Sunday, January 6th, 2008
Cold Sad World: New Year's Cleaning

So it's a new year and I haven't written anything of value since last month because I'm a goddamned failure but whatever. Point is I've got all these photos of bullshit that never panned out sitting around on my hard drive and I figure I might as well do something with them instead of just photoshopping the heads of people I know onto pornography and sending them out as holiday cards. So here are the many horribly-planned and executed adventures we went on that weren't entirely funny enough to warrant their own article. Hopefully this will stall you horrible people long enough to forget how infrequently updated this site is.

Summer
Fuckin' Preserves

You may remember that Seth, Eugene and I took a trip into the bowels of the flea market this summer. What you may not know is that me and Eugene returned, finding little other than more crap. But we went anyhow, me without my glasses and unable to see but goddamnit we were there.

Eugene found a child's prosthetic limb. That's probably the worst fucking thing I can think to find on a flea market dealers table other than perhaps photographs of all the hookers he's murdered over the years. How does someone even acquire an item like this? Do you hang around medical supply store dumpsters, or do you just prey on limbless children exiting hospitals? It was even sadder when the crippled armless boy next to us was a few pennies shy of obtaining the arm for himself. I'd have loaned him the money but nobody got anywhere by begging kid. Get a job.

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Here some horrible old woman sells her homemade assortment of variously flavored jams and preserves. Fuck these people, seriously. I come to the flea market to buy the horrible shit that collects in people's attics, not your goddamn earth-loving hippie brand of homegrown bullshit. Just look at how disgusted that surly old man to the left is. He knows what's up.

"Fuckin' Preserves"

Summer
Is that Kimchee?

Me and Eugene went to this party. There was little to note other than some drinking and me lying to some girl about going to Umass for no reason in particular other than I could. There's really not much to say, so what follows is a series of photos involving this Korean kid puking his guts out while his bro friend watches and laughs his ass off.

Halloween
Shitty Halloween Costume Gallery

This was actually a really good idea. Day after Halloween go and see all the costumes that didn't sell and take pictures of the most horrible ones. This was going to be great, we were going to have our friend Jil model some of them and everything. Problem was none of the costumes we found were really too ridiculous, since the only places still selling them were Target and Walmart which had pretty tame offerings to begin with. We should've hit up a real costume shop but they all close up the day after Halloween. Oh well, here's some of the shit we found anyhow.

God this is dopey. I mean, Thomas the Train Engine was always one of those things I questioned personifying to begin with. Trains aren't supposed to be fun and cute, trains are horrible piles of metal strapped to wheels that go barreling across the country at incredibly unsafe speeds killing everything and everyone in their path. But really, what kind of semi-retarded kid wants to dress up as an outdates and unpopular mode of conveyance?

Oh. Apparently Brett.

Chang won't even make eye contact with me as I make him hold up this Yoda costume for dogs. Jesus, remember when Star Wars was cool? I remember being at middle school and having kids break out their complete Star Wars guide to weapons and shit and we'd pore over it arguing over which lightsaber color was best. I don't remember any of us saying "Man, I really wish I could dress my dog up as Yoda for Halloween."

Then again, I also don't remember any of us having girlfriends.

I didn't even see this fucking movie. Was it really good enough that it would actually cause a kid to exclaim "Mom! I want to dress up as the retarded inbred pickup truck from Cars!" And again with the personifying of vehicles. I'm waiting for the hit kids cartoon show about mutant boat creatures that fight crime. They could call it like... Sailing Squad X or something. I should trademark that shit.

Coolest shit ever. Like an awesome little ten year old boba-fett commando on steroids. If I had to pick one thing to kill me while I slept it'd be this little dude.

I like to imagine this portly little Spider-friend is screaming "don't beat me up!" as the older kids from school catch him trick or treating long past the age where that shit is socially acceptable. It's the period in your life right before the one where getting drunk with a bunch of your asshole friends in vaguely horrible homemade costumes is a welcome change up to your regular scheduled "get drunk and fondle myself" routine.

Fuck me man. When kids wanted to dress as pirates for Halloween they used to buy an eyepatch, cut up a bedsheet for a bandana and rip up some clothes to look tough. Nowadays kids don't dress like pirates, they dress like fucking Johnny Depp. This smug little bastard is just a few years and a few viewings of Edward Scissorhands away from dressing in black and hanging with the goths smoking cigarettes at lunch. Good luck having shitty taste in music for the rest of your life kid.

