Super Sketch

My room mate and I have been to some pretty sketchy places in our days, and today's post will share a few stories about times when we wondered if we would make it out alive. The two easiest ways to find someplace really creepy is to go to either a city or get way out in the middle of nowhere.

Now, naturally these aren't the only ways to do it, but it's a safe bet that most cities, even small ones, have a region where you definitely don't want to just kind of stroll around in and anyone who's familiar with ominous banjo music is probably already a bit creeped out by super isolated little hamlets in the backwoods.

(Insert creepy red-neck quote here.)

Probably the first memory I have of going somewhere I really felt like I should be afraid of something ridiculous happening to me was our nation's capitol. Yes, for those of you not aware of it, Washington D.C. is also in the running for sketch capitol of the nation. Nestled in between the country of Virginia and the bustle of Maryland, it is a veritable treasure trove of sketch activity.

Now, I know that most people think of things like the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Museums or the Lincoln Memorial when they think of D.C. Some unfortunate souls might even associate Washington D.C. with the seasonal disappointment that is the Washington Wizards.

"What do you mean we're terrible?"

The first time I visited D.C. it was with the Boy Scouts and we stayed in a hostel on the outskirts of downtown. Sign of sketch number one: the word hostel. When has anything connected with that word ever ended up being a good thing? Sign of sketch number two: the place had bars on the windows up to the third floor.

I mean, I can see having bars on the windows for the first, maybe even the second floors, but three? Seriously? What kind of cracked out Spider-Man imitators live in this area? If it gets to the point that you need metal rebar over the openings to your building thirty feet above the ground, I think you should probably just start handing out shotguns to tenants as they check in.

"Don't forget your complimentary guard dog, sir."

Sign of sketch number three: at least every half hour some sort of ambulance/police/fire truck siren combination roared down the road. There's a reason why D.C. got the nickname "murder capital", with over three times the national average of violent crimes per capita. With that in mind, some of the guys I was with decided that the best way to enjoy their trip was to taunt homeless people rummaging through mailboxes outside the hostel.

Now, I don't mean your average friendly "Hey man, you spare some change?" homeless guys.

How can you say no to a story like that?

I mean the "I just got done jerking off in public and am now robbing you at fork-point so I can go buy some meth" homeless guys.

"Seriously though, I want some meth."

The other guys were laughing about how funny it was when they creatively shouted "Get a job!" to the hobos, to which the street people replied that they would, and I quote "fucking kill you punk-ass kids". I was not laughing. And for good reason.

About five minutes later, there was an angry knock on the door to our room. I quickly dove under my bed, where I figured I would soon witness multiple murders from as the homeless person made good on his promise.

Luckily, it was merely the security officer from the front desk warning us that someone had complained about kids yelling at them from the windows, and that we shouldn't antagonize the people out on the street like that.

Just like how you shouldn't feed wild ponies.

Moving right next door to Baltimore, we take this sketch-fest to the next level. My room mate and some friends took a bike trip around Baltimore about a year or so ago. All of them regretted it. Baltimore is like the younger, slightly less sketch version of D.C. It's got all the sketchiness you've come to know and love, in a bite sized package.

Oh yeah, we went with the obvious mini joke.

When you're a group of lily white college students riding around on bicycles in an area of the city that is inhabited mostly by minorities in the lower socio-economic strata, it's not a great idea to take too many long stops or interact with the locals more than you have to. While not as dangerous as a line of Humvees driving through Falujah, my room mate and his friends were quickly beset by difficulties.

"Somebody just ordered some grape juice. There's white folk about!"

First off, they quickly became lost in the twisting and turning labyrinth of that particularly sketchy area of Balitmore. Secondly, some of them had to answer the call of the wild, and not in a "running free with the wolves across the tundra" sort of way.

Where's Charlton Heston when you need him?

Wait. Sorry, wrong movie. Here we go.

Wait, this still isn't the right movie.

You know what? Forget I even mentioned him. Back to our story.

My room mate really has to urinate. So he starts asking around to see where a bathroom might be. A public restroom would be cool, also like a gas station or something could work. Well, supposedly there aren't any nearby. How is that even possible?

Well he's really got to go, so he keeps wandering further away from the group, asking random people on the street where he can go potty. One guy he happens upon offers up an interesting solution.

He said, "Hey man, for three dollars, I'll watch you pee."

"WTF?" in ASL, according to the interwebs.

