The Blog Experiment

Entry 151: Morgan Freeman And Pugsley The Cat

2012-02-12T14:33:00.000-06:00

Teddy Brosevelts,

In an effort to... okay, basically because I like bars, a group of us have decided to try to go to every bar in St. Louis during the three years of law school. Ambitious, I know. You never realize how many bars there are until you start counting them off as you drive around. We've already put about 75 on the list, so we're making good time, but we'll never get them all. It's not like Pokemon. You CAN'T collect them all. But the fun is in the trying.

(And yes, we have a shared Google Document to keep track of where we've been and all sorts of other information. We're law nerds, remember?)

One of the coolest parts about this ridiculous project is that you get to see a lot of different places and experience more of St. Louis. Surprisingly, only about a half-dozen bars have been interesting and worth going to again. Like this one place, "Thurman's Bar and Grill." What makes it special?

This is a place that feels appropriate for a Stephen King novel. As in, perhaps you stepped into a weird time portal or alternate universe and this bar will be gone the next time you try to go. "Thurmans?" says the old man after you ask where it is. "That bar's been closed for nigh on 50 years! You say you were there just last month?" Etc.

It's a local place, and the first thing you're going to notice is that Morgan Freeman is the bartender. No, seriously. Dude looks just like him. And he's quite possibly the most relaxed guy you've ever met, and also a philosopher. The first night there a guy was playing (well, trying) some blues on his guitar at the bar (yes, it's that kind of place) and Morgan Freeman starts bellowing out occasional blues lyrics, trying to show the guitar player how to "put the soul in your sound, man." He used L'il Wayne's "What? Yeah! and Okay!" to sing blues for a good 5 minutes. Then he said that the freedom promised by rock and roll --a world where Keith Richards could grace the cover of a fashion magazine-- was paid for by the success of Justin Bieber. Made sense.

But the reason I loved this bar, and the impetus for this blog, came after I went into the restroom. And saw this pic.

Took me a minute to realize what I was looking at. Then I noticed the picture next to that one:

I don't know if it was the combination of the exuberant "Happy Holidays!" and the rust of the shears, but I started laughing my ass off. Then I looked around, and saw I was in the midst of a comedic masterpiece. Here's the rest of the pictures; all lined up along the bathroom wall.

And finally, one picture to explain everything. I'm not sure if it's just because I was raised on crazy cat humor (thanks, mom!), but I literally cried laughing for 5 minutes looking at these. Freaking. Awesome! Hope you enjoy it as well!

Best. Bar bathroom. Ever.

Caleb "Yeah, I've Been Back To Thurman's" Shreves

And.... for those of you wondering what sort of stuff I've been up to recently, here is a picture timeline.

Finally found some Old Milwaukee!

Thanks for the goggles, Brasky.

Waited 5 months, but finally played Skyrim. I just got excited typing that.

90 miles a gallon on this hog.

Oh. And I spun fire for the first time. Video on my Facebook page if you want to see!

Fin.

Entry 150: Maybe You're Not Crazy, But Are You Wearing Pants?

2011-12-03T17:12:00.000-06:00

I like to sit out on my balcony, survey my kingdom, and read the shit out of some books. Since I'm in law school though, I also like to do my school reading out there too. But it's pretty boring and takes forever. At first I stay interested and get involved with what I'm reading.

Eventually though I start to lose my mind. I don't know when it happens, or exactly why, but pretty soon I become convinced that I'm starring in a horror movie and that somebody is sneaking up behind me with a knife. I'm watching myself on TV shouting "turn around Caleb! He's going to shank you!" So I keep turning around to look, but nary a knife do I see.

Convinced I'm going crazy, I usually go distract myself by... well, anything. Because "anything" is pretty much what qualifies as "more fun than reading for law school." And yes, that includes kicks to the junk.

But maybe I'm still crazy. How else could you explain this?

What! I KNEW there was a ninja trying to knife me! Real subtle, ninja. Real subtle.

But maybe I was imagining that. Hard to tell. But... cats don't ordinarily love cigarettes, right? I mean- am I crazy or is my roommate's cat going crazy for cigarettes? Nope. I'm hallucinating. Definitely crazy.

Hmm. I'm probably not crazy, but how can you tell? Well I suppose one way is that your own cat is begging to be shipped away from you because she fears for her own safety. I thought cats stuck with you till the bitter end? They're not supposed to bail on you just because you might be a little crazy!

When I reminded her that there wasn't any room for food in the box, she backed out.

Hmm. I may or may not be hallucinating, but surely I'm not acting crazy or anything. It's totes normal to roll your cigarettes in your sleeve and shave down to a mustache, right?

"Is that a mustache or a shadow?" asks Aubree. Thanks. As if it's not already
embarrassing that I'm almost 29 and can't grow a beard.

Okay. A little weird. I'll go back to reading, but some fun, nerdy sci-fi stuff instead of law school. Like this- what the hell! No way. No way somebody would make this a title of a chapter. I'm going crazy.

Fine. FINE. There is only one sure-fire way to tell you're not crazy. Wearing pants. Crazy people do. not. wear. pants. Hence, as long as I have pants on, I can't be crazy. But do I? I realize that I no longer know what "pants" means, nor do I understand the concept of "wearing." So not wanting to go to school each day as a crazy pants-less guy, I have to get confirmation from my roommate that I am, indeed, wearing pants.

So far I've always managed to wear pants to school. BUT, one day I spent 5 minutes confirming that I had pants on, but left the house in my slippers instead of my shoes. And everybody knows that forgetting shoes is just one crazy step from forgetting pants. There will come a day, friends, where I will NOT be wearing pants. If you see me that day, please take me into custody, shave my stupid face, and make sure I get pants on right away. Kthanks.

Pants-Caleb out.

No. I'm totally not going crazy.

(number of times I checked for pants wearing while writing this: 7)

BONUS!

I found this picture and it's funny.

DOUBLE BONUS!

You Allie fans might appreciate this one:

Entry 149: Let Me Put My Law In You

2011-10-31T19:27:00.000-05:00

Legal education is expensive. Especially when you actually go to school for it. So let me save you some money and learn you some legal stuff, free of charge. Here are 10 lessons from actual cases* that you can use in your daily life. For convenience, I've put these in a format that's easy to remember.

*facts may be distorted at my convenience

Lesson #1

Lesson #2

Lesson #3

Lesson #4

Lesson #5

Lesson #6

Lesson #7

Lesson #8

Lesson #9

Lesson #10

I hope this helps. I would cite the cases for you and give you some more specific information, but my laziness prevents me from doing so. Just have to take my word for it, I guess!

Also, sorrs about the posting delay. I had 2 "almost" posts that, if they had worked out, would have kept me on schedule. Internet: 2, Caleb: 0.

And, since it's been a while, here are a few updates, bullet-style.

- I gave my first impromptu stand-up performance for an audience consisting of drunk guys and gals in costume waiting in line to use a single restroom. I explained that there was likely to be some errant pee in the vicinity of the toilet, as well as the inherent un-aimability of the male wiener. Seriously- I think you women vastly over-estimate our level of control over these things.

- A new friend gave me my new favorite quote. After intensely scanning a crowded room full of law students, he turned to me and said: "there is LITERALLY nobody in this room I wouldn't do."

- My team, the Cubs, signed an awesome general manager and president of baseball operations. My hated enemy, the Cardinals, won the world series. Yes, I still live in St. Louis, and no, I haven't been killed or put in jail yet.

- It's totally normal sometimes to wonder, "Am I really an alien? Is this life or a Stephen King novel?" Right? Right? I was a bit worried for a while that I'd lost what sanity I had left.

- Dad is doing well in Afghanistan, and says he has a lot of great stories. He hasn't written any or delivered anything to me to post for The BS Update. He did, however, almost die with his girlfriend and two small children while attempting to paddleboat through some rapids on the Wapsipinicon river. Fact: plastering someone with wet leaves in an effective sun-blocking technique.

What have YOU been up to? I know that I haven't been reading and commenting as much as I normally do, but I promise I try to keep up with all my friends and fellow bloggers. If you've done something of note recently, please add it to the comments. And by "of note," I of course mean shenanigans.

C out.

Entry 148: My (cats!) Serious, Non-ADD (cats!) Side. (cats!) And, You Know, (cats) Keeping It Real. (cats!)

2011-09-14T20:36:00.000-05:00

It's not often that I approach this blog as a serious outlet for sharing everyday happenings in my life. But, seeing as how so many things have changed in the last month, I felt it only fair to open up and bring the "real" parts of my life into sharper focus. So let's start at the "now" and work back to the "then," shall we?

Lolz! This sign is a block from my house! Creepers, right?

I'm living in St. Louis now, in a nice house that has a sweet balcony off my bedroom where I can read, chain-smoke, and drink coffee. I really like spending time out there! I've been reading George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, which is really good. If you like nerd fantasy, it's the way to go. And yes, it's the one that they have based the new HBO series Game of Thrones on.

Look at this elephant painting I found! Hilarious! He looks so annoyed!

I'm in my third week of law school here at Washington University. It's going well, but I think this first year is going to be a bit more work than I expected!

My friend's daughter got her hair highlighted- looks cool, huh?

Adjusting to a new situation can be difficult, right? Luckily I had the support of family and friends who all helped make my transition a smooth one. Special thanks to mommasauros for helping get my house ready to sell, and to LJ for helping me set up my new house. Couldn't have done it without you!

So I'm still trying to sell a few things from my house. Anyone need a trombone?

Here's a kind of funny story... when I got into St. Louis it was late -like, 3am- and I was exhausted. I only wanted to sleep but I didn't want to leave my TV in the Uhaul all night so I brought it into the house, quietly. Except my new neighbor woke up and offered to move his van if I need him to. Oh, and he was shirtless, long-haired, possibly drunk, and his name is Wildcat. No, that's his name. And his elderly mother lives with him and drinks Beast Lite all day... her name? Mama Wildcat.

Or an organ? It's in perfect playing condition!

One nice thing about a new school and a new city is meeting new people. So far I've liked the other first year law students I've met- though they're all a bit younger than I was expecting. A great majority are right out of undergrad (or close enough) and are only 22-23. There's a few oldies like myself, but still. That's kind of different!

My friend (Turtlegirl) daughter again! Dance!

Classes? They've been really interesting so far. All first year students take the same courses, so the classes are usually large- around 90 people. The professors like to call randomly on students and stick with them for questions, so it's best to do the reading and be prepared.

Sorry- that last one was blurry. This one's better.

I'd be lying if I said I haven't already had some drunken shenanigans occur. I know you'd expect nothing less from me, and I haven't disappointed. The odd thing is, the bars here are all different- some are open until 130, others 3am. Some allow smoking in the bar, some don't. Some are owned by quadriplegics that only bought one prosthetic limb so they can smoke camels all day, some aren't.

Mini-Turtlegirl on her first day of school in a new town. Precious!

While things have been good overall, there have still been a few rough patches. I haven't slept quite as well as I normally do, which is strange because usually nothing interrupts my sleeping. I've also inexplicably started losing weight, which for me isn't a good thing. Some of you may know my "possible tapeworm" story from early undergrad, but I'm always suspicious of unexplained weight loss. Hopefully it levels off.

You call this art? I call this barely-hidden penis porn. Nice try, Dali.

Oh, right. Some of you may wonder how I've fared so far in convincing Cardinal fans that they're headed to the dark side and to be Cub fans... well, as you'd expect, they haven't been very receptive. For my first week here I was pretty sure my name was "...fuck off."


No seriously- this is the cutest pic ever, right? Tiny girl in a big coat!!

And how's Ella? She's doing well. I think she likes the new house- though my roommate has a (cross-eyed) cat "Gnarls" and Ella is trying to establish her dominance. I'm sure they'll be friends in no time.

Aww... look who's all tuckered out!

Okay, that's probably all you need to know for now. Sorry about the break in blogging- it took me a while to get my shit set up, get settled, and get some free time. Hopefully I'll be back to my semi-regular blogging schedule from now on! As a sneak preview of my next blog idea, I'll ask this question: what does your voicemail greeting say about you?

See you soon!


Thanks to great friends for being... great friends!

Caleb "What? What's weird about this post? I don't get it." Shreves

PS Thanks to TurtleGirl for all the help editing these pictures! You were right- there was something missing before!

Entry 147: Lazy? Shit No! I've Been Busy Learning Stuff. And Things.

2011-08-10T16:14:00.000-05:00

Hey there, patient readers.

First off, I realize that I've been postless (What? Postless isn't a word? I HATE you, red-squiggly-underline-thing!) for some time now, and I want to assure you that it's not because of some artistic choice, or me trying to be like all the cool bloggers, or that I'm a lazy shit that found new distractions and abandoned you for videos of laughing babies. Au contraire! What happened is that very little happened in the last few weeks other than me getting ready to move to St. Louis.

Yeah, sure, there have been several slightly-amusing things that have happened, but you don't think I would just loosely tie all those things together in some post of poorly-hid random musings, do you? Of course not.

So as I get ready to move to St. Louis this weekend, I've been thinking of what I've learned recently. The life lessons and hard-won wisdom of my recent life. Without further ado (shutup, Sharla- I'll type as much as I want) I present to you...

Caleb's Life Lessons from approximately some time ago until now.

Lesson #1. Constant Complaining is a viable way to get what you want.

I have been bitching non stop about you-know-what at work. Recently, the vendors-that-be decided to finally stock the vending machine (dick) with blue Doritos. Rejoice! The next day, they took the vending machine out of the building. Mother. Fuckers. As to lesson #1?

Apparently someone realized the correct way to get me to stop bitching about not having Blue Doritos. Touche, Reebs.

Lesson #2. Spend time with your friends while you can.


Unicorn Horns make the best disguises

It's tough when you leave a group of friends. You get busy trying to prepare for a big move, and sometimes you think you can cram in a bunch of hang-out time and stock it away, like salt pork for a long winter. You can't though. Take the chances you get to visit your friends while you can, because you know they're a pack of lazy shits who will forget about you as soon as you leave and certainly aren't going to take the trouble to come visit you.

And since you're going to have to do a bunch of boozin' in your new city to make new friends, it's a good idea to play the "you know I'm going away, right?" card to get your friends to pay your bar tab. Save some money.

Lesson #3. People will ask you dumb questions about your move, so respond accordingly with dumb answers.

*these are all actual questions I've been asked recently. Often by several people, or the same person several times

Are you going to live in a house?

No. They actually don't have houses in St. Louis, so I'm probably going to rent an official Washington University Conestoga Wagon. That way I can use it to sleep in and procure sundries from the big city.

Doesn't it take 7 years of school?

Yes, but only if you opt for the Lawyer/Dentist/PhD 3-for-1 degree special. I think that's what I'm going to do, since they're having a half-off degree sale through August.

A 3 bedroom house? Are you going to have roommates?

