It's been awhile

Hey there, blog friends! Wow, it's been awhile since I've been here. I guess it's time I dust off the ol' e-pen.

It appears I've finally tricked convinced a girl to go on a date with me. An actual girl this time and not like that one I made out of cans. Ah, Candice. I miss your aluminumy glow. We were having a great time until that homeless man stole you away and sold you for $1.37. Sigh...what could have been.

The girl at work and I have been talking some, and the other night I just decided to say f it and ask her out, fully expecting her to say no because I have crazy awesome self-esteem like that. When she smiled and said yes, I actually said, "yeah?"

Groucho Marx once said, "I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members." (might be a little off on the wording there. Looking over a Groucho Marx quotations page, I learned that he was one corny son of a bitch. Moving on...) I kinda feel the same way about girls. I wanted to be like, "wait a minute...what's your deal, lady?" but I didn't. I guess it's not so hard to believe that somebody would enjoy my company (haha...I'm kidding.) So I'm convinced she's a kidney thief. It's worth the risk, though. She's pretty cute and I do have two kidneys. I probably only need one anyway. I'm just being selfish using both of them.

So we're going out this Saturday. I'm going to cook dinner (more on that in a minute) and we're going to go watch "Funny People." I was thinking about the movie first, but I don't really want to rely on Adam Sandler to set the tone for the evening. She asked me what it was about. I said, "It looks pretty funny. Adam Sandler and Seth Rogen are in it. They're stand up comedians or something. Then Adam Sandler gets cancer!" She said, "that does sound funny." If it was sarcasm, that's great. I love sarcasm. If it wasn't sarcasm, that's great too because she laughs at cancer jokes. If she laughs at that, I should be ok.

Back to the dinner thing. Some of my friends at work are telling me that cooking dinner here is a bad idea. They say she's not going to feel comfortable. I don't know about all this. I see girls as a case by case kinda thing and not some group of people who all like the same thing. I asked her the other night if it was ok if I cooked something. Then I made a joke about how I'm an amazing cook (not a joke at all). She laughed and said she had no problem with that. Last night I asked her again if she would be uncomfortable hanging out at my apartment. She again assured me that it was fine. I could look deeper into this and get into the whole "she's just being nice and doesn't really want to say anything" thing, but if I do this, I'm going to second-guess myself into a whole new world of uneasiness. So I'm just going to go with it. If I fuck it up, it'll be my fault and lesson learned.

So here's the bad (or potential bad) of this whole thing:

1. I'm moving back to Hardin in a few weeks. It's a long story and I don't really want to go, but it involves my mom taking care of my sick grandma in Nebraska and me moving home rent free to help out on some bills. Bills that are partially mine anyway. So there's that. Hardin is about two hours away from here. I'm usually too lazy to take the garbage to the dumpster that is 40 yards away, so if things end up working out, a long-distance thing probably won't.

2. She's 20. I'm 27. That might be a problem. That might not be a problem. It might be a problem mainly because she can't drink yet. Maybe she does. I dunno. Anyway, I DO...A LOT. It's my "make me interesting" juice. So I'm going to have to do all this completely sober. Ugh...the thought of that makes me cringe. At least I won't end up accidentally freezing wine again. This especially hurts because today I heard about dropping a shot of Baileys into a glass of crown and coke. Sigh...that sounds great.

3. She's Mormon. I don't know how much Mormon, but her family is. I'm not saying this is a problem either. It's just that all I know about Mormons is what I've seen on South Park, and if any of that is true, they seem pretty ridiculous. I don't know where I am religiously, but if that's a problem for her, then it's definitely not going to work. Religion is on hold for me at the moment until I figure some things out.

4. I'm going to have to clean my apartment. I've been living by myself for the better part of two months, and my standards of cleanliness are far below those of normal people. I'm actually surprised I haven't caught some form of fungus-born disease. It's so bad that the dishes in the sink have gone from smelling really bad to not smelling at all. I've outlasted the life cycle of whatever bacteria was living on the plates. And my car! I just thought about that. I'm gonna have to clean that shit too.

