Half Empty

"How does one articulate the ongoing sadness of after?"

I feel like I've been writing too damn many of these in the past year—which really just means "any at all"—but even with practice, I feel like I'm very not good at them. I always feel so horribly unqualified, not to mention unprepared; it's not as if I sit around thinking "what would I say about so&so if he/she died?"—especially since I prefer to delude myself with the belief that everyone I care about in any sense of the word will continue living forever. And it already takes me far longer than it should to piss about with writing, re-writing, nit-picking, and finally giving up, saying "fuck it," and hitting "Publish" when I'm writing about something that doesn't matter. It never seems possible to give anyone the kind of tribute they actually deserve. But you shut the fuck up about it and just do it anyway because, good enough or not, they deserve your best effort, which, I hope, is this:

I first discovered David Rakoff simply because of a cover blurb by David Sedaris on his first collection of essays, Fraud. PROTIP: When one of your favorite authors calls someone "the wittiest and most perceptive man in the world," you fucking listen. By the end of the week, I owned and had read both Fraud and Don't Get Too Comfortable: The Indignities of Coach Class, The Torments of Low Thread Count, The Never Ending Quest for Artisanal Olive Oil, and Other First World Problems, which were the only two he'd written so far. Meanwhile, the expanding pile of work on my desk went largely unnoticed—by me, anyway—as I laughed, sometimes even to myself, while I read.

And then I listened—not often, but when I thought of it. Occasionally I would catch him on This American Life, and of course, I would laugh then, too. I took the opportunities for granted because not only was he only in his 40s, but he was going to live forever anyway. Still, whether it was out loud or on paper, he immediately became another of my examples of How You Funny. So, for a brief moment this morning when I saw his name trending, I forgot about the Laws of Twitter and got excited. This lasted exactly two seconds until I remembered that any time someone's name is trending on Twitter, it is a Bad Fucking Thing. It's always either a) some total douchecannon that you wish would have the decency to go the fuck away forever and stop inflicting themselves upon the world, or b) someone fucking awesome who has died because the universe is a total dick that's already taken Maurice Sendak, Ray Bradbury, Nora Ephron, and Gore Vidal this year, but apparently that wasn't good enough, so it had to take David Rakoff, too. At 47.

So today, too late as usual, I'm listening to his contributions to This American Life and reflecting on yet another huge loss for the writing community, and for the world. You can find his contributor page here: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/contributors/david-rakoff, and I would strongly encourage you to listen to every single one of them. And laugh. Laugh, because we need it now more than ever.

"But how lovely those moments were, gone now except occasionally in dreams, when one could still turn to someone and promise them something truly worth their while just by saying "hey, watch this!"

P.S. You can find what others have said, probably much better than I, here:
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/blog/2012/08/our-friend-david-rakoff
http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2012/08/10/158560936/on-already-missing-the-angry-passionate-writing-of-david-rakoff
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/entertainment/2012/08/david-rakoff-essayist-and-american-life-contributor-has-died/55644/
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/11/books/david-rakoff-award-winning-humorist-dies-at-47.html

And one in his own words:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17lives-t.html

The system is down, yo.

So, I'm about a million years (read: a couple weeks) behind on all the shit that's happened that I've been meaning to write about. I could tell you why, but you'd probably be disappointed, so just imagine that something really awesome happened, but it's somehow top secret because of reasons, so I can't tell you anything about it, ever. In fact, let's assume that's the case every time I get too busy/lazy/depressed to write for a while. It's better for everyone that way.

Anyway, last November, HTC rolled out a Ridiculously Important System Update Meant To Fix Shit That's Totally Broken For Real, That We Promise Won't Actually Just Fuck Up Everything About Your Phone for the Incredible. Yes, the Incredible One. Shut up.

You'll probably remember how, after I finally had to force the update to actually install, it didn't fix anything, and actually did fuck up my phone badly enough that I had to do a factory reset on the fucker.

