Miles Away From Ordinary

Debating the Debates

2008-10-06T12:00:00.002-04:00

November just can't come and go fast enough on election years you know? For me anyway. I get tired of it and I guess I get more frustrated that nothing ever changes no matter who gets elected. Personally, I think I should run the debates. I think I'd be a much better moderator than anyone else I can think of. Not just because I'm awesome, but because I think I'd make some changes. Just a few things I'd change.

1. The phrase "thank you for that question" is no longer allowed. You've only got two minutes so spare us the bullshit and give us a straight up answer. Ideally no one should elect you because you're a nice guy or because they think you're good looking. So this is your one shot to be no bullshit and give an answer like a human being instead of spewing your vominous hollow promises.

2. If you opt to go back to a previous question, you just forfeited your time. Candidates are given two minutes to answer something, then the opposing candidate is given 60 seconds for a response if their views are questioned. That's it. 60 seconds so make it count. No more of this "back to what I was saying earlier." If those words come out, we cut your mic and you're done.

3. Honesty. Yeah..that's hard for people running for President. But seriously, you wanna talk about change and how your administration is going to be better than the previous one, be specific. Sure it sounds a little like a high school project but we need to get back to some basic principles in the debates. Sure, it sounds good, but how does it work? Tell me...and remember no bullshit because you've only got two minutes.

4. Rumors. Yes, I think you should answer to any rumors, any of them, on the record. Take this one for example -

I couldn't tell you if this was true or not. But I think someone, namely the candidate in question, should answer this with yes or no. No grey areas. Furthermore, someone that admits to bombing the capital should not roam free. He should not be allowed to serve on political forums of any kind...but that's just me.

5. Finally -Introducing the fist fight. Yeah, I think people need to know that our President could kick ass if push came to shove. So, strap on the gloves, and step in to the squared circle. Don't worry, gloves will be inspected by both parties to make sure no one is packing anything they shouldn't be. Realistically you've been wanting to beat the shit out of your opponent because of the commercial his campaign made that you think slandered you. So, here is your chance. No points awarded here and no it doesn't mean you won. The rules of Fight Club will be observed.

Ch-ch-ch-changes...

2008-10-05T00:38:00.001-04:00

With the construction of the new store, lots of things have been changing. My commute, my stress level, my hair color, my outlook on humanity, lots of things. I've noticed that it takes just the right amount of something for people to change. Me personally I have an anger management problem. It seems when pushed to the limit I can turn in to what I think would be the incredible hulk. A mass of uncontrollable rage, and sadly some days I like it. Anyway, I've always wondered if I was the only one that had this problem. Not the rage part, but the change part. Just exactly what is it for everyone else? Well, I found out that for my dad, the right amount of power tools or electricity turns him in to none other than....

Yeah, the Swedish Chef. As a kid I always liked him because he was the plucky comic relief but never fully appreciated his Chocolate Mouse until this summer. When Dadman and I were constructing the counter or the shelves things would turn from normal conversation in to what sounded like "SCHTIKITY BOOM BOOM!" when the circular saw was turned on. Perhaps you'd have to know my dad to find this particularly funny but if you can picture a 60 year old retired engineer going from the normal conversation that an engineer can have to making donuts with a shotgun, that's pretty much how it goes. Any time a car battery or power tools are introduced Dads engineer speak turns in to a language that only chef can interpret.

So is it just me, or does everybody have that button that can be pushed that makes their personality drastically change in to a comic book superhero or an untranslatable comic relief? Regardles, happy 60th birthday Dadamn. I appreciate all that you do, and love you very much. Even though you don't read my blog.

Crazy bank lady and her nonsense

2008-09-30T13:11:00.002-04:00

My wife and I have this friend...actually, it's Mikes sister. Most everyone has heard from or about Mike in some form, but I've never mentioned his sister. At any rate, she works at a bank here in town and they were running a promotion that if you open an account you get $100 free. Since I'm the kind of guy that waits until the last minute, I waited until the very last day as it turns out. So I met Trish somewhere and she gave me a form and said "I tried to call this in, but this woman is a little weird so I'm gonna hand you the form and let you take it in since I'm off today." Not a big deal right? Well, normally it wouldn't be...but this woman was fucking nuts.

I wait in the lobby, just hanging around. The 225lbs of intimidation that I am is getting the stare down from the Jackie Gleason wannabe security guard. He finally approaches and says "Son...what's yer bidness at the bank today?" So I showed him the form and told him I was waiting on Jaba the Hut there to open me an account. He informed me that "bankin bidness" is supposed to wait on the couch. At least that's what I think he said through his chew and lack of teeth. So I sit and wait...still getting the stare down. Finally, me and The Hut get to talk. I was going to just write a check for the minimum to get the account open and my hot wife didn't get to go with me because she was out shopping with Foxy Cousin E. Not a big deal, we get the free $100, Trish gets her credit, we close the account, money comes back to us. Simple. I obviously didn't tell this woman that. So she asked why hot wifes name was on that checking account but I wasn't putting it on this one. I explained it to her and she said "Sir. Are you aware that the divorce rate is over 50 percent? Do you realize that is almost half of all marriages ending in divorce now?" I assured her we weren't going to get divorced over her name not being on the account and I'd add it when she was free. Then comes the nonsense. "Sir, in most cases it is a good idea to have your own money seperate. In some cases even when the spouse doesn't know about it. That way you have money that's all your own and your spouse doesn't know you have it." So I told her that wasn't exactly what I had in mind for an open relationship. She disagreed. Repeatedly. So I sit, and listen to her vominous nonsense while gritting my teeth and just wanting to leave and go watch football. Her best, and probably my most favorite piece of advice was planning for the emergency of my wife leaving me, and that I should keep this account open and active without my wifes name on it. So I just responded. "Yes ma'am. I'll do it. My wife will have no idea that I'm only depositing half of my paycheck in to the account, and the $100 that I'm putting in here today is going to go a long way when we get divorced. I mean, that's so much money these days I bet she'll be stinging when she finds out it's gone. She'd probably take me back just to have access to it...don't you think?" She stared at me for a minute and said "I was only advising to help you out sir, there is no need to be rude about it." So I told her that unless she knew my wife and knew something I didn't, I could probably live another 30 years without her help. Her response "Well thank you very much for those kind words sir. I really appreciate you saying them to me, and I really appreciate your business." So I just said "Make sure Trish gets credit for this account. I don't ever have to want to speak to you directly again. So I took my free coffee mug and headed out. On my way I thanked the security guard for making me feel all warm and fuzzy and having the premises so secure and said "I think the Hut over there has a thing for you. She kept giving you the eye when you weren't looking. Since you're about to close she's probably ready for lunch..again." I know...I'm an asshole...but it's the little things in life that keep you sane.

Arrogant Liar...

2008-09-18T11:31:00.001-04:00

I did mention that the store is off to an okay start, but not without a few administrative road blocks. I started back in April contacting the campus and trying to let them know in the most amicable way possible that we were starting an off campus store. Dealing state funded schools is only slightly more painful than birthing an armadillo that is on fire. No matter how you go about it, they're going to start out hoping you go away, then they move in to their resistance phase, then comes the resentment. This week is all about resistance. Man oh man do they hate the smallest possibility that their monopolies are coming to an end. It's like they fight just to squeeze the last bit of life, or in this case money, out of their students. With no regard to them or anything else, they treat everybody like shit because they're the only game in town, and if nothing else, the most convenient game in town.

So I had made a few phone calls to the Vice President to tell her what we were doing, and that I'd like to talk to her. She of course never returned these phone calls, and e-mails were treated the same way. I thought perhaps a visit was in order so I had one of my ho's watch the store and headed that way. I waited patiently in her office for her assistant to finish what she was doing and she finally acknowledged me. So I just said who I was and that I'd like an appointment with her boss. Upon hearing this, her boss got up from her desk and slammed the door. A little unfriendly if I do say so, but about what I expected. I was refused an appointment and left. When I returned to work I sent the following e-mail.

"Good afternoon Ms. Dumbitch. My name is Raul Duke and I've been trying to reach you concerning our opening an off campus bookstore. Numerous phone calls and e-mails have no doubt been unreturned, but I thought I'd tell you that you have the option of simply returning a phone call or e-mail, or I'll be happy to watch you explain to the Eyewitness news teams that are a phone call away why you feel you're above federal laws and why you're personally denying your students the opportunity to have an off campus bookstore." If you can imagine I got a response within the hour. She still fought us tooth and nail on every bit of information and eventually said "No. Never." Unfortunately for her, college textbook information is federally protected. So, a phone call to my lawyer friend and some leg work on his part showed that we were correct and an official request was sent to their attorney. It was only after this that I got my meeting with them. Can you imagine?

The meeting was grossly unproductive as most of them are. But this one involved the president of the university. I can only guess because legal teams had been summoned. Presidents NEVER take time to meet with people they deem below them (which is everyone) or aren't trying to make an overly generous donation. So, the VP in question was also there and informed me that I was very arrogant and hard to work with. She was trying very hard to look like a bad ass in front of her boss but what none of them realized is that I carry the wallet. Yes, it makes a difference. So I mentioned her non phone call returning and door slamming and she got nervous. This woman started going back to her routes...which let me tell you is the Ghetto. Not just any Ghetto, but I bet this woman knows words that would have made Tupac Shakur blush in his prime. The very next words out of her mouth were "Well...I don't preciate you runnin round tellin lies on me neitha!" After some elaboration she said their current bookstore manager was telling people that she had given me permission to operate. Permission which I do not need. She started in again and I held up a hand and said "Stop. Right there. I don't need your permission nor did I ask for it. None of this is up to you. I'm operating right across the street from you. Deal with it, or have a statement ready for the press. This meeting is over."

