Mystery 30 Day Challenge...

The idea of starting a 30 day challenge in which you don't know what the actual challenge is, seems ridiculous. I think it goes back to the thing I was talking about with time constraints (remind me to talk about "time dilation" at some point...). When you present yourself with a deadline, it adds a sense of urgency to complete the tasks at hand. Ultimately, time as we know it is a limited resource in our lives. So the idea of making the most of the time we are given seems like a no brainer. But it's very easy to look at time as an unlimited resource, making us all comfortable. Comfort on paper seems like a pleasing or positive thing, but it's not. Getting outside your comfort zone is the only way to guarantee, not "Comfort" but "Happiness" in your life, which is all that really matters. People think by putting yourself outside your comfort zone, you are opening the door to failure. When people look at "Failure" they see it as a negative, it paralyzes them with fear. But "Failure" is not actually what is happening outside your comfort zone. "Learning" is what happens, so try not to look at something you've tried as a "Failure" but a lesson "Learned"... THERE! You get it stupids? DO YOU!?

So... 

On July 1st I'm having a No-Holds-Barred Pay-Per-View event kicking off my Mystery 30 Day Challenge! $69.95 plus egregious service fee! Contact your local cable provider NOW!! We will laugh, we will cry... We will witness small animals and helpless elderly people die at my hands.

Sensory Deprivation Tank: Float Session No. 2

So I finally made my way back to Space Time Tanks in Lincoln Park, after about a week and a half of thinking about it constantly since my first visit. Myself and El Jefe have been training ourselves to become super human savages that can transform back and forth between normal humans to blood-thirsty, hyper-intelligent, super beasts... It's going very well if I may say myself. Next week I think we are doing 2 hours to allow ourselves deeper psychological exploration. I had way more fun this time than the first, not to say I didn't like it then, but I came in with expectations of making contact with an superior alien race, so this time... I started by organizing, examining and moving through every idea that came to my mind, pondering longer on the ideas that seemed like they had more traction. The tank seemed a little hotter than last time which was a slight distraction at first but ultimately played a key roll in the incubation sensation I kept slipping into later in the float session. The thing with putting time restraints on a float session is that, when an hour starts coming around, you're thinking of when you're going to get that knock on the outside of the tank letting you know your session is over. It's a distraction. So when I got to that point, after some very deep, physically neutralizing states at the end, I started doing some stretching in the tank while I was floating, kind of like floating yoga, it was pretty rad. It served as a nice way to sort of mentally cool down from the experience. Think of an hour in the tank as doing an hour of intense physical training, but for your brain. You need an minute or two to decompress and adjust your light sensitivity. There's a shower in the room in which you use both before and after your session, so the owners can put a video on youPorn. I bought a multi-float package so I can continue to explore the deep and dark recesses of the conscious and sub-conscious human mind, which will later facilitate my physical transformation into the aforementioned SUPER BEAST! I will show no mercy, and I will kill all. Below you will see some pictures of the tank I took before and after my session, along with a video I pulled over from their website talking a little about the overall experience.

2012 AGDA Experiment...

I grabbed the mail today and saw the second submission for for the 2012 American Graphic Design Awards. I kinda laughed because I received one earlier for a deadline listed as June 22, I remembered because I was going to throw a few things over just to see if I could sneak in the book. Good thing they pushed the date back to July 13! I would really have had to step on it the next few days to get something submitted. But, with the added time frame and the fact they may have pushed it back because they aren't getting enough submissions, only increases my chance to get some recognition for work completed in 2011-March 2012. So now, this is turning into an experiment to see if my hypothesis of low submission of entries, lead to me easily getting a nod here. Now I gotta go thru everything I've done in that time, which isn't a bad thing... It's just all so good, you know...

You will see above the two separate pieces of mail I've received. Also notice that I've sneakily managed to prevent any internet perverts out there from finding out my address.  

Sorry PETA, I Ate some Fois Grais...

Last week I visited a lovely hipstified establishment in Logan Square called Longman & Eagle. When I say "hipstified", I mean, the place is great, but for people who judge the definition of a hipster by what someone is wearing or looks like, and have a problem with that... You may want to choose a different place to have dinner. Most of the people here are pretty nice, fun and intelligent humans that I don't have the urge to physically harm. I no longer base my definition of "hipster" in a negative context based on their appearance alone. The thing that I have grown to hate are the hipsters who just think they are too fucking cool (stupid, ignorant) for anything.. and I mean, ANYTHING. I've tried to have conversations with this pathetic breed and you just get nothing back from them. They hate everything main stream just because it is main stream. They are just the shitheads of an identifiable group of people who give the rest of them (people who are just moving with a trend in fashion) a bad name. These people exist in every class or social sub-category of people. And because they're too apathetic to open their mind to something other than stuffing their weak, out of shape bodies into tight clothes (that are only an indication they're following fashion trends, i.e. TRYING) I grant them solely with the attribute of being narrow-minded fuck-tards.

