Dante Walters: a very short story

The chattering of keystrokes reverberated between the maple-panelled walls and the marble-tiled floor multiplying exponentially throughout the grandiose lobby of the Mitchell-Thomas law firm. The only other sounds were the faint hint of Bach playing at a barely audible decibel through hidden speakers and the distant muffled ringing of office phones. The 9:17am sun was beaming crisply through the floor to ceiling windows bleaching the surgically sterile hall into a bizarrely exposed dream state.
Dante Walters, an tall dark haired man of thirty-one sat rigidly in an oversize black leather armchair. He sat blinking at a Wall Street Journal he held out at arms length over his knees, the skin of his face still tight from sleep. Clearing his throat he gave up on reading and tossed the paper onto the squat oak table beside his chair. Straitening himself in the chair, the stiff leather creaked beneath him as he stretched his neck to the ceiling adjusting the knot of his tie. He flattened the tongue with flat, slightly sweating palms upon the smooth, dark silk.
Dante tugged carefully on the cuffs of his crisply starched shirt exposing a half inch of white from inside the sleeves of his onyx suit. He glanced towards the receptionist's desk and observed Candice sitting unnaturally upright behind the huge, barren desk. Her face, void of expression was transfixed on the computer monitor as her fingers danced all over the keyboard. The short chord of a conference call from her phone pierced the near silence. She snatched the receiver without breaking eye contact with her screen.
"Yes?" Her high clear voice pinged like sonar. She stopped typing and scanned the room her eyes lingering on the lone man occupying the lobby. "Just your nine-thirty, sir," she returned her attention to the monitor, "I'll send him right in. Mm hm." Candice hung up noisily and swiveled in her chair, "Mr. Walters?"
"Yes?" He acts surprised.
"Mr. Thomas will see you now," she grasped the arms of her chair and rolled it back as she rose and walked to the door. Dante rocked forward grabbing his briefcase and strolled briskly across the gap. Every footstep slapping the marble like a snare. She opened the door and motioned to enter.
"Thank you," he said. Candice gave a bright smile and placed her palm on his back as she ushered him in.
"Good luck!"

PGOTA

Its true, chicks kill the music. Usually that's not the girl's fault though. The thing is: back when we were single young high school kids, we were constantly hunting for a girlfriend. We wanted nothing more than to just be with a girl. Well in the end you get your wish. Because it turns out that girls want more of our time than we can offer. And most of us guys are complete slaves to the womanus cause we can barely believe they put up with us in the first place.

I have a theory: There are 3 things to look for in the Potential Girlfriend Of The Artist.

1. The PGOTA (prunounced Puh-goat-uh) must be an independent hard working woman with goals and hobbies of her own. Do not confuse this with the girl who SAYS she has dreams; this is a trick. The woman must be actively pursuing these ambitions. The reason being: a girl with her own hobbies and goals will not get in the way of yours. WARNING! Avoid at all costs the artist-latching soul sucker. This succubus wants only to cling at your robes and drag you into the doldrums.

2. The PGOTA should be someone who likes/loves you for YOU. Avoid the rescuer girl who wants to change you into something else. She will never want you to succeed. Move instead toward the girl who pushes you to do your hobbies. A clear sign of the non-approver is this:

Kimball: Hey, I'm leaving. I've got band practice.
%a+!3: (sigh) uh..okay.
Kimball: What's wrong?
%a+!3: nothing. bye...

3. And last! Actually I think that's it. No wait, I've got it! Never become a John and Yoko. When trying out the PGOTA be aware of when you start to recede from your normal crew and hobbies. This is a bad sign. You will justify it by telling yourself, "But I just want to spend more time with her because we're in love..." Wrong! A cool-ass chica will hang with your crew, and leave the mush and molestation to private times.

The Artist can prevail with female companionship! Just look at........
..........
.............
............shit.

wasted talent / an embarrassment to my generation...

so today i open my dell inspiron 6000, wait for xp to yawn, rub the sleep out its video card and groggily ask me for the billionth time what action to take with my always-plugged-in external hard drive. after yet again canceling i hover the cursor over the firefox quick launch icon and depress the left mouse button. this is my routine. once or twice a day most days.

yes, i am a techie nerd. yes, i am the product of growing up during the pc/internet boom of the late 2nd millenium. and yes, i am the offspring of a man who at the age of forty dropped everything to pursue a self employed career in computer consulting and troubleshooting. when i was hitting puberty there were more pentiums in the basement than hairs below my bellybutton.

now i have this $750 package of tools, resources, knowledge and unlimited creative potential that has evolved over decades, been painstakingly crafted by the most brilliant minds in recent history and all within the reach of my fingertips anytime i need it. what do i use it for? facebook and porn. i mean sometimes i feel as if i have a phd from veterinary school and work at a petting zoo.

besides the internet, what else is there to do? let's take a look...

1. gaming
-computer beefy enough to make it worth it: $2,000. games: $50-$60 each. time before your shit is outdated: yesterday. yeah, no thanks i think i'll buy a playstation every 5 or 6 years for less than a quarter of the price. and have games that don't suck.

2. music
-this is as far as i go: insert new cd, rip in itunes, sync with ipod. it's a whole lot easier to plug my speaker cable into my ipod then to wait a year for itunes to load. besides, who sits at there computer just to listen to music? losers. that's who.

3. email
-c'mon who does that anymore? i'm pretty sure my deceased great-grandmother is on facebook.

i might be more compelled to spend time on this thing if there were some kind of financial gain. how much do you think norton and mcafee pay those hacker kids to write viruses? what, you really think these people put in all that effort for a few laughs?

so my theory is this: if you are not a student, wow player or a sexual predator, you shouldn't have bought a home computer. it's like buying a ferrari for the cigarette lighter. woohoo! look at the coils they're orange...