So, I'm currently not making any new friends on campus. The campus store has of course sent out their secret shoppers and the manager was nice enough to call and have a talk with me...but that's another blog entirely.

And then there were two...

2008-09-10T09:57:00.001-04:00

Well, it's been a long time. And I guess no one really reads that much anyway...but alas Reverend Raul has returned. Nothing exciting really, but here is an update on where I've been.

Most of you know by now I'm in the college textbook business. I can say this on the blog because no one really knows who I am. To people that do know me, I tell them I'm a drug dealer because that is somehow a more respectable occupation than running your own college bookstore. Well, now we're one step closer to becoming an evil empire because I've been opening a second store in my blogger hiatus. We started a little later than I would have liked, but it's somehow working. There is another college right near us that has enough students to warrant a second bookstore so we've always said once we figure out the first one, we'll open a second one. The opportunity came and we're currently managing to make it work. However, I'm on day 27 of constant book rush so I'm just about ready for a little time off. College kids do tend to get on my nerves after so long, but for the most part at the new store they're a little more appreciative.

Anyway, the challenges of opening a new business were a little more than I'd expected. Finding a manager proved to be more of a problem than I'd thought. One of the girls that worked for me had a mom that was at a job where she seemed to be unhappy. She was one of our vendors so in passing one day I said "One day I'm gonna open a second store and I'm gonna come buy you away from this place if I can afford you." She leaned across the counter and said "It won't take much, but when you're ready to talk I'm ready to go." Well, apparently she was ready to go because a couple months later she left and found another job. So Plan A was gone and it was time to search for Plan B. It never materialized but I was moving forward on the second store regardless. We interviewed several people but most of them weren't interested from the get go, or decided after a few days of thinking that they would rather open their own bookstore than work for someone else. One of them had the testicular fortitude to ask me how to go about doing that. Just about at crunch time, my best and most trusted employee said "You know, I could run this for you. I've got two classes left at this school that I can take at night so I could manage for you." I thought the idea was perfect. That way it gives me a year at this store to see if it would work, and if it flopped, nobody got fired. She just went back to working for me. The only drawback is that she's friends with most of the people that work there. But, she's managing. And doing a damn fine job.

So, then there were two and here we are. One day I'll be able to say that we're two stores strong, and I promise I have plenty of stories to share from the opening and the new administration, and I'm sure there will be plenty of ho-drama to come, but currently I'm in two places at once, so I'll start blogging more once I get stopped.

Movie Review - The Golden Compass

2008-06-02T11:33:00.004-04:00

The wife and I finally canceled Netflix but not without checking out Rambo and the Golden Compass. Rambo, or course kicks ass. I think every time a fight scene happens in that movie you should hear Drowning Pools "Let the Bodies Hit the Floor" because that's pretty much how it goes. Rambo kills everybody, saves the girl and her douche bag husband, and I won't totally ruin the end for you but needless to say it concludes the series.

Now, on to the Golden Compass. We had never heard of it until we saw a preview for it, but all the buzz surrounding it about how it was anti-religion, and no one needed to see it ever, and I got countless e-mails saying we needed to protest the further publication of the books and protest the movie. It of course didn't do very well at the box office, but after watching it I really don't see the problem. I got less religious feelings out of it than I did The Matrix, and my friends thought I was crazy for saying that one was somewhat religious.

My basic rundown of the movie is that its based on the premise that there are different worlds and different dimensions. In our world (and yes, they do mention our world) we wear our souls on the inside. In this world, they wear it on the outside and most of them are in the form of animals. They are referred to as demons, but they spell it Dæmon so you can take that however you want. Anyway, society is basically run by a controlling government called the Magisterium. I guess the intent was to make them look like organized religion because they do look a little like clergymen, but realistically I just got that they were a controlling government extremist group that doesn't want people to think for themselves. According to the Wikipedia link there, the Magisterium is a Roman Catholic Group that interprets the word of God. Anyway, Daniel Craigs character works for the college which apparently has all knowledge in this particular dimension. The college and the Magisterium seem to be at odds a lot because the college teaches free though, and the Magisterium of course only wants people to think one way. Craig has found a way in to another dimension and the Magisterium is trying to make sure he can't prove it by trying to kill him. So he leaves on his excursion to "the north" to prove the existence of it. Enter the tall and strangely curvy Nicole Kidman. You know she's evil (and wickedly hot) from the time she gets on screen, but she takes Craigs niece, and the star of our controversial movie, as her friend for the summer. She's supposedly going to take her to the north where the talking bears are and a quick visit to see her uncle. Sounds cool right? What elementary school aged kids wouldn't want to go see talking bears? Hell, I'd go right now if I knew that polar bears talked and wore armor. Anyway, her character is given a Golden Compass by one of the professors at the college and is told to keep it a secret. Supposedly it tells the truth to someone who can read it, and she can magically read it while no one else can. Anyway, the compass doesn't actually navigate anywhere, it just tells her the truth. Neat thing to have really, but the Magisterium is out to kill her, her uncle, and a band of random flying witches led by the ever so hot Eva Green. I'm sure I've left out something, but the movie is kindof random and you really have to see it to understand half of what I've written. I'm not encouraging you to see it if you have religious obligations not to, but realistically, if the Catholic Church didn't review it and say it was evil, I can't imagine it being that bad. Realistically, they just deemed Sex in the City morally offensive. I thought the concept of that movie would be too...but for entirely different reasons.

So anyway, if you liked Lord of the Rings, Narnia, and some other sci-fi and fantasy movies I don't think you'll have a problem with this one. Not nearly enough sword fighting for me, but the talking bears were kinda cool.

Five Things...

2008-05-08T13:34:00.002-04:00

I'm bored with, tired of, and pissed at. But first...a quick update.

Saw Iron Man on opening weekend and it kicks ass. There were extended trailers for The Hulk, Indiana Jones, and a lucky few got to see The Dark Knight trailer. All of them look awesome. Been busy here at the store, we renovated the bathroom because it was disgusting and the ho's were damn near going to strike if it didn't get better. So now the bathroom is the nicest place in the building. The Hot Wife started her second to last class the other night so summer is probably going to suck just a little for us because as usual it's a class full of group work. Fencing still kicks ass and I suck pretty bad at it right now, but I've lost another couple pounds doing it. That's about it from us. So on to the five things...

5. Alex Trebek - Yes...Alex sucks. He's smug, and he makes fun of people who don't know the answers. I would really like to see an episode where the losing contestants quiz Alex. I imagine that years of reading cards hasn't done anything for him. Alex better pray that Jeopardy keeps refusing my applications because I would probably come across the floor and pile drive his greasy canadian ass through his podium.

4. Do you know which books I need? - Yes. I'm a frickin bookstore here people. My job is based solely on knowing what books you need so stop questioning me or I'll make it a point to come to your job and ask you if you know how to do it on a regular basis. (Can anybody tell that summer semester is getting close and college kids are getting dumber?)

3. Cutting people off for sport - at least that's what I think it is. I've had people cut me off two days this week and their passenger was turned around laughing. So either we were supposed to be racing, which law abiding citizens and reverends typically don't do (okay...that's a lie. I did get busted last month for doing 93 in a 70), or cutting people off is some sort of underground movement that I haven't been let in on. The second person got the favor returned to them and realized that they did not have anti-lock brakes and the Jeep they were rapidly approaching did. As an added bonus the bumpers on my Jeep are sprayed with truck bed liner so pretty much nothing will damage them. This person was also given a shower of McDonalds sweet tea and let me tell you, if the bumpers don't scare you, a shower of sticky hot sweet tea should deter you from cutting off a man of the cloth like myself. Ass.

2. Gas prices - They only go up...they never come down. I'm not so much tired of them going up as I am hearing the bitching about it, as well as the lame ass excuses. We have to have gas to drive so grab a straw and embrace the suck. If you think for one minute that fucktard hippies like Ben Jones are going to have any impact on me buying a hybrid, or driving less you are in for a rude awakening. Gas companies are going to charge what they want because they can. They just need to come out and say "Our CEO wants a new Yacht so he'll have an even dozen, so our profits have to be somewhere in the high hundred billions this year. Thanks for using (insert gas raper...I mean company name here)!" I'd be happier. Just be honest and tell me that you're just going to fuck me because you know you can.

1. American Idol - Oh my God! Did you hear who got voted off this week? No. I did not. I refuse to watch America's largest and insanely over glorified Karaoke contest. I'm tired of hearing clips of Randy saying "Listen Dawg...I'm bout to tell ya how it iz yo Dawg!" I'm tired of people saying "Did you see how mean Simon was? He's SO MEAN!" Yeah, I'm sure he gets paid to be a dick. I'm sure it's in his contract that if he has too much nice to say he gets fired. The other thing I'm tired of is Paula. Make no mistake, I had many a fantasy about Paula Abdul in my middle school years. What I'm tired of is "Oh my God! Is Paula drunk?" Yes. Paula is shitfaced out of her mind. Wouldn't you be if you once had a career and now you're subjected to watching hippies and fags sing shitty karaoke while hearing "listen dawg!" in one ear and a smug limey tell them they suck? I'd drink until my liver exploded if that was how I had to grasp on to the fame and fortune I once had.

That's it from your friendly neighborhood bookstore this week.

