the documentary as one of the top ten films of 2010 in last week's issue that I really took notice.

The film follows a French man with an obsession of filming his entire life with a hand held camcorder until he stumbles upon the underground world of street art. Before he knows it, he is allowed to film the one man that refuses to identify himself beyond the moniker of Banksy. After seeing the success that Banksy has with his art, he decides to adopt the name Mr. Brainwash and begins his own line of street art.

The documentary is directed by Banksy himself and it's incredibly enlightening and informative on a world that I didn't even know existed. I had no idea how involved these "artists" were with their work and some of the pieces are amazingly detailed and well-done. It brings into question, though,what is art and what is vandalism?

I suppose on the whole, it's all a form of vandalism, but it's so far from the old styles of bubble writing that calling it graffiti feels odd and wrong. For the most part, the art is displayed at night to avoid authority figures, but it's more than tagging a billboard with a name. After posting his work all over Britain and then the world, Banksy held a show that made it possible for the genre to explode into an extremely profitable art form.

Each artist uses his own technique to personalize each piece. Invader uses tiled 8-bit recreations of characters from the popular arcade Space Invaders and Shepard Fairy uses a negative photograph-type style to turn subjects into his pieces of art; in fact, he's responsible for those Andre the Giant "Obey" pieces posted everywhere and he had a major role in the Barack Obama Hope posters. Banksy is more of a stenciled artist to give his pieces a realistic look.

Documentaries aren't for everyone, but if you want to explore the world of street art and the amount of dedication put forth in it, I highly recommend Exit Through the Gift Shop. It's a quick hour and a half that will leave audiences in awe of the power of a can of spray paint.

December 21: Movie Reviews

It's been a while since I went on a movie run and had as much success as I had today. I saw four movies and only one of them was lousy. The other three weren't just good, but they were terrific.

127 Hours - James Franco plays a climber and canyon explorer that literally finds himself between a rock and a hard place in Danny Boyle's latest film. After driving to the middle of nowhere to explore the Blue John Canyon in Utah without telling anyone of his plans or his whereabouts, Franco's character falls in a crevice and gets his right arm stuck beneath a rock. The story tells of Franco's character reliving his relationships with his parents, family, and loved ones as he slowly runs out of food and water while pondering his predicament. Based on the true story of Aaron Ralston, Boyle's film is both entertaining and cringe-worthy. Franco played the part brilliantly and it will be very interesting to see how he will accept the Oscar when he's co-hosting the ceremonies.

The Fighter - Speaking of brilliant roles, Christian Bale knocks his out of the park. I've always been a fan of Bale, but he was absolutely mesmerizing to watch in his role of big brother to welterweight fighter Micky Ward played by the almost-always terrible Mark Wahlberg. I've said it once and I'll say it again. Wahlberg is horrible. There's something about the way he delivers each line that makes me want to punch him myself. The Fighter was a great movie and it was made even better with Bale and Amy Adams as Wahlberg's love interest. Throughout the film, I kept marveling at Bale's performance, but it wasn't until the credits began to roll with an interview with the real-life character Bale portrays that I was blown away. The only downside to this film was the soundtrack. Red Hot Chili Peppers for the training montage? Ben Harper for the first song of the credits? This was a film that needed an original score of instrumentals and not songs from the Top 40 with Ryan Seacrest.

How Do You Know? - If you only see one movie this holiday season and this was it, I feel extremely bad for you. I'm a big Reese Witherspoon fan but she was absolutely terrible in this. It had to have been the writing's fault because even Jack Nicholson was bad and he's never bad. This was one of those movies that you don't want to watch, but you can't look away because of how poorly each line is delivered and how asinine the plot is. An ex-professional softball player (Witherspoon) dates a doofus Major League Baseball player (Owen Wilson), but befriends a business man (Paul Rudd) in the middle of a federal investigation for something his dad (Nicholson) framed him for? I think that's what was going on. The movie was just plain dumb.

