Micheal Keaton

So I go to the mall, again, because I needed a tie - I will never understand why clothing companies can't make an affordable tie that can withstand tempuratures exceding 400 degrees - anyway while I am there I visit one of those little phone stands you find in the middle of the mall, the ones that look like they should be selling tacos or snowcones at the very least but then you get to the front of the line to order and they are all like "why is you current cellphone plan?"

Number one: I was just rudely awaken from a churro fantasy by a large guy behind the counter in a suit with the shapes of stars and arrows shaved into his head (the dress code might be business casual but the hair looked like a comic book villan.) and Number two: my cellphone plan was setup so long ago I only have three digits in my phone number.

(Trend setter.)

So I told the guy behind the counter (which in my head I called "star dancer,") that my phone was so old it was steam powered and asked if i could get a new one - he walked away to check something in the computer all the way on the other side of the phone/churro stand.

This was apperently exactly the moment his partner was waiting for. He was a large black man in a suit, which except for some bad life choices which resulted in him wearing a name tag and standing behind a counter in a mall, could have easily passed for an FBI agent in one of the Die Hard films. He walked up to me and leaned across the counter  - my head was somewhere less compleatly because I wasn't even paying attention at all until the spoke.

"Has anyone ever told you that you look just like Micheal Keaton?"

"???"

Had it not caught me so compleatly off guard I would have answered "actually not a day goes by that someone doesn't say that to me, then again he is my dad."

Of course I am pretty sure this guy was trying to ask me out or thought I was gay and trying to flirt with me to sell me a phone. I just laughed at him not sure if it was a complement or an insult, i mean i don't think micheal keaton's parents remember Micheal Keaton. I told him that I had never head that before and he appologized  - maybe because of the way I was laughing at him but then he returned to his side of the stand while"star dancer," came back with a couple new phones to look at.

Long story short I ended up not getting a phone but i can't help but think that guy just stands there all day waiting to tell people that they look like celebriteis with his partner turns his back. not a bad job to have I guess.

Dalai Lama

Just a link post but I love this, I totally would have tried something like this if I had the chance. . .

Later he told him that on his death bed he will have total consciousness, so you know he has that going for him.

Coat Hook

Sorry I haven't had enough time to update this in awhile but I got a new job and it has sort of been taking all of my time.

So here is the update - somehow I got a job and they gave me my very own office, with giant windows and one of those phones with enough buttons to ensure that I never completely understand it. They even trusted me enough to give me a door with a working lock - I feel like George Costanza when he got his job with the Yankees.

I make nearly twice what I was making at the paper and I get to lock the office door and pretend to be a stock broker. I completely walk around saying things like appointment and conference, just like a grown-up - I even wear a tie.

So today I left a meeting because I needed to use the bathroom. A little known fact about me is I hate to pee in a urinal next to a stranger when a nice private bathroom stall is available, so i went in a used it. I was in a hurry to get back to acting like an adult in the big people's room so I quickly finished and turned around grabbed the bathroom stall door and tried to push it open - of course what I didn't know was this was the type of door that opened inward rather then outward.

I ran face first into the door - hard - which would have been bad anyway but this particular door had a coat hook exactly at eye level. I would be half blind right now had I been standing a half inch to the left. That hook caught me right on the edge of my eye socket, and luckily had a little rubber piece on the end of it.

It still feels kind of bruised. Anyway the eye is fine and I made it back to the meeting just in time to bring up the term "synergy," and wow the rest of the office.

Sort of like mesh but slutty . . .

I went to the mall yesterday, because I needed some cloths and my wife told me about this thing called "clearance," that is suppose to make everything you buy cheaper. Of course the penalty for me saving all this money is that I would have to bring her along and she would drag me into a several stores looking for a dress that doesn't exist.

At first I had fun with it, like loudly asking her what a Kardashian was in the middle of a crowded store or saying loudly "So your trying to tell me that Miley Cyrus and Hannah Montana are the same person?" It was really fun although it was less fun for my wife.

She paided off on her promise, I found a button down business shirt with a matching tie for only $3. She also taught me that I hate the future, cheap as it may be. Every store she took me to was playing some kind of bubble gum bop bullshit that made Hanson sound like Metallica. I get it, of course the music is going to be bad, these are stores primarily catering to 12 to 15 year old girls, a few that were 17, and one flirting with 30 that needed a new outfit to match the pair of cowboy boots her husband found at a garage sale. (Although to be fair I did kind of find it cute, sort of like when you buy a little kid a fireman's hat and they wear it all the time pretending to save kittens and making siren noises.)

"Look over there, clearance on all socks!!!"

