Odds and Ends

Having Monday off for Labor Day should allow me to loaf for 24 extra hours this weekend. DC is like a ghost town this weekend because all the sheep have left town in order to go to the beach and hang out with the same people that were trying to get away from. This is one of the times when it's fun to be a contrarian. Driving around this city, there are parking spots everywhere. You would think you died and went to parking heaven.

In order to catch you up on the events of the past couple of weeks:

House:
I made some progress on my house during the weekend that my brother was in town. I'll post some pics when I have some time. My house is starting to look surprisingly normal. I had a female visitor yesterday, and she didn't have that terrified "silence of the lambs" look when she used my bathroom. So that's a really good sign.


Blog Stuff and Blogging:
DCist and DC Blogs both linked to my piece about the my Mac vs. Coca Cola Classic episode last week. I think pretty soon the NY Times and the New Yorker will discover my irreverent observations about life and I can start wearing sunglasses to nightclubs and become a pretentious asshole like the people who drive in from Arlington to go to "edgy" clubs in DC.

I met undefeated Slap Boxing Champion and Award winning blogger Listen to Leon last week when he made the mistake of volunteering to be a guest bartender at the Common Share. When the mob of people at the bar started getting more impatient and was fashioning make-shift torches and pitchforks from the bar stools and something went wrong with the beers on tap, I think he realized why people who work in bars complain about it so much (well, besides the fact that they are usually whiney a-holes). Anywho, Leon was up for a Black Weblogs Award this year and I was gonna endorse him, mostly because his blog is funny, but also because I've never met the other people who are up for it. Unfortunately, my neighbors got wise to me "borrowing" their wiFi connection and I was too lazy to get to a coffee shop to endorse his candidacy until it was too late. If it makes him feel any better, I didn't vote in the past two presidential elections either.*

Politics:
1 - Corrupt flunkie Abu Gonzalez resigned this week so that he could "spend more time with his family" and find good places too hide while avoiding a subpoena and possible perjury charges. It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

2 - Bathroom sex pervert and US Senator Larry Craig announced he will resign this week. He still claims that he isn't gay because whenever he had "gay" sex, he was thinking of his wife...and about going to church. And we all know that people who go to church aren't gay.

I also find his allegation that the only reason he was playing footsie with an undercover officer in the next toilet was because he "takes a wide stance" when dropping a deuce to be unconvincing. It just so happens that I crap at least once a day (sometimes several times a day if I've had Tex Mex or Ethiopian food). And Friday I conducted a scientific toilet experiment. As I dropped the kids off at the pool, I took the widest stance possible with my jeans around my ankles; wider than the stance you would take if you were constipated and needed the widest possible base to brace yourself for the extreme physical exertion of taking the biggest dump of your life. And unless you're not even wearing pants, it's not possible to touch the sides of the stall unintentionally, no matter how wide your stance is. Busted, Senator!

3- Second rate news hack and political spokesperson Tony Snow also announced he was leaving the White House (ditto for Karl Rove). This smells like rats leaving the sinking ship. Although the metaphor is kind of insulting to rats.

Family:
The visit from my family was not as bad as I'd imagined it would be (but only because in my imagination the visit ended in me running for my car under a hail of gunfire). It turns out that despite the feral children, we only almost got banned from one restaurant in DC. I've discovered a new mathematical law while they were here. The annoyingness of children increases exponentially by the number of children. So A = Q times C(nth power). So if one child displays Q annoyingness, then three kids exhibit Q x Q x Q annoyingness. As you can see, when you get to around 40 or 50 children, the annoyingness nears infinity and will actually alter the fabric of the space time continuum. I think that's how black holes are created, but I'm not a science dork or anything, so I can't be sure.


*Neither election was decided by exactly one vote, so don't get preachy on me.

Martial Arts Mondays: Part 1

I'm creating a new feature on my blog which may or may not be repeated. I saw something on YouTube that was so amazing that I would be remiss (whatever that means) if I didn't share it with you imaginary people on the internets. So I'm creating this feature just to share it with you.

Here is a video clip of the MMA Girls demonstrating one of my favorite moves (the side choke) from a full guard position.* They call it a head and arm choke, but I don't care what you call it. When two hot 22 year old, south african blondes with nice surgically unaltered breasts do it, I call it "awesome."




Anyway, I guess that Martial Arts Mondays should have some other stuff, so I will give out a free plug. For those of you who are into MMA, JuJitsu, or other types of grappling, the 2007 SAMBO Summit Training Camp is on Sept. 14 -16th in Staten Island NY. It's 3 days with 3 incredible SAMBO teachers for the bargain price of $400.

One of the guys teaching it is David Machin, who used to be my Sifu when I lived in NYC. He's the real deal. His Makiwara regimen is insane and his hands are like bricks.
This is a makiwara. The traditional way to use it is without the vinyl padding.










Anywho, for those of you who are unfamiliar with SAMBO,** it's the fighting system that the Soviets used to train their military and special forces. It's like Judo, except that instead of controlling your opponent without harming them, you control them by breaking their bones and choking them to death. It's very popular in UFC fights, and was the style used by UFC champion Oleg Taktarov.

If you have trouble imagining what I'm talking about, you can watch this video. Once again, to sum up, The 2007 SAMBO Summit Training Camp should not be missed. It will kick your training up to an 11.


*I usually don't discuss fighting on here, because it sounds like bragging, but I have used the side choke (from a standing position) in real fights and once choked somebody unconscious with it. But I've never seen it look as sexy as when these chicks do it.

**SAMBO is the abbreviation for the russian words whose translation are "Self defense without weapons."

Great Moments In Stupidity: Mac Attack

Friday morning I did one of the dumbest things I have done in a long time. I spilled some soda on my laptop. For those of you who don't know me:

1. Yes, sometimes I drink Coca Cola Classic in the morning--don't judge me, you're not the boss of me!
   
2. I am not the most careful person with electronics that you will ever meet. If machines ever become sentient, like in The Terminator, Terminator 2 Judgement Day, or Terminator 3 Rise of the Lame Sequels, when the machines take over they will put me on trial for war crimes. They will bring out the corpses of numerous computers, DVD players, VCRs, TVs and Stereos as evidence of my crimes against machines;
3. I was not looking at p0rn at the time it happened (this becomes important later in the story)

The screen turned blank--I panicked. I unplugged the computer, turned the laptop upside down to and ran to bathroom to grab the toilet paper roll off the wall holder and use it to dry off the keyboard.

When I got to the office, I looked on the internets for what to do when you spill something on a computer, and I found this amazing video. Wow. Unfortunately, according to the video, if you want your laptop to survive spilling liquids in it, you need to turn it off AND take the battery out. I had no way of knowing this since I couldn't check my internets from home. I figured my beloved Apple was dead, so I called the Apple place to find out what my options were. I figured since it was still under warranty, that I would be okay.

Ninja: Well, I accidentally, spilled a leeeeeetle tiny liquid on my MacBook, that's not bad is it?

Tech: Was it coffee? You might be in luck if it was coffee.

Ninja: No...it was Coke Classic. A wholesome, healthy drink that's made without exploiting third world coffee farmers.

Tech: Coke? That's bad. It's all syrupy and stuff. If you didn't take the battery out, you're motherboard is probably fried. That costs about $750 t0 fix.

Christ on a stick! $750 dollars? You know how much beer and p0rn I can buy for that?!? I can buy a new Macbook for $1000. And I'd rather eat an olive than pay $750 just to get my computer back to the way that it should be working. Even if they fixed it, I just paid $750 to get a used computer if you think about it. There had to be a better way.

Ninja: $750! Wow. Luckilly I'm still under warranty. Hehehee

Tech: No, that's not covered. It's considered physical abuse, which your warranty won't pay for.

Ninja: Physical abuse!!! Are you effing kidding me? That's not physical abuse! I didn't beat it with a wire hanger because it brought home a bad report card, I just spilled a little soda on it. And I didn't even do it on purpose!

