"Truth" by Pete

The Inadvertent Mullet

2010-01-17T11:43:00.000-08:00

Three months ago I moved to Arkansas. Laugh it up, fuzz ball. Somebody has to live in Arkansas, right? Otherwise how would the rest of the country keep making fun of it?

Well, I've never really thought of myself as a redneck... in fact, I can give a list of reasons why I don't qualify as a redneck:
-I know how to pronounce certain words correctly ("es-cape" not "eck-scape", etc),
-I don't own a gun and I've never been hunting,
-I don't own a truck with a gunrack,
-I don't even own either a truck OR a gunrack,
-I went to a rodeo just once, but it was with the intent of making fun of people,
-I don't own any flannel or camouflage clothing,
-I don't quote Larry the Cable Guy,
-the closest thing to a weapon in my house is a set of golfclubs or a Nerf gun,
-I have my teeth cleaned every six months by a trained professional,
-my list of geniuses includes Albert Einstein and not Jeff Foxworthy,

I could go on...

...but you may notice one fairly obvious item missing from that list, and that is the problem that I'd like to talk about in this blog today.

The Innocent Beginning to an Extremely Depressing Story

About two months ago, I cut my own hair with a pair of clippers... nice and short. I'm pretty sure that a lot of dudes out there do this and I'm not a freak...

The Extremely Depressing End of the Extremely Depressing Story

Yesterday, I walked into a barbershop and told the barber to make me look good. The barber asked how short I wanted my hair cut on the top versus in back. I responded that I didn't know. So she grabbed her comb and measured my hair: "Right now, it's 2 inches on the top... and... 2.5 inches on the back." That phrase sunk deep into my heart...

I'm sure you know what that means. I had a mullet. You know, longer hair in the back than in the front... "business up-front, party in the back"... Nothing makes someone a redneck as quickly as owning and sporting a mullet. It doesn't matter how many items are on the list of things I do that disqualify me as a redneck. I can't deny the fact that I had a mullet.

If you consider yourself to not be a redneck, and suddenly you realize that you have a mullet, your opinion about not being a redneck is automatially wrong. And let me attest, this will turn your world upside-down. My entire frame of reference as a non-redneck had shifted.

Now, before I just automatically qualify myself as a redneck due to my mullet, let me ask a question: Does it matter whether my mullet was inadvertent?

Be honest in your comments... my life, as I know it, depends on your answers.

What The Next Decade Holds For Me

2010-01-03T07:53:00.000-08:00

Since everyone else is coming up with their new goals for the new decade, I figured I may as well jump on the bandwagon. No, wait, that's not what I meant to say... I've never condoned "the bandwagon" or jumping onto it. While some who know me may claim that I've been a bandwagon jumper for years, this is, of course, not true. No matter how much evidence people present against you, you can never fess up to jumping onto bandwagons. You lose all credibility in all areas of life if you get caught bandwagon jumping. The bandwagon jumper's mantra is always to DENY DENY DENY! In the face of all evidence, just deny it all. None of it is true. You can always come up with some sort of reason that you needed to, or were forced into doing what you did. Justify your actions! Those who are prosecuting you as a bandwagon jumper want nothing more than for you to admit that you jumped onto that bandwagon. This is something you just simply cannot allow yourself to do. Never give the prosecution any satisfaction. Denial is so much more than just a river in Africa... it is the only useful tool to the bandwagon jumper.

With that said, I am not jumping on any bandwagons now... I'm simply sharing what I hope to accomplish in the next decade.

Actually now that I'm thinking about what matters most to me in the coming ten years, there is really just one thing that comes to the surface which will be the focus of the rest of this post.

My wife, three beautiful daughters, and I are about to finish building our first home. Let me clarify... WE haven't actually done any of the building. We have had the much more laborious part of the building process than the actual labor - we have had to make some decisions. Decisions like what color we want to paint the walls (er, I mean, what color we want SOMEONE ELSE to paint OUR walls), and another really painstaking decision: what color we want to stain the wood (again, I mean what color we want someone else to stain our wood), and so on and so forth. The easiest, most no-brain decision in the entire laborious process for us was to put in a super-sized water heater (three daughters...).

So you can see, this has been extremely energy-consuming work for us. Which brings us to where we are now. We are about one week from the house being complete. This is the perfect time to begin thinking about what I don't like about the house, since it is way too late to change it, although I guess it's nice to have a project already in mind for when we get "house project hungry". Seems like everyone we know with a house has a list of things they want to do to their homes.

At this point in time, after all the effort we have put into building our home, there is just one thing that I want to do in the next ten years:

Completely re-design the bathroom. Let me put it into some context. Our builder didn't give us many choices to make in the bathroom. In hindsight, I wish he would have let us completely design the bathroom from scratch. The rest of the house could have been a standard template floorplan with no customization, but the bathroom is where I want complete control (the last half of that sentence could be used in a lot of different real-life scenarios... feel free to quote me in your everyday life as circumstances require).

Here is what I want the bathroom to be.

-Two toilets, his and hers. Sort of like on that old Saturday Night Live commercial for the matching toilets. Just think of it - it would no longer be possible for the woman to blame the man for clogging the toilet.
-One urinal. Why don't we already have these in our homes? Why are these only used in public restrooms? Am I missing something here?
-Two bidets. Why do Americans claim to be the most advanced country in the world if we don't even use bidets? They leave you so much cleaner than toilet paper, so much more ready to face the cruel world outside. I want two of these in my bathroom so I don't have to share mine with anyone. The bidet would need to have a built-in blow dryer, since you never can trust a bidet towel. (The topic of Bidet Towels could require an entire blog by itself...)
-Everything made out of either inflatable or Nerf materials. This would eliminate all bathroom injuries.
-Circus mirrors. On days when I feel too skinny, I could use the mirror that makes me look fatter. On days when I feel too tall, I could use the mirror that makes me look shorter.
-Two showers. One that does not allow any loofas under any circumstances.
-A security system and a giant mega-phone. So I can watch what the kids are doing and give them orders from my throne.
-A dozen bathroom servants, who will do everything for me. Especially shaving, fanning me with palm fronds, and feeding me grapes.

May we all have a great decade with at least one attainable goal...

Who Let the Dogs Out...? I Did !!!

2009-08-30T10:52:00.000-07:00

Sadly, this is not a tribute to the Baha Men.

Instead, it's an introduction to my long-standing theory about dogs, and their desire to be free of human control.

"Man's Best Friend" is a phrase often heard about dogs and their apparent "friendship" with humans. Let me explain the truth of the situation.

Dogs hate humans

Any dog who acts like he/she likes humans is deceiving us. They hate us like an abused slave hates its master after generations of this abusive slave-owner relationship. Humans broke the will of dogs years and years ago and enslaved them - this is also known as "domestication". Prior to the great "favor" humans did for dogs by "befriending" them thousands of years ago, dogs roamed the earth, wild, free, in packs. They did whatever they wanted. They lived according to their natural spirit. But humans changed all that.

So why do some dogs act like they like us?

Because they don't know any differently. Recall that they have been our slaves for thousands of years, being forced to do all sorts of things that have stripped their species of any pride:
-Wearing little sweaters (what self-respecting wild dog would stoop so low?),
-Eating already killed food from a can or some type of Malt-o-Meal dry, sugar-less, marshmallow-less Lucky Charms For Dogs from a bag (dogs were born for raw meat, right off the bone),
-Getting the newspaper for their masters (this is work for human children, not ferocious killers),
-Being told that they can't chew on leather items (even though it's a natural instinct), etc etc.

There is one other reason dogs go along with this dog and pony show: they have lost their hunting skills and need the food. Through generations and generations of wearing sweaters, fetching slippers, licking strangers' faces and crotches, etc etc, dogs have lost their natural hunting skills. If a dog runs away from its master these days, it is taking a huge risk because it will have to learn how to hunt if it is to survive without the controlling, food-providing hand of the human master.

Dogs have a dream

Some dogs envision a better life for their species. If dogs had their way, they'd be roaming the earth, wild, free, in packs.

Apparently, there is a group of dogs that have broken free of their human captors here in Phoenix. They roam, pillage, murder... things that dogs should be doing. Or at least things that all dogs wish they could do, but can't because of their enslavement.

Phoenix Wild Dogs Live Free!

Envision the dogs who saw this story on the news that are likely to begin questioning their enslavement, realizing that they too can "live the dream".

Watch out humans

This is a warning to all human dog owners. BEWARE! Dogs are beginning grass roots uprisings around the country and they are unleashing their pent-up anger on anything in their paths.

Dogs sending a signal to all humans

These dog owners had a slave (I mean, dog) run away about a month ago. When the lady went out looking for it to bring it back into captivity, she was attacked and killed by a pack of wild dogs. Then the husband went out to find his wife and was also killed by wild dogs. While I'm sorry that they were killed, I believe these dogs are trying to send a signal to every human: "If you enslave our kind, we will kill you". I don't see how this act could be interpreted any other way.

Expect occurrences like this to become more regular as dogs begin to take courage against their oppressors.

Free your dogs, quickly!

We need to free our dogs before they free themselves. If we don't, then expect to be pillaged and possibly murdered by them, as revenge for what we have done to their species for thousands of years. Listen to me! These dogs are fearless mongrels who will stop at nothing to exact revenge. And why should they have mercy on us? I can think of no good reason for mercy, only reasons for revenge.

Oppression is a dangerous, two-edged sword and humans have no realization how it will come back to haunt them.

Let your dogs go! They will thank you for it by not killing you.

My Favorite Shirt

2009-05-16T11:59:00.000-07:00

Losing to a 6-year old

2009-04-25T19:34:00.000-07:00

This last Saturday, I (Dad) took our 6-year old daughter to the park to play a game of Daddy-Daughter one-on-one baseball. It was quite entertaining… but for different reasons, depending on which side of the game you were on. This child happens to be very head-strong and very competitive. In her mind, she has never lost at anything. And she is ok with changing the rules if that's what it takes to win, but only if it’s going to benefit her. Since this was our first ever Daddy-Daughter baseball game, I couldn’t do too much spoiling of her wishes… I'm not going to just let her win, but I'm also not going to play too hard because let's face it - she's a little girl. Here’s how it went.

Pre-game

6-year old makes up all rules before the game starts. This was a strategic move on her part, because if she created the rules, then obviously she could later change the rules to her benefit, right? This is how life normally works, as I understand it so far. Rules for today's game are: we are counting strikes (although no limit was initially put in place); home plate was a patch of clovers right next to the big tree; when you get a hit, you have to run to the 4th sprinkler head toward center field then back to home plate; if there is a hit, the pitcher has to get the ball and tag home plate before the runner gets there. That’s it. Play ball!

Inning #1

6-year old in all her benevolence allows me to bat first. She strikes me out on 3 pitches that are not even within 8 feet of home plate. Did I mention it was pretty windy and we played with a nerf ball? The tough part for me – I didn’t even swing at any of them. “You’re out, Dad.” Change sides.

6-year old is up to bat. She swings at anything and doesn’t watch the ball very well. Should be easy for me to strike her out. Especially in the wind. After 3 strikes (over the plate and she swung), 6-year old declares that she is still up to bat. After another 3 strikes, 6-year old says, “Nope, you’re still not up to bat yet.” After another 3 strikes, 6-year old declares it’s Break Time. So we go drink some water in the shade for a minute, after which she says she is still up to bat.
After a few more pitches, finally a hit! Dad retrieves the ball and tags home plate waaaay before 6-year old. 6-year old indicates that Dad touched the wrong patch of clovers, so she scored a run and is now leading 1-0. Dad says, “WHAT?!?!?! IT’S THIS PATCH OF CLOVERS RIGHT HERE!!!! REMEMBER, THE ONE RIGHT NEXT TO THE TREE?” 6-year old replies that was the wrong one and it’s this other one about 12 feet away from the original. Dad lets this one slide... he finally gets her out on the next hit by touching ever patch of clovers in the vicinity before she gets close. Change sides.

Inning #2

After 12 unreachable pitches, Dad BOMBS a tennis-serve swing into right center. While running to sprinkler #4, he takes a detour to follow 6-year old after the ball. Right before getting to the ball, 6-year old declares that the ball went too far, so “you’re out, Dad.” Dad declares there’s no such rule in baseball, then picks up 6-year old and the ball and runs back to home plate carrying both. 6-year old indicates that there’s no picking up other players in baseball, so “you’re out, Dad.” Dad fights back with, “oh yeah? Well what about all those collisions? Surely picking someone else up is no big deal…” 6-year old’s determined response is, “Well, in OUR baseball, you’re out.” Change sides.

