So there I was , having trouble landing a date with no shortage of attempts to do so, when I came across this free dating site.  I'd been telling myself that I'd find at least one more girlfriend on my own before resorting to such a site.  But then I remembered what Johnny Apocalypse's favorite word was: free.  In the end, I sign up. 

Not only do I sign up, I take extra care to make sure my profile is truthful and witty.  I don't have a picture to upload at the time, but I know I can get one later, no big deal.  I take a few of the personality quizzes, get some matches and start searching.  I find a few girls who seem cool, and are attractive, so I send them an e-mail.

No answers.

No big deal, I only took a few of the quizzes, contacted about three or four ladies, and I don't have a picture up, so anyone might assume I'm trying to hide something.  I take a few more quizzes, get more matches, contact some more girls.

One answer.  Sweet.  We chat for a bit, send a few e-mails back and forth.  Then, out of the blue she stops contacting me.  Not so sweet.  I check her profile, and she's been online since I sent my last e-mail.  Even less sweet.

Screw it, I say, if she can't at least tell me to fuck off, I don't need her.  Contact more women...

Two answers, one who is just looking for friends, which is fine, I'll chat with her too.  I like having friends.  The other goes by the first girl's playbook.  Pleasant e-mails, getting to know each other, then no answer.  She's been online, but not even a "bye".  Fuck her, at least I have a new friend.

I take more quizzes.  I contact more women.  No answers.  I check the link that shows who's been looking at my profile.  A few of the girls I've talked to, no one searching on their own.

Then I remember, add a picture.  I get the digital camera, take about five pictures, decide one is worthwhile.  I post it.  More quizzes, more e-mails sent out.

No answers.

As of this writing, I've messaged a total of thirty seven girls.  I've talked with three, one who is just a friend (and I feel like that's the way things are going to stay, but I can't read people, who knows), and the other two just quit talking.  Out of the remaining thirty four, eleven had the courtesy to look at my profile before deleting the e-mail.

In the end, I haven't gotten a single date, and less women contacting me after I put the picture up than before.  I've never felt so undesirable in my life.

Johnny

Hey all,

In life we have our successes and our failures.  And then we have the "epic fail", the failure which is so horrendous, so monumental, that we wish we could just start life back over in the womb and try to get things right from birth.  Trying to think back in regards to how you could fail so miserably will get you to re-trace your life back as far as you can remember, because that's probably where it started.  Your whole life may have been leading to this one spectacular fail.

Now many may think that their last boyfriend/girlfriend was an epic fail, but that's far too complex (unless everyone knew it was a cross-dresser/transvetite except you.  Even more epic if you slept with them and still didn't figure it out).  The true epic fail is something simple and you befouled, an everyday task that gets screwed up beyond what was previously thought possible.  Here's an example- you're playing a video game with only two buttons, one that says "win" and one that says "lose".  They're spaced about a foot (twelve inches) apart.  Now as you reach in to push the "win" button, you lose your footing, begin to fall and clobber the "lose" button, therefore wasting a quarter on a video game you shouldn't have even thought was worth playing in the first place.

Other interesting examples (none of which I have completed)-
-You go to take a bite of steak from a fork, but miss and hit yourself in the eye.
-You're turning the knob on a door but it fails to release the latch, causing your face to have an intimate moment with said door.
-You turn your car's ignition and realize that the motor is already running.
-You start taking a leak before realizing that the toilet seat is still down (even more epic if you're female).
-While writing a note to your significant other, you attempt to scribble "I Love You", but instead accidentally write "You lousy bitch, you ruined my life".

So what have some of my epic fails been?  I would like to say that there are none, and everyone would believe it because they know how many guns I have, but I'll tell the truth.  Here are a few of my finer moments...

Trying to set a pen on a desk, only to miss the desk completely.
Discovering penicillin, only to waste my discovery when I find out that it tastes good in orange juice.
Brewing a pot of coffee, but forgetting to put any coffee grinds in the machine.
Thinking that the timer on a nuclear bomb was a clock, and setting to five minutes after midnight, military time.
Promising to update this blog on a regular basis.

