Weighting

'Weighting' isn't just a clever play on words. 'Weighting' has many definitions, but I'm just going to concentrate on 2 of them. As defined in the dictionary, there's the obvious; 'an object used or useful solely because of its heaviness: the weights of a clock' & then there's the not so obvious; 'importance, moment, consequence, or effective influence: an opinion of great weight.'

Recently I started lifting weights again. I have a timed goal for an obstacle course that I have to make in 2 weeks for a potential job(I can't say for what right now, but let's just say that I'm trying to think outside-of-the-box!). I did a practice run 2 weeks ago & came to the distinct realization that I'm getting older & might have lost a step or 2. Being the vain bastard that I am(I will fight this aging conundrum to my dying breath!) & wanting to pass said obstacle course, I decided to get back to my roots as far as working out was concerned & that involved weights.

I've been lifting weights since I was about 12 years old. I initially wanted to just get big & strong, but this fascination turned into an outlet of obsession for the majority of my youth. Within a couple of years, I had outgrown my father's mini-gym in our laundry room & graduated to a small, locally run gym just outside of town. The gym was an old garage fitted with enough free weights, rusted benches & lat-pull down machines to be dangerous. Kind of like an underground, after-hours bar that you had to seek out. It looked more like a condemned building than a gym, but for me it was perfect. What really made this gym interesting though were the clientele. The average age was between 20-60 & most of these guys were extremely crude, salt-of-the-earth type dudes. They said fuck & shit alot & constantly spoke of women & their most recent sexual conquests. I guess you could say that's where I gained a portion of my colorful vernacular & an even keener eduaction of female anatomy. The craziest bastard that worked out there(I can't even remember his name.) was this tattooed, bald-headed guy that used to flog himself with a chain until he bled. Only then would he start his workout!

Flashforward to present day & I'm @ my local gym bench pressing free weights for the 1st time in over a year. Gripping the cold iron bar in my hands, I'm reminded why lifting weights has such an appeal. Weights don't let you down. Weights don't talk back. Weights don't leave you. Weights don't break promises. Weights don't lie. Weights do push back though & allow you to vent & let you get out of them whatever you want to @ that point in time.

I took another interview this morning(Thankfully better than the last one!) with a head-hunter & she said that she'd try to help me out, but many of the open jobs recently dried up because of the holidays. Sigh, I can't even get fucking fired during the right time of year! It seems increasingly clear that the more resumes I send out, the less responses come back. The corporate world might not want me back & I'm not even sure if I want to go back. You'd think that I would feel some added pressure to find a new job & fall back in line, but I don't. This whole experience has been extremely theraputic, but even more freeing. This is the most freedom that I've felt in a very long time. I guess that it was my wake-up call. Start living & stop worrying so fucking much. Crazy, bald, tattooed, weight-lifter guy used to tell me that the only things that really mattered in life was 'weighting, fucking & boozing.' Well fucking & boozing are fine & good, but I'm looking for more. I need to find a new path. I'm 'weighting.'

The Job Interview Saga Part 1

Being unemployed & all, you have to start setting up job interviews because well... you have to eat! You can only suckle off of the government teat for so long before your situation just becomes a bad 'After School Special' or worse a 'Lifetime Movie of the week' & you lose all inkling of self respect.

The interview per se, is a strange animal. Do you just tell your prospective interviewer what he/she wants to hear; spouting buzz-words like, 'people-person,' 'self-motivator' & 'closer' or are you honest about your career aspirations & motivations? Normally it's a little bit from Column A & a little bit from Column B. If you go on enough job interviews, you start feeling like an out-of-work actor, accepting frustration & disappointment as a daily occurance.

The other day, I had my first formal interview since I was shit-canned two weeks ago. I was initially hesitant about interviewing @ let's just call them Blankety-Blank Corporation, but showed up in my sharp $500 suit, red power tie & a fresh copy of my resume. I was greeted by Mr. CFO who walked me back to their conference room. On the way I tentatively scoped out the office floor to catch any sort of vibe from the co-workers. It wasn't good. The office was very cold & sterile like a hospital waiting room. You could literally cut the tension with a butter-knife, plus there was an older gentleman working in his little cube by the corner that looked like he was about to break down in tears. 'This is going to be interesting,' I thought to myself as the conference room door closed behind me with a loud clang much like a prison cell.

The interview started out cordially enough. It was kind of like a tennis match. Mr.CFO would discuss some nuggets about Blankety-Blank Corporation & I would counter with various bullet points about my work history & what I could bring to the party if hired. About midway through the interview, I came to the distinct realization that I didn't want to work for Blankety-Blank Corporation & that Mr. CFO was an asshole.

