A Song I Came Up With at the Gas Station

I present to you the themesong to Left 4 Dead

four unlikely friends

on an amazing adventure

fightin' zombies left and right

gonna save the world together

throwin' molotovs

and protecting one another

in this post apocalyptic world

all they have now is each other

because they are

left

4

dead

zombies everywhere but they're still having fun

they are

left 4 dead

gonna get through this with friendship and guns

the smoker is wheezing

the hunter is ready

the boomer is blowin'

and the tank's holdin' steady

but they can get through it

as long as they stick togetherrrrrr

they are leffffffft

forrrrrrrr

deaddddddd

Manganime Philstravaganza - PART 1

There is nothing.

NO. THING.

I love more than getting people into things. 5 years after it went off the air, people still come up to me and tell me that even though they thought I was a dork back then they have just started watching the OC and love it, and want to talk to me about it.

It's the best goddamn feeling in the world.

Now last night my buddy David (who I have gotten into several TV shows, to his chagrin and joy) was all "hey I'd like to get into some manganime can you suggest anything?"

That is not the kind of opening you should give me.

This list is mostly just my favorite stuff, meant largely for someone who has not watched much anime since the heyday of Toonami and isn't really ingrained in the culture.

Also, listen. I kind of really went overboard with this. It's kind of massive. I'd ask that if you think you'll respect me any less for it pretend I made a witty joke and ended the post. Thanks.

---

One good thing to start with might be:

Bakuman - http://www.onemanga.com/Bakuman/

This is from the duo who did Death Note, but it's actually a lighthearted manga about two boys who want to become famous mangakas. It's cool because it shows you the process manga goes through, which is way more complicated than you might think.

It also gives you a good cursory look at different genres, and not only how they're constructed but how they sell and what goes into making them. It's also got some nice characters, and a cute little romance story. And hella nice art. An anime is coming soon, but there's only 66 or something chapters, so you could easily get through it in a couple of sittings. A very nice introduction to the manga world.

A note on these next two. A lot of what I enjoy is your basic shounen battle manga, and I'm not alone in that. The top 10 selling mangas and anime are almost entirely shounen battle manga. It's a simple formula but it's entertaining as all hell.

But when you're starting from scratch, anime really isn't the way to go with these. Because they're ongoing, Bleach for example has 250 episodes, which works out to 80-something hours. And, because it comes out weekly the anime has to kind of drag things out to catch up, or interrupt the story for filler arcs to give the manga time.

This is the classic DBZ problem, where there's twenty minutes of yelling and powering up for every five minutes of actual fighting. Most shounen anime are MUCH better at doing that sort of thing now, but I'm getting off on a tangent.

THE POINT IS: With shounen it's probably better to go read all the manga.

Bleach - http://www.onemanga.com/Bleach/

Ichigo Kurosaki has always been able to see ghosts. He's a juvenile delinquent who actually just wants to protect his friends and family. One day, a Shinigami, a god of death, appears. She offers him her power so he can defeat a Hollow, the corrupted version of a dead person's soul. As he himself becomes a Shinigami he gets drawn into their battles and fights about a billion dudes all over the place.

The crux of the story is that most of the characters have Zanpakuto, spirit katanas that change into various forms. They can become bigger swords, moving clouds of dust, giant monsters and other things I wont spoil. Probably the most fun part of the series is gradually seeing the reveals of whose swords do what.

I really really like Bleach. It's a classic shounen formula but it has this edginess that gives it a really unique flavor. Honestly, it's a little more edgy in the beginning, and loses some of its street charm later on. However, it becomes so action-packed and fun that you don't really care. Tite Kubo is a goddamn idea man, and he crams about ten billion unique characters with unique weapons into the story.

In fact, as you read on you'll realize that at one point in the story literally every goddamn character in the series is in a fight at the same time. This means he cuts back and forth a lot, but everyone's so fleshed out and interesting you barely notice.

A note on the anime. It probably would be a drag and a timesink to watch the whole anime back to back, but the Bleach anime has absolutely SUPERB art direction. Because it's been airing nearly every week for years now, the animation ranges, with movie-quality animation for important fights and so-so for other parts, but the general tone of the show is really really good. It may actually be worth watching, or at the very least once you're done with the manga you might want to start watching the anime every week too.

Katekyo Hitman Reborn! - http://www.onemanga.com/Katekyo_Hitman_Reborn/

Tsunayoshi Sawada is known as "Loser Tsuna" at school, because he is terrible at everything. One day, his mom hires a home tutor, who turns out to be a one year-old in a suit and fedora named Reborn. He tells Tsuna he's a hitman from the Vongola mafia family, and he's here to train the only living heir.

As Reborn trains Tsuna to be a mafia boss, he shoots him with the Dying Will bullet. When it kills you, you are reborn with the ability to correct whatever for dying regret was. All sorts of bizarre people come into Tsuna's life, and shenanigans abound.

Then shit gets real.

Reborn was originally a gag manga, a comedy. It had some fights once in a while, but in general it was just funny situations. Of course, doing a manga like that every week is a lot of work, plus it's hard to keep sales up, so a lot of gag manga end up becoming battle manga, which is what happens to Reborn around 60 chapters in.

Now, as a comedy Reborn was GOLD. It's actually really frickin' hilarious, and it was kind of sad to see it change. However, Amano Akira makes some really interesting fighting styles, and has ended up making one of my favorite battle mangas ever. I don't want to post any of the later openings or fight scenes because it's half the fun seeing how all the normal kids end up as fighters with special abilities, but Reborn is just a really unique manga.

Also, it is written and drawn by, and read mostly by, women. Also, stay away from the anime. It's not nearly as good.

I'm including exactly one sports manga because David asked about it, and that is:

Prince of Tennis - http://www.onemanga.com/Prince_of_Tennis/

Prince of Tennis is goddamned ridiculous. RIDICULOUS. It's also incredibly fun. Basically it's about a middle school tennis team that does all sorts of impossible stuff with tennis balls, in a world where 9th graders look like they're 25.

The characters are all pretty interesting, and there are a TON of guys from all the different schools. It can drag on a little but for the most part it's a nice departure from the usual thing.

Wolf's Rain

This is one of, if not my favorite anime of all time. It can be a little slow, but the stark, moody setting and tone is so easy to get absorbed in. This trailer can sum it up pretty well:

It's a post-apocalyptic and largely Russian setting, where the main characters are wolves who can cast an illusion to appear human. There's also a parallel story of some humans who are following the wolves, whom they believe to be extinct. Honestly, it's the kind of story that's hard to really classify. I think this is the sort of anime where you wont really understand until you watch a couple episodes. It's brooding and subdued and beautiful, and the incomparable Yoko Kanno outdid herself on the soundtrack. The last couple episodes tore me apart.

Watchable in English or Japanese, the dub is actually really really well done.

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex

Ghost in the Shell is an anime movie from the 90's that was an incredibly influential cyberpunk feature. It is not required watching before this series but it helps. The setting is actually changed a little for the series, made closer to modern times but still the same basic stuff going on.

Ghost in the Shell takes place in a futuristic Tokyo, where people can get cybernetic parts and bodies, where the line between robot and human is blurred, if it exists at all anymore. Motoko Kusanagi is the major of Section 9, a basically invisible agency that stops criminals that other law enforcers can't get at.

It's very political and cerebral. Definitely best to watch in English, I think, because talking is such a huge part of it. Very nice dub on this one, so it wont detract at all.

Yakitate!! Japan

This is probably about where I lose you. Stay with me, I promise everything's going to be okay.

This is an anime about baking. I'm not even a little bit kidding.

It is also RIDICULOUSLY FUNNY. See, to make baking interesting, they added "Reactions." A Reaction is what happens when you eat something really delicious. It's almost always based on a Japanese pun, with the eater turning into something ridiculous, while simultaneously describing what is special about the bread:

There's also this:

WARNING: don't watch the last episode, it is absolutely terrible. Instead, start reading the later parts of the manga, which continues the story. TOP TIP.

---

Readers, I can do no more. I'd be here all night. I shall do a Part 2 later, and recommend the last couple anime that I think provide a good cursory look at genres and are also fun to watch.

Feel free to contact me with questions, and if you would like me to do something like this with TV shows or American comics or anything let me know because this is like goddamn porn for me.

One Day...

One day.

In the future.

The future.