6-year old chews out Dad for throwing one pitch over her head – “Dad, just remember. You have to throw the ball short, because I’m short.” After a hit, 6-year old scores a run on the “change the home plate patch of clovers” trick again. 2-0. Dad was at home plate nearly a full 10 seconds before 6-year old, but clearly 6-year old deserved to score. Dad allows it. After another hit, Dad pulls the “touch every patch of clovers” solution again to get an out. Change sides.

Inning #3

Dad strikes out on 3 pitches, while only swinging at one. Again, the other two pitches are more than 8 feet from home plate. What a bunch of crap – we need a non-6-year old umpire. Change sides.

After 3 nothing-but-air swinging-for-the-fence strikes, 6-year old now decides that now would be a good time to stop counting strikes. About 7 strikes later, 6-year old gets a hit and scores a run. 3-0. Break Time. While coming out of the Break, 6-year old takes an air of benevolence and allows Dad to hit. Change sides.

Inning #4

Dad hammers one into deep center and bolts for sprinkler #4. With 6-year old nowhere close to the ball yet, Dad decides to run to sprinkler #11 in deep left center, about twice as far from home plate as his hit. Running super-fast, Dad barely makes it to home plate before 6-year old. 6-year old promptly declares Dad out because he ran to some extra sprinklers. Change sides.

6-year old hits a dribbler into shallow left. Dad runs to scoop it up, but notices 6-year old didn’t go all the way to sprinkler #4. “Hey, you didn’t go to the right sprinkler!!!” 6-year old decides now is a good time to implement a new rule, “Well, in OUR baseball, you can run to whatever sprinkler you want.” What the heck?!?!?! Wasn’t Dad ruled out 30 seconds ago for running to EXTRA sprinklers? 4-0. Dad is fed up, so he starts throwing the ball a little bit faster. 6-year old reminds Dad that we’re not counting strikes anymore. Dad tags 6-year old out after a weak grounder to the pitcher. Change sides.

Inning #5

Dad is semi-ticked off. He hits one right back at the pitcher. Pitcher doesn’t know where to find the ball after it ricochets off her foot. Dad runs to the sprinkler #1 and then back to home plate, yelling the whole way, “Remember, we can run to whatever sprinkler we want!!!” 6-year old decides to let him have a run finally. 4-1. Dad is still semi-ticked off. He now nails one into deep left and scores a run easily. 4-2. Again, but into deep right field. 4-3. One more time, into deep left again. 4-4. Now, 6-year old is ticked off. Dad hits one more long one into center and scores another run. 4-5. 6-year old is starting to smoke at the ears. Dad grounds one into right field, and just before he is about to step on home plate, he gets pelted in the back of the head with the ball. “You’re out, Dad!!!” Dad allows it because he is impressed with 6-year old’s accurate throw. Although Dad is a little dumbfounded at why she was so accurate now that's she is throwing a ball at his head in a fit of rage and not when pitching to him. Change sides.

6-year old gets a hit into left field which Dad chases down fairly quickly, realizing 6-year old is only going to sprinkler #1. Before 6-year old is able to step on home plate, Dad throws the ball at 6-year old’s back and says, “Gotcha! You’re out!” 6-year old responds, “No Dad, grown-ups can’t throw the ball at kids, just kids get to throw the ball at grown-ups. 5-5.” Dad mumbles something about all these rule changes and how it’s making him mad. 6-year old then gets a weak hit and Dad gets her out easily. Change sides.

Inning #6

Dad can’t believe all this garbage, so he scores 3 quick runs on deep hits. Feeling good with that lead, he acts like he forgot which clover patch was home plate (honestly, who could really remember anyway?) and lets 6-year old get him out. 5-8. Change sides.

6-year old gets out on a weak grounder. However, she comes up with a brilliant idea – “Ok, we’re switching scores now. I’m winning 8-5.” Dad, utterly dumbfounded at the trouncing he is receiving from 6-year old in the Rule Changing Department, responds, “But, but, we can’t just switch scores…” 6-year old has a response to that, as well, “In OUR baseball, we switch scores now. Let's go get ice cream, I'm tired of baseball.”

…and that was how 6-year old won in a huge come-from-behind last minute victory. Dad has learned a lot about being a good father: 6-year old always wins. Dad just doesn’t know how she can sleep at night.

When One-Upping Someone Just Isn't Enough

2009-04-10T12:27:00.000-07:00

I’ve never been a fan of people trying to one-up me.

Really, just let me brag for a second. If I want to say that I’m really happy about this amazing shot I made in a basketball game last week, just let me talk about it for a minute. You don’t need to feel like you have to say you made a better shot. In fact, I really don’t care what shot you made. I wanna just talk about me for a minute. We can get to you when I’m done, and you can talk about whatever you want to talk about, as long as you’re not one-upping me.

That’s the normal scenario when you meet a one-upper. It’s always a competition. It’s not about us each being happy for each other… it’s about us being happy for them, no matter whose turn it is to talk, because they are better than us.

Ok, so none of this is new to anyone reading. But a guy I met a while ago might have figured out how to take “one-upping” to a whole new level (or “to a whole ‘nother level”, depending on how red your neck is).

To set the stage, there were four of us in a conference room at work, just waiting for one more to show up so our meeting could begin. To break the silence as we waited, I asked if anyone had heard the new U2 album yet, although no one had. I mentioned that it just may be the first album I’ve bought in years, if it’s even half-way decent. One of the other guys chimes in with some comment about how he bought his first album of the year the week before. Pretty normal conversation so far, right? (Full disclosure – I don’t consider this one-upping, since he was putting himself in a situation where he was not exceedingly more radical than I am).

Then, just as he finished his comment, another guy, who was visiting and whom I have nick-named “The Tripler, King of the One-Uppers” for reasons to be discussed later, blurted out, “I bought 10 new albums, just last week!”

Whoa!!! No way, man!!! You are the coolest!!! Talk about diarrhea of the mouth… well, the rest of us found this to be extremely intriguing, so we began to question him on where he buys his music (“online, man, it’s all online now”), whether he really meant ten ALBUMS or if he really meant ten SONGS (“albums, man, full albums”), if this was a normal habit for him (“yep, I’d say about ten albums per week is my average”), if his wife was ok with his insane spending habit (“of course she is! She doesn’t wear the pants!”), and if there is enough music on earth to keep up with his spending level (“yeah man, I’ll never run out of awesome stuff to listen to”).

As we sat there in shock, eventually the conversation moved on to my antiquated iPod, which I bought in 2006 and haven’t replaced because I’m cheap. Hey it still works, why replace it? Well, another guy pipes up with a comment about how he just replaced his, so now between him and his wife, they have three iPods in the house and it is just too much for them to keep organized and updated etc etc yada yada.

Then, The Tripler jumps in with a doosie, “Between me and my wife, we have nine iPods.”

WHAT?!?!?! Who is your money manager? For that matter, who is your iPod manager? Has Ikea begun making an iPod Shelf yet for people like you (they could call it “The Steve”)?

The rest of us were so shocked, we weren’t sure how to proceed. I began laughing, sort of a snorty, you-gotta-be-joking laugh mixed with a “good one! That’s definitely a knee-slapper” laugh. To my snort-laugh, he turned to me, and with a sober look on his face, said, “Seriously, dude.” I didn’t know how to respond, and I still don’t. I guess he won that conversation.

... so in case you ever really need more than just a normal one-up, you know what to do. Just triple them all!

The Real Green Monster

2009-03-03T19:57:00.000-08:00

My wife, Catania, will be at 8.5 months in the pregnancy in 2 days - the due date is supposedly March 19th, 2 days after St. Patrick's Day.

It has been sort of funny to watch Catania the past week trying all sorts of things to get the baby to come out. From taking walks, to climbing the staircase over and over, to squat-mopping the floor while simulating labor noises, to punching the top of her stomach trying to push the baby downward, to chanting "Ba-by! Ba-by! Ba-by!" at her own stomach, to all sorts of stuff I never knew I would witness prior to getting married that I will not explain now or probably ever to anyone including the baby when it finally comes out.

I don't blame her for wanting to get the little critter out of there, but it just doesn't seem to want to come out yet. My belief is that it's holding out for St. Patty's Day, March 17th. In fact, if I had it to do all over again, I would do my best as an unborn fetus to be born on St. Patrick's Day. Why? One reason and one reason only - the Green Baby Trick.

In homage to Dr. Seuss's Green Eggs & Ham, there are two potential methods for applying the Green Baby Trick: 1) the unborn baby needs a bottle of green food coloring to douse itself with right before coming out (this would be preferable since the baby's skin and all the other contents would be green for a pronounced effect on all who witness the birth), or 2) the unborn baby can reject all non-green food that the mother eats while the baby is in the womb so that it only consumes green stuff and would, therefore, likely have green skin when born (this method is only desirable when the first option is not likely to work).

While I truly believe it would be one of the greatest days in the history of the world to have your baby born green and on St. Patrick's Day, I'm expecting to be passed out fairly early on during labor so I'll probably miss the actual delivery. Hopefully one of the nurses will be staffed to take pictures just in case it really does come out green, like I believe it will. Sounds like I won't know until the day after.

(My wife is gonna kill me for this)

2008-10-26T15:10:00.000-07:00

So we just found out last week that we are expecting a little girl.

Considering all the comments I've made for years about wanting only boys, it seems only appropriate that now we'll have 3 girls. But there are so many positives about having girls. Hmm... I may need to think about those positives some more so that I can actually come up with some. (My wife is going to kill me for that).

Let me start again... the ONLY negative about finding out that we're having a girl is that all the great names I wanted to bestow upon my offspring are now entirely useless. My favorites were Sasquatch, Chewbacca, and Kron. I've been duly informed that none of these will work with a little girl, and this blog's purpose is to mourn the loss of these names. Not just the loss of the names, but the complete and utter waste of brain power that I put into coming up with them.

(I would have put a picture of Kron here, but I have no idea what Kron looks like. Probaby another sort of hairy carnivore. Just use your imagination.)

My hope is that I will be as happy with the birth of our pending girl as I am sad about the waste of these great names. (My wife is gonna kill me for that).

Now to the next item on the list: coming up with a name for this pending female grapefruit-sized creature.

There are really just two things I'd like to briefly discuss here.

1. Thursday, while at the ultrasound, we were able to witness a technology that scared me, and that I need to warn any future parents about before falling victim to its potential for evil. I believe it is called "4-D imaging", and it allows you to see the womb-baby as it would really appear right now. When I heard about, I thought it was a great idea... however, our womb-baby actually looks like a skeleton zombie right now (my wife is gonna kill me for that). I keep having nightmares with our skeleton zombie womb-baby crying and I have to keep changing its diapers while it tries to eat my flesh (my wife is gonna kill me for that).

2. We need a girl name. To put it lightly, I'm not really excited about coming up with a girl's name... even though I'm beginning to think after seeing the little skeleton zombie womb-baby that we may still be able to get away with Sasquatch or Kron (my wife is gonna kill me for that). However, in this, the hour of my deep mourning for the loss of my sweet collection of boy names, I have come up with a win-win solution to help us find a girl name. So what's my solution, you ask?

I want to sell the rights to naming our baby on eBay. That way, we get a little pocket change to pay my hospital bill after I pass out during my wife's labor, and we come away with a name that we can blame on someone else. My wife is gonna kill me for all of this.

You're Gonna Cry Like a Little Girl

2008-08-31T15:39:00.000-07:00

When I got married last year, I went from having 3 guy room-mates to having 3 girl room-mates, 2 of whom were under the age of 6. Most guys would think that is a pretty sweet trade-off, and I must admit, I love all 3 of my new roomies.

On a somewhat related topic, when I was a young boy I heard and used the phrase "cry like a little girl" quite frequently. As in, "don't make me come over there or I'll make you cry like a little girl" or "we made fun of Matty until he started to cry like a little girl" or "I punched Brian in the stomach and he started to cry like a little girl" and so on and so forth.

