Internet Zillionaire

As you might expect, pouring your heart and soul into incoherent rantings about remote controls can really take a lot out of you. It’s emotionally draining. That’s why I’m looking to unwind this weekend with a mini vacation to Seattle.

This marks my first weekend back in Seattle since the infamous bachelor party. As you can imagine, our merry band of Zillionaires didn’t leave Seattle on the best of terms. Frankly, there were more than a few hotel employees, cab drivers and exotic dancers that were glad to see us go. That’s why we’ve waited almost a year to come back. We figured it best to let Seattle cool down a little. That, and of course, we wanted to give Seattle plenty of time to clean up all the puke from our last visit.

This is a first for me: I’ll be spending more than 24 hours in a city without having a vacation spreadsheet dictating my every move. For those that mock the spreadsheet method, and there are many of you, I have this to say: I found it ironic that I had an inbox full of emails all week asking for details about “the plan” for this weekend, each coming just short of begging me to create another spreadsheet to get everyone on the same page. Oh, you all like to joke about the spreadsheets, but deep down… you need them.

So here’s the compromise… Instead of a spreadsheet, I’ve prepared a rough outline for how this weekend could progress, along with some potential storylines we’ll hopefully see develop:

• I fly in Friday night. Dave will be picking me up. Ideally he will show up at not only the right gate, and time, but also on the correct day as well. Can Dave complete this trifecta? My fingers are crossed.
• We then head to Julie’s pad downtown, where DA and I will crash on Friday night. Don’t worry, she’s aware of this. At first she tried to give us directions to a local shelter, but she later relented when we promised to be on our best behavior. Thankfully, the words “best behavior” are pretty ambiguous.
• Krusty also flies in on Friday night. For anyone looking to meet up with us, we’ll all be at The Attic, sometime after 8 pm. We should be easy to find, as we’ll be the ones wearing monocles and attempting to order “Musty Balzacs” at the bar.

Saturday morning: Checkout at Julie’s place is 11 am, sharp. We figured we’d need to find a place to stay after the aftermath of the first night, so we went ahead and booked a hotel room downtown in advance. We tried Priceline again (despite a few recent letdowns), and it looks like it came through nicely.

Why the hotel? For a weekend such as this, it’s crucial to have a central command post downtown. From our hotel room, we will be able to strategize and coordinate the operations for the next 24 hours. Here’s what you can expect regarding the hotel:

• The sewing kit: The most prized item meant to be taken home by guests of a hotel room. I can’t sew whatsoever, but I cherish the sewing kit. Now as you know, I am a sporting chap. I’ve decided I won’t “call” the sewing kit in advance. I’m willing to give Dave a fair shot at it. However, when we enter the room, if Dave is foolish enough to wander over to the window to check out the view, that sewing kit is all mine, baby.
• Not all of my Hotel Moves involve ruthless attempts to hoard sewing kits. In fact, I’ve patented the “Bring in a bottle of whiskey, utilize the ice and vending machines and construct a fully functioning bar within 90 seconds of check-in” move. It’s actually become my hotel calling card, and I look forward to demonstrating it this weekend. Anyone meeting up at our hotel room can be assured that the bar will be open and fully stocked at all times.

For anyone that can resist the instinctual urge to spend Saturday on the couch, feel free to meet at our hotel for a walking tour of downtown around noonish on Saturday… Again, here are some potential storylines pertaining to Saturday afternoon:

• The Monorail: Every bit as cool today as it was in ’89. I’ll warn you right now, I am totally unimpressed with Monorails; the slowest “high speed” method of transportation known to man.
• “C’mon, how difficult can it be to pose as Gameworks employees?”
• Dave’s textbook move in any big city is to search for a really tall building with minimal security. The goal here is to sneak up to the top floor to admire the view from the top. Sometimes we get to the top and find a restaurant. Sometimes it’s office space. But we always find a hardass employee unwilling to let us simply look out their damn window. Of course, we don’t merely slink away. One of us has to counter with, “Do you know who I am? I own this building!”
• If we happen to be in the Westlake Shopping Center, and I happen to be a little hungry… well, my money is on Sbarro to answer the call.
• How much time will I spend at the shop in Pike’s Place with all the vintage toys from the ’80’s? Will I shame myself into asking the guy behind the counter if I can play with Skeletor for a few minutes?
• If we feel really ambitious, we might walk over to the Space Needle and decide it’s not worth the eight bucks to take the elevator to the top.
• Krusty and I will both be without our wives, which translates to one thing: Whatever we end up doing, we will make excellent time.

