December 14, 2015

Misanthropy or Realism

From the "Conversations with a Cynical Romanian" series...

Hipster: (2:50 PM)
I can’t tell any of the fellowship interviewees apart. They all have blowouts and some sort of monogrammed purse.

Russian: (3:02 PM)
We don’t set the bar too high and also I would assume that most girls that are looking for a fluff job until they can tie the knot are going to be more or less identical within the state.

Russian: (3:04 PM)
They’ll marry men who are all similar too, and the families will have similar lives in Dallas, shopping at Highland Park, upgrading their homes, the men trying to one-up each other with greener lawns, the women - with designer shoes, and then they’ll all die and be buried in the same mud they came from. These are people that merely exist.

Hipster: (3:32 PM)
There are also the children with names like McKaylee and Mackendrie who will all wear the same outfits their mothers wear. They’ll have perfect hair and makeup at age five and a host of anxiety-related issues by age 16. At 18 they’ll be cut from their mother’s sorority during rush. At 19 they’ll have their first DUI and at 22 they’ll be applying for a fellowship at our firm. The cycle repeats.

Alice's Reasons

Bistro 31

"I met a friend for drinks at a place called Bistro 31. Initially I objected to the location but then made it excusable in my mind by calling it a 'new experience'. There was a fat girl in a dress with a red cape and I laughed until ginger beer came out of my nose so it wasn't all bad."

"I love that there are all these animals with deformities making money. I suspect if I put a dude with one leg and a flying saucer on a t-shirt, people would not react so amicably."

November 24, 2015

Departmental Review: Comments Section

This year's "how are we doing?" employee survey included a comments section, which I answered as honestly as possible.

Communications with senior leaders are less clear than with group leaders because the former are delivered through sub-group leaders, which often results in a game of broken telephone whereby a sub-group leader can answer WHAT must be produced but is blind to the intent of the deliverable. Another bottleneck is decision making which is portrayed as a socratic process but is highly prone to managers' personal feelings and emotions especially in critical situations - as a result, an authoritarian, and at times irrational and unprofessional, command line is established.

November 11, 2015

Historical Quotes Part 1

"'Anything is a dildo if you're brave enough.' - Abraham Lincoln" - Jason South

November 10, 2015

OJ Rant

OJ should be the opposite of a morning drink... you drink it before you brush your teeth and it's super acidic. You try after and you have minty acid with a hint of orange. At that state it's more color than flavor. Orange as a color has no designated emotion. So orange in the morning should be emotionless but it's not... it's just angry (bc of the acid, mint, nothing) vs nothing. I hate lying liquids!!!!
- Beavis

November 9, 2015

Rummy Adventures

Playing rummy with drunk Troll. His turn to discard. 
Beavis: "Matthew, where are your cards?"
Troll: "They're at home!"

October 29, 2015

It's Lonely at the Top

I couldn't very well post this on Facebook, as I would likely be banned from the only bar in downtown. Look - there's waitress!


October 13, 2015

Vegetarian Complaints


Tull: Last night Money, while scrubbing bacon and sausage of a meat lovers pizza to eat the bread, complained about how after he met our group he started drinking too much and not sparring anymore. Then he suggested we spar at a gym from time to time. So I punched him in the eye. The end.

September 30, 2015

September 29, 2015

Midnight Rummy

Russian: Midnight rummy is not a game for the weak

Waitress: I kind of want that on my headstone


September 28, 2015

Breaking News

Area man accuses wife of racism for using term "spirit animal".

September 23, 2015

Girls Pterodactyl Meets Online: Art Teacher



Pterodactyl: Anyway do you think she's had work done?


Russian: Yeah and judging by her taste in skirts, daddy paid for it.

Pterodactyl: She's a high school art teacher, so I agree wholeheartedly. Anyway she matched with me and I'll see where I can take it. Maybe it sounds lame as fuck but I'm learning tangible things so far that produce replies. I always at least get a response now vs. being ignored. Most convos still fizzle out but there's more to keep learning.

Russian: It was great to pretend to be an artist while getting her BA in Communication at a fratty university, but then reality kicked in and she looked to a job that required no discernible skill: art teacher. Some pedagogy classes later she's working on her Mrs degree praying to The Lord she finds a man who will love her unconditionally despite her well known history with sweaty guidos and anal in the alleyway.

September 21, 2015

Meaning of Life


Russian: Do you ever think life might be about more than going to work, getting shitfaced, and passing out, punctuated by sports, pool, and fucking?

HFA: I sometimes do. Then I realize how incorrect I am.

Russian: It’s kind of unfortunate that most of us just spin the hamster wheel until we croak. Look at dudes like Elon Musk - he’s got aspirations, that fucker is going to Mars.

