Andrew Hilbert's Blog, page 5
October 12, 2017
Deerman Spooktacular: VOICE OF GOD is live!
October is the spooky month. October is the month to revel in horror. Welcome to the Deerman Spooktacular.
Our first story, on the eve of Friday the 13th, is VOICE OF GOD. Enjoy! You can purchase the chapbook it was included in here.
Please consider becoming a patron! You get early access to all Deerman episodes and Inbetweeners!
Listen to Voice of God on Patreon or listen on PodBean or YouTube below.
October 10, 2017
The Post Office is terrible
Allow me, friends, to vent.
The US Postal Service wants to ruin my life.
A little while ago, a month to be exact, my mailbox was broken into. This should strike you as odd because there's no reason anyone would ever want to break into my mailbox. I have nothing that is useful to anybody. This blog should be resounding proof of that. Well, my neighborhood has these mailboxes that are really everybody's mailboxes. It's a locker system. It stinks.
I know why that's there. It's Texas. It's hot. Going door to door will cause a person to sweat through their own personhood. It's being controlled by a Congress that is inept. Many of the problems that face USPS today are not of its own making. I understand.
I do not understand the USPS system to report a broken into mailbox. You call the postal inspector at 1-877-876-2455. You have to speak your answers into the phone. You don't hit a number like the good old days. You don't speak to a human like the gooder old days. You have to speak to a machine that is wet-brained. The machine understands 10% of the time. This happens.
But do you know what happens when the machine doesn't understand? It HANGS UP on you after saying, "I didn't understand your answer. Goodbye." It doesn't start from the very beginning. It doesn't keep trying in an endless loop. It doesn't give up and call a human. It just fucking hangs up.
I was so pissed after the fourth time this happened that I shoved my phone down my throat and tried to see if shitting it out would help me. A bowel obstruction and an anger management class later, I'm still drinking smoothies with no help to my lack-of-mail situation.
It's been a month and the mailbox still hasn't been fixed. I go once a week to pick up my mail at the post office. This would be great if the post office was a mile away. It's 20-30 minutes away in Austin traffic. Nobody knows when the mailboxes will be fixed. There's a spate of mailbox theft going around in Austin.
To make matters worse, my HOA is charging a late fee for a bill that was sent during this period. It is the only bill sent to me in my name but we're apparently a year behind. I figured out that they'd been sending bills to the old owner but a bureaucracy never admits fault and only doubles down.
The HOA is worse. The USPS has to exist. The HOA is there to take money and not protect your mailboxes.
What have I become?
UPDATE:
The US Postal Service wants to ruin my life.
A little while ago, a month to be exact, my mailbox was broken into. This should strike you as odd because there's no reason anyone would ever want to break into my mailbox. I have nothing that is useful to anybody. This blog should be resounding proof of that. Well, my neighborhood has these mailboxes that are really everybody's mailboxes. It's a locker system. It stinks.
I know why that's there. It's Texas. It's hot. Going door to door will cause a person to sweat through their own personhood. It's being controlled by a Congress that is inept. Many of the problems that face USPS today are not of its own making. I understand.
I do not understand the USPS system to report a broken into mailbox. You call the postal inspector at 1-877-876-2455. You have to speak your answers into the phone. You don't hit a number like the good old days. You don't speak to a human like the gooder old days. You have to speak to a machine that is wet-brained. The machine understands 10% of the time. This happens.
But do you know what happens when the machine doesn't understand? It HANGS UP on you after saying, "I didn't understand your answer. Goodbye." It doesn't start from the very beginning. It doesn't keep trying in an endless loop. It doesn't give up and call a human. It just fucking hangs up.
I was so pissed after the fourth time this happened that I shoved my phone down my throat and tried to see if shitting it out would help me. A bowel obstruction and an anger management class later, I'm still drinking smoothies with no help to my lack-of-mail situation.
It's been a month and the mailbox still hasn't been fixed. I go once a week to pick up my mail at the post office. This would be great if the post office was a mile away. It's 20-30 minutes away in Austin traffic. Nobody knows when the mailboxes will be fixed. There's a spate of mailbox theft going around in Austin.
To make matters worse, my HOA is charging a late fee for a bill that was sent during this period. It is the only bill sent to me in my name but we're apparently a year behind. I figured out that they'd been sending bills to the old owner but a bureaucracy never admits fault and only doubles down.
The HOA is worse. The USPS has to exist. The HOA is there to take money and not protect your mailboxes.
What have I become?
