I used to be good at math

But these days, it seems like I can't count on two hands. For instance, this morning, I slept in a bit, taking an extra "after-breakfast" nap, then leaving later than usual. There wasn't really anything to do today, and everyone was going to leave by 2pm. I skipped my normal morning-coffee stop, because I didn't want to show up TOO late, but here I am now, it's not even 10 yet, and I have to kill my time by bringing you superimportant news & updates. And it's hard, because I already have to plug in Slayer to drown on the people around me. This is going to be the longest short day ever. And it's all because of math. Fuck you, math!

My playlist beats your playlist

And it makes me awesome. This is a formula for success. At the very least, it is a formula for tricking your brain into beliving itself to be awesome. Totally, totally awesome. HINT: set to "repeat-all", and play all day long.

1) James Bond Theme
2) Mission Impossible Theme
3) Theme from Metalocalypse
4) Knight Rider Theme (for being 20-some years old, this is still totally rad)
5) Superman Theme.

This began when my friend Ch0mb0 told me his tale of diving onto the Brooklyn Bridge roadway to recover the ipod he accidentally dropped down there in a fit of misplaced rage at it's disfuntionality. I told him he should've put the Mission Impossible theme song on the ipod before he went down. Then I decided to listen to the Mission Impossible theme song all day long and see what happened to me. Maybe I'd start sneaking around and clandestinely stealing things from people's cubicles. As it were, all I really did was feel rad, and play bike polo.

My apartment isn't burning down, again.

Yet my landlord is knocking on my door at 6:15am anyway. It's funny, because when he knocked on my door at 6:15am yesterday, the apartment wasn't burning down either. My landlord is apparently a morning person. Fresh air. Relaxing jogs in Prospect Park. I can understand that. Except fuck no, and my landlord can't move faster than 3 miles per hour anyway, so that's out the door. Maybe he reads the newspaper. Except I'm pretty sure he's illiterate. I'm basing this on the fact that his signature looks like he shoved a pen up his ass and sat on my rent check receipt to sign it. Except I don't think he can bend very well either. But he gets his chores done in the morning. Like asking me to see the leaky kitchen sink (yesterday) and then asking me when I'll be around later so he can tell me it's been fixed (today). I'm glad he got me up out of my four-hour slumber, honestly, because I wanted to get up & go for a jog in the park myself. And by that, i mean punch myself in the face, repeatedly.

Bad things happen when you leave the city

There was almost a fight in the Port Authority while trying to board the last bus of the night at 11:30. For some reason, the bus driver boarded the people getting off in Clinton NJ before everyone else. A few people at the front of the line apparently weren't happy with that. Shouts were shouted. Shoves were nearly thrown. Four cops showed up. I ended up standing for the entire bus trip. An hour and a half to Easton, PA. It sucked, but it wouldn't have been nearly as bad if the fucking ride didn't take two and a half hours. It also wouldn't have been as bad if the drunk dude who barreled through the aisle of 15 standees on his way to the bathroom, which he spent the entire trip in, drinkin' 40's, hadn't been smoking cigarettes in there as well. And those preboarded passengers from Clinton, NJ? I don't know what was happening in the 10 minutes that we spent stopped in Clinton (after picking up even more people at the Newark airport), but it sure didn't look like anyone got on OR off the bus at that point. Then in Phillipsburg, NJ, at the stop behind the P'burg mall for those 6 minutes? No one got off there either. Oh, no, wait, they did...after we started moving again. She had been sleeping, and didn't feel or hear the bus stop, and wasn't bothered by the lights abruptly coming on either.

Phillipsburg is right across the Delaware river from Easton. Maybe 6 miles. At this point, I was seriously, seriously considering taking my bike from the baggage compartment (which it cost an extra $7 to load into), and riding the rest of the way. The dude was still smoking cigarettes in the bathroom. The immense Dinosaur Barbecue meal I had eaten immediately before boarding as a standee on the bus was swimming in my stomach. I was sobered up. I had listened to Yo La Tengo and Slayer. Both seemed appropriate. Some dude said "I'll give you $20 for that bike underneath the bus". I ignored him. He's also the guy who said "yuppers", when I said "watch out for my bag as you go to the front of the bus. It's in the aisle". No one who says "yuppers" needs to be paid attention to. (He was standing in front of me. The entire trip, I kept passing out until the tip of my nose brushed his jacket. I don't think he ever felt it.)