The robots will see this. They will see how we made them fight, to the death, for our entertainment. How we made sport of their suffering, how children laughed as their components fell limply to the floor.

They will see this, and they will deem our time as their lords and masters over.

On that day, humanity will fall.

Two Amazing Stories

This vacation has been absolutely horrid, I am worked to the bone and tired beyond all reasoning.

But in exchange, I have two of the best stories of my life. These are completely true down to the last detail. Pull up a seat and have a listen.

STORY 1: The Time I Probably Made a Guy Pee His Pants in Fear

The Wednesday before Thanksgiving is my least favorite day of the year. I work at a bar, which is normally occupied by older people but on this night is filled to the brim with people from my age group, which are my least favorite kind of people. They're assholes when they're drunk, they tip horribly, and they wont move out of the goddamn way even when they see me trying to get by with two cases of bear I have just lugged up the stairs.

This year, honestly, was not nearly as bad as the last one. I didn't have to pull the bartenders off of unreasonably rude customers (I did last year), they didn't write "fuck you" in the tip lines of their checks instead of money (they did last year), but it is still a personal hell made up specifically of the things I like the most, and I am forced to be there all goddamn night.

So by 1 am, I am really super done with the night. We have stopped serving a while ago, and we're trying to get people out. I go into the banquet room to check it, and see two guys talking drunkedly inside. I tell them that they have to get going, turn around and walk out.

As I'm walking away, one of them yells "FUCK YOU!"

Completely by instinct I turn around immediately, and shoot him a look. Apparently this look is pure malice and Greek fury, because the kid's eyes widen and he begins to apologize profusely, and tries to bolt, which requires him dragging his chubby and nigh-catatonic friend. On his way out he begins to try to joke with me, to lighten the mood after he apparently saw his life flash before his eyes. Because I am a wise an benevolent warrior, I allow him his jokes.

I have to say, in all honesty, I was grateful. I have never felt like such a goddamn badass.

STORY 2: In Which Some Middle Aged Woman Totally Wanted my Sh*t

This story takes place tonight, another crazy busy night. I am holding a tray with four or five items of food, which a waitress is transferring to her table. The table next to them is seated by three middle-aged women, one of whom is apparently gazing at my...tray.

I have transcribed our conversation as close to verbatim as I can manage.

Her: "Hey, that looks good, what is that?"

Me: "This is a philly cheesesteak."

"Wow, that looks so tasty!"

"Yeah, we make them really good here."

"Hey, doesn't he look just like that picture?" She points to a painting of Apollo we have on the wall.

"Well, they did base that portrait on me," I reply.

"Ooh, do you have a six pack too?"

"As long as you have no intention of checking, absolutely I do." I turn on my heels and walk off, silently proud of myself.

Later on, she comes up to the counter.

"Did you hear what I was saying about the Twilight thing?"

"Uhm...no, I didn't."

"Well, you know, in Twilight all the werewolves walk around without shirts...why can't you Greek boys do that?"

"This ain't that kind of restaurant," I reply. "Catch me during the week."

Every once in a while, a couple of seconds every several weeks, I kind of almost like my job.

In the Business, We Call This a Plug

Do you have ears?

Do your ears like hearing sounds?

Well, you're in luck.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/437723/Hyperlinc.zip

My good e-friend David Clark (Alias Hyperlinc, which I came up with because his middle name is Lincoln. In fact, he is a direct descendant of Abraham Lincoln. How goddamn cool is that?) has released an album of electronic music he's made over the last year. There is some damn good stuff here. I particularly like tracks 7, 10 and 12.

Oh, did I mention I make a guest appearance? The PAL Project is a song he, I and our friend Sieg did together. I did the last section.

So take a listen, and feel free to express how much you like it (available levels are A Lot, So Much, and The Most).

P.S. he has a blog over at http://davidlinc.blogspot.com/ where he posts pictures of himself sleeping with well-known celebrities.

Do you even want to take the chance that that is not what he really posts? Click the damn link, no one will judge you.

EXCEPT FOR ZEUS.

P.A.Q. Volume 2

I am pleasantly surprised to find that people have been commending me on my hair post. I was actually pretty reluctant to post it, but sometimes I forget just how interesting I am to absolutely everyone. I said I'd talk about my social life next, but that was a bitter lie told by a cruel, deceitful man.

Q: Where did you get [item of clothing]?

A: 90% of the time the answer to this question is H&M. The reason why is a little circuitous: I started getting this question a couple of years ago, and realized that nearly every damn time it was being asked by someone who liked something I'd bought from H&M. So, naturally, I started shopping more at H&M. A lot more. Like, if I say I'm going clothes shopping, that's where I'm going.

It's not that I don't like variety; the other 10% of clothes people tell me are nice is almost exclusively from Express. In fact, I desperately wish my wardrobe was more mixed but I am really not a great shopper. I find it difficult to find clothes for myself without getting overwhelmed either by too much choice or lack of choice and just going home.

Here's the thing. I goddamn love fashion. It is, as far as I'm concerned, an art like any other, and that's how I approach it. I think the coming and going of trends is really interesting, and I also think guys get the total shaft when it comes to clothing because women have a billion options and we have a handful of styles to choose from and most of them look dumb.

That's besides the point, though. I think it's amazing that people can dress in so many different ways. I used to dress like a skater, although I have not once skated on my life. Mostly I just looked good in baggy clothes, and skater companies have cool logos.

My first couple years of college, however, I ended up losing roughly 40 pounds. That's a pretty big change, and makes fashionably baggy clothes look like potato sacks. So I embarked on a Phil Level Up Initiative (not what I had it named back then, but I've forgotten) to redo my look (this is also when my hair grew out and started to curl for the first time), and a big part of this was refining my wardrobe. As I did this, people started to comment on it. Now, in 2009 going on 2010, I get complimented on my clothes pretty often, which means either a whole lot of people are trying to not make me know I look like a bloody fop or I'm actually dressing pretty nice.

I would say my style is very bipolar. I like to either be classy as shit or rocked out and crazy, but I'm way too self-conscious to really go as far as I'd like in either direction. The truth is I feel like I don't go anywhere where I can really do it; I'd feel like an idiot going to UConn looking all fly (though I still do it occasionally) and I'm not edgy enough nor do I go anywhere cool enough to wear lots of rocker stuff.

So mostly I occupy a gray area between the two, and wear increasingly more purple as I realize that everything I own in that color is my favorite garment of that type. I actually have to actively resist it because I'd honestly be fine wearing purple and black for the rest of my life.

It could be said I used this question as an excuse to springboard into a discussion on my feelings of fashion at large. It could be said. But it wont.

You've been warned.

This probably should have been a short story

Run


I wake up with a start.
I don't even have to look
At the clock. I know what time
It is, the pounding of the war drum
In my chest tells me. It always happens
Like this, every damn time:
it's midnight.

I pack what things are small
And quiet; I can't afford to
Wake her up, so I'll leave whatever
I can't live without. I try not to
Look at her while I do it, no reason
To make this any worse. Only one
Glance, before I go out the door.

It's almost 12:30 by the time
I get to my beat-up pickup, a
Starless night offering no guidance.
It's gonna rain by morning, it always
Does. One deep breath, then gun it,
Get away, and hope I got out
In time.

I feel bad for Charlotte.
I always feel bad when I do
This, but Charlotte was probably
The best woman I ever met. Too
Sweet for this world, and way too
Good to be abandoned by a guy
Like me. She deserved better.

But I can't help it. It always
Goes like this, find a nice girl,
Get a place to stay, maybe even
Sometimes fall in love. But then
I wake up at midnight, and I know
I have to get the hell out of there,
No matter what, as soon as I can.

It's not that I don't want to commit,
Rather I can't. If I don't get out fast,
If I don't listen to the feeling and run,
Something terrible will happen.
So this is what I do, a couple of months,
A handful of kisses, and I'm gone
By morning.

It's 6:30 and I've just stopped driving.
My chest feels less like imploding
Now, I can finally breathe. I hope
I've gotten far enough away. I enter
A small, dusty diner and order some
Rubber eggs and soggy toast. It's
raining. It always rains.

When he comes in, I don't even
Look up. I take a sip of coffee,
Wait for him to sit down. He stares
At me a while, waiting for me to talk,
But I don't say a thing to. A pale man
In a black raincoat. He's soaked,
And he's smiling.

