A Lesson in e-mail Ettiquette -or- RE: FWD: FWD: FWD:

Along with many of the people who may have stumbled upon this blog, I am a twenty-something college male of the millennial generation born somewhere between 1982-1995, and I have a smart phone.

I also have my e-mail sent to me on my smart phone. During the times that school is in session, this is necessary for me to have for quickly relaying information to my stage manager, actors or anyone I’m working on a project with. This also means that every time I get an e-mail, I get a notification sound from my phone, I look, I read whatever I need to read and reply quickly if needed.

Now let me introduce you to my Mother and her mother my Grandma:

Grandma was the first in my immediate family to get the internet (weird, I know, but bear with me). This was back in 1998. Remember Windows98? My Grandma had it, brand new, dial-up internet. My Grandma was also the first then to get e-mail. Remember 1998 now? 1998 was when America had a super resurgence of CHAIN LETTERS!

Shortly thereafter, I got my first e-mail address as a requirement for my computer class in 8th grade, eddies_stuff@hotmail.com. I then made the mistake of giving dear old Grandma my e-mail address. My Grandma loves chain letters.

My Mother finally pulled herself out of the stone age and got her first e-mail address… in 2000! But she quickly found love with chain letters herself.

Suddenly, every time I opened my e-mail, my computer screen exploded with FWD:’s… (I honestly have no idea how to pluralize that). It became an early ritual for me to have to scroll through a page or so of e-mails before I got to any I even cared about or (god forbid) EXPECTING!

Now fast-forward to 2008. By this time I was well practiced in sifting through all the FWD:’s and hardly noticed at all. I had gotten other e-mails and had subsequently given those updated e-mail addresses to both Mother and Grandma and the FWD:’s would continue. Then I got my first smart phone. Then! I decided to get notifications every time I got an e-mail, RIGHT ON MY PHONE! AWESEOME! Now you can only imagine…

*bleep* FWD: e-mail from Mom (cute puppies send this to your friends list)

*bleep* FWD: e-mail from Grandma (same as the one mom just sent)

*bleep* FWD: e-mail from Mom (same one she sent last week with different pictures)

*bleep* FWD: e-mail from Grandma (send this to 50 people and get $50)

*bleep* FWD: e-mail from Stage Manager (No rehearsal today)

*bleep* FWD: e-mail from Grandma (did you get the funny one I sent you two minutes ago?)

Fast forward to 2010. I have three different e-mails now, which helped stem the flow of FWD:’s for a while. I have a better smart phone, but…

I have also been guilt-tripped by Grandma into giving her the e-mail that I “check more often”. The e-mail that is already printed on my actor resume that is already in the hands of directors everywhere… and THIS is the e-mail I have connected to my phone…

WHY!?!?!

This is why I am begging you… please… in this day in an age of smart phones… limit your FWD:’s

I’m starting to wonder…

Today I logged onto my Facebook much later in the day than I usually check it. I found I had some notifications and one event invitation. I went about with the normal business when you’re wasting time on Facebook; posted a link, commented on a friend’s status, etc. etc. When I happened to look over and notice what seemed to be a new addition… My Monthly Friending Activity which told me that I had added zero new friends this month. I thought that was an interesting add-on. But then I kept reading… “Your friends have added 4442 new friends this month.”

This got me thinking… Why do I need to know this information? Why do I need to be updated about how many friends I’ve added in the last month? Why do I need to be updated on how many friends that my friends are adding? Why do I care?

What is Facebook trying to tell me? Apparently it’s trying to tell me that I’m not adding friends fast enough. So Facebook wants me to do something about it. I guess I just need to lower my standards when I get friend requests and add everyone even though we have no friends in common and she suspiciously looks like a hooker in a Halloween witch costume. Who cares if I don’t know them and we have no friends in common? Add them anyway and let them see my status updates and where I go to school and who my friends are… that’s not creepy at all.

Then, I asked myself, “What else is Facebook trying to tell me?” after I pondered I came to realize… Facebook is telling me exactly what Greg Vaughn told me in 7th grade, “You’re not really that popular, Eddie.” I gotta tell ya… to hear that from someone whom you had 5 minutes before considered a good friend… it kind of hurts.

I then sat and pondered for a bit, “Why do I have a Facebook?” Well, it keeps me in touch with most people… though all of the people that I regularly keep in touch with on Facebook I also have the phone numbers of. And most people have texting capabilities on their phones. Isn’t a quick text message just as good as a posting on that person’s wall? And whatever happened to e-mail? E-mail used to be the shiz! But I’ve noticed that more and more people now are saying, “Just friend me on Facebook! I’m on Jay’s friend list.” rather than getting a napkin with an e-mail written down. I kind of liked that. It’s almost like getting the phone number but safer cause you can choose the words she reads more carefully. Facebook is becoming the new way of getting in touch with people you just met… although it’s kind of hard to give someone a fake Facebook… e-mails and phone numbers are easy to fake… But Facebook will have your real name.