30 and Grocery shopping...

2008-04-21T13:46:00.002-04:00

Well, I turned 30 and it wasn't so bad. The wife had a big party planned and I grilled a few burgers for some friends. Cold Beer, Margaritas, and the occasional shots of rum and tequila mixed in with some board games and good times. The only real drawback is that now I can't say "I'm 29...not 30 yet." Other than my drivers license having our new address on it (yeah, it took me that long to update) not much has changed. Except for of course what you buy in the grocery store.

I have noticed that I look more at how much sodium and cholesterol is in everything we consider taking home. Most things that look good, and probably even taste really good, are usually so loaded with calories that eating them offers the same health benefits that living on bacon grease for a month offers you. My hot wife and I looked at some new breakfast bowls in the freezer section thinking they would be good. After reading the nutritional information and finding out they had only slightly less sodium than a 10lb tub of Morton Salt, she instructed me to put them back. It's no wonder we have an obesity problem in this country. People don't realize that some of these "meals" that don't fill them up are actually four servings and the entire thing has a gazillion calories. Anyway, it sucks to have to take notice and to not eat pizza nearly as often as you want...but I guess it's the price of living longer and not being a huge fat ass.

The other thing I can't seem to wrap my head around is vegetarian meat. Yes, that's an oxymoron all on it's own. Maybe everyones grocery store doesn't have this, but we live near a large vegetarian (Seventh Day Adventist) community so I guess the stores have to cater to them. Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking the vegetarian lifestyle...no wait...I am. Because they're cheaters! They're a bunch of non-committal grass eaters! At our store you will inevitably have to walk by the veggie aisle and you will find "beef substitutes," "soy beef," or some variation of the two. To me, this is cheating. You wanna give up meat, you don't get to eat stuff that tastes like it. If I give up beer, you won't see me drinking malt beverages or beer substitutes because it's frickin cheating! I think if they're really going to be vegetarian for religious reasons, that's respectable and I don't condemn that. If you're a fucking hippie and you think that you're making some stupid political statement by giving up meat because "vegetable proteins are better" or you think that farting cows are contributing to global warming, I hope you and I never meat...err...meet. Because I will inevitably try to feed you bacon disguised as a chocolate shake, or something else that looks innocent. Really people. Fake fucking beef? They have sausage, turkey, chicken, and beef substitutes on these aisles. And they all say "Tastes just like (insert meat here)!!!" No it doesn't! Do you know what tastes just like chicken?? CHICKEN!! Not some fake soy protein concoction of tree bark and recycled coke bottles that's pressed in to sheets that look like exotic drink coasters. Anyway, my wife and I discussed last night that I thought they were non committal assholes who should just give up and eat the real thing because they're only fooling themselves. She of course said that I was wrong which meant I had to put it on the blog. Because honestly, I don't think they should be allowed something that tastes just as bad as it looks (because unfortunately I have tried them) but calls itself a beef substitute. It's just wrong...on numerous levels.

That's todays rant. Hope everyone is doing well. This is the part where I tell you I promise I'm going to try to blog more but in the end I'll probably forget and let another two weeks go by before I blog again. So I hope everyone is well and I'll try my best to entertain you again soon.

Much too Young...

2008-04-09T11:50:00.002-04:00

To feel this damn old. Actually, I'll be 30 this week so I guess I'm not that young anymore. Now I get to spend time off from work going to the doctor to get my cholesterol checked. For anyone that cares, I did manage to lower it by 22 points over the last three months so they tell me that's a good thing. Anyway...

So fencing pretty well kicks ass. I did get in trouble a couple times left week for getting too close and attempting to use my left hand to block and at one point I think I was actually going to punch the guy like they do in the movies. Not that I was mad at him, but it's hard to remember that your left hand goes back over your head and not in front as a defense. Oh well, maybe one day they'll give me two swords so I can be everybody. But, it is a fun way to spend time with my sister, and it's way more of a workout than you'd think so hopefully it will help me shed some of these unnecessary pounds I'm packing on at an unbelievable rate. Well, maybe not an unbelievable rate, it's just hard to lose weight once you turn 30 than I think it was when I was turning 20. So fencing is fun. My sister is having a good time and I'm going to enjoy beating her with a sword and calling it a sport.

Well, not much else here to report. We did paint the office at the house but I'll wait until it's fully decorated to post any pictures which hopefully will happen soon. Not much else happening but I'll check in later this week.

En Guard!

2008-04-02T12:18:00.002-04:00

Hello friends! Another totally exciting Wednesday update for you. I apologize for the lack of posts, but the only rants I have right now (save for Alex Trebek) are political and honestly I don't want to alienate everyone based on my political views. Mostly because at the end of the day it doesn't matter what my views are or who shares them with me. Just important to have your own opinion right?

Anyway, tonight my sister and I are taking on a new fitness challenge. We start fencing! How cool is it that one can still learn to sword fight? I found this place online back in December and my sister and I have been talking about learning to sword fight ever since. I've sent e-mails to the people that run the local club and haven't gotten a single response. We finally just decided to go by and see if they were still active. Their first question was "Oh. Did you guys find us on that Google?" Not the most computer savvy, but that's okay. I've been looking for something to do lately that's outside of Crossfit. Just something else to help with general fitness and obviously the weight loss so I can be better fit my next 3o years. I was starting to doubt that it was or was not a good workout until we had a preliminary lesson last week. After a couple of minutes we were both worn out so hopefully this will go better than the idea of Thai Boxing did. Hmm...just realized I might have never mentioned that on the blog.

Ever since I decided to add something in addition to my daily Crossfit routine, I thought that Thai boxing would just be awesome. I knew that adding something else would mean another monthly fee and the wife and I talked about how much we were willing to spend on sport. Without thinking about it, I went and checked out the Thai Boxing place and thought it was cool. Who doesn't want to learn how to fight right? Or more importantly know how to beat someone in to submission should the occasion arrive. These guys wanted $85 a month for a one night a week class. Ouch! I guess we could have afforded it if I REALLY wanted to do it, but realistically that's just too much money for me to spend every month. I'd rather join a boxing academy somewhere, or buy a pair of instructional DVD's on how to box. Or just watch the training montage from Rocky Balboa...because who doesn't find that motivational?

At any rate, send us happy thoughts as we both learn to sword fight. If we're lucky, mom will get us swords for Christmas.

Eco-Retards

2008-03-26T13:06:00.002-04:00

Hello friends, Reverend Raul coming to you with another famous, or hardly tolerable, rant about environmentalists. Typically my stance on them has always been "let the stupid bastards freeze in the dark." Since my induction in to the ministry, I've thought maybe I should be nicer. Unfortunately, I'm wrong. I stumbled on this blog yesterday and I think since we probably can't legally shoot them, we should educate them.

For those that don't want to read what retarded people write on their blogs, let me explain. Actually that would take too long. Let me summarize. This particular retard has come to a great revelation in his life. Instead of buying a new car, he's discovered that there is ONE place on the earth that will rebuild an engine for you instead of spending the money on a new car, thus reducing cars sent to junk yards which are polluting the environment. To this guy, who apparently has had his head in his ass since birth, this is a great new technology. When I read his article yesterday, two of his followers told him that he came up with the greatest ideas. I hate to break the news to this Think Green Buffoon, but people have been rebuilding and building new engines since the birth of the automobile. One could safely say that this has been a practice for 100 years. That's even before his pot smoking parents tripped on acid at Woodstock and conceived his stupid ass in a pile of their own vomit.

So realistically, I know that Reverend Raul doesn't have all the answers, but it seems to me the one thing most of the "save the environment" people (call them hippies, eco-retards, or just plain annoying, I don't care) really lack is education. Sure, they went to school somewhere and learned that big corporations are bad because their Philosophy professors told them they were, and now they all have degrees in philosophy with minors in political science and they spew forth their insanely unaware rhetoric more and more and we're forced to listen to it because they think everyone else doesn't know what's best for them and we should all just let the government control every aspect of our lives. At any rate, I can only hope that education about basic things would help. Any person who thinks that rebuilding old engines is a great way to save the environment probably drives a Toyota Prius and spends too much time at Starbucks drinking non-fat mocha soy espresso latte's while listening to shitty indie bands with their friends thinking that if only people rebuilt their engines, the world would be a better place.

At first I thought this was a joke, and that maybe a 12 year old had written it. Nope. Unfortunately, Benjamin Jones is a student at Dartmouth College that writes for the EcoModder.com, and CollegeVegan.com. Yes friends, todays retard is also a Vegan because eating meat makes people fart and that's bad for the environment too. Not only that, apparently all this no talent ass clown does is write about hybrid technology, global warming, and the dangers of meat. Unfortunately for him and his friends, he's blind to the fact that hybrids are worse for the environment than cars with no emissions controls at all. Don't even get me started on the fake meat that vegetarians eat. If you can't pronounce what's on the package, how is that somehow better for you than meat with no preservatives?

Well, for now I guess it's time to go fire up the old Cuda since it has no catalytic converters and drive two or three tanks of gas out of it. When I'm done with that, it's steak for dinner, mashed potatoes with extra bacon, and if I get really angry I'll have it on an old fashioned non-biodegradable styrofoam plate that I will put in the woods rather than in the trash. That should pretty much counter act everything Mr. Jones has done this week to save the world from people like me.

Monday Movie reviews

2008-03-10T15:20:00.002-04:00

Happy Monday Gang! If there is such a thing. Spring break was good...well, it was a week off work so really what can you complain about? Didn't get much done, and no new projects to speak of, but I think they're coming. Hopefully they're coming. I have a saw...so obviously I need a project. Anyway, on to the movie reviews.