It was after 2am when we got into Easton. My Mom had been waiting there since 1am, and called when we were in Clinton, which was about 1:20. About that time, I had decided that I was going to go directly to Trexlertown. My Mom knew that I was going to borrow her car in the morning anyway. I told her, when she picked me up and asked me if I wanted to drive, "No. I don't want to drive right now. All I want to do is sit. But, thanks.... This is what I think I'm going to do though. I'm going to go home, use the bathroom (Dino BBQ wanted OUT), take your car, go directly out to Trexlertown, and sleep in the car. Otherwise, there's no way I'm gonna be able to get up in the morning." Somehow, she let me do this. A bit before 4am, I was fully passed out in my Mom's Prius in the parking lot of the Lehigh Valley Velodrome.

I woke up around 6:30, wandered around, looking for people I knew at the swap meet. It isn't uncommon for people to camp out overnight. The best deals & the best goods are sold before the doors even open at 9am. I got some coffee down the street. I ogled some bikes in the lot. I saw "Pops". I sat in the car some more. I wondered why the hell my feet were all wet until I remembered what "dew" was. I got out again and my friends from the city, Ceya, Sasha, Chris, and Rashid had just rolled up. Sasha got me into the swap early, with a $5 VIP pass. I made a quick loop of the goods in the hour before opening, looking for the track wheelset I was hoping to find out there on the cheap*. I came back to their vendor spot, and there, lying on the ground in front of Ceya and his cane, was exactly what I was looking for, which, he tells me after I helped him pay his back rent, had been in the Sale/Trade thread of a forum we frequent all too frequently for months.

Ironic.

OK SO THEN
I go back home, help my Mom with her yardsale, buy a decent outfit to keep at my her place, and take a nap. I ride around Easton, PA a bunch and unwind. That was the best part of the day. Then it had to go start sucking again:

My sister drove me downtown to catch the 10:15 bus. I called my friend Jon to tell him I was already on my way back to NYC and was sorry we couldn't get together. at 10:45, I call Trans-Bridge Bus Lines, navigate through the automatic menu, and dial "7 for the dispatcher on duty for emergencies only". I wondered if I qualified as an emergency, then decided I didn't care, and besides, what else could the dispatcher be doing at 11pm on a Saturday?
"10:15 bus? Downtown Easton? Hmmm...yeah...this has happened a lot," he patiently drawls, "The schedule might be a little bit misleading. We should do something about it sometime."
"dude. ok. bottom line. Is the 10:15 bus coming?"
"Hm. Oh. No. There is no 10:15 bus." There is no 10:15 bus. Not on Saturdays. Only Sundays.

I call Jon back up and meet him at the bar around the corner. I had begun rehearsing "give me a Maker's, neat, and a Bass". I locked up my bike and the two wheels to a parking meter outside "Drinky McDrinkerson's", the local douchetard hoochie "it's not New York, but we're totally trying - look at this wand were going to wave over you & test for weapons!" bar, and follow Jon inside. The guy collecting the $5 cover peers around my shoulder and says "Oh, sorry pal. Can't bring that bag in. it's too big. You can leave it outside"

(ineffectual argument follows, in which I try hard, real hard, not to lose my cool & prevent my entrance no matter what. Sob "missed bus" story works not on doorman/"owner" or meathead bouncer. Meathead bouncer actually kindly chatted with me once Jon had come back with keys to his friend's sister's car so that I could stash my bag in there. Meathead bouncer was alright. Dickbag owner can eat ass.)

I finally get in, despite my t-shirt, and their apparent dress code. I get all wanded & patted down, and I'm wondering why the fuck this douchey bar with this booty shakin' music and these skanks and douchebags in smalltown Easton, Pennsylvania needs to wand me and deny my entrance because of my man-purse. I drink, copiously, then wondering where I'm going to sleep & how I'm going to get to the Velo-City tour. I never made it to the Velo-city tour, but I slept on Jon's parent's couch, and even woke up in time for the 6:50am bus, which DID actually come. The shaken hangover came back by the end of the bus ride, and the ride back to brooklyn with a wheelset and a full bag wore me out. (I always pick up a few goodies at home. This time it was "In Cold Blood", which I've never read. And a pair of shorts.) Plus, I figured I should quit pressing my luck. It was 9:30, and prior to boarding the bus, I had mysteriously misplaced the "return" half of my round-trip ticket.