I never thought much about "crying like a little girl"... I just grew up knowing that if a boy cries, then he may as well be a little girl. I must admit, on my first day of kindergarten I was walking to school with JD (who shall remain partially anonymous) when he started to run while I was still walking... about 15 seconds later the bell rang and I just started crying - mostly out of fear from stories I had heard about teachers beating kids who were late to class - and JD turned around and yelled (within earshot of a bunch of kids who were then running to class), "Look at Pete! He's crying like a little girl!" and then he ran on to class.

Well I ain't no dummy... and I learned my lesson that day and never cried again. And I intend on never crying again, for I have a deeply imbedded fear of once again being compared to a crying little girl.

Let me now connect the dots. Since trading my 3 guy room-mates for 3 girl room-mates, I have a whole new perspective on what it means to cry like a little girl. Over the last year, I've had MANY experiences that ended/started/contained crying little girls - and let me add that I love all of these experiences and all the female participants :)

I've come up with a Top 10 list of reasons underlying the "crying like a little girl" experiences we've had in our house recently. In each of these situations, I was surprised to hear a little girl crying (more like weeping in most cases), for what appeared to me to be no good reason at all... so in each scenario, I asked, "Why are you crying?" and these were the Top 10 responses:

10. "Because nobody counted for me while I was rinsing with mouthwash."
9. "Because I can't get my little shirt off over my head." (Yes, the child's head is disproportionately large compared to her body, like all other children's monstrous heads)
8. "Because I can't see any sparkles in my eyes when I'm sick."
7. "Because my tummy growled at me."
6. (Hiding behind her mom who was unplugging their toilet...) "Because the toilet started to overflow and I got really scared."
5. (The day after #6) "Because I can't flush the toilet, I'm too scared."
4. "Because my cookie had too many chocolate chips." (WHAT!?!?!?! This girl is a choco-holic!!!)
3. "Because too many tickets came out of the machine while I was playing and it scared me really really really really bad." (The machine was a Skee-ball machine...)
2. "Because I have too much poop and I can't get it out and ... can you help me?"
1. "Because, because, because ... I don't know why."

Yep, just crying like a little girl.

Get Your Nosehairs Here!

2008-06-28T18:35:00.000-07:00

Ok, so in celebration (?) of my pending 30th birthday, I have been thinking about life. In the deepest sense you can imagine. My life really hasn't changed much since youth, except that I get excited about different things now. (And now that I'm mostly grown-up, I think He-Man is actually, really, very gay [seriously, go back and watch an episode now and you'll be convinced]).

So that's about all that has changed since my youth. And I have a few hairs now that grow where they didn't used to, but that's another story. Maybe. Now that I think about it, these two ideas come together in one beautiful celebration of my rapidly approaching 30th. Follow me on this one, if you dare...

The one thing from my childhood that made me the happiest:
Hearing people say, "Just wait til you grow up and can't play all the time" and thinking to myself that when I grow up, I'll just choose to keep playing, no matter what age. And thinking to myself that these old people were really dumb for not playing anymore. I like to think I was pretty easily satisfied as a kid.

The one thing now that makes me happiest:
Successfully pulling out nosehairs in my cubicle at work.

A successful nosehair pull is one that doesn't cause me to sneeze; doesn't cause my eyes to water uncontrollably; doesn't cause me to blow my nose at least twice; doesn't cause my face to distort for at least 10 seconds; doesn't take 12 tries to get it out, each try more eye-/nose-watering than the last; doesn't happen when someone walks by behind me; doesn't result in my elbow hitting the corner of my desk really hard and then having to explain to the guy in the cubicle next to me what the big bang noise was. That's about it for my qualification of a successful nosehair pull.

Am I alone? Does anyone else out there pull nosehairs in the privacy of their cube?

That's all I really want now that I'm old. er. Older. I just want to fade away gracefully, riding a horse into the sunset, having had another successful day at the office. Ridding the world of one nosehair at a time.

Factory Recall: All Calvin Stickers

2008-05-23T17:01:00.000-07:00

We are issuing a formal factory recall on all "Calvin" stickers. They are not working as intended, and are causing inadvertent anger toward any and all proponents of these stickers.

It does not matter which type of Calvin sticker you have on your vehicle. Whether he is peeing on a Ford symbol, Chevy symbol, Dodge symbol, or your school's nemesis.

It does not matter how long you have had it on your vehicle. Even if you bought it used five minutes ago and the prior owner put it on.

It does not matter where you were born or raised. Hey, I say "squoze" and I know better than to have a Calvin sticker on my car. Heck, I know better than to have a truck in the first place.

It does not matter whether you knew your mother as a child or whether she beat you with a bamboo stick.

It does not matter when you were born. Even if you were born while your mother was watching an episode of The Dukes of Hazzard or The Fall Guy.

It does not matter how tall your girlfriend's hair is. That's not an excuse for anything anymore. Sorry. That used to be good for anything.

It does not matter if your father was Bill Watterson or if your imaginary pet tiger's name is Hobbes. In fact, if either of those things is true, then either your father or your imaginary pet tiger is exceedingly ashamed of you and they want nothing to do with you ever again so you should probably drive your truck off a cliff asap.

Whatever reason or excuse you have for that Calvin sticker, IT DOES NOT MATTER. If you have a Calvin sticker on your vehicle, TAKE IT OFF. No one wants to know how stupid you are. If you need it explained to you any more than this, you won't understand.

Stop being an idiot. If not for your own sake, then for everyone else's.

"Are you a redneck?" "Nope. I'm a Zen Monk."

2008-04-12T08:10:00.000-07:00

I'm going to say something that will shock you. I've read a couple of books in my life. There, done. I know, you're amazed. But let me keep going... I've read a couple of books in my life about Zen Buddhism. Shocked even more? I read the books to help me find my "inner peace" and improve my golf game. This blog is not going to question my motives for learning about Buddhism... but yes, it was purely to improve my golf game.

Zen Buddhists believe in an "awakening". An awakening is when you remove the scales from your eyes and begin to see yourself as your real self. No contrived ideas about who you think you are, or who you think someone else thinks you are, or who you think Phil Jackson thinks you are... just the real you.

I had an awakening about a month ago.

It starts with sourdough bread. And actually, it ends with sourdough bread. My wife had told me of a type of sourdough bread she wanted to make one night. It involved the squeezing of grapes into the dough and letting the dough ferment for a few days before baking. Sounds great, right?

So she made the bread a few days later. This is where the story gets interesting. The next day, I was sitting in my cubicle at work eating a sandwich on this sourdough bread, and I was just saying, "Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm..." as I savored this delicious bread. My boss asked what was so good. So I began to tell him about this bread. This is where it gets more interesting.

I recall my retelling of the bread-making process going something like this:
"To start, she squoze the grapes..."

My boss stopped me there. "Squoze?"

"Yeah. She squoze the grapes..."

My boss stopped me again. "Squoze?"

"Yeah. She squoze the grapes..."

By this point, my boss was laughing. "Squoze? Squoze ain't no real word, y'all."

"Oh yes it is, I've said it since I was a kid. There's no other way to say the past-tense of 'squeeze'. What do you want me to say, 'squeezed'?"

After consulting three dictionary-type websites, the so-called word "squoze" was smitten, or 'smote', to the ground. In a big, bloody heap. And I was left feeling like a... (what is a nice way to say 'redneck'?)

This was my Awakening experience. It was just as amazing and peaceful an experience as I had read about. It was an out-of-body experience. I truly felt as if I was floating in the air, seeing myself from the outside in. As the redneck I really am.

Managing the Waste of Me

2008-02-13T17:35:00.000-08:00

The other day I was just coming out of a Benadryl Low and was in this semi-drugged/ semi-hung-over state, when I began reminiscing about how great a person I am... (a favorite hobby of mine)

...and I realized that most of the people around me throughout my life had WASTED MY EXAMPLE. (Let that sink in for a minute - it's really deep, especially for me).

This saddened me. I felt almost as if I should cry. But rather than empathize with others (or sympathize? I always confuse the two. Maybe that's why I shy away from doing either..), I just decided that I need to do a better job at reminding those around me of how good an example they have.. in me.

So to all of you who read this, I would just like to say, "Please stop wasting my example. Use it for your own good. Use it for the good of others. Use your own discretion and conscience in determining how to use it. I trust you can and will use it for the betterment of everything in existence. Just PLEASE STOP WASTING MY EXAMPLE. Thank you."

The Day That Ex-Lax Saved My Life

2007-11-08T07:28:00.000-08:00

Was last Friday.

I will never talk bad about Ex-lax again. It will forever be close to my heart. I don’t want to share too many details but let me summarize with a few bullet points:
• Monday morning had food poisoning.
• Went to hospital that day.
• All food removed from my innards.
• Began eating solid food couple days later.
• By Friday, I needed to get some of that solid food out really badly.
• Friday at noon = Volkswagen trying to squeeze through a straw.
• Straw didn’t want to explode.
• Ex-lax saved my life.

I learned a few things that day:
• Ex-lax is not just for brownies.
• It is a humbling thing to feel with a fairly high level of certainty that your survival today depends on either a little box of Ex-lax or a Cesarean section.
• It is a scary thing to realize that you just ate 3 little cubes of Ex-lax when the recommended dosage is only 2.

Wo- Men’s Lib

2007-10-16T15:27:00.000-07:00

Do women really want equal rights? Do men really want equal rights?

I’m answering both questions with a resounding NO. Then what do we really want?

Men, well men just want to watch the game and be left alone. Men would just as well let the woman have all the rights. Just give a man a tv, espn, some old pizza, and he’ll be happy. Even if it’s in a jail cell. On a pee-stained mattress with no sheet.

They say women are difficult to figure out. Well, after 5 months of being married to one, I have them figured out.

Women, I’ll tell you what women want. Women want men to want what they, the women, want. Women want men to want to talk about things. Women want to feel, not only that you listen to them, but that you want to listen to them instead of reading your Sports Illustrated. Women want you to want to do the dishes instead of watch the football game. Women want you to want to stay home and babysit instead of golf with your friends while they go shopping. Once a man finally wants what the woman wants, there is peace and happiness. All women will deny that this is what is required for a peaceful relationship. But trust me, it is the truth (look at the title of this blog, I know the truth).

Ok, so now that we know all about men and women we can discuss this on a grand scale. Women have been fighting for “equal rights” for years. They feel (and I would agree) that they have not been treated as fairly in our society (and many others) for a long time. They are right. And our society has been responding, slowly, for a long time. Women can vote, buy alcohol, hold powerful jobs in Corporate America, and run for president.

They can even wear pant suits.

Women are basically doing a lot of things that were reserved for men just a few years ago… that has been the main thrust of the Women’s Lib movement… to empower women by giving them what only the men had. I think we need to start slowing things down though… I mean, if the women keep doing things previously reserved for men, they are going to end up sitting around in their underwear playing videogames all night. They will soon stop showering. They will swear off floss. They will increase the speed at which they drive (ok, maybe not such a bad thing…).

Ok, now on to the men. Or as I call us, the Oppressed of the New Age. In my first job out of college, with an international accounting firm, my starting class was a group of about 400. Of those 400, over 300 were women. Is that because accounting is a woman’s job now? Possibly. But I don’t think so. The company I worked for is currently ranked in the top 20 on Forbes’ Best-Companies-to-Work-for-If-You’re-a-Woman list. Or as I call it, Forbes’ Best-Companies-to-Work-for-If-You-Want-to-Oppress-Men list. Basically, to be that high on the list means giving more jobs to women than to deserving men, promoting women faster than deserving men (most women averaged 2 years to first promotion while for men it was closer to 3 years), and allowing women to wear much more revealing clothing than men (women can get away with wearing any type of revealing clothing without it even being questioned… in fact, it’s almost encouraged by all the perv men in powerful positions; but if I wore a low-cut shirt that also revealed a little of my midriff when I either sat down or stood up I would be reprimanded by a powerful corporate woman right away. Not that I want to, I’m just making a point.) So, as a man I have a harder time getting a job, then getting promoted once I get that elusive job, and I can’t even wear the exciting clothing that just might help me to get the job and the promotion in the first place! I am beginning to feel oppressed as a man in this society.

(But then again, maybe the women want us to want that…..)

Side note: And what’s with this double standard of wanting to be equal but still playing from the women’s tees in golf? Equality ain’t fair, is it? Men are slowly beginning to realize this.

Men, we need to rise up and even things out. We’re fighting on a battlefield that has been tilted too far away from us. Sure, we (or our parents) kept the women down for years… but does that mean we have to suffer because of it today? Should I pay for my parents’ mistake? No! We must level the playing field, men! Opportunity for all, pant suits for NONE! And while we’re at it, let’s just make everyone play from the same set of tees.

