2003 was a dangerous, sad, hilarious year for me. I look forward to seeing what 2004 brings. I'm hoping either a) the downfall of humanity, or b) even better mobile phone technology. Speaking of which, I had the most surreal experience last week, before Christmas, on the train. I was on my way to work, fiddling with my new Palm Tungsten C PDA that I bought myself as an early Christmas present, and this guy who was sitting across the aisle and one seat ahead of me was talking loudly on his cell phone. Typical southwestern Connecticut/NYC asshole, in his suit, with his briefcase and newspaper spread all over the seat, taking up the two seats next to him. And he's talking about some business dinner he had the other night, and the so and so account and money and equities and bonds and such and such and he's so fucking loud that even I, who has contempt for almost all living things (except for my kitty), think he's an asshole. Everyone else on the train was pretending to ignore him. I glared at him for a few minutes, then looked back down at my PDA and started giggling at the hilarious japanese porno clip I had loaded onto it that morning. Suddenly, I heard a loud crashing sound followed by his awful screams, and I looked up to see the man clutching the side of his face, screaming and sobbing. His cell phone was now on the floor, broken from being thrown to the ground. I started laughing and clapping my hands as I watched him continue to scream and thrash about, with everyone else in the train car gasping, not knowing what to do. Apparently the asshole's cell phone battery shorted out or blew up or something, burning his ear and part of his cheek. Needless to say, we were stopped at the next train station for a while, and the man was escorted off of the train with some paramedics that had been alerted. The rest of the day was pretty uninteresting. I got to work about half an hour late, but no one seemed to notice. The weirdest part, and I'm not entirely sure if this happened or not, was that there was a news crew waiting at my train station that night, hoping to catch some of the morning commuters who had witnessed the exploding cell phone incident. I walked over there and told the news crew that I was right next to the guy when it happened. "Stop listening to this boob," I said, pointing to the weird-looking guy that they were videotaping, "I was sitting right next to the guy. I saw the whole thing. Na'mean?" The cameraman looked puzzled. He looked over at the female news anchor, who nodded to him, and then he turned and started videotaping me. The ugly boob walked away, disappointed. "Sir, can you please tell us your name and give us your account of what happened this morning on the 8:15 Metro-North train?" Suddenly, I felt compelled to become someone else. Maybe it was the hoodlum off in the distance and his hot Johnny Blaze jacket that inspired me...I don't know. But I felt the need to not be myself for this interview. "Yeah, I can tell you what happened," I said to her, "It went down like this. Uh, oh and my name's Jamal Walker Jones. So, I was sittin there, watchin my japanese boobie videos on my palm pilot, and this muthafucka is talking all loudly on his phone. You know what I'm sayin?" I saw the newscaster flinch when I said a bad word, but for some reason she didn't interrupt me. "And he's talkin mad loud about shit no one cares about, but like, he tries to make it everyone else's business, na'mean? He's all talkin about dollars and shit and really just being par-ti-cu-lar-ly [I say it slowly, as if it's difficult for me to say] shitty about the whole thang. Know what I'm sayin? And all of the sudden, I hear this loud noise, and look over and see this guy all buggin out and screamin like a little bitch, son. I mean, this muthafucka is screamin like he got his dick bit off or some shit like that. So, like, his cell phone like blew up in his face, and that's why he was screamin! HAHAHA! Them shits was sooooo funny, you know what I'm sayin? And he's screamin and cryin, and clutchin his horribly dis-fig-ured face and everyone's starin at him, and I'm all laughin and watching my japanese bukkake videos on my palm pilot. Them shits was a RIOT, son. So, that's ba-si-ca-lly what happened, and it is definately one of my top-ten movie moments of 2003, you know what I'm sayin? HA!" The news anchor woman stood there, her mouth agape, staring at me in disbelief. I thought she was going to tell me to fuck off for wasting her time, but something about my performance must have impressed her, and she said, "Um..well, uh, thank you...Jamal..." and then looked at her cameraman and nodded, and they both walked away. A small crowd of people had gathered around me, and suddenly I didn't know what to do or say, and the only thing that came out was "Uh....yo that new Peter Pan movie looks fucking GAY, son!" and I just stood there and waited for my train to arrive. Strangely, I couldn't find myself on the news that night, and none of my friends could either. I'm not even sure what network the news team was from, or if they even existed at all.