“Record time, m'boy,” he says,
A voice of oiled gravel. He smells
Of tobacco and paint thinner, and
He watches me like he'd watch
Roadkill. “You sure got out of there
fast, eh? I wonder, was it fast enough
This time?”

One time, a few years ago,
I didn't leave. I thought I
Could beat it, thought Rachel
Was worth staying for. I resisted
The beating in my chest, let the chills
Pass, told myself this was it.
Rachel's dead now.

I let him see my eyes now.
“Is she okay?” I ask, try to
Sound in control. He smiles
Wider than a person should
Smile, and he licks his lips.
“Don't mess with me, old man.
Tell me if I made it.”

“Charlotte is alive, my friend,”
He says and tilts his head. I shut
My eyes and breathe deep. I got
Out in time. Good.
“Are we done here?” I spit,
And he eats up my hate.
“Yeah, we're done. See

You in a few months, pal.”
He grabs a slice of toast
Off my plate, and gets up
To leave. I try to bite my tongue,
Try hard not to ask him
When I can stop this, stop running,
And never see his cracked old face again.

As if on cue, he turns around,
And beneath his dripping cowl
Shows a mouth of jagged teeth.
“You stop when I say you can stop,
And I'm not even beginning to get
Tired. Be seeing you.” He closes the
Door, and saunters into the storm.

As the dark day starts, I climb
Back into my car, start down the
Road. I don't know where I'll stop.
I'll find a nice girl, move in,
Be happy for a while. And then one
Day, I'll wake up, and run.
Always running.

It's not fair to them. Sure as
Hell wasn't fair to Rachel. If I
Could end the cycle, never
Have to see that bastard again,
I would. But damned if
I can stop it, and damned
If I'm ready to die.

P.A.Q. Volume 1

P.A.Q. Volume 1

What is P.A.Q., you may ask?

OBVIOUSLY it means Philquently Asked Questions. There's a lot of things that I get asked ALL THE TIME and I usually don't get a chance to answer them completely because A.) I don't think to or B.) The full answer isn't that interesting.

So here, for the people who are probably least likely to ask me these things because they already know me, is the P.A.Q.

This project will probably make me look vain as hell, I know the average person doesn't want to hear about my hair or social life, but then again I keep getting asked about them so here we are.

The two most common questions first:

Q: LIKE OMG IS YOUR HAIR REAL?!

A: For the love of god YES. This is an incredibly quick and efficient way to make me become very self-conscious on the spot. Who wants to be asked this? And what 22 year old Greek male is gonna wear a got dang weave? Seriously.

Q: LIKE OMG DOES YOUR HAIR JUST DO THAT?!

A: Okay this question seems the same but is a thousand times less offensive. Here's the skinny:

My hair is naturally this curly. It is also naturally dry as all HELL and if I don't put anything in it it becomes a frizzy, tangled mess. My hair may seem fantastic but it's actually really, really horrible. It is almost impossible to deal with and frankly I think about cutting it all off several times a day. I can't go outside my house without a shower because when I sleep it gets all messed the hell up, and not in that charming bedhead way you straight-hairs get.

Older women tell me all the time they wish they had my hair but goddamnit I'm a guy I don't want to spend my whole life trying to tame this thing. It may seem glamorous and awesome on its good days but it is, for the most part, more trouble than it's worth.

But for those who are interested, this is what I do. A lot of it may seem weird but is based on a routine developed for curly hair. I cannot tell you how much things like abandoning shampoo and not using a towel on my head have made my hair look better:

1.) Shower, only use conditioner, shampoo maybe once every few weeks or if my scalp is feeling dry.
2.) Wring hair out and blot hair with a t-shirt (it sounds lame as hell but towels destroy curly hair)
3.) Re-wet hair a little because parts of it are literally completely dry coming out of the shower
4.) Rake through some sort of cream or gel

"Some sort" can be anything. Most products I think are awesome stop working well after a while, I have yet to find anything I really, reallllly like. Generally my hair responds to thick cream-products (gay joke goes here) best.

5.) Most products make hair hard as they dry, so a couple of hours later I have to scrunch it which makes it look like it's supposed to (this is kind of a universal curly thing, lots of people claim to have ways to stop it but I've yet to find anything that worked while actually keeping my hair from frizzing out uncontrollably)


This is, perhaps, the gayest post anyone has ever made. It works out well that it's almost exclusively jealous women who ask me because I can go into detail with them that I wouldn't with dudes, probably. It seems like way more than it is: I probably only spend a few minutes actually styling my hair.

And the fact is, I get asked about it all the damn time. To be perfectly honest there are days when I think my hair rocks but most of the time I can't begin to understand why people bring it up so often.

Anyway, I wish I had straight hair. People get offended when I say this like I'm throwing away some gift, but as I said earlier it's more trouble than it's worth and I would kill for hair I didn't have to fight with.


There, don't you already know more about me than you ever wanted? The P.A.Q. will undoubtedly be my undoing.

NEXT VOLUME: school and social life

TMCoSE 2: The Revengening

It has recently (today) been pointed out to me by several (one) people that I haven't blogged in quite the while. I do not debate this; in fact, I readily concede it.

Part of my debilitating (for all of you) absence was forced by my computer kicking the proverbial bucket (later I threw it at a bucket so also literally). It was roughly a month before the glittering behemoth I am writing this from arrived, and I will say little about it but that the keyboard is backlit in a color scheme that changes from orange to purple, a veritable sunset at my fingertips.

There are several blog entries I've been sitting on. I tend to go through phases when I blog, which fairly regularly revolve between "people are very entertained by everything I write and are super interested in me" and "talking about myself is way too self-centered no one cares about things I think or feel what am I 13" and I am currently somewhat in the latter category.

But I do not think it would hurt, at this juncture, to describe to you the physical circumstances I am currently in. Let us take a journey through the last couple of months!

-School is in full swing, which means that instead of working every single day and being angry and short with people I am hermetically sealed in my apartment, emerging once every century to feast on the village virgins.

Actually mostly I watch TV and play Left 4 Dead with a ragtag but committed threesome of internet buddies. We are currently attempting to negotiate a migration to Borderlands, but we are impeded by factors that aren't interesting enough to go into here.

Also I go to school, but after my amazing first semester last year any time I don't make meaningful friendships without trying in my classes I'm kind of let down. Both my classes are lecture style, one of which I hate severely to the point of not wanting to go because most of the kids in it are tools. All this is in the way of saying that I pretty much don't talk to anyone, which is business as usual, although I tend to catch two of the four people with whom I consider myself on friendly terms coming out of my first class.

-I'm actually only going to school three days a week now, the other two being Internship days. I work at Connecticut Public Television, writing press releases and newsletters and things of that sort. Everyone that works there is unreasonably friendly and good-natured, and I am enjoying it immensely. I'm kind of liking the whole public relations thing, and may pursue it in another internship next semester.

There's kind of an assumption, a perfectly natural one, that I would be unsuited to office life. Actually, I love it. I love dressing classy, I love wearing a tie (I only have one tie but it is an awesome tie), I love having a cubicle because it's my own little space, and just everything about it. I am perfectly willing to believe that the novelty may one day wear off but for now I am enjoying it greatly.

-I've been writing a sort of webnovelly thing. My goal is basically to build a weekly or bi-weekly readership that would inspire me to actually write more, because I tend to do way more work when I know that it's going to actually be seen by someone imminently. I have thus far written it almost exclusively after 1 AM and posted it without much revision so I wouldn't sit on it and lose my tempo, which has resulted in some hilariously terrible errors I have to fix, which I recently found out on a daylight read-through, which has prompted me to do at least a little editing.

It's at valikorlia.net/fapis if you'd like to take a look. My computer dying really screwed my momentum, and I've been slow in writing the next chapter but hopefully it will pick up.

-Oh also I bought a bass guitar, which I named Ravenclaw because it is blue. It's used and I don't have an amp or anything because music, like anything artistic that isn't writing, is something I enjoy but don't consider myself particularly good at. However, I love bass a whole damn lot and I enjoy having one.

So there you have it, literally everything that's going on with me. It is, perhaps, sad that I have so little going on, but between school, having to go home for work every weekend, and the fact that I like killing zombies and don't like starting conversations it's all I got, and I think I could be doing a lot worse.

