This year I'll live like I've never lived before

Brendan Kelly, I love you, but your year end list was disappointing. So, in the spirit of that, I'll be making my own year end list. I mean, I haven't thought this out too well, and I feel like posting right now as opposed to getting the rest of my life in order, so here goes nothing?

All the Heroin on Tamarind-The best and worst of 2008

Best discovery (overall discoveries category)-Hot Dog Heaven
To say that Hot Dog Heaven has changed my life would be a dire understatement. Never before have I been so affected by what should be such a pedestrian food. But the difference is that HDH is pedestrian food as art form. For me, someone who hates raw tomatoes, to be able to enjoy a hot dog with them, much more consider this hot dog to be the greatest culinary innovation on the planet, is a statement in itself. I don't know where I will be moving after college, but I do know that the presence of a place where I can get a good chicago hot dog is going to be a factor in this.

Worst discovery-Joose
This will one day be the death of me. For those unaware, Joose is a caffeinated malt liquor with 10 percent alcohol. It comes in a 24 ounce can, and it's $2.50 a can from 7-11. I think you'd be better off drinking a 12 pack while snorting an 8-ball of coke. Oh, and did I mention it tastes like paint thinner?

Best show-The Fest 7
This is an absolute no brainer. In fact, it'll probably never change for as long as I'm alive and the Fest is around. Being with good friends that I don't get to see very often, and drinking metric fucktons of Pabst Blue Ribbon, while seeing some of my absolute favorite bands play to probably the best crowds on the planet--I can't imagine anything I'd rather be doing on the last weekend of October. Highlight-The Lawrence Arms playing The Raw and Searing Flesh/The Disaster March and Paint it Black playing a rogue show in the back of a uhual in a parking lot.

Worst show-Streetlight Manifesto in the spring
Now, while this wasn't the worst show I've ever seen, in terms of the high caliber of shows I've seen this year, it ranked near the very bottom. In fact, this show was actually pretty good. Streetlight played solidly, even though their support (Zox and Dan Potthast) were pretty bad. The worst part about this show was how predictable Streetlight has gotten live. I've seen them 5 times now, seen many of the songs off Everything Goes Numb at least 5 times, and still, I'm missing out on some of the best of their new stuff. Of course, the fact that most of Streetlight's fans are ignorant little teeny boppers who probably still tattoo shit like "rap sux" on their Trapper Binders probably didn't help either.

Best book I read-Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman
I've passed this book around to a lot of my friends, and gotten mixed reactions. In terms of overall continuity and plot-line, there really isn't one. In fact, it's a book of collected pop-culture essays, so it tends to be very scatterbrained. However, it's a great read. Klosterman has a great way of boiling down lofty academia into happy hour banter and applying it to pop-culture. It's pretty great. Honorable mentions: Ham on Rye by Charles Bukowski and Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck.

Gayest music I started listening to this year-Kate Nash
Yeah, hard to deny the extreme overarching gayness of a heterosexual male enjoying a Cockney Pop Songstress. But everything she does is just so catchy!

Bands/groups that put out good albums that I don't really care to elaborate on, just listen if you're not gay:
The Gaslight Anthem, Girl Talk, The Mars Volta, Paint it Black, The Hold Steady, Kanye West, Subtle, Sun Kil Moon, Dillinger Four, Murder by Death, Pg.lost, Nada Surf, Polar Bear Club

Hero of the year (not sports category)-Barack Obama
I'm Just putting this because honestly, he's the first presidential candidate I've ever been really excited over, and I'm really eagerly anticipating some of the things he's going to do. Honorable mention: Brad Newton, for creating Rocket Fuel as an alcoholic drink.

Dickhead of the year (not sports category)-Bernie Maddoff
50 Billion dollars. Although I do give him props for keeping his retard circus going for so long. Honorable mention: Brad Newton, for having the worst opening podcast in the history of opening podcasts.

Hero of the year (sports category)-Mike Singleterry
49ers are going to the playoffs next year, I can already feel it.
Chase Daniels-Because god, your mom and two sisters are ridiculously gorgeous. Hook a brother up.