HFA: Personally I wouldn't want to go to Mars. Last time I checked it had no goddamn atmosphere. 

Russian: Let’s say you have kids - when you die, wouldn’t you like someone to point to a history book or a pivotal invention and proudly say, “I’m related to that dude.”

HFA: Well, I am an HFA. If I ever choose to have some brats they will clearly know who I am. The bartender will tell them.

September 15, 2015

Dinner Plans

Waitress: Hey everyone! I'm thinking about arranging a congratulatory dinner for Adam once this new job is a for sure done deal. Are there any certain days of the week that work better for anyone?

South: I will have to check my schedule. Lots of masturbating and pizza consumption meetings taking place. Luckily, my Malaysian houseboys, the ones that survive this week, will be handling the orders for new Malaysian houseboys to be delivered next month. Glad that tedious shit is out of my hands so they can be used for more important tasks. Other than that, free any day except next Thursday. I have a meeting at SMU, and after I will be blowing people in the alley for $5.

September 5, 2015

Catcall

"His friends back home call him all the time." - Guinn


Professor

Guy: nice shooting, professor!
Z: well let's talk about your wife. She's much older than you are right
G: excuse me?
Z: well she looks old!
G: you look like you are 70 professor
Z: yes, maybe, but your wife looks older than me. 

Guy was 36 and his wife was perhaps a year or two older than him. 

September 3, 2015

HFA at Work

When the shitload of Indian people start congregating behind my back yelling at the computer screen about dates and how their SQL only runs under certain conditions I start yelling obscenities at my computer and beating the shit out of my keyboard (which so far has survived for 6 years and change). Sadly I can no longer yell "cunt" because I have a woman two seats to the left and one row in front. And she is blonde.
When she giggles I want to slam the bottle of tequila I have in my drawer over her head. 

August 31, 2015

Pterodactyl on Tinder

"They want lumbersexuals. What the fuck is up with that? Are we going back to the Dark Ages? Peter the Great force-shaved half his population to fling Russia into the modern era, and you have these fucks setting us back 400 years."

Exhibit A:


 Exhibit B:

August 27, 2015

Cat

Tull:
Hold on. You got a cat?

HFA2:
Yeah, about a month ago, mostly because I wanted an animal and didn’t particularly like the idea of walking around downtown picking up a dog’s shit twice a day.

There’s a photo on my Facebook

Tull:
Guinea pigs rock

HFA2:
But I believe I know what you are thinking: have I exposed it to Timati and trance yet? The answer, obviously, is of course and as often as possible. I once took it to Austin and back, blasting trance all three hours of the drive. When I stopped at Waco to get a few shits midway, I tied a rope around its neck and let it go shit on a leash like a dog - the cat didn’t even mind.

Guinea pigs are definitely the shit

Tull:
You must introduce me to this feline. I think we will get along quite well

HFA2:
When Nebraska came to visit, the cat stalked her like prey, then eventually attacked her hair. It took half a minute to separate the two.

Basically the cat makes being at home a hell of a lot more interesting

Tull:
It's a good thing I have no hair

HFA2:
Exactly. You two will get along

I went fishing this past weekend and I’ve seen people take their dogs to the lake. So fuck it, I took my cat. It nearly drowned trying to kill a frog and then shat the equivalent of its own body weight after I gave it some raw bass. That was a great day.

Today I am leaving work early to go to a boxing match where Misha, one of the Tavern bartenders, will proceed to beat this shit out of some grade school teacher. It’s for charity.

Maybe I should take the cat.

August 26, 2015

Labor Day

Last Labor Day was the first I'd spent outside of NY. I think I went to Rainbow Room and met Ron Jeremy that weekend.

I've been considering not repeating the experience.

August 22, 2015

Tull's Gun

Last night I dreamt that I had a gun. My father took a very Meg looking puppy and slammed a wooden plank on top of her. She looked like a black, shaggy, canine Jesus. Then he tied a few balloons to the plank and let her fly. I kept yelling at him that she might not make it, being so high up, as she started to descend on the other end of the city. My father sprinted towards her projected landing spot while I kept shooting at him. It was a nice gun. 

August 18, 2015

Homeless HFA Story


So as I was standing on Lex waiting for my light this morning, hungover as fuck, monkey man rammed into me head first. As pedestrians around me moved aside, he pulled out a giant red envelope yelling, "Here look at this look!" So I tell him, "Dude I'm late to work." He stands there for a second then says: "HFA... you work?"

August 7, 2015

Greener Grass

From iMessage -

HFA: The grass is always greener.

HFA2: That's fucking true.