Black Swan - The story of the black swan is this: A beautiful girl is turned into a white swan and the curse can only be reversed with true love. Once she finally finds the prince charming to change her back, her twin sister (a black swan) seduces him and tricks him into falling in love with her. The white swan then goes on to kill herself. I didn't exactly do poetic justice to the tale, but Natalie Portman plays a ballet dancer who gets the role of a lifetime in a production of Swan Lake as the Swan Queen in Darren Aronofsky's first film since resurrecting Mickey Rourke's career in The Wrestler. This psychological thriller is by far the scariest film I have seen in a very long time. Portman is freakishly good as her inner-demons and insecurities drag her down and take control of her entire being. I wasn't sure if I would enjoy this going in, but it ended up being the best film of the day.

December 20: Friends and Contacts

You're at a bar with some friends when you see a pretty girl across the room. Because you're two or three beers into your stay, you have the confidence to approach her and strike up a conversation. Things go well. She laughs at all of your jokes and she's very easy to talk to. As the night comes to an end, you decide that an exchange of phone numbers would be in every one's best interest. Unfortunately, after meeting up with her a week later, you realize she isn't the one for you.

You're invited to a friend's place for a casual barbecue cookout. In addition to you, he has invited a group of friends from all areas of his life. When you arrive, you introduce yourself to the people you've never met before and thoroughly enjoy every one's company. Conversation topics range from Superbowl hopefuls to recent rises in the stock market. Pictures are taken on digital cameras and iPhones. Throughout the course of the evening, laughs and stories are plentiful and everyone leaves in high spirits. The next day, your Facebook inbox is flooded with new friendship requests from the people from the party. Three years later, you've never seen or talked with any of them.

So here you are with 700 Facebook friends and contacts in your phone labeled as "Sarah (Paul's Cocktails)." Occasionally Facebook lets you know that one of those barbecue cookout friends has a birthday. Are you supposed to write on her wall like everyone else on her friend list and pretend you know her? If she posts an update or a link that you like, is it acceptable to thumbs-up-Like it? And what about those phone contacts? I'm never going to call Steph from the Pig Pen in Allentown, PA or Kathryn whom I met at Hooter's, so why can't I delete their numbers?

Going through my cell phone, I have twenty-three contacts of people that I used to work with and haven't talked to since; and I'm only in the F's! Landlords, employers, drunken approaches, you name it. There's a "Diana" in there from when I moved here and I was looking for apartments. I never even checked hers out, yet there's her number right next to my surgeon's. When I was in Boston a year and a half ago, I tried getting a hold of an old friend, but she had changed her number; I still have it - the old number. I have the phone number for libraries in California, Pennsylvania, and Texas!

Out of the fifty or so contacts I have, I use five at most. I know, however, that as soon as I delete any of them, I'm going to regret it. Who am I supposed to text on that one night of the year that I get inebriated. How will I get in contact with Steph from the Pig Pen and tell her how I really feel about her town? How am I going to accidentally dial the wrong number when I only have five to choose from?

Up until that moment of dropping our phones into a lake or a toilet, we collect contacts and never dispose of them. Why? We meet a person one time and think it's crucial to add them to our list of Facebook friends. Why? So we can make ourselves feel better by quantifying the number of accessible profiles we have at our fingertips? What am I missing here?

December 19: Cutco Bull

Its Double-D edge with its patented three edges of cutting perfection creates a smooth and flawless incision where the standard serrated blade rips and tears at food. The handle was specifically designed with a dishwasher-safe, thermo-resin material that won't crack, chip, or fade for any size or shape of hand. The high carbon, stain-resistant tang extends the full length of that handle which creates a durability, strength, and balance unmatched in any other household knife. It's got everything and it sells itself. What's not to like?

As my freshman year of college was coming to a quick end, I began panicking about what I was going to do for a summer job. I didn't want to go back to the neighborhood grocery store and restock shelves again and I didn't have any desire to try and find a job in retail, but my level of experience was pretty limited. Who would take me on for a few months when they had to spend the first few weeks training me? I didn't have any connections with family friends so I didn't even have that option.

One day while checking my mail in the community mail room, I glanced at the bulletin board and noticed a promising advertisement that offered flexible hours, competitive pay, and didn't require any experience at all. Along the bottom of the 8 1/2" by 11" sheet of paper, a vertical phone number was printed on individual tabs that were meant to be torn off by interested students. In my naivety, I took a tab, went back to my room and called the number.

Three weeks later, I was doing everything in my power to avoid the people behind that phone number. You see, it was for a company called Vector and it was their job to hire salespeople to sell their client's product - Cutco Knives. It is a great product, but a decent salesperson, I am not.