Anyway, after going back and forth for a while, I decided I would bring it in to get it looked at. I was worried because I had loaded TurboTax and Quicken on my hardrive and that has a lot of personal information like my social security number, bank account numbers etc. So I wanted to make sure that they wouldn't be snooping around my programs and stealing my money.

Tech: No, we won't look in your harddrive, we're just interested in your logic board, not your p0rnography.

Ninja: P0rnography? I wasn't looking at p0rn man! I'm a Catholic, dude, and we don't look at stuff like that (as far as you know) because the Pope tells us not to because it makes the baby Jebus cry. I'm just worried about my personal info on TurboTax. There's no p0rn on my Macbook. None, do you here me! And even if there is, I swear I have no idea how it got there. Or maybe it was on there when I bought the computer. You can't prove it wasn't, man!!

Well, after letting my compy dry for a day and a half I put the battery back in and so far so good. The Mac Chord sounded a little funny, but other than that no other bad symptoms. I'm actually typing on it now.

Thank the baby Jebus that my MacBook is okay. I don't think I could live without my laptop. I mean, how long can a human being go without being able to use his TurboTax?

Does Big Gay Al have a Little Gay Dog?

The other day I heard the screech of tires and a crash outside the ninja fortress. It was a car crash, and I automatically assumed that the drivers were women. I didn't assume that both drivers were women because women are bad drivers (even though it's true), but rather because both cars were "chick cars". One was a mini-cooper and the other was a Volkswagen Cabriolet. But I was wrong. Yes...me, wrong. NOT A TYPO!


There was actually a dude driving the Volkswagen. The guy was limping when he got out of the car, so I'm assuming he sprained his vagina in the accident, because no man with actual male genitalia would be caught dead driving a cabriolet unless he was driving his girlfriend to the gynecologist. There is a reason that I bring this up though. It turns out that women are not really as bad at navigating as was previously thought. I know that some of you are reading this and thinking "HomeImprovementNinja has said some foolish things in his life, but surely he's kidding about this". But I'm not. I didn't bother to read to the whole article, but the gist of it was that scientists something something blah blah blah, and women might be able to navigate as well as a man, even though if they were doing it for a living, they would only make 81% as much as a man who does it. So if I was wrong about women's navigation skillz, then maybe I was wrong about whether men can drive a Cabriolet and still be real men. And maybe a friend of mine was wrong about a man being able to own a small dog and not appear gay. Hmmmm. Maybe a poll is in order?

I was thinking very seriously about adopting a dog. I had thought seriously about a small dog because the ninja fortress doesn't have a yard, so it would be easier with a small dog that didn't need a lot of exercise because if I get one of those big dogs that needs to jog, then I'll just tie it to the bumper of my car when I run my errands and will probably get in trouble with the dog nazis.

I found a dog I liked on a dog rescue site. I figured that if I spared the dog from certain death, that it would pledge it's undying dog loyalty to me and serve me until one day (maybe in the heat of a great battle against a much larger and well equipped army) it saved my life and repaid the debt of honor. Then it would look at me knowingly and bow imperceptibly, then walk off into the sunset with it's sqweeky octopus toy in it's mouth. I mean, I know it's a little unrealistic because before a small dog like a Jack Russell Terrier could hold it's own in a combat situation I would have to give it extensive martial arts training. And how good can a little dog get since I can't even teach it some Northern Eagle Claw kung fu because it has no fingers. Anyway, while I debated whether or not to get the dog, someone (who's probably completely straight) adopted it. So I've been thinking about another dog and asking people their opinions. Since the answer to everything can be found on the internets, I will open it up for discussion, and probably disregard the results if I don't agree with it. Soooooo...imaginary people, what say you about small dogs?

Small Dogs, Gay or Hetero? Are Small Dogs Gay? Yes, small dogs are gay, and you are gay for even wanting one. No, small dogs are not gay, you're friend is crazy Only certain small dogs are gay, but other small dogs aren't Only cats are gay, dogs of any size are hetero Gay looking depends on the guy walking the dog, not the dog You know what's gay? Internet polls, that's what's gay. That and gay porn. I don't understand how electronic polls work. How do I vote for Al Gore? view results

Tap Out

After having spent a few days with visiting relatives, I am mentally, emotionally, and spiritually depleted. I will probably post more about the wackadoos in my family in a few days, but for now, I only want a nap. I feel like I just fought in some type of Ultimate Fighting Championship cage match, except that the pain doesn't stop when you tap out. It continues and escalates until it's time for their flight to leave.

When I visit family in Florida, I am probably less stressed out because I can imagine a happy place (like the ninja fortress) and retreat in my mind to my own fortress of solitude until Christmas Dinner is over and I'm on a plane home. When they are here, though, in my happy place, there is really no place to hide. I can't envision the ninja fortress and go into a deep meditation because even in my mind they are there trying to drive me crazy with banal, idiotic questions like "does your coffee maker work?" or "where can we take the kids today?".

I try to look at life as a series of learning experiences, and after coming close to being banned from a couple of DC eateries, I have learned that if you have you children, the first thing you should teach them when they are out of diapers is the difference between their inside voice and their outside voice. It should be the very first thing.

Before this past weekend I always assumed that I would want to have kids eventually, but now I will probably make declarative statements like "if I have kids, then..." instead of "when I have kids".

I've also come to the conclusion that Michael Jackson is a degenerate. After this weekend I can't understand why anyone would want to be around children unless they were legally required to do so. I used to hear stories about those women who say their husband went out for a pack of cigarettes and never came back. And now I know why. It wasn't because of the wife, he was trying to escape the kids and their horrible, shrill screaming.

Adventures in Law Part 3: A Footnote for Eternity

I’ve already mentioned that I don’t think much of most academics. While most of them suck, some of them are really cool and interesting though. Professor X was one of them. He was a visiting professor at my law school (which I won’t name because then you might figure out who I am and I would have to kill you) and I got a job as his research assistant for $8 an hour (which is minimum wage today, but was considered beer money 7 years ago). I took the job to add another line to my resume and because I figured that working for a nationally known expert in a high-paying field of law might come in handy because he probably knows a few people in big firms that would be willing to pay me more than I was worth for doing less than work than I should.

The money wasn’t great, but it was a cool gig. I got to pick my own hours and I could work between 10-20 hours a week depending on how few hangovers I had that week. I also had 24 hour access to the law library and the right to take out any book I wanted (even rare books and reference materials that other students weren’t allowed to touch). I took full advantage of that when I was writing my graduate thesis. I even had them recall a book that a student had checked out because I needed it for my paper. I guess I could’ve waited ‘till the student brought it back on his own, but what good is power if you can’t abuse it and be an asshole?

Most people know that I’m a big economics geek. What I found the most interesting about Professor X, was that he had attended the University of Chicago (the Jedi Temple of Economics) and had taken classes with Nobel Laureates like Coase, Becker, Stigler and notables such as the legendary Judge Posner. And I would ask him questions about what they were like. (it turns out that even among economists, most academics are assholes, but a few are really cool and down to earth. I won't say which of the people above fall into which categories, because I don't want to get sued for calling a Nobel prize winner an asshole).

The good parts about the job were that I could work whenever I wanted for as long as I wanted. If I had insomnia and wanted to work for two hours on a Wednesday, that was fine. If I wanted to skip a week, then work 30 hours the next week, that was fine too. I also got to learn about the obscure areas of the law that he was writing about. For instance, there are probably less than 20 lawyers in the entire world who know more about Islamic finance than me (since I don't even practice in that area of the law, that makes it even more impressive).

The bad part was the money. I don’t think you can live on a research assistant’s salary unless you live in a free dorm on campus and eat in the school cafeteria and date the freshman chicks (which are probably the only kind of chicks (except the drunk ones) who would find a 28 year old research assistant hot). I don't want to end up an overeducated, underemployed guy living in his parents basement--that would reaaaallly be pathetic.