HFA2: Look at me - I'm in Dallas.

HFA: Which actually isn't such a terrible place. We do have a few inbreds working technology there for GEM. Partially I am doing GEM now because they are inbreds. If I moved I would have access to a pool, 1.3k of additional shit money and two less Zorans.

HFA: Also one less Furnace, one less Monkey Man, one less wife and a shitton less problems.

HFA Music Class

Actually at some point during my college career I was taking a music class. During the first class we had to introduce ourselves. Conveniently I had a shot glass on me, probably because I stole it from that Korean place that sold soju without checking ids, so I proudly announced "hi, my name is HFA and I'm an alcoholic" and slammed my glass on the desk.

July 29, 2015

HFA's Monkey Encounter

So I bumped into a sweaty monkey man in a bandana last night. He proceed to read out loud a chapter from his "blog" - a tiny notebook with a bunch of terrible handwriting in it. The chapter was about monkey man waking up and hanging out at snoop dogs place. The monkey plan is to go viral and sell each chapter for $1.50 to every single citizen of the U.S. He estimated the population to be at 2 million. 

July 28, 2015

Unannounced Absence

After being late to work twice in the past 2 months, the head of our regional office sent me a lovely communication in 15 point Calibri type. I haven't heard back since my response.

From: MarvinDate: Tuesday, July 28, 2015 at 9:16 AMTo: Salty DogCc: DanielSubject: Going forward 
Salty Dog- Given the situation yesterday has occurred twice within a short period of time, we need to identify how to prevent this in the future but also the consequences if it happens again. I am not interested in the how/why this occurred, but only on a solution. You are a very talented individual with a great future ahead of you. As a manager of people and a leader on the client team, however, your negative actions have an impact on others. Let Daniel and me know how you propose to fix the problem and the three of us will get together afterwards. Marvin
.......................................................
From: Salty DogDate: Tuesday, July 28, 2015 at 10:15 AMTo: MarvinCc: DanielSubject: Re: Going forward 
Marvin- 
Thank you for your email. It tends to be more difficult to find solutions to problems or prevent specific events without taking interest in their underlying causes, but let’s give it a shot. Since the problem is unannounced absence, I will ensure that all future absences are announced. I hope this helps. 
If this solution suits you, I suggest that you and Daniel appraise the negative impact of an unannounced absence and work out appropriate consequences, which we can discuss at your convenience. If you believe there is a more effective preventative measure, I would be happy to discuss this as well. 
Please let me know when you would like the three of us to get together and I will get this meeting on our calendars ASAP. 
Salty Dog


July 22, 2015

Intern Cover Letter

"...despite being aware of the compensation, I am excited about the position."

July 10, 2015

Lync Diaries: Cray

Salty Dog: (3:45 PM)
so - fun news
Salty Dog: (3:46 PM)
2,670 double-coded news articles since the beginning of the year
Fatima: (4:07 PM)
wow!!!
Fatima: (4:07 PM)
that’s crazy cray!!
Fatima: (4:07 PM)
how we gow deal wifff that?!?!?!
Salty Dog: (4:16 PM)
i just died a little inside

July 9, 2015

Lync Diaries: The Comeback

Daniel: (4:06 PM)
ian though this "¯\_(ツ)_/¯” was “a comeback written in Japanese"

Comcast = ISIS

A resident of Nashville quoted in an article: 


“They're just not to be trusted, Comcast," he says. "The fact that they of course could’ve been doing better all along but had no incentive to. I’m just opposed to them completely, kind of like someone would be to ISIS. No one speaks well of ISIS.”

July 4, 2015

HFA at Old Crow

"As Billy would say, 'Game over,' and then he would yell, 'Sausage!'"

July 3, 2015

Raulito

Courtesy of Tull:

In other news raulito would like to know if I'm at dolls.

And seriously how can I be around a person that refuses to read books? Like "catcher in the fucking rye" or "I was a great fucking gatsby"? How is it even possible for someone who grew up here to not enjoy something that makes children go all "wilderness" on their parents? God damn it.

June 25, 2015

HFA's First Story: SUI Dallas

I came home at 3:30 shitfaced as fuck, and I woke up Furnace and told her to wake me up when she goes to work, which is usually around 7. Apparently within those 3.5 hours I woke up, woke Furnace up, and made her give me a handjob. I remember nothing of this.

Shopping Under the Influence

June 24, 2015

Groundhog Day

One September, on a whim,
A man named Phil and sometimes Zim
Boarded a Lufthansa flight
And came to NYC by night.
Dressed in red pants and blue shoes
Arrived at PDill's with a Jules.