The idea behind their business is for each hired salesperson to come up with a list of ten friends and family members once the training is complete. Once each salesperson is comfortable with the product and has their $145 starting kit, it is their responsibility to schedule an hour-long meeting with each member on his or her list. Upon completion of the presentation and (hopeful) sell, the employee is required to ask the listener for the phone number of up to ten recommendations for a future presentation. With each sell comes commission and each commission means more money. You can do as many or as few presentations as you want so the power lies completely in the hands of the presenter; or so they say.

Presenting to my parents and grandparents was easy. Doing a demonstration for the parents of a kid I played baseball with was a little more difficult. Calling his parents' friends and asking to speak with them for an hour was impossible. I did it once and never again. Even though I made a sell, sitting in a stranger's home and pushing a product on her made me feel extremely uncomfortable. I felt like I was lying to her. I didn't feel like myself and I felt like she could see right through my bullsh*t attempts at getting her to believe in the product.

Unfortunately, quitting wasn't nearly as simple as not calling prospective clients. The Vector office called me every single day asking how many demonstrations I gave and how many new contacts I collected. Because I didn't have the heart to tell them that I had stopped trying, I let this charade continue for another week or so before officially quitting.

Cutco makes a terrific knife. I still have my starting kit that I used for my demonstrations and I use the knives on a daily basis. I've met quite a few people that fell victim to the same ploy that I did and now claim Vector Sales as a past employer. For some, sales is a natural and very lucrative fit. For others like myself, it's absolute torture.

December 18: Perfectly Sane

The term pet peeve stems from the word peevish which means "easily irritated" or "ornery." In other words, it's an annoyance that is specific to an individual and may not be relatable to others. People not using their signals when changing lanes could be irritating to one driver, but another may not even think about it.

I recently had a discussion with a new friend and the topic of the pet peeve arose. As I began telling her my feelings on grammar and manners, I started listening to the words being produced by my mouth. I listened to myself and wondered how her opinion of me was changing on the spot. I explained how I didn't like grammatically incorrect text messages and how perturbed I become when holding the door for a non-responsive stranger. I sat, listened, and came come to the conclusion that this girl must think I was insane for having such petty irritations.

That's the thing with the pet peeve, though. What bothers one doesn't bother another, but then it wouldn't be a pet peeve if it didn't really upset us. When she listed her pet peeves, I laughed too. How could wet, squeaky sneakers make a person cringe as much as it was visibly bothering her to simply talk about? How could the mere thought of a harmless insect make a person squirm with uneasiness?

Asking a stranger what his or her biggest pet peeves are can be entertaining and enlightening, but it can also be extremely dangerous. If you don't know the person well enough to have already established an opinion, the question very well could form one for you. Not putting the toilet seat down after each use? Not turning the volume down on an audio receiver before switching it off? Sharing drinks? Taking your shoes off before entering a home? Touching the windows of a vehicle? I'm a perfectly sane individual, but if these were the only facts you knew about me, what kind of impression would you have?

December 17: The Kegel

"Uh oh."

"What? What's wrong?"

"The bottle's almost full; I'm still going."

"So stop going."

"I can't stop going once I've started. It stings! Quick, get me another bottle. C'mon. Hurry, hurry, HURRY!"

* * * *

"The aim of Kegel exercises is to improve muscle tone by strengthening the pubococcygeus muscles of the pelvic floor. Kegel is a popular prescribed exercise for pregnant women to prepare the pelvic floor for physiological stresses of the later stages of pregnancy vaginal childbirth. Kegel exercises are said to be good for treating vaginal prolapse and preventing uterine prolapse in women and for treating prostate pain and swelling resulting from benign prostatic hyperaplasia (BPH) and prostatitis in men. Kegel exercises may be beneficial in treating urinary incontinence in both men and women. Kegel exercises may also increase sexual gratification and aid in reducing premature ejaculation." ("Kegel Exercise," Wikipedia)

* * * *

I enjoy my kegel exercises most when I'm in the private stall of a public restroom and I really have to go. I'll aim my high-pressured stream of urine for the very center of the water in the bowl where I know it will make the most obnoxious sound possible. I then simply contract my pubococcygeus muscles to restrict the flow and halt the reverberations of my acidic sound waves. Once I'm certain the guests in the neighboring stalls are convinced that my urinary disposal has concluded, I release the muscles and allow the joyous sounds of crashing liquids to commence. Then I contract again and confuse everyone within hearing range.

