King of nothing

Bars, Brats, and Bee Stings

Well, it has been a good weekend. Clearly, from my last entry I got pretty wasted on Thursday. Rest assured, dear reader, I did not slack off on Friday either. After walking off the hangover I earned from all of those shots, I drove Jae back to Indy and then returned to Bloomington. It was just that kind of weekend (lots of driving). The return trip was the longest I have ever taken to the home of the hoosiers, weighing in at over 2 hours. This was due to bad traffic and the fact that my car nearly exploded. Boy, I had better explain that one. Don't worry, the story will, in true Mike Szalay style, not live up to the hype. Anyhow, I was driving down 37 (God! its boring already! Like Epcot) and my car started to shake like mad. I thought for sure that I had a flat tire, so I pulled off to the nearest gas station to check it out. No flat. The actual cause of the rattling remains a mystery. On a completely unrelated note, my check engine light has been on for like 5 days now. Weird!

Friday night was a good time. Happy birthday to Melissa, Missy, and anyone else who just turned 21. Once again we ended up at Sports (which is where we were thursday too). Only this time the place was packed. So packed, in fact, that I at one point waited for a half-hour for a drink...at the bar! All I wanted was 2 bud lights...*sigh*. Oh well, I got them and in the end its for the best because I didn't have to tip as much. My tab also took a long time to get, but that wasn't as bad, because I was more motivated. Rather than stand there looking sullen and...well, wasted, I used the time to steal shot glasses. I only got two though, so here is the distibution. One shot glass will be given to Melissa, and Missy. Until such time, I appoint Jake trustee of the shot glasses. If for some reason Jake is unable or unwilling to perform the duties of the trustee (to be listed below) the position will be passed on to Shipley, then to Norm. Pat shall not be trustee. The trustee has no responsibilties other than to say "hey _____, there is a shot glass here that Szalay stole from sports for you."

Saturday was also a good day. I awoke hangover free and watched some baseball on TV. The cubs won and are going to the playoffs. Go Cubbies!! In my attempt to imitate the daunting Cubs defense during a game of wiffleball, however, I resprained my ankle, which as many of you probably know is an old limbo accident. After the first game it was time to go camping, so I packed up and headed west...Northwest about 10 miles to McCormick's Creek. It was a great night for camping, at one point in the evening you could see about a million stars. Other than celestial beauty, I drank some good beers and hung out at the camp fire. Awesome. Not so awesome is that the next day, about 10 minutes before I left, I got stung by a bee. That kinda hurts! A first for me and I am proud to announce that I am not allergic. Well, now that you can all sleep at night, now that you are free from worry that I am going to get stung and swell up and pop/die, I will let you go...although this was quite a long entry, so many of you might already be sleeping...Maybe you don't even know it...Maybe we are all sleeping and this world is just a big dream...Woah! Heavy stuff, huh? I probably just blew your mind. It happens, I am like super smart.

Very Smart Guy,
Z

A Trip to Here and Back Again

Well, tonight was a very interesting night. I travelled many many a mile to end up in b-town. If it is not already obvious, I am drunk. HA AH. Yeah. Alright. Anyhow, I spent most of the night driving to Louisville and back. Sympathy? Thank you. I was on the road for 5 hours at least in order to take care of some business. But in the long run it is all good, because I got wasted all the same...

I will present this story better some time when I am not so drunk and typing on jakes computer. thats all. Man....