UPDATE:
New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest: Please define chode edition
It's that time that nobody waits for, nobody desires, and nobody yearns: THE NEW YORKER CARTOON CAPTION CONTEST! It's a contest that is open to the public that I never enter but I give you my captions as if you don't have better things to do with your life!
Yeah, I'm just watching some guy try to prove how much he hates God by taking a shit on a church. In a way, his non-belief in God and his dedication to it is its own religion. He has erected a throne to nothing and participates in public displays of zealous devotion to nothingness. I hope he dies.
Dude, this day fucking sucks.
This is just traditionalist propaganda trying to get me to accept the notion that I must escort some stupid fucking kid across the street as if I don't have better things to do with my life like LISTEN TO FUCKING DEERMAN.
Thank you for suffering through that with me. Yesterday was ninety degrees. Today it's sixty. I'm sneezing my taint away. I needed this.
Oh, hey! Joe Lansdale, my hero, retweeted the most recent Inbetweener episode with Zach Chapman. Give it a listen. We talk about Joe Lansdale some.
Support the Deerman project on Patreon if you're so inclined.
Yeah, I'm just watching some guy try to prove how much he hates God by taking a shit on a church. In a way, his non-belief in God and his dedication to it is its own religion. He has erected a throne to nothing and participates in public displays of zealous devotion to nothingness. I hope he dies. 
Dude, this day fucking sucks. 
This is just traditionalist propaganda trying to get me to accept the notion that I must escort some stupid fucking kid across the street as if I don't have better things to do with my life like LISTEN TO FUCKING DEERMAN. Thank you for suffering through that with me. Yesterday was ninety degrees. Today it's sixty. I'm sneezing my taint away. I needed this.
Oh, hey! Joe Lansdale, my hero, retweeted the most recent Inbetweener episode with Zach Chapman. Give it a listen. We talk about Joe Lansdale some.
Support the Deerman project on Patreon if you're so inclined.
October 8, 2017
Pence doesn't kneel but bows out
Ol' human Chuck E. Cheese animatronic machine that became sentient and started ruining everybody's life, Mike Pence, bowed out of a football game because he couldn't stand the sight of free speech at a football game.
Thank you for spending all that money on a security detail and a seat just to walk out like a spoiled little brat.
That's the Trump administration for you. Symbolic gestures that amount to nothing but costs the taxpayer a hell of a lot. Let people kneel, dammit. Who gives a shit? Go fix something, you empty-eyed son of a bitch.
I respect the military, I respect the flag, I respect your right to get up out of your seat and walk out of a game after spending at least a hundo on your ticket. That's your right. I respect an American citizen's right not to put his hand over his heart. I respect his right to make a statement about police brutality. We are a police state for black men and women. That should make Americans uncomfortable. If the most offensive thing about their protest is kneeling for the national anthem - you should get your head out of your ass and start being enraged at what caused this whole thing.
Contrary to popular dogma, black Americans are just as American as anyone else even the orange colored skin bag that happens to be President. Black Americans have the same right to express themselves as white folks. White folks are free to show up at political rallies with guns but any time a black man is practicing his right to open carry, people lock their doors and call the cops. Or, this incident from 2008 when a black man wore "paramilitary" garb at a polling place and white America shat its diapers.
Let's be clear. It wasn't the uniform that the black man was wearing that caused Fox news to send the cameras. It was the combination of his skin color and what he was wearing. If it was just his clothing, we'd have cameras in Ted Nugent's face every time he left his house to find cat scratch fever medicine.
While we're at it, if the sight of people kneeling during the national anthem bothers you but the above photo of Ted Nugent wearing a US Army uniform does not you are a moron. A fuckin' moron as Rex Tillerson would say. Ted Nugent was so brave that he shit his pants to avoid the draft during Vietnam. Now he goes around playing dress up in a uniform that so many braver men and women died in.
President Trump avoided the draft by getting a doctor's note for bone spurs. But please, let's shit on some football players for understanding their constitutional right. I guarantee you they pay more taxes than any walking teratoma in the Trump family.
Hey, you're an American. I'm an American. Can we just go back to debating fucking concussions or something?
Don't forget to check out Deerman!
Thank you for spending all that money on a security detail and a seat just to walk out like a spoiled little brat.
That's the Trump administration for you. Symbolic gestures that amount to nothing but costs the taxpayer a hell of a lot. Let people kneel, dammit. Who gives a shit? Go fix something, you empty-eyed son of a bitch.