Sure, it stings, but this is Brandon you're reading. This is a guy that will stop at nothing to achieve maximum hilarity and laughter. If it causes a little pain along the way, so be it. If it causes a little pain in a little (ahem) extremity, even better; now there's a story to go along with the story!

Imagine my joy when I found out my little prank was actually good for me. When I learned about the kegel, I was ecstatic. I could now turn my pastime of making people laugh during pee-time into exercise hour. I could have the same benefits of kegels by doing them silently at my desk in school or I could give strangers a funny story to tell their friends. I chose the latter.

December 16: Arrival Time

This isn't a good start to the relationship. These are the people that I should trust more than my own parents. I need to have more faith in this group of people than my own flesh and blood, but I can't help this feeling of distaste I have for them. Do I trust them with my life? I guess I have no choice, but it's 4:45 in the morning!

With a company Christmas party on Tuesday night, a twelve hour shift on Wednesday, and an unhealthy addiction to a pirated television series, I'm currently not exactly the definition of well-rested. It was bad enough when I went through the duration of yesterday knowing I would have to wake up at 6:45 to be ready for my ride. But when I arrived at home at 10:30 last night and heard the voice mail that my surgery had been pushed up to 7:30 and my time of arrival was scheduled for 5:30, I began to worry.

Not only was it 10:30 at night, but I had literally just gotten home. I hadn't taken my shower. I hadn't had anything to eat. I hadn't written my daily blog. I hadn't seen any episodes of Dexter in twenty-four hours. The caller's voice kept repeating itself in my head. "Don't eat anything after midnight." Instead of making something right away, I worried about not having enough time as I ate almond after almond from the two-pound jug I had purchased a few days earlier until it was 11:30. Now, I really didn't have any time.

At 12:30, my shower was done. My blog was done. I had a stomach of almonds, but something was still missing. Rest? That's what any sane person would long for, but I had to find out why Jordan Chase was so interested in Dexter Morgan's past. So instead of turning out the lights, I turned on the TV and stayed up for another hour. Three hours until my ride would arrive.

So here I am. 4:45 in the morning. My eyes are stinging and my feet are dragging. Granted, some of this feeling is my fault, but what kind of people instruct injured human beings to arrive so blasted early? What kind of people call at the very last minute with news of having to arrive two hours earlier than an already too early appointment? People with scalpels and syringes, that's who. People we allow ourselves to be around while unconscious. People we trust with our very lives, that's who. This relationship is not off to a very good start.

December 15: 365 Days of Hypocrisy

Throughout the year, I've written about every little pet peeve of mine. I've expressed a deep hatred towards drivers using cell phones and emails being followed with the automatic line, "Sent from my iPhone" and I've written about people not saying thank you when walking past a person holding the door for them. I have so many pet peeves that it's an unhealthy way of going through life, but that's just who I am.

One of the problems of this blog is that I've become extremely aware of my own actions. I relate everything I do to what I've written and vice versa. The reason this is a problem is because before I started writing, if I held the door for someone that didn't thank me, I would be upset for less than sixty seconds and I would forget about the incident. Now that I'm looking for every minor thing to write about, I'm storing these trivial incidents in my memory and subconsciously living my life with these festering annoyances.

When I finally get around to posting my thoughts on whatever grievances I'm having, I tend to write in an I'm-Better-Than-Anyone-That-Does-This kind of way. In a way, while in the process of typing out my opinions I feel this way too. When I write about how irritating it is to pass a slow driver only to realize he/she is talking or texting on a cell phone, I am convinced that I've never been that driver. I was under the impression that I would and have never walked through a held door without a thank you; that is until tonight.

I had a multitude of things occupying my mind when I was trying to find another server tonight while at work. I walked right past another server holding the door for me and I didn't even realize what I was (or wasn't) doing until he leaned in and too politely said, "You're welcome."

Those stored memories of me holding doors for ignoring guests immediately flooded my head. I had just fallen victim to a pet peeve that I had written about as recently as two weeks ago. Apparently, I'm not as perfect as I thought I was. I felt terrible. I sincerely apologized to the server holding the door for me and tried to convince him that contrary to belief, what I had just done was one of my biggest gripes with the public.

