Paycheck and Biracial Christmas

This particular author has been gone for a while, and these changes you see are all brand new to me. It's as sterile as a virgin's vagina in here. Seems more like the website of an up-and-coming business consulting firm. Here at LTS, Inc., we work for you...big thumbs up.

Speaking of work, the staff at this here blog just got our paycheck. For 54 blogs, over 2000 hits, and at least several dozens hours of labor....we have received 34 dollars and 50 cents. BYAH! I should explain. This cash flow has come from our recently estranged partners of Google Adsense, who's hilarious sponsors have given me many an idea for a blog when I just wasn't feeling very creative (Et tù, Cleanbutt.com?). They wrongfully (rightfully) accused us of encouraging readers to click repeatedly on our sponsors without any intention of purchase. Why? Cash. We got a quarter for every click. Eventually our corporate masters caught wind of this, threatened civil suit (not really), and so we dropped them so that we could better fill three columns with completely pointless stuff.

Sidenote: In the Author's Picks, Joe put more of his blogs than mine. And I have no idea how to change it. Damn you co-author! You've won this round only because you know everything the "control" and "alt" keys do in conjunction with other keys.....I don't know what "alt" stands for.

But somehow, probably due to an unknowing intern, we still got paid for all those bogus clicks. So....$34.50. I am unsure what to do with this new found cash, and so I went to Google and typed in "$34.50". One of the first things to pop up were these Bentstorm.com Pirates of the Caribbean Pirate Skull and Crossbones Adult Slippers:

Joe, I think we should go for it. We can each have one. It'll be like the mirrors in Harry Potter...we'll be able to speak to each other in this life....and the next.

But all this is a moot point.

What I really wanted to talk about was my Christmas, in which I experienced two big events: Christmas Eve with my Girlfriend's Family and Going to Church

Christmas Eve with the Girlfriend

As me and Joe have mostly realized by now is the fact that the people who read this blog are people who know us. Therefore, many of you probably know my girlfriend. For those Austrians, I mean readers, who don't actually know us, my girlfriend is Asian. For the most part, this has not really influenced our relationship. We're both intelligent college students in America, she just happens to have slightly less vertical peripheral vision, as they say.

This dynamic changes with the family. Point number one, her father, a Vietnamese chef, is not very fluent in English. I have yet to talk with the man. The first time I met him, I tried to shake his hand, and he walked away. I think he likes me.

I come from an Irish family. I have around 20 cousins from 8 sets of aunts and uncles, and I thought this was commendable. How sadly mistaken I was. When my girlfriend and I got to dinner, I swiftly realized that her joke about making flashcards was not a joke. The cousins (all 30 or more of them) I learned at a good pace. The aunts, however, were a whole other story. A small grouping of these were Nimba-Wei, Nimba-Lei, E-Khon, E-Phom, E-Hun, and E-Hùn. Thats right people, Hun and Hùn. Notice the accent mark! World of difference. Now, I'm pretty sure my girlfriend doesn't read this crap, so I feel fairly comfortable with saying this right now.....They all looked the same! I didn't learn their faces. I learned their shirts. I'm screwed at the next reunion.

And then there's the food. I've never had Lo Mein and Spring Rolls Christmas Eve before. Actually the big story occurred the night prior, when I had gone with her immediate family to a restaurant where they served FU. To pronounce it, take a well-known word, drop the -CK, and there you have it. It's a type of soup. I ordered the thing that had the prettiest combination of hieroglyphics. And literally twenty seconds later, a bowl the size of a baby hippo's head appeared before me. Now, the best part of the night was our waiter. To a blind man, he would appear to have been a perfectly average Asian server, bit of a heavy accent, a little unable to grasp the L sound, and my high school English teacher would have ripped his grammar apart. "Herro. How many ou want? For o fi?"

Translation Sidenote: Hello. How many chairs will be required? Four or five, pray tell?

The problem was that our waiter looked exactly like this:

For those of you don't know, this is Rob Schneider. A white man. A man who doesn't belong in a Fu Restaurant..... much like me.

Going to Church

I am what one would call sacrilegious. Churches don't really invoke me to maintain an aura of solemn reverence. I crack jokes, I provoke my family, and I generally shout to the world that I don't want to talk to their imaginary friend. No offense to my devout Catholic of a co-author. He has to go to confession every time he talks to me. It's the only way this friendship works.

