Meet the Neighbors, Part 2

by Von Droomer

Now that we've covered Satan's Asscrack, it's time to introduce you to my friendlier, older, more hospitable neighbors. Let's Mr. Rogers this shit.

1. The Bird People

In the apartment on the right lives a sweet older couple that always takes the time to greet my girlfriend and I, making little noise other than their early-morning addiction to the Lawrence Welk Show. Well, that and the occasional Jerry Springer episode they hold in their house, screaming epithets that rip through our apartment walls like they were made of string cheese. 

 The walls, not the insults, though I'm sure dairy-based insult comedy has its place in the world - probably some farm in Holland

However, there is more than just the grated voices of a forgotten generation living in that apartment. Imagine my surprise when I came home one day to find the nice old man walking his pet. 

His pet pigeon. 

Yes, it seems not all of the squawks echoing through through our walls were coming from his wife. As it turns out, they may have more than one bird, as I'm almost positive I saw a huge cockatoo in their living room as well. 

It was either that or the pope.

But so be it. I'll look past the bird seed out front and the occasional screeches of a traumatized bird if it keeps scaring the demons upstairs back into their cages. 

2. The D&D Guy

I'm a nerd. Now, while this may be upsetting to some of you readers, it's the truth and I don't try to hide it. I've always been socially awkward, but some of that awkwardness has subsided over the years. One of the best things I've done to address my social anxiety was to start playing Dungeons and Dragons. 

But mysterious person on the internet, doesn't D&D separate you from reality, allowing you to instead live in a fantasy world of your design? Well, yes. To an extent, anyway. However, D&D has always been to me, first and foremost, a way to connect with friends.You all get together one a week or so, hang out, roll some dice and have a good time. And that role-playing part? It's not easy to let go and get into a character in front of others, believe me. 

I even took it a step further and took it upon myself to be the group's main Dungeon Master, meaning it's on me to make a fun, exciting story and be able to immerse the players in it. I've been doing it for five or six years and I am just NOW getting comfortable with it. Having to interact with everyone in and out of the game is one of the DM's main responsibilities, and social skills are a vital part of that. 

I tell you all of that to tell you this; the neighbor to our left lives a single, older gentleman that we saw on occasion but never thought one way or another about him. One day I was returning from the store with a few packs of Magic the Gathering cards (NERD!) and he happened to be leaving his apartment as I arrived. He saw the cards in my hand, and immediately asked if I played D&D. 

I said yes without hesitation, and we began to talk about playgroups, and old campaigns, minis and everything remotely related to the game. I soon found out that he was a former employee of TSR as a graphic designer, and still made art and minis that he sold online. 

Many a nerdgasm was had. 

We still talk fairly often, and I know that if I ever need anything from him, he would be happy to help. He even gave me a piece of his artwork as a housewarming gift. 

I don't have any jokes here, I'm just bragging at this point. 

So, as you can see, not ALL of your neighbors are going to be demons sent to ruin your life. Sometimes they'll just be white and nerdy. And that's not bad at all. 

Meet the Neighbors

by Von Droomer

There is a finite number of important steps that you will take in life - graduation, marriage, having a baby - and of all these there is none more full of adventure than your first apartment. That first tentative step out of your parents' place or college dorm is equal parts terrifying and exciting, with nothing but the world before you.

A world filled with crumbling, caustic sinkholes that others have the cajoles to call an apartment. Shopping around can be a frustrating merry-go-round, where the horses are overpriced mud pits with a roach problem and the operator already passed out after his eighth round of Scotch. It's not pretty, is what I'm saying.

Even after surviving all of the searching, paying all of the deposits, moving truckloads of furniture and boxes of junk into the only place that was actually decent for your modest (read: broke) price range, there is one adventure that will continue as long as you plant your made in China flag on that lot that technically isn't yours.

Say hello to the neighbors.

Now, maybe your neighbors are different than mine; in fact, they probably are.  I won't try to say otherwise and will instead paint you a picture of how life is in my apartment.

Let's meet the neighbors, shall we?


1. The Mysterious Douchebag
The Mysterious Douchebag is an entity of shady origins that inhabits the darkest reaches of humanity. Or one of the upstairs apartments. Then again, as you will find out later, they may be one and the same.
Sightings of the Mysterious Douchebag are rare, though sightings of his compensating 4x4 are impossible to avoid, as if he were waving it in our face to distract both us and himself from the fact that he has a tiny pe-

...personality. In any case, the subject mostly remains elusive, the only evidence of his continued existence being the annoying act of leaving his door open and his TV on loud, probably to drown out the moans of pleasure his girlfriend belts out because of the size of his truck.

2. The Angry Chair Lady
Relaxing at home one night, my girlfriend at work and the whole of the majestic land called 'Internet' at my fingertips, I was disturbed by the familiar two note ring of my doorbell. Expecting a visitor, or possibly those nice kids who sell candy bars, I opened my door with a naive optimism that I have not enjoyed since.

The wails that issued from the foul creature outside my door pierced through the barrier of hospitality I had formed in preparation for dealing with such neighbors. In my stupor, I could only make out a few words. "Did you take my chair?" the harpy shrieked, nothing but murder in her eyes. I managed only a shake of my head before her voice cut into me again.

