Tony’s Journal

“Ha HAAA ha HAAAAA. . . ”

The strains of the Poppa are heard up and down Hillsborough Street today as the man himself is loitering outside Global Village. Clad in a NikeGolf sweatshirt, I wonder if he has perhaps just returned from a quick 9 with Tiger Woods.

I had occasion to speak to him on my way back from the bank. I was, after all, going to Global Village, and he is, after all, “my daddy.”

This time I initiated the conversation.

ME: Hey, Poppa, how you doin?
POPPA: (taken off guard) . . .hey how you. . . (holds hand out requesting monies)
Me: Hold up, I’ll hit you on the way out.

(ME goes in and buys small hot chocolate, making sure to have change for Poppa, then exits store)

Me: Here you go, Poppa.
Poppa: You know yo’ daddy, don’t you!
Me: Yeah I do.
Poppa: How you been?
Me: I been all right, how you been?
Poppa: Aight.
Me: Later, man.

So now we have established that a) Poppa recognizes me and b) he is concerned about my welfare.

A fine day.

Not to mention — BO TONIGHT Y’ALL.

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Anyone think I could get another job if I tried?

I’m not to that point yet, but. . . sometimes I feel like I don’t know where I’m going. Why work hard when there’s no incentive? Do they work hard for me? I don’t usually let that affect me, but I feel that way a lot.

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I AM MICHAEL BOLTON

What Office Space character are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Hahaha, yeah, no kidding. That about describes me to a T. As in Sweet T, my nickname and drink of choice.The cynicism, the listening to rap on the way to work, my frustration with my job but the unwillingness to leave it. . .

“Tony. . . Baumann? Like the polka band leader? Any relation?”

No. It’s just a coincidence.

There wasnothing wrong with it — until that no-talent assclown tuba-jockey starting playing at Oktoberfest.

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I’ve got this killer up inside of me
I can’t talk to my mother so I talk to my diary

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Finally went to the Bo tonight. We spent an hour and a half — at Bojangles — talking about healthy eating and exercise. Oh, if irony burned fat, Billy and I would be some lean fools.

Also tonight, we spoke with Scarf Guy for the first time. Not so much “spoke with” as “dismissed from our conversation.”

We were sitting at a 6-person table, right next to Scarfy’s usual perch. Melissa was saying something, I don’t remember what, and she turned to talk to Jim, and Scarfy turned around and looked at her. Melissa stopped and looked at him. We all looked at him.

This fraction of a second was perhaps the longest I have ever experienced. You could cut the awkward anticipation with a blunt dining hall knife. Would Scarfy utter a word? Does he know how to talk to people? Does he speak English? Is he even in possession of functional vocal cords? I mean, ha ha!, sure, we have all seen him muttering to himself, but did we hear sounds? We had, in fact, not! This realization hit us all, I think, and in a blink of an eye, we realized the magnitude of what we were potentially about to hear.

And Melissa spoke to him: “Oh, I wasn’t sure if maybe you were going to say something.”

Caught! Caught he was, and like a pale, antlerless, humanoid deer caught in the burning headlights of all our stares, he froze. A taxidermist would have shed a tear of joy at the sight of the man. Was there a Gorgon among us? Visual inspection yielded none with hair of snakes. And he looked surprised, eyes wide, as if it was a shocking revelation that eavesdropping from a 3-foot distance can be detected by the target party, and then stammered and spoke thusly:

“Uhh! Nuhuvvberghff.”

And after that, having spoken his poorly composed ad-libbed piece, he simply got up and walked away.

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FINAL SCORE:

NCSU: 80
Duke: Sucks

Best basketball game I have ever been to.

Ha haaaa ha haaaaaaaaa. . . Hope they have a nice bus ride back to New Jersey.

A special shout out to my man Adedayo A. “Dollar Bill” Banwo, who holds it down for the Wolfpack in enemy territory.

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Cold tonight! Snow! It’s 32° now, but it will be down to 22° with powdery snow later this evening. Tomorrow: high of 23° so, really it’s not going to warm up. Expecting powdery snow this morning when I rise.

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I haven’t been to the Bo in nearly two weeks? Can you believe it? Man. I am deprived. And worse, Jim is on a diet that will render Bo to be his personal kryptonite. Woe be to him.

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I hope ITD fixes Matlab, or my day tomorrow will be a sad thing indeed.

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One of the Bee Gees, Maurice Gibb, has died.

And now, I will unbutton the top four buttons on my shirt, pull the collar wide, and sing “More Than A Woman” in extreme falsetto.

Oh, girl I’ve known you very well
I’ve seen you growing everyday
I never really looked before
but now you take my breath away. . .

You should be glad this is not an audio/video journal.

I’m actually listening to the song now, and actually, now that I listen to it again, I realize that it reminds me of being about 4 or 5 years old at my neighbor’s house, spelling out complicated words on the floor with those wooden alphabet blocks. Weird.

Look at me, updating my journal 2 days in a row. Now I’m back on the trolley!

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Sealab’s on! “Ahh, mercury. Sweetest of the transition metals.”

I did not enjoy going to work yesterday, but it turned out okay. Aaron and I got all our work done by 2:30, then hit up the Rodeo for margaritas. I went to Schoolkids on the way home to peruse the used records, but due to the staggering suckitude of their inventory, I meandered on home instead.

Billy and I played basketball, albeit extremely poorly, today. Then football. By that time, Chris showed up, and the Triumvirate of Fat got some exercise.

We went to Olive Garden tonight. The food was good, though the waitress kind of left us hanging a little at the end, so my tip to her was generous instead of the usual very generous. There was a German couple sitting across the aisle from us. I refrained from doing it because Melissa was not there to appreciate it, but I thought it might be funny to ask the guy for the “schnitzel.”

Speaking of Melissa, I hear that she is ill. Not in the good way either. I have it on good authority (her IM away messages) that she was at the ER for gastroinsestinal distress. That’s not cool. Certainly it couldn’t have been from the Bo we had Friday night? Perish the thought.

I’m uploading pictures now. Still not captioned for a complete set of pictures, but they’re something for you to look at. As far as the text recap, I swear man, it’s coming soon.

I’m going to bed. One more week of high stress, then a short vacation in DC with Cynthia, Billymander and the Russes, just in time for the antiwar protest. I am going to see some hippies. Hooray!

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Yeah, yeah, yeah, Xmas and Florida recap forthcoming. But for now:

Your plutonyum.com-Endorsed Engrish of the Day.

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I’m back. We’re back. I am not happy to be back, as it is 36 degrees here and it is fun in Florida. I do not want to go back to work on Monday. I do not want Cynthia to go back to Ohio.

Ah well, it was fun. Lots of fun. Full recap later. For now, sentence fragments.

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