Chris Benard

Tonight, Chris Leon and I went to Whataburger to grab something to eat before we went back to my house and watched the DVD of The God Who Wasn’t There. We were talking in the car and Chris forgot about the Whatabuger by my house, so we ended up at the one in southeast Shreveport. The meal was uneventful except for my consumption of all of the ketchup in a 1 mile radius.

[Note: All of what follows will more than likely not amuse you. It was hilarious, but you probably “had to be there”. I warned you.]

Frog Gutter Run-Off DecorationAfterwards, we went to the Wal-Mart across the street to seek out gifts for Mother’s Day, since neither of us had purchased gifts yet. We first went to the “electronics” section because we’re both nerds. I use the term “electronics” lightly, because well, it’s Wal-Mart. Also, with their new arrangement, if you go one too many isles over, you’re in the shoe department with no point of demarcation.

After deciding that the “electronics” department sucked with their non-usb reading digital picture printing kiosks, we headed over to the gardening department to look at silly yard decorations that might appease the maternal sensibilities of a good present. I first came upon a frog decoration that appeard to serve the purpose of adorning the water exit of a gutter system. It had a little frog boat sitting in a little frog river that would look like frogs whitewater rafting through a rainwater river during a storm. I thought my mom might like that, but I wasn’t willing to pay outrageous sums of money for it. I lifted it up by the handle (what appeared to be a handle that would actually serve to anchor the top part of the gutter water exit) and turned it over to see if there was a price tag. Immediately, the frog boat detatched, fell to the ground, and shattered.

I’m fairly certain the frog boat was already broken off and someone set it back in the decoration, but it still came as quite a shock, because I’ve never broken anything in a store that I can remember, and definitely not quite as dramatically. Amazingly, the other guy on the isle didn’t even appear to be phased in the slightest. Chris suggested we leave, but now my primary choice had been removed from the running and I wasn’t about to leave without something to show for it.

Chris then pointed out a 4-foot tall lighthouse and suggested that I knock it over too. He pointed out angel decorations that I might want to pick up and throw against a wall to shatter those too. I’m actually laughing out loud while I’m typing this, but I realize the humor inherent in this won’t amuse anyone but Chris and me.

After I was able to stop crying from laughing so hard and literally having to crouch from not being able to breathe from laughing so hard, Chris noticed a bird cage directly above us with a dead bird in it. Apparently, Wal-Mart doesn’t like the birds that fly into their store a lot. They capture them in birdcage traps and leave them there to die instead of releasing them outside. I postured a hypothesis. I’m guessing they don’t want the birds to swoop down and make a “CAWW” sound while they steal your birdseed or fish or something that you’re trying to buy. Alternatively, they might try to perch on your shoulder or bite out your eyeball like in The Passion of the Christ.

Either way, Wal-Mart really hates those birds, enough to trap them and let them die in the store, above its customers. I have to wonder, what about the bird crap? There seemed to be no mechanism for dealing with this eventuality. I guess Wal-Mart would rather its customers be defecated upon in a limited area than the possiblity of being hit by falling feces throughout the store.

Chris and I rewarded their animal cruelty by purchasing windchimes. I also purchased a miniature garden gnome. I hope my mom doesn’t read this before I give it to her, because that will ruin the surprise. It’s slightly less likely that Chris’ mom will read my blog, so I’m not too worried about that. The hilarity about windchimes is that they aren’t in a box. They’re just hanging, with a pricetag on them, so Chris and I had to walk from one end of the store to another (Garden to Food/20 Items or Less) carrying clanging windchimes. Needless to say, everyone was looking at us and I was laughing my ass off. It’s probably not too often that people see two guys walking across Wal-Mart carrying windchimes as their only item with no buggy. I was too busy laughing and I forgot to get a card. I’ll get that tomorrow before I see my mom (or I guess I should say today since it’s past 3 AM).

We came back to my house, watched The God Who Wasn’t There, and then watched the two part series that Richard Dawkins made named The Root of All Evil (Episode 1: The God Delusion | Episode 2: The Virus of Faith). I’ve now seen TGWWT about 5 times, and it’s still as good as the first time, but this was only my second time seeing The Root of All Evil. It’s an excellent documentary series, and Richard Dawkins is a great speaker, writer, and scientist.