Things went south when Mr. CFO insisted on giving me a homework assignment. He wanted me to write an essay about how working @ Blankety-Blank Corpration would enrich my life & exactly why he should hire me(I'm not even making this shit up!). This is the part of the interview when I decided to have fun w/Mr CFO. He asked me if I had any hobbies. I said yes, taxidermy. 'Excuse me, did you just say taxidermy?' 'Yes Mr. CFO I did. Taxidermy is my life outside of work. I have such a passion for killing animals & stuffing & embalming them(I obviously don't!). Hell, I have a possum & a cat draining out in my garage as we speak!' 'Well Mr. Maloy that's very..interesting. What books have you read recently?' 'Let's see, I've read, 'The Art of War' by Sun Tzu & my favorite, 'The Anarchist's Cookbook' by William Powell(Ihave actually read both of these books.).' 'The second book actually showed me how to make a pipe bomb!' 'Ok Mr. Maloy thank you so much for your time. This has been...eye-opening.' 'Oh no, thank you Mr.CFO, I can drop off my essay to you personally tomorrow. What's your home address?' 'Oh no, no, no! A simple e-mail will be fine.'

I walked out of Blankety-Blank Corparation with a smirk on my face positive that I terrifed Mr. CFO & not feeling one ounce of regret. If you're going to waste my time @ least don't be a pompous asshole about it! I hopped into my car, thankful that I stowed my surfboard in the back. 'I need some waves,' I surmised to myself as I slammed the gas pedal down & headed to the beach...

My Favorite Mistake...

If a woman tells you she is trouble, if she tells you that you want no part in her problems, if she swears that she has too much shit in her life to fall in love, you need to believe her. Because it is all true, every word of it. She is a woman so wrapped up in her own shit that she focuses like a laser beam on these problems making them the very essence of her personality. You will not save her. You cannot fix her. And she will be an absolute tempest of frustration and bitterness until she finds a way to get over her own shit. Words have never rang more true. A month out of my failed relationship & I can just now look @ Jen without the 'love googles' & make peace with this realization.

Our love story was very intense & troubled from the start. She was in D.C & I was in San Diego. The long distance courtship should have been a red flag from the start, but it really wasn't. We had casually known each other in college & frequented many of the same parties & had quite a few of the same friends & aquaintances. Hell, she briefly dated one of my roommates. We reconnected on Facebook & immediately hit it off. She told me that it was her dream to move to San Diego & immediately booked a flight out to see me. We talked every night for hours; texted each other during the day & e-mailed each other pictures. The distance forced us to have very deep, detail-oriented convesations because that's all we had.

I was so in love with this girl & felt that we were so much in love that I actually propposed to her over the phone before I even kissed her! They say when you know, you just know(Or so I thought! I'd like to find 'They' & smack them upside the head!). She said yes. I promptly cashed out my 401k & purchased an engagement ring(Pictured above.). She flew out on my birthday weekend & I gave her a proper proposal over @ La Jolla Shores right past the seal beach. For a brief moment in time, everything was right in my world. We talked about having children & a sunset wedding on the beach & started to make plans for her to move out to San Diego by October. That's when more red flags started to pop up about her ongoing financial issues as well as other extenuating past problems that she was still dealing with. These issues, although serious & frustrating, I thought @ the time were fixable & I figured that as soon as she made it out here to San Diego & we moved in together, we could work everything out.

Some of my friends told me that maybe we should slown down. Take my time & really get to know this girl. I was completely in love with this woman & wasn't about to take anybodys advice, sound or not, @ that time. For the 1st time in my life, I was fully invested in a relationship & cared for another person more than I did myself. We finally got her moved out here @ the beginning of October & within a span of 4 weeks, we broke up. I'd like to think that she didn't have her mind made up about us before she moved to San Diego, but I have my reservations. She didn't put any effort into making us work once she was here. Hell, I once dated a girl that clocked me square in the face(I didn't deserve it by the way!) & she @ least tried to make it work with me! I was angry with Jen for quite some time until I realized that she has just too many problems in her life to be in a relationship.

I also came to the realization that yes this was possibly the worst breakup of my life, but I actually had it in me to commit to somebody. I actually proposed & was prepared to spend the rest of my life with this woman. Normally I have problems just committing to weekend plans or even lunch! This was truly a revelation to me. I might have actually grown up a little bit here! During one of the last conversations that I had with Jen she exclaimed, 'I'm sorry, but I just don't believe that a man & a woman can fall in love after just a month.' Well I'm sorry Jen, but I 'need' to believe that two people can fall in love after a month or just fall in love period! If that's wrong then I just don't ever want to be right.

