[this post is part 4 of a 156-part series, "The Twilight Zone"]

This episode sucked and I don’t want to write anything about it.

After a typical café or restaurant meal, I am always stifled with a particular uncertainty – what is the appropriate tip? The level of my frustration depends on the venue – sitdowns are an obvious 15-20 percent, coffee shops take change jars, and fast foods are a no go. However, the elaborate bistros and tearooms are always ambiguous. After thinking it over, I have drafted a few personal standards that attempt to qualify tip worthy attendants.

For example, there are eateries in which a behind-the-counter employee takes your order, which is then custom prepared but requires you to go up to get it (Panera mode). This is a no-tip establishment, especially if I have to pick up after myself. There are similar places that have attendants refilling your drink mid-meal or taking away plates afterwards (like D’Amico & Sons). These places deserve a tip – an approximate 15 percent. Most likely the gratuity is divided among staff in some manner, but even if they aren’t quite waiters per se, they ought to have something. Still, I stumble when it comes to cafés with servers – what if I only get a drink? Sadly and unfortunately, the respectful thing would be to tip, but maybe not as much. They are technically waiters.

If a server mixes up/forgets an order, not only do I tip less, but put on an unimpressed face as well. This way he/she feels bad and hopes to compensate for it with an on the house offer. My roommate once got a free drinks and a meal because her appetizer basket of chips caught on fire. There is always an upside to a restaurant mishap.

On another note, what if the food was excellent but the service was horrible? Or vice versa? This has troubled me for quite some time, and honestly, I still have no idea. I would hate to undermine a job well done on one end, but don’t want an unskilled worker to receive what they didn’t earn. My measly solution is to send an appreciatory message to the cook, and if the service is terrible, leave change.
Deliveries work geographically and meteorologically. If it comes a long way or in bad Minnesotan weather conditions, a larger sum makes an otherwise crappy trip worth it. Kindness, karma. On the other hand, if the delivery takes a lot longer than normal, I might even demand a discount (unless there is a plausible excuse). Hungry makes angry.

Since money is tight these days, I would encourage tip creativity. Another friend was once very short on cash, but didn’t have it in her heart to leave the table empty, so she rewarded the server with coupons and a gift card. What a pleasant surprise!

As for upscale fine dining, double digits are a minimum. Since most college students don’t splurge on four-star dining, it really doesn’t concern me. Those types of places are filled with pompous middle-aged folk, anyways.

Two Songs by Uncle Slam:

“Weirdo Man”

Psycho ward
Is your home
You’re so weird
You’re so dumb
Momma’s boy
Daddy’s disgrace
Snivelling wimp
Psycho face

You’re so week
You’re a geek
You’re a creep
Stupid freak

You got a psycho face
You are a psycho case
You got a real weird plan
You are the weirdo man

WEIRDO MAN

“The Ugly Dude”

He was conceived just like the rest of us
But when it came down to birth
He had a face like a butt
And his parents thew up
He went to school and the kids were so cruel
They all would torture and tease
And point and laugh at the freak
Kick the ass of the geek
And as he grew so did the hatred inside
The time for action was now
The next one laughing would die

The next laughing was a beautiful girl
The would be victim of an ugly crime
The bitch did die

The blade was ripping, hacking, thrashing
Tearing flesh and bleeding nicely
Ugliness was in the air
Along with screams of pleasure and of pain
People ran to see the sound
Astonished at the sight they’d found
The ugly man was laying down
With fingers hanging from his mouth he laughed

Take a look at me now
I ain’t so funny no more
It ain’t no fun to be the ugly dude

Hey you fun-loving hipsters,

If you’ve ever wanted to go rant at Big Bobby B, he’s going to give you the chance. The University of Minnesota President, Robert Bruininks, is giving the annual State of the University address this Thursday, March 5, at 3 p.m. inside the Coffman Union Theater. Just do us a favor and don’t throw shoes at him if you’re angry about how expensive tuition is getting. After all, it’s not his fault the economy tanked.

So as you can see, I haven’t entered anything in a while due to some technical difficulty that reached its peak a couple of weeks ago. Like many of you, I am a mac user. I purchased my 13 inch Macbook after graduating high school and it wasn’t long till I started experiencing some problems. About 4 months into the school year my screen stopped working…. completely. Fortunately, i still had the benefits of the apple care support plan, so I reported the problem and had my laptop shipped back fully repaired and free of charge within a week.

