State of the Waves

Every once in awhile it's sort of necessary for people to step back and take a look at their lives to figure out where they're at. The President of the United States will deliver a State of the Union Address to let us know how our country is faring. Publicly owned companies will send out letters from CEO's letting the stock holders know how the business is doing. And we here at Negative Waves will let you, the reader, know exactly what is going on with us.

We're going through some changes, yo. If you haven't noticed, we're expanding. We've invited another columnist to come and join our ranks, and we're excited about that. We're excited for several reasons: 1) the new columnist is a girl. A chick, a broad, a dame. And we'll need someone around the office to get us coffee and make us sandwiches from time to time. 2) There's a good chance she's got hot friends, and though only two of the five male Negative Waves staff members are currently not married or engaged, only one of them doesn't live with his significant other. Can you guess which one? 3) It's me! 4) Number one on this list was totally a joke so Glenda, don't kick my ass. We make DeRosa fetch us coffee and donuts anyway. 5) This numbered list has lost all rhyme and reason and no longer serves a purpose. 6) Glenda is an accomplished writer and has fantastic skills that will serve the Negative Waves Empire well.

Seriously, we're really excited to have Glenda joining us. The one thing we've been missing around here is a female perspective on things. We need a woman around to keep us honest. Of course, if there is a drawback to Glenda's presence in the office, it's the fact that we'll probably have to convert the ladies room back into an actual ladies room. We'll have to set up that putting green in Hoyer's office now.

But there are other changes on the horizon as well. We're in the early stages of planning the First Annual Negative Waves Film Festival. This will be the festival that will see the World Premier of the much anticipated Bowling to Vegas movie. (This film has not yet been rated by the Motion Picture Institute and probably never will be). But more details are to follow on that. If you have a film that you'd be interested in submitting, we're currently accepting films of all types. Just e-mail us here at Negative Waves and we'll tell you where to send your DVD. Chances are that your submission will not be returned to you however.

There are many other exciting things going on as well, you can now buy your very own Negative Waves T-shirt. I think that's awesome. I can't wait to get mine and cut it down to a half-shirt so I can wear it with my flannel pants when I power walk the neighborhood.

But now that I've caught you up to speed on the Negative Waves front (something that I probably didn't actually need to do since our editor Matt DeRosa probably did it already) I can talk more about other important stuff. Namely: me.

I was born almost 31 years ago. And do you know that in that entire time span, I have never, ever, not even one time, discharged a firearm. I've shot those little suction cup dart guns a few times. I got pretty good with that thing. I once shot my friend in the face from at least 15 feet and the suction cup dart stuck right to his glasses. It was awesome. Then I tried it on my other friend and found out that I really was that accurate. The problem was that he didn't wear glasses. But he loves to freak people out with that glass eye.

Not that I have any great desire to discharge a firearm, but I do think it would be pretty cool to go shoot stuff. I'm not talking animals or living, breathing things, I'm not sure that's in my makeup, but I'd love to squeeze out a few rounds at a firing range or after a few dozen brews in my buddies garage or something. I'm not saying that I'd be a great shot or anything, but when I would play Duck Hunt on Nintendo, that little doggie was a busy sumbitch.

Remember Laser Tag? Do they still have those big Laser Tag pavilions where you can go with your friends and run around and shoot each other? It's like paint ball for sissies, I think. That or it's made more for kids. But really, aren't kids just adults that are essentially sissies?

It's probably right about now that you might be asking yourself where I'm going with this column. Well, to be perfectly honest I'm asking myself the same question. But you're still reading, aren't you? So quit asking questions. I'll do the question asking around here.

My first question (not including any possible questions I may have posed previous to the upcoming question) is this: have any of you ever gone shopping at Target and realized that you're wearing a red shirt or sweater or something and been struck with that horrible fear that someone is going to come up to you to ask you where you can find the hot glue guns or the tomato plant food? If you look around at the people who work at Target, most of them don't have nametags. Sometimes they'll have some sort of medallion type thing hanging around their neck like looking like they can get backstage at a Wiggles concert. But they don't have any set uniform. As far as I can tell, their uniform needs to consist of nothing more than some sort of red garment on their upper body. It's like walking into a St. Louis Cardinals fan club in there.

But am I wrong? Have you not had that horrible feeling in the pit of your stomach at least once when you've walked in through the automatic doors, grabbed yourself one of the big red plastic shopping carts (kudos, by the way, to the manufacturer of the Target shopping carts; those things ride about as luxuriously as a Lincoln Town car right off the assembly line) and looked up to see the sea of red swarming around you in the form of scores of Target employees bustling about with their backstage passes to Menudo and their electronic scanners as they tend to their duties only to look down out of the corner of your eye to see that you've decided to come to Target on the exact day that you chose to wear your solid red long sleeve t-shirt tucked into your neatly pressed khaki cotton Dockers? No? Yeah. Me either. Just wondered.

How awesome is it that the second sentence in the above paragraph was 142 words long, and had only one comma in it? English teachers, editors, self-decreed grammar buffs, feel free to use that sentence in your classrooms, seminars, or as a self-help guide as to why writing is such a wonderful thing, and why I'm the master of it. At the same time, you may wish to send me your comments on why this is a horribly constructed sentence and break it down for me properly. Either way, we'll publish your e-mail. Frankly, we get so few e-mails that we've actually had to talk our editor out of publishing some of the spam we've gotten.

On that note, I need to go cook me a frozen dinner of some sort. So, remember, contact us about sending in your films. We'd love for you to be a part of our film fest. The exact date and location have yet to be determined, but mark your calendars tentatively for February 7th. It will be a well publicized event, so if you're looking for some recognition, this will be your opportunity. All films shown will be given an award title, so you can also pad your resume and stuff. How cool is that?

There's no need to thank us. Just buy a shirt and send your films. We're here for you. The question is: who's here for us?