et sic pendet

And Now for a Cliched Goodbye

2010-10-11T16:33:00.002-04:00

Progress Report aka Me Fail Good

2010-08-31T21:01:00.007-04:00

I turn 30 in just under 6 months. A while ago, I listed all the things I wanted to do before I turned 30. 30 things to be exact. Let us take a look at how I have done:

1. Make list of things to do before turning 30.

BAM! Done and Done. 1 for 1. Batting a thousand. Lets do this!

2. Make list of things to do before turning 40.

Well, 1/2 is still respectable. Small sample size as the baseball stat nerds from Fangraphs will tell you. Batting .500. Still good. Better than Ted Williams ever did, may his head rest in peace.

3. Buckle down and become manager of the softball team. Someone has to do it. Plus, mini-power trip! (And guaranteed aggravation).

Well, now we get into the Ray Kurzweil hemming and hawing about what it means to predict (or in my case, complete) a specified goal. See, I did buckle down and become manager of the team, but alas, I am a shepard without a flock. I sent out some e-mails but could not garner enough interest among my co-workers and associates. Could I have tried harder? Sure. But I did send out an e-mail. I am gonna say, COMPLETED! That is 2 for 3. Let's keep this self-esteem locomotive rolling . . .

4. Go to several museums, see more of the parks, and visit the lesser known monuments of semi-relevant folks who are largely forgotten now. And take pictures.

A couple weeks ago, the girlfriend's younger brother and sister were in town. I drove them all down to go see the Jefferson Memorial. As we were walking there, and back for that matter, I tried to get everyone all excited about the George Mason Memorial. There is no one ever there, and old George looks totally laid back, what with his legs crossed as if he has no balls. No one took the bait, and they all ignored poor George as everyone does. So, sadly, I cannot even say I went up to Mr. Mason and gave him a pat on the shoulder. I also have not been to any museums or parks or any of that shit. But I have a list of places to go. Including little known parks such as Kenilworth and the Rapunzel looking tower at Fort Reno.

But, haven't done any of it yet. Back to .500, 2/4.

5. Tell my girlfriend that she is the most beautiful thing in the world. Because she is, and I do not do it nearly often enough.

I wish I could say it once every five minutes. But I try to say it once a day. She is the ultimate Decider on this one, but for now, I am scoring it for me. With the caveat that I fully intend on keeping it up for the next six months, six years, and six decades. At least.

6. Prove to above gf that my IQ just may be 135 by doing smart things like reading, becoming informed about events and politics in countries that do not start with U (sorry uraguay, have to focus my attention elsewhere), get a better handle on geography, and watching more olbermann and madow.

I got a subscription to the Economist. I have yet to make it halfway through one issue. But I did pay attention to the Glen Beck, Not A Politics Rally, for about ten seconds! I never watch cable news. My knowledge of geography has not changed. This is a bucket of fail. Back to .500, 3/6.

7. Drink less.

At one point, I went two months without a drink (I talked about in my only March 2010 post). I did not make it through the whole three months that I initially hoped for (thus losing the bet with the woman). But hey, two months is pretty good. I still do some drinking. But it is less. WIN!

8. A lot less.

But it ain't a lot less. I thought about giving me the point under this too because I have been drinking less (in the aggregate, I did drink a lot the week the woman came back for the summer, but being that she was flanked by two kids and I had to see her during the day but sleep at home by myself, I figure some excessive drinking is acceptable. That was also the week the woman at the little store in my work building made fun of me for buying 5-hour energy drinks every day that week), but I am not in the 2-3 drinks, 2-3 times a week category that I think is necessary for this category. I may never be, but that is what "A LOT LESS" would entail.

Oh, that .500 average, it is singing my song.

9. Become a more productive and efficient worker. Just cause there is a deadline doesn't mean I have until then to get my shit finished.
Answer after the jump (due to auto-play video, FYI)

So, that is a no.

10. See a play.

Nope.

11. Become more ambitious.

Yeah right.

12. See three plays.

See again, Mr. Burns Laughing above.

13. Invest myself in learning about my gf's culture, ie, learning the language.

I tried, for a while. But it is really hard. And I was spending a lot of time doing the p90x. Sure that still left time for learning Greek. But I never really had the mental capacity to get started on it. I still intend to. But for now, fail. I am in a slump here. 4/13.

14. Learn a foreign language (it is tough to get 30 things).

Every now and then I bust out a couple words in Greek or Spanish. Cannot say that I have learned them though. Especially considering I wanted to make a joke of some sort in either language just now and have no confidence in my ability to type it out in a way that a native speaker who is more fluent in english than me could understand. Shit, I still cannot say paralito right, and we have been making that joke for two weeks.

15. Help people if they look like they need it.

Several weeks ago, these two guys, or three or four, not sure how many it was, were moving into an apartment on my floor. And for whatever reason I happened to pass them in the hall like 75 times. Well not that many, but I rarely leave my apartment, but on this day, I took out the trash, got my mail, went to the store, went to the other store, and maybe ran another errand, but I every time I walked out of my apartment, these guys were in the hall sweating, moving shit in. I felt a little bad, but I was busy cleaning my apartment and watching The Simpsons, so clearly I could not help them. But maybe I should have. I am not very neighborly. Or nice. (but come on, the did have a ton of shit, one offer to help would have monopolized four hours of my time. For serious).

Another fail.

16. Talk to my parents and sisters more often.

Fail. Had I followed this one, I could have saved my parents $5,000. COULD have. No guarantees. But still, something to think about.

17. Play less farmville/cafe world/mafia wars.

I never play these anymore (unless my desperate girl calls asking me to harvest her soon to be rotten strawberries. And I am never to happy about that). Nice to have one in the win column again. Stats? Ugh . . . 5/17. .294. Respectable batting average. Pretty crappy OBA though.

18. Read at least one journal article that I have no hope of comprehending each week (like something from the journal of applied physics)

I read Texts From Last Night and F My Life everyday. That is a kind of a journal of social behavior that I have no sense of comprehending. Right?

19. Learn how to dance. Wait, I should just learn how to get rhythm first.

This guy is still better than me:

20. Write more.

Sorry.

21. Set up a pandora station and listen to new music. I am so out of touch. Now I know how parents feel. I also feel old.

I acquired a bunch of music the other day. Including new bands like Cage the Elephant and Sufjan Stevens. Well, Sufjan ain't new, but he is interesting. And I really like this band AM Taxi.

I giving this to me because I am sad with my failings. 6/21.

22. Save some money.

If by save money, you mean run up my credit card debt, HELLS YEAH!!!!

But I am guessing you didn't mean that. Course, I wrote that goal, so that could be what I meant. How are you to know.

23. Take a random half day to surprise the gf with flowers dinner and the best damned backrub ever.

Sssshhhhhhhhhhhhhh. working on it.

24. Learn how to think two moves ahead in checkers.

I have been testing my think ahead abilities with this version of tower defense. I am still no Bobby Fisher. Cause I am still alive.

25. Buy a new hockey stick.

Ooooo. I did this! Cost me $200. But my slapshot has improved by more than that. I think I may have wrote about this, but who knows. So hard to keep track of one post a month. But yeah, it is a kick ass stick. Next stick I plan on buying--This one for Wii. It is less than $200. So there is that.

(Oddly enough, only reason I am writing this post is because the woman bought me a Wii game tonight, but won't let me see what is (or play it, natch), until I make a blog post. A good post at that (still on the borderline I am sure). However, she is not here right now. Her purse containing the game is, but I promised not to look. Stupid promise. Rather she is outside trying to get the best signal for her phone because she is talking to some Troop in Afghanistan who is recovering from being shot. I am ok with it. However, I have no doubt that her clearest signal is coming from where we set Steve free. Because Steve was awesome. I miss him. *sniff)

26. Get a passport.

Have not done this yet. I Love America. Why would I want to leave?

27. Go to a nationals game.

Went to Strasburg's second start! WOOOOOT!

Now at: 8/27, or almost 30%!

28. Go to a capitals game.

Single game tickets go on sale Friday! (or was it last Friday. Shit!)

29. Buy rogaine.

Going on vacation to the beach this week or next week (oddly, still up in the air. Personally hoping for both). My bald spot will get burned.

30. Don't worry about making my life too complicated. This is the only one I get.

Its all good in the hood.

9 out of 30 isn't bad. Just about 30%. Still have plenty of time to take care of the rest of this shit.

Anger Management

2010-08-24T19:27:00.002-04:00

So today kinda sucked. First I discovered that the charging port on my Blackberry is busted (thanks to me! Stupid, stupid me), so that put me in a bad mood for the rest of the day. Until I discovered this: http://shop.crackberry.com/blackberry-charging-pod/5A100A3318.htm , A charging station for my BB. Who knew those little gold tips on the back were actually function. Those crazy Canadians think of everything.

So I trundled down to the local T-Mobile store after work, and of course, they have none in stock. They just had a big sale on them, and they are no more. None of the other 52 T-mobiles in a roughly 12 block radius have them either. So I sauntered down to the Radio Shack, and they of course, just sold theirs the other day and now the product has been discontinued. Fine, whatever, I will just buy the damn thing online I suppose. Whatevs.

But then, I head over to the Macy's to buy some underwear. Briefs to be exact. Because I am getting back on the p90x wagon-train and I need my boys to be comfortable. Well that, and I ripped a couple of pairs of boxers doing Yoga. Because I am THAT damn flexible. For realz. Thing is, I haven't worn briefs in about 20 years. But I notice that Jockey underwear is on sale. So I pick two 3-packs, when I notice that Jockey Underwears are on sale. Buy one get one 50% off! Wooooo! I think to myself. I have really been needing some new white t-shirts. I just threw out one that stunk to high heaven and could not get fresh with even the tidiest of Tides. (I wore for hockey one too many times. I don't smell that bad. In general. After showers at least. For a couple minutes.)

So I pick up two three packs of nice clean white crew-necks. I boogie on down to the cashier table, he rings me up, I put it on the Macy's card, and then do a triple take. Did I just spend $70 on underwear? yes. Yes I did. So, bad mood is back.

From there, I metro on down to the Giant Super Market. To buy some food. But not magic beans. The magic beans at the Giant suck. The girl made me a list (and considering all this food is for her house, she must trust me a lot to buy shit for her. Yeah, that has to be it . . .(or that fact that I eat most of her food could be it too)), so using my new found Supermarket Circumnavigation skills, I hit up the deli, pick out some yellow onions (last night: Me: Are the yellow ones really yellow? Will it be easy to tell them apart from the other onions? Her: Duh, as long as you are not color-blind . . . . [cue evil laughter]), grab some yogurt, didn't flinch when I saw beef broth on the list (though I had no idea what to get, I ended with something in a carboard box, because it looked similar to the chicken broth she used for thanksgiving turkey), and headed to the checkout line.

Of course, I picked the slowest checkout line, the one with the girl in training. But whatever. Things are looking up. Then the total comes in at $88, so I deftly hand over my Giant card and watch the savings appear (I always wait til the end to give them my card so I can see the money go backwards. I can feel my wallet getting fatter as it happens). Final tally, $68.78. Oh yeah, that is right. I spent more on underwear than I did on food for the week. I am the king of money management.

So I get home-ish, the girls home that is, she isn't here. I fire up my laptop, and the internet is on the fritz again. Not the internet really, but the wireless box that I bought for her. Seriously, the thing is a piece of shit. I hate it. So I started cursing, out loud. Fuck you internets and such. Then I just plugged in the cord, adjusted my fantasy line-up and went to work putting away the groceries.

All was going well, until I tried to shove some 100 calorie Party Mix onto the middle shelf in the cabinet, when some chocolate milk mix spilled over all over the damn place. At this point, I said something like "Fuckity Shit" really loudly. And it looks stupid written out, but it really conveyed my emotion at the time.

So I go to the closet to get the vacuum, when I stub my toe. now I said, "OWWWWWWWW FUUUUUUCK!!!" Well not so much said, as yelled very loudly. Then I punched the door. Thankfully the door is ok, but my hand still kinda hurts. So I grab the vacuum, unwind the cord, plug it in, and start vacuuming up delicious chocolate mix, when i go to far and the plug comes out. I cursed more, which if I printed it here, would have been in bold letters (or maybe a bigger font), but instead of going apeshit insane, I decided to rant about all this shit here, and now I am nice and calm and don't see the need for anymore profanity.

I guess that is the end.

Oh, but if you see the woman's neighbors, let them know I just had a bad day. I am really a nice guy.

How To Clean A Foreman Grill

2010-08-10T20:22:00.006-04:00

I take so very much from the internet. I watch funny videos, I read interesting things, I get live scoring for fantasy baseball and football, I stream episodes of The Office through Netflix for Wii, and let us not forget the hundreds and hundreds of gigabytes of free porn that are just there for the taking (if one were so inclined). But I never give anything back. Take, take take take take. Sure, I make a blog post once a month or so, and people seem to love my picture of Mr. Burns, but after that? Nada. I do not contribute to any online forums or any comment sections.

But all that changes today! I am giving back to the internets. This is my guide on how to clean a Foreman Grill. I know I searched for answers a while ago, and came up with nothing good, but over time have developed this fool-proof, easy, method of Foreman Grill Cleaning™. (Note: not really a trademark. Well, Lean Mean Fat Reducing Grilling Machine® is, but the other one is just a joke. Granted, ™ doesn't make it a trademark, but whatever).

Step 0--"Oh Noes! I Has A Dirty Foreman!"

(If I had photoshop skills, I would have done a lolcats with this, but alas, I have only rudimentary MSPaint skills)

Yesterday, I made me some delicious porkchops on the Foreman. Afterwards, the grill looked like this: (note: all pictures open up larger if you so desire. Because Detail is key here (ed. note: detail not key))(Post-post note: ARGGHHH, Motherfucker. Ok, so the pictures cannot be opened in a new window for some reason. I spent way too much time trying to get that shit right, and I thought I had it. Oh well. If you use Google Chrome, you can choose "Copy Image URL" with a left click and open in a new tab. If you use IE 8, well enjoy the tiny little picture). (Post Post-Post: I can never leave things alone. There will be a link by each picture, click that, it should open the picture in a new tab. Hopefully.)

That shit gots to get clean. It is some bizarre form of fat and gristle and McCormick's Grill Mates Roasted Garlic and Herb. It is gooey and it is nasty. You can scrap at that shit for hours with the lame plastic tool they give you, scrub with a sponge, get pissed off and scrub with scrubby bristly part of the sponge even though you know that it will peel off some of the teflon (as you will see on my grill once it is clean), or you can follow my simple step by step procedure and have yourself a clean Foreman in mere minutes! Only 19.99! Or free. Plus it takes an hour. Trust me, just keep reading.

Step 1--Ready the Materials

What you need:

Dirty Foreman
Faucet with running water/bucket of water
Paper Towels

Step 2--Easy Like Paper Mache-ing

Take at least three paper towels (without separating them) and get them all nice and wet. Not sopping, but a nice, all over wetness with some dripiness. Squeeze out a little if too wet. Unfurl the wet paper towel into its original sheet size (folded so it is the size of one paper towel sheet). Place on the Foreman like so: Now, press it down into all the grooves to that it is all good and in there. Like this:

Oh yeah, that's the stuff. You finger the Foreman Grill a little bit, it will be good to you. It just needs a little loving.

Now, some of the grease and nastiness will start to be absorbed by the wet paper towels

Step 3--The Waaaiiting is the Hardest Part (For Realz YO!)

I leave the Foreman Grill dirty until I intend on using it again. Then, when I get home from work and say to my imaginary butler, "Hey, I think I am going to do some quasi-grilling tonight!" I get to work on Steps 0-2. Then, I do p90x. This usually takes about an hour. So step three is letting the wet paper towel sit on the Foreman for an hour. If you choose not to work out, here are some other things you can do that will take an hour:

Drive at 60 mph for 30 min in any direction. Then drive back. If you think you are a bad ass, drive 90 mph for 30 min.
Watch 1.5 innings of a Yankees-Red Sox game
Read everything I have posted in the last five years.
Watch Two episodes of the Simpsons. If you are fucking LAME! Because I know you are cool, make that Three episodes of The Simpsons because you have the DVDs
Look up "Tacoma Narrows Bridge" on Wikipedia
Drink three beers
Go to the Grocery Store and get yourself some fresh veggies to go with the delicious meat you are about to cook. Or go there and get the biggest fucking steak you can find that will fit on the grill. Because meat is awesome.

Step 4--The Big Reveal!

Upon lifting your Foreman lid, you shall see that the nasty has permeated the paper towels. This is good. If it looks the same as when you first put the paper towel down, you, my friend, have failed. And I cannot help you.

But for the Alpha Males, you should see something like this:

Well, if you are an Alpha Male, yours is probably better looking than mine. But that is neither here nor there *Ahem, *Cough Cough.

Step 5--Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel

At this point, I think it is important to note the time that I took each picture. Just so you understand how undeniably awesome my method is. Because it is gonna take a few pics to realize that. And since I am not charging $19.95, I have no reason to lie. I hope. Anyway, the picture immediately above, was taken at 5:12 pm (I am unable to account for seconds, so for that, I apologize (but it's really Research in Motion's fault))

Now, spread out your fingers, apply pressure to the paper towel, and pull down. If you stopped halfway through, it might look like this: (5:12 pm)

But do not stop halfway through. Continue to use the paper towel as if you were cleaning the Foreman regularly from top to bottom.

The underside of the paper towel will look something like this: (5:12 pm)

If you cook something like chicken or porkchops, you may disappointed by the results (with steak, this reveal is jaw dropping), but fear not, it is not as bad as it looks: (5:12 pm)

Yeah, that does not look all that clean. Have Faith though.

Step 6--The Wet Wipe

Those who are better than us, but not fantastically awesome enough to have a bidet, use baby wipes to wipe their ass after taking a shit. And you need to treat your Foreman with the same type of affection a multi-millionaire treats his or her bunghole. But not with a baby wipe. That shit is expensive. Baby's have it so fucking good. What a joke. Wait, back to the foreman thing. Wet another paper towel or too, and wipe down the Foreman again. If you are particularly frugal, you can use the same paper towel that was draped across the Foreman for an hour, just refold it (as you do your dust rag when you do that dusting chore once a year) to the crap encrusted upon it is on the inside.

And hey, its starting to look better: (5:13 pm)

Step 7--The Dry Wipe

The common man uses normal toilet paper, with no bit of moisture to its name (though I suppose one could wet it in the sink first, but then one would use eight times the normal amount of TP for wiping. Not that I have charted this or anything). The common man should not compromise on the number of plys though. It has to be at least two. Worst thing about shitting in public is the recycled sandpaper single ply they make you use. Fuck that shit. Sorry, got distracted again (this fucking post is taking me like three goddamn hours. This is why I never post).

So take your dry paper towel and wipe down the grill. Bear in mind, a little bit of elbow grease is needed to make sure you are getting in the cracks and up against the grilling grooves. And I took a picture of this for some reason: (5:13 pm)

Looking pretty good there Stud! There is still a little work that needs to be done in the corners, but all will be cleared out in the next step. Promise.

Step 8--The Roof, The Roof, The Roof is on Fire. We Don't Need No Water, Let the Motherfucker Burn!

Yes, I have talked nothing about cleaning the lid. A relatively non-grimy lid will look like this: (5:14 pm)

Usually you get some burned shit up there. I just lower the lid, and blindly scrape all that shit off with the plastic scraper they provide. This way, most of the remnants fall onto the bottom surface of the grill, rather than into the hinge cracks or underneath it. Just makes it easier. Plus, the top is fucking easy to clean. So after scraping, I usually do another dry paper towel run on the bottom and the top.

If that does not get it clean, the one more Wet paper towel, dry paper cycle should get the shit clean, so you have something sparkling like this: (5:14 pm).

And that, is the All Clean photo. Note that it took three minutes for me to clean (5:12-5:14) after the hour long cold compress.

I hope this helps you in all of your fat reducing fake grill cleaning endeavors.

Please note: I seem to recall that chicken leavings are a bitch to clean. I will cook chicken tomorrow and update this on Thursday if I feel that my step-by-step directions were in anyway shitty in the means of cleaning chicken goop.

I'm On To You *Death Stare

2010-07-26T00:27:00.004-04:00

I went to the Giant Grocery store today. List in hand, I was whizzing around the supermarket, making great time, grabbing this, grabbing that, improving when necessary (Oh yes, I do need more popcorn, I had totally forgotten), when it hit me.

I done got my ass trained.

There is this old saying, well I assume it is old how can you ever know for sure right? Its not like I have Bartlett's Big Book of Quotes at my house, and a cursory search using the Google-brand search engine yielded conflicting results (but lets not kid ourselves, its from Calvin & Hobbes, and let me just express my frustration at seeing this site get whacked by the Private Copyright Enforcement Legal Team, otherwise I would have embedded the strip. Oh sure, I could go through my Calvin and Hobbes books and scan it myself, but ummm, no). So anyway, Calvin once said, "If you do something bad enough the first time, they wont ask you to do it again."

I am pretty bad at a lot of things. I do not have to try. Used to be, one of those things was grocery shopping. In my single days, I went to the grocery store like a real adult, but generally came home with frozen meals, frozen pizzas, beer, bread, and chips. I was always confused how my freezer was always jammed, while the fridge was always empty. I just assumed that it was an optical illusion due to the size difference. Then I would put the beer in the fridge, and the fridge would be fuller, and all would seem ok with the world.

But now, I have that girlfriend. And she has been gone for the past two and half months. Which meant that I had to fend for myself. Her, being the proactive cutie pie that she is, starting making me a grocery list, and then demanding that I go shopping with a specified time period in order to take advantage of all the SALES!! (THIS BREAD NEVER GOES ON SALE AND IT IS BUY ONE GET ONE FREE!! GET TWELVE LOAVES!!!) So I did, getting my fresh fruit, and fresh veggies, and fresh meat, and random organic shit, and yogurt (mmm, yogurt, with FIBER!).

All the while, unwittingly falling into the perfectly laid trap set by my devious woman.

The girlfriend, being in law school, occasionally has late nights and other various studying and other law school type bullshit, that prevents her from getting to the grocery store. So for example, one weekend she was preparing for a trial. So yeah, lots of important stuff she has to do (this would NOT fall into the aforementioned law school type bullshit category. This is real shit. Regardless of the flavor of the shit, I am always happy to help out. Or, try to help out). And, because she was out of food, she had to send me to the grocery store. So she made me a list, wiped some schmutz off my face, patted me on the ass, and sent me on my way. And I did my best, but the grocery store was just so overwhelming! All this food. Must be 80 quadrillion different food items. And there were only Ten on the list! The odds of finding what I needed are astronomical! I wandered around the store aimless for an hour, occasionally finding a product specified on the list, occasionally confused (Simply asia is on the list, but does she want the noodles, or the microwave full meal, and what flavor? So confused), before I called her up to get help finding what she wanted. And I am sure I still came back with four things that were not correct (Seriously, every time she sends me out to get her something, be it from Giant or CVS or whatever, I never get it right, I always screw something up).

I give her credit though, she never lost faith in me. She kept sending me out, and I kept screwing it up. Even if I did it wrong, she did not stop believing in me.

Then she realized the solution. All she had to do was leave.

I am no longer incompetent at the grocery store. I get actual fresh foods. (Ok, still intimidated by the Meat department, but really, that place is only good for fish. And giant cuts of meat. I don't need that. Plus I am poor. I don't need fancy stuff. I get the Big Buys). Today, I bought a big ass cluster of celery, and not just the hearts, the whole big thing that is cheaper than the hearts. I cut it up and stuck it in tupperware. But here is where it gets bad. I put water in the tupperware, because that will help the celery last longer. And I know it will be good for just about a week. And I learned this shit, through buying celery and fucking up (fucking up is always the best way to learn). GAHHHH!!!! I should not know this! I should not be adept at navigating the grocery store.

She tricked me. By making me self-sufficient, she really just made her life a lot easier. Damn it all to hell.

Oh well, at least when she comes back, she is gonna cook me some real meals. My creativity does not extend to the kitchen (or the blog for that matter HA! beat you too it!).