The good:

1. She's a girl who seems interested in me. That's pretty much all I care about. Ha! Also, she has her nose pierced and I think that's pretty cute.

So that about sums it up. Let me know what you think about the dinner idea and possible menu options.

I'm going to try to write more, but I don't know how that's going to work out. Until next time!

That time Cory got married

Cory and Stacy got married last weekend, and being the wonderful people they are, they decided to take a few of us on their honeymoon cruise with them. To say that I had a great time is an understatement. I think this cruise gave me a temporary new lease on life. Good things are going to happen for me eventually. I've just got to be patient.

I'm sure there are more pictures somewhere, but people don't let me borrow their cameras because I'm too awesome. I would have brought mine, but I haven't seen it in about a year and I'm way too lazy to look for it.

Cory and Stacy. Aww...aren't they adorable? Through the window behind them is the remnants of a city once known as Galveston.

This is apparently our standard wedding picture.

Six handsome guys. Too bad Richard and his "Hey, look at me!" tie draw the attention away from the rest of us.

What's up, ladies? (After this picture and a picture I took of my crotch during the wedding ceremony, I wasn't allowed to use cameras anymore. Hence the lack of hilarious pictures.)

Me and my life jacket and ocean rape whistle. You can't be too careful...Marquis Cooper.

Did you know they had bars on cruise ships? Crazy!


I'm sorta the Tiger Woods of air hockey except I'm white and I lose a lot.

Some pirates or something. I don't even know where this is.

This was in Jamaica. Apparently this gentleman was marooned there about 125 years ago. Speaking of Jamaica, what a shithole! Seriously. The depths of shitholeness there are indescribable. Everybody is super pushy and they all drive like fucktards. About 100 yards past where I was offered drugs for the first time, I saw a man creepily clutching a bible while walking past us. He had a huge butcher knife in his pocket. We later saw him in handcuffs with some friendly Jamaican police. Pretty solid place.

Drinking some red stripe on the beach in Jamaica. Hooray beer...boo Jamaica.

There was a place on the ship called the Aquarium Bar. I had almost a $400 bar tab. I'm pretty amazing like that. Not sure what I'm doing in this picture other than being drunk. Jim and Me. I think that's Grand Cayman behind us. I'm not sure. I didn't make it off the boat that day. I had a super sunburn and decided to alleviate the pain with about 982739847234 "yak" and cokes. Mexicans say stuff funny.

Drunk again. And unintentionally looking like I'm about to blow Jon. I promise unintentionally, Mom.

Cozumel. We were on a private beach with free drinks and I thought the girl to my left was super hot and amazing. It was the perfect storm of awkwardness and also the birthplace of the worst sunburn I've ever had. A sunburn that turned my right leg into a giant blister like a napalmed Vietnamese kid. After a whole lot of Jack, I sat directly in the sun and attempted to entertain her for about 2 hours. I gave her a seashell that looked like a teddy graham. I'm not sure how that didn't immediately win her heart.

Cory in Cozumel holding a can that's slightly heavier than he is.

A bootleg ipod I won in the arcade for being the greatest digital block stacker IN THE WORLD, MOTHERFUCKERS!

Drunkenly blow drying Stacy's hair. Why? Who knows.

Other points of interest:

• While holding her hand, I told a Romanian woman that I thought she was the "most beautiful woman I had ever seen." She was a customer service rep. In her adorable broken, accented English, she said it was the nicest thing anybody had ever said to her. She also looked like she was 50/50 on whether or not to call security. But she didn't. That equals a win in my book.
  
• Played three games of dodge ball which totaled about 45 seconds. We sucked pretty bad.
  
• I bought a sweet wooden cat head in Mexico because it seemed like the right thing to do.
  
• I could have gotten an autograph from one of the original Jamaican bobsledders. Oooor, I could have picked up a wet piece of dog shit. Both of equal value.
  
• Sadly, Galveston was the worst port we were in.
  
• Sarcasm + foreigners = a good time.
• I heard "Your Call" by Secondhand Serenade so many times on the boat that I downloaded it when I got home. I hate myself.
  
• I think that foreign women are much more attractive than American women, and will probably think my bullshit is charming instead of just bullshit.
  

