Archive for the ‘Social Media’ Category

Bowl O’ Phone

Posted: May 31, 2017 in comedy, Human Spirit, Nikola Jajic, phones, rant, samsung s7 edge, Social Media, technology, writing
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
0

My bladder has consistently proven itself to be one of my trickier organs. In the past, I’ve been compared to pregnant women, children, and once, a goat. The latter was in another country. One where the goats pee quite often, and at inopportune moments.

My inopportune moment would turn out to be a bit more technologically complicated than that of a goat. But in the grand scheme of things, a frequent pee-er (for lack of a better word) will always be a frequent pee-er, no matter the gadgets, the country of origin, or even the species.

Another difficulty that many frequent pee-ers might be familiar with, is the lack of a cut-off valve. Now, I know I’m getting pretty scientific here, so try to keep up. While some folks can turn it on and off like a faucet, others cannot. This is a key piece of information moving forward.

So let’s get to it. There I was, on a dark and stormy Tuesday night. I was in the bathroom, shirtless, staring at myself in the mirror (as is often the case on Tuesdays). Soon, I began the intricate task of trimming my ear and nose hairs (Please, stop throwing your panties at the screen, ladies).

Suddenly, my phone rang. Not a text, email, or social media, sort of notification, but an actual phone call. Suffice it to say, this was a harrowing turn of events. I scrambled away from the sink and stared down at my pocket, in disgust.

In that same instant, my bladder sprang a surprise of its own. I was now scrambling to unbutton my trousers and hop over to the toilet. With the seat up, and my unmentionables out, I got down to business (Remember, no cut-off valve).

The phone rang again. Who on earth was calling me? And without so much as a text, to warn me of the impending call. It was 2017 after all, and I was under the impression that we’d moved past phone calls.

Unless of course, this was the sort of news that could only be shared through live conversation. Deaths, births, and bizarre sexual encounters, being the three standard scenarios I knew of that allowed for this.

I shoved one hand into my pocket and pried my phone out. While trying to balance the phone, my pee stream, and also swipe that damn green button, I lost my grip…

…and down, down, down, it went. Flipping in slow motion, like a televised Olympic diver, milliseconds before a career destroying belly flop.

Sploosh. This was the worst kind of gold medal. The kind with pee.

Because of my aforementioned lack of a cut-off valve, I continued to whiz as my phone descended into the bowl. I silently cursed the heavens, knowing the terrible maneuvers that I would have to set into motion.

It all happened very fast, then. I flung my arm down, toward the pee-filled bowl. In doing so, my hips tilted away from the toilet, thereby forcing me to pee on my jeans. At the exact moment I began peeing all over legs, my hand broke through the murky water, in a desperate search for my befouled phone.

phone

An accurate interpretation of events.

 

Finally, with my bladder emptied, and phone in hand, and also way too much of my body covered in urine, I stood triumphant… okay, maybe triumphant is too strong a word. But I was standing there. You know, covered in pee.

Sure, I still had to rinse off my phone, and my hands, and my jeans, and more esoterically, perhaps a part of my soul. And yes, I still had the chore of chopping through a forest of nose hairs, but the worst of it was behind me. A toast to small victories.

Luckily, the S7 edge is kinda-sorta waterproof. Not to speak for the nerds that designed the thing, but I’m guessing they made these advancements because of just such occasions.

Perhaps this scenario was worked out during Samsung’s beta-testing. Or perhaps one of these science nerds dumped their phone in a random toilet, while out chasing Pokémon’s, or whatever it is nerds do on their off time.

Regardless, it’s a helluva device. Kudos to them. I’m currently writing this blog entry on it. An entry which was inspired by it. And I’m writing it for people who I’m connected to because of it.

Thought of in those terms, saving my phone from the toilet was almost like saving a group of drowning people.

I’m kind of a hero, when you really think about it.

Navigating Land Mines and Building Bigger Tents

Posted: February 2, 2017 in ACLU, Arts, Conservative, Democrat, Donald Trump, Family, GOP, Human Spirit, Immigration Ban, Liberal, Nikola Jajic, Policy, Politics, Punk Rock, rant, Republican, soap box, Social Media, The Wall, Trump, USA, writing
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
0

Against my better judgment, I guess I’ll add my two cents (worth barely that) to the fray.

