randoreviews

[randoreviews]

HEATING GUY

*ring ring ring... ring ring ring “Hi, ya, this is Danny, I ain’t here, leave a message.”  Robot lady: “After the tone, please record your voicemail. When you’ve finished recording, please hang up or press 1 for more options.” *beeeep In my warmest voice: “Hii, Danny, this is Ben Johnson. You came out to my house to fix the heat on my back porch a few weeks ago, here in Mansfield. Well, the heat on the main floor seemed to stop working a few days ago. And the gas fireplace hasn’t been working for a few months. Just doesn’t seem to be our winter for the heating. Anyway, was wondering if you had any times to come out to look at this. I don’t know if I should call Leigh Nichols first and go through him or if it’s okay that I just called you. My number is 774-266-5588 and again, this is Ben. Okay, hope you’re having a good day and catching some of this sun and hope to hear from you!”  An hour later the phone starts buzzing and the screen reads: Danny the heating guy. Eureka, he’s calling back! “Hiii, Dannyyy, thanks so much for calling back.” “Hi, ya, who’s this?” “Oh, it’s Ben, I left a voicemail about my heating not working, about an hour ago.” “Who a you?” “Oh, um, you came out to my house a few weeks ago to fix the heat on the back porch?” “When was it?” “Like two... three weeks ago maybe?” “So what’s up?” “So the heating on the back porch is still working, thank god, still a bit cold back there because the insulation isn’t the best, but it’s working, and the heating upstairs and in the basement is working, it’s just the heat on the rest of the main floor -- kitchen, dining room, living room -- that I noticed stopped working on Friday, when it was getting really cold.” “And who a you?” “Um, my name’s Ben? Johnson?... I live on Franklin Street in Mansfield? You were out at the house like two weeks ago? I got in touch with you through Leigh Nichols last time?” “Oh, Leigh Nichols, okay. Right. So what’s the problem?” “So the heat on the main floor has stopped working. Nothing coming out of the baseboards.” “What rooms?” “Like the kitchen, living room, dining room.” “Nothin coming atta the baseboards?” “Right, yeah, I noticed on Friday, when it was getting really cold. But I didn’t want to bother you over the weekend.” “And who a you?” “My name is Ben. I live on Franklin Street in Mansfield. You came out to the house very recently and fixed the heat in the back room. I left you a voicemail about an hour ago and explained all this, not sure if you got a chance to listen to that.” “And what’s the problem? Heat’s not workin?” “It’s still working in the back room. Just not on the main floor now. Should I go through Leigh and call him? I just want to make sure not to go around him if you guys have some kind of agreement.” “And who a you? A person?” “Yeah I’m just a person. My name is Ben. Talking to probably a three-time Trump voter and who I’m completely desperately depending on to get the heating fixed so then three other things can go wrong and my mother will pay thousands of dollars more to get them fixed, without having any idea what it’s gonna cost up front.” “Okay, ya, I’ll come out tonight afta work.” “Oh you’ll come out tonight! That would be great! Yeah, I’ll be here. Obviously I have no plans and my life is secondary to other people’s lives that are so busy while they stare at their phones twenty hours a day and judge people and act super dodgy. Do you need me to send you the address again?” “Ya, why don’t you.”  “Okay, thanks so much, Danny, really appreciate it. I’ll text you the address right now.”  “Okay, ya.” *click And this is what it’s like trying to communicate with every... single... fucking... person. But at least he called back. 

[randoreviews]