I think working as a research assistant honed my legal research skillz, which is something that has helped me other jobs. Professor X also cited me in a footnote to an article that he had published in the Harvard Law Review. That's right, bitchez, HARVARD!!! And you know that whenever someone reads a prestigious legal journal like the Harvard Law Review, the first place they look is in the footnotes. And having your name in print is exactly the kind of exposure that creates positive experiences in life. When I meet people in the legal profession, sometimes I resent how they pretend that they've never seen the footnote. Jealousy is a terrible, terrible thing. Don't hate the playa, bitchez, hate the game. (I'm not really sure what that means, but I think my 'street cred' just went up almost as much as if I'd "busted a cap" in a snitch.)

Anyway, it wasn't the perfect job, but it helped me get closer to figuring out what kind of job I did want. I would have one more job in law school (on Capitol Hill), before ending up at the law firm that would shape (warp?) my mind for the rest of my legal career. Sooooo...next time: Mr. Ninja goes to Washington.

It's gettin' hot in here...

I have been thinking about what it would’ve been like if I lived in DC before there was air conditioning. It sucks that I don’t have central air conditioning (yet) but at least I have window A/Cs.* It’s bad enough walking from the metro to my (badly) air conditioned ninja fortress, but if I lived before there was such a thing as A/C, I don’t know how I would’ve handled it. It's a hundred degrees and really humid. If I had been a lawyer a couple of hundred years ago, things probably would’ve reaalllly sucked, when you think about what people dressed like back then.



Tis' it hot in here, or tis' it just me?








It's no secret that DC was built on a swamp. Even if you didn't know that, if you spent some time here in the summer you would figure it out pretty quickly. If I worked at some office with stuffy lawyers a few hundred years ago, my whiny ass wouldn't be very happy.

Ninja: Tis' soooo freakin' hot today. I wish I t'weren't required to wear these colonial outfits with the powdered wig. I am sweating like a frenchman. There tis a trail of sweat down my chest and it's formed a pool of water 'neath me bollocks!

Barrister: Yes, bollocks sweat is quite unpleasant, I daresay.

Ninja: I wish someone would invent a device that used air to cool oneself off.

Barrister: There is such a device. Tis called a hand fan, but the only men who use such a thing are those kind of men.

Ninja: What kind?

Barrister: I forget what they call are called, but you know, those men who are overly effeminate and are sexually attracted to other men.

Ninja: You mean the British?

Barrister: HAHAHAHAAAA.

The sad part of living back then is that making that little joke would brand me a as a traitor because freedom of speech hadn't been invented yet. Therefore, after making that joke, the Barrister and I would have to quit our jobs and join George Washington in order to fight for the right of free speech so that a few hundred years in the future, the rights that I fought for would be illegally usurped by corrupt politicians. Anyway, it's lucky that I wasn't fighting in the revolutionary war because I don't like people shooting at me, so I doubt that history would've remembered me for my valor under fire.

George Washington: The British are coming!

Ninja: RUN!

George Washington: NO! Hold your ground. Wait 'till you see the whites of their eyes!

Ninja: Then can I run?

George Washington: NO! No running!

Ninja: What about surrender? They look like they would take prisoners alive. I think I still have the white flag from last time.

Yes, if I had been there, things would be really different. The history books would be talking about the short-lived American rebellion, and if the English had won the war, then we'd all be speaking English instead of, well....nevermind.

*In my defense, the ninja fortress is a military installation and it's meant to repel invaders and provide a forward base for elite reconnaissance units, not to be some cozy bed and breakfast with frilly niceties like central air conditioning and TiVo.

Adventures in Law Part 2: A Job Offer from the Grave?

Most law professors, like regular professors (and cops) are pompous jackasses. I don't know what that thing is called, which academics have, that makes them jackasses, but whatever it is, Joe Griffin had the antidote. If anyone had a right to be pompous, it was Joe Griffin who, literally, wrote the book on international antitrust law. But luckily, Joe was as down to earth as he was smart. His brilliance in law was only matched by his hatred for Bill Clinton. If anyone brought up Clinton he would reflexively interrupt ("I reaaaaalllly hate that guy...sorry, what where you saying?"). I had the good fortune to take a class in White Collar Crime from him. It came in handy since 4 people on this list would end up as my clients when I worked at a law firm. They are all in federal prison, which you should keep in mind if you decide to ask me for free legal advice (or pay me for it, like they did). My friend Matt also represented them, but I'm sure his brilliance was counterbalanced by my mediocrity--and the fact that they were guilty of some pretty blatant crimes.

Because Joe was a big shot at one of the biggest law firms in the world*, I tried to make a good impression, which was difficult since many of the Keg on the Quad events at the law school occurred right before his class. I figured it was bad form to try to hit him up for a job before the semester was up, but I thought I would pay him a visit when the class was over. Now, keep in mind that just because I called the guy and asked him for help, didn't mean that he had to help me. In fact, my friend Batman was offered a job with the SEC before graduation and he called one of his professors, who was also a bigshot at another big firm and said "Professor X, I realize you're busy, but I was offered a job at the SEC in the division where you used to work and if you could call me back, I'd like to talk to you for about 5 minutes to get your opinion." That was in 2000. Batman is still waiting for that phone call.**

Now, I should mention that back then, the biggest partners at the biggest firms were said to belong to "The 700 Club", which meant that their billable rate was over $700 per hour. We met in his office at The Firm. If I had any doubts that Joe Griffin was a kind of a big deal, it was quickly dismissed. He had many leather-bound books and his huge corner office smelled of rich mahogany. Joe Griffin, called me right back, and told me to come to his office and he would meet with me. He gave me the best advice on finding a job in law that I've ever received. His insight was particularly useful since he used to be on the hiring committee. He also gave me really great advice on life, in general, and told me once more about how much he hated Bill Clinton. *** He spent nearly 3 hours with me (which was over $2000 worth of his time). Then as I was leaving he said:

Joe: Look, we have a [type of law I wanted to practice] practice group here, but they have a very high turnover, so I don't know if you'd like it there. I'm not on the hiring committee anymore, but I know some people who are. Since you're a bright kid, and not socially retarded, why don't you send me your resume and I'll forward it to a few people. I can't promise anything, but I'll see what I can do.

Wow. This was like having Don Corleone say he's going to try to get you into the mafia. I knew that I was getting closer to becoming one of those people who's so rich that he wipes his ass with $100 bills and buy's a new car and trophy wife every 3 years. Svetlana, here I come!

Well after about a month I did not hearing back from Joe, and I was puzzled, then I ran into someone from class and we were talking and he said

Student: "it's too bad about what happened to Professor Griffin."

Ninja: Huh?

Student: Didn't you hear? He died last month...He was on a business trip in L.A., had a stroke in his room and died. He was alone when it happened, so they didn't find him until the next day. When he didn't show up for a business meeting they called the hotel and the maids found his body.

In the end, this guy, who was so full of life and surrounded himself with friends, had died alone. This guy who went out of his way to help me, had died with no one to help him.

I felt really bad about it and, since I'm not an asshole, I called his law firm and left a message with his secretary to call me and let me know where I can send condolences to his family.
Since the secretary was too lazy to return my call, I found a partner in the firm that I knew he knew and called him, asking where to send condolences to the family. I was surprised that he recognized my name. He said that he had gone through Joe's schedule to re-assign his workload and that he saw Joe had made a notation to call me, but didn't write down what it was concerning.

Partner: Do you know why he was calling you?

The Moment of Truth..what would I say? I thought about what I should say. I'm not one to disregard omens, and I thought that this was a not-so-subtle sign that I was not meant to work there. I said "well, I asked him for some career help, but I'm sure that he was calling back to say he couldn't do anything for me. I just wanted to send condolences, that's all."