All in all, I’d say I’m pretty glad Chris screwed up and went to that Whataburger on the other side of town. I haven’t laughed as hard as I had tonight in quite some time.

If you want the quick answer, skip to the last sentence. Otherwise, read the dramatic tale of my first taste of Coke Zero below.

Tonight, after my quiz in CHEM124, while waiting for the other students to turn in their quiz, I hurried downstairs to grab what I believed to be a delicious Diet Coke.

Diet Coke and Coke Zero bottles look almost identical. They had them both beside each other, and by the time I had selected B7 instead of B5, it was too late. The stupid conveyor belt was rising to collect my coke (as pictured in the evil machine to the right). I tried everything. I pressed “CLR”. I pressed the return change button. I hit the machine. I cursed at the machine. Nothing could undo what I had done.

Stuck with the Coke Zero and crying a small bit inside, I returned dejected to my third floor class. It took a while to muster the courage to try my first sip of Coke Zero. I must say, I was not optimistic about it, because they say it “tastes more like regular Coke”. I HATE regular Coke; it’s the worst drink ever. I took my first sip. Still having Bubble Tape in my mouth, which I’ve previously mentioned is the best gum ever, I couldn’t get an accurate taste test. I took out my gum and tried again. At first I thought, “Not bad. Not as good as Diet Coke, but not as bad as regular Coke”. I was wrong. After my next few sips, I couldn’t help hating myself a little for creating a cost rationale for my continued ingestion of this new substance. I ended up not being able to finish it. Coca-Cola, I want you to know, I now hate you. I’m still addicted to Diet Coke, so you win this round, but seriously, stop making new products. Just stop it.

I hate regular Coke. Coke Zero tastes more like regular Coke.

I turned twenty-three years old on Friday (1/27/2006). I also own at ping pong.

In other news, I now have my own MySpace. You might have noticed it linked on the right hand side over there. You didn’t? Have a look now.

Yes, my MySpace has a song playing in the background. You know why? There are three possible reasons:

1. You aren’t logged in and you should so so. If you don’t have an account, create one.
2. You are logged in and you haven’t turned off automatic music playing. You suck.
3. You like music playing in the background of your pages. What’s wrong with you?

I decided to do so after being pressured by a few friends. I said I’d never do it. I said I’d never do it over and over and over. I hated seeing the epileptic shock-inducing horror of some people’s pages.

But I have several rational friends who are on MySpace. And, Mayor Keith Hightower is on MySpace. None of those profiles suck. I figured if they can make non-sucky profiles and connect with friends, so can I.

… Plus I can’t look at people’s pictures unless I’m logged in.

I still like Facebook way better, but MySpace does allow customization, which is both good for people like me, and bad for people like me who have to look at the previously mentioned horrible profiles. MySpace also has the whole band thing going on that I’m getting into, and there are way more people on it.

Now I’ve just got to make my roommate Courtney make a profile. He claims he’ll die first.

I never thought I’d have a MySpace, but now I do. Take a gander at my MySpace profile. Happy birthday to me.

PS – Mike Wiggins now has a blog. Congratulations are now in order.

I died a little inside.For the rest of this post, “Today” and “Tonight” refer to yesterday, since it’s about 1AM, but I consider it part of the same day since I haven’t gone to sleep yet. Since that’s out of the way…

I just got back from seeing Underworld: Evolution. Today was Matt Smith‘s birthday, and he wanted to see Kate Beckinsale jump around in a tight leather suit as a vampire. I can’t blame him for that; in fact, that was the movie’s only saving grace. I can, however, blame him for liking the movie for its substance, also.

This movie was absolutely horrible. The entire movie reminded me of Doom 3. You could hardly see anything because it’s all at night. Oh no! If vampires get in the sun, their knuckles get temporarily uncomfortably warm. If you’ve seen the movie, you’ll know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t, don’t.