But this mass that I attended with my family was the most entertaining I have ever attended. We had never gone to this particular church before. It was an extremely nice Catholic church that had all been built from one generous donation. Must have been a massive kidney stone.

Hanging in the church was a cross with (you guessed it) Jesus Christ on it. The figure was actually hanging over the pews...the very pews that we sat at. So...when I looked up..... Let's just say the sculptor was fairly generous.

Before the mass started there was an alter boy lighting some candles. There were 8 candles in all, and he got seven of them lit. But that damn eighth one. And this wasn't just a normal eye-level candle. This thing was twenty feet up there. This kid was on his tippy-toes reaching with that long stick with a Zippo at the end for ten minutes trying to light this thing. I know I wasn't the only one to think, 'Man, we need a Jew, a Jew would know how to keep eight candles going through the night.'

Sidenote: That was a weak Hanukkah joke. Menorah, get it? Fuck you.

Before mass started, there was the strangest event. I had never really gone to a traditional Catholic mass before. Apparently, on Christmas they did a reading that was kind of like a countdown to the birth of Jesus. "1300 years since Moses left Egypt. 1100 years since the time of David, 300 years since the start of the Roman Empire"...and so on. There were like twenty of these things. I kept expecting the guy from Conan O'Brien to start going "In the year two thousand....In the year two thousaaaaaaaand!"

Quick little story that occurred during "the Peace". This is where everybody shakes hands and say "Peace" as if they were finishing up the Treaty of Versailles. My father, in his earnestness to shake as many hands as he could, knocked my sister over her seat.

And then there's Communion. There have been wars fought over this thing. Transubstantiation. True body or metaphor. The spiritual transformation of God into this host or merely a ceremony demonstrating the sacrifice. Despite all this, I still get Jesus stuck in my teeth every time.

As I finish up this blog, I would like to say that I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year's, but I hope your Martin Luther King Day sucks balls.

Byah!

Rob

Our Blog is Sexy

Try to contain your excitement. We totally pimped the blog out. That's right readers! LTS has moved into the 21st century. Feel free to let us know what you think: comments, ideas, whatever ltsfts@gmail.com.

In other news, New Years plans are in full swing. Lots of debauchery I can assure you. If we don't bring back one good story...we'll...sorry.

Anyway, it's a new day for the blog of the ages. Tell your friends.

-Joe & Rob

That's Dr. Rob To You

So I am embarking on my career now. Quite an adventurous undertaking. Despite all the fame and glory this blog has brought me and my entourage, this is not my real profession. Perhaps if it was I would be able to post more often. I would also be accompanied by a fellow blogger who wouldn't do things like post a blog about how he was unable to blog adequately and left a big white space to symbolize this where I expected a picture to load up, for which I subsequently wasted several moments staring dumbly at. Damn you JOE!

So yes, my career. I am now a Lab Technician at a local Veterinary Hospital. One day I hope to be a certified veterinarian, but as of right now I'm a male nurse, a murse, if you will.

Sidenote: The term of murse should not be confused with the other version of murse referring to a male purse mentioned some time prior to this post. Sorry for the confusion for anyone using this blog to learn English.

It has been quite an adventure so far, with many stories worth telling. I'll start at the beginning. The very first thing I was given were two sets of scrubs. Not Seasons One and Two of the popular NBC comedy, I'm talking about the clothes. Very sterile polyester type apparel. I was extremely excited to get these scrubs, more so than I should have been. I had every intention of wearing these scrubs everywhere. Grocery store, hanging with friends, Bar Mitzvahs, everything. I was going to buy a pager also. Every now and then I would grab at it frantically, look scared, and run to the door. This was the plan in my head, the actuality is a little different.

My scrubs, for starters, were shit brown. I say shit brown because I now know from experience that shit blends in perfectly. I try to be as hetero as possible in these situations, but I'll just go ahead and say it....I have nothing that goes with shit brown scrubs. High school art class color wheels did not prepare me for this. There was also another attribute of scrubs that are never mentioned in that popular NBC show...they don't exactly stay in place. Scrubs are low-riders, ladies and gentlemen. From the 110 pound high school intern to the 340 pound Head Nurse...coverage is not guaranteed. Crack inevitably shows. What I am trying to say is simply this: the facility I am working at...must look like the skankiest veterinary clinic on the eastern seaboard. And I am the new meat.

Now, being a murse is a big responsibility. It takes initiation and training. And anyone who has ever started a new job, from McDonald's burger flipper to President of New Guinea, has had to watch the training videos. Sexual harassment is apparently frowned upon, the customer comes first, lunches are only a half hour, and the best way to get a dog blood sample is through the jugular vein. Basic knowledge.