What? And give up my arcade room and Guitar Hero workshop? Pshaw! As if! How can I be expected to study if I don't have ways to blow off some steam?

Are you going to take a truck to move your stuff?

Nope. I sold my +3 Longsword (+7 vs. Orcs) to the local arms merchant for 1800 gold pieces and bought a bag of holding (encumbrance .7) that should hold everything and fit in my car. Suck it, Uhaul!

Lesson #4. All those hours of playing video games DO pay off, mom!

In July my neighborhood bar brought in an old arcade machine that has awesome games like Dig Dug, Galaga, and Frogger. They thought it would be fun to have a contest on Frogger where the high score for the month wins a pizza party with lots of beer. So at the beginning of the month I dropped .50 cents, used 1 frog, and set a high score that was pretty beatable.

For a gamer. I think, though, that I'm the only gamer in town. Because nobody got close for most of the month, though the bartender Missy tried just about every day she was there. I was worried that my tease-and-destroy plan was going to fail, but 2 days before the contest was up I was rewarded with this:

11,800 points? Impressive! Nice work, Missy!

Boy was she proud. No less than 3 people texted me within the hour to gloat over the fact that my high score was finally beaten and there would be no free beer in my future. So I rolled in the night of the 31st with .50 cents and destroyed Missy's glory.

Lolz! I was still on the first frog and just kamikazed the other 2. For spite.

Ah, sweet victory. And yes, my beer and pizza were delicious.

Lesson #5. Skydiving is awesome and life really helps you hassle people sometimes.

Last year I went skydiving with Krust. Her OCD required her to look up pictures of all the tandem instructors that might have to be strapped to her and make sure none of them were "too gross." She was fine with all of them except one guy, Billy Bob. She said that if she was matched with him that she would go back to the car, stab her eye out, and drive home to take a week long shower just to get rid of the thought of jumping with him.

I went jumping again last week, dragging Kimmie with me because I got her to drunkenly agree last year to go if I went again. She thought I would forget, and I didn't. So in addition to the joy of watching Kimmie fall out of a plane, I got this:

Lesson #6. Never trust a gay instructor in a cooking class.

Seriously- how do you even cut this into slices?

Caleb "extra meat" Shreves

Entry 146: Man VS. Nature, But Man Gets To Use Starting Fluid

2011-07-19T17:40:00.000-05:00

I think that the spiders of my house are abusing my live-and-let-live policy. I've felt recently that the number of random spider sightings at the Caleb estate has gone up, and this culminated (or so I thought) last month when I saw the biggest spider yet in my basement while doing laundry. It was ::pauses, thinks of a way to not make this dirty:: um, it was thick, black, and hairy. (Shit!) Anyway. I reacted like any normal adult male and shrieked while rushing to smash it with a half-used bottle of detergent. The battle was over before it even began.

I told a few people about this spider, but I didn't tell LJ because I still had hopes that I could one day convince her to venture into my basement and do some laundry. I know, I'm an optimist. She's already scared of... something in the basement so I figured that telling her about a silver-dollar sized spider wouldn't help my case.

Literally- that's exactly what she said.

Last night I was heading out my front door to haz a smig* and I saw something that stopped me dead in my tracks. Let me try and re-create it for you.

Damn I'm good.

If you slowed time to a standstill, you could have identified four separate thoughts in my head.

1. That's strange.
2. Those look like insect legs.
3. More specifically, spider legs.
4. Wow- if those 2 legs are that big, then the spider must be
5. HOLY PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY THAT'S THE BIGGEST SPIDER EVER AND HE'S ALMOST IN MY HOUSE!!!

Okay, 5.

I collected myself for LJ's sake, took stock of the monster (holy shit, holy shit, holy shit, stay calm, holy shit), then assessed the situation. I had to show somebody this monster, but if LJ was terrified of spiders and saw this thing then she might just run off in her nightgown, get in her car, and never step foot in my house again. I decided to play it cool.


I think my "cool" looks more like tango dancing. But what's the difference, really?

Me: "Hey there, LJ. Question. If you were to rank, say, bugs and animals and stuff on a freak-you-out scale, where would you put things? Like, for instance-"

LJ: (slightly alarmed) "Did you see a snake? Was there a snake? Did you see a snake outside?"

Me: "No, no... but that's good. So you'd put snakes at the top of the list?"

LJ: "I don't like anything."

Me: "Okay... but snakes are ahead of say... spiders? Or bees?"

LJ: "There's a spider out there, isn't there."

Me: "Well there might... okay. Yeah. It's fucking huge. You have to come see it."

The die was cast. We remained remarkably calm as we put on shoes and then side-stepped quickly through the doorway to get outside and take a look at the monster. Oh, and while distracted, guess who decided to escape? Yup- Worms. Ungrateful cat.

It's hard to zoom in with an iPhone, but I tried to give a sense of perspective by using a lit cigarette. Check it out.

Okay, that wasn't working. For one, I was afraid of getting much closer to what I was sure was a wolf spider (they can jump). PS THEY FUCKING JUMP. So yeah, getting much closer wasn't an option. But look at this picture- he barely looks as big as the doorknob. In fact, he was bigger. I had to take another picture.

Here's whats crazy. I had to use my iPhone as a flashlight to see the thing. But when I took a picture, I had to turn off the light in order to use the camera. Leaving a brief period where I was IN THE DARK NEXT TO A MONSTER. But I did this, for you.

That's a little better.

It was battle time. The spider was endowed with fangs, venom, and agility, so I evened the score by scouring my house for the most dangerous chemicals I could find.

I passed up on Pledge (too lemon-y), decided against a carpet cleaner, and figured throwing dishwasher detergent cubes at it was going to be ineffective at best. Unless I could actually get it into the dishwasher, in which case it would obviously be the best weapon.

So I went for a concentrated cleaning agent (like, you're supposed to dilute it or something dumb) and a bottle of starting fluid. A fair match, I'd say.

As I sprayed it with Simply Green (turns out it was pet-safe and biodegradable- despite LJ's claims otherwise) it started jumping and running towards me, it's little fangs up in the air. I grudgingly gave ground and added a good dose of starting fluid to mix with the cleaner. It was trying to come at me, but was getting weighed down by all the shit I was spraying. Finally, we reached a standstill.

I backed up, slowly, not wanting to lose sight of it, and searched for something to smash it with. I found the discarded end of an old 10 pound dumbbell and held it several feet over Spiderzilla. Then I dropped it. Direct hit! I picked it up and dropped it over and over again, until the spider was naught but a pile of legs and goo (in a puddle of starting fluid and simply green cleaner). I wiped the sweat off my face and looked up to where I expected to see LJ, swooning over my bravery.

Instead, I found her updating Facebook. Seriously, Mark Zuckerberg- what have you done to us?

Caleb "1, spider: 0" Shreves

*"smig" is a new word for cigarette, coined by my brother Arby

Entry 145: The Five Minute Game. Oh, And Porn.

2011-07-08T11:45:00.000-05:00

Yo-skis,

I decided to play a game today. I get five minutes to pick popular topics and write something. Yes, this is a coffee-fueled idea, and no- I *don't* want any goddamn sugar in my coffee. Gross.

Setting the timer now... Go.

1. Casey Anthony trial

Did you know that some porn company had an offer on the table (heh... on the table) for her to do some adult videos? True story. They took the offer back after they assessed the extremely negative emotional reaction from people. Porn standards- I know, right? There goes my new drinking game idea, "See how long you can keep your boner while looking into Casey Anthony's crazy eyes."

2. Democrats and Republicans fighting over the debt ceiling.

Something about the whole thing reminds me of 2 straight guys getting tricked into doing gay porn. They both show up on set, wieners in hand, look at each other and say "where's the bitches?" Newsflash: there's no bitches.

3. Tosh.0.

Seriously- have you seen this fucking show? It's awesome-tastic-mazing-ceptional. That's a 4-combo adjective, which is the equivalent of a "fatality" in Mortal Kombat. Tosh recently gave me the quote of the month: "Anal sex is like spinach: if you're forced to have it as a child, you won't like it as an adult."

4. Soccer, some hockey, the French, hippies, tofu, sharing.

Gay.

Ding! That's 5 already? And yes- I type that quickly.

I feel cheated though... how about I take another 5, surf around, and see what sort of internet shenanigans I can come up with? Go.


Suck it, Krust!


I hope cubs.com appreciates my candid feedback

The Johann recently bought a new SUV that smells like a steak and seats 35. I call it "Canyonero" but he doesn't get the reference. I used my last 2 minutes to finally find the video for him and share it. You all know the reference, right?

And done. Not bad for 10 minutes, right?

Bonus! 1 minute to list what else one could do with 10 minutes. Go.

1. Have sex and then nap for almost 10 minutes.
2. Figure out that the Cubs are going to be losers this year
3. Get a degree from a community college
4. Wait for a beer at The Lucky Frog (Suck it, T!)
5. Get bored watching golf and play a 9 minute drinking game
6. damn! out of time

Anyway folks. This is a fun game- I suggest you try it.

Later!

Caleb "can I buy you a fish sandwich?" Shreves

PS technically I had an additional 15 seconds on the internet-shenanigan portion, so I've decided that I get a bonus. Behold, the OCD-like qualities of my future roommate. If she only knew how much beer of hers I'm going to drink...

I think she's getting serious about finding a place to live. Oh, and yes, the bottom one is in regards to me selling The Nighthawk. Blog Readers get a .01% discount!

Entry 144: Where The Whores Is

2011-06-30T16:43:00.000-05:00

When Ceaser built the Eiffel tower, he said his inspiration came from boredom and too much coffee. Or something like that, I don't know- it's not like I pay attention to things. But anyway, like Ceaser, most of my random conversations are due mainly to the same factors. Many times I hear the question "are we really talking about this?" in mid-conversation, which is totally rude considering I'm trying to enlighten you out of my own good intentions. You're welcome, life.

So recently I had a (brief) moment of self-reflection where I realized that a conversation that had just happened had, in fact, happened. Determined to share with you what an ordinary conversation with me might look like, I immediately transcribed it to the best of my ability and checked it with my friend, RM, who I had just had the conversation with. We sometimes do the weekly crossword, but often get delayed due to awesome conversations like this.

Here it is:

RM: "Are you ready to do the crossword now?"
Me: "Yeah, sorry, I had to re-post all my toys on Craigslist."
RM: "Toys?"
Me: "Yeah, I have several I need to sell. And when I do, I'm totally going to be responsible with the money."
RM: "Your eyes make me doubt you."
Me: "Okay, half responsible. I'll use half to pay for ::does air quotes:: 'Bills', and half on booze and whores. Well, booze anyway. Not sure how much whores are... ::considers:: Are they expensive? What's the going rate for whores nowadays, anyway?"
RM: "Um. I don't know."
Me: "Ballpark. Be reasonable."
RM: "I don't know. Why would I know that?"
Me: "I'm just asking for an educated guess here. Are we talking $20? $10,000? I just want to get an estimate."
RM: "A $20 whore doesn't sound like it'd be good."
Me: "Do you suppose $100 would do? You know, for one nights work? Maybe they operate like hotels and if you're still in past 11AM the next morning they charge you another stay."
RM: "Gross. I think $100 sounds a bit cheap for a whore."
Me: ::sighs:: "You're probably right. What about $250? Straight up. From the dinner hour through the evening. Dancing optional."
RM: "You're going to buy your whore dinner?"
Me: "Buy her dinner? Fuck no! I just gave her $250- I think she can afford a Subway sammich!"
RM: "You're really [at this point we don't remember if she said A)an idiot, B) cheap, or C)a fucking retard] you know?"
Me: ::wonders what whores eat:: "Anyway. On to logistics."
RM: ::sigh::
Me: ::ignores:: "Where are the whores at? I mean, where do you get them?"
RM: "I don't know where whores are. Why would I know that? You seem to think I know a lot about whores." ::casts suspicious glance my way::
Me: ::ignores:: "If you had to guess though? Downtown? The Library? Do they come out in the day or are they like Vampires? Oh! Oh! Are they still on Craigslist?? Under... erotic massage was it?"
RM: "No, they had to shut that section down remember?"
Me: "Oh right right right.... where'd they move to? Recreational vehicles? Home appliances?"
RM: "Yes Caleb. Home appliances. That's where they went. Can we do the crossword now?"
Me: ::rubs hands in maniacal glee:: "Yes... yes we can. I'll BRB." ::darts away towards desk::
RM: "No! No whore shopping! We have to do the crossword!"
Me: [yelling from my desk now] "Two minutes!"
RM: [yelling] "God! I just wanna do the CROSSWORD!!"
Me: [yelling] "Two minutes I say!"
RM: [yelling] "Said that before, haven't ya!?"
Me: ::ponders:: "Shut up, that's why!"

But it kind of gets you thinking, doesn't it? Where are there whores? What DO they cost?

It occurs to me that I know more about zombies than whores. For shame.

Also, I found this:


Yes, it says "Luv Box"

So...

Entry 143.5: In Defense Of My Previous Post. Also, Why Facebook Stalking Is A Viable Pastime.

2011-06-22T17:33:00.001-05:00

Peepers!

In my previous post, I mentioned my twin, a Slippery Dick, hostage blue Doritos, and the benefits of the iPhone. But all of that was a roundabout way of showing you what, I felt, was the best father/son picture ever taken. My friend Andrew from the blog Too Much Pressure (read it!) with his dad. Here it is again for you ADD-can't-remember-anything crowd:

Pirate baby, right? Well, actually, Kimmie thought he looked like a baby popeye. Spot on, Kim.

Well, Andrew- while appreciative of the flattery- felt that this baby picture was not representative of his typical baby cuteness. He had this to say in the comments:

Vapid Vixen [who said this this picture was effective birth control], this is an absolutely terrible picture of me. Because Caleb obviously hates me and couldn't use one that had me looking cute. Because usually I was cute. My mom wrote on the back of this one, "Buggers!" Yeah, I have no idea what the hell she was talking about...

Well, I didn't want Andrew to think that I had somehow maliciously picked out his goofiest looking picture just for the amusement of myself and my readers, so I decided to do some investigating and see if, in fact, most of his baby pictures were cute. Had I found one anomalous picture? Was this an outlier?

Turns out Andrew was right, and I was wrong. He left a bevy (::crosses 'use the word bevy' off the to-do list::) of ~~evidence~~ pictures on Facebook, and I'd like to set the record straight now by showing you what a typical picture of young Andrew looks like. We'll start here:

Ah-dorable. The perfectly fitted hat, the artfully placed freckles... in fact, if you look closely, you can see the loving craftsmanship that went into designing the patches over the knee. Score one for Andrew.

And how about this gem?

I don't know what I like more in this picture, the snappy overalls or the baby-on-one-leg pose. If you look closely, you can see a bit of the popeye face on young Andrew.