She took me to a place called "The Body Shop," or like "Body Movements," - I can't remember exactly the name but it sounded kind of like a strip club and most of the cloths inside looked like something a young girl working her way though college might wear. There was a dress (I say "dress" because I don't know what else to call it) which stretched from the ceiling to the floor hanging on the back wall - I thought it was just a prop but when I turned around I saw several more of them on a rack. These things were like 8 feet long, so either I just didn't get it or this was club wear for WNBA players. There was another rack that had these silver pants that were sort of like mesh but slutty, they looked like something out of one of those really bad 1980's teen films - not the good ones with Molly Ringwall, but the bad ones like with Madonna.

This is what you are nostalgic for?

I felt dirty just being at the mall, all these little girls who couldn't even drive yet were there with their moms buying thongs and lots of belts, for some reason these people found the level of their pants waists to be very important.

The only glimmering moment of hope in all of this was the boys were all wearing jeans that were so tight that there was no way they will be able to reproduce.

What I have learned. . .

So I got a job, this time as the educational coordinator for a local college. Somehow.
This ends a six month unemployment adventure which has helped me to both become more enlightened and in touch with the universe in a zen sort of way and to finally explore the hellish nightmare of suburban life that can drive some people to pray to God for a knife to cut some haggard old divorcé in JC Pennys because of the way she looked at you while buying pants.

 I would like to take a few minutes to share some of the things that I have learned in the past few months.


No matter how much I would like for Sardines to taste like Vienna Sausages they don't, and no amount of hot sauce can change that.

Shoes and silverware are what separate us from the animals, if your day does not require you to use either of them you are doing something wrong.

Whether it's global economics, theoretical particle physics or ancient linguistics - Nothing is more complex or difficult to understand then the inner workings of a garage door opener.

Powdered sugar and confectioners' sugar are the same thing and neither one taste good in coffee.

Subway does not take checks.

There is a city permit for just about everything - but if your town is small enough you don't need one. You can just call city hall and tell them what you are going to do and they will say "Okay, but be careful." - You don't even have to actually be careful.

It is easier to put up a clothesline then it is to fix a dryer.

Anyone can grow mold on the dirty dishes in the sink, it takes real talent to grow tomatoes there.

Wait until you see the third turnip to attack the final boss in Super Mario Brothers 2.

90% of basic cable is infomericals at 3 a.m. and they are all bad.

I know we live in this puritanical society but I still don't think pants should be required if you are just checking the mail.

Phantom pains

I heard a story once about a man with one arm, he said that in his dreams he still had his arm. He said there were times when he would wake up and it felt like he had lost his arm all over again.

Because I have a job interview with a local college, I felt it was time to loose the ponytail and shave the beard to look more respectable and less like an effeminate deadhead.

I keep picking up stray rubber bands and reaching back to realize that there is no hair. Not that I have changed my mind about cutting my hair but it is kind of sad.

A brush with death, kind of. . .

So I was watching CNN 2 at about 5 a.m. after finishing a plate of homemade blueberry pancakes and I realized that my fingernails could use a quick trim.

Luckily the nail clippers were exactly where I had left them after my wife called me gross for cutting my toe nails  - on the coffee table in the living room.

About ten seconds into it I was already on my fourth finger - you can say what you want about my hygiene habits but I have always taken pride in my ability to speed through a fingernail cutting session in under 1 min 30 seconds. I don't know the world record I am pretty sure I would be in the running but to be honest I don't care because I don't do it to be competitive.

So it was at this time, while I was pondering possible sponsorship deals for my fingernail cutting skills, when I nearly died.

They would still loose.

There is a theory in physics, more like a theory that high school physics students talk about when they get stoned and drink Mt. Dew while listen to the Flamming Lips. It says that at the lowest form of matter, even the charge inside the atoms themselves are held together by smaller particles and they are held together by even smaller particles and smaller and smaller until you eventually get to tiny little "vibrations" between parts of parts of particles. This means that if you can find the right frequency, the right angle and the right timing then it would be possible for an object to pass through another object. Of course the possibility of all those vibrations lining up perfectly would be like several billion to one shot, per particle - but still technically possible - - - -Statistically speaking what happened to me at the coffee table was only slightly more likely to happen then all of the particles in my leg lining up and falling through the floor.

(science)

Somehow I clipped a nail and it flew through the air reaching speeds upwards of 200 miles an hour and ricocheting through the living room behaving like a cross between an epileptic toddler and the magic bullet that Oswald fired at Kennedy.