I'm posting some new pictures, in a category called "The Epic Fail".  Check them out and have a good laugh.

All the best,

Johnny Apocalypse

Hey all,

Sorry I haven't written in a while, been busy with various things.  Wrapping up school, finding a job, going to said job.

So about this job.  I am currently a bill collector.  I sit on a phone, call people and remind them to send us a check.  Sometimes people pay.  Sometimes they say something nasty and hang up.  Sometimes they try to make excuses why they can't pay now (or ever) and it becomes my job to talk them into paying.  When they refuse to pay and the bill is a certain dollar amount I send the bill up to my legal department.

So how do I mesh with this job?  It's not ideal but it's certainly not bad either.  I really enjoy skiptracing (finding people who have switched phone numbers in order to dodge us debt collectors) and I also sometimes get the chance to help people.  I mean actually help them.  I set up payment plans and even make suggestions on how to better plan their income (if they want said suggestions).  Even though I may well be the world's biggest ass, I still try to bring some compassion into everything I do.

Well, time to get dressed and go to work.

All the best,

Tailgate Jones

Hey all,

Okay, I contend that this won't be political either, keeping with my promise in post numero uno.

Every two years, I start getting calls from politicians.  Or, more aptly, I get called by their answering machines.  It would be one thing if the politician actually called everyone asking for support, but apparently their time is too important, so they get their answering machine to do it for them.  I get a recording which basically says "I am running for Rim-Job Master of your county and would appreciate your vote!"  Then the answering machine hangs up on me before I can leave a message to stop calling me.

It aggravates me enough that there is nothing on TV but political commercials, now they're actually calling me every night.  If I don't answer, the answering machine leaves a message on my answering machine.  While I imagine getting registered on that "Do Not Call" list thingy would stop the recordings, I wonder how it would go if I tried to get a law passed to outlaw this.  If the government supported it, they would be losing a way to campaign.  If they fought against it, I could claim that they were a bunch of self-serving asses who get off by irritating me to the point of suicide.  Not that politics don't irritate me enough already, this is just making things worse.

Someday I'm going to have no telephone at all.  People can contact me via e-mail.  Try to call me, and you'll get the operator (or rather, the operator's answering machine) stating that the number you are trying to reach is out of service.  Of couse, sooner or later the government will start e-mailing me all of their campaign crap, but I can hit them with the old spam-filter.  Trust me, we would all be a lot happier of Alexander Graham Bell had created the internet instead of the phone.  At least, I would be.

All the best

Tailgate Jones

Hey all,

Like anyone worth talking to, I live in Colorado.  There are a great many hazards to living in Colorado, one of which is the weather.  I was told by a great many people yesterday that we were supposed to get two feet of snow overnight.  I was skeptical, since A) I don't watch the news, so everyone could have been lying to me about the meteorological predictions, B) the weather-people on TV aren't always right, and C) sometimes the skies over Colorado just threaten to snow instead of actually producing any.  Just in case, I prayed to the Aztec God Quetzacoatl, boarded my doors and window shut and cowered in the basement.

I woke up this morning and made a nearly fatal mistake.  I looked out the window.  After I started my heart back up, I looked again.  Estimating that the weather-guy was short by about six inches in his prediction, I had another heart attack.  After this heart attack, I had a brick of cheese for breakfast, inducing a third infarction.

Now, a great many people are wondering why I would fear the snow as much as I do, and why it should cause a heart attack.  This is because I am terrified of the cold.  I used to love the cold.  I would simply toss on a flannel shirt and go for a walk in sub-zero temperatures, no problem.  Felt kinda nice in fact.  And then came Missouri, back in '01.  I was there for about four months, investigating the seldom mentioned positive effects of inbreeding, and discovered that the cold really sucks.  I now have post-traumatic stress disorder from having my balls frozen over and over again.  I'm not even sure they still work...

So now I sit in my house, wearing fifty sets of long underwear, drinking a gallon of hot coffee every hour on the hour, the furnace cranked up to ninety and a roaring blaze in the fire place.  I still feel a slight chill.  This isn't good.  We're all going to die today.