So this is where it gets frustrating. I began noticing the rapid weakening of my battery life and after a while it wasn’t able to stay on for more than an hour or so. Strangely, as my battery life decreased the size of the battery itself began to grow larger and larger. A few months later I woke up one day to realize that my mouse pad was unresponsive. Hoping that my service plan could cover the repairs I made my way to the Apple Store and told them about my dilemma.

Now most companies who desire a healthy relationship with their customers notify you about things like this but the corporate heads over at Apple are wise enough to see the benefits. They told me my apple care plan had expired about a month ago and the repair would cost me a near $600. Unable to afford these charges, I purchased a wireless mouse and went through the following year with an almost unusable laptop.

As I was leaving for a class a few weeks ago, I managed to spill some coffee all over my keyboard rendering the right side completely unusable. Seeing that this was due to my own clumsiness I made my way back to the Apple store ready to empty my wallet. To my surprise, I didn’t have to pay a dime. Apparently, Apple had produced some defected hardware that included my enlarged battery and deteriorating keyboard and I was lucky enough to, once again, leave with a fully repaired computer

Could it be that apple is finally displaying some accountability to boost consumer satisfaction amidst all this economic turmoil? I certainly hope so, because my ipod keeps freezing on me….

Anyway, now that I’ve got my computer back and caught up with things, I can finally get back to the blogging…. hooray for random occurrences of corporate accountability!

“How small everything has grown, and how terrible is the deterioration in myself!”

“Fuck shit! Fuck shit ass!”

A very juicy salmon I ate
smoked, toppled with balsam and yellow
cut-up tidbits unfamiliar to me (they were mangoes).

Sliced cucumber crunched amidst my teeth, it was
sipped up by coffee milky with soy
“I don’t know if I like beets,” he said, uncertain.

“Try the borscht anyway,”
He would cave eventually, but
just not that afternoon.

A Recipe For Those Who Cook Shitty Food Out Of Boxes But Still Want To Feel Like They’re Making Real Food

Instructions:

Make a boxed mac’n'cheese dinner of your choice (I prefer Kraft’s 3-cheese shells).

Cook the noodles like normal, but when the time comes to add the sauce mix, milk, butter, and whatever, also mix in:

1 small dollop of Mrs. Renfro’s habañero salsa (you can substitute for the super-spicy salsa of your choice, but Mrs. Renfro’s is the fucking best and you should have it in your home if you like spicy food (and if you don’t like spicy food get the fuck out, leave, now), her green jalapeño salsa is the best thing you will ever dip a chip in, so spicy but also so flavorful!)

2-3 little splurches of Tabasco (again, you could use a substitute, but again, Tabasco is the best)

1 nice drizzle of Cholula (ditto) (if you’re not familiar with Cholula, it’s a delightful little mild-but-flavorful hot sauce)

1 handful of grated pepperjack

1 healthy shake of garlic powder

1 whole bunch of curry powder

1 copious amount of grated black pepper

1 light dusting of another spice of your choosing (I like Penzey’s 4S!)

(these amounts are calibrated to one regular-sized box. If you use more boxes or a large box, multiply the quantities appropriately)

User Testimonials:

“Dude, this fucking mac’n'cheese, holy shit, this is the best fucking mac’n'cheese I’ve ever had. You just eat one little spoonful of it and then sit there while waves of aftertaste roll over your tongue. There are like five layers of aftertastes here. This fucking rules.”
-Deniz

“Wow, I really liked that, and I don’t usually like mac’n'cheese at all!”
-Deniz’s girlfriend

“Um, it’s pretty okay I guess.”
-Deniz’s roommate

[this post is part 3 of a 156-part series, "The Twilight Zone"]

Synopsis:

This episode begins in the American west, the old-time west of the Western. We meet the town drunk, Al Denton, a man who has no money and must live on the charity of the men of the town, who will buy him drinks if he amuses them with a song.

Denton used to be a champion gunman, but some traumatic event in his past shifted him from that path to the one he follows now. He does not sing very well, but sexy ladies feel bad for him anyway.