In this oh-so-adorable picture I won't even point out which one is Andrew. See if you can guess!

I think that Andrew and I have a lot in common. I too was always "that guy" that had to be different in every picture, never face the camera, and had inordinate pride in my overly-large and oblong head. We suffer in silence, Andrew.

Cuuute! Once again we see a hint of the Popeye face here, but nothing as intense as the original picture from Entry 143. Though the distress and obvious escape attempt in this picture is telling, it's still much cuter than the one I picked out. Touche.

You know what's cute? No, no... not just the too-short pants. And not the brown shoes or even the perfectly symmetrical hair part. Nope- look closer. The epic tenderness used to hold that rabbit in place on the fern bridge? Beautiful.

So after reviewing the evidence, I've come to realize that I needed to set the record straight and show people that Andrew was right, I picked the one strange picture he had, and show you the rest of the pictures so you could gain the proper context.

Oh! Oh! Because I can:

LOLZ!

Sorry Andrew. That's just... the most ridiculous picture I've ever seen. On the plus side, I didn't submit any of these to awkwardfamilyphotos.com. But maybe YOU should! And I want t-shirts made up with the original father/son picture by next Father's Day. I stand by my assertion: best. picture. ever.

In fairness, one day I promise to divulge a few of my embarrassing kiddy pics. I, uh, have some bad ones.

Caleb "sets the record straight" Shreves

PS In other news, I was awarded "Reader of the Decade" by the Cubs site bleachernation.com. Epic.

PPS In an effort to create balance in The Force, I'll include ONE actual cute Andrew baby picture. Hope you're happy.

....................

PPPS wait... wait... more balance needed. Here's one ugly baby, not Andrew.

There we go... ::sighs:: Balance, restored.

Entry 143: Hehheh... "Entry 143" How Many 'Entries' Does It Take Before... You Know What, Nevermind.

2011-06-20T12:28:00.000-05:00

Hey There Peepsosaurus!

You know, every time I make up some ridiculous name that ends in "saurus," I always wonder, "does that end in a 'us' or 'os'?" Because, of course, when you're making up words it's important to spell them right. So this time I finally looked it up. Which means, reader, that my calling you "peepsosaurus" was done with the utmost of academic integrity.

That being said (because it was), look at what I found!

Can you guess which one is me?

Same jeans? Check. Black Laredo boots on? Check. Same "corncob stuck in my butt" strut? Check. Nondescript shirts? Check. Talking on a white iPhone? Check.

That's right. I found my twin while I was in Chicago! I thought it would be fun to sneak him back to the hotel and trick LJ into having some sex with him, then I would jump out and yell "surprise! gotcha!" and she'd laugh and laugh, but we were running late to the Shedd Aquarium.

When we got to the Aquarium I thought I was going to have to have an epic battle with Linezilla, but for an extra 11 cents you can skip the 2 hour line, get a years membership, and get in right away. Yeah, apparently some people are dumb enough to not do that and prefer standing in line next to overweight emo teenagers that insist on wearing clothes that fit them 8 years ago. Great plan, happy.

But you know what's really cool? When we got in, I showed the chick at the counter my gun show and she was all like "Holy cow! Your guns! Please do us the honor of naming a new species of fish!" And then I was all like "Fine. But these guns are fer lookin', not fer touchin'" (Which is a lie, because, she could totally touch 'em. But you know.)

Ladies and Gentlemen, behold my aquatic masterpiece!


Named this one after my dear great-grandmother...bless her soul.

You're welcome. Now you might be saying "Whoa, whoa Caleb! Slow down! What were you doing in Chicago? What have you been up to? You can't just stroll into your blog without-" Which is where I interrupt you because you SO talk too much and I zoned out seconds ago. I will tell you what I was not doing however, because I took a neurotic and probably OCD girlfriend with me: getting lost.

It's kind of hard to see (sorrs), but these are directions, printed out, to and from every location within 200 miles of Chicago. Home to hotel, home to Wrigley, Wrigley to hotel, hotel to Wrigley, Wrigley to home, hotel to home, etc. This isn't even all of them (for serious). I'm all like, "Yeah, that's ~~crazy~~ sweet and all, but it turns out- like most things in life- the best solution is in my pocket."

Yeah... who even prints out directions anymore? Sheesh. That's so 2005. Get the net, LJ! (This is the part where she jumps in and argues that my iPhone map app is possessed, and the little blue dot has the ability to travel through time and space in ways that do not follow known scientific models. My standard retort goes as follows: "shut up, that's why." Then I kiss my iPhone on it's mouth. Well, where I imagine the mouth to be anyway.)

^ longest parenthetical thought of the day award! Yay me!

Anywhoo.

I went and saw the Cubs, they were awesome, and Wrigley field is my Mecca. But you knew that. And you also probably knew that the Cubs are the greatest sports team in the history of the universe. And you ALSO probably knew that I am a respectful and dignified fan of the game, who tries to treat my fellow man with grace and tact even when that sentiment is not returned. However, Yankees and Cardinals fans are rarely worthy of such treatment.

I generously offered a co-worker (Yankees fan) text updates with pics and highlights of the game. She told me I'd "better effing not" and then said bad things would happen if I did. Then I received this:

Threatening my innocent Blue Doritos? Not cool. Typical Yankee fan.

And Cardinal fans? They always claim that they know the most about sports. I was suspicious of this claim until recently, when an obliging Cardinal fan took the time to explain to a group of us the difference, in animal-mascot terms, of the Cubs and the Cardinals. Maybe they do know a lot. Worth considering.

Enjoy. (and no, you can't have these 19 seconds of your life back.)

What's the point of all this rambling? Well, okay. Fair enough- you caught me. I really just wanted to show you the funniest father/son picture I've ever seen, courtesy of Andrew at Too Much pressure. Thanks, man. Awesome pic! Seeing you as a baby really explains some things.

Stay classy!

Caleb "coffee coffee coffee coffee coffee" Shreves

PS someone please buy me the t-shirt that has 5 commas and a picture of a chameleon. Thanks.

Entry 142: I Lost An iPhone, But Gained Maturity. And Pants.

2011-06-01T13:44:00.000-05:00

Some of you longtime readers may recall that very few things in this world send me into a rage. Losing things, however, does. So I was surprised this weekend when I showed a lot of maturity by not going on a rampage when I temporarily lost my new iPhone.

Tangential story: I got a new iPhone, it's awesome, I can upload ridiculous pictures straight to Facebook and even have an application for fake texts. More on that later. Also, if you're curious about what else sends me into spiraling hate-fevers: hiccups. Seriously- I have left bars, parties, and fun events merely because a case of hiccups wouldn't go away.

My first all left-handed drawing!

ADD-return-to-topic time.

Anyway, I was drinking a few (read: 30+) beers on Sunday at The Cave and lost my phone somewhere between leaving there and arriving at the bar to drink more beers and a half bottle of tequila. (Note: that's not a good idea.) The next morning I awoke on my bed, sprawled out Vesuvian man style, fully dressed and with everything in my pockets from the night before except my phone. This morning I found my phone. The story of what happened in between is instructive, and I'll share it with you since you'd rather hear this story than work, obviously.

What to do in the event of you losing your phone: By Caleb Shreves

Start here. Not pictured: iPhone

1. Check obvious places, wear pants.

First you want to piece together where you might have been between the last time you had your phone and now. If you're hungover and likely still drunk, I recommend guzzling some coffee and maybe a few warm beers just to get your brain firing again. And if you have to step outside to check your car, I definitely recommend remembering to wear pants. Trust me.* Did you pass out on a couch? Perhaps your phone slid out of your pocket when you were fumbling to find your last crumpled up bills to buy that last shot of tequila? Nope, you've checked the obvious places and now it's time to get creative. So slam that warm Mike's Hard Lemonade you found outside (how'd that even get there, you wonder?) and hop on your 1983 Honda Nighthawk 650 to go revisit all the places you went last night.
*if, when you step outside, it takes you longer than 1 minute to realize you're not wearing pants, go back to bed.

2. Retrace your steps, blame others.

At this point you've officially lost your phone. You'll likely feel the indignant sting of universe-totes-not-being-fair and feel your anger rise, but don't give in to your hate-devil just yet. DO, however, name your hate-devil. I recommend "Wally" or "Clyde." Also at this point it's best to redirect your shame at drunken misplacements by subtly accusing everyone you see of somehow being involved in a nefarious phone-stealing plot. When you go to your cousin's house where you drank all day and don't find your phone, be sure to give him a suspicious glance and say something like "Gee... that's funny. You saw me with it all day and now suddenly you DON'T know where I lost it? Weird." And leave.

If you go to check the last bar you were at, but it's closed on Mondays for unknown reasons, you'll probably want to loudly pound on the door for several minutes, hoping that maybe someone is there who can open the place up so you can look around. They're not, and people on the street will look at you funny, but fuck 'em. Don't let their "oh I'm awesome cuz I still have my phone" smugness get you down. They probably have typhoid anyway.

New hairdo not included.

3. Complain loudly about your missing phone, blame more people .

Now your phone is officially lost, you've checked the obvious places and it hasn't turned up, and you're ready to regroup and think rationally. Don't do it. Try and find every person you saw the night before and accost them without warning about your phone. "Where is it!!" you demand. "Where's what? What are you talking about, Caleb?" "My phone! What'd you do with it??!" and give them that crazy look you've been practicing in your rearview mirror. That look that says "yeah, I'll eat a live squirrel on a dare." There's about a 0% chance that any of the people you blame actually had anything to do with you losing your phone, but you'll get a warm fuzzy feeling just by making the accusations. Wally will be pleased.

4. Use science and stuff.

LJ had a brilliant idea that was just crazy enough to try. Her theory was that I had to get into the same mental state as the night before in order to effectively recall what I had done with my phone. I googled some shit about it and apparently there's like, doctors and shit who have done tests showing that this works. If you're studying for a big test, study in the same conditions you'll take the actual test in (good advice for you LSAT takers out there). If you have a performance for something, practice it in the same way you're going to perform it. If you got absolutely hammered all day and night and lost your phone, well... I think you see where this was heading.

At about 6 beers into this plan you'll likely have your first epiphany. "Wait!" you say, "I do sort of remember getting my phone out at the bar to show someone a picture of my 5 year old cousin with his head and feet inside empty cases of miller lite!" Great- now we have a starting point for finding your phone! Keep those beers comin'.

Around 12 beers you'll likely get another revelation that will likely seem like that "aha! I know where it's at!" moment. Maybe you actually didn't drive yourself home (because you're totes responsible) and your phone is in someone else's car! Immediately find that person and order them to stop whatever they're doing for a full-on car search. When you dont' find it, your initial excitement will fade back towards rage and it's time to get back to drinking.

Keep drinking and having a good time, but make sure to interrupt periods of good-time-having with sudden random outbursts. "I WANT MY PHONE!!!" then "too bad about those Cubs today..." then "WHERE IS IT!!!" followed by "I love those shoes on you!" After enough beers you'll likely start to intermingle your comments. This is good. "Hey could I get another Bud Light and while you're back there could you FIND MY FUCKING PHONE??" is a good one. Or, "remember that time that we had an amusing adventure together and let's fondly reminisce about it and by the way I HAD A PHONE THEN." Good stuff. Nothing makes new friends like alternating bouts of good cheer and sullen yelling.

I mean, how could you *not* share this?

5. Give up, loser.

It's gone. Gone for good. You tried to recreate the conditions of when you lost the phone, you've exhausted every reasonable and logical possibility in your search, and you've made sure that everyone around you is aware of how you feel about losing your phone. Good work. At this point it's okay to reward yourself with some amusing distractions. Maybe a roll in the hay, or a drunken 3am bike ride on an icy road, or maybe you put your cat in the freezer until she "learns some manners." Whatever you want- you've earned it. Go to bed.

6. Acceptance, slight pangs of guilt, and the first place you should have looked.

There's almost always some sort of clue, right under your nose, that you've been missing all along. Perhaps as you clean your kitchen counter you see a mess of cheap Campbell's soup cans, empty ramen noodle bags, and a pot full of some strange-smelling meal still sitting on your stove.

"Wait..." you think, "if I drunkenly made food, and it's gone, then I probably ate it. Usually when I eat stuff I like to sit down places. If I was hammered and eating this strange ramen noodle/Campbell's soup/chicken lunchmeat extravaganza, I would have probably sat in my chair. Yup- look! Dumb and dumber is still up on Netflix and paused at the scene where Lloyd says 'Harry- I took care of it!' [total Lolz]!"

So check under the cushion of your chair, and... BINGO. There it is, with 17 missed calls, 5 voicemails, 9 texts, and inexplicably set to silent.

7. Scold your phone, refuse to apologize to people you falsely accused.

Pretty much self-explanatory, right? Don't go easy on your phone, either. Bad phone!

I can't stay mad at you...

I hope you appreciate how far I've come to have handled a phone loss like this with such grace and maturity. Gone are the days where I would stomp through the house, flinging cushions, pans, and cats around while making up angry lyrics to Garth Brooks songs. Nope, not anymore. I have a foolproof and responsible 7 step plan to dealing with loss now, so losing things isn't quite as scary of a prospect as it used to be.

Just don't let it happen again.

Caleb "can't wait to show you how fun the fake-a-text app is!" Shreves

Entry 141: Dad, And Other Reasons I'll Never Be Normal

2011-05-11T17:04:00.002-05:00

Those of you who have read my dad's blog from Afghanistan have probably already detected that much of my insanity is hereditary. While I'm sure some of this is merely the result of genes that spent one too many weekends in Vegas, I think a large part of the similarity between dad and I is the fact that I was raised a bit... different. And by different I mean a childhood of him amusing himself at my expense. You're seeing a pattern, right?

Dad, like me, has always been a thrill seeker and likes to keep himself busy with fun and adventurous activities. When I was only four years old or so, he decided to take me to a local amusement park, Adventureland, for a day of quality father-son bonding. Some parents in this situation would take their children on the safe, age-appropriate rides intended for the delicate physical frames of developing youngsters. Not dad. Instead he tried to sneak me onto the most dangerous, scary, and likely-to-break-down rides in the park. In particular, I have a vivid and terrifying memory of him convincing me to "stay quiet" while he got me past the attendant for the fastest coaster in the park, The Tornado.

I was far too small to be contained by the lone, flimsy lap bar that held people in (ostensibly), so I remember dad having to sort of push me back down as I flew up from my seat several times. I also remember him having a great time on the coaster while I screamed, cried, and probably peed myself. I think of this incident every time a would-be parent laments that having kids means giving up your own fun. Yeah, ask my dad about that.

One thing I remember enjoying were the times when dad drove my brother and I to school. These trips were extra fun because, other than a lawnmower or a Harley, dad picked the vehicle least suited to transporting a group of people: a tiny green pickup truck with a stick shift. Since we lived in Iowa, it was almost always winter and/or raining which meant that we were not only packed into the tiny cab of a truck, but were also bundled up in our cold weather clothes with our backpacks on our lap.