Well, I guess at least the kid who went as Johnny Depp didn't have to go as throwaway background character number nine. Retarded fish monster thing is not my costume of choice.

What is wrong with our culture that a baby can't just be a baby? No, we have to take the thing and trap it in this horrible outfit for our amusement? Your kid is ugly enough without being dressed like a horrible mutant bear-hybrid monster.

Wal-Mart
Sermon Atop the Mount

We went to Wal-Mart. This one went swimmingly. Fuck is War-Mart boring. I once had a hundred dollar Wal-Mart gift card and the thing essentially felt like play money. I mean, what do I buy? Throw pillows? Biblical statuettes? This whole fucking store is filled with things I don't want.

This thing has always driven me nuts. You know those videos of kids on the internet who are really good at stacking cups really fast? I mean, like, really good? Like they're so good they go to tournaments where all they do is see who can stack cups faster than the other?

Yeah, pretty fucking retarded.

So here it is. Get your kid the official "speed stacks" playset and watch them spend their time developing a skill that will NEVER AMOUNT TO ANYTHING OF WORTH. Fuck man. Buy your kid a fucking guitar, or a goddamn watercolor set or something. Don't bank all your chips on your kid becoming an international cup-stacking sensation. If I was a kid and got this for Christmas I would probably cry. Cups? You got your kid cups? Nice parenting man, seriously.

This one is probably pretty self explanatory.

Sassy.

I love this fucking picture. Like, so much you wouldn't believe.
And Jesus said "Let there be ramen!"

Winter
Christmas Shopping Made Painful & Complicated

This flea market up in Holyoke used to be balls awesome. There were all sorts of booths fucking everywhere and this great old guy who used to sit in the corner and sing along to the rendition of Sinatra's "Fly me to the moon" he banged out on his shitty 80s casio keyboard. Now it's mostly just junk, having been picked over by legions of nobodies like me and Jair here. Still, sometimes you can find something worth what you want, even if that something is just the experience of being there. Like a few weeks back when I watched this 90 year old lady get chewed out by a guy for trying to shoplift some silverware or something. It was great.

Never understood this shit. Creepy china dolls are one thing, but a creepy dwarf Indian kid hugging a drum is another. Kind of weird that after we rape and pillage the land of an entire native peoples, we pay tribute by selling crude representations of their culture for $15 to creepy widows. Sad but true.

True to the magazines title, there were a variety of articles on how to trim that troublesome beard hair. The naked women were a bonus as well. Six 1980s-90s era porno magazines - twelve dollars. Well, we're done shopping for Eddy I guess.

My God... it's full of shit

So after the flea market the Holyoke mall is right up the road so we figured we could do a little shopping there as well. Entering through the hallway leading to the new Borders bookstore we found a display of some kids with heart disease. It was pretty sad, though not sad enough to stop us from posing for some cheap and shameful laughs.

I love you little dying girl. More than you'll ever know.

This is almost heartwarming.

Holy shit! A Mac store! Not wanting to miss out on retards buying overpriced music players and pretentious computers we hurried inside. I think I'm like the only person I know who doesn't own at least one Apple product, be it an iBook, iPod, iPhone or iDon't fucking know what else.

This is what it would be like to live inside an iPod.

Look! They've got games for the Mac! All five of them! Who can resist such titles as "I Spy Interactive Digital Adventure" or "Sim City 2000"? Wow, both solitaire and bridge?! On one disc!?

I really wanted Jair to pose with the horrible half-nude manikins inside Victoria's Secret but these bitches kept screaming "No pictures! No pictures!" On the left you can see one of the horrible whores in action. They wouldn't know honest street photography if it hit them in the face.

This is right about the time she shoved us out of the store as I continued to ignore her shrieks.

Does your mall have a collectibles store selling creepy fetish statuettes alongside the standard assortment of magic cards and other such crap? Because the Holyoke mall has THREE. That's right, three individual stores that I'm pretty sure are all owned by the same guy, which just sell overpriced action figures and beanie babies. The masking tape over the nipples is a nice touch here.

I never understood why I'd want to pay $20 for some Chinese guy's painting of Dale Earnhardt. I guess if I was a hardcore hipster type I could be ironic and hang it above my bong or something.

Christmas
Fear & Loathing in Santa-Land

But that's a story for another day

Happy New Year Everybody!
Christopher Gesualdi