He simply brushed the incident off, but it made me realize that I'm just as bad as all of these other people that I write about every night. I talk and text while driving and slow way down to do so. I've sent an email from my iPod only to realize later that it automatically included the pompous note of letting the recipient know that the message was composed on an iPod Touch. Now, I'm a hypocrite when it comes to showing an appreciation to the friendly gesture of holding a door!

December 14: Socializing

Maybe it's just me, but I've always thought it was strange how I could work with a person Monday through Friday for forty hours every week and then not feel completely comfortable in any other setting. It doesn't matter if it's getting drinks with the new girl or tossing a baseball around a vacant field with a couple of guys. There's something strange about seeing a co-worker outside of the office. Sure, that feeling goes away after a short amount of time, but the first thirty minutes or so just feels awkward.

Tonight is the company Christmas party. Tonight I will see the people I work with every day in clothes other than aprons and the red guayaberas we're required to wear while waiting on guests. The girls will put on a little extra makeup and the guys will be sporting the latest brands I didn't know existed.

Let me get this straight before I continue. It's not like I've never seen any of these people outside of work. I've met up with people before after a shift for drinks at the local bar so I've seen a few of them in their everyday attire. To walk into a room that is normally occupied by matching uniforms only to find familiar faces with loved ones standing to their sides is unusual.

This is just one of the many things that make company Christmas parties unusual celebrations. Every day, I hear people complain about wanting to be anywhere in the world other than where they are at that given moment. I hear people bitch and moan about having to be at work on a slow night. I hear people gripe about missing parties, concerts, dinners, etcetera. Now that we all have a day off, we get dressed up to go to work.

I've never been a big drinker, so maybe I'm missing something here, but the one constant at these parties is the idea of getting plastered. Maybe it's the media's way of warping my mind, but I've always seen drinking as a way to unwind and escape the worries of our daily routine. I enjoy drinking and getting silly on a rare occasion, but the way people drink at Christmas parties is insane. It's as though the only way they can truly unwind is to get stupid drunk. Is it because they hate it there so much to begin with, but they still want to show their faces?

It's management's way of thanking the staff for their hard work all year. They start making preparations for the celebration months in advance. They call caterers, photographers, disc jockeys, and Santas-for-rent. The night of the party arrives and suddenly, management is on edge. Will there be enough food? Will people take advantage of the money we spent or will we be paying $300 an hour for a Santa to sit in the corner alone? They usually don't show it, but I can't imagine running a business and then inviting the owners to the Christmas party where the employees get so intoxicated. I would be flipping out. I would want the employees to have fun, but wouldn't I feel a bit responsible to keep a lookout for trouble?

Seeing co-workers in a different setting. Employees getting wasted. Management worrying. Guests of the employees feeling uncomfortable. A company Christmas party always ends up being a good time, but isn't it a social wonder?

December 13: Behind the Scenes

Most aspirations lie in the Himalayas. They dream of white water rafting through the Grand Canyon or seeing the Taj Mahal. The Jews want to travel to the Wailing Wall and the Mongolians want to scale the Great Wall. Some people go through life with the sole purpose of earning as much money as they possibly can while others just want to find true love. Some want to build homes in Haiti and some want to rob homes in Compton. Neil Armstrong wanted to walk on the moon and Lance Armstrong wanted to ride a bike. Me? I want to see the back room of a shoe store.

Every time I visit a Foot Locker, I hope for just a glimpse of the secret lair. As my foot rests in that ice-cold, metal Brannock Device foot-measurement tool and the faux-referee takes notes of length and width, I try to steal a glance. When he tells me to stand up, I look around, stare at the opening in the back wall, and prepare my attempts at sticking my head around the corner when the coast is clear. The problem is: The coast is never clear.

I tell him I want a size twelve in the new Jordans. In my socks, I follow close behind as he makes his way to the back until I'm thwarted off by another employee exiting the targeted room. When the salesman returns with the shoes, I tell him I want a different color and try the move again. A child runs in front of me, causing me to stumble which causes my cover to be blown. And so the trend goes until I'm standing at the counter paying for a pair of shoes that I never wanted in the first place.