So awkward am I

So things didn't go quite as planned with the remodel girl. In fact, they went pretty badly. After the initial, "no thanks, I have a boyfriend," debacle, I waited a few days and then decided (with help) that I wasn't taking no for an answer. Well, unless it was "no" twice. Guess what! It was "no" twice!

I had high hopes for the second time I asked her out. Well, it wasn't really asking her out. I just asked her to see a movie or something. Something to get her mind off the fact that she was away from home and had to live in a hotel for three months. I hoped it would be a way to get my foot in the door and for her to realize that I'm probably the most amazing person on the face of the Earth.

What I perceived to be adorably persistent on my part actually turned out to be "why can't this stupid fuck understand that I have a boyfriend?" Maybe not in those exact words, but it was something along those lines.

I didn't know this until yesterday as I was gearing up for round three of making this poor girl uncomfortable with my painfully awkward approach. I was still under the impression that I was being all cute and persistent and shit. Girls like that kinda stuff, right? Well, apparently this one doesn't. My boss told me that round three probably wasn't a good idea. They talk to each other and he's nosy and brought me up. I trust his judgment, so I decided that I'd just accept this and chalk it up to whatever I usually chalk these things up to to help me sleep at night.

All was well and good until tonight when he told me the whole story. It actually wasn't that bad, but there was one phrase that made me snap. According to my boss, she said that it wasn't bad, but she was glad that I'd backed off and "calmed down" about the whole thing. Calmed down! I went on on uncharactistically not-so-calm rant about how I'm the calmest guy you'll ever meet and how that doesn't make any sense. It makes it sound like I'm some kind of spaz all hopping around and shit while I creepily ask her out. Calmed down! Such bullshit.

So this pretty much ruined my night, and to make things worse, I got stuck with back door duty, which consists of me sitting in a chair by the back door for multiple hours making sure people don't steal shit. After the initial giggling from hearing the phrase "back door duty," I was pissed again.

I overthink things. I take each little event and run it over and over in my head. I was in a really quiet place and had three hours of solitude to just think of how the fuck I was seen as some kind of spaz who needed to calm down about asking a girl out.

About an hour and a half into my thinking, I look down the hall and see her walking towards me on her way to the door. I'm not quite sure what it was. Maybe it was anger. Maybe it was my weirdness. Whatever the cause, when she got about twenty feet away from me, I did what any self-respecting, totally mature 26-year-old would do when faced with this situation. I picked up the rubber band I'd been playing with and I shot it at her face, making an elongated "peeeeeewwwwww" noise as I did it. I'm not real sure why I thought any of this would either be funny or a good idea.

She stopped dead in her tracks, stunned as the rubber band grazed her forehead. She stared at me for a second, and I gave her the smirk/"yep, that just happened" nod.

"You got me a little."
"Yep. Sure did."
"Are you bored? You look like you are."
"Yep."
"Well, have a good night."
"Uh huh."

So now not only am I the weird guy who didn't take a hint and asked her out a second time, but I'm also the weird guy who shot her in the face with a rubber band. Pretty sweet, huh? I'm so amazing.

Sigh. What do people who are going to be single their whole lives wear? Like khakis or something?

Wylie, Tx (and some stuff about Tool)

Who lives there? Just curious. Email me if you don't want to comment. Daleberto2002@yahoo.com

Watch this guy cover Tool songs. It's pretty amazing. Here's a link to Sober since it's about the only Tool song most people know. I know most people aren't into this sort of thing. I wasn't either, but this guy is ridiculously amazing. Don't worry, Jimmy. He covers Eulogy, too. I know how much you love it.

Sorry, Jimmy

ILY, Jimmy...ILY.

I'm sorry

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Paul Rudd

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

I just can't get enough of this guy, and since I have nothing interesting to post here today, here he is!!! Enjoy.

I'm working on something, though. It may be the greatest love story ever told, or it may be nothing. I'm not sure yet, but I decided to not accept my rejection from the remodel girl, so I asked again, but in a funnier, more Dale way. We laughed and had a nice conversation. I mustered up some pretend confidence and I think she enjoyed it. Anyway, to make a long story short, she said that she felt bad because she "has a boyfriend," but she would think about it and let me know Monday. I know that doesn't sound great, but when you're me, that's like the fucking super bowl, my friends. THE SUPER BOWL.