If I was an asshole, I would've said "Well, he was calling me back because he wanted to offer me a job. You see, it was Professor Griffin's dying wish that you hire me at your law firm. He even said that I wasn't socially retarded...let's be honest, you need a guy a like that at your firm, I've seen your softball team." When you have a bunch of student loans and no job, and the prospect of a job that pays $125 thousand dollars a year (plus bonus)**** to start is really tempting. But I really liked Professor Griffin and I don't think I could live with myself if I exploited his tragedy to get it. Plus, once you start acting like an asshole, it's hard to go back being a non-asshole. It's like how Darth Vader started down the dark side and then never managed to turn back. Eventually, I would end up being a bigger and bigger asshole, then the next thing you know I'd be driving to my house in Bethesda in a BMW with a Bush/Cheney bumper sticker on my car. Wow. That's scary just to imagine it.

I don't know when I'll get around to the next episode of Adventures in Law, but there are a few more, and some of them are pretty good. We'll do my Capitol Hill internship, then my job working for a law professor, and finally my job at a law firm (we won't talk about my current job, for obvious reasons). There will be crooked politicians, eccentric professors and a partner who berated me for using commas correctly (yes, this really happened). You'll laugh, you'll cry, and you'll find out why you should always be nice to the secretaries. One day, one of them might keep you from getting fired (wow, that's some really subtle foreshadowing, right?).

*I won't mention the name of the firm since I don't want it coming up in Google searches.
**Batman took the job at the SEC and said he was waiting for the day that Professor X calls and needs something so that he can ignore her phone calls.
***I'm not kidding, he said "that Slick Willy is so fucking smug..." He said fucking! Who is a cooler professor than him?
****That firm now pays $140k plus bonus to start. For 7th year associates, which I would've been by this time, it would be over $200k per year.

C'mon Gentrification

Well, DC's first Target store continues to tease me like a stripper between the first and second song of her set. The outside looks like it's done, so I don't know when it will be finished, but I am avoiding trips to the Virginia Target on principle (and also because I'm lazy and Alexandria, VA might as well be Cincinatti Ohio, as far as I'm concerned. Do they even have indoor plumbing in Alexandria? I don't know, but I'm not eager to find out since Target is coming to me soon, so why bother).

There is also a Washington Sports Club being built there. I'm currently a member of Gold's Gym, but when the WSC is built, I'll probably join so that I can have a gym that's closer to home which I won't go to.

I can't help but notice how bland and gentrified they plan on making my neighborhood...I love it. I hope it ends up looking like Bethesda because my fortress would be worth a meelyun bucks in Bethesda. Then I would sell it and move to Fiji, buy an island, and have the natives carve my face into the active volcano. They would worship me as a god because my cigarette lighter would convince them that I am the reincarnation of the Volcano God. It's gonna be friggin' sweet!

In other news, I was on the train today reading THIS book, when I got to the part about Bernoulli's St. Petersburg Paradox, which has baffled mathematicians for over 200 years. I got on the metro at Columbia Heights and by the time I got off at Dupont Circle, 20 minutes later, I had solved the problem (in my head). I called a friend of mine who is a Quant and told him I had solved it and he said "really?!?" in a tone of disbelief that is usually reserved for when someone gives you their permission to nail their hot sister. I explained the solution and he said I was wrong and proceeded to explain why using math geek-speak. I learned a valuable lesson today. Just because someone has a Ph.D. in math, doesn't mean they know what the hell they are talking about.


Miscellany:

1. When I eventually go into business for myself, I'm going to have this article framed and hanging in the employee cafeteria. Some guy got upset that two of his workers were demanding a raise, so he killed them. Yep, he killed them both...no raise, dammit!!! All I can say is that is one tough negotiator.
   
2. Today is Bush's lucky day. With all the sheep reporting on a bridge collapsing in the middle of nowhere, no one is paying attention to his incompetent handling of the war, his Attorney General's perjury, or his top aide's refusal to obey a legal subpoena. I bet he popped open a big bottle of champaign when he heard about all those dead folks.
   
3. In other news, it turns out that Mikhail Gorbachev is a cross dresser. Would you buy a purse from him? If not, it's probably because you're a bigot. Why do you assume that old, fat, bald russian men have no fashion sense? I know why...cuz you're a bigot!
   
4. In still other news, someone in a country that speaks a language I don't understand, linked to and translated one of my posts. I am now, officially, a published author who's works have been translated into other languages. Some place in europe there are people right now talking about Die Hauptverbesserung Ninja. I wish I could hear what they are saying, but it wouldn't make a difference since I wouldn't understand a word they are saying. Does anyone know what language that is?
   

Sorry for the disjointed post folks, but you get what you pay for. For next week, absent objections, I'm gonna post some more Adventures in Law. In the next episode: A job offer from a dead guy (no, really!).

A Trip to Ikea and TMI

Well, Ikea continues to provide endless fodder for bloggers like me. I was there a few Sundays ago with my friend Velvet to pick out and pick up some kitchen cabinets. The same cabinets that are in this post. I didn't want to tell the story without permission, but now that I have it, here we go. First of all, I hate IKEA. Every weekend there are thousands of people there and every single one of them is in my way. Every time.

Apparently I have no taste when it comes to kitchen colors, just like my choice in turtlenecks: "you have black appliances, oak floors and you want to order white cabinets? If you do, I will hurt you." With that, it was decided that I needed help picking out cabinets, and the person who would help me as she mocked me decided on the time and place.

It was good that I brought her because, it turns out, you need estrogen to differentiate between different shades of color since almost everything there looked the same to me: dark wood or light wood. But apparently, there's wood and then there's wood.

Velvet: "No, your floors are wood with brown and those cabinets are wood with yellow in them. Can't you see that?"

Ninja: Ummm, yeah, I see it. There's some yellow in there, right next to that umm, other color.

So we order the cabinets and pay for the ones that were in stock and go to the pickup place. It took longer than humanly possible, unless you take into account the incompetence of college kids working part time to earn money for drugs. After every 30 minutes or so we would ask where the cabinets were and the customer service monkey would reflexively spit out "they'll be out in half an hour." And Velvet would respond "that's what you said half an hour ago." Then her face changed and she said "that's it, I'm going into bitch mode now." Five minutes later the cabinets were in my NLAAV and were off.

Loading it up was a pain in the ass so she called her current beau to meet us so he can help with the unloading. We went to Hard Times for some greasy bar food and to meet the new free labor. I thought asking someone to move furniture was a big deal and I didn't think he'd show up, but on the way there she brags about how she is the perfect girlfriend so he can't possibly refuse to help her with something unreasonable like offloading heavy cabinets in exchange for nothing except a cheeseburger.

Ninja: What makes you such an awesome girlfriend?

Velvet: Well, for instance, last week I [blanked] his [blank] while we were [blanking]. Then I [blaannnnnnnnnnnnk].

Ninja: [Stunned silence]

Velvet: Yeah, THAT'S why you should never walk barefoot in the dressing room at an outlet mall.

Ninja: Wow…you really are an awesome girlfriend. I mean that's just…well…wow. I mean it's completely disgusting, but still.

So dinner was…enlightening.

I was off on Monday and Velvet suggested that I go with her to pick out a countertop from a place in Maryland because, she said, "I know a guy." Since I'm from NYC, I know that when someone tells you they know a guy, it's a good thing. It means that either they can get you a really good price on something, or can have someone killed for you. I'll show you what I mean:

Vinny: Gina sez she's pregnant and the baby is probably mine cuz I'm one of the only guys she made it with without a condom. I need an engagement ring but it costs a lot of money.

Joey: fuggedaboutit…I know a guy.

Or, in a different context:

Guido: I think that Fat Joe is gonna' rat me out to the Feds about that thing with the guy from Joi-zee who had that 'accident' and ended up in the meat grinder. What am I gonna' do about that friggin' snitch?

Big Tony: fuggedaboutit, I know a guy.