I don't know what I'm drawn to. Is it the complete and utter unknown? How big is that room? The store itself is just a tiny space shoved between a Wetzel's Pretzels and a Hello Kitty, but how far back does the rented space go? Is the back room just as big as the front? Is it nothing but walls and walls displaying the ends of boxes? Is the ceiling higher than the front room's ceiling?

I bet it's aisle after aisle of bookcases, but instead of books they have boxes of shoes. A person of average height would most definitely need a ladder to reach the boxes on the very top. Have you ever seen a midget employed by a major shoe retailer? Neither have I. The back room at any shoe store has got to look like Ollivander's Wand Shop of Diagon Alley.

Most people want to travel the world before they die. Some want to raise a family feed the poor. Others are striving to find a cure for cancer and aids. Every day, people are creating organizations like Habitat for Humanity and PETA. Every day life-long goals are being imaginatively created while I ponder how to sneak a peak of the back room at the local Foot Locker.

December 12: Adrenaline

I don't know much about adrenaline or how it works, but it's amazing how it can completely alter who you are as a person. Whether you're screaming on a roller coaster or shrieking because of a rodent, adrenaline has the ability to make you look different to even the closest of your friends and/or family members. Tonight, I lost control of my temper toward a fellow employee, but instead of dwelling on the reasons behind my collapse, I focused on the effects my rage was having on my physical being.

For the most part, it's a gradual escalation toward the eventual meltdown. It starts with the incident; or in a lot of cases, the combination of multiple incidents. I think it might have been the latter in my situation tonight, but once the ball starts rolling toward destruction, you start thinking obscenities and aim your angry thoughts in the direction of anyone that crosses your path.

As your temperament begins its new direction, you start losing control of the things that are normally second nature. A child that, on any other day, you're able to avoid colliding into, for example, slips past your peripheral and crashes into your tray of drinks. You begin to notice the obnoxious requests your tables have been asking of you all night. Each new variable wedges itself into your mind and interlocks with the others until your head is brewing a dark and ugly energy.

Once the final straw of the evening is drawn, you can't help but to let the expletives fly. You stutter and stammer your way through basic sentences because you don't even have the control needed to speak clearly and effortlessly. I wanted to be reasonable with this outside force of destruction. I wanted to speak to him in a clear and communicative voice, but I couldn't. I didn't want the situation to escalate any further so I just kept telling him to go away and to leave me alone.

As we started yelling back and forth at each other with no more than two feet separating us, I could feel the eyes of the other employees burning into me. I could feel their taunts and their hopes that our argument would soon involve fists. I knew that no one else in the general vicinity was getting anything accomplished because they were too engrossed with our trivial arguing. When my counterpart finally took the hint and walked away, I had to lower my eyes in embarrassment to the ground because I was left standing amongst the crowd of onlookers.

The funny thing about an argument like that is that it isn't over when the yelling ends. I could feel my heart pounding against the backside of my ribs. If it weren't for my long, black pants, everyone would be able to see how badly my legs were shaking. Usually you think of a person with these reactions to be someone that feels threatened or scared. I felt neither of these things, yet there I was shaking and stuttering to anyone that asked me about it. My only concern at the time was that a manager wouldn't get involved and take my employment away from me.

Two managers did get involved, but the topic of termination never arose. It was only a matter of explaining my side of the story and apologizing for losing my temper. Just because the argument had ended, however, did not necessarily change the way my body responded to the situation. While telling my version, my mouth dried up and the inability to form coherent thoughts and words had again escaped me.

It's not too often that I lose my cool. I usually get along well with everyone and if I don't, then I try to avoid them. I don't like confrontation or conflict and if I know that a certain individual's personality can cause that with mine, I try to stay away. Working closely with these individuals as often as I do, however, will inevitably cause some moments of shame. It's interesting to note the surroundings of any given scene when these moments arise. It, too, will be interesting to wonder if the next group of people I witness arguing will experience the same out of body observances.

December 11: The All-Caps Genius

I used to work with a girl that very well could have been off her rocker. She used to have a remedy for every common illness and often told stories of performing acupuncture on herself when she was feeling congested. She claimed to know about herbs and spices known only in Chinese mythology and spoke of various types of yoga she had attended on a regular basis. My favorite theory of hers, though, was that she thought I was a genius.