Well, guess what came out relatively recently...ish? June, maybe? um, before today? RISUMTFSTTBFR,TWPWAJFUEAYP for the Incredible TWO! (Update two, not the Incredible Two.) Like the last update, it's so full of awesome that you'll have to do a bunch of secret hacker shit to even get it to install in the first place! But RISUMTFSTTBFR,TWPWAJFUEAYPFTI2(U2,NI2) is better than the first one, because it's newer!

I was super-excited that there was a new update, because my phone is an unholy pile of fail was having some minor performance issues. Like how roughly 60% of the time I tried to call my wife, it wouldn't actually bother to place the call, just fake it for a little bit and send me to voicemail. It would proceed to do this the next six times I called, until my GAD took over and could not be convinced she was not dead in a ditch somewhere until a) I finally got home and actually saw her, or b) my phone decided to stop being a douchewagon and put my fucking call through. Or how I would get a text from her and try to reply, but it would say "Invalid Destination Address, Asshat" and refuse to send anything.

After a few weeks of wankery in which I would tell my phone to install the fucking update, then watch as it counted down from 10 and did nothing, I finally broke down and forced it to install. Here's what the update changed:

• Caused the phone to freeze every 5-10 minutes.
• Deleted all the apps, except the pre-loaded bullshit that is apparently so permanently encoded on the fucker that even it can't get rid of them.
• Disconnected my Google account.
• It would allow me to re-download the apps it deleted; however, it wouldn't actually run the motherfuckers.
• After re-downloading apps, a notification would pop up saying that an app that it supposedly couldn't fucking run anyway had encountered an error and needed to close. It then refused to close the app, waited two minutes, and repeated the whole goddamn cycle.
• It couldn't find the SD card. Again. Or still. I don't even fucking know anymore.
• It no longer did the cool weather animations, which may have been the only pre-loaded feature I actually liked.

But it did add an "App Associations" option to the Settings menu so I could change the default app to use for certain actions. Of course, it couldn't fucking run anything but the pre-loaded shit, but it was at least nice to know I could pretend to have options.

Oh, and my favorite thing of all: every time I restarted the phone due to the freezing and other assorted fuckery, it gave me this popup that said "UIDs on the system are inconsistent, you need to wipe your data partition or your device will be unstable." Instead of an option that said "OK" or "Then Show Me How To Fucking Do It, You Prick," my only choice was a button that said "I'm Feeling Lucky."

"Your system UIDs are inconsistent, punk."

After the hard reset:

• It can't find anything on the SD card from before the previous hard reset.
• It can't find anything on the SD card or its own internal storage from after the latest hard reset.
• Eight out of ten times I look at it, it's collecting "anonymous location data" because of reasons. If I turn this off, I can't use the weather app, and the map app does this.

I'll give it one thing, though—it's definitely incredible.

Battery light, motherfucker!

So, remember a couple weeks ago when I talked about how impossibly weird shit always happens to my car? Yeah, that. Times forever.

A couple months ago, my car started playing this game called Battery Light, Motherfucker! where it decided it would be hilarious to do all kinds of crazy shit with the electronics while flashing the eponymous light like a motherfucking rave. I took it to one of those Car Shit Emporium stores where they plugged my battery into an Etch-a-Sketch and told me that it was toast, but they'd be happy to sell me a new one. Hell, they'd even install it for a fee that's already built into the price of the battery free!

Ten minutes and a little over a hundred dollars later, I got into my car, backed up six feet, and started playing BLM! again. When I dragged them back outside again, they started running random diagnostics, none of  which could apparently be completed. Then they just started guessing. "I'm pretty sure that'll be a bad diode. Or, y'know, something else with your alternator. It's probably not charging. Or maybe charging too much. Whatever. Either way, it's totally not your battery. Anymore."

"Ziggy says your flux capacitor's out of dilithium crystals, Sam."