I tried to meet her at the place but when I got in my car, the Ninja Lite Armoured Assault Vehicle wouldn't start. Dead battery! Some moron left the headlights on the night before. I'm not going to point fingers, especially since I was the one who was driving and I was the last one to leave the car. But if the NLAAV can't start, then its combat readiness is greatly diminished. I'm gonna convene a special bipartisan commission to investigate what happened. It's gonna be like the 9/11 commission except that I'll be the only person on it and my findings will be unpublished and classified.

I should add that the last time this happened, about 6 months ago, I bought a battery recharger which you are supposed to plug in overnight and leave in your car in case your battery dies. Soooo…I went to the basement and found the re-charger (still in the box) and plugged it in.


Over my numerous trips to IKEA I have learned some things about IKEA, myself, and the universe:

1. Everything is cheap in IKEA, even the hot dogs;
2. If someone is selling you hot dogs for fifty cents, you will probably regret eating it later;
3. society has a lowest common denominator, and you see them in retail;
4. college kids are so stupid that I fear for the future of our once-great nation "mom, I luuuuuuuv this place, everything in here is so...european!";
5. there is something very zen about assembling IKEA furniture;
6. if eating one fifty cent hot dog is bad, then eating four of them is even worse.
   

Thoughts on Iraq, Cheney, and Jersey Girls

I think this sums up the situation in Iraq pretty nicely. The Bush chicken hawks are so hard up for talent that they are sending me a letter, hoping that I can get them out their mess.

First of all, I don’t know how the gob’ment knows about my home improvement skillz. I had my suspicions that the CIA and Pentagon were monitoring my blog in the hopes of developing some kind of secret humor weapon, but I never really believed it until now.





This recruitment letter is disturbing for several reasons:

1. I’d like an extra $20,000 as much as the next guy (assuming the next guy really wants $20,000), but not enough to risk my life for it. Don't get me wrong, I don’t see anything wrong with shooting people for money, but it’s the part where they shoot back at you that puts me off of the whole military experience (or joining the Mafia). Can’t we declare war on some country that doesn’t have firearms? Some African tribe that hunts with spears, or maybe an Amazon tribe that we can wipe out so that we can clear their forest and use it to mass produce IKEA furniture? After all, would the world be better off with cheaper gas or more euro-style nesting tables?
   
2. if recruitment is down so much that they have taken to mailing out pleas for enlistment to total strangers, this is not good. It's almost as bad as the ill-fated "renounce suicide bombing and get a free iPod Nano" promotion.
3. Bush keeps talking about his NEW Iraq strategy. If that strategy involves me going there and fixing it, then we’re all fcuked. I haven’t been able to successfully rebuild an 1800 sq foot townhouse in 2 years, what makes you think I’d be able to rebuild an entire nation?
4. I think the only way I could possibly be of assistance is if I was fighting for the other side. I’m pretty incompetent with a firearm and I would probably unintentionally kill anyone around me, so the best way to harm the insurgents would be to get them to rely on my military skillz. ("No, Mohammed, I'm almost positive this isn't loaded, in fact...oh sh1t...sorry 'bout that...Allah Baba Akbar Jihad, Durka durka?")
   
5. Again, I wouldn’t fight for either side for any amount of money, so I think you’re better off not counting on me for anything besides the occasional post about the futility of war. I don’t know if that will solve anything, but then again I’m doing this for free so you get what you pay for.

In other news, sometime today, draft dodging sociopath Dick Cheney will become president for several hours while George Bush has doctors shoving a long, thick, snake-like machine up his ass. If Bush finds out that he likes it, does that mean that he will change his stance on gay marriage? Will Cheney pardon Scumbag Scooter Libby during the 2 hours that he is president? If Cheney becomes leader of the free world, will he renounce cannibalism or will he use the Oval office to summon Satan for guidance, like he does at the vice president's residence?

Also, last week I forgot to comment on the Miss New Jersey scandal. Luckily the scandal resolved itself without my having to get involved. However, since most people come here in order for me to tell them what to think, I will weigh in on the scandal so you can opine about it at the next work-sponsored event you attend and the boss will be so impressed by your knowledge of current events and warped logic that you'll be flagged as in independent thinker and you will either end up as the bosses new successor, or you will die by his hand.

Here we go: Although Miss New Jersey was found to have posted slutty pictures of herself on the internets, she was allowed to keep her crown (which is, apparently, as fake as her smile and boobs). I think this is the proper result. Let's not be hypocrites here. Are you really surprised there are slutty pictures of her on the internet? She's from New Jersey, so I'd be surprised if she didn't have slutty pics of herself on the net. New Jersey, people! You can't even swim on the Jersey shore because you'll catch a venereal disease, so are you really surprised that the girl who represents the values of the state has some (fully clothed) crotch shots of herself on the net? I've seen these pics of Miss New Jersey and all I have to say is: Call me!

Home Improvement Helpful Tip: outlets

In ye olde days, people didn't use many electric outlets. Typewriters were not electric and most other chores that are now done by appliances (like washing clothes and microwaving food) were done by subservient wives. This is still the case in most red states, but I digress. If you have an old house, you'll probably want to add more electric outlets at some point (or marry a goodly woman with wide birthing hips who is content to spend all day scrubbing your wash by hand down at the local stream with the other Amish women).

So here's how you do it:





First, mark out where you want the new outlet to go.












Then, make a hole in the wall with a keyhole saw.















Then, pull the wire through the hole (yes, this assumes you've got a live wire in the wall. We'll go over running a line from an existing outlet some other time...if I feel like it).















The put the outlet into place by feeding the wire through it. Make sure it's an Old Work Junction Box, so that it can be secured to the drywall from behind, without screws or nails.














On to the Misceallany:

1) A friend of mine was commenting recently on how big my place is and how I could rent out a couple of rooms if I wanted to (the basement, for instance, will have it's own bathroom, so I'd only ever need to see the person in the kitchen). Although my mortgage is more than I like, I still don't like the idea of living with someone, and whenever I feel like I'm warming to the idea, I read something like THIS, which brings me back to reality. A lot of people are assholes, and they have to live someplace, so if you rent a room to someone you might eventually end up with an asshole in your house. And although my place is big, it's not big enough for two assholes. Unlike Florida, which is Landlord friendly, DC is asshole friendly. No thanks.

2) It's 6pm on Saturday and I just woke up an hour ago. I feel like sh1t. Kill me now and get it over with. I was out too late last night and ended up making out with a woman who is very attractive and very married with a kid. As I was trying to wrap my head around that, my friend summed it up nicely: "You know...it's all fun and games until you have an angry husband shooting at you". Does this make me a home wrecker?

3) I don't plan on writing much for the next few weeks, for reasons I won't go into, but I have some half-finished posts about my trip to Ikea with a friend who showed me what her "bitch mode" looks like; a post from the legal chronicles about how I ended up not working for a dead guy who liked me; and a post about the green eyed monster called Carl (yes this will make sense in time).

4) I am thinking of adopting a dog. Although a cat would require less maintenance and would pull it's own weight by killing any mice that dared infiltrate the fortress, a cat would also be kinda gay. Not that there's anything wrong with gay people, but I don't think I could afford a whole new wardrobe right now (although apparently, I don't have to change my entire wardrobe). So if you were me, would you adopt a big dog or a small dog?

With a big dog, I could take it jogging (if I did jog, which I don't, but maybe I don't jog because I don't have a big dog), and it could guard the house when I'm out. But a smaller dog will probably make smaller poops for me to pick up and when I sell the place and look for a condo, there are more places that allow small dogs than big dogs. Also, if I need someone to dogsit, I'm sure that someone would more likely agree to dogsit for a dog who's owners give it names like "teacup" or "bijou" than if I had a dog who's owner's commonly name it things like "cujo" or "godzilla".

Work Progress

In a change of pace, I'm going to post some pics of actual work that I've done recently. I get tired just thinking about it.