The funny thing is that she didn't form her opinion from talking to me or having my palms read. She didn't have me take any aptitude tests or hook me up to any machines. Instead, she saw the chart that all the servers are supposed to fill out at the end of each shift and noticed that I wrote my name in all capital letters. Apparently, only geniuses write in all caps.

I actually grew up writing cursive. For some reason, I really liked the curvy ways the letters all connected, and after learning it in the third grade, I just kept with it. Back then, we had to write essays by hand and I did all of mine in cursive when other students went back to printing. My mom always wrote in cursive and I used to imitated her capital M's with the same little loop on the left of mine.

My dad always wrote in all caps. I liked the way it looked, but I couldn't understand how anyone could use the form when writing because it always took me so much longer. When I went off to college and I started filling out job applications and other various forms, I started using all caps because I thought it was more legible than my cursive and, for some reason, a bit more professional. Of course, all of my essays were being done on the computer, so I didn't really have any reason to use cursive anymore, but I still used it when writing thank you notes and other lengthy letters.

The only time I ever really use all capital letters is when I'm filling out the chart in the office at work. I love that this insane girl thought I was a genius, but when I looked over the chart myself and saw the other all-caps users I worked with, the girl's credibility took a bit of a nosedive. I could only pray that there were other factors that kept me from being in the same category as these other jerks. But, hey! It still felt kind of cool to be labeled a genius; even by an insane person.

December 10: Drink Your Apple-A-Day

This is my 344th post of 2010. 21 days left. Suffice it to say, coming up with fresh topics at this point in the year can be quite challenging. Often times, I won't have a clue what to write about and by simply overhearing a conversation amongst friends at work, I am able to expand on my idea enough to pound out an entire post.

This, in turn, can have negative consequences because of my sarcastic and sometimes-demeaning way of writing. I can't tell you how many times the people I had overheard the previous day have approached me wondering if the latest post was about them. If you're reading this right now thinking that I could be talking about you, I am. And this post isn't about you either, but it was your Facebook status update that gave me the idea for today's post.

In the summer of 2005, I forked over four hundred dollars and bought myself a blender. No, it's not a VitaMix, but the guy at the San Diego Country Fair was so convincing that it was better than a VitaMix, that I had to have one. I won't go into the details of how it compares to its rival in the blending industry, but I will tell you that I have pretty much gotten my money's worth. $400 worth of smoothies, sauces, ice creams, and milkshakes? Yup.

I am a smoothie fanatic. Martinelli's slogan is, "Drink your apple-a-day" and for five years now, I have literally been drinking my apples, bananas, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, grapes, cantaloupe, watermelon, honeydew, mangoes, limes, kiwis, oranges, and grapefruits with the help of my trusty blender. I've become an expert at combining just the right amount of high-water fruits with the more solid fruits. I've learned that if you throw in too much variety, the smoothies will all taste the same.

Once I had grown tired of experimenting with fruits, I moved on to vegetables. I knew I wasn't getting enough vegetables in my daily diet and it was because I didn't really know how to prepare them. I thought that by throwing them all into a blender, I could get the same nutritional value and I wouldn't have to waste so much time prepping them; bad idea. Drinking a frothy spinach, carrot, tomato, and cucumber beverage is extremely difficult to do. The problem then, was that I now had all of these vegetables taking up space in the refrigerator. I had to have at least three or four more smoothies so they wouldn't go to waste.

I thought that I might be missing some key ingredients when making a vegetable smoothie so I asked for 1-2-3 Smoothies for Christmas. It's a book of more than a hundred smoothie recipes and it was recommended by the makers of my blender. How could I go wrong?

Apparently, their answer was to add tofu and barley or almond milk (my choice!). I thought a smoothie with a main ingredient of spinach leaves was bad. Everything from the consistency to the taste was terrible. I had never not been able to finish one of my creations until then. I got through five or six gagging gulps and I had to quit.

I've gone through fifteen or so recipes from the book and they're all pretty bland at the very best. If you're looking for the perfect smoothie, my recommendation is this: Twelve ounces of raspberry juice, two scoops of orange sherbet, one frozen banana, five frozen strawberries, and a one to two scoops of ice. It's the Razzmatazz from Jamba Juice. It's not as healthy as a tofu and spinach smoothie with almond milk, but it's light years ahead in enjoyability.