Then I took it to a real mechanic, who replaced the alternator, but also locked the (only) keys inside it when he was done, so that when I went to pick it up, I had to call AAA to send someone to help me break into my own fucking car at 11pm. Literally thirty seconds after I got off the phone with them, a random tow truck driver happens to be walking by after parking his truck there for the night, so he gets me into the car while I call AAA to cancel. Everybody wins! Except for the tow truck driver that AAA sent after they didn't fucking cancel. He lost like an hour and a half of his life. But he did get to hear me apologize my ass off for something that was so not my fault, so that's...something.

Anyway, last week, I went to start my car and...nothing. Brand fucking new battery, dead. Car Shit Emporium told me it was "charging weakly," and that it was totally a diode again, or maybe something else that wasn't their fault. That actually did turn out to be true—I got it fixed for free. After the mechanic worked on literally 25 other cars that came in after I dropped mine off. Priorities, FTW!

I'm *exactly* like Anthony Bourdain. Except with Red Baron pizza instead of sheep testicles.

Me, on Twitter over the past month or so:

• Joe T's is like the TARDIS of restaurants. #biggerontheinside
• Also, If Jack in the Box starts sounding like a good idea, you've had enough.
• Have just invented Naan Pockets. You're welcome, people who want to eat Indian food on the go. #NaanPockets
• That is full of win! And also wine, probably.
• "Pour some peas on my plate...in the name of lunch!"
• My 21st: "All the beers, please." "Yes, sir." "And my free dessert." "I'll need to see some ID for that." picardfacepalm.jpg
• Went to Mellow Mushroom and had Philosopher's Pie. Or, as it's called in America, Sorcerer's Pie.
• Gave myself hipster mouth eating pizza for lunch today. #beforeitwascool

Klout, this morning: I believe you are influential about food.

Your move, Food Network.

I'm not sure you've grasped the concept.

This conversation just happened:

Guy Calling Library: Do you take community service there?
Me: We do accept volunteers, but you have to apply through the City, and they won't allow anything court-ordered at the library. For that, they're going to make you do roadside cleanup or janitorial shit. You can find all that information on the City website.
GCL: Ah. It's just that it would be really convenient for me to do it at the library because I live in the apartments just across the parking lot. Actually, I'm looking at your building right now.

First of all, this is in no way fucking creepy, Dude Who Has Already Been Convicted Of Doing Something Illegal. Would you like me to go to the window and wave my arms or describe what I'm wearing so you can tell me that you can see what I'm doing?

Secondly, I do sincerely apologize for the inconvenience of your fucking sentence. I know that it's meant to be a pleasant and rewarding experience, and this is clearly in stark contrast to the section of the Penal Code that states:

§ When an individual is convicted of an offence against the Community, the sentence shall consist of a reasonably low number of hours of pleasurable service to the Community in a comfortable location convenient to the individual's place of residence.

Had you called even an hour sooner, the City may still have had a community service opening in the Getting A Blowjob From A Supermodel department. Again, I'm very sorry. Asshat.

Infinite Improbability Drive.

So, last weekend my wife and I were out running some errands, and we hit a pothole just after turning the corner into a Shopping Clusterfuck Area. Translation: we hit a relatively small bump at about ten miles an hour on a road that was barely more than the leftover pavement between like eight parking lots.

What Happens When Most People Hit A Pothole:
Option A: Absolutely fucking nothing of any consequence. Maybe somebody in the car spills a drink or something.
Option B: They get a flat tire. It gets changed. They continue on, maybe fifteen minutes later than they'd expected to be.

What Happened When We Hit A Pothole:
The car instantly died and rolled to a halt. Several of the Impending Doom lights on the dash came on, and the odometer went blank. Not only did the car refuse to start again, it wouldn't even pretend like it was fucking trying.

After I pushed the car around the corner all by myself like a total badass with the help of a couple other people who had to stop behind us when the car died, I used my brilliant powers of observation and deduction to see if anything under the hood looked like it had fucking blown up or fallen off. Also, I mashed down all the fuses and checked the battery to see if it had come loose. Then I called AAA, who said they'd never even heard of that happening before.