War - Starring Jet Li and Jason Statham. The movie is about an FBI agent (Statham) trying to seek revenge against a mysterious Chinese assassin that killed his partner. Honestly the movie isn't that good. Only one good car chase and it's not believable, but it's not like it's the horrible travesty that was Jet Li's The One. Overall the movie gets two out of five stars. Not the best action flic ever, but not a bad way to kill an hour and a half if you have to.

3:10 to Yuma - I've been waiting to see this one for a while. Christian Bale is typically a movie bad ass and I figured that combined with Russel Crowe would make for a kick ass movie. It was actually pretty good, save for the addition of Ben Foster. You might remember him as the turd that played Angel in X-Men the Last stand. Why does Reverend Raul have such a hatred for him? Simple. When he began shooting the role of Angel, he told the producers that the wings were too heavy and he wouldn't shoot another scene until they made him some lighter wings. Sorry, if you're in a super hero movie you don't get to be a bitch. Do you hear Christian Bale whining about the batsuit being heavy? No. Because he's not a bitch. Ben Foster is. Anyway, Crowe plays a notorious post Civil War criminal that is robbing the transports that hold the railroads money. Much like Jesse James, but this character from what I've found is entirely fictitious. It's not the best western I've ever seen, but it lived up to the expectations I had for it as a movie. Christian Bale is good, and Russel Crowe as usual does not disappoint. Don't go in to it thinking it will be an all out shoot em up like Tombstone, but it's a good movie, and well worth the price of admission...or the price of a rental at this point.

Hopefully this week we'll get to review No Country for Old Men, and possible Hitman if we have time. The wife is on Spring break so maybe we can catch up on a few movies and a few TV series that we have DVR'ed. Hope everyone else has a good Monday!

In Vino Veritas

2008-03-03T18:36:00.004-05:00

That's Latin for "In Wine is Truth" or literally "when I'm drinking I speak my mind." So Reverend Raul helped a friend celebrate his 30th birthday this weekend. The only rule was bring your own alcohol. Not a problem, but I did have to write down some ground rules for things Reverend Raul needs to do if he ever decides to drink again.

1. Buy the smallest bottle possible. I bought the $5 bottle because it was pretty small. I should have bought the $2.50 bottle because it was half that price and half the amount. I finished off the five dollar bottle before 9:00.

2. Never tell your friends that you have never had a hangover. Apparently upon hearing this your friends will take it as a personal challenge to see if they can make you puke from drinking or be hung over the next day. Yes, it's true - Reverend Raul has never had a hangover nor has he puked from drinking. This still holds true even after drinking a fifth of liquor by himself the other night.

3. Wear a crash helmet. Honestly everything after Guitar Hero is a blur. I do remember trying to sing along with Social Distortions (a Raul Fav) "Story of My Life" and never actually completing the song or singing on key. There might even be a picture of it somewhere but I'm doing my best to keep it off the internet.

4. Never trust that they tell you it's not that strong. Once your friends have decided that the goal is to get you so drunk that you don't remember anything they all take the opportunity to make you a great drink, or shot. Apparently back to back I slammed a rocks glass full of rum and chased it with a rocks glass full of tequila. Yes, I typically drink my liquor straight and apparently the drunker I get the larger the single servings get.

5. NEVER...EVER...EVER do karaoke. If someone can call you the next day and say "I didn't know you knew all the words to Billie Jean" you're in trouble. Karaoke should really only be done sober if you have to do it at all.

6. Always have someone to tell you what happened or tell you when to stop. Since I don't get hung over or puke and all liquor eventually gets processed in the machine that is Rauls liver, I stay drunk for a really long time. The problem is, details start becoming fuzzy after a while. No...not fuzzy. Black holes. I can remember pieces of it and I usually have to take a great deal of time trying to figure out the details. 24 hours later I'm usually calling to apologize for something or offering to replace a window or two (thus the need for a crash helmet). Also, someone like my lovely wife to come over and tell you when you're about to say something you shouldn't is usually a good thing. Not that you'll listen, but it's a good safety net to have anyway.

So that's it from here today. Still recovering from a cold that somehow the mass quantities of alcohol didn't destroy, and I'm on Spring Break. No guarantees on updates this week, but I'll try to update a couple more times regardless.

BMF Friday

2008-02-29T12:59:00.005-05:00

Been a couple weeks on this one, but todays BMF Wallet recipient is...

Sarah Connor -

Yes, no matter who plays Sarah Connor, she never disappoints. From Terminator 2, to Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Sarah Connor is a bad mamajama. Other super hero girls pale in comparison to the likes of Connor. Not only can she blow stuff up with the best of them, she starts her morning out with a healthy breakfast, and a few sets of pullups. As the mother of the leader of the resistance, Sarah Connor tries to make her whiney son realize that he's about to be the future leader of mankind in the war against the machines. Along the way she's the one who keeps him safe from harm, and blows up the bad guys. Most super hero girls would carry a purse, but for Connor, that would only get in the way of the machine guns and hurtin bombs.

That's it for BMF Friday, have a good weekend!

How Did You Get Here?

2008-02-27T22:52:00.002-05:00

It's been since my stat counter has worked. I think for the last year every time I tried to log in it said they were updating the server but my information was being saved. Since it's been a while since I've actually had referrers I thought I'd bring back the posts of how people find me. I'm always curious how I get found, and todays top five search terms just make me wonder.

5. Henry Rollins - Okay, an obvious one since Mike and I just saw his spoken word tour. Again...go see Henry Rollins if he comes close enough for you to go.

4. Hottest Wife Stories - I can only imagine what you were really looking for when you landed here.

3. Manly Dog Names - You know, I've done several searches on this. Tumbler was not among any of the searches I found but it won...and I like it.

2. Employee Etiquette Farting/Fart Fantasy - These two were tied. For the first one - Is there such a thing? I mean seriously, doesn't everyone just scream and point to the person closest to them? I think that's fair enough, especially if you don't like the person next to you. For the second one - get off this blog now and never come back. We will never talk about fart fantasies on the blog and if you have them, there is a good chance I already hate you and don't want to know about them.

1. Movie and Book Differences Bridge to Terabithia - wow, it's been a really long time since I wrote about that movie. But, you were curious just like I was. I still don't know the answer so you're welcome to e-mail me if you know. I'm all ears.

Those aren't near as interesting as some of the ones I've had before but I'm glad people in their busy daily lives can take a few minutes to find me courtesy of Google.

Defining Uncomfortable

2008-02-25T15:59:00.002-05:00

So uncomfortable is defined in the online dictionary as feeling mental discomfort, or providing and experiencing mental discomfort such as sitting in an uncomfortable chair. Well, Reverend Raul here has a different definition for you, but lets back up a few years.

My Freshman year in college I dated a girl that I'd had a crush on for a while. Oddly enough her parents grew up in the same small town that my mother did and our grandparents are to this day really good friends. We dated for probably a year and a half, give or take. Needless to say we broke up and for a long time I was pretty hateful towards her. Our grandparents still go to church together.

Fast forward to a couple years ago.

My wife and I were visiting my grandfather for perhaps his 75th birthday. I can't remember. That seems like too long ago, but it could be correct. Anyway, we usually go eat at a really shitty old peoples buffet in their home town. It's not quite as good as Ryans or anything like that so we usually just suffer through. At least it's a place where I don't feel insanely embarrassed that they don't tip the waitress. I know, they're old and I'm thankful that my grandparents are still here for me to have embarrassing stories. Anyway, here we are eating some seriously shitty food that consists of tater tots and macaroni that makes Kraft look like gourmet stuff, and minding our own business. Out of nowhere my ex girlfriends grandmother comes bounding over and hugging me and telling me how good it was to see her. I probably hadn't seen them in five or six years, but then I didn't really have a call to go visit ex girlfriends grandparents. So she's hugging me and I introduce her to my hot wife that is much hotter than my ex girlfriend. They take this opportunity to say "well, it looks like you're doing really well but we sure wish you'd married our granddaughter." Ouch. That was a kick in the face to my wife for sure. But they're old right? Wrong. They suck. They continue "You've probably never met her but our granddaughter is absolutely beautiful." Then they point to my wife and say "Don't take that the wrong way sugar, you're not bad looking, but our granddaughter is beautiful and we sure wanted this one for her but for some reason it just didn't work out." So there I was with my family, my hot wife, and several of my grandparents close friends...listening to two crazy old people tell me in front of my wife that they wish I'd married someone else. If ever, I've had an uncomfortable moment that has to be it.

So that's my definition of uncomfortable for this sunny Monday.

Henry Rollins Live in Town

2008-02-21T16:53:00.002-05:00

I don't know how many die hard music people read this blog (or for that matter how many people read because hardly anyone ever comments) but last night Mike and I got to go see Henry Rollins on his spoken word tour here in town. I know he said everybody says this when they meet him, but I figured he'd be bigger. Anyway, I like some of his spoken word stuff as it is pretty funny. I think I'm a little like him in a sense that I don't make up huge stories or jokes, I just tell about my life and typically yes I only tell the amusing parts. But life can be amusing and some days it seems like some of the stuff that I post here is made up but it's really not. If you get the chance, look up him up on You Tube and look for Drawing Conclusions. He has a really funny bit about Wal-Mart and some about dating. As far as the dating goes, this one is pretty good...