It wasn't me,
Z

Still Unemployed (and getting very pissed off about it)

Well, today has been the first day since last Thursday that I really had time to assess my job hunt status. As regular readers will know, I have been unemployed since last May when I graduated from college. Apparently that was supposed to give me an advantage when it came to finding gainful employment. Well FUCK THAT! It hasn't. If you are college right now you might as well drop out, because it hasn't helped me in the least. "Oh, you have a degree. Thats nice. But it doesn't mean shit, because we were looking for some dumbass who was out getting work experience while you were in school." So I gave up for the time being on getting a "real" job and decided to go back to my roots and work someplace where I could have gotten a job without graduating from high school. My first choice was Blockbuster video on 96th street. It would be a fun place to work as Ray has already gotten a job there, and it would also have the added perk of getting hooked up with free rentals. I turned in an application last week, and as I said I haven't been able to go around and check up on stuff this last week, but with Blockbuster, I figured that wouldn't really be necessary. No call, no interview. I went in today to check on my status to find that all positions have been filled. I know it was the first non "real" job I looked for. But, I never expected that I would have to look for anything but a "real" job after college, and doing so was a blow to my pride in and of itself. So, here I am sitting in my room...at my mom's house...feeling shitty as hell.

So, if anyone has ideas for jobs or how to find them please post a comment, because I have lost the touch.

Stuck in a Rut,
Z

The Illinois Trail

Well, sometimes in a man's life he just gets the urge to go west. Yesterday was one of those days for me. So I packed up the trusty conastoga Dodge, and headed west to the wild, savage filled land of Illinois. With Jae riding shotgun I drove out the dusty sun-parched trail known to some as I-74 west. Soon, with the sun in our eyes as the evening grew closer, we reached the home of the Fighting Illini, Champaign, IL. Once there we were adopted by a small tribe of Illini and fed pre-cooked beer brats. Johnny "Littlest Bear Cub" Tock, the youngest member of the tribe, then took us to his wigwam and we consumed cheap beer and played sand volleyball on the PS2. The urge to get out and explore this strange land soon overwhelmed our small party and we departed into the then unknown lands of downtown Champaign. With our Illini guide driving us through the confusing one-way streets of town, however, the journey to the bar was short. We then continued drinking beer and smoking peace sticks. Much to our surprise, the bars in Champaign close at a measley two A.M.. In light of this new discovery we decided that it would be best to pay for our beers and drive back to the shelter of the wigwam where there was still cold beer and many moving pictures. The excitement of the evening had worn us all out and in our fatigue went to bed. That night I had a strange dream in which I was stealing cars with "Littlest Bear Cub" Tock, and Mike Strange, but then after we stole the cars we realized we would be arrested and were very paranoid. Luckily before we were caught I was awakened by the real "Littlest Bear Cub" and realized it was just a dream. I believe the dream meant that I could not hack it in this crazy wild west town and that I should return to the civilized east of Indianapolis. So once more with Jae riding shotgun, we headed down the trail I-74. The End.

That was a really long, weird way of describing a pretty normal trip to Champaign, IL. I hope it spiced things up a bit.

Often Imitated, Only Duplicated Once or Twice,
Z

Sad News on a Friday Morning

Well, as some of you may know, my grandfather has been very sick recently, and has been living in hospice care. This morning around 5 am he passed away. He was a good man, and I am glad that I got to spend as much time with him as I did. I believe his passage was easy and was most likely in his sleep. I ask you to remember my Grandmother and family in your prayers.

Mike

Crazy Would be Chicks

Well, it has been an uninteresting week. Updates: Still unemployed, still broke, still not lovin' police. Thats right, my ongoing search for gainful employment continues at its steady unsuccessful pace. Right now the best bet I have is at blockbuster video. I have a degree for Christ' sake, and I am crossing my fingers that I can get a job at blockbuster! Oh well, life goes on.

In other news, my car was egged today. How strange is that. To make it even stranger, I was at kinko's at the time. Luckily I was not the primary target and my car only took one egg full force. Nevertheless, I was not pleased. I mean, we were only there for like ten minutes. Someone must have gotten some bad copies or something. Related note: eggs on cars are a good way to deal with enemies on a hot summer day; that shit bakes on there and doesn't wanna come off. Thats about it. Eggs, no job, and pool.

Scream until daddy stops the car,
Z

With friends like me, who needs enemies.