"My chair is missing! I've never had a problem until YOU moved in!" Ignoring the fact that I had moved in some three months prior to this attack, I plugged my ears and muttered out a reply. In all honesty, I was unaware this she-beast had any outside chairs. My denial quelled the monster, and she allowed me time to escape before ringing the bell of her next victim.

This horror perches in the apartment across from the Mysterious Douchebag, on the floor known as the Fifth Layer of Hell.

3. The Newbies (formerly the Hippo) 
When we first lived with the apartment we lived directly below the apartment of a, erm, glandularly challanged woman who moved with the grace of an intoxicated wildebeest. We really had little problem with her, except for the first two weeks where she moved her chair directly above our ceiling fan, which would threaten to fly off at any moment and decapitate everyone within blades' reach if it was ever turned on above its lowest setting. So yeah, looking past the attempted manslaughter, she was one of our more pleasant neighbors.

And then, the Hippo moved.

In her place was a young couple that we have already dubbed our arch Nemeses. Things were off to a great start when it took them two weeks of constant banging, trudging, hammering, and, going by the noise that was made, training a herd of elephants to dance to "Thriller" just to move into the apartment/circus tent/ Satan's taint.

Now, things are pretty calm during the week. We hear little noise from them, probably because their devil rituals require complete concentration. But every weekend they have kids over. Whose kids are they? I wish we knew. Maybe they're kids from a previous marriage. Or maybe they are the sacrifices they use to appease Lucifer. It's open for debate.

What I do know is that those little bundles of joy must REALLY enjoy the game "you have to run everywhere  or you will die", along with such favorites as "let's hit the floor repeatedly with hammers", and "I hope you don't enjoy sleep, poor fuckers that live downstairs". What fun!

So now you know the upstairs neighbors and this post is already growing long. So, I shall continue the introductions at a later, undetermined point in the future so you may meet my much more docile neighbors downstairs. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to bang on my ceiling with a broom like a cartoon character.

The Drudge Life; Surviving Manual Labor

by Von Droomer

My life recently has been, as some would put it, lethargic. I prefer to think of it as relaxed, or lord-like, or "Like a master of my dominion, ruler of all I see and commander of all that I own". Mt girlfriend calls me a housewife. To each their own.

Unfortunately, the time has come for me to be thrust back into the working world. I have a little bit of experience in the land of employment, some of it good, most of horrible, and through most of it I was subjected to the same bullshit that everyone faces. So, you know, whatever. I won't tell you the story of most of my jobs, at least not today, because fuck you, it's my article.

I won't tell you about my first job either. Mainly because it was a summer job in high school and those barely count as jobs, but also because it was boring as fuck. Knowing that you are at least a somewhat sensible audience, I will spare you the numerous recollections of high school girls throwing their buns around the kitchen of a half-star restaurant (and god, I wish I meant that in the best way possible). No, today I tell you a different story.

 It was the summer after high school, and much like today I needed a job in a big way. I managed to get on at a nearby target factory that for the purposes of this article I will call "Dumbshits". Now, when I say Dumbshits made targets, I'm talking about hunting targets for bow hunters. Being in the South, this particular factory did quite well, as there are few things rednecks love more than going all Legolas on some wildlife ass.

I can't give you a day-for day account of my time there because I have slept since then and deleted most of the memories. But I've got enough of them left to give you a basic rundown.

To make the targets, we had to put a frame and center into the main bag, and then stuff the shit out of it with used fuck blankets from some whore-house in Hong Kong. At least that's where I'm assuming they came from. Maybe Vegas. The point is, they gave you rusted scissors (probably from all the reproductive fluids staining the material) and had you futilely attempt to hack your way through the thick cords of fiber, then jam it inside a plastic bag, all the while scraping your knuckles on the burlap center that I swear to God came from Columbia. Fucking Columbia.

This wasn't a target factory, it was where a wealthy drug lord's landfill. And we were the fucking seagulls.

The actual work wasn't the worst part (even though there was always the threat of finding the occasional spoon, pin, knife, or, I'm not shitting you, a used syringe tangled in the old, musky, and ironically named comforters). The people there were the worst.

Oh, sweet baby Jesus, did Dumbshits have a knack for hiring just the most wonderful people. A good two thirds of them were ex-convicts, all of them were painted with a menagerie of amateur tattoos, and they went through so many cigarettes a day that the ground in the break area might as well have been a giant fucking ashtray. So many wonderful people, I don't know where to start.

First, you had the forty something, who had been in and out of prison his entire life. You had the token black guy. You had the overachiever who made quota every day, though I'm pretty sure it was mathematically impossible. You had all manner of loudmouths and douchebags, including the one-upper, who was so obviously lying just to seem "cool" in front of the others that it was hard to watch.

And then there was "Kenny".

Kenny, as I'll call him, though I honestly don't remember his actual name. He worked in the space next to me, though he didn't talk to me for the first few days. That was fine with me; something told me I really didn't want to converse with any of these people, that maybe they wouldn't be interested in my sweet Magic the Gathering cards, or care so much if I was a dungeon master. I was right.