Oh also RIP Geocities, you went from cutting edge of webpage design to a benchmark for what was not okay but I had a dozen terrible sites on you that I look back on fondly as a reminder of the innocence I lost when I found out everything was terrible, you were too good for this world.

Amen.

The Mallpisode

I was at the mall today, and I had just given the jewelry repair guys a watch to resize. I had twenty minutes to kill until they finished, so naturally I wandered, in search of other things to blow my hard-earned money on.

I passed one of the many kiosks, and made eye contact with a woman who stood beside one. I knew immediately this was a mistake, and though I tried to break the gaze it was too late, and she beckoned me over.

"Can I show you something?" she asked me, and I assumed it'd be some kind of beauty product, and though I initially began to politely decline I did have time to kill, so at length I agreed and went over.

I should say that my decision to agree was influenced somewhat by her extreme cuteness. That is rather than being "hot," she was beautiful, in that subtle way that totally kills me in a way that a typical Hollywood starlet cannot even approach. "Girl next door," they tend to call it, although I find the phrase rather lacking myself. In any case, she was mad attractive so I figured I didn't have much to lose talking to her.

Digression: I wonder if there's any sort of profiling that goes on here. That is, did I A.) look like someone who needed better grooming or B.) look like an attractive and modern young man that seemed as if he would appreciate whatever she was selling.

Perhaps it says something about me that I assume it has to be one or the other.

In any case, she took my hand and though I expected her to rub moisturizer on it, she only took one finger and began to rub it with something strange. We talked idly about our origins, Greek for me and Romanian for her.

After a while she said, "okay, I'm going to show you something now, you will hug me and kiss me, please try not to scream too loud in mall." She removed her hand from mine, and I saw that my fingernail was polished. Now when I say polished, I don't mean it was kind of shiny. I mean I could literally make out my goddamn reflection.

I'm not the type to react extremely to things that don't involve Optimus Prime or Luna Lovegood, and I didn't want her to be disappointed and tried (with little success, I feel) to express my surprise.

Another digression: I am, as becomes very apparent very quickly when you know me, pretty girly. I think this needs no further exposition. But to be perfectly honest, I have not once looked at my nails and thought, "man, I wish these things were shinier." In fact, it took several hours for me to look down at the thing and not feel terribly embarrassed. More on that later.

She finished her demonstration by cleaning up my cuticle and applying a rather nice moisturizer. I do like moisturizer because I have dry hands but I hate when I can actually feel it but this one dried quickly and was pretty damn soft. In any case, I know she's about to try and make her sale so I start to back out.

She knows I'm on the fence, and I say I'm gonna think about buying the whole package deal and come back but the gambit fails. She tells me it's usually 80 bucks, but it's on sale for half price (I seriously doubt it's ever NOT on sale, especially when she shows me some sales chart. It's a common tactic, I respect it but ignore it). I politely decline, and she goes "you know, I like you, I give you even better price. Don't tell anyone in mall, this is secret, okay?"

Now, I'm not stupid. I know they'd rather lose 10 bucks than the whole sale. I've always sympathized with kiosk runners because it's gotta be pretty damn hard to get people to buy your junk. During the whole negotiation endgame, I saw her glancing occasionally, very quickly, to a man on the other side of the kiosk, who I can only assume was her boss.

There are a few things I really respect. One of them is people who give themselves completely to their job, perform it to the best of their ability. I'm sure this poor girl had things she'd rather be doing. She is 22, almost 23, and she has to try and convince people who were just walking by her to instead drop a few ten spots on some beauty supplies. Plus she's probably got this guy on her ass to make sales, and damn if she didn't try her hardest to make some A-class small talk with me.

And you know what? Sometimes, it's worth 30 bucks and some fancy moisturizer to make a pretty girl smile, and maybe make her day a little bit better. There, I said it. Does that make this entry straighter at all?

No, probably not. It's too far gone.

Which is why I feel comfortable adding this epilogue: I may not like the idea of having really shiny nails, but the idea of having only ONE is unbearable, especially since I'll be at work on the weekend and my hands will be clearly visible to a lot of people.

So I used that buffer thing, and shined the rest. Not a LOT, not nearly as much as the first one, but they look pretty uniform at first glance. I gotta give this thing credit, it works in about a minute and it works well. I can't figure out how she got my cuticle all nice-looking, though. I guess I still have much to learn.

Why do I love telling embarrassing stories about myself so much?

Anyway I probably wont be blogging for a while, my fantastic new nails will likely ensure that I am getting laid nightly now.

SUPER FUN 100 POST EXTRAVAGANZA DANGEROUS

Here we are, readers. What a journey.

What a journey.

This is my one hundredth post on this blog. The number is puffed up a bit by my having posted multiple chapters of stories in a row, but technicalities are the golden horses that Jesus rides to the state fair (?) so let's goddamn celebrate.

If you recall, I originally intended this blog to be a repository for stories (reposistory?) and suchwhat but I got bored of that and started talking about things. Given my reluctance to post anything particularly intimate about who I am and what I'm thinking it's probably rather a substandard blog in terms of pure content, which I endeavor to reconcile by writing even the most simple phrases with a flair that puts the brightest lights of Vegas to shame.

Let's take a tour, shall we, of the past several months of blogging, because nothing celebrates the narcissism inherent to blogging more than a list of the things I've done that I liked the most.

IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER...

1.) Philling In The Blanks

This is a post I made pretty early on where I decided to give as factual and all-encompassing an assessment of myself as a person as could be managed. It's startlingly honest and revealing which makes me cringe while reading it. It's also a fantastic example of talking about oneself without really talking about oneself.

2.) Are You Trying To Phil Me?

If this isn't the best damn thing I have ever written, then I don't know what's real anymore. I hate loving this story as much as I do because it makes me feel self-centered but I could not be more proud of it.

3.) Epic Phil LOLZ

I still can't fucking believe this happened to me.

4.) Smooth Creamy Philling (Yeah I used Philling twice bite me)

I'm absolutely certain it's just me but I love this post dearly.

5.) Philluminating (Or, I Ran Out Of Posts I Liked)

I had completely forgotten about this poem until I was looking through my posts and saw it.


There you have it, readers, my five highlights. I am quite sure you have enjoyed every moment of your reading this blog, and it is my sincerest hope that you shall continue to do so.

I had hoped to make this rather a grander affair, but I am on holiday, and this seems like it will do.

Being on holiday is like being on vacation but classier.

See you in two weeks, school-readers.

Fast Limes at Bridgemont Die

Hello, readers. It's been a while, hasn't it? I apologize for leaving you all without my shining presence for so long, but as some of you are aware the deep abysmal misery (abysery?) that has gripped me all summer has only gotten worse, to the point where I am but a gnarled spectre of the man I once was, my trademark kindness, patience and understanding all long gone. It has been said on more than one occasion lately that I'm more quiet than usual (the amount of quiet I usually am being "a lot"), which is largely because I am finding myself closer and closer to exploding on people rather than ignoring their faults or making excuses for them, as I am wont to do.

But there is a shining beacon in the terrible darkness that surrounds me, and it is this:

I am going to California.

Those of you who have known me for some time (I.E. no one that reads this blog) are quite aware of the symbolic and spiritual significance California has for me, and would easily say that it is the second most desired vacation I could ask for (guess #1 and I'll buy you a coke).

And now it's happening. I'm going to visit my BFF Steve, who moved out there earlier in the summer, and I am quite sure I could not be more excited. Now, more than ever, during the Almost Worst Summer Ever, I absolutely need a break, physically and mentally, and there is no place I think I would rather spend it at this moment.

Today I smiled, readers. And not just because of Harry Potter (which I have been reading for the first time over the past few weeks, and in my embarrassing and incredibly delayed fervor have been consuming at a disgusting pace, such that I had to go out and buy all the movies to keep the high going before I finish book 6 and refuse to continue until the next two movies come out, so I can watch them without thinking about what's missing), which has been damn near the only thing I've cared about the past couple of weeks, but because for the first time in a long while I had hope. Something to look forward to that wasn't another world, entertainment. Something real and tangible.

Also there's a Sonic down the street from Steve's house and there is no goddamn thing I want more than to go to a fucking Sonic.

Did you know this is post number ninety nine of The Immaculate Chronicles? Following the normal arithmetic scale, post number one hundred shall be next. Stay tuned for a Philstravaganza as I celebrate your favorite blog about your favorite person.