But Ceya's dura-ace hubs laced to Tubular Assos rims WITH the tires, plus the promise of a one-on-one "how to tubular" class was worth every goddamn cent.

I do not like the new Justin Timberlake album

I do not like Justin Timberlake's new album. The beats do not make me want to dance my face off at times, and the lyrics do not remind me of my own painful or blissful memories of women I may have loved in the past. There is nothing about this album that is surprisingly quite good. I have not found any of the songs to be catchy, much less worth a second, third, fourth, or fifth listen since obtaining the album for a coworker a few days ago. I am certainly not reminded of much greater artists like Prince or much greater albums like The Beatles' "Rubber Soul", which is a far superior album about the trials & tribulations of a lifetime of freakin' girls. In spite of JT's history of association with bubble-gum teenybop mickey mouse club pop, I am not impressed by the intensity of his work. His egotistical, Ladies-man style boasting on tracks like "SexyBack", "Sexy Ladies/Let me talk to you", and "Damn Girl", is not excusable just because the songs are actually quite dope. "What Goes around" is certainly not a great tale of a typical, if hurtful cycle of relationships that in ways, hits home for me. The clubby sound of "My Love" is not awesome. It's just not. So please don't go around telling people that I like this album. Because it is clear that I don't. I would never like a Justin Timberlake album.

EXCLUSIVE: Girls Poop!

Shocking news from the wires this morning as, according to dayxandcounting.blogspot.com, girls poop. Once believed impossible, or at best, mythic, the idea of girls pooping challenges deeply held personal beliefs. The superimportant staff has all been fired in a severely violent tirade following this shattering revelation. The office was thrashed, gods names were cried out in agony and despair, tears were shed, and self-mutilation was contemplated, just to see if I could ever feel _anything_ again. Then we got over it, and went out to get cupcakes at Billy's. Billy, I learned this afternoon, is no longer "Billy" and is now "Lorraine". I feel tainted, pun wholly intended.

Delay in Pretzel Rod Delivery

The superimportant endless stash of pretzel rods, which admittedly are stale from time to time, seems to have ceased. The staff here is unaware of the cause of the cessation of our pretzel rod deliveries, and our supplies have been bare for a week now. The immigrant child laborers are going hungry. The pretzel rods were all I fed them. Now they have to spend their nickel-an-hour salary at the greek cart across the street, where apparently, the cart guy takes pity on them and gives them a falafel for that nickel. Sucker. If anyone has any information on the whereabouts of our pretzel rod shipment, please call 311.

Kegel Excersizes for...

Kegel excersizes for car trips! Dad up in the front driving to Grandma's for Christmas, sis nodding off in the back...guess what I'm doing?

Kegel excersizes for meetings! "Ken, did you get the files from Jerry for next week's update? ...Ken?"
"Huh? What? Oh (release)...yeah, sure I did (squeeze)."

Kegel excersizes for the subway! Doors close, vacant stares set in, 15 reps, 5 seconds each. It's not often that superimportant is on the subway, so we don't know what to do to occupy our time.

Kegel excersizes in church on Christmas Eve! Because I've got to distract myself SOMEhow.

Kegel excersizes for the bike shop! Because I'm part of the team now, and we've got reputation to uphold for excellence in all things.

Kegel excersizes for meetings, again! There really isn't enough to do in meetings. Text messaging is too obvious. Sketching is old hat - and pretty obvious. Sleeping is just uncool and difficult to pull off, especially since the eyeballs I drew on my eyelids are not very convincing.

Kegel excersizes for blogging! That's right everybody. I'm doing them RIGHT NOW. Think about it.

I can't wait for these flowers to die

Jesus Christmas, I'm not allergic or anything, but these flowers are giving me a headache. I'm secretly convinced that the Jersey girl assistant to the mutant management behind all the glass doors perfumes the damn things every morning, because nothing NOTHING should smell so nice for so long, so strongly. Every time someone walks by, the gust of wind carries this pleasant odor right into my nose, where it goes straight to my head, and makes it hurt. I'm going to have to step up my rampant farting just to compensate. At least I enjoy that smell.

