GOOD RUBBISH PROUDLY ANNOUNCES NEW BENCH MARK FOR AUTHORIAL NEGLECT!

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Dear friends, nearly five full weeks have passed since last we met, and while I don't normally grapple with "current" (those quotation marks are pretty weighty at this point) events on this blog, what a positively insane five weeks it's been:

ITEM!

BILLY MAYS PERISHES, YOUR BOY ENRON FAILS TO MUSTER THE STRENGTH/INTEREST TO COMPOSE A PROPER OBITUARY UNTIL SEVERAL WEEKS LATER... ALSO, I THINK THE MURDERER WAS HIS BEARD

As you're all undoubtedly aware, the world of snarky, self-obsessed, passively anti-consumerist bloggers such as myself lost a true friend 2 weeks ago when TV pitchman extraordinaire Billy Mays was found dead at his home in Tampa, Florida. As some of my longer-tenured readers may recall, Mays Mighty-Puttied his place into my heart some 6 years ago when an autographed picture of the man somewhat serendipitously fell into my lap while I was serving as a counselor at a summer camp. As much as I abhor the concept of what Billy Mays made his millions doing (shoveling truckloads of mildly usable crap down the throats of those too stupid to defend their checking accounts), I've got pronounced and well documented soft spots both for people who choose to scream instead of talk and for folks who can manage to take themselves 100% seriously despite the fact that no one else does, so I'll miss the shit out of the guy. I really will.

Quoting Mays' Wikipedia page:

Mays' funeral was held on July 3, 2009 in his hometown of McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania where he was buried. The pallbearers for the funeral wore blue shirts and khaki pants at the funeral, much like Mays wore when he advertised his products. According to KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh, he was buried wearing a shirt with the OxiClean logo on it.

I speak without an ounce of sarcasm in my voice when I say that I earnestly hope my obituary reads exactly like that when I die... though somehow I doubt that OxiClean shirts will still be readily available in 2114. Shit.

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KING OF POP DIES AT LEAST 3 DAYS EARLIER THAN HE WAS SUPPOSED TO, INDIRECTLY FUCKS THIS BLOG'S AUTHOR OUT OF $120 BUCKS

True story: On June 23rd yours truly won a copy of Michael Jackson's Moonwalker for the Sega Genesis on eBay for the shockingly low price of $16 after shipping, which I immediately paid for.

Before continuing, allow me to first apologize to those of you who actually know me as a real human being, because you've almost certainly already heard this story no fewer than 45 times (if you aren't up for a 46th retelling, feel free to skip ahead 3 paragraphs, though you'll be missing out on a pretty decent zinger in the sentence immediately following this one). As far as the rest of you are concerned, I think it's best that you first understand that this purchase was the culmination of literally years of utterly sporadic attempts on my part to procure a copy of this game for under $20 (we McHanslaws are a frugal bunch - it's written into our genetic code, right next to the parts about webbed toes and genitals that look like Alfred Hitchcock's silhouette). I'm not sure whether the relief of finally getting a copy of this game outweighed the glee of knowing that this sort of hot hot video game action would soon be playable in my own house, but the point here is that this turn of events rendered me both relieved and overjoyed. And chiseled like a goddamn slab of marble, but let's not kid ourselves here, that's a given.

Anyway, as you may have read in the papers, a mere 2 days after my triumphant eBay victory the King of Pop up and decided to provide irrefutable proof of his mortality following a 20+ year long battle with being batshit crazy and dreadfully unhealthy (I'll say no more on the subject, as I'm well aware that I have little room to talk here). Yes, it was a sad turn of events for the music community as well as society as a whole, but you know what was even sadder? That asshole that I won my game from on eBay immediately relisted the game that I technically owned and sold it three days later for something like $120!

Negative feedback feels like such a limp-wristed form of revenge in a situation like this (probably because it is), so I've got my fingers crossed that karma cooks up something really special for my unscrupulous eBay salesman in the coming months. Like maybe he'll lose a finger after it gets pinched in the clamshell case from a copy of NBA Jam. I don't know, I guess I just hope its at least somewhat creative.

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EVERY OTHER CELEBRITY IN HOLLYWOOD EXCEPT FOR KIRK DOUGLAS DIES UNEXPECTEDLY WITHIN THE SPAN OF 9 DAYS

Seriously God, what the hell are you doing here? Celebrity deaths are supposed to come in 3's, not 18's. Ridiculous.

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I HAVEN'T SAT DOWN TO WRITE ANYTHING LONGER THAN A TEXT MESSAGE IN WELL OVER A MONTH - I'M RUSTY AS FUCK OVER HERE

But you were already well aware of that.

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That chain of asterisks was mean to signify a break in the content of this posting, as we'll now be moving on to the legitimate Rubbish-related material.

We've now officially ventured into month 3 of my quest to uparmor my old speaker media storage cabinet, and I am officially starting to hate this goddamn cabinet with a passion. I understand that artists often experience this same phenomenon when they've worked on a painting for too long, and maybe there's a parallel or two to be drawn from that comparison, but while artists find frustration in their quest to create something beautiful, I'm finding my frustration while questing to create something that I'll gleefully admit should be (once completed) the most tacky, godawful piece of furniture that man has ever created.

Now, I've already outlined my plans for this monstrosity, so there's really no reason for me to preface the following photographs in any great detail. Here, I'll prove it:

I'm all about giving credit where credit is due, but I'm also all about maintaining anonymity. With those two thoughts in mind, here's a shot of a circular saw, the mostly-finished pieces of my cabinet, several pairs of snowshoes, and the left arm of Father McHanslaw (the man who actually constructed these things).

Once arranged in the shape I intended for them to assume, any unbiased observer can plainly see that this thing is going to be obscenely large.

A shot from the side...

And a shot from the other side...

To cover up all of the exposed edges of plywood (which look like absolute crap), I picked up some small corner molding from Lowe's and meticulously wrapped it around every corner and crevice to give it a much cleaner look. For the record, this took a heinous buttload of time to accomplish.

And once again from the side...

I took a hole saw and cut some holes out of the back for cables to run through (this beast is intended to house all of my old school video game equipment, after all). Fascinating, yes?

I also cut some smaller holes into the bottom of the top piece...

And then stuck some pegs to the top of the bottom pieces, so that the 3 massive chunks of this beast would interlock together for the sake of stability and sexiness. But mainly stability.

Once all this was completed I set myself to the monumental task of sanding and staining this thing, but that my friends will have to be another story for another time.

Hugs and kisses!

-Enron