The clinic I work at isn't especially diverse in their patients. We deal primarily with dogs and cats. Before I start this next bit, I'm going to say that I am a Dog Person. Dogs are cheerful and full of energy and I can't stop petting them. Cats are vile creatures. Having said that, I will also say this: Dogs are fuckin stupid.

This is what is going through a Dog's mind during a visit to the pet:
Ooooh car ride! Car ride! Car ride! Window down! Window down! Wanna jump out. Aww window back up.
In a building. Smells funny. New dog. Smell their butt but they can't smell mine. Hey! Why did you smell my butt! That's right you better back down.
Ooh, nice lady with treat taking me to shiny food. Up up up on a table. Long way to the floor. New person, he has a coat. Smells familiar.
OH NO!
It's the Vet! Maybe if I whimper he'll stop.

This is what is going through a Cat's mind:
.........They think I don't know about the vet today.
I know.
And there will be blood.
And my hand takes hold in judgement. I will take vengeance upon mine enemies. And I will repay those who haze me. O Lord, raise me to Thy right hand. And count me among Thy saints.

Dogs are simple creatures, and I love them that way. Cats are clever devious little critters who would ditch you in a second if it found someone with better tasting kibble. Fraternities shouldn't even bother with hazing. They should just give all of their pledges cats instead. The weak will be weeded out, trust me. Everybody at this clinic has scars from cats. So far, my hands are like a newborn babe's. I am terrified.

I am going to wrap up this blog with some funny stories about the pet owners, our clients:

This past week, I had the pleasure of meeting with a nice client by the name of Vallathol Narayana Swaminathan. He had a cat named Joe.

I'm not sure if you've ever seen a large man. The kind of man who fills the room with both girth and presence. His beard would have clothed a small Peruvian family. His hands could have palmed Pluto (Is that thing a planet again? I have no idea). People in line in the waiting room immediately moved aside when he came in. And it was a good thing they did. His "Poopsicans" had a very bad cough.

A woman came into the office saying she couldn't get her cat house trained, and that it kept relieving itself all over the house. We asked her, "Have you cleaned the litter box?" Her reply was, "The what?" Apparently cats don't like newspapers.

But the funniest story had to be when Mrs. Wilder came in with one of her dogs. Mrs. Wilder is a little elderly, and has been a long time client. She actually has five dogs at home, all patients of the clinic. She is well liked, and she adores the staff. But she is extremely fond of one of the other nurses, who has been working with her for nearly 15 years. Today, Mrs. Wilder said she was planning on getting another dog. "And," she said to her favorite nurse. "I'm going to name her Chloe after you." There was a dramatic pause, and then the nurse replied, "My name is Megan."


Byah!!

Rob

Pants

So, I'm taking a big step here.

I'm going over the picket line...

The other writers, when they hear about this, are going to pitch a fit! They can stay on strike if they want, but I have things that need to be said. I am a little afraid of the repercussions though.

The According to Jim guys will beat me with a harmonica. The Heroes people will kick my ass, go back in time, and kick my ass again. And I'll be raped by the Lost writers and then they'll leave me while I try to figure out the meaning behind it.

It might be too much for me to handle, but I have important topics to discuss.

Joe might not have the balls to write.

But dammit I do.

Sidenote: OK, I am changing the tone of this blog now to happy.

I like Christmas. It's a fantastic time of year, in my opinion. Cause it's that time of year when everybody acts like greedy bastards. Let your shallow need of possession shine, people! Our Lord Savior is coming! For any Jews out there, the Lord Savior is Jesus F'in Christ. And you know what I'm eating for Christmas dinner? Ham.

Every year I am asked to write a Christmas List. I am twenty years old, and it's starting to get ridiculous.

Sidenote: When I was seven, writing this list for Santa, I asked for a cure to diabetes, cause the shots hurt my bum-bum. Looking back, that was probably the most awkward situation my parents could have ever been in. So they wrote me a letter back (on my mom's stationary) about how Santa was sorry (yes, he writes in the third person) but that his medical elves were working very hard on it. I'm glad I was stupid when I was seven.

I can tell I'm starting to get old, too. Usually my list has things like video games or movies or K'NEX sets (those things were freakin awesome!). You know what I asked for this year?

Pants.