Somehow the tiny little fingernail  - - without even touching the rim - - shot right up my nose. It hit the hole so perfectly that it actually made it to the cusp between the inner area when the nose starts to stop being nose and starts to be the inside of your face. I panicked of course as most of you would when a large rouge fingernail lodges itself in your nasal passage.

I nearly choked and realized that if I inhale this thing is not stopping till it hits lung. I grabbed a napkin and blew my nose - It worked and thankfully I survived.

Wal-Mart Math

I went to wal-mart and noticed something. Now that it is getting hot outside there are a lot of people wearing shorts and girls wearing tank tops. After seeing what I saw today I have to explain something with math

This :

Plus this:

Does NOT equal this:

It equals this:

Thank you.

Aluminum Foil Sex Pervert

I am trying my hand at brewing my own beer - right now I am about halfway through my first batch. It is a learning process and I am not expecting this first batch to be the greatest but It has so far been fun and I am sure I will get better at it.

I just hope the neighbors don't think I am making meth.

Today I am bottling - which means cleaning and sterilizing old bottles. I think 90% of making beer is about cleaning. After doing my research it seems that you can sanitize the bottles by soaking them in bleach water or commercial sanitizer or by wrapping the bottles in aluminum foil then throwing them in the oven for an hour and a half. Seeing as how commercial sanitizer cost money and I don't want my beer to taste like bleach i opted to go for the oven method.

The problem is I only had enough aluminum foil for about 20 out of the 50 bottles I needed. So I climbed on my motorcycle and drove to the store to get another roll. Once I left the store I realized that there was no place to put this roll of aluminum foil except down my pants. I have no saddle bags on the bike and have to use both hands to drive so it was really my only option.

About two blocks away from the store it hit me that if I am in a wreck at this very moment and died my wife would never truly understand what was going on. She would find an oven half full of beer bottles and  the police report would mention paramedics finding a roll of aluminum foil stuffed down my pants. Knowing her I am sure she would tell herself that there was some sort of explanation that didn't make me out to be a weirdo but in the back of her mind she would always wonder.

Luckily I made it home ok and saved her from living the rest of her life with those questions.

Sword Play

I have to do the funeral thing tomorrow.
My uncle Chuck died this week, it was unrelated to the tornado, he had cancer, one of the bad kinds apparently and was about a year into his diagnosis.

He was my Mom's youngest of seven brothers and sisters, and his mother, who made it to 80 and change died last year. I never asked and it isn't something that comes up but if I had to guess I would say chuck might have made it to 50 - it was close, give or take five years.

I will relay my favorite memory of Chuck I guess, since that is what people do once you die.

After I graduated from high school I went to junior college for two years and I moved into my grandmothers house for a semester. I was working as a janitor at wal-mart and living in a small room in the back of the house. It was a room that use to be a garage and had been converted into a small space that both Chuck and all of his several siblings over the years had lived in for a period of time after various divorces, marriages, addictions and other poverty inducing milestones.
College is no less an excuse but while I was there my uncle chuck was staying in the spare bedroom in the house. It was the only time that I actually spend more then a few hours with him. He was well liked by all of his family members and surprisingly he was also well liked by my fathers side of the family - and few people made that cut after my parents divorce.

I returned from work one night after a late shift. I laid down on the mattress, on the floor and started to watch a DVD - which was a pretty new thing at the time - i had  been lucky enough to have found one after it had been hit by lightning then fixed it using a TV remote and a fuse I pulled out of my 1991 Pontiac Firebird.

I didn't know it at the time but Chuck was home and my grandmother was not -
My grandmother was staying in Georgia with her daughter for the week and Chuck thought it was necessary to kick in the door and swing a sword over his head to surprise me at one in the morning.

I was surprised.

Apparently he had made this sword and wanted to show it off, in doing so he reached back his sword to slice invisible enemies on the staircase as he charged towards me in a classic "Conan the Barbarian ," pose and accidentally stabbed a giant framed poster I had hung on the wall behind him.

That was my favorite memory of the guy - it was really funny, completely insane and somehow endearing because the expression on his face was that of complete cartoon anger - then shock - and complete humility as he apologized - all in a three second span.

Why a sword? Why he had no shirt at one in the morning and thought he should just kick the door in? Why he had no concept of the spatial relation between the wall and giant hunk of sharp metal he was tossing around his head? I don't know.

Anyway I will always think of that moment and know that the world is a worse place without you in it.

