Miscommunication

Have you noticed that some people, when they're getting really passionate about what they're talking about, just when they're making their point they say something like "...and it's like, fuck my ass, you know? These fucking people, they don't know how to drive. Who lets them drive? It makes me so mad, it's like, shit on my face, you know?" No, I'm afraid I don't know. Remind me again how shit on my face relates to how you don't like when people don't use their turn signals.

-Joe

Tourism

Internets,

When I visit places I try really hard to blend in, but it’s hard, because I’m kind of a tourist. That’s a lie. I’m a huge tourist. I hate it. So I always try so hard to look like a local. The key is to not look up at all. Which is a shame because up is a fantastic place to look. There’s some neat stuff up there. But I don’t look up. I try not to acknowledge the people handing out flyers. I don’t make eye contact with anyone. Stuff like that. I work hard to look like I belong. When in Rome, right? The problem is that I’m still going into places like wax museums and taking walking tours. So I have to look around like I have no idea how I got there. I put on this face of “how the hell did I get here?” When really I’m thinking “Oh my God! That really does look exactly like Al Pacino!”

Abashedly Touristy,

Ryan

PS. Check out my (with some contributions from Joe) new tumblr: Reasons Things Are Bad.

Terror Alert Yellow

Here is the video Ryan and I made at 4AM.

Enjoy.



It's a joke. I'm not a terrorist. It's a joke.


-Joe

Dear Snapple. RE: "Lemonade/Iced Tea"

To Whom It May Concern:
I recently purchased your "Lemonade Iced Tea" beverage. It was delicious. Unfortunately, there is a story printed on the label that I find facetious and offensive. Apparently - and I quote -

"One day Kris, a long-time Snapple Mixologist, accidentally mixed a batch of Iced Tea with Lemonade (she made us promise not to say how it happened). Everybody thought the mix tasted so good that it was made into a new Snapple flavor. Let us know what you think!"

Here's what I think. Kris is clumsy....at best. Assuming that she (and I do respect her for living with what most consider to be a man's name) really had been employed by Snapple for quite some time as a "Mixologist", I can't fathom how she would make such an awful mistake.

Please don't get me wrong. Her "mistake", if that's really what it was, created a fantastic beverage that is both lemonade-y and iced tea-esque. What I take issue with is the brazen lack of corporate discipline that you have employed on your employed. (Ha!)
Kris should be fired, or at least demoted from the lofty heights of "Mixology" to something more sensible, like ad sales. I tell you she will flourish in such a position.

Please respond in kind or at maximiliancbarth@gmail.com.

Thank you for your time.

Max Barth

This post is going to present too many things all at once, and I would like to not apologize in advance.

Today was Valentine's Day. At least it was when I started writing this. I just love Valentine's Day. I took my girlfriend out to dinner and I bought her flowers and chocolate and wrote her a song and made sweet love to her and it was all wonderful and great. Valentine's Day is such a happy, good time and I love it so much. Remember in grade school when everyone passed out valentines? That was nice. I wish I had gone to a boarding school where you could send singing valentines. That seems like a good idea that wouldn't go horribly wrong for anyone.

(Almost all of that is untrue. I did buy my girlfriend flowers and chocolate and write her a song, but we're both sick and we ended up just sitting in her room on Valentine's Day. I actually think Valentine's Day is stupid. But I thought it would be funny to put up a post that was in contrast to Ryan's post. It's funny, right? It's funny, asshole.)

I'm writing this now (then) because I can't sleep. I can't sleep because the inside of my body is literally on fire. I have a lot of health problems. Which reminds me of this joke I want to run by you. Please leave comments, like you usually do*

I have a gluten allergy. In simple terms, a wheat allergy. And I'm not bringing this up to complain about it. Honestly, it's not that bad. I've gotten used to it. But see, the worst part about this condition is the exaggerated sympathy I get from others. See, people find out about it and then they feel bad, and next time I'm at their house or what have you, they make sure to have plenty of gluten free things on hand. Nice idea, but fails in practice. Because now they bought all this food and they're like "Here, we got you this. You should eat it. 'Cause look, see, it says gluten free. You should have it, you'll like it." But people don't really get it. They hear I have a wheat allergy and they think I can only eat weird organic shit. But here's a little secret; There is normal food that doesn't contain wheat. "No thanks, I'll pass on the organic candied rhinoceros nipples, I'll just have the potato chips." Also, something else you should know about our kind: sometimes, we're not fucking hungry. Yep, we're just like you. From now on whenever there's bread around I'm gonna force people to eat it. "Here, have some bread. You should have some. It has wheat in it. You can eat wheat. Go ahead, have some."