I'll tell you why. Apparently I am more flexible than my trousers, because in nearly half of my pantaloons there is a good sized rip in the crotchal nether region. I've tried to fix it. I've sewn it up, but it comes undone. I've even considered putting a patch on it, but I think it would look like a poo patch like on the back of pajamas with footsies. There's no hope, and I'm a cheap bastard who won't buy my own pants. For the last few months I have been matching my underwear with the pants so nobody notices.

So that's pretty much all I asked for this year. Just pants. And I'm sure when Christmas comes around. Everybody will be opening their presents. And I'll open a sweet new video game, and a kick ass movie, and a rockin CD.

And then there will be nothing left, and I'll say, "Hey....where are my fuckin pants!"

Byah!

Rob

The Big Screen

So, today was an excursion into the world of film acting. I had gotten a role in a ... wait for it.... student programs film about off-campus housing. This is the big leagues people!

I was thinking that this is gonna be incredible. I'm going to be acting! Make funny faces on camera! Be on Oprah!

That's what I thought before I actually got to work. Seven hours later after three lines and 89 takes, I was having some second thoughts. Turns out acting might be one of the most boring careers ever. No wonder they all do coke.

This was a real series of takes this afternoon. My line was "Is that included in the rent?":

I walk after the realtor lady who says her line about natural gas heating.
Me: Is that included in the rent?
Director: OK, cut. Bobby why don't you stand here after she says her line. Lets redo it.

Realtor lady does her line.
Me: Is that included in the rent?
Director: OK. Bobby, can you just stand still while we get the lighting right?

14 minutes later I can move.

Realtor lady does her line.
Me: Is that included in the rent?
Director: OK, cut. Bobby, I really like how you're saying the line. But I want more.
Me: More what?
Director: Just more... (and he definitely made a pelvic kind of wiggle).

Realtor lady does her line.
I then go through 8 more takes with various inflections and facial expressions. Finally, I do one that was good in some way that I didn't understand.
Director: OK, that was brilliant. So.....we're actually gonna start taping it now. I want you to do the exact same thing. Just remember.....(and he wiggled again).

It takes 13 more takes. And then we did close-ups.

That was scene 1 of 23.

One interesting part of the whole thing was that they had written in a girlfriend for me. Which was awesome cause my order from that Russian catalogue was taking a long time to get over here. I had met the girl before. We had said hello and not much else. Now today we were actually doing scenes together, talking in between takes, and that's when I realize....I do not like this girl. It was just one of those things. We would not date, we would not be friends. If she were a guy it would have come down to fisticuffs. Instead of being nice and perhaps trying to get chemistry on screen, the day was spent with us pretending like we're in a good relationship while casually slipping insults at each other after the scene. Each of these statements started with "I think my character would...

She would say things like: "I think my character would rather be involved with a different actor" or "I think my character could do better."
And I would say things like "I think my character would be better off single" or "I think my character would rather be gay."

We spent 3 hours on two scenes where we were "snuggling" (I might have bruises from that ordeal) on the floor watching a "movie".

Sidenote: The "movie" we were watching was a blank TV with a guy behind it flickering a blue light back and forth. That way it looked like the lights of TV was flickering on the scene. I have no freaking clue why we couldn't just watch Jungle 2 Jungle or something.

The big climax of the film was the PARTY scene. The basic premise is that we have a house, and a party of ours gets out of hand. It's all meant to show students what not to do when they move off campus.

Another idea of what not to do is invite a whole bunch of students to be extras in a party scene, have them come at 5:00, and not begin shooting their scene until 7:30. Basically what we did was cram them all in the basement, and every five minutes or so the Director would scream down the stairs to be quiet because the highly tuned audio equipment was going haywire. They also weren't fed very much. I'm almost positive one of the girls, I think her name was Anne, started writing a diary.

But finally we had the party scene. They basically told us to just mill around and pretend to be partying. They would film the whole thing and make a montage out of it later. So we're just hanging around with empty solo cups with a bunch of people shouting directions on where to wander to. Now, I'm not much of a party guy, and am actually pretty shy. But nothing quite brings that fact into light more than a middle-aged director with a megaphone yelling, "Bobby! Go talk to the group of girls in the center! Stop hiding in the corner!"

And in case you were wondering, my committed girlfriend in the scene had wandered off with a frat kid.

Ah well, so that was my day. It was fun in parts. And I got paid, so I would count it as a success. Be sure to check out my flick, coming soon to a Housing Fair near you.


Byah!

Rob