Whory Tory; You Can’t Spell Astigmatism Without AA; TV; Another Embarrassing Wrestling Fan Moment

I figured since I haven’t made too many public entries as of late concerning myself, I’d throw up an update concerning this weekend. It’s amazing how, depending on my mood, I can write so much about so little.

WHORY TORY RORY
Tory visited us, making the drive up from her posh apartment on Whore Island (Manhattan) to grace us all with her presence. She made the mistake of going out with just McLocks and I, which always leads to her being relentlessly teased. Being a masochist, however, she enjoys it even when she’s sniffling and pretending to hate us for what we say in her presence.

We sat in 76 Diner going over war stories from the past several months, including but not limited to her social fiascoes on the isle of Manhattan. When not making fun of her and falsely accusing her of name-dropping, we were discussing McLock’s hair. He’s gone without a haircut for quite some time, and the normally curly mop on the top of his head changed due to wearing a winter cap for most of the day. As a result, his hair miraculously straightened and resembled a ‘do you only see on the likes of Skeet Ulrich and anime characters. It was quite a sight to behold.

We ordered coffee (except Ryan actually ordered a milkshake), and having not eaten dinner I decided to get an order of chili fries. Believe it or not, up until last night I had never so much as sampled chili fries let alone eaten them. I expressed my disappointment over the fact that it literally was just fries in chili. Tory and McLocks asked what else I was expecting from an item labeled “chili fries.” Really good question, and I didn’t really have a good answer. Sometimes, my brain farts and it stinks up my comprehension skills.

Oh, and I also got attitude from a guy who works the overnight shift at a Mobile. Nothing specific, but he went out of his way to be rude and quite unfriendly. I want you to read that again – a GROWN MAN working the OVERNIGHT SHIFT at MOBILE gave ME attitude. What the fuck’s up with that? Well, he works the overnight shift at a Mobile station. He looked to be in his twenties, and his overall demeanor practically screamed “I have a LiveJournal and you should be reading it.” I’m sure his LJ is choc-full of bitter and pretentious rantings about politics, literature, and foreign action-adventure films and lightly sprinkled with entries that when read between the lines state “I believe I am so much better than where I currently am in life.” In other words, he’s one of those people who constantly brings up the fact that he’s a “writer.” In OTHER other words, in a weird way he’s me. Except I wouldn’t put on an air of superiority while working at a fucking Mobile. Ass.

YOU CAN’T SPELL “ASTIGMATISM” WITHOUT “AA”
I woke up early this morning (and by “early this morning” I mean “while it was still AM”) for an eye examination. I’ve been on my last pair of contacts for way too long, which is due to not having the money to pay for a required eye exam and new contacts until just recently. I was thankful that I was finally getting this out of the way, since I’ve suspected in the past several months that the last batch of contacts they gave me might have been the wrong prescription. Not that I did anything about it, mind you, since I really only noticed when looking at stuff that was at a far-off distance.

So after waking up at the ungodly hour of 11:00am, I hit the shower. I get out, go to put my contacts in, and the right one’s missing. It appears that I only THOUGHT I put it in with the solution last night. I managed to find the dried-up saucer and put it in with the solution, just in case they didn’t have my contacts in stock – which was quite a big concern since I have HORRIBLE eyesight and a pretty rare prescription.

I went in and had the exam done. Bad news – I have astigmatism in both eyes, which is going to require torque lenses which are going to be more costly (of course) than what I’ve been wearing for the past several years. I wasn’t terribly surprised by this revelation, since most of the members of my family have astigmatism. I have to wonder, though, how the Hell several different eye doctors in the past didn’t detect it. I have to remember this one’s name so I know specifically to ask for him since he knows what the Hell he’s doing.

My vision isn’t covered on the health insurance, so I ended up dropping $290 total for the visit. On the bright side, however, they had the torque lenses with my exact prescription in stock and I’m wearing them now. It seriously went like this:

Eye Doctor: “I’m going to check and see if we have them in stock. There’s no way we do, but it doesn’t hurt to look.”
[A minute passes before he re-enters the room excitedly.]
Eye Doctor: “DAAAAAAAMN! They got the shit in the back! Can you believe that fuckin’ shit? Must be divine intervention or somethin’!”

Alright, what he actually said was “…wow, I can’t believe we actually had that in stock.” But what I wrote is far more interesting, especially since I’m writing so extensively about going to the eye doctor. I have to do SOMETHING to make sure you’re all paying attention. Not that you really should, but whatever.

I have to go back in a week and let him know how they’re feeling. Honestly, in terms of comfort level, I’m not noticing any sort of difference, though I am noticing that my eyesight is much better than with the previous prescription. On the other hand, I’ve never had any sort of problems with my contacts in terms of comfort, unlike all of my siblings. I also need to get eyeglasses seeing as how I haven’t had a pair handy since I lost my last pair in 2000. I decided to wait for those until after my next paycheck, since I had just dropped three hundred fucking dollars.

After the eye exam I went to my AA meeting. It was much more crowded than usual, and I’m not sure what (if anything) I can attribute that to. Perhaps it has something to do with the impending holiday season, which would make sense.