So, seeing him live is pretty cool. Until he starts to preach his Anti-Bush propaganda and stupid hippies cheer every time he mentions it. That gets kind of old. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of pro and anti-presidential people out there and everyone has a right to their own opinion. Henry has at least gone out of his way to do some of his own research, but still bends the truth I think. A while ago Mike sent me a link to a blog he wrote about his visit to Iran. He said that it was a peaceful place and that President Bush should back off them because they don't hate America. Oh yeah...he also had to have five armed guards with him every where he went and wasn't allowed to tell anyone he met that he was a celebrity for fear of abduction and ransom. Does this sound like a stable place to anyone here? Not so much. I'm sure there are genuinely good people in Iran, but anywhere I go if I have to have five armed guards to make sure I'm not abducted and ransomed to my home countrys government is not exactly a place I'd like to go for spring break. You know? Mike and I discussed this a bit today and both had a few interesting thoughts for Mr. Rollins.

He talked about how our invasion of Iraq was wrong and we should get out because we wouldn't like it if some other country came here and invaded us. You get the idea. Speaking from history here, how happy do you think France, Italy, and Germany were that we invaded them? Do you think Hitler would still be in power today slaughtering races of people if we hadn't? Do you think Germany now thinks that was totally not our business and we fucked up their chi by going in? Yeah...the french and italians might be a little grateful that we "invaded" their countries as well and "liberated" them from their oppressors. Wait...liberated from oppression...that sounds familiar...but then again, we attempted to keep the oppression from happening in the first place in south vietnam, but we "brought the troops home" and just let that silly old communism thing just happen to all those nice, previously democratic Vietnamese. These are the things I discuss with Mike (actually, those last two lines are his) while on IM at work.

In short it wasn't bad, and was probably worth the $20 to see him. I'm not sure it'd be worth it to see him twice but he has done a lot, seen a lot, and has some interesting stories to tell from his 47 years.

Reverend Raul

2008-02-20T11:07:00.002-05:00

Yes friends, it's true. According to the Universal Life Church I, Raul, am an ordained minister. Why you ask? Simple.

A few months ago my brother-in-law and his fiance were planning on getting married in the bahamas. They had rented a nice place, invited immediate family on both sides, and then the people they'd been working with said "Oh, by the way. We're quadrupling the price on you so instead of paying $4k for the week is going to be $20k, is that going to be a problem?" Needless to say after an exchange of words they got their money back and haven't decided on a new location. So, we were talking the other night and I threw out a suggestion of a place they'd visited a few summers ago together and they kinda laughed because this place has no chaplin on staff. So I said "Well, I'll go become an ordained minister. It's not that hard, and I can marry you guys for free." They kinda laughed, so I found this church online that ordains you to do weddings, christenings, baptisms and other such things online and signed up. I did get a letter that said "Dear Rev. Raul" and told me all the great things I had now as a minister. I was also told not to say that I was ordained "online" as I was in fact ordained by brother Kevin from the the church who is a real person and not a computer.

So, with the new skill in hand I called everyone I knew and offered to marry them in a Ming the Merciless outfit. My sister is getting married in October and she said "You don't even own a Ming the Merciless outfit!" Well, 24 hours ago I wasn't an ordained minister now was I? For all those who don't know who Ming the Merciless is, here you go -

For anyone that may need a minister for baptisms, weddings, or a simple renewal of your vows, I'm happy to be here for you.

Tumbler Update

2008-02-18T15:13:00.009-05:00

Well, it's been a while since I posted any Tumbler pictures so here are a few of them. When I don't work out, I usually take him to work with me so he has the social time that he loves so much. This semester the counter ho's absolutely loved him and wanted to take lots of pictures with him so here they are...

At the counter...he could be an employee...

Resting after the excitement of taking pictures...

Posing for the camera...he's a ham.

I keep meaning to take some of him with his lampshade collar on after getting neutered this past week, but we haven't taken any yet. The collar I can assure you is quite humorous. That's it for now...

Movie Review

2008-02-14T14:13:00.002-05:00

Before I get too in to a movie review, I need to say how relieved I am that the writers strike has ended. I've been pissed about it ever since the last episode of Heroes aired. Well, probably before that, but I kindof remember that as the end of good TV. Since then we've had nothing really good. Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles is pretty good if you like science fiction. Careful, that is a Fox show and they're pretty good about canceling stuff people watch in favor of American Idol and that new show Put this in your Ass for Money! The Flash Gordon TV series was complete shit, and now since there is nothing else on, instead of Grey's Anatomy we've been watching the overly whored out Lipstick Jungle. I think I'd rather scream "White Power!" at a Kanye West concert than sit through that show. I don't care if the same girl that wrote Sex and the City wrote it, or talked about it, it's shit. Basically what I get out of it is that if you're a woman your life sucks no matter what you do. Thats some serious womens empowerment there Candace. So now that the writers strike is over, and they've scored the biggest victory in strike history, we can all get back to better TV and the networks can choke to death on all the money that their writers make them. And just maybe they'll bring Journeyman back. But, they may not...because they suck.

So, a movie review...on Valentines Day.

Across the Universe - Overall, I liked it. It's kindof a chic flic, but it's kindof not. It has a little bit of the Moulin Rouge feel to it so if you're not in to people breaking in to song at random intervals this may not be the movie for you. It's set in the 60's where the lead male goes to America from Liverpool to find his estranged father and it's pretty much about his journey there and back. I'm pretty sure that all the music is Beatles music, and I'd recommend you watch the film, then to go this link at IMDB.com and read all the trivia, then watch it again to make sure you catch everything. Lots of cool stuff, and unless you remember the 60's you might miss some stuff. But it's cool, and I think it's pretty representative of the era while still being comical and entertaining. It's worth a rental, and I'd say it's worth a purchase but lets be honest about buying DVD's. Realistically if you buy it now, in a year it could be obsolete. With HD and Blu-Ray formats struggling for supremacy, one of them will take over and eventually you won't be able to buy or play your old DVD's anymore and the dorks at Best Buy and Circuit City will look at you like you're an idiot when you say "Does this play regular DVD's as well as Blu-Ray and HD?" So, if you wish to purchase a DVD my advice is wait because eventually you'd have to buy it in a different format anyway. But Across the Universe is well worth watching and you'll be happy you saw it.

Swole Juice and the news

2008-02-13T12:22:00.001-05:00

When I work out in the mornings they usually have one or two of the 75 billion TV's in the gym turned to ESPN and on days when I row, or have to stop and catch my breath before I can go on, I'll usually watch the sports news to see whats happening. I can honestly say I'm tired of seeing Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens on trial for steroids, accused of taking steroids, and allegations of someone who had a friends cousins sisters brothers neighbors former roommate who is pretty sure they heard one or both of them had a trainer that administered swole juice to them. Honestly, does it matter? Can Barry Bonds, Jose Canseco, or Roger Clemens play the game any better or any worse because of steroids? Not likely.

Athletes always look for the competitive edge. Be it through training, supplementation, or synthetic hormones, real athletes will ALWAYS look for the edge, for how to get one up on their competitors. If they didn't, games would be pretty boring. Realistically if no one wanted to better their opponent in any form, what kind of game would it be? I guess I look at the news and have to say that whether they took steroids or didn't is pretty inconsequential.

So I'm wondering with all these depositions and hearings before congress why the big deal? Viewers. No one has watched baseball since they started to strike, so now they throw in some Paris Hilton Style controversy and BAM! This shit is all over the news and people can't take their eyes off of it because you can't find anything else on TV. All you can see on ESPN - oddly enough between clips of spring training - is Roger Clemens and his big deposition before congress. So, allegedly his trainer now on the stand is saying that he knowingly injected him with Human Growth Hormone and Steroids. And? If Roger Clemens says he didn't do it, I hope he's telling the truth. But if he did take Roids and HGH, I can assure you this blogger thinks no less of him, his career, or his six Cy Young awards. I can also tell you for sure, that if I was in Roger Clemens position, late in life, trying to keep up with a faster younger crowd, HGH wouldn't be out of my scope.

I'm going to have to agree with Sly Stallone on this one. He took HGH for his comeback movies of Rocky Balboa, and John Rambo. He maintains that as you get older, HGH helps your body function. It helps with metabolism, weight loss, stamina, and immune system functions. Do I sound like an ad for pro HGH? Probably. But I don't care. When I go to the doctor next month to get my cholesterol checked if he said "Hey, you need HGH in a bad way. I'm going to recommend that you get the standard three shots a week," I'd have no problem with that. As much as I hate shots and needles, I'd probably go for that. When I lifted weights in college picking up roids at the local gym was easier than picking up drunk freshmen girls in a frat house. I never did them because I HATE needles. Not because I think there is anything morally wrong with performance enhancing supplements.

At any rate, that's my rant for today. I really wish the media would leave these guys alone. They're pretty much ruining the careers of some of sports better players and no matter what the outcome is, none of these guys will ever be looked at the same again.

Last Minute Changes

2008-02-12T12:17:00.001-05:00

Well, I had written a review for some movies and TV shows that the wife and I have been watching lately but I had a last minute change of plans before I posted. I'm really getting amped up for Indy Racing starting in March (the 29th...in Homestead...under the lights) and I'd heard rumor of a possible merger between the IRL and the Champ Car series. Having two open wheel series is kinda useless, and the two should really merge because it would expand both of their fields and make for some much better races, and we'd get to see racing in Australia and other parts of the world. Places that sadly Nascar cannot take you. Anyway, so I hit the home page at Indy, and this blog went from a review of Across the Universe to something I'll refer to as awesomeness in a magazine.

