War for 313

Can I have Urban Decay for $1000 Alex?

2005-10-12T13:09:00.000-04:00

This is Detroit in a nutshell. Once proud but barely supporting itself now and no one is going to help it out. Certainly not the assclown mayor in there now and who knows about the next guy. Its hard to believe that there are whole blocks of houses that look exactly like this all over the city. Most people would have killed to live in a house like this in the 60's and now you couldn't pay someone enough to try and restore it. The problem is that it took 25+ years for Detroit to turn to shit and its going to take twice that to get it back out. I don't think theres anyone up to that challenge.

Lovely

2005-10-11T16:28:00.000-04:00

Today I didn't even have to leave my chair to get this picture. Genius called me to say that the building we work in had a few police cars outside and a bunch of windows were broken. I got a knot in my stomach because I thought they meant car windows...and god knows mine has been broken into enough. So I fired up the webpage to view all of our security cameras (comes in handy for other things too :P). Nothing in the parking lots...good deal. So I clicked around till I saw this. I blurred out the surrounding scenery because you never know who's reading this and I don't need to get fired for something I probably haven't even said yet. So deal with it. Hell...most everyone who reads this knows where it is anyway...but you can't be too careful with all the crazies out there. I'm not exactly a "needs extra attention" kinda guy

Even the Little Cars Can't Escape

2005-10-10T14:27:00.000-04:00

Genius said it best today before I took the picture "Man..even the matchbox cars in Detroit are ghetto"

A Room with a View....

2005-10-07T10:02:00.000-04:00

I drive past this every day. The sad thing is that I could take 50 pictures like this just on my drive in. Usually theres a truck here...stealing the bricks that collapsed into the middle. At least that means they are fixing a building somewhere else, I hope. The building next door to this one is priceless too...but there are people living/working in that one. I'll see if I can get a picture. Sorry about the pic being at an angle...its really hard to take a picture while trying to dodge the people who wander aimlessly in the middle of the street. There's 3 liquor stores within a few hundred yards of this building so theres always people everywhere...

Now that's what I call art

2005-10-04T14:07:00.000-04:00

I was utterly speechless when I saw this today.
Picture first:

This is the hands-down most spectacular thing I have seen in a long time for many reasons.

1. Its a POS Geo Metro

2. The top is cut off and made into a permanant convertible

3. The silhouette of the naked woman is made out of glued on mirror tiles

4. The words "Doggy Style" are painted on with what looks like white house paint

5. The hood is spray painted with flat black paint

6. Hubcaps were missing/stolen

Now for my professional analysis. The guy who owns this amazing vehicle is NOT getting any "Doggy Style" (or any other) action. If he is getting it, it's with a woman who is so huge...she wouldn't fit in his tiny ass car. Hmmmm..maybe thats the reason he cut the roof off...so she could ride around in the car with him. Who knows.

Driving Pink Cars

2005-09-28T13:19:00.000-04:00

I don't think I've ever seen a pink car in my life...and then I get 2 in a few weeks. All I can say is at least there weren't guys driving.

Heartless Vampires in the D

2005-09-20T13:45:00.000-04:00

We were walking back from lunch and saw this drawn on a lightpost next to a parking meter.

As the recipient of a plethora of parking tickets, I feel that this is a very accurate artists depiction of the villanous Detroit Meter Maid. I know they're just doing their job but hey...they didn't have to pick a job for which people despise them. When I lived downtown, my apartment was right across the street from where they parked all of the Meter Maidmobiles when they weren't out sucking the cash from our pockets. Not a day went by when we didn't secretly plot to blow up all of them. The icing on the cake is in an email we received a few months ago stating that the Meter Maids would be ticketing after 6pm and on weekends in the area around my work. These time periods were previously "Vampire Free Zones"...

..but ordinary's just not good enough today...

2005-09-20T13:19:00.000-04:00

Not really relevent but...its my blog so piss off.

We went and saw Our Lady Peace last night and it fucking rocked. I've seen them twice before but this time was the best in my opinion. It easily made it into my top 5. Its hard to believe its been 11 years since Naveed came out and they're still an awesome band. Although I did feel old being there with all the little kids running around. But I was one of those kids back in the day so its all good.

There was a lady standing next to us who brought her 12ish year old daughter to see the show. I don't think mom was too into it but I thought it was really cool regardless. I want to be a cool dad one day who takes his kids and their friends to a show sometime...even if I don't like the music. But since we're not having any chillens any time soon...that idea can hang out on the back burner.

The pictures are shitty but here ya go anyway. We got there early but we went way upstairs to get a table like the old people we are ;)

Damn..put down the P-Dub...

