This would all seem very humdrum were it not for the catch… the “Strange Case” if you will. What makes this story so special is my unique and original plot device… Benjamin is actually a TALKING SHEEP! His mother died tragically giving birth to him thanks, in large part, to his unforgiving little hooves. Oh, did I mention he ages backwards? Yeah, he is born a very ancient and gnarled sheep, and ages gradually back towards lambhood. Benjamin navigates life’s twists and turns with the disarming optimism of a special Olympian, alternately consorting with hookers and yearning for the woman he loves. I’d buy the f*cking DVD.

Cris out.

1. Masturbate – Completely free, all-natural, dependable (in my case), and very rarely goes terribly wrong. Easily tops my list of recession-proof recreational ideas.

2. Explore one’s body – You can find something new everyday if you simply put in the time. Be warned, this activity usually results in ’1′ or something like it.

3. Eat – If you stick to inexpensive foodstuffs or food products purchased by somebody else, this can be a very effective time-sink. Be warned, cheap food that actually tastes good usually makes you fat. Fat and poor = even more depressed. Also, be aware that this activity serves as another very comfortable prologue to ’1′.

4. (Pretend) Online poker – You really feel like a badass when you outwit your cyber-opponent for a hefty, ten-grand pot. Sadly, you lose a lot of your real motivation when it finally sinks in that your 10,000 fake dollars have a real cash value of… zero.

5. Mooch – If you’re cool enough, your friends will pay for you to do things with them. This only works if you have friends and if they like you very much.

6. Be a dick – This is a great opportunity to display your resentment against those who have what you lack (money). If you see someone with nicer clothing, piss on them. If you see someone in a window seat at an expensive restaurant, press your naked butt cheeks up against the glass until the cops are called. Go through the contacts list on your phone and find the phone numbers of people you dislike and do your best to get them on as many telemarketing lists as possible. Find a disabled person and show how much more you can do than them, laughing with great mirth as you do so. In any conversation with an old person, constantly remind them that they don’t have a lot of time left. Spit indoors.

7. Random research – Go onto wikipedia and just start reading. This is actually very productive AND free. My only advice is to just try and make it count… nobody likes the guy who thought it would be cool one day to learn everything about the mating practices of the early Cro-Magnons.

8. Read Ayn Rand books – Everyone should. Try to live by their teachings.

9. Get upset with people who don’t appreciate your now supremely arrogant and unforgiving belief system. Take solace in the fact that you at least know for yourself how others should live and think, even if they remain unwilling to submit to a logical existence. Insist that you disagree with Rand’s take on the mystics. Ignore them when they call you a flip-flopper.

10. Watch early 90′s chick flicks – Seriously, these are the best romantic comedies known to man. Those were the almost-innocent-but-not-quite years of wonder for the film industry. Those were the glory days of Billy Crystal, Tom Hanks, and Richard Gere. That was the era of finally starting to not be so scared of gays. Lastly, that was the pinnacle of the pleated-slack’s prevalence in our society. I was young, but I miss them.

10 Seems to be an appropriate place to stop. I hope this helps some of you similarly cash-strapped persons out there. If you’re reading this, you at least have the internet… so that’s something I guess.

The file system is much more organized and logical than it used to be, and I no longer get a splitting migraine when I open up Windows Explorer or My Computer. The taskbar has been fully transformed and little resembles the one we are all used to. Many people will raise an ugly fuss when they see it because they refuse to adapt to change, but I for one am actually a big fan of the new design, and not just because it’s new, it really does allow me to parse the visual information with greater ease. Awesome sentence, no?

This is not meant to be a full review of the operating system, since that is totally not what I do, but as a casual computer user who has given this thing a whirl, I can confidently say that I am looking forward to the official Windows 7 release, and in the meantime, getting your hands on a copy of the beta might be a worthwhile endeavor if you are as fed up with the Vista scenario as I was. Peace!

I shall provide a real-time, hypothetical narrative of this fantasy for demonstrative purposes. Observe:

I sit in stoic serenity at an nondescript table in an nondescript public location, the very picture of modern nobility. Those around me perceive naught but a handsome, calm, cool, and collected man of the world, basking in the brilliance of his own thought. Two idiotic females enter the room and take a table near his. They talk loudly with little regard for the emotional well being of those in earshot. The chubby brunette who dominates the conversation turns it immediately to inappropriately intimate details about her boyfriend, the number of times she came when they last did it, the amount of beer she bonged for New Years, how much grass her friends smoke, a possible road trip to Gonzaga in the spring, and how she’s just livin’ in the moment. The effect this has upon our stalwart intellectual is impossible to describe. He feels his brain clench like a fist in protest to this onslaught of shallow idiocy. He feels a low growl begin to rumble involuntarily from the depths of his strapping chest; the first signs of uncontrollable rage. His fury expands with the acceleration of the Big Bang, and the magnitude to match. 

Enter the climax.

In one grand motion, he grasps the edge of his table with hands granted the power of Thor thanks to the savage convulsions of angry energy that sweep his muscular frame, and he upends the table violently in an explosive release of this fiery passion. As the table flies across the room, flipping madly end over end as it does so, he lets loose with a powerful stream of profanities directed at his clueless assailants, cursing them for their lack of substance. Leaving behind whatever possessions of his that were once upon the table and are now on the floor somewhere across the room, he kicks the door open with a mighty, Chuck Norris-like stroke of his leg, and strolls out of there with the angry crispness of a pissed off James Bond. 

This fantasy can be applied to many social contexts. One place I remember having this fantasy quite often was in a Political Science class I took in college. Not that I was strongly opposed to what the teacher was saying, but it seemed like a fitting place to simply stand up, flip the desk angrily, and loudly declare, “I’m SICK of this BULLSHIT!!”.

Next time you’re seated at a table or desk and something mildly irritates you, try running through this fantasy a few times in your head and see if it does anything for you. If you actually live out this fantasy, you will have my undying admiration for the remainder of my life.

*Edit* I just realized that I switched persons halfway through my passion-filled narrative. It’s late… my brain is muddied… I’m too tired to go fix it. Enjoy the added dramatic effect.

This year, 2008, our wish has been granted, and granted with vigor. To call this a white Christmas is a laughable understatement. Nay, one could more accurately say that we have been proverbially f*cked raw by the merciless dick of Jack Frost. Everywhere, normal people have been transformed into terrified lemming-types as they struggle in vain against this vindictive ass-reaming being perpetrated by Old Man Winter. It would be unfair to say that we are, as a people, incapable of adjusting to extreme weather conditions, however the historical lack-there-of has left us generally unprepared and illequipped to handle this veritable Narnia we are suddenly faced with. Local news stations stay busy interviewing crying women and defeated men inbetween video montages of struggling snow plows and imperilled vehicles. Cars are constantly abandoned on the freeway and candle sales find themselves shooting unexpectedly through the roof. Only the brave and capable will survive this, and I feel that it will be my duty to lead them. It’s hell out there, but it shall make us stronger.

If it doesn’t kill us first.

These harsh conditions have inspired me to coin a new saying:

“Don’t bite off more than you can chew, because that’s yellow snow.” -Cris

I will probably try to summon up the drive to create my own personal theme, but were I to wait until that day, the hive mind of the www would be bereft of my daily input. That cannot be, for as a wise man (Batman Begins) once taught me, “Evil prevails when good men do nothing.” Or something to that effect.

If it totally sucks, I’ll pick a new one. That would be a cue for you to provide me with input in the form of comments. Hint.