The Zoran, swaying at his post,
Was hammered there, in unwashed clothes;
An HFA who yells at balls
Was slamming shits and punching walls;
And Furnace, three large bags in tow,
Was weeping softly, laying low;
The Raulito, clenching fist,
Holding pool stick, yelled "you missed!"
And Rankish, two Coronas deep,
Was drunk and going home to sleep;
And Money, dapper in a tie,
Was busy fighting cops nearby.
"And Andrei," Phil asked, "Is he far?"
"He's getting banned from Texas bars."

December came, and Phil's still here
"I'll leave tomorrow, let's have beer."

Zoran Night

On a night, cold and dreary;
In front - a drink, inside - a cherry;
Line for pool the length of Zoran's hair,
I shall write a story, but to be fair:
Lately I find myself bemused
By the way Zoran is confused
"Carpet? Cat? Vampire?
Perhaps I should change my attire." 
Cue ball, black ball, green ball,
I'll shoot that way, get you all. 
You, yes you, the female face,
You don't belong in this place!
... Now let me get my sandwich. 

Zoran
-- noun, verb (used with or without object), Zoran'ing, Zoran'ed

Stop being such a Zoran - stop consuming all the alcohol in the vicinity and hogging wifi

I'll go all Zoran on you - I will suspend you from the ceiling, then watch you bleed out on a white carpet

I got so Zoran'ed last night - I drank two bottles of vodka, got into a fight will all the staff at a bar, slammed my head against the pavement, got escorted to and subsequently escaped from ER

You shoot pool like a Zoran - refrain from directing your pool balls at innocent bystanders

You smell like a Zoran - you smell like you rolled around in panda feces since 2010

A Zoran conversation - a conversation in which one discusses a particular girl's lips, then informs her she does not belong in the establishment

Back in the Zoran times - back when vampires ruled the earth in 1400s..

Zoran chuckle - a cough of a cancer patient who should have been six feet under years ago

You must be a Zoran around here - you got banned from three establishments, today, and are working on your forth 

Nice Zoran haircut! - you just shed 5 pounds of hair but you can still make a few dozen more cancer patients look a lot less like skinheads

Meg Story

So last night, after we had a few shots, Money took Meg for a walk. Once she took a shit, he bagged it and threw it at Lenny.

This is probably the first time I didn't mean the real shit when I said "shit."

I bet him 100 bucks to do that which he returned. So I promptly shoved it inside of Meg's mouth as she supplied the goods. Now I have a bunch of chewed through bills.

We left shitfaced Zoran somewhere on the UES in the company of a Mike Tyson-looking 49 year old dude. I wonder if he is still alive.

Given that Zoran got banned from all neighborhood bars that have a pool table, we had to venture out.

-HFA

June 19, 2015

Bill Eats Dallas


List from Fu (originally written in 2012)

1) it's shits o'clock
2) events of past few days make little sense on any given level
3) guy is typically at on Sunday evenings so I sense a few games of pool
4) probably closer to butler. I suggest we buy her some chocolates, then break into her place when she's at work and leave them on her nighstand
5) her name was Michelle
6) statistically speaking at least one of us should be dead now

HFA's Dreams

Last night I had two dreams.

In the first I was exploring in a cemetery and tombstone fell down crushing my feet.

In the second you are I were on the road trying to find a place that we went to before. Obviously we had no address or idea on how to get there so we had to rely on going to random places, getting shitfaced and trying to see if we were getting closer. At some point we realized that our final destination was close to a gas station in Cleveland. We parked at one station which was actually just a giant room with bunch of chairs and a few tvs. I remembered that across the street was another gas station (there were only two in the city) so you walked over to check it out while I chilled in the car in the room. While you were away a truck pulled over and four criminal looking black and Mexican dudes proceeded to disassemble our car. In the few hours you were gone they managed to open the hood and remove a few tiny pieces, ie they were terrible at it. You returned with a black skinhead who was carrying a dead white skinhead. The "disassemblers" threw our bags out of the car, took the car and left us in the company of a nice looking Dominican girl. She had a bazooka. She was guarding us. We asked for permission to go onto a patio for a smoke. She agreed. When we got to a patio I realized the fuckers didn't give me my second bag that had two cartons of smokes in it and neither of us had cigarettes. What a fucking nightmare.

June 9, 2015

Overheard at PDill's

"Last night I had a dream that I was rich and I was flying. Do you know how I knew it was a dream? I woke up in my bed and I was poor."