Anyway sweetie; I'm on to you and your attempts at "training"

I never even heard of this dude:

I write like
Cory Doctorow

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Undergrad--A Hopefully Chronological Remembrance Pt. 1

2010-07-22T00:47:00.005-04:00

It has been 3 years since I last set foot on my undergrad campus. And that was because I had to stop at the office of disciplinary action to get a record of the disciplinary action taken against me. Had it not been for that, we would be around seven years. Of course, I blame law school for that shit. But regardless, I got to thinking, through an alcohol induced haze (which reminded me of undergrad), what stories I had, and which I did not remember. This series will be about the stories I remember, and hopefully, in the order in which they occurred.

Today, Acceptance

I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago. When you do that, one thing is clear, You are going to the University of Illinois. Or at least, that is what your parents want you to do. In-State tuition is fucking cheap! As it were, I had two older sisters, neither of whom went to U of I. They certainly were smart enough, one went to DePaul and the other decided that Jesus reigned supreme and went to some crazy God school in the middle of nowhere. So through my trail-blazing sisters, I knew that UofI was not the only option. In fact, one could venture in the scary urbaneness of the Chicago, or even into the middle of farm country! (ok, so technically, my house was across the street from a farm growing up, until suburbia exploded in the mid-90s, but still, Possibilities!)

As my graduation date loomed near, I looked over my right shoulder and saw the Oldest Twin off at DePaul, a private school, and over my left shoulder I saw my youngest older sister at North Central College, a private school (having since given up the dream of "Crazy Religious Schools are the Place to Be!). It was time for me to make a decision.

I understand the benefits of the in-state school. Surely when I have kids, that is where I want them to go. But I am not them. I wanted to get as far away as possible. Well, as far as possible without going to a crazy Jesus school.

Sadly, I know what exactly drew me to Miami University. They sent me a big huge package of shit. And, they were in Ohio. I figured, if they are gonna send me all this shit (postage must have been at least $0.72!) they would not reject me. And they were in Ohio.

I do not think it is necessary to justify why I wanted to be 5 hours away, other than that my mom was on the fence about me being that far away. I was 18. I wanted to be out in the world. I thought I could be somebody who was cool. I was proven wrong in with respect to the latter, but essentially, it came down to a choice of where I would be uncool at, UofI or Miami.

In classic self-loathing, repressed teenage, get off my back dad, form, I threw my Uof I essay. Threw it like one would throw a basketball game for the benefit of gamblers. My essay was good, don't get me wrong, I am pretty sure I used the same one for my Miami application. But there was one key difference.

Ok, two key differences.

First, I hand wrote my UofI exam. On the back of the application, there was and a third of a page blank space for an essay, which I guess they assumed people still had typewriters back in 1999 (they may have been right), but I crammed my essay into that space with handwriting a third grader would not be jealous of.

And I applied to the School of Engineering. Which you have to be smart to get into. Sure I had an ACT of 29 and a weighted GPA of 5.05/5 but I knew that would not be good enough. I did not even want to be engineer.

But that did not stop me from applying to the Paper Science Engineering program at Miami. That shit was begging for students. (long aside: I did the whole, sleep in a dorm room and your mom sleeps in another dorm room Fun Crazy-type weekend at Miami. This was after we stopped at the campus on the way back from New Jersey and when I fell in love with the campus. On the way to this sleepover, driving into Oxford from the Chicago area, was the first and last time I have ever actually nodded off behind the wheel. That will scare the shit out of you. Driving along, close your eyes . . . . . open them and you are a quarter of a mile down the road. Those rumble strips are effective. Nonetheless, I still feel bad about that. And hence, no sleeping behind the wheel since then. Anyway, that whole sleepover thing, I heard stories about people going out and getting smashed, and whatever, while I was back in my room at 11 pm. My quasi roommate came back around 3, but he was Black, so I just assumed that he was cool and people wanted to hang out with him. Nobody liked my white ass, and I sure as shit did not know anyone in bumfuck Ohio, so you might think that whole experience soured me on Miami. For some reason, it didn't. Probably because my mind was already made up).

So yeah, applied in a major I was sure to be rejected in at UofI and applied to a major I was sure to be accepted in at Miami. That is the recipe for success. Assuming you eventually change your major, don't graduate during an Accounting recession and go to law school, graduating at the top of your class just before the bottom falls out of the legal market.

Coming soon, Part 2, Orientation and Swing Dancing

Its Too Hot Today

2010-07-07T13:59:00.006-04:00

Current Temperature in Alexandria VA: 100 degrees (feels like 103)

Current Temperature in the Cayman Islands: 86 (feels like 96)

Suck on that you fat money laundering Simpsons character living in a tropical paradise. You don't know what hot is.

Well, I guess I shouldn't complain. Its not like I am venturing outdoors today.* No, no, I am just gonna sit here and watch World Cup soccer on one tv and some random muted program on the other. Yes, yes this may seem wasteful, but hear me out.

First, the problem is that ESPN comes in all scrambly on my digital tv hookup. As such, it is impossible to watch that channel. I do not much care because I never watch ESPN anymore (oh noes, I will miss LeBacheorlette!) (and, I can still watch baseball games on ESPN3.com) (So why not watch soccer on ESPN3.com? Umm, because I am trying to write a blog post. And my laptop sucks, it does not like playing video and running any other programs. Also, I have my laptop on my lap and I don't want to burn my legs) (yeah yeah, time for some original jokes).

I have a little tv, that I watch while laying in bed. Even though I live in a studio, I find it necessary to have two TVs approximately 23 feet from each other. And I think today totally vindicates that decision. My little tv is just hooked up to the coaxial cable, not through the digital box, so I can watch ESPN on there no problem.

So while I have two TVs on (as well as a laptop), all my lights are off. And sure, the A/C is on, but the shades are closed. When I did this as a child, my mom called me a mushroom. So, I suppose you could say that I am shrooming today to beat the heat.

Anyway, due to the position of the two tv's, I have had to adjust my usual sitting position, and have moved from my couch to the chair which my girlfriend hates (that's its proper name). This has had an unintended benefit. I am in a much better position. Allow my wicked ~~photoshop~~ MS Paint skills to show you:

As you can see from the drawing (I hope, well probably not, that is why I am going to explain it), from the way my apartment is set up, sitting on the couch is like sitting in a deadzone. the cool air is blown away from the couch on both sides. By sitting on the chair, I not only get a view of both TVs, but also cool air blowing on my head.

So, that is my introduction to some random thoughts:

___________________________________

I spent the last month ripping though The Wire. It is quite awesome. I am not sure what else to say. It is as good as all those obnoxious, highfalutin TV and pop-culture snobs say it is (sigh, guess I have to start watching Mad Men now too). The last season is a little too out there, but it is still pretty damn good (kinda like knocking Lincoln cause he was too gangly).

I am hopeful that I can get the girl into it. I have a pretty good track record of getting her into my TV Shows. She can now, thanks to me, count among her loves, Arrested Development, The Simpsons, and Firefly. For some reason she remains resistant to Buffy and Angel, even though she will spend two hours researching Twilight characters.

But I think that she will like it. It moves a little slow (she is an up at them kind of girl:
)

but it focuses on things she looooves. For example, the first season centers around the police department and organized crime. She has worked in a prosecutors office. She did a defense work clinic. This is right up her alley. Later seasons focus on politics. She loooves politics. She should watch it. Make sure you tell her to. Cause that would be helpful.
______________________
Spain just scored. Damn YOUUUUUUUUUUUU. Stupid Ponce de Leon. Hmmm, that is the only spanish guy I know. I am so ignorant. And really, I don't even care who wins. Soccer is so boring. I do not know how anyone can watch it.
Yup, that's right, time for more Simpsons video clips:

Damn you copyright laws. or at least copyright claims. Brush up on your fair use defense youtube. Oh well, go here, fast forward to the 2:45 mark, and enjoy the worst Russian dubbing in the history of dubbing.

Bottom line: Soccer is boring. I will never be convinced otherwise.

________________________

The woman gave me blog topics. One of which was the difference between her family and mine. I am not actually going to write a thousand words on that, but she mentioned that me meeting her family would be like the movie Meet the Parents. I said, true, but that her grandmother would try to stab me while I slept. Instead of the "LOLz" I expected, the girlfriend replied, "yeah, she might. She is nuts."

Those are not the most encouraging words I have ever heard in my life.

_________________________

I am however, trying to learn greek. It is not going that well. I think I am too old to learn a foreign language. I took three years of Spanish (who incidentally just won. Damn YOU ESPANA!!! May the Netherlands rip out your heart, and feed it to you while it is still bleeding (wow, I really hate Spain. Good thing France didn't make the final, I might have gotten all stabby (also, strong Nationalism is at work even with the crappiest of sports. Hence I can get fired up about soccer results, even if the games put me to sleep))) and about all I remember is "donde esta el coche/ el bano." It is enough to get by. Oh, and when I met the girlfriend, I remembered what Bonita meant.

Needless to say, my foreign language learning history is not encouraging. And then I had a structured class, with a textbook and everything. Now I just have a second hand Rosetta Stone that doesn't even have directions.

I do have the woman though. She decided that she is going to speak to me in greek for ten minutes every night, and I have to respond in kind. And if I do, I get special presents.

Needless to say, I am feeling confident in my ability to learn passable greek. Oh, those special presents. Men are so easy.

*if you are curious why I am not at work today, well let's just say that my system felt the need to clear itself out today. I don't think I could have made it to the train without popping a squat in the nearby woods

Blackhawks

2010-06-15T02:03:00.004-04:00

As I am sure you are sick of hearing by now, the Chicago Blackhawks just won the Stanley Cup. The Goddamn Chicago BLACKHAWKS won the Cup. The Stanley Cup. Its been a week, I am still in awe. My mom and my little sister went to the Cubs-Sox game Sunday night (the dueling no-hitter game that ended with no hitters) and got to see the Cup. In all its glory. Its amazing.

I have been a hockey fan for most of my life. Sure it helped that Eddie the Eagle Belfour broke into the league when I was 8, and Jeremy Roenick was the most electric player in the league when I was 10, and Dirk Graham was the first partial african american captain in the league (not that I knew that of course. He was Dirk Graham. He had a kick-ass mustache. He ate glass for breakfast. And he was the captain. The reverence given to the hockey captain is something that will never be understood by the masses). Roenick and the Eagle, along with Cheli, lead the Hawks to the Stanley Cup Finals in 1992. I was 11. I was excited. This was to be the greatest moment of my life.

At least until Mario Lemiuex and Jaromir Jagr swept the Hawks out of the building. The games were so close. I always thought we had a chance. Even in game 4. Hey we are down 3-0? What of that? We are the team that will be the first to come back from that deficit to win the Cup! How can we not? We are so damn good!

But fucking Barrasso would be better (and he had to be American too. Bitch).

Then I walked out of my wide-eyed, in awe of professional sports phase, and saw the Hawks for what they were. Or really, who they were. Bill Wirtz, aka, Dollar Bill. I am sure you heard he kept home games off of local TV.

My love for hockey never waned, though my love for the Hawks did. In 1996 I would decide I wanted to play hockey. I took some beginner courses, and played on the JV hockey team in my Sophomore through Senior years (yeah, I was never that good, but hey, good enough to win some trophies!). And through all this time, and numerous hockey games, I would see one or two games a year live, get irrationally excited when a Hawks home game aired on Fox (hell yeah glowpuck), and sink into misery when Eric Daze got injured yet again (though Pat Foley's assurances that Mark Bell would one day be Captain material is hilarious in hindsight).

I went to college, and played intramurals there (even took a class in ice hockey. I got an A (though some jack ass took a slap shot four feet away from me and I thought I broke my ankle blocking it. Seriously, it was class. You would never take a slapper from inside the hash marks on your own goalie during warm-ups).

I cannot say I thought much about the Hawks during this time. I would usually get tickets to a Hawks game for Christmas, but really, the hawks sucked. We had pinned our hopes on the ABC line--Tyler Arnason, Mark Bell, and Kyle Calder. They had moments, but looking at them through non-fan eyes reveals that they sucked. (in doing some research just now, I realized I blocked out the Doug Gilmour as captain, Tony Amonte as captain (he was good, never great, but given the shit Hawks fan had seen, we made Tony Amonte out to be great, and he never was, nor could he ever handle that role as team leader), and Alexi Zhamnov as captain (holy hell, this guy was so smooth on skates, but he didn't have the hands. I completely forgot about him as I was thinking about the writing of this post. Shit. I feel bad. I mean, I remembered Alpo Suhonen. (Upon secondary reflection, Zhamnov could skate like Kane, as if it were easy, but Kaner has skills beyond what Zhamnov had)).

I would be remiss if I didn't throw a few words in here about my dad. He had been a hockey fan forever. He remembered the teams with Hull and Mikita and Magnuson. He was 12 the last time the Hawks won the Cup. Old enough to remember. Young enough to revere. The intervening years had crippled his fandom. But he was excited as anyone when I started to play hockey. He and my mom, collectively, never missed a game I played. They saw many of the practices too (once I bought a car, not much need for them driving me 30 minutes away to late night practices). He is the one that bought me all the Hawks tickets as Christmas Gifts. (And I have a memory of going to a Hawks-Flames postseason game where the hawks lost. But according to history, that would have been, at the earliest, in 1989. And I never went to the conference finals. Maybe it was 96, and the Hawks loss in the next round clouded my judgment. Whatever, the Hawks sucked for a long time.)

I do not want keep yammering on here. I continued to go to one game a year after college. One day, my dad ended up with first row tickets and I took my good friend from college, and it was awesome. Sadly, it was the year after the lockout and the Hawks had signed Dynamos like Martin Lapointe and Adrian Aucoin (though we did see Aucoin punch some dude twice in the face, out of sight from the refs as he drove him into the boards. Classy. Shows why he is still playing in the "New" NHL (No really, he is! Plays for the "Yotes!)).

So then Bill Wirtz died. And the rest is history.

2 Million people showed up to the Hawks Victory parade. I felt a pang of . . . something. I was actually in Chicago, but decided not to go (and this was before I realized that many people would attend). A parade is nice. Seeing the cup is nice. But more important things were going on. Its not like I was going to get to touch the cup or anything.

But more importantly, 2 million people showed up. The metro area is estimated at 10 million people living there. One out of five people in the entire Chicago area showed up.

Seriously?

Look, I am not gonna rip on bandwagon fans, but seriously? Hockey was virtually dead in Chicago before Dollar Bill died. I was hardly contributing to the teams bottom line, but at least I knew who some of the players were. I saw Duncan Kieth when he was a skinny motherfucker who made terrible blind passes in his own zone. And then he learned. And he evolved. And now, he is gonna win the Norris trophy this year (Norris Trophy goes to best defenseman, fyi).

I am not bitter. A championship is meant to be a party. I wish I could have watched the Cup clinching game with my father or my girlfriend. But it didn't happen. I watched it alone, which really sucks some of the joy out of it. Do not get me wrong, I am ecstatic, but there was no one to high five/hug/kiss/dance with after we realized that Kane had actually scored.

But I have invested a lot of time and a lot of heart, and even some tears in this team. Fels said it well, over at his site. (And as a season and a half subscriber to the Committed Indian, I am pumped for the Commemorative issue).

Alright, so what does all this yammering mean. The Hawks won the cup. I cannot believe it. I already have a hat and a shirt and am probably gonna buy some more stupid crap from shop.nhl.com before the week is through. And, well, i am still in shock. This was mostly rambles. More in depth thoughts will have to wait a couple days (like you will get them, because I never write).

Is God Laughing at Me? Most Likely

2010-05-24T21:51:00.004-04:00

After completing 90 minutes of P90X Yoga, I was treated to this conversation with the girlfriend:

Girlfriend: also im bummed you havent blogged in AGES
me: sorry babe
Girlfriend: are you gonna write one?
me: not tonight
Girlfriend: why not?
me: nothing to write about
Girlfriend: what???
me: do i have something to write about?
Girlfriend: umm me leaving, us maybe moving in together
the hawks
your p90x/healthy routine
me: well writing about you will make me sad
Girlfriend: you moved your office!
youll be fine
me: baby, when i feel like writing i will, i promise
Girlfriend: you neeeeeeeeeeeeever feel like writing

So I was successfully talked into writing something. Here is what was rattling around my brain today.

_____________

I believe that it was the Immortal Jerry Seinfeld (as he will live forever through syndication) who said that more people fear public speaking than fear death. Thus, at a funeral, one would rather be the corpse than the one delivering the eulogy. I do not know what I fear the most, but I am well aware of what causes me the most anxiety. The one thing I hate to do more than anything. I cannot say I would rather be dead than do this, because it was one thing that must be done. Everyday, around 11:30 am, I get that rumbling in my belly. Oh yes, it is time to take a shit.

I absolutely hate dropping a deuce in public.

I even know when it started (roughly). It was probably in the 3rd or 4th grade or so when I had my first bout of diarrhea (that I can recall. I am sure I had the runs as a baby in diapers and possibly even a helping of the squirts in the privacy of my own home). I was at school, and my bowels decided to unleash holy hell. As a wide-eyed student in the Blue (read Smartest) Reading Group, I thought I knew everything, that my shit didn't stink so to speak. Well this day it did, repeatedly. And as everyone knows, in elementary school, you have to go get the giant wooden beatin' stick/hall pass when excretion is necessary. Getting that stick a couple times in a hour might be excusable, but when your asshole is a slow moving and selective St. Peter, it seems like only a little bit wants to get out every ten minutes.

Add this to the fact that I had no clue what was going on. I felt like I was dying. Utterly embarrassed I did my best to hide my shame and hold as long as possible between bathroom breaks, but the damage was done.

With rare exceptions (hey, when you gotta go, you gotta go) I successfully avoided public restrooms when reporting for doodie for about a decade. Then came college. And more specifically, Dorm Rooms. I lived on a floor with about 15 guys sharing a pisser/shitter/shower room. And that is when it became a running joke about avoiding the bathroom after I used it. (But hey, according to this website, its healthy!) To my credit, this is when I was able to put myself on a cycle where the kids only had to be dropped off at the pool late at night.

Combine my leper poops with my already ingrained fear of public restrooms and there was but one thing left to do. I moved off campus for my sophomore year (though not entirely for a poop-related reasons of course). Sharing a bathroom with one other person, who also a friend and not a raging douchebag, made taking a shit much more comfortable. Especially cause it was college and I could shower whenever I wanted, so I just showered after pinching a loaf giving the smell time to dissipate. Life was good. And I would stay there for three years.

Then came the inevitable "Places You Will Go" moment and I had to go get a job. Had to start working the 9-5. My poop experience at work was pretty miserable. I had started drinking coffee at this point, so at times, work shits were inevitable. I am sure the architect of this building patted himself on the back several times for picking out the perfect location for the bathroom, where it was conveniently located to 100s of workers. This was not a bathroom where you could expect privacy. This would be the time when I tried to become a morning shitter, chopping a log before heading to work. Sometimes successful, sometimes not. And this may or may not have resulted in a hemorrhoid one time (now that is a learning experience. I hear. . .).

With shitting at work not working out, I decided I should go to law school. And my first year, I lived alone. For the first time ever. And it was a shitting bliss. Crapping with the door open! What a concept! The next two years, I lived in a house with people, so I went back to the shit-shower routine (you don't have to shower in law school either. Or, at least I didn't).

But as the world turns, I eventually ended up back in the working world, realizing that yeah, this is gonna be my life. Time to man up and start taking shits at work. And I did. When necessary. Assuming there was no else in the bathroom. If someone walked in, that was it, I was done, that turtle got scared.

Then, I met the woman (wonder if she wants me linking her?). And suddenly, I was in a real relationship. And wholly crap, I might spend an entire day at her place. And I am gonna have to take a crap at her place. And she is gonna dump me when she realizes what comes out of me. But eventually, I did (probably while drunk). And now, she keeps plenty of glade on hand. And through her understanding, and rare snide comments, I gained more self-confidence to crap at work. That, and in the beginning I was so scared of crapping at her place, I had to shit (sorry having trouble coming up with more euphemisms for taking a dump. Oh wait, Google exists. This looks like a good site. Back to taking care of business) at work.

Then, Revelation. A while back I had ass surgery. In order to facilitate baking a hot icicle (?!) afterwords (wait, icicle sounds too hard, lets go with making a half-melted Baby Ruth), the doc suggested Metamucil. And holy glorious duking. As if Mozart himself had composed shits. (This guy agrees!) Scrapes the colon clean of any little devils that may want to create cancer.

And by taking Metamucil everyday, I cannot avoid crapping at work. It has to be done. So I have now come full circle. I am back to shitting in public. Though I prefer not to have anyone in there with me, I can still launch a scud. And yes, I do seek out the most rarely trafficked bathroom in the building, but I am still in there baking brownies. And with the Metamucil, I am healthier (in addition to my new healthy diet). I am making waves with the logs I am dropping (I recently noticed that my preferred crapping bathroom added a new Bad Air Sponge).

But the anxiety is not completely gone. And the Metamucil is still powerful. So even though I have made great strides, I now regularly have to crap twice at work. Twice! As if the 11:30 organic depth charge is not enough, my bowels now whistle at me that they want to sing with Michael Bolton. But hey, whatever doesn't kill you . . .

One day, as I am walking out of the stall, franctically buckling my belt after composing a majestic poopmyphony, my boss will walk in and our eyes will meet, and his nose will twitch, and I will wish that I was dead (or reading this post at my alma mater's convocation).

As a post script, I want to be this dude one day.

And finally, could this post really be complete without this?:

I am no MLK Jr

2010-05-05T01:01:00.002-04:00

I had a dream. I woke up to my phone dinging, rolled over and looked at it to see what it said. It was a text message from the girlfriend saying that I should not read the comments on the latest south park episode because they were very depressing. I had missed a couple other messages from her in my sleep. The first prior one was a brief synopsis of the actual south park show (something about the letter N I believe) and a link to watch it. The message prior to that was of Grandma Simpson (of the tv show) having one very exaggerated breast (as if it was being pulled. Yes, its weird. Its a fucking dream)

Then I woke up and The Girlfriend was in bed next to me, which made me happy. Then I slid off the bed, which woke The Girlfriend up. I said hello to her, then told her I slid off the bed. She asked why. I said I didnt know, I just slid off. She told me to get back into bed, which I tried to do. But I couldnt forces were working against me. I said I could not get into bed. She said that is crazy talk. Then my entire apartment started shaking. Like rocking back and forth violently. The Girlfriend looked at me and understood why I could not get back into bed. Oh shit I thought, a fucking earthquake. I grabbed her off the bed and pulled her into my archway. As if this would help I thought, we are on the ninth fucking floor. The rumbling and shaking got worse as car alarms started going off. We sat on the floor clutching each other as we looked out the window. Then we saw it. A hollywood type blast, like the one in Independence day, was coming towards us, fast. This is it I thought. A second, maybe two to live. One chance to make sure I know she knows how I feel before we die. I turned towards her, pulled her close, looked right at her and screamed, "I LOOOOOOVVVEE YOOOUUU!!!!" as loud as I could to make sure she could hear it over the blast. The fiery blast hit us, and I could feel myself being pulled apart, and screamed that I loved her again, tears evaporating off my face as fast as I could form them. In this moment, my last thoughts were that I hope Jesus is real, I hope there is an afterlife, and I hope that I get to see The Girlfriend there.

And then I woke up. Laying in bed, nothing shaking but me. Furiously clutching The Girlfriend's stuffed bear that she left for me when she left last summer. My heart racing at who knows what rate. I laid there for five minutes.

Then I got up and wrote it down. Beats going back to sleep.

[ed. note: I dreamed this a while ago, Apr. 3 to be exact. I know because I freaked out and wrote it down after the tremors stopped. I then emailed it to myself. I share it with you now because I never write anything, I feel shame for that, and think that exposing my inner most fears will allow you to accept me.]

Laziness

2010-04-12T22:10:00.004-04:00

I really suck at this blogging thing. It seems like every other post I mention how I do not write that much, and how I should write more, and yet, I never do. Even sadder is that the every other post comes two months apart. It is a damn good thing I was not an astrophysicist in the '60s. We never would have made it to the moon.