Yes, Sports Illustrated hits the stands today with the illustrious Danica Patrick in it. I don't know about you guys, but I'm leaving work right frickin now to go pick up a copy...before they're gone.

Tumbler is currently at the vet getting neutered so he's probably not very happy with us today but hopefully he'll recover and get over it. That's it from the store today, if you get the last copy of the swimsuit issue...I hate you.

BMF Friday

2008-02-07T22:29:00.000-05:00

Before this weeks Bad Mother Fucker wallet is given out, I have a small rant. Last week, when Dad and I went to see Rambo, before the movie we had commercials. Not previews mind you, commercials. Not just any commercials, the new iBook commercial, and a KY Intrigue commerical. Tell me, do you know anyone that wants to here a song with the words "la la la" in it and see a personal lubricant ad before the movie starts? Fuck no. We go see Rambo to keep our mind off that stuff. We go to see stuff blow up, gratuitous nudity, and bad guys die in violent ways. Not KY fucking jelly and Mac ads. Okay, I feel better.

This weeks BMF Wallet recipient - Chuck Norris.

Who better to be the second recipient of a BMF Wallet than the man himself? Some facts about Chuck Norris for the non-believers.

1. Chuck Norris puts the laughter in Manslaughter.
2. Chuck Norris destroyed the periodic table because the only element he believes in is the element of surprise.
3. If Chuck Norris is running late, Time better slow the fuck down.
4. Chuck Norris counted to Infinity...twice.
5. Chuck Norris uses pepper spray to spice up his steaks.
6. Chuck Norris can make women orgasm simply by pointing at them and saying "Booyah!"
7. Chuck Norris puts the fun in funeral.
8. When Chuck Norris sends in his taxes, he sends blank forms and includes only a picture of himself, crouched and ready to attack. Chuck Norris has not had to pay taxes, ever.
9. Chuck Norris can win a game of connect four in only three moves.
10. If you spell Chuck Norris in scrabble, you win. Forever.

Just a few of the basic Chuck Norris facts. If you need further explanation, go to Google right now. Type in "Find Chuck Norris" and click the I'm Feeling Lucky Button. Happy BMF Friday everybody!

Update at Habibs

2008-02-06T16:34:00.000-05:00

I don't know how many of your remember, but we have a convenience store next door to my store at work. It's not bad, if I get the munchies I can go next door and pick up a bag of chips or something. I'm trying to cut back on that as neither Rambo nor Spartan Warriors ate bags of chips or snickers bars. Anyway, so there have been a few different managers next door since Habib went to prison. If no one remembers, two FBI agents came in to his store, grabbed all the cold medicine they could get their hands on and said "We're going to take this back to our house and make meth with it. Is that okay with you?" He laughed, and in his very thick Habib accent said "as long as you do not get me in trouble, I do not care what you do with it." He was immediately taken out in handcuffs, later prosecuted, then sent to jail for an undecided term. At any rate, this is manager number three here at the store. Plenty of stories about the last two, but those are for another day. We will still refer to the new manager as Habib...mostly because it fits the stereotype.

So I was over there a week or two ago to apologize that we had a truck block his parking lot while we were unloading. He didn't mind and he asked to talk to me a minute. Since I had people in the store, I didn't mind at all. He heard a rumor from a college professor that we were going out of business and that's why the truck was here. I wasn't really surprised as we have a lot of opposition from the campus folk that think off campus independently run businesses should never exist anywhere...ever. So I talked to him for a few minutes and he told me that he worked six days a week and this job was so much better than his old job that was full of empty promises. I asked if he had an assistant because I never saw anybody there but he said he works from 7:00 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. Monday to Saturday. I thought about that for a second. Some days when it's busy here I think work sucks because I don't get to see my wife as often as I want, and I feel like I'm neglecting poor Tumbler. But I have a pretty good quality of life for the most part. No real complaints here. This guy has to be nuts. I can't imagine working that many hours for someone else. I can't even blog all the obscenities that I would use for someone if they told me I'd be working 93 hours a week. So it gets better. I went over just now because obviously I need more chips, and he said he'd asked for some time off. I can't imagine anyone that needs more time off than this guy. He seemed a lot worn out, as anyone would in his position. He shook his head and said "Man, they tell me for the next four weeks I'm going to have to work Sundays. Sundays are my only day off and now for four weeks I have to work them. Can you believe this?" This store can't do more a year in sales than we do. I just don't see it. And now they're asking him for the next month to put in 15 and a half more hours per week. Fuck yourself comes to mind. Hire an assistant you cheapskates.

Anyway, I got to thinking about the breaking point and what would ruin what I consider quality of life and that is pretty much it for me. I think when I get to the point that I want to slit my wrists more than I want to come to work, it's time for a change. How about you?

Stupid Groundhog!

2008-02-04T15:30:00.001-05:00

Well, coming off a relatively boring Super Bowl we still have six more weeks of winter to look forward too right? I looked at the forecast today and it was supposed to be around 60. Somehow I can't get this building above 50...and it's raining. Anyway...

So the weekend was for the most part uneventful...and I've been out of Bloggertown for a while. Not much really happening to blog about. The store turned a profit this year, currently all of that profit is in inventory but it's a profit right?

Tumbler is still growing, and recently the wife and I had some passing thoughts about adopting another Bullmastiff or some form of dog. We found a Bullmastiff rescue site and inquired about an eight month old Bullmastiff named Hopper...or so we thought. So we filled out the adoption application for Hopper and got no response. Finally a few days later I get an e-mail back from someone that said "The dog you are inquiring about is actually named Titus and we will not let you rescue a male since you already have one." Thinking we were talking about a different dog, I went back to the website. Sure enough, it said "Meet Hopper! Hopper is...blah blah blah." The name Hopper was used four or five times throughout. Titus was never used. But when I looked at the page the last time, titus was in the address bar...fine, we both made a mistake. Technically mine wasn't really my fault. Back to the matter at hand. So I respond and say "Our dog isn't aggressive. He's been well socialized with plenty of male dogs, and last night he even played nice with our neighbors three year old male German Shepard. My brother has a male lab thats just a few days older than him and they get along great as well. I really dont' see any reason for you saying we couldn't have two males." Now, I do know some dogs can be aggressive and feel like another male dog is disrespecting on their block or whatever. Tumbler...not so much. So I get a lengthy response from this crazy woman. Her instructions are copied and pasted. "Sir, this rescue will not EVER place two male Bullmastiffs in the same household as they will kill each other due to their extreme aggression. You need to IMMEDIATELY stop socializing your dog and NEVER take him back to your neighbors house, or your brothers house as your dog DOES NOT get along with other male dogs. Please heed these warnings as this breed of dog is NEVER to be socialized, ESPECIALLY with other male dogs. I'm afraid you're making a grave mistake in the care of your dog." The rest of it was a list of books I needed to read and some history on the Bullmastiff breed. Someone tell me, does this dog look aggressive?

I didn't think so either. The rumrunners Shepard doesn't exactly like having a puppy in his house, but he's never attacked him and Tumbler has never been anything but playful with anybody or anything. So, needless to say we're not getting Tumbler a younger brother nor do I think we're allowed to adopt from this specific rescue foundation after expressing my appreciation on her list of demands in caring for my dog. I will let everyone use their imagination on this one, but our converation was not pleasant. The good news is she maintained her position and offered to put our dog in rescue since we weren't famililar enough with the breed to care for it. We will have Tumbler for a long time to come and I was happy to tell her that and made it a point to forward her list of demands to the founder of her rescue as well as several other people that I thought should see it.

That's it from us for now. Good thing I'm not a betting man, Tom Brady would have screwed me out of more than just a fantasy football championship this year. Hope everyone else enjoyed the Super Bowl. Later this week I'll run down some of my favorite and least favorite ads for your enjoyment.

Today's the day right here...

2008-01-31T15:48:00.000-05:00

You wanna be number one...

Okay, its a lame update but it's a funny video.

Back to the Blog

2008-01-30T11:01:00.000-05:00

Well loyal reader, I know it's been a while, but I thought it was time to knock the dust off the blog again and throw something out. My rum running homey and I were talking the other day about movie badasses and we decided to make a list of people that were pretty bad ass. More importantly, people who deserve these....

Oh yeah...the Bad MotherFucker wallet made famous by Samuel L. Jackson himself. Sure, you've seen them on people that don't deserve them, but because of our recent discussions I've decided to add a new weekly feature to the blog. Yes, hopefully that means I'll blog more than once a week. But, a weekly BMF wallet recipient will hopefully be posted if there are worthy candidates available. If you've never seen Pulp Fiction, here is a quick clip to keep you informed.

This weeks winner - John Rambo

Oh yeah. Take a look at Sylvester Stallone then and now.

Stallone and Rambo are the very definition Bad Mother Fuckers. In the fourth Rambo installment, he doesn't just kill people, he kills the fuck out of people. It's a little gruesome, and a little hard to watch at some points, but Stallone is still every bit as capable at 60 (he'll be 61 this year) as he was at 38. This movie, like most mindless action flics, are motivation to do lots of pushups and pullups and carry the physique that Stallone carries. If that isn't. I just don't know what is. Anyway, as far as action movies go, I like this one. To me, it's the perfect ending to the original storyline where a lost and unstable Vietnam Vet makes peace with what he is and returns home. Supposedly Stallone had done some research on this one and there is some truth to whats happening in Burma. I'm sure it's not all true, but I think more situations would be resolved if we could simply send in John Rambo to kill the fuck out of some ruthless bad guys. Just my personal opinion.