Tornadoes are our illegal immigrants

On Sunday my wife had a friend and her one year old daughter come with us to eat dinner at my wife's favorite restaurant - Her friend and her daughter were born and raised in Arizona and this was her first trip to Missouri so as we drove down Rangeline Road in the center of Joplin  and the dark clouds started forming a few jokes were made about tornadoes - apparently for those people that don't live with this stuff all the time tornadoes are a pretty scary event but for the most part we ignore them unless they actually mention our address on news coverage as a possible impact zone.
When the power was cut inside the restaurant I remember telling this worried mother, "Don't worry about it, they always make a big deal out of these things and then nothing really happens, sort of the same way people in California might think about a small earthquake or to put it in Arizona terms: tornadoes are our illegal immigrants."



The storm came and apparently I was wrong about the not worrying thing because everything we drove though to get there was now gone ten minutes later. We missed the tornado by literally a couple blocks and ten minutes - and this this was a mile wide. We saw a lot of the destruction on the way home - over turned trucks and cars some smashed up houses and trees stripped of branches, and that was not in Joplin it was off the interstate, we avoided going back home through Joplin not knowing how back it was down there.

This shows some of the scale, keep in mind we missed this by a couple blocks.

Long story short, we made it, my family members made it and I am thinking about moving to Arizona.

I will have more later on this later but in this blog I tend to make jokes (bad ones) about stuff like this and it seems sort of in bad taste to do that when they are still finding bodies.

Space Training

When I was in kindergarten all of the kids that were considered "smart" enough got to read this series of comic books about an astronaut in space, or at least that's as much of the story as I know because I was not one of the "smart" kids. I remember feeling bad because I wanted to know how to read the little book and I was not allowed to. I wanted to find out what happened to the plucky astronaut exploring space, fighting aliens and possibly making friends with a talking dog which he would make his partner. I really wanted to read those books, now I don't even know the title of them, but at the time i was obsessed with space travel and those little books.

I remember one day all the teachers in school being excited and our teacher bringing a television into the classroom and telling me that we were going to see real astronauts and a teacher go into space.

It didn't really work out the way they said it would.

I remember very clearly watching the Space Shuttle Challenger explode and the teacher quickly walking across the room and turning off the television - we then got to go to recess early. I was 6.

This morning I found myself at the age of 31 reading a news story about the second to last space shuttle launch in United States history for the foreseeable future. The story stated that NASA celebrated the arrival of the space shuttle Endeavor reaching its proper orbit by sending music to the crew and the song they chose  was "Drops of Jupiter," by Train.

I look back on my life and what could have been - had I been smart enough to read in kindergarten, had those books and that disaster not spoiled my enthusiasm for space travel  - who knows I might have worked really hard and with a little bit of luck I might have actually become an astronaut. But knowing that all that hard work, patients and training would eventually lead to me being trapped in a small tin can listening to that shitty music tells me that I know I have made the right choices.

Animal crackers and complaints.

I was just sitting here eating a bag of  animal crackers, something I haven't done in like ten years. About four handfuls in I realized why the store only charged me ten cents for a 2 pound bag. My animal crackers' expiration date was so long ago that some of the animals in the bag are apparently extinct because I did not recognize several of them.

If I had to guess I would say that this is a fox of some sort, but seeing as how it is the same size as the elephant crackers (and I refuse to believe that I have half a bag of tiny elephants) this means it would have to be a huge fox. It has pointed ears like a dog or wolf maybe, but the tail is way off and looks more like a horse or some kind of mutant deer.

My first thought on this one way it was some sort of cat, like a tiger or Morris from those meow mix commercials. The problem with that is he has no tail, even bobcats has some sort of tail but this thing has nothing. Maybe it was because this was a knock-off brand of animal cracker and the design team found out that if they cut the tail off of the tigers then they would save like a billion dollars a year or something. I can picture some eager cracker designer at a board meeting, "Sure a few kids might be confused but if we clearly label the bag not for educational purposes we should be covered from any legal action."

Then again I could be way off maybe this isn't a cat at all but some sort of mischievous (or possible inner city) gerbil, notice the playful way it is raising it's front leg as if to say "Toss me that string," or "Say that again peckerwood and I cut yo ass."



I have no idea on this one, my best guess would be a hand that got caught in some sort of machinery as part of an industrial accident. I guess if you count one celled organisms as "animals" then this could be an amoeba. Maybe it isn't a whole animal, I guess if you turn it upside down then it sort of looks like the head of a moose but if that were the case you would have to label the bag "animal parts in cracker form" and that's sort of a long title for toddlers to ask for by name.

The New United States

There is a group of people in Southern Arizona that are trying to form a new state and break off from the rest of Arizona and having been there I can see there point. In my opinion I think this would be a good idea to form two states called Arizona and Flagstaff.