But since I never blog anymore, I figure I should tell y'all all the other shit I never do anymore. Because it will be fun. And make you feel good about yourself for not being a lazy sack of crap like me.

I never read anymore. I try to read, but it just seems like I never get around to it. I will look at my book and say, I am gonna read some of that sumbitch tonight, then get distracted by blinking lights and dirty dishes and before you know it, its one in the morning and bedtime. And it sucks. I have a ton of books that I am really looking forward to reading. I am currently reading Parting the Waters: America in the [ML] King Years by Taylor Branch. Awesome, awesome book. But I am only on page 330 or so (and I have been reading it for at least the last three weeks. Pathetic, I know). Need to refocus. I will try to finish it by Sunday. I am also looking forward to reading all the other books I have bought in the last few months but haven't read. In no particular order: The Last Don by Mario Puzo, Autobiography of Malcolm X, Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt by HW Brands, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848 by Daniel Walker Howe, and The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Taleb. All extremely interesting looking books. At least based on the cover. I am excited to get to reading them . . . eventually.

I never drink anymore. That has been covered. Thanks to the stupid bet. Only about 40 days to go. And hey, a character played by Josh Hartnett did the the same thing, but with sex. And if he could do that . . . well . . .

I never watch Netflix movies on the computer anymore. I watch them on the motherfucking TV! Through the motherfucking Wii! Damn, someones mom is getting wore out by all this netflix awesomeness. But I have to say, netflix for wii is freaking great. The quality is astoundingly good, both on my sort of not small TV screen and the girlfriend's small, but HD, screen. Granted I am no expert on TV pictures or colors (most certainly not on colors, as a quote from Above the Law rang particularly true for me today: “Khakis were invented for men who can’t match clothes” ) but I enjoy it. My computer sucks balls (only $55 more dollars and I own it finally!) so it doesn't handle streaming video very well. Now thanks to this, my computer can go back to its primary purpose, fucking up streaming video from redtube (that is a porn site, fyi).

I never seem to sleep in my own bed anymore. But that is ok, I have found a much better alternative.

I never listen to new music. Seriously, it is getting bad. I need to sack up and find some new bands. Some days it seems like I never hear anything from after 2000 on my iPod. Its kind of depressing. Meaning, now I know what it feels like to get old. I was thinking the other day about how my parents had their first kids when they were my age. I would come along a few years later. And by the time I reached an age where memory began to function (such that I can remember shit now), my parents seemed pretty old. But now I realize they were not that old. And that makes me feel old. And I think typing this paragraph just gave me arthritis and a few more grey hairs. Fuck. Thats it, I am going to the 930 Club this weekend. Who is playing? . . .

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

Sat Night?????

Um . . . A dude rapping about Vietnam. VIETNAM!!!! Holy shit. The entire world is conspiring against me.

At least I still have my young, sexy, and gorgeous girlfriend. She keeps me on my toes. Makes me do shit. Try new things. I guess not doing some things aint all that bad.

Update on the Stupidest Bet of All-Time

2010-03-09T21:16:00.002-05:00

Stupid in that, why the hell did I enter into the bet. Not stupid like betting on which ant will cross the crack in the sidewalk first.

Just to refresh your memories, the bet, between my girlfriend and myself, was this: I give up beer for three months and I get a Kindle; She gives up chocolate for three months and she gets a baby computer.

So, two weeks in, and I have yet to have a beer. Who knew I would make it this long? Especially with the girl out of town partying it up on spring break (she watched Free Willy tonight, that crazy party animal (hehehehe, love you babe!)). So I made it through the weekend without her, so I think I should be ok. 'Course, now I probably have carpel tunnel from obsessively playing Madden all weekend. Such is life.

But there is good news in all this (never mind all the rejoicing in the background, that is just my liver). First, my weight, of which I have been trying to shed a bit of, has finally started in a downward arc on the Wii Fit rather than staying at relatively the same place. Stupid delicious empty calories. The lack of drinking has really provided the kick in the ass I needed to get going on the working out. I ride the bike everyday at work and have imported my Wii from my place to the woman's place since we spend all our time there anyway.

Second set of good news I suppose is that I have fallen in love with edamame. Apparently it is good for you. They way things are going, in six months I will be living off edamame, hummus, pita bread, and farm fresh chicken. MMmmm, mmm good.

Bad news--got my scrotum poked with a needle today. Several times. By a doctor. And it was intentional. And beneficial. But still, scrotum poked by needle. Could have used a beer after that.

Not much else to say. Though most people I have talked to about the bet seem to think it would be harder to give up chocolate than alcohol. I should broaden the people polled beyond chocolate loving teetotalers.

Cheap Cheap Fun Fun Quiz

2010-02-19T01:18:00.003-05:00

Taken from the last refuge of the persecuted crack smoker. I suppose these are the rules: 1. If you read this, I want to know 36 things about you. I don't care if we never talk, or if we already know everything about each other. Short and sweet or long and detailed, all is good.2. Comment here with your answers and repost the questionnaire on your own journal if you wish.

01) Are you currently in a serious relationship? Yes
02) What was your dream growing up? Play shortstop for the Baltimore Orioles (better than Ripken. Ahh, dreams).
03) What talent do you wish you had? Picking lottery numbers. Or maybe having any sort of rhythm/musical talent. Or possibly being able to tell the difference between green and red.
04) If I bought you a drink what would it be? Usually a Bud Light, but if you are paying, the house draft (assuming it is not too heavy)
05) Favorite vegetable? Have to go with Broccoli, particularly if it is surrounded by beef and delivered from a Chinese Restaurant.
06) What was the last book you read? Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman
07) What zodiac sign are you? This one yo:

08) Any Tattoos and/or Piercings? Explain where. None
09) Worst Habit? Probably biting my nails. Though if you ask the girlfriend, leaving the toilet seat up.
10) If you saw me walking down the street would you offer me a ride? Assuming I am driving a car, sure.
11) What is your favorite sport? Hockey
12) Do you have a Pessimistic or Optimistic attitude? More pessimistic, though I like to think I have been trending towards optimistic in the last year.
13) What would you do if you were stuck in an elevator with me? Sing show tunes.
14) Worst thing to ever happen to you? Umm, not sure. Pretty charmed life. I think I will say "fistula" I recommend not googling that.
15) Tell me one weird fact about you. Occasionally when I went out drinking back in the day, I would decide I had to purchase Simpsons stickers from a sticker vending machine. My favorite one is Ralph with the heading "I'm Special"
16) Do you have any pets? A cat that lives with my folks.
17) What if I showed up at your house unexpectedly? I would be stoked that I owned a house. HOUSE PARTY!!!
18) What was your first impression of me? Law student seeking outlet
19) Do you think clowns are cute or scary? Cute I guess. Once helped a friend procure clown porn for another friends birthday present. It was scary.
20) If you could change one thing about how you look, what would it be? Less doughy
21) Would you be my crime partner or my conscience? Conscience. Unless Bud Light is involved.
22) What color eyes do you have? Brown
23) Ever been arrested? Yup
24) Bottle or can soda? Glass bottle if they still made them that way. But plastic at work, aluminum at home. I swing with my soda containers.
25) If you won $10,000 today, what would you do with it? Be amused that it would not pay off 10% of my student loan debt. Then blow it on pop rocks and pixies.
26) What's your favorite place to hang out at? The Front Page (though not during the douche fest happy hours).
27) Do you believe in ghosts? Sure
28) Favorite thing to do in your spare time? Snuggle.
29) Do you swear a lot? Never at work. Often elsewhere. Though certain company I know keep keeps the cursing down. I have gone from sailor to kid from Stand by Me.
30) Biggest pet peeve? People who take an elevator to go one floor.
31) In one word, how would you describe yourself? Nice.
32) Do you believe/appreciate romance? Yes. I try to be.
33) Favourite and least favourite food? Most anything on a Jose Andres restaurant menu (even little fishes!). Unless it includes tomatoes
34) Do you believe in God? Not yet, working on it.
35) Will you repost this so I can fill it out and do the same for you? Hells Yes.
36) Favourite band(s) of ALL time: Our lady peace, Lucky Boys confusion, Brand New.

30 before 30

2010-02-17T18:12:00.000-05:00

I just turned 29 a couple days ago. I was sitting at work dicking around, and by that I mean staring at my work, but not actually doing work, when I realized that I never set out a list of accomplishments to achieve before I turned 30. So I am gonna do that right here and now. Some may seem more like goals for the next 360-odd days, but it is my list and I can make it anyway I want.

1. Make list of things to do before turning 30.

2. Make list of things to do before turning 40.

3. Make list of things . . . Ok, ok, no more of these.

3. Buckle down and become manager of the softball team. Someone has to do it. Plus, mini-power trip! (And guaranteed aggravation).

4. Go to several museums, see more of the parks, and visit the lesser known monuments of semi-relevant folks who are largely forgotten now. And take pictures.

5. Tell my girlfriend that she is the most beautiful thing in the world. Because she is, and I do not do it nearly often enough.

6. Prove to above gf that my IQ just may be 135 by doing smart things like reading, becoming informed about events and politics in countries that do not start with U (sorry uraguay, have to focus my attention elsewhere), get a better handle on geography, and watching more olbermann and madow.

7. Drink less.

8. A lot less.

9. Become a more productive and efficient worker. Just cause there is a deadline doesn't mean I have until then to get my shit finished.

10. See a play.

11. Become more ambitious.

12. See three plays.

13. Invest myself in learning about my gf's culture, ie, learning the language.

14. Learn a foreign language (it is tough to get 30 things).

15. Help people if they look like they need it.

16. Talk to my parents and sisters more often.

17. Play less farmville/cafe world/mafia wars.

18. Read at least one journal article that I have no hope of comprehending each week (like something from the journal of applied physics)

19. Learn how to dance. Wait, I should just learn how to get rhythm first.

20. Write more.

21. Set up a pandora station and listen to new music. I am so out of touch. Now I know how parents feel. I also feel old.

22. Save some money.

23. Take a random half day to surprise the gf with flowers dinner and the best damned backrub ever.

24. Learn how to think two moves ahead in checkers.

25. Buy a new hockey stick.

26. Sheesh, 30 is a lot. Ummmm, get a passport.

27. Go to a nationals game.

28. Go to a capitals game.

29. Buy rogaine.

30. Don't worry about making my life too complicated. This is the only one I get.

All right, one down. Only 29 left!
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

The lonely last seat

2010-02-16T17:31:00.000-05:00

I am standing on a fairly crowded metro train, observing the last available seat, but really using my peripheral vision to check out the man sitting on that joining seat. He seems pretty normal, on the hefty side, but his ass is not spilling over onto the other cushion, much. Hardly noticeable. I am sure he is friendly, though he appears to be indian (dot type). Certainly not a terrorist looking person.

I wonder if he realizes that he is the only sitter on this train with out a warm body next to him (though one old lady looks like she could die any second, but the body will remain lukewarm; for a while anyway). He has a sad little expression on his face. It almost makes me want to sit next to him. Not chat him up of course, but just so we can uncomfortably rub legs, letting him know that he is not a freak. That society has not completely rejected him and left him out to dry.

Or he could have a family, kids, and be the happiest man on earth, only now he is a little pissed because some lady just sat next to him and now he is jammed up against the side like every other window seater. He is no longer special or noticeable. And he is pissed that his leg room has been lessened.

Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

Drying Out, Shaping Up

2010-02-12T22:40:00.004-05:00

Ahhh, what a week. Thanks to the snow, I have worked 4 hours since Friday. Last Friday. All work done on that Friday. Hence, this was a week of vacation, essentially. And now, it is heading into a three day weekend. So, come Tuesday morn, I will have not worked in 11 days. I know sweet right? And though it may sound like I am all important and shit, I do not think next Tuesday is gonna be a barn burner of a day (fingers crossed though!).

Anyway, the lady and I went out shopping today (despite my numerous protestations of cluster-fuckery on the metro rails, which, not so bad at 2 pm, shitshow at 6-7) to the Pentagon City Mall. Close to where I live in the Virgina-land, but the lady and I have hunkered down at her pad in the Cleveland Park neighborhood of DC to ride out the storm, which meant a fairly long subway ride, or at least, a transfer. So we shop and whateve's, look at nice shit we cannot buy, she buys me some stuff for my upcoming Birthday, and we grab some lunch at Harry's Tap Room, and let me say, that shit was good. Had me some sort of Creole sandwich (in support of New Orleans of course, if you did not notice my pseudo fan-yet exuberant twitters on the Super Bowl). And, its all organic, which is important to the woman.

So we be eating and talking and I am making some funny faces and she is trying to steal my food (cause my Creole samwich was much better than her boring burger (she should have gone with the Bison Burger)), and the subject of Lent comes up. The woman, being Greek Orthodox, has lent starting next Monday. Not sure when all you Catholics lent start, could be the same day, but on this subject, I know not dates, nor times, nor understanding of why.

She becomes disappointed that she has to stop eating meat for two months. She then turns to me, and starts talking about how I should give up beer with her. Me, being not religious, laugh, and say hell no. She starts talking all about how it is important test of will power, if you can do this you can do anything. All to no avail. You cannot tempt me with that kind of self-empowerment shit. I am the man. I know it. I don't need to give up beer to verify that (though it is when drinking beer, such as now, that I feel most like the king of the world).

She keeps on with her gibber jabber, and finally, to get her to stop, I suggest that if she gives up chocolate, in addition to meat, I will give up beer. Which she shockingly agreed to. And beer somehow became booze. And two months became three months. And it became Chocolate v. Booze. And if I make it three months, she is going to get me a kindle, and if she makes it three months, I have to get her one of the tiny laptops that weigh 4 ounces (or something). Regardless, first one to cave treats the other to dinner at Komi.

So this somehow got real fucking serious. But wish me luck.

Note: I think the going over/under on how long I stay dry is two weeks. If I were me, and I am, I would bet the under.

Note #2: The contest does not start today. It begins Tuesday. For several reasons that are really two. One: I saved a couple bucks by getting chocolates delivered on Monday, so I turned it into a weekend of Valentine's Day. Flowers today, special dinner tomorrow, secret surprise on Sunday (cause she reads this), and chocolates on Monday. Two: My Birthday is on Monday. And I have no work. Seems like a fittin' day to get plastered-ish one last time. For three months.

Note #3: As to the shaping up, the women insists when I give up booze, I will lose some weight. I think that is true. Before snowmageddon hit, I was doing well with the whole gym thing. Well quasi-well. But anyway, hitting the gym more after the booze goes bye bye.

Day Whatever

2010-01-13T19:57:00.004-05:00

OK, so this whole get me to write everyday 30 Day meme thing did not turn out like I planned. It started out well, with Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3, then devolved into doing the least possible work, and posting merely for the sake of keeping my Cal Ripken Jr. like streak going, that finally concluded after an exhausting 10 days in row. I roared back with the laziest post of all time, ripping through days 11-14. Redemption, of sorts, came a couple days later, when (after skipping Day 15) I wrote up something fairly decent for Day 16. I say of sorts because, unfortunately, that same day I caught my girlfriend up on her 30 day meme, and what I wrote on her blog, was better than what I wrote on mine.

So, it is technically Day 23, and I am going to try to get caught up, in a most entertaining fashion, but most of these topics suck. I will do my best though. Well, not my best. I cannot promise I will try to do my best. But I will try to try. Maybe. Depending on how many more drinks I have before starting the next paragraph:

Day 17--An Art Piece

I think it is fair to say, that only one art piece has ever truly moved me to tears. It shows the frailty of the human condition, the emptiness of a lonely person's soul, the weakness and desperation of the human form. And of course, very small genitalia. I am speaking of course, of Marge Simpson's Famous Painting of C. Montgomery Burns:

So, I may have only chosen this because there is no screenshot of Marge's also nearly famous, "Bald Adonis." Which is unfortunate. It is almost as disappointing as the fact that my girlfriend has never called me Bald Adonis. Because it would be hilarious.

Speaking of the woman, someday soon, I am sure, one of her pictures will surpass Marge's ghost-painted works. Just yesterday, we went to an art store, where she drooled over everything (in a cute way). She used to paint and draw and stuff, but has not in quite sometime (at least since she met me, I am guessing well before as well). But we went to an art store and she picked up some drawing pencils and some pastels, and even drew a little something last night. She would not let me look at it, but it looked pretty good to me, before she ripped it up and threw it away. But anyway, baby, I am looking forward to seeing some of your art.

Day 18--Whatever Tickles Your Fancy

Again? Seriously, there is too much of this whatever tickles your fancy shit. So if what I am about to write gets me in trouble, I am gonna track you down Mr. or Ms. whoever wrote the 30 day meme, and strap you to a chair and make you listen to Cher's Believe over and over and over and over . . .

So I work pretty much everyday. The girlfriend used to have class pretty much everyday. We will look at this at the tail end of the year, when I was working from home once a week and she had no class on Friday. Thus, four days a week, I had to get up for work. Her classes were all in the afternoon. So I would get up in the morning (eventually, ugh, waking up sucks), and get ready, all the while, my girlfriend is just laying there in bed, sleeping. And, before I left, I would reset the alarm for her, usually about an hour (never less, sometimes more), for her to get up. On a random occasion she would get up shortly after I left, but usually (or so I assume), she would sleep the early part of the morning away until the alarm went off.

Now, because we both live in studio apartments, it is highly unfeasible that we go to sleep at different times (unless I pass out wasted; or she does). Thus, we go to bed at the same time. I wake up an hour early.

However, on the weekends, the girlfriend expects me to get up at the same time as her, and go "do stuff." I believe, that I should get to sleep in at least 90 minutes after she gets up on both Sat. and Sun. I am already behind four hours after the week, so I should get to make up some of it on the weekend. Right? So instead of doing stuff, I should get an extra 180 minutes of sleep. Right? Does anyone agree with me?

C'mon; please?

Fine. Whatever. She is getting up 15 minutes before me on Wed. now anyway, so the whole thing is moot.

Day 19--A Talent of Yours

I pretty much lack talent. I cannot sing, but when I start to sing the opening part of Single Ladies by Beyonce, I can crack my girlfriend up.

Not sure why, but when I start singing "All the single ladies; All the single ladies" she cannot help but laugh. Not sure if that is a talent, but, whatever. At the very least, it distracts her from the part of the song about "if you like it, put a ring on it."

Day 20--A Hobby of Yours

Sadly, my main hobby right now, is Farmville. I will now go light myself on fire.

Day 21--A Recipe

HA. I am not a cook. Just tonight, my girlfriend was baking cookies and she called me into the kitchen to taste her dough and tell her "what was missing." Oh, how I laughed and laughed and laughed. I am not gonna know. But she insisted, so I tasted. Here is what happened:

Her: Does it need more sugar?

Me: Definitely. [Tastes good to me, but how can you go wrong with more sugar?]

Her: OK [pours in sugar. Mixes it around. Starts shaking something into it.]

Me: [In response to the shaking] Oh, I think there was plenty of nutmeg in there.

Her: Oh, there was no nutmeg. Right now I am putting in the nutmeg.

Me: Ahh. See, told you I had no clue what I am talking about.

And that is just tonight. Doesn't even get into all the other nights, or even the other events of tonight. Trust me, I love food, and will eat as much or more than the next guy, but when it comes to the technical aspects of fancy cooking, I am like King Triton trying to take over Death Valley.

However, as luck would have it, I made dessert for the pre-thanksgiving thanksgiving that my girlfriend threw for me. I got the recipe from my mom. We call it Apple Crisp. Best part: I made it with apple the the girlfriend and I had picked a week or so prior. Yeah, we had a cute apple picking date. Anyway; if I can make it, so can you:

grease 8 x 8 square pan; preheat oven to 350 degrees
peel, core and slice 5-6 cups of apples (usually at least 4 good sized tart apples, could use 6), preferably Granny Smith; fill pan with slices
mix and sift (if you don't have a sifter, you will need to mix well with a spoon, but you really need a sifter):
1 c flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 c sugar
3/4 tsp salt
break one egg and stir well, then add to dry ingredients and mix well with a fork; sprinkle over apples
melt 1/3 c butter (margarine) and drizzle over apples and crumbs
sprinkle with cinnamon
bake 30-40 minutes (top should be slightly browned and apples tender)
cool. serve warm or at room temperature, topped with vanilla ice cream if desired.

It is fattening, and Delicious. Even my food critic girlfriend loved it. Or, at least liked it. So she said to me. Now that I am disseminating the recipe to the world at large, she may feel a responsibility to let her true feelings known.

Day 22--A Website

Shiiiiiiiiiit. Most of the websites I visit are located on the right of this here webpage. I highly recommend all of the sites still listed there. A couple are out of date, but I will let you click the links to figure out which ones they are.

But I cannot just recommend A website. Its gonna be several. But I am gonna do it in a way that seems like I am recommending only one.

The Blackhawks revival over the last couple years has been nothing short of remarkable. The dollar pinching, tight-assed owner dies; the eldest son in line for succession decides he wants to focus on the alcohol importing business, leaving the youngest son, the black sheep of the family (obvious Rick Morrissey retarded hyperbole), comes in, changes everything, and suddenly, Hawks are great, fans are digging it, nary a grey cloud to be seen above the UC.

In terms of timing it is true, but Toews and Kane and Keith were all drafted under Dollar Bill's Watch. The Hawks would have been about as good (though would they have kept all three guys like they are gonna do? that is the question?). Unquestionably, home games on TV is very important. I once wrote that Bill Wirtz dying was the closest I have ever been to being happy that someone in my lifetime died. Completely changed the attitude of the franchise. They were on their way though. Rocky Wirtz just ensured that it was coming.

Think those last couple paragraphs were confusing? That is why I do not write about hockey. As far as blackhawk blogs go, Fifth Feather and Third Man In are first rate (Both are also excellent in keeping tabs on the 'Hawks. However, Chris Block, of Third Man In, should write more and do less radio shit (and I cannot get the RSS feed to work, I should e-mail him)).

However, the place to be is Second City Hockey. Their game threads are epic. Reaching the point where they are gonna have to do overflow threads for games like Bleed Cubbie Blue. However, like BCB, they have the weight of SB Nation behind them. I remember when I first checked out SCH, there was no one around. I am certainly not a trendsetter, so I checked in now again. Not sure who wrote it first, but when they ditched the original writer, and brought in Sam Fels and Matt Dirt, and later added McClure [Another Matt] things clicked. They also present the Committed Indian, a fan program that is sold outside the UC, but jackholes who are stuck in foreign lands can subscribe to [like me!]. Alright, so that is my shout out to the SCH crew. Read them. They are awesome; no homo.

Day 23--A Youtube Video

Oddly enough, I am not really a youtuber. Usually when I want a video, I search it on youtube, find what I want, and post it on the blog. I am not really much for dicking around on youtube. I mean, I stumbled on a backdoor at work that allows me to watch videos that are supposed to be blocked by the firewall. But I am Smart.

However, I am also stupid. Still debating that whole law school thing. Sure it got me a job, and if it likely got me my future wife, but still; $120,000 in debt that has to be serviced for the next 20 years (yeah, little did I know in law school, i was not just a whore for the legal profession, but also my debt provider; sucky sucky, five dollar). Anyway, here is a video about how shitty law school is. It did not come out until I was out of law school. Ah well, wouldn't have changed my mind anyway. Probably wont change yours. But, here it is:

So, FYI, you may have to wait awhile for a decent post from me. But I hope that it is usually worth it.

Day 16

2010-01-06T22:08:00.003-05:00

Went to the grocery store today, my cart loaded up with goodies, and began unloading my tasty treats and frozen dinners (to the tune of $175, but I saved 38 bucks with my Giant card!), while the checker was trying to figure out how to input the gift card of the lady in front me. It took forever, in that I had taken over the entire conveyor belt, and was restlessly drumming my fingers on the metal pre-conveyor overload way station, when he turned to me and said, "This is the express lane." Still went through it, but hey, anytime you get a chance to say "awww shit" in front of the lady-in-front-of-you-at-the-checkout-counter's four year old kid is a win in my book.

That is neither here nor there, so back to the meme. Yesterday was fanfic, and as I mentioned, I do not read fanfic. Of course, as luck would have it, Deadspin posted something about a Kobe Bryant murdering people fanfic, and as I was about to click through, I realized that if I had read it, I would have had to post about it. So I did not. I am lazy. I would apologize, but, meh.

