RKMBs Forums MAY 2004

may in the boken. its all sortsa nice n'pretty.

allrighty.

friday was the day of the big game. we were sposda arrive at the field in central park by around 5:15. i think we left the office at 5:15. mistake.

we weren't overly certain as to how to get to the park area. i mean, yeah, it was in central park, and thats pretty well known, and jonathan lives in manhattan and my apartment is only a few miles from the park... still not something we do regularly. or...ever.

now, a map. if i could make the informercial-like "ping" noise, i would. but i can't. so, i ask that when you view the picture below this text, you make the noise for me.

in the lower left, y'have yer hoboken, also known as, but not identified as, roboken.

the mighty hudson river separates my apartment from the center of manhattan. to the right, about where it says "w 23rd st" is my office. rigth by that lil green blob.

that green blob is actually the huge madison park that i eat my lunch at. surrounded by the flatiron building, the met life tower and beautiful views of the empire state building. but, on the map, its justa green blob of happiness. ... and the happiness is only assumed.

climbing to the upper right is the huge green blob. thats central park. its, like, 5 or 6 square miles of beautiful non-citiness. parks, trees, fields, rivers, lakes, grass, flowers... its beautiful. i've been there a few times before, but never have i been responsible for getting myself there.

actually, that wasn't too bad. we took two subways up the 60 some-odd streets and arrived at the park by 6:05 -- just 5 minutes after the game began. shouldn't have been a problem, cuz we knew we weren't starting.

but that wasn't the problem.

the problem, of course, is that the park is a 5 or 6 square mile park, as said. and our team was playing ... somewhere.

we knew it was in the north west area, which is dubbed "the north meadow" but... that was about it. there were 16, count'em, 16 baseball fields in that area, alone. and we walked around all of them. all of them. possibly more than once.

we couldn't really tell at some points. the maps were misleading and inaccurate. the fields were distant. no one looked familiar. we walked around for just over an hour, and were no closer to anything than when we started. in fact, it was quite possible we were simply walking around in gigantic circles. nothing was making sense.

it wasn't so bad. i mean, we spent most of the time making fun of ourselves and bull shitting about other stuff. jonathan and i get along really, really fucking well. we're disturbingly similar, which makes conversation very nice.

i think the main differences are that he's much more established, and i'm much more insane. mental problems are highly underrated.

anyway, roughly 90 minutes after arriving at the park, we found the game. ... which was 2 outs away from ending, with our first loss.

the team members that we knew mocked us. some others also admitted to getting horribly lost. but even as they told their freakish tales of woe, we couldn't help but note that they found the game 20-30 minutes before we did.

le sigh.

but, everyone was cool. seemed like they were having a ball. and, actually, their uniforms were really nice. hopefully, we'll get some of those soon. the coach guy, who is the office HR guy that originally interviewed me in feb (he's good people) told us both we'd play in the next game.

score! ... hopefully, we can find it!

as the baboons that we were, we waited for a grouping of others to disperse, so that we could follow them out. we knew we couldn't do it on our own.

so, we picked one group and just carried on after them. ... which turned out to NOT be heading in the direction of a subway or train, but rather, a bar!

... a bar in sweat pants? sure, what the fuck. its not like i'm all smooth in my dirty ass jeans (ass jeans?)

so, we went in. place was called "dive bar" somewhere in the 100 numbered streets. 101? i dunno. whatever. it was a cool little place with a pool table and some tvs and a back area where we could all sit and drink and laugh at ... me.

ahh. nothing like leaving an incomplete thought hang for a few days.

party on, wayne.
party on, rob.

the company drink off was actually really really fun. nothin like alcohol to make meeting colleagues easier. and nothin like using an intro phrase over and over. nothin like it.

mostly, jonathan and i just sorta stood to the side, cuz we're the ostrasized web people. we're sorta like gremlins on the scale of humans. shunned, pleasantly, under bridges and such.