I was late running errands today & came home just as the sun started to set. I rushed down to the cliffside of the ocean & took in a beautiful orange & red-hued sunset. My thoughts turned towards my time with Jen & how she was like an extremely hot stove that I touched & was burned. I knew that the stove was going to burn me, but I had to touch it anyways. As the last portion of the sun disappeard under the horizon, I smiled & said to my self, 'You're going to be ok.'

'That girl is like a sunburn that I'd like to save.'-Third Eye Blind

Your child is not cute!

That's right your child is not cute, talented, brilliant or one of a kind! Your child is an annoying, ADHD, ritalin popping germ factory! Now before you all crucify me for being such an insensitive bastard(I do norally like kids.), let me take you back a few hours to justify this rant. I had just finished working out & decided to stop by my local Jamba Juice to pick up a protien shake. Upon my arrival I opened the door & was immediately head-butted in the crotch by a hyper little 4 year old child. I doubled over in pain, sucking wind while this lovely little bastard pointed & laughed @ me. I immedately looked around to see who this child belonged to. I found the parent & remarked to myself, 'Oh boy this guy is an asshole.' Now there are certain criteria that one should take into consideration when determining if a person is in fact a true asshole just @ face value; they include wearing a tank-top/wifebeater in a bar @ night; Wearing your Bluetooth headset in public; waering a trucker hats & just trying too hard in general. This lovely child's father was clearly in his late 40's with a bluetooth headset in his ear, wearing an Obama t-shirt, gray sweatpants & red Crocs. You heard that right, red-fucking-Crocs! So not only was this guy an asshole, but he was a fucking Croc wearing asshole!(Crocs are clearly a crime against humanity. Any adult wearing Crocs should be immediately hit in the head with a tack-hammer!) Being as civil as possible, I asked him if he could please hang up his phone & watch his child. Apparently he much too involved in his phone conversation to worry about his child or my crushed nuts. I took a deep breath & walked up to the cashier with my bruised manhood to place an order. Just as I started placing said order, the child(Let's just call him Damien from the Omen.) ran up & wedged himself between me & the counter & then began to throw pamphlets up in the air like confetti. That was my limit. I turned around & yelled, 'Hey buddy! Get off of your phone & come over here to get your kid!" This of course offended 'Daddy of the Year.' As he came marching over exclaiming with a nasally drawl, 'What's wrong bro? Are you afraid of kids? It's not like he has cooties or something?' During this time that I was listening to Daddy's witty repartee, Damien decides to turn around & sneeze into the crotch of my shorts. As Damien moved away from my now snotty shorts, I realized that there was a string of green goo stretching from his nose to the crotch of my shorts. Utterly repulsed, I looked @ my crotch, the kid, then the dad & said, 'You've heard of Swine Flu right?' I then looked asshole daddy right in the eyes & silently mouthed the words 'Fuck You!' I then took my bruised, snooty crotch home to send out more resumes.

Happy Birthday Fight Club!

You're not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your fucking khakis. You're the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world. ~Fight Club

Fight Club turns 10 years old today. The world was not ready for Fight Club back in 1999. It was an assault on your senses, a mind fuck if you will, challening you to look in the mirror & wonder, did I sell out or just buy in?

The beauty of this movie is that there are so many different interpretations that you can discover. I've watched this movie @ least 30 times & I can find something new with every view. Is it sado-masochistic? Is it a capitalistic nightmare? Is it a Generation-X fairy-tale or just a testosterone-induced cautionary tale? It's all of this & more. A good movie makes you ask questions & challenges you to have discussions long after you've left the theater. This movie does that. This movie is the epitome of what a cult classic should be. If you haven't seen this masterpiece, do yourself a favor & buy it. Hell, buy it twice! You will not be disappointed.

I remember the 1st words that came out my my then girlfriend's mouth after the final frame when we saw Fight Club in the movie theater back in 1999 & it's a quote that I hopefully won't have to hear again in any other context, 'Honey, did a big black cock just flash in front of our faces on the movie screen? Yes honey it did.' 'What Would Tyler Durden Do?'