Adding insult to injury, we usually stopped at the gas station for "breakfast." Before you report my unnecessary quotations, let me assure you that our gas station breakfast consisted of long johns, coffee, and my brother's infamous "burnt hot dog with way too much relish and mustard on it for this early in the morning" feast. We would rock along in the little truck (running late, of course), my brother leaking relish onto his clothes and my dad drinking coffee, smoking, shifting, talking on the phone, listening to the radio, steering, and reading the newspaper. I think it was around this time that I acquired much of my disregard for personal safety.

Luckily dad held not only a healthy skepticism for "things that might harm me," but also for any sense of shame or embarrassment he might inflict on me or my brothers. For instance, one day he decided to take us into town to the mall for haircuts. Granted, we needed a trim, but I still feel that he could have changed out of his hip waders and into some jeans first.

Despite these types of behaviors, dad has always been a kind of hero to me. In fact, for a while he literally was a superhero. Probably one you've never heard of, either.

Me: "Dad, what do you do at work?"

Dad: "Why, I sign contracts for the Government!"

Me: "What's that? And... you just sign stuff?"

Dad: "Important stuff! I'm contracting man!" *mimes trumpet blast*

Me: "What stuff do you sign? Checks? Papers and stuff?"

Dad: "Stuff? No, son. Important things! Wherever there's a need for bridges to guide hungry travelers across a river to the market, or when hungry babies are stuck in a tree, or when kittens have no milk- a contract needs SIGNED! And there I am, contracting man and his trusty pen, to the rescue!"

Me: "Yeah, but-"

Dad: "Never fear, children! Contracting man will save the day! [at this point he ignores me and launches into what can only be described as an impromptu one-man play]

[falsetto child's voice] "Oh no! Timmy is stuck in the well and no one is here to sign the contract that allows Federal dollars to be obligated towards his rescue! Who will help us?!

*sings dramatic entrance music with accompanying dance, then leaps dramatically from the third stair to the floor, hands bravely at his hips*

[dramatic superhero voice] "Have no fear, children! *I'll* sign that contract!" *brandishes imaginary pen*

[child's voice] "Oh yay! Contracting man is here with his pen to save the day! Hoorayy!"

*strides around the living room, signing imaginary contracts. Occasionally uses the pen to word of blows from an imaginary ne'er-do-weller*

[superhero voice] Here you are, Timmy! Safe and sound, thanks to the sound fiscal responsibility inherently added to the clausal language of that contract!"

[timmy's voice- suspiciously like the younger sibling on Old Yeller] "Gee thanks mister! I wasn't sure if I was *ever* gonna get outta that well!"

[superhero voice] "Well you're safe now! And always remember kids, never allow anyone but an approved government-designated representative to commit funds on behalf of your government!"

[child's voice] "We will, contracting man! Thank you! You saved the day again! Yayyy!!!"

[superhero voice] "That's right, kids, whenever terror strikes at your heart or evil seems on cusp of total victory, just call for contracting man to save the day!"

[child's voice] "Thank you contracting man! You're our hero!!"

*mimes flying off into the sky, sings theme from Superman, sheathes imaginary pen as he points his arm out and flies out of the room*

Dad retired his pen and cape and left the world of contracting over 15 years ago, but I was reminded of "Contracting Man" recently because he went back to work for the Government in February. He volunteered for a civilian deployment to Afghanistan, ostensibly for "contracting-related work," but the DAY he got in country was the DAY Bin Laden was killed. He's been pretty hush-hush about it, but an email he sent me that day *did* contain a winky-face. So, you know, draw your own conclusions.

I wanted to post this for dad's birthday on June 4th, or maybe on father's day June 19th, but one thing dad always taught me was never do what "normal" people do. Hence, it's up today! Here's to all the fathers out there, whether they know it or not.

Caleb "Yeah, you can read what you want into that last sentence" Shreves

PS Condolences to Becky, whose house was broken into last night. They stole her coffeemaker, people. Her COFFEEMAKER. What kind of sick world is this?

FIN

Entry 140: It's All Fun And Games Until A Meerkat Steals Your Mojo

2011-04-28T18:00:00.000-05:00

There comes a time in a man's life where he stands atop his kingdom, surveys the victories he has wrought, and smiles in smug self-satisfaction. Confident in his role as Chief Shenanigator, he sleeps each night in comfort knowing that he, and only he, is master of all domains. No one tells jokes as funny as he does, no one gets the girls like he does, no one drinks like he does- he's the King Winner in every sense. Believing himself to be the sole haver of Adonis DNA, he inevitably lets his guard down and misses the new up-and-comer gunning for his spot as top dog. This, ladies and gentlemen, is exactly what happened to me recently. Let this tale serve as a warning to ye of the Tiger's blood.

It was a Friday night and I was going to see LJ perform in a stage production of Happy Days. I left work early in order to pre-game at a local bar, since the only way my ADD will agree to two hours of singing and dancing is if I bribe it with alcohol. I struck that bargain for a few hours and then headed to the show where I was meeting LJ's brothers/sisters/wives/girlfriends/guy-friends-who-are-totally-not-boyfriends. Apparently her brother, Lampy, was bringing his girlfriend and a new friend of his, Oswalt The Meerkat. Oswalt was visiting from England and had been staying with Lampy at school in Minnesota. Supposedly he was quite the party-meerkat, but whatevs. I'm me.

I showed up, four Guinness deep, to the theater ready to enjoy the bucket of Bud Lights I had waiting for me at our table. But wait- what the hell? Someone drank them already? What. The. Fuck.

I had to wait minutes (minutes!) for our waitress to bring me out a fresh bucket. But again, whatevs. He'll learn to recognize. Besides, I think someone must have told them I'm in the audience because they're about to announce me to everybody. God I hate it when they do this! Sigh... being famous can have its drawbacks...

Stage Manager: "Thank you all for coming tonight! We have a few special birthdays to announce tonight... and congratulations to Ethyl and Gene who are celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary! Way to go, way to go. And finally, we would like to recognize someone very special in the audience tonight..."

I start to rise from my seat. Gosh this is embarrassing sometimes!

Stage Manager: "...all the way from England..."

What? I'm not from England?

Stage Manager: "Oswalt Meerkat! Where are you, Oswalt?"

I sat down sheepishly as hundreds of heads turned to look towards our table. Oswalt jumped up, spilling his beer on me, and shouted:

Oswalt: "'Ello! 'Ere I am! Right here! 'Ello everbody!"

What? Yeah, they see you. You're special. Now sit down.

Cripes.

Slightly sullen but undeterred, I guzzled beers and told jokes with Lampy during the show. Everyone decided afterwards to have a mass celebration at a local bar, and I perked up at the chance to show everyone that I was hilarious and Oswalt was a cheap one-hit wonder. Little did I know that things were about to go from bad to worse.

We rolled into the bar and I ordered a beer. Which was promptly stolen.

Dick move, Meerkat. You know, Caleb, you do that to people all the time! And you always think it's pretty funny. Shut up. That's different. I'm *me*. Can't you see? Eee-ee-eee!! *starts singing "you are so beautiful," stops, refocuses* Anyway. The point is, wait- is he telling my joke? That's MY fucking joke!

"So right, there's these 3 Polish guys sittin around. One of em says 'ey, I got an idea, let's play 20 questions. I write something down on a slip a paper and you twos 'ave to guess it. 'Okay,' they says. So the bloke writes down 'Donkey Dick' on some paper and slips it in 'is pocket. The first guy says "Right-o, is it something you can eat?" And the guy thinks about it and says, "well, I guess... technically... you *could* eat it, I suppose," and the other Polish guy yells out "It's Donkey Dick, idn't it!"

Oh yeah. He's fucking hilarious. Telling MY goddamn jokes. You know what? I'm not even going to let this bother me. Maybe I'll go find that brunette gal at the bar and impress her with my comedic wit.

You're kidding me.

Whatever. I'll just step out for a smoke, get away from this chump for a minute, and collect myself. Just because he's telling my jokes and stealing my beer does NOT mean that he's somehow the new Mr. Cool. I just need to get my confidence back, regroup, and, --- you've got to be kidding me. Her?

Fuck! I've seen that girl slay would-be-dudes like a level 87 half-barbarian warrior cutting through dungeon rats with a +7 broadsword! And he gets her in under a minute? Caleb, your D&D nerd reference isn't helping your case. Fuck off! That's not the point. *I'm* the only one who can woo girls that fast! Damnit! Caleb, you're already here with the prettiest girl. Who cares if Oswalt can charm girls as fast as you? You've already won this fight! Seriously, inside-my-head voice, you just don't get it, do you?

By this time Oswalt had realized that he was getting to me, and -smelling weakness- tried to move in for the kill. LJ, who hadn't fallen for his shit, tried to council reason. She knew the consequences of a full-blown Caleb tantrum.

Caleb, aren't you *always* the one who thinks it's funny to torture other people and make them snap for your amusement? Voice! Shut! Up! GOD! Your "reason" is un-appreciated!

Seriously.

You know what? I'm just going to march in there, grab that stupid meerkat by his dumb meerkat throat, and- No. Fucking NO.

It's kind of hard to score points in this game...

Do you know how long it takes to set a record on these games? And he just strolls in from London, yells a few "cheerios" -whatever the fuck that is- and beats my record? Bullshit! No. NO. You know what? You know what??

...Caleb...

I'm gonna rip his

...CALEB...

His head... off... what? Ella? Is that you?

Yes, indeed it was. My cat was apparently sending me psychic messages. As my anger gave way to amazement, I saw a vision of my cat, Ella, swimming in my head.

Ella? Are you really talking to me? Or are you a manifestation of the reasonable voice I hear in my head?

What do you think, dipshit?

Okay then, it's you. Fine. But why appear as my cat in a wig? You know what, never mind. What do you want? I have some meerkat to kill!

Before you do, remember what the bible said: "When you stab me with your sword, you're really stabbing yourself and shit."

That's what she said!! *goes for a high five* Nothing? No? *awkwardly puts hand down*

Okay, so you're saying that maybe... I'm Oswalt and Oswalt is me?

::Smiles knowingly::

You're gay, reasonable voice. That's totes lame.

Really? Going there? I hope you haven't forgotten *this*:

Oh my God- are you serious? That was a Halloween costume! And besides, that was years ago. Lots of people wore pink shirts with kittens, moons, and stars. Whatever. You're crazy.

Crazy, am I? *I'm* crazy?

That's what I said, isn't it? Me equals sane, you equals crazy. That simple enough for you?

Oh, I get it. You're saying *every* sane person acts for hours like they're an old, blind, blues guitar player named Blind Melon?


I had a woman, you know she don't treat me good. You know, I had a woman, and she don't treat me good. You know that don't bother me no more, ever since I can't get wood... ba dom dom dom dooba doh dom...

Blind Melon? He's awesome! Soulful yet edgy- like Justin Bieber if he had a mohawk. Or like Neil Diamond on drugs, except they're fake drugs, but he doesn't know that. And he's riding a camel.

Right. Back to you not being crazy...

Fine. I see your point, I guess. Are you trying to say that Oswalt is some sort of younger me, prone to the same mishaps and learning experiences that I went through?

Exactly. While it seems like he's stealing your moves, he's really just flattering you by trying to emulate the master.

Interesting. My ego likes that. So if that's true, he's going to experience the inevitable consequences of his actions like I did?

Please. Like you ever-

Okay then! Voice over. Lalala! *plugs ears* I'm just going with my theory and assuming that Oswalt will crash and burn any minute. Now where is that meerkat...

Yeah, I guess he is a bit like a younger me. Always out trying to drink more than he can really handle. Uh oh... switching to mixed drinks. Better be careful, buddy!

Where's your hat, douche?

This is about where Oswalt started to get too cocky. It's one thing to flirt with girls, and another to flirt with girls whose boyfriends are way bigger than you and right nearby. But oh no- you go ahead, Mr. Cocky.

Yeah, keep going buddy. Cause her boyfriend isn't right OVER THERE!

Yeah, like that stops girls! Pshaw! I shook my head as Oswalt moved in for the kill, thinking he was in the clear. Unfortunately her boyfriend had a friend watching the whole thing. Fine, reasonable voice, you may be right. This is definitely reminiscent of my youth.

As her boyfriend rushed over, I thought I was going to see a meerkat-beatdown. But in the final moment his friends jumped in and saved Oswalt's ass.


He pointed in case there was some confusion as to which meerkat it had been.

See there, reasonable voice? *I* would have gotten pounded, but Oswalt somehow manages to escape!

What? Wha- why are you wearing my Xbox headset this time? I swear, if you chew through my cable-

Watch...

What.. oh. Uh oh!

And then it was on. Cue music!

[Ahem. Please play the video before watching the following fight scenes. Warning: some of these images might be too graphic for younger readers.] [[Also, if this video gums up yer interweb, click this link to open the background music in a different window!]]

Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting....

And Oswalt leads off with a sweeping roundhouse to the face!


Those cats were fast as lightning...

Counter-punch, right to the kisser! Anyone caught in the melee was fair game. Bottles were being smashed, chairs thrown- it was kung fu chaos!

It was a little bit frightening...

Aww snap! Arm twist by Oswalt! Who even uses that move anymore? Apparently Oswalt wasn't above fighting dirty...

They fought with expert timing...

Meerkat bite to the tongue! *That's* gotta hurt! As the fight reached its climax, Oswalt finally stepped over the line.

Apparently that was the last straw, as Andrew delivered the knockout blow moments later.

Um... wait. I got it. It was... Andrew the angry boyfriend, in the bar, with a beer pitcher? Ding ding ding! Whadda we have for her, Johnny?

While I certainly enjoyed watching Oswalt getting his ass beat, part of me felt bad for him. True, he was full of the P&V like I was in my younger days, but I never really got my ass whooped. Oswalt finally came to, but by then he was in even worse trouble...

That's right. Rock Island's finest had heard about all the funky chinamen in funky chinatown and had arrived to cart everyone off. Everyone. We pleaded our case that it was all Oswalt's fault, but since everyone had gotten involved they couldn't sort everything out at the bar. They wanted to take everyone to jail- even Funky Billy Chin and Little Sammy Chung! I realized that my wish for Oswalt to receive his comeuppance had backfired and now everyone would pay the price. Wasn't there something I could do to set this straight?

News team, assemble...

What's that? Worms?

News team, ASSEMBLE!

Why are you quoting Anchorman? Do we have to go back to the you're crazy refere-

NEWS TEAM, ASSEMBLLLLLEE!!!

Wait... wait... I remember! My mom always told me that in case of a severe emergency I should use my Egyptian mummy super powers to call in reinforcements... Okay... breath... remember your training... who can I get to help...