After wandering around downtown for a few hours, we’ll grab a light dinner, as we will soon engage in battle. Dave booked Whirlyball for 7 pm on Saturday night for anyone that wants to participate in the Sport of Kings. For those that have never played, I once described Whirlyball as: “a sport that proudly synthesizes lacrosse, bumper cars and massive alcohol consumption. While it may seem simple enough, “Whirlyball” actually had a ton of rules that we all went out of our way to ignore. Since the members of our group were equally reckless and intoxicated, our style of play could best be described as “Whiplashball.”

The good news is that the Commissioner of Whirlyball can’t suspend you for being intoxicated, as the entire “sport” centers around binge drinking. Good times. One final note on Whirlyball, if we have another successful outing this weekend, I’m going to nominate it as the “Official Sport of Zillionaires.”

As you can imagine, you can work up quite a thirst getting belligerently drunk on the Whirlyball court. So naturally, we’ll head back downtown to cap off the weekend’s festivities with a night of epic drinking.

So that’s a rough outline for what we could see this weekend. The good news here is that I think we’ve evolved (or devolved?) to the point that we don’t need a regimented plan to have a fun weekend. If we can all just find our way downtown and throw in some alcohol, the good times and priceless memories should take care of themselves…

Continuing on with thoughts on remote controls…
(For previous postings on this topic, check out: Part I)

First off, I’m pleased with the commentary the first segment generated. This is promising. My biggest fear in segmenting these posts was that the eventual sequels would be a predictable rehashing of the original post (Think: “Weekend at Bernie’s 2.”) While I still have much to say on the topic of remote controls, if there comes a point where this post has to rely on the blogging equivalent of exhuming Bernie’s corpse for another weekend of implausible hijinks, well, I’m prepared to do just that. Consider yourself warned.

In the first part, I made mention of the fact that I spend most of my waking day searching my house for remote controls. At this point, I’m convinced my wife has placed them in some sort of remote control witness relocation program. For all I know, all the remotes in our house have started new lives under assumed names in different states. For instance, I’m pretty sure our VCR remote is now known as “Bob Smith,” and is working as an insurance adjuster in Fresno.

Now to be fair, I admit, I tend to exaggerate sometimes. That’s why I’m providing some proof documenting the remote control related purgatory I suffer through every day.

The following is an actual email I sent my wife a few months ago:

—–Original Message—–
From: Matt Ring
Sent: Tuesday, January 18, 2005 9:15 AM
To: Jeannette Ring
Subject: RE: Remote Controls

jnet, we need to talk about remote controls.

i looked all over the basement last night for the remote, even searching the area around your treadmill. finally, i discovered it on the poker table in the adjacent room. why would you put the remote there?

and this morning, i searched the bedroom trying to find the tv remote. never did find that one, although i didn’t go downstairs to look on the poker table.

if you’re going to watch tv, and insist on using the remote, can you please make an effort to leave the remote in a logical place?

mr
—–

Naturally, my wife thought this was the funniest thing I’d ever written. Unfortunately, I was being dead serious. As you might guess, this email was the product of unspeakable frustration endured in a futile attempt to find a lost remote. Like every other man on earth, I would rather search an entire city block for the remote than walk over to the TV and operate it manually. It’s just the principle of it all. Seriously, as far as I’m concerned, without the remote, the TV itself is useless.

And I’m sorry, I don’t want to hear from any old-timers (Ken Ring) about how, back in their day, they had to walk uphill in the snow for a mile just to change the channel. Back in those days, there were only three stations anyway, and two of them were ABC and CBS. You practically didn’t even need a remote.

Nowadays, we’ve got options. And unfortunately, most of them are horrible. The remote is the only means to sift through dozens of channels of televised crap in hopes of finding the one show that might be watchable in between countless commercial breaks. Simply put, the remote control is the sole defense I have against the Omarosas, Joe Millionaires, and Spring Break Shark Attacks (sorry CK) of the world. And yet, somehow, my wife manages to misplace this sacred device on a daily basis. Seriously, how often does the Pope lose his hat? How often does Batman misplace his utility belt? The answer is never… The reason for this? Neither man is married.