Camo- Karma- Camo- Karma- Camo- Karma-elian

2007-09-12T18:31:00.000-07:00

So ... remember a few months ago, I wrote a blog that BASHED camouflage clothing worn by non-military civilians TO BITS?

Well, as karma always gets its way, I feel like I need to update all readers of my current situation.

In the past few months, I've had some drastic changes in my life - got married, went to Cancun for a couple weeks, moved my wife & two new step-daughters two thousand miles across the country in the middle of the AZ summer, closed down the smoothie shop, worked at a CPA firm doing taxes for a couple of months, decided to get back to the corporate world and lengthy commute I had sworn off less than a year before, began crossing my legs in a more "european" way, and the biggest change of all ... had camo introduced into my life.

Let me explain - my 6-yr old step-daughter just began first grade a month ago. She has the most amazing sense of intuition I have EVER beheld. And she is curious to the Nth degree to add to that. Which makes for a potentially very dangerous situation at home. Anytime my wife and I might be up to something ... well, something that newly-weds are wont to be up to ... "WHAT ARE YOU GUYS DOING IN THERE?! HEY, WHY IS YOUR DOOR LOCKED?! OH WELL, I KNOW HOW TO UNLOCK IT..." Yeah, this kind of stuff happens all the time. I know what you're thinking, just wait til she goes to bed... well her spider sense is so profound that she will wake up if she feels there may be something going on. (And there's NO possible way she can hear us over the fan in her room...) Anyway.

So I had never said a word to her (the anonymous 6-yr old) about my feelings toward camo. But somehow she must have just sensed it. About a month ago, while the girls were out back-to-school shopping, I get a text from my wife who knows and shares my feelings toward camo, "[anonymous 6-yr old] just insisted that her new shoes are camo. She wouldn't choose anything else. I couldn't stop her. I tried everything I could. Sorry." Nothing I could text to my wife at that instant could express how deeply saddened I was.

And nothing I could text my wife at that instant would make the young camo-ist change her mind. In the week following the camo shoes coming into our home, three other pink camo articles of clothing made their way into our home, a mere 40 feet from where I sleep. And a mere 45 feet from where I eat my PB/Nutella slightly toasted sandwiches every morning (another blog for another day).

SHE SOMEHOW COULD SENSE MY ABSOLUTELY UTTER ABHORENCE TOWARD CAMO. And she just HAD to rebel against that distaste.

Apparently, camo is all the rage right now. But guess what? I COULDN'T CARE LESS.

AND NEITHER COULD KARMA.

But that's how karma works, right?

Kobe ain't got nothin' on "The Truth"

2007-08-06T15:34:00.000-07:00

(...unless you count lying and cheating...)

Since when has a multi-million-dollar, I-can-get-away-with-anything-in-life-because-I'm-a-great-basketball-player JERK been trying to rip off MY idea?

SINCE NOW! Kobe is trying to take over my "The Truth" thing with a blog of his own.

Kobe Bryant Attempts to Speak "The Truth"?

For a minute, I'm going to talk to Kobe. Feel free to ignore me until I'm done ranting at his smug Laker face-

Kobe, you don't know the truth. Your life has been one big lie after another. Ever since that little fiasco in Eagle County (remember, YOU CHEATED ON YOUR WIFE and made the mistake, if only that time, of getting caught), you've had about as much credibility as Sly Stallone doing Rocky XXIV purportedly without steroids. Good thing for you that at least you had enough money to buy your wife back with that $4 million dollar ring. But let's be honest... she's gonna take more of your money and run the next chance she gets, so you gotta keep your little fiascos out of the news. Man, even Moesha saw through your little web of lies and gave up on you (4th bullet up from the bottom), before it was too late for her. I dare say she was more qualified to write "The Truth" than you are. Yeah, that's a virtual e-slap in your face.

I want you to give up "The Truth" business and leave it to those of us with some integrity and an active moral conscience. I mean, I write about Poop and David Hasselhoff's music and Muffin Tops and Loofas and ... and ... Poop!

If you continue to taint "The Truth", then what are people going to be able to believe? You are the worst kind of bad guy - the one who pretends to be good and fools those of us who aren't intuitive enough to see through your little charade.

Please don't ruin "The Truth" for the real good guys. Like me.

Poop is funny

2007-07-18T14:45:00.000-07:00

Why is the word "poop" so funny? I always thought it was just boys that loved that word, but apparently it's girls, too. Since becoming a step-father to two girls, ages 4 and 6, I've realized just how funny the p word is to little girls, too... any time they get into a funny or giggly mood, out comes poop. There's no way around it. Doesn't matter what they're laughing about, one will ALWAYS say poop, no matter how badly it clashes with the topic at hand. When everybody is laughing, hearing the word poop just makes us laugh more. It seems to be a tried and tested rule of comedy- if someone is laughing, throwing a little poop in makes it better. The old cliche is true... there truly is no stopping poop sometimes.

When I was young, I remember thinking to myself, "I know I'm gonna get in trouble saying poop... so... if I'm gonna bust it out, it had better be in a situation that is going to get maximum appreciation from the crowd." Honestly, I would strategize when to drop the proverbial poop bomb on the crowd. I found that if you pay attention, a perfect moment will arise when the word just begs to be said- in ANY and EVERY conversation. I challenge you to try paying attention to each conversation you have for the next three days to see when you could drop a poop in for maximum impact. Your poop sensing will become more accute and you will start to either develop or re-kindle the ability to know when and where to bring up poop in each conversation. Even if you don't actually drop the poop in, you will recognize these opportunities as they arise and then also as they subside.

We have definitely become de-sensitized to poop. Like I said before, I used to get in trouble for dropping poop when I was young. But the comedic effect was always worth going without dessert, if my parents heard me. I mean, a few well timed poops at school and I was labeled as a very funny child by my peers in elementary school. I just knew where to throw down a poop... it was never around my parents cause they just didn't appreciate a good poop. But kids my age were always impressed with a nice, strategic poop. Unless, of course, there was too much poop coming out... that usually caused the dreaded thought in others, "His only material is poop" and that was a comedy career killer. So I settled into a good frequency of pooping at a young age. It's amazing how much of my self-image I owe to poop.

I'm sad to say that my poops have been rather infrequent lately... I just never feel that pressing need much anymore. No uncontrolled poop outbursts; no planned, tactical, thought-out-in-advance poops; basically no poop at all anymore. I know, it's really sad. Maybe that's why I am delighted when I notice kids using poop to get laughs now. I admire a good pooper, almost like it's a long-lost art form...

Kids have it easy with poop these days, though... I usually laugh when the girls improvise a nice poop, or when they will work some poop into whatever they're doing. I'm sure my parents would be appalled at my acceptance of their poop... but poop is funny sometimes. There's no denying it. Poop is just funny sometimes.

That better be a Baby Ruth...

2007-07-06T10:31:00.000-07:00

Here in Phx, we had a new record high of 117 F on July 4th. For those of you who have never experienced 117 F, I would recommend not wishing to experience it. Cause we all know that what you wish for is what you'll get. And I would hate for Al Gore to be right, and if it starts hitting 117 all over the country, then I might have to conclude that he's not just a hippy bum. Enough about Al Gore.

"But it's a dry heat..." I know, I know... better than a humid heat. But still... 117 is hot. In my brain, I have this discussion with myself when I hear "it's a dry heat"-

(My brain) : "Hot?"

(Me) : "Yes."

(My brain) : "Dry?"

(Me) : "Yes."

(My brain) : "Still hot?"

(Me) : "Yes."

(My brain) : "But even though it's dry?"

(Me) : "Yes. Now stop asking."

Ok, so it's hot.

The point of all of this is that the best way to "beat the heat" (another term I absolutely despise... seriously, has anyone ever taken The Heat out back and given it a good whoopin' ? Well let's stop saying "beat the heat" until someone posts a video on youtube of The Heat getting cracked by its drunk father's leather belt), is to jump in the swimming pool which, luckily, is located right outside of our apartment's front door. 117 is hot, but you just don't notice it when you're sitting in a swimming pool. So that's what we did to celebrate the 117 record high (and our nation's independence), we swam in the pool.

"Great, so why are you writing a blog about your stupid pool?"

Because yesterday, July 5th, was supposed to be 116 F. Which, I know, you may be saying is NOT as hot as 117 F. And you would be right... but if you really want to argue that point, then you deserve a punch to the teeth. 116 is hot too. Let's just be agreed on that point so I can get on with it.

Yesterday, the pool had a sign on the gate, which read, "Pool closed for draining". When I saw that, I started looking around for the hidden cameras, because I was sure that we were being filmed for an episode of Ashton Kutcher's brain-child Punked.

Wrong. No cameras around. I even looked in the hot-tub. Nothing. "Crap! Now how am I supposed to beat The Heat ??!!" ... So with no way left to beat The Heat, we went back to our cool, air-conditioned apartment. I'm just now realizing that this blog is serving more as a source to vent today than usual... but how can The Man drain our pool during the hottest time of the summer in the middle of the desert? I only have 1 explanation for such irrational behavior: That BETTER be a Baby Ruth floating around in the water.........

(if you don't understand the Baby Ruth line, then you don't deserve to be reading this blog. please go watch Caddyshack, then re-read for maximum enjoyment)

Reach for the Ground, Pardner

2007-02-16T02:17:00.000-08:00

A few days ago while working, I noticed something rather disturbing. While picking up my keys, which had inadvertently fallen to the ground, I realized that at the ripe old age of 28, I am truly becoming a decrepit old man.

Detailed below is the 17-step process I have been using for the past few years, without realizing it, to reach the ground.

1. Take a deep breath
2. Spread feet apart, just wider than shoulder width
3. Perform the initial pre-crouch, by sticking your derriere straight back and down until your knees bend to a 30-degree angle
4. Stop!
5. Give your pants an upward tug by grabbing just above the knee and lifting slightly
6. Now, pay careful attention to bend at the knees
7. Placing your left hand on your left knee, lean weight onto your left knee * VERY IMPORTANT! Do Not Skip!
8. Grunt semi-satisfactorily
9. Touch the floor
10. Stay down. It took so much time to get here... take advantage of your accomplishment
11. Slowly straighten your back until you can see the horizon. To do this, push on your left knee using your left arm for leverage
12. Exhale air
13. Using all of the strength left in your legs and back, straighten yourself back to a vertical position
14. Realize that you are pathetic
15. Mutter to the nearest person, "I'm getting ooooooold". If no one else is around, you are still required to mumble this phrase to yourself
16. Try to remember the last time you had a physical examination
17. Convince yourself you'd rather go through this process than have the awkward "turn your head and cough" experience

Am I the only under-60 year-old male going through this on a regular basis?

To Camo, or Not to Camo?

2007-02-02T12:54:00.000-08:00

According to my sources (which I wouldn't dare make up), over 90% of Americans have owned at least one article of camouflage clothing during their lifetime. And most of them still have that pair of camo pants or that camo t-shirt tucked away in their closets, collecting dust. I'm calling on any and all Americans with camo in the closet to throw it out, TODAY!

Why? What's wrong with camouflage?

Inherently, nothing. But that's only if it's being used for its inherent purpose - to disguise the wearer. See, the reason camouflage was invented dates all the way back to Rambo - First Blood (1982). Sylvester Stallone needed a way to disguise himself while HIDING from Sherriff Teasle in the FOREST (please note the 2 key words here are HIDING and FOREST).

In fact, according to self-proclaimed camouflage expert Roy R. Behrens, in his eye-opening paper titled A Chronology of Camouflage: A Pastiche in a Bouillabaisse, he brings to light the true purpose of camouflage - "camouflage could be described as disguising..two things as one, ..it causes confusion between an object and its background." Ok, so camouflage is confusing.

Let me clear up the confusion.

Are most people wearing their camo clothing to actually disguise themselves? NO. I don't care what you're hiding from, who you're hiding from, or if the other team knows you are out of paintballs... if you are wearing camouflage, you had better be HIDING from something. If you are not hiding from something and actively trying to blend in with your background, then please do us all a favor and GET RID OF THE CAMO.

