Recipes for today's spender...

I don't really consider myself much of anything but one thing I can say is that I can make some pretty Delicious meals in the toughest of times. Just because you're broke doesn't mean you can't enjoy the foods you've grown to know and love. I got the recipes to help you get fatter while keeping your wallet fat as well...nice. Here are a few recipes I've been cooking up in my kitchen lately that I know your gonna love. If you don't love these then you're probably a retard or a girl.

1. Seth's famous pb&j ish: I was too broke to get bread, peanut butter or jelly when I came up with this little number. First, make sure you have all of these ingredients before preparing this meal: 1 red otter pop, preferably frozen, 1 hand full of shelled peanuts and 2 parts saltine crackers. Shove the hand full of nuts into your mouth and take a shot of the otter pop. Mash it around your mouth for a bit and then throw in a saltine brand cracker. Concentrate on mixing all this stuff in the mouth so you really get all the flavors, when you can no longer bare it you can go ahead and swallow the medley. It takes a little bit for your stomach to tell your brain that it hates this, so eat it fast ok.

2. Beef steak with broth: This is a great gourmet meal at a thrift store price. You will need 1 pack of beef ramen. Bring water to a boil before putting ramen in. Once cooked, drain the water and mash up the noodles into a ball with your hands. Sprinkle the ball with the beef seasoning packet and then fry the mashed up noodle ball over the stove. The only complaint about this one is the overall taste and the texture of the whole thing is really unappetizing.

3. Bread sandwich: An excellent alternative to the "something" sandwich, all you need for this one is 3 slices of wonder break. Put two of the pieces in a toaster until golden brown. Now, put the third slice in between the two toasted slices and enjoy your bread sandwich. I like to pretend that it's meat and cheese in there, that'd be good.

4. Go to Snice: It's not really a recipe, more of a suggestion on where to go to get free food if your me. It's vegan and my ex girlfriend works there but other then that I have no complaints. I recommend the "whatever Serena gives me for free after hovering around the counter". That shit is usually pretty alright I guess.

5. The end: I couldn't come up with any more recipes, so I decided to end the post on number five instead of just thinking of another stupid recipe and then writing an ending mainly because I'm lazy and I feel sick from eating at Palace fried chicken with Franny...damn, Palace is pretty much the tits. I tried to get Franny to order the "Italian burger" but he wussed out. I'm not really sure what makes the burger Italian because the only difference between that one and the normal one is that its on a hero roll and it has french fries on it, but I'm Italian and I love this thing...so stereotypical.

Trick tip: lurking at the local skateshop

Over the past couple years I've seen a few tricks I've had go away, learned a few new ones and all the while maintained the same great attitude that everybody I know loves...or doesn't like at all. It's never a good feeling when you've been doing something for so long and you start to feel like you're regressing, getting old, feeling fat and your feet hurt. Lately, I've regressed back to my skate shop lurking past and I'm loving it. Over on N.11th and some street lies a little skate shop named "kcdc" and as it turns out I've started feeling pretty comfortable there. But there is an art to lurking and if you don't do it right you could totally be killing a chilled out buzz, and that shit is weak. So, here are a few tips on lurking, and if you keep at it, advanced lurking.

1. The entrance: Judging by the "hello" you get from one of the disgruntled employees you will know exactly how much lurking time you're in for that day. "Hey Seth, what's going on man"? That is a nice and friendly welcoming, you usually get these when you haven't been in the shop for like a solid week. "Seth, back again huh...what do you need"? This is the welcoming you will usually receive, and luckily for me I prefer that one because the angrier the employee gets, the more time I have to complain with somebody, even if their complaints are about me.

2. Browse the merchandise: I usually start off with the boards, this is a good one because you know they aren't gonna have the shape you want in stock because they never do, but you do get to make small talk like "man, still no ______'s in yet huh". Next make your way over to the shoes and ask about a couple models that they have but not in you're size. It's cool because last month you bought a pair of nike's there and they were pretty expensive so you got about a solid two months of shoe section lurking before your next actually purchase. The shoe guy has probably ran to the back to avoid you at this point so now slowly start looking at some clothes. I like to pick out a stupid shirt or some silly board shorts and go "imagine me in these, that'd be a riot right"?

3. Start trying flat ground tricks in the shop: This one is great because you literally just left somewhere you were actually skating to come to the skate shop where it's 119 degrees to skate a five foot cemented area really loudly. Some of the employees are bummed because they're hung over, but every time they look over with an annoyed look just say you were landing whatever trick earlier but now you "don't know what's wrong with you today, I can't believe this". At this point you've worked up a real sweat which leads into the next tip...

