Truth be told, I have spent more time searching for the header image for this column than I will end up spending writing it. Whatever. The really juicy nougats come from the give and take inside the comments section, right? My part is to serve as but the catalyst for the gals and guys of OL to begin their weekly wanking. I settled on an image by my good friend Brian Galiano. A couple years back, homeboy drummed up countless works (well, you could count them, but I’m lazy) to accompany Rendar’s novella DEFEAT. If you’ve never read the son of a bitch, start here. Anyways, this is Monday Morning Commute. The column where we elaborate on the distractions coating existence just enough on a given week to give us through the malaise.

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…and a good day to you too, folks. For those of you here in the Empire, I hope your long weekend was rather enjoyable. Me? Oh, I had myself a blast. Took one off the chin in the world of sporting events (hint), but what the fuck can you do. This weekend also saw the frozen ice guys back on the prowl, with Rendar and myself enjoying a jaunt to the ice chest today ourselves. Local team won, we ate something like ninety-three hot dogs. By the end of the day I was able to smile again, thanks to a little salve on the nips. This is Monday Morning Commute, a column which a list of coping mechanisms we use to get ourselves through the doldrums. Coping mechanisms (video games) for when coping mechanisms (sports teams) fail. System redundancies.

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Hello friends. Nuzzle your bunghole close to the center of your leather seat here aboard the Mothership, and grab a beverage. This here is Monday Morning Commute, the therapy session where we all discuss the various arts, crafts, beverages, and bloat-inducing burgers that are helping us through this thing called Existence. Oh me? I’m just wallowing away here on break from work. My days have slide into nights, vampire weekends into a vampire existence. I’ve broken the noon wake-up call a couple of times, and my self-loathing is spiking. You’re all beautiful.

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Bask in the glory of Dave Mustaine’s melting face. It runs down his skull, slowly dripping onto his kevvy metal t-shirt. Despairingly, he rips the t-shirt off before it stains his perpetual undergarment. He forever wears a “Kill Em All!” tee that he stole back in 1983. Every night before he goes to bed, he rubs its fabric between his fingers. Praying to both Alex Jones and Whatever God He Believes In That Year, he utters one phrase over and over. “Please call me, Jimmy Hetfield. Please call me.” The sheer repetition of the hours-long nightly prayer dims into a dull drone, people throughout his underground bunker (the End is Coming) wishing that either Hetfield would call him, or he would go to sleep. They care not which, and they can’t express either. You see, throughout the compound Davey’s prayer is blared through loudspeakers on every wall. These same loudspeakers are live microphones. The peons must follow their Saviour (or employer, okay) in his prayers. Over and over again, they pray. Hoping to channel their extended energy in a way that has never, ever worked. The answering of a prayer through sheer mass of plea.

Uh, what? Anyways, this is MONDAY MORNING COMMUTE. Where we talk about the arts we’re enjoying this week. Guys and gals, let us party.

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Step right up, folks! This is the end of 2012!

What an adventurous year it’s been. There’ve been thrills and chills, screams and dreams, and hoots to boot! In case you missed any of the excitement, the OL Squadron has been doing flybys of all of the year’s highlights. And if you haven’t taken the time to personally enjoy 2012, well, you’ve got one last crack at it. New Year’s Eve, the night of champagne sparkles and ethanol-gropings and cocktail shrimp catastrophes.

It’s the stuff of beauty.

Anyways, today is also Monday, and as such I present the Monday Morning Commute! During regularly-scheduled programming, this is the spot where I show you various ways I’ll be enjoying myself over the course of the week. However, with today being New Year’s, I’m going to run you through some of the bits of entertainment I’ll be chomping on in celebration of 2013’s arrival. If you’re really rowdy enough, hit up the comments section and show the OL faithful what you’ll be using for party lubricant.

C’mon, you pack of auld lang sinners!

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It’s Christmas Eve, and you’d damn well better hope that you’ve been good this year.

Why is that? Well, I just got off the phone with Santa Claus. He’s doing well. He’s busy, of course, but things are goin’ his way. His stocks’re on the rise. He left that frumpy wife of his and snagged a lover more to his liking. And he’s decided to finally stop being so damn soft on those perennial  residents of the Naughty List. Given what St. Nick has in store for this year’s crop of bad boys and girls, coal in the stocking is going to look like a walk in the park.

If you haven’t been good for goodness’ sake, Santa Claus is going to rock you with an atomic leg-drop.

There’s no way to know  ahead of time whether you’ll be gettin’ a Furby or a beatdown from Santa. You’ll just have to wait until tomorrow morning — either you’ll wake up to open presents in your pajamas, or you’ll wake up with missing teeth and cracked ribs. But why don’t we share some ways to pass the time until then? Hell, this is the Monday Morning Commute, the very spot where we meet to discuss the various ways we’ll be entertaining ourselves.

After all, it’s easy to get bested by the ennui-daemons and work-overlords. If we don’t take the time to enjoy ourselves, we’ll die as nothing more than the miserable, boring wretches that the Man wants us to be. So let’s rebel! Our bosses don’t own our souls, and Santa may break our backs, but he can’t break our spirits!

C’mon, let’s do this!