I don’t remember exactly when it ruptured. The division had always been there. But rupture seems the more appropriate term for what happened. It was definitely during the election, but more precisely, it started to take shape during the primaries. When sad politicians, with their sneers and bird-like eyes, spread their blankets of rhetoric.

It seems like a long time ago, now. A time when we had our different opinions on candidates, but could still find that humorous, middle-ground. You know the one: “He did this/she did that… Yeah, let’s just agree that they’re both kind of nuts.”

It was around that time, when a friend commented on how it seemed as if real life had transformed into a Coen Brothers film. And hey, the Coen Brothers make some pretty entertaining flicks. So it wasn’t all bad.

Sure, you had your hard liners on either end, but show me someone stepping passionately onto their soap box, and I’ll show you a really boring dinner party. One that I’m probably trying to get out of. Back then, I was dodging political conversations like a republican during the draft. And just like those fellas of yesteryear, I was getting good at hiding from ugly truths.

Little did I know that the truth was much better than me at hide and seek.

Full disclosure: I’m the son of immigrants. Actually, all of my family here in the states are either immigrants or the children of immigrants. We’re the kind of family that learned to speak Serbian before we learned to speak English. And now, most of us speak both languages (less than ideally).

This was one of the reasons I was so surprised by the fact that some in our family were thinking about supporting Trump.

Given, I’m a socially liberal fella. So I’m surprised quite often. And when you-know-who started in on his anti-immigration rants, and ugly sound bites about women, I was fairly certain a lot of our family’s Trump contingent would pull back on the throttle. That didn’t happen.

Still, that was fine. To each their own, I thought. I knew some of the reasons they supported him over Hillary. She was the same old thing. Business as usual. And there was also the civil wars in the former Yugoslavia, and the Clinton administration and UN led bombing campaigns. This was hard to swallow, especially when some of our family members had died, and many others became refugees. Add in a host of small business interests (all of them in one blue collar trade or another) and there you had it. Even if I didn’t agree with Trump or his ridiculous campaign promises, I understood why some of our clan liked the guy.

Anthony Bourdain recently wrote a great piece about this, except from a rural, middle-American perspective. The fly over states and all that. It’s mostly about how people become resentful when it feels like they (or their problems) aren’t being taken seriously. And looking back on it, this seems like one of the major factors in getting Trump elected. It wasn’t him so much as it was a frustration, or impotent rage over a system that many felt hadn’t just failed them, but had ignored them as well.

I don’t think a lot of those Trump supporters actually believed that he was going to try and make good on some of his wackier campaign promises. Maybe he was just sticking it to the man, in their eyes. Who knows?

But with recent events, the immigration ban in-particular, this Coen Brothers flick just got a lot less humorous.

Perhaps the one good thing that has come from this administration’s heavy handed, un-American policies, is that it has brought people from different backgrounds together in protest. And perhaps groups like the ACLU doing what they can, will inspire more.

People are getting involved and doing their part as Americans. They’re putting their money where their mouth is. Donations are starting to come in to the appropriate groups, while businesses that are trying to profit from unfair policies are being boycotted.

There’s a lot to think about in the strange days ahead. For instance, I’m kind of worried that the fiscal cuts that are coming could affect the arts a great deal, and that would be a shame. But who knows, maybe a lot of us will give a piece of our tax refunds right back to the programs that are affected. And maybe, this is how the fight will play out.

Maybe it’ll be through the voice of the majority, and just as important, through our wallets. Once politicians begin to see that the majority is spending its money with a political interest, maybe they’ll start to think twice. Capitalism isn’t owned by this administration. And once our money starts working against their policies, they’ll bend.

If we’ve learned anything from recent history, politicians will follow the money. If lobbyists can get their ear by lining pockets, we sure as hell can get their attention with how we spend our money. Just look at the contributions in the last couple of weeks to the ACLU. This could very well be an indication of things to come.

This administration’s rhetoric, along with the cable news play-by-play, are divisive in the worst sort of way. They’re making out by simply pitting us against one another. And unfortunately, it’s a big reason why we’re in this spot. We let them divide us. We bickered amongst ourselves, and they fed off it. This isn’t a football game. This isn’t about winning or losing teams. This is more nuanced than that. This is about coming together and reminding these entities that they work in our interests, not the other way around.