Jimmy Buffet's a Pirate Turns 40

Mother, mother ocean, I have heard you call Wanted to sail upon your waters since I was three feet tall You've seen it all, you've seen it all Watched the men who rode you switch from sail to steam In your belly you can hold the treasures few have ever seen Most of 'em dreams, most of 'em dreams Yes, I am a pirate, two hundred years too late The cannons don't thunder, there's nothin' to plunder I'm an over-forty victim of fate Arriving too late, arriving too late But I've done a bit of smugglin', I've run my share of grass Made enough money to buy Miami, but I pissed it away so fast Never meant to last, never meant to last I have been drunk now for over two weeks, Passed out and I rallied and I sprung a few leaks But I've got stop wishin', got to go fishin' I'm down to rock bottom again Just a few friends, just a few friends "Nice to see all of our friends every year. Thank you friends." Now I go for younger women, lived with several awhile Though I ran 'em away, they'd come back one day And I still could manage a smile Sure takes a while, just takes a while Mother, mother ocean, after all my years I've found Occupational hazard being my occupation's just not around Feel like I've drowned, but I won't wear a frown Feel like I've drowned, I'm gonna go check out Peachtree Street somewhere downtown.

This song just makes me feel free.

Run Forrest Run & Tales of Hot Naked Girl

I woke up @ the crack of 9 am, rubbed the sleep out of my eyes & went across the street to check the surf. Super-flat & blown out again. Damn! I'm up & motivated so what the hell am I supposed to do now??? Solve world hunger? Nope! Clean the bathroon? No way! I am definitely not motivated enough to do that. Besides, my Haz-Mat gear hasn't arrived yet for that ordeal. I know, let's go for a run! I haven't ran in over 2 months. I recently purchased some expensive new running shoes for just this endeavor.

Now there are many types of shape you can be in. I for one, am in very good swimming & surfing shape(We'll get to the swimming later on in this post. It directly ties in with Hot Naked Girl. But stick with me people. This part's interesting too!). So I slip into my new running shoes along with some comfortable shorts & an old 'Danzig' t-shirt, then bound down to the boardwalk just above the beach. It's another perfect Southern California day 75 & sunny. It's so confortable sometimes that it's downright disgusting. Many moons ago when I made my pilgrimage out here to the promised land, I checked off on a calendar how many days before it rained. 94 fucking days! Manifest destiny? I think so! But I digress, back to the run. The music of choice on my i-pod for the run was Andrew W.K. What's that, you've never heard of Andrew W.K.??? Andrew W.K. was popular for about a blink back when 'Jackass' was all the rage(God I love that show!). Mr. W.K. wrote such unforgettable anthems as; It's Time To Party, Party Hard, Party Till You Puke, Long Live The Party & my personal favorite, Make Sex. He sounds like a screaming Randy Newman on steroids smashing his face against the wall. The perfect motivational music for a run! I was feeling pretty good as the run progressed. No strains or aches. I made it down to 'World Famous' restaurant(Best lobster tacos in town. I swear to God!) & turned around to head back; that's when I hit my wall. I forgot that the inital stretch of my run was on a gradual decline. Now that I had switched directions I was running back up an incline against the wind. Oh shit! My lungs pumped out battery acid as I huffed & puffed my way home. That's when I came to the realization that I am most definitely not in running shape. Since I'm a bit of a masochist when it comes to my workouts, I will be running this route again tomorrow!

When unfortunate circumstances comes one's way, some people turn to religion; some people have a spirit animal a la' 'Fight Club,' I have Hot Naked Girl. When my fiancee & I broke up, Hot Naked Girl was there for me. Right before I came down with the horrible sinus & ear infections, Hot Naked Girl was there for me. And the morning after I was fired last Friday, Hot Naked Girl was there for me again! Now I know what you're thinking right now, Biff loves him some strip joints! Now I do, but Hot Naked Girl is not a stripper. Oh no, no, no my dear readers. Hot Naked Girl swims @ the outdoor lap pool @ my gym!

Now there isn't a hole in the wall that leads to the women's locker room you pervs! There's a wall with a stairwell that's adjacent to the swimming lanes. When Hot Naked Girl is finished swimming, she goes over to the steps behind the wall to towel off & change. What Hot Naked Girl doesn't realize is that if you're swimming in one of the lap lanes you have a clear view behind the wall. I have seen Hot Naked Girl completely nude in various states of stretching & bending over not once, not twice, but 8 times! It's like we're on the same fucking wave-length! Every time this past month that I've been really upset & down on myself, out pops Hot Naked Girl showing her naughty bits to me. Hot Naked Girl isn't your typical naked woman either. She's athletic with curves. This is pretty much 'Biff Catnip' & I'm powerless when I come across this type of woman.

