I’m on the cusp of miserable, my friends. Not quite there, but definitely in the suburbs. I went to bed around 2 am, and got up with the alarm at 9. That’s a normal amount of time for me, however… I couldn’t maintain a good sleep. I kept waking up, over and over, and wallowing ‘neath the covers. It feels like I didn’t sleep at all.
Also, it’s really hot and muggy. As I type this I feel glazed, like an Easter ham. God, I hate this time of year. Summer is bullshit.
You know that dull headache you get when you’re sleep-deprived? Yeah, I’ve got that. Also, my crack is awash is perspiration; I need to hit that shit with a damp cloth. Pass the beer nuts.
On a more positive note, I cut some kind of crazy deal with Angie’s List a few weeks ago. Well, it’s semi-positive, anyway. We don’t really use the service all that much. But check this out…
A few years ago I subscribed, for $12. A year later it auto-renewed, which pissed me off. So, I called Angie (I’m pretty sure it was her) and told her I didn’t appreciate that nonsense. They added a year to my subscription, and turned off auto-renew.
This year I got a series of emails, begging me to re-up. Like I say, we don’t use it much. Occasionally we’ll look up doctors, or handymen or whatever. But it didn’t seem like it was worth twelve bucks.
So, they knocked it down to five. I still said no, and they knocked it down to four. Then they sweetened the pot with a $25 Shell gas card. So, I renewed for $4, and got $25 worth of gas. The card arrived yesterday! Wonder what would’ve happened if I’d held out even longer? Maybe I could’ve gotten a new car?
Sure, it’s something we don’t use, and probably don’t need. But I’m still celebrating my victory. Don’t shit on my victory! I’ve got very little to cling to these days.
On another positive note, I watched WarGames on Netflix a few nights ago, and enjoyed the hell out of it. A lot of 1980s movies that I recall with fondness turn out to be horrifyingly bad when I revisit them. Not so with this one. It was a good time: 90 minutes well-spent.
What Netflix movies have you seen lately that you’d recommend? I have roughly a thousand things on my list, but still crave more. Help me out, won’t you?
Also, what movies turned out to be dogs, years later? Things that you thought were good, and weren’t? Do you have anything on that one? Tell us about it in the comments.
And I know this one is abbreviated, but I’m struggling here. I’ll leave you with one more Question. It’s something from DEEP inside the Notebook of Questionable Ideas, probably jotted down while drunk in 2013.
I’d like to know about your hitchhiking experiences. Have you ever done it yourself? Ever picked anybody up? I have almost nothing to contribute to this conversation, because I assume all hitchhikers are serial killers, and try not to even make eye-contact with them.
One time I was with some guys in California, driving between San Francisco and Los Angeles, and they thought it would be fun to pick up a couple of teenagers hitching alongside the highway. Needless to say I was horrified, and convinced one of them would wrap a wire around my neck within the first three minutes.
Thankfully nothing happened, except there was a slight B.O. issue. I prefer to think it was the guy who was funking up our rental van, and not the girl. For some reason that’s easier to reconcile.
So, anyway… if you have anything on hitchhiking, please share.
And I need to go to work now. Just another 14 or 15 hours and I can sleep some more! Good stuff.
Have a great day, boys and girls.
Suggestaholic has been reborn! Check it out now.
Related Posts
10 Easy Ways To Be An Asshole Behind The Wheel
The Mystery of the Flowery Hand and Other Adventures
Do You Think Of Yourself As A Good Negotiator? 
What Are Your Favorite and Least-Favorite Appetizers?
Would You Leave Two Teenagers Alone At Home For Four Days?
Three Day Weekend, Return of the Gnats, and Rock ‘n’ Roll Tattoos
You never see people doing that anymore. Except maybe around Interstate on-ramps. I recall getting around that way back in the 1980s.
Big Trouble in Little China – still one of the greatest movies ever
Best Kurt Russell movie ever made. My family uses quote from Lo Hi (whatever his name was) “You are about to piss me off to no end” in that crazy chinese voice
It’s going to be remade – apparently. I wonder why it is now that so many films from the 70s/80s are being remade.
I prefer to use a quote from The Big Lebowski: “Shut the fuck up, Donny.” Unfortunately I don’t know anyone named Donny.
.
Damn I totally forgot about those hitchhikers…but I’m pretty sure we were the ones they were scared to death of.
Jeff, you have a case of what is known in the South as “Swamp Ass”
LMAO! Love that term “Swamp Ass”
Swamp ass generally leads to another unfortunate situation known as “butt butter”.
Speaking of the South – there was a new show on the other night called Southern Fried or something like that. I guess they go around to eat at different places. I didn’t see it – but according to the description they were at some place in WV. Not exactly The South.
as long as you fry it and serve some sweet tea with it….it qualifies! xD
I think they were in Greenbrier Co. somewhere. I use Stevia in my tea – does that count?