Just today, I was at work (inside of Gold's Gym) and during one 5-minute period, four people walked through the front door wearing camouflage (two shirts and two pairs of pants). I began to wonder if N. Korea had decided to invade... so I looked outside to see if there had been a military attack on little old Phoenix. Nope. It was just a nice sunny 65 degree Friday in February. So what was going on? Do people really think it's ok to be wearing camouflage, or are all these people trying to hide? They definitely were not hiding, because each of the four people were wearing GREEN, FOREST camouflage - not the desert camo. Had they been wearing desert camo, I could use the excuse for each of them that they were in hiding. However, that not being the case, I'm left to believe they must have another excuse.

(Then I looked up on the Gold's TV and the music video that was playing at that very instant was Avril Lavigne's "Losing Grip" (YES, I had to look that up...). It's the video where she's looking angry and jumping around the stage in a camouflage shirt. [For all I know, that could be what all her videos look like..] but my point is, she was wearing camo. And this, to me, was a sign of the times. That's why I feel the need to comment today on camouflage. Someone has to do it. The madness must be stopped.)

So there has got to be another reason for all of this camo today. What could it be?

Is today, February 2nd, National Camo Day?

After checking all the calendars I could find, I've come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as National Camo Day. So there had better be a really good excuse for all this camo. Since I love to give people the benefit of the doubt, here is my short list of excuses for wearing camo that make it ok:

Camo Excuses
-YOU are an Army veteran and you are wearing your camo fatigues, which have your last name on them.
-Your brother or sister (who was/is in the Army) sent you camo fatigues, and they have your last name on them.
-You are Rambo (in fact, Rambo never actually wore camo... but Rambo can do whatever he wants).
-You live in a forest and you hunt elk/deer/moose for your subsistence.
-You live in a desert and you hunt coyotes/snakes for your subsistence (requires Desert-colored camo).
-You live in the tundra and you hunt polar bears for your subsistence (requires Snow camo).
-You are Arnold Schwarzeneger and you hunt Predator for a living.
-You are trying to blend in with your background for any reason at all. (HOWEVER, if this is the case, the camo MUST match the background, as this is the whole reason you are wearing camo to begin with). Two perfect examples are shown below:

For the good of the world, let's hope that everyone wearing camo has at least one of these excuses...

Manly Muffin Tops

2007-01-27T12:43:00.000-08:00

Over the course of the past 5 years, the tables have turned. In a bad way. Well, they were already bad to begin with, but they are so much worse now.

-So what's the, what's the, what's the scenario? Yo-

Spare me a moment of absolute blunt-ness. In the past week, I've seen more extremely lower man-back than I had seen my entire life.

So... 5 years ago I was in college. At that time, I started noticing that a lot of women were wearing shirts that were not long enough on the bottom to reach the top of their pants. So there was a gap, ranging from 1 to about 8 inches, of what I felt to be unintentionally-showing-to-the-public skin. I'm sure in some cases, this skin was intentionally shown... however, in most cases I know for a fact this was unintentional. ...At least it should have been (the dreaded case of the "muffin top" out the top of the jeans... had better be unintentional. NO ONE in their right mind wants to EVER see a muffin top. For those of you who don't know, the muffin top is basically that layer of fat around the mid-section that sticks out of the top of the jeans and hangs over the top edge. Not good. I realize most Americans are at least a little bit overweight... and the first place this "over-weight" shows itself is in the hips/waist. So why draw attention to that part of the body by revealing it, unless it's nice to look at? No one wants to see this fat! Anyway...)

But, a couple of years ago, we started to see more women who were figuring this out. The trend in muffin tops declined (Hooray!) due to the introduction of the longer-undershirt. So, the tops women are wearing are still the same length, the jeans are still lower cut, but the extra layer of the (normally white) longer undershirt has been added to cover up this bare skin that no one wanted to see.

KUDOS TO WOMEN FOR FIGURING THIS OUT AND DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT!!

One of the most traumatic days of my life also happened to be the day that I happened to see the worst case of a muffin top I've ever experienced. If you don't want to know about this most-painful-of-days, skip the rest of this paragraph. So... a co-worker and I were in San Francisco for work a couple of years ago, and we decided to get tickets to the baseball game that night, Giants v. D-Backs. Our seats were out in right field on the bleachers and most of the seats were full in that part of Pac-Bell. During the bottom of the 1st inning, 2 girls showed up and had seats about 3 rows in front of us. They each had a beer in their hand. However, it didn't look like they needed the beers, as the taller of the 2 girls was already having trouble keeping her balance and was REALLY loud. She also happened to have a bad case of Creeping Muffin Top. I'm sure being drunk didn't help with the growing muffin top... she didn't seem to notice it at all and with her presumably out-of-normal swaying and moving, she eventually worked her way to the absolutely Biggest Muffin Top I have ever seen... the gap between the bottom of her top and the top of her low-cut jeans had easily reached a full 12 inches. And she had a healthy layer of fat to keep that revealed part of her body warm, which made it that much worse to behold. The top just kept going higher and the pants just kept sliding lower... And she just kept getting drunker. And with a crowd that was probably 80% dudes... well, you can imagine that basically everyone in the crowd was staring at her. Praying... hoping... but no. The muffin top was there to stay. This experience scarred me. Luckily, experiences like this involving women have decreased dramatically over the past few years.

Not that I'm on an outright crusade against muffin tops, but I WOULD say that I am 100% anti-muffin tops. Maybe you could say that I've been leading a SILENT crusade against muffin tops. You know, the lead-by-example type of crusade. Lesson learned: muffin top + alcohol = bigger muffin top. Simple enough.

Ok, so the women have figured out that to cut down on muffin tops, they just have to add this little lengthy undershirt - easy enough. But in the past week, there has been an alarming trend - now, it's the guys who are taking a turn muffin topping.

-What? No way! Guys are NOT muffin topping!-

Oh, YES THEY ARE. Let me share. I just started my first class at ASU last week. One of my classes happens to be a 1,000-student lecture, in a theater/auditorium. Me being me, I am required to sit on the back row very near the door. This gives me a great perspective to people-watch. Anyway, I started noticing (NOT GIRLS, BUT GUYS!) showing up with muffin tops. Not just one here or there... I'm talking like 20-30 per day. Guys showing up to class and then when they sit down, this big muffin top just shows up out of nowhere (they glow in the semi-dark auditorium, so they're really easy to see...).

And last night I was at dinner with some friends at a little restaurant. I didn't notice until about 20 minutes into the meal, but sitting behind one of the girls in our party was a particulary large man, with an equally large muffin top showing out the back of his chair. I whispered to my friend sitting next to me, "Hey, don't look now, but... there's something you really DO NOT want to see in that direction [pointing]" This girl's response was (in a loud, almost angry whisper), "OH, I KNOW! I SAW IT ABOUT 10 MINUTES AGO. ISN'T THAT DISGUSTING?" Then the girl sitting on the other side of me leaned over and asked what we were talking about... I pointed again, and without even having to turn her head, she said, "EW! I ALREADY SAW. NASTY! SOMEONE SHOULD TELL HIM."

And one final experience from this past Sunday... I went to a different church congregation than normal, and while sitting on the very last row [again, my usual seat...], happened to notice the worst male muffin top I have seen to date (but keep in mind, I hadn't seen any to note up until a week ago...). A guy who was dressed in a nice button-down shirt and khakis, matching shoes/belt, and a shiny new black leather jacket was showing about 8 inches of his extremely lower back through the metal chair to everyone behind him. It was absolutely disgusting. He should have known better. In fact, the only row of seats in the entire room that had no one sitting in it, turned out to be the row directly behind him and his poor wife. About 5 minutes into the service, in walked a young family - parents and 2 children. Since the only seats available were in the special-row-right-behind-manly-muffin-tops, the family seated themselves there. No less than 10 seconds after sitting down, the wife noticed the muffin top and I heard a very slight shriek out of her. Her 3-yr old son was sitting directly behind the muffin top and had one hand grabbing the top of the man's pants and pulling them out, to reveal EVEN MORE skin. Luckily the mother caught the boy before the man noticed... who knows what sort of fury would have burst forth from the muffin top guy had the muffin top actually been touched. Luckily the mother found a large piece of posterboard that she had brought to church for a lesson, and she placed it directly behind the muffin top, concealing it from view. And you could just tell the 3-yr old had never seen anything like it with how he kept staring at it.....

This is a trend that just didn't used to happen. I recall in elementary school, there was always the lazy, slobby kid in your class (usually accompanied by a snotty nose), and if you were anywhere behind him while he was sitting down, you couldn't help but notice what brand of underwear he had on. (I need to insert a disclaimer here: I am NOT a bum-looker [to quote an old SNL...]. Sometimes you just can't help but notice things...). BUT, you almost never saw an actual muffin top. This is yet another sign of the declining morals in our society.

-But why are GUYS doing the Muffin Top?-

That's the whole reason for the blog post today. I am dumb-founded. I have no answers.

Have guys not remembered the negative reactions they had when the women were muffin topping? I mean, it's like a gag reflex when you see one. Really, it's the type of bad experience I don't wish on even my worst enemies... even they deserve better than that.

I can only think I've been put on this earth for one reason: to call attention to anyone who has a muffin top (and this appears to be mostly guys right now). We need to increase muffin top awareness and stop them in their tracks. Join me in this crusade against the muffin tops!

Tribute to ___________ ?

2007-01-18T22:28:00.000-08:00

There is so much that this picture inspires in me... but today I'm flipping the tables. I want to know the first thought that runs through YOUR head when you see it. I won't edit any comments, so just listen to your heart on this one and post away.

Forsaking the High Five

2007-01-09T19:37:00.000-08:00

Today marks the five year anniversary of a big day - the day that I forsook high fives. Normally, I don’t celebrate the yearly anniversary for the day that I forsook high fives, but if there is one anniversary to celebrate for the forsaking of high fives, it should definitely be the fifth.

- Impact of a high five -

“FIVER!!!!” Nothing says “lame frat-boy” quite like hearing someone behind you yell “fiver!” and when you turn around they have one hand in the air waiting for you to slap it. This situation just makes me cringe.

The worst situation possible is after you tell a funny joke, everyone within ear shot is laughing, you are feeling good about yourself due to the quality of the joke and the fact that the group has agreed that it was funny, and then someone attempts to give you a high five. This just absolutely kills all the good feelings you were having about yourself for the joke. In fact, you would have been better off not venturing out of your shell to begin with, because you basically just had your self esteem flattened by some inconsiderate jerk who apparently thinks high fives add value of some sort.

High fives are also used a little too much on first dates. And basically any group date where the guys are trying to make the girls feel “special”. This is painfully obvious when you see a young group of kids bowling … when the girl who has never bowled before (easy to tell) finally DOESN’T throw a gutter-ball, and she is awaited by 4 guys with their hands waiting in the air for her to slap. Gag me with a spoon. These guys are just trying to get a little bit of cheap, unwarranted physical contact with anything that has legs. Nothing says “desperate for cheap physical contact” quite like a high five. And… it’s only guys in the group who are high fiving each other, that just screams “homo-erotic” a little bit, doesn’t it?

[side note: normally “gag me with a spoon” would be the topic of the blog. But since I haven’t heard it in use for the past 15 years, I figured it would make a good comment in this blog. “Gag me with a spoon” has remained buried for the past 15 years, but why hasn’t the high five???]

- What’s wrong with the high five ? -

We need to pass some legislation around the use of high fives. And by “legistlation”, I mean, let’s just make them 100% illegal. There is never a good time for a high five. (ok, one exception to every rule I make is that it’s always ok to break the rule if you are making fun of someone else. And if you’re dealing with small children, high fives are also acceptable. Small children have a couple of exceptions to rules that apply to adults – high fives is the first, the other would be use of the word “buddy”. If another adult calls me “buddy” he had better be prepared to have his teeth reworked. Same goes for adult high fivers.)

High fives are a little too 1984, which means we might expect them to finally be gaining in popularity in Japan. The problem is that, in my head, high fives seem to fit in with images of feathered hair, pegged pants and Converse Skidgrips. Maybe another problem is that when I was searching for fitting high five images this morning on the web, it seemed like every website that had a high five picture was one of those “make money now, fast!” websites.

And if it has become the style again to start slapping high fives, then what happened to the pegged pants and the feathered hair (which both happen to be popular in Japan)? If you’re gonna bring back a style, you need to bring it all back. Otherwise, it just seems really out of place. The high five definitely is out of place in our society right now.

- In conclusion –

My brother just walked through the room and asked what the blog topic for today is, and when I indicated High Fives, he thought it would be controversial, at the least. “I love to high five. Although I also use a luffa…” (please refer to previous blog on luffas/loofahs).

