WHATTHEHELLAREYOUWAITINFO?

Intro

Well, another zine to add to the bloated market.  Is this really necessary?

For you, it probably isn't.  But, you might enjoy it anyway, so read on.

For me, it's absolutely necessary.  I have bad jokes to make, things to attempt, and a budding standup act to test out.  I have silly anecdotes I share often, which haven't seen much print apart from an old blog post here and there.  There are subjects out there I wish to discuss, review, dissect, heckle, praise, bash, fear, and love.  There's stuff I enjoy sharing, without the mundane chatter of a blog or the surrender of someone else's media outlet.  This is pretty much my mind, vomiting onto your screen.  Keep a roll of paper towels handy.

I also wanted to make something self-contained.  Aside from the Creative Commons license in the page footer's copyright info, you won't find hyperlinks to anywhere else on the Internet.  This is a browsing dead-end, folks.  I don't have to worry about what any other site is doing, keeping things updated, and so on.  There are also no images in these issues.  Download this issue now, reload it in 100 years, and it will look and function exactly the same.   If it doesn't, feel free to look me up and I'll give you something for your troubles.

And, if there's feedback out there for any of this, I'd very much like to get it.   Email me at rob (at) this domain!

Now, on with the good stuff, probably.  There's funny, serious, and everything in between.

Enjoy!

Rob

Things I miss, and would like back even though I wouldn't really benefit from their return

• Light brown M&Ms
• A sweatshirt I owned in the 1980s, with an iron-on print of that Farrah Fawcett poster from the 1970s
• My old TRS-80 Color Computer 2
• Pretzel Combos with mustard filling
• Certain people
• My Etch-a-Sketch animator
• My old chunky Game Boy with that fist-sized battery pack attachment which attached to your belt
• My old toy KITT from Knight Rider, which talked... albeit only in Spanish since that was the only one the store had left when mom did her Christmas shopping
• My old record player
• The ability to juggle two or even three tennis balls in one hand
• The ability to present dried macaroni and glitter creatively glued to construction paper as a valid gift, rather than all that pesky shopping business

Things I very much miss, and really want back even though it's pretty much impossible

• That "this is my insanely cool little secret world" feeling of signing online, back when only nerds had computers, and only really nerdy nerds had modems
• Certain people
• A few ex-boyfriends my mom had in the 1980s, who each did their best to bond with the single mom's little son, meaning tons of presents for ME!!!
• Arcades when they were fun
• The notion that grownups have all the answers
• Looking forward to the next Douglas Adams book
• Pre-home-video trips to the movies, which felt like a special occasion full of promise and wonder, even if the movie sucked canal water
• My favorite city's old skyline
• Being forced to get through a difficult video game by myself, with no temptation to jump online and find cheats
• The days when I'd get only one or two email spams a month, if that many

Things I miss a little bit, but are really better off in the past

• Certain people
• My childhood love of breaking thermometers and playing with the mercury
• My marginally less toxic childhood habit of chewing on copper pennies
• 1200 bps modem tones
• The Sega Master System
• Mercilessly baiting school teachers
• Mercilessly baiting fellow students
• Feeling obligated to videotape every episode of my favorite TV shows, since before DVD releases and fileshares, missing a show meant you had to wait months and months for the rerun, provided it didn't get cancelled first
• Waiting for the new TV listings, and immediately turning to the part listing all the movies on that week - for example, I'd obsess over the horrendous possibility of missing some channel, somewhere playing a Back to the Future film
• Knowing with absolute certainty what I want to be when I grow up

An open letter to Jennifer Lopez, Halle Berry, Tara Reid, Katie Holmes, Mandy Moore, Hilary Duff, and Lindsay Lohan

Stop making movies.  Learn a trade.  Contribute to society in some way, shape, or form.

I'm not joking here.  Do some temping, flip french fries, mix cement, study marine biology, anything that doesn't involve ever stepping in front of any sort of movie camera or audience again is acceptable.