SUMMER’S PASSAGE

Memorial Day Weekend      Summer! Summer’s back! Yeah! Yeah yeah yeah! Fuck off, snow! You too, ice and seasonal depression! Yeah! Mid-June      Aaah, summer. Sweet sweet summer. Let us drink that sweet nectar. Some bugs out here but hey, it can’t all be perfect. Eesh, roadwork everywhere, up my ass with the roadwork. But still, summer, let’s really not let it get away this year. It’s light wicked late out now. Remember when it gets dark at like 3 in the afternoon in the winter? No thank you.  4th of July      Definitely summer! Let’s throw as much meat as we can on the grill! Then we’ll eat it! And then we’ll set off fireworks that scare the shit out of our pets and anyone with a halfway decent central nervous system! Best country in the world! Ah, almost a dictatorship, close! People really don’t seem well. No one seems well. And I'm not really well. But still I show up. Because what else is there to do? But then things are very confusing. Am I just a tool? Summer! Everyone loves summer. Damn, it’s already July though. I don’t want it to end! Mid-July      Been to a couple concerts. Been to the beach a couple times. More hot meat. Man, I really hate when everyone’s out and about. Too many peeps. We need less peeps. But then there are more peeps, going to school, getting jobs, marriage, divorce, retirement. Summer.  Beginning of August      So fucking hot out, oh my god! Who wants to do anything? Besides maybe eat more hot meat, amiright? I’m really not sure people should drive cars though, everyone’s pretty crazy. We’re like trying to distract ourselves from our distractions and so on and so forth. Man, summer nights though. Listen to those crickets going hambone. Oh my god, what the fuck though! Summer’s really almost over! I could use some cooler weather but it just gets too cold and everyone’s confused and miserable! I’m conflicted. Oh, pictures of friends on vacation. Well good for fucking them.  Three Weeks into August      Need a hot dog for these dog days of summer. Maybe the only solution to my problems. Throw a little ketchup on there. I like some ketchup with that rubbery meat. Do I have to try to do things with people? It always ends up being a dumpster fire. Still, I should try to be social. My life is slipping away and summer’s almost over. At least I hid that person’s stuff online so it can’t do me any more psychological/emotional damage. I don’t want to see how much they’re enjoying life, even though I’m addicted and in an attempt to cure my loneliness it only makes me lonelier. They have children now. When I was trying to fill my days, what was happening? Was time passing? I think I’ve been eating too much ice cream.  Labor Day      How is summer already over? I’ve only been almost killed on the highway about thirty times by terrible drivers since it started a few months ago. Granted, I get crippling depression every 4th of July and Labor Day weekend because I’m a misanthrope and I don’t like people or people having a good time or them pretending to have a good time. But the end of summer, god. This pretty much means we’re almost dead... and in that case, bring on Halloween. 

[randoreviews]

CINNA-DRAGONS

i rarely go to trader joe’s there’s one in foxboro but it’s by the stadium behind three other parking lots so you never know what could happen but i went over there today to try to seek out the cinna-dragons gummy candy... my neighbor loves cinnamon bears and he had gotten the mail when i was away recently wanted to get him something cinnamon as a thank you... got a few other snacks too they have good snacks you can find some diamonds  in the rough also went over there to go to the patriots shop to get some wee little patriots gear for my friend’s one-year-old who turns one tomorrow you still have to run errands in the heat i was gonna bag my own stuff at trader joe’s but a younger guy took over for me he was approving of the snacks i chose had i tried this or that? had i tried the barbeque chips? or the guacamole? i hadn’t but i was going to couldn’t help wondering if he was in college excited about the future he seemed positive would something bad happen to him? would more bad things happen to me first?... i didn’t want to leave the cinna-dragons on the neighbor’s front step like i usually do after they’ve gotten the mail they’d just melt into one big gummy knocked on their door in the early evening sun hoping they didn’t think i was a jehovah’s witness the wife answered and it’s usually her who i get the sweet things for but i gave them to her to give to him and she was excited i'm really only good for bringing people presents getting people presents like i'm broken but here’s a present leave me alone i don’t want anything from you got an extra bag of the cinna-dragons for myself and they were very cinnamony

[randoreviews]