Now I could be a gentleman & let her know that she's putting on a free show, but Damn it, the little 12 year old perverted boy that still lives in my head wins every single time! The last time that Hot Naked Girl was changing, we ended up leaving around the same time. I held open the door for her & for the 1st time actually paid attention to her face. She was beautiful with big brown eyes. She looked into my eyes & said, 'Thanks Cutie' with a wink & then she was gone. Every once in a while you just need a Hot Naked Girl to put things into perspective. Thank you Hot Naked Girl! Until we meet again....

Chad 'Ochocinco' Johnson gets called a clitoris.

So I had to unfortunately endure my beloved Steelers losing to the Bengals this afternoon, but I did have the priviledge of doing so at my favorite watering hole/underground speakeasy 'Bub's Dive.' Bub's Dive is what you would call a 'Steelers Bar' in San Diego. San Diego is such a transient town that many restaurants & bars cater to my fellow transplants & I by establishing themselves with different sports teams. It's a win-win situation for everybody. You get a feeling of cameraderie & home while spending entirely too much money on bar food & booze.

Bub's is the epitomy of what a dive bar should be. It's within walking distance from my house, there's peanut shells crushed & strewn over the floor, but what really makes this bar stand out is that they sell tater-tots. That's right tater-fucking-tots! Tater-tots are french-fries' cooler cousin. Little bite-sized pieces of heaven. And when you order then with melted cheese & hot sauce they taste better than birthday cake!

I arrived & took my spot in the corner by the huge LCD displays & was just taking in the scene. Hot girls in tiny Rothlesberger jerseys wearing tight jeans. Old men with Jack Lambert jerseys. Various, drunk angry men. My people. One of these shit-housed guys was calling Chad 'Ochocinco' Johnson a clitoris repeatedly. I'm pretty sure that he's doesn't know what a clitoris is. I also wondered to myself whether this guy started drinking early or just never went to bed & powered through(This was 9:30 in the morning!).

The game started & it never fails. Some fucking 'WHOO' guys showed up. I hate 'WHOO' guys. You know them. Faux-hawk gelled up to a perfect point; stinking of Drakkar-Nior & generally trying so hard to 'act' like they're not trying. You can hear them from blocks away from their battle-cry/mating-call, 'WHOO!' These dipshits kept trying so hard to get Steelers chants going, but nobody would participate & pay attention to them. The best way to make 'WHOO' guys go away is to ignore them. Just back away slowly & don't make eye contact. These guys feed off of attention, good or bad, like emotional vampires. Luckily after about 15 minutes or so, the gaggle of 'WHOOs' moved on to the next bar looking for the attention that they so desperately craved. I then finished watching my Steelers lose a big must-win game(DAMMIT!). On my way home I went down to the beach & checked the surf. It was blown out. Now that my sinuses are cleared up, I'm looking forward to logging some serious surf-sessions, but it just wasn't meant to be today. Oh well. I'll get up tomorrow & do it all over again.

The Breakup, Shit-Canned & The Sinus Infection From Hell!

Well here goes....My name's Biff & I haven't had what you'd call a banner month. It started with breaking up with my fiancee of the past seven months. We worked really hard to mover her out here to San Diego from D.C. That was pretty much 7 months of planning, scraping & saving slapped together with duct-tape & flown out to San Diego on a wing & a prayer. Within a week of her being out here she decided that she didn't want to be engaged anymore & though that we should 'date' like we should have before we became engaged. This pretty much felt like a sucker-punch to my scrotum, but I put on my best fake smile & said, 'Ok honey, we don't have to be engaged, let's date.' What then commenced was 3 weeks of her making excuses about not being able to hang out with me & her going out with other people. It all came to a head when I 'Frend Requested' one of her new friends on Facebook. This was apparently a huge invasion of her privacy & I was promptly 'friend deleted' from her Facebook account. Then came a flurry of angry e-mailes with many CAPITAL LETTERS & exclaimation points because her phone service was shut off. So yes we broke of via e-mail! Right after that I ended up getting the worst sinus & ear infection of my life. I had to use antibiotics & holy water to get rid of those unholy infections. And then right as I was just starting to recover, I was pulled into my director's office at work & fired on Friday November 13th. That's right Friday the 13th!

It's been said that when one door closes, you have to be paying attention because another door will be opening for you. Well I'm going to be looking for that next door in my life & I'm going to document my thoughts, reflection & shenanigans that I get into along the way. These experiences might be funny, shocking, sad, or they just might plain piss you off, but this is my life. I am 36 and unemployed in San Diego...