Not singing, though, as those among you who have tried have demonstrated that you can't do that properly either.

But really, whatever you do, stop making movies, doing interviews, and generally going on as though you were actresses. You aren't.

Love,

Rob

Filling in

"Welcome to Action News Seven!  I'm Larry Langendrone, filling in for Warren Capstick, who is on vacation."

Does anyone care?

"Good evening.  This is NBS Nightly News.  I'm Joan Aglet.  Frieda Van Armbell is on maternity leave."

Why does the public need to know this?  Just read the news for us already.

Are we so set in our ways, so dependent on our routines, so enmeshed in the illusion that the faces inside our televisions are actually people we know and trust, that we require an explanation when it's a different face reading the TelePrompTer?

It's the TV news, people!  We don't require this sort of self-apologetic quest for approval from our other servitors.

"Hi, welcome to Taco Bell!  I'm tortilla-folder Stefano Wonkfurter, filling in for Hector Cromberelli, who is home with a slight head cold."

"Hello, welcome to Conglomo Cinemas!  I'm Jerrica Gainleem, tearing your ticket in place of Willie Logranker, who is on honeymoon in Saint Tropez with his lovely new wife Beatrice."

"Please step out of the car, and place your hands on the hood.  I'm Officer Dianna Krebfin, taking over for Officer Liam Tongletti, who is in the hospital having a cyst removed."

Can't argue with that

One night my mom, my sister Fina, and I were at a diner.

Fina and mom are huge fans of that Desperate Housewives show.   For some reason, they started to wonder if they were missing the show so we could dine.

They asked me when the show starts, and on which channel.  I haven't seen it, and don't know.

"Go online and find out," I advised Fina.

"I don't know what channel it's on."

"So Google it."

"Rob," replied Fina in her trademark deadpan, "when I Google 'Desperate Housewives,' I don't get the show.

Bad Tokyopop!

You release a manga-sized Family Guy comic.book

I buy it, thinking a great TV series has a new comic series out.

It turns out to be just screen-grabs of a couple of episodes, shoved into really ugly-shaped comic panels, with word balloons added.  You call it "Cinemanga."

I call it crap, because I could have done better with MS Paint and a DivX rip.

The images are even pixelated, for Pete's sake!  Have some respect.

Freestyle!

You know that whole Eminem 8 Mile idea that the way to "make it" in the rap world is to compete with other rappers in "freestyling" contests?

For those unfamiliar with freestyling, it's the practice where some background music will play, and two aspiring rappers take turns rhyming random words in an improvised rap at one another.  These freestyle raps usually end up consisting solely of each contestant rapping in earnest to the other in improper and cringe-inducing rhymes how he is a better rapper and will emerge victorious.

It's the rap equivalent of a Pokemon cartoon, only with measurably less intelligent content.

I don't see this as a bad thing.  Stupid, laughable, silly, devoid of artistic value, but not bad.  In fact, I think freestyling should spread to other professions.  Why should rappers have all the mindless hatred-fueled fun?

Imagine, if you will, two young men at the center of a crowd, on a sidewalk in some low-rent part of a generic city.  They look angrily into each others eyes, out for blood, because only one of them can win this contest, and use the prize money to pull himself up out of the hard-knock ghetto life, and into fame and fortune.

The crowd settles...

Someone gives the signal!

Pulling out pen and paper, a young Werner Heisenberg and a budding Niels Bohr start furiously scribbling anger-charged physics theories at one another.

Because when there's only room for one nuclear physicist in the hood, you gotta be the best to get respect.

Trust

Dan Rather reads a news story that turns out to be ill-advised and unproven.  He takes one for the team, and quits his job so the company can save face... the media conglomerate consisting of hundreds, even thousands, who each had a hand in the end product that is the report he read off a screen into the TV cameras.

It's his face we saw, and the words were spoken in his voice, therefore it's his fault!