MICROMANAGED/ROPED IN

i thought after all the run around and the manic plans and changing of the manic plans and then no plans and then not hearing from them them dropping off the face then them reappearing and then manic plans again and then changing the plans and springing things on me and putting me in a position where i couldn’t say no and then them saying how good of a friend i was but then springing things on me and then having to wonder if they actually viewed me as a human being who was actually alive and then them surprising me and keeping me off guard or on guard, or off balance when before i hadn’t heard from them in a while and then them acting like a robot boss yes, bullying too pretty much bullying at least pushy trying to make it happen so i couldn’t say no but i was such a good friend them saying “please let me know” when i always let them know and they were shadier than a three-dollar bill they had no qualms about curving my texts when i wanted nothing from them they were struggling they had built a house of cards their own doing i thought they were actually doing something nice for me you know, like a friend does but then a few days later when they asked me to do more things and i somehow found myself in this situation again when i promised myself i wouldn’t promised promised promised i realized they had just been roping me in again people who i barely have anything to do with they were back micromanaging me

[randoreviews]

PRE-FIGHT TALK

     Two men walk from opposite directions into a press conference and sit down. One has a dragon tattoo on his neck, peeking out over the collar of his black luxury suit, and the other has a series of X’s and crosses over different parts of his visible body that don’t appear welcoming. They pick up their microphones and rustle the jewelry they’re wearing so it’s situated properly on the wrist. One has a pair of sunglasses on, not ones you’d get from a pharmacy, and the other just a cold stare.       A reporter stands up: “Hey guys, super excited for this fight. Stylistically you guys are very similar, two stand up and bang kind of fighters, how do you see it playing out?”       The man with the dragon tattoo speaks into the mic. “I see it playing out very logically and academically, inside one round I will eat this man’s intestines.”       The other man continues to sit there with the same cold stare.       “I will eat his intestines and kill him and end his career.”       Reporter: “Strong words. Jiri, what do you say to this man’s threat that he’s gonna eat your intestines. Any thoughts?”      The man called Jiri with the crosses and X’s considers this for a moment and speaks. “He ees weak. I snap heem like a crackyer. I eat him before he eat me. I snap heem and eet heem like toe-ma-toe soup. You undastand?”       “Bro, fuck you right now, fucking calling me tomato soup, bro? I ain’t no fucking soup. If I’m a tomato soup then you’re like some fucking weak-ass borscht.”      “Fuck you! You not talk bad about borscht!”       Leans into the mic, looking out over his sunglasses. “Fucking weak-ass, been-in-the-fridge-for-two-weeks, lame-ass borscht.”      Jiri lunges across the row but the company boss intervenes and pushes them away with the help of steroids and a gangster’s sway.       “What” “Huh” “What... what” “What to you... what” “Huh then... huh” “What”      They stand there posturing.       The man with the dragon tattoo takes off his sunglasses so he can let his opponent see the crazy. His opponent does nothing but give him the crazy back.      “Huh” “What”      They sit down again.       Another reporter: “Hey guys, there appears to be some very real animosity between you two. I’m feeling this energy and it feels, well... real. What do you attribute that to?”       “He rood, he rood person,” Jiri interjects first. “He have no manners. We could come, punch each otha in face, be nice. But no, he choose to be rood. And to peepool like dese? Dey is no helping. Dey is no... no nussing... He is nussing. It makes me... maybe a leetle beet sad, no?, that he ees nussing. But he ees.”      “Wait, are you saying I AM something, borscht boy, or are you saying I’m nothing?”       “I say nussing.”      “But you just said HE IS, I AM.”      “I say you ees nussing. No you ees.”       “But if I am then don’t I have to be something and not nothing? Let’s just think about this for a minute here.”      “Yees yees, how does someseeng come from nussing? How was yooneevus created? Who created? How? Big man in pajamas?”      “This shit’s wild, bro. Fuck, man.”      The man with the dragon tattoo scratched his chin.      “And why do you think there’s real juice to this fight?” added the reporter.      “Oh because he’s a little ho. Simple as that. Straight-up ho material.”      “What ees dees ho? Like for field?”       “No, bro, as in ho bag. Like you like to get with lots of different dudes. And you’re a bitch.”      “What ees dood? I no undastand.”      “Well I think a dude was originally from like a dude ranch. Kind of like a cowboy. Something like that.”       “Dooood. Dood ees cowboy? Cowboy ees dood? Dees I like. Sank yoo.”      “Fuck you, bro.”      “Fuck oo vety much.”      Another reporter stands up. “Sacramento Bee here. Obviously a massive fight. Jiri, you’ve been known to take off people’s noses with your elbows. Without giving away too much strategy, will you try to do something similar?”      “Oh I crush hees face. I open hees skull. He lose all mo-tore skeels. I then have to drive car for heem.”      “I’m gonna pay for all seven of this cocksucker’s kids to go to college.”      “Oh wow, sank you. College vety expenseeve. I figga they work in grain meel if they not destroya of men.”      “But ONLY so that they’ll become educated and see that life is pointless. Too smart for their own good so they’re lost and miserable, you feel me on that? Mark my words, I will pay for this man’s children to go to college.”       “Well dees I like much betta than eating eentesteenes. Saatanly I like much betta than heem saying I bad borscht.”       “Shit’s true, bro. Take a good look at yourself. Look deep down into your soul.”      “I lyke myself.”      “Nah, nah.”      “Ees true.”      “Saturday night I’m gonna prove that this man doesn’t like himself. Tune in to find out.”      “I fine with myself.”      “Nah bro.”      “You no know me. You no know me at all.”      “Guess I gotta get to know you better when I’m reeling out your intestines like sausage links.”      “So preedeectable. Just like how you fight. Telegraph punches like telegraph pigeon.”       “Wish we still used those.”      “In my country we do. All da time.”      “That’s really cool.”       “To tell you I smash ya nose!”      “Intestinal ho bag!”      They lunge at each other and the steroid owner gets in between with his giant head.....      After five rounds of slugging it out and calf kicks and a couple/few eye pokes, the final bell sounds and they embrace. “Bro, love you, bro, so much respect for you, you’re a fucking animal” “Bro, you so good, I love you so good, you my brada, I love you foreva” They hug and kiss. “Bro, you’re a legend, bro, love you so hard, just straight-up legend status” “Bro dood, you beautiful can of tomato soup on seek day from school, I lav you vety vety much, sank yoo”