The morning after dumping some lying bullshitting so-called boyfriend, I was driving to work and noticed a scraggly haired man walking along carrying a gas can. I did see an abandoned car on the side of the road. Feeling emboldened from the previous night, I stopped the car and offered the guy a ride to the nearest gas station (about a mile and a half up the road). The guy was incredulous that a 30 year old woman would stop for someone carrying what could have been a murder weapon.
I hitched a few rides as a young lass, just to prove we could do it.
$12 for Angie’s list? That’s very reasonable. And needed – since we need lots of improvements with the money pit.
Was headed home on leave from beautiful Marine Corps Station 29 Palms. I stopped to get gas in some little crappy desert town. A lady hit me up said her car had broke down, she showed me her car, and if I could give her a ride up to her moms place a little ways up the highway. I agreed finished paying for my gas and a soda, meet her back at the car and there is her boyfriend, huge and covered in neck tattoos who needs a ride as well. I still gave them a ride, silent telling God that if I get killed doing a good deed that would be pretty shitty of Him. They were actually quite pleasant and even offered money for the ride… Only time I have picked up strangers.
I live in this area (JT with all of the hippies and German tourists) and people hitchhike around here all of the time, usually just up and down the highway between 29 and Yucca. I have yet to give anyone a lift though.
I’m with you on the neck (and face) tattoos, but since I’ve lived here, about 3 years now, I’ve learned not to judge a book by its cover. Everyone looks totally crazy, but weirdly, most people who live here are friendly, chatty and generally pretty nice.
Where’s the “Where’s my damn box scores?” guy?
I need to show that to a friend.
Nevermind.
Soup is not a meal.
Hitching in an era where every asshole has a gun is like choosing to live in a climate where the summer humidity inevitably leads to swamp ass: The only winning move is not to play.
John
1986 I thumbed all the way across the country from my sisters in Oceanside CA to my parents in Lebanon PA…
Had a great time doing it and stopped in Cheyenne WY for Frontier Days…
I doubt I’d do it now but when I was 17 18 in the middle 80s I hitched like fucking everywhere so the cross country adventure seemed perfectly reasonable to me…
Of course, at the time I probably hadn’t yet developed a serious sense of self-preservation
That’s probably the last year I did that – 1986. I think it is against the law now in most places.
As a kid, I had a memory of the original “Andromeda Strain” as some sort of great apocalyptic movie. Caught it on some cable channel about 6 months ago – holy hell! That’s the hokiest, least intentionally funny movie ever. The rampant smoking, the homely female scientist, the hilariously archaic computer technology. Just a mess.
Ah but Heston’s last line made all worthwhile.
I’ve never hitchhiked or picked up a hitchhiker. But, I have a friend (John) who has hitchhiked across the country numerous times over the years and still does so currently. Best story of his:
Over 30 years ago John was engaged to be married but his fiance died in an accident. Her family had her cremated and had her ashes scattered among a few urns and gave one to John. He decided to travel cross country on his motorcycle with her ashes, to all of the places they were going to visit together. A few days in to his trip, he was stopped by a police officer, because he had been speeding. The officer asked what John had in his backpack. He replied, “My girlfriend”.
Not the answer the officer he expected, for sure. But, it was the truth.
Do you guys actually find movies to watch on Netflix – I just watch Lillyhammer, Breaking Bad (again), House of Cards and Louie.
In the mid ’70s when I was 20 I hitch-hiked from NY to Florida. Ended up hitching back a couple of months later. It was against the law then but that’s another story.
I have had trouble sleeping the last couple of years. After a 50 plus years of sleeping like the dead I have been rolling and readjusting, up 5-6 times a night.
Three weeks ago the wife insisted it was time for new mattress after 15 years. I balked and finally gave in and what a difference it has made. I sleep straight through the night, eight to nine hours when I don’t have to get up for work. Wish I had listened to her earlier.
With the exception of “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home,” most of the “Star Trek” movie franchise has not held up very well. “Star Trek, the Motion Picture” was an absolute turd! As a “trekkie,” it was a real let-down!
Hitchhikers: I’ve seen way too many “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” and “Twilight Zone” episodes where picking them up is seldom a good idea!
Generations is my favorite ST movie.
Back in the late 70s/early 80s my grandad would pick up hitchhikers every time we went camping. That was back when you could legally ride in the open bed of a pickup truck, so he’d pick up backpackers who wanted rides to trailheads if we happened to be headed that way. Nothing bad or weird ever happened.
My late father used to hitchhike during WWII. Apparently in those days the government encouraged people to hitchhike, and to pick up hitchhikers, because it would save on gas and tires. Dad said he always got a ride because he had an honest face.
Personally, I’ve only hitchhiked once. It was in the spring of 1979. I was living in Worcester and had gone to see a show in Boston. But being a NYC boy, it didn’t occur to me that there would be no public transit available at 1:00 am when the concert let out. I hitchhiked , finally getting a cab for the last couple of miles, and got home around 6:00. I got picked up by a van full of stoners, but nothing bad happened. To this day I have no idea why I didn’t drive.