I suspect there also might’ve been a few more mandatory attendees today than usual. Personally, I’m not convinced that mandated attendance is a good idea. At best it seems futile, since it’s really a program that you have to voluntarily join in order to get anything out of it. Putting a 22-year-old kid with an attitude in a room full of recovering alcoholics because he blew a .9 on a breathalyzer probably won’t help him or her at all.

Especially at a meeting like today’s, where some of the more hardcore old-timers who had seen and done it all spoke up at today’s meeting. It’s therapeutic for someone such as myself who voluntarily went into the program to avoid hitting that many bottoms (even though I did hit my own). For a kid who has been told s/he has a drinking problem rather than realizing s/he had a drinking problem, it just re-enforces his or her belief that s/he doesn’t belong there even if s/he really needs it. It’s an interesting and sad conundrum.

Speaking of the disease, I had somewhat of a revelation earlier this week while discussing a certain politician with a friend of mine. I’ve known a member of this politician’s family and people who have had run-ins with him, and he’s an obvious alcoholic with a severe problem. I used to say he was just an asshole, but this program if anything has extended my patience a bit and made me far less judgmental when it comes to people I don’t know personally. In a way, even the style of his political ads seems to indicate alcoholic behavior, if you can believe that. I used to straight-up despise the man, but after a few months on the wagon I realize that what he needs more than a punch in the face is some time in the rooms.

Upon further inspection, I’m really surprised members of his own party don’t seem to be worried about a public meltdown – he’s come very close to it before. Sure, he holds his office now, but considering his obvious problem and past behavior that could change at the drop of a hat. I won’t mention specifically who I’m referring to, but I’m sure most of you reading this can probably guess who I’m talking about (especially since some of his drunken escapades have made headlines).

…no, it’s not Ted Kennedy.

HERE’S WHERE I WASTE MY TIME WRITING ABOUT WHAT TELEVISION SHOWS ARE WASTING MY TIME
If you haven’t been watching the new episodes of South Park, you’re missing out. This past week’s episode had a fantastic “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century” reference that has to be seen to be believed. It simultaneously drove me nuts, in that I couldn’t remember if it was FX when that channel was still cool or Sci-Fi when that channel was still cool that used to air reruns of the show. I remember watching it and recognized the reference to it, but can’t for the life of me recall a single episode. I think I was about 12 at the time I was watching the reruns, so I’m not sure if throwing it on my Netflix Queue would be a good idea or a complete waste of my free time. Not that I do anything all that valuable with it anyway.

Heroes is finally starting to pick up. I’m glad that this week they finally established that Camwhore (whose name I can never remember) has increased strength and other attributes. Now we can all finally stop asking ourselves how skitzophrenia counts as a superpower.

If you’re still not watching Friday Night Lights, then I will personally blame you for its impending cancellation and you’ll be officially dead to me. BUT WAIT – more episodes have been ordered, and word on the street is that it’s for a full season’s worth. They showed a new episode in lieu of a “Studio 60” repeat this past Monday in the hopes of drawing viewers from “Heroes.” It sort of worked, but not to the liking of the “internet experts” on some message boards. The word does seem to be getting around about the show, however, as its ratings have been increasingly steadily (though modestly) with each subsequent week. So if you’re not watching, you’re safe from being dead to me. For now.

DeGrassi is suffering from cast departures and really hacky writing. I don’t care what they do with her – nothing and I mean NOTHING is going to make me care about Darcy. She’s a dull character, and the fact that the actress portraying her is absolutely atrocious in her craft certainly doesn’t help matters. And while we’re at it, the kid playing Peter is definitely the front-runner for Worst Television Actor of 2006. Less of those two and more of Sean (who’s in jail) and Snake. Speaking of which, the “grown-ups” have received little to no airtime this season, and personally I think the show suffers for it. And what the Hell happened to Joey? My boy just disappeared when they had his adopted son Craig move somewhere to be a total poser musician! That shit ain’t right.

ONE OF THOSE MOMENTS THAT I’M TALKING ABOUT WHEN I SAY THERE’S NOTHING MORE EMBARRASSING THAN BEING A WRESTLING FAN
Tomorrow night is the WWE Pay-Per-View “Cyber Sunday”; which is a really lame show title, even for wrestling. The hook for the show is that fans get to vote on on WWE.com for the stipulations of certain matches and in the case of two matches its actual participants. For the previous two years the PPV has been dubbed “Taboo Tuesday,” but to the shock and dismay of Vince McMahon, PPV events on a weekday tend to fail miserably. Who would’ve thunk it (other than anyone with half a brain who has seen it tried before in the past with similarly disappointing results)?!

What follows is an actual conversation that occurred last night between McLocks and I in front of a hysterically laughing Tory:
Me: “Hey, you wanna do cyber Sunday?”
McLocks: “Yeah, sure. Is Dan up for it?”
Me: “Nah. I asked him and he said he didn’t see the point in it.* I’ll give Ed a call, though.”
McLocks: “I wanna see the three-way.” (referring to the match)

* This really was Dan’s exact statement when I had asked him earlier in the evening.

The sad part is, it wasn’t until McLocks said “I wanna see the three-way” that I realized why Tory was laughing hysterically.

And speaking of embarrassing wrestling fanboyness, my next update is going to highlight the nine (NINE!) wrestling DVDs I’ve purchased over the past two weeks.

More later…