4. Making hints on getting free weird drinks: "Damn I'm thirsty, I really need a vita coco or a red bull or something"? Offer to make a run to the store so they at least think you're being slightly sincere but know they have stacks of energy juice back there for days, and guess what? Their luke warm and ready to make your stomach into a bubbling witches cauldron. I mean what else are you supposed to drink, water? Yeah, ok...

5. Take a load off: This is the peak of your lurking mission, similar to the highest high a junkie gets while shooting up. Make you're way over to the bench right after you chug a few piping hot red bulls and kick out however many idiot kids buying shit and lay down on the bench in the middle of the store, ahhhhhh. Your so comfortable at this point that I'm pretty sure it's against NYC laws to kick you out. If you feel so inclined go ahead and take those shoes off for a little bit and subject everybody to your foot odor. Oh yeah, that's what I'm screamin...

6. Make your exit: At this point, all the employees are in the back or out front smoking. You only noticed because you'd been talking while laying down for about twenty minutes and finally asked them for something and got no response. Take a look around you and make sure to leave all garbage and weird shit you were carrying with you at the shop so that if nothing else you have an excuse to come back later. Take a final browse around the store and say "Yeah I might come back and buy so and so tomorrow...". Now from here I would recommend going to the park and lurking over there until you find someone you slightly know from meeting once or twice and barging in on their conversation/picnic, but hey that's just what an advanced lurker would do.

I hope I answered a few questions for all you novice lurkers out there, and maybe for a few of you old pros. Now just sit back, relax, and wonder why they haven't asked you to work or skate for the shop yet. Some people just don't know talent from a hole in the ground I guess.

I'm always almost getting fired...

Every day I come into work I have been fearing that it's my last. My bosses are fed up with me, my co workers say I suck and the new kids are already cool guying me. I can't eat in the team lunch area because I'm scared that if I doze off on the couch that somebody will smother me with one of those pillows that smells like fried body odor. When using the bathroom, somebody will come in and see I'm occupying the stall and rather then letting it slide and waiting their turn they open the door and scream "Seth's taking a huge shit in here and it smells pretty bad", really embarrassing me in front of the four fat girls outside the bathroom. The other day I had a long meeting at work with my bosses and I hated it, but maybe there is something to what they're saying, just maybe...

I'm too negative: I have been hearing this for awhile now, not only from my bosses and coworkers but from my family and friends which leads me to believe...that it's not true. I mean I don't think I'm a positive guy but I don't think I'm that negative. Wouldn't it make more sense that everybody I know both professionally and personally are making this up because they're all against me? Exactly... and besides, even if it doesn't make more sense it's definitely the easier way to look at it then re evaluating my whole attitude in hopes of changing my poor perception of everyone and everything and continue being a cancer to my co workers. So chill ok, yeah I like know what I'm doing and shit...

too sarcastic: Yeaaaaahhhh okkkk, ok sure, I'm TOO sarcastic...pshhhhh pull your head out of you're ass already. There is no such thing as being "too sarcastic" and if we really want to get into the semantics about this then sarcasm doesn't even really exist, I'm not sure if that's an actually fact, but a dude out side a store on st. marks playing with devil sticks trying to bum a cigarette off me told me that so if you have a problem with his logic then you know where to find him to tell him he's full of spit. Growing up, my Sicilian mother would openly use sarcasm and other dangerous forms of speech including the word "crap" all the time...I can't believe she set me up for disaster like this, fuck.

I'm too selfless and giving: Well, not exactly in those words. Here's the story, my department in the store I work at won a contest. The prize, which is yet to be announced, is rumored to be about 3 thousand dollars to spend on whatever you want to do with you're department. So, they began taking tally of peoples ideas on what they want to do with the money whether that be going to six flags, having a boat party or drinking themselves to death...I put up as my vote that we donate the money to a charity that we could all agree on. In my meeting that I mentioned earlier, this was the one topic that they were angry about the most..."why would you put something so stupid as donate to charity for you're vote, we all worked hard on this and that's the shit you vote on"? That what my boss had to say, I don't think he's very interested in sharing our prize but in the break room there is still a box that reads "Haiti food drive" which has been there since, well the hurricane. I guess they're waiting to send that out along with the food drive from 9-11 and kill two birds with one stone.

