Internet Zillionaire

It’s late. I’m in a damn good mood. Got me some new jeans that are a lot better fitting than my old ones. Hell yeah. It doesn’t even bother me that it takes ten full minutes to unravel my ipod headphones after I fish them out of my jacket pocket.

Alright, I’m lying. That always bothers me.

The fact that I never put my headphones away properly is beside the point. It’s one of the lessons of life that I have chosen to always break – just because I’m a moron. But tonight, in this fantastic universe called New York, the moron in me is feeling like he’s not such a moron after all.

Yup, I’m slightly drunk.

So I’m bobbing my head, listening to my ipod while I strut my way on to the L Train to Brooklyn. Like I said, it’s late. Too bad, I think, because now there aren’t many people to notice how cool I’ve gotten all of a sudden. In fact, there’s just two other dudes and they both are listening to their headphones too. Fuck them, I say to myself in my best pretend bad-ass internal voice.

My staged animosity quickly dissolves however. Dude on my left, an obvious hip hop cat with a big expensive jacket on, Yankees cap, relaxes back in his seat and starts getting into his music. I mean.. getting into it. He starts spitting silent lyrics like a cross between KRS-One and Helen Keller. It’s almost as if he thinks he is alone. Then I remember that in New York City only seeing two other human beings at the moment is basically the same as being alone.

The mood turns infectious. Dude sitting across from me, scrawny, 30ish, rock and roller drunk on his own kool-aid as well, feels the vibe. In a split second, he’s set up an imaginary set of drums in front of him and he’s using every bit of it. He’s on the cymbals, on the kick drum, the snare, and about five other things I don’t even know what they are. I’m more than halfway expecting him to fake spinning the drum sticks in his fingers. If you can’t tell, I’m ecstatic at this point, utterly entertained as this imaginary rock-rap concert unfolds before my eyes. It’s like I’m seeing Run-DMC and Aerosmith mime “Walk This Way” live. Unreal!

And just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, dude across the way effortlessly moves from a hard rocking session of knee drums to finger plucking what looks to be a heavy, low slung 8 string guitar… with, what’s that called… a whammy bar? I kid you not. I didn’t even know they made those.

If you could see the smile on my face right now, you would know why they call it a shit-eating grin. Note to my dentist: Don’t sweat it, I’ll floss extra tonight.

What has got me more excited than a chimpanzee in make-up, you ask? It’s only the newest innovation in weblogs… the theme song! Internet Zillionaire is now the first website to have it’s own official theme music. After all, it is the next logical step in the evolution of theme songs.

So if you thought we were just a bunch of talentless hacks before, prepare to be proven right. I give you the Internet Zillionaire theme music:

Did I just hear someone say they wish they could have those 14 seconds back?

My wife and I intend to be responsible parents, so we decided to get some life insurance to make sure our fetus will be provided for in the event I die in a tragic Whirlyball-related accident (currently the #1 cause of death for Zillionaires.) This was a reluctant decision on my part, and not just because my wife and the fetus would soon have a vested financial interest in my death. I was hesitant because the insurance company required my wife and I to undergo a blood test before our coverage would begin.

Now, for the record, I hate needles. This is the main reason I didn’t opt for a paternity test when I found out my wife is pregnant. I decided that even if the child bears no resemblance to me, or is of another ethnicity, or has a weak mastery of the Force… I’ll choose to delude myself into thinking the kid is mine simply to avoid facing a needle.

Concerned Friend: “Dude, your kid doesn’t look anything like you…”
Me: (awkward laughing) “Ha ha… That means he has a chance in life…”
Concerned Friend: “Ok man, whatever you say.”

Understand though, this has nothing to do with the bleeding involved. Hell, I bleed all the time. Instead of using the needle, I pleaded with the nurse giving the test to let me tinker in the garage for five minutes, as invariably I’d come back bleeding from somewhere.

But she insisted on the needle. After seeing her tools, it became clear. First off, why is it that nurses and dentists feel compelled to set out all of their pain-inducing instruments in plain sight? Is the whole process not unpleasant enough that it needs an element of psychological torture to it? The worst part is that it’s simply impossible to focus your attention on anything but the sharp and shiny tools in front of you. The nurse could have been showing spectacular cleavage and I wouldn’t have noticed… that’s how bad it was.

I was transfixed on the needle, as I realized the device was really more of a spigot. The “needle” actually had a little valve on it so the nurse can shut off your profuse bleeding while she changes vials.

That’s right: Vials. Plural. It’s like she’s doing her winter canning or something. I was going to be tapped like a keg.

Sure enough, she pulled out a heroin-user strip of rubber. She tied it tightly on my arm, causing my veins to bulge out prominently. I couldn’t take it. I asked the nurse to give me some nitrous oxide to knock me out. I pleaded with her to prick me in a less-sensitive area… I suggested my ass, like they do for shots. She didn’t budge.

And then she injected me. My eyes were closed, but I could feel the blood flowing out of my arm. Why do needles have to be so sharp and pointy? Honestly, I’d rather have blood drawn with a switchblade. At least then all my whimpering and theatrics would be justified.

It was over two minutes later. Apparently, she was able to top off a few milk jugs with my blood in that time. My arm felt weak, but the nurse refused to put my arm in a sling. Like my wife, she had no sympathy for me.

So there will be no flu shots for me this winter, or any winter for that matter. And I’ll pass on donating blood too. And, I don’t see how anyone can be an intravenous drug user. The same goes for diabetics. If I was put in the position of having to give myself a shot of insulin, or die… I’d be pretty indifferent. Both are about equally undesirable in my book. It would probably come down to a coin flip.