Jason Fechner...

The Channel 8 news guy?

He reads the news... His voice could make a kitten purr... his suits make Sinatra look like a Hobo... call him, Caleb... Call him! The arsonist has oddly shaped feet!!

I chanted the words, over and over, waiting for Jason to appear. I began to doubt if it was going to work at all, and wondered if I should have called the super-hottie Cassie Heiter instead. Sure she does weather, but come on: check her out! Before I could reconsider, Jason appeared in a flash of light. He waved his microphone at everyone in the room and yelled "No-jailious Petronus!"

It worked! The cops started dancing, Jason read some breaking news, and Oswalt apologized to everyone involved. More importantly- I was the hero for saving the day! Well, Jason got most of the credit, but still.

Look! I made him a nametag! Suck that, 3rd grade teacher who said I lacked creativity!

Oswalt was pretty cool after all that, and even offered to buy me a beer. Unfortunately he couldn't remember his PIN for the machine and promised to hit me back next time if I spotted him a few bucks that night. I'm sure he's good for it, I mean he-

Really Caleb? You're going to ignore the fact that he pulled a classic Caleb "get a free beer while still seeming like the good guy" on you? You know what? Maybe you *have* lost your-

Annnnnnd... stop. Sorry, reasonable-voice. I've reached my daily capacity for listening to your nonsense. You may save me from a scrap now and again, but for the most part you're anti-winning. And we can't have that.

While this particular night ended well, I certainly learned a lesson about keeping my edge. Sure, I defended my top spot against a dapper meerkat with Egyptian newscaster-summoning powers this time, but maybe next time I won't be so lucky.

Maybe next time it'll be a wasp.

And I'll be hungover...

Caleb "Yay I did some MO without injuring myself!" Shreves

PS Find "The Blog Experiment" on Facebook! I added a page because, well, that's just what the kids are doing these days.

PPS And, if you want further Oswalt stories, he's on Facebook now! Look for Oswalt Mkat [apparently a person with the last name "Meerkat" is sufficiently strange enough for them to need to approve it...I guess Facebook doesn't follow Name Of The Year!]

Fin.

Entry 138: The Key Is To Establish Your Dominance From The Beginning

2011-04-13T16:21:00.000-05:00

As I make my final decisions about law school and prepare for a new collegiate adventure this fall, I've been reflecting on how my initial experience at UNI went, all those years ago. What precedents did I establish? What was exciting and beneficial, and what would I do differently now?

In my mind, the key is in setting a low bar. You have to establish that your actions will be unpredictable, illogical, often contradictory and sometimes even borderline dangerous. While keeping up this type of behavior over the long run will likely leave you dead and/or friendless, it certainly allows for a certain type of freedom over the course of your studies. No one will question the occasional craziness of a person if that person has already established themselves as "that guy."

Accepting my premise as true (a habit you should be in by now), how best could one establish this sort of behavioral precedent? As I reflected on my auspicious entrance to the University of Northern Iowa, I realized that I was going to hard-pressed to outdo myself at a new college. But still, what lessons did I learn? Other than "gravity."

I enrolled at UNI as a trumpet major, wanting to play high notes, jazz music, and maybe some polka music for side money. For reasons as obscure as they are preposterous, the school required that *all* music majors enroll in the Panther Marching Band (hereafter PMB) for 2 years. I had some fun times in marching band, and met a lot of great people, but I didn't like having my arm twisted to join something involuntarily. Kind of like school lunch when it was sloppy joe day. Rather than complain at the time, I made a list of the possible pros/cons of being in marching band:

So I didn't whine and I tried to make the best of things. I worked hard at making sure I was involved and making friends. To this end I happily participated in events outside of practice.

And I made sure to try my best to make new friends.

Before school even started, PMB required 6 hour-a-day rehearsals for an entire week. While this sucked donkey dick, the cool part was that each night was usual capped by giant house parties hosted by the tuba players. If you didn't know this, tuba players are renowned for their massive drinking abilities, inexhaustible party energy, and inability to hold "actual jobs." It was during one of these parties during the first week that I made my "that guy" move.

I can't launch the story without first telling you some background information. I had arranged for my dorm roommate to be a friend of mine from my hometown, the awesome Grandma Beasley. Ahh, Beasley. It's hard to not go ADD and just tell you some awesome Beasley stories, but I'll hold off for now. Our room was unique in that it was on the top floor of Noehren hall, which was interesting because the ceilings were approximately 47 feet high. Since no standard loft would fit in these rooms, and I'm lazy, Beasley took it on himself one day to buy some lumber and "build" our loft over lunch. Sure, it didn't have "support" and it wasn't "safe," but at least it was there. And, before you get ahead of me, in the entire year of creaking and bowing in the middle, the loft never actually broke. I recently found a copy of the building plan Beasley used:

One night there was going to be an awesome party at a tuba player's house. I decided I was going to walk there with my friend, Bronco, because she was bringing her best high school friend along with her, a young lass named Mo. This was one of the first instances of me falsely being labeled as an "instigator" and "bad influence."

Bronco: "Shreves, I swear to God, if you sneak Mo alcohol or get her in any trouble, I'll fucking cut your balls off. She's young and innocent and I don't want you corrupting her. You hear me?"

Me: "Relax! First, I've never been a corrupter or forced someone to have fun against their will. Second, most likely I'll be too hammered to carry out a complex plan of secret manipulation. Tell you what- I won't even talk to her."

Bronco: "Why doesn't that make me feel better? I'll be watching you, Shreves."

Little did Bronco know, Mo was already on her way to being a queen partier. To this day, she's badass awesome and tons of fun. So of course she got hammered (puking) drunk that night, and despite my innocence I'm pretty sure I still got blamed.

While the parties each night up to this had been pretty epic, it was at this particular party that I enacted what I call the "Caleb emergency drunk contingency." Since, in an effort to peacock, I accepted any and all drinking challenges (always a danger with band kids), I was pretty drunk late in the night. What I call "up to the line."

As I dipped my toe over the drunk line, I received some sort of drinking challenge. I don't remember what exactly, but I think it was a "who can drink this bottle of jager?" challenge. Knowing I had to accept, and knowing the consequences, I asked Bronco to help with Drunk Caleb.

Me: "Bronco. I'm a half-beer away from incoherent, incapable drunk. And I'm about to drink most or all of this bottle of booze. Afterwards, I won't remember my name. Could you help me find my way back to the dorm?"

Bronco: "Sigh. Do you really think this is a good idea?"

Me: "Agreed then."

And I did. And I was. At this point I have to fast forward to an undetermined time later because I was too hammered to remember anything. My mind came back about halfway through the walk back, and I decided to start establishing further dominance. So, I marked my territory by peeing on the buildings on campus.

This was nearly 10 years ago, and I still argue with Bronco on which building it was I peed on. She claims it was the music building, while I (rightly) say it was the business building. Her agrument that I was drunk and obviously don't know what I'm talking about is strong. However, I have a memory like a hawk (and a keen sense of metaphor) and I specifically remember peeing on the business building. Plus, it was on the way and the music building was not.

Also, I'm sure in my inebriated state I would have found it hilarious to do my "business" on the business building. Probably the strongest argument of all.

Regardless, when I got back to my dorm I realized that I had a problem. If you'll refer back to my loft drawing, you'll see that something is missing. Besides girls. There was no ladder or way to get up onto the thing. I saw that Beasley had shoved his desk near the window so he could triple-jump his way up, and I thought the same idea would work for me. Picture me, drunk, leaping off a desk to grab the edge of my 12 foot loft, with Bronco pushing from the bottom of my feet. Yeah, "that guy." Somehow I made it up, fell asleep, and everything was fine.

Not.

I awoke to the feeling of being shot by artillery fire in the hip. Confused and hungover (read: still drunk), I looked around and found myself on the floor. Moments went by as I realized that I had tumbled out of my loft, hit the corner of my desk with my hip, and lay possibly paralyzed on the floor. Hearing the commotion, Beasley looked down groggily and asked "are you all right?" I didn't answer. He assumed this meant I was fine and went back to sleep.

Dick.

First of all, I was late for rehearsal already. Second, I was pretty sure my hip was broke. Third, the penalty for missing a rehearsal was a date with Hugh Grant so I knew that I couldn't just skip and be hungover/dead all day. I had to go and at least explain that I was going to the doctor instead.

So I trudged my drunken, disheveled, alcohol-reeking ass the half mile to the stadium where rehearsal had already started. I had to tell the director that I was going to the doctor for an X-ray, but dreaded the thought of all 200 PMB members watching me limp down the stairs with my hair all fucked up to tell the director that I had an "accident." To be frank, it was so traumatizing that I blocked the memory from my mind, and only remember going to the student health center an hour later.

Yes, this was embarrassing and I still haven't lived it down. But let's look at the positives: I showed my drinking prowess, willingness to party, pain tolerance, get-out-of-shit abilities, and had funny stories to tell right out of the gate. My name was now famous in the PMB, and my loft-falling has become a thing of legend. And this was all before school even started!

So know I'm left to consider how I can accomplish these same objectives at a new school. I'm older now, and wiser, so maybe there's a way I can do it that doesn't cause massive pain. Maybe. Either way, establishing early dominance is the #1 thing on my school to-do list. Hopefully I can do it without having to shamefully limp down a flight of stadium stairs to the knowing looks of 200 college kids.

Caleb "No, my hip wasn't broke" Shreves

Entry 137: Squeeks, Squirms, And Maybe A Dogtrocity.

2011-03-31T13:44:00.000-05:00

Remember how I told you that my cat had a bit of a weight problem? While there were some good suggestions (get her some new cat toys) and some austere recommendations (feed her dryer lint), a common refrain from most people was "get another cat to keep her company."

Sounds good, in theory. But I was reluctant for a number of reasons. First, I'm still shocked that I've managed to keep one animal alive for 5 years. Beyond that, Squirms is already a responsibility as well as a pain in the ass. Did you know cats want to eat every day? I just fed you *last* week! Sheesh. And remembering to take out 2 litters? Some nights I don't remember to make myself dinner. Let alone deal with this mess:

While I was opposed to a new cat, LJ decided that a kitten playmate for Squirms was definitely the way to go and that I could be persuaded. Convinced that if I only saw how cute the little bastard was I couldn't refuse, she went in search of the cutest kitten on Earth. Well, her plan was sound in most respects, but she overlooked one fatal flaw:

Thank God I didn't end up with that little tyrant- he's a huge (literally- I think his mom was a street liger) ass-clown that thinks it's funny to play the "spill any liquid around" game in the middle of the night. Sometimes I hold him up by the tail and blow cigarette smoke in his face just to assert dominance. Hey- my dad did it to me, and that worked out just fine.

While LJ's plan had failed, Kimmie had a different approach. She knew that two of my weaknesses- Bengal cats and irony- could eventually be my undoing. The first phase of her plan was to make me jealous by inheriting two Bengal cats, which are *fricking awesome* and normally very expensive. Where LJ's Leaf Coneybear inspired what I call "not jealousy" I was smitten by Kimmie's 2 awesome Bengals.

My cat defense softened by Bengal-envy, Kimmie began phase 2 of her nefarious plan. She suddenly "found" a cat that she had to care for, yet she didn't "want" to because she had already just gotten two new cats. She asked me to take this new cat "temporarily" but then began dropping ironic coincidences that she knew I couldn't refuse. She found a cat so similar to my own cat that I couldn't in good conscience say no. Here you go:

What was I supposed to do? Squeeks? You know I can't pass that up! Squeeks and Squirms? Identical cats? Oh you're good, Kimmie. Maybe too good. Whatever, she won this round and I have had Squeeks at my house since Saturday. Now I'm working on getting him and Squirms to get along because, well, my cat's a bitch.

I read on the interweb that introducing a new cat into a house is a lot like setting your friend up on a date. Lock the new one in a room for days so they can smell each other without fear of physical contact, manipulate both into thinking that they're your favorite, and slowly introduce them to each other while banging pots and pans if a fight breaks out. Most of my married friends actually started out this way.

I have been working this approach since Saturday, and have just recently allowed both of them to be out during the day together. So far, Squirms has not been amused or pleased with this development. Though I'm seeing definite signs of improvement- for instance, her hiss-radius has gone down 50%. That's progress.

Not drawn to scale

Not bad. Sadly, Elizabeth Hurley's "call the police" radius on me has remained steady.

I think the final bonding moment between Squeeks and Squirms is going to be when they finally find common ground. Specifically, a common enemy.

Let me pause right there and tell you about the most annoying pack of mongrel half-breed dogs the Earth has ever seen. To get you in the mood (heh), and to explain why I call this pack "The Bumpuses," here's a video:

While they haven't stolen my Christmas turkey, my neighbor's dogs do have what I call "The 24 hour bark-cycle" similar to how CNN has a 24 hour news-cycle. And they're both equally annoying. These dogs WILL. NOT. SHUT. UP. They bark in shifts, so as to never have a gap of constant mongrel yapping. They will get quieter just to lull you into a false sense of peace, then crescendo their symphony number #9 in Db-shutthehellup right when you're getting ready for bed. Their favorite recent trick is to yowl along every time I sing (loudly) in the morning. Everybody's a critic.


Fuckin Dogs.

In a show of solidarity Squirms has always hated these dogs as much as me. Well, I found out that Squeeks couldn't move with his family because there were going to be dogs, and Squeeks HATES dogs. You see where I'm going with this, right?

"John Stamos!"

Hopefully this is how things work out, because it'd be cool if there was one good thing to come out of me not throatpunch-murdering these dogs. I'll keep you posted.

Damnit, spellcheck! I thought I added "throatpunch" already.

In other news, the Cubs (aka "real baseball") start tomorrow, and my birthday is Saturday. Thinking about a photo-year-in-review. Sound interesting?

Caleb "yes I promise no naked photos" Shreves

PS Congratulations to GothBiotch and T-Rav on their engagement! I think this means beer for life though.

Entry 136: "S" For Espanol!

2011-03-28T14:14:00.000-05:00

This is a story about my friend, Sanders. Here's what you need to know about her for the purpose of this story:

1. She's very smart, and very bitchy. In a good way.
2. She has very, very low tolerance for stupidity or slowness.
3. She's short.

Okay, I don't know about #3, but the other two are definitely relevant.

Sanders, now happily married, was recently divorced when I met her. She said it was amicable, but I knew there were things she wasn't telling me. It was odd, for instance, how the ex still did all her outside chores and work. I think she paid him in M&Ms and Star Trek action figures, but still. Seemed like slave labor.

Over time I chipped away and found things out that helped explain the situation. They dated in high school, there was a military wedding benefit sort of thing, she was young, they were friends, blah blah blah. Still, I knew something was missing. Some key element to the story that would make the whole "friendly ex, slave labor, still boss him around at will" thing make sense. Finally, one day I got it out of her.

