I’d Rather Charge My JVC Kaboom Box [Friday Thoughts W/ TeeCoZee]

Good Moleman. Oh, dear. Now you’ve done it. It’s Friday, January 4, Two Thousand and Nineteen. The weather in Brooklyn is 43˚ & Pantone 12-404 and somewhere, somebody is buying a CD Player for their car. This is not a joke, it is literally happening right now. I guarantee it. Let me repeat, IT IS TWO THOUSAND AND NINETEEN AND THIS PERSON IS BUYING A CD PLAYER FOR THEIR HYUNDAI, I THINK IT’S A HYUNDAI SONATA, HE’S BUYING A CD PLAYER. They can’t hear me, can they? God damnit. Welp. They’re making a mistake, that’s all I have to say. I also have some other things on my mind…

– My addiction to watching old baseball games have reached a meta level. I was watching a game from Opening Day 1990 from an old ESPN Classic replay. I spent the entire first inning trying to figure out when the re-broadcast was broadcasted. After some long Bottom Line reading, I deduced that it was from May 13, 2009. I remember this day because it was [I have no idea what the weather was on that day. Wunderground has no saved data and for some reason the Farmer’s Almanac stopped recording temperatures in November 1999, for reasons which I believe have something to do with Y2K] a day that happened. I woke up. It was a Wednesday. I most likely had coffee on my front porch and read The New York Times, as I usually did at the time. I was just then coming back around to watching The Office, as I was told that they finally wrote off the wretched Idris Elba character that was the proverbial shark for Michael Scott to jump his Razor Scooter over. It was My Aunt Dawn’s birthday and even though I didn’t wish her a happy one, I’m pretty sure I texted my cousin to do so. I went to Gardella’s the night before, I’m sure. I know these things not because I remember May 13, 2009, I just remember how typical the things I did were. Also, I have a really good memory and am totally awesome at everything. While I was reminiscing about Chuck Klosterman, the Orioles took a 3-0 lead. I haven’t been watching the game at all! That’s considered meta, right?

– This edition of Ad Nauseous is brought to you by The Farmer’s Almanac: Recording Weather Until 1999™!

While I was failing to find historic weather forecasts, I came upon this pop-up ad. While at first I thought it was some milk & potatoes Email spam grab, I was flabbergasted by the method of which I had to close it. The dialog that you have to click is, “No thanks, I know everything about gardening.” Okay, chill the fuck out. You’re offering a beginner’s guide to gardening. I just so happen to be a novice at gardening, so I feel like a beginner’s guide would be a waste of my time. Which, as a novice gardener, is quite valuable. I also don’t like lying on the internet, as I know that the government is watching me. The second I click off this ad, some Washington hot shot is going to see it. He or she will think that I know everything about gardening, a feat achieved by few, and swear me in as secretary of agriculture. And I don’t mean to offend you, Faceless Government Bureaucrat, but I feel like a secretarial job would be beneath me. I’m not very good at answering phones and I’m even worse at taking notes. So maybe it’s above me? But I have been looking for a new job ever since Blockbuster went under. You know what? Yes. I’ll take your job. No thanks, Farmer’s Almanac. I know everything about gardening!

[Click]

Any minute now, Mr President. Any minute now…

– I had no clue what to write next, so I made a trip to Taco Bell in order to get inspiration. Here are my Taco Bell Thoughts:

It’s been a few years since NYC installed their Phone WiFi Pole Thingys Whatever and I have never seen one being used for a good purpose. Whether it’s being used as a charging port for a JVC Kaboom Box or a hobo’s cubicle, I’m starting to wonder why they even exist in the first place. There’s one out in front of Taco Bell and there was a man standing at it, yelling. He made very heated threats to the pole, threatening choke it, slice it, dice it and eat rice with it. It was then that I realized the true purpose of the pole. You can finally make anonymous calls to people that you want to kill! For free! Thanks, DeBlasio!

Taco Bell has not one, not two, not four, but three Brinks Couriers. That seems like a waste of labor. My business probably garnishes a similar amount of cash and I only have one courier. Because only one is necessary. It’s a guy with a gun and if that fails, there’s another one waiting in an armored car. And if that fails, they’re insured. Just let them steal the money!

If Taco Bell runs out of sausage on a Friday, are they really okay with being out of stock all weekend? I feel like they’re not taking their breakfast menu seriously. It’s literally the best thing in fast food and nobody cares.

Outside my building, there was a dog pooping. The owner pulled a napkin out of her pocket and wrapped it around the turd. I was thoroughly impressed. It’s not often that you see this kind of courtesy in my neighborhood. She looked around for a nearby trash can and gave up, leaving the wrapped turd on the ground. Brooklyn: We Have Fun™!

– A while back, I came across a burning pile of Vaporwave Albums. After I extinguished the fire, I took stock of the remains and made it my mission to write about them on a regular basis. The Vaporwave Album of the Week is “Escape To New York” by Ursula’s Cartridges. The cover art is made to look like a CD, it was just recently released on vinyl and the artist is allegedly selling cartridges. So which medium should you listen to it on? The digital medium, stupid!

If Sonic The Hedgehog 2 is the Citizen Kane of video games, then Streets Of Rage 2 is Apocalypse Now. It’s one of those games that you don’t normally think about, but then when it’s mentioned at 3am, you salivate at the memories of its greatness. I still remember my first time playing it. We rented it at Video Watch on a Friday Night. I remember that because it was at sunset. I woke up at 5 Saturday Morning so that I could beat Nicole to the TV and maintain full control into the daylight hours. This was basically how we lived. We raced each other to the living room every morning to dictate the day’s entertainment. The second I turned it on, a whole new world seeped into my tired eyes. A much darker world, but a cooler world. I was always attracted to neon dystopias and the raging streets did not disappoint. There’s mohawks, fat guys spitting fire and crustpunks that walk diagonally while attempting to shiv you. There’s thanksgiving turkeys hidden inside of arcade machines and an evil amusement park. This game has it all! I must’ve gotten lucky on that fateful Saturday morning because I got farther than my unfocused adult self ever could. After hours of furious button mashing, I found myself in Mr X’s office. He went down with a whimper as I spammed dropkicks on him. It was actually the first video game I’ve ever beaten. Over the years, the game has become a comfort mechanism. It’s one of the few games that I can pick up and zone out for an hour or so before reality creeps back to me. That is, if I can get past the second stage. The Bridge is just plain mean. Between the motorcycles flying at you and the seemingly impossible boss on a jetpack, it’s got to be one of the steepest difficulty curves that I’ve seen in a game. But after 25 years, I keep coming back for more. The simplicity, color palette and soundtrack is downright intoxicating. And every time I pop on “Escape To New York”, I’m teleported back to my living room floor, ready to save Adam from the evil and seemingly immortal Mr X. And it’s a feeling that you can’t manufacture. But I guess Ursula’s Cartridges did manufacture it, so please ignore the last sentence.

– Try this trick over the weekend: get a package from Amazon. Leave the empty box in the middle of the floor and watch your cat try to fit inside it.

Have a Prime Weekend, everyone!

-TeeCoZee