.
As a lad I hitchhiked quite a bit. Before I was old enough to have driver’s license Mom used to tell my younger brother and me “you have a thumb, use it”. That’s how we got to town 12 or 15 miles away on a regular basis. After leaving the Army I hitched form Virginia to Wisconsin and back several times, and from both places to Ohio just as much. Of course, that was in the late 70’s. I have a whole slew of hitchhiking stories. Like the time I got picked up by the guy who had stolen his truck back from a police impound yard somewhere in Indiana and was heading for the Illinois border. We smoked a couple joints, and split a bottle of cheap wine I had in my backpack. Or the time in the middle of winter when the Indiana State Pole caught me on the freeway outside of Gary and kicked me out of the state. “See that Holiday Inn over there, boy? There’s a bus that leaves every hour on the hour from there for O’Hare airport. That’s YOUR bus”. Luckily I had the ten bucks for a ticket. Of course, nothing was leaving the airport till the next morning so I had to spend the night sleeping there. And I woke up to a foot of new snow at sunrise. Or the time a cute 20 something girl with two little kids picked me up and drove me over a hundred miles. Sadly, there’s not no more of that story to report, she dropped me at the freeway exit I needed and left me standing there. And there are a hundred more where those came from.
Indiana State Police, not Pole. Though he might have been Polish, in that area it’s always possible.
She wasn’t hitching but I stopped and offered a girl a ride one Sat morning. She was in her late teens, early 20s and crying her eyes out. She took the ride and I didn’t ask questions, just wished her luck and told her not let anybody make her feel bad about herself.
Don’t know if it is on Netflix or not but we just watched Predestination with Ethan Hawke. It was pretty damn good.
Angie’s List auto-renewed me and I gave them hell for it. I warned them the year before when they did it and this year I wasn’t so nice. I got my refund. Re: their service … never found one contractor who would give us an estimate. For us, it was useless.
I cant seem to post my original comment. Keeps sending me to the error page.. It was just some bitchin so I guess the machine didn’t want to hear it.
I cant seem to post my original comment. Keeps sending me to the error page.. It was just some bitchin so I guess the machine didn’t want to hear it. Well now it says i”m making duplicate comments and haven’t successfully posted one. I give up
I watched “The Outsiders” in the 1980s and thought it was fantastic. I watched it again 15 or 20 years later, and man, what a steaming pile of shit that film is.
I picked up a hitchhiking girl once. A cutie. She poured on the sob story a little too thick and kept mentioning “butt rape”. She begged, “Please don’t butt rape me. I’ve been butt raped twice. Please, please, no butt rape”. Pissed me off because, what, do I look like a butt rapist? I booted her out at a truck stop – where she was probably butt raped. But hey, I can’t save the whole world, man.
It’s been officially confirmend that I am, indeed, miserable at my job and I’ve since dusted off the old resume and started distributing them around like hooker calling cards in Vegas. Hopefully someone wants to pay me for my services.
No hitch-hiking stories here. Never done it, never picked anyone up. Was always told that’s how young girls get themselves killed on the highway and dumped in a rest stop bathroom.
Breakfast club does not hold up.
I recently watched Road Hard and have Winning the racing life of Paul Newman to watch. Both Carolla pictures.
I’m struggling to get through season 7 of sons of anarchy but it’s tough.
FINAL
Canada
1 2 1 3 7
United States
0 6 3 1 10
SCORING SUMMARY
— 1st —
Canada 16:06 Mark Matthews (Wesley Berg ) 1 0
— 2nd —
Canada 18:52 Curtis Dickson (unassisted) 2 0
Canada 16:37 Jeremy Noble (Jordan MacIntosh ) 3 0
United States 15:12 Kevin Buchanan (Paul Rabil ) 3 1
United States 13:36 Garrett Thul (Kyle Harrison ) 3 2
United States 10:33 Kevin Buchanan (Paul Rabil ) 3 3
United States 06:24 Paul Rabil (unassisted) 3 4
United States 03:30 Brendan Mundorf (David Lawson ) 3 5
United States 01:53 Max Seibald (Kevin Buchanan ) 3 6
— 3rd —
United States 18:29 Kevin Leveille (Rob Pannell ) 3 7
United States 10:27 Rob Pannell (unassisted) 3 8
Canada 05:17 Zack Greer (unassisted) 4 8
United States 03:01 Rob Pannell (unassisted) 4 9
— 4th —
Canada 19:54 Geoff Snider (unassisted) 5 9
Canada 18:09 Zack Greer (Cam Flint ) 6 9
United States 16:26 Paul Rabil (unassisted) 6 10
Canada 02:39 Kevin Crowley (Mark Matthews ) 7 10
I just got back from a couple of days on Anderson Island which portrays Goose Island in WarGames. No sign of Dr. Falken but I did try to make out with the wife on the beach by the ferry dock one night. Got shot down. Cue the sad trombone…