...on time machines

so as the bastard mentioned earlier, he has developed some problems breathing. so what's a jerk to do but to go to the doctor and address the problem. besides, blue doesn't go too well as, say, a skin pigment. now the last time i saw my doctor, he was closer to home but has since moved to the lovely guido equivalent of an amish village known as howard beach where if the makes models of the vehicles rolling up and down weren't brandy new, you would be convinced it was still 1986. and that isn't really a neighborhood and all if you like living near the pizza place that was the site of what was probably the most notorious violation of civil rights in my time but, then again, i heard you can get a good slice at the new park pizzeria. or maybe it was the crown heights riot that was the more notorious violation because the guy who killed yankel rosenbaum got off in the long run while the guys in howard beach went to the clink.

but i digress,

i was going to the doctor's office.

now the office at doc's old digs was generally filled with the silent masses who were waiting for the gynecologist who shared the office with him and most of them were russian so i rarely had a conversation with anyone. but this place was a little more ghetto than that. there were these two chuckleheads who were playing with their sidekicks. one (pictured here) just kept opening and closing the fucker. his buddy, who i managed to not get a pic of was the more priceless of the lot. his ringtone was i got money by fiddy cent. how do i know this? because he decided that everyone in the waiting room needed to hear it. i found myself wonderring in the waiting room full of pauly walnuts lookalikes, why no one thought it would be a good idea to stab this kid in the neck with a pencil.

go fig

why do i get all the really choice ideas.

well, since you asked, yeah, i'm breathing better.

—the bastard

gold

"hey k, we've found ourselves a decent lunchroom", pipes the bastard

"i have plans today, my friend is in from san francisco"

"oh well, hey what's that outside?"

"what?"

"holy crap!"

"what?"

"holy crap!"

"what?"

"holy crap!"

"there's a guy napping down there"

"down where?"

"down there. justice, do you have a camera?"

"the editor has it locked up at the moment so no"

"dammit, this is gold. fucking gold! look at him! all fat and his gut hanging out and i don't have a camera to document this!"

"his shoes are off too", chimes sara voids.

"do you have a camera?"

"a little one", she replies.

"i have to get a picture of this"

the p cat walks in, "what do we have here?"

"guy sleeping on the scaffolding down there"

"it's pure gold!"

"well", retorts the p cat, "that's your union dues hard at work there"

then we had lunch

—the bastard

dumb things the bastard has done in the last 72 hours

sunday sunday sunday : the bastard has developed allergies lately so it has him obsessing over them. i never had allergies until that no goo jonny airplanes kept me out for 3 or 4 days straight until 6 in the morning and i developed pneumonia. actually , the fact that i was rolling cigarettes (the tobacco variety) didn't help either. anyway, i developed pneumonia and later i developed a cat allergy. now my ladyfriend has a cat so i first assume that it's the cat's fault that i'm wheezing. but then again, i'm wheezing at home and i have a lizard. so upon some serious soul searching i have come to the conclusion thta the bastard has a mold problem. how do i deduce this?

well...

...let's see...

oh yeah, my apartment has massive water damage from flooding and while i can't necessarily see it, i'm wheezing. but why stop there. let's go on the internet at one o'clock in the morning and read up on the symptoms for asbestosis. bad idea. then try and calm yourself down by reading up on the symptoms of allergic asthma and then calm down by reading 3 volumes of warren ellis' transmetropolitan. then try that whole sleep thing again at 2 in the morning. nice and smooth. nice and smooth, my ASS!

flash forward (monday): walk in the front door of the office. walk out of the elevator on the 10th floor. realize that you moved to the 9th floor 3 weeks ago. almost made it to my old desk.

flash forward (it's today in case you weren't keeping track, jackass): so i bought these new sunglasses the other day. i was looking for a larger lens. you know, for better sleep on the subway. and while i was stuck in traffic on sunday on the williamsburg bridge (another story, it involves idiots and suvs and a really long pothole on delancy street that coincidentally the chairman had to put up with too) i realized that they made me think of stewie from that episode of the family guy in which he throws a tan party (watch my tan walk brian). anyway, while i got more sleep, i still managed to lose my sunglasses. at lunch time, i walk over to the other side of 9 and went to get my lunch and found the sunglasses on the shelf. where i left them. i have to get some sleep. or maybe i have to get jesus. yeah, i have to get jesus, he owes me money you know?

—the bastard

it's a fact...

...people at coffee shops with big fat carcasses who didn't order a cup of coffee but feel they need to be up the ass of their friend who did order coffee will in fact block the station where you put sugar and milk and get napkins from and they will invariably have a backpack on to subsequently increase her footprint. given this knowledge, in certain societies, one could find oneself strangling said cow to death but fortunately for this particular heffer, we don't live in that kind of society...yet.

—the bastard

...on panic

...or was it pest control

you know,

the last 12-24 hours has made for a nice ride in/out for the bastard.

yesterday, i fell asleep in manhattan and woke up in jackson heights. it was sweet.

however, this morning while i was sleeping the sleep of the just, pandemonium broke out on the V train. as we pulled into the elmhurst station, people were running for the door. the girl with the new chuck closterman book who doesn't have the horse sense to NOT where rubber thong sandals with her battleship grey slacks runs for the door. (allthough in retrospect, it might have been her stop. why the hell would you take a job in elmhurst? i've driven through there. it doesn't look like fun) the indian girl next to her literally jumps out of her seat and onto the lap of someone 6 seats over. and the asian girl who is reading the bible sneaks into the empty seat which doesn't surprise me in the least part. after making this series of observations, the bastard sees what all the hub-bub is all about...a...really...big...ROACH!!!

now the bastard is going to be fair here. it was a pretty big bug. not quite horse sized but, it was definitely bigger than a bread basket. and it flew. and i tried to get back to sleep but the radius of personal space that this creature cut was fun to watch. wherever it went on the train, people were moving until an enterprising orthodox man killed it, scraped it off of his shoe and i resumed my nap. gotta love the early morning theatre.

