Acceptance is the First Step

[Continued conversation from 06/18/09]

Nic: Do you remember earlier when you asked me who the chick musician was that that one lady adores in Love Actually?

Richard: Yeah.

Nic: Well, it’s Joni Mitchell.

Richard: No… I don’t think that’s it.

Nic: I got it from a very unreliable source.

Richard: Wait… did I tell you?

Nic: I don’t feel like I can reveal my source without violating his/her trust.

But yes, it was you.

Richard: I feel so violated.

Nic: Strangely, I feel very empowered.

Richard: But how does your face feel? Rubbed in any form or fashion?

Nic: It feels like it’s covered in uncertainty and a new found respect for life.

Richard: Well that’s not at all what I tried rubbing in your face.

Nic: Overcoming your intellectual abuse made me grow as a person… and a space alien.

Richard: Vertically or horizontally?

Nic: Diagonally.

Richard: Dragonally?

Nic: DO NOT QUESTION ME!!!

Blood Containers

Waitress: Are you guys brothers?

Richard: No.

Nic: There's a lady at work who thought we were brothers also.

Richard: Why do you think we're related?

Waitress: Well, you guys kind of look alike.

Richard: Really?

Waitress: Well, I mean, he has long hair and you have short hair, and your eyes... Like you [to Nic] have sort of greenish grayish eyes, and you [to Richard] have kind of blueish... I don't know.

Richard: So blue eyes and green eyes mean we're related?

Waitress: Well... no... but you kind of look alike.

Are you guys like best friends?

In Unison: No.

Nic: I mean we ARE friends.

Waitress: Just not best.

Richard: I don't really know what that means.

Nic: Same.

Waitress: But there's not blood between you.

Richard: I have blood!

Nic: I keep mine in my body!

Richard: I keep my in my body, too!

Waitress: That's where I keep mine!

Nic: We've got a lot in common!

Support Your Local Technician

Friend: Man, I don't want to do computer stuff anymore, ever.

Nic: What happened?

Friend: I can't for the life of me figure out why some ports I've opened up on our router won't actually show up as open. It's really pissing me off. If you say, "Have you tried turning it off and on again" I'm going to kill you.

Richard: Have you tried turning it off? Leave it off, box it up, poke holes in the box, and look in at the computer through the holes.

Status = Vicarious

Richard: In Love Actually, who’s the chick musician that one lady adores? Her cheating husband buys her a CD of the music for Christmas.

Nic: I can’t think of it off the top of my head.

Richard: Joni Mitchell.

Nic: You were just trying to rub your knowledge in my face weren’t you.

Richard: It has nothing to do with knowledge. I just like rubbing things in faces—inanimate or animate; tangible or intangible.

Nic: Abuse of concepts is how people catch Nihilism.

Richard: New Facebook status: Richard caught the Nihilism.

Nic: You know there is only one cure for that don’t you?

Richard: So tell me what my next status will be.

Nic: Cupcakes and Pandabears.

Richard: That’s not a complete sentence.

Nic: The only cure for a disease so completely disabling as that of Nihilism is the surrender to the overwhelming benevolence of the mighty cupcake and the unconditional love of the noble Panda.

Richard: Richard has been cured of the disease of Nihilism by surrendering to the overwhelming benevolence of the mighty cupcake and unconditional love of the noble panda.

Nic: I'm glad you have Facebook so I don't have to.

Thematic Miscommunication

The Scene: Nic, Richard, and two friends are eating dinner at Outback Steakhouse. Nic's order gets messed up and he has to wait for them to correct it. After they all finish eating, Nic is offered a free dessert for their error. He begins reading over the dessert menu.

Nic: Chocolate Thunder From Down Under?

Richard: Are you serious?! [Bursts out laughing]

Nic: Totally.

Waiter: We have to keep things Australian.

Richard: [While still laughing] That's not Australian. That's just disgusting!

Formula for Fame

Richard: How'd you like that reference to peanut butter jelly time?

Nic: I don't know what that is...

Richard: Dang. It's really old. [Sends link to YouTube]

Nic: Oh, I've seen that dancing banana before! I didn't know what it was called, or where it was from, or why it was even popular. I still kind of don't know why it was popular.

Richard: Easy: because it's stupid and obnoxious.

Nic: So, why aren't we more popular?

Richard: Because all of our props got stolen.

Regretful Genetics

The Scene: Nic, Richard, and [Friend] go out to eat. As they're walking into the restaurant a line of six extremely attractive girls walk out. As the two groups pass each other:

Girl #1: [to girl #3] Bye

Girl#2: [to girl #4] Okay! We'll see you later, Bye.

Girl #3: [to girl #2] Bye

Girls #4: [to girl #1] Goodbye

Richard: [to girl#5] Bye!

Nic: [waves goodbye to girl #6] Sorry I'm not more attractive!

Thou Shalt Not Steal

Friday someone tried to break into Nic and Richard's workplace. So they decided to help by creating a list of all the things stolen. This list is to be submitted to the police. Once the thieves are captured the return of these items is demanded.