the main group, identified as "people", were happily mingling with one another. we did our best to fit in, too. they kept ordering huge rounds of beer pitchers and, well, we kept stealing them back to our lair, and finishing them. we easily took 6 or 7 of the pitchers, with like 4 rounds in each of them. then, we'd plop the empty pitcher back on their table and silently steal another full one.

plus, every so often, the regular folk would feel bad for us, and note that our pitcher was now empty, so they'd fill up our cups with some of theirs -- not knowing we had just stolen all of it.

noice!

actually, it was really really fun. i got to meet a lot of the new people on the field and especially at the bar. well, not that they were new, that was my job.

everyone was really friendly, especially the wimmins. jonathan and i get along damn near perfectly, so it was cool just to hang out and discuss random shit that we both have in common, as the oddly interesting gorks that we are.

good times, i tells ya. good, drunken times.

by 10:30 or so, a lightning quick 3 hours later, we were starting to head off in our different directions for the evening. jonathan and i took a cab back to the office where i got on the path and headed back to hoboken.

i made a mad dash up the 15 blocks cuz i had 6,000 beers in me that were trying to get out. got to my apartment, met up with my lex, we ordered some chinese food, drunk a lil in the apartment, and just hung out for a few more hours before callin it a night.

good day.

friday closes. a new day begins. i shall call it "saturday."

on said saturday, it was beautiful outside. so, i forced alexis outdoors and we enjoyed the wonderful natureness of the town. we drank outside, we ate outside, we walked around the entire place outside. gee-yorgeous. prolly high 70s. and the yankees won. and lex is all sortsa hot. and the food was good.

another good day to apply to my resume. we even got to sit in the park for a bit, cuz ... well, it was that nice. and walking all around, y'get to see the thousands of frickin hot chicks that just wander from place to place, in their lil ass pieces of clothing.

makes a boy smile

saturday night, lex and i went n'saw walking tall, the movie with the rock as the actor. the.

truthfully, it was actually pretty good. simple, and brief, but good lil plot, good lil story, n'some fun fighting scenes. he ainta bad actor. then again, its not like he was playing an entirely different character than his wwe persona. i mean, he's not deniro, ...but he's not bad.

got back to the pad at like 1. drank a bit. hung a bit. then actually started doing my laundry at like 2 am. i just really, really needed to. i was entirely out of clothing, and recycling outfits. ...for like the 4th time.

that aint right.

sunday was sposda be the festival. i was sposda get some great outdoor food. there was sposda be tons of scantily clad hot wimmins around me.

the forecast wasn't all that promising, but i was awake at 11, thats pre-noon, and the sun was all sortsa shining n'purdy.

people were outside, walkin the streets. my windows were letting in warm, fresh outdoor air. the sun was baking the people, who were wearin short sleeves n'shirts n'sun glasses... today was a good fair day.

sposda be.



fair: postponed.

turd muffins.

lil early morn rain scared'em away. so now i havta wait 2 more weeks for festival fun. and i hate them.

so, instead, lex and i walked around the town again, which sounds like annoying stuff, but it really wasn't. sure, it wasn't a festival, but it was still beautiful outside, and i was scoring with a hot chick. thatsa bonus.

we got good outdoor food and stopped for margaritas and i looked at apartments and we got good excercise... got lotsa stuff done, all while enjoying the weather. boy howdy.

even sat at the park for a bit, right by artie lange, of howard stern fame. he lives like 2 blocks from me and i see him all the time. i'm still way too weirded out by the "whoa, you're actually famous" thing to talk to him, but he seems real cool with everyone that's not a big punk, like myself.

so, that was the weekend. great weather. good times.

then monday shows up, and its a shit bag of a day. oddly freezing. rainy. dreary. nasty. no fun. and there's work, so's i gotta wake up early.

bastards.

but, the day at work is never really all that bad. work is work, sure, but... this place is still real cool. i still have a good time here, and i'm in like my 10th week!