Part of the reason that I'd run over the contractor I fired if I ever saw him crossing the street is that I had to undo so much of what he did and re-do it myself. So I got to do the work myself, but still ended up paying a lot of money for it. It's feels like being asked to dig your own grave. The end result is you get screwed. Why did I pay this moron if I was going to re-do it myself? Anyway, enough complaints. If you wanna hear people complain about their problems and do nothing about it, you can buy the Sex and The City DVD Box Set.

I've alluded to a structural problem I need to address before installing the cabinets. I could just leave it the way it is and hoped that no one notices, but Catholic guilt prevents me from not doing the right thing.

The window in the kitchen was crooked and I thought it might be a symptom of a larger problem, like when your car's check engine light comes on and you take it to a mechanic and find out that Paris Hilton has a drug problem.

I did some exploratory surgery and took a look at why the window was was crooked and I noticed that the bottom was pushing up on the window.









When I took a look above the window, I noticed there was no proper header above the window, which would transfer the weight correctly. It was only a 2x4 laying on it's side.







Then I stripped the drywall off the old wall.










I really have no idea what they were thinking when the originally did this. And I have no idea why the original contractor I hired didn't say anything about it, but just covered it in drywall.


This is like some feng shui nightmare. The flow of chi energy is blocked by these right angles.

Since the header wasn't distributing the energy, the window was getting warped and would probably get worse over time until the house collapsed, killing the yuppie family that I would eventually sell this place too for way too much money.



So I didn't want to take the old supports out and put them back the right way (because that would involve jacking up the whole room, so I decided to build a new wall in front of it, to take the weight (like when you put your car up on jackstands).


First I started to make some supports in front of the old wall. After putting the top plate and sill plate in, I made the support beams taller than would fit by about 1/2", then I hammered them into place with a sledgehammer so that the new 2x4s would take the weight of the house off the old supports.

Then I added a header.






This is what the finished product with the (correct) header looks like.

Now this wall is strong...like Northern Eagle Claw Kung Fu.






Then we covered it in drywall.








Like this










Then we installed the cabinets and stove. It still needs a proper countertop, but you get the idea.

Adventures in Law Part 1: Batman Hires Me

Well, I got another call from a headhunter in NY. The good news is that I’m becoming more popular than the iPhone. For the third time in as many weeks I was asked to explain what I want out of my life. That got me thinking about what I do want to do with my life (besides being Mr. Rachel McHottie). So maybe I’ll discuss it on here in a series of meandering and picaresque posts and I’ll just refer future questioners to my blog.

Let’s start by discussing every legal job that I’ve ever had. (don’t worry, there aren’t that many, I was so incompetent at most of them that it will make for a few good posts). My first legal job was working for a guy I call Batman. His real name is Bruce Wayne [Last Name] and he was an idealistic lawyer in the town where I went to law school.*

A lot of people in law school will clerk for a local attorney (or judge) in order to earn some beer money and learn a little about how to actually practice law. Money was never a big deal to me, but I did want to learn how to actually sue people since I didn’t want to work for anyone when I graduated. I wanted to hang out my shingle and be a solo practitioner; a lone ranger…a ninja! So I figured it would good to learn how it’s done.

Rather than mailing out resumes, I dropped them off in person because when people see me in a suit they mistakenly assume that I’m smart and competent. Batman said that he’d gotten lots of resumes in the mail but that I was the only one who walked in personally so I was hired. He asked how much I wanted and I said that the going rate was $7 an hour for law clerks (this was 1996) and he said “how about $8 instead?”. Fine by me.

Although most Midwesterners are genuinely nice people (especially compared to southerners, who only pretend to be nice, and northerners (like me) who are assholes), Batman was considered really nice, even among midwesterners. Batman's Dad was the town sherriff for most of his life, so he had an inborn sense of justice.

Batman had personal injury cases where he made money, and other cases that he would take because nobody wanted them and he felt bad for the clients. There were cases where people were fired for filing a workers comp claim; a case where a couple’s baby died and no lawyers would take the case because of the new “tort reform” law that was passed, which made it unprofitable to sue; and there was a family whose house was destroyed and the insurance company wouldn’t pay. All Batman had to hear was “no one will take my case” and he’d leap into action.

He once filed a workers comp claim for someone who earned minimum wage (meaning that his fee wouldn’t even cover the cost of Xerox copies). The company paid the full demand when Batman told them "I'm not doing this for the money, so I'm not going to negotiate. You pay him every cent in the demand or I'll keep filing motions and running up your legal fees until you're bankrupt and you end up working for him."

Batman hated the lawyers who worked doing insurance defense work (partly because they were his opponents, and partly because they worship Satan). I mentioned that the daughter of one of the prominent insurance defense lawyers was in my class.

Batman: Are you sure it’s that guy’s daughter?

Ninja: Yeah…she said he’s her dad.

Batman: That’s surprising…I just assumed that he ate his young.

Now, here's what I liked and didn't like about the job.

Pros:
Self Employment: It's nice working for yourself and deciding what cases you'll take and what you won't. It sux having to answer to anyone, so if you're the boss there is no one to tell you what to do and what time to come and go.

Co-workers: Batman, his wife (the secretary), and the two paralegals were all really nice people. I think in every job that I've ever had, most of what determines whether I liked it or not is the people I deal with every day. I think the key is to work with midwesterners and avoid northerners and southerners.

The Pro Bono Stuff: Helping people who have nowhere else to turn is really gratifying. When I saw some of those people in tears in his office, I really don't know how the other lawyers turned them away.

Learning: I didn't know anything about law firms before I started there, so I learned a lot of things about personal injury law that I'll probably never use, but that I'm glad I got to be a part of.


Cons:
Money: Beer money is fine in law school, but if you have a mortgage then the sporadic payments you get from settling cases is a little difficult to manage. Some months you'll settle several cases and be rolling in dough; and other times you can go 6 months without a paycheck.

Cases: The pro bono cases are gratifying, but you can't do them all the time. The personal injury stuff pays well, but it's cookie cutter work.

Responsibility: As a solo it's tough to take vacations or call in sick. There is no firm without you.

*I won’t mention his real last name since that would tell you where I went to law school, and you could use that

Coming Next Week: More Jobs I Don't Want to Do.

Helpful Home Improvement Hint Number 1

So that I can continue to consider this a Home Improvement Blog, without feeling guilty about the lack of progress, I'm going to post a weekly helpful tip that is based on my vast knowledge of fixing stuff (when I actually do real work). Here's the first one:

When using an extension cord with your power tools, tie the end in a knot like this. That way, if you move the tool around and pull on the cord, it won't become unplugged.

When people see you do this, they will think you are really handy. You can lie to them and tell them you thought of it, if you like. I only mention this because I secretly think most people who read the internets are liars...especially the ones from Nigeria who keep emailing me with investment advice. You can't ALL be the son of the former Prime Minister. Even with polygamy, the numbers would make Wilt Chamberlain envious.


In other news, on my way home from work Friday, I saw a line a half block long of people waiting for the iPhone. I saw on the news that some people have been waiting in line for a week. I don't know if I feel envy or pity for someone like that. The fact that you're life is so empty that you would spend a week of it in line so that you can buy something one day before anyone else means your life is pretty empty. The fact that you can take a week off work to sit in line for a phone means that your job is really not important, or you're unemployed or independently wealthy. So again, I don't know what to make of these people.

In still other news, I'm discontinuing the Investing Ninja website. The powers that be decided it's not a good idea for me to give investment advice, in light of my occupation. Since a paycheck means more to me than you random imaginary people, it's gone. I'd take the site down, but I lost the password (which is another good reason to discontinue it). Plus it takes a lot of time, and no one ever accused me of working too hard when I'm not getting paid for it. So from now on, if I feel like posting something that could be construed or misinterpreted as investment advice, I'll password protect it and you can ask for the password if you want to know what it says.