Dickhead(s) of the year (sports category)-Nick Saban, Tim Tebow, Andre Smith, Lou Holtz
1. Nick Saban-Good Fucking game, suspending Fat Albert from the Sugar Bowl. It's cool, it's not like Utah is even kinda good.
2. Tim Tebow-Shove your fist pumps up your goddamn ass. I hope someone finds a bunch of Thai boys strung up in your closet. Oh, and you misspelled He15man by the by. It's actually spelled He14man. Suck that you creepy motherfucker. Also, posing with a small child in the heisman pose, while wearing fucking CROCS. Nice fail. Tim Tebow, I can't even put it into words how much I hate you. Go die.
3. Andre Smith-Your tits are bigger than Lendale White's. What team rule did you break now? Eating twinkies on the sidelines?
4. Lou Holtz-I've just never liked Lou Holtz. Fuck you. You aren't funny you senile old bastard.

Beer of the year-Pabst Blue Ribbon
No need to elaborate. Great fucking beer. I didn't really try any new beers this year that blew my mind. Mostly, I had tried most of them last year. This is why Cable Car Lager didn't win this category.

Worst Beer of the Year-Natty Light
Again, this is like claiming Nickleback is the worst music ever. It's an easy target, but it's absolutely true. I had never tried natty light prior to this year, and I think I'd like to stay away from ever drinking it, ever again. Ugh.

Best Quote(s) of the year:
"Sup Gorgeous Body?"-Christopher Aristotle Onassis Gerecke
"If cheating on you involves me eating a waffle that you didn't cook ten times, then yes, I am currently fucking the shit out of that waffle"-John Jennings
"Sex to me is like death to Harry Potter: Almost, but not quite, multiple times"-Jonathan Wesley Hussein Swick

Best AIM transaction of the year:
Channing Custis Monkeyhustle HepKat Freeman: "I love ice water so much, because just when you are like 'aw shit, I'm out of water', it's like 'no, there is still the ice cubes'"
John Arturo Macarena Hanson: "I see"
CCMHF: "I hate you so much"
JAMH: "What do you want me to say?"
JAMH: "Yes this is why I love ice water as well my friend"

Overall Best thing of 2008:
Joe Costa.

hugs and cumshots,

Joe

Misery loves company

Well again, a little break and I'm back to the nether regions of the blogosphere to crank out some dumb shit for everyone to read. This time, the break was the function of a surprise visit home for Christmas and what not. I'm not really a big fan of Christmas really. It's such an awful corporate holiday, and I always hate not knowing who I'm indebted to buy presents for. Each year it seems I end up with more people who buy me something, and thus I kinda feel required to get something for them. It's a tough little situation to try and predict, especially on a budget. Plus I hate the fact that no matter where I go, from Halloween until New Years, there is nothing but Christmas music playing everywhere. The only upside to this is that I know my life would be worth taking if I heard anything from the Sufjan Stevens Christmas album being played in public. Thankfully the public has not gone THAT tone deaf.

With Christmas though, comes possibly the worst part of the holiday season. Re-reading that sentence makes me sound like a bit of a Grinch, but it's really true. The things I look forward to most on Christmas are getting cool gifts from predictable people, because I've already budgeted for them, and the fact that business and tips always get better in the service industry. However, for all of that goodness, there is the sheer misery of travel anywhere around Christmas. Totally cliche thing to bitch about, but I've never been so infuriated in my life, until I was stuck in an hour long traffic jam on the Florida Turnpike heading back up to Orlando. I mean, I wasn't even that infuriated about that. What got me was that this hour-long traffic jam was caused by people slowing down to see the accident on the side of the road.

Really? Fucking hell, rubbernecking is possibly the biggest display of idiocy I think I've ever seen, and mind you, I've been to a concert with both Kiss and POISON on the same bill. Other retarded things that I've witnessed in person also include: old people ordering food, a Pat Benatar concert, a GEORGE THUROGOOD AND THE DESTROYERS CONCERT, people trying to put a washer and dryer on a stolen credit card, my younger brother making a bong out of a Darth Vader toy lightsaber, etc. Needless to say, Rubbernecking is pretty unbelievable. What most American's fascination with car accidents and misery is, I'm not really sure.

For those who aren't really aware of the term (I'm not really sure what level of colloquialism it falls under), rubbernecking is when a bunch of supremely intelligent people see an accident on the side of the road, and, no matter what the location (highway, city, race track, corn field, etc), slow down to about five miles an hour to gawk at the carnage. This, in turn, causes everyone behind them to do the same thing, and thus causes a veritable clusterfuck of assfoolery and what not.