Coming soon: Part III… (aka: Let’s get Bernie on some water skis!)

Horrible news today. Mitch Hedberg has passed away. Many of you probably have no idea who Mitch Hedberg is, so I’ll tell you. He was a comic genius. And I don’t say that lightly.

I first saw Mitch perform on a late night Comedy Central one-man stand-up show. He was so funny that I told myself to remember his name. One of his jokes had me laughing so hard that I had no choice but to memorize it as well. Fast-forward two or three years and MR and I are in Washington D.C. walking past the Improv and I see that Mitch Hedberg is performing that weekend! I immediately wet myself and set upon convincing MR that we must, at all costs, make it to the show to see Mitch live. My interest, of course, unfailingly means that MR must dash to the nearest phone booth to assume his alter-ego Uncle Fuddyduddy. He starts pissing and moaning about how going to the show will throw our itinerary/spreadsheet off by a few hours. I tell him that he and his money belt can count me out of anything on the agenda anyway as I will go to the show with or without him. With the gauntlet having been thrown down, MR concedes to go to the show but promises “on the record” that I will endure nothing but elbows in the sternum for the rest of the trip if Mitch Hedberg doesn’t deliver.

We sat in the front row of the comedy club at a table with a lone Mitch fan from the Baltimore area. After the three of us suffered through some talentless openers (and I endured MR’s hackneyed routine of blaming me for their incompetence), Mitch took to the stage. He blazed through an hour of one-liners, quirky observational humor, and a half-dozen whisky sours. When he’s on stage, Mitch hides behind sunglasses, never looks up at the audience, but instead times every joke off the level of laughter in the audience. He is the only comedian I’ve ever seen that you had to see in person to really get the joke. His voice, his delivery, his absurdity completely overtook me and I laughed so hard at things I never could have thought up. I became a true Mitch Hedberg fan that night, but even more shocking, so did MR.

I’ve since had the pleasure of seeing Mitch perform three other times. I could hear the same jokes and laugh just as hard. That is an unheard of rarity for me. But what made me an even bigger fan was that I could take anyone to see Mitch and I knew they would laugh themselves hoarse. His sense of humor was completely unique but didn’t rely on shocking, offending, or belittling anyone or anything. He took comedy to it’s most basic and genuine level. I honor that and aspire to it.

So, to you Mitch, I say thank you. I wish I’d been able to tell you this stuff in person one day. But maybe somebody will read this and search out your humor and be inspired like I was.

I’ll leave you with a few of the many hilarious jokes written by Mitch Hedberg:

I was in Downtown Boise, Idaho, and I saw a duck, and I knew the duck was lost, ‘cuz ducks ain’t s’posed to be downtown. There’s nothin’ for ’em there. So I went to a Subway sandwich shop, I said, “Let me have a bun.” But she wouldn’t sell me just the bun, she said that I had to have something on it. She told me it’s against regulations for Subway to sell just the bun. I guess the two halves ain’t supposed to touch. So I said, “Alright, well, put some lettuce on it,” which she did. She said, “That’ll be $1.75.” I said, “It’s for a duck.” And they said, “Alright, well, that is free.” See, I did not know that. Ducks eat for free at Subway! Had I known that, I would have ordered a much larger sandwich. “Let me have the Steak Fajita Sub – but don’t bother ringing it up, it’s for a duck!

I had a bag of Fritos, they were Texas grilled Fritos. These Fritos had grill marks on them. Hell yeah, reminds me of summer time, when we used to fire up the barbeque and throw down some Fritos. I can still see my dad with the apron on, better flip that Frito, dad, you know how I like mine.

The depressing thing about tennis is that no matter how much I play, I’ll never be as good as a wall. I played a wall once. They’re fucking relentless.

Read more jokes by Mitch Hedberg…

or listen to a few clips here.