That's it for now, hopefully more tomorrow or by the end of the week.

Five Ringtones...

2007-12-18T10:31:00.000-05:00

That people should never use. I know ring tones and ring back tones are the cool thing now, and I've noticed that people have some ringtones and ring-back tones that one should never use. So, lucky for you I'm not very busy today and I compiled a list.

1. Mariah Carey - any of her songs, no matter how often they play them on the radio should NEVER be used. If I call you and Mariah Carey is your ring back tone...you could expect me to never call you again for punishing my ears with that shit. Mariah Carey needs to be one thing...quiet.

2. Matchbox 20. Okay, I know they're back together and if you're a girl, we'll let these slide. However, if you're a dude and you have a Matchbox 20 ring back tone...we all know you're gay so just come out of the closet and get it over with.

3. R. Kelly. Do people still listen to him? Seriously? Yes...in fact they do. One of the ho's came in the other day and her phone was ringing off the hook. I guess I have ho's in high demand huh? I couldn't understand the song, but every time, she sang along. Finally she told me it was R. Kelly. I told her, as I would inform anyone, if I ever have to hear that shit again she's fired.

4. Sean Paul. It took me a minute to figure out who this no talent ass clown was. If you can't understand their shitty music on the radio, what makes you think a three quarter inch speaker on your shitty cell phone is going to make that any different? Sean Paul is blacklisted. If you don't know who he is, I'm not going to tell you. Consider yourself lucky. Please don't piss off the people around you or the people that call you with a very unclever ring tone.

5. Rap in general is banned. Don't get me wrong...we all listened to rap at one point and thought it was great. I still have somewhere around two gigs of Tupac Shakur on my hard drive. But realistically, songs like #1 Stunna, 82 Afros, G, and Till I Collapse (please...stop teasing us with the last one) are pretty much all steaming bowls of elephant piss so for the sanity of the rest of us...please refrain from using these as well.

Ring back tones in general are pretty gay so you should refrain from using those at all costs. Nothing pisses me off more than having five seconds to figure out what stupid song someone has chosen only for it to cut off when they pick up. The only thing that comes close is hearing "Please enjoy the music while your party is reached." Fuck no...not today thank you kindly. I'll not be enjoying anyones ring back tones.

That's about it from the store for today. Happy Birthday to my sister. If I don't get the urge to blog again, Merry Christmas to everybody!

Welcome to America now learn the language

2007-12-13T17:00:00.000-05:00

It's been a busy buyback week and no one really managed to piss me off. That's pretty good for this time of year really. Most people come in demanding 100 percent of their purchase price back for books, or they want double what they paid because the books now have highlighting and that makes them more valuable. Seriously, if I hear that one again I might explode. You'll see it on the news. "College student in hospital with books and highlighter permanently lodged in ass. Bookstore owner suspect." Anyway, we have a mix of cultures here as I'm sure most places do. Plenty of people from all walks of life...and that's fine. My problem - and this might make me a white supremacist, I don't know - is that if you're here working, or attending school, you need to learn to communicate. If I moved to Spain I'd know how to communicate in Spanish because I'm on someone elses turf. Right? Simple enough. I had an Indian/Persian/Towel Headed woman come in the store today to sell a book back. It wasn't one that we were buying so I watched her walk to the counter, greeted her, and she presented me with the book. Then started yelling in Arabic or something. Whatever Habib-speak it was I couldn't make any of it out. So I politely said "Unfortunately ma'am, we're not buying that one. It won't be used again until the summer. You can bring it back then and we'll be happy to buy it." She pretended not to have heard what I said, and started yelling in her language again. Then - and this is the part that almost made me have to choke a bitch - she starts laughing and says "Hahahaha! You don't understand do you?? Hahahahah! YOU BUY BOOK NOW!!!!" So I looked at her again, and very calmly said "No, we're still not buying that one. I'm sorry." Same exact response in Habib-speak. Except now, I know she can speak English, she's just refusing to. So I said "If you want to sell anything at this buyback counter, you have to do it in English. Speak English, or go home." She stared at me puzzled and said "What is problem? You buy book NOW!!!" So I pushed the book back to her and said "NO! I'm not buying the fucking book lady!!" Again...silence. "What is problem?" she says. I didn't say another word. I just stared. She left.

Does this make me a bad person? I don't think it's too much to ask that someone be able to communicate in your language if they're in your country. I mean, how would she take it if I went to her native country and refused to speak the language? Not very well I would imagine. Well, that's all of my racist hate-speak today. Buyback week went really well and we're gearing up for Spring Semester like no ones business. Good Lord willing I'll be able to say we made it through Spring Semester without anyone pissing me off. Wouldn't that be something?

Five Reasons the BCS Sucks

2007-12-03T11:23:00.001-05:00

Well, the season is pretty much over. Just a few bowl games left to go, and as usual the BCS and the media hates the SEC. So here are five good reasons the BCS computers should be recycled and 90 percent of all sports announcers should be drug in to the street and shot.

1. Georgia falls two spots after not playing? How often does this happen? Ohio State had two weeks off and they moved up? Who was it that Ohio played this year? Um...yeah, I can't think of a team they played worth their salt either.

2. Strength of schedule not factored in. I know...our insanely overpaid announcers say strength of schedule is factored in. If that's the case, explain Kansas to me. They said last night on the BCS announcements that Kansas was ranked 109 out of 119 teams in college football in terms of schedule strength and the only ranked opponent they beat was a then number 24 ranked team whose name escapes me. Oh yeah...BECAUSE THEY SUCK TOO!! So Mizzou gets screwed when their strength of schedule is 24th in the nation according to these magical computers. Bottom line, strength of schedule is not factored in by these mysterious machines.

3. USC is over-rated. If they dress out and lose five ball games, Pete Carrol still says "Oh yeah...we're going to the Rose Bowl this year." And they do. Every fucking time. They usually make it a point to play an SEC team, but they pic Ole Miss or someone that's having a bad year and stomp them mercilessly so the BCS computers can magically compute that the SEC isn't as good as USC. Sure, Pete Carrol is probably a good coach, and I'd be happy if he came to Auburn to coach. But that team is over-rated as hell. Furthermore, USC and Ohio States conferences blow. I think the SEC should break up and we should all join similar conferences. We should play Agnes Scott, William and Mary, UTC, and the Ivy League schools. Oh yeah...that didn't work out so well for Michigan and Notre Dame this year did it? It's because once again...their conferences blow. Yes, I know Notre Dame is independent.

4. Hawaii got screwed. Really? How? Ask Kansas. Sure, Kansas is a one loss team, but who did they play? I think when Va. Tech beats them like a salvation army drum the BCS computers should then be set on fire. There is no reason for Kansas to be ranked ahead of Hawaii just because they're Kansas. What the fuck is in Kansas anyway? Nothing...not even good football.

5. Georgia got hosed. Why? Well, last year when everyone raved out Michigan and Ohio State and how it was possible that they would play for the title, Urban Meyer spoke up. Sure, these ass clown announcers said Meyer just whined his way in to the title game, but what happened? They handed Ohio State their ass and hoisted the BCS trophy. So this year would have been a perfect time to see LSU and Georgia. In my opinion they're the two best teams in the country and we play in the hardest conference on the planet. We always get screwed because we play each other and you never know on any given Saturday if you're going to get beaten by your rival or if you're going to win. That's the thing about USC and Ohio State. They know when they play Agnes Scott, and William and Mary that they're going to win. In the South we have tradition, and rivalries, and tailgating. Does the BCS factor that in? No. Because the BCS is a scam designed to make sure USC, Ohio State, Michigan, and Notre Dame stay in the top five all year. I think as soon as Les Miles (hopefully) beats the shit out of Ohio State worse than Florida did, he needs to beat the shit out of the BCS computers, and every announcer that has said they didn't deserve a shot because he was in the SEC. Give me one good reason...and I mean GOOD reason, that LSU and Georgia shouldn't be in the title game and maybe I'll change my mind...but not likely.

That's my rant for today. Fuck the BCS computers, Ohio State, USC, Michigan, and anybody else that thinks these magical decision making computers are worth the plastic that holds them together. This is an insult to the players, the coaches, and the fans. As Pat Forde said we're "being sold swampland disguised as beach front property." I think he just said that to be nice because his blog is edited while mine is not.

Rules for Gym Music

2007-11-20T16:02:00.000-05:00

I was working out this morning and todays WOD was not a workout that allows on to wear an MP3 player. So I came up with five types of music that should never be played in the gym. The gym asked for suggestions so I e-mailed this word for word to them.

1. Slow Songs/Ballads - No...never. I don't care if they're good songs, sappy songs, whatever. Anything that makes you want to go to sleep, or any sappy sentimental song is worthless for gym music.

2. Artists such as Ashlee Simpson, Rihanna, Jo Jo, Jennifer Lopez, Beyonce and the like are on the black list. If you can call them artists (which that is all a matter of opinion), they don't inspire anyone to get fit, work out, or do anything short of poking sharp sticks in their ears and in some cases eyes. Playing a Shakira or Jessica Simpson video with motivational music turned on over it is perfectly acceptable.

3. The Black Eyed Peas and any such spinoff groups are out. As are anyone that has ever called themselves a Refugee All-Star, or "artists" with dumb names like K-OS. Jay-Z, this includes you as well. You're not creative and your music makes me want to stick my own head in the toilet and flush it repeatedly. Once again, the occasional Fergie video without her actual music is acceptable. Videos from her days with the Black Eyed Peas are not acceptable in any situation.