Sigh

Paul Rudd: I'm not gay, but...

I remember when I was a kid and we'd have to write something in school about who our idol was. I would think and think, but I couldn't ever come up with anything. I'd either write my dad or Jesus. Both great men and solid answers that nobody can really argue with, but when I think of "idol," I think of somebody who you would want to be. I can't see an 8-year-old version of myself running around the back yard yelling, "I'm Jesus! *pew...pew...pew*"

Well, tonight I've finally discovered my idol. I guess I've known for awhile. It's Paul Rudd. Basically this guy is amazing. I just want to hang out with that guy and hope that some of his Paul Rudd-ness rubs off on me (in a totally straight way.) All of his characters are fucking hilarious with their sarcasm with just a bit of "sadness behind those eyes." You see what I did there? Totally a Paul Rudd quote.

If you disagree, watch this movie (It's on netflix instant!) It probably won't change your life, but it probably will make people question whether or not you're thinking about killing yourself!

Basically, Paul Rudd could narrate a movie starring my grandma where she orally pleasures a donkey, and I'd intently watch from beginning to donkey moneyshot. It would definitely be a lot better than that boring old one my grandpa narrated.

His glasses are like eyes! Goddamn hilarious!

The Remodel

Howdy

You have no idea how hard I've been trying to write something funny. It's just not happening. I don't know what's wrong with me besides the usual self-loathing. That's never stopped my writing before, though. I hope everybody is doing well and that you haven't abandoned me yet.

I haven't been now writing because my life is great. I haven't been not writing because it's particularly bad. It's just normal. I work, play video games and sleep. That's about it. I'm working on it. Don't worry. Like a clown having an orgasm, something funny is coming.

In the meantime, watch this Seether video. It's a good song and the video is pretty cool.

How amazing am I?

I could go into a really long post about how my life is kinda sucking lately (and by lately, I mean for probably the last four or so years), but I won't. I'll just give you a small example of what it's been like lately.

I started drinking around 8 p.m. with my standard coffee cup o' jack with a splash of ginger ale. By myself 'cause I hear that's what all the cool kids are doing. My roommate is gone for the weekend and when I'm alone, I become my own worst enemy. I do a lot of thinking about life and how it could be better, but then I realize I'm whining to myself, so I drink some more until I'm happy. Around 8:30, I talked to a friend for awhile who may or may not be unhappy with something that I can't help with as much as I'd like to. After that, I played Fallout 3 until I literally passed out on the floor in the living room with the game still running. I had one of those "stop breathing" sleep moments which I've come to love so much, and in the processing of jerking back to consciousness, I smashed my face on the sliding glass door around 1:45 a.m. After that, I ate some delinex taquitos, and I swear if they give me one more goddamn taquito that's just a rolled up tortilla, I'm going to go ape shit on something. Shortly after the taquitos, I tried to throw up three times, all of which unsuccessful. My stomach hurt pretty bad (haven't got the leadbelly perk yet.) Then I took a bath. Not a shower, but a bath 'cause I'm too lazy to stand up for that long.

So that brings me to today, Valentines Day. It's probably going to be a lot more of the same except I'm out of taquitos this time around.

This pathetic whine brought to you by the good folks at Jack Daniels and by my overactive mind and low self-esteem. Hope you enjoyed!

I'm going to write something again. I promise.

Well, it looks like the other blog isn't going to make it. I'm not sure why I try. I'm going to write something meaningful here soon. I've just been really busy lately (Ha! It's fun to pretend.)

Go there for awhile

I'm going to be writing here for awhile until it gets off its feet and becomes the fucking blogging juggernaut that I know it can be. It'll just take some time (and for Jon to write things instead of posting graphs and pics of flowers.) If nobody else posts, it'll probably be just a bunch of posts about peeing and pooping from Chase and me, though. That's kinda what you get here, so read it there. Did that make sense? Anyway, love you all.