We need to do something about the snow and the cold weather.  Seriously.  I'm thinking that we should set up thousands of those red heating lamps across the Denver Metro area, turn them up to a temperature comparable to the Earth's core and even things out.

Sure, this may be "wasteful" of electricity.  It might be better if I just dealt it with.  But fuck your conservation of resources and fuck your toleration of Mother Nature's sass.

Man, I have really lost it.  This is probably the stupidest shit I've ever written.  Oh well.  If people actually read this blog, I'm sure they know what to expect by now.

All the best,

Tailgate Jones

Hey all,

Well, since I posted something about the second coolest subject in the world (nukes), I thought it was high time to say something about the first coolest.  Time travel.

Time travel is awesome because it allows for so many paradoxes.  You could go forward in time and try and avert World War Three.  And if you succeed, how could you possibly have traveled to WWIII?  Next, you can go back in time and kill your own grandfather.  Of course, if you manage to do this and you still exist, it might mean that Grandma had some secrets.  Finally, and my personal favorite, I would take a collection of Shakespeare's completed works back to Shakespeare himself.  He simply copies the stories and sonnets down, and the ideas technically come from nowhere.  He didn't think them up, he plagiarized them, but they didn't exist before him.  That's pretty damn cool.

So how does one go about traveling through time, you ask?  The biggest theory now is by travelling through a wormhole.  No, that's not the holes in the ground worms use like a subway, it's a rip in the fabric of space and time.  Supposedly, if we can shoot through one of these wormholes, the other side may well be the future or the past.  Of course, it could also end up outside of the universe.  That might suck.

I'm trying to build a time machine by gluing a wrist-watch to a lawnmower, but it's not working just yet.  I might have to upgrade to an alarm clock.  But just wait until I have my time-lawn mower-machine, it's gonna be great.  We'll have dinosaurs wearing berets, Marie Antoinette listening to The Doors.  Paradoxes way too much fun.

Well, that's enough of my insanity for now.  I'm sure everyone's calling the looney bin to have my ass thrown into a straight jacket.

All the best,

Tailgate Jones, esq.

I love nuclear weapons.  I think it's about the second most fascinating thing in the world (the first most fascinating being time travel).  No, I don't like what they do, but they look so friggin' cool.  That's why, instead of a picture of myself, I have a slick, firey mushroom cloud on may page (plus I bear a striking resemblance to said mushroom cloud).

The nuclear weapon was first discovered by Moses, who used it to part the red sea.  Everyone says he did this by waving his arms, but that's because the Bible's been edited.  Moses dropped a five-kiloton atomic bomb in the center of the red sea (that's a small one, by the way), and when the water evaporated, him and his people hightailed it through the ocean floor.  Sweet.

For many years, the nuclear weapon was considered lost until a bunch of guys in Los Alamos found one in the Ark of the Covenant.  It's a historical myth that they did a whole lotta math to figure out how to make an insanely powerful bomb- they simply dug one up, took some pictures and set that baby off.  The mathematical theories, proofs and quadratic equations were simply a ruse, because no one would believe that there was a huge fuckin' bomb in the Ark, instead of the Ten Commandments.

It's also a historical myth that nuclear weapons have been used only twice in war.  That's because we've learned to cover things up much better.  Here's a little known secret about how the Civil War was won- Joseph Stalin launched a nuke towards American soil during the early days of the Cold War.  Luckily for us, he didn't anticipate a wormhole opening up over the Atlantic, swallowing the bomb and dropping it on the Confederacy.  You see, Southerners aren't inbred.  They're radioactively mutated.

Aside from disintegrating people and making pretty fireworks, here are a few other things thermonuclear weapons are good for: destroying the moon (fuck the moon), opening a stuck pickle jar, lighting a cigarette, cooking a burger, and cleaning the house.

That's not nearly half of my knowledge on atomic bombs, but that's all I feel like sharing right now.  If you love nukes, hate nukes, or if you're utterly uninterested in nukes and want me to philospohically prove free will, drop me a comment or an e-mail.

All the best,

Tailgate Jones, esq.

Hey all,

Just thought I would write a little something about politics.  In my first post, I stated that politics suck and that there will be nothing political on this blog.  I hold that this post won't be political either, because I'm just gonna bitch about politics.

