I keep getting junk mail from the AARP. I hate junk mail exponentially more than spam because it makes me work a lot harder at getting rid of it. It kills trees and clogs my trashcan to the point where I have to do an elbow drop just to get all of it in the damn can. So, I call them up. I'm one of these new millenium kind of guys, so I only have a cell phone the size of a freakin' Zippo, so it's loads of fun for me and my fat fingers to play the Phone System game.

"To hear your options in English, Press 1� Para la cucaracha en Espanol, Numero dos� TO� HEAR� YOUR� OPTIONS� IN� OLD� PERSON� MASH� THE� KEYBOARD� IN� FRUSTRATION."

I was highly disappointed that their name didn't stand for the "American Association of Retarded Persons" because then I could've had some fun with it. Instead, I get:

Customer Service: "Hello, this is Marcy, how may I help you today?"

Me: "I'd like to join up, babycakes"

Marcy (pausing for slight snicker): "Okay, what's your name, sir?"

I tell her.

Marcy: "Judd� I'm sorry can you give me your last na�"

Me (interrupting): "Call me JuddHole, sweetcheeks."

Marcy (slightly annoyed now): "Can you spell your last (garbled) for me?"

Me: "S-W-E-E�"

Marcy (still slightly annoyed, but also slightly amused): "Your last name, sir."

I spell it for her.

Marcy: "And your date of birth?"

Me: "September 7, 1974"

Marcy: "I'm sorry sir, but, for membership consideration, you must be over the age of 50."

Me: "Interesting. CAN YOU STOP MAILING ME SHIT THEN?"

Sleep Deprivation

Apparently, my subconscious decided to wait until 4:53 am to pull out it's little book of Porcine Ponderings. Love Dusty for so eloquently writing about what makes me scream "GAAAHAGURGHIFINGA". The part I love about being tired as hell yet unable to sleep, is that I know that I'll lay there, pissed, until about 11 minutes before the alarm goes off and I'll have perfectly fucked-up dreams.

I tend to dream about my fishtanks a lot. In reality, they are beautiful and well-maintained, with loads of happy fish. How do I know they're happy? They're not dead. I'm happy that I'm not dead. In my dreams, though, the tanks are always leaking or having an emergency and I'm forced to try and save them from being dead by juggling buckets and water and a hairdryer attached to a lightswitch.

This morning's 11-minute dream had me attempting to save all of the fish from my saltwater tank while it was slowly draining into an irrigation ditch on the ranch back in Montana and all the fish were trying to bite me. As I ran around to the other side of the huge tank, I leaned in and saw that it was now, miraculously, empty.

"Godammit," I yelled, "I'm dreaming. This is a fucking dream." Now, I'm pissed, but, instead of waking up, I walk around thinking I can do things I can't do in reality, like fuck a supermodel or do the Crouching-Tiger-Ninja leap. Instead, all I get is this old biker in some random bar, with a Harley-Davidson bandana on his head, no shirt, covered in tattoos, talking to me. I'm thinking how much this sucks, as I would've much preferred a hot naked girl, or at least the guy could be ON a Harley, and I could ride it. I'm sitting there frustrated, repeating to myself, "Self, this is a crappy dream," until I look at his tattoos and the big one in the middle of his back, written in Olde-Style script says "This'd be a good Diary entry." Obviously, my subconscious is a bigger diary geek than I am, but who am I to ignore it?