I respect the military, I respect the flag, I respect your right to get up out of your seat and walk out of a game after spending at least a hundo on your ticket. That's your right. I respect an American citizen's right not to put his hand over his heart. I respect his right to make a statement about police brutality. We are a police state for black men and women. That should make Americans uncomfortable. If the most offensive thing about their protest is kneeling for the national anthem - you should get your head out of your ass and start being enraged at what caused this whole thing.
Contrary to popular dogma, black Americans are just as American as anyone else even the orange colored skin bag that happens to be President. Black Americans have the same right to express themselves as white folks. White folks are free to show up at political rallies with guns but any time a black man is practicing his right to open carry, people lock their doors and call the cops. Or, this incident from 2008 when a black man wore "paramilitary" garb at a polling place and white America shat its diapers.
Let's be clear. It wasn't the uniform that the black man was wearing that caused Fox news to send the cameras. It was the combination of his skin color and what he was wearing. If it was just his clothing, we'd have cameras in Ted Nugent's face every time he left his house to find cat scratch fever medicine.
While we're at it, if the sight of people kneeling during the national anthem bothers you but the above photo of Ted Nugent wearing a US Army uniform does not you are a moron. A fuckin' moron as Rex Tillerson would say. Ted Nugent was so brave that he shit his pants to avoid the draft during Vietnam. Now he goes around playing dress up in a uniform that so many braver men and women died in.
President Trump avoided the draft by getting a doctor's note for bone spurs. But please, let's shit on some football players for understanding their constitutional right. I guarantee you they pay more taxes than any walking teratoma in the Trump family.
Hey, you're an American. I'm an American. Can we just go back to debating fucking concussions or something?
Don't forget to check out Deerman!
October 4, 2017
What a week. Deerman, Episode 4: Pee Pee circles has breached the gates.
Broken River Books has relocated to El Paso, Texas and I was able to go to Rios de la Luz's reading at BookWoman for her debut novella, ITZA. The book is wonderful and I'm sure as hell glad that Texas could gain and reclaim such talented folks. I first med J David Osborne at the New South Festival a few years ago. He consistently publishes great fiction. It's a friggin' talent to have such an eye for great talent. This is a Texas writer family down there. I stole this photo from Gabino Iglesias.
I have many stories to tell about this week. It was the week from hell. I have a new arch-nemesis. Mold in Central Texas wants to kill me. But who cares? There's a new DEERMAN episode out. Check it out.
I'm planning a big October for my little Deerman podcast. There will be a whole slew of spooky stories being uploaded this month. They'll be the spooky story inbetweeners.
I have many stories to tell about this week. It was the week from hell. I have a new arch-nemesis. Mold in Central Texas wants to kill me. But who cares? There's a new DEERMAN episode out. Check it out.
I'm planning a big October for my little Deerman podcast. There will be a whole slew of spooky stories being uploaded this month. They'll be the spooky story inbetweeners.
September 29, 2017
Don't break your dick when the road is slick
It's raining in Austin right now. It's raining and it's my favorite weather. It's cooler, it gives me built in excuses to not do anything, it helps me align my chakras.
I don't have an umbrella. I did at one time but umbrellas are like prophylactics. You only realize you need one when you're practicing on a banana and, let's be honest, who regularly stocks bananas?
It's work time. The ground is slick and I laugh too myself as I speed-shuffle into the front door because there's a wet floor sign outside.
"Duh," I think to myself. "What kind of idiot complained about the outside sidewalk being we–"
Folks, I slipped and lost my balance, banging my head on the very wet sign whose necessity I questioned. It still wasn't necessary. In fact, had the piso mojado sign not been there, I wouldn't have hit my head. I wouldn't have a hardening bump on my left temple. I wouldn't have to take a few Advil right now.
Deerman, episode 4 is live for patrons right now!
I don't have an umbrella. I did at one time but umbrellas are like prophylactics. You only realize you need one when you're practicing on a banana and, let's be honest, who regularly stocks bananas?
It's work time. The ground is slick and I laugh too myself as I speed-shuffle into the front door because there's a wet floor sign outside.
"Duh," I think to myself. "What kind of idiot complained about the outside sidewalk being we–"
Folks, I slipped and lost my balance, banging my head on the very wet sign whose necessity I questioned. It still wasn't necessary. In fact, had the piso mojado sign not been there, I wouldn't have hit my head. I wouldn't have a hardening bump on my left temple. I wouldn't have to take a few Advil right now.
Deerman, episode 4 is live for patrons right now!