[randoreviews]

FREE TIME

it’s amazing you know, since i have nothing but free time and no earthly worries no fear of death obviously my life nothing but a  fucking bed of roses this all according to married people who have children as if i made them do all that and get in that particular pickle i have zero adult responsibilities zero family responsibilities that don’t take up  eighty percent of my time i live in a bubble i could go to mars or pluto right now if i wanted to even though i don’t think pluto’s even a planet anymore i won’t write about just getting basic communication from people or people developing a moral conscience and not trying to rig every conversation ALL THAT BEING IMPOSSIBLE! so i just hang out by myself and wait to be confused wait for someone to spring something on me and then drive to them and bring them presents for my confusion didn’t you hear? gas is free for me i don’t have to pay for gas not worried about climate change or school shootings none of it affects me at all that’s how much free time i have i'm talkin ZERO FUCKING CONCERNS because it’s not as if being responsible or being reliable takes any effort and that’s what i spend my time doing all that stuff just happens magically i appear with presents i was actually just sitting on my couch a second before and then i spontaneously recombusted at your door it’s not that my head feels like it’s gonna fall off all the time from how confusing people are or that texting with friends and trying to wrangle decent human responses makes me feel concussed and obviously i look like a well-aged almost-40-year-old because i sit around and do nothing and have no disciplines and don’t take care of myself at all which also would require no effort not concerned about money at all either even though making it is impossible because that also depends on people communicating i'm super optimistic about romance too meeting a woman and starting a family with all the money i make obviously really easy i haven’t been ridiculously burned by every woman i've known in the past even on a friend basis (only one or two really romantically for half a second which is also not absurd) it’s just amazing how much people are constantly asking you to do assuming you’ll do when you have so much free time

[randoreviews]

EXTRA

as a kid you just assume you’ll naturally become someone of great importance in some really cool way be very accomplished all types of accolades money flowing in you’ll slay the dragon climb the castle get the girl the bad guy will lose you’ll have children and your lady will stay fine forever and your kids will be happy and healthy and because of all the money you make you’ll be able to send them to the best schools you’ll be lauded like a star of the screen but now, halfway through since you can really only operate a car and perhaps fill the windshield wiper fluid that’s always running out other people always up to god knows what you realize you may be a little more than an extra a face in the crowd maybe sometimes a little more than that but being honest with yourself the same dragons on a daily basis it’s no use pretending otherwise throw the glass against the mirror you’re just a very minor supporting character in other people’s lives