Either he means that he will A: accept a payment of three dollars to watch out for policemen while my room mate takes a whiz in an alley or something, or B: he will watch while my room mate takes a whiz in an alley. And yes, I mean that last option in the creepiest way possible. Like if he really needed to score three dollars and thought my room mate was into some weird stuff.

"If you have to ask what it is, you can't afford it."

After he manages to convince the dude that he didn't want to pay him three dollars for questionable services, my room mate tries to back-track to the rest of his group. Unbeknownst to him, but knownst to us, they had left for a more fortified position. Literally.

In the days of the Old West, the practice of circling the wagons was common place. However, circling the bicycles didn't exactly provide the same level of protection, and the natives were closing in quickly.

Too bad they didn't have air support.

After coming to a group concensus to get the hell out of Dodge, my room mate and his friends pedaled as fast as their little legs could take them, vowing never again to return to that particular city unless they had to.

Yeah, that might be worth it...maybe.

Hipsters! Gosh!

The topic of today's post, with a little help from Ryan North of Dinosaur Comics fame, is . . .

What's the deal with them?

After my recent post about bicycles, I realized that I do actually need to get a post out there about hipsters and why they suck.

Now, I know what you're thinking, provided of course that you're thinking the following sentence: "Gee, Doctor Woofers, what are hipsters and why do they suck?"

Stay tuned for the answer!

*Disclaimer*

This post isn't meant to hurt the feelings of anyone who identifies themselves as a quote-unquote "hipster", merely to vent some of my irrational hatred in a humorous fashion for the entirety of the interweb to see. If you think it might hurt your feelings to find out that hipsters are what's wrong with the world today, you probably shouldn't continue reading this post.

Sums up my feelings on hipsters.

For starters, take a quick visual survey of what constitutes a hipster by checking out the website "Look At This Fucking Hipster" at http://www.latfh.com/. The people who run this site have been bringing the issue of hipsters, that plague upon humanity, to the attention of anyone who has access to a computer with internet capabilities (and now to anyone who can find a book store with the release of their book).

Hipsters.

They probably knew about this pic before it went mainstream...

I am not alone in my distaste for these unwashed masses, but perhaps I am alone in how irrationally I despise them. I mean, sure it's culturally acceptable to have a bad opinion of Hitler, but hipsters are surely nothing like him, right?

Wrong!

Look at those ironic mustaches!

I'm going to organize this rant against hipsterdom into three categories: belongings, clothing and personality. Each of these three categories is nearly enough to earn my undying antipathy towards hipsters, but together they create a trifecta of annoyance.

Material goods such as bikes and headphones.

Hipsters are defined by their possessions. As much as they wish that they could go all "Fight Club" and be liberated from their belongings, they actually go the opposite direction, and are seemingly incapable of realizing that they are their pair of skinny jeans, they are their Buddy Holly frame glasses.

Even though they like to dress like they shop at a thrift store, or scavenge their clothes directly from the dumpster, all hipsters love to buy things that help create their image or give them "hipster cred".

How hipster marriage ceremonies probably look.

Things that give them acceptance by their peers include, but are not limited to anything that Apple has ever made or will make. You name it, Macbooks, iPhones, iPads, if you tell a hipster that Steve Jobs was involved with developing it you could probably sell him a large steaming pile of cow feces.

Old vinyl records of obscure bands. Nothing screams "I am a hipster!" more than having an obscure version of a particular song on a largely obselete form of technology. It would be like if I really wanted to have a copy of the Star Wars Holiday Special on Beta-Max or some shit. It makes no sense, and is often more expensive than just getting the mp3 of your favorite Clash song.

Plus you have to deal with people like him.

Also, fixed gear or antique bicycles. Hipsters fucking love these things. If they can't have one of these to get to their independent record store on, they might have to settle for a 1980's Volvo or something else suitably retro like an AMC Gremlin or a Ford Pinto if they can find one.

It just screams "I might be legally retarded!"

You might have already read my blurb against fixed gear bicycles in the previous post, but if now, here's a brief summary: they suck. Not only are the frames usually expensive, the tires fragile and the brakes non existent, they don't allow coasting. Not having to exert physical effort is the best part about using wheeled transportation.

Getting a regular bicycle and turning it into a fixed gear bike is like getting a car with power steering and then cutting the lines just so that you'll look cool for your friends. It makes no sense what so ever, yet hipsters flock to fixed gear bikes and the shops that service them like homeless people to an underpass.