Now that I've gotten that out of the way. Let's talk about dinner, which was delicious. L&E has been around for a few years now, and I've gotten unequivocally smashed there a few times before thanks to the amount of whiskey and craft beers they offer, but this was my first real sit down proper meal. Here's how it went:

Quick Snack:

• Sliced Fingerling Potato with Chives, Creme Fraiche and Salmon Roe. FREE!

 Apps:

• Pastrami Spiced Pig Head, Sauerkraut Gnocchi, Dehydrated Rye, Shaved Pear-Watercress Salad, Thousand Island Sugo. $12
• Kentucky Fried Quail, Foie Gras Enriched Corn Bread, Country Gravy, Red Beans and Hamhock. $17

Entree:

• Seared Maine Day Boat Scallops, Black Truffle Cream of Wheat, Beech Mushrooms, Pickled Ramp Bulbs, Pea Shoots, Citrus Emulsion. $28 

Dessert:

• Warm Gruyere Donuts, Fig Jam, Hazelnut Marscapone, Wild Flower Honey  $9

In closing, if you are looking to binge on some succulent rich meats (I think my waiter wanted to binge on mine! ;) and whiskey, this is the place to do it.

Vice Guide to Puking Mothers...

First things first... I'm posting like the worst... It's only because I've been put forth due diligence to self-manifest more potential Ghost Sharkeness ("working") this past week or so. I enjoyed a glass of alcoholic Pinot Noir and watched a Vice Guide to Travel about Karachi, Pakistan, a crazy place in the world that's totally fucked... That's basically what Vice Guide is. A well produced, written and executed documentary series giving us an insight into what it's like in the places we like to pretend do not exist. But they do, I've now had two profound moments while watching this series where I said to myself, "Wow, if I ever mange to make my way to hell or whatever version of that, that probably (definitely) does not exist, this would be that place". Simply terrifying, but the journalists and crew that Vice has assembled, bring it all together in a digestible and strangely optimistically encouraging vehicle. In short, it's the best fucking doc series in the word and ever. The embedded video below is the episode I just watched, see if it's something you can get into... Or, if you're just another fucking idiot. I guess that's fine too. 


Crazy Right!?... You didn't watch it, don't lie to me... Anyway, after watching the documentary, I had a contemplative cigarette out back. I was thinking about the haunting interview that the journalist conducted with a contract killer that worked for the political faction AMF, or the mafia MQM or Al-Qaeda or whoever, they all seem to be working together to kill each other. When all of the sudden I hear a coughing, gargling, dry-heavie sound coming from the near-by front of my house. I quietly snuck over to the side of my back yard to where it sounded closest. I waited a beat or two and heard it again. Initially, I thought it might be an old washed up drunkard I could coax into my garage for some murder, or a Floridian transplant wandering the streets looking for a face to chew off... But after hearing the last out burst I realized it was a girl. My guard was down now so I decided to take a more brazen approach to my investigation. So I walked around the far side of my house to the corner where the street light is and I saw my 2 door down neighbor (who I think is a recent mother) puking off to the side if her front entry. I just laughed to my self, said "Good for her!" and went back into the house. It was a nice realization into the fact that, hey, sometimes moms need to get totally fucked up too! It does beg the question if some horrible relationship with her father forced her to get wasted on the Sunday of Father's day?... I'll make my own assumptions about that recent mothered neighbor who was drunk outside a little bit ago.. I'll make my own assumptions...

The Humbility Podcast Number 2

Hey Faggots, that's inappropriate, I'm sorry, I have gay friends. How would they feel if they saw that? It's my own young social ignorance that has worked it's way into my schoolyard vernacular. Or maybe we should just say whatever we want and not give words such power?... I Dunno.

Here is another episode of the HUMBILITY PODCAST, we talk about Isolation tanks and my first experience inside of one. Also we talk a little about Paul Hogan!

