The Death of Enthusiasm

You may want to be careful today when you go to Wendy's to get some chicken nuggets for lunch because once you hand your debit card to the guy in the window he will say something like, "Having a really good day today?--I know I am!"

Then, when he hands the card back to you it will be inexplicably wet. You will wonder what the liquid was and why someone at a drive through window would have wet hands, and then you will feel sick in your stomach.

You will still eat the chicken nuggets, however, because 99 cents doesn't grow on trees after all.

Labels: random

In this decade it's become something of a cliche to make jokes about "googling yourself." Probably most everyone has done it, and most people can actually find some information about themselves on the Internet. Hopefully it's good things, like you won a ribbon at the County Fair and not because you're a registered sex offender.

I have kept the results of my own self-googling a secret these last few years. You are about to find out why.

If you Google "Chase Thompson" you will come up with some harmless links like this one, which is just a financial firm. You will also see a lot of links for a musician named Chase Thompson who kind of is a cross between Creed (vaguely Christian but wouldn't admit it), Coldplay, and Michael Bolton. Here is an example:



He's not really my favorite Chase Thompson, but pretty harmless.

You will find some random homepages of guys named "Chase Thompson" like a weatherman, or some marketing guys, and various frat members and college athletes. If you Google "Chase Thompson" + "Statesman" (as I know so many of you have done) you can find some of my old music reviews.

Up to this point though we have been ignoring the massive, disgusting, and foul smelling elephant in the room. What is the number one search result for "Chase Thompson?"






THIS:



AND THIS:



AND THIS:



AND THIS:





WHY?????? WHAT HAVE I DONE TO DESERVE THIS?? HAVE YE NO MERCY, THOU FOUL GOOGLE SEARCH ENGINE??


It turns out that there is a group of females that actively try to dress as males--think of it as the opposite of traditional cross-dressers. One of them has named his/herself Chase Thompson. He/she is dedicated to advancing the "art of male illusion" and has held several titles such as: "Sir Heads or Tails" and "Mr. Gay."

As you can imagine, I was disgusted and deeply dismayed with this development. Then I was even more deeply dismayed and disgusted when I visited www.chasethompson.org to see for myself how incredibly creepy my own name had become.

The truth comes out. A drag-king has named his/herself after me.

Moral of the story: The internet hates me.

Labels: drag-kings, random

Sometimes people you know remind you of a famous person. Sometimes people tell you that you may resemble a certain famous person. This can be either somewhat flattering or somewhat offensive depending on who the famous person is.

When I was in high school, some people told me I looked like Tony Hawk:



I didn't really have a problem with that and I probably did look a little like him since I was about 40 pounds lighter than I am now. A girl in one of my art classes said I looked like Lance Bass, and even called me "Lance" for the rest of the school year. I didn't really like this one even though it was before this stunning announcement:



Later on, a few girls I knew said I looked like the sloth from "Ice Age." They then called me Sloth until I stopped hanging out with them. Here is the sloth:



Not too flattering, right? More recently, one of my good friends has started insisting that I look like Utah Jazz center Mehmet Okur:



Wow, really? I mean how is that not an insult? Look at the guy! No chin, uni-brow, the charisma of a used band aid, etc. My friend tried to make me feel better about it by saying something like, "Well, he was an all-star last year, and he does have a really hot wife." Yes, well that is true but I don't play basketball. So he's saying I'm as ugly as Mehmet Okur, but without the things that make his life great. Thanks.

Since I've been at college I've had two separate strangers approach me and tell me that I look exactly like the lead singer from the band Thrice. They made sure to impress upon me that I so resembled this guy that it was actually "freaky."

I looked this guy up, and I have to say he does kind of look like me. We have the same beard and apparently the same dumb-looking "no tooth smile." Here are some pictures of the guy (who's name is Dustin Kensrue):




(That second photo does look a lot like me.)