The theater was the largest I’ve ever been in, and must be the largest they have at the Boardwalk Regal Cinema here. It was totally full, and it also reminded me why I watch DVDs instead of going to the theater. During one point some guy (I don’t know who. The movie sucked.) was like “What keys? I know nothing about any keys”. The guy asking him had wings that had some spike thing on each side. I’ll call him “Spike”. I’ll call the guy who said he didn’t know anything about keys “Loser”. Spike grabbed Loser by his shoulders using his spikes and drug Loser toward him across the table. Spike glared at Loser as though he had just sat through a boring movie. Replying to this body language Loser said, “Oh, those keys”. About 90% of the theater cracked up as though that was the most hilarious thing they’d heard. I sighed audibly.

At the end of the “fight” sequence, which consisted mostly of vampire machine guns with “UV rounds”, the bad guy (I guess) gets vanquished predictably, and again about 90% of the theater cheers. I think one can apply John Gabriel’s Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory to this situation. Get a big enough room, jam a bunch of people into it, make them watch a crappy movie together, and see how they react. They acted like it was a Roman gladiator battle in which they were personally involved. Enough about the audience, back to the movie.

The movie was so boring the first few minutes through that I decided to fish out my bubble gum and start chewing it. “Surely that will pass the time”, I said to myself. As I began to chew it, I remarked to myself, “Wow, this is really good bubble gum”. Bubble Tape is the superior bubble gum, after all. While chewing it and staring at the screen, I began to blow bubbles. I kept thinking about the gum, because there was no discernable plot, except the following: vampires hate werewolfs. They like to fight each other. You are seeing the viewpoint of one of the vampires.

I kept thinking to myself random bubble gum related thoughts such as “Wow, I wonder how long this flavor will last” and “I hope the elasticity holds until the end of this movie” and “I wonder if I popped this bubble really loudly if the rest of the theater would notice during this ‘fight scene’ and of course “Should I get another piece or will this hopefully be over soon? I don’t want to waste another piece on this movie”.

In conclusion, if you want a dark place to ponder the merits of chewing bubble gum, go see Underworld: Evolution. If you’re all out of bubble gum, keep your $7.50.

Meefaw Inc. Volume 3The future is now; it’s 2006. I had lots of fun last night and didn’t wake up today until about 2:30pm. I didn’t get to go to sleep until about 6:30am. More on that later. Josh finished editing on Meefaw Volume 3 while ago, but it’s finally all online in its full glory. I did a lot of last minute work to get it online so Josh and I could “announce” it at the New Year’s party at Joey’s house. It turned out that I didn’t know most of the people at Joey’s house, so it was more of a personal announcement to each of the people who would care. 🙂 I did meet a guy who looks just like the Numa Numa guy.

Fun With FireworksThen we got to pop a bunch of fireworks, hang out, play ping pong, and play poker. I didn’t play poker, because I don’t like losing money and because I didn’t really understand how to play what they were playing (Texas Hold ’em ?). I did meet a bunch of cool, new people. Having fun guy one? The most fun in the world.

We then went to IHOP to eat, around 3 or so, I don’t really remember when we go there or left. We had an old waitress who was incredibly mean, and who is apparently a stripper. You might think that sounds cool, but I assure you it is not. She was really old; I’m talking Medicare old. Nasty! After we got done eating and talking and getting insulted by the elderly stripper waitress, we paid our bills and left. I was to take Cody, Joey’s half brother, home since he lived near me, but I had to stop for gas first at the RaceTrac by the 3132 entrance on Bert Kouns.

Map of What Happened (Thanks Google)While I was starting to pump gas, Cody witnessed an Escalade go around the corner quickly to get on 3132 and the back end slid out from behind it. He saw it flip into the construction area and come to a stop. He told me to call 911 (because his cell was broken) and he took off running across Bert Kouns toward the wreck area to see if the person was injured and to tell them help was on the way. I described the situation to the 911 dispatch operator and a few minutes later, fire/rescue and cops arrived. I was still pumping the gas, and there wasn’t anything I could really personally do, so when I got done, I drove over there so Cody wouldn’t have to walk/run back. When I got there, I found out that the driver crawed out of the passenger side, which was then flipped up into the air, and ran off away from Cody. My guess is the driver was drunk and didn’t want to get caught DWI. He’ll probably claim it was stolen.

Flipped EscaladeWe had to wait forever to the cops to take Cody’s statement, but that has to be the most interesting New Year’s eve I’ve ever had. I’m glad I didn’t sit home like a loser and watch a ball drop on NBC.