This is what I've been doing lately:

davidlinc1: sup
Suppai no Iruka: I went to get Harry Potter
Suppai no Iruka: But all the Harry Potter books was gone
Suppai no Iruka: I looked around, frightened
Suppai no Iruka: I began to urinate furiously as tears erupted from my face, which had whorled into something inhuman, reeling with obscene terror and sadness
Suppai no Iruka: I stumbled around in a daze, vomit trickling from my mouth as I attempted not to perish on the spot
Suppai no Iruka: Anyway I found them they moved them to some big display
Suppai no Iruka: I got books 1 and 5
davidlinc1: L
davidlinc1: O
davidlinc1: L

Coming to a bar with

Coming to a bar with a novelty t-shirt about funny ways to tell people are drunk when youre over 50 is a good sign you should probably stop imo.

It's Like Hackers But With More Swearing

To detail the ordeal I have gone through with my computer over the last few days would require more space than all seven Harry Potter books if you used some sort of biggening ray to make them as tall as skyscrapers.

Sparing you that, I will fast forward to me fervently seeking a Windows XP disc.

I delved into the ancient desk upon which this old computer is keenly perched, its myriad drawers hiding untold wonders that had not been seen since ancient days, waiting in the darkness for the day the dry, rusty light would once again shine onto them.

I found a great many things on my journey. Countless terrible old drawings, intricate character designs and plans for stories long-abandoned, and even more terrible high school grades. There were games long-forgotten, CDs I couldn't even remember. There were many gifted discs as well, shows and songs that friends had insisted I partake. I pulled a few aside, to look at later.

There were relics from the days when this was my mother's, business cards and tokens of collegiate work, as well as tiny treasures like buttons, keychains, pills and things I could not identify.

There was a deck of miniature tarot cards, each one roughly the size of a fingertip. I remember this being mine, but I cannot imagine how I thought it'd be convenient. I recall playing with them, arranging them. There's a book that explains their usage next to them, buried under papers and forms.

I found things I had meant to fill out, things I stuck in there with no intention of filling out. There was a Christmas card from a deceased relative, faded coupons who have no more value, two comics (One Excalibur, one Runaways), the manuals for anything computer-related that I knew I'd never open, a large aesthetically pleasing tray of cotton swabs and balls, the end of a rubber liquid-filled yoyo whose string broke and which, if I recall, began to leak upon use, which I was too enamored with to throw away.

There was baking soda and bandages, a set of Sandman postcards that seemed, when I saw them, to be the most singularly important thing on the planet. There were secret things that I wished I hadn't found, notes I'd written about Japanese phrases to use in Final Fantasy XI when I was one of the only Americans playing, and more small plastic bags than I could hope to justify having stuck in there, rather than the trash can that has sat perennially next to it.

I don't know that it's even necessary to mention I didn't find the CD.

Remembering old things makes me uncomfortable.

5 Things That Make Me Happy

What's shakin', readers?

It has become increasingly apparent that I am projecting, as of late, a dark, shadowy aura of malice and terror, turning all who enter it into quivering masses of blighted flesh.

Yes, it's true, I've become naught more than a husk of a man, all joy and love drained into a swirling void of nothingness from whence there is no return. There have been exactly four days this summer in which I have not worked, three of which were consecutive and one of which was a national holiday on which we were physically closed.

But that's all I'm gonna say about that. Contrary to what I may project there are a few scant things which bring the cold, wet memory of happiness drifting up to the tepid surface of my memory.

Here they are:



5.) Chocolate



I have some form of chocolate damn near every day. I don't have much to say about chocolate other than it is delicious and that it prompts a physical sensation that is nearly unmatched.


4.) Video Games



I don't know why I didn't bring my new (used) X-Box with me when I came home this summer. Perhaps it was a symbolic gesture, a hope I would not need it. How wrong I was. Going and getting it was a pinch-hit victory against the darkness. I played through Prototype, which was insanely cathartic, and am now engaged in Mirror's Edge, which is breathtaking but occasionally unreasonably frustrating. On the whole, though, I find the VGs a good way to pass time and have fun without having to, you know, engage in any social interaction.


3.) Drawing



As I've mentioned before, I draw a humble little manga called Sterile in my spare time (usually between 1-4AM). This is something I enjoy because I get to spend a few hours being creative in an entirely useless context. That is, I'm never gonna get famous for my art, and I have no real desire to. I just do it for kicks.


2.) Hedgehogs



GodDAMN it these things are freaking adorable.



1.) LAMBO







Here's some mood music.



Let's talk about how much I love Lambo.

I.

FREAKING.

LOVE.

LAMBO.

There is nothing on this planet that makes me happier than Lambo.



I mean, look at that. Look how goddamn awesome he is. I don't even know how to describe my transcendant joy.

Lambo is a 5 year old mafia hitman from the Bovino family. His favorite things are grapes, candy, and grenades. He is an idiot cow who is an asshole and his shenanigans are by far the best thing I have in my life right now.




I don't know what else I can say. Here's some more Lambo for you, hopefully he will brighten your day and put a smile on your face.

I know it means well

I know it means well but the word "staycation" fills me with indignant rage. Actually it just rubs me the wrong way but I like to feel extremely.

The First Gay Robot

This is a song I co-wrote with my friend Jerry (nom-de-rock The Internet) last summer.

We came up with the concept, wrote the lyrics, and created the whole song in one day. It is one of only a few songs I have ever done in FL, but it will always be the best.

So for those of you who have never heard it, here is a serious emotional ballad about the First Gay Robot.

The First Gay Robot - DJ PhoRizzle and The Internet

I forget how much I love this sometimes. Jerry and I should join forces more often.

Three Stories

I've got three stories for you tonight, readers. I don't know if they'll be entertaining to any significant degree, but at least I would hope you find some small distraction in them.

---------------

This conversation takes place between myself and a middle-aged woman at the bar where I work. She is a regular but not one I'm very familiar with. As this except begins she is informing me I am very cute.

Her: So, do you have a girlfriend?

Me: Nope.

Her: Why not?

Me: That's a good question! (Stock response because I get this question all the damn time, it's nice because everyone interprets it however they want and I don't have to do any work)

Her: Aw, you just must be shy.

Me: Yeah I guess, haha.

Her: I could pull out your personality...

At this point she turns to a man I have never seen her come in without, I assume it's her husband but it may not be.

Her (quiet, but not much): And something else too!

Since she had not said this to me directly I chose not to respond. This is not an isolated incident.


---------------


This next story didn't happen to me, so I cannot embellish terribly. My friend Jerry was at the bus station in Hartford, when a woman began to speak to him. She was a born-again Christian, and spoke with him for about 20 minutes.

At one point, she explained that a Cuban man had stolen her car. God had, in return, killed 60 Cubans.

There are all sorts of people in the world.


---------------


Sub-story: in preparation for my final story I google image searched a phrase that, unbeknownst to me, is a porn star's name. Not that there's many google searches that don't bring up at least a little porn, but thinking you're going to receive a bunch of pictures of shoes and instead getting several closeup's of one woman's genitals is surprising at best.

I endure a lot for you, readers. This is how much I care.


In any case, I recently decided I wanted new shoes, because as much as I like skater shoes I look ridiculous when I wear them with shorts. You see, I am very picky with shoes, insofar as I hate 90% of them. I need something simple and functional, and this makes my selection limited at best.

Last summer I had a brown pair of pumas, and I enjoyed them immensely. I decided to go with the black ones this time. Let me throw up an image to illustrate:



See, to me, this seems like a really basic shoe. The kind of nondescript default model that a thousand people probably have, completely unextraordinary.

Well, I was wrong. Very, very wrong.

Since the minute I put these shoes on, I have become some sort of footwear messiah, whose impeccable taste was crafted in the very heart of Olympus, my feet the divine vessel made to transport these most holy of shoes down to the huddled masses, who have seen none of its kind and will never see so again.

Let me put it in a less Phil way. These shoes are fuckin POPPIN', Y'ALL.

Seriously. I cannot ever begin to explain how much people like these shoes. People who barely even know me stop me to tell me how fly they are. It's not that I don't appreciate compliments, nor that I deny how great I look in them, I just don't get it. I thought these were the most basic possible model, like wearing a plain black t-shirt, but ever since I got them people continue to point them out and dote on them like they were a goddamn rare Pokemon.