So the question is, who do you all look like? I have made some initial comparisons with some of my closer friends. For example, my friend, roommate, and long-time State College-er Dan looks a lot like Taylor Hicks:





Also, my friend Chris looks like a Kewpie doll:

Labels: people who look like other people, random

I was thinking the other day that if you were to rank the top five items I eat the most (in terms of both quantity and frequency) it would probably go something like this:

5. Various fast food chicken sandwiches (Carl's Junior and Sonic both have great chicken sandwiches)

4. Grilled Cheese Sandwiches (made restaurant style with processed cheese slices)

3. Cold Cereal (I actually don't eat this that much, but it adds up)

2. Various permutations of homemade tacos/burritos/nachos (There's a funny Jim Gaffigan bit about mexican food being the same 3 ingredients prepared in different layers. It's true)

1. Cookies from the cafeteria at work (These are all freshly baked and vary depending on the day, but the peanut butter ones are money)

Pretty unhealthy uh? Check out the top 3 beverages:

3. Diet Pepsi (for when they don't have Diet Pepsi Max)

2. Diet Pepsi Max (This is just Diet Pepsi with more caffeine)

1. Coke Zero Cherry (The king of beverages!)

I know what you're thinking, "If you eat junk all the time, why do you bother with the diet sodas?" Answer: I don't know. It probably has some thing to do with the fact that I'm on the long road to ending up exactly like my Dad (except with hair).

At this point I'm surprised I can even make it up the hill to campus, let alone go snowboarding every week. Don't be surprised if I die abruptly from an extreme onset of intense heartburn.

Labels: food, random

I went to my friend Robbie's wedding the other day:




It was nice, and I think he and his wife will do very well together. Earlier this summer a few more friends of mine took the plunge as well, and I am equally happy for them. All these weddings lately have made me naturally think about my own life and how it would change if I were, in fact married.

(I know this seems unlikely at the moment but I take solace in the fact that people much uglier, and much less interesting than I have successfully gotten married. [Not my friends that just got married, though. They are usually better looking and more interesting])

For example, today I got up at a late hour and (since all my close friends were either out of town or with their girlfriends) spent several hours in bed reading. Then I went to Borders for a long time and looked at more books, and searched fruitlessly for a new CD. Afterwards I went to the grocery store, and then read for several more hours, watched a movie, listened to This American Life, and tried to organize my digital music collection. Now I am typing this post. The only thing that could reasonably be called productive about my day is the grocery shopping, and that was only due to an extreme and incurable biological need to eat everyday.

This is not the Saturday of a married person, I imagine. If I were married I assume that I would need to get up much earlier, do more cleaning, pay more bills, spend less money on books and music. These are all probably positive things, but it fills me with unspeakable terror to think about it. People who are married tell me that being married is just "so much better" and so "worth it." I guess I will remain unconvinced until I meet the right person, someone who would change my whole set of priorities, so giving up lazy idle Saturdays would not be a sacrifice, but just part of life.

Didn't mean to get too heavy there.

Here are some fortunate things that have happened lately:

-I found my long lost "Jew's harp" this week. I can spend literally minutes having fun with that thing. I'll have to find a way to feature it in a song.

-I discovered that Vanilla Coke Zero is the best tasting diet cola there is. (I was not paid by Coca-Cola to say this, I just really like it.)

One unfortunate thing:

I drew an unflattering caricature of a co-worker, and somehow it got back to him and he was understandably offended and I got in trouble (kind of). In my defense, my drawing skill is not to the point where I can drawing a recognizable face without exaggerating some attribute. This means that if you have a big nose, sorry buddy I'll have to draw a really big nose on there so it looks like you. No offense dude, you just have a large nose.

Labels: marriage, music, random

1) I once had a dream that I was running for President of the United States, and it was not going well. I was stumping in St. George (standing on a baseball field surrounded by the red rock cliffs) and a large crowd had gathered to listen to what I had to say. My platform consisted mainly of the fact that all the other leaders and politicians in the country were "fat-cats" and "out of touch" and "old." The crowd began to grow restless and then started chanting slogans about how I was "just a kid" and much too young to know anything. I was forced to end my speech early. Then a 16-year-old kid got up and started speaking and they cheered wildly. What a bunch of hypocrites.

2)In one dream I was hired to be a stand-up comedian at a gas station. I stood outside by the pumps and told jokes to the customers while they pumped their gas. I was generally successful, as I remember. The bit that got the best reaction was about how people had "neutral faces." You know, when you're not making a happy face or a sad face, but just a face that has no expression tied to it? What's the deal with that? All the customers thought this was very funny. I seriously considered a career in comedy for the first 5 minutes after I woke up.

3)The idea to market a full line of silverware made of plastic. In my dream the idea seemed revolutionary. I remember a meeting with a group of investors where someone remarked, "These plastic spoons will outlast us all."

Labels: random