Abandon Ship!

Well, The Transitionee is an unqualified failure! It has managed a decent hits tally, but those are just the same 7 or 8 people obsessively refreshing their browser so that they can leave another senseless comment. As obnoxious as they are, without them there would be nothing - I'm pretty sure my own family has stopped logging in.

Considering that The Transitionee is more or less a piece of crap, and that The Augmentee still has some traction and manages a few visitors a week whom I did not go to college with, The only sensible thing to do is move back.

Pulling the plug on Aug was a stupid move anyway; due to my over-the-top narcissism, I was able to convince myself the The Augmentee body of work was somehow "important" or "art," and that I needed to protect its integrity by walking away from it. Well, it's not art - it barely passes as "literate," and I am free to do unto it as George Lucas has done unto Star Wars and Indiana Jones! If you don't like it, blow me.

Welcome back to The Augmentee!

A Lesson in Karma

During my senior year of college, I lived in a disgusting old house with five of my friends. It was a hideous two story dump on West Beaver, with three bedrooms and a bathroom on each floor. In order to access the upstairs, one would inexplicably have to go outside and around the side of the house to the staircase. The passageway was protected by sheets of plywood, which did absolutely nothing to protect you from the sub-zero winter; especially when you were barefoot in a bathrobe running up to the kitchen for some coffee.

Downstairs housed the living room, whose carpet was forever soaked in frozen beer thanks to a leaking kegorator and a lack of heat that resulted from failing to pay the oil company. Further, there was always some form of drunken disaster sleeping on the couch or watching “Snatch” with the volume turned to maximum, singing along to the delightful Goobah, Goobah, Goobah, no matter the hour.

We chose this house because it had a full basement, which is the college equivalent of owning your own banquet hall. Each weekend, it housed hundreds of drunken college party-goers, who enjoyed endless games of Sully-rule beer-pong, pissing in the laundry sink in front of god and everybody, and smashing their empty beer bottles against the wall without consequence.

At one particularly raucous party, I descended the treacherous staircase to the basement, and was knocked off my feet by some inebriated college age male that I had never before met. Someone yelled, “grab him” but it was too late, and one of my roommates leapt over me to give chase. Not wanting to miss any action, I jumped up and followed suit. We didn’t catch up to him, but I was filled in to the story: It seems that this gentleman threw a full beer into the face of one of our female party guests; a discourtesy for which he received a very effective punch in the face by my roommate, at which point he fled.

About twenty minutes later, we heard a commotion on the front lawn and ascended the stairs to investigate. To our surprise, we found that same young man on our front lawn, on the business end of a very savage beating which was being administered by another person whom I did not know.

While I was admiring the prompt action of Karma, I noticed two uniformed policemen directly across the street. They were drinking coffee and calmly watching the entire violent episode take place. Once they were satisfied, they walked across the street and put both men in handcuffs. As I stood in awe, one of the policemen walked up to me with a stack of thirty or forty CDs and handed them to me. “Are these yours?” he asked. I looked through them, and to my surprise, they were mine. I thanked him and went back to the party.

Approximately two months later, I received a handwritten letter from a name I did not recognize. It was a court ordered apology, addressed directly to me, expressing the heartfelt remorse that this person felt for having disrupted our party and stolen my CDs. He assured me that he learned a valuable lesson, and that he would never again participate in such undignified behavior.

I taped the letter to my bedroom door as a lesson to future guests: If you disrespect a party here, you will be punched in the face, beaten without mercy, arrested and forced to apologize for it.

I think we all learned something that day.

The Heartland

This is a visual representation of why I hate living in Ohio.

The little slice of heaven pictured is a lovely hamlet called Millville, Ohio. Millville is significant for two reasons; first, because I have to drive through it any time I want to shop at a store that isn’t called Walmart or Kroger, and two, because it is a perfect representation of virtually every town in Ohio and Indiana.

The photo pictures the entirety of the Millville chamber of commerce, except that if you turn right at the traffic light (singular, there is but one) you are treated to yet another adult video store and horrifying dark little shop called “Country Store,” which I assume specializes in cowboy hats and kidnapping people to keep as sex slaves. In fact, I think it is pretty safe to assume that every one of these stores has at least one dead body in the basement.

So if you ever wonder what people are referring to when they reference “Midwest charm” or the “heartland of America,” they are in fact referring to a collection of lovely little towns whose sex shops outnumber traffic lights at a rate of two to one.

Asbestos? Sounds Shitty.

I got this e-mail today over on The Augmentee side of the house:

Hello-

This is Jesse Herman, Awareness Coordinator at asbestos.com. I've been reaching out to veterans who blog or those close to veterans in hopes to spread the word concerning asbestos prevention.