Day 16--A Song That Makes You Cry (or nearly)

During my cross-midwest jaunts that I frequently took back in the days of college and law school (heading back to the Chicago Suburbs from Ohio or vice versa), I would frequently end up in a radio deadzone, where the only thing that comes through is Christian music and AM stations. Usually I went with the AM stations because, come on, hearing one topic in sports debated endlessly on various ESPNRadio affiliates is the only thing more mind-numbing thing than driving through middle america (imagine listening to five hours of people talk about Gilbert Arenas and his guns, with no new information mind you, just crazy speculation, half-cocked opinion, and cheesy fireworks commercials). So when I would get sick of that, I would flip over to FM, hit the scan button, and watch the radio (err, road too) scroll through 94 point something reach 107.9, and roll back to 88.1, where I knew I would shortly get some kick-ass christian shit.

On this particular trip (I have no clue when, where, or how this trip existed, but I am 89.5 percent certain it did exist as a road trip and not an LSD trip. Cause I have never done LSD. That I am aware of), I stumbled across a song that eloquently combined piano and lyrics in a haunting, upbeat, scary, hopeful, and unknowing sort of way (when you see the subject matter of the song, it should make sense). It rocked my socks off. When the song ended, I stayed on the christian station, anxiously hoping I could get the name of the song before I went out the stations range. It must have been divine intervention, because in 4 minutes of the song, and the five miles I drove, left me with static as the song ended. I stayed with it, hoping against hope that I would hear who had done this majesty of a song, but it never came through. And I was very sad.

Since I have no music ear, and worse memory, so that when I finally got in front of a computer my Googling (it is a search using the Search Engine Google, Avoid Genericide!) revealed nothing to the lyricist and composer of the song. Alas, I though all was lost.

Then!, as luck would have it, the lyrics started coming back to me a few weeks later, and with better keywords Google's search algorithm was able to guide me to the song makes me cry. Sometimes. Usually when drunk. I mean always when drunk.

*note: the runner-up is my eventual first dance song with the girl of dreams. I did not really want to use that here. But that song makes me cry ligo too.

*ex post note: there is no official video for this other than some crappy remixes. So I had to go with the best sounding one. I do apologize for the anime pictures.

Day 14

2010-01-04T22:14:00.004-05:00

Catching up a bit here:

Day 11--A photo of you taken recently

Not doing it. This is anonymous for a reason.

Day 12--Whatever tickles your fancy

Come on. I did this solely so I would not have to come up original ideas.

Day 13--A Fictional Book

Easy Enough:

Day 14--A Nonfictional Book

Ooooo. Now here is a more fun topic. But I am lazy, so I am just gonna pic a random book.

Also, tomorrow is fanfic. I have never read a fanfic, so probably wont be back tomorrow.

Day 10

2009-12-31T17:59:00.002-05:00

Day 10--A Photo of You Taken over Ten Years Ago

Ok, I swear that I have in my possession exactly one picture of me taken over ten years ago. I cannot seem to find it. My better half can attest to the fact that this picture does exist, as she has seen it.

It is a picture of me at around 8 or 9 years of age, wearing my Superman PJs, with my best friend at the time, who happened to be a girl, who was also wearing her Superman PJs, though hers had a skirt, so I guess they were Supergirl. But I was a little jealous of the skirt. OK, not really, but I think it is hilarious that she had a skirt on because she was a huge tomboy.

Also in the picture, we were holding up He-Man figurines (or possibly G.I. Joe, I cannot recall). We used to play a game called Guys, which was really just a battle royale between He-Man, GI Joe, and whatever other action figures we had. Good times. Simple times. Oh well.

So, here is a picture of what I probably looked like exactly 29 years ago:

If I had been a girl of course.

Happy new year everyone!

Day 9

2009-12-30T10:59:00.002-05:00

Day 9--A Photo That You Took

Well, I am not much of a shutterbug, but here is a picture of an ominous DC sky I took a while back. It was taken with my phone, so quality sucks.

Notice the framing of the Capitol Building in the background, as well as how the sky gets darker as it looks to be directly above the Capitol.

Bonus Picture!!!!!

This is my car about halfway through the DC snowstorm. By the end, the entire thing would be covered.

Day 8

2009-12-29T22:09:00.004-05:00

Day 8--A Photo That Makes You Angry/Sad

I am going to go with sad here:

That is Reagan National Airport. That is where my girlfriend flies out of when she leaves for christmas/spring/summer break. So I am not a fan. My girlfriend by the way, has a fantastic blog that you should check out because it is great.

And because that picture makes me sad, I am gonna do another one that makes me happy:

She went home for thanksgiving. I stayed in DC and spent thanksgiving alone. So the weekend before she left, she made me a turkey. A deliciously delectable turkey. I got to carve it, and she put on the finishing touches and made the turkey arrangement you see above. It was so good, my mouth is watering as I am typing this.

So that picture makes me happy, and I am now in a slightly better mood than I was when I started writing this post.

Day 7

2009-12-28T22:55:00.003-05:00

Day 7--A Photo That Makes You Happy

PLAYOFFS!!!!

Also, these pictures of DC covered in snow are pretty cool.

Day 6--Tickling

2009-12-27T22:25:00.002-05:00

Day 6--Whatever Tickles Your Fancy

I suppose this means I can write whatever I want. However, I am exhausted from the holidays, so how about a short list. In no particular order, my christmas gift haul (bear in mind, I had to transport gifts from Chicago to DC on only two small carry-ons):

Hockey Gloves
Three seasons of the Simpsons
Madden for Wii
Wii Remote
Small John Deere farming machinery (like Hot Wheels size. From my mom because I am addicted to Farmville)
Lego Indiana Jones for Wii
Cubs Pez dispenser
Three books: The Black Swan; Superfreakonomics; and Traffic: Why we drive the way we do
Zebrahead--Panty Raid
Lawyer Jokes Calendar
An old thyme hat. Kind of like a tam o'shanter, but I am not sure what is really called. (Used to be my Grandpa's)

Hope everyone had a great holiday. Back to the grind tomorrow.

Day 5--Favorite Quote

2009-12-26T22:02:00.002-05:00

Hey look at this, five for five! I am impressed with myself. However, these posts are getting noticably shorter and shorter. I am gonna blame Christmas and the NHL's condensed schedule. I fly back to DC tomorrow, then it is work on Monday, so hopefully, this ship will get rolling again. For now, it is merely:

Day 5--Your Favorite Quote

All sunshine makes a desert

My girlfriend is not a very big fan of this quote but that is OK. You know why? Its because all sunshine makes a desert.

Day 4--Favorite Book

2009-12-25T21:30:00.003-05:00

Short and sweet for a Very Merry Christmas:

Day 4--Your Favorite Book:

Day 3--Favorite TV Show

2009-12-24T10:16:00.000-05:00

Here we go again. Remember that post yesterday? Well you probably read it today because I made a post two days ago as well and I am sure you figured that there would be nothing new here for at least a month; But you were WRONG!! In yesterday's post I stated the uncontroverted fact that 3% of my DVDs are movies. In today's installment, we learn how the other 97% roll . . .

Day 3--Your Favorite TV Show

Alright, let's rehash what we know. First, many of my DVDs are of the TV variety. Second, this flies in the face of the message intended by my favorite song.

We can breakdown this TV show thing by listing off what it is I own. For the most part, it falls under six television shows. Two can be voted off the island from the outset:

Firefly--Holy hell, do I love this show. Not only that, the girlfriend loves it too (it was our first television related bonding experience. Also, for some holiday, I got a card that would record 30 seconds and I sang a portion of the theme song in that way that only I can pull off (i.e. the singing sucks, but it is cute as hell)). However, the show only lasted 14 episodes, and thus cannot compete with a show has lasted at least 20 seasons.

Smallville--I love ya Smallville, but too Monster of the weeky, and well, I haven't watched a new episode in the last two seasons and I only own the first five (first four are great though, well, 2-4 is great). Eventually I will buy the rest, but repeat viewings are not very high.

That narrows the field down to four. Two dramas and two half hour comedies. One from each category has to be cut. There is no turning back. This is the final destination for two of these shows. The last hurrah, the last turkey in the pie hole, the final nail in the coffin (don't you hate those reality shows that have an hour to fill, but only fifteen minutes worth of material so they spend a bunch of time building up to nothing, going out to commercial saying "What will happen" and recapping the scenario, then coming back from commercial saying "What will happen" and recapping the scenario, infusing with 2 minutes of new material, then wash, rinse, and repeat? It annoys the fuck out of me. And yes, I am looking at you Hell's Kitchen. Arrghhh, it makes me so mad.) But anyway, as I was saying, we have already eliminated two of the top six television shows. Which remaining show will make a fatal mistake. The answer . . . . after this brief message:

Angel--I love this show, but it is a spin-off, and therefore, not as great. OK, it might be better than Buffy, but ummm, move along please. I would like to note, that I have watched the last two episodes of this series more than I have ever watched another single television program. That is worth noting.

Arrested Development--It came down to a simple question. At its best, was AD funnier than The Simpsons at its best. Simple question. Simple answer.

TV TIMEOUT FOOL!

So, as you have you guessed, that leaves Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The Simpsons. And to be honest, I am trying to pick a top show, but

I can't decide, can't decide. Brain aneurysm!

the below version is sweet, yet lacks the line. Anyway, I am not deciding. Because both shows rock.

Day 2--Favorite Movie

2009-12-23T10:55:00.002-05:00

When we last checked in with crazy Daaaaazzze Meme I was lamenting the fact that I had to pick a favorite song. And, as Gladwellians are want to do, I just went with the Tipping Point for myself and used some anecdotal evidence. 'Cause who needs the scientific method right? Well, for this day, we are about to get all mathematical. Strap yourselves in kids, because now it is:

Day 2--Your Favorite Movie

These days, movies are cheap. So long as you do not go to a theater. A DVD ranges between 10 and 20 bucks. You can sign up for Netflix and watch something like 800 movies a month for 15 cents. So it stands to reason that one should own one's favorite movie. Its not like you have to hire two unionized projectionists to run your home movie theater. Everyone has a DVD player by now. If one can access the internet, they likely have computer of some sort or even a gaming system which can play DVDs (except for the Wii, damn Wii). Additionally, through the magic of the internet one can download a shit ton of 1's and 0's which eventually form into moving pictures with sound which may or may not resemble copyrighted works.

So, those are the facts of the world we live in. And remember, my hypothesis is that everyone owns, in some way shape or form, be it legal or illegal, one's favorite movie.

I own approximately 175 individual DVDs. Of those, 5 are movies (more on this tomorrow, which will be obvious when you see tomorrow's topic--"brag more about the number of DVDs you own even though it really is not that many"). So of all my DVDs, about 3% represent theatrical movies (though one may not have been released in theaters, or at least, it should not have). Also, I have no movies on my computer, and I think I lost a couple of DVD-R's which a~~n ex-con~~ friend gave that had five or six movies on them. I am fairly certain that I saw the blatant copyright violations and summarily destroyed the discs.

Regardless, the point is that the defense's theory does not hold water. My hypothesis is wrong. I surveyed everyone here, and it comes out 0-1 in owning-not owning one's favorite movie. Which means I do not own my favorite movie. The shame I feel. I am not a true American. Thankfully, in my world, one person does not a hypothesis prove. I never said the rule had to be absolute. If people read this blog, I would totally put up a poll which would prove my hypothesis correct. But alas.

Anyway, to answer the question:

Gawd that is a shitty trailer. What, was everyone high in the 60's or something? This is a kick-ass fan made one set to music. None of that annoying talking (as for silent films, I recommend Battleship Potemkin)

The book is pretty good too.

Day 1--Favorite Song

2009-12-22T20:31:00.005-05:00

Hey this looks easy. I suck at updating this blog for a myriad of complex reasons that would take at least 30 days of explanation. Instead of of spending the next two fortnights plus two days explaining, I am going to spend the 2 1/7ths fortnights doing this 30 days meme thing that I have been seeing at one place (I am so busy, I no longer follow blogs*). Thus, I am gonna give this a shot to hopefully reinvigorate my blogging spirit. But don't hold your breath. Unless you had fish tonight. Then please do.

*blatant lie, but I try to make at least 1/4th of the sites in my reader work related.

Day 1--Your Favorite Song

Jeebus Christmas. They have to make the first one this tough. I am seriously rethinking this whole meme bullshit. Picking a favorite song is like picking your favorite adopted child. You had nothing to do with its development and were probably not there for the release party, but be damned if you did not make that thing your own and love it more (in your head) that the actual creator did/does.

Favorite could mean so many things, especially when it comes to music. So fuck it, I will just pick the song that made me turn my radio down 0.8 clicks, from the Mix 101.9 to Q101, way back in the year 1996 or some such (when I was ~15. I was a late bloomer to the whole teenage angst thing.).

Turns out, the song is about TV being bad. Guess I missed that message. He should have sang television instead of subway. That would have helped. Maybe. Probably not. I am dense.

Dumbass

2009-11-25T16:29:00.000-05:00

Matisyahu is an arrogant dumbass. In regards to his song "one day", he states, "I don't think you could write a better song for the Olympics. The song is about getting past the differences and coming together. It's about hope and unification -- that's the whole deal with the Olympics."

Ummm, the whole point of the olympics is to kick some commie ass and prove that the USA is the best country ever. Ever, ever? Ever, evah. Why do you think we added events like snowboarding? Why do you think USA basketball got ripped for winning a bronze medal? The only hope that exists is the hope that One Day everyone will feel unified because everyone speaks english.

And for the record, I probably cannot write a better song about the olympics, but I am sure there exists someone, somewhere, that can (to be fair I have not heard the song yet, I will listen to it later an amend this post if necessary) (also, if by "you" he meant the reporter taking down the quote, then you, Mr. Matisyahu, are probably correct. Sorry Rudi Greenberg of the Express).

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A Short Post About Nothing

2009-11-10T22:20:00.003-05:00

The woman is demanding a blog post. At first I was thinking about doing a Top Ten Things I Hate About You list, but then realized that I just did a top ten list as well as that would admit that I have seen the movie of a similar title. So that was out (even though I am truely annoyed that last night she bought a portion of my X-mas gift (with me there no less), three seasons of The Simpsons on DVD, but refuses to allow me to release them from their shrinkwrapped bondage). Then I tried to think of something interesting or amazing that I have done recently, but my meager accomplishments (if there are in fact any) pale in comparison to the fact that she saved a blind woman's life the other day.

I could write about the fact that the woman has Netflixed Twilight, even though she has not read any of the books and determined that it sounds stupid (per Wikipedia plot summaries), and is going to ruin my day off tomorrow by making me watch it.

Or I suppose I could write about the fact that I quit smoking for her about a week and a half ago (Nov. 1 to be exact). And after three jittery days have seemed to nearly kick the habit (though walking out of work every day still causes my mouth to water as it anticipates those delicious carcinogens wafting over it, twice per drag). The best part of the quitting process is that I did not even have to give up beer! Though, I am no longer drinking Bud Light. At least for now. I will be back old friend.

I could write about the fact that I have very little actual work to do at work right now. But lots of people do not have a job and I do not want to sound like a dick.

So there is really not that much going on for me right now. I do not what to tell you all. Except that I am addicted to Farmville. It makes me hate myself a little. But it is addictive. Oh well. At least I am not smoking.

How I was Attacked By Wolves and Forced to Live Among Them for Six Months

2009-10-08T19:52:00.005-04:00

Or, more accurately, the top ten reasons I suck at blogging.

1. Shitty T-Mobile. I do not get telephone service in my office, and as such, have no mobile internet in my office. I get phone service when I go to smoke, but not data service (and this is in downtown DC). Hence, I cannot email entries to my blog. Of course, I could type them out, and just save them until I am at a place where I have data service, but see #9.

2. Work. I have a job. Surprisingly, it has been just over a year since I started this job. I would not say that it keeps me busy, per se, but it does mean that I have to be someplace for at least 8 hours a day. And factor in the commute, we are looking at 9 hours. And then factor in the fact that I have spent the last 8 hours staring at a computer screen, I am not so motivated to fire up the old laptop when I get home. I much prefer staring at the television screen when I get home and bask in its warm glowing warming glow. And once you read #9 (no peeking!), you will understand that watching my ever-growing collection of The Simpsons DVDs is much preferred to moving my fingers above, and THEN applying pressure to, a keyboard.

3. Firewalls. There is one at work. I cannot access blogger from my work computer. Hence, no matter how freaking bored I get during the day, I cannot write a post. Well, I suppose I could, either long hand, in a word document that is later printed out, or even as mentioned above on my Blackberry, but as you noticed in #1, I cross-referenced #9, which remains true for this bullet-ish point.

4. Sports. Specifically, Hockey and Football. I cannot blame baseball. The Cubs were out of it a couple months ago and my fantasy baseball team nosedived after a stellar first month (I finished 11th out of 12). But Hockey, oh hockey. I play of course and that takes up one night per week. And now hockey season has started. Even as I type this I am acutely focused on the 'Hawks-Wings game (I suppose that means I am obtusely focused on writing). Sure, sure, this is the 'Hawks third game of the year, and the first two, played in Sweden, meant I could only catch the game on Saturday, but still, its HOCKEY! And the hawks will be good this year. So I have to spend a lot of time reading Puck Daddy, and Second City Hockey and Fifth Feather and Third Man In (See #9 as to why I am not including links).

And Football has started. The woman and I have a routine for football. We get up on Sunday morning and we head to the bar. We split a brunch and drink a lot. It is a lot of fun (except for the fact that I root for the Packers and she roots for the Bears). And she is friends with the bartender, so we get a pretty good deal for drinking all day. That obviously impairs my blog writing ability on Sundays.

5. Speaking of the woman, may as well include her here. She loves to go out and do things, and even though I am #9, I usually go along with her. Doing things that are not writing = not writing.

6. Twitter has turned my brain to mush. If this is the future of writing, count me out. I want no part of it. (How many characters was that?) Of course, due to #9, I twitter occasionally. Not much. And my tweets make me appear to be a twit (hehehehe, see what I did there?).

7. I am old, broken, and decrepit. Oh, let us just look at my injuries in the last couple weeks or so. As I tweeted, I had me some ass surgery about a month ago. Ass surgery is not cool. You cannot even enjoy a good sit (not a typo). You cannot even enjoy a good shit. I won't get into all the disgusting details, but as #9 as I may be, recovering from ass surgery makes one want to do less. Cannot even sit on my ass and type.

Then there was the softball game from which I received a panoply of injuries. As a softball pitcher, one must be prepared for balls hit back up the middle. And occasionally one of those balls will target the pitcher's balls. I got lucky. The batter's 90 mph redirect of my pitch off his bat when about two inches below my balls and slightly to my left. I reacted in time, I think, but instinctively used my glove to cover my fun parts, which caused the ball to glance off the glove, hit my inner thigh and nailed my inner thigh before proceeding through my legs and up the middle of the infield (the batter was safe fyi). The result was a bruise the likes of which I have not seen since I was hit by a car. Needless to say, a cup will now be added to my softball uniform.

Later in that game, I hit a drive to right field, which was promptly fumbled by the right field because the right fielder in softball usually sucks. For a normal person, this would be an easy double, but because I am slower softball version of Sid Bream, I had to hustle to turn it into a double. As I was nearing the bag, the throw from the outfield came in, and I did my best skid/slide which resulted in 1) my left knee scrapping along the dirt and 2) the shortstop crashing into me as he attempted to field the throw. So, as a result of this play, I skinned my knee, resulting in a quite a large wound (that my friend's girlfriend disinfected by pouring purell on it, Ouch) and a tweaked right ankle, which after a couple hockey games, still ain't right.

So given those injuries, plus a visit to the Doctor this week where he fiddled with my ass and made it hurt more, I am taking the week off from hockey. And hence, able to write this post. My pain=Your gain.

8. Books. I have bought five or six books in the last two months and have read none of them. I have to get on that shit.

9. If you have yet to figure out what this one is, my condolences.

10. I was blackmailed into revealing that I have had sexual relations with numerous young women at my place of employment. Oh, sorry, that was someone else who makes unfunny top ten lists.

Oh well

2009-09-23T22:16:00.000-04:00

So I was actually going to write an actual new blog post tonight. It was going to be a symphony of prose, which alternatively elicit guffaws and introspection.

Unfortunately for you dear reader, my girlfriend unexpectedly showed up at my place tonight bearing gifts of Simpsons season five and seven. So this is the hackneyed post you get.
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Greatest Hits III

2009-09-07T16:11:00.001-04:00

Young and Stupid

2009-08-16T00:25:00.005-04:00

Sometimes I think back to who I was and realize what a fucking dumbass I was. Be it six months or six years, I am almost appalled at how dumb I used to be. Granted, I think I am smart as whip right now, but I am sure in a few months, I will look back at a couple things I did this month and think, wow, how fucking stupid was I.*

I generally try to keep my emotions in check, walk around with the poker face. However, one of the instances this does not work is when I play video games. Specifically, when the video game is obviously cheating. Video games do cheat sometimes, particuallry sports game, though sometimes I just play poorly and I get fucking pissed off. When I was young and stupid, I would have to keep my emotions in check, usually. Lots of times my parents would be around somewhere, or I would be playing late. In those cases, I would not swear like a sailor or throw things or pound my fist on the desk.

If my folks were not around, it was pretty much anything goes. Cursing, throwing controllers, yelling, all that shit. I cannot remember how old I was during one particular instance, but I was probably in high school, playing Madden on the computer when I truley acted dumbly.

It was the summer time, or a vacation day, but I know that it was during the day and my parents were both at work. I was playing Madden and the game began to obviously cheat and try to ruin my perfect record. When the final gun sounded, I had lost, and I was pissed. I stormed around yelling whatever obscenity popped into my head. And then, needing a way to really, really show the Madden game how pissed I was at it, I punched the wall.

It was a pretty good punch, though not conventional. It was not a jab, more like a swing. Essentially, I was walking down the hall, arms at my side, and just flung my right hand behind me, as though I was on a bike and emphatically stating that I was making a left turn. My punch was true, and hit the wall in a perfect spot, right between the studs. Drywall of course, is not that strong. I did not break through the wall, but I dented it pretty good. It really is quite amazing how you can be so pissed off you punch a wall, but then once you acheive the desired result, breakage, your mood switches pretty quick to holy fuck, my dad is gonna kill me.

But that is not the worst part of the story.

With a dented wall, I was young and stupid enough to think I could fix it and no one would be the wiser. In theory, it was a good plan. In theory, communism works. But being young and stupid, theory was all I needed. I headed to the basement, secured some spackle, and went about patching the dent. I spackeled the dent, smoothed it out as best I could and prepared to move to the second phase of the plan.

Had I been smarter, I would have realized that the first part of the plan doomed me to failure. Spackle takes about 24 hours to dry. After it drys, you need to sand it. And regardless, one can always tell the where dry wall has been spackled. But I threw caution into the wind, and set about finding the paint to cover up the white spackle.

And this might be the worst part.

I could not find the paint. But I found white paint and a paint that was just a little bit darker than the paint on the hallway wall. So, I mixed them. Seemed like a good idea. Mix dark paint with light paint, you get the right colored paint. Course, I am color blind so there really was never a chance for me to tell that the colors matched. Not to mention the fact that wet paint is always a slightly different shade than dry paint.

But I had gotten this far, so I painted the damn wall with my mixed paint. Cleaned everything up, turned all the lights off in the hallway and hid in my room.

Eventually, my dad got home. It took about two hours, but it happened. I was laying on my bed trying to read, when I heard "what the hell is this?" come through my bedroom door. He was asking my little sis, but I knew I would soon have a knock on my door. There was nothing I could do. I had to tell the truth.

"Yeah, so I kinda punched the wall, and it made a little hole, so I got the spackle and patched the hole, but then I could not find the right color paint, so I mixed a couple paint buckets that I found in the basement and painted the wall."

I think my dad was shocked at my combined ingenuity and stupidity. I mean really, after hearing that story, what are you suppossed to say? He did not say much, and if I recall correctly, I did not even get in trouble. Just a few head shakes and a couple incredulous "Wow"s. My mom was thrilled I had fucked up her wall, and not just because I am her only son who can do no wrong. She had been pestering my dad to repaint the hallway. This gave him a good reason to do it.