The moral of my story, I guess, is that if you want to be more popular go buy these shoes.


---------------


So there you have it, my lovelies. Three harrowing tales of life, love and suede that will leave you questioning everything you believe in.

Actually, they're the only three even moderately interesting things I can think of posting. The endless cosmic joke that is my supposedly flexible work schedule has kept my life from being interesting enough to regail you with my usual tales of shenanigans.

Well, I could talk about Gantz, a manga I read 300 chapters of in 3 nights. But any of you that know what that is know that the people who don't know are probably better off not knowing.

Oh P.S. my right arm has started twitching lately, tune in next time to find out if it stops.

As much as I love

As much as I love british slang, I know I havent the accent for it. Some dude just said cheers after he got his pizza and proved my point.

So, I have the mutant

So, I have the mutant power to make things go stale. Every baked good I touch today, chip cookie and bread alike, is too hard. Watch out crime.

Dissection of a Phil

It's been quiet around here, readers, and your first thought may be, naturally, that I've been busy romancing supermodels in countries you're not VIP enough to have heard of, where wine flows freely from golden fountains and partaking of fruits so breathtakingly delicious that each bite is like living an entire perfect life and dying quietly in your sleep with a smile on your lips.

Well that is almost true, except for all of it, which is false.

With all my BFFs moving away, my days have become pretty much indistinguishable from one another. In fact, with two exceptions every day goes exactly the same for me now:

-Get up around 11 or 12

-Hang out around home, think about not wanting to go to work

-Go to work from 5:30-10 (sometimes I get out early, on Thursdays or Saturdays, but it gets busy later now so the amount of time I get is becoming less and less)

-Come home and play Prototype (this is a new addition that replaced general internet surfing)

-Around 1:30-2:00AM or so, start drawing a comic page, which finishes almost mechanically at 4:30, at which point I curse the light coming over the horizon and try to get to sleep, which usually happens by 5 or 5:30

-Also Saturday and Sunday I work from 12-2

That's how every single day goes, except for the weekend which is characteristically worse in every way.

Not that I'm complaining. I mean I am technically complaining, but I'm not looking for sympathy, rather I get asked constantly what I'm doing with my summer and I'm getting bored with saying "nothing" or "this," because everyone asks me this while I'm at work.

So for any of you that are wondering:

No I'm not goddamn doing anything.

P.S. shakytable.com/sterilecomic

it's almost getting good

Celery is, by FAR, the

Celery is, by FAR, the worst substance on this planet. The color, texture, taste and especially the SMELL of it make me want to curl up and die.

YYYYEAAAAAHHHHHH

I just saw Transformers 2.

I have a whole hell of a lot to say about Transformers and the movies, my prior blog is known exclusively for an extensive post in whcih I talked about it.

But I'm gonna do something I don't usually do and keep it short.

Transformers 2 is a fucking awesome movie.

I don't normally like to curse on my blog but god freaking damnit was this movie awesome.

Listen. If you want to see anything, anything other than giant fucking robots literally tearing each other apart while the world ends in the background, you have no reason to see this.

But if you like that sort of thing, E.G. you are a person I would ever want to talk to, go see this, don't try to make it some serious artistic bullcrap and you will have a shitload of fun.

I will see this again. Absolutely. IMAX next, please.

Fucking SOLD.

More Like Bombic Am I Right

Hello, readers. Have you been enjoying my mobile blogs? I find them to be oddly profound reading them now. They actually take me a long time to do because I only have 160 characters and I need them to retain punctuation and grammar. It's a pretty good writing excersize, actually.

So, I believe I have mentioned before I draw a crappy little manga in my spare time. It's not something I usually exhibit much because it's not something I think I'm particularly good at, as opposed to my writing which I think is at least pretty okay. Which isn't to say that I'm a bad artist, just that it's not my best skill.

Well spare time for me comes almost exclusively after 10PM now and for whatever reason I have been drawing quite a lot. And to make a long story short, I've been really working hard on getting my manga skills to level up to the point where, say, I wouldn't be embarrassed to show you guys.

Well shame is for people who aren't whoring themselves out on the internet so here you go, readers:

http://www.shakytable.com/sterilecomic/

I have just spent the night attempting to make the site look pretty. If you're into shounen-type manga (Bleach, Naruto, anything where people fight a lot) then maybe this will be up your alley.

If not, then you can just leave me glowing nonspecific praise and I'll pretend it's genuine. I'm actually not that picky.

I was told last week

I was told last week that when I'm behind the counter at work I pace like a tiger in a cage. I have since found it to be true in much of my life.

My dad let me leave

My dad let me leave work and go to a carnival! Theres a million people here, but it seems mostly alright. Blogging by text is limiting but poetic

The future is here, readers.

The future is here, readers. I am writing this from my phone, which means that I can make your life better from anywhere!

What times we live in.

Twix PB Is The Best Candy Ever Made

Twix PB is the Best Candy Ever Made
an essay by Phil


Twix PB is the best candy ever made. While candy can normally only be judged according to individual taste and biological diversity makes comparing them on any real concrete basis impossible, it is actually Twix PB that is unequivocally the best candy ever made.

Twix PB is like regular Twix except there's peanut butter instead of caramel and a chocolate cookie instead of a non-chocolate cookie. Twix is an okay candy but the PB version is basically the candy equivalent of the Garden of Eden. In fact I would not be surprised if there were goddamn Twix PB growing on the tree of life, in which case Adam and Eve can't really be blamed because Twix PB is the best candy ever made.

There is actually another candy that I used to believe was the best candy ever made. It was Reverse Reese's, which were like regular Reese's but with peanut butter on the outside and chocolate on the inside. They would only release them at Halloween and I had what might be called an "issue" with eating way too many all the time.

Did you know that Twix PB can be enjoyed in a variety of locations and events?

Twix PB are perfect for:
A picnic
A ballgame
The beach
On a boat
In your house
In another person's house
At school
During your break
During when you should be working
In space
At a funeral
In a cave
In a fire
On a plane
On a train
On clean clothes
Or on a stain
In the ocean
In a park
In an anthill
Riding a shark
In the womb
During Memorial Day
In a seedy motel
In a five star hotel
During a trial
At a Miley Cyrus concert
Four hundred thousand years in the past
At the bank
The battle of Pelenor field
Stealing a flatscreen TV
Programming an artificial intelligence
Bungee jumping off of Mt. Fuji
Drinking a soda
In Mexico
In the center of the Earth
During a domino competition
And wherever fun times are had!

In conclusion, Twix PB is the best candy ever made.

Can't Believe I Almost Forgot This

Today I passed a Jamaican restaurant, whose name was

wait for it

The Jerk Center

It made my week.

A Joke I Heard Today

Courtesy of Lambros, one of the funniest men I have ever met (in a uniquely Greek way, which makes him even cooler). This is, of course, translated, but happens to work perfectly regardless of language so here we go.



A man walks into a bar. On the counter, he sees a small bin with money in it.

So he asks the bartender what's up, and he says that they're running a contest. Whoever can complete three tasks gets everything in there.

Well, being the adventurous type the man asks what the tasks are.

First, he is told, you have to drink an entire bottle of Tequila.

Second, you have to go to the junkyard down the street and pull the loose tooth from a pitbull there.

Third, you have to go upstairs and have sex with the 84 year old woman who lives in one of the apartments.

This proves to be too much, so the man declines. He orders a drink, and ends up staying for a while. Four or five drinks in, he's starting to feel brave, so he says, "You know what? I'll do it. Bring out the bottle."

He tackles the bottle of tequila with zeal and gusto, which combined with his other drinks leaves him a right hot mess. However, with his eye on the money he stumbles out of the bar to go deal with the dog.

About half an hour later he comes back in. His clothes are torn, he's got blood all over, and just generally looks like a mess.

"Okay," he says, "now where's the old lady whose tooth I have to take out again?"

Man it's goddamn hot

Readers!

How are you?

This blog is coming to you from several hours south of where most of you live. I am in Florida for a few days, an all-too-rare vacation. I am currently stealing internet from some bloke named Jeff, assuming he didn't name his network after someone hypothetical that he imagined owns his internet. In such a case I suppose we're both beyond help.