Caleb: "So really though. You say he's not that sharp, he's like a little brother that you just boss around at will, yet he goes along with all this. You can't stand dumb people as a general rule, yet you married this guy. What's the deal?"

Sanders: "Well... okay. There is more to the story. He wasn't just a *little* slow."

Sanders: "Okay, you have to understand... I didn't know."

Sanders: "He was- only technically- sort of, ... in the special ed class in high school."

Sanders: "No let me explain! I didn't know! Sort of... well, I kinda knew, but I kinda didn't!

Sanders: "Stop! No, I knew he was in a program, but but I thought it for being dyslexic!"

Sanders: "Caleb?"

Sanders: "..."

Sanders: "Shut up! No, you don't know. No- he- shut up!"

Caleb: "So wait... you knew he was in a 'program' but then he said it was because he used to be dyslexic?"

Sanders: ::pause:: "Well, no. When I knew he was in a 'program' I snuck into the office and found a list of students, some of which had an "S" by their name- his included. He's Mexican, so I thought it meant Espanol. You know, Spanish?"

Caleb: "S... for..."

Caleb: "S... you thought... was for... Espanol?"

Sanders: "No, I know it sounds dumb, I knew he was in a class, I just thought it was the dyslexic thing and that maybe he's Mexican so- I didn't know what the S was- I didn't know -Caleb stop laughing!- I

didn't know that it was for Special Ed. Program -Caleb SHUT UP!- and plus it's not like he was full-blown Rtard or anything he was just -

SHUT UP I HATE YOU!- he was just a little slow! He's totally normal, just like, you know, a twinge below the line!"

Caleb: "You mean the... Rtard line?"

Sanders: "I hate you! I knew I never should have told you!"

Caleb: "So let me get this straight. You thought he was a little slow. Then you find out he's in a 'program'. You ask him, and he says it's for dyslexia. You break into his records, see an 'S' by his name, and figure it means Espanol."

Sanders: "Well, pretty much, but-"

Sanders: "Ohmygod I hate you."

Caleb (eventually): "So when did you find out that he was short-bus special for realz? After you married him, right?"

Sanders: "Well no, before, but-"

Sanders: "Okay, yeah, I guess it's funny. But you have to understand, by that time it was just convenient. He was gone in the Reserves, he did all the chores, and we were pretty much just friends married for the benefits."

Caleb: "So what kind of dumb are we talking about? Give me an example."

Sanders: "For instance, if you gave him like $20 to go to the store for something simple, he'd be back like 5 hours later. You'd say "where's the fucking milk I asked you to get" and he'd be like, "Well, I forgot that, but I got this comic book and some M&Ms."

Caleb "if you don't hear any more from me, it's probably because Sanders read this and killed me" Shreves

PS this post is dedicated to Sanders, her new Cub fan husband, and their soon-to-be-arriving child. Congratulations!

Entry 135: Your MOM Can Use The Correct Change

2011-03-20T16:23:00.000-05:00

I have some... history with the vending machine downstairs. It's basically a fucking dewsh. If it were a person it would be the love-child of Tucker Max and The Situation. With Justin Bieber's hair and Kristen Stewart's face.

As with any cliché vending machine problem, it started by hanging my snacks up on the coils without actually releasing them. And they HAVE to release, both because my arm is not long enough to reach all the way up to grab them and because everyone knows that snacks taste better when they fall. But that's just average douchery for a vending machine.

Also, I love blue Doritos. Do you think they stock them regularly? Nope. Like a great sexual metaphor, they just put it in once to let you enjoy it and then tease you by never putting it in again. Yeah, I *GUESS* I'll have fucking red Doritos, but I'm not going to be *HAPPY* about it! IWANTCOOLRANCH!! 5 months, 2 weeks, and 3 days now. No Blue Doritos.

Where the *FUCK* are my blue Doritos!!!

But check this out. If you put in 4 quarters (that's 1 dollar, Becky) and buy something that's .90 cents? You get the item and .10 cents change back. If you put in a $1 bill and try the same thing, it says "Please use correct change" Um, what? It's the same fucking thing! Are you anti-bills, you racist piece of shit machine? I hate you.

I figured out last week that it gets even weirder. If you put in that same $1 bill and one nickel, it will give you the item plus .15 cents change! So I guess "using the correct change" was a fucking lie, wasn't it? Wasn't it, Douche McSucks-at-vending?

And for you smart kids out there, no. It won't give you 4 quarters back if you try and get change for your $1 bill. It just spits it back out (and it's never nice to spit, kids).

This didn't get elevated to "I have to share how much I hate this machine" status until this past week. I saw some Grandma's brand fudge cookies, which are awesome because they're the only type of cookie Grandmas makes that don't use "Sawdust" as their #1 ingredient. When I ran down there to buy them though... some mark-ass trick had put some peanut butter ones in front!

Wait a minute... I can see another peanut butter one behind the front one, but what's behind that? Can't... quite... see... maybe I'll just buy the front one to get a look back farther. Surely the fudge ones are back there.

So I do. I use my $1+nickel scheme to buy the front one. No luck. The one behind it is another peanut butter. Curses! Foiled again!

But I look closer and I think I see the "C" of "Chocolate," which probably means it's my "chocolate fudge super chocolate chip fudgy awesome cookie." And I ain't goin' down like no punk bitch. I whipped out my wallet and started buying.

I finally get to what I think are the good cookies, only to see that they've been totally replaced. By chocolate chip. Which, in any normal setting, are my favorite cookies ever. But I think "Grandma" got senile and royally fucked up the recipe because HER chocolate chip cookies taste like Ashton Kutcher's career.

Defeated, I trudged up to my friend's desk to break the news that the vending machine had won again. There would be no fudge-awesome cookies today. Just this pile of shitty cookies, a stack of nickels (it only gives change in nickels, wtf?), and my shame. God. Damnit.

It was at this point that I thought I would expose and humiliate this damn machine for the dewsh it is. But, I needed proof so I brought my friend to watch as I put a $1 bill in and it demanded "correct change."

I think you know what happened. It decided to work. First time ever. EVER. I got the chips, the change, and instead of "Use the correct change" I got "Have a nice day."

Fuck. You. To. Hell.


It's hard to capture the full sentence since it was scrolling, but you get the idea.

Caleb "yeah I know I could just buy blue Doritos from the store, but I don't *want* to" Shreves

Entry 134: Too Much White Powder Can End A Party In More Ways Than One

2011-03-15T14:45:00.000-05:00

Duh! Winning!

I'm thinking of starting every post with that from now on... what do you think?

Okay, kidding. But I WILL show you this picture:

But I digress.

For the following story I'm going to hearken back to the days of yore...

Back in 2002-2003ish, I lived in a charming duplex with one of my BFFs, Jenkins. Click his name to read about some of his shenanigans... and know that I could probably make my next 30 posts about stories of him or the two of us polluting the universe. His hobbies include Fa-Donking, Bomb Burritos, and drunken gymnastics. He's also the reason that Nair now comes with new warning labels:

Jenkins and I lived in the main floor and basement of an old house, and a girl we knew lived in a separate apartment upstairs. Since we were young idiots we thought the house was great, though my dad still speaks of the place with the same tone he reserves for hooker-filled crack houses or dumpsters full of hobos in Moldova. I'm paraphrasing based on memory, but if you ask him about it now he usually says something like:

"I'll never know how you spent a single day in that shit-heap of a house. It was the worst thing I've ever seen. Had I known how bad it was from the beginning, I would have faked my own death to collect the life insurance and put you up in a decent apartment for a year. And Jenkins lived in the basement- THE BASEMENT! You were at least spared from some of the millipedes, dirt, mold, and what-have-you by being upstairs, but that poor kid could have DIED!"

It really is just a matter of perspective though. For instance, the stairs down to the basement included a very green and trendy feature:

My first attempt at drawing stairs.

As you can see, the stairs were actually built directly into the ground. So, in essence, the outside was part of the inside. Which, kids, is how babies are born.

While we didn't make any babies in our shit-hole house (well, probably not), we decided one day to celebrate our "holy shit we're, like, fucking ADULTS!" house by throwing a massive party filled with underage kids. Though for the most part each group of music students sort of partied on their own, Jenkins and I thought we could use our powers to summon them all together into one party. Like how the Planeteers summoned Captain Planet.

That's how you draw black people, right?

It worked, we had a massive amount of people show up at the house, and we perfected the "frozen lemonade but use beer instead of water" drink for all to enjoy. I'm not naming it, because I've seen fights break out because people disagree on what to call it. I call it delicious.

Oh, speaking of Asians. There were two of note at this party: our great friend, Natty, who once beat me out of a 1st place trophy at a high school jazz fest (no, I'm not bitter, fuck off) and my ex, Ethyl, when we were just starting to get a bit more serious about things. Read: she hadn't done anything crazy yet.

Everyone was having a grand ol' time, the music was hoppin', and I was downstairs telling hilarious jokes to young co-eds. As it usually does, the universe decided to break up my game and throw in an event of awesome and unbelievable scale. All of the sudden, the group of us in the basement heard from upstairs what sounded like a Dance, Dance, Revolution contest between a herd of wildebeests and Godzilla. That was followed with screaming and what sounded like a rush to the front-door side of the house. One drunk guy was heroic enough to scream down a warning to we basement-dwellers, but provided little in the way of information.


I'm working on the stairs. Suck it.

By this point we realized that everyone was stampeding towards the door, something was terribly wrong, and there was some sort of smoke cloud starting to fill the doorway and seep into the basement. Jenkins and I ran up to investigate, and saw one of the most fucked-up scenes I've ever seen in my life. Since I don't have a picture of the old house, and I'm certainly not capable of drawing it, I will show you the scene via a random picture of a house. Before:


This looks, literally, nothing like our house. Great job, Caleb.

Here is the scene of devastation we saw when we got to the top of the stairs:

What the fuck, right? It's like Charlie Sheen just sneezed in our kitchen. As we cough and sputter, waving our hands in front of our face and finding the stereo to turn the music off, I see what you might see in the second picture there. Yup. Look closer. CLOSER. I'll zoom in on my drawing:

Our very old house had been equipped with a very old fire extinguisher, and poor half-drunken Natty accidentally knocked it off the kitchen wall where it fell to the floor. There, its safeguards against accidentally going off failed and it flooded our entire upstairs with a cloud of white, cocaine like powder that I read is some combination of baking soda, water, and Justin Bieber's hair.

What was extra funny is that Natty was completely covered in white powder. He looked like the scene in Ace Ventura 2 where Ace dusts for prints in the cage of the sacred bat. In his typical unflappable manner, Natty held up the fire extinguisher and said "I think I know what happened."

Indeed.

Apparently huge commotions, screams, dozens of people stampeding out of a house, white powder seeping from the windows, and a fleet of getaway cars screaming down a residential street is enough to warrant the attention of the police, who showed up promptly about 30 minutes after the incident. Whoever hadn't scattered, scattered. That left me, as usual, as the "reasonable" person left to explain to the cops what the fuck had happened. Which is awesome, because I love telling cops an outrageous story that is perfectly true. I even showed the main cop the empty extinguisher. When he saw how fucked up our entire house was, he had pity and gave me a warning. He gave ME a warning, not Jenkins. You know why? Jenkins had vanished. Ninja-style. Gone. I asked him the next day what happened:

No, I suppose they don't. Lesson learned.

If you were wondering, most of the white dust finally settled and we spent a day cleaning and vacuuming. The shit was honestly everywhere though. Everywhere. When we moved out and two friends of ours moved in, they STILL complained that they found the white "Natty-Dust" everywhere. Probably still some there today.

Caleb "It WAS an accident, right Natty?" Shreves

Entry 133: I Should Probably Just Stop With The Whole Making-Out Thing

2011-03-08T18:01:00.000-06:00

Why is it that when you put your life on the line to, say, save a child from a speeding car or a baby falling from a tree (they do that, right?) everyone thinks you're a hero. Yet if you put yourself in harms way for the sake of a little 1st-3rd base action, it's "irresponsible" or even "hilarious?" Well if "crazy you-almost-died-trying-to-get-some" stories come in threes, then I put the icing on the cake last week. Fuck you, people who like metaphors to go together correctly.

Some of you readers already know the first 2 stories, so I'll only provide a brief recap. Plus, I'm assuming- since you're reading this- that you're at least a little... slow, so I'll add some drawings to help you understand. The first event was what I like to call "if a Caleb falls down in a hallway and only one half-dressed girl is there to hear it, does it make a sound?" Here's what happened:

*not drawn to scale.

While making out with LJ (aka The Lizard) I had her pushed against the hallway. I wanted to lean back against the other side of the hall which, as you can see, would have been completely fine given where I was in the hallway. The problem was that I drank lots of Tequila and I was actually in a different part of the hallway:

Basically I toppled, flatfooted, into my living room and bounced several times on the floor. I managed to take a picture of LJ laughing at me:

She likes hats.

While embarrassing, this event wasn't as bad as the second event. Well, they were both bad, but the first one had a lot less blood and more time spent conscious.

Yes, I'll explain what happened for those of you too busy winning (duh) to read old posts. I'm, uh, getting it on in bed (yes, drunk again, what's it to ya?) with LJ. Here's the setup. Note the very dangerous dresser filled with dangerous objects. Oh and in case my drawings are hard to decipher, the dangerous items on the dresser- clockwise from the Liger- are: Liger, poison-tipped spear, war mace, TNT, ninja-sword.

I was going to go back and add some poisonous spiders and nun chucks to the dresser, but I'd be belaboring an already exaggerated point. Because, you see, none of the dangerous items on the dresser actually posed the real threat. No friends, allow me to zoom in for you on the corner of my dresser.


5,000,000x magnification.

See it? I knew you would. A CORNER! A sharp corner, too. I think you can already put together the fact that I smashed my head on it. Bad. The graphic part of the story is that it occurred AT THE SAME TIME as... another thing. Ok, pervs, yes- I was just about to get mine. And did. Except I passed out... a little bit. Luckily I came to (OMG! OMG! OMG! Entendre overload!!) after a brief spell and went to the bathroom to check out my head. I thought I was fine, but saw this:

Yeah, I know kids, graphic. Oddly enough, in the throes of passion LJ hadn't realized what had happened until she came into the bathroom after to see what was up:

My grossest drawing yet. Yay me!

No, I told her what happened. And I'm sure she was sympathetic and concerned, but it was hard to tell with her crying laughing and me wiping blood from my face.

Then I thought I was free from incidents for a while. Until last week. Tell you what, readers, I'm going to show you 4 pictures and you see if you can guess what happened. Ready? Go.


My car.

Lots and lots of these.