I am still shocked that I thought that this was the best course of action. But I was young and stupid. Now when I get frustrated at video games, I just bottle the anger, and get some lumps on my neck.

image from: http://simpsonsviewertop8.blogspot.com/

*I went out with my paralegal friend a couple weeks ok, and he lives an hour out of DC (he has a shitty commute), so I would go out in his town and pass out at his place. It was a pretty standard night, drinking and shit, but when I woke up, I put on my shirt and pants and went out to smoke. My friend showed up and was like, what the fuck happened to your shirt? I look at my shirt, and there is this nasty stain on my shirt and the crotch of my pants. Based on the visual evidence, it looked like I threw up on myself. I had no recollection of me throwing up and nor did he. We went down to the basement where I slept and found no further traces of vomit. We were flummoxed, but came to the conclusion that I vomited on my shirt and pants at some point, and that was that. Cut to Monday morning, and paralegal friend informs me that it indeed was not vomit on my shirt. Instead, I decided to reheat some spaghetti and meatballs that I found in his fridge and eat it on his deck. In my drunken stupor, my aim was poor, and much of the spaghetti and meatballs I tried to shove in my mouth missed, rolled down my shirt and pants and onto his deck. My friend discovered this because of the mess I left on his deck. So yeah, should not have bought myself a shot that night. Stick to beer.

Selfish?

2009-08-13T16:55:00.000-04:00

In the nearly a year that I have been working in the Real World at my current place of employment, two people in my group of about 22 people have passed away.

The first, was wholly unexpected. The guy was about 50 years old and had a sudden and massive stroke. He was on life support for a couple of days before passing. A week after he died, his 18 year old graduated high school. Horrible, horrible story. My grandfather had a stroke when I was about five and was never the same. I never really got to know him. Strokes and anyuerisms scare me more than anything. I was friendly with the guy, but never really talked to him at length. We tax attorneys tend to keep to ourselves.

The second, was a bit more expected, but still unsettleing. I summered where I work in 2007. I shared an office with her then. We shared the same exit door, but it is what we call a "walk-through." Her office was behind mine, with a wall and a door separating us. Our shared printer was in my bay, so I would see her at least several times a day. As just mentioned, we tax attorneys are not the most talkative, outgoing bunch, so we never engaged in any long discussions, but I still used her as a resource and asked her dumb questions like, "Where can I get more legal pads?" or "Can I recycle this, or should it be shredded first?" At the end of the summer, when I shredded a lot of my shit using her shredder, but letting her clean up the mess, I informed her that I would probably accept the offer and would see her in 2008. Turns out I wouldn't see her in '08. But I saw her twice in '09.

When I started working last Septemember I ended up in a different office. I stopped by to see her once, but she was not there. She was never there. Something had happened. Turns out, she had cancer. And not the good kind (not that there is a good kind).

And then, in early '09, someone in the group lateralled, and in the ensuing office reshuffle (I was eager to get out of my current office for a myriad of reasons, even though I had just scored a brand new desk they refused to cart to my new office), I ended up where I had spent the summer of aught seven (though it had been renovated, it now had a better bookcase and a whiteboard. Score! Crappy desk though). I took all the cool shit I had acquired in my three months in my old office, except for the desk and coat rack, and moved back into my old spot. And it essentially became my office. Sure it was a walk-through, but she was never in. The only reason someone would come into my office was because they wanted to talk to me or got me confused with the office next door where you pick up legal pads. There were drawbacks to having one's own office. Well, drawback. I usually get to the office late, around 9:30. But lots of time I do not get in until 10. Occassionally I miss the train that gets me to the office at ten and I end up in the office at 10:15. And thus, anyone walking down the hall can see that the light in my office is off. I am the only one with a key who shows up on a regular basis, and if the light is off, I am not in. I do not think anyone cares, but I am just a paranoid first year in the middle of a recession who gets worried about this shit. Sort of. I am fairly certain no one cares. As long as I get my shit done (or think I am getting it done).

But since I have been in my new old office, she has shown up twice. The first time she walked through the door and said, "Surprise!" as I frantically shoved the newspaper that I was doing the sodoku puzzle in under the desk. But I was surprised. She was not the same that I remembered. It was clear that the chemo and cancer had been very unkind to her. She was bald, wearing a neck brace, using a walker, and extremely skinny. It took a second for me to register who this was. If it had not been for a her voice, which I had not heard in 18 months, I do not think I would have recognized her. I can only hope that the look on my face did not shift from horrified to recognition and was merely confusion for a half a second before recognition. I cannot remember what I said to her after she said surprise, I can only hope that it was "Hi, nice to see you again" and not "Hi, how are you doing?"

When she came in again a month later, she looked better. She was not using the neckbrace. But she still did not look good. And it pains me that I have trouble remembering what she looked like before the cancer. I saw her almost every weekday for three months, and now I can only picture her as I last saw her (for what it is worth, when I try to construct the prior memories of her, she keeps looking like a female version of the old Rob from Get Fuzzy, which is not quite accurate).

A month ago, her mother and hospice worker came in to remove her personal items from her office. I did not realize it at the time, but she had likely taken a turn for the worse. My two bosses stopped by to chat with her mother, and though I had my headphones on, I usually keep the volume very low while working, and was able to hear what they were chatting about. No one had a bad thing to say about her. But at least they got to know her. She worked for us for 25 years. I got the impression that my bosses understood her fate, but were thought she could beat it. They understood the importance of standing behind her, and doing whatever was in their power to keep her in her proper position after she beat it. I was only overhearing, but I was very proud of my bosses. These are people you want to work for.

She did not beat it though. She passed over the weekend.

And I feel a bit selfish. No one where I work has as private an office as I do. We have an open door policy. However, the doors facing the hallway are always kept close. Hence, my office door is always kept closed. The other similarly situated offices are walk-throughs. Important people sit in the back office. Hence, others are always walking through the walk-through office. Other offices are offshoots of a lobby area, where the hallway doors open up into a lobby area that provides access to six or eight offices. Sure these offices can have their doors closed, but it is not really the way we roll. And thus, I am in a walk-through that no one walks through in an office with an open door policy where I cannot keep my door open.

Therefore, I have a more private office than most. As mentioned, no one comes into my office unless they want to talk to me. Rarely do people want to talk to me. Usually, it is just my bosses, either to hand me a case or pontificate about potential fantasy trades. Or occassionally, my paralegal friend stopping by because I am late in grabbing him for a smoke (his office is closer to the elevators). No one ever stops by to chat. And a random person will stop by to discuss something work related, though I can usually anticipate that because I have asked them to look at something.

So, for the most part, I can do whatever I want in my office without fear of pop-ins. This is nice for doing crosswords, sudoku, trying to get around the firewall, and, as was the case the other day, having some serious gas. The other night I decided to make a tuna casserole. I used a one of the big cans of tuna (not bulk size, but pretty big). As such, around 2 the next day, I had some serious gas. I started ripping farts left and right and straight down into my chair. If a fart is particularly nasty, I will light a match, but for the most part, if I have to fart, I let it rip, smell factor be damned. With another person sharing my office space, or with an office that people regularly walk-through, well there is a time to breathe and there is a time to squeeze, though that can lead to disasterous results.

Point being, I was sad to learn that she had passed. But I fear I may have been sadder to learn that seven months of private office may be coming to an end soon. I like having my own space. When the wind blows a certain way, I like knowing that I can break wind if that is what I desire. I wonder if a part of me hoped that she would beat it, so she could keep doing what she was doing, so that I could be ensured another five to seven years with a private office (assuming I stay here that long of course). Of course, it is not just the lassiez-faire farting I enjoyed. It was printing random crap. Playing brickbreaker while bored. Surfing the intertubes (to the extent the firewall allows me. Oh, and has anyone else noticed that google reader now starts showing the URL of the site you are readering, rather than treating it like a flash page where the only URL exposed was reader.google.com. What is up with this? Upcoming post on how google is becoming evil btw). Printing out the latest sports guy column and reading it at my desk as oppossed to on the computer so it looks like I am reading shit for work and not slacking on the intertubes.

So this is my apology to her. I am sorry I did not get to know you better. I know there is so much that I could have learned from you. Just today, I was struggling with a basic question about tax law that you would have known. Had you been there, I would have asked. I am sorry I did not ask more questions in the past. I am sorry I am selfish. I saw the e-mail saying that you had passed, and my heart hurt because you helped me in the past. I could have used your help in the future. But then I went to smoke with paralegal friend and told him my fears about the high mortality rate in my group. And I thought about how your passing would affect my private office. And I thought about how I could just take your case of bottled water and no one would care.

But mostly I am sorry that I did not get to know you better (yeah, its a repeat). I saw you many times for three months and I do not know anything about you. I am sorry. You are tougher than me. I wish I could have done more.

"I Screwed Up"

2009-08-12T20:41:00.002-04:00

Those were the words I uttered to my boss when I walked into his office yesterday morning.

It happens to everyone. You screw up. You fail. Does not make it any easier. Fear of failing causes procrastination, making excuses, and can result in failing to do anything. Everyone knows this. I cannot tell you anything you cannot learn in Psych 101 (I assume, I never took it, which makes me unqualified to speak on, oh let's just say anything).

I suppose I could have made excuses. But that would have looked pretty stupid considering I sent my boss an e-mail last week saying everything was going as planned. And at that time, I really thought it was. In that e-mail I stated I needed X, Y, and Z, and that I should get them next week. Everything was on track. We were cutting it a little close, but there was no reason to worry.

Then, Monday afternoon, the mail came. I got the letter I was looking for. Read it and said, "What the fuck?" I got Y. I got Z. But there was no X. And X was the most important part. At first I got pissed. They did not send me the information I specifically requested. Then I looked through the case file. I did not actually request it. Oops.

I am fairly certain I told them about X on the phone. But X was not in the writing. Oops.

So, I cursed myself for about twenty minutes. Then ate lunch. Then decided to bite the bullet and tell my boss what was going on. Head into his office and, hello, he is gone for the afternoon. At first I was annoyed. I fucked up, won't someone help me. Won't someone please think of the children!?

Turns out, this was a good thing. I went back to my office, and instead of wallowing in my own misery, thought to myself, how can I make this right? There was no way to make it perfect, my fuck up had pretty much sealed that, but there is always an answer, and I set about considering my options. I eventually settled on the proper course of action and did the paperwork and drafted the shit I needed to accomplish that course of action.

So, Tuesday morning (well afternoon actually, I had a bunch of shit and meetings and crap and other types of malarkey to do in the morning, point is, soon as I had a free minute) I went into my bosses office and announced that I screwed up. I explained what happened and how it happened and how it got to the point that a fuck up like this could have caused this problem (i.e. excuses, not all my fault, but I take full responsibility because really, it is my fault). So we talked about it for a while, and worked out a solution, which happened to be the same one I had come to. So when he said, how soon can you have this drafted, I was able to say, it is right here.

Now, in the grand scheme of things, this is not that important (and really, what is?). I did not miss some sort of hard and fast, no questions asked deadline. It can potentially make me, my boss, and my department look bad. But not that bad. It is still unfortunate, simply because this should not have happened. And if the big boss comes calling, it is my boss that is going to take the heat, not me. I have not even been there for a year. The big boss would consider it a failure of management.

But because I went into my boss's office; because I owned up to the error; because I came in with a solution; well, I do not think my boss will mind getting any crap about this screw-up.

And most importantly, I have recognized the error of my ways. I screwed up. It happens. But now that I recognize my screw up, I have to learn from this. I cannot make this error again. If I do, well, I suppose I either get fired or allow my boss to grift me in a fantasy trade.

Greatest Hits II

2009-08-05T23:28:00.003-04:00

I don't write here as much as I should or write long posts like I did. So indulge me as we take a trip down memory lane and I repost some of the better (read: unsucky) posts from my old blog. I may add a prologue or a post script, but probably not because I am lazy.

I just posted a long-ass tribute to my girlfriend, of which I meant every word, but this edition of my greatest hits relates to when I was not so lucky in love. Or, more accurately, when I was quite loved, but had no idea that such love even existed. So join me, as we reminisce about my love life, as it existed nine years ago.

There are probably several stories from my younger days that are worth telling. However this is the one I want to tell. Just as Mike from Barely Legal Blog worked at Kroger, I did so too. However, I do not have ten stories to tell, just one (though I was wearing the polo that Mike instituted).

It was so long ago, I cannot even remember what year it was. I think it was the fall semester of my sophomore year in college, when I came to be employed by the Kroger in my college town. A friend of mine had recently begun working in the Deli there, and told me it was an easy job and they were hiring. Me needing money to pay those older than me to procure beer for me, decided that the Deli at Kroger’s was the perfect job. I quickly set about filling out an application and was hired (I think there may have been an interview, but who knows). I naively figured that this would be a good chance to hang out with a friend of mine, and getting paid to do so. This assumption turned out to be erroneous quite quickly. We both worked at night, but since we were both part-time, we were generally paired with a full-timer, and thus worked on different nights. Apparently there were some people in town who felt that working in the Deli at the Kroger was a career. After all, there were Union benefits (biting my tongue).

I generally spent my three nights a week working with Bertha. Bertha was a regular townie. She looked the part and acted the part. She was maybe a hair over five feet. She also had a nice pair of coke bottle glasses. In other words, the three-month old honey ham was more appetizing than her. While we worked together, she talked incessantly, not really to me (or so I thought), but at me. I usually grunted a reply, but because I was too nice a guy I could not tell her to shut her hole. She would yammer on, and I would say things like “yup,” “MMM-Hmmm,” “that’s interesting,” “wow,” “huh,” and “cool.”

To this day, I have no idea what she was talking about 90% of the time, but in the three months I was there, she told me one story twice; How she found her husband. From what I could decipher, one day Bertha decided she needed a husband. To accomplish this monumental task, she set up three dates. The details of the first date escape my memory, but it probably involved the guy seeing her, excusing himself from the table, and fleeing through the bathroom window. At the second date, the guy did not show up, even though Bertha was to pick him up at his home. But, as Bertha told me, she had a great time with his parents. Apparently, this guy still lived with his folks, and then skipped out to prevent meeting her, and his parents were forced to deal with her. According to Bertha, they were very nice folks (which I do not dispute, there were some folks around these parts that are salt of the earth), and she proceeded to hang out with them for a few hours.

Fortunately, on the third date Bertha struck gold. She met her soul-mate, Billy. Three dates was all it took to find love. If only that could work for us white-collars. Anyway, when Bertha met Billy sparks flew and they each knew that the other was the one. After all, Bertha worked in the Deli and Billy worked in the Meat Department, both at Kroger. It was a match made in heaven, or at least a recipe from the Kroger Bakery. After what was probably an exciting and eventful courtship, Bertha and Billy got married.

However, shortly after I began working in the Deli with Bertha, they began going through some problems. Unbelievably the marriage began to fall apart. This of course, was completely unknown to me, because I never listen to what people have to say. Had Bertha said something to me, I probably would have grunted. Of course, that may have happened, and Bertha found my grunt to be the sexiest thing ever. Because I came into work one day, and Bertha was scheduled, but no where to be seen.

With Bertha gone, a kid my age, (but not in school, though a cool guy nonetheless) named Tom was forced to stay late and work with me. As I recall, I was scheduled to come in an hour before Bertha, so after about an hour and a half of hard Deli work, the word began to trickle down. Bertha and Billy broke up. They had a huge fight the previous night, and no one knew where Bertha was. I, of course, did not care, I was more concerned about who would help me close up the Deli that night. I spent the better part of an hour convincing Tom to stay and help me close up. I talked him into staying until closing time, though not until closing procedures were completed, but that was good enough for me. Then the bombshell came.

To be continued….

********************************************

I heard it moments before the manager called me into his office. Tom had been walking around, and heard the gossip, soon to be confirmed by the manager. He informed me that Bertha and Billy had had a big fight the night before, and Bertha informed Billy that she was in love in with me. SHE WAS IN LOVE WITH ME!!!

I was floored by this revelation. A wet noodle could have knocked me over. A feather duster, a sombrero, a dishrag, hell even a drop of water could have knocked me on my ass. I did not even like this woman. All I did was give her a passing acknowledgment when words passed through her lips. Not to mention the fact that she was a solid 15 years older than me. I would not have given her the time of day had she passed me on the street. I don’t think that I was even that nice to her. I just said the occasional, “yep,” “uh-huh,” or “that’s great.” Was she so starved for attention that this was all she needed to fall in love with someone?

As I said, moments after I found out that I had unwittingly broken up a marriage, the manager called me into his office, and basically confirmed the rumor. Bertha had broken up with Billy because she was in love with me. The manager then proceeded to tell me that what I did on my own time was none of his business, just so long as it did not interfere with work. Had I not been so shell-shocked, I would have made it clear that I never so much as touched Bertha (OK, so maybe I brushed up against her tits once, but it was an accident). Still numb, I left his office with the knowledge that it does not pay to be nice.

The story is not done there though. All this happened within the first two and half hours of my shift. I still had half of it let to go. The rest of the day was filled with Kroger employees from every department casually walking by, peering into the Deli to see who had caused the latest drama. I wanted to hold up a sign saying, “I HATED BERTHA. SHE IS AN IDIOT. I NEVER DID ANYTHING. SHE IS READING INTO THINGS THAT ARE NOT THERE.” I did not get a chance however, as there were a lot of people asking for Lorraine Swiss Cheese that day.

The coup de grâce came about 20 minutes before closing time. A man and woman walked up to the Deli counter. Trying to put the whole thing behind me and be a cheery Kroger employee, I asked if there was anything I could help them with. They said, “Do you know [lawschoolrules]?” I said that was me. The man said, “Well its nice to see who that bitch left my brother for” and walked away. “Oh Fuck,” was the only thing I could think. That brief exchange taught me a very important lesson.

The next twenty minutes were anxiety ridden. The only thing I could think about was how many guys would be hiding behind my car waiting to break my legs. Would it just be Billy? Billy’s Brother? Both? Does Billy have more friends or brothers or uncles or nephews or bothers-in-law? They knew what I looked like. I had one saving grace though, Tom. I figured Tom would be there to help me out, he was a good guy, he would certainly escort me to my car.

Nope. As soon as the clock hit 10 he was gone. I don’t think he even said goodbye. Just punched out and left. As I wrapped up the corned beef I began thinking about how much a tire iron to the knee would hurt. I wondered if I had the balls to scream, “RAPE!!” But I sucked it up; I left the store with no escort, no gun, no brass knuckles, no nothing but my own fear. I walked out of the automatic doors and saw no one waiting in the shadows. I pressed on, my fists clenched ready to start swinging at anyone who came near. I made it to my car without any trouble, but knew that there was still a chance for violence. I got, started the car up, and drove away without incident. I was relieved, after all it had been the second time in my life I had been presented with the fact that I might get my ass kicked in a parking lot (the first time required sweet talk since the angry people were actually there).

The repercussions of this day were few. I quit shortly thereafter, partly because of this, and partly because of something else, which I cannot talk about (the Bar would have my ass). I occasionally ran into some of my other co-workers (at the time this happened my friend had already quit), and learned that Bertha and Billy had worked things out. So, officially I did not unwittingly break up a marriage, I just nearly unwittingly broke up a marriage. It was close I am sure, but God has plenty of other reasons to send me to Hell. I did see Bertha about a year later. I was doing some late night shopping at the Kroger and she was working the register. She did not acknowledge me, and I did not acknowledge her. But she looked pretty much the same, and it was at that point that I decided to never be nice to anyone ever again.

An Epithalamium to My Woman

2009-08-04T20:56:00.003-04:00

Last Thursday, I was talking with my girlfriend over Skype and I mentioned a post that I wanted to do involving Filter, Tipper Gore, Robert Gates, and libel. She was excited for me to write it, and sadly, I never got around to it. I hope this suffices (and yes, I know it is not a poem, as the title may suggest, but whatever. I am still working on that sonnet though).

As I write this, it is our 9 month anniversary. If you do the math (or grab the 2008 calendar out of the trash), you will see that our first date was on Election Day. It truly was a historic day (though oddly enough, neither of us voted for the same person and neither of us voted for Obama).

The odd thing about our relationship (I might use "odd" a lot, my apologies) is that we have spent about half that time apart. She is a law student (rising 2L), which means lots of nice long breaks from DC. There is Thanksgiving, a month for Christmas, spring break, and of course the place we are mired in now, the three month summer vacation. If you had the first few weeks where we were just casually dating (which I do, because everyday with her is better than my best day without her), one gets to about 4.5 months of away time. Which sucks.

But it is also good. I will not say great, because it sucks so much, but one could say that it has been great for our relationship. Kind of. Well yes, it has. Beginning around Thanksgiving time, we have had some epic g-chats (though before this, we had marathon text messaging sessions (on of the reasons I had to upgrade my phone plan (and eventually went with a blackberry so I could email her while I was working (except I dont get service where I work so I just use my work e-mail (I am sure the all-seeing eye thinks I am hilarious)(gmail blocked at work (bastards!)))))). So over Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks, with finals between them there was not a lot of quality "us" time, we talked about lots of things. We really got to know each other.

But I think that my nature is one of the reasons this really helped our relationship. I am not much of a talker. I fumble words; have trouble getting thoughts out; feel the pressure of having to talk and can not come up with the words (for instance, I have spent about 45 minutes typing what you have read up to now. If you read it, it would take a minute, said it, maybe three). But with the typing, I am fucking Casanova. All the sweet things that my brain cannot communicate to my mouth, my brain has no trouble sending to my fingers. It was through this forum that I could really convey to her how much I really liked her. She recently read through some of our old g-chats (after I mention some really cute parts of them to her) and said to me that she could not believe how much I liked her and how she did not pick up on it.

I understood how she did not though. I am generally a very guarded person, and even though I was attracted to her from the moment I saw her standing in the King St. metro parking lot, I was still quite keen on protecting my feelings. She is much like me in this respect. But to her credit, she made the first move. Well, really the first and the second. She knows the first move, I might tell the rest of you about it sometime. But she made the second. And I am glad she did, because I am a wimp.

After our lunch date (oh yes, I called in sick to work on Election Day to have a lunch date with a girl I hardly knew), she suggested we take a walk around Olde Towne Alexandria. During lunch, we mostly discussed law school (read: me explaining to her why law school sucks and no one should repeat my mistake (although I am glad I went, odd right?)). But after lunch, we took a walk, which shocked me that she suggested it. I am not the most entertaining lunch guest. But we walked down to the Potomac, down where the anchor is on King St., and I made one of my infamous "smart-alec jokes." She laughed, and she would later tell me this when she stopped thinking of me as crazy possible stalker rapist, and started thinking of me as a sweet guy she could use for his law knowledge (operative word being "sweet").

If pressed, I would say that the definitive point in our relationship for me was the night I had to spend in the hospital. It occurred sometime in January (yay two months!). It was a Friday or Saturday night when my body began to revolt. My stomach clamped down on me, shrinking itself to at least 1/1,000 of its size (I assume). Anything I tried to put in came right back out. Anything that was there, would not come out. Bent over in pain, I refused to do anything. "This shall pass," I said. My girlfriend thought otherwise and agreed to stay with me that night. Around five in the morning of a sleepless night, me writhing in pain, she insisted we go to the hospital. I said I was ok. She said HOSPITAL! I said, lets call the nurse hotline on my health insurance, see what they say. Damn nurse said hospital. So I let my woman drive me to the hospital. I tried to be calm with her driving my car, but between the gut-wrenching pain and her inability to begin stopping 18,000 yards before a stop sign, I was a little freaked out. Miraculously, she got me to the emergency room in one piece (that was sarcasm dear). But I would later learn, that this was a test for her.

Most people do not like hospitals. I know I hate them. I have hated them ever since my little sister was born. It had been a difficult pregnancy, and when my mom was recovering, only my dad was allowed to see her. My two older sisters and I were left in the waiting room. For a six year old, I was pretty fucking pissed. All I wanted was " TO SEE MY MOMMY!!!!" I do not think that I threw a tantrum. I tried to be tough. I understood what was going on. But in that moment(s), I hated my dad because he got to see my mom and I did not. It was an early lesson that life is not fair.