So you throw 100 people into one room, and call them the Senate.  You throw another couple hundred people in another room and call them the Representatives.  What do you get?  A bunch of people who can't agree on much, argue everyday and never get anywhere, complete with people calling their opponents idiots and alluding that they commit sexual misconduct of all forms.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not an anarchist.  Government is a necessity for the most part, it just pisses me off.  Each side thinks they're right, and as a result we get laws that tend to be compromises of what each candidate promised their voting public.

Sure, I have my thoughts about what would work best for society, but do I have an almighty higher truth (not necessarily a reference to God) to back them up?  Nope, just statistics and other nefarious means, which either side can use to represent their beliefs should they toss the proper spin on things.  Without this highest truth, the only real way to decide what would work best is to put something into action and see what happens.  If it ends up screwing things over, repeal the law and try again.

So what are my political beliefs?  Don't worry about it.  Seriously, if I want a political discussion, I will find one.  I'm not using my blog here to convince everyone else what to do, nor to state that some group of politicians are schmucks and the other group is dead-on.  I hear enough of that whenever the news comes on (which I hate as much as politics).  If you want to try to change the world with your blog, go for it.  That's just not my bag.

Although I will include that there is one perfect form of government, which has all the others beat down.  It's (Editor's Note: the "best form of government" argument has been removed, as reading it will cause such insight and incredible changes of heart as to destroy the known universe).

Okay, so the editor's note was a cop out.  That's because I think there is no one perfect system of government.  I like democracy just fine, but any system will inevitably need to be tailored to suit the public's culture.  Will democracy work in every nation across the world?  Maybe, but I have no evidence to state whether it truly will or not.

So that's a brief rant on politics.  There are probably a dozen things wrong with whatever I've said up there, but who gives a damn?  I don't need a bunch of e-mails and comments telling me where I'm wrong, where I'm right or how brilliant/stupid I am.  Nor do I want any e-mails and comments with a bunch of political nonsense in response to this- any and all comments like that will be promptly deleted.

If you're still curious about my political views, I would again like to urge you not to worry about it.  As far as anyone is concerned, my public statement to every issue is "not my problem".  That's not my real opinion, but it's the best you're getting out of me.

All the best,

Tailgate Jones

Okay, I know what you're all thinking.  You're thinking "man, this crazy bastard can write, but would be make a good husband?"  While I would love to cover this with a blanket answer of "yes!", marriage can't just be a matter of tossing two people together and making it work (unless you get one of those arranged marriages).  So instead of saying that I'd undoubtedly be the greatest damn husband ever, I've taken the liberty to predict how a marriage would work between myself and three of my Myspace friends.

Or maybe I'm just writing this because I'm bored and it sounds like fun.

Kathy- Now Kathy's a damn cool lady, but she wants children.  That's a problem for me, since I don't want kids.  Ever.  So basically, Kathy and myself find ourselves married, and as long as we don't bring up children (or politics, or classical literature), everything is fine.  I cook up some damn good food, help with the housework and keep the stalkers out of the bushes.

Then comes the fateful day when Kathy hears the biological clock ticking a touch too loud, and mentions having children.  I reply "uh, no.  What're you thinking?"  Soon, we begin having insane arguments in regards to kids, the proliferation of the human race, nuclear proliferation and the fact that I'm unreasonably stubborn about not having kids.  All of these arguments end in ninja kung-fu battles, racking us each up a heap of domestic violence issues.  Since I'm afraid that she's going to sabotage any and all birth control methods so I knock her up anyway, I begin to avoid the bedroom, sex and sleep itself, life the plague.  Soon enough, Kathy decides children are more important then staying with my ass, and bingo, marriage dissolved.

Alexis M.- So some strange twist of fate warps the space time continuum and Lexi and I end up married.  Once again, everything starts out fine.  She's working her cool newspaper job, I'm doing whatever the hell I get hired to do while trying to write novels, and everything seems cricket.