So I pondered all this and mulled it around and thought about whether I really needed my Facebook. Then, of course, not knowing what else to do… I updated my Facebook status and logged off.

I donated plasma yesterday!

Save all congratulations for after you’ve read the whole thing…

My friend calls me the other day and says, “Dude, you wanna make $50?” I, of course said, “Sure, I do! How?” “Give me a ride to the plasma center tomorrow and donate plasma with me! Fifty bucks for four to five hours your first time.”
It took a minute for it to sink in… I’d donated blood before at random blood drives, but I’d never thought about selling plasma… yes I said selling cause that’s what it is. It’s not donating if they give YOU money. It’s selling.

Anywho… after thinking for a bit I thought, yeah, sure! Why not. I need the money anyway and it’s for a good cause.

So I woke up at 6:00 the next morning in order to pick my friend up at 6:30 so we can be there bright and early BK breakfast in hand and ready to go!

…ugh.

7:00 the place opens and we walk in and go right to the front cause we’re first timers so we get a special line. Check in and sit down and wait to be called. Since both of us are poker players, my friend bought a deck of cards and we played two-handed Texas Hold-em with “air-money” And somehow still keeping track of who was behind and who was ahead. Because we’re just that dedicated. Granted I’m an air-money millionaire so of course I just keep buying more air-stacks and betting more and more air-chips.

Finally they call my name… 3 hours later. I go in for my pre-donationselling physical. The doctor goes over all of the shit their going to be taking out of me and putting back into me and adding to me. Then I sit on the table and he checks my lungs with a stethoscope.

“Ah, you must not be a smoker.”

“Actually, I am a smoker…”

“Oh really? Well, you must also be an athlete or something.”

“Uh… not really… I’m an actor and I work at McDonald’s…” (hence one of the reasons I was selling plasma…)

“Wow… You’re gonna get hit by a bus before you die of lung cancer.”

“Well… I guess that’s good to know.” (The guy thought he was hilarious)

Anywho… skipping another hour or so ahead, I’m finally laying down on the bed and ready to get pricked and donate sell my plasma. Now if you’ve ever donated blood you know that it’s extremely easy. You just sit down, hold out your arm, they poke you, you drain a pint of blood, the pull the needle out, pretty color band-aid, orange juice and cookies, go home and have bragging rights for the rest of the day. Easy as hell. Plasma is a little different… For one thing the needle they use is bigger and they leave it in much longer. And you have to go through several cycles of pumping your fist and relaxing…. I have to tell you… no wonder they pay you to give plasma… It was the most physically uncomfortable HOUR of my life, sitting there with a GODDAM NEEDLE stuck IN MY FUCKING ARM! And pumping my fist for ten minutes straight while this machine pumps blood out of me, doesn’t help me to relax for the seven minutes it takes to put the whole blood from that cycle back into my body, while separating the plasma  and putting it into a bottle sitting conveniently at eye-level. The stuff looks like beer and afterwords they tell you that you can’t drink beer OR COFFEE for 24 hours after donating selling plasma.

That 24 hour period ends for me in about 20 minutes… I have a pot of coffee waiting to be brewed and ingested by me, and I have a fridge full of (insert beer brand here) that I want to completely tear up… I have no idea which one I want first… And hey… at least I got my $50

Karma owes me a big one!

I have a friend (shocking I know, but I actually have several). This particular friend is a very attractive person of the female persuasion. We’ve gotten pretty close during the last year and I have since moved into a schmancy (not really) apartment close to school with a friend of mine. My roommate and I LOVE to throw parties, and I love to have poker nights, both of which this certain gal likes to attend. Now sometimes these parties and poker nights last a pretty long time and she does not have the best track record when it comes to staying up extremely late. Also, not having a car she relies on public transportation (ick). So several times she has crashed at my place for a night to then hitch a ride home the next day. Being close friends and not wanting to subject an attractive lady like herself to my lumpy $30 Goodwill couch for a night. I usually offer to share my queen-size bed. Plenty of room for her skinny butt and mine to have lots of room for sleeping. Now I want to take this time to stress that I am always a complete gentleman whenever this happens. I wouldn’t dare try to take advantage of that level of trust. That’s just not me. Now, most times when this happens, she may take off her shirt and just have a tank-top or her bra and pants or shorts on… that is… until last night…