i actually became an official employee yesterday. got to sign all the forms and what not, about getting medical coverage or insurance incase i'm dismembered.

if there's on thing i specifically don't want, its to be dismembered. i both enjoy and need all my members.

so the work day went by, and now i had t'go home. but before i actually got to my apartment, i had an appointment with a realtor to see some new place thats on the market.

met the guy, and he goes thru his whole deal. having dealt with an idiot realtor before, anything would be better. and this guy was clearly 'anything.'

he starts off by telling me he just got his first offer on the place that morning. holy shit!! thats so coincidental!! cuz yesterday, when we talked on the phone, you said you got the first offer on the place that morning. the offers must be flyin in!

while its true the hoboken real estate market is insanity, places can be sold in a week's time... that doesn't mean every place is gone that quickly. and the realtors still wanna make it seem more desperate than it is.

plus, i'm in a good situation for shopping around -- i have a place already, so i'm not really desperate. i don't have to jump when they say so. i'm smooth.

all that said, this one place is actually pretty damn nice.

i mean, there are bad parts. for starters, its a bit pricey. but ill hope to work around that. secondly, its a 5th floor walk up. not much of a stretch from my current 4th floor walk up, but... whatever.

the other aspect is that the kitchen is tiny. now, not that i need a huge kitchen or anything. im not even sure what the fuck to do with the one i have. but i can not express clearly enough how tiny the kitchen is. i could easily state its smaller than a bathroom with a straight face. why? cuz it is, mother fucker, pay attention.

but other than that... i dig it.

its closer to the path train i take to manhattan daily. its in a good part of town. my building wont stink of india or mexico, let alone their deadly combination.

its bigger than my current place, and way more open. its a duplex, so the bedroom is up a flight of those curly stairs. the wood paneling floor is that cool light color. the windows are nice, its gotta view of the empire state building...

and most importantly, its gotta 100 sq foot private deck, on which i can barbq, lay out, score with hot chicks, or pretend to score with hot chicks!

lets take the tour

allow me to aid you with these virtual reality, 3d renderings i made last night.

first, the downstairs:

• the lower left is where you walk in the front door
  
• that black blob is a lil closet
  
• the pink area is the kitchen (!!!) -- just a lil bigger than the closet in my current bedroom, no joke
  
• the red things are couches
  
• the green/yellow thing is the real big downstairs (duh) windows
  

now, the upstairs:

• ok, the blue thing is the top of the stairs
  
• the red thing on the left is the bed
  
• the two lil black boxes on top are 2 closets
  
• the black rectangle in th emiddle is like this lil balcony where you can see the downstairs
  
• the sideways H on the bottom is the door to the outside
  
• and the green is the outside deck
  

im feeling a change coming on.

a big one.

nothing externally. not the potential new apartment or the new job i'm loving. i'm feeling some form of evolution. a robolution.

not sure what direction it'll take me. but it should be pretty dramatic.

i'm getting 'angry eyes'

rob kamphausen pictures presents...

"wednesday"

holy crap i'm tired. almost illegally tired. i almost slept thru work today. which, might i add, is one of the freakiest and scariest things you can do, despite it sounding so wonderful and relaxing.

its true.

alarm goes off at 8. i musta just turned it off, cuz the next time i saw was 9:05, 10 minutes before i'm sposda leave. so, forget working out. forget sleeping in the shower. i brushed my teeth and washed my hair at the same time, put on an outfit that was already on the ground, and rolled with everything out the door. even forgot my chain and some mail i was sposda drop off.

right now, i'm just nasty feeling. like that groggy, sticky "why am i up" kinda feeling, where yer eyes're all stuck together and your face is itchy and your hands are dry... nasty.

y'know, where y'just sorta wanna run thru one of those old time front-lawn sprinkler systems, just to get the mornin gunk off of ya?

y'know?

super frickin nice outside. mebbe mid 70s. tomorrow is sposda be in that same range. the range of deliciousness. golden deliciousness. ooh, even magical delicious!

but inside... inside is raging turmoil. destruction. poverty. why? cuz of frickin realtors, who are buttwipes. big butt wipes.