"We are going to the future now! Did you know that there is Italian doctor, he is in Italy now, he's going to do a head transplant."
"Brain or completely the head?"
"Head! I don't know about brain though"

June 4, 2015

Dissecting Kidds with Pterodactyl (one year ago today)

I was thinking about some of my behavior last night and it actually makes logical sense. Since you know I love reading people and am generally pretty good at it, I was obviously reading Jessica to form my mental image. Her behavior can make her difficult to read though, and of course an interesting part of these analyses are how the woman interacts with and feels about you. But she lets other men (me) pour stuff on her head and grabs their arms and touches them an awful lot, which is contusing and makes it difficult to draw a conclusion. Trying to kiss her and seeing what happens produces a solid answer. Getting the answer was more satisfying than getting a kiss, since I was completely disinterested in a kiss. And then that part of my analyses is greatly advanced.

So then what conclusions have you drawn?
I'm as always extremely curious.

Well the question I was trying to answer was: how much does she value Andrei? The answer: quite a lot. As a person overall she's a lost soul. I feel like she puts on a face to the world. What she's hiding though, I don't know. She is definitely not stupid. She does seem to accept being roadkill though. I think she derives a sense of joy from being commanded around, but will stick to certain principles at the extremes (i.e. the kiss). Overall a good person and a good soul, but completely directionless. Life is like her favorite movie to watch. She watches it but never directs it.
Also, Sophia's reaction to the kiss attempt was pretty hilarious considering she had no context to it at all. "YOU TRY TO TAKE ANDREI'S GIRL? WHAT THE FUCK?"
I just realized I forgot to show you Christine's email lol
I'm also sorry. What I did was obviously hugely disrespectful. I think you understand my motivation, but it was still a pretty extreme method. I don't think my drunk mind has any boundaries.

Dude, did you change my name in your phone or something? Science has no boundaries.
Your deductions on the subject of Kidd are hugely accurate. Entirely so in fact. And yes, I do still want to see that email.

You did seem pretty glib about it. I think some part of me finally understands "I just wanted to see what would happen."
Oh also I keep forgetting to ask - why the fuck was my kebab in a hot dog roll?

I got the same shit and I was not amused. Caesar must have run out of pita - a first.

I was so confused. I snuck into an empty train car and had an entire 5 seat handicapped section to myself. I laid out my food like a 5 course meal and as I unwrapped the glorious dinner, I was met with a goddamn fucking hot dog roll.
Also - was the Kidd abused when she was younger? 

The empty car all to yourself sounds awesome. Kidd's parents didn't know how to take care of themselves much less kids, her biological father kidnapped her after the divorce when she was three, then her mother got her back and moved to jersey for 2 years (child abuse), so her mother was extremely controlling and for a while she went to live with her father who had a wife that would beat her with wire hangers and drag her around by the hair, and when her bio mother had another child from a different man, the mother began entirely neglecting Jessica, up to the fact that she stopped paying for her undergrad program. Of and her mother's husband was an abusive alcoholic who would beat everyone. And she was raped by. 20 year old when she was 13 in the woods and her mom and stepfather refused to believe her. And I think all the shit together led to a chain of self destructive behavior after which she got herself a psychiatrist and that seems to be helping a bit. To more concisely answer your question: yes. What do you deduce from all this, doctor?

Damn. The reason I asked this is because the most fascinating aspect of the Kidd is how her facade is reversed. Instead of being outwardly strong, she's outwardly weak to hide a stronger version of herself that exists in there somewhere. So the reason I asked is that I realized an abusive past could actually have trained her to be ashamed of, or afraid to show, strength. She thinks if she displays her own will or acts on her own, she will be punished for it. That's why the only way to get a 'real' reaction from her is to do something that puts her in a corner, when the facade becomes impractical. Typically people project a strong image to hide weakness, but she actually does the opposite. She's ashamed of strength.

It's interesting that you mention that - I hadn't processed it to the extend you have but I do know that she acts childish in uncomfortable situations, has no direction until forced, and essentially acts like an opossum where she will take no action, lie low, and lock up in her dead state when waters get choppy. So I'm trying to recondition her in the functional sense. This involves giving her small and simple tasks or chores on a daily basis, balancing out those which are beneficial to her and the home or me more broadly, and making sure to offer reinforcers through appreciation and treats (e.g. thanks for cleaning up now I don't have to spend my evening doing it, let's go play laser tag or whatnot). Anyway I'm hoping the fact that doing shit and talking straight moves her along and is reinforced will eventually help her to find a new architecture along which to operate.

Definitely a complex character. However, treating her like a dog isn't necessarily gonna help. Jumping from one learned set of behaviors to another is just horizontal movement.

I see what you mean, but I feel like I need to make her operational before I can help her to grow

True. Instead of running into a wall, make her run in circles. Then down tunnels. Then ultimately exit the cave.