Maybe it has something to do with Maury Povich. As a culture, we're way too fascinated with other people's misery. It's pretty disgusting that they even throw this shit on basic cable. Yes, Party Heat is an unbelievably funny show, but I refuse to not feel guilty when I watch it.

hugs and cumshots,

Joe

Your face look Ed Zachary like your ass

Working in a restaurant, you see some pretty interesting things. The requests that someone has about the preparation of their food can be very telling of many of their personality aspects. I mean, one of my good friends I know personally enjoys honey mustard on his french fries. Personally, I think that's kinda weird, and to be honest, I don't really taste anything extraordinarily different. It's not like the honey mustard morphs the taste of the french fries, other than the very cosmetic fact that, yes, these french fries taste like they are coated in honey mustard. Maybe I'm weird though, because I generally enjoy fries with any sort of seasoning on them, to have a side of ranch. Anyway, this isn't all about french fries and dipping sauces. This is about getting meat cooked, and I mean that without any sexual connotations involved.

The way you get your meat cooked, particularly on steaks, can be really telling. For my money, the only way to get steak cooked is medium rare (warm red center, for those not in the know). Personally, I think this is just about the perfect temperature to get steak done. It gets it warm so it's actually like it's cooked, but preserves a lot of the juices and keeps the steak very tender. Now, if it's kind of cheap, sometimes I'll cook it up to medium, just to be on the safe side. Medium loses a bit of the juices and a little bit of the flavor, but still keeps it warm and reddish pink on this inside, and still pretty good. But, for the most part, medium rare is the way to go.

What really bugs me is when people get steaks (and good steaks mind you, from my work) cooked well done. If you're not too well versed in steak temperatures, or what effect cooking has on steak, here's a rule of thumb: the more you cook steak, the less flavor it ultimately has. Getting a steak well done is ultimately asking for a 10-20 dollar sneaker. It's chewy, has no flavor, and isn't enjoyable at all. I can understand getting a steak well done for your child, because mostly, they don't know any better, and are apt to cover it in all sorts of shit anyway (more on this later). But if you're an adult, and getting a steak well done, really, re-evaluate your life immediately. You are essentially paying for an expensive piece of meat to taste like outside seasonings. Hell, if you get a steak well done like that, you might as well go to fucking Cracker Barrel, and not Outback motherfucking STEAKHOUSE. I'm sorry, but the fact of the matter is, if you get a steak well done, you've already lost my respect. I don't respect anyone with such a gross absence of taste.

What is even more infuriating though, is hearing this: "I want that steak well done, and can I get a LARGE side of A1/Ketchup/monkey semen/etc". Why would you want A1/ketchup/monkey semen/etc? Oh, is it because your steak is too dry? Really? Well that happens when you get it cooked well done, where it has almost no juices, btw. You know, if you hadn't been such a flaming fucking idiot, you could have just gotten it medium rare to medium, and it would have had all of its own juices. It's a really cool thing that steak does actually. It stays moist itself, so you don't have to slather it in fucking A1 sauce. On that note, why would anyone enjoy A1 sauce anyway? It really tastes like oxen diarrhea.

In conclusion, I think enjoying well done meat, with whatever horrible sauce you guys put on it, is equivalent to drinking Bud Light. You're a wimp. You can't handle something that is clearly better than what you're consuming, because you are a bastion of accepting mediocrity and being unexceptional. Go worship Tim Tebow, and drink your goddamn bud light, and eat your chewy fucking dried out black stripper vag steak, you bastion of neo-Americanism.

xoxo

-Joe

So love what you are, not what you would like to be

I realize that almost every time I sit down and try and write something lately, I end up drawing a blank. I mean, I was able to write some pretty great lyrics and stuff last night that had been stewing for a while, but even then, before that, I hadn't been legitimately able to come up with anything since my 14 pages of ass painting almost a month ago. In essence, writers block is no fun at all. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'd rather pass a kidney stone than sit here and fucking stare at a blank screen/piece of paper/etc for another moment of my life. Yes, this long paragraph was essentially to preface the fact that I have nothing light-hearted and interesting enough to post here. And since no one wants to hear me bitch about trivial personal issues, I'm just going to share a bit of a vision I have for my future.