*wonchinonin*

thats some sorta lightning noise from a NES game, "karnov" that, for whatever reason, i felt was apt to properly illustrate my frustration with realtors.

so, whutsa deal with these realtors?

i'm trying to get a good idea of how much i should spend on the above mentioned apartment. the "really nice, but not that nice" place.

i gave the guy an idea of how much i was willing to go. he responded by saying the buyer is looking for roughly 50 grand more.

50 grand! with all the ca-chings and $ symobls and such.

thats a pretty big difference, and one i'm not really willing to cross. and, the annoying part is, who can tell if the realtor is lying or not? i mean, he says that the guy already has an offer on the house. ... but if he does, why doesn't the seller take that? ...especially if the other offer is higher than my own?

if the place is so great, why is it still on the market? why is there only one other bid on it, that i have to beat?

seriously, boyo, wtf?

so, instead of just trying to buy something, i have to haggle with this third party, who is only in the game for his own commission (read: the more he sells the apartment for, the more money he makes as a bonus).

so, i'm in a quagmire right now.

quagmire: a shit hole. word of the day, brought to you by the elevator tv screen this morning.

no post-game drinking this time, despite it being cinco de mayo. a few people went out, but, i don't really know most of them well enough. my only real contact is jonathan, and he was goin elsewhere that night.

plus, there was, at the time, the possibility that lex and her sis were comin to hoboken for some city drinkin, so i didn't wanna miss'em.

turned out they didn't show, but oh well.

friends'ses last show was last night. NBC really hypes up those finales, boyo. there's so much build up, with all those "access hollywood" type shows promoting the finales all week, the channel itself promoting the show with all the sad music for an entire year, all the pre-show shows, with years of hilites and memorable momments.

i remember the two former biggies. seinfeld, i was a sophomore in college, eating chicken fingers.

cheers, before that. frickin high school. freshman! 1993. long ass time ago.

good ole cheers.

friday. 2 pm.

lunch hits. jonathan and i stare at girls in the park, whilst dining on a feast of taco bell.

my glorious return to taco bell has been wonderful. the reunion is blissful, but im afraid the heat will eventually burn out, as with any affair. poor taco bell.

friday. 6. or roughly 6:30. im out the door. the office. whatever. i say good bye to the hot chicks, who acknowledge me with the "why the fuck are you talking to me" face. points for rob? no.

whatever.

i path train to the boken. i meet up with two of my own hot girls, the alexis and the laquanda. we all go to oddfellows, where there is to be much drinking.

later joined by cati, and the typical friday night repeats in good fashion. 8 drinks in, i recomend hitting another place. cati sez she knows people're going to this new area, so we check it out.

bar is called 4thirty, or somethin gitchy like that. i dunno what gitchy means, either.

i can't be beautiful and smart.

we're there. we drink. whatever. nice view of manhattan across the river. cool lil place, though its got 'cool lil place' pricing (high)

oh well.

night ended shortly after, like 1 or so. couldn't really do much cuz i had so much shit to do the next day (today). and early. and, boy howdy, do i love early.

one day, imma meet that boy howdy and kill him. kill him dead. like raid.

saturday starts up. ...with an alarm. who the fuck decided saturday was sooo nice, that it needed alarmts attached to it? not i, says the rob.

alarm goes off at 8, and man duzzat hurt. i'm in the shower, doin my sleep thing. i get out, i get dressed, then i'm in the car on the way to the church where my lil sister is getting pinned. its this lil graduation-like ceremony for nursing majors that takes place 2 days before graduation but does not take the place of going to graduaion.