The first thing Kenny said to me told me all I needed to know about him. Seemingly out of nowhere, he gets my attention and asks, "Have you ever had a girl lick your asshole before?"

I'll just leave it at that.

I only worked at Dumbshits for about two weeks, which was long enough to see about seven other employees come and go, the forty-something quit before he could be subjected to a drug test, and hear Kenny spout off witicism of such filth that I redefined my definition of foul language, downgrading Eminem to "Light Swearing".

I guess if I learned anything from my time there, it was this: by Buddha's belly, I never, EVER want to go to prison. Fuck.

Oh, and I guess something about good work environments, blah blah blah. Whatever. But mainly the prison thing. I mean FUCK.

Until the next time around, mortals.

The BCS is Big BS and other stupid issues in sports

by Von Droomer

Every year is the same story, coming from the same people, and equally shrugged off by the same money-pigs - I mean Conference Owners.

The BCS is college footballs pride and joy, an overly complicated system measured by both computer rankings (read: facts) and voting by the Associated Press (read: random guessing). It is a structure unique to Division 1 College Football with, as many BCS opponents will be quick to point out, every other major sport, including every other level of college football using a playoff system to determine the champion. Surely the BCS must be an amazing an accurate system, able to determine which two teams are to play for the national championship each year, based solely on how they performed throughout the regular season.

Surely.

Okay, so usually there is a clear cut top two teams, teams who go undefeated or lose two games and happen to play in the SEC. But what if there are multiple undefeated teams? What if there is just one? How subjective  are the votes when trying to decide number 2? And that's not even mentioning the other 34 bowl games that are played each postseason. How much difference is there between 14 and 15?

Let's not forget the preseason polls. While the NFL does release Power Rankings each week online, those are simply a gauge of how hot teams are, and have no actual impact on where teams end up playing in the postseason. The BCS, however, completely determines your position at the end of the year. Preseason polls are based on how good you think a team is, but beating a top 25 team early on can carry a team through the season, even if that team wasn't as good as expected.

Sure, at the end of the year teams are judged more on the current top 25 teams they've beaten, but a lot of those teams are still riding on wins against early season favorites. "Yeah, Boise State plays a light schedule, but they beat Georgia when they were in the top 25!" Nice. But Georgia isn't a top 25 team now, so there's that.

Why the lack of humor on a humor-based site in what you were sure was a humor article? Fuck you, that's why. You are severely underestimating the severity of this situation. The Conference owners just want to keep lining their pockets with bowl money no matter who wins the championship every year. With all the recruiting scandals and cash flying around between players and agents, College football is nothing more than a money-sucking, soap opera minor league for future NFL stars and washouts.



Dear me from five minutes ago,

Did you see the Patriots game? Tom Brady is ridiculous!

Deconstructing a Mild Inconvenience (or, How Have I not Cock-punched You Yet?)

by Von Droomer

I sit in the same spot on campus most every day I'm there, clicking away at the latest news stories, enjoying a good belly laugh at the latest meme, and altogether having a pleasant time during my daily perusal of mind-numbing internet sites.

And then the beast awakens.

Sometime, at some point and without fail, there comes the banshee shrieks of the whiny soccer mom taking too many classes, or the "I've got a suit therefore I can act like a douche" business major yammering on his cell phone, or - god forbid - the cringe-worthy comedy styling of some popped-collar frat boy trying to impress his latest victim.

Look, I get it. You're in college, and no matter what other position you find yourself in life, that simple fact makes you feel indestructible. It's a safe-haven, where the insane is expected and the art of the asshole can be perfected. We've all got our stories, right Man-who-lost-his-job-and-wife-and-kids-and-was-fisted-by-the-economic-crisis?

It doesn't matter. I still feel like jamming pencils in my ear when you burst into the door, still cursing at the one you tried first but was locked just like it has been the ENTIRE SEMESTER, panting out a conversation that they can hear in 1968, and giving ME dirty looks for staring. Yeah, that's right, I'll stare all I want. Want to keep your conversation private? Then get out of public, you [at this point I went into such a furious tirade of filth and violent anger that I took a break to have a frozen burrito. It was most satisfactory.]

My point is, at least show a little human decency and keep it in a decibel range that won't cause permanent hearing damage. Now, please excuse me while I plunge these headphones far into my ear canal and pump heavy metal into my cranium to forget what your voice sounds like.

Droom Squad Now: A critique of everyday life.

by Von Droomer

We are the Droom Squad, everyday elites from the dredges of America's glorious lower middle class (but maybe more towards the upper lower middle class), and we revel in the simply astounding absurdity of the norm, of the politically correct, and the offensive beyond repair.
This is not social commentary. This is not satire. Except in the fact that it is both.
Here's the deal - each week (month, day, whatever), we will bring you a cutting, thrilling, complete critique of things in our lives, as if they were the same horrible movies we pay ten bucks to see, and then the snacks and WHAT?! SEVEN DOLLARS FOR WONKA? I THINK NOT, SIR!

I digress.

So sit back and enjoy the ride, because chances are I won't.  But that's a sacrifice I'm sure you're willing to make.