I'm sure that there are other things that hipsters possess that I just am not currently annoyed by, but will remember at a later date.

True fact: All hipster closets are replete with skinny jeans.

Perhaps the easiest way to spot a hipster (aside from hearing an obscure band blasting from their over sized headphones) is by their clothing. Unless said hipster is attempting to fit in with the rest of the world, whether because they have a real job or they think it'll be ironic, a hipster will instantly be identifiable by the mismatched articles of clothing that they drape over their often androgynous bodies.

I'm going to start at the feet and work my way up with things that annoy me about hipsters.

Feet: Individualized Chucks or Rainbows. My dad wears Chucks, not because he's a hipster, but because he's almost fifty years old, and has a right to wear old style shoes if he wants to. Now, I'm not putting down Chucks, because they are nice shoes. But hipsters take them and cover them with sharpie, and sequins, and alternate lacing patterns.

WTF? Honestly, I've got no beef with Rainbows either, it's just that hipsters wear them when there's snow on the ground. What is that about? Is frostbite cool again?

I could have sworn that went out of style with dysentery.

Legs: Skinny jeans or ridiculously short shorts. Alright, without the adjectives in front of them, jeans and shorts sound like what normal people wear. Unless of course you combine them to form the almighty pair of jorts. And that's cool with me. However, I would gladly let gun control laws become lax enough to allow assault rifles for fourth graders if there was some way to have stricter clothing restrictions.

Men should not wear skinny jeans. End of argument.

Be grateful I didn't use a fat guy.

If you argue against my statement, then you are obviously someone who wears them and as such have no place in this argument due to your deteriorated mental state. Also, wearing the same style of shorts that YMCA youth did in the 50's does not make you cool. All it does is make you look gross, because your legs are usually pasty pale and excessively hairy. As somebody who has hairy legs, I am not suggesting you shave them, merely wear shorts that are closer to your knees than your crotch.

Pictured: A hipster who knows how to wear shorts (anomaly)

Torso: Up above whatever studded or sequined or random object used as a belt any given hipster wears around their waist comes the ridiculous shirts, jackets, vests and other things used to cover up their top half if they aren't flaunting their ripped physique.

Fact: hipsters love terrible shirts. Whether it's a sweat stained v-neck plain t-shirt,


a horrible sweater,

some sort of plaid/stripe combo

or just a massive dosage of their all time favorite word.

(Hint: it's irony)

After this we get on to accessories. Accessories like ironic fanny packs, or ironic sunglasses, or weird piercings, or the ever classic "culturally signficant piece of clothing until we got ahold of it" things like those omnipresent keffiyeh used as scarves.

Yes, I said it. Kanye is a fucking hipster.

That's pretty much all the space I have for complaining about the way hipsters dress, so it's on to the next category!

The most insidious trait of the hipster.

On a scale of bad personalities, ranging from angsty teenager (best) to Sarah Palin (worst), hipsters score a Snooki (previously thought to be an unachievable low). And no, that is not a compliment. The danger posed by hipsters is greatest when they are not easily identifiable via their belongings or appearance. If you see someone dressed like they were dressed by aliens who had no actual understanding of clothing, you might either assume that they are Japanese, or just a hipster.

Either way, don't take anything they say seriously.

The key character traits espoused by hipsters include, but are not limited to "irony", "individuality", "retro", "enlightened" and "pretentious". (Editors note: I know that they don't think of themselves as pretentious, but such a majority of them subscribe to that personality trait that I felt bad leaving it out.) For some reason the best way to exemplify these personality traits are drinking PBR, having terrible hair cuts, weird tattoos and listening to bad music.

First off, you may have noticed that I've used the word "irony" or "ironic" like a couple dozen times in this post, almost always incorrectly. That's right bitches, I know what the word means and the proper usage of it! Because I happen to be terrible at grammar and punctuation, you might not gather that I know a lot of words, and what most of them mean, if not how to spell them. Hipsters, on the other hand do not. This does not stop them from applying it to every single facet of their lives.

"I have a tattoo of PBR, isn't that ironic?"

No! Perhaps the toxic levels of douchebag that you are attempting to shield your eyes from have corrupted your vocabulary usage!

Irony is when you do one thing and an unexpectedly opposite result occurs, or when you say one thing and mean something contrary to what you said, or even when you're a character in a book and your words mean something more to the reader than they do to you.