I am still not sure why my sweetie hates hospitals, though I can venture a few guesses. And all of those guesses make me understand why she hates them. But she parked my car and came into the waiting room with me. I think she had her laptop or at least a casebook or two with her. It was a good chance for her to do homework. Bleeding guys are not that much of a distraction.

Eventually, they called my name and I got to go in the back, where they make ER patients wait even longer. They did a test or two (I was most worried about appendicitis), and then made me drink liquid cum. It was a huge glass of yellowish liquid, viscous, but flavored with powdered lemonade (still gross). I got about 3/4ths of it down before throwing it all back up. They still insisted on a scan of some sort (damn kick-ass health plan), to which I submitted. But when I got back, they stuck me back on my cot in my "room." I say room because I was in the hallway, surrounded by a couple curtains.

But during this, and this is the part my girlfriend does not know, was that all I wanted was her. I wanted her next to me. I wanted her to hold my hand. I wanted to hear her tell me everything was going to be ok. After three hours, and the doctors not being able to figure out what was going on with me, I broke. I tried to be tough. My girlfriend made it into the waiting room, a big step for her. Getting her in the back room, with all the sick people, I did not want to do that to her. But I had to. I needed her there. I told the nurse that my girlfriend was in the waiting room, and could she (nurse) please get her (gf) and have her (gf) sit with me. And she came. It is a little strange to say that one of your happiest moments is to have your girlfriend walk into the emergency room, see her eyes light up when she sees you, and just be so thankful that she came, even though the pain you are in still throbs in your temples.

I am not exactly sure when I first asked for the pain medication, if I had to guess I would say it was shortly before my girlfriend showed up, though it might have been shortly after. I just know, that lying there, in the hallway, my ass hanging out (damn hospital gown), the only thing I wanted was to see her.

The hospital eventually kept me overnight, and my girlfriend agreed to stay with me. I was hooked up to an IV and the hospital required me to piss into a jug. So I pissed in a jug in front of her. And I was ok with that. I even made jokes about that (though that may have been the drugs). But she stayed with me. In the hospital. All night. We even tried to watch a movie on her computer (old and black and white), but I fell asleep after five minutes. But she was there. All night. We laid in the hospital bed together until 6 am when the nurse said the Doctors might not be too keen on such relations (its not like we did anything, I was either too doped up or in too much pain to say or do anything remotely sexy).

But the girlfriend thinks that the night we spent in the hospital was when I thought I could fall in love with her. But in reality, I fell in love with her when I was laying in the hallway cot, only wanting her by my side, but understanding (I am not sure if I understood then, but i respected) her disdain for hospitals, hoping that I would be in and out of the hospital, and when I understood that I was not, asking the nurse to get her, and then my girlfriend walked through the doors. If there was a drug that could preserve what I felt when I first saw her walk in there, I would be an addict. I was so happy. The pain was momentarily gone. All I wanted to do was reach out to her and hold her and feel her against me. And know that when she is close, everything is gonna be alright.

So that is the story of when I knew that I loved my girlfriend. The story of when I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her is much more mundane. She had recently left for the summer, so I had not seen her for a couple of weeks. I was sitting on the couch, hand down my pants Al Bundy style, when this odd feeling washed over me. I became disconnected, but completely connected to myself, electricity ran through my body, I became numb, my jaw felt like it was no longer attached to my face, my eyes could not focus on anything, I was completely and totally stunned. It just hit me. I was gonna marry her. I knew it. One day, she is gonna be my wife. One day, we are gonna be old, sitting in rocking chairs watching the sunset in Greece, and be even happier than we are now. I just knew it.

If you watch TV, you have seen the e-harmony commercials. In them, the bride and bridegroom talk about how much they had in common and how great it was that e-harmony facilitated that connection. Thats great. My best friend from my younger years met her husband on e-harmony. And that is great. Its just not for me.

My girlfriend and I have a lot in common. I am a lawyer, she will be a lawyer. Family is very important to us (though more so for her, I define family as mom, dad, and sisters, she defines it as everyone who may or may not be related to me). We both like reading. We both love Arrested Development (ok, she had no clue what it was before I made her watch the DVDs). We both think building the Lego DeathStar together would be a good relationship test.

And we have a lot more that is not in common. She is a people person. She loves meeting new people. I hate people. They annoy me. She can walk up to anyone and make friends. When she moves to a new city, her first task is to make friends with bartenders, which she does quite well (our second "date" involved me meeting her at her favorite bar. When she ordered drinks they were alcohol fueled and cheap. When I ordered drinks (and she was not around) they were alcohol light and expensive). Alright it may not be her first task, but if it is a task for her, she does quite well.

Whenever we talk about the proper way to raise kids, we disagree. Whenever we talk about a political issue, we disagree (or I take an ad hoc position and she shows me the light until I agree with her). Religion: disagree. Cigarettes: disagree. Buffy: disagree. Watching movies: disagree (I prefer TV shows. I like the development involved. Fact: In nine months, we have never had a date that involved going to see a movie). Jefferson v. Hamilton: Disagree. Going out v. Staying in: Disagree. Relationship with cousins: Disagree. Enjoyment of eating seafood: Disagree. Enjoyment of eating any quasi-exotic food: Disagree. Section of the used book store to browse through: Disagree.

That is just a sampling. But that is perfect for me. I spend all day with me, the last thing I want is someone who is exactly like me. I want someone who challenges me. Someone who makes me try new things. We agree on the important things: Marriage; Yes, Kids; Yes. But everything else, well that will take some work. And I want someone who is going to disagree with me on things like how to raise the kids. All the great bands made their best albums when the members were at each others throats. Example #1, #2.

I know that we are not a band. But we have a thing called compromise. As of right now, my belief in God is lacking. But I want my kids exposed to it, but not brainwashed, so that they can make their own decisions. I will be married in a Greek orthodox church, so long as it is understood that I do not believe that Jesus Christ is my lord and savior, though I desperately wish I could believe that. What I feel everyday with my woman, how much I care about her, how much I want to be with her, how great and happy she makes me feel, is real, the idea that a benevolent or unmerciful god is out there, is not. Its an issue, I do not deny that. I do not think it is insurmountable because we love each other, and we can find a way.

And I think that way about a lot of issues. We have different thoughts about many different issues. But I do not want someone like me. I want someone that sees the world differently. That can enlighten me, that can teach me things. Not a day goes by when she does not provide some new insight into some sort of issue.

And I don't want to spend another day of my life without her there to guide me. We have had dumb fights in person, we have had serious fights over IM, and vice versa, but not a minute goes by that I do not love her. Sorry for the double negative. I love her all the time. She has been in Greece for the last three weeks, and I think about her constantly. She has been away from me since the middle of May and I miss her terribly. She is the piece that completes me, and with 4.5 months of having her with me, I have spent the other 4.5 months lost. I just want her back so that I can feel whole again.

There is no doubt in my mind. I am going to marry her. The future is what it is. Maybe we will face obstacles we cannot overcome. I do not think we will though. Everyday since I have met her has been something special to me. I find myself amazed that I have met, and fallen in love with someone so fantastic. And the kicker is that she loves me too. I can be my nerdy, dorky self in front of her, and it still makes her laugh. And the sound of her laughing is the one sound that I could listen to for all of eternity.

So baby, on our nine month anniversary, I did not get you any presents. i did not write out the post I promised to. I wrote this. I hope you like it.

Because I love you so much, you are my Thumper, you are the most perfect thing that has ever come into my life. When you come back in sixteen days, I cannot imagine ever letting you go again. I know I have to, for thanksgiving and such things, but you are the one for me. I love you. When I talk to you on skype and I have to say that I need to hang up because it costs too much, it breaks my heart. I wish I had the ability to give you everything you ever wanted, to talk to you whenever you wanted, for as long you want. And I am sorry I cannot do that yet.

But, the one thing I can guarantee you is that you have my heart, you have my soul. Baby, Aug. 21 is going to be the best day of my life because that will be the day that I know that I get to spend to the rest of my life with you.

Confidential-ish to My Thumper

2009-07-17T20:47:00.002-04:00

Hey sweetie. This one is for you. Just imagine I am singing and all the man/woman's are reversed.

I cannot wait until you come back to me.

(oh, and just focus on the salient parts of the song)

No no no no no no no

2009-07-02T14:42:00.000-04:00

Just before graduating law school, I was talking with a kid who mentioned that he had just gotten glasses and blamed law school for ruining his eyes. I laughed and remarked that law school had not had that effect on me.

I was justing sitting in my office and realized that I was holding a piece of paper quite close to my face as I read it. This is not good. I will now spend the rest of the day trying to read things from far away.

Fuck.
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

Greatest Hits I

2009-06-29T21:29:00.002-04:00

I don't write here as much as I should or write long posts like I did. So indulge me as we take a trip down memory lane and I repost some of the better (read: unsucky) posts from my old blog. I may add a prologue or a post script, but probably not because I am lazy.

We begin this trip with a story from the summer after my first year of law school. I did not get a law related job, and other than going on some OCI's I did not really try. Live and learn right? Instead, my philosophy was to live with my parents for the summer and live off my tax refund (which was about $3,800). Well, that plan worked great for a month. I went out, drank a lot, saw the Cubs, drank some more, went to concerts, drank a lot more, and then suddenly, I was running out of money. I had to get some sort of job, so I took the first one that came along. I spent a month and a half after my first semester of law school putting garbage bags into boxes. But it gave me drinking money.

I cannot honestly say that I was having a good time at this point. I was seriously second guessing my decision to go to law school (major justification for it: It beat actually working). So I did what I did and wandered through life (and shockingly did not do anything that was character and fitness application worthy (though there was the night of the five mile walk)). So without further ado, I present to you A Normal Thursday (originally written in two parts, so it will be long):

I have already mentioned in this space that my summer job decided to make overtime mandatory. You can explore my entries to see the exact specs of my job (except for what I do of course). The company's idea of mandatory overtime is to come in for an entire extra 12 hour shift. This particular week, my normal schedule was to be off on Thursday and Friday, and work Saturday, Sunday and Monday. With mandatory OT in effect, I was forced to work on Friday. This did not please me. This did not please me at all.

Thursday became my favorite day of the week during Undergrad. Going out on a Thursday was infinitely better than going out on the weekend for several reasons. First, Freshman do not learn until Sophomore year that you can get away with going out on Thursdays. They do it occasionally, but they are still naive and do not want to make a habit of it. Thus, the 18+ bars are not packed with a bunch of idiots, sober idiots. Secondly, once you turn 21 you reach the point where you know where you stand. By this I mean you know how much effort and how many classes you have to attend to get the grade you want. At this point, the guys with the 2.0 GPA know that there is not much they can do to improve it, so they just want to have a good time. These are the guys you want to hang out with. They fucking know how to party, and when you go out with them, you never know where the hell you are going to end up.

However, major reason that Thursday became my favorite day of the week is because I could go out. At this time, I had no idea that I would end up going to Law School. This was before the downfall of Enron and Arthur Anderson, and I had every confidence in myself and society, that I could half A's and half B's and get a job as an auditor with one of the Big Five. I had no need to go to class on Friday, and even if I could haul my usually still drunk ass out of bed, all I had to do was take some notes. Easy Peasy, Japanesey.

I should mention, that I tried to change myself. After suffering through the worst grades of my life Sophomore year, I decided I had to curb the partying during the week. My feeble minded solution to this was to schedule a class that met only on Wednesdays and Fridays at 8 a.m., and lasted two hours. The rationale was, it only meets twice per week, so I have to go on Fridays, so I cannot go out on Thursdays. It was a good plan, for about a week. The lure of the best night to go out was too much for me. Halfway through the semester I had used up my six absence allowance. Yet, I continued to go out on Thursdays, I just tried to make sure that when the bars closed at 2 a.m., I went home. It worked, I got a B, probably because of the pounding headaches while trying to take notes. For two fucking hours.

This summer, Thursday still holds a special place in my heart. I bowl on Thursdays (you cannot beat dollar games and $3 Bud Lights). This particular Thursday contained a twist. Before going to the bowling alley, my friend (this guy really needs a nickname. From now on, I dub he EagleMan (and if you live in Chicago, it is ten times funnier)), his girl of the week, and I went to see the local minor league baseball team.

As you know, I love my baseball. As you know, I love my beer. Combining the two, well that is my Field of Dreams. However, the evil specter of Friday work was the thunderstorm on my field. I took it easy. I was sober enough to realize that I would be getting home three hours after my bedtime. I had to take it easy. I had maybe four beers during the game, a new record. It should have been five, which would have tied the old record, but that was not to be.

After the top of the eighth, I went to the concession stand to pick up two beers for the last inning and a half. The transaction was completed without a hitch, and when I returned to my seat, I handed one of the beers to the girl of the week, saying, "Hey, I bought you a beer." Up to this point, she had not had one beer. In fact, the two other times I saw her, she did not drink. In my head, I was making a joke. She, however, readily accepted the beer, and took a sip. Ahh, well, it's not like I needed it anyway. After she finished half the beer, it became apparent that she does not drink too often. Half a beer, and she was slurring her words. Whoops. EagleMan is my full time designated driver, he does not drink at all, for the poor guy is allergic to wheat and such things. Drinking may kill him. It actually almost killed him. He used to drink more than me, then one day, Bam!, his throat swells up and he cannot drink anymore. But, he is a good guy, and is more than happy (well, maybe not happy, willing is a better word) to put up with my drunkass. I was not sure if he was willing to put up with his new girl's drunk ass though.

The Mudville 9 lost that day, but our spirits were high as we headed off to a night of bowling. Dollar bowling starts at 9 p.m., and we arrived at 9:30. Plenty of time. After picking up my shoes, I headed to the bar. The bartender knows me, in the customer sense of the phrase. She looked at me, and said, "Bud?" I had been staring at a lovely honey across the bar, and that snapped me back to attention. "Uhh, Yeah," I replied, and went back to my ogling.

Then, the lovely honey calls out to me, "You went to [Undergrad]?" For a second, I was horribly confused. I have no idea who this is, should I know who she is? I am terrible with faces. Even worse with faces when I am thirsty. Then I realized I was wearing a hat with my Undergrad's name emblazoned upon it. "Yeah," I said. I am smoother than sandpaper. "I graduated two years ago, did you go there?" I asked. "Yeah, but I just graduated," she replied. "That's cool." No, I am smoother than silk. The bartender suddenly appeared, blocking my line of sight to the lovely honey. The lovely honey was there with a bunch of guys, so I probably had no shot with her, and I was thirsty and wanted to bowl, so I took my beer and skedaddled. It's ok. You can tell me, I know. I am a social retard.

I returned to my lane, and put on my shoes. I took a sip of my beer. Immediately, I knew something was wrong. Fuck. It was a Budweiser, not a Bud Light. That bitch of a bartender fucked up my order. No wait, I fucked up my order, thinking with the wrong head, and not paying attention to what was going on around me. Whatever, it is time to fucking bowl.

The girl of the week sat down, beer in hand, and we began to bowl. We were in the fifth frame when the GOTW jumped out of her seat like she had been shocked with a cattle prod, and ran up to an older woman who had just entered the alley. EagleMan was bowling, leaving me to think to myself, who the fuck is that?

****************

It is a little harsh to describe her as the GOTW. EagleMan just ended a long relationship, and is getting back into the dating scene (as I described before). He is a romantic at heart, and falls pretty quickly. This was no exception. GOTW was an affable enough girl, more outgoing than the last one, but she fell pretty hard too. He had been seeing this girl for about a week, and at one point during the ball game, while EagleMan was away, she asked me what I thought she should do for his birthday. His birthday was over two months away. I hemmed and hawed as much as I could, but I was pretty uncomfortable, even though I knew he liked her. However, in a moment, I was about to be much more uncomfortable.

With GOTW talking to the older woman, I took my turn to bowl, focusing on not falling down. Throwing it down the right arrow was secondary. This scene would repeat itself 70 more times (I got no strikes that night). I was getting a little buzzed. I am not a fan of Budweiser. I managed to avoid the gutter with both rolls, and returned to the table, seeing the older woman putting on shoes.

"This is my mother," GOTW cheerily slurred. Her fucking mother? After a week? Holy hell. EagleMan did not look shocked, so he must have known that this coming. He neglected to give me a heads up. I have enough trouble interacting in social situations with my best friends, and now, out of the blue, the GOTW's mother shows up. The least I could have gotten was a heads up from EagleMan. I am very regimented, routine oriented, and I do not like things happening unexpectedly. Unless I am hammered. I was not there yet.

I quickly excused myself to go get another beer. Head still spinning, I walked up to the bar. However, I had enough sense to see if lovely honey was still around, but alas, she was gone. "Bud?" the bartender asked. "Uhmm, no, Bud Light actually." A look of confusion briefly wafted across the bartender's face, then dissipated. "I knew there was someone that ordered Bud Light's on Thursdays. Why did you let me give you a Bud last time?" Because I am a sadist. I grabbed my beer and returned to the table.

"You know, I setup a tab, just put your beers on that," GOTW's mother greeted me. Oh great, now I have her offering to pay for my bad habits. Could this get any worse?

"You know mom, he is in law school," GOTW said. "You should check out environmental law," the mother rapidly replied.

It just got worse. Now I am bowling with a hippie. "It is interesting, but I think I am going to have make more than $30,000 a year to pay off my hundred grand in student loans." "Well just think about it." Sure, no problem, I will think about it. When I get rejected by the public defenders office.

I was able to maintain a modicum of socialability with the GOTW and her mother. EagleMan is a social fiend. He can talk to anyone, anywhere, about anything. He was having no such problems. But, then GOTW and the mother got up for another round, and EagleMan turns to me and says, "I have been talking to the Ex."

And I am down for the count.

I am not Superman. Now I have to talk to the GOTW and her mother, while knowing that EagleMan has been talking to his Ex, and wants to get back together with her. I was not built to deal with such things. It of course is complicated by the fact that I liked GOTW more after a week than I ever like the Ex after a year. And I am not receptive to meeting new people.

Whatever, I decided to put all this shit out of my mind and focus on bowling and drinking. No more talking for me. I really don't have anything interesting to say anyway (but plenty of interesting things to write, I hope). This caused a chorus of "What's wrong?" from the GOTW. I replied that I was fine, as I do have a tendency to seriously introvert myself. I eventually relaxed (read: was drunk) around 11, and was able to be my slightly sociable self for the rest of the night. The beer flowed freely, in and out, and when the alley closed at midnight, my pump had been primed enough that I could have bowled for another three hours. Unfortunately, it was time to go home.

EagleMan dropped me off at my place at 12:30. At this point, I was faced with two decisions, go to bed or drink a beer and check my e-mail. My alarm clock was poised to go off in four and half hours, and I had to be out of bed in five and half. But going to bed meant that my next conscious thought would be the realization that I had to go to work for 12 hours. I turned on the computer and cracked a beer.

For the next three hours I was lost in the world of cyberspace and alcohol. I kept drinking, proclaiming each beer to be my last, and always finding a new webpage to look at, where I would be halfway through reading an article when my beer went empty, causing me to go grab another. Or, finding that I had to write some irrelevant comment on someone's blog. This could have gone on in perpetuity, but by the time 3:30 am rolled around, I realized that I was fucked.

I am not exactly sure what I did in those three hours on the worldwide web. I know I did a couple stupid things, but I do not think I spent any money, which is always good. Regardless, I absolve myself of responsibility for anything I did. I was in another world. A world fueled by hatred of work, alcohol, and the knowledge that I am who I am. I was able to break my bond with that hell, and reconnect with reality, and stagger to bed and pass out. An hour and a half before my alarm would start going off.

The sounds of staticky country music suddenly filled my ears. I was shocked awake, ripped from my drunken slumber. I looked at the clock. 30 past the hour. Fuck. It takes about 25 minutes to get to work. I hauled myself out of bed. Thankfully, in my drunken stupor I had the sense to pass out fully clothed, so all I had to do was grab all the change in my ashtray (vending machine lunch), and head out the door. Yes, I was still a little (a lot) drunk. I do not advocate drunk driving, and personally have only done it a couple times (and not in a long, long time), but at this time of the morning, with it being the only way for me to get to work, the rules are bent. In short, I was fine to drive. I had to be.

I turned on the car, and was immediately shocked by the radio. I expected Mike & Mike, the morning drive show on ESPNRadio, to come blaring through the speakers. But I heard two guys I never heard. Fuck it, I am drunk and I have to get work. I put the car in gear, and headed out. About five minutes into the drive, the two dumbfucks on the radio mentioned that they were filling in for Mike & Mike. Thank God, I thought, I have not gone crazy. But, five minutes later I looked at the clock.

5:45. The motherfucking clock said 5:45. I was a fucking hour early. Fuck. The only thing I could think was Fuck. I turned around and came home, made a lunch, and went back to bed. And woke up at 6:35. For the second time that day, I hauled my drunk ass out of bed, and left home. I started my car again, and for the second time that day, heard two guys I had never heard before. What the fuck is going on. The local affiliate had pulled the national fill-ins and put in some local fill ins. I figured this out later, but I was horribly confused at the time. On the second drive to work I checked the clock every ten seconds to reassure myself that I was leaving when I was supposed to. I safely got to work at 7 am and began my 12 hour workday.

That is my life. Want to trade?

I like my job

2009-06-29T14:58:00.000-04:00

So there I was, just after lunch, my feet up on my desk, diet dr. Pepper just to my right, leaning all the way back in my chair, headphones on, listening to some rocking tunes, a highlighter in my mouth, with the code in my lap opened to some random section that I was reading for some background, when my boss walked in. To talk about a fantasy baseball trade we made over the weekend. Life is good.

Sidenote: texting while walking down stairs is not the best idea in the world.

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Sent to me by the Girlfriend

2009-06-18T18:54:00.002-04:00

Being Honest About Myself

2009-06-17T20:42:00.002-04:00

I used to forget things all the time; but not exactly. I spent a lot of time convincing people that I was the most forgetful person of all time. Not all people, mostly just people who asked me to do things, but did not pay me to do them. Take the chicken out of the fridge at five, mow the lawn before it rains, pick up grandma from the train, I forgot to do all those things. But sometimes, I was asked to do something, and I did not actually forget, I just did not do it.

Today, I got yelled at by one the administrative people I work with. Well, yelled at in a motherly, secretarial kind of way. I had been putting off taking care of some administrative bullshit that I kind of needed to take care of but not really. Back in March I first found out that some action was needed on my part. May came around, and I finally got around to doing it, but tried to do it on my own, without going through her. I failed utterly and miserably, and when she found out I tried to go it alone, she was not happy. So today, when I finally tried to fix it again, I went straight to her, hoping she might have forgotten how annoyed she was with me a month and half ago. Which she had, but still "yelled" at me and extracted a promise from me that I would go to her first for this type of thing in the future.

As I have gotten older, and then even older, I have decided to forgo convincing people of my absent-mindedness because I usually have quite a sharp memory, and be honest with them. I am just very very lazy. Extremely lazy.

So today, I did not make excuses. After all, this stupid form I had to fill out could only benefit me. Not really in an economic way (I never pass up money), but make my life a little bit easier. But I just did not care enough to take care of it. So I put it off and put it off, until finally today, I was so bored, I figured I would just get it done (it took all of two minutes plus a lecture). I am just that lazy.

My hair, more than anything, helps to define my laziness. In the past, I never really cared much about hair. In high school I would comb it, but I never really had a hairstyle or anything. In college and law school, I pretty much wore a hat all the time. This was because I was too lazy to get out of bed long enough before class to shower. On the days that I did (like a 3 pm class), i usually forewent combing or anything like that.

After all, by law school, male pattern baldness had pretty much set in. If I did not give a shit about my hair when I had a decent hairline, fat chance of me caring about it now. But now I have a job, and I assume I am supposed to look respectable (no one has actually said anything, so I figure I am good for now).

So for work, I comb my hair, put gel in it (because I still have a damn cowlick), and try to look presentable. But the thing is, I hate long hair. I much prefer my hair to be nice and short so that after I shower in the morning, I do not have to do anything to it. Yet, I always let it grow real long (and not just because my girlfriend hates when hair is short). So every four months or so, I cut it off. But usually at the three month mark, I start thinking every morning that I need to cut it. I am just too lazy to ever get around to it.

