Requiem For A Doubleyou Tee Eff

About a fortnight ago, I came home after a fairly long day of work (hey, growing E. coli and squinting while moving extremely small volumes of liquid back and forth takes a lot of energy) to find my roommate with his door closed but lights on. I thought nothing of it because it was nothing out of the ordinary. I stepped into the bathroom to find a 12mL plastic syringe with a gigantic metal needle sitting in the sink. The sink was splattered with a viscous, dark red fluid and the syringe was partially filled with the same.

“Oh Jesus Christ, he’s a junkie.”

But wait. A 12mL syringe is far too big, almost laughably big to be using for the purpose of injecting oneself with heroin or cocaine or speedball or whatever else Al Capone was so good at peddling. Observe, a 12mL syringe:

It’s like one of those syringes in cartoons that Dr. Bugs Bunny uses to shoot antibiotics into Elmer Fudd’s ass. Like so:
 

You fill that baby up, you could kill Keith Richards, bring him back to life, and kill him again. And that’s saying a LOT, because Keith Richards is a modern medical phenomenon, having somehow accidentally discovered the secret to immortality with a mysterious mixture of questionable cocaine-to-alcohol ratio. I’m pretty sure that he’s a walking, breathing mummy at this point. For the sake of discussion, let’s do a totally unbiased scientific comparison.

Exhibit A, young Keith Richards:


Exhibit B, Keith Richards today:
 
It’s like I’m playing those damn “see you if you can find the 10 differences between these two pictures!” game in Highlights For Children, and I’m losing miserably. Hx: Goofus and Gallant taught me everything I need to know about common decency and basic social skills. I guess I never really paid close attention, or else I would’ve known better than to irresponsibly exclaim certain statements about feces and phalluses in the workplace.

My word, that was quite a tangent. To the point: having known my roommate, BetterThanViolin, for eight-plus years now, I knew there wasn’t a chance in hell that he could be a junkie. So how do I explain this horse tranquilizer-sized syringe?

He walked in and hurriedly mumbled, “Oh dude, I’m just refilling my printer ink cartridge. Don’t worry, I’m not a junkie or anything like that.”

Hmmmmmmmmm.

Several open letters to the community at large

Big ol’ bacon-grease shout-out to NotAMockery. YOU MY [GIRL] BLUE!
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The following is a series of open letters I’ve mentally accumulated the past few weeks. Most of these involve the central vein of our fair city.

Dear University Avenue in Berkeley, Calif.:

Thank you for making traffic on you absolutely insufferable for the past couple of months to re-pave your western end. At least now when I drive to and from work, I’ll only feel like I’m off-roading HALF the time. [Seriously, though, the new pavement is badass. The too-tight suspension on my Honda and my ever-so-delicate baby bottom thanks you.]
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Dear driver of Super Awesome Pickup Truck on University:

Thank you for driving slow enough to allow me to keep my left hand on the wheel while using my right hand to grab my camera out of my bag, take my camera out of its case, and zoom/focus onto the back of your awesome FAILBLOG-TASTIC TRUCK:

A hybrid what, exactly? I am 87% sure that the awkward steel frame of sorts situated atop your truck bed does not garner you the 50 mpg city/49 mpg highway that the new third generation Toyota Prius achieves. But I salute you, sir, for making my day a little bit better, knowing that if I ever wanted to, I could submit your vehicle to Failblog and take the credit and the love from the masses.
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Dear driver stopped next to me at the light on University and Sacramento:

If I want to have all my windows down while pumping Toto’s “Africa” at 8:30AM and singing along at the top of my lungs, quite frankly, that is my prerogative. Your double-middle-finger-salute, accompanied by your multiple colorful tattoos, prematurely balding head, severely jewelry-mutilated pinna, and undoubtedly tiny penis, intimidate me not. I’m sure your precious Oakland Raiders love to have your ravenous kind around, and to be honest, I don’t dislike you and your brethren – a crazy jackass loyal base is better than no base at all (read: Republicans Raiders USC former LA Raiders fans who have since hopped on the USC bandwagon Republican Raiders/USC fans USC) – but you feel the need to put me down for my loves and desires, well then by Jove I’m going to put you down for yours.
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Dear Z Gallerie on University Avenue in my beloved/much-avoided hometown of Palo Alto:

Well, it took damn near forever, but you’ve FINALLY closed. Your advertised “fine home furnishings” were tacky and far overpriced and your storefront an eyesore to the entire street. I sympathize with the owners/operators of the store, because this closure, like so many around the country right now, means that a few more good, honest Americans are out of jobs, but really, not unlike the bankruptcies of Enron, Lehman Brothers, or Umbrella Corporation, I think it’s for the best.
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Dear powers-that-be at Random House/McGraw-Hill/Scholastic:

These past four years, I have had the privilege (some might argue an unfortunate one; to them I say merely misunderstood) of knowing and befriending an incredibly unique individual. His sense of recklessness toward the laws of society by which we lead our lives and his commitment to always pushing – nay, shredding and destroying – that envelope is, at worst, cause for psychiatric concern and, at its very best, wild laugh-a-minute entertainment. He is the modern Tucker Max, minus the sexual exploits. I present the single most powerful argument for why you need to get this man a book deal NOW:
(10:44:45 PM) KNak: “annie le, you have a real good story and imma let you finish, but jaycee lee dugard had one of the best abductions of all tahm, of all time”
(10:44:54 PM) KNak: and im going to hell
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Dear faithful reader:

The fact that you have stuck with my incessant complaining and relations of unfortunate events thus far tells me that you are somebody worth rewarding, because no fool in their right mind would waste their time pitying a guy such as myself, much less read about his embarrassing exploits. But onward: on the right, under the section emphatically labeled “Bro vs. Manssiere,” is where I include some of my favorite websites (other than the obvious Google.com, YouTube.com, Wikipedia.org, NYTimes.com, and YouPor…yeah that’s about it I’m a decent guy I swear PR0N IS LEGAL IN CALIFORNIA GET OFF ME I CAN WALK MYSELF TO JAIL). Check them out – they are all quality humor; if you are a college football fan, DEFINITELY check out EveryDayShouldBeSaturday. There are few men in my life I try to emulate and follow; my father, Tucker Max, CarpeDM’08 and Orson Swindle, author of EDSBS, are in this honorable list.

We’re 2-0. GMFB.

(678): I wish I could rss feed the hooker ads on craigslist because it looks suspicious that I check craigslist every hour.

I sometimes seriously wonder why I’m the one writing this blog and not the universally-loved-and-misunderstood KNak. Gem of the night:

(10:39:39 PM) Gordo: strip clubs are such a waste of money
(10:39:47 PM) Gordo: if you're gonna spend that much money you seriously might as well hire a hooker
(10:39:58 PM) KNak: i suppose thats true
(10:40:11 PM) KNak: but strip clubs have more savory bitches
(10:40:30 PM) KNak: with a hooker you dont even know if she has both kidneys

(That one’s for you, AsianShaq. And I think the world needs to know about your fat stripper story.)

3 days until Cal football. I’ve been going through five pairs of underwear a day thinking about Lucky Number 13, The Jet, and The Prophet tearing it up on the field. BE TRUE, WEAR BLUE. GO BEARS.