Guess who’s in the hiznouse? J. Solo abouts to drop bombs on ya’ll. After reading Krusty’s last comment it got me thinking about what’s happened to me in the last 5 years. Yes, I am a black man with a chain now, and yes, I know most of you need a translator to understand me. Check gizoogle.com, or contact DA. But seriously though, it made me wonder what it is about areas of the country and how everybody’s saying the same thing, but in a different way.

Contrary to what most of my friends on the west coast think (especially Seattle), I do not hang around gangster rappers with gold chains and plated teeth. Nor do I feel any different inside. Matter of fact, I mainly work with music producers in the industry who are…NOT black. Most hip-hop producers I work with are white, or Jewish. My main producing partner and native New Yorker, Probe DMS is actually like me… quarter Chinese, quarter white, and half black. All mixed up. I’d have to say the majority of native New Yorkers are mixed, but everybody speaks the same lingo. Race has nothing to do with it.

When I lived in Seattle, everybody used to say, “yeah man, that’s tight,” meaning, “I like that.” Out here the main word is “hot,” or, “dope.” Nobody says “cool” like you might hear on the west coast. And “dude” can be heard from every kid in California. Except to New Yorkers, it sounds like “dee-ude.” Kids from Brooklyn might replace it with, “dukes.” For example:

Brooklynite: What up dukes, what’s poppin’?
Solo: Mad chillin’.
Brooklynite: Dope.

Translation:

Brooklynite: Hello, how are you feeling?
Solo: Very good
Brooklynite: Good.

Now I don’t want anyone to feel offended. These are only observations I’ve made. And I do know that my speaking patterns and dialect have changed; my mother can’t even understand me on the phone anymore. It’s not forced either, in fact, while xboxing, I try to tone it down. Let me elaborate some more.

Solo: Yo, I just mercked that dude (slight mixture of west and east coast lingo).
Krusty: Did you say mercked?

“Mercked” is a Queens-based word meaning murder. Check NAS and you’ll hear it in his rhymes. If I was playing with kids from New York I might say:

Solo: Yo dun, that kid just got mercked (notice the non-usage of “dude.”)
New Yorker: Aight, true.

Translation:

Solo: Hey, I just killed that guy.
New Yorker: Alright, good job.

I added another Queen’s based word, “dun,” pronounced, “done,” a play off the word “son.” I never use this one online cause it’s not as known to the world unlike “son.” Let’s keep this rolling (moving). This might be a typical phone call:

Solo: Yo, What’s good?
New Yorker: Parlayin’.
Solo: My man hit me up with that cheddar he’d been sittin’ on.
New Yorker: Bout time, it’s been a minute.

Translation:

Solo: Hello, how are you doing?
New Yorker: Nothing.
Solo: My friend gave me the money he’d owed me.
New Yorker: Finally, it’s been a long time.

Now in this conversation you have usage of slang that could be heard all over New York from BK to Queens, to the BX. Believe me, I’m barely scratching the surface here. Onward.

Solo: Dag, my peeps be hatin on me these days.

Translation:

Solo: Damn, my friends are talking about me behind my back.

A few years back, I came out to Seattle to vacation and relax. I ran into a few of my old friends. I was happy to see them and catch up. But I felt like they were judging me for the way I talked. I really thought I wasn’t speaking slang either. It got back to me that some musicians in Seattle are saying that I think I’m black now. I wish! Just kidding, first of all, I’m neither white nor black. Half Korean, half white is the term. And second, I find it very stereotypical to think that because I might use the word “mad” it has anything to do with race. People are people, and we all speak different languages, even in America. Although I did pull up flossin’ 22’s on my whip ballin’ like crazy.

Once again, please don’t take any offense to this. I love all my friends from the west coast and east coast. In fact, I know kids out here poke fun at my west coast slang too (I use both). In fact, you might say I have a funny accent to New Yorker’s ears, sort of like my mother’s Korean accent. If anyone has a question about any terminology I used in this post, I’d be happy to clarify (or ask DA). I ask people who read this to try and come up with slang they use in everyday use and realize where it’s coming from. Race or demographics?

Wit’ dat said, I’m about to floss my piece for a while. My jump off’s at work stackin’ chedda’ while I’m polying wit all ya’ll. I’m startin to cake up nicely, hope ya’ll doin the same. Stop frontin’, keep it real. Peace everybody. One love.