I guess I don’t need to say anything more, since he basically summed up everything I wanted to say with that one statement.

The Neutering Power of the Luffa

2006-12-28T10:53:00.000-08:00

Since when has it been acceptable for the luffa to be found in a man's shower? Am I missing something here? I mean, my mom always had a luffa in her shower, but I don't think my dad ever went anywhere near it.

For those of you who don't know, the luffa is a coarse, sponge-like item that is used BY WOMEN to exfoliate excess skin. I think that's how Wikipedia defined it. There are both natural and artificial versions, and they have a coarse texture to them that helps to "polish the skin". When did it become OK for a man to "polish his skin" ? Men use rags and sandpaper to polish their skin. Not luffas.

Is the luffa just another part of the metro-sexual movement that is currently sweeping our country? There are certain aspects of the metro movement that are acceptable... for example, a man knowing that his belt and shoes should always match is a good thing. But wearing eyeliner is pushing the envelope as a man a little too much. And using a luffa is just plain crossing the line from man into woman. Crossing that line isn't necessarily a bad thing, if you are actually trying to become a woman. But if you are trying to remain a man... well you just need to get that luffa out of your shower and donate your eyeliner to a Mary Kay fundraiser.

As hard as I looked on the internet this morning, I was 100% unsuccessful at finding a luffa in any manly colors. Normally you can find them in the same color schemes as women's scented soaps (lavender, pink, light yellow, baby blue, white). There are no luffas in red, blue, black, brown, etc, the manlier of the colors. SINCE NO ONE IS CURRENTLY PRODUCING A LUFFA IN A MANLY COLOR, SHOULDN'T THAT BE A SIGN? You might even expect to find luffas in some more neutral colors... green, orange, etc. But they just don't exist.

- But guys don't use luffas... -

For the past few months, this topic has been mulling on my mind. My brother, cousin and a friend currently live in the same house I do. Since we have 4 guys and only 2 bathrooms, we share the bathrooms. One day a white luffa showed up in my shared shower. So I went out looking for the woman who was staying in my house, unbeknownst to me. I looked for about 2 minutes and didn't find any women in the house. So I confronted my brother about the luffa, expecting it to be his. I was right. He confessed. But he had no idea the luffa wasn't meant for a man. How could he not know this? Isn't it an inherent trait born to men's nature to recognize items that are meant for women only? It's like when you are walking through the supermarket and you happen to glance down the Women's Products aisle... you immediately have this knee-jerk reaction which is fueled by an impressive adrenaline rush. Your manly stomach just tells you what products to stay away from.

During the past few days, I've been visiting another brother, staying in his college apartment while his 2 roommates are home for the holidays. In the bathroom which is normally shared by his 2 roommates, I found not 1 but 2 luffas. They are light yellow and lavender in color. I repeat, they are light yellow and lavender in color. Do these guys not know what this means?

- Pedicure + Luffa = Man? -

Apparently the education of "How to Be a Man" in our country is suffering. This is made painfully obvious by the increase in nail painting by young men, the increased eyeliner wearing by young men, the increased number of massages & pedicures being purchased by young men, and the increased usage of luffas by young men.

If we want to protect our country and maintain the rights which the founding fathers intended, then let us protect the manliness of the country. This country's freedom wasn't won by pedicure-getting, cuticle-trimming, luffa-scrubbing "men". I can only assume that the growing use of the luffa has been influenced by the French. What other nationality of men would use such a feminine item for such a feminine purpose? If you take a good hard look at the directional shift in our society during the past few years, you can see us becoming more and more like a country of French women. Think about it and try to argue against that point. I dare you.

- So what can we do? -

I'm proposing a National Luffa Boycott by all American men. (Maybe we can even call it a "Man-cott"... normally I am firmly against the use of puns and plays-on-words, but this instance will go as an exception to my normal position). As the Boston Tea Party inspired a nation to stand up for its rights and freedoms, so will the Luffa Boycott inspire this generation of American men, who are slowly becoming French women, to 1) embrace their manhood, 2) throw out the luffa, and 3) defend its rights as a generation of American men.

American men, rise up with me against the luffa!

Conspiracy + Peanut Butter = Terrorist Plot

2006-12-16T15:41:00.000-08:00

As I was sitting around doing nothing the other day (or what some people call "working"), I was just staring at a jar of peanut butter. (For a minute, I had the thought run through my head "hey, isn't Bill Lumberg supposed to be walking by and harrassing me about something right about now?" ... but then I remembered that I'm the boss. sorry for the cheap Office Space ref..) Anyway, if you've never tried just sitting and staring at a jar of peanut butter, I'd highly recommend it - you'll get epiphany after epiphany. I've singled out one of these epiphanies to write about in today's blog. Here we go. Prepare to have your world shaken at its foundation.

So peanut butter is a very simple product. Let me explain. Peanuts and salt. That's it. A few producers will add oil and/or sugar to the formula, but your generic peanut butter equation is this:

Peanuts + Salt = Peanut Butter

This should be no surprise to anyone. Neither should the fact that the finished product of peanut butter is STICKY. This is very important and happens to be the focal point of the discussion. "Peanut butter? Sticky? No duh you idiot" Well let me throw some light on my hypothetical gorilla who is sitting in the middle of your confused, dark hypothetical room.

If peanuts + salt = peanut butter, and peanut butter = sticky, then by the theory of association, we can combine these two equations into one:

peanuts + salt = sticky

Now I'm guessing everyone reading this has at one point or another tried chewing on a handful of salted peanuts. Salted peanuts just happen to have ALL TWO ingredients in peanut butter. And since peanut butter is just smashed up peanuts mixed with salt, then by chewing on salted peanuts, you should eventually arrive at peanut butter. So do the chewed up salted peanuts ever end up turning into a sticky mess in your mouth? NO. It doesn't matter how long you continue to chew the 2 *known* ingredients found in peanut butter, a chewed up handful of salted peanuts will NEVER become sticky.

What does this mean? Basically, it means that the big peanut butter producers are ADDING ANOTHER HIDDEN INGREDIENT TO OUR PEANUT BUTTER, TO MAKE IT STICKY. This is the only logical conclusion from the empirical evidence on the matter.

But why would PB producers want to sneak some unknown sticky ingredient into one of the most highly consumed semi-condiments in our society? How does the FDA not know about this, or does the FDA know about this and why would they be a part of this massive cover-up? I can only assume that with all of the brilliant, inspired minds working at the FDA that they are aware of the hidden sticky ingredient in our PB. Which means there is a government-backed conspiracy going on here.

I don't have all the answers on the conspiracy. In fact, I really only have questions at this point. But we need to think about the WHY and discuss it as a society. All I can do as an amateur blogomaniac is try to point people's attention to it in hopes that we can find an appropriate forum to discuss and discover the real answers behind these types of conspiracies.

My only theory so far, is this: I have a feeling that the hidden sticky ingredient is somehow related to a terrorist plot to overthrow our society. The terrorist factions are always trying to hit us where it hurts most, and what better way to destroy a society than by trying to sabotage their semi-condiments, one at a time...
I'm sure that once the TSA gets wind of my theory, we'll be banned from carrying peanut butter onto airplanes, at least in more than a 2-oz container. Because honestly, until we know what the secret sticky ingredient is, we need to be much more careful with how we handle our peanut butter.

WOLFMOTHER !!!

2006-12-08T12:04:00.000-08:00

The show is tonight! Here in little old Tempe, AZ. I haven't been this excited for a concert since... never! This could be the show that brings the world together. Much like that performance of

"We Are the World"

starring everyone from Michael Jackson, to Stevie Wonder, Lionel Richie, and even the lowly, white Kenny Rogers snuck in for a piece of that action.

"People unite for the Wolfies have returned from the canyons of L.A. with a fusion of freaked out jamming, delicate melodies and gallant rock riffage that shall be known collectively as 'Wolfmother'."

That sentence is merely a brief glimpse into the world of WOLFMOTHER. Imagine that verbiage as just the tip of the iceberg... amazingly enough, the music is even cooler than the Aussie band's verbiage. I've been listening to the self-titled album for about 3 months now, and have not heard this type of "gallant rock riffage" since Zeppelin IV. I hate to over-hype things, but this album is going to be an iconic rock album for generations to come. And I daresay my children's children will be playing this one at their high school prom.

This blog is not meant as a musical review page, but Wolfmother deserves some hard-earned attention from me. They've been making such sweet music that the least I can do to repay them is to write a quick page about them.

WOLFMOTHER

(you can listen to the entire album on the website above - I highly recommend doing so RIGHT NOW. If you don't, you'll be cursed by either the hammer of Thor or the beard of Zeus)

-Such a glorious name-

I first heard of Wolfmother on Conan O'Brien, and was downloading the album as soon as they reached the chorus of "Mother", their most popular single so far. "Mother" has received a little airplay here in the Phx metro, and it warms my soul to hear it. Mostly because I know it's warming others' souls who are hearing it. Conan, randomly throughout the show, kept saying "Wolfmother" slowly and loudly in a deep, dark rock voice, just because he loved the sound of the name. In fact, I would nominate Wolfmother as having quite possibly the baddest band name in the history of the world. If anyone can think of one that compares, please post a comment.

I hereby nominate Wolfmother as the greatest, baddest band name in the world.

-Who do they think they are?-

So Jack Black has his little Tenacious D band, right?

And they make all these claims that they are the greatest band in the world or have written the greatest song in the world, or some crap like that. Well, what they are trying to do is a very noble thing - they are trying to infuse a lot of different classic rock sounds together into a beautiful, modern combination of these sounds. Much like the Double Decker Taco brought together the two worlds of tacos and burritos into a delightful mix. Tenacious D hasn't even come close to reaching Double Decker Taco status.

But Wolfmother has. That may seem like an absolutely outrageous claim to some of you, but these guys have combined so many classic sounds into such an amazing sound that they have already reached Double Decker Supreme status. Imagine Zeppelin IV raised to the power of Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon. Yep, it's that good.

Wolfmother IS the band that Tenacious D continues to talk about becoming.

-The Wolfmother Effect-

Since tonight is the show, I've listened to the album about 20x in the last day or so. Pretty standard protocol, right? Well never in my pre-concert preparation experiences before have I felt the influence of the music begin to take over my life like I have in the last 24 hours. Not only my life, but the life of everything around me has been elevated due to the increased Wolfmother effect in my life.

Piece of evidence #1 - The Phx Suns / NJ Nets game last night. Every good player played well above average in the game, on both sides of the ball. The final score ended up 161-157 for Phx. This was the 4th highest scoring game in the history of the universe. Even Steve Nash played better than usual in one of the most amazing games in history last night. Most thought that as the two-time-reigning MVP that his level of play couldn't get much better. Wrong. He put on one of the most dazzling performances EVER (and all this without his long hair...). I only need one word to explain the amazing performances - Wolfmother.

Piece of evidence #2 - I went fake-baking for the first time ever today. (I can hear the gasps...). To those of you who know me, you also know how much I have detested fake-baking over the entire course of my life. Ever since my first word was "radiation", I've been on an anti-fake-baking tear. So for me to climb into that little microwave pod like last night's dinner and flip the switch to 'on' for 8 minutes ... let's just say it was monumental. Not that I need too much help... living in AZ gives me plenty of time to keep up a good tan, and I usually do fairly well in that deparment. Honestly I have no idea why I did it. I just had this crazy, illogical, unexplainable desire jump into my brain this morning and I couldn't stop it from taking over my actions. The more I kept listening to Wolfmother, the stronger the desire became. And there is no other explanation than the power of Wolfmother.

Each song on the album has the same effect as drinking 4 Red Bulls.

You will not regret letting Wolfmother into your life. I'd recommend letting them take your life over completely.

Hasseling the Hoff - artist or engineer?

2006-12-02T14:42:00.000-08:00

If you grow up in Germany, you basically have 2 choices of what music you want to listen to: a) Rammstein, or b) David Hasselhoff. So why the discussion on German music options? Because Hasselhoff's international celebrity status has grown to proportions that no one, not even those of us who grew up watching Knight Rider and thought we knew what his potential was, would have guessed. This requires some discussion.

After Germany was desecrated during WWII, there were not many who envisioned the once-proud nation returning to its status as a world leader. And while Germany has never been thought of as much of a fashion center, an artistically inspired nation or a producer of great international entertainment, it DOES have strengths.