Offensive cartoons: This one has gotten me into more trouble than my offensive mouth. I'm always getting caught for loving little doodles of my boss or co workers that they take as an attack. One time I had the head of security and the top person in HR come take me into a room and interrogate me. From the moment I walked in every manager was on a walkie talkie panicking that "I had entered the building". When I got upstairs I agreed to talk with them and asked why they didn't approach me to talk with me instead of having a sting out to get me and they said "we feared it would be too dangerous". After questioning me for awhile they finally presented me with their key piece of evidence... a piece of paper with doodles of a hamburger shooting mustard onto a hot dog, a rollerskating kitten, a cell phone holding a sword and "a manager's name written somewhere on the paper" they said. They were very concerned and so was I, because I had thrown that doodle out with my lunch and I got see that it had bbq sauce and lettuce stains on the paper. They explained that the cleaning lady saw it in the garbage and felt she needed to contact someone immediately, and to think I never ratted her out for stealing toilet paper....

Anywho, I guess the point of this post is... can someone hire me please? I need a new job

crews, gangs, and posses...

Over the the period of time that I've been skateboarding all of these years I have been both blessed and cursed in running into all kinds of people that enjoy this all American past time with. Some of these people remain my best of friends to this day, others have gone too soon and some are probably doing time. Skateboarding by yourself sucks, and skateboarding with friends is awesome, but when you're skateboarding with a group of people and you give yourself a name is when things get interesting. So, here is a post on the history of crews that I've been a part of, been witness too or just saw along the way.

The L town stoners-This is the first real skateboard gang that I had ever really heard of up until this point. I had just moved across town to a rather crusty area of Colorado and had just started meeting a few people who skated in the neighborhood. The fist kid I met was named "lil Jake" . He was good at skateboarding and he was like his nicknamed stated indeed very "lil". We would skate around town and eventually met the likes of Shawn Kline, a younger kid who already had a tattoo of a cross on his arm and was always looking for a place to sleep and Zayn Hood, who up until this point I just saw on the bus and thought to myself "where did he even find orange zip off pants, and why does he think skating in heelies is a good idea". Eventually the gang formed and we, more they, were the "L town stoners" named both after all of them living in Lafayette, Co and their love of smoking weed.

TLG, The lollypop guild-Sooner or later our friend lil Jake had met the likes of Clay Kessack, an asian kid from a different town that came to the local skatepark rocking the hurtingest of nikes and drove a car, which one upped all of us L towners. They began hanging out more and more and eventually started the crew of the lollypop guild. They made stickers, worked on a video that never came out and would skate Clay's basement skatepark allot. Whenever lil Jake would go there I would hear the day after about how awesome Clay's house was, and that there were "soooooo many snacks, soooo dope". As foolish as it seems, I was jealous of this whole thing. Eventually all of my other friends got to skate the basement too, and they all said that they hated Clay's stupid dog. The dog died recently and I now live with Clay so...yeah, I guess I didn't really need to be in a basement with him.

S.W.A.B, skate with a boner- One day when wandering around the cafeteria of Boulder high school I had run into another person holding a skateboard. He was bald and had a beard, I waved and he ignored me...I thought it was weird for a couple of reasons but I figured he was a teacher there. This turned out to be John Brownlee, a kid a couple grades BELOW me who, thanks to puberty, looked like a grown ass man. I would see him at the skatepark drinking beers, hanging with all the cooler kids and smoking cigs. I tried to make small talk with him when I saw him until one day he told me "don't take this personally, but I really don't like you". Needless to say I took it personally, so you can imagine how shocking it was when I got a call on my mom's house phone from him the next day. He said that they had voted me into the crew and on the upcoming Saturday we were going to have a "crew battle" with some other skateboarders. I was confused and excited and then spray painted "swab" on all of my stuff. We drove around in a van, drank beer and it's rumored that chicks used to be super down for the crew right up until I joined...

Trickfactory- This was the crew that I fell into by accident thanks to my habit of constant hating. I was on my usual hating spree at the skatepark when I heard some hating from a new voice, this voice was Bryan Ball. Bryan was thirty something, constantly farting and skating all the time and this was appealing to me. Eventually I was hanging out with all the older skateboarders and underage drinking with over the hill heros it was always packed with arguments of who left Bryans galoshes in the rain, how Brandon would "eat the fuck out of some play dough" or Neal crashing his car in the parking lot of his apartment complex in a sparks induced stupor then teaching children at the ymca the next day. These were really fun times now that I think about it...