Last night I had a birthday party for a mutual friend of ours. I didn’t find out till it was too late that I had to work at 7 am the morning after the party. No big deal, I don’t live too far from work, I can easily hit the hay around 12:30-1:00 in the morning and get plenty of sleep. The party was great. Drinking and merriment ensued. And, of course, my attractive female friend was in attendance. It finally came time and I had to say goodnight to everyone who would continue to party in my absence with my roommate. I made my way back to my bedroom and what do I find? There she is stripped down to her bra and panties snoozing on my bed. I found this quite amusing at the time. I gently woke her a bit and told her that it was my bedtime also and I would be joining her. She, of course, has no problem with that and scoots to one side of the bed. I crawl in wearing a tank and boxer briefs and prepare to pass out. That was when she says to me in the dark, “You don’t mind if I strip more clothes off, right?” She then proceeded to remove her bra and toss it aside, “No… of course not.” I answered. Obviously she was going to take it off whether I minded or not…

Now I will stress again that I have been and was this night, a total gentleman. It was dark in the room so I didn’t see anything, and my hands never touched any of the “no-no” places on her body. Though when she snuggled against me my arm naturally moved around her waist and my hand rested on her stomach, but that was as physical as it got.

Now as I said before, my whole reason for going to bed in the middle of the party was that I had to wake up early for work in the morning… well… now I have an extremely attractive topless girl lying next to me in MY bed, and I literally cannot do ANYTHING about that. Yeah… I’m not getting much sleep tonight… and I didn’t. I even got a text message from her today thanking me for sharing my bed with her and for being an absolute gentleman.

After this episode I have come to a conclusion. I’m apparently trying to rack up so many karma points that eventually fate will have to reward me with one long fantastic night… or several fantastic short ones… I really don’t care either way.

The job search is neverending

Recently I have found myself in need of a job. But, since the job market is shit right now most places are either not hiring, or require 2-5 years experience. Unfortunately the only thing that I have 2-5 years experience in is McDonald’s! It will be an absolute last-ditch option before I apply for ANY fast food place. I did my time in fast food, I’d rather not go back if I can help it.

It just really irks me that so many places are requiring so much prior experience! Do they not realize that most of the people who are looking for jobs right now have very little to no experience? I understand that it costs more money to train someone new, but how do you expect the job market to get better if you don’t give people the CHANCE to GAIN experience? If they were to train a new person in a job that they are currently requiring experience in, they give that person more experience, therefore, if and when that person needs either a new job, or a second job for whatever reason, they will HAVE experience! Funny concept, eh?

The bottom line here is that I believe these companies need to take a little bit of a chance and really get some fresh blood into the market and make the effort to train someone with very little or no experience in an area that will eventually help them out later on in life. Otherwise we’re going to end up with hundreds of thousands of people in the future that need a job, but have no experience in anything and everyone that HAD the experience has died!

-End of rant

A Haiku

Look at the blank screen.
No idea how to begin.
It’s due tomorrow.

Self Observation

So, unfortunately, blogging cannot be a full-time job for me… I don’t even get paid to blog although there are opportunities out there. But that’s more of a freelance thing than anything else. I find myself recently looking for a job. Mostly because although student housing is great, I want my own place. My own apartment where I don’t have to worry about the R.A. knocking on my door to tell me to stop smoking in my room, or having some yuppy frat guy or sorority gal shoving something under my door about the next big event that only 50 people will attend. The bottom line here is that I need a job.

So, I’ve been looking on Craig’s List the last couple of days and I’ve been greatly disappointed. Basically, unless I want to go back into food service, WHICH I MOST DEFINITELY DO NOT! I need to have at least 5 years experience to apply for just about anything else. How the fuck am I supposed to get experience if I need experience to get the job in the first place?! Whoops, I don’t have any retail experience, I guess I can’t work for Abercrombe and Fitch, whoops I don’t have 5 years experience as a receptionist/front desk assistant, I only have 6 months experience. Whoops, my dick isn’t 10 inches long, I can’t be in the porn industry… Okay so that last one was kind of a big jump… but you get what I’m saying… er… yeah… anyway… So the job hunt is not very successful at the moment. Big lame!

I’ve also noticed recently that I am a total loner. I’ve figured about 70-80% of my time on just about any given day is spent by myself. Unless it’s a weekend and I’ve made plans or someone has invited me to a kickin’ party. Or it’s a poker night… I love poker night. The average weekday for me is:

07:30 wake up do my stuff

09:00-14:00 classes

14:00-18/19:00 I’m by myself usually cruising the internet or doing homework.