When someone sues McDonald's after finding McShards of McGlass in their McChicken, is it the kid at the drive-through wearing the headset who is blamed?  Is it this person alone you are trusting not to McSneeze in your McShake?

No, it's the company.  To start with, there is the general crowd of employees in the back.   Some cook your food, some assemble your food, some mop the lard off the floor, but each has a hand (metaphorically or literally) in your actual food item.

Then there are the countless people who handle the food items before that group even gets their plastic gloves on any of it.  The meat-packers, the suppliers, the cattle-ranchers, and lots and lots of other people who at some point handle what you're about to eat that night.

If just one of these untold thousands of people make some terrible mistake resulting in your Extra Value Meal containing a small metal object that resembles something larger and more expensive you saw in the Museum of Modern Art, resulting in an unplanned lip piercing and lengthy lawsuits, is it the fault of that one kid who thanked you, told you to please drive around, and exchanged goods for cash?  The one face you saw out of the whole chain?

It was in this case.  Dan read the words given him, and polls showed people didn't "trust" him anymore.  Therefore, someone else will now read the cue cards he used to, and his dignified career of repeating the work of lots of faceless people for our benefit came to an end.

Listen you haiku-reading ingrates,

I can use a different amount of syllables if I damn well want to,

Bite me if you don't like it.

Young RTF Adventures

At the reception after my mom's second wedding, I was showing my brand new cousin the stuff in my room.

Like any ten-year-old nerd worth his pocket protector, I had a well-stocked junk drawer, filled with broken electronics, spare parts, tools, and similar goodies.

He wanted to play with something, and grabbed an old broken camera, which still had a charge in the flash capacitor.

Long story short - the groom's side of the family was pretty much introduced to me as the little bastard who gave their dear young boy an electric shock and sent him crying to his dad, the groom's brother, in the middle of the wedding party.

Really?

Years and years ago, when I signed up to host one of my early websites, I got a few extra email accounts which I never really used.  A while back, someone I knew asked to borrow one for a while.  I agreed, and didn't think much of it for a year or so.

Fast forward another year, to a point not long after I first met my best friend Grey.   She needed an email account to play around with which couldn't be traced back to her, so I gallantly offered her one of my spares.  I was still at the "try desperately to impress her in any way that I can" stage of our relationship, and tried to do her all the geek favors I could.

All was well, until she punched up the account and was greeted by an inbox full of naughty pictures, left by the last guy to use the thing.  My jaw hit the floor, and I still remember the look she gave me.

Of course, I immediately stuttered out some semblance of the explanation, but really, what would you have thought?  "Oh, right, these are some other guy's lipstick lesbians. Yep, definitely believe you."

87441

I had a friend in Florida whom I "met" back in my AOL-using days, early 1990s.

She was great, we had a zillion things in common, and our relationship kept threatening to progress to another level.  Alas, the fact that we lived 1000 miles apart, the fact that she was nearly as old then as I am now and I was still a goofy teenager, and the fact that my entire life suddenly fell into a huge pit due to a few factors, we lost touch.

This was, of course, a couple of years before everyone and their mother were falling for each other over the Internet and travelling all over the place to meet up.

Anyway, almost ten years later I had the urge to put her name into Google.  Lo and behold, she's got an amazingly successful life going on, the kind she had been hoping for.   I feel really good about that.  She deserves every bit of it.  She helped make one of the lousier points of my life brighter, and I anonymously wish her all the best.

Twinkie Wiener Sandwich

Made popular by Weird Al Yankovic, in his movie UHF.

Ingredients:

• 1 hot dog, prepared
• 1 twinkie, unwrapped
• Sprayable cheese spread, such as Easy Cheese (optional)
• Glass of milk (very optional)

Place the twinkie round-side-down on a plate.  Cut along the bottom of the twinkie, only going halfway through.  Insert the hot dog as you would in a hot dog bun.  Top with a line of spray cheese.  Dunk in the milk.  Enjoy!