My wife and I celebrated our nine-month anniversary last night. And by “celebrated,” I mean I spent all night playing Xbox with DA and Solo while my wife… hmm… actually, I have no idea what she did last night. I’m pretty sure she was upstairs watching TV during the Xboxfest. I do remember eating dinner together. I kind of lost track of her after that. She probably just cried herself to sleep. Good times.

Sadly, this was actually one of our better anniversaries. This is just a textbook example of “clueless male syndrome,” the main issue women deal with during the newlywed phase. Surprisingly, her morale is still relatively high. She has high hopes that she can fix this genetic defect with a steady regimen of nagging and browbeating. Time will tell.

Of course, there’s another side to this coin. I too face obstacles as a contestant in this newlywed game. Here’s my top three:

3. The Xbox: My wife and my Xbox have never really gotten along, but lately it’s become pretty bitter. The problem here is that they view each other as a source of competition for my love and attention. It wasn’t always this way. They coexisted happily during our engagement, but things disintegrated shortly after the marriage ceremony. My Xbox was truly hurt at being left behind while my wife and I went on our honeymoon. I didn’t want to exclude the Xbox, buy my wife insisted. To this day, my Xbox has never really forgiven her for that.

At this point, they can barely stand to be in the same room with each other. They exchange dirty looks. They backstab one another. They spread vicious rumors. The tension between them is palpable, and I’m caught in the middle. I try not to play favorites, and I generally do my best to make it clear that I love them both equally. They like to “keep score” though. Whenever I spend a quite evening alone with one, the other demands equal time the following night. While I try desperately to make them both happy, the fact is neither is ever satisfied. You can imagine the strain it puts on our marriage.

2. Pizza: You’d think my wife and I would be able to order a pizza every once in awhile without it tearing apart our marriage. You’d think. Unfortunately, our pizza preferences couldn’t be more opposite. We can’t even settle for the typical half and half compromise, as that would entail us reaching a consensus on a sauce or crust type. That’s right. We can’t even decide between hand-tossed, pan, cheese-stuffed, or thin crust without having protracted negotiations between teams of lawyers. And then there’s the sauce. My wife will vacillate between pesto and Alfredo sauce, and I’m stuck throwing my hands in the air over why we can’t just have “regular pizza sauce” on our pizza? I won’t even go into the difficulties we have in agreeing on toppings, mainly because we’ve never actually gotten to that point.

The worst part of this is that my wife only eats a few slices to begin with. Because of this, we can’t even use a pizza buffet as a means to sidestep these issues. While I view the pizza buffet as a personal challenge to bankrupt the establishment with pizza consumption, my wife continually sabotages my efforts by filling up on salad and breadsticks, and whatever other non-pizza items happen to be featured in the buffet.

The only solution is to order two pizzas, one for each of us. Of course, this too has a price. My pizza and any leftovers will be polished off in a 24-hour period. Unfortunately, my wife’s leftovers (of which there are plenty) linger in the fridge like a science experiment. I’ve even seen her toss out stale leftover pizza, which, as we all know, is in stark violation of the 11th Commandment. It’s not uncommon for me to openly weep at the sight of wasted pizza. Honestly, she could have lit my paycheck on fire in front of me and received a more subdued reaction.

The point is, we simply don’t share the same love of pizza. For instance, I’ve never heard her refer to pizza as “sweet, sweet nectar” like I do from time to time. That really sums it up right there.

1. Remote Controls: This pertains mainly to usage and etiquette. All I’m going to say here is that we’ve been married about nine months now, and roughly, if I had to ballpark it, I’d guess that I’ve spent 80% of that time searching for the remote control.

Don’t think for an instant that I’m going to leave it at that. This is merely the introduction… the first part in an ongoing series dissecting my thoughts on remote controls. By breaking this topic into segments, I’m hoping that I can continually bring this issue to the forefront with each update and discuss each aspect in appropriate length. Whereas, if I were to combine all my thoughts on remote controls into one massive post, some of these thoughts would get lost in the shuffle, and their societal and cultural impact would be lessened.

Finally, I will delineate the parts with Roman numerals, as generally, the most important aspects of our society are numbered in this fashion: Super bowls, Rocky movies, Star Wars prequels, etc.

And with that said, be on the lookout for Part II…