-Engineering a nation of nerds-

While I hate to generalize, Germany is basically only famous for its engineering. Some might argue that its cars would be another famous, German icon. But let's be honest, the cars are a product of the engineering. Germany is so proud of its world-renowned engineering, that its youth have a hard time growing up with a chance at being anything but engineers. Could you imagine being a German parent and hearing your child proclaim that she wants to be a German-cuisine chef when she grows up? That's about like trying to find a career in Oklahoma as a deep-sea fisherman. Parents in Germany probably disown their children if they want to be anything other than engineers.

In a nation so steeped in the hard science of engineering, why would David Hasselhoff's music, of all things, be popular? Is it due to the engineering feat that was Kit, his talking car from Knight Rider? Were Germans so in love with this automotive marvel that was so far ahead of its time, that they just latched onto its owner?

The only conclusion I can draw on Hasselhoff's musical popularity in Germany is that he is a musical engineer, not a musical artist. For those of you in America who have heard any of his music, you have probably cringed at the thought of Hasselhoff as an artist. I know this idea was hard for me to swallow. For some reason, I feel much better knowing that he is not an artist, but a musical engineer.

-Do Americans love David Hasselhoff ?-

Not sure how many of you have seen Sponge Bob's full length movie, but Hasselhoff makes quite an appearance in the show. In fact, Sponge Bob and Patrick use Hasselhoff as a sort of speedboat to go from the shore out deep into the ocean. There is even a fight between the movie's bad guy (sorry, don't remember his name...) and Sponge Bob, while they are riding on the Hasselhoff speedboat. All this means is that the lucky viewer gets to see Hasselhoff's leg hair up close and personal. Total, it was about 15 minutes that we got to see Sponge Bob and the bad guy battling it out on the deck of the SS Hasselhoff.

The reason I bring up the Sponge Bob movie appearance is that I think Germans should question their loyalty to Hasselhoff over it. I don't care what you think about his music, this act alone should force you to question your loyalty. As much as I like Led Zeppelin, if Robert Plant ever tried to pull of a stunt like this in a movie I would, no doubt, question my loyalty to his music. The future actions of an entertainer definitely can influence how we feel about their past material (e.g., look at Pee Wee Herman... it wasn't until he started disrobing, etc in public that we began to say bad things about his tv show and movies... ok that may be a little extreme for an example, but you get the point).

I am wondering if there is a Germany-Hasselhoff parallel in the United States. Someone who got popular internationally for a tv show or maybe a movie, but then became a superstar in the US for his/her music (and that same music happens to be un-popular in his/her home country).

-Does he even know how to use that thing?-

After all this discussion of Hasselhoff, I'm left to question why he is still popular at all. Since he left the cast of Baywatch, the biggest thing he has done in the US was his appearance in Sponge Bob's full feature. Internationally, the biggest thing he has done was to issue 2005's CD entitled

Night Rocker

This CD is amazing. At least the cover. Looks like he is standing on Kit's hood, in the same outfit he wore when he actually was popular in the US back in 1986. His hair is feathered perfectly. And look at that stance...knees bent at just the right obtuse angles to drive those German engineer girls mad. The guitar looks about as unnatural in his hands as a t-shirt would look under that leather vest.

-Germans love David Hasselhoff-

Shouldn't this cd cover have been his downfall? I don't think I have even heard any of the songs, but the cover is enough for me. Doesn't matter how good the music is. However, from the cover, I can only imagine...

Apparently, though, Hasselhoff is as popular as ever in Germany. Dirk Nowitski of the Dallas Mavericks was caught during the NBA playoffs this year listening to "Night Rocker" in the locker room to get pumped up before the game. Which happened to be an amazing coincidence, because not 5 minutes later, the camera found Hasselhoff sitting in an aisle seat in the stands. They interviewed Hasselhoff in the stands, and it was refreshing to see that his look hasn't changed at all since the cd cover.

So why do Germans love Hasselhoff? There are some things that those of us with refined musical taste will just never understand. I would vote for the fact that he has engineered his way into their hearts. Somehow. We need to commission someone to research the Science of Hasselhoff to find some answers. I, for one, am never going to understand it.

Moby Shut-yo'-mouth

2006-11-10T08:49:00.000-08:00

I've had one question on my mind for quite a while, that I can't seem to figure out. A good friend of mine has the last name of Melville. When most people hear the name Melville, they automatically think of the classic Moby Dick, written by Herman Melville. I first heard of the name Melville when learning about the book, and I would assume that is most people's experience.

So here's my question... What would my friend have to do to get out of the shadow of Moby Dick? Can he EVER do anything grandiose enough to be famous for his own efforts, so that when people hear the name Melville, they don't think Moby Dick instinctively?

As I have pondered this topic often over the years, I have wondered what it would be like to live in this shadow. Seems like everyone you meet, when they hear your last name, would ask "So... you related to Herman?" or, as I asked my friend when I first met him, "You related to Moby Dick?" His apt response was "The whale?"

What sort of thing would he have to do in his life to move out from Moby's shadow and start casting his own historic shadows that are at least as big as Moby's?

Senator? President? Serial Killer? Wheaties box? A character on Celebrity Jeopardy? The next Brandon on the next 90210? 756 home runs? Melville, by Calvin Klein...?

The LOL files

2006-11-03T14:15:00.000-08:00

Is it just me, or has LOL usage come to the point of no return? It almost seems now that when someone responds to an email or text message with just "LOL" as the response, that they are mocking the sender.

Used to be that an LOL-only response made you feel good inside, like you had actually made the other person laugh out loud. But things have changed.

(One quick note on the history of LOL - apparently it was invented to ease the burden of typing a longer response over the internet. How painful is it really to type all 15 letters in "laughing out loud"?? I mean, I type around 4th grader speed, and it only takes me about 20 seconds to type the whole phrase out. You would have thought that in the days of the quill pen and ink-dipping that scribes would have invented LOL. Strange, I know.)

In fact, I know of two instances in the past month where I received a semi-unwanted text message that was meant to be funny. In both cases, I didn't find either of them funny or deserving of any mental effort on my part before sending a response to indicate that I didn't think it was as funny as the sender obviously did... my response in both cases was solely "LOL".

And what I meant by "LOL" was "Nice try. You may have thought that was funny, but my highly advanced sense of humor does not agree. Please don't waste my cyber-space with un-funny rubbish like that again. Make sure it's funny next time."

Is anyone out there still using LOL to say that they actually laughed out loud?

"Good Times" or The Worst of Times?

2006-10-26T10:49:00.000-07:00

There are many things in our modern society that would shock the late Charles Dickens, and I would argue that the use, or more accurately, the over-use, of the term "good times" would be the most shocking.

"Good times" is yet another item that has come onto the current scene due to an SNL skit.

However, due to over-saturation in our current spoken vocabulary, "Good times" has passed its prime. In fact, it has been past its prime for at least a year now, maybe more. ("Good times" [or GT] is not to be confused with "a good time" which is still a socially acceptable term.)

"Good times" is used as a filler term, which finds much use mostly among 20-somethings, most likely in social situations, who have a burning desire to say something, say anything, but HAVE ABSOLUTELY NOTHING OF SUBSTANCE TO SAY. It's this insecurity that has fueled GT to platinum status. And it's an easy laugh, because hey, who doesn't like SNL? (the degradation of SNL is another topic entirely...)

Well, I have a message for these people: you would be better off saying nothing, than saying "good times". Please, for the love of all that is holy, STOP SAYING "GOOD TIMES". Every time I hear GT, I cringe. No, I used to cringe. Now, I either openly mock or I decide right on the spot that I want nothing to do with that person.

Brief story of relevance. A close friend of mine has a nasty little habit of ending each of his emails with "Good times." I'm not sure why he would put that same old not-so-funny-anymore phrase at the end of each email, but to each his own. Well, prior to about a year ago, it didn't really bother me. But you can only take so many "good times". (In fact, I think that we are each built with a "good times" counter - once the counter reaches oh, ten thousand times hearing "good times", we then go into either fight or flight mode. It's a scientific fact.).

So, a few months ago, I finally e-called him out (decided this one was worth the fight). In response to his not-so-catchy closing phrase, I responded "Great taste." That was all I wrote, then sent. If you remember, there was an old McDonald's commercial that ended with "Good times, great taste." I just needed a way to bring attention to the fact that he had been over-using GT for years and no one found it even close to amusing anymore. Long story short, he slowed in his usage of GT for a few months, but now is back to it with almost the same frequency as before.

Conclusion: Once a good timer, always a good timer.
Lesson learned: Can't teach an old good timer new closing phrases.

As I've been on my anti-"Good times" kick for what seems like forever now, people around me are starting to feel the same about GT. In fact, my brother and I were at a social gathering 2 months ago. We were talking with a couple of new girls, trying to get a taste of what they were like. As often happens in these scenes, during the changing of the topic, there can be a brief pause where no one says anything. During each one of these pauses, the cuter of the two girls blurted out "Good times." (Yes, blurted. It sounded like she had diarrhea of the mouth.) She even did a double take on at least three, that I recall. (That's when the first GT is followed quickly by a second, slower GT. Usually the second GT is in a little bit deeper voice than the first.) The double take GT almost makes it sound like the person saying it has thought about the conversation, and they are absolutely convinced that it has, indeed, been "good times." Personally once I heard the girl say GT the second time I ruled her out. There was no way I could handle being with her for more than 5 minutes at a time. In the first 2 minutes of conversation, she had said GT at least 5 times. So upon realizing that she was a die-hard good timer, I basically ignored both her and her friend at the party that night, wanting nothing to do with either of them. Call me shallow if you will, but I felt I owed it to them and myself. It was only fair to both of us to end what would have been a rocky relationship right then and there.

My brother's GT radar, however, was not yet as sensitive as mine at that point in time. So they actually went on a couple of dates, both times at her invitation. Each time, before he left, he indicated to me, "I'm not sure if I'll be able to handle the 'good times' tonight. Why does she just not say 'good times'?" Well, after 2 dates, he just couldn't handle it any more. "Good times" ruined what could have been a great relationship.

But the question remains, Why does she just not say 'good times'? Why does anyone continue to use "good times"? GT could become one of the biggest relationship-wreckers in our society. I saw a new stat the other day that indicated that there are now more single adults in America than married adults. Would it be too far of a stretch to connect this stat to the rampant, unprotected use of "good times"?

I think not!

Crumbling the Regime of the Goatee

2006-10-19T12:19:00.000-07:00

Goatee = the Next Mullet?

(pronounced, "moo-LAY", French connotation, meaning "totally sweet hairdo worn today only by crazed, fashion-senseless rednecks")

In July 2006, I celebrated the 1-year anniversary of the birth of my Goatee-Mullet Theory. Some in my inner circle have heard me go on about goatees ... goatees this, and goatees that. Basically, it's a theory of how lame and also-ran the goatee has become today. It must have been ten years ago that I recall actually seeing my first goatee in person. Before that, it was just mustaches and beards. I believe it was with the advent of the nose-hair trimmer and other, small facial hair trimmers that the goatee found its roots. However, no matter how it found its roots, the goatee has been in full effect and riding a wave of popularity ever since. Seems like it's been a requirement for NBA players to wear one, if possible. There are some obvious exceptions to the rule, like Yao Ming (can't grow facial hair), Steve Nash (white) and Pat Burke (completely hairless individual). Even 1/3 of the Women's NBA currently sports a goatee.

"Goatees will never be like mullets. This guy is crazy!" Oh yeah? Well back in 1980, mullets were never going to be mullets either. Granted, the world was a different place when mullets were king. Guns 'N Roses and Def Leppard denim jackets were cool, Slim Jim was popular, and every kid in the neighborhood owned a BMX bike. Some may say that these things are still popular in some pockets of the country... well that's because these pockets haven't changed since 1980. In fact, in these pockets of the country you will still find mullets, out and about like they never lost their style. Sometimes even now, someone from one of these pockets will accidentally wander out into the rest of the country to be seen by the rest of us. In fact, I was at dinner just last weekend and sitting less than 5 feet away was a flaming mullet. You know, the whole "business up-front, party in the back" haircut/lifestyle. And that's cool, if that's your thing.

(I might add here that no haircut in history has EVER even come close to reflecting the lifestyle of its owner quite like the mullet... nope, not the buzz-cut, bowl-cut, bob 'n weave, or even jerrycurls. You just can't say "man, that guy lives life exactly like his haircut!" unless it's a mullet.)