September 26, 2017
Coke Zero and the war for your brain
It's true folks. Coke Zero was a false flag operation.
One of these is not like the other and I hate it for even attempting to fuck with my current reality timeline in which Coke Zero Sugar does not exist and Coke Zero is forever.
For years they lulled us into a sense of safety with a refreshing cola product that contained no sugar but all the headaches associated with aspartame.
Now the devilish black can is gone forever.
Replaced with a Manchurian soda called Coke Zero Sugar. The black can now accented with a red dot LIKE THE FLAG OF IMPERIAL JAPAN if you want to make such a leap.
Coke Pearl Harbored grocery stores everywhere and they must not be forgiven. Coke Zero was a sleeper cell, designed to fit in with all the rest of the sodas to trap well-meaning Americans with a more European version of a complacency bomb. Well, we won't take it. We're going to stand up during the goddamn pledge of allegiance and I am going to clean the shit out of my Old Glory boxer shorts. I'm an American, dammit and I'll be damned if some multinational corporation changes a formula for something I never even drank in the first place.
What a way to drive up sales, Coke. What a way to clear out stock. What a way to turn good American boys into Parisian Pussy Pants. I don't want Coke Zero Sugar. Let the Argentinians have it. They're obsessed with Europe anyways.
I want Coke Zero or I will have zero. But I will not have Coke Zero Sugar. No way, Joseph.
Support Deerman on patreon.
Hear me and Robert Dean gab
One of these is not like the other and I hate it for even attempting to fuck with my current reality timeline in which Coke Zero Sugar does not exist and Coke Zero is forever.For years they lulled us into a sense of safety with a refreshing cola product that contained no sugar but all the headaches associated with aspartame.
Now the devilish black can is gone forever.
Replaced with a Manchurian soda called Coke Zero Sugar. The black can now accented with a red dot LIKE THE FLAG OF IMPERIAL JAPAN if you want to make such a leap.
Coke Pearl Harbored grocery stores everywhere and they must not be forgiven. Coke Zero was a sleeper cell, designed to fit in with all the rest of the sodas to trap well-meaning Americans with a more European version of a complacency bomb. Well, we won't take it. We're going to stand up during the goddamn pledge of allegiance and I am going to clean the shit out of my Old Glory boxer shorts. I'm an American, dammit and I'll be damned if some multinational corporation changes a formula for something I never even drank in the first place.
What a way to drive up sales, Coke. What a way to clear out stock. What a way to turn good American boys into Parisian Pussy Pants. I don't want Coke Zero Sugar. Let the Argentinians have it. They're obsessed with Europe anyways.
I want Coke Zero or I will have zero. But I will not have Coke Zero Sugar. No way, Joseph.
Support Deerman on patreon.
Hear me and Robert Dean gab
September 12, 2017
New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest: Oh My God, A New Yorker Is Our Overlord edition
So much of life is stuffing words down cartoon characters' mouths and pretending anybody cares! Huzzah! Onward to the place where people who say 'huzzah' are dragged into the street and beaten!
"This place was great before the chef accidently tweeted his dick on a customer's pizza. Where the fuck is our pizza?"
"My son called me with an existential crisis that is somehow solved by me throwing money at him. This time I was just like, 'Nah, fuck it. I'm buying a workplace hammock.' "
"If you call me one more time I'm going to swing hard right and fuck both of us up."
"I like how the new furniture begs to be free."
"Hey, Nancy. The fucking dweebs you ordered are here."
Catch up with Deerman!
Buy Invasion of the Weirdos or anything else!
Buy a Deerman shirt.
"This place was great before the chef accidently tweeted his dick on a customer's pizza. Where the fuck is our pizza?"
"My son called me with an existential crisis that is somehow solved by me throwing money at him. This time I was just like, 'Nah, fuck it. I'm buying a workplace hammock.' "
"If you call me one more time I'm going to swing hard right and fuck both of us up."
"I like how the new furniture begs to be free."
"Hey, Nancy. The fucking dweebs you ordered are here."Catch up with Deerman!
Buy Invasion of the Weirdos or anything else!
Buy a Deerman shirt.
September 6, 2017
Catch up with Deerman!
There have already been two chapters of Deerman. Catch up before chapter 3 drops for patrons on Thursday and for the whole damned world next Thursday!
Support Deerman at Patreon
Support Deerman by buying something on Amazon with this link. It adds nothing to your total cost, it just gives me a few cents of whatever you buy! Why not buy Invasion of the Weirdos?