(Here is a real news story if you are interested:)
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/liberals-southern-arizona-seek-form-state-130257516.html

I don't think it will ever happen but it did make me think that perhaps it is time for the united states to redraw some state boundaries. I have put a lot of thought into this and I think I have a better plan for the states then what we currently have.

Number one:
In order to be a state you have to touch a state.
Sorry Hawaii and Alaska, but this has been a long time coming. We induced you as states back in the 50's and we both know it hasn't been working out. You guys are like the Laurel and Hardy of states, always getting into hi jinks and misadventures together.

Maybe you guys can form your own country but we certainly need your Sarah Palins and I guess I have to go with Don Ho because that's the only famous guy to ever come out of Hawaii.

Number two:

Let the south finally secede.
Sure slavery was bad and I don't think it would be a good idea to let Alabama continue doing it, and if you talk to anyone from Alabama they will deny that the civil war had anything to do with slavery anyway but other then forcing them to not be jerks and own people why did we need to keep them? I think about this every time I hear those rednecks talking about the south doing it again -

I say go be your own country, we won't stop you and you don't have the read or eat anything not fried and you can vote for Jeb Bush for your president or emperor or whatever you decide on. There would be only one price - give us Florida, well some of Florida - actually we just want Miami - Okay, just Miami Beach other then that you can have the rest.

Number three:

Texas too.

Texas always wants to be it's own state, I say go for it, it is sad to lose Austin, but other then that I can do with out them and their silly hats. They can ride horses to work and hold beauty pageants for toddlers all that stuff they seem to like.

Number four:
There should only be one Dakota.
I don't care which one we keep but they should fight each other and the winner becomes a new state called simply "Dakota."

Number five:
New England is one state.
Maine, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Rhode Island all form one state but drops the name New England and names themselves Mainconnvershire Island.

That might be it for right now, but there are several more changes that need to take place in the future this is just the start.

Fast and Furious

Somehow the news media has been busy with other things and has let a major event slip right by with hardly any coverage. I am speaking of course about the release of the cinematic master piece "Fast Five" the fifth instalment of the Fast and Furious film franchise.

"Sure they got Bin Laden but at what cost?"

I was expecting this to be the main news topic for at least three weeks but it has hardly had any mention at all. From what I have read from the few sources that are reviewing this film such as Moviezdump.com and  New Republic Magazine, it is the best film of all time. Apparently it has a scene in which Vin Diesel punches some guy and then drives a car really fast and jumps over a train. There is also a nude scene featuring Kate Middleton, and  (spoiler alert) John F. Kennedy makes a guest appearance near the end and reveals to the audience exactly what happened that day in Dallas. I believe it has already been nominated for 7 Oscars including one for a new category which was added just this year for "most furious film."

I have also read that much like the Shaq Diesel in 1993, Vin Diesel is not slowing down anytime soon, it has already been announced that he has signed on to star in the next 15 sequel or "squeakquel" depending on how well the chipmunks crossover special which comes out in may of 2012 does.

I don't know all of the future films' details but I can pass along a few I have picked up. While the first film was entitled "The Fast and the Furious,"  and the fourth was called "Fast and Furious," and the latest instalment is entitled simply "Fast Five" the next film will continue this by shortening the title to "Fast and Fu." Vin Diesel will actually play two roles in this film the obviously not gay street racer and his lawyer John Lawyerstein.

"You want Nos? You can't handle the Nos!"

The franchnchise is going to take a pretty sevear turn near the eleventh film when it is set in a post apocalyptic future in which gasoline is so rare that cars now run on babies and Vin diesil has to steal them so that he can drive really fast and disobey traffic laws.

The 13th film might get a little odd because a major plot point in the film is Vin Diesel's head turning into a basketball.

And of course the final film in the franchise which will be entitled "f" will feature the return of Paul Walker and is going to be three hours of gay porn.

Osama is dead.

It was kind of strange to watch the news reports where college kids were partying because the government killed Osama bin Ladin - I am glad he is dead, it was just strange to see them drop all that PC bull crap and do a keg stand for America. All I could think of was this song.

As much fun as that was to watch, it is horrible to see the spin machine start up immediatly - depending on the cable news you watch either Obama pulled the trigger himself or Bush hired a private death squad to make the hit. My favorite was FOX news this morning with some guy that looked like Carl Rove but wasn't saying that Osama being dead is not the issue but the fact that Clinton allowed Osama to operate while he was in office - i swear that was his argument.
Oh, well back to business as usual.