Episode II Still Sucks

Well, well nothing, I don't think I would actually start this entry with "well," but hey, here's to keeping tradition alive.

Recently, my good friend and trusted fellow hater of the presently available prequel starwars movies Ray turned me on to an interesting site...well (now that is an appropriate "well." It fits into the context of what I am saying. Not that that matters as I have completely ruined the flow of this paragraph like any number of things in a movie craptly titled "attack of the clones." ah, but I digress) interesting might be the wrong word to use. Intense. That works, intense. Ray turned me onto an "intense" site that attempts in a convincing manner to defend these movies. The one glaring inconsistency here is that the movie's suck. Now if it gets you off, I suppose you could also sit around all day and just come up with interesting intellectual-sounding arguments about why the prequel trilogy is actually good so far, but at some point in time you have to acknowledge the facts. I know they are bad, I watched them tonight with Ray and Jae, just to make sure that I am not crazy. If you like the first one, ok, its a bad movie but hey, if your not a big time star wars fan, then there really isn't that much to complain about. I still think its crap, but thats an opinion. Episode II, gets rid of most of the major problems of Episode one. Jar Jar's part is minimized, Jake Lloyd is incapable of playing a brooding 18yr old, Mediclorians are not mentioned at all, and no one, not one person speaks into a women's razor. So whats the problem? For every abomination that was eliminated a far greater abomination was introduced. Jar Jar was not in the movie but for a few wretched seconds, which in my opinion is almost a shame. I say this because he could have used his senatorial swerve to get Anakin laid. Which he needed...Bad. Which brings me to my next point. Jake Lloyd was not in the film, but he is replaced by another annoying young actor, Hayden Christiansen (ok, I know I misspelled that). The problem with Anakin is his creepiness. The way he stares at Padme all the time and calls her "my lady" with that weird look on his face. Oh mercy, the romance between those two was unimaginably horrible. It was so uncomfortable it reminded me of middle school...MIDDLE SCHOOL!! That right, middle school, and if I didn't already know that this love story was written by George "the Great Satan" Lucas, I would have swore that person that wrote the love story would also be reminded often of middle school-because he would be a seventh grader (I know it is PC to say "he or she" but only a boy in middle school who had never had a girlfriend would be able to so accurately depict what a boy in middle school who had never had a girlfriend thought true romance would be like.) No talk of mediclorians in episode II- Yipee!! Poorly veiled U.S. style Democracy propaganda- Boo!! Two terms as queen, what!? The line "the day we stop believing in democracy is the day we lose it," was actually in the film, I am not kidding. Well, honestly there is nothing I can think of off hand comparable to talking into a women's razor, but I feel like the other factors overpower this one small, hollow victory for episode II. Now I could go on, but I am litterally falling asleep here. Until the next. I'm not a nerd though, honest. I am a cool dork. Yeah...Cool.

Hoyven Maven!
Z

Warning: Do not read if you are in a good mood

Well, it has not been the most exciting of weeks. I must admit, I try to keep this blog full of kooky things that I complain about, but there has just been a drought of kookiness in my life recently. It has been a busy week, however. For those of you who don't already know (don't you love the way I always write like I have a large audience, when in reality, I think there are only three or four of you) my friend Jae arrived last Thursday from Hawaii, so hopefully soon I can get the hell out of this house. Jae seemed happy to be leaving Hawaii, which makes him unique. So we've been busy getting him set up here, you know, the usual stuff, getting a bank account, looking for a job, pricing cars, and trying to keep him out of the Korean military. Pretty standard stuff.