I still love my blender and I use it all the time. I once had a roommate that commented on missing the paper plates of frozen banana chunks that I always had in stock when we lived together and that's exactly how my refrigerator/freezer still looks to this day. I hate cooking and I don't have any desire to learn how to improve. When I want my vitamins and nutrients, it's just easier to use my Blendtec Champ H3 10-speed blender.

December 9: Elvis

You are cordially invited to attend the services for our beloved Elvis. As you may or may not know, Elvis was a part of our family for the past twelve years. We rescued our German Shepard mix from the local animal shelter when he was just eight-weeks-old and he has returned the favor by gracing us with his presence and warmth. He died last Tuesday and we would love for you to be involved with his remembrance.

The services will be held at 5:00 this Thursday evening at the Mexican restaurant on S. Lamar Boulevard. It will be a night of stories, food, drinks, and moments of prayer. There will be plenty of laughter stemming from tales of Elvis' mischievous youth. I invite you to bring your obnoxious children and your boring spouses.

To help celebrate the life of Elvis, I will be bringing the unwashed, leather collar he was wearing when his heart failed him. The scent of sweat and dirt that still emits from the abandoned neckband will help remind us all what an active dog he was. I will also bring with me a photo of Elvis in the generic dog frame I purchased from Target, a candle, and Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover's Soul so we can read stories of unrelated pets.

Because he was such a special soul, Elvis will also be in attendance. In a specially engraved, solid Ash wood, stained Mahogany urn, the ashes of our beloved Elvis will sit on the table throughout the course of our meal and conversation. I will have his flea-infested collar carefully set beside the urn and we can all think about Elvis' charred remains as we eat our ground beef enchiladas.

Although he was incredibly ugly, Elvis will forever be in our hearts. I invite you to take time out of your holiday season to spend an hour and a half talking about an animal that you probably couldn't care less about. Come enjoy a happy hour margarita (house tequila) and listen to my stories that are exactly the same as every other dog owner on the planet. Elvis would want you to be there.

December 8: Commencing Countdown

Today was the first day of the rest of my life. Crap. According to the US Census, the average white male lives to be 70 to 78-years-old. Let's say 74. And that's if they die of old age. Who does that anymore? Nowadays, it's cancer, automobile accidents, suicide, or murder. Who has the energy to last 74 years? For the sake of argument, let's say me.

My seventy-fourth birthday will be in the year 2057 and if I choke the following day, I only have 47 years left. At 365 days per year plus 12 for the next dozen leap years and an even 60 until my twenty-eighth, we're looking at 17,227 days (and you thought 365 days of Brandon was a lot). If I die at exactly 9:oo pm, that gives me 413,448 hours, 24,806,880 minutes, or 1,488,412,800 seconds of life. Let the count down commence.

Before I go on, let's not get ahead of ourselves. I don't know when I'm going to die. I might choke on the trail mix I'm chewing on right now and keel over by the end of this sentence - well, I guess I'm going some other way. The way science is evolving, the average white male in the United States might make it into his nineties. If that's the case, all of the aforementioned math was completely for naught. Thanks a lot!

When you look at the numbers by the day, it really doesn't seem like that many. 17,227 days? That's it? What have I accomplished with the life that was given to me in the 27 years of walking this earth? Not much. I've made a few people laugh and pissed or annoyed even more off. I don't even think I've given any truly memorable gifts in the 27 Christmases I've attended or the few birthday parties I was invited to. In all honesty, I haven't made much of an impression at all.

Are you depressed yet? I don't mean to bring anyone down, but on my bike ride home tonight, the "first day of the rest of your life" expression randomly wedged itself into my head between thoughts of, "Whoa, that guy was close to killing me" and, "New episode of Survivor tonight!" and I thought it would be interesting to put the average lifespan into perspective.

I'm sure I'll do fine in this life. I don't expect to be famous or outrageously rich, but I do hope to be moderately successful. It's interesting to think about having just over 17,000 days to turn my life of slinging enchiladas into a career and into retirement. How is it going to happen? I imagine it to be a gradual thing, but I've been waiting tables for six years now! How much more gradual can it get? When will that proverbial light click on in my head at the same time my ambitious mojo takes off? It takes both to make something happen and I'm still waiting.

47 years, 17,227 days, 413,448 hours, 24,806,880 minutes, 1,488,412,800 seconds of life. Let the countdown commence.