Private Eye

When you have a slight case of insomnia you will often times do some strange things to entertain yourself while the rest of the world is asleep - I however have a severer case of insomnia and have run through the more regular things like finally completing the game of Zelda I started in 1998 and creating an Itunes playlist for every conceivable situation (now if Herve Villechaize comes back to life and we find ourselves on a road trip through Africa I will have my "Half a zombie to Zimbabwe," mix.)

Now I am entering new levels of odd - Right now it's 5 a.m, and I have been on the computer for the last three hours trying to research the name "Paco" as this name has popped up a number of times in the past month in graffiti tags on buildings near my home and I have always wanted to solve a mystery. Some teenager spray painting on buildings is just about the size of the mystery I think I can handle.

Facebook, Myspace, graffiti websites, Casenet criminal records, news articles . . .blah blah. . .blah. So far I have nothing to show for this, but that simply means I am matching wits with a formidable adversary. My plan now is to start documenting these tags with photos (as soon as the sun comes up.) I will also need a map and some push pins to make one of those cool maps with red string tied to them to show the area of the crime like in the movies.

Maybe tomorrow I can try my first stakeout? I can't wait to go undercover!!! I think I'll watch Chinatown later just for some notes. Anyway, I am only a few hours into the investigation and I already feel like this was a smart move.

Chicken noodle

I have been learning to cook recently, like really cook not just make spaghetti. I have been experimenting with different recipes and stuff like that and for the most part I am getting pretty good at it. I can slice a whole chicken up in like 30 seconds now without cutting myself. this week alone I made meatloaf from scratch, a loaf of fricacha bread and fried chicken. this brings me to the problem I had last night - you see after my grandmother passed away I made sure that I got a copy of her chicken noodle recipe, which is really more like chicken and dumplings but it was always a family favorite and one of mine growing up. Last night was the first time I had pulled the recipe out and tried to actually make them.

I finished the noodle part with all the little old lady measurements like use an egg shell full of milk and stuff like that and reached a major problem.

This was exactly what the recipe said:

Bring chicken in broth to simmer.
Add milk and butter.
Add noodles.

I had no idea what to do, there was no mention of milk or butter measurements before or after this. I mean it could literally be 65 pounds of butter and three cows of milk or a teaspoon each.

 So I am in the kitchen, chicken burning, trying to reach anyone that might know what this means. Finally I got a return call from my mom who says just put in a stick butter and a few cups of milk - which i did, making butter and milk soup with chicken - it was still pretty good though.

Catfish

I just jumped into the shower and realized the luffha sponge my wife found in a box of her old things and then gave to me so that I would stop using her's is way creepier to rub on my naked body then I was expecting it too.

I just feel ashamed whenever I make eye contact with it.

Anyway, so after that never to be repeated experience I jumped out of the shower and grabbed a towel to dry off - the last thing to be dried of course being my hair, (which since I rock the ponytail I have to wrap up in a towel like a girly girl.) I wrapped up the hair and walked around the house for about five minutes trying to find the wonderful smell coming from somewhere in the kitchen - it smelled like southern fired catfish, a smell I love but a recipe I make only once in awhile.

I looked everywhere only to realize that the kitchen didn't actually smell like catfish but the towel that I used to soak up the oil the last time I made it did(two weeks ago). This was of course the towel wrapped around my head.

Apperantly two can play at this game.

 My wife came home for lunch and a group of co-workers had taken a little time to "do" her make-up and hair. They probably put some time into it but the only thing I can say about it is that it was off putting. I mean this in a nice way but she kind of looks like a transvestite. I am pretty sure she did this just to get back at me for the mustache look from the other day.

Tammy Rae Baker

Mustache

After a wonderful dinner I made for my wife I went into the bathroom and shaved of the homeless beard. My wife has been calling me "Boadie" lately because she thinks I look like a homeless surfer and it reminds her of  Patrick Swazye's surfer character in Point Break.)

See the resemblance? I actually think she calls me this because I do a great Keanu Reeves impression and she is confused.

Facial hair is pretty annoying for the most part, shaving is a pain in the ass because I have never been alert enough  in the morning to wield a sharp piece of metal against my throat without cutting myself. The only thing that makes it great is when you get to wear strange and interesting styles of mustaches. So I greeted my wife who was in the living room like this:

Hey . . hey. . . .hey pretty lady . . .

I thought it was funny, I mean there was no part of me that felt this was going to be a good look for me, however she was like physically disturbed by this. For two hours I tried to force her to simply look at me in a comfortable manner. It was impossible . . .there were several phrases floating around our house like "get away from me,"and "child molester."

At first it was funny but going into the second hour we were moving into a serious conversation about our relationship and how life would now be different now that she has seen me at my worst. I gave up and shaved it off. I could not convince her that I was still the same person but things are slowly getting back to normal.