1086- As things started changing, we started changing. Friends were moving from Boulder to denver and my friends were making new cooler friends. Eventually I too moved to Denver and lived in the mouse infested living room of the 1086 house. There were parties every night, girl fights, mice, lice, gang wars, hate crimes and so on. The crew still exists I think and I'm about 90% sure that it's still the password to any email, debit card, or facebook account amongst my friends to this day.

Hey that was funny...

Lately I've been thinking allot about what's funny and what's not funny, what 's acceptable and what's inappropriate to laugh at. Besides all that jazz, I've been remembering allot of stuff that was super funny but kind of disappeared...I've also been thinking about hot pockets allot lately cause our oven is broken and we have no microwave so I would have to cook them in this hot plate we set up cause our landlord won't come fix our oven, even though I've left like 5 messages and 2 notes for him. Oh, and I have to pack up everything in the house to get ready to be sprayed for bed bugs... oh darn.

Top 5 things that I think should be funny or have gone away too soon.

Mad about you: I've never actually seen this show but the idea of someone like myself watching this show on a regular basis is funny to me, separately these words mean nothing but once they're combined it becomes the gayest thing ever in the history of the world and if you like it you might be gay...or Peter Goldberg.

John Brownlee's myspace.com photo thread updates: These were really funny back when we were all on Myspace.com. Every time our friend John would come back from a trip or move away and then come back to visit he would post up a series of photos telling the story of the trip. I was a little jealous of the laughs he was getting and decided to give it a try but quickly realized that everyone I knew was aware that I didn't talk like the quotes from the pictures and was just copying john...maybe this is why he hated me for so long....

ex.1

Carved back in to CO, shit

was buttery

Said "what urps" to this fool, shoulda

kept it coors but shit was buttery

After we cheers'd more beers things were looking

hekka tripy, shit was buttery

...and so on and so fourth. John's were actually funny though, shit was buttery.

Death: You always see all kinds of videos of people falling and getting super hurt and these videos seem to be real gutbusters, but why don't they just take it a step further and make death funnier? Everyones all serious about it like it's some big deal, how come I can watch a fat kid fall off a moped and barley survive and think it's awesome but the second I watch a kid get bludgeoned to death I'm the bad guy all of a sudden? yeah right, sounds like horse spit to me...

Thug cabin Canyon: Remember how funny it was when Canyon was going through that weird rap faze where he talked like Paul Wall, wore tall T's and "didn't give a funk"? New Canyon is weird, he goes to art galleries, has serious conversations and when the mood strikes him wears adult clothes. Call me crazy but I would have never imagined that OG Canyon would be going to brunch....

Backwards hat, check, tall T, check, skipping

class, check, humming Ja rule song, check, OG

Canyon was taking paid time off for the "players"

holiday...

Here's "emo ass Dylan" Canyon, this was the

middle stage and death of OG Canyon...

Enter in new Canyon. Besides the

beer, sparks can, weed grinder,

yo yo's and garbage everywhere

this guy looks like he could think

he's important. Somewhere in that

Clark Kent body OG Canyon is still

gripping wood grains in the turning

lane.

Who is that dude?: Actually, it's whosethatdude.blogspot.com run by Denver's own Derek Milton. The birth of this blog was around the same time as my beloved Farthumorquarterlyzine, but were completely different. Derek's was geared more towards funny videos, stories, and the famous "things you never want to see associated with a loved one". With more and more blogs popping up each day I'd hate to see this old gem be thrown aside, but with it's lack of recent updates it may be sharing a plot in the blog grave yard next to claykessack.com.

A letter to the Shorty's company...

I recently saw that the company "Shorty's" has come back from the grave and started making skateboards again, or skateboard I should say because they only have one line available. Anyway, I contacted them to see if I could become the Rep for the NYC area and if they could help make that dream come true. Keeping my fingers crossed....

Dear Shorty's inc,

I'm writing this letter in regards to the new website and more importantly the revival of Shorty's skateboards. Eighth grade through tenth I rocked nothing but shortys gear and zip off pants, carried around the Shorty's first aide kit, skated nothing but Shorty's boards because that shit had pop, which I'm sure the board did but I didn't because I was pretty fat and the slogan for mine would be "that shit has bad nose slide marks". Somewhere along the way though, my beloved Shorts kind of disappeared and I started supporting antihero up until now. When I saw that you guys are going to carry 8.5 Shortys boards I nearly fainted because I can still maintain my barney bowl trollness with the flair of a Shorty's board, pretty buttery. So, I guess I'll stop beating around the bush here and get to the point of this letter...I think you should make me the rep for Shorty's in NYC and I have brainstormed reasons on why this is a good idea.