Talk

HOST:  Welcome back to the Live Call-In Show, here on talk radio.  We've been speaking with our guest, a political writer who writes books which celebrate his party's political opinions, while offering biting criticism of the opposing party.  I personally enjoy this writer's work, since the opinions expressed within are very close to my own.

GUEST:  Thank you for having me.  I enjoy your show and listen to it often, finding myself agreeing with much of what you are saying.

HOST:  It's my pleasure.  We were talking during the break, about the issues which you discuss in your new book..

GUEST:  Yes, and we agree on them, which I feel is very important.

HOST:  I agree.  We're going to open up the phone lines now, so you the listeners can talk with our guest...  Hello caller, you're on the air.

CALLER:  Hi!  I just want to say I love your book, and I agree with everything you wrote.

GUEST:  Thank you very much!

HOST:  Thank you!  Okay, let's go to the next caller.. you're on the air!

CALLER:  Hi!  Long time listener, first time caller.  I'm a big fan of today's guest's work.

GUEST:  Thank you.

CALLER:  I just wanted to ask about this one issue you wrote about...  I agree with what you said, and wanted to know how best to deal with someone who doesn't?

GUEST:  Well, I feel it's important to let them know how you feel on the subject, and you can easily do that by giving them a copy of my book.

CALLER:  Thank you!  Thank you so much.  Keep up the good work!

GUEST:  Thank you!

HOST:  That was great, I love it when this show can really reaches out to people like that.

GUEST:  I agree, that's important.  I'm glad our work can do that.

HOST:  I agree.  Caller, you're on the air with today's guest.

CALLER:  Hi, um, I wanted to ask you something about your new book.

GUEST:  Please, go ahead.

CALLER:  Well, I was reading it at a friend's house, it's usually not the sort of thing I pick up, but I really find myself taking issue with a bit of what you wrote.

GUEST:  I beg your pardon?

CALLER:  Well, a lot of what you say on these issues, I really don't agree with.   And I think that if you took into consideration -

>CLICK<

HOST:  Had to cut that off.  I'm sorry, we get a call like that once in a while.  Live radio, you know..

GUEST:  Never mind, it was probably someone's idea of a joke.

HOST:  We try to screen the calls, but every now and then..

GUEST:  Don't let's worry about it.

HOST:  I agree.  We'll take a short break, and when we come back we'll take some more phone calls from our audience.  You're listening to talk radio's Live Call-In Show, and we'll be right back with today's guest.

No logo

I cut the labels off of all my new clothes.  I figure, unless a clothing manufacturer is paying me, I'm not going to advertise them.

This is why I can't shop at Old Navy.  Pretty much every last article of clothing in there, right down to baby socks, has a big Old Navy logo on somewhere prominent.

That's a sweet deal for them, if you think about it... people come in droves, to pay you for the privilege of advertising you on their bodies.

Someone was in the news recently for selling the rights to tattoo ads on his body.   People will look at that and call him insane... while themselves covered in logos they paid to wear.

I remember when the big thing was Jordache jeans.  Designer jeans with a big embroidered picture of a horse, right on the butt pocket.  Everyone had them.  That horse adorned the hindquarters of every actress, model, and hopeless follower of trends.

I remember thinking... if I wear these jeans with a big horse on my butt, shouldn't that horse be hanging out on some farm with a picture of me on its butt?

The implications of that would be mind-blowing.

That's not to say I don't advertise.. I have tons of t-shirts, badges, and such featuring things I like, stuff and people I don't mind advertising.  I have shirts for projects in which my friends are involved, shirts pushing artists I feel should be more well-known than they are, stuff of which I'm a fan and like being identifiable as such.

But not a single garment I own features a big logo for the multinational corporation who - gasp! - made a red shirt that looks like every other red shirt ever made, except for a big "RedShirtCo" logo and designer price tag.

Live each day like it's the last;
lots of crying and apologizing.