*You don't leave comments, and I hate you.



Love,
-Joe

Valentine's Day

Internets,

I am going on the record as being against Valentine’s Day. I am on team Anti-Valentine. (Val-anti? No matter)

I am 20 years old. This means I have had 20 Valentine’s Days. I have had exactly one (1) Valentine’s Day that was any good. And I don’t believe I have ever had an uplifting experience. Some examples:

Remember when you were in grade school and the teacher had you decorate paper bags to hang on the chalkboard ledge? And everyone would bring valentines into class and we’d all go around class depositing one into every bag. The teacher told everyone that “if you bring in valentines, you have to bring one for everyone so no one feels left out.” There are few things more depressing to a small child than counting your Valentines and finding you have less than the rest of the class even when the teacher required them to give you one.

By first grade, Valentine’s Day was already ruining a week of my life.

When I was in third grade, I had a huge crush on a girl in my class. Her name was Katie. She was already taller than anyone else in the class, as girls at that age tend to be. She was my first real crush. The first one that wasn’t invented by my parents (Sorry, Janie Boatie. It was never going to happen.). As a third grader, my flirting skills were untested at best. I had no real way of knowing what was going to happen when I tried. It could be awful, or (hopefully) I could find out I was going to be the Don Juan of my generation.

No such luck.

On Feb. 14, 1997, I made my move. Rather than try for a subtle sophisticated approach (Why hello there Katie! I couldn’t help but admire your jumper and flower hair clips! I say, would you care to stroll with me later today?), I decided to make a grander gesture. The night before, I made valentines for my whole class because I’m not an exclusionary asshole (ahem*JR*ahem). But when I got to Katie’s valentine I ran to my room and got three Tootsie Pops™ that I had lovingly saved. I ran back downstairs and taped all three of them to her card. I was quite a fella. Any lady would be lucky.

The next day (the day) I went to class, my little Jansport filled with Valentine-themed love and exuberance. My palms were sweaty as I began to hand out the cards. I moved down the line. Katie’s bag was at the far end. I put the cards into the bags, one by one. Kyle, Chris, Robbie, Rachel, Rachel, Mike, Rachel… And then I was there. I reached into my bag and pulled out Katie’s card, drooping with the weight of the candy. And just as it came out of my bag and into the florescent light of the class, Katie appeared next to me.

“Wow, thanks, Ryan! Rachel, look how much candy Ryan is giving out!”
“Oh wow! Cool!”

Suddenly I was the most popular person in class. But I was having an internal panic attack. But it wasn’t for the whole class! Only hers has it! As soon as they look in their bags they’ll all figure it out!

And figure it out they did. I’m not sure how long it was that my class teased me for liking a girl, but it was a while. And, being a little boy, I ended up spending most of my free time denying it. So that meant I wouldn’t be able to ask her to skate with me in partner skate at the Rollin’ Rocks Roller Skating Rink school parties. I couldn’t buy her a hot dog at family fun night. I couldn’t ask to share her ruler. Valentine’s Day ruined my first shot at love.

A more recent example:

My junior year of high school.

First let me set the scene. My high school was a boarding school, which is to say, we all lived in dorms and we spent about 80% of our free time with the same group of people. I spent every night with about fifty guys, most of whom seemed to feel that if you were wearing more than one or two articles of clothes around the dorm, you were just trying to prove something. Just through the law of averages, it was fairly likely that I wasn’t going going to like all of them. As it happened, I liked relatively few of them.