Then the problem arises- Alexis is far more of a party person then I am. She'd be wanting to go out dancing, drinking, what have you, and I only leave the house when I need to buy more coffee.  Not wanting to get divorced for what appears to be a minor issue, she instead develops a severe Sudoku addiction.  Instead of getting her into Sudoku Anonymous like a good husband, I become obsessed with discovering a new, practical use for galvanized nails.  In the end, Lexi realizes her Sudoku problem is destroying her life, that I'm part of the problem and the marriage comes to an end.

Winsor- I know this lady better as "Kitty", so I probably won't use her birth name again out of habit.  So back in '01, when we both graduated from high school, we decide to get married just to spite various people.  Unfortunately, this marriage ends quickly because Kitty is into Country music and hates classic rock, wheras I only listen to classic rock.  We have a few rounds of "Duelin' Stereos", I become an alcoholic again, marriage goes out the window.

So whether or not this means I'd be a lousy husband, period, is up for the reader to determine.  This simply means that these three sample marriages didn't work.  If you find yourself too similar to the three ladies above, don't get your hopes up if I don't throw an engagement ring your way.  On the other hand, if you're addicted to coffee, Doctor Who and music that requires some talent on the guitar, it might just work.

All the best,

Tailgate Jones

So maybe you're a compulsive reader who is never found without a bunch of word-covered paper in their hands.  Or maybe you've never finished reading an entire sentence, much less a book.  Either way, this list of books will come in handy should you ever find your way on to "Jeopardy", and they ask you what the best damn book ever written is.

Okay, let's start with number one: the book that shall never be beated.  It's a quick, easy read called "The Man with the Getaway Face", by Richard Stark.  This is the second book in the series about a man named Parker, who robs stuff for a living.  And if that wasn't enough to make you drop everything and buy a copy right now, you just aren't human.  Everyone likes to read about robberies, murder and crime in general.  Ever since there has been the printed word, there has been crime novels.  Break into the Vatican and you'll see the Pope's personal collection filled with these books.

In "Getaway Face", Parker has just gotten plastic surgery to escape vengeance from the mob.  But now he needs money, so he's getting his crew together to knock over an armored car.  Meanwhile, his plastic surgeon has been killed, and the doctor's staff thinks Parker's the man who did it.  In between pulling off a successful robbery and trying to prove his innocence, Parker manages to kick some ass and kill a few people.  Greatest book ever.

Next up, I discuss "The Big Sleep" by Raymond Chandler.  This is considered one of the all-time classic mysteries, as it well deserves to be.  Phillip Marlowe is hired to stop a blackmail attempt, and gets himself mixed up in a pornography ring, a missing husband and plenty of murder.  One of the few twist endings you don't see coming a mile away, as well as some of the best writing since Shakespeare, makes this book a must for everyone's library.  This has been made into two movies, one a classic starring Humphrey Bogart (who friggin' rocks in everything he does).

Lawrence Block's "When the Sacred Ginmill Closes" is equally classic, and much more modern then "The Big Sleep", having been written about forty years later.  In this baby, an alcoholic and private detective named Matthew Scudder starts working two different cases, one a blackmail matter and the other trying to prove that his friend didn't kill his wife.  Mix in a robbed bar, and soon all of the cases start to fit together in ways no one expects.  While this book may sound convoluted and unrealistic, Block's top-notch writing makes it work.  Easily a perfect ten.

Finally, I'd like to close out with Plato's "The Republic".  This is the finest piece of philosophy I have ever read.  It's not so much that I agree with the government that Socrates and his boys dream up, it's the writing, being able to see an excellent discussion from beginning to end.  Socrates' reasoning is never finer, and the objections thrown in are expertly dealt with.  The subject here is justice, and instead of staying strictly on the single path, Socrates uses his ideal society to show his idea of what justice truly is.  Even if you hate philosophy in all of it's forms, "The Republic" is beautifully written and expertly staged.

That's all I feel like writing about now.  You're probably wondering why the hell some of the "classic literature" isn't in here, and I'll answer that plain and simple.  Most of it sucks.  Hard.  I hate Charles Dickens, I hate Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and while I've never finished reading anything by Jane Austin I'm not real fond of her either.  Shakespeare is cool, but outside of that, there isn't much of anything "classical" that's worth a damn.

All the best,

Tailgate Jones