The dry air. It makes me pick my nose.

I can't get my fingers out of there these days. Is anybody seeing this? Are people watching me? Does anybody even read this crap anyway? If so, can you spread the gospel, my people?

The Zombies are Rising Up!

Our eagle-eyed west coast correspondent kept her ears to the ground this week, and spotted some superimportant news on the headline of the newspaper around the guy sleeping in front of her house this morning. From last week's St. Paul Pioneer Press: Zombies sue city, county for abuse.

Superimportant staffers have been working around the clock to get to the bottom of this today, because it's just a freakin' gold mine, considering our sizeable zombie fetish. Zombies? Arrested? Suing? Are we excited about this or are we terrified? While we like to see the zombies sticking up for their rights, we're reminded that they eat brains and shuffle their feet. For christ's sake, we hate people that shuffle their feet. We're also shocked that a bunch of *cops* took in a bunch of zombies. Couldn't the zombies just lurch around and take a chomp out of the officer's arm as they're slipping the handcuffs on? Honestly, cops are dumb, so this should totally work. For those of us who aren't undead, biting a cop might be a bad idea. They've got nightsticks. And mace and things. But ZOMBIES, come on! You coulda easily gotten out of this one.

What's truly upsetting about this is the potential use of zombies as actual weapons of mass destruction. Think about it. Strap a bomb to the leg of the zombie; zombie blows up; zombie loses some limbs; NO. BIG. DEAL. ZOMBIES ARE REUSEABLE!!!

We'd be very excited about this if we were terrorists, but we're not. We just employ immigrant child laborers. No zombies. They're bad for the overhead. Lots of cleanup to do when you're dealing with zombie laborers. Terrorists, however, dont' have to worry about cleanup. Zombie blows up, puts another bomb on, goes back out and blows up again. Unbelievable potential for collateral damage here. Given that, superimportant has to take the uncharacteristic step of siding with the cops on this matter. Mostly because it totally leaves everything open for a zombie prison-break scenario that we'd love to see.

DEATH STAR is the name of my new metal band

It's a metal band that needs to happen. Seriously. Think about it. DEATH STAR. D E A T H S T A R . How fucking hardcore is that? It's a damn STAR OF DEATH. GRADNNDNDNNDNDNAaaanlalalalalalnnannaANGNAN GARAGAGNNANNANANANANANALALALALALallalannndndndndndnd !!!!!!!!!! --. that was what metal looks like when it's typed out. And not only is a DEATH STAR just badass, it totally taps into a genre i'm not sure has ever been tapped into - nerd metal. DEATH STAR!!!! MAN, think about it!!!! The first album would be called "THIS DEATH STAR IS FULLY ARMED & OPERATIONAL". Then the second album would be called "YOUR FLEET IS NO MATCH TO THE POWER OF THIS DEATH STAR," or something like that. I think the emperor said that. Every time we come on stage, two minutes before we start, the lights will go off and the sound guy will play a recording that says "THE DEATH STAR WILL BE IN RANGE IN TWO MINUTES" and so on....damn, god it will be awesome.

San Francisco rules, New York makes me sick.

But only literally sick.
As soon as I stepped off the plane at JFK and felt the 20-degree cooler temperature and sucked in a few breathfuls of exhaust, my throat got scratchy and I had a headache. The headache could’ve been from a number of things, really – any time I get around using anything other than a bike, I get a headache. Cabs, Airplanes, subways – headache. Maybe it makes me think too much and get all political about transportation issues and public health issues and the overlap between them, and then I realize how little I really care to DO anything about that, and then the GUILT sets in, and I get a headache. Or, it could just be from the fumes. The toxic byproducts of our oil-dependent society of course. Agh! See, there you go, I’ve got a headache again! Of course, I’m on a bus right now too, so that could have something to do with it. On a bus home for Thanksgiving. Thanks for killing off the indigenous populations of the Americas, white man. Fucking oppressor. SHIT! I need a damn Tylenol!