on the way, i get kamphausen'd. getting kamphausen'd means that you're family thinks you're retarded, so they try every possible way to contact you, to find out where, exactly, you are. "are you there yet?" "where are you?" "why did you go that way?"

i getta call from 2 sisters, and 2 parents. all four are separate calls, and all four take place in a 14 minute span.

kamphausen'd.

thankfully, i heard and knew about none of'em, cuz i was blasting jams in new logan, while doing 90 on the parkway.

i continue to work my way towards the lil church, which is located in the heart of newark, known for its kind souls, delicous food, and its starring role in the murder capital of america lists of the past 3 decades.

this true.

regardless, this 'lil church' was actually a huge and beautifully constructed mamma jamma. the whole thing was all sortsa gotchic and fantastic.



i love gothic designs. that whole arcetectural movement is so goddamn fascinating to me. the intracacies of the building are endless, and the details are almost too beautiful to adequately describe. its just so nice!

anyway, the mass was... long. the pinning ceremony was, unfortunately, just as long and tedious and boring as a graduation yet, delightfully, didn't qualify as one, and thus, had to be repeated in a few days, anyway.

i spent much of it playing games on my cell phone.

but when it was laura's turn to be announced, i made sure the church knew i was in the big man's house.

no way was i not gonna yell n'scream and cause a ruckus. church be damned!

... i know i will!

now... the pinning ceremony was kinda boring. i mean, the church was cool, and seeing family n'all was fun, but... it was early on a weekend, and i was really tired.

i needed something to really perk me up. and, damnit, cocaine is just too expensive.

so, what could possibly help?



thats right, bitch. the weinermobile, live and in person. a car designed for sexual reference, but embarassingly only representing a hot dog. regardless, it'd make the coolest fucking autobot ever. and was on its way to making me much happier than i was, cuz i couldn't stop laughing when i saw it.

but... admittedly, it wasn't enough.

despite all its amazing effort, the weinermobile wasn't funny enough to aide me in getting over the fact that i wasted a much-needed saturday morning on going to a boring church festival.

so... if the weinermobile couldn't shake the grumpiness... what could?



that's right, bitches.

two weinermobiles.

man, i'm so far behind. that was saturday morning and close to the afternoon.

for the rest of the afternoon, i met up with my lex. it was still somewhat nice outside, though gettin a bit chillier, so we walked around and enjoyed ourselves as best we could. didn't have much time, tho, cuz this chica had to go out with a buncha her friends for dinner.

ever'one ditches the rob

by 7pm, she was out, and i was lonesome. but, thats ok. i got t'get a lot done, like bills and working out. went for a whole buncha walks around the town by myself to snap some photos and generally enjoy myself.

not that many hotties were out, prolly cuz 1) it was chillier than expected and 2) cuz i was stalking them. but, whatcha gonna do. thats my saturday.

sunday hits. the mother's day and champagne at sunset (volume 5) combo spectacular!

beautiful outside, peaking mid 70s, and lotsa sun. lex and i took a quick walk around town, just to get our bearings. the hot wimmins were back, and i did my stalking, but we weren't in hoboken to stay. just touring.

moments later, we were in the car, on our way to lex's house to wish her family their mother's day happiness. then, new logan took us back to our alma matter, so's we could steal a whole buncha free booze and free food.

my parents were there with my graduating sister, but... i already saw them the day before, and would see'em again the next day. sunday was about me, damnit! me!

we met up with scottie p, who hadn't been able to hang out for sucha long period of time, cuz he is in law school. he wants to become mayor or something -- not unlike the struggling black mayor in back to the future, mayor goldie brown!

the booze was stylin. the company and conversations were flowin. but the food... man did the food suck.

every year, or at least the first four times we went to this seniors-only event, they had some great frickin finger food. chicken fingers, lil sammidges, egg rolls... lil stuff like that. we weren't expecting anything different, but boy did we get it.

what were the options?

pretzels, crackers, or cheese cubes.

thats it. sucked with much horribleness.

oh, i ate it. i stole huge shares, so's i could wash it down with the huge theft pot of champagne we took.

