the 4th of july weekend and the 'be-nice-to-people' effort

so this was an amazing weekend. simply brilliant. i'm actually feeling good about going in to work; i usually end up being so knackered by the weekend that my first thought at work is 'coffee'. and my second thought, and the third and so on.


friday started off with a visit to comedy underground. they had daniel packard who turned out to be absolutely, knee-shaking funny. the way i rate comedy clubs - it's not about how funny the show was. the essence of a great comedy club is in how much fodder it gives you to use after you leave the club. and as far as this show went- it was a cornucopia of one-liners and concepts. to throw some out here -


- it's not really men who obsess about sex, it's the inner monkey inside each male. it's all the monkey's fault. a word to all the women out there - reach out to a man's inner monkey. make the monkey feel secure.

- "i don't have issues. no, i have subscriptions"


the rest of the acts were just about okay. pretty hard crowd, there was this one woman who couldn't stop talking to daniel in the middle of his act. half the audience wanted to walk over to her and hit her over the head. the other (monkey-controlled) half wanted to look down her top. i'd like to amend that. if you actually looked down her top you'd be looking at her belly-button.


we headed out to jillian's after to play pool. i officially suck at the game. the only thing i should play on a green surface is ultimate frizbee. but i could definitely charge money for allowing people to watch my game. some of those shots defined the laws of physics (and the laws of pool, to boot!).


saturday we grilled some stuff at a friend's place and played a bunch of x-box. i had my first taste of fifa 2004 (soccer). and i'm officially hooked. i like complex games with a bunch of variables and this is perfect. i also officially suck at topspin tennis. later that day we headed out to chopstix, a piano bar downtown seattle. the place was great! we sang along and got a bit tipsy. irrespective of alcohol level, i like places where i can be loud and this place had louder people!


in the midst of this great weekend i walked into a complete trap. friend of mine (the one with subscriptions about copying music) bet me 20 bucks that i couldn't be nice to her for 2 weeks. two whole weeks without wisecracks, snide remarks, long tripping sessions, intense leg-pulling and making up stories about her. i cannot discuss her intense crush on vin diesel, her fetish for arranging furniture at right angles, her inabilty to take a left turn when oncoming traffic is under five hundred yards away, her fixation about the number of speed bumps in her apartment complex, her noisy car, her belief that the cast of friends are actually friends in real life and live in three apartments somewhere in the city, and this is the worst - the bottles of nail polish in her refrigerator. and this is where it gets worse - i have to try to be reasonably nice to other people as well. to someone like me who lives for 'the right moment to say something funny' this is sheer torture. i don't see smiling faces at dinners, to me it's mostly bull's-eyes on necks and i'm loaded with wisecracks.


sunday was a bit healthier with some tennis and working out. my approach to working out is unique. first i head over to the stretching area and try to look more flexible than the octogenarian touching her toes backwards. i then dawdle around the bookrack trying to find something to read. i pick a magazine and then head to the water fountain for a quick sip. i then squint at all the machinery looking for something that looks cool but not too hard. once i find a machine i approach it rather warily. i then see how much weight the last person used on the machine. more often than not i find it's twice what i can possibly imagine doing (those health freaks with lowered life expectancies and names like 'carl', or 'brett'). i reach for the pin to adjust the weight and pull my hand back rapidly. i then look around to see if anyone's watching. if the coast's clear i adjust the weights quickly. i read the instructions and look at my knees in the mirror for a while. i have 'outy' knees. most people have 'innies'. i grunt and curse for the next few minutes on the machine. i head to the water fountain after that, all the while looking for the next instrument of absolute torture that i could subject to. you get the general idea.


we headed out to gasworks park for the 4th of july fireworks. it was awesome. i've always wondered what the big deal was but it was spectacular and quite moving. people need causes and rituals, i'm too cynical to feel strongly about most things but i see how the system needs more of these to keep the general fabric of society in reasonably good repair. parking was really bad around there. the 'boys' ended up having to walk a really long way to the car, navigate our way through crazy traffic to pick the 'girls' up. they really didn't seem properly appreciative. we men are very, very underappreciated. perhaps the spca can be interested in the inner monkey concept? new law to be passed - abusing the inner monkey is a crime.


and the biggest event in my life recently, i've found another set of self-involved-shallow-navel-gazing-narcissistic-peurile-twenty-somethings-who-need-to-get-a-life. these people are more thirty-somethings, have british accents and live on the sets of this show called coupling. the show is funny as hell. and i love their accents. especially the way they say 'bloody ell'.


looks like a long hard week coming up ahead. lots of work. lots of dreading the gym. lots of unread books sneering at me as i walk past them in the house. lots of having to be nice to people with funny stuff popping up in my head.


... bring it on :)

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