By 18 or 19:00 one of my friends has usually called and I’ll do dinner or something with them, but not all the time and it’s never very long. After that it’s back to solitude for the rest of the night until I wake up and do it all again. I’m kind of a lamo…

Sudden Inspiration

I was walking home last night/early this morning with a friend of mine. A group of us had gone out for a couple of drinks after seeing a spectacular student directed play. As we walked we were desperately trying to keep warm. It wasn’t a long walk, and it technically wasn’t that cold temperature-wise but the wind was also blowing which made it infinitely worse. It is times like these that the best ideas are created. Thus I give you the best idea ever created while walking home from a bar in the cold at 1 AM on a Sunday:

Street Clown Heating Service!

I know it sounds weird. It IS weird. This is the basis of it’s appeal! Picture this; you’re walking down the street and it’s freezing outside, also you’re bored and maybe haven’t heard a good joke in a while. NO PROBLEM! Simply text your location to 346-458 and a clown on a unicycle carrying a portable space heater will be dispatched to you within MINUTES! These clowns are trained in unicycle riding and joke telling and will entertain you and keep you warm for as long as you need! (provided it is less than or up to two hours some hidden fees not valid anywhere)

Now doesn’t that sound like an awesome idea?!?

Crazy World I Will Never Understand

I am currently living with a roommate. My roommate’s actions make me question humanity. What’s more, the fact that his actions get him laid on at least a weekly basis makes me believe even more that the world is crazier and possibly stupider than I originally thought.

Let me explicate. My roommate is from West Virginia. Now, I’m not trying to say that everyone from West Virginia is like this guy, but he is the only person from West Virginia that I’ve ever met so… this is pretty much my baseline reference to West Virginia. Now, my roommate can be compared to the likes of Stiffler from American Pie. The ultimate douchebag, the sex-crazed pervert who will pretty much do anything to get laid. The dumbass frat boy who will try/do anything just to impress his fellow frat brothers and receive bragging rights. This is the gist of his overall personality. Now take Stiffler, multiply him by about 10, and add in a couple of Jackass regulars. This is my roommate.

I will explain further. My roommate (for the sake of redundancy I will now refer to him as Rob) is also an asshole. There was one night when he came home and told me that he had a new goal. Rob’s new goal was to sleep with every girl that lived in this apartment nearby. This apartment housed four girls. After my other roommate and I tried to explain to him that not only was this an almost impossible goal, but also that attempting it could very well get him castrated. He did not take this as a warning. He took it as a challenge. When giving us updates on this venture, he would not even use the girl’s real names. He referred to them as “Pool Girl”, “Hot Roommate”, “Korean” and “Bowling Ball”. He would treat everyone of them like they were just pretty things for him to play with and would even call them by their nicknames that he had assigned to them TO THEIR FACES! What boggles my mind even more is that the fucker almost succeeded! But his plan came to a halt when (after he had already been with two out of the four) “Hot Roommate” decided that they were now dating thus insuring that the other roommates would not touch him.

Adding to Rob’s douchebaggery, I will tell you that one night he told me that his girlfriend, “Hot Roommate” had told him that she was two weeks late. Obviously, this scared the shit out of him as it would scare any 21 year-old frat boy. Even though the thought of this guy procreating made me want to hide in a corner and weep for the world, I decided to have a serious conversation with Rob about the birds and the bees, and the responsibilities of being a man. After I told him, “Rob, if she does turn out to be pregnant and she decides to keep the baby, you are responsible for that kid until they’re 18 whether you guys are together or not.” To which he quickly responded, “Hell no! If she decides to keep it I’ll fuckin’ drug her ass and take it out with a hanger!” I then suggested that becoming a eunuch might be a better life choice for him. Lucky for her and the rest of the world, she turned out to not be pregnant.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. This guy is “dating” a girl and he still brings home random girls on a weekly basis! I want to know HOW and WHY this guy is able to get so many girls so often when he is dumb as a brick, a complete dick, AND he’s not even that good looking to boot, when I cannot seem to get a girl to even look in my general vicinity.

What REALLY scares me is that Rob is also a mechanical engineering student… This guy may someday build a bridge that you will then drive across in a car carrying your whole family. Does that make you nervous?

Take: 1

This is my first blog post. Apparently I’m blogging now. I always thought that bloggers were all sexually frustrated, angsty, black eyeliner wearing teenagers with names like Digger. I am not any of these. Except for maybe the sexually frustrated… but that’s not important at the moment. Let me tell you something about myself that has nothing to do with my sexual frustration.

I’m an artist, I’m a geek, I’m an actor, I’m a techie, I’m a comedian, I’m a dramatist, I’m an agnostic, I am an inhabitant of the world, yet I strive to do more than just inhabit it. I want to contribute laughter and tears, music and books to this crazy world. I call it a crazy world because this is a crazy world that we live in and I am among one of it’s craziest inhabitants.

Not sure what you can expect from this blog. I’m not sure if I’ll even keep it up as often as some people would probably like. But life and blogging is an adventure. Let’s see where it leads us.