Ironically, the term MILF was invented the next year.

The only way the PBR tattoo turns out to be ironic would be if he died from being hit by a can of PBR dropped from off the top of the Empire State Building. Aside from the irony, that whole situation would be totally fucking awesome... I mean... sad. Right. Sad...

Last time I checked, a PBR loving hipster and a tattoo getting hipster are often one and the same. What an amazing coincidence that this person would conceive of getting a tattoo of something he loves! I, for one, am astounded!

Philosoraptor's mind is blown!

And so we conclude this chapter on hipsters. Both because I have momentarily run out of things to type, and because my co-host needs to leave.

This joke brought to you by www.thedoghousediaries.com

For a bit more reading on the subject, check out these links, or just search hipsters in Google to see how they don't believe in the census or some stupid shit.

Wikipedia entry on Hipsters

Hipsters Desperately Seek New Anachronism to Claim as Their Own

Hipsters: The Dead End of Western Civilization

Bicycle Hijinks!

For those of you who don't know what a bicycle is. . . Don't laugh, the internet is a big place, odds are there is somebody out there who doesn't know what a bicycle is. Okay, you're probably right, go ahead and laugh. . . a bicycle is an amazing invention allowing for the rapid transit of bipedal organisms across great distances through that miracle of science: the wheel. (Also involved are minor things like gears, hydraulics, pressurized air and metalworking)

Most bicycles (commonly shortened to "bikes") look like this:

Some have room for two passengers.

It is a well known fact that bikes are popular with people who fall into three general demographics, with some exceptions as well as overlap.

1.) Little kids. Kids fucking love bikes! For one, they can't drive cars, because well, they're just kids! Also, bikes can be accessorized with bad ass things like baskets for toys and the ever popular playing cards in the spokes! Vroom! Vroom!

Little Susie's parents obviously love her bunches!

2. Poor people. Poor people fucking love bikes! For one, they can't drive cars, because well, they can't afford them! Also, bikes can be accessorized with bad ass things like baskets to collect bottles in and the ever popular "life's belongings sack"! Sadness...

The dirt bike seat makes him feel fast!

3. Foreigners. Foreigners fucking love bikes! For one, they can't drive cars, because well, they're terrible drivers! Also, bikes can be accessorized with bad ass things like baskets for physics textbooks and the ever popular rickshaw set up! Bicycle taxis!

I like to think he's hauling Styrofoam blocks for a Great Wall scale model.

"But wait!" you say. "What about countless health nuts, college students, or hipsters? How could you forget about the hipsters? They're so omnipresent and sickening in their smug self satisfaction while riding their fixed gear bikes in their skinny jeans and ironic mustaches!"

Oh, I didn't forget about those aggravating, annoying, ass hats. No such luck for them. However, I don't have time to go into hipster hate mode. For a bit more on that subject, check out the post dealing with "Irrational Hates". Suffice it to say, that if I went down that road, this post would likely have no end.

My room mate has three bikes. They're all some sort of fancy-pants single gear, fixed gear, racing, road bike, high tensile aluminum something or another. They're each worth a couple hundred dollars easy, a thousand or so if you were to steal them and then pawn them off to somebody who really knows their bikes.

(Editor's note: if you do steal and then pawn said bicycles for exorbitant amounts of cash, remember that just because this blog is non-profit doesn't mean we don't accept donations!)

We also accept money orders and food.

I, on the other hand, have one bike.

It is a Huffy "Meltdown", and is a vivid coloration of black and red, with standard tires, shocks, brakes, five speeds, etc. However, it is probably not worth a couple thousand pennies when it comes down to it. I joke and tell people that I've had it since I was in the 5th grade, but now that I think back on it, I'm pretty sure I've had it since like 3rd grade.

Now, you might think to yourself "Self, that's an awfully nice keepsake of youth to hang onto, to cherish those memories of halcyon days gone by. Perhaps I shall do the same..."

Ah... memories.

Don't.

At least not like I did. If you are going to do so: keep it well oiled, polished, in a temperature controlled environment, and just don't abuse it in general. Also, stop growing when you get to middle school. Or at least have a really big bike when you were young, otherwise you'll look like me when I ride my bike.

When we go ride our bikes around campus, or anywhere really, this is what I look like:

Except with more facial hair.

Yes, my room mate says I look like a bear riding a tricycle.

Laugh it up.