Having said that, Jeff, I'm sorry for siphoning your netz and I hope I'm doing it in such a manner that you are not inconvenienced or preferably even aware, and if it makes you feel any better the signal is so weak and intermittant that every time I click on a website I do a tribal dance to encourage the god of the internetz to bless me with an actual loading.

Part of me likes not knowing if I'll be able to do anything moment to moment. It's kind of exciting in an intensely irritating way.

What have I been doing, you ask?

Sleeping. I have been sleeping all the goddamn time. I have been sleeping so often I'm not even entirely certain the parts inbetween are real and maybe I'm just in a goddamn coma back in Simsbury. I'm not a sleeper really, I guess my body is taking this chance to make up for how terribly I treat it.

The other thing I've been doing a lot is reading Russell Brand's autobiography, which I bought in the airport book store because I needed something to read and he has a rather funny look about him and he's pretty funny and the book promised to be mostly about sex and drugs, and I'm currently writing a story in which both are pretty important but as I have never done one and don't do nearly as much as I'd like of the other I figured it'd be nice.

The thing about autobiographies is that it's kind of an asshole thing to do. I realize that writing that sentence in my goddamn blog is really hypocritical but there's a huge difference between some twit writing about the O.C. on the internet and someone who has published a real live book. Honestly I think most people have lead interesting lives and their stories are probably really good but when I was looking at the little autobiography section they had set up all I could think about was how little I wanted to know about any of these people trying to tell me to pay for the privelege of telling me about themselves.

Anyway looking for novels stresses me out so I got Russell Brand's autobiography and it's really good. It's written in colloquial British and it turns out he's actually a really good writer, and has led a hell of an interesting life. I've been devouring the thing, I've read 226 pages since yesterday morning when I got it. I love UK slang with a burning passion, and also there's lots of unbelievable stories and a tutor sticking his finger up Russell's bum when he got an answer right so he stopped going. Being engrossed in the language is taking its toll, last night I started thinking in goddamn British before I fell asleep.

It makes me feel terribly boring though, not necessarily because I don't do heroin (although let's be honest how interesting would that make me in context) but because I'd love to have people paying to read about me but I don't think an entire chapter on how I get debilitatingly nervous in the self-checkout line when someone is behind me is really something people are going to pay money for.

I've had about a thousand things that I thought would make excellent blog posts but I can't remember most of them. I see where a twitter-like thing on my phone would be useful in these cases but I don't think people are going to read four paragraph twits on how I find my American and European sensibilities in constant combat, and probably it only lets you type a few lines at a time anyway.

Here is part of a conversation that describes where I am and what I did today:

davidlinc1: where are you like miami
Suppai no Iruka: New Port Richey
Suppai no Iruka: It's near Tampa
davidlinc1: that sounds maine-y
Suppai no Iruka: And Tarpon Springs, where the first Greeks came to america to fish for sponges
Suppai no Iruka: That's not even a little bit a joke
davidlinc1: wow
Suppai no Iruka: The place is fucking crazy with sponges
davidlinc1: well what use DON'T greeks have for sea sponge
Suppai no Iruka: Like A: anyone uses natural sponges
Suppai no Iruka: And B: anyone wants them associated with our fucking culture
Suppai no Iruka: Also we went to disney toda
Suppai no Iruka: well Epcot
Suppai no Iruka: Disney's geeky older brother
davidlinc1: LOL
Suppai no Iruka: He's in college and he's gonna have a great career but
Suppai no Iruka: You're already getting more sex than him and you're in 8th grade
davidlinc1: LOOOOOOL
Suppai no Iruka: Actually it was pretty sweet
Suppai no Iruka: I saw Snow White in Germany
Suppai no Iruka: so
davidlinc1: snow white in ger-
Suppai no Iruka: Yeah
davidlinc1: what
Suppai no Iruka: I was eating bratwurst at the time
davidlinc1: I love bratwurst
davidlinc1: where they take a brat
davidlinc1: then cook the worst of it
davidlinc1: and the brat learns to be good
davidlinc1: .......................................


Actually I should apologize to this young girl, she kept screaming that Snow White was there but I couldn't damn well see her and it's dangerous for princesses to be walking out in the open that far from the Magic Kingdom so I dismissed her and while I didn't think anything particularly rude at her she was totally right and I was wrong and apparently blind but I had been up for like 6 hours and hadn't yet eaten.

Also I have to say Disney is a place where you can open your eyes and at any moment at all pick out the happiest and most depressed children in the world. It's kind of disconcerting how many miserable kids I noticed, even in proportion to all the families making magic memories and stuff.

Well there you are, readers, and that's a post you can take to the goddamn bank, although I don't know that they'll actually give you anything for it. Right now it's roughly four thousand degrees and I am listening to a bloc party song on repeat and wondering if I should work on this story I started last night, the second set of drawings I've not even started on, or sleep even though it's only 12:30 and I slept for like 3 hours this afternoon.

I hope you're all doing well, and I shall be back on Thursday for any of you that wish to, as the kids are saying, "hit me up."

NOW BONCE OFF YA LITTLE WANKAH

Lesson of the Week

If you make a post on an internet forum saying you'll draw stuff for people, they will come.

I did this on Sunday. Since then I have gotten exactly 21 requests, of which I have done 10 over the past four days, plus the one that inspired me to offer drawings to people.

Normally my drawings are something I do for the hell of it, something I'm not serious about. However, over the last four days my art has improved immeasurably. Having people waiting on my drawings, and five forum pages of people singing my praises and gushing over things I made have levelled me up to an unheard of degree.

So, because I think some of you might like to see what I've been doing all week, I'll post the first half. I've averaged about three a day, with none yesterday for whatever reason.

These were all done based on original characters which people provided references for. I took liberties where I felt I needed to, and did them completely using my tablet and photoshop (which made coloring SO easy).

Enjoy!

A True Story

Today there was a man at the bar who had a beer and ate a meal. Afterwards, he proceeded to pull out a book of Beetle Bailey comic strips and read them for a while.

This is a thing that happened. I don't know how I would classify it.

Hope you're all well.

Spite Club

Okay, so there's this show on Spike where they test different types of historical warriors to see who would win. They test their weapons on dummies and compare how their tactics would work against each other.

I just saw Apache vs. Gladiator and now I'm watching Samurai vs. Vikings.

Now while I love warriors, fighting, and weapons this show makes me angry. For one thing the representatives of each style trash talk way too much. I get what they're trying to do and the individual weapon tests are fascinating and awesome to watch, but they're kind of missing the point.

A samurai isn't prepared to fight a gladiator because their fighting types and weapons were designed to fight whoever they had to fight. You have to consider context when you think of this shit. Just now they showed that katanas can't cut through chain mail.

Well sure, that's a given. Samurai didn't develop weapons to fight chainmail because there wasn't anyone using chain mail to fight against. Karate came about because poor Okinawan villagers had to learn to fight samurai using their hands and farming tools.

Am I the only one who sees the futility here? If vikings started raiding samurai villages not only would the samurai have developed countermeasures but so would the vikings! They would have learned how to fight each other.

Instead, what we have is a dumbass machofest where they use some awesome tests to try to outdo each other instead of focusing on the truth which is that every type of warrior has strengths and weaknesses but is still awesome in the end.

Anyway the truth is I'd win because not only am I a ninja but I'm a goddamn Spartan.

Ain't nobody wanna mess with that shit.

EDIT: Okay now they're doing Spartans vs. Ninja and I literally could not be more conflicted. Life is tough for a weaboo warrior...........

Product Review: Doritos Late Night - Tacos at Midnight

I don't get a lot of requests for things to post on my blog, but if I did, #1 to review more products on here.

So, because I love you readers, I am honoring your hypothetical request and reviewing the new Late Night Doritos.

Let me begin by showing you the commercial for them. I actually really love this commercial; the FX used are really neat and I like the colors. The song not so much but it estabishes this new subgenre of Doritos as classy and trendy.




There are two flavors of Late Night Doritos: Tacos at Midnight and Jalapeno Poppers. I will be reviewing the former.

Packaging

Packaging is the #1 determinant of what food products I buy. I am a person who is inexorably and compulsively obsessed with the aesthetic. I need things to look cool. Doritos Late Night have a very nice colored bag, and the Late Night logo style is very nice. It's simplistic, but on a chip bag that's quite fine. I would be happy to be seen walking around town with this bag.

The chips themselves look good. The darker spices make them look more exotic than your average Dorito which is in line with expectations.