[randoreviews]

RESTOCKING

     It seems I always find that I’m restocking. There’s always something that's about to run out, or is gone. Food, definitely. Different kinds of food, drink... Spices, even. I only have one frozen banana left and it was at the bottom and it looks pretty sorry. So -- Get Bananas Next Time You Go to Store. Need them frozen bananas to make my blended drink taste delicious. It can offset a pound of frozen kale. Either I’ll write it down mentally or, more practically, I’ll actually write it down, to different degrees of legibility depending on my mood or state of mind. It’s an ongoing list. Each trip to the store is like a little trip to get provisions, trying to fill in more of the pieces, or just replace what’s gone. There are favorite cough drops I can’t find in the store anymore, so I have to pay Bezos $7 so he can fly to the moon in his man-shaped rocket ship and I can have my cough drops that I leave out in a bowl for guests (and myself.) Just so many little things. Yesterday it was coffee filters. And I need to order new razor blades, because you can’t find them in the store either and after years of honing in on it I’ve found the right ones. Some may say wisdom is finding the right razor blades. Ran out of coffee as well the other day, and I needed to get milk too, straight from da farm da next town over. All just stuff cast about everywhere that I need to go collect in different places. Water a couple towns over. Without good water I’ll die. Would perish in the middle of my kitchen like I was in the Sahara. Bone-dry. Don’t you have your favorite things too? Your stuff you have to collect? An ongoing list situation. Haven’t you honed in on certain things? A favorite pudding perhaps. Hopefully a favorite yogurt. The dish soap is running low. Strange, I thought I had recently replaced it. Gives me an oogey feeling when it’s running low. If it runs out then the one dish I use a day will pile up and the house will collapse in on itself like Poe’s House of Usher. Lightbulbs are a perennial replacement object. Fuck you, Thomas Edison! Sometimes it’s batteries, for the things that require those. Sometimes it’s not liquid soap but it’s actual bars of soap, nice to have both. Sometimes it’s olive oil! Butter. Butter’s on there... which of course will lead you to bread and toast. How bout frozen waffles. Those are good. Talking batteries, you may as well start thinking about if you need to charge your phone. Or clean your phone. Please dear god clean your phone.       A friend whose had many more decades to find the right razors sent me a thank you note recently for sending him a book for his birthday, and in it he said he hoped I was living with “great purpose.” If he meant am I just feverishly trying to keep things stocked all the time and living in fear of them running out, then yes, I’m basically Captain Planet.         P.S. Talked to my mom on the phone a little earlier and she asked if I could get her a new shower curtain -- not plastic, cloth. 

[randoreviews]

BEAM

i got this beam for my TV you know, a sound bar and it had been working beautifully since i got it the end of last summer we’re talking tons of punch in the sound the main knock against it was it might not have enough bass and i'm all about the bass but sometimes my nervous system doesn’t need all that rumbling like you’re right on top  of the san andreas i just need a little punch but the last few weeks the sound keeps dropping out and it will revert back to the internal TV speaker which has no bass and no nothing basically is an abomination to sound anywhere as you can imagine this has been giving me fits at times making me question my will to live (not really but that general feeling) i’ve called the sonos tech people three times first guy said it might be  the system confusing the different wireless names so i had it ignore all but one network then i called a second time  and was told it would be advisable to rename my network, so it’s just  one new name which i did, and it was like trying to break into or out of  quantico by some miracle i changed the name still don’t know how thought i had done it happy days here again but after two days of beautiful sound it dropped out again like a kid smoking cigs outside of school i called a third time the woman’s accent made it harder to understand several hurdles she said i might need a new HDMI cable or did i have an optical adapter ... yes, let me just reach into my drawer of optical adapters she said she could send me one but their network was revamping something and i'd have to wait for an email from them which she had no idea when they would send so i'm waiting on an email for an adapter that may not be the solution at all and i’ve lost my 5G speed because i had to cancel out all other wireless network names (i will say that did improve the streaming quality of the picture) so as usual, the more that is tried the more i effort the more confused i become deeper into the woods we go