The Grateful Dead

Today there is a world wide showing of "Grateful Dead The Movie," and even the lonely little Joplin theater shall be taking part. I don't think I am actually going, it would be fun but I really don't have any friends that share my love for the dead and I would hate to subject my poor wife to it.

I would call myself an "adolescent" dead head - meaning I don't go as deep as Bill Walton or trade basement tapes but I do have one or two of those bootleg cassettes which have passed through God knows how many hands to get to me. If I had to guess i would say that the Grateful Dead comprise about half of my music listening time.

I know what most people think about the Dead - It's just drug music that once the drugs wear off sucks,  or they like the little teddy bears and the song Touch of Gray but I don't care.

Music should be a personal thing anyway so why the hell would I care what other people think. They are just one of those bands that struck a cord with me and I am still finding tracks that I've never heard and enjoy.

Anyway, I thought I would post a few links for those people that hate the dead in an attempt to explain myself. Just a few favorites, I promise no "Drums and Space."

Me and my Uncle 

Ripple

Jack Straw

the sun

Inside the core of the sun atoms of hydrogen are fused together to create helium. This is were the sun gets it energy. The left over protons bounce around inside the core trading places with other atoms trying to escape. It can take up to one million years for those protons to make it to the surface of the sun - it then takes them seconds to travel from the sun 's surface to the earth.

Also, the average home computer has more computing power then every computer NASA had in 1969 and they put a man on the moon. So the heat we feel on our skin on a nice spring day like today has been struggling to get here since before recorded human history and I am using my computer to write a blog about gross food my wife eats or to show pictures of my cat. I feel bad, but then again you are reading it. So I am going outside - at least until I see a bee or something.

Yard Sale Disaster

I had my first yard sale this weekend, well just on Saturday. for the past three weeks we have been gathering our unwanted stuff and packing it into the garage so that we could do this. Everything got nice little stickers with clearly marked prices - hardly anything over a dollar. I had some cool stuff in there too like an old arcade cabinet, a karaoke machine, some power tools and a crap load of frog trinkets which at one point my wife was heavily into collecting.

(why?)

 I had put a lot of thought into this this  - I went to city hall and got the correct permits and all that
We woke up at 6 a.m. (on a Saturday) and I drove all over town putting up signs while my wife went to get some change and an egg mcmuffin. I pulled the clothing rack outside of the garage and started bringing out all the chairs and arcade cabinet and we were both super excited - about 7 a.m. we were finally ready.

Around 8 a.m. we both admitted that maybe it was a little to early to open a yard sale since no one had shown up yet. I always thought those old ladies tend to hit them first thing in the morning so they get all the best stuff first - apparently those are not the people interested in a lamp made out of the fender from a 1968 Volkswagon Beetle.

At around 11 p.m. I had to make a quick run across town and left the wife in charge of the sale for a few moments - It was during this time that we had our one and only customer. I call them a customer but really it was just a neighborr and they didn't buy anything - my wife just gave them some frog lawn ornament.

The city wide garage sale is like two weeks from now and we are going to try again  hopefully it goes better.

My Cake

This morning I woke up at 4 a.m. and could not get back to sleep. Since my wife, dog and cat were asleep and nothing good was on TV I decided to bake a cake and then decorate it to depict the invasion of Normandy.

I can not claim it is 100% historically accurate because there are dinosaurs which are acting as troop transports to the army of gummie bears charging towards machine gun pill boxes made of some kind of generic brand of tootsie rolls - but the spirit of the invasion is there. (However had the allies had dinosaurs delivering troops on D-Day I think things would have gone a lot better.)

The Kentucky Derby

The Kentucky derby is coming up in a couple weeks and I have not missed one in like 12 years. I don't follow horse racing but for some reason I have to watch this one race. Perhaps it is the fact that I know virtually nothing about horse racing or maybe because the past few have been disappointing but I think this year they should change it up and make it a little more exciting. Here are some of my ideas:

1. If you can ride it you can race it. Horses have had the Kentucky Derby for 137 years and they are not even the fastest animal  it's like using mopeds in NASCAR. Let in a few jockeys on Cheetahs or Bears. or even better let some of the jockeys be bears.

The Internet officially has everything.

2. Add a new track. Running in a big oval is boring but if there were a few ramps or maybe a loop then there is not a person in America that wouldn't watch that. Who needs a big hat or a mint julep when you are watching animal after animal attempting to leap over a pit of snakes.

3. Landmines would be too easy and I like animals too much to subject them to that, I felt awful when they killed Barbaro a few years ago. However if you gave the crowd like paintball guns that would be pretty cool.  If they think they run fast when you whip them wait until you see how fast they can run while paintball are flying after them at half the speed of sound.