And finally, because I'm not shy about taking credit where credit taking is due, it's been about a year since I came out with the first Ninja Stock Pick on this very site. For those of you who are curious about how I did, I'm up about 37% for the year (which is better than almost all of the professional hedge fund managers). MAD SKILLZ, Bitchez!!! * I attribute the success to

1. my genius;
2. my hard work;
3. my competitive streak (I wanted to prove that I COULD beat the pros if I wanted to);
4. the bull market (I did really well, but I could've gotten a decent result in an index fund);
5. luck (although the lottery would disagree, I still think I'm lucky)
   

Next week I'll try to finally post some tuxedo pics. Also, maybe some pics of the Kitchen, which is looking better...a little. If there is anything else you want to see on here, let me know and I might consider it...or not.


*I think I'm far enough above the S&P 500 for my results to be considered to be non-random, but then again, I don't know if it's fair to compare my results to professional money managers because if I'd been running a bigger pool of money, my frictional costs might go up, which could erode my results. Also, I placed bets in accordance with my confidence level and, as a result, the portfolio was more concentrated than most, which may have produced some unusual measurements if you calculated the semi-variance, Sharpe ratio, or beta of my investments.

Escape From NY: I Rub a Bull's Balls

Impressions of New York

Well, my NYC trip was eventful. I don't think I'll get that job at the investment bank, but I did get a call from a different headhunter on friday about a different investment bank, for which I am less qualified, so I got that going for me.

I'm trying to decide whether I would want to go to NYC at all. Walking around there, reminded me of the things I hate about New York: the crowds, the traffic, the urine on the subways. I took the Amtrak Acela from DC to NY. It's better than flying because

• it goes from Downtown DC to Midtown NYC, so there's no need to ride in taxis that smell like wet goats, going to and from the airport;
• there's no TSA nazis making you take off your shoes and letting their hands linger inappropriately as they make sure that bulge in your pants really isn't a medium calibre firearm;
• on a train you never worry about the wing falling off because there are no wings on a train.

Within seconds of arriving I was greeted with real NYC hostility that is usually reserved for tourists (since I was rolling a carry on bag with me, they must've thought I wasn't local). I had the following happen to me over the course of a few days:

• fat angry black woman yelling at me because she didn't want to burn the two calories necessary for her to walk around my rolling bag;
• crazy white homeless guy saying "fuck you, I'm a fuckin' vet you wall street cocksucker" when I walked around him, ignoring his shaking change cup in my face (note to self, if going anywhere near homeless people, make sure not to wear such nice suits);
• agressive chinese woman, who was less than 5' tall shoved me out the way to get on the F train first while muttering something in either mandarin or cantonese. Despite her apparent rush, we both reach the station at the same time--because we were on the same train, not in the Amazing Race.
  

It was almost like a Bennetton ad. Yes, that's what NYC is, a Bennetton Ad with angry, ugly people.

My impressions of NYC:

1. There should be no unwanted pregnancies in NYC. There is a Duane Reade pharmacy every 3 blocks in the city. Anyone who can’t walk 3 blocks to get some condoms is probably too lazy to be entrusted with something like parenthood.
2. In midtown, every other shop is 10 feet wide and 20 feet deep and they all sell the same things. Yankees caps, cell phone accessories, and I [heart] NY t-shirts. The larger stores also sell shot glasses with pictures of the empire state building and statue of liberty. Either none of these stores make money or the tourists like to buy a lot of crap that would be the bane of a yard sale;
3. Things are more expensive now. Even Gray's Papaya is raising the price of their hot dogs to $1.25. I went there and had a hot dog and a papaya drink for old times sake. Since I left NY I haven't found anyplace besides Gray's that sells Papaya drinks, but that's probably because they taste like shit and cause cancer;
4. There is probably no internet in all of Manhattan because there are porn shops every other block in midtown. They also advertise that they sell Kung Fu Movies, but I didn't go in. If someone I know saw me coming out of one, I don't think they would believe that I am still searching for a copy of "The Five Deadly Venoms".
   

Another thing that bugs me in NY is that the apartments are really small. Before I bought the ninja fortress, I lived in a 435 square foot studio in Dupont Circle (like DC's lame version of Greenwhich Village, for those of you in NYC). In Manhattan, I'd be paying a lot of money to live in a studio that was no where near as big as that. My cousin, lives in a nice building in the east village, but her place is so small that she doesn't have a TV or dining table.

She does have HER priorities in order though. She's a shoe designer, and she's got lots of shoes. So even though she doesn't have a room for a TV, she's got almost two closets full of nothing but shoes.




Here is my faboulous cousin. She's in China right now, looking at some sweatshops.














See

















I don't know how many shoes she's got (I don't have time to count that high, but I did notice she's got at least 13 pairs of boots.

Here's some of them.









We hung out and went to hipster bars in NYC. Another thing that bugs me about New York is the pretense. Three different hipster bars, yet none of them had Coronas. I was told by a snooty waitress that Coronas are only served at places for the Bridge and Tunnel crowd.
Really? I got news for you, sweetie. Get off your high horse. You're a waitress, not Paris Hilton. We look about the same age and I'm sure I've got more stamps in my Passport than you do, so fcuk you and get me my beer.

Back to the story. So we hung with her, a couple of models and a designer she knows. A fun time was had by all.



Here's a pic of a model, my cousin and the designer.







The next day I had to go downtown to Wall Street to rub a bull's balls. Perhaps an explanation is in order. A few blocks down from Wall Street is a giant brass (bronze?) sculpture of a bull. A lot of tourists take pictures of themselves with the bull's horns. I was after a different part of its anatomy:

***FLASHBACK TO SEVERAL YEARS AGO***

Scene: Me talking to my friend, Duckets, who works at an investment bank.

Duckets: No, that balls thing is a myth. Most people on wall street don't believe in that. The only time you see that is on a big trading day when the market is tanking or something. Then you'll see a line of traders behind the bull waiting for their turn.

Me: Have you done it?

Duckets: Not very often. Only when I really need it.

Me: So you only rub the Bull's balls on special occassions?

Since I don't visit NYC every day, I guess that qualifies as a special occassion and I decided to rub the bull's balls for luck. In case you thought I was making up that story about the balls. Take a look at the following picture. You'll notice that the balls are much shinier than the rest of the sculpture.



Bulls Balls

Unconventional Thoughts on Father's Day

On Father’s Day, I usually think about the second time my Dad almost died.

After I graduated High School, I wanted to hang out and party and, generally be a degenerate, but my dad had other plans. My choices were to go to college or go to work with him--there wasn't really a third choice.

My Dad has his own construction company that varied in size depending on how the economy was doing in New York. He had as few as 5 employees at one point, and 30 people at another. I didn’t like the idea of doing construction with him because he’s not the easiest person to get along with and construction is hard work. I think he thought that “real work” would convince me to go college, but real work also meant real money and I wasn’t too upset with the gig.

After working construction for a few months, I was getting stronger without realizing it. After lifting 80lb bags of cement and pieces of drywall for 8 hours a day, I was getting stronger than I would've from going to the gym.

The day of the accident, we were doing a demolition job in Harlem. Demolition sucks and normally he wouldn’t have taken the job, but things were a little slow and he had 15 people to keep busy so he took it.

I was working on the second floor with my cousin, Little Joe, when I heard a giant crashing sound and saw that a giant metal staircase had come crashing down. There was a wave of dust that came down with it and washed over us. I was coughing and choking. When I looked over at the mass of twisted metal, I saw two white things staring back at me through the cloud of dust; a pair of eyes. It was my father.

I knew my father was working on the sixth floor, I was on the second. This was not good.

I ran up to the stairs. I saw my father’s expressionless face and it terrified me. He was staring straight ahead and his face was covered in dust. There was blood coming out of the corners of his mouth, his nostrils and his ears. His eyes were bloodshot.

His arm was wrapped in the railing of the stairs and his foot was twisted and trapped in the railing in a position that made it look like it wasn’t even part of his body. The metal had warped and wrapped around him like a serpent that was trying to devour him.