Taking a Nut Shot No.1

... And hopefully the last of this post series! I went Mountain Biking with Tomas, who you may remember from "Tomas O'Reilly's" Candles and Such". But if you live in or around the Chicagoland area, bike and have never been to Palos Trails, you are missing out. I haven't really been biking too much yet this season and was without rear brakes. But I thought to myself, "How hard can it be?" Right after breaking the trail into the woods, I found myself in over my head with steep drops, tons of rocks, roots and stumps and not to mention crazy tight hairpin turns, WITHOUT REAR BRAKES. I managed to keep it together and not kill myself up to the first clearing where we made some adjustments to my rear brakes, getting them to work! Success! Now we could get into this. Everything was going well, and my confidence with the trails had reached a comfortably level. When BOOM, Rear tire came out and clipped a tree stump on a quick turn, rocketing the aluminum frame of my bike directly into my "bathing suit" area. I should have went down, but managed to bail and land on my feet. I was immediately reminded of the time I was BMXing in the woods on a family camping trip when I was around 10-11 years old and having something similar happen resulting in my peeing blood for a couple of days. I wasn't even concerned with the pain, just my ability to have children in the future. Fortunately, I think I absorbed most of the contact this time with the Perineum or the "Gooch, Chode or Taint" as some of you know it by. After returning home from 4 hours of riding I had to pee... No Blood! Woot! Anyway, sorry if this is grossing you out, but I'd like it to serve as a tool. The lesson to be learned here is this: If you gotta take a nut shot, don't take it in the nuts, take it in the Perineum! Brought to you by the Perineum Pretzel Factory. Really it's just dumb luck, as none of us are walking around expecting to get kicked or hit in the nuts. It's always just an unexpected way to ruin your life for an hour or so. The illustration below indicates the best place to take a nut shot if you can see it coming. Be careful out there everyone.

Anatomy of an Evening with a Fancy Bachelor No. 1

I found myself sitting on my couch, stoned to BeJesus at about 8:30 PM flipping through the XBox Marketplace, just looking at sweet screen captures of games I was considering buying, when it occurred to me that I hadn't really eaten very much today... In fact, can I be honest with you bros?... I haven't been eating much at all since 9/11... So a podcast I was listening to was talking about Quinao Pasta (Keen-Wah), it's amazingly healthy pasta alternative that in its unprocessed state contains 32 grams of protein per cup. So I say to myself, "lets get up off the couch and check out some of this Quinao pasta they speak about and make "us" (my multiple personalities) an nice meal from the new fancy Standard Market that just opened up by my house." I walked in and asked a super gay stock kid where I could find "Keen-Wah" Pasta, he did his best to accommodate, but ultimately dropped the ball on delivering me "Keen-Wah". For about the tenth time today I find I'm talking myself of the ledge... "So, they don't have "Keen-Wah" pasta Mikey, it's okay... it's okay, just get some regular pasta, you need to eat." So I did just that and bought a few other things too. I created this little photo-legend series to illustrate how a successful, God-Damned bach fixes a meal he doesn't really have the time to fix himself between cashing checks and banging hot black girls... and that super gay stock boy! As always, you may click the image to enlarge.

This was pretty much my night... I spent it writing a blog post about how you should spend your night... How Meta! You should note that there was one item I did not talk about or photograph after the cart. Item "I", Raincoast Crisps, some kind of crazy cracker thing with seeds in it, I originally figured I could eat my Menchego cheese on them, sprawled across my bearskin rug, drinking Sauv "F'in" Blanc in front of the fireplace. But the dipshits (they were all nice) forgot to bag my fancy crackers, $6.59 down the tubes. You will pay for that Standard Market.

Foot Fetish No.1

Here is the all new Nike Air Yeezy II... I didn't even know Kanye West was making sneakers, but I'm not surprised. This initial "Foot Fetish" post will be on going as I like shoes pretty okay. These... I'm not so sure I can pull off, but I like that the sole gloes... HA! get it Soul Glow, like from Coming to America. I wonder if they considered the irony of that... Eh.. That would be a stretch, anyway here are the shoes!

Computer Death Grammer "..."

The ellipsis ... Maybe ... My favorite aspect of written word ... Ever ... and fully! So, I'd like to ask a question. I've been seeing a lot of stuff coming back from my copywriter with an ellipsis spaced out once from the word it follows ... Like that! But I've also seen it flush with the sentence... Like that! I wonder what the right way to do it is? Since I don't have Google, I'll just have to wait until someone sees this post and tells me ... I understand, this can be months, years or even never. How am I going to live with this on my mind? ...

I do like that the extra break, gives it a hard pondering moment before continuing... or wait ... Like that!

This has been Computer Death Grammer, official sponsor of Ferrari's and HUMBILITY!

TFMK #1

Here is a little supplemental audio content spinning off from the HUMBILITY PODCAST!

Hey June!

What up Muthas! and of course ... my Brothers!? What will CDS5K have in store for the month of sweaty, wet, hard-bodies? ... Some things ... But for today, some house chores along with my unending slaughter and consumption of my arch enemy, CHICKENS! I will never forget the emptiness you left in the legacy of my family name Chickens... Fucking NEVER! Until I eat every last one of you. Chickens have become the Lannister to my Stark ... and watch Game of Thrones. You have 2 full seasons as an excuse not leave your home for a few days!