Support Deerman at Patreon
Support Deerman by buying something on Amazon with this link. It adds nothing to your total cost, it just gives me a few cents of whatever you buy! Why not buy Invasion of the Weirdos?
September 5, 2017
Dangerous Minds
When we were kids, we really liked Coolio. Who didn't in 1995/1996? Gangsta's Paradise was the shit. Naturally, my brothers and I wanted the Dangerous Minds soundtrack.
We begged my dad to allow us to buy a "Parental Advisory" CD. Fuck you, Tipper Gore. My dad made us write an essay on why we should own it.
We put our heads together and wrote the best bullshit I've probably ever written in my life.
"The Dangerous Minds soundtrack is an important piece of art. It provides a window into the lives of people who have different lives. It is a good complement to a movie I have never seen about education and crime and poverty. I think you should let us buy this CD."
My dad relented.
We went to the Sam Goody at the Cerritos Towne Center and I went straight for the Rap section. There it was. Michelle Pfieffer being a Breatharian on the cover in a leather jacket and red lipstick. My mind, friends, was getting into dangerous territory.
Dad escorted us to the cash register where some thirty something year old nerd looked at my purchase then back at my dad and said, "You let your kids listen to this filth? They should be listening to Hootie and the Blowfish." I don't think my dad was embarrassed or anything because he said something like, "They wrote a very thought out essay about why it was a necessary purchase." Or maybe he said, "Fuck you, chump. Just take their money."
The mustachioed music gestapo rolled his eyes and allowed us to pay $19.88 for the soundtrack. That's what CDs cost back then. What a scam.
It wasn't long until my brothers and I did something to merit losing our Dangerous Minds privileges. It was a good thing that we backed up the CD to cassette tape because as punishment for whatever sin we committed, he made us return Dangerous Minds in exchange for Hootie and the Blowfish. My dad was a Stalinist for creative and funny punishments.
Lo and behold, the same rules nerd checked us out on the exchange. When I gave him the Hootie and the Blowfish CD to exchange for it, he tapped on the jewel case and said to us, "You see? This is real music."
Hootie and the Blowfish is so irrelevant that it's not even a punchline anymore. We never got that Dangerous Minds soundtrack back but my folks also didn't make us write essays for the shit we wanted. If we had the money for it, we were welcome to take the bus to the record store to get it on our own.
Don't forget to become a patron on Patreon!
Check out my chat with Trey Hudson, founder of Mad Shade!
We begged my dad to allow us to buy a "Parental Advisory" CD. Fuck you, Tipper Gore. My dad made us write an essay on why we should own it.
We put our heads together and wrote the best bullshit I've probably ever written in my life.
"The Dangerous Minds soundtrack is an important piece of art. It provides a window into the lives of people who have different lives. It is a good complement to a movie I have never seen about education and crime and poverty. I think you should let us buy this CD."
My dad relented.
We went to the Sam Goody at the Cerritos Towne Center and I went straight for the Rap section. There it was. Michelle Pfieffer being a Breatharian on the cover in a leather jacket and red lipstick. My mind, friends, was getting into dangerous territory.
Dad escorted us to the cash register where some thirty something year old nerd looked at my purchase then back at my dad and said, "You let your kids listen to this filth? They should be listening to Hootie and the Blowfish." I don't think my dad was embarrassed or anything because he said something like, "They wrote a very thought out essay about why it was a necessary purchase." Or maybe he said, "Fuck you, chump. Just take their money."
The mustachioed music gestapo rolled his eyes and allowed us to pay $19.88 for the soundtrack. That's what CDs cost back then. What a scam.
It wasn't long until my brothers and I did something to merit losing our Dangerous Minds privileges. It was a good thing that we backed up the CD to cassette tape because as punishment for whatever sin we committed, he made us return Dangerous Minds in exchange for Hootie and the Blowfish. My dad was a Stalinist for creative and funny punishments.
Lo and behold, the same rules nerd checked us out on the exchange. When I gave him the Hootie and the Blowfish CD to exchange for it, he tapped on the jewel case and said to us, "You see? This is real music."
Hootie and the Blowfish is so irrelevant that it's not even a punchline anymore. We never got that Dangerous Minds soundtrack back but my folks also didn't make us write essays for the shit we wanted. If we had the money for it, we were welcome to take the bus to the record store to get it on our own.
Don't forget to become a patron on Patreon!
Check out my chat with Trey Hudson, founder of Mad Shade!