2005-09-13T15:07:00.000-04:00

Off topic first:

Nothing is more priceless than having your own personal "Pointy Haired Boss" read all of the carefully selected Dilbert cartoons on the outside of you cube wall. He laughs, says "these are really funny" then tells you there is still room for more. I know asshat...keep making bad decisions and I will keep posting cartoons ridiculing you. You don't post all of the cartoons...only the ones that effectively mirror the hell you put us through. If he only knew he was laughing at himself....

Now, on to our headline story:

Alittle background on the "P-Dub" terminology as created by our resident skankologist, Genius. Like everything in this world.. it begins with HMH (High Maintenance Hoes). I may make a post later detailing the HMH phenomenon.. but this description should work for now. Women who are hot as hell... and they know it (major problem) and give it up for the green or a lifestyle.... but don't consider themselves hookers.

Next, we visit with the queen of HMH, Paris Hilton. To my knowledge, she popularized (Thank you!) the trend of wearing short little pleated tennis-style skirts that ripped through HMH communities worldwide. This evolution leaves us with the PHHMH skirt or "Paris Hilton High Maintenance Hoe Skirt". This would later be referred to as a P-double-H-MH skirt for pronunciation purposes. In the spirit of Americanism...it was later shortened again, by Genius, to its current and most widely accepted form of "P-Dub".

As with every fashion trend started by celebrities, it next trickles into the higher echelon of wannabe celebrities who bring said trend into everday life. This can be seen in the bar and club scene while it is still a fairly new trend and still considered "cool". Next it is copied by the little kids who read about it in Seventeen, see it on MTV, or any other mass media marketing machine. This gives us the little 12 year old in the grocery store in a skank skirt standing next to her mother who happens to think its "cute".

By now it is a full blown fashion revolution and every store on the planet is carrying some knockoff of said trendy fashion. But this is also where the major crime gets committed by clothing merchandisers and producers. They start producing size 40 versions of the clothes that started off on size 2 waifs (low rise jeans come to mind [shudder]).

Which brings us to the present. Today, while at lunch, we gazed upon a 300ish pound girl in a P-Dub. This prompted Genius to promptly say "Damn...put down the P-Dub" in reference to our popular "put the fork down" comment. I, sadly, was not quick enough to get you a picture but I will leave it to your imagination. This was not meant to piss off any bigger girls..just to raise awareness that there are some clothing options that are priveleges...not rights.

Where's your timesheet?

2005-09-12T10:28:00.000-04:00

In maintaining the amazing parallels between the movie Office Space and my place of employment..I give you today's story.

We just put in a new system to fill out our timesheets online and today was the first day they were due. Historically...I can count the number of timesheets I have filled out in 8 years on two hands..and maybe a foot. I only filled one out if i had overtime or alot of vacation time. Other than that....I got paid regardless of whether I filled it out or not.

Fast forward to today...you would think the world is ending. All I hear echoing all over is "Did you submit your timesheet yet?" We were sitting around bitching about people asking about our timesheets when my manager calls to see if I had submitted my timesheet. He was looking at the screen showing that I hadn't finished it yet..because he told me I didn't have anything for Thur or Fri. So why ask me if you already know the answer. I know its not his fault because if he doesn't stay on us then someone is all over him...but it was just impeccable timing on the phone call.

Anyway...traffic sucked because all the schools downtown are back in full swing. I didn't have a new picture so I'll start posting some of my archives. Here is, arguably, the crown jewel of my morning commute....the beautiful Mound Correctional Facility. The placement of this gem is what makes it extra special. Picture this... you're driving down mound past auto plants, then houses, the requisite liquor store on every corner, more houses, and then...a prison. Right smack in the middle of a residential/commercial area. How would you like to give these directions to someone coming over to your house: "Ok so you turn left...then go up two lights....you'll see a prison on the left..keep going past that and make a right at the light" ...WTF...

In the beginning...

2005-09-09T13:09:00.000-04:00

ok...I gave in to the insurrmountable peer pressure and created this to post all the craptastic pictures I take on/in/near my way to the place that pays me. Most of the pictures will be crappy quality because the only camera I usually have on hand is my phone...but thats ok. I don't expect anyone but my friends to read this....but I will try and accurately tell the stories surrounding the pics here anyway.

For a little extra background....Most of these pics and stories will somehow relate to the ghetto-fabulous experience of working in downtown Detroit. I used to live down here but I escaped to the safety of the burbs.. like everyone else..when I was sick of getting my truck broken into. I usually don't drive in on the freeways because of the traffic..so 16 miles between the burbs and downtown offer up some of the most spectacular scenery...enjoy!

With that....here is today's picture. This is a lovely specimen of Periplaneta americana ...otherwise know as a big fucking ghetto cockroach. It was about 2-3 inches long and was just chilling on the sidewalk outside my work. Pretty sure it was dying or dead...but still..i've seen plenty of live ones running around too. They just don't hold still for photo ops.