If you've seen Will Ferrell's "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby" you might remember the scene where Ricky Bobby delivers a pizza to his estranged father Reese. Having had his liscense revoked, Ricky Bobby is forced to ride a bike around. That's me. The only details that don't match up are the color of the bike, those sweet jorts and the calf length socks.

"Hey, is that a Huffy? That's a nice-lookin' bike, boy!"

Size hilarity aside, it's actually a decent bike. Decent in the very loosest possible sense of the word. Decent as in it actually has two wheels, handle bars, a seat and brakes. It gets me where I'm going, and almost as fast as if I was running. Literally.

I have timed myself biking at a decent pace the 2.5 miles from the apartment to where I work and back, and the time is the same as if I was on foot. For a reference point, I normally run about about 7-8 minute miles unless I'm running for my life. And when I run I don't hear the creak of rusted chains and the squeal of brakes on the verge of locking up.

Last semester, my room mate and I went to Raleigh for the First Friday event held every month. We took our bikes, the better with which to wander around down town. Both his fancy-schmancy bike and his friend's nice bike got flat tires, or busted inner-tubes or something along those lines. I was the only one with a fully functional bike, loosely speaking.

And boy did I rub it in.

At least this is as funny as it is non-functional.

I did replace an inner-tube a couple months afterward. That was the first money I'd spend on that bike since I bought a lock to keep homeless people from making the mistake of stealing my crappy bike with ease.

Then my room mate got the idea to take one of his bikes to the local bike shop and change it from fixed gear to single gear. Since he had recently gotten his hands on some of those Silly Bandz, he didn't feel the need to try and be cool with a fixed gear bike. I'm not making this up.

Those were his exact words.

Figuring I'd go along and see what the bike shop could do for my wobbly back tire, I brought my bike along as well. At first, the bike shop people were flabbergasted as to why somebody would want to change away from a fixed gear bike.

This, I don't understand. At all. Fixed gears basically keep your feet moving at all times. You can't coast. And everyone knows that coasting is like, a gazillion times better than pedaling! You just let inertia, or gravity, or the car that's towing you take care of the forward momentum. It's fucking awesome. Think about if you could just coast around on your feet. People would do that shit constantly!

Between these and my Heelies, I'll never have to walk again!

So, after they get done with taking care of his bike, they turn to mine. Almost managing to keep his natural disdain in check, the bike guy says "Well, it looks like your bike isn't in the best of shape."

What I wanted to say: "No shit, Sherlock! I haven't given this bike anything except abuse for the past 15 years. At least Harry Potter got to live in a nice dry cupboard! Perhaps you should go around pointing out the obvious for a living instead of fixing bikes, because you're freaking awesome at it!"

What I actually said: "Oh, yeah. I probably haven't taken the best care of it, and it is a pretty old bike."

And the "Understatement of the Year" award goes to....

After bad mouthing my bike for another few minutes, he determines that one of the spokes on the back tire is broken, causing it to wobble. The good news is that a new spoke only costs about a buck fifty. The bad news is that with labor and what ever else made up expenses they can lump in it will be about twenty five dollars.

Okay. That back wheel was really annoying me. If I spend a bit now, I can limp along for another few years on this bike. They tell me it will take them till tomorrow to have it fixed, so we leave.

A few hours later I get a call from them saying they've put in a bunch of time and labor just trying to get the back tire's rim re-aligned or dents removed or something. Long story short, it's going to take a lot of money to fix this bike.

Money I don't want to spend.

I tell them not to fix anything more until I get there tomorrow and see what all needs to be done and how much it will cost. They say alright. Perhaps I should buy a new bike and use this one for spare parts? Although the parts on this bike probably aren't even worth that.

I don't want to pay money for repairs I didn't want. All I wanted was to have that spoke replaced, now they're going to charge me enough to buy a new bike? Fuck that!

Time for a plan!

My plan? I'm just going to leave the bike with them. Ignore their calls. Refuse to take the bike back. If I don't take it back, they can't make me pay the fees right? (Okay, I know that's probably legally inaccurate, but a man can dream can't he?) All they have is my name and number. I'll just tell them to keep the hunk of junk and consider our score even.

Paying more than the bike is worth is definitely not on my list of things to do. Apparently though, my list of things to do will soon include avoiding solicitors on bicycles. So now my options are to either get a big boy bike, or walk. And I think we both know what option I'll be taking.

That's right, be jealous.