4. No jockeys - dog races figured this out years ago by using just a rabbit on a stick. I don't care if they make them remote controlled or just get a bigger rabbit on a stick but jockeys are pretty useless.

So close.

5. Weapons matches - maybe not during the Derby because that would be going to far but I totally think before or maybe after there could be some sort of trident and net vs sword and shield on horse back type situation. It is an idea whose time has come.

Near CATastrophe

I forgot my phone at my dad's house yesterday and had to drive out of town to pick it up. I think about ten minutes into my drive I realized I really needed to pee. I got there, found my phone and was about to go into the woods to take a quick piss (since he lives in the middle of no where and that is one of the fringe benefits of being a guy,) when my grandfather pulled up in his truck. Of course this normally would not have stopped me but he had his new puppy with him and much like a small child i was completely distracted and forgot. On the way home i remembered I needed to stop and get a few things like spray paint to paint the front steps hand rail so I stopped at the hardware store  - it was on the way and I expected it to take like two seconds but there was a pretty long line and by the time i got out of there I was all but crossing my legs on the drive home.
Finally I get home, unlock the door and run to the bathroom unzipping my pants on the way. I open the door and look down to see this:

I was able to hold off before there was a disaster and moved him after I took this picture. He was pissed off that I moved him but that's better then being pissed on because I didn't.

St Louis Getaway

I am back from my St. Louis adventure and it was a lot of fun. My wife and I went up and spent the weekend trying to take in the sights and experiences which the great town of St. Louis has to offer. I thought  I would post some of my pictures from the trip.

Day one:

This is the hotel room. It was a nice place near the park and just up the street from a few bars. We went to an art fair and had enough time to hit the St. Louis Art Museum  but we only got to stay about half an hour before they closed  (which was pretty scary because we almost didn't make it out and I have heard that once they lock the doors everything in the museum comes to life.) I got to see some cool stuff like an Andy Warhol painting, a Georgia O'keef and some sort of giant wooden penis thing. That night we went out and ate pizza on the sidewalk and hit few of the bars and played dart in a place with a faulty bathroom door.

Day Two:

We woke up and ate breakfast while watching the St. Louis Marathon from the front of the hotel. then we went to the zoo and watched all of the animals (elephants were pretty cool.) Then we went to the Brewery - cause they give you free beer.

We met some friends from college while there and had a lot of fun and headed back home but we had to make one last stop for Jack in the Box tacos - which is as much a St. Louis experience for me as the Arc is. We had a great time. Most fun week ever.



Raiders of the Lost Ark

Raiders of the Lost Ark is on cable right now and it has been awhile since I have seen it, actually since that whole Kingdom of the Crystal Skull bullshit I have pretty much tried to push the entire series out of my mind. However Raiders of the Lost Ark really is a good film, I actually like all of the first three films but upon watching the original I realized  some things about Indiana Jones, namely that the world would be a much better place without him.

Strangely dressed for a knight.

-
Case in Point:
1: He is a horrible archaeologist
At the opening of the film we see Indiana Jones trying to steal a religious artifact from a native people that apparently have an amazing grasp of the hydraulics and some sort of fiber optic technology - because they built booby traps beyond the realm of modern understanding. He destroys their temple then gives the statue of their god to some french guy because he doesn't even do enough research to speak simple phrases in the native peoples language like "Don't shoot arrows at me this guy is a Nazi."

South American Idol.

2: He is kind of a jerk:
Marian, Indiana Jone's love interest in the film (played by Karen Allen) reveals to the audience that the reason her father and Indy are not on speaking terms is because of the relationship she had with Indy -because of this her father is looking for the lost ark on his own without the help of Indiana Jones and ends up dead - she ends up a drunk running some bar in the middle of nowhere all  because Indy couldn't keep it in his pants.

3. He is greedy
Somehow he knows that shutting your eyes saves you from zombie demon ghost melting your face off and after all the Nazis are killed  on that island in this fashion he simply takes the ark back to America instead of letting it go to Hitler - where he would have opened it and demon zombie things would melt his face off -  earth saved! No Invasion of Normandy, no dropping bomb of Hiroshima, and no Vin Diesel in Saving Private Ryan.

Even the little girl hates his acting.

Instead he tries to get his fortune and glory by taking it back to the states only to have it locked in a crate. He outsmarted the Nazi's up until that point there is no way "Operation Melt Hitler's Face," did not cross his mind. He had to have made a decision to try and sell it to pay off some of his outstanding gambling debts or something.