4 Lane one-way road with side street parking.


Car MO action. (MO= making out for you noobs)

Got it yet? Huh? Okay, how about one more for you slow ones out there:

Surely you have it by now, right? And for the last one of you out there to get this (I'm guessing... Andrew? Becky?) I'll submit this:

Yup, 3AM, thought I was parked in front of LJ's house, just getting my MO on, when I hear that alarming yell. Cars move really slowly when they're just drifting in drive, so I figure it must have taken me a good while to get 3 blocks down the street. Here's where I thought I was parked in relation to LJ's house:

Now we'll send our bird and his eye higher up in the air so you can see where I actually was:

Sigh. I know there's some sort of moral to this story- probably about sobering up and being "responsible"- but I just can't help but feel that all of these incidents aren't my fault. I haven't figured out how they aren't my fault yet, but I'm working on it.

Oh, and I wanted to thank my bird friend for telling me what this all looked like from above. He has a keen eye for detail and a fantastic ability to relay what he sees so I can draw it accurately. Thanks, friend.

Will do, buddy. Will do.

Caleb "Winning! Duh." Shreves

Entry 132: Can't Catch Me, Hangover!

2011-02-28T17:49:00.002-06:00

Headaches, upset stomach, bleary eyes, kicking fat girls out of your bed before they raid your fridge- nothing about a hangover is fun. I've found that, while you can't always avoid the hangover, you can get a step ahead of it and evade it for a few hours. Hangover-You will find and catch you, but if you add enough insanity to your morning routine you can keep him busy long enough to enjoy a few hours of fun. And, since Regular-You, Depressive-You, and Reasonable-You are all wrapped up in the hangover, the You that is left to enjoy your morning is Manic-You, which is my favorite You of all. You get all that?

Roses are red, Violets are blue, I'm schizophrenic and so am I.

The key when you first wake up is to sprint away from Hangover's icy-clutches with some immediate ridiculousness. For me, this usually means creating an Olympic event out of the cat-put, which is similar to the shot-put except I fling my cat Ella towards the hamper instead of a 10 pound ball. You may think this is cruel, but she's the one who sits by my bed and meows for hours on end until I wake up and put food in her dish. And, since I was about to seal the deal with Elizabeth Hurley in my dream, you can imagine my frustration. Don't worry, though- I think that Ella and I both get wrapped up in the majesty of Olympic competition and her hunger and my anger both turn to inspiration. Especially with the theme music that I hear: please listen to the music in this video while looking at a few artistic recreations I made. I think you'll understand how the nobility of the event supersedes any concerns of "safety" or "responsibility." Think slow motion when you imagine my cat hurtling through the air.

Yeah, drink that music in. Let it fill you with grit and determination for a minute before you move on. Oh yeah. There it is.

That's right- suck it, morning.

By the time I've cartwheeled through the house to my coffee machine, Hangover is just waking up and starts looking for me in the bedroom. But I'm not there! Just a heap of clothes and a confused/hungry cat. No, I'm singing loudly in my underwear and drinking coffee in my dining room.

You know how a T-rex's vision is based on movement? I think Hangover's vision is based on stillness. As long as I keep doing crazy shit, the Hangover never seems to catch up to me. This week I searched on Youtube for karaoke videos and found a bunch of Frank Sinatra songs. I'm 27 now, so it's high time I learn all the words to "My Way," right? Thought so. Using a cigarette as a microphone and a coffee cup as my brandy glass, I gave an impromptu nightclub show in my dining room. Pretty sure my thin walls do little to protect my neighbor's ears as they head to their cars in the morning. Oh well- free show for them and live audience for me!

Sometimes I get so into my singing that Hangover almost catches up with me. As he brushes his cold hand along my spine, I feel a moment's panic and overcompensate with misdirection and erratic behavior.

Sometimes it really takes some convincing before I can shake off Hangover and get back into my carefree, manic-to-goodness self.

Knowing my manic-energy is a finite resource, Hangover knows he can wait me out. He watches my crescendo of crazy, but underestimates my reserves of still-drunk energy.

Just when Hangover thinks I've finally exhausted myself, I take it to a whole new level. Fun fact: when you're a good trumpet player who hasn't been playing regularly, you can play awesome for about 5 minutes until your lip gives out and you sound like 2 mice farting in a tin can.

Hangover is, however, indeed correct. I am running out of steam. I've sang, conducted, cartwheeled, cat-putted, trumpeted, drank coffee, watched The Office on Hulu, smoked, and made some scramby eggs. My manic tank is near empty and I generally throw everything left into one final shebang: this week? An attempt to play a really high note on my trumpet. An attempt to play a high note. It doesn't go well.

Drained, exhausted, and now nearly passed out from my failed high-note attempts, Hangover finally catches up with me and claims victory. As I lie on the ground, he bestows his evil gifts: upset stomach, tiredness, aching body, eye pain, and meningitis. Okay, maybe not that last one. It still sucks though, and usually lasts the better part of a day.

There's only one way I know of to avoid Hangover: keep drinking. That's right, like my dad says, "the only problem with drinking is when you stop." The problem with this idea is that, the next day, Hangover is going to show up again. With his crew. And it's going to be worse. A lot.

But hey- worry about tomorrow when it gets here! Until then, crack a fresh Keystone, fire up Hulu, and tell Hangover he can go fuck himself!

Caleb "Did you hear it? I hit a high C. Did you hear it? Did you? I heard it." Shreves

PS if you have not done so yet, go check out this video of me singing the national anthem. I recorded myself in The Nerv's studio, then sang 5 harmony parts with myself. This was definitely the product of a Hangover-avoidance morning!

PPS Normally I don't ever go back and edit a post once it's out, but after re-reading this and really feeling inspired by "Chariots of Fire," I had to go back and add some flair to really help the reader get the majesty and dignity of the cat put event.

Entry 131: My Cat Might Have A Bit Of A Weight Problem

2011-02-22T17:52:00.000-06:00

Have I told you about my cat, Ella? Also known as: Worms, Squirms, Squirmiss, Squirmelia Earhart, Worminator, Wormissimo, Ells Bells, or Cat? I got her about 5 years ago, mostly to prove that I could keep living things alive after the great "sure I can take care of your plants while you're gone" fiasco of 2005. Given that she's currently alive, I'd say that I've redeemed myself. And that plants are both lazy and self-indulgent.

Due to some ongoing weight-management issues, Ella is a bit shy about having her picture taken and made me promise to leave her picture out of this post. I reluctantly agreed, but thought that you readers deserved more and so I've put pictures of other cats as negative examples so you can get a clear picture of what Ella looks like:

She's African-American:

She's not this skinny:

And she's not this fat.

Ella was a very energetic and playful kitten. When I cat-sat for my ex's very cool cat, the Adrian-Brody-esque "Toby", they would play together all day, every day. Ella was in shape and lithe (real word, fyi) and one day even submitted to me this list of her favorite hobbies so I could use that information when buying her cat toys.

However, something changed over the last couple of years. Ella has gotten a bit... rotund. I didn't notice her fattening up because I see her everyday, but when I went to Iraq and my mom watched her I had an email that said:

"Caleb-
When did Ella get so fat!? Yesterday she jumped down to the floor from the counter and the vibrations knocked a glass off the table. Maybe it's time for a diet."

Honestly I thought my mom was exaggerating. Turns out the vet thought differently and recommended that I put her on a diet. Well, a better diet, as I thought I had been putting her on a diet already. Turns out my diet was, uh, quite generous.

I didn't like the idea of facing Ella when she was hungry because she's very demanding and stubborn. And who can resist cute cat faces when they ask if they can "haz cheeseburger?" Right? I'm not made of stone you know. But I've been doing my best to stick to her new diet because, in the end, a healthier cat is a happier cat. What finally pushed me into taking action was when I found her old list of hobbies, now updated, under her bed. Quite sad:

Ella is doing pretty good on her diet, though she's still a bit plump. I did see her run (well, jog really) recently so I think things are improving. There's a problem though: she's always hungry. And, since she's always hungry, she assumes that every time I go somewhere in my house I'm headed for her food dish to refill her bowl. I get up or walk around my house many times in a day, yet I only head into her room twice a day.

I can't figure out why she always thinks I'm headed for her food dish, because she's not an optimist. She has to know that the odds of any particular trip of mine leading to her getting food are relatively low. My theory is that she doesn't have the mental processing to determine, in 3-D space, where her food dish is in relation to the rest of the house. Here's the actual layout of the house:


All dimensions approximate

As you can see, it doesn't take a traffic flow-chart to determine that Ella's room is not the hub of this house. Nevertheless, she assumes that any trip from one area to the area is inevitably part of a food-refilling mission. So when I get up to go from, say the living room to the kitchen? She sprints (well, waddle-sprints) into her room and waits for food. If I go from the kitchen to my room? She sprints to her dish. It's the same for every time I get up from one room to do something in any other room. I imagine she thinks of the house layout more along these lines:

In a flash of brilliance, it struck me: this might be the key to her getting exercise! All I have to do is feign a trip towards her room and she'll go sprinting in that direction. When she doesn't get food she'll trot back to the living room and wait for my next trip. Like I said, she's stubborn, so when I tried this last week I tricked her into a room-dash 18 times in a row before I got bored with it. I'm shooting for about a dozen trips per day- so far she hasn't caught on to anything yet. I got her pretty good this morning on my way to make breakfast:

On the one hand, I'm using blatant trickery to tease my cat about her favorite pasttime: food. On the other hand, she's finally getting the exercise that her vet says is good for her. [I dated a girl like that?] I think this is a situation where everybody wins, right?

Caleb "Yeah, I torture my cat." Shreves

Entry 130: February Is National "I Hate Everything" Month

2011-02-17T07:49:00.000-06:00

Maybe those of you in warm, temperate climates (I hate you) don't understand the dreary misery that is winter in February, but let me assure you that months of gray clouds, ice & snow, and frigid temperatures start to wear on a person. Some people feel the effects more than others (I hate anyone who isn't as badly affected as I am) because there are those, like me, who get to this point in the year and change into mean-spirited, cynical, rage-filled douches. Here's a graph showing why February is the peak time for winter-suckassedness:

1. Dec-Jan. Yes, there are many shitty days in front of you, but you haven't been worn down yet. You carry over some of the excitement of the previous fall, and you get a few Holidays to distract yourself.

3. March --> You've endured the worst of things, yet Spring is in sight. You occasionally get days of semi-warmth and might even get a glimpse of the sun. Yes, it does exist. Also, baseball starts in April.

2. Feb. Epicenter. Your spirits have been eroded by months of gray and cold. You realized that you never even truly believed in Santa in the first place. Your parents probably adopted you. When you're at your weakest, you realize that there are still many, many days of shit-tastic suck-waddery ahead of you. FML.

Yesterday I almost snapped at my own mother. Since I try to live by the "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all" motto, I'm pretty silent in February. Here is the conversation, plus my evil thoughts:

Mom: "blah blah blah"
Me: "Yeah, I'm okay. Just a little grouchy from this weather I suppose."
Mom: "Well don't be grouchy! Go home and play with your cat and relax. Don't be grouchy."
My thought: "Yeah, that helps, mom. Why didn't I think of that? I'll just go ahead and not be grouchy now. Great advice."

Instead I mumbled "I'll try that."
Can't believe I almost snapped at my mother!

I don't know if I've shared this yet or not, but my 3 long-term relationships have all ended within a week of Valentine's Day. Each breakup initiated by me. Sad, I know, but in retrospect it was probably the best gift I could have ever given them.


Yes, my girlfriends were this hot.

I can't help it. It's like I'm not me, and the real me has abdicated the throne until April and turned the reins over to a hating doucheweasel. A doucheweasel who doesn't want to do anything, go anywhere, or see anybody. You could ask the doucheweasel (DW) "Hey, DW, how would you like a million dollars?" and he would say, "F your money. I hate you. I hate money. All money buys is shit that will ruin your life anyway. The only thing worth buying with money is hammers to smash beautiful things. PS eat shit." Right? Just hateful.

Possible depiction of a doucheweasel

The main object of my hatred the last few days is the Bird Lady who works near me and is the epitome of bitterness and spite. I wrote about her and her evil sidekick here. She has passed my work area several times today, and each time my urge to punch her bird-face as hard as I can rises. She seriously, seriously, looks like a chicken. She even sort of pecks her head forward and back, as if her eyes are on opposite sides of her head and she had problems with depth-perception. Her mouth looks like she eats lemons all day, everyday.

Picture this:

Plus this:

And you'll pretty much have it.

The other day at work I decided that I didn't care if she happened to be around and I did my impression of Bird Lady all the way down the hall. I did the hen-walk, the head-bob, and occasionally let out a loud "BA-GAWK!" to signal my desire for corn feed. Speaking of, I wonder if it's possible to leave a trail of chicken feed from her desk to a pit outside filled with sharpened stakes.

And it's not only just people and situations that can arouse my February-hate. Sometimes it's more abstract than that. For instance, two blog writers I know have recently gone on a few dates together and have been writing (charming) updates. A picture on the gal's blog today was of some roses and a "guess who I got THESE from?" caption. Cute, right?

Regular Caleb thinks: "Boy that's nice. With all the craptastic stories of dating out there, it's sweet to see two people actually working out! Plus, I like reading the guy's blog and he seems like a thoughtful and genuinely decent guy. He deserves some good luck!"

However, Douche-weasel thinks: "Gay. Lame. Nothing says 'I don't know you well enough to get you something thoughtful' like roses."

Now that's not nice. I don't really want to think these things, but I just become a douche-factory that manufactures douchery and exports it to everywhere.

So if I seem mean, or I don't want to talk to you, or I set your house on fire, know that I'll be back to my old self in April and ready to help build you a new house.

Caleb "I don't feel like putting anything here." Shreves

Entry 129: Valentine's Day Special!

2011-02-11T17:09:00.000-06:00

In honor of this most sacred holiday (I'm referring to Steak & BJ Day, of course) I wanted to share with you one of my all-time favorite stories. It's a true story about my dad when he was in second grade and ridiculed by every other student and his evil demon-skank of a teacher. While the story is a bit dramatic, it's 100% true. Seriously. Here goes!

My dad sighed as he laid his head down on his arms. The other kids in his Second grade class were giggling excitedly as they rushed up and down the rows of desks, depositing handmade Valentines Day cards in each person’s handmade Valentines Day card reception box. Each person, that is, except my dad.

“Georgie-Porgie!” kids would call him mockingly, with not only the consent of the teacher but often with her outright encouragement. School had become a nightmare for my dad, with each day bringing new torments and new types of embarrassment. Just that day during recess a telling event had occurred: after a moth had flown in his ear and he couldn’t get it out he asked his teacher if he could go to see the nurse. He asked this privately, not wanting the attention- and subsequent ridiculing- of his classmates, but the teacher gleefully announced to the other children that “poor Georgie” had gotten a bug stuck in his ear and had to go to the nurse now.