And those Trump supporters? We need them too. There’s no use patting each other on the back and talking about how smart and enlightened we are, while simultaneously grousing about how ignorant they are. So we make our tent bigger, and we bring them in. A lot of those folks have already noticed the destabilization that these new policies have brought about. Even if they don’t want to admit it yet. And I’m willing to bet many of them didn’t sign on for all of this craziness.

There were a lot of decent folks, who were simply dismayed by an ugly political system. These are hard working people that could very well change their minds. And we can help them do it. Perhaps some of them are just proud. People in general don’t want to be belittled and/or talked down to. That’s a common trait we all share. Sure, this seems trivial, but in all seriousness, trivial shit got us to this point, maybe it can help get us out.

Some of those people are on the fence already. I’ve seen it. I’ve had more than a few conversations with Trump supporters. In fact (This is our little secret), one in-particular is coming around. She watched the Woman’s march. She saw the news stories about innocent people being detained at airports all across the country, and she knows the wall is a ridiculous waste of money. It’s only a matter of time before she abandons this administration’s outdated way of thinking. And others will as well. And we will need those people. And they will need us.

United we stand and all that groovy jazz.

Well, that’s all I got. And if you don’t agree with my ramblings, that’s fine too. I’m just another dope pecking away at a keyboard in the middle of the night. Hell, I should have renamed this blog The Soap Box. Eh, it’s probably already taken. All the good ones are.

Till next time, be kind and keep going.

 

 

Odds & Ends, Ramblings, and Updates

Posted: September 2, 2016 in Books, comedy, Detroit, Dogs, facebook, Family, Film, Movies, Nashville, Nikola Jajic, Pets, Puppy, Road Trip, Sales trip, Social Media, South haven, Travel, Vacation, writing
Tags: , , , , , , , ,
0

Well, the kids are back in school, the dog days of summer have buried the last of their bones, and Labor Day weekend is upon us. I’ve been more than a bit negligent with this blog over the last couple of months, and today feels like a good enough day as any for a blog post. Supposedly, Friday is a bad day to update your blog. And a Friday before a holiday weekend is even worse. But if my track record is any indication, cultivating hits to this site is not something I’m very good at.

Maybe that’s because I’m not really sure what this blog is, any longer. It’s morphed more than a couple of times. At first it was a webcomic, and when that chapter came to its inevitable conclusion, it morphed into a travel blog of sorts, and for the last couple of months it’s just lain dormant.

Mostly because I’ve been slowly hacking away at a new screenplay. One that I’m both excited about and also dread working on. I guess a minor case of writers’ block, and a new found aversion to social media (Political memes are the herpes on my Facebook feed), are both partially to blame for my absence from this blog. Not that anyone cares too much about blogs, let alone the lack of them.

All that said, this blog still remains a convenient writing exercise, for this hack.

Especially this afternoon. Seriously, I wish this stupid screenplay would just write itself. Writing most of the time is a tedious endeavor, especially if you’re doing it for free. Some might say if you’re doing it for free then it’s a hobby, or they might spout some take on “for the love of the game”. But on days like today, it’s just a glowing screen and silence.

Static and a girl crawling through a television would be preferable.

And, now I’m veering off course. So back to it. What’s new with me, you ask? This is my blog after all, so “me, me, me,” it is. Thank you for asking.

Well, first off, I’ve still been traveling for work. And while the road has lost some of its luster, I have found ways to pass the time. Some are tried and true, like the godsend known as Audible. Though my book picks have been hit or miss lately, I did stumble upon “The Hike” by Drew Magary.

It was a fine way to spend ten hours in a car. Along with my co-pilots, coffee and cigarettes. The latter of which I can’t quit. So please don’t kill me, Cancer.

Then there’s the occasional hit from a Californian vape pen (you know the ones), and after that, shit usually gets weird. The other day, I worked out for two hours straight in the hotel gym. The last time I worked out was two weeks earlier. I could barely walk the next day. And that same night, I ate half-dozen white castles in my hotel bed… at midnight. Like I said, shit got weird.

Let’s see, what else. Last month, there was a family vacation in South Haven. That was nice. The kids played with their cousins and friends, while the parents drank a bit too much and soaked up the sun. I grilled a lot, which is therapeutic for me in some strange way. I think it’s because I’m Serbian, although it’s more likely just a middle-aged guy thing.