[randoreviews]

A WEEK OF READING

some people can read in elevators, or in any situation if the world was falling down around them i have to be in a safe, quiet space work my way up to it get in a zone i don’t even like when people can see me reading like on a plane because then i become conscious of the fact i'm reading maybe they’ll think i'm highfalutin cuz i'm reading some people proudly declare that they don’t read as if that’s good for their brain (then they mysteriously start wondering if the world is actually round) this week i’ve had enough space and time to read fairly steadily about the war in ukraine about movies i just watched whatever’s in the new yorker usually i’ll try to read a couple/few articles with my morning coffee i read an article in the times the real paper i still get delivered about hog slaughter in the south still need to read about them finding the endurance read an article about charles dickens 2/3rds through an article about harry truman that little president rounding the homestretch of the latest sally rooney book she writes really really well whatever book i’m reading i'll read in bed before falling asleep really get in the zone gotta be good for the brain and, like, empathy and understanding i think my grandfather who i didn’t know that well was a speed reader i’m a pretty slow reader but try to maintain a discipline

[randoreviews]

THE WHAM-BAM TEXT

you guys know how hard it is to get people to acknowledge you exist people are interested in those who keep them chasing those who make them feel less than they don’t really want to engage because then they could be the ones who don’t get a response if they do reach out by some miracle they’ll hit you with a quick text and i’d say it’s good to hear from them except it feels more like getting mugged and just reaffirms that no one’s stable everyone seems to really be conning themselves most of all they’ll tell themselves how busy they are while they sit on the couch staring at their phones interminably it takes real bravery to reach out it’s a coin flip if people will respond (my friend tells me to lower my expectations and in my head i’m like dude, my expectations are already at minus one thousand at all times) they’ll just keep you chasing forever maybe only give you a third of the details you need they may tell you how much they need their alone time while they feverishly lurk and stalk people online and JUDGE people dear god do they judge if they actually muster the goodwill to like your post that again feels like another miracle thanks for bothering to acknowledge i exist! even texts that don’t feel wham-bam that actually seem fairly tempered i’ll respond and it’s really just a trap because that’ll be it from them at which point my suspicions will be confirmed that their whole life is most likely a lie (people who, if i didn’t respond to them would hate me if they didn’t think me more interesting) but really, what can you do

[randoreviews]

TRIVIA

there’s this monthly movie trivia the only thing i’ll do through zoom that my friend in LA got me to start doing during the start of the pandemic it’s me, him, and another guy who lives in portland, oregon it’s usually really hard lasts about three hours so much information via zoom sometimes, or usually makes my brain feel like it might break i write down all the questions in shorthand jargon and submit the answer sheets for our team if we can finish in the middle of the pack then we’ve done all right sometimes my friend in LA will be able to get a fourth person to join us never been the same person twice some time ago my friend in LA got a girl, or i should say a woman to join us which, as you might guess (not that there aren’t other women on the zoom, on other teams) was a bit surprising she was actually pretty attractive she was attractive and seemed confident and game my friend had helped her move recently so that’s why she was doing it her boyfriend, or maybe husband was sitting disinterestedly offscreen (maybe monitoring? hovering? or maybe their new place was just small) i remember i tried to sort of tell a joke and it fell flat so i didn’t try doing that again last night in trivia we did have a fourth join us for part of it but they were not an attractive  woman, i’ll say and they had to leave halfway through to have dinner with their parents my friend happened to mention that it was a year ago during the last halloween trivia that the girl/woman her name was kate had joined us it seemed like it had maybe been four or five months ago and she had gotten pregnant and had a baby in the meantime and now she had a new baby out in the world  which really made me feel that time was racing by and i could do nothing about it could do nothing in general as much as i might try and in true halloween fashion was already down in the grave with the shovel

[randoreviews]