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Welcome back, friends. The Starship Omega plummeting through the Cosmos has returned, swerving out of the way of an errant cosmic calamity. We’ve finally regained cruising altitude, and a flesh-bot of your desired gender/gender combination will be along to massage your pinkish naughties soon. My name is Caffeine Powered, and I’m the Custodian and Lead Seminal Slinger aboard this Galaxy Cruise. Right here about this time, as I am ripped to the gills on a cheap Theraflu knockoff and fighting a lengthy head cold, I’m going to pontificate on what I’m enjoying this week. And so are you! That’s the whole gimmick behind this nonsense, Monday Morning Commute. More Theraflu!

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“I shouldn’t’ve done this. She’s not safe by herself. We gotta go back.”

“Dammit Greg, we haven’t had a date-nite in thirteen weeks.”

“You’ve been keeping track?”

“Of course I’ve been keeping track. Date-nite is a sacred event, a testament to the wonder that is our relationship. There’s compromise – you choose the movie, I choose the restaurant. There’s chivalry – you hold every door and pay for everything, even when I protest. And there’s sex – we always end the evening by rolling around in bed, expressing our physical attraction by playing with each other’s ballsacks. We need this.”

Greg paused. He wanted to feel okay about leaving his mom at home, but he couldn’t. Dale saw this, and continued making his argument.

“Listen, your mother’s going to be fine. She’s just old, and sometimes that means she gets a little confused-”

“A little confused? Yesterday I poured myself a glass of a milk and she said that she never knew Martians could handle Earth-dairy.”

“I’m sure she was just joking around.”

“Oh yeah? Then why did she part the curtains, point out the window, and exclaim, ‘Looks like, we’ll be touching down on Ganymede in no time! Quick! Put on your spacesuit! If the admiral catches you out of it, he’ll stick you with kitchen-duty!’?”

Dale knew his boyfriend had a point. But couldn’t give up. Selfishly, he wanted dinner and a movie, followed by sex. More altruistically, he honestly didn’t think Greg’s mother was in any jeopardy.

“Greg, if I thought there a serious risk that Rhonda would hurt herself, I wouldn’t be in the car with you right now. But she’s fine — you put her to bed and watched her fall asleep. You know where she’s going to be when we get back? In bed, sleeping! Probably dreaming about traveling the solar system in a rocketship, but in bed nonetheless. We’ll check in to see her peacefully sleeping, sneak into the kitchen for a piece of that rum cake you spent all afternoon baking, and then hit the bedroom.”

Dale kissed Greg on the cheek, and all was well. Greg had been mollified. Date-nite was still ready for lift-off.

And then the panic-gazelles stampeded across the Great Plains of Greg’s face.

“Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit!”

“What’s the matter?”

“Fuck, we have to go back right now! Dale, turn the fucking car around!”

“Greg, calm down! What’s wrong?”

“I’m so stupid! I was so fucking caught up in putting Mom to bed that I forgot take the cake out! I forget to turn off the goddamn oven! D’ya know how much alcohol I put in that cake? The fucking house is going explode!”

[][][]

Rhonda Bilkes crossed the threshold, excited for the mission at hand. She’d been to Ganymede to Mars and even Pluto. But never had she been tasked with surveying the Sun.

Oh, she could already feel the wonderful solar heat penetrating her spacesuit!

—-

Welcome to the Monday Morning Commute!

This is the spot I drop a whole bunch of nonsense, and then show off the various ways I’ll be entertaining myself during the course of the workweek. Hey man, don’t blame me! I’m a hack-writer and I’ve got duties to fulfill! Anyways, your job is to hit up the comments section and share the methods of life-improvement you’ll be employing.

It’s show-and-tell for pop-culture addicts, basement-dwelling-nerds, aspiring artists, and all others who count themselves amongst the OL faithful.

Let’s rock!

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Thanksgiving! The week in which the Empire descends once more into gluttony and materialism. It has been so long without an excuse to devolve into primal man, consuming and farting! The fourth of July is so, so far away at this point. Let us not slide into complete debauchery this week. Let us be gracious. I’m thankful for you ladies and gentleman who frequent this establishment. You eat the appetizers, tip the doorman, and thankfully don’t let the others know that the abandoned warehouse down the street near the bowling alley has become my personal scat hovel.

God is good.

This is Monday Morning Commute, the column where we share the various activities that are getting us through the week. A little bit of a curveball this time around though, what with the aforementioned holiday. So what are you mortals, deities, and demigods of the Netterwebs during this Thanksgiving week?

Holla back, youngin’.

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My friends, welcome to the show. It’s been quiet around here at the Omega Level. For that I apologize. The past month has been a full-ass sprint towards the Grad School finish line. Due to this, I’ve all but dropped off the face of the Earth. I haven’t seen that son of a bitch Patrick Bateman since NYCC, and God knows without me keeping him in check he’s probably been returning a lot of video tapes. A lot of high school color guards being terrorized by a trench coat-and-smirk marauder. I haven’t even read a fucking comic book since August, folks. August. My life is a whirlwind, with only brief jaunts to the movie theaters and Borderlands 2 giving me respite.

Soon though! Fucking Thursday, this 50-page beast will be turned in. Then I’ll be able to relax. A bit.

This is Monday Morning Commute, the column where we diddle and jack it to the activities and loves that are getting us through this week. What are you degenerates digging at the moment? ATM? Ass to mouth?

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