One day, Denton finds a gun in the dirt, and, drunk out of his mind, he picks it up and begins to carry it with him. One of his tormentors, a tall thin man in black with thick lips around a mouth that slices his face open from cheek to cheek, ragged strands of hair stylishly swaying down below the brim of his hat, notices the gun and instead of soliciting a song from Denton, he jokingly challenges him to a duel.

The man in black poses with a hand against the saloon, his face amused and coyly expectant, welcoming the phallosymbolic bullet it knows is coming its way.

Denton makes wild drunken gestures with his gun-hand while explaining to the man that he doesn’t want any trouble, and then Denton’s gun goes off, shooting the gun right out of the man’s hand.

The men of the town rush Denton into the bar to celebrate his victory, and the man in black rushes in behind them, legs and back bent with anger and face wild, demanding a rematch. Again, Denton gesticulates and accidentally fires, this time shooting the chandelier from the ceiling, and it falls into the man in black, knocking his gun out of his hand and him to the floor. This whole time there has been a man standing at the door of the bar watching, and at this he smiles all knowing and satisfied and walks away.

Scruffy, drunken Denton declares that he thinks he will have a shave, because he is a badass.

The man in black stands up indignant, and gets all in Denton’s face, but Denton just slaps him full across his thick smooth cock-hungry lips. At this, the sexy lady who has been sympathetic to Denton from the first pulls off her strapless dress and stands before him naked but for her high-heeled shoes, her hair sculpted and face made up and ears dangling masses of glittering metal, and she fucks him right there on the floor in front of everybody while they watch silent, hands down their pants and their faces contorted into twisted hungry sad shapes.

In his postcoital confession to the sexy lady, it is revealed that Denton used to be the fastest gun in town, and he was constantly forced to duel every fast and fancy man who owned a gun. What drove him to drink was when he killed a 16-year-old in a duel, leaving the kid there in the dirt on his face bleeding to death with Denton’s bullet in him. And now he knows that the stream of challenges will begin again, only this time he’ll be the one shot to death, because he’s not up on his skills.

As the barber begins to give him that shave, we can see a reflection in the window of the barber shop: that same man who watched the duel earlier is watching the shave now, smiling the same haunting smile. And the screen fades to black.

With his face smooth and his hair combed, Denton is quite pretty.

Two men walk into his house and one of them says, “Tall man. Doesn’t usually wear his gun. Blond hair.” A reverent description of the revitalized Al Denton. And then he describes an opponent who has challenged Denton to a duel. Denton replies, “Tell Mr. Grand I’ll be there tomorrow night. I’ll wait for his pleasure.”

Denton tries to practice his gunwork but his hands are all shaky and he can’t hit anything. It really was just drunken luck the night before.

And then that night, there’s the fucking guy who keeps watching Denton, a rather fanciful-looking man in a black frock coat, staring up at Denton’s window, smiling his creepy smile. Denton runs down and confronts the man: “What are you doing, you creepy pervert, just standing there leaning on your cart with your hip jutting and that smile on your face like you’re looking at my body under my clothes and you like what you see?” The man informs Denton that he is a traveling salesman and he understands Denton’s predicament, that he has a potion, an elixir, a male enhancement formula which will fix Denton’s inability to perform. It only lasts ten seconds, but if you time it right that’s all you need. The man insists that Denton try the potion out now, so that he knows how to use it later: “Let’s test the merchandise.” And Denton drinks it down.

Indeed, ten seconds was all he needed.

In return for his service, the man gives Denton another potion for his engagement the following evening, for no charge.

The next night, at the bar: in walks a young blond vision of adonis, smile radiating from the shining-white teeth in his creaseless face. This is the man Denton must grapple with in the grueling embrace of intimate man-to-man conflict. Denton knows he can win. If he drinks the potion down at just the right time, ten seconds will be all it takes. But the other man, this smooth white figure, this unmarred tribute to human beauty, he has the same potion! They both drink it at the same time, then stand there staring at each other’s bodies, concentrating, concentrating, until at once, at precisely the same time, they shoot their pieces from each other’s hands and stand there breathing heavy, spent.

The two champions, mutually victorious, come together for one final moment, their faces close, and decide that their time together has blessed them both, and that man who gave them their enhancement potions, he smiles knowingly at them with lecherous eyes, having had the best vicarious orgasm of his life through their performance, and then he trots away on his horsecart full of viagra to the next town, and the next pair of men he can trick into fucking in front of him for his pleasure.

The end.