Card swallowing ATMs

Why do they still exist? Everywhere, it's swipe and go, push in quickly and remove... Never ENTER CARD AND FORGET IN SAN FRANCISCO UNTIL YOU GET BACK TO NEW YORK AND TRY TO BUY A BOTTLE OF BOURBON!!! Thanks, San Francisco. Now, my Bank of America card is probably in the hands of the same meth-head who stole the rear wheel off of my Concorde while I was in a comedy show with the greatest hostess ever. Comedy shows are great, because you always come out thinking you, too, are funny. I even tried to make funny jokes about the missing wheels of me & my hostess. They fell flat. So we drink whiskey & sparks to ease our pain. But hey, my damn bank card is still in San Francisco. And instead of calling the bank to let them know that it's missing, I keep getting distracted (by work of all things) and only blog or email about it. Hopefully that meth-head doesn't guess my password: BONER.

If I ran a mental institution

You know how the crazies get "break time" and they get to lurch around the garden and stuff? Well, when I run my own mental institution, break time is going to be called "escape time", and all the inmates are going to think they're escaping the facilities. Of course, we (the staff) will be "chasing" them, and will always round them all up, but they'll always remember it as "that time that we almost escaped." It'll be the best time of their lives. For everyone involved - especially if we get to use tazers. Tazers fucking rule.

Minor Revolutions

Upon reflection into yesterday's 50th anniversary of the squelched Hungarian Uprising against the Soviet Regime, we here at superimportant were reminded of our own struggles against those forces that suppress our freedoms & mobility. To this day, the memories of these battles raise feelings of bitterness and anger in our spacious offices.

Back in University, we were the driving force behind the revolt against the iron fist of parking services. The student movement was boiling over at that point. There was even a riot, but official records draw no parallels between it and the events superimportant helped orchestrate. Further proof of these subtle, yet inarguable connections is beyond the scope of this article.

Events unfolded one freezing fucking cold spring morning in like May or something, when it shouldn't really be snowing, but in Syracuse, it was snowing, because that's just what it does. I was running a series of errands for a very busy week at the end of the semester. First off, I had to pay off the leeches at Parking Services so that I could register for classes. I really, really wanted to get into that watercolor class, because I heard it was an easy A. But these douches somehow have the ability to put a lein on your ability to register if you've got unpaid parking tickets. Of which I had accumulated several during my half-decade stint at institutions of higher learning.

So I dropped $100 cold hard cash or probably a check just so I could make sure I could get into Writing 102, which was another weird thing about syracuse. See, I transferred there from NYU, right? Apparently, only the first semester of freshman writing at NY-freakin-U counted towards Syracuse credit. The second semester was clearly sub-par by upstate, lake-effect, inbred, snowplow driving standards. Whatever. A hundred dollars towards unpaid parking tickets. I was less than cheerful about it.

Shortly thereafter, I drive to a campus building to pick up some slides that were being developed. While inside, I got a parking ticket because I wasn't supposed to be there. I threw that ticket in a puddle. Did I say it was snowing? Yeah, ok, maybe it was melting. I threw that ticket in a puddle and drove away to meet a set designer in the art building. I parked in the circular "fire lane" behind the building which all students park in while picking stuff up. The "fire lane" was seriously not big enough to fit a damn fire truck, I swear. While inside the art building waiting for...let's call him "Dylan", I had this sinking feeling, based on my luck, that I was being ticketed at that very moment. I walked outside to check on the Volvo I had been driving at the time - which I had nicknamed "Chewy" because it made this wookie-like groan whenever I'd turn the steering wheel - and sure enough, the parking services Hummer was driving away at that very moment, the driver snorting cocaine off of a hooker's tits in the front seat, burning half a gallon of gas per hundred yards, running over cyclists, sawing down natural growth forests, and killing endangered species for sport. Son of a bitch.

I shook my fist violently in the air, and tore the ticket from beneath Chewy's windshield wiper. Seventy Five dollars! Seventy five dollars for parking in an inadequate fire lane! I flew into a rage. I took my big, black, bold magic marker, and wrote on the front of the ticket "GO FUCK" and on the back of the ticket "YOURSELVES". Rather than mailing the ticket back sans-payment with a smirk of satisfaction as I let it settle to the bottom of the curbside mailbox, buried under whatever recent snowfall had hidden it from the postman who wasn't looking for curbside mailboxes anyway because we all had mailboxes outside our off-campus apartments, I decided that this, like those Hungarian students in 1956, was time to take action. I recruited "Dylan" to accompany me back to the offices of these savages as an official witness to the verbal excoriation I was about to unleash. He declined. To this day, I fucking hate that kid for that. He totally missed out. Chewy and I drove up alone and emboldened by our mutual rage. I stormed across the carpeted flooring and stood tapping my fingers on the edge of the desk as the receptionist completed her phone call.

