Not every story on this site can be a winner, and despite what some of you may think, I actualy do put some effort into making the pieces good. Still, some of the words do end up on the cutting room floor, assuming that we compile the pieces through cutting and pasting with scissors and glue. Regardless, let's take a look at some of the reject stories that I have laying around. Can you guess why they got rejected before you reach the end? Try hard!

Semester Recap- Spring 2004
Classes:
The English Language- Dr. James Wallace, MWF: 1:00 PM
Introduction to Photoshop- Mrs. Medlody Frekel-Priebe, M: 6:00 PM
Macromedia Dreamweaver- Mrs. Jayne Klenner-Moore, TTh: 9:30 AM
Magazine Article Writing- Mrs. Melissa Becker-Sgroi, TTh 12:30 PM
Advanced Macromedia Director- Mr. Bill Keating, F: 10:00 AM-ish

That's right, I said, "Screw this!" I got bored with the semester recap stories this past semester. Anyway, they were all good classes too, so I couldn't get much out of it. It was also at a time where people were bitching about the site, so I put it off.

Queen & Wayne's World

While sitting at dinner the other day, waiting for my dinner guests to arrive (unbeknownst to them, I was playing host of the dinner that day), I had the distinct pleasure of hearing one of classic rock n' roll's immortal introductions. In a chorus of high picthes, the window into narrative opened wide: "Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?" Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" was playing from the house speakers across the almost deserted dining area. A few of the kids in the room started to perk up and start to sing along with the tune, paying bittersweet homage to Freddie Mercury. Suddenly it occured to me that our up and coming generation embraces this tune, not because of its poigniant story or rejection and shame, but because of Wayne's World.

It's somewhat unsettling that, if you were to challange an entire line of applicants for an administrative assistant job (and perhaps all the way to CEO), they would all know all of the English words to the song. I can't really put my finger on what makes that so unsettling, but it does make me uneasy. Though it's true that this is one way of keeping the band immortal forever, it's just eerie when a bunch of people start singing the song. That's my opinion anyway.

I must say that it's one of the ultimate ironies to see a muscle-bound meat head sing proudly with Freddie after, just minutes before, you heard him calling a kid a "homo." Small things like that make life more interesting to me, and they make me laugh the most inside. I wonder if this kid, who's thuggin' it with the G-Unit all day, would find himself on stage in buttless chaps shakin' it with the band if he were born only a decade or two earlier. I would lean heavily towards yes, as my resident homosexuality consultant would probably second, "The wanna-be is probably gay himself."

And why shouldn't we all hold the memory of Freddie Mercury tightly when we sing this song? As I ran through the words myself, I remember him on stage in some miscellanious outdoor venue with crowds of people around him, as Queen played their last show on TV when I was pretty young. Only when the years went on did the youth get spoonfed "Bohemian Rhapsody" twenty times daily via MTV (and up to 50 times if you opted to tune into the 'Box in its hey-day... who didn't love that? A music video jukebox... $4 a video? What a deal!). After hearing the song so much it was impossible not to pick up the words, especially with the comical performance by Wayne & Garth.

It was at this point when I realized that I had no point to this article. Way to go if you guessed that.

That's Me, It's What I Do

"Pete, you should stop complaining. Really, you complain too much."
"Stop complaining!"
"Well why don't you do something instead of complaining?"

Once upon a time there was a construction worker who built houses all across the land. He went to Vermont and built a home. He went to New Mexico and built a home. All his life he would build homes and make them really good. No one could dispute the fact that he was the number one house-maker in the land. He would build all day and build all night until the house was perfect, until one day, someone said to him, "You build houses too much." At this point, our humble house-maker suffered an anurism and dropped dead.

When the black box was retrieved from his head, the recorder held the following conversation, "I build houses too much? Of course I build houses too much, who's to decide what too much really is? I mean, sure I build houses, it's what I do. I've done it all my life and no one has said anything so far. Why would everyone start jumping down my throat now? I build houses--it's what I do! I've done it yesterday, I'm doing it today, and I'll do it tomorro--POP!" Doctors concluded that the patient's anurism came because he could not understand the statement which was spoken to him.

It is this same fate that I almost meet myself whenever people say that I complain too much.

I have to say that when people who have just met me or small aquaintances share this view with me, it's usually understandable. Sometimes my insights, "witticisms" as Greg prefers to call them, are very thoughtful and planned out, with opposing views set to be refuted and details constructed like a steel bridge or logic. Other times I get lazy and just complain though. If someone happens upon a lazy comment here and there, then I am no more than a habitual complainer with no umph to find a solution, just readiness to point out a problem.

Of course, these recent meetings or chance aquaintences often don't say that they're dissatisfied with my amount of complaints because they would have to be a big jerk to say such a thing to someone who they are on a formal level with. Then again, the world does have its fair share of jerks.

What's more funny to me is when people who have known me for quite a long time, or maybe just know me very well, say that I complain too much. Have you not been paying attention from the get-go here? I piss and moan, that's what I do.

I just got pissed off with this one because this actually happens. What can I say? This would have turned into a really mean and ugly piece if I continued writing it. I liked the little story in it though. It was a stroke of genius.