Our company gives free assistance to veterans looking for VA Claim help. Retired veterans Carl Jewett and Allen Dutton in particular specialize in mesothelioma claims. Mesothelioma is a deadly lung cancer that can result from asbestos exposure. United States military veterans comprise of roughly 30-40 percent of all mesothelioma diagnosis reported. There are a number of reasons why, but in short many veterans were exposed directly to asbestos for many years.

Through our services we have been able to assist many different veterans over the years.

I was hoping that we could write content specific for your blog that details some of the threats, symptoms and our services for veterans. It is not our intention to sound promotional, rather, it is our goal to inform. If you are interested in this resource we will write an article and you can let me know what you think.

Thanks for your time,

Jesse Herman
jesse@asbestos.com

Seems like a nice guy and all, but The Augmentee is closed - and I'm not too into the idea of "guest" posters; except for maybe Bowl or Big K, just to give them a chance to explain themselves.

Anyhow, if anyone has asbestos poisoning, give Jesse a holler and he'll get you hooked up.

Check Me Out!

So I got a 4.0 in the first semester of my MBA program. That was good enough to win me a little scholarship; and since the university already pays my tuition, that money will cover all of my fees for the next two semester.

Easy Peezy.

I am wicked fuckin smaht!

Anonymous Comments are for Wimps!

Anonymous said...

"When does it post again?"

Up yours anonymous, I'll post when I'm good and god-damned ready. The truth is, nothing real interesting has happened this summer. School, work, bar, repeat.

I'm still getting about an e-mail per week from IAs, and the defunct "The Augmentee" blog still receives more traffic than this piece of shit; not surprising considering both the frequency and quality of my posts. It amuses me that while only about 30% of the posts on that site have anything to do with the Navy or the Individual Augmentee program, deploying IAs still consider it a useful pre-deployment exercise to read about Bowl's puke. That is pretty embarressing for whomever is in charge of "official" pre-deployment literature (NKO?).

I am really looking forward to the Montreal bachelor party - I hope Bowl pukes on a Frenchman.

Have you ever told someone that so-and-so are getting married assuming they already knew, but they didn't know and then you are left with the awkward possibility that they aren't going to be invited? That happened to me yesterday - oh well, screw it, it's not my job to keep people's secret. Well, except government secrets, it is my job to keep those and if I ever let slip what actually happened to JFK, you people would freak out.

On a side note, I am sick of all you people with your kids. Shut up about your kids - and stop aking me when we're having them; it's none of your damned business and I don't want to talk about it. Maybe I don't want to give up my wild nightlife (not really), or maybe it's because I fear becoming a boring idiot who comes to work and doesn't have a single damn thing tot alk about except his kids and their entirely unimpressive, ordinary fucking achievements. He walked, he sais goo goo, he farted; congratulations, you child is, in fact, alive and may not be retarded. If you have one baby picture, I will look at it politely, EXACTLY ONE TIME, preferably the day after the birth. I'll say "hmmm, cute" or something like that and consider the issue settled. If you expect me to look through 100 files on the 2 inch screen of your camera, or worse yet, thumb through an entire role of out of focus photos from a disposable camera - I will turn my back and walk away from you in mid-sentence.

Finally - Something Useful

In preparation for my Jewish friend’s upcoming super-non-kosher bachelor party, I have conducted an internet survey of the greatest bachelor party destinations in the world. The survey involved seven internet “Top-10” lists, and one very lazy “Top-5.” A number one ranking on any website was awarded 10 point, number two 9 points, etc.

The participating websites were www.away.com, www.askmen.com, www.worldmysteries.com, www.chron.com, www.iloveindia.com (for Bowl), www.theplunge.com, and www.ezinearticles.com.

Top 10 Rated Cities

1. Las Vegas - 79 pts

2. Montreal - 61 pts

3. New Orleans - 48 pts

4. South Beach - 43 pts

5. Chicago - 29 pts

6. Whistler - 29 pts

7. Cabo San Lucas - 26 pts

8. Vancouver - 24 pts

9. Manhattan - 23 pts

10. Scottsdale - 18 pts

Not surprisingly, Sin City is ranked number one, and receives my whole-hearted endorsement for bachelor party location. As far as I can tell, affordability was not included in the assessment, so it should be noted that Montreal, South Beach, Whistler, Cabo, and Vancouver will all be very costly. Also, considering this will be a winter party; Montreal, Chicago, Whistler, Manhattan, and Vancouver will be miserably cold.

A major strike against Manhattan is that it is the bachelor’s hometown, and although there are nine million people there, the possibility still exists that he have an awkward romantic-comedy (ROCOM) type moment where he runs into his bride to be while running out of a strip club, pantsless and out of breath. Too risky!