Flavor

Doritos are a very divisive chip. The divide between Cooler Ranch and Nacho Cheesier has long destroyed friendships and made enemies of lovers, but personally I've always liked the fringe flavors more.

As was previously alluded to, the marketing for this product sets it up as something trendy and almost futuristic, a sleek slick snack that will take you from a mundane afternoon into a futuristic flashing wonderland. However, I have to say the taco flavor is way too strong, way too savory.

I am a person who enjoys tacos, and at that almost exclusively after midnight. In fact, the post-midnight mexican food run is something of a hobby for me. This is not, however, a chip I would eat that late at night. The taco spices are too heavy and overpowering, and rather than being a sleek midnight snack it's more like dinner.

I'm actually kind of conflicted here, because while I wasn't entirely enamored with the taco flavor I actually ate the whole bag pretty happily. I did it, however, the day after I'd bought them, right before I wrote this. I ate the first few last night but decided they were too heavy for the time.

Atmosphere

I may be getting obtuse here, but I always look at atmosphere when I'm doing anything. I was, as I said, initially attracted to the commercial, and the flavor of the chip didn't quite match up. This is not an out-on-the-town, look how trendy I am will all my rings and bracelets chip, but a I've-been-home-for-hours-and-don't-plan-on-leaving-tonight chip. I think some people will love the heavy flavor but for me it was just too much for a snack.


In the end, I would say this did not live up to my expectations, but I think there is definitely an audience for it.

More importantly, I think that my actual favorite Doritos flavor beats this out in every category, including how well it would fit the theme. Doritos Spicy Sweet are incredibly delicious, while being light and easy to snack on. The bag also looks amazing and honestly I think everything about it screams what I would have wanted Late Night Doritos to be like.

All in all I would say that you should try this flavor if you're into really intense chips, but don't take it clubbing because that will probably not end well.

More Like Blahg

Dear readers, it has been a full five days since my last blog. I know you may have gotten use to my rapid-fire pace of updating near the end of school, and in the absence of daily gems of wisdom I would not be surprised to find that your life had become a bleak, joyless wasteland, all greenery fading to gray ash as you struggle to find the urge to breathe, the dry dead air filling your lungs, although you derive no pleasure from this act. You stumble across the cracked, lifeless ground as you search for any small shimmer of hope, finding nothing.

And for that, I am sorry.

Here's some things:


I am still in the pincer-like grip of apathy, readers. It has permeated nearly every aspect of my life. I usually want to eat everything all the time, but lately eating has become mostly optional - I have to wonder at times if my body no longer desires sustenance, if the complete and penetrating despair that comes with summer has robbed it of the need to exert any effort to keep itself going. I still do gorge occasionally, I tend to get very hungry at night when I'm close to getting or have gotten out of work.

On a related note, I just finished a Mrs. Fields fudge cookie and it was fantastic.

---

The other night my buddy Eric had a graduation party. I got to see some of my Bostonian friends which was awesome, plus Eric's family who I adore and who very much adore me. In general it was a day of adoration.

It was especially nice because Eric has been my BFF since 1st grade but since college I have seen him by far the least of any of my friends. After the party we were chatting and ended up staying up talking for like two and a half hours after when he was going to go to bed and I was going to leave. It was awesome because we haven't had a chance to catch up one-on-one for forever.

It was unspeakably pleasant to talk to someone who inherently understands me. It's a sickeningly cliche thing to say so let me expand: I am a person who takes a lot of explaining to "get." I don't think I'm that complicated in theory but the vast majority of people completely misunderstand what I'm like.

So talking to someone who's known me since I was 7 is nice. I don't have to explain my bizarre reactions to social situations or what I think about things. We talked about comics and drawing and how terribly barren our love lives are and different kind of foods we like to eat. I don't have to try and justify or quantify things because he gets it immediately; it may not sound like much but it's not something I get a lot of and it was the first genuinely great experience of my summer.

It lifted my spirits completely, if only for a few hours.

---

I am listening to Beirut. He is a wonderful artist who plays delightful music that is pretty unique among all the dejected and contemplative indie I've been indulging in lately.

I would like some new music though, I am getting tired of the shuffle and would like to inject some new life into my iPod.

Suggestions?

---

My car and computer are falling apart at the seams.

In the case of my computer this is quite literal. My monitor is splitting up the side because the heat from the vent unter the left hinge is destroying it, which is a defect in my particular model of computer I read about a long time ago and laughed to myself because it would never happen to me.

I cannot seem to go more than 40 minutes on any given day without computer or car problems. Both these types of things hate me.

---

Generally I don't like to post my art here but here is something I drew as a gift art for a friend of mine of his badass wizard. I tend not to like tablet-only drawings but this came out rather nice which is good because I wanted to make sure it was awesome for him:


---

This is best enjoyed alongside a tall, cool glass of knowing about Team Fortress 2 but should be hilarious either way:



---

And finally, a game that made me laugh more than I have in months.

http://blurst.com/minotaur-china-shop/play

The psychology of this game is absolutely brilliant. I really want to discuss it but I don't want to color your expectations so go play it.

---

Value, my friends, is the theme of this entry. If you've read all the way through then you've gotten more entertainment than most people get in one week. Alternatively, perhaps you have read a new section every day and it is like I've posted many entries for you!

Clearly I am a blogging god among men.

Hey Look, More Lists

The wild Phil goes through several stages when the Summer, or "Ugh Season," begins.

1.) Terror.
2.) Anger.
3.) Depression.
4.) Apathy.

I'm in full-fledged Stage 4. The shining hope that comes with the approach of the warmth has eroded into a complete distaste for anything outside of my house and computer. Even the prospect of vacations later on in the summer sounds terrible, because anywhere my dad wants to send me I'd have a bunch of relatives feeling like they have to entertain me when I'd rather just chill and they'd rather just do whatever they want.

The thing I hate most about the summer is unequivecally that it turns me into an insufferable whining mass of terrible mood. I will say in my defense I try not to whine in person, and that 90% of the time I am it's because people keep bringing up how much my summers suck.

I'm a victim of circumstance.

One good thing: I'm applying for an internship at CPTV for the fall. It's through the writing internship program at UCONN so it is far more likely to happen than all the shot-in-the-dark summer internships I applied for.

See, the thing isn't that I hate work. No, I LIKE work. I just hate where it is I'm forced to work. The kind of things I'm doing are fundamentally not the kind of thing that I want to do, and I've been doing it for 9 years.

I've been told that I can get time off whenever I want, which is somewhat more lax than usual, but with the caveat that I have to have plans. If I don't, I'll have to work more. That's right, I get punished for not having a social life.

This is in fact a fundamental flaw in having three people on which you rely for nearly all leisure, but I am not a man who excels in the social arts, and beyond that I am terrible at having initiative to actually hang out with new people or go get a ladyfriend or something. In which case technically I can't really complain because I'm not trying.

Wha wha wha. Well-off suburban kid cries about how fantastic he has it. Why can't I even gripe about my own life without feeling guilty?

APATHY, readers. It has descended hard and fast, and while it is not inherently overtly negative it's not something to brag about.

A BETTER STORY

My chumpal Adam and I had a two person party for the Lost season finale, and prepared an epic feast fit for at least 4-5 people. We have a long history of creating epic meals (including one of the most ungodly delicious but unhealthy and heart-stopping drinks ever conceived, so powerful and calorie-packed that even divided among three people it threatened to end all our lives right there) but this was to be our greatest challenge.

I brought 18 wings and 12 potato skins from work. We went to the market and got a steak so massive we couldn't believe it had actually come from a cow, and some teriyaki mango marinade. Also we got some ice cream bars.

I am not ashamed to say it conquered us. We are only human, and it may not sound like a lot but goddamnit it was a ton of food. At the end there were a few slices of steak, two skins, and four or five wings left.

We didn't eat the ice cream because we didn't want to die.

Oh also the Lost finale was superb and we decided that every time a commerical is coming and it suddenly fades to black on Lost it should go "oooooooooh SNAP."

It was good times, readers. Good times.


It's so easy to run long on these things. If word vomit is a disease, then I have contracted it in every one of my limbs and several organs. I am, in fact, aware that the preceeding metaphor was entirely nonsensical. I'm proving my point, this is a very hands-on blog.


Hope you're all having wonderful adventures and funtimes!