List of items taken from [Employer]:

-Life-sized chocolate dinosaur
-13 banana costumes
-1 stuffed and mounted piranha
-[Boss's] personal MacGyver movie collection
-[Boss]
-Fifth American flag to hang over the entrance to the IT department
-Innocence
-4 pair of rubber underwear
-3 rubber underwear instruction booklets
-1 ficus tree disguise
-gift card to the restaurant of your choice
-32 souls
-the robot
-1 Program chip to block robots evil nature
-Microsoft paint
-1 hand-drawn picture of a monster eating sadness divided by rainbow
-28 employee of the month trophies
-Love
-1 nice pair of jeans
-1 mean pair of jeans
-1 leather mask (bought from leather masters)
-3 posable Spider-man action figures.
-40 lbs. of condoms
-1 subscription to adult friend finder
-assortment of surreal stories authored by [Friend] and Richard
-1 list of steps to asking out a girl
-platinum grille
-3 pair of bronzed testicles
-whipped cream
-56 pencils with erasers
-whip
-1 Ouija board
-Natalie Portman
-stockpile of weapons of mass destruction
-1 copy of "Where the Red Fern Grows"
-1 human heart
-1 custom tailored carrying case for a human heart

The Mona Leo

A picture Nic drew for [co-worker] when she was having a bad day:

Blown Away

Richard: At this party last night we played the blow dart game. Have you ever played it?

Nic: Is it a drinking game?

Richard: No...

Nic: Then probably not.

Richard: Well, what you do is you put your hands up to your mouth like your holding a blow dart gun and blow at people. They pretend to get shot in the neck and collapse instantly, then they lie wherever they are until someone pulls the "dart" out of their neck.

Nic: Wow! That's awesome! I'm very jealous that you have friends that will play games like that... And, slightly intimidated.

Richard: Oh man it was great! I got this one girl like 5 times in a row. Each time I got her it was harder and harder for her to "wake up" after people pulled out the dart. The last time she pretended she couldn't even stand up and some guys had to help her to the couch.

Nic: HAHAHA, that's awesome!!!

Richard: One of the times I got her, like 5 guys tried to get the dart out of her neck but every time they got close I'd blow them!

Nic: [immediately stops laughing and stares at Richard]...

Richard: [embarrassingly] I shouldn't have worded it like that...

Ask First

The Scene: Nic, Richard, and Friend are going out to eat. They're approaching the restaurant as Nic reads the name of the restaurant out loud.

Nic: Now, is this the restaurant or the brothel?

Richard: um...

Nic: Because I wouldn't want to go in and create an awkward situation.

Friend: [Turns around and looks at Richard and Nic] What did Nic do?

Richard: Nothing yet...

Selective Hearing

Nic: The people in the sales department think my name is Patrick.

Richard: Where did they get that?

Nic: Probably in hell where they got their jobs.

Co-worker: A lot of people think my name is Kent and I have no idea where they got that from.

Richard: Maybe they're not saying Kent.

Dancing Fools

The Scene: Richard, Nic, and Friend are riding in a car. Richard is driving and Nic is in the backseat on the passenger side. We pull up to a traffic light and some cute girls pull up on the driver's side. Nic and Richard glance over to see the girls dancing. Richard turns back and watches the red light. Nic continues to watch as the driver points at our car and says something to her friend excitedly. The girl in the passenger seat looks over and sees our car and turns back to her friend and laugh from embarrassment. Nic starts laughing at the situation. The light turns green and Richard drives off ahead of them. Nic continues to laugh at the girls over their reaction.

Richard: What's so funny?

Nic: Those girls in the car beside us were dancing and they saw the two of us looking and got really embarrassed.

Richard: You know what we have to do right?

[At the next traffic light we're stopped beside the girls again. As the girls pull up from behind they look in the car to see Nic and Richard dancing as hard as they can. The girls begin to laugh. The light turns green and again we speed off ahead of them.]

[At the next traffic light again we're stopped beside the girls. Nic looks over to see them smiling at him. He smiles and waves. They wave back and continue smiling at him. Nic scoots over to the drivers side and rolls down the window.]

Nic: Hi!

Girl: Hi!

Richard: Can we have your numbers now?!

Girl: Um... no...

[Richard floors it!]

A Matter of Taste

Nic: I got tired of that guy insisting I understand that animals have no souls.

Richard: He wasn't backing down.

Nic: I got to where I stopped discussing it hoping he'd just drop it.

Friend #1: Who cares if animals have no souls, anyway?

Friend #2: Have you guys heard of Kobe beef?

Richard: Yeah, they pamper their cows in hopes of producing superior beef.

Nic: What do they do?

Friend #1: I hear they raise them in tanks of water for like three weeks.

Friend #2: That's awful.

Friend #1: Not really. They're pretty happy. They get to swim around for three weeks and eat all they want.

Friend #2: But just to get slaughtered!

Friend #1: But it's really quick and painless. They don't even know it happened.

Nic: Don't listen to him, He's just trying to make you feel better. It's actually really painful. They know it's coming for weeks beforehand.

Richard: I heard they're not even slaughtered. The cows actually slit their own wrists.

Nic: Really though, they die from such extreme depression that their cute little hearts literally fall apart.

Friend #2: NO!!

Friend #1: Does it make you feel any better to know they're simply being put out of their misery?

Friend #2: I would never eat it.

Nic: You know how when someone else is completely miserable it just makes you feel really, really good inside?

Friend #1: Yeah.

Friend #2: Totally.

Nic: Now imagine how that feeling tastes.

Richard: I heard they have written on the walls: "There is a God, but it doesn't matter for you!"

Word Search

Richard: I need help thinking of a word.

Nic: Go ahead.

Richard: I'm looking for a word to replace "bring back" in the sentence: Richard is petitioning to bring back pterodactyls.

Nic: Revive... restore... resurrect?

Richard: The best I've found so far is "reinstate."

Nic: I like reinstate, it sounds dignified.

Richard: I think reinstate implies almost that pterodactyls were once holding some place in office.

Nic: Agreed. What's this for?

Richard: Updating my résumé.