Once My Looks Go, I've Got Nothing

Since I have been sitting in front of a computer for 95% of the past seven years (go ahead and do the math, Pointdexter!), I have become quite familiar with the various types of articles that online media websites like to post. One of my favorite sorts of article is the Power Rankings that websites such as ESPN.com will do. If you are unfamiliar with the concept, a Power Rankings article is basically a list of sports teams in order from best to worst or vice versa at a certain point in time, with an explanation for their placement. These rankings are arguable and often, especially for certain portions of the list, fairly arbitrary. Having said that, they are a hell of a lot of fun to read, so I thought I’d try my hand at one. The sports theme has been done to death, though, by writers far more knowledgeable in the field than I, so today we're trying something a little different. After a thorough investigation of what exactly constitutes my “wheelhouse,” I submit for your approva

          When I was young, I lived in a mobile home park. It was a wonderful place not unlike Disneyland, that is, if you replaced the cute cartoon characters with meth and the rides with arsons. It was a fascinating little social bubble, where nearly every married couple consisted of a morbidly obese wife and a skinny, geeky husband. This is a phenomenon that I have labeled "Jack Sprat Syndrome."      Our home life there was interesting. Possums would sometimes run into the house through some sort of crawlspace, the location of which I was never able to ascertain. My sister used to tell me that the ghost of an old woman would visit her at night, sitting on the edge of her bed and talking to her. I never saw any ghosts, but the walls of my room were laden with toxic mold. My lungs are still haunted by those abundant spores.           One Sunday morning, my mother went to go get the newspaper, leaving my sister and I home alone for a few minutes. I was about

     I'm not trying to brag, but I'm pretty good at Words With Friends. Or maybe I am trying to brag...it's been long enough since I felt pride that I can't really say for sure. Anyway, I'm not trying to pull an R. Kelly and say I'm the world's greatest or anything. Though I have in the past pulled an R. Kelly, by other meanings of the phrase.      I fear I'm starting to lose my point.      Oh yes, Words With Friends. So anyway, just like the rest of the country, I enjoy playing it. I mean, it's no Magic: The Gathering or anything, but in terms of free cell phone games it gets a hearty thumbs up from yours truly. Now, I understand that in order to play Words for free, I have to put up with advertisements inserted into the middle of my games. I'm completely OK with this, since Lord knows I'm in no position to pay money for anything. My dinner for the last three weeks has been plain white rice with sriracha sauce due to a case of what Ted N

Anyone with more than a passing familiarity with me knows that I have an extensive history of making decisions ranging anywhere from questionable to downright insane. Usually, I am fully cognizant of the consequences of these decisions, so when my wrist shatters or I find myself in a month-long depressive funk due to the ramifications of my choices, I am not so much awed by the after-effects as I am by the lunacy that allowed them to come to pass in the first place. The water bottles, though… See, oftentimes the most seemingly innocuous decisions, mere ripples in the ocean of choices we all make every day, end up creating a veritable tsunami of long-term effects when analyzed in hindsight. Nowhere has this been clearer to me than when I began pondering the ramifications of one of the most mundane decisions a person can make: I decided one afternoon to purchase a twelve-pack of bottled water at Safeway. On the surface, it seems almost impossible for the event to have any life-long s

“Damn it!” I exclaimed as I slammed my computer keyboard in frustration, sending up a thick cloud of Cool Ranch Dorito dust. I took one of the angriest sips of Red Bull in the history of man and threw myself backwards against my chair, which rocked haphazardly due to the sudden force. Stupid low-quality furniture I pick up off the sidewalk. But my angst this afternoon had nothing to do with the decomposing construct I called my chair. Rather, the object of my ire was a tad more abstract: the internet. Not the entire thing (I love me some porn and fast food reviews), but rather the fact that the internet has a certain galling way of perpetuating things I might wish myself and others to simply forget about. Examples of this include Rick Astley, Goatse and my own personal lapses in judgment. Well, maybe not Rick Astley. Anyway, I had just spent hours trying to erase a particularly grievous error of mine from several years ago, but I was at a loss. Forced to confront my o