“Isn’t that funny, kids?” she asked, and glared spitefully at my dad. There was no rationale or reason for the unrelenting terror she inflicted on my father each day, as he was mostly a quiet and polite little boy. He was also the only student in the class that she treated this way.


Picture of a happy class. not pictured: dad*

Dad had spent the night before this Valentine’s Day party as he spent most nights; crying and pleading with his parents to remove him from his daily nightmare. His farm-wife mother and workaholic father were not completely unsympathetic or uncaring, but they also did little to help- either because they thought he was exaggerating or because they felt that there was nothing that they really could do. So he sat with his head down, on Valentines day, with tears in his eyes trying not to attract the attention of any classmates lest they decide that enough time had passed since their last torture administration and they turned their cruel scorn back to him once again.

Grandma and Grandpa may or may not have had pink flamingos.

As he sat in his desk with his head down while other students were gleefully exchanging Valentines, my dad looked up to see a girl from his class shyly approaching his desk. He watched in wonder as she hesitantly dropped a Valentine into his homemade box. Making the Valentine box was an assignment that he had been required to complete, but he certainly hadn’t made it with any thought or hopes of actually receiving a Valentine; the class mockery of him was complete and total with no ally or potential friend to be found.

I imagine this to be my dad, giddy at the thought of a true Valentine

So, in shock, he slowly drew the card out of the box and began peeling back the hand-tied ribbon that kept it closed. His eyes brightened as he pulled the card out of the envelope and he saw a generic “Valentine’s Day” written on the front with glitter. When he opened the card he saw a handwritten message, which looked like this:

My rendering of dad's Valentine

Let me transcribe this for you:

I hate you. U stink. P. U.

Ouch! What kind of evil, twisted girl would do something like this? Dad doesn't remember the name of the girl who gave him this Valentine, but I'm pretty sure that I've dated her daughters.

Dad started escaping everyday life by watching TV all the time at home. Since this was years ago and they were poor, one of the only shows on TV was the televangelist Billy Graham. Dad ordered one of the free bibles from TV and began begging Jesus to save him from having to go to the same school the following year.


This might actually be Robert Duvall

Believe it or not, 2 weeks before the start of the next school year the district re-zoned and my dad got to go to a different school. A happy place, filled with great teachers and wonderful classmates. My alma mater, as a matter of fact (I finally brought some real class to the place).


Pretty sure this was my elementary school

Luckily, my dad moved past this experience and harbors no ill-will towards demon-teacher or any of the hell-spawn minions that infested his second grade class. Pretty big of him, I'd say. He even went on to be homecoming king in high school! Yes, he was cooler than I was. Suck it.

So remember, no matter how shitty you think your Valentine's day is going, it could always be worse!

Happy S&BJ Day!


I couldn't find my dad's homecoming picture, so here is the next best thing.

Caleb "say hello to ya motha for me!" Shreves

Entry 128: Wasps F*cked Up My LSAT

2011-02-07T10:36:00.001-06:00

My friend Steve from The LSAT blog has a weekly feature where people write in a "diary" of their LSAT experiences. He asked me to write one, which I was happy to do. I realized, though, that this story had to be shared and I have adapted it for this post. Here goes!

I hate wasps. They are literally the crappiest of all God's creatures. I have thrown babies and old women out of the way as I run shrieking from a single wasp. I'm a grown man who has gone skydiving, yet I'm afraid of wasps. Weird. Here is a chart to give you an idea of where wasps fit in the kingdom of life:

I set aside a little area in my house for full practice tests every Saturday. It was a calm and peaceful area, surrounded on three walls by 6 foot windows. A room that had never, ever seen a single wasp. Until my first practice test.

During my first PT I glanced up at my analog watch to see how I was doing on time and I felt something hit my head and fall off. I looked on the table and there it was- Waspzilla. Staring at me. Almost like he had a message, but his only communication was a slight twitch of his antennae. I freaked out, mashed him with my "10 official LSAT" book, and finished the test with shaking hands. I gave myself an extra 1 minute to compensate, but I still did lower than average on that particular section.

Everyone laughed when I told them this story, and thought it was strange that a single wasp would attack me on the day of my first full PT. Well, the next Saturday rolled around and guess what? Another test, another wasp. True story. This one was in the window and harder to see, but I'm sure he was looking at me just like the first one. Dumbfounded, I ran to my garage to get one of my (many) cans of Raid and sprayed him down. Then I checked to see if the corpse of last week's wasp was still around, just to make sure I wasn't dealing with a zombie-wasp. Nope- there it was. 2 separate wasps. This was getting weird.

I won't over-dramatize the next 6 weeks, but I promise you that there was a single wasp somewhere in my test room every Saturday for 6 weeks. At first it was frightening, then hilarious, and finally I became suspicious that it had to more than a mere coincidence. What was the message? What was the universe trying to tell me? As test day approached I received a lot of messages on Facebook from people wondering what the wasps were going to do for the big day. Obviously I wasn't going to be home taking a practice test that Saturday so if they were going to make their move it would have to be Friday night. I spoke on the phone about this to a lady-friend the Friday night before the test and made a decision:

"If I score a 180, I'm going to renounce my wasp-hating forever and never kill another wasp. If I score below my 170 average, I'm going to redouble my efforts to slaughter them mercilessly."

As my friend laughed, I swear to everything sacred that a wasp flew at my face. RIGHT at my face. I have a witness to this, as the girl I was talking to heard me throw the phone down, scream, run around, and then tell her all about it. It was at this point that things went from "coincidentally creepy" to "downright f*cking supernatural." In my 2 years living at my house, I had probably only ever seen 2 wasps other than my LSAT wasps. I just don't allow them around. I spray my entire house, yard, and windows down with several cans of Raid at least twice a year. Statistically it just wasn't possible for me to see a single wasp every week for 2 months. No way. Though every wasp so far had stared at me or attacked me, I began to see this whole thing as a sign that my test was going to go great.

I took the test and felt very wasp-confident. My preparation had included over 25 full PTs, many other sections done individually, analysis of every question ever missed, online resources (shout-out to Steve's blog!), and timed tests done under exact test-day procedures. I left the test as confident as I had ever been. I realistically expected around my average of 170, but hoped for a game-day boost to 175+. Four weeks later I received my score... 161.

Son-of-a-b*tching wasps!!

Let me clarify: after studying diligently for months and raising my average to the 98% level, my actual score was as bad as the very first test I took. With no explanation (well, no explanation that didn't involve supernatural wasps).

I think I hid my disappointment so well because it was hidden beneath a massive layer of genuine shock. I didn't want to complain and say my score was bad- it wasn't- but it sucked because it surely didn't reflect all of my hard work. So I vowed to retake it. Wasps be damned.

I spent the time between October and December with a much lighter study schedule. I knew I had it already; I just had to sharpen the edges and practice some of the newer tests. The greatest day of my LSAT career came when I took PT 54 and missed 3. A 179 (180 is perfect). And that, ladies and gentlemen, included an extra 5th section from another test where I didn't miss any! I was on a roll and had no idea why I was scoring so high on PTs. Then it hit me- I had taken every PT since October somewhere besides my wasp den at home. What? Couldn't be. What the heck was going on here?

I took the test in December, still wasp-free, and scored a 171. That's right about my average, which is great, and certainly enough to be competitive at top schools. But now I'm done... no more studying, no more PTs. And you know what? I miss it. I miss the drive, the focus, and the self-efficacy you gain by watching your scores steadily improve.

The study tips that Steve puts on his site are spot-on. If you read through other diaries and some of Steve's articles you can find the nuts-and-bolts of effective studying. I could tell you tips like "do a logic game or two every day" but I feel like I would just be re-hashing old advice. What I can offer you is the wisdom imparted to me from the world's nastiest creatures.

When I got my 161 I was shocked and couldn't come up with a non-wasp explanation. I was ashamed, disheartened, and defensive. I felt like I had let myself- and my friends and family- down. I had failed. Then it hit me: I was basing my opinion of myself on my test score. I was becoming my LSAT score. One of the simplest of life's lessons had eluded me and I was equating my self-worth with some stupid test. Some thing outside of myself. This sudden realization helped me let go of the need to be perfect, de-stress, and take LSAT studying on my terms. My last 3 PTs before the December test were 170, 175, and 179. I even finished one logic game in under 4 minutes. And, more importantly, I had more fun.

Maybe this is what the wasps were telling me. Maybe they were guru-wasps that were letting me know that it was my efforts, not my test score, that were a reflection on me. That, in the end, the LSAT was more for me than for any law school.

Or maybe they just didn't know where I was hiding and I'm going to have to kill them all.

Either way, I'm buying this shirt:

Remember: if you see any wasps, smash 'em and tell them "CALEB SAYS HI MOTHER F*CKER!"

Caleb "Wasp-killer" Shreves

Entry 127: Alternative Weather Terminology

2011-01-31T17:11:00.000-06:00

When reporting on the snow-apalooza we're getting tomorrow night, our local weatherman revealed that he is a user of what I call "alternative weather terminology" (AWT). Specifically, he described our upcoming storm as "a real humdinger!" While I of course know exactly what he meant, I realize that others of you may not be familiar with the principles of AWT. So I thought I would help out and go over some basic AWT concepts. Let's begin with the humdinger, shall we?

1. Humdinger

Basically a Humdinger is any weather phenomenon that could potentially be the rarest for a given area in a given year. For instance, our local upcoming humdinger might bring snow of up to 18 inches (heh heh) which could be the most bad-ass storm we get all year. Hence, it was labeled a humdinger. Note, however, that making a humdinger call this early in the year is a bold move; what if we get some badass storm later on? Sorry- you already used up your humdinger for the year. No exceptions.

Regardless, local conditions dictate the designating of humdinger status. 12 inches of snow in Texas would probably be a humdinger, but not in Canadia. Cuz it's common there. Like murders in Jersey.

2. Doozy

A doozy is something worth talking about, but pretty much only to make small talk with awkward family members or strangers in the grocery line. Rainstorm coming in for a day or two? Yup, could be a doozy. Anyway, I'm going to buy my Captain Crunch and walk quickly away from you now.

A doozy could be rain, snow, sleet, or even a heat wave. The only point of care in using the term doozy is that you mustn't use it to describe a significant weather event unless you precede it with "a real." As in: "Last week's storm was a doozy, but THIS weekend we're in for a real doozy!" Obviously don't be retarded and use the word twice in one sentence, but you get the idea.

Next...

3. The Wallop

Look at that! Boy, Texas is sure getting a walloping. Lava? Lightning? Warm? This is bad news. "Wallop" is a term used when a storm is not only going to be epic, but also dangerous. Like with lava*. A walloping is generally reserved to describe a storm that is not happening to you. You feel bad that other people are going through something dangerous and terrible, but you're really glad it's not you.

*Studies done in the 90's have disproved the duck-and-cover method of surviving lava attacks

And finally...

4. The Snowpocalypse

As you may have guessed, The Snowpocalypse is a rare and catastrophic event where everyone, everywhere, and in all times is covered in snow. If you get tired of being snowed on and try to escape, you can't (cuz there's snow wherever you go). Oh, you're a smarty pants and think you can fly somewhere warm? Yeah, too much snow at the airports. You're not going anywhere.

Oftentimes people get a big dumping of snow (heh heh.... dumping) and want to drop the snowpocalypse bomb early. This is a mistake. Part of the problem is that people don't know enough terms to describe snowfall, so I've created a handy chart you can use for reference when talking about snowfall:

They say that the Eskimos have forty-two trillion words for snow, but I say that these four ought to do it. Boobs are way cooler than snow and I can only think of a couple dozen words to describe them; why would snow need so many? Exactly. Boobs > Snow.

Well, if you don't hear from me for awhile I might just be buried under a fuck-ton of snow. This storm is supposed to be big! I know it's possible that our upcoming humdinger could end up being a real doozie, but as long as its not a walloping or part of The Snowpocalypse I'll be happy.

Later team!

Caleb "Snow-Ninja" Shreves

Entry 126: Maybe You Should STFU.

2011-01-28T15:27:00.000-06:00

Global warming.

Though we are still working on a better understanding of global warming and its consequences, there are already people out there who are quick to blame everything bad on global warming. Heat wave? You probably should have recycled. Tornadoes? That's what you get for driving your SUV. And maybe that hurricane would have stayed put if you had switched to CFL bulbs.

And don't get me started on the woman who blamed global warming for a raccoon farting in her yard.

The point is, I think these people are the same people who hassle others for smoking. For these hasslers, every time a person coughs, trips, gets laid off, or spills their drink- smoking is always the culprit.

"Maybe if you didn't smoke so much!" Is their battle cry.

Well, it gets old hearing it. Contrary to the hip urban youth seen on JEL commercials, smoking actually is cool. That's why people do it. And, as Lois Griffin says, "If she smokes, she pokes!" So it's also a bit of a chick getter. I don't mind a person having their opinion, but I do mind when they share it with me, unsolicited, over and over. I'm pretty sure that every time someone tells me to quit, a kitten dies.

I can't totally blame these people. I know that their heart is in the right spot, and after some reflection I've realized that I, too, am a problem-solving advice-giver. When someone talks about a problem or issue they are having, I am the first one to try and offer up a suggestion of what they should do. But if smoking only teaches me one lesson, and teaches it well, then the whole thing has been worth it. What have I learned? This:

There you have it. Next time you are about to give someone some unsolicited advice, just remember this post and think. "Maybe I should STFU."

Caleb

Entry 125: Yale Comedy Club

2011-01-26T14:45:00.000-06:00

Yo,

I've sent out some law school applications this past week, but I haven't sent in my application for Yale yet. It's the highest ranked law school on planet earth and their admissions office is, of course, ridiculously selective.

One of the procedures for applying to Yale is the addition of a 250 word essay on whatever you want. As you may guess, "Whatever you want" is a dangerous phrase to use around me, so I have decided that I am going to write a ridiculous essay that shows no skills other than avoiding boredom and complete irreverence.

The good news? You can pick it. No, serious. If you throw out any idea for an essay topic, I will work to write something "caleb-style" on it and add it to my application to Yale. Technically my scores and the rest of my application give me a chance at acceptance, so your topic suggestion could very well be the difference maker for me.

My only condition? Just kidding. I have no conditions. I originally thought about something with zombies, but then remembered this earlier post.

Other than that, I can report on the following updates:

1. Bears sucked last weekend.
2. I am bowling this Saturday. Fucking. Bowling.
3. I have successfully survived 2 weeks of crossfit.
4. My cat, when hungry, plays at being passive-aggressive and will "accidentally" knock over things that she otherwise never touches
5. I visited the Northwestern Law campus and had an interview with an admissions officer. She was a good-looking, bitchy asian chick. I seriously felt like I was wasting her time, and she proved to be impervious to my charm. I can only assume she had some form of autism or something.

Caleb out!