—the bastard

the wrong trousers

every girl's crazy bout a sharp dressed man. or maybe everyone gets crazy when a man has sharps. ida know but, the bastard has to tell you something. he carries a shiv on him. in fact, i own several. alot of them are made by spyderco. i highly recommend the brand should you need something sharp. i even bought one for the chairman. and i've already gotten a decent look at the next one i'm going to buy.

but i digress.

anyway, all branding aside, the bastard stopped into the coffee-a-teria on the way home. now mind you i didn't go home last night and since yesterday's jeans were nice and soda encrusted, i had to buy a pair of jeans as well and all my gear didn't fit into the pockets as well as my soda pants so every time i have to take my wallet out of my pocket, i have to take this monstrosity which is one of my favorite shivs. so while i was in coffee-a-teria i made sure to take out enough to buy my coffee beforehand. upon arriving, a young hispanic man takes my order and when he gives me the price which tells me that the price of things has gone up to my disdain. so out comes the shiv and i clomp it onto the counter. the young man's eyes bug out. i look him in the eye and tell him with a grin, "these are the wrong pants for this knife". he grins back and takes my money. i grin and take my coffee.

—the bastard

array

so with this new office arrangement, we saw the end killing stuff monthly's african wing which doubled as our lunch room which puts us in a bit of a bind when it comes to dining options. no more can we sit in a room and talk shit about , well, anything. it would screw up the work dynamic of others and now that we're all packed together like sardines, the bastard has to be, well, less loud. (well, i ain't trying that hard mind you).

so instead we go out. and first off, justice wants to sit outside. but not everyone wants to be in the sun. but all of the umbrellas become occupied and then suddenly, none of the umbrellas are occupied which dleads our undocumented staff to construct this little umbrella array in which we can dine under.

FLASH FORWARD: the bastard is 2 sips into his soda, when chuckles, the water guy decides to aid me in wearing my drink on my pants. he apologizes and goes to fetch me some napkins, only he comes out with one and hands it to me.

"are you kidding?"

"excuse me"

"are you kidding me." i'm stating this, not asking at this point

"excuse me?"

"i can't dry this off with one napkin. i'm going to need a few"

"excuse me?"

at this point justice points out that his english might not be so good. so i did what any other ugly american would do, i asked him for more napkins. loudly and slowly. he was very apologetic in his way but, i think he was either pissed at me or afraid of me. either way would have made sense to me as i WAS shouting at this point. either way, after lunch (which was pretty damn good despite the wet pants), i hightailed it down to macys to get some new pants. nothing the bastard likes more than an expensive lunch.

—the bastard

...on office space

so the bastard is only going to do this one more time. who the hell am i kidding? i'm going to do this every time i get pissed off at my office situation

every time.

ad nauseam.

til i get sick of it.

and then i'll move the fuck on and complain about something else. don't like it? you know where to go shiteyes.

so needless to say it is like the old indian in hanta yo. an old man , or rather, a tribal elder tells our hero that he is done with this world. he is going up to the mountain to die and spend eternity with the great spirit. our hero tells him, he is not going to die and lo and behold, this old man goes up on top of the mountain and dies. he dies because he wills it so. it can also be looked at like a self fulfilling prophecy. the man predicts his own death, only to will himself dead.

a similar thing happened this week. last week, the velvet hammer predicted that this week she would arrive in our new space to find that it had turned into a shanty town. and lo and behold ...it is. so as i had complained earlier about the uncertainty of whether i'd be getting that properly fits my station in life, i'll let you off the hook. no i didn't. i'll also let you off the hook about whether i'm happy about it or not. no, i'm not. and there's no way i will be. it's like K-stuff says., "no matter how you slice it, a shit sandwich is still made of shit".

—the bastard

...on the outer boroughs

well the bastard can safely say that the james bond film live and let die is a really good film to take a nap to. you see, i'm landlocked. stuck. i decided against asking the chairman for a ride into the office as it would have me walking up to my office from the west village. so needless to say, the bastard has been hitting the refresh button on the mta's website. i've been hitting refresh all morning, except for the brief 30 to 45 minutes i was asleep while roger moore bored my ass to unconsciousness. and the bastarad has come to this conclusion, queens is getting fucked today. queens always gets fucked in these situations. it's understandable, manhattan is this town's business center so it needs to run. but, the outer boroughs take a back seat to this and queens sometimes takes a backseat to brooklyn and tornados in bay ridge brooklyn aside, brooklyn is in slightly better shape than we are.

so in the meantime, the bastard will keep hitting the refresh button. staying out of the heat. and mind you, it's frikkin' steamy out. man, i have templates to redo.

—the bastard

...on treading

has the bastard ever told you the one about the guy who was sleeping in his bed during a torrential rainstorm?

well anyway there's this guy.

and he wakes up at about...say...6:30 in the morning to sound of heavy rain. so he rolls over

about 10 minutes later, it's raining like the hammers of hell and the guy rolls over again and remarks to himself, "damn, it sure is raining"

then it occurs to him that it's in fact raining in his living room. GET IT? it was raining in his living room. jeeze, you have no sense of humor.

so, the bastard has been bailing out his living room and the word comes out over the crystal set to stay home, or at least delay my commute a little while. now the bastard isn't one for listening to city officials but, i want some unwind time. at least for a couple minutes. this is gonna be a long day.

—the bastard