ONE LAST SUMMER NIGHT

i went out to the back expecting it to be cool as it had been the previous few nights but it was balmy like room temperature my clothes hanging out to dry the moon was so bright too it lit up the clouds showed on the lawn the trees appeared prehistoric like they do sometimes i can’t remember exactly what i've done the last handful of months maybe a few things i know some things have gone and so much has changed but i don’t know what’s to come probably more of the same? one last summer night

[randoreviews]

ONLINE REVIEWS

joannefrommissouri (5-out-of-5 stars): I love this product so much. It honestly changed my life. Whenever I use it, I just feel so great afterwards. Everything about it -- the size, the shape, its effectiveness -- is just perfect. Every person in the world should own one of these. And such an amazing price! Don’t walk but RUN to click the buy button. Would give it ten stars if I could. Amazing. bifffromchesterfield (0-out-of-5 stars): Shit absolutely sucks balls. Why the f*ck would anyone make this? Let alone buy it? Let alone use it? Like jesus fucking christ. This honestly might be the dumbest thing in the world. I would not take money to have this in my home. The people who made this should be fired immediately and then blasted off strapped to a rocket to outer space. Was so depressed after using this I went and just lay in my bed. My best advice, if you have the terrible misfortune of having already ordered this, would be to right when you get it just immediately throw it in the trash. An absolute and utter waste of everything involved.  tonifromensfield (2/3-out-of-5 stars): I guess it’s all right. I dunno. Like, it works. I guess it does what it’s supposed to do. If it came in an olive green, maybe I could get a little more excited about it. As it is it’s, mm... okay. Not mad I bought it. But not loving it either. I dunno. Mm... it hasn’t broken yet. We’ll see though. A little bit meh and blah, mbleh maybe?, but whatever. At the same time it’s perfectly fine. Life goes on, I guess.  chrisfromtwinpines (4-out-of-5 stars): PLEASE JUST GET THE FUCKING VAX! LIKE WHAT ARE WE EVEN DOING!!! JUST FUCKING GET IT AND STOP BEING AN ASSHOLE!!!! YOU’RE JEOPARDIZING OUR FUTURE AND OUR CHILDREN’S FUTURES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! zebfromchuckataw (3-out-of-5 stars): Bros, do NOT get the vax. We do not know what’s in there. There could be baby aliens in there. It could make our heads explode at an unexpected moment, at the worst possible time. Just one rando day in the future we could all become Elon Musk at the same time. It could make our dicks fall off. Could it just be a vaccine for a global pandemic that it’s a miracle of modern civilization and science to be able to produce in the first place? I meeeeeaaann, probably not. Who knows what’s in there? What if you just start hearing the theme for X-Files and it starts playing in your head one day and it never stops? But instead of Mulder and Scully it’s Biden and Harris going through the cornfields with their flashlights looking for secret silos, when there might be baby Bidens swimming in your bloodstream making you more pliable to the idea of universal healthcare? Let’s just think about this for a little while here. Besides the highways they build and the order they help to keep in place and all the food in the grocery store that’s always there and like electricity and running water and heat and even having like a pretty decent dentist, and education, the government really does nothing for me and I don’t trust them at all. Just wouldn’t do it and don’t trust em.  kateincedarsprings (5-out-of-5 stars): White white white. Everything is white. My hands, they are white. My tiles, they are white. My cat, she is white. My teeth is white. I fall into a luxurious white sleep in white air, falling, falling, but never landing. Landing on a white cloud. Only to fall again. I love this white thing.  ZTfromBT: sup everybody chillin in my dorm room at 11:41 on a friday september 4th kinda livin the good life for a few secs hope ur chilling and good too, pretty rad product chrissyfromlakeland (2-out-of-5 stars): I swear to fucking god I’m going to kill my mother-in-law. She got one of these for my husband a few days ago, only thing is I had already told her I had gotten him one. And she knew I had gotten him one. Like she knew, I know she knew, I told her right to her stupid face and she gave me that stupid look that she always gives me, and with her stupid fucking haircut too. Here’s the other thing, and she always fucking does this -- and I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I told myself I wasn’t gonna let it get me mad this time and heh, heh, aaah, well here we fucking are -- but she got him the DELUXE version. Which isn’t even that much better, it may do like one more thing. But it’s the GESTURRRE behind it, like I know she’s just giving me a double middle finger but that’s when I’m like oh you know what bitch no here’s a third hand I have that’s giving you a third middle finger even though I don’t have a third hand this is unrealistic and I own your son’s soul and you don’t and you’re about to die so just keep it moving and no one cares. Long story short, I donated it to Goodwill and told her I temporarily lent it to a friend :)  because of course she asked to see it like an hour ago. Fucking... game... on... bitch.  craigiefromraleigh (4-out-of-5 stars): Yup, works well! All good! 