I've decided that once I become moderately successful, I want to open my own bar/restaurant/venue. And no, I don't mean some gigantic fucking monolith like the House of Blues with it's 5 dollar beers, Disney appeal, and overpriced food. No, I'm looking for more of the classic dive bar appeal. Not so dirty though. In fact, if anyone has ever been to Market Street Pub in Gainesville, the layout would probably be very similar to that. I want to make it a bit different than most of the other bars around here.

Instead of focusing on just having free shitty beer, free gutrot well drinks, etc. I want to focus on having interesting and quality beers. Obviously there would be all of the typical American staples like Bud/Bud Light, Miller Lite, etc, but I also want to have a big selection of beers that are both cheap and great. Pabst Blue Ribbon is pretty readily available in a lot of bars, but I want to have stuff like Stroh's, Old Style, Yuengling, National Bohemian, Lone Star, Carling's Black Label, etc. Oh, and I'm going to make sure that Yuengling does NOT cost more than Bud or Miller, because it really doesn't, and it's total bullshit that every bar does that. No excuse for it.

And while my bar will have plenty of things, there are a few things that we won't have. Number one is blenders. Fuck blenders. Fuck frozen drinks. They don't even get you drunk that quickly. I'll make anything that you would normally get frozen on the rocks, no problem. But no fucking blenders. Also, there will never, ever, be any Natty Light/Natty Ice/Keystone/Busch/etc inside my bar. Cheap beer doesn't mean that it needs to taste like ox piss too. And, although I don't think I'll kick out anyone who is actually paying, there will be a Guido-free policy inside this bar.

Food-wise, my bar is going to stand out a lot. So many bars who serve food, unless it's inside of a restaurant already, have some shitty food. My plan is to have a good variety of quality, bar style food. I want to have burgers with a wide variety of usual and unusual toppings, Vienna beef hot dogs which you can get with a myriad of toppings (including genuine Chicago style), fully-loaded quesadillas, fresh made spinach/artichoke dip, loaded cheese fries with ranch, breaded or naked chicken wings with a myriad of sauces (mild, medium, hot, nuclear, teriyaki, cajun--the list is limitless), and other such excellent things. I'm still working on the menu.

There will definitely be drink specials, but no way will it be like the shit around here. Cheap beer and two-for-ones on decent stuff. However, my main attraction will be the Wednesday special. Free BLT Wednesday's! Originally, I was going to make it just free bacon wednesdays, but free BLT works better. By coming in and ordering at least one drink, you get a free small BLT. The best part is that bacon is so salty that it will make people thistier, and it's not going to be big enough to suffice for an entire meal.

The best part about this is that I won't just hire dumb frat guys or people with 2+ years of high volume experience. Anyone who has a great personality, works hard, and is willing to learn has the same opportunity to become a successful bartender. Oh, and because I rule, there will be good music all the time. Furreal.

So that's the basic outline of how awesome my bar will be. I don't know when it will happen, but I am determined to make it happen before I die.

-Joe

Dream wild in ways of confidence and hope

So after a weekish of being a lameass and not posting at all, I've returned to the confines of this blog to talk about all sorts of stuff. It's been quite a busy week for me in particular. Last week was finals week, and even though I only had one final and a presentation, I was still busy finishing up a lot of shit that I hadn't bothered to finish on time. I edited my fiction piece a little bit, but of course I didn't do that until the absolute last moment. I also didn't bother to finish cleaning anything until the absolute last moment for my belated birthday party. However, my apartment ended up being reasonably clean by the end of everything, and I guess that's what matters. That, and after the party while I was at work, my sister and everyone else cleaned my apartment from top to bottom.

Anyway, I guess football is kind of important to talk about, especially given the goings on recently. Florida and Oklahoma are playing in the BCS game, which I'm wagering should be a great game. Sam Bradford won the Heisman over Tim Tebow (UF) and Colt McCoy (Texas), which was probably a mostly political pick just so it could be the national championship between the two sophomores who have won the Heisman. But whatever, I don't really care. I just hate as all of the hype about Tim Tebow because while he is a great college quarterback, he is not going to be a great NFL quarterback. That, and there is no way that anyone is that seemingly perfect. I really honestly hope that there is a raid on the Tebow/Cooper residence and that there are corpses of 11 year old Thai boys hanging in their closets. Yeah, call me a cynic. Whatever fuck you guys.