So when I go a week or month without posting, just know, it is because I am lazy. Unless you pay me. Then I will post whenever you want.

Now that is not something you see everyday

2009-06-16T20:56:00.003-04:00

I was driving to the Target today, and I passed something I usually only see in Indiana:

Call me naive, but I did not realize fireworks were legal in VA. They just passed smoking bans a month or so ago!

I did spend a July Fourth in DC once and witnessed quite the amazing spectacle. From the house where I lived (about a mile north of the Capitol Building) I was able to mostly witness the "official" DC fireworks (damn washington monument kept getting in the way). But then, oh, that is when the real party started.

Fireworks came in from all over the district. "Light the Night!" as Electro would say. It was quite the sight. Except for when one malfunctioned and almost hit a guy across the street from me. And then another one burned out right before hitting the roof I was on. But, good times all around.

Still, having grown up in IL, I was quite shocked to see a fireworks shed erected in the middle of a parking lot. Course, a little research indicates why it was just erected and not a mainstay like Krazy Kaplan's just over the IL-IN border.

VA does not allow any cool fireworks. Ah well. Maybe I will just head into the district for the Fourth.

Late Night TV

2009-06-14T15:15:00.004-04:00

I was watching some TV late last night and as per usual on a saturday night, there was nothing good on. But it was taking to a new level last night as I stumbled across this movie:

When I first turned it on, it looked like it might be that old TV show on Fox about dinosaurs. But it wasn't. This was something much more disturbing. And THEN Whoopi showed up in spandex. Tired as I was, I had to do some more research into this disaster of a movie. The pertinent facts: Made in 1995 for $35 million. Intended for a theatrical release but went straight to VHS (Most expensive direct to video movie at the time). Whoopi decided she wanted out before filming started, but had signed a contract and eventually settled for $7 million to star in the film.

Watching this movie was just god awful. I cannot begin to explain my thoughts on it. Instead, I direct you to the comments on IMDB and Amazon. My favorite review, a Five Star from amazon:

"Watching this film sober - and even under the influence - is like giving birth out of your ear while simultaneously having a stroke, getting a root canal, and walking in on your parents having sex. In your bed. And as you walk in on them, you step on a rake and it hits you in the face and drives a splinter into your eye. Yet at the same time it triggers a visceral, masochistic response somewhere deep inside, and you can't help but take pleasure in every mind-numbing attempt at a joke, every sudden idiotic plot twist, and every glimpse of Whoopi's gross spandexed rumpus. A real treat."

It is quite accurate, except for that last part.

It would be accurate to call this a career killer, at least for the writer/director. The lucky guy was given the reigns to a $35 million dollar picture and produced a horrible piece of trash. And amazingly, he could not find work in Hollywood again. At least until this year. He wrote a new movie. But I wonder what he did for the last fifteen years.

********

The only thing worse than this movie, was a commercial that ran during it. It was for this thing called Big Top Cupcakes.

The selling point? It is 25x bigger than a regular Cupcake!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Can you believe that? You know what is 25x bigger than a cupcake? A Regular Fucking Cake! It is called a cupcake because it is a cake that fits in a goddamn cup! It is a fucking cake you eat with your fingers! Why the hell do you need a cupcake on steriods when you can just make a fucking cake!

God, what an atrocious night of TV. I don't even want to get into the nightmares this shit gave me.

Thoughts Whilest I Await Conan's 11:30 Debut

2009-06-01T22:36:00.005-04:00

My balls are burning right now. It is because I have officially become old, yet do not have the experience of being old to know how to cope with it right now. I twisted my knee thursday night playing hockey. I was tough, played the rest of the game (and with a busted toe to boot). So after a weekend of rest and icing, it feels much better, but occasionally I will make a a quick turn or stop and it gets weak. So, I went out and got a Ben-Gay sleeve. Slid it on to my knee and let the alternating cooling and burning take effect. Course, then I read the instructions and realized I had it on backwards. So I fiddled with it, and got it on correctly. Then I went to adjust my balls, and hence, now they burn. I am sure I will get it figured out soon enough. Still though, my balls dont hurt as much as the first time my girlfriend spent the weekend at my place.

***************

Speaking of the woman, since she left she has told me a couple times that I have been acting oddly. I, for one, think that I am acting the same as I usually do. So this is not an explaination for me acting odd, but something I realized today.

There are oodles of ways for my girlfriend and I to interact with each other while she is in Chicago and I am in DC. Let us count the ways:

Phone. This is pretty standard. I am sure it needs little explaination.
Text messaging. Because of her, I have spent too much money on excess text messages. Once I bought my Blackberry, I went with unlimited texts. It was a good idea.
Twitter. She recently signed up for twitter, so I was forced into it (yes it was a choice, but come on, I had to). I guess the point of twitter is for text messages we don't mind sharing with the public. Of course, I get text message updates when she twits (thats the term right?), so it is essentially a public text message. Granted, I have 1 follower that is not her or some random person, so its not that public (because I have a lot to hide).
Blogging. She has a blog. I have a blog. I would not say we use our blogs as a roundabout way of making a point to the other, but I do. Her, not so much. To be fair though, I only do it when it is funny. Or I can make a cool list.
G-Chat. Again self explanatory. Of course, this comes with the added advantage of video chat, so I can see her beautiful smile and gorgeous eyes from 1,000 miles away.
AIM. I have not downloaded AIM onto my computer, but through the magic of Google, I can log into AIM as though it is gchat. My woman has AIM on her phone, so this is essentially another method of text messaging, but with the added bonus of me being able to type faster.
E-Mail. Yup, this is down so low because I almost forgot it. We will call this regular, personal email, where she can talk to me about about her friends foibles with butt-sex (not that she would, but she could)
Work E-Mail. I do not get phone service where I work, so during the day we often e-mail each other back and forth. At least until I realize that I have sent fifteen e-mails in the last ten minutes and take a break so the IT folks think that I am actually doing work.
Google Reader. We both use the reader supplied by our overlord Google. On there, you can share stories and comment. We use that sparingly, mostly because we rarely read what the other person shared. I am working on it babe, promise! (I dont really understand what google wave is, but I am sure we will use that too when it launches.)
Facebook. I log into facebook about once a month, but when I do, I am sure to leave a comment on her wall.
Letters (in theory). She has sent me letters. I have yet to do the same. I am working on it, but hey, my handwriting sucks.

I think that is it. We are not to the point yet where we have ESP. Once she gets a Wii at her place in Chicago we might have Smash Bros. brawls online. Still, I get the feeling I am missing something.

But still, look at that list. Ten years ago, when she was 12, the only communique I had was through phone and post (note: this was 1999, when most you probably had AOL. I did not. I did not have internet access until I went to college in the fall. And even then, I think I was in the only dorm room that did not have a computer). Things have certainly evolved since then. And I am very much apprecaitive of the fact that I could go at least a day without contacting her through one of these mediums and she would not go nuts. I love you babe.

***************

They say bad things come in threes, but come on. In the last two weeks, one of the senior managers where I work suffered a major stroke and passed away. Shortly thereafter, one of my colleagues wife had a mild stroke (he received the call during a teleconference I was invovled in (in that I was there listening), and took off as he should, the odd part was, the rest of us were in his office). Then, my smoking buddy's mother was admitted to the hospital with what may be a mild stroke. Seriously, enough already.

**************

To end this on an upbeat note, I spent $212 at the grocery store tonight. I suppose that is what happens when you go five months without grocery shopping.

Whitey Nachos

2009-05-30T19:42:00.004-04:00

My girlfriend is constantly complaining that I am too "white." She is Greek, which I suppose gives her authority to judge my whiteyness. This despite the fact that early in our relationship we took a "How White Are You" quiz on Facebook, and she came out much whiter than me. So babe, this one is for you.

In the same vein as eating chicken plain, lacking any spices (when we met, I did not even have salt and pepper in my apartment), and my total lack of desire to try new things, I give you whitey nachos:

You know that shredded cheese you left in your apartment? When I saw it, I got all excited because I could now make my own brand of nachos. So I bought some tostitos, sprinkled some cheese on top, and nuked it for a minute. They were delicious.

Ouch

2009-05-29T01:35:00.006-04:00

Stubbed my toe on my couch Wednesday morning. It hurt like a bitch. Yet I suffered through the walk to the metro, walked around at work all day, and walked home again. Iced it when I got home, but yes, i was worried it was broken, but come on, it was the pinky toe, not much you can do about a broken pinky toe anyway. It looked pretty ugly though:

Yeah, it was pretty black and ugly. I avoided the hospital though. It is the pinky toe, like I just said not much one can do about it (unless I wanted some pain pills). But still, I was not too worried. It did not look nearly as bad as the bruise I got when I was hit by a car:

I was ok after that one, I should be ok after a simple toe stubbing.

(as i tried to upload that picture, my internet went out, so the rest of this post is abbreviated from my original intention).

So I can walk on my toe, although the shuffling sort of walk I had to perform caused my left calf to get pretty damn sore. Nonetheless, I still played hockey tonight.

Part of this post was suppossed to say that my girlfriend -- who just finished up her first year in law school and is back in chicago, and whom I miss very much -- would have flipped out if she saw this and made me go to the hospital or doctor or some other bullshit. The point being that I finally found myself in a situation (its been a long week), where I was kinda glad she was not here. Then I talked to her tonight, and she was all like "Psh, thats nothing." But that is only because she is clumsy. I still think that she would be more concerned about damage to my pinky toe than damage to her toe.

The other part of this post was to prove (to her) that I am tough. I played hockey with a bruised toe! Sure it was the pinky, but still, hockey skates are pretty tight. However, the only pain I really had was when I transitioned from forwards to backwards skating, and during the game tonight the only time I had to do it quickly (and thus, more pain), was when there was an odd man rush and I had more important things to concern myself with (i.e. getting my ass back on D). I am fairly certain that I detailed my hockey injuries on my old blawg, so check that if you need more proof that I am tough.

Yeah, this post sucked, sorry. I joined twitter for some reason, link in the sidebar, so I will use that for my random thoughts and try to use this blog for actual posts. Dont know if I still have the 3,000 word posts in me that populated my old blog (at some point in the last year, I took down virtually all my posts there. But now, lots of them are back, and there are more coming soon. So recheck it out), but, I may give it a shot. I am 28 now, and slightly less stupid, which seriously inhibits my blog material. I might have to write something intelligent.

Anyway, the girl is gone until the end of August. When I am not drinking, I will use this space to occupy my time.

Ugh

2009-05-22T16:34:00.001-04:00

Four thirty on the friday before memorial day and I just printed out a 100 page brief that I need to read and be prepared to comment on by tuesday afternoon. But that is not the problem. I think I burned my finger when I grabbed the paper off my printer. Ouch

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This sucks

2009-05-17T17:14:00.001-04:00

Came back to chicago for my little sisters graduation this weekend. It was nice, and the name caller called some dude "maximum stupid" on accident. But now I am in a cab going to the airport because my dad would not drive me and I am missing the third period of the hawks game against the wings? Why you ask? Because the radio is broken in the fucking cab and the hawks just scored (text via my bloodthirsty gf) to tie up the game and I am very pissed at everything right now. Except the hawks. I hope they fucking crush the wings

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Forgot

2009-04-17T17:16:00.000-04:00

My ipod this morning. And to think, yesterday I had no idea how a friday could drag on any longer. Consider me enlightened (but not entertained).

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Smoker saves the day

2009-04-01T17:55:00.000-04:00

Some dude is having his 50th birthday today and a co-worker brought in a cake for a surprise celebration.

One problem though. She had candles but no fire.

Guess who she thought to ask for fire first? That's right, I am like a cigarette puffing Superman.

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Fantasy with my Boss

2009-03-27T18:06:00.000-04:00

I joined a fantasy baseball league, in which one of my bosses participates. I have to admit, I lost a little respect when I saw that his team name is spelled in all caps (and not something like THE LOCKED CAPS).

However, I regained that respect, plus a little more, when he informed me that I had the steal of the draft.

(Course with money on the line, he may just be playing head games with me. He is a lawyer after all.)
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Stupid

2009-03-26T18:24:00.000-04:00

I just wrote up a thing and sent it off to my boss. Before sending it off, I did the whole word spell check thing, and was a bit disappointed in my grade level on the readability statistics. It came back as grade 17.2.

That's total crap. Counting kindergarten, I have had 20 grades. Plus, the whole studying for the bar exam should count as a grade because I had never studied that hard for prior 20 grades. So I should at least be topping out around 21 grade level. And because I tend to think I am above average, I should be getting 22 to 23.

But no, I am just an underacheiving dumbass. Though I guess it doesn't matter much, the whole thing will be rewritten by another anyway (then we shall see how the grade level comes out). So why try right?
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A tip

2009-03-20T16:45:00.000-04:00

Don't buy plane tickets when its a friday afternoon, you just want to leave work, are tired, are spending the afternoon toggling between tabs to keep up with the NCAA games and deapsin's live blogs, and oh yeah, actually trying to get some work done (i.e. Reading boring old cases). Because that ticket you just bought might be unrefundable, and though you got a good deal, its tough to get from dc to chicago when your roundtrip flight starts off by leaving from o'hare.

Yup, that's a terrible idea.
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2009-03-03T01:24:00.000-05:00

I am reading this book, and the author keeps saying "an historian"

I am no grammar expert, but it should be "a historian." you see, if it was "an istorian" I would have no problem. But you say the "h" in historian, so it should be "a" not "an". It is very distracting.

Stupid early '90s grammar rules.

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Best book ever?

2009-02-26T16:41:00.000-05:00

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d.html/ref=ms_a_1_p1/184-4483111-3084632?qid=1235684144&a=0195142365&sr=1-1

I obtained the above book a couple days ago and it is unbelievably fascinating.

What I want to know is why no one told me about this book in law school, when I was doing fun things like being on law review. Bastards. This book should be required owning.

That is all, I am going back to parsing through the "words of authority" section. More fun than it sounds, trust me.

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Old I

2009-02-26T16:33:00.000-05:00

Whatever happened to michelle branch?

She seemed ok. Plus she looked pretty hot in that Maxim photo shoot several years.

But the point is, I am old. I have no ability to discover new music. I never listen to the radio. I cannot stream music at work. I have not been to a concert in ages. Plus my computer has been fried for the last two months and I am too lazy to get it fixed. Its just the same 4088 songs on my ipod over and over.

That is not to say I never get new music, when I want something "new", I go through my itunes and see if anyone in there has put out a new album recently. It is a good system, but does broaden my horizons at all.

Which goes back to the point. I am old.

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Precious minutes I

2009-02-23T18:21:00.000-05:00

I always find it hilarious when people run to catch the red line between four and seven.

Some dude just sprinted past me while I calmly walked. Sure the train was just sitting there, doors parted, so inviting. But I do not want to be that guy that ran for the train when the next one comes in a minute.

The irony is that I actually half jogged to catch the metro this morning but missed by about four feet. In my defense, on the yellow line, the trains run every seven minutes. I will look the fool to save that much time.

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Change to believe in

2009-02-23T16:24:00.000-05:00

Change that I can believe in is, well, literally change. 40 quarters to be exact. And that is per week! But starting april first, tax withholding will be less (wait, that is a joke right?).

I for one am pumped. My loan payments are killing me so I can use all the change I can get my hands on. Of course, I am right in the phase out area, but I still expect some pennies.

Who says change has to come from within?

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Maybe this is how to do it?

2009-02-23T15:11:00.000-05:00

Should I start posting again? Hmmm
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How Do You Like Them Apples John Bull?

2008-10-16T20:50:00.003-04:00

More proof that America still kicks ass, even in the wake of some moderate financial turmoil. Suck on this Man U and Soccer.

[Picture courtesy of this guy]

I originally found the story in Buisnessweek, but cannot find the link.

Random Thoughts

2008-10-15T19:02:00.002-04:00

Last night, at about 12:55 a.m., I saw a commercial informing me that Cox Communications was offering a free preview of NHL Center Ice from Oct. 4 to Oct. 15. Gee, thanks Cox. I appreciate you informing me of the free preview the very day that it all expires. I also appreciate you advertising very early in the morning. See, I have this job now, that requires me to be out of bed by 7:10 (alarm starts going off at 6:15), so I cannot stay up that late anymore. But last night, I could not sleep, so I caught the first half hour of Conan, and caught the ad.

You guys are damn lucky that the 'Hawks are playing tonight.

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The one annoying bit of minutia that annoys me more than every other triviality about Northern Virginians is how they make their left turns. I live right off of a main drag, so I regularly have to make left turns from this road to lesser roads. All of these lights have a green left arrow, but no red left arrow. In fact, there is a sign that says, "Yield to Oncoming Traffic On Green." Yet, people continually sit at the line on green. Wait for the light to turn red, wait for the cross green, then go on the green arrow (unless there is a big break in traffic going the other way).

In the Midwest, we (they) left-turners get out as far as possible into the middle of the intersection, and if necessary, turn left a second or two after the light has turned red. But the first (and sometimes the second and third) folks in line are able to make the turn.

Not so out here. I guess one problem is the positioning of the light. If you get into the middle of the intersection, you cannot see when the light turns colors. This does not bother me. When the cars going the other direction stop, I go. Yeah me.

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How about the economy eh? Being extremely, extremely selfish, I am glad the market crashed. Well not really, but everything was overvauled. But by beginning my retirement account now, when everything is undervalued. Granted, I am only putting in $20 every two weeks (plus matching!) (for now anyway, have not got a pay check yet, so I do not know how much I can afford to put in what with taxes and all that shit), but you have to start somewhere.

Sure, people are not spending much right now, but that is no surprise, what with the stock market crashing and people not paying their mortgages. But I am fairly certain that things are not as bad as 24 hour news would like you to believe. Remember the recession after the bubble burst? Neither do I (you know, other than the fact that I could not get a decent job out of college, but that is mostly because I suck, and I have a job now, so no worries).

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In that same vein, I was going to post something with a headline of "What Credit Crunch?" last week, but never got around to it. Last week I got a text message informing that I had been pre-approved for a $200,000 business loan to get my business off the ground. I was going to talk about how there must be plenty of credit available if someone like me, with no business plan, no idea for a business, no desire to start his own business, and $140,000 of debt with about $1,000 worth of assets, could be pre-approved for a $200K loan, then the economy must kicking ass.

That of course, is crap. There is a credit crunch, namely because Bank #1 does not trust Bank #2. To facilitate this, central banks from across the world dropped their interest rates fifty basis points. Again, because I am selfish, view this as awesome. I think all of my student loans that have a variable rate (vast majority of them), are tied to the LIBOR rate. When the LIBOR rate drops, I am in a good position. Now, with rates so low, I can look into consolidating all of the variable rate loans into fixed rate loans, even though I will be giving up what, 25, 50 basis points to lock in a fixed rate when rates will be going up in the almost near future because inflation will start getting out of hand. Yee-Haw.

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I am up to three primetime television shows now. I blame Hulu. Hulu has all of this seasons episodes of House and Bones and last seasons finales. So over the weekend, I got all caught up, and now I am hooked. God bless you hulu (or maybe not). The third show is Smallville, but I missed the season premiere and the second episode. Thankfully, it is one of those shows where it is pretty easy to figure out what is going on.

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If you have made it this far, I feel that you know owe me something. No, not a kidney or a rib, just some advice. I am not so great with inter-personal relationships, particualry in the workplace.

So, question number one regards e-mail etiquette. I ask Y a question in person, and Y says to me the answer is A. I say thank you and get to work. A short time later, I get an e-mail from Y saying that Y talked to Z and the answer is actually B. Should I respond with a thank you? One of the support people asked me to email her when I got my phone up and running. I did, and she replied back with a thank you. I was a little shocked to read this, but it might just be the culture. So I do not know what the e-mail etiquette is.

Question #2. How does one extricate oneself from a conversation one does not really want to be a part of? I went to drop something off for someone the other day, and she was talking to another employee about something, and they asked me about it and I was sucked into the conversation for a while, until it took a turn to other issues I could careless about and I wanted to leave. In the old days, I would have just left, but apparently this is not the best course of action. I realize I could have lied and said I had a meeting or something, but 1) I am not a big fan of lying and 2) they would know if I had a meeting (I do not have many meetings). So, any thoughts?

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I do not watch any 24 hour news networks, so I am curious if any of them have had economists and other such people (that are not talking heads or reciting the party line) about the various tax, economic, and whatever else policies of McCain and Obama. I am talking graphs with threshold limits. Best case, worst case scenarios. What they can actually do. What they will actually do. You know, talking about the election, instead of retarded things like who won a debate (OK, X won the debate. Why did he win? Because he has a sound economic policy or because he looks presedential. Because you beleive what he says about tax breaks or that he talked about Norma Jean, aged 94, from Buttfuck, Oregon, who has syphillis and cannot afford her medical bills?). Why do people prefer to watch talking heads, blowing shit out the wrong hole, pontificating on how Obama is a terrorist because he knows some dude that I never heard of (and now, have no desire to ever know who or what he is).

I get all of my election news from this nonpartisan site, which, unfortunately, is stuck being reactionary.

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Dear Liberals,

I have heard from many of you your thoughts on McCain's VP selection. I have heard about this ad nauseum. Hell, everyone has chimed in, from celebrities to my favorite sports blog. And you all love talking about Mrs. Palin. Even Jon Stewart loves to shift the focus to Sarah Palin.

I think that this is why McCain chose her. Americans, however ill-informed or ingnorant they are, hate being talked down to. So when McCain picks a Sarah Palin, whose deficiences as a VP candidate are obvious to even Cletus the Slack Jawed Yokel, he did so because he knew how you all would react. He knew that you would get all up in arms, cry from the mountain tops about how this MILF would bring this country down. How she has no experience, how her daughter has defied the conservative morality, how much she looks like Tina Fey, how she refuses to answer questions.

McCain is counting on the democrats to destroy themselves yet again. Bush had no business winning a second term, yet the dems nominated Frankenstein and had every body and their brother tell Americans how to think. It is mostly an issue with Hollywood. Most Americans (save the 14 year olds), do not idolize Hollywood. They fear Hollywood. Joe McCarthy may have been ass, but he did bring to light the Communist ideology that pervaded Hollywood. It may not have been even close to half of Hollywood that was Communist, but they had money, and they could bankroll it. They fear that Hollywood has an agenda. And Hollywood has a stigma of free love and drug abuse that many do not want to see permeate the eastern 4/5 ths of the country.

OK, a little off track there, but to bring it back around, when you bitch about Palin, you do two things. First, you alienate the undecideds, who are undecided because they are swayed by retarded things that do not include "the issues." Palin is no Cheney. She is not going to have McCain's ear. If McCain died on Jan. 21, President Palin would be nothing more than a puppet of the Republican Party. She would be given no leeway to formulate policy that did not come from Mike Duncan et. al. Second, you play right into McCain's hands. He likes avoidance. All republicans like avoidance. It is hard for one to reconcile the obvious contradictions in being a republican. They prey on the wealth of the wealthy voters and appeal to the morality and nationalism of the poor voters. How two completely divergent classes can be reconciled is not something that can be done in a soundbite (though it can be done).

Thank you for your attention,

A McCain Voter.

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Nice to get that off my chest. It is likely completely wrong, but I thought I would write it up, since no one reads this shit anyway.

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'Hawks game is about to start. Time for me to get reaquainted with the smooth vocal stylings of Pat Foley.

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And, I got this book in the mail today. I will let you all know how it is.

Numb

2008-10-05T01:29:00.005-04:00

The Cubs just lost.

Swept. For the second year in a row.

100 years. This year was supposed to be different.

It felt different. But it was not. Same old thing.

Future generations of psychologists will tell us how irrational it is to cheer for a bunch of highly paid athletic freaks; why it makes no sense for us to pay money and waste watching them play a game. But we do, it is a social thing, it is an envy thing, it is an escape thing.