But that’s beside the point. Valentine’s Day 2006. Every Valentine’s Day, the two choral groups, the all male ‘Tones and the all female ‘Trebels would sell singing valentines. You would give them five dollars and that night, they would go around the dorms and sing to the people you bought the valentines for. This was generally a pretty fun and good-natured process. It was a cute way for a guy or girl to say “I kinda like you” without having to worry about being taken too seriously. On the night, the ‘Trebels came to our dorm and brought everyone who had a valentine out into the hall. All the half-dressed guys stood there while the girls sang “You Are My Sunshine” to them. The guys got an ego boost and headed back to their rooms. I wasn’t one of them, but I didn’t expect to be and I wasn’t particularly sad about it.

Half an hour later, from our rooms we could hear the girls come back. They had already done our hall. What were they doing back?

“Is Ryan Merriam on this hall?”

Me? Someone sent me a valentine? Me?

I opened the door to my room, trying to pretend that I didn’t care one way or the other. Whatever, I tried to exude, this sort of thing happens all the time. But it didn’t happen all the time and inside I was bubbling with excitement.

“We thought you were on a different hall. You have a singing valentine!”

I get a personal song! I don’t even have to share it with the other people!

The rest of the people on the hall had come out to see what was happening by now. Everyone was watching. I felt like a king. The head of the ‘Trebles blew a note on her tuner.
She paused before the song.

“This is from mommy!”

I turned bright red as they started in on another round of “You Are My Sunshine” as the shirtless douchebags around me laughed.

My point is, Valentine’s Day is bad. We spend months building up to celebrate a day that exists only in absolutely perfect conditions. We buy flowers, we write cards, we leave notes, we lie, we spend and we plan. And usually, we end up going home and watching TV while your single friends do the same and your coupled friends chase that red heart-shaped dragon.

Fuck Valentine's Day,
Ryan

Nineteen [Max Barth]

I was not happy to celebrate my birthday a few months ago. Nineteen is a stupid age. There is no point to being nineteen, unless one happens to love words that end in “-ineteen”. In that case, I congratulate one, or two, or however many of you freaks there are out there. So being nineteen years old is useless, as anyone – save the aforementioned hypothetical person(s)- will tell you. I can still drive, and I can still drink. I still can’t drink legally, of course, but who wants to pay for alcohol before you’ve even graduated from college and have landed a soul-crushing job in middle management?
Another problem with being nineteen, besides the complete letdown that accompanies my obsessive compulsive realization that nineteen is a prime number and no manner of reasonable multiplying will result in its creation, stems from the fact that I have now reached an age where people serving me in restaurants are occasionally younger than I am. I don’t know how to handle this.
“Hi, I’d like a medium Coke, a slice of pepperoni…”, I say, and then feel obliged to offer the baby-faced waiter (probably named “A.J” or “T.J” or “J.T”) my now sage wisdom.
“…..and are you worried about peer pressure?”. And I can’t help but grin. I grin like a bastard who’s been driving for three years already and is well past the prime of his youth.

maxbarth.tumblr.com

In Which I Talk About My Valentine's Day Plans

Internets,

My girlfriend just broke up with me, so I'm going to do my damnedest to make the upcoming Valentine's Day seem entirely stupid and superficial so I can pretend it doesn't bother me. Wish me luck.

To start, here's something I found.
(warning: adult content((written only))):



from here.

Love you all,
Ryan

The stupidest/ funniest people in the world can be found on youtube. I will prove it to you.

This is a conversation Ryan and I had with some avid youtubers on the comment wall of the "Welcome to the Jungle" music video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYRC4H64EFk):

MiltonandtheDuke: Is that Lindsay Lohan?

1STEWIEGRIFFINFAN: in the beginning?

(Keep in mind this video was made in 1987, when Lindsay Lohan was a year old)

MiltonandtheDuke: No, the lady singing.

danthebard: fuck you

kjfordracing55: hilarious, asshole, thats axl rose, he just doesnt know how to dress like a man, he likes attention. and he deserves it too, id like to see you hit those high notes the way he does.

(This guy just reiterated our point that Axl Rose looked like a woman. Interestingly, we never said he was a bad singer, so we don't know why that became part of the argument)


MiltonandtheDuke: Hey man, it's cool. Sometimes you need some time on your own. Sometimes you need some time all alone. Don't you cry tonight. What is it with you and that garden?

(Those were all Guns N' Roses lyrics)

www.miltonandtheduke.com









I think we've made our point.

-Joe