.... but i didn't like it.

we hung out for a bit, which was always fun. scottie, lex, and myself are really the only ones who've made, or tried to make, the annual theft-a-thon. danielle makes appearances sometimes, but hasn't in a while -- mostly because SHU lovily started planning these days on mother's day, which fucks around with everyone's schedule.

whatever.

took a few pics of the campus since i already had my camera out. lex got all sad cuz she's not goin there anymore. i honestly don't feel an ounce different.

hell, i don't feel different than the 7th grade rob, let alone the college rob. i'm still an awkward lil outsider. fuckit. imma legend!

before not too long, we headed back to the boken, grabbed a nice outdoor meal at city bistro, then back to the apartment to close out the day.

why? cuz i had graduation part 50 the next morning. criminy.

wake up on monday early. walk to car. distant. get in. pick up older sis. drive to the meadowlands. pass giants stadium. enter parking lot for continental airlines arena.

i'm amazed they didn't charge for parking. the night before, each of these same spots were $15 for the nets playoff game.

get in the building, and boom, everything sorta looks familiar from 4 years back. .... and three years, for you ghostdogians...

definitely a lot weirder being on the audience side.

graduation ceremony goes by purdy quickly. almost seems quicker than the nursing pinning ceremony. that was 2 hours. this was pushin 3+

maurince dubois of NBC did his speech and gotta free doctorate. nice.

some time, and many digital pics later, my lil sis is a gradumation girl, and all celebrate and whatever. we meet outside, take more pics, do the hugs things... real nice n'good stuff. laura has a good group of friends, so i'm really happy for her. plus, she's a good kid enna good student, so i'm proud of her.

and thats my niceness quota for may.

family goes to eat at a nearby restaurant overlooking the manhattan skyline, then we all part ways to close off a beautiful monday.

i go for a walk when i get home. 90 minutes. just tryin to catch the sun while i can, enjoy the beautiful weather inna beautiful town.



i just tour all around, not really paying attention to whose looking at me ,and who i wanna stab in the throat, or about the throat, or anything like that. in fact, the whole day, i was refreshingly stab-free. i had to take note of that in my blog!

monday ends with me essentially passing out towards the evening. too many fucking ceremonies and not enough gettnig to sleep lateamonies.

tuesday. at work. temp hits 80 again.

jonathan's last day in the office, cuz he gets to go to e3, and see all the cool new video game stuff -- lotsa which is comin out already, and i'm purdy jealous cuz the shit looks so cool n'fun.

we go out to taco bell for lunch n'sit in the park for an hour, just bull shitting and looking at boobies.

the guy who sits between us at work is quitting on friday, which is pretty weird. i don't really know the guy, but i know he's gotta strained relationship with everyone.

odd, i STILL think working there is, like, the coolest thing ever. i'm never upset to go to work, and i typically have a great time there. i don't mind stayin a few minutes later, i love the other employees, everyone is nice, i joined a softball team, i go out drinkin with them... to me, the place is cool as hell. yet, to others, its a death trap.

weird paradoxes. mebbe he'd love the shit hole i used t'work at?

anyway, tuesday night. thunderstormed a bit. vision is gettin a lil blurry, so imma bout t'pass out.

and how, sez i.

well, i think i finally got my front page thing squared away. now i just gotta start directing more traffic in that direction.

lifted weights this morning, so i feel pretty good. i'd really like to bulk up, but we all know that aint gonna happen. all that i've ever noticed is that i get tired, my body hurts, and i sweat profusely. that rock solidness they show on tv? thats not real.

i'm all phausen, baby. this is where its at.

just got back from lunch. went to the local comic book shop to explore various amounts of nerdiness. the shop is on the second floor of a walk-up building, so all the overweight comic book shoppers are always outta breath while roaming the store. i think thats pretty funny, in the saddest way possible.