So I got tagged in one of these goofy "write 7 things about yourself" things. However, I just recently did one of these on facebook. This proves a problem as I used many of the most interesting facts about me on that. But, I'm gonna try and pull something together, so alas, here it goes?

1. I like tattoos. Alot. The only reason I don't have any yet is because I am poor =(
2. I want to write a play about a modern day Winston Churchill as a cokehead.
3. I'm commitophobic from some pretty terrible relationships.
4. Cheesecake is almost assuredly one of the greatest things on the planet.
5. I was drunk at the Fest during the Lawrence Arms set and pretty much cried with joy.
6. I consider myself a definite beer aficionado. For the most part, I don't enjoy the really frou frou microbrewed beers, but there is always an exception to the rule. The one thing I generally can't stand is fruity flavored beers, or beers that require a fruit for you to fully enjoy. I don't think beers should need a crutch. My favorite beers are cheap, local, American lagers. Yeah, I'm a gigantic douche. Suck it.
7. I think my naked Sarah Palin shirt is the single greatest thing I've ever bought, and if you don't think so, I don't care. Kthx.

K, so that's all for now. Make babies and shit. I'm gonna go have writers block elsewhere.

-Joe

Sippin' on Gin and Juice

Hello vermin,

So in the spirit of ensuring that I keep posts regular on here (one could refer to the forthcoming style of filler post as "granola posts"), I've decided that I'm going to officially start using entries and days where I have nothing interesting to say as bucket list entries. This gives me a little bit of accountability, because after saying that I'm going to do this before I die, I automatically put that expectation in people's heads. Well, the 5 people that read this blog regularly. Ya dig? Anyway, I've gotta clean my apartment because it smells like shit. I'm pretty sure I'm going to sublease soon though and get a house with one of my friends. It's expensive here, and none of my roommates ever pick up after themselves to the point where I just don't bother because they never bother cleaning anything themselves. I'm no one's mother. But this is a bucketlist entry, not a "Joe bitches at the world" entry.

Publish Novel-
Here's one of the big ones. This is what I'm realistically considering to be my career goal. I want to publish a full-length fictional novel. Hell, how popular it gets doesn't really matter much to me. I just want to be able to say that I was able to put out a novel of vulgar fiction and say that "I did it, and that you can go find it at any Barnes and Nobel" or whatever. Ideally, I'd like to put out a lot of novels and use that as my primary source of income throughout my career. Even more ideally, I'd like to become a touring musician, but I'm not so sure how realistic this is, so I'll settle for this.

-Joe

I read "monkey vaginas" and thought you were going back to the strip club

Hello all,

I have returned from the cesspool of geriatrics that is Lake Worth, FL ( the town where my parents live) and needless to say it was marginally unbearable for the most part. I did have some fun involving drinking quarties of Budweiser in a park while writing music. Also, I discovered that mixing about 18 ounces of vodka with an rt44 Cherry Limeade from Sonic is pretty much one of the best cocktails ever. Oh, and I guess on the most interesting note, I went to a strip club for the first time on Thanksgiving night.

I guess this was pretty interesting. I mean, it certainly wasn't the ideal strip club. I mean this in the sense that it was pretty much the b-squad on, and 70 percent of the naked people there really should just never get naked outside of the comfort of their own trailer. It was a little unnerving, but at least I went mostly just to say that I had, and not to actually enjoy myself as some of these troglodytes were doing. One thing I did notice was how horrible of a smell I had caked to me after I left. I wasn't alive for the Great Depression (although I might soon be), but I have a feeling if it had a smell, that strip club probably came as close as possible to achieving it.

In other news, today is my 20th birthday. So far, it's had it's ups and downs I suppose. Mostly downs actually. I was stuck staying up all night doing two papers that I thought were due, when in reality, only one of them was. However, I'm not too worried about this. I ingested enough coffee last night to roughly equate to an 8-ball of coke, so today was at least marginally possible in that I was able to stay awake. Just as I started an energy crash, I was about to head home. Then, I ran into someone from my class. Who told me that apparently our class was not canceled. Yeah. I think the last time I was this broken hearted was when Jerry Rice got traded from the 49ers. That was a disappointing day in my 5th grade life. Sigh.

Anyway, Cynic put out the best metal album of the year. It's called Traced in Air. Get it now. It's my birthday. I'm going to Hooters and getting drunk. TESTOSTERONE FUCK YES.

-Joe