We began to detect a theme in our interactions that afternoon when the tow truck showed up and the driver did exactly the same shit I had just done, then told me he'd never seen anything like this before. He also had some kind of weird Tourette's where he kept saying "GPS" all the time, but didn't actually use it. Or listen when we tried to tell him where to go.

Driver: I have GPS. I'll just use my GPS. Do you know where you're going? Because I have GPS.
Us: Turn here.
Driver: [keeps going]
Us: Um...
Driver: GPS.

After a brief tour of one of the least interesting parts of Denton, he finally dropped my car off vaguely near the shop, as it would apparently have been impossible for him to get it to the actual garage door due to the slight incline that he insisted somehow canceled out his truck's Giant Extending Ramp. Instead, a mechanic had to push it the rest of the way. When he had accomplished that, he called us back and showed us this:

"Have you had any work done recently?"
"Um, an oil change and an alignment."
""That doesn't make any damn sense. It didn't fall up."

It turned out that the bolt wasn't even from my car, so apparently what happened was this:

Somehow, a random bolt fell into my engine and probably got lodged in there somewhere. Then we hit a pothole, which caused the bolt to bounce around in exactly the right way that it connected the starter to something else metal, creating a short circuit that temporarily fried the computer and pissed off the anti-theft system so much that the whole thing refused to function until it was reprogrammed. At an improbability factor, I might add, of 2²⁶⁷⁷⁰⁹ to 1 against.

Except, if you're me, probability is a fucked-up algorithm that takes the normal laws of math and science and twists them into some hideous perversion that almost guarantees that the weirdest shit in the universe will always happen to me, while the probability that anything else will happen is often inversely proportional to how much I want or need it to.

If I had a dollar for every time I've heard a mechanic say "I've never seen this happen before,"
I could probably buy a new car. Two weeks later, it would burn up in the driveway because it
was landed on by a bald eagle that was on fire after being struck by lightning in midair.

Like the time that what I swear must have been an albatross bombed my windshield while I was driving down the road at 55 mph, perfectly illustrating the week I had been having.

Or the time someone decided to back out of a parking spot without looking and didn't even stop when I laid on the horn, so I threw my car into reverse and peeled out backwards, and somehow they only hit my front license plate. From the side.

Or the time my gas pedal got stuck at about 20 mph a few months after I bought my car.

Or the time my gas gauge got stuck at half a tank, and suddenly dropped down to empty at the exact moment I got too far into the middle of nowhere to make it to a gas station.

Or the time it was so fucking cold that I had half a tank of gas, but most of it actually fucking froze, and I got stuck in the middle of nowhere and my brother had to bring me some HEET to fucking thaw the rest of it out.

Or the time I got the oil changed in my wife's car and a few days later the oil filter fell the fuck off while she was driving.

Seriously, this is my life, all the time. I can't even make this kind of shit up.

America, fuck yeah!

So, Amazon's appstore has just offered me a spectacular deal in honor of America's independence:

What better way to celebrate America than by playing a bastardization of the national game of China?

I've also learned that patriotism is inherently tied to buying any of the following items, plus many more:

• New or used cars
• Appliances
• Furniture
• Shitty, shitty beer

Meanwhile, in Texas, today is the one day out of the whole fucking year that it's OK to admit we're part of America. Mostly, it's an excuse to mix alcohol and blowing shit up in the back yard, which is actually just regularly scheduled programming about 10 months out of the year here.

Anyway, Happy Independence Day, Americans! Remember to count your fingers before and after.

To Canada, specifically: I apologize for the noise. We'll try to keep it down. Also, your planning this year was much better than ours. At least you put your holiday on a weekend and not a fucking Wednesday.

To the rest of the world: Um, it's Wednesday, so I guess the week's about half over.