*My job is a total bummer: I work in a clothing store on Broadway in the stockroom, its in the basement where I sort hangers or move heavy stuff around all day. All the people I work with either make fun of me for being white or for dressing like a "garbage man", which I kind of have mixed feelings about because I think garbage men dress pretty steezy. Every time I try to chill their all on my case and stuff, like what's up with that man? Also, I don't like any of the people I work with.

*I'm pretty ok at skating: I'm not gonna toot my own horn here but I'm pretty good a few tricks, I have good frontside grinds, smithers, and tailslides in a couple variations and in rep standards I would probably be considered "good". Plus, my friends are actually good. I have this Asian friend that has really good frontside tuck knee grabs that he tail smashes in, my friend Canyon Castator... he's even on youtube or something, and well the rest of my friends are pretty funny if nothing else.

*I'm writing you a letter: I'm not claiming to have done something amazing or anything but come on, I am writing you an email. It's not much, but it's probably better then whatever crap your getting from some guy who used to do blow with the Muska and is owed a favor and is given this Rep job for only that reason, right?

Any who, thanks for taking the time to read this letter and possibly consider making a man's dreams come true. I'm not sure who's getting this, "helpdesk@shortysinc.com" sounds promising that it will get to the boss though. So if your willing to entrust me with thousands of dollars worth of merchandise to shell out as I see fit to radical dudes based sourly upon me writing you a letter to make me your NYC rep for your company then I look forward to hearing back from you.

Fondly,

Seth Powers

farthumorquarterlyzine.blogspot.com

Restaruant review: Big trouble in little china town...

Greetings and welcome to an exciting series of posts dedicated to the review of local cuisine and more! Our last review brought us to the scenic corner of Broadway and canal st where I tried an exotic plate of Halal food with a side of yellow slime glove pieces. This time however, I decided to take my taste buds a little deeper into china town and get the true new york experience. So, nestled in between knock off purse vender's and knock off scarf vender's lays this New York city staple.

Burger king, 273 Canal st.

As I entered the doors of Burger King on Canal st an overwhelming smell of human waste entered my nostrils. This was not the smell I was expecting from such a respected restaurant but the longer I breathed in this waste, the hungrier I became. As I pushed my way through the gaggle of a thousand German tourists waiting to use the one burger king bathroom that I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemy, I finally got to the counter. The menu was extensive, and I was impressed. Burgers, cheese burgers, two burgers, bacon two burger with cheese instead of buns, Oreo sour patch kids kit kat frozen pies...this was gonna be a hard choice. In the end though, I had to stick with the "value menu" options. For those of you who are not familiar with the "value menu" this will include items that are either too frowned upon by society to be on the big menu or items that just sound like a bad idea, "chicken nugget sandwich" or "BK mozzarella fingers". Either way your gonna end up with more mediocre food slightly less then if you just ordered a combo meal.
The woman at the counter looked at me, almost through me, and said something that was not in English nor any other language I've ever heard. She had black growths on her face, which is popular among the Asian elderly when they reach 1,000 years old and become part dragon. "Oh, I'll have two of the whopper jr sandwiches with no mayonnaise, and a value fries and drink" I said with excitement. "Bongdue" she replied, I was puzzled. "bongdue, bongdue" she asked again, so I decided to shrug which is the universal sign of "I have no idea what you're fucking saying" and she quickly solicited the help of a fellow employee who somehow spoke less English then herself. Now, I had two people saying "bongdue" at me so I just agreed to get my order "bongdue" and waited for my food.
They called my number and I took my tray to sit at the table where I can peacefully eat and be solicited to buy weed and fake watches throughout the entire meal. Two bites into my first sandwich and it became apparent that not only did it have mayo on it, but it had extra mayo and was a chicken sandwich. I now Know that "Bongdue" means to fuck up your entire order.
The chicken was not bad though, and it turns out they got my second sandwich correct. This tasted like a mixture of every gas station junk food on a bun covered in acid and after I finished it I was starting to feel like I was really high or about to die. After i finished the meal I knew I had to find the nearest restroom as fast as humanly possible. The German tourists were crowding Burger Kings bathroom so I ran to Starbucks where I could become violently ill in peace.
Besides getting sick, I give this restaurant 4 stars: one star for the food, one for the "bongdue" option on the menu, one for the weed you can buy while you eat, and one star for the fact that I went back to the same Burger King for dinner that night after dieing in the Starbucks bathroom.