Wicked Awesome!

I love hearing folks say, "Wicked Awesome!"... This has nothing to do with the topic at hand this evening, I just thought it had a nice ring to it. Sorry if this may seem to jump around, but I have a bunch of things on my mind tonight, tonight, tooooonight. Toniiiiiiiight, tonight. Striiiings, striiiings, striiiiinnnngggs.

First, the maintenance man in my building = Dwight Schrute. We had an hour-long test of our fire alarms last week, and every time he'd come over the loud speaker saying "this is a test, this is only a test" I'd find myself imagining staplers entrapped in jello. Every maintenance man I've ever known takes himself very seriously, with the exception of one: Les.

I worked with Les all through high school and college, and he was the coolest maintenance man ever. Seriously. Throughout my obnoxious teen years and trouble-making college years, Les was always nice. In fact, the only time I ever saw him get pissed was when we'd feed the ducks (I even snuck them inside once). Can't say that I blame him - who would want to scrub duck shit off the sidewalk? One time, on a really slow day, he let me go up on the roof, which was very adventurous for being at work. He offered to let me toss pumpkins off the roof at Halloween because no one wanted to be at work. That never happened, but just the fact that he mentioned it was cool in my eyes. He was an old school hippie - he recalled seeing Jimi Hendrix live in Virginia Beach in the 60's, and I never heard him yell at anyone. I saw his assistant drop a commercial light bulb on his head, shattering into a million pieces. He never even raised his voice. Once, while moving some plants around after an open house event, I got the facilities golf cart stuck in some double doors, and Les came to the rescue and helped me get it out before any of the managers noticed. He played in a cover jam band and drove an old station wagon (not a creepy chester molester wagon though). Ultimately, I think he was fired, but I had already moved on at that time, so I'm not sure. I'm guessing he is still practicing maintenance at some other business, as fixing things was obviously his calling. So next time some douchebag maintenance dude yells at you or treats you like an idiot because you don't know the difference between flourescent and HID light bulbs, think of Les, the coolest maintenance man ever.

Now, on to a list of two types of things: things that are bad, and things that are bad-ass. This list was inspired by my recent enjoyment of Important Things with Demetri Martin on Comedy Central. I'm going to list one of each. There are only five that I have right now, so please supplement this list in the comments section if you have something to add.

1. Things that are bad: chester molester vans.
1. Things that are bad-ass: El Caminos.

2. Bad: certain types of mustaches.
2. Bad-ass: Snagglepuss.

3. Bad: Paula Abdul 2009.
3. Bad-ass: Paula Abdul Reeboks from the 80's.

4. Bad: Mullets (fem-mullets included).
4. Bad-ass: Sweater shavers.

5. Bad: Miley Cyrus.
5. Bad-ass: Radiohead dissing Miley Cyrus at the Grammy's.

I was hoping to include photos of my broken finger (THANKS AND A SHOUTOUT TO BRETT SHANKLES!), but unfortunately my phone is too slow to send pictures, so hopefully I'll be able to post that sometime in the coming days. Not like any of you are super anxious to see a swollen "stinky pinky", but it's my blog isn't it???

I will leave you with the coolest 80's hair metal video. Thanks to Brad for sharing this gem.