I brought our dog with us, and in the mornings we would stroll through town together. Looking back on it, I think South Haven was a pretty good vacation spot. But sometimes, after more than a couple of days on vacation, I feel like my wheels are spinning. It’s kind of like my shifter is stuck in the neutral position, but I keep giving it gas, waiting for some sort of forward propulsion that never comes.

After days of observing other out-of-towners, I suspect this might be a common occurrence amongst a good deal of folks.

At one point, midway through our vacation week, I was driving home from the grocery store (we had run out of hot dogs and beer), and I saw a man trying to ride a bicycle to the beach, but he couldn’t get the hang of it. This guy must have been mid-fifties, yet it appeared that he didn’t know how to ride a bike.

His wife, possibly girlfriend, maybe sister, or perhaps caretaker, was half a block ahead of him. While the man, losing ground to her every second, veered left to right, catching himself just before crashing, on multiple occasions.

It was like gravity worked differently on him, playing some strange cosmic prank on this poor unsuspecting bastard. And when I slowly passed (he was all over the street) he glared at me and actually shooed me away with his left hand, which not being on his handle bars, forced him to veer off into someone’s yard.

Let’s see, what else? I was in Nashville the other day.

Full disclosure: I’m in Nashville a lot. Also, I despise pop country music. I don’t think these two things are mutually exclusive, but I could be wrong. Pop country music is pop music for people who want their pop music to be more manufactured and less nuanced. Lucinda Williams rips farts with more soul than any pop country song I’ve heard on the radio.

If you’re wearing store bought, pre-torn jeans, and your teeth are too white, and you have a craving for endless cornfields, and Budweiser, then you need to stay off of my radio. But you probably don’t care, and you’re undoubtedly wealthy, and quite satisfied with yourself. So I’ll just swallow my contempt for your craft, and shut up about it.

Back to the “me, me, me” of it. I ran into some friends who were celebrating their 40th birthday, in Nashville. It was a surprising, and refreshing coincidence, which resulted in me not spending another night bellied up to a bar, with a copy of the USA Today to keep me company. We drank, listened to live music, and had an easy going, fun night.

The following morning however, was reserved for my hangover and the long drive home.

Hmm, I feel like this blog post might be a tad too negative in spots.

So, I’ll brighten the overall mood a bit.

I’ll be travelling to Detroit soon. No, I’m not being sarcastic, this is indeed the mood brightener. There’s actually something really positive about going to Detroit, I swear.

Little known fact: Detroit’s hotels have the best bathtubs in the Midwest… Seriously.

I’ve been to multiple hotels in most of the major cities in the Midwest, and over-priced suites aside, the hotel bathtubs in Detroit are a glorious reprieve. A hidden gem of Midwest business travel.

My personal favorites include the Athenaeum in Greek Town, and the Motor City Casino and Hotel.

Long soaks in the tub are something that I’ve recently taken to. Mostly, on the suggestion of my doctor. You see, countless hours of traveling takes a toll on a very specific part of the anatomy.

Namely, my ass.

Full disclosure: Hemorrhoids are a very real problem for the middle-aged traveler. And according to my doctor (after a thorough and humiliating exam that I’d rather not get into) a good soak in the tub goes a long way for the ol’ butthole. There’s a reason you always see cowboys soaking in tubs and chomping on cigars in the old west. After hours on a horse, there were no amounts of powders or pastes that could relieve a case of the butt darts better than a nice soak and a good cigar.

So, there. A happy note.

 

ODDS & ENDS:

-I’ve recently sat through both a Marvel and a DC superhero movie, and I can’t help thinking that Pepsi and Coca-Cola really need to get into the movie business.

-Also watched Anomalisa, while on a solitary road trip. And while it was quite well done, I would not recommend a viewing, especially if you’re feeling a bit lonely in a foreign land. Seriously, suicide prevention hotlines are more heartwarming.

-I was listening to a podcast while driving home the other day, and one of the guests dropped a profound piece of knowledge on me. She stated that Dirty Dancing is the female movie equivalent to Point Break.

…Let the truth of that sink in for a moment. I mean, holy shit. Right? That’s the most observant thing anyone’s ever said… Like ever.

-Last night I laid in my son’s bed, while he and his brother read to themselves. The window was open, and a cool breeze was blowing into the room. It was a fall breeze. And it was just right.

 

So long summer. Until next time, here’s a pic of my dog.

My dog under a blanket. Random but adorable.

My dog under a blanket. Random but adorable.