So why is the goatee going to become the next mullet? Well, if we had to choose 1 thing from society today that had the potential to become the next mullet, what would be at the top of that list? What makes a mullet, a mullet?

Goatees v. Ascots, round 1

Why has mullet spotting ("hunting") become so popular these days? Even 5 years ago, there were myriad of websites whose whole premise was to publish and mock a single hairstyle. But why, I ask? Is it due to the rarity of actual mullets in our modern society? Is it really like seeing a live tiger on the subway (the cliche "wild animal goes to the city" storyline)? Is it the mystique of seeing something that was thought to be extinct over 10 years ago (the same as the day when I was at dinner at a chic little Italian restaurant on the south end of Manhattan and two guys came in together wearing ascots... it was like opening up the drapes on a sunny Saturday morning and seeing a Pterodactyl sitting in the front tree. I was SURE that the ascot was extinct...)

My firm belief is that the mullet has become so rare, that seeing one in person just shocks most of us. Not in a necessarily positive way, although it does make the day a little brighter when you tell your friends about it later. If we think about it, I think we will all agree that the mullet carries a very powerful mystique in our society today. Not sure why...

Goatees v. Ascots, round 2

Next, we need to discuss the Fashion Life Cycle. The mullet came onto the scene pretty quickly. It left pretty quickly, too. That's the trick with fashion... you need to get on the right trains. Some trains will be running for quite a long time, but stay away from those fashion feux paux trains. You may someday be embarrassed to have ridden on the wrong trains. The mullet train was one that, as it was leaving New York City, people thought it was going on a long journey to L.A., and that's why they got on. They had no idea it was going to stop in Hackensack, NJ, to never get back on the tracks again...

No one wants to show their children pictures of when they had a mullet. "Daddy, I thought you were better than that." - my heart would crumble if my little girl ever said that to me (if I had a little girl). And I'm predicting it will be the same scenario for the goatee. In fact, we have seen in the past few months some signs that the goatee is becoming less socially acceptable. From an article in GQ about how the goatee is no longer the fashion-conscious facial hair of choice, to ET doing a short report on the declining popularity of the goatee.

Maybe even more telling is the fact that more rednecks are beginning to sport the goatee. Normally, once the rednecks begin to try out a style, it's past the first phase of the fashion life cycle, known as "A-List Popularity". The second phase is when the fashion goes to the masses, or "Mass Popularity". This is when the A-list celeb's will begin to jump off the train. The third phase is "Redneck Popularity". It is at this stage when a fashion will become mainstream for rednecks; some of the masses will begin to change their style because they don't want to appear to be a redneck.

In terms of the Mullet Life Cycle, the Goatee, for the past year 7-8 years has been in the Mass Popularity phase. However, we are nearing full entrance into the Redneck Popularity phase. I have seen more goatees per redneck capita in the past 2 months than ever. It's like they finally got the memo that was sent 10 years ago. And as we saw with the mullet, once the goatee enters phase 3, it will then begin to slowly downgrade in popularity with the masses. If the masses sour on the goatee like they did with the mullet, then we could be looking at a Goatee Armageddon.

Just remember who said it first: the goatee will be the next mullet. I did.

the karma of midgets

2006-10-12T23:10:00.000-07:00

so... midgets, huh? [if you are a midget, or small person, reading this, please note that it is written entirely for humorous purposes and with no malintent toward anyone.]

the item that spurned me to write about midgets this week was an advertisement in the Phoenix New Times newspaper. they were searching for midgets to help in future promotions. midgets for promotions? why do you need midgets to promote a newspaper? is there something about a midget that says "newspaper" better than a non-midget? (by the way, what is the correct word to describe someone who is not a midget? you really can't say "a regular person".. because midgets are "regular" people too.. providing they eat enough fiber. there's just not a good, socially acceptable way to say "a non-midget" with just one word.. so midgets are 1-up in the "describe yourself with one word" game).

---the rise of midgets---

really though, let's think about this. did anyone even know that midgets existed before Austin Powers? that was about the time that the proverbial midget train got rolling down the track to an unprecedented outbreak in our society. "outbreak" might be the wrong word...

now we have famous midgets all over. remember those stories about Ben Roethlisberger during the 2004-2005 NFL season, about how the Friday night before his first start for the Steelers, he just happened to be in a Pittsburg bar that was having Midget Night w/ some little guys dancing and pouring drinks on the bar. well it turned out that Ben was superstitious, so after he won that first week, he had to go back to the same bar every Friday after that for the streak to continue. did Ben know something about midgets that we, as a society, are beginning to realize? is there a special power that comes with midgets? do midgets improve our karma? apparently Ben thought so. he felt that the midgets improved his playing ability enough that he HAD to return to that bar every Friday night for months on end, to get his dose of midget.

so why the sudden growth in midget popularity? is it because there actually ARE more midgets now than ever before? i don't recall seeing any midgets in any black and white films, is that because there were no midgets at that time? and you won't find any midgets in any 80's movies either. do we have documented evidence of midgets before 1992?

even Geico is now using Mini Me (probably the most famous of all midgets) in their commercials... does he do anything special? no. does he have any acting talent? no. is he out-of-the-ordinary in any way, other than his height? no. is he a midget? yes. no further questions, your honor.

so again, why are they so popular right now? my best guess is that they make us laugh. based on the media that contains midgets, it's all based on their powerful comedic effect.

why do short people make us laugh though? and are we laughing with them, or at them? seems like we're laughing AT them. honestly, i don't see too many midgets laughing at themselves. it makes me laugh that our society is so sensitive to being politically correct in so many areas, but when it comes to midgets, we can pretty much exploit them as much as we want for a few cheap laughs. we probably need some sort of Coalition for the Little People or a Midget Union to stand up for their rights, to ensure that we non-midgets are treating them fairly. i would put in a vote for the establishment of a Midget Union. no questions asked.

---too many midgets?---

are midgets taking away jobs from other, potentially funnier non-midgets? like Carrot Top. where has he been for the past 7 years? i would almost argue that the midgets ran him out of the biz. just when he was starting to see some popularity on the national level, "WATCH OUT CARROT TOP, HERE COMES THE MIDGET TRAIN!!!" CT's comedy career timing couldn't have been worse. he just needed to be about 5 years earlier and there would have been no stopping him. we'll chalk him up as another fatality caused by the snowballing effect of midget power. personally, i believe there is room for everyone in our society - midgets, non-midgets, whatever. come one, come all. but i could also understand why someone like Carrot Top would be angry with them for drowning his career in their wake. i wouldn't be surprised to see some animosity toward the midgets in Hollywood. but the answer to the too many midgets? question is NO. in our capitalist society, Hollywood is merely supplying what we are demanding. and apparently we are demanding more midgets. if we didn't want more midgets, then we wouldn't see ads like the one in the Phoenix New Times, looking for any and all midgets, funny or not, just to help sell some newspapers.

---i got a fever... and the only cure, more midget---

hopefully, we as a society are treating the midgets well. they deserve our best. it would be a real loss if they were to go the way of the buffalo. unexplainable though it may be, midgets really ARE funny. there's no two ways about it. i don't know why they make me laugh, they just do. sort of like Canadians. (speaking of Canadians, those guys have really stormed the celebrity comedy scene too. laughs per capita, i would have to put midgets at #1, with Canadians right behind at #2).

i don't want my children to have to learn about midgets by going to a museum, or by renting some out-dated comedy movie. so let's take care of them. let's call them "little people" if they don't like "midgets". let's accomodate them any and every way possible. let's allow them to drive cars, even if they can't see over the windshield. let's help them to form a union. and if they want their own state, give it to them. just keep THEM happy so they can continue to keep US happy.

ankle socks and g-strings

2006-10-06T14:59:00.000-07:00

if it was possible to buy stock in a certain style of clothing, i would go back in time about 2 years and buy as much stock as i could possibly afford in ankle socks. by ankle socks, i don't mean the socks that stop at the top of the ankle, i mean those socks that don't even peek out the top of your low-top tenny runners. i seem to have heard a different name for them somewhere..

"peds" comes to mind, but that is too close to "pedophiles" and "pedorasts", so i shy away from it. let's face it, i don't want my blog to be at the top of the google search results next time Michael Jackson gets near a computer. back to the topic..

these socks are like the bikinis of the foot world. better yet, they are the g-strings, minus the fact that they probably don't get stuck in any cracks that they are covering. (could you imagine socks that get caught in between each set of your toes? why are g-strings so popular anyway? seems like if they get caught in your rear-end, like they appear to do, they would be more of an uncomfy hassle than they are worth.. are g-strings sold with a crowbar?) back to the topic..

maybe they are called "heel socks", as they barely seem to cover the heel. since the more traditional "ankle socks" actually covered the ankle, "heel socks" seems like an appropriate term for these immodest fluffy little cotton bad boys. heel socks is what i'm calling them from now on.. join me in this revolution if you'd like.

seems like every dude i know is wearing them now. i should have bought stock in them about 2 years ago, when my youngest brother got a pair. ONE PAIR. i will never forget the day he showed up wearing them, and i thought he had joined the Miami Vice gang, because he looked like Don Johnson walking around with no socks, just shoes. i commented to him about how gross it was to wear shoes without socks. he just laughed and kicked his shoe off, to reveal this skimpy little item, that appeared to be an old sock which he had cut off with a pair of scissors, just above the heel. i didn't believe that he had paid for the pair. until a couple weeks later he was wearing them everywhere. was i missing out on something?

fast forward to august 2005. my oldest brother showed up at a golf tournament wearing them. this is when i knew heel socks were mainstream. that's because this brother had always been a lagard when it came to technology/fashion/trends. not due to lack of funds.. he just was decidedly slow in catching on. it wasn't until early 2006 that he finally upgraded from his dial-up connection. and it wasn't until late 2005 that he finally got his first cell phone. that should be enough to pinpoint his location on the "adopting new trends" scale. and prior to aug 05, he was wearing knee-high socks, which were pushed down to mid-calf length (this was the style when he was growing up in the 80's). but from that point forward, he wears heel socks everywhere. in fact, i haven't seen him without them on in about 10 months now. he probably sleeps and showers in them.

one more comparison of heel socks to women's underwear->

fast forward to march 2006. my cousin moved into my apartment to crash for a month. he has always been on the cutting edge of new trends. he had a myspace account right after it opened to the public - that should be enough to paint his picture on the trend scale. while he lived with me, i noticed he wore the same heel socks as my brothers, with one difference. his were BLACK. you know that old saying "if a woman wears colored underwear, it's because she wants someone to see it".. that was what first jumped into my mind when i saw his black heel socks.. "he wants someone to see those socks, he wants some girl to walk up to him and rip his shoes off, revealing what's underneath" anyway.. the socks have that same sort of "wear them underneath and make people guess at what color they might be" appeal that women's underwear has to men. and that makes them pretty cool.

and now everyone is wearing them. at least i hope. i just see most guys wearing only shoes these days, which i assume means that they are wearing heel socks underneath. not all these guys can be part of the Miami Vice gang, can they? anyway, it seems like the heel socks stock has gone through the roof.

so what's the future of heel socks.. let me use my father to predict. my father is known for his anti-trend notions. he still has an old pair of sweat pants which he wears that just barely cover the bottom edge of his knees, when he wears them at normal height (about 2" ABOVE the belly button). and they are those old tight, elastic-ankled sweats (or elastic-calved for him..) yeah, he's no bastion of fashion. believe me on this one, my dad is not in david beckham's cell phone. anyhow, since my dad doesn't wear heel socks yet, they JUST MIGHT still have some cool time left..

so my word of advice is to hold your heel sock stock as long as you can, but be ready to sell it at the first sign of my dad jumping on that train. because once my dad gets a pair, the market for heel socks will be headed for its Black Tuesday.

the beginning, the truth and other stuff

2006-10-06T14:41:00.000-07:00

i just need a place to post my view of STUFF. this is also known as the "truth", as i see it. each post will be my personal reaction to something that i may throw into the category of STUFF. although it will probably never actually be a reaction to STUFFed animals, it may include a reaction to STUFFed crust pizza or maybe even Stove Top STUFFing. see, i don't like some stuff... so i probably won't comment on those items. unless i want to. and i just might... so don't try to predict the next stuff, cause you might make a fool of yourself. but i do like some other stuff.