Right now, I am sitting alone in my apartment, I could not bear to be around people as the Cubbies were swept away again, thinking about how much a Cubs victory would have brought me joy, alleviated me from the pressures of paying back over $120K in loans. But instead, I am feeling the way Derrek Lee and Ramirez and Theriot and Harden and Zambrano and the rest of the post season roster are feeling. There is no envy. Just mutual disgust, depression, and overriding sense of failure.

This was "next year."

The last time I invested this much time into a Cubs team was 2003. In 2003, I had just graduated from college and was working a night job while trying to figure out what to do with my life. The nice thing about working at night was that I could go to bed around 5 a.m. and be up by 1:20 for the Cubs game. If they were playing at night, I listened to Pat & Ron on the radio.* That postseason I paid $300 to see Mark Prior defeat Greg Maddux in person. It was my greatest moment as a Cub fan.

We all know what happened next:

This summer, like in 2003, I was out of state until graduation. This summer, I did not work, I studied for the Bar. I watched or listened to on the radio, nearly every single Cubs game while I studied for the Bar. After the first day of the Bar, I went back to the hotel and watched the Cubs defeat the Brewers (though I fell asleep in the 7th inning. Sorry, but the Bar Exam is exhausting). After the second day of the Bar, I celebrated by watching my Cubbies defeat the Brewers again.

This does not even include the game I went to while I should have been studying for the bar (it would have been more, but money, not really growing at trees). It was 40 degrees outside, and my little Sis and I were sitting directly behind home plate, with the wind blowing in.

After the Bar, I watched every game, until I moved to VA. The next couple months sucked. I went through withdrawal. I had no cable, and a very shaky unsecured wireless connection from a neighbor upon which I "watched" every game I could on mlb.com. Not to mention the traveling. But eventually, I got my cable, but still could only get the games on WGN. I still watched most games on mlb.com with the trusty LAN, and then the Cubs clinched, and I was able to take a breather.

Playoffs came, I was confident. This team was good. Very good. We could score a hundred different ways, we had a great pitching staff, and three reliable arms out of the bullpen. I started ripping on White Sox mercilessly, goading them into talking about a Red Line series, then laughing because the Sox would never make it out of the first round.

Ooops.

I do not know what comes next. It took me a long time to recover from 2003. But this is what being a Cubs fan means I guess.

At the very least this tempers my expectations for what is projected a much better Blackhawks team. I seriously considered dipping into my my slim funds to come up with the money for Center Ice, to watch the Blackhawks (yes, they put the games on WGN, but they will not be televised nationally). They are, after all, the other horribly lost cause of a chicago team.

Ah, well. I am very sad. I will get my comeuppance on Monday I suppose. Until then, I am going to listen to this fifty times:

*I did not pay for the WGN radio feed through MLB, but I cannot imagine what Ron is going through right now.

UPDATE: Al from Bleedie Cubbie Blue says it best

Best Day Ever?

2008-10-01T19:43:00.004-04:00

Today I:

Found out I passed the Bar
Got this CD in the mail
Had a two hour lunch with 20 co-workers (though it was kind of shocking that out of the 20, I am the only smoker)
Obtained my ID badge so I can now move freely inside and outside of the building
Discovered that me feet do not hurt nearly as bad as on Monday and Tuesday from all the walking in dress shoes
Bought some beer
Drank some beer
Got a bunch of work to do so now I do not have to sit in my office trying to look busy
Did something productive for the first time in two months
And of course, right now I am watching my Cubbies in the playoffs (but since it is the first game, I could not bear to be around people because, well, they are the Cubs).

I should have bought a lottery ticket.

Worst Day Ever?

2008-09-30T18:56:00.002-04:00

Last night around 6:30 I bought a chicken sandwich from 7/11. Yada, yada, yada, at 3:30 a.m. I was at the local 24 hour Giant picking up a bottle of pepto bismal. I chugged half the bottle before I was finally able to get an hour and a half of sleep. Upon waking I still felt like shit, and chugged the other half of the bottle, and feeling half dead, with a stomach still doing flip flops. Thankfully, for my second day of work, I was able to sit in a couple meetings where there was no way in hell I could be expected to understand what was going on. The pepto did its job and I was able to focus on not falling asleep.

Now, I am exhausted, still feel like shit because the pepto is working too well (probably should not have drunk the whole bottle), but the Bar is tantalizing me with promises of scores being released. At first I thought "late afternoon" would mean four-ish, but as late as six. It is now after six central time and have come to the realization that we are dealing with lawyers here. "Late afternoon" probably means "late after noon," such as 11:59 p.m. I'll give them a couple more hours. Then I need my sleep (though I will likely wake up around 2, feeling not so goodish).

Bar Scores

2008-09-29T21:58:00.002-04:00

Word on the street is that IL Bar scores are going up tomorrow. The site is already crashing. Thankfully, what I read indicates that they are e-mailing the scores. Which is good.

We shall see. Today was my first day working as lawyer. Tomorrow, I may be bumped down to paralegalling. Exciting times.

Props, then the opposite of Props

2008-09-25T19:06:00.003-04:00

I was driving around the other day and saw one of the most clever license plates I have ever seen. See, here in ol' Virginny, you can choose from an array of different license plates. They even have special plates for out of state universities, such as Ohio State and Penn State (but not my undergrad, you bastards). So anyway, the special plate I saw was this:

If I actually had photoshop or MS Paint skills, I would have just put in the actual words, but I do not, so, the letters on the plate were:

CANC3R

That gave me a good laugh. Then I tried to flick my cigarette onto the top of the car, but science got in the way.

At this point, I have never had more respect for a person I had never seen before, but then I saw the bumper stickers. The first said, "RON PAUL" and something about '08 presidential candidate. The second said "BARACK OBAMA" and something about being a legitimate '08 presidential candidate.

Way to be a single issue voter. I cannot imagine any more than two issues on which libertarians and democrats agree on. What a moron.

I have a lot to say about libertarians (mostly that they are idiots, but including how to make a libertarian look like an idiot), but I am enjoying my last four days before the eternal hellfire of work takes over my life.

Tranquil

2008-09-14T00:21:00.003-04:00

It is about half past midnight. I have a Genesee Cream Ale in one hand and a cigarette in the other.* There is a full moon, with a nice crumbly swath of clouds slowly passing through its light, but failing at blocking any of the light. The rest of the sky is cloudless, with only the most persistent of the stars shining through the moon's glow. I am sitting on the second floor deck of a beach house staring out at the Atlantic. The waves, no more than fifty yards away, continually crash, slowly, imperceptibly receding unless you watch them for a few hours, continue their trek to low tide.

To me, this is what peace looks and sounds like.

I could sit right here for hours, but alas, I have to pick my sister and her husband up from the Philly airport tomorrow at 10.

That is ok though. I still have a week to grab hold of this ever elusive feeling.

*I am typing with my nose.

Contrails

2008-09-11T17:33:00.005-04:00

Things are always happening. Things happen that we cannot control. Sometimes these are terrible things. Regardless, these things cause change and give you a chance to look at things differently, learn something you otherwise would not have.

On the seventh anniversary of 9/11, there is nothing I can write to help put things in perspective that has not been written about before.

Instead, consider this:

When all airplane traffic was grounded over the United States in the three days following 9/11, some people did not get the chance to stand around shocked. They were given a shot to determine the effect of contrails on the atmosphere.

These researchers reported that

When this is factored in, there is a possibility that [contrails] offset global warming, and this is what we are trying to determine now.

They also note that more studies are needed, and will have to rely on circumstantial evidence. But the importance of the direct evidence as a result of 9/11? Invaluable. Worth 3,000 American lives? Hell no, not even close. But life is happening all around us. I just need to remember to keep my eyes open.

I'm A Dope, and I suck at Golf

2008-09-04T20:19:00.003-04:00

My genius knows no bounds. I post a link on my old blog to the new blog and then do not post anything because I am fervently enjoying my last month of unemployment/student status until I become a working stiff for the next 30 years at the end of this month. The thing about driving all over the country and seeing old friends is that it leaves little time to write blog posts, mostly because it is hard to write intelligently when the spirits have made you cross-eyed.

So I will leave with a few meaningless thoughts from the past week to divert you from wondering why in the hell the Republicans are stupid enough to try to purge the inter-tubes of the the Sarah Palin Sports Highlight video.

**********

I truly suck at golf. I had not played in five years, but still. What a miserable experience. By hole 13 I just said fuck it, and exclusively used my 7, 8, and 9 irons (plus the putter) (and I could not hit the pitching wedge for shit) because that was the only to get the ball to go in the general direction I wanted it to go (though I was dead on accurate with the nine iron to the green from about 50 yards!). It was so bad that I think I am going to scrape some money together, buy a decent set of clubs (I used rentals when I played), and hit the driving as much as possible for the next year just because I cannot stand to suck that much at something

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I think this may be the busiest gas station in the United States.

View Larger Map
I went there four times in three days, at various times in the day and it was like something out the '70s. Well, maybe not that bad, but there was always a line to get gas. The first time I went in, I actually asked the clerk if it was always this busy. She answered in the affirmative. So, if you are ever in Rochester, watch out for that gas station.

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Pro Football Hall of Fame? Meh.

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My grandma, at 92, has finally reached the point where she really cannot take care of herself full-time. My mom asked me for thoughts on how to protect her assets while still getting all the appropriate health care. I gave her a couple of ideas, by my advice mostly consisted of talking to an attorney who is an expert in Elder Law. She did, and he helped out a lot (though my mom is now buried in a mountain of paperwork).

So for those recent law graduates who are struggling to land a job, look into Elder Law. Seriously. It is not sexy or highly profitable, but it is an area that is going to grow and grow. Get in on the ground floor. And, as an added benefit, you are actually going to do something that helps people. Good for all of you altruistic folks.

Goals

2008-08-27T06:13:00.002-04:00

Jay Mariotti, Sun-Times sports columnists, has resigned from the paper stating that he now believes newspapers are dead and the internet is the future. So what is his legacy?

If Sox and Cubs fans agree on anything, it is that they hate JM. He was rather universally reviled. The comments on the Sun-Times website show this clearly. Why was he hated? Some think he is a hack writer, some think his points are idiotic, some think he was never accountable for what he wrote, some hate that he had the privilege of access but has not been in a locker room in five years, and some likely think all those, plus some. But he positioned himself as a contrarian and turned that into national fame with ESPN.

He got people talking. He got himself noticed by getting people to revile him. He became infamous when two radio guys launched a website that was basically a takedown of every column he wrote.

Think about that for a second. How many writers can you think of with regularly updated posts about a freaking sports writer? The Sports Guy has a message board devoted to taking him down, Mike Lupica has at least one possibly two (though the second does not seem to focus on Lupica anymore), this guy hates Will Leitch but it is not a frequent topic on the blog, KSK hates Peter King, and there are probably some more out there but it is a pretty elite class of established, widely-read columnists. (Note: Firejoemorgan hates everyone.)

So what does this mean, other than the obvious? People know who Mariotti is. Does this make him a success? There are two ways to look at this. First, he wrote for the Sun-Times. The goals of the Sun-Times are to sell papers and sell ad space, the former obviously contributing to the latter. The first question then is, did Mariotti increase the Sun-Times circulation? This is arguable, I have no data on this. I know that at times Mike & Mike in the Morning would discuss something controversial he had written, and likewise for Mac, Jurko, & Harry. That may have sold a few more papers on that given day, but overall, who knows. The Sun-Times likely thought he did, which is why the signed him to a large contract extension two months ago.

The second prong of this first inquiry is about the traffic to the website. I would assume that he likely spiked traffic on the site, particularly given his national promenance with ESPN and the fact that people like to read and watch things that piss them off (e.g. Bill O'Reilly). So the Sun-Times likely valued him for the increased traffic his columns may have brought to the webpage.

The Second inquiry is whether being reviled is good for Mariotti himself. I would venture to say it is. It got him on national tv. It got him a radio show (which did not last long because it is one thing to spend two minutes reading a column and a whole other thing to listen to him for three hours). It got him a hate webpage. It got him in the news when people fucked around with his wikipedia page.

I do not know if they say this, but they should, "If you cannot be good, be controversial." After all, every story needs a villian.

College

2008-08-19T00:32:00.005-04:00

There is a recent article in the WSJ called, "For Most People, College is a Waste of Time." (Note: Not really an article, part of a book by Charles Murray called Real Education: Four Simple Truths for Bringing America's Schools Back to Reality.) The main thrust of the article is that a BA can be replaced by certification tests such as the CPA. I may be stating his thesis too absolutely, but that does not matter, even when generalized his thesis is jabberwocky.

I am the first to rail against the structure of the traditional high school education, but it does share a theme with post-secondary education. I try to explain this to others, and they have trouble comprehending it. Hopefully, typing it out will make more sense.

You see, school is not about knowing what the colors in The Red Badge of Courage mean. It is about learning that those colors are to be appreciated and can teach you something. School is not about memorizing how to do geometric proofs, but how to think logically through a problem. School is all about learning how to think, not necessarily develop the specific tools for a specific trade (with the exception of trade or vocational school of course). Why do you think "Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader" is so compelling? No one expects an accountant or secretary or nurse or supply chain management specialist or salesman or FBI agent to know what a cirrus cloud is. To say "Knowledge Fades" misses the point. Factoids fade, the skills should not.

So what of post-secondary education? Aren't you essentially majoring in a specialty with an expectation to get a job in that specialty? Why couldn't a certification test replace a BA?

If rote knowledge is all you want, then yes, yes it could. You take the guy that memorized a bunch of equations, a few scenarios and used that to pass the CPA, instead of those who struggled through hypotheticals in class and tried to use known formulas in unknown situations. The question is, do you want your professional to be a robot or a professional? How would you feel if you went to your accountant or stock broker (bad example, fuck them), or middle manager and she said to you, "Does Not Compute"?

Why do MBA programs use case studies? Why do law schools use the Socratic method? It is about thinking. Those are advanced methods of logic (though not in the case of some law), which are developed from the analytical skills that one learns in post-secondary education. It is about confronting a problem and learning how to analyze and ultimately solve the problem.

For some? Yes college is a waste of time. But for those who occasionally go to class and learn a thing or two end up learning things they never even knew they learned.

[Afterthought: If not for tuition, I think Murray may be advocating the higher education system in Italy, where attendance to lectures is largely voluntary.]

Ignornance

2008-08-19T00:02:00.002-04:00

I have spent virtually all of my life in the Midwest. As such, the term "parkway" meant nothing to me in the first 27 years of my life. Sure I had fleeting experiences with parkways in those years. As a child, and adolescent, and teenager, and young man, my family would regularly take yearly vacations to the Jersey Shore. To get to the shore, it was necessary to travel on the Garden State Parkway. I never thought more of it than it just being a road. In Illinois we had highways, expressways, tollways, freeways, and interstates. For most of my life, I just assumed that "parkway" was just a euphemism for a road with no stop lights where you could go real fast if you got lucky and there was no traffic.

I have lived on the east coast for about three days now and have already been on two parkways (George Washington and Baltimore-Washington) and seen signs for at least one more.

But I am not as ignorant as I once was. I now get on a parkway and I take in the sights, I notice the brick that lines the street, I look at the trees that line the road, I look for good places to drop anchor and have a picnic, I study the bridges to see if there is any nuance in architecture that one unschooled in such things as myself could appreciate, and I notice the height of bridges and wonder if I could make it under in the U-Haul I drove to Virginia.

But mostly, I think of Robert Moses.

You see, I went through 26 1/2 years of my life not giving a shit about the term parkway because I did not know it really meant anything. I never bothered to care if it meant anything. It was just a word. A word for a road. Who cares right? I drive on it. It gets me to where I want to go. What more could I ask?

A hell of a lot more. After I read The Power Broker, I understood that there were a lot more questions about Parkways that I should be asking. There is a whole history as to how they came about. Money for construction being the most important. But how often do you ask what government agency spends money to build a new road? Maybe if you are from the East Coast you have that question, but not us "aww shucks" Midwesterners.

This is one small part of how one very long book changed my perspective of something I regularly experience but never really understood. But had I never read that book, I never would have a second thought about what a parkway is. I would have remained ignorant. When I had this realization, I hated myself a little bit. Why had I never asked what a parkway was? Maybe I had, but why did I not remember the answer?

It is cliche by now, but the old saying is that wisdom is knowing how much you really do not know. I keep striving to know, but to get everything is impossible.

But I have to try.

Dueling Snores

2008-08-14T23:08:00.003-04:00

Right now it is about 11:00 p.m. I am exhausted, sitting on the bed in a cheap hotel somewhere in bumfuck Pennsylvania. I am in the midst of officially moving to Virginia. Only three hours away, hopefully. I am dead tired, having had four hours of sleep last night and having spent 10 hours today wrestling with a 14 foot U-Haul.

My parents, unable to see their only son finally leave the nest after 27 years*, insisted on coming along. Sort of. I did need them to drive my car down, but they were coming no matter what. So we got a hotel room, to spend the night because I did not want to spend 14 hours straining my wrists keeping the U-Haul in its lane (though my right wrist is much stronger now thank you). We got, or my mom got and I did nothing to prevent, one room. I was in the room when the reservations were made, and I should have said, "Hey, I will take my own room." But I did not.

This sucks for two reasons.

First, my parents are in my room. It is not like I would have ordered porn or anything, but it is a little, . . . . I mean, I should be self-sufficient by now. If I want my own room, I should just get my own room. Sadly, I am not to that point yet. Keeping another $75 off my credit cards now will slightly help me in the long run. Plus, apparantly you can smoke in PA hotels. My folks quit six years ago. Now, with them both sleeping, I am going to have to sneak out to smoke so I do not wake them up.

Second, I doubt I will wake them up. My parents snore. I mean, they SNORE. It is loud. This is not something you think about at 7 o'clock when your mom makes a hotel reservation. But now that the cacophony of nasal and throat sounds drown out the Olympics gymnastics announcer, I recall the last time I was in a hotel room with them, and I lied awake for three hours listing to a nasal symphony.

So that is what I am. I dude sitting in the dark, with only the light of the laptop and television, listening to his parents snore, as he tries to strike it out on his own.

This will not end well.

*Four years of out-of-state undergrad, two years living 3o minutes from my hometown, and three years at out-of-state law school evidently does not qualify as "leaving home."

That Did Not Take Long

2008-08-08T23:57:00.002-04:00

As of right now, this blog is still not "Live." No one other than me knows that it exists. Google has not indexed it yet (I will not bother trying to get it on yahoo or MSN. Seems pointless, though probably is not).

Yet someone has already taken notice of my first post. According to sitemeter, I have had a grand total of four visits since my first post. Three have been from me. The other; well if you read that first post you can guess.

So to follow up, this is my letter to UPS:

Dear UPS (and any other company that provides customer support):

As you have read, I was extremely pissed off when I wrote that initial post. The fact that you sent my package to CA when it was supposed to go to VA sent me off into a white hot rage. Your job is to deliver to packages. Why you failed at this task for the one package I had sent with you in the last four years frustrated me to no end. When I looked up that tracking number and saw where my package was, I was livid.

You see, this is why you cannot outsource customer service (not UPS in general (you do not even have customer service), but companies in general). You do not call customer service when you are happy as a pig in shit. You call customer service when you are about to explode and the poor underpaid rep on the other side [of the ocean] has to deal with it. It is a terrible situation for all parties involved, the provider and the customer. You put me on a line with "Steve" who is actually Indian, you are not getting the customer service experience off on the right foot. You lie to me from the outset, you think I trust you for the rest of the conversation. No it just gets me more pissed off.

But back to UPS. Thankfully, when my overnight package arrived four days late, no harm was done. As soon as I found out, I contacted the recipient, who understood the situation and was very understanding. So no harm, no foul.

But not really. I spent fifty bucks for overnight service, not week service. But by the time I went in today to take of my situation, all the venom I wished to spew had been swallowed into, "eh." So I very calmly explained the situation to the dude at the UPS store and that was that.

Now, the one thing that does piss me off is that the UPS Store Franchise does not have authorization to issue refunds for an obvious fuck-up such as this. See, I do not have my fifty bucks back in my pocket right now. I have to wait ten days to get a check. And what will the number on that check be? Today, I would have taken forty dollars, maybe even thirty, just to have that cash back in my pocket. Now, if you are mailing me a check, I expect all fifty dollars back. You fuck up my package, then you make me wait for a refund, shit it almost makes me wish this whole situation screwed me into a hole so I could sue for consequential damages (which I would get FYI. You overnight a package, obviously it is of utmost importance and should not be sent 2,000 miles in the wrong direction. Second, the only contract I made was with the UPS Store franchise, which specifically disclaimed consequential damages. You (UPS) would obviously know that I am a third party beneficiary of the contract I made with the Franchise and as such, privity is no defense for you).

In closing, UPS, thank you for taking stock of my site. There is no need for your CEO to contact me. As I told the franchise clerk after he said he was sorry that my package was delayed, "Shit happens." Granted my story has a happy ending (once I get my $50), but the fact that you have no customer service phone number on your website still pisses the shit out of me.

But in the end, it is you, FedEx, or USPS. So when I went to the UPS Store today, I also shipped out another (albiet, much less important) package. You can bet I will be checking that tracking number more often (but because it is going only 60 miles, I do not expect any problems. Though that is when problems occur).

Strange

2008-08-08T16:43:00.005-04:00

A couple weeks ago I made a post on a message board about a kid named Ben Underwood who is blind, but sees through echo-location. Today, I noticed that With Leather had a post about the same story (from 8/6).

But the thing that caught my eye was when Ufford said, "This week's People Magazine profiles Ben Underwood . . ."

It was odd because it was not this weeks People, but People from July 2006, and happened to be the same article I linked to in the message board post.

I just found that odd. I am not an attribution whore, it was merely a post on a message board. After my post, it showed up on SI's Hot Clicks, and went from there. But the important thing is that the story is getting out. Because the story is pretty fucking incredible.

Note that the follow-up is not so heart-warming. His cancer has come back.

Hello World

2008-08-06T02:00:00.000-04:00

This is what I hate.

On Friday I nailed down an apartment 1,000 miles that I was planning on moving in sight unseen. All I had to do was overnight a package from Illinois to Virginia containing my deposit checks. Easy enough, except that it was 3:30 p.m. and I was at my parent's house and my checkbook was 45 minutes away. No problem I thought. I made the 45 minute trip in a record breaking 35 minutes (no traffic at 3:30, go figure), made it to the closest UPS store, and got all my copies and faxes in order.

Then the UPS clerk offered my a choice. The package could arrive by Monday for $30 or on Saturday for $50. Never one to count my chickens before they hatch, I went with the Saturday delivery and promptly informed the apartment people that the package would arrive on Saturday.

Then I forgot about.

I was a little surprised that I did not hear back from the apartment complex on Monday, but did not think much of it. Same thing on Tuesday, though I began to get a little concerned. But I eventually forgot about it and went out for the evening. When I got home, I decided, as an afterthought, to check the Tracking Number to make sure that it was delivered. Yeah, you see where this is going.

On Tuesday morning, my package was sitting in California. Far as I can tell, it is still there. It was supposed to be in Virginia on Saturday morning. Instead of going 1,000 miles east, it went 2,000 miles west and still has 3,000 miles left to go.

So what was I to do? I immediately e-mailed the apartment complex, but that will not do any good for now. It is 2 a.m. there. For all I know, when they did not get the checks when I told them they would, they said screw me (without a phone call because talking to people can be a bitch when they need you to understand a peculiar circumstance), and leased the apartment to a new person. Or maybe they are still holding it for me. I did fax them my application and they said they would hold it for me, but the fact is, they do not have my cash yet, so it is not like they owe me anything.

I checked the UPS website. Apparently, there is no customer service numbers for when your package gets lost. I checked www.upsstore.com, but for whatever reason, the location search is fucked up and does not work. This makes it difficult to even find out if there is any store that is open 24 hours anywhere in the country. This dearth of information from preventing what I really want to know, When the hell my package is going to arrive. I guess this means that I have to call or head to the UPS store tomorrow. I will probably go in person. I want my fifty bucks back (but not if it limits my remedies to only the refund).

So this is what I hate. It is now 1:20 in the morning. And there is nothing I can do. Something is fucked up, and there is no way that I can fix it right now. Everything is out of my control. Nothing is going to change in the next five hours. I can only accept that and deal with it.

I hate this.