[randoreviews]

TARGET RUN

such a big store you go in and get a little lost white big box building (i'm talking BIG box) maybe you need soup maybe you need a pyrex or frozen pizza or socks you’re never disappointed because there’s just so much stuff there sometimes i'll find myself in the toy section and wonder if i've grown up there are those pictures in the clothes section of the different models having so much fun wearing the clothes (not like high fashion where the models look like they’ve just been handed a death sentence) endless possibilities when you’re there endless they put ma and pa out of business but maybe ma and pa were assholes anyway you can go there late at night when less people are there a little bit of night owl shopping you can get a coffee in there too (hopefully earlier in the day) at that place named after the moby dick character (not ahab or queequeg, starbuck) back 2 school stuff? it’s a smorgasbord notebooks, pens more pens than anyone  knows what to do with you swipe your card get a coffee and now you’re on your way

[randoreviews]

MOODY STREET

an old friend had visited me a few weeks ago so i told him i would have to come and visit him his new apartment so i did last week he lives up close to the city near a downtown i'd never been to we went out and got some dinner he showed me a picture of a girl on his phone a date he’d had the previous night he said he didn’t think she was interested in him i said she was pretty and he said, yeah but something about her reminded him of a guy from our high school after dinner, we walked down moody street the restaurants had been  turned out onto the street and people were eating and drinking we walked past a dominican restaurant and he said he didn’t like to see dominican stuff because it made him think of his last serious girlfriend we went to an old theater which hadn’t reopened and looked up at its darkened facade we walked down to the end of the street where the charles river was running silently up into the city in the dark on our way back to his place we stopped at an arcade had to put our mask on but it was kind of a scuzzy collection of used games and the best arcade games were out of order when we got back to his place he let me sit on his la-z-boy full recline and we watched some olympic swimming an american guy made a torrid comeback on the last lap my friend had just got a new rug for the room and he wasn’t sure if he liked it or if it was too big i told him i liked it he said if he hadn’t stopped drinking he would have never been able to have the place he had his nicotine gum he had a few framed maps in one of the rooms but nothing in the main room yet his mother still lives in our hometown like me and i think sometimes he goes to help her with her dog after the race ended when we were half-jokingly/ half-seriously shouting the guy’s name i gave him a hug told him we’d have to do it again sometime and made my retreat

[randoreviews]

GREEN & GREEN

the house is actually green a dark green made by an architecture firm i think brothers with the last name of the color they do tours of it up in pasadena in a swanky old neighborhood it was doc brown’s house in back to the future his garage in the movie in real life is the gift shop of course i took a tour i forget what the style is called (arts and crafts?) but it was made i think in the early 1900s heavily influenced by japan before the wars when that became unpopular the rooms are big and wide and always lead to windows or doorways i remember they said the brothers wanted that sense of nature the wood-carved railing to the staircase alone is worth the price of admission i believe it was built for one of the owners of proctor & gamble (yes, because it’s the gamble house) one of those pharmaceutical companies the guy’s wife had health problems and was advised to live in the clear, mountainy air there was a porch-type room upstairs where they would school the children have church i remember they said no pictures but i snuck one of the bathtub nice old tub the whole place was so nicely and elaborately appointed with furniture from over a hundred years ago so easy on the eyes, mellow but bedazzling must have had many caretakers and cleaned often but still seemed to have a thin veil of dust it was more like a dead spell because no one really lived there anymore