On the depressing side, my Grandfather is dying. I hate to publish depressing stuff, like I said I like to keep this blog kooky or at least sarcastically funny, but there hasn’t been much else going on. Plus, I feel that this is a good way to get the word out a bit without me having to tell everybody individually, and then there is that awkward thing when someone didn’t know. Kind of like a press release. Anyhow, I have made my peace with the fact, and he is being very well taken care of. That’s about it, sorry for the downer, and I promise to get back to 100% kookiness by my next entry, even if I have to make shit up. J

Still not lovin’ police,
Z

No Net Noteriety, and Bizarro Baffles Braincase

Well, apparently if you enter "Pawulich" on a google search, the first few entries have to do with Ray or his immediate family. Likewise, if you enter "Yoosuk," the first few entries list Yoosuk's blog and web page. I read about this on their respective blogs (well, maybe I heard it from Yoosuk himself), and I even tried it. It worked. So, I was thinking, "hey, Szalay is a pretty uncommon name, I should give this a try." Well, it doesn't work for Szalay. I entered "szalay" and I get a bunch of hits in foreign languages and such, nothing about me. Ok, maybe I should be more specific. "Michael Szalay." This time I got results. "Michael Szalay, author of New Deal Modernism: American Literature and the Invention of the Welfare State (Post - Contemporary Interventions)." Well, if you are suprised to find out I know about stuff with long names like that, you aren't alone. Apparently, this bizarro Mike Szalay works at UC Irvine, and is a professor of literature. How weird would it have been if I went to UC Irvine and had taken Professor Szalay's class. Whoa! It would have been like the parent trap or something. You can check out Michael Szalay's book on amazon.com if you like, I would not purchase it though (not that you would, it sounds boring) it costs like $60 bucks! Intrigued by this discovery, I sought to find out more about this potential long lost relative. I found his website on the UC server and a picture, but he looks nothing like me. Oh well, at least someone out there named Mike Szalay is employed.

Accept no substitutions,
Z

The End is Nigh, and Don't Sleep on Leather Couches

Well, Saturday night was a fun night out in Broadripple. Ray and I hit up a number of bars and had some excellent conversations. But after a night in Broadripple, I decided to just go ahead and crash at Ray's place. Now don't get the idea that I am unappreciative of Ray's hospitality, because nothing is further from the truth. All I am saying, is that leather couches, while attractive in appearance and comfortable for seating, are not the best for sleeping. There is something about the constant contact of skin and hide that isn't very pleasant, at least after several hours. Also, suction is created between your ear and the leather arm rest that acts as a pillow. Its something like when you press your palm against your ear, except that this effect seems to grow over the course of the night, so that when you wake it seems that there is a small explosion in your ear along with an uncomfortable change in pressure. So if you sleep on a leather couch sleep on your back, that will minimize the contact that your skin has with the leather, as well as preventing ear trauma. That said, I want to once again stress that I appreciate Ray letting me stay at his place.

When I woke up Sunday morning at Ray's, I noticed that it was raining. We met up with Yoosuk for some Mexican food at El Rodeo about an hour later, and it was still raining. When I left Ray's yesterday evening, it was still raining. Today, it has rained all day. It is a fucking wet weekend in Indy. In fact today set the record for rain on this date, beating the old record set over a hundred years ago by quite a bit. Most roads around here are flooded in places. My grandma's street has about a foot of standing water, effectively turning her driveway and front yard into a beach. I live on a pond and the pond has extended its borders so that it is now inside of many people's fences. These are just a few things, and I have heard some stuff that is worse than that by far. A friend of the family had his car ruined when he was driving down the street and came across a section of road that was submerged in three feet of water. Crazy stuff. This has been a weird week. I can think of only two rational explanations for it all, one of course being the fact that Mars is so close. That would explain it, I guess. Something about gravity, and martians, etc. The other of course is that GOD IS ANGRY!!! BOW BEFORE THE POWER OF THE LORD, SINNERS!!! The time is now, to be honest, floods are bad, but it would be really gross if it started raining frogs and toads and stuff. Ewww! Anyhow, that was my bit of evangelism for the decade. Right now, however, I think I am going to get some food. Because I like to eat sometimes. And now is one of those times... Alright. The end (get it?).

Go with God my children,
Z