Super Suit

Marvel Comics is suing the makers of the popular superhero-themed online roleplaying game City of Heroes, claiming that the PC game's character creation engine allows their users to - should they so choose - create their own superhero characters with looks and powers uncomfortably close to those of Marvel's copyrighted characters.

If this lawsuit is resolved to Marvel's benefit, I advise you all to sell all your stock in companies that make paper, paints, canvas, crayons, and any other artwork implements.

Strangers

I like to draw portraits, but I hate that feeling of drawing someone I know, worrying about whether or not they're going to kick my ass because of some feature I included / excluded / magnified / minimized, or that it'll be just that far off from their own self-image.  It opens up the floor to all sorts of drama.  I'll still draw a friend if they'd like me to, and I'll still love doing it, but there will always be that nagging worry in the back of my head that they aren't going to like what they see when they see what I see.

I solved this problem by inventing one of my favorite hobbies - drawing strangers.

On a long train ride, for example.. if I have the necessary supplies, I'll find someone I can see clearly and surreptitiously sketch them.  I'll refine the drawing until either they get up to leave at a station before mine, or I get up to leave and they're staying on, at which point I'll silently give it to them.  No signatures, no identifying info on my part, nothing like that.

This way I get to practice my artwork, and give people something they don't usually get (how often do you get a drawing of yourself?) without having to worry about consequences.

No matter if they take it home and frame it, toss it in the trash, look at it and go "huh?" or whatever.. I can rest easy in the knowledge that, if even for the briefest of moments, someone saw themselves the way I saw them.

That may be why I'm so willing to do it for strangers... the better I know them, the more I'm trying to convey in my drawing.  I try and convey things, moods, memories, stuff like that you share when you know someone.

With a stranger, it's just a visual thing.  'You have this sort of hair, such-and-such facial features, and you're wearing these clothes.  That's all I know about you, and I'm not expected to know any more.  So here it is, and I don't care if you think it's crap since it'd only be some stranger's opinion, so HA!  You're welcome.'

Of course, I don't say all that out loud.  Usually, it's more of a "Here you go," a smile, and a wave goodbye.

Scratch

For many years, I was in the arcade business.  When I managed one, one of my duties was to make sure the store's cash supply was always stocked for singles.

People would always need singles.  Customers who didn't want to buy $20 worth of game tokens needed singles, and that was of course part of the job.

Traditionally in the mall in which I worked, the arcade was also an "unofficial" source of change for other establishments.  Your booth run out of change?  Go see the arcade guy, he'll help you out.  He gives out change for a living.

I never had a problem with helping out my fellow retail slaves.  Plus, I'd get fringe benefits... if the pretzel guy needed change, for example, he'd usually throw me a pretzel or a drink or something in return.  The guy in the video game store I always haunted gave me a free discount card you normally pay for, and would throw me his employee discount besides.  If the really cute girl from the cellphone store needed change... well, she was really cute, and it gave me an excuse to talk to her for a while.

The only downside was that I'd constantly need to keep an eye on my own single supply for the store.  It dwindled much faster than just the normal store activities justified, which meant I'd have to get change from the mall's bank every chance I could, in bulk.  Not difficult or wrong in any way, just damned inconvenient, as needing to hit the bank every day before the store opened would force me to show up to work earlier, lest I be stuck on line at the bank alongside every other store manager who's supposed to be opening up for the day.

One salvation from these headaches came in the form of someone I knew, who just happened to be moonlighting as a stripper.  For obvious reasons, most of her pay was in the form of singles. She didn't want to carry around a huge wad of cash all the time, so she'd bring them to my arcade.  We both won.

And no, I didn't see anything wrong with giving those same singles out to people at work, other stores, or customers with small children.  Really, if you think about it, it is in no way any less clean than any other money you might handle.  Just because you know where a little bit of it has been, does not mean the rest of your cash hasn't.

Besides, since I worked with a few hundred strangers per day, many of them children, I had some really good antibacterial hand soap in the employee bathroom.

It came highly recommended by the lady in the skin care store.  She let me use her employee discount.