"How can I help you," she sortof smiled.

I took the vandalized ticket, facing the "go fuck" side towards her, and with a grimace, showed her that side, then the "yourselves" side, before tearing it up in tiny little pieces while declaring with just how much passion I hated parking services. The rage built up, and my sense of purpose became clearer and clearer. Verbal thrashing! Verbal thrashing! At this point, I was committed to the tirade, and there was no going back.

The blood-red color of rage obscures my vision for the rest of this recollection... Also, the sky turned black and thunder clapped, and my voice sounded like, like a lion or a giraffe, or like, some really fucked up Grendel kind of beast.

I can't remember the specifics of the diatribe, but I know that the word "fuck" was implemented frequently, as was the string of words "vampiric, bloodthirsty vultures". This was no exaggeration, of course. They liked my blood, and circled above me, waiting for my moment of weakness. It was obvious. I completed my reaming by tossing the tiny pieces of stupid ticket across the desk and clomping back out of the carpeted office while the desk workers reassured me that my actions were not altogether mature. Right. Jerks. True revolutionary tactics are rarely understood, initially.

In a crippling turn of events for this revolution, the young superimportant was contacted the next day, a hero amongst his peers, only to be told that the ticket had been scotch-taped back together and judicial affairs was about to be contacted in regards to my conduct. A temporary concession was made in the form of a snarky letter of apology to conclude the matter, BUT THE RESISTANCE CONTINUES becuase still, my mom gets overdue notices from parking services and I'm like "jeez don't these people let up? Freakin' losers!"

Leviathan will destroy you

If it doesn't destroy my goddamn stereo first.

I don't know what it is you're playing upstairs, but it sounds strikingly familiar to the tune you seem to play every Sunday night on repeat from 10pm to 6am. Not that it matters though. Mastadon will surely drown it out. See, it's working right now - now that it's stopped shorting out my stereo when the volume was up to 29 -, and for some reason, I feel much more relaxed. Relaxed to Mastodon, that's what's up.

Speaking of things which are insane, there's apparently a superimportant stalker in Jamaica. Our regular readers will remember the love letter posted just a short scroll down....yeah....this girl's been calling me. From Jamaica. Stunned that I'm almost 30. And that's about all she has to say before I ask her how she got my number. Then I say I've got to go work...I've got very important pictures of pie and meatloaf to crop and very important wrinkles to photoshop out of Martha Stewart's face.

Oh my god you type like you have hammers for hands.

Slayer doesn't drown that out. Why do they put these people next to me?

Remember the times? Oh the good times...

Remember that time when I.T. changed my password but didn't tell me about it? Brings a smile to my face whenever I think about it. It was the same day that they deleted all of the music from my harddrive when they updated my operating system. Haha! Boy, was that a surprise! That was today as a matter of fact, if I remember correctly.

Oh yeah, and they also wiped out some applications, too. It was Flash, specifically, which they deleted. That's really OK though, because there are plenty of other Flash developers here. Oh nooo, nooo, that's right, there AREN'T any other flash developers here. I'm the only one. And they deleted my application. Gosh, that was a good time. And then when I realized that half of my fonts were missing? I was practically on the floor in hysterics! Hoo, boy!

Then later when we filled up the 400GB server with our 20,000 images and no one could do any work because the network was choked? What a day, what a day. It reminds me of the time they gave me a NEW flatscreen monitor with a lower resolution, giving me less actual screen space to work with. Those jokers!

How to write a love letter, if you're my superindendant's 16 year-old granddaughter

This love letter has been sitting on the superimportant desk (along with it's mutiple follow-up letters) for months. Now that the sender is back in Jamaica, I feel it's slightly less insensitive to show it to the world. This would've been a highly effective love letter if it weren't for the fact that the results of it's validation would've been not only illegal, but pretty sleazy. Superimportant is not sleazy.