I grabbed the metal railing by his foot and felt that it was warm. As the metal bent and deformed it became warmer and felt alive. I tried frantically to move it, but it wouldn’t yield an inch. As strong as I was, I was useless against it. As I tried in a panic to free his foot I didn’t realize that I was hurting him. He put his hand on my shoulder and said “calmate” (calm down). When he mouthed the words I saw the bloody film on his teeth and really freaked out. I yelled for my cousin Little Joe.

My cousin little Joe is built like a linebacker, which is probably why the position he played in high school was linebacker. He came and helped and somehow we managed to get his foot free. We each grabbed an arm and carried him a few feet away and yelled for an ambulance.

After what felt like hours, the ambulance and fire truck arrived and the managed to get him out of there on a backboard with the help of a fire engine ladder. When I saw him on the backboard I started to really panic. As much as I fought with the old man, there wasn’t a second when I didn’t wish I could trade places with him right them.

***

At the hospital I looked around. I kept thinking that this was some kind of bad dream, that it couldn’t be real. I noticed the people, the grey walls with the peeling paint and tried to convince myself that it wasn’t really happening. Then I smelled that antiseptic hospital smell and I realized that it wasn’t imaginary. I saw a sea of faces staring at me and I couldn’t figure out why. I caught a glimpse of Indian man holding his crying child and he looked at me like he felt sorry for me. That enraged me. If he felt sorry for me, it had to be because something was wrong—something that I wouldn’t admit.



“What the fuck are you looking at!!!”

I grabbed the construction helmet off my head and threw it across the room. It landed at his feet.


“Hey!” A guard yelled. He got up from his chair by the door and walked toward me. I stood up and my body tensed up as I balled my hand tightly into a fist and waited for him to get closer so I could shove my fist in his face.

A heavy-set black nurse came from behind the reception desk and got between me and the security guard. I was filled with rage and didn’t know why she got in front of me, but she did the one thing I wasn’t expecting--she hugged me. “it’s allllright child.” She said. She caught me completely by surprise and I did something that I hadn’t done since I was seven years old: I cried.

“you’ll be alllright, jus’ go to dee baffroom and wash your face, child” she said in her musical Caribbean voice. The melodic cadence of Trinidadian, Jamaican or West Indian voices always remind me singing and for some reason that calmed me down a bit. She walked me to the bathroom while she argued with the guard who was unsure of what to do and wanted to call the cops.

“I tole you I’m takin’ kerrr of him, no gone back to your post and leave ‘im be. I’m takin kerrr of ‘im”

When I walked into the bathroom I looked in the mirror saw what the old man, and everyone else in the emergency room had been staring at. My face was hidden behind a macabre mask of dust, sweat and blood. Down the entire right side of my face was painted a muddy mixture of dried blood in an abstract pattern and there were two rivers from my eyes to my cheeks carved by the tears. I saw there was a lot of blood and realized that if I saw someone like that I would’ve stared too.

I walked to sink and let the water run. I splashed it on my face and as I washed the dust and blood off I looked on my scalp to find the place where I had been cut. I looked for it, but I couldn’t find it. Where did all that blood come from? Then I realized something that made me sick to my stomach. It was my father’s blood. I looked in the sink and as I saw the dark brown water swirl into the drain I thought about my father. If he died today, that would be all that was left of him.

I kept splashing cold water on my face, but I couldn’t wash away that feeling with soap and water.

I replayed the accident over and over again. I heard that you’re not supposed to move someone when they have an accident, but I did. Was that a mistake? What if I should’ve left him there ‘till the ambulance arrived. What if I didn’t move him fast enough. Maybe I did something wrong, and if he died today, it would be my fault.

When I left the bathroom, the Guard was still there with the nurse.

“Go’on for a walk outside an’ get some fresh errr” she sang.


I went for a walk outside.

There were two people outside smoking cigarettes. They must’ve sensed something was up and offered me a cigarette. Even though I smoked enough pot in high school to do entitle me to do cameos in every Cheech and Chong movie, I didn’t smoke cigarettes, but I took one anyway. My hand was shaking as I puffed away at it while I walked around the block a few times.

I ignored the people on the street and just walked and thought. I know a lot of useless trivia. I know that raphe nuclei are the only neuro transmitters that use serotinin; and that construction helmets are made from high-impact polystyrene. But the one piece of trivia that stuck in my mind is about fatalities. If you fall from less than 3 stories, your odds of survival are close to 100%. If you fall from 6 stories, your odds of survival are close to 0%. My father had fallen five stories. This was not good.

My Dad has worked in construction since he was 15 and is freakishly strong. When I was a kid, he was in a fight and someone hit him in the head with a tire iron. He picked up the guy and threw him through a car windshield. I hoped that he would be strong enough to survive this, but I wasn’t really sure.

***

Postscript:

Well, I don't feel like doing a part 2, for obvious reasons, so I'll sum up quickly. He ended up surviving the fall, but broke his back and both his ankles. For a while they weren't sure if he'd be able to walk again. But we had him transferred from that crappy hospital to the Center for Joint Diseases where he was operated on by the same doctor who worked on Gloria Estefan's spine. They put 3 pins in his back and he required a lot of physical therapy, but recovered pretty well. His gait isn't quite the same, and he can't bend from the waist like before, but that's really minor considering what he's been through.

After that accident he shut down his construction company and made me promise to go back to college--the law school thing is a different story.

Anyway, I guess you don't really realize how important certain people are in your life until something like this happens. So Happy Father's Day everyone!!!

Miscellany

My friend has an organization that has balls. I mean that literally. And this Saturday, is one of those balls. There is a ball on Saturday at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. So if you want to see one of my friend's balls, then you should go. There will be two, count 'em, two live bands, food, drinks, and me in a Tuxedo. Since I didn't get any good shots of me in a Tux at the wedding I went to, I'll try to get some of me at this event. You can buy tickets on the website. Bring your wife, and if she can't make it, then bring someone else's wife. What's a little adultery between friends?

In our Whaaaaaaaa? segment, why haven't the US newspapers picked up on this? Our moron president gets his watch stolen right in front of his crack Secret Service squad. Good job guys. I know you couldn't keep the First Daughter's wallet from being stolen right under your noses, but this...hahahhahaha.

Also, Bush should keep his mouth shut...always. How do you think the American people would react if the Russian President showed up in Texas and demanded independence for the parts of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California that were inhabited by illegal aliens from Mexico? Well, when you show up Albania and demand "independence" for Kosovo so that Albanians living there illegally can take the land from Serbia, don't you think that's a leeetle inflamatory? It's bad enough that halfwits like Madeline Not-All-That-Bright turned Yugoslavia into a bloodbath, why not send Bush in there to stoke up ethnic hatred and see what happens? Since you're plan for Iraq worked out so well, why not give the Serbs some tips on what to do in Kosovo, right?

In other news, I'll be in NY 'for the next couple of days. This is related to my long-term goal of running my own hedge fund one day. A head hunter called me a few weeks ago about a gig at an investment bank in NYC. I wouldn't mind an extra $100,000 a year in salary, but I don't know if that's going to help with my long-term goal of running my own fund and being my own boss. I don't know if I really want this job, but I know that I at least want to be offerred the job so that I can turn it down if I want. It's always good to have more than one date to the prom even if you are a hot chick with great tits. And I want these NY bankers to be in love with my professional tits. "My milkshake...is better than yours..."

In still other news, a few days ago someone, in my professional capacity, called me an asshole. He said it as he slammed the phone down and I'm guessing he didn't think I heard it. In case you're thinking this upset me, you'd be wrong. I think the feeling was mutual and I kinda like the fact that I ruined this guy's day and got to him enough that he couldn't even wait until the phone receiver was in the cradle until he let fly his little passive aggressive rant at me. Hehehehhehee.

Hopefully I can post more soon. I'll think of something, but my mind is mush right now. Since I don't feel like thinking for myself right now, does anyone have any suggestions for me on what to do? (besides "go fcuk yourself").