4. Bands you've never heard of are called that for a reason. Sure, I think every aspiring artist deserves to be heard. We have American Idol for that. This does not need to occur while I'm Crossfitting. Not even a little bit. If you must play them, I would suggest somewhere around 3:00 a.m. when no one is there. That puts the least amount of people at risk for suicide attempts in the gym.

5. Acceptable music can be anything from hard rock such as Seether, Three Days Grace, Finger Eleven, Tool, and occasionally some Marilyn Manson. However, Mansons videos should never be shown as they are stupid and pointless. His music might go best over a Lindsey Lohan or Jessica Simpson video. Just to be overly generous, we'll add any kind of aerobic music to the acceptable list. I know a lot of it is shit, but usually it's got a decent beat that you can work out to...and even the aerobic classes know that slow songs screw up a workout like nobody's business. Music I work out too needs to make me want to throw barbells, dumbells, and yell and scream because the pain of a workout is good.

So there you have it Gym Friends. You wanted our suggestions on what music to play, and there you have it. Tomorrow will hopefully be a list of why Ford Sucks, or a list of things to be thankful for.

Cell Phone Etiquette

2007-11-08T10:00:00.000-05:00

It's a little slower this time of year so I find myself going to the bank, or to Wally World for store supplies and I've noticed that in my travels people have no idea how incredibly annoying cell phones can be when used improperly. So I've come up with a list of things that should get you punched in the face for doing while on your cell phone.

1. Being completely ignorant of your surroundings. Yes, this seems obvious and some can manage to do this while not on a cell phone. Realistically if your head is far enough up your ass that you can't tell you're blocking an aisle, holding up traffic, or running over people because you're too busy talking on your phone, you would be just as much a danger on your phone than you would be off of it. Either way, cell phones are best used when your head is out of your ass. If it's permanently lodged, you might consider other means of communication. You might also consider grabbing the back of your knees and pulling hard until you see the light. Rinse and repeat as necessary.

2. When is it okay to use a blue tooth or comparible wireless headset? In your car. I know you think it's great to walk around the mall and talk to yourself. Honestly once we all get over thinking that you're crazy, your wireless (or wired) headset just make you look like a colossal dipshit and we all hate you.

3. The drive through window. This might actually be the least convenient of all places to talk on your cell phone. And no, the drive through attendant doesn't think that it's cool you have a headset. Furthermore, if you pull to the speaker and have a line of people behind you and you ask the nice person to "Hold On" while you finish your conversation...you deserve every ounce of spit that is hidden in your soft drink or in your food.

4. Having uncomfortable conversations REALLY loud. I don't know how many times I'm at a doctors office, or a restaurant I some ass clown on their cell phone is talking about bowel movements, their friends marital problems, or what they're going to do when they get ahold of someone. This is terribly annoying and while you think having a cell phone makes you important, it really doesn't. It makes you a lemming.

5. The gym. I can't think of a less convenient place to stop and answer your cell phone than the gym. Realistically if you're more focused on talking on your phone than you are about working out, you need to go home. Sell off your gym membership and buy a TaeBo DVD. Not because TaeBo is easy, because you'll never actually use it because you're talking on your damn cell phone all the time.

These are simple rules everyone should follow to make life so much easier on the rest of us that don't walk around with our heads up our ass.

7 of the Lamest Halloween Costumes

2007-10-29T16:37:00.000-04:00

It's that time of year again. Time for everyone to pick out a Halloween costume and wear it to their favorite party. To stop you from making a horrid mistake, I compiled a list of Halloween costumes that are completely lame and that you shouldn't wear. You might think them clever, but oh you're mistaken.

The Cross dresser - Honestly this goes either way, but this picture was the quickest to doctor up. If you're a dude and you dress like a chic, you probably wear your girlfriends underwear when she isn't around. If you're a chic and you think it's amusing to dress like a dude - you too probably wear your girlfriends underwear when she isn't around. Halloween is just your excuse to go as the opposite sex because that is where you long to be. Save the money on the outfit, you'll need it for the operation. Either way you should probably get used to yelling "It puts the lotion on its skin!"

Celebrities - Typically people only go as celebrities when they do something stupid. I imagine this year will show a lot of Michael Vick and Paris Hilton in stripes or a prison uniform. You might think "Oh, but a Falcons Jersey that says ConVICKt would be hilarious!" This is wrong. Michael Vick and Paris Hilton have dominated the air waves for long enough and dressing as them in a prison uniform or carrying a bloodied up dog is not clever, or offensive if that's what you're going for. It's dumb. It makes everyone hate you and think what a dumbass you are for paying $50 for an officially licensed costume that the person you're making fun of probably gets some form of royalties from. Did you actually think you would be the only one to go as that person? If not, why would you go as something you KNOW everyone else is gonna do? This makes you either unoriginal or stupid. But most likely, it makes you both. There is but one caveat to the rule about going as celebrity fuckups...
If you can convincingly pass yourself off as Mel Gibson, drunkenly question everyones ethnicity, and refer to every woman you come into contact with as "Sugartits" then you sir earn the elevated level of excellence that comes with a good costume. Gary Busey might be OK too...but thats a fine line your toeing there, so be careful.

The Gangsta - You know, I guess if you're a group of single guys and you all decide to go as the untouchables, that's kinda cool. However, I was at a party this weekend where five tools showed up in costumes so bright that the Dick Tracy comic books called to get their shit back. So I asked "Are you guys the Untouchables?" Their leader looked at me and said "Naw Dawg...we Gangstas cuz dats how we roll yo! Y'all didn't know all us wuz gangsta's?" My hands are still mad at me for not punishing him mercilessly. No one knows how they got an invite to the party. So, the five tards messed it up for everyone and put Gangsta's on the black list...yo!

The Kissing Booth - This idea became not cool the minute Ralph Macchio did something similar in the first Karate Kid movie. Sure then we all thought of how hot it would be to make out with Elizabeth Shue inside your costume. If you really had game though, you could get her in to a real shower and not a lame ass costume. The Kissing Booth Halloween Costume is lame because not only does it seem desperate, it screams "I have NO game whatsoever and am stupid enough to believe this is a good way to get lots of random girls to make out with me." I can only imagine how painfully awkward it must be every time you probably ASK them to kiss you.

Unclever T-shirts - Shirts that say "This is My Costume" should get you a swift kick to the face. These shirts aren't even funny or amusing by the people who design them. At this point I think these are based on a dare among co-workers. "Hey Bill. I bet if I submit this lame ass t-shirt that says 'This IS my costume' stupid people everywhere will line up to buy it. And just think, it'll be the easiest way in the world to discover the assholes." Then Bill responds with "Oh...you're on! No one is that dumb!" Sadly Bill, not only do you lose...we all lose.

The Couples Socket - I don't think i really need to explain this one. This is one of the lamest of the lame Halloween costumes. I don't really have a take on matching couples, but I think it's something where you should proceed with caution. This costume is not clever, cute, or otherwise. Plus, its one of those things where you just KNOW the guy probably had to be talked in to it. Because his girlfriend thought it would be cute. Actually, she just knew it was a good way to mark him as "taken by her" on the night when every girl dresses to slut it up.

Dr. Seymore Butts - Lots of people think that Dr. Seymore Bush, or Seymore Butts is a hilarious costume, but realistically this could be the lamest one on the list. This is the only way I could think of to get less action than the kissing booth. If you wear this costume and say unclever things like "I'm going to have to give you an examination" the only thing you're going to Seymore of is rejection and ridicule. Rather than being funny or clever, it just honestly makes you seem like a serious pervert and just creepy.

The One Night Stand receives the honorable mention. In the even that you live under a rock and haven't seen someone douchy enough to wear this, its someone dressed as a night stand with an empty condom wrapper on it, maybe some aspirin, and maybe an empty liquor bottle. The thing about this costume is that you know its wearer is walking around all night thinking how great it is, and saying to people, "Can you guess what my costume is? huh huh? "

So that's the list. Please don't send me pictures of you in one of the above costumes talking about how funny or how clever it really is. If it was, it wouldn't be on the list. Sending me your photos will only subject you to ridicule that will probably make you cry. So have a safe and Happy Halloween and make sure you avoid the lame at all costs.

Tumbler Update

2007-10-15T10:43:00.000-04:00

So it's been a while since we posted anything about the puppy. Mainly because we lost the camera cord and couldn't get the pictures off. Some Guy Moving to Wyoming suggested we get a card reader since all of our USB cables have disappeared. No idea where they went or why...but they're gone. Lucky us, the laptop I have at work has a card reader on it. So, we've got some pictures of the puppy. Some are about a month old, and some are pretty new. For your Monday enjoyment...

He does like riding in the Jeep, and we've since gotten him a leash that attaches to the seat belt. This is probably a month or so old.

I think driving down the road he'd rather be sitting in your lap than in the back seat. This is on the way home with his new leash.

Occasionally he likes to take over my bean bag. Usually I'll sit in that on the floor with him and watch TV. I got up to get something to drink and this is what I found when we came back. This was taken this weekend and he weighs about 60lbs now.

Apparently sleeping in my bean bag wears him out. I think he figures if he falls asleep by the door we won't put him outside for the night. So far he's been proven wrong. I'm not sure we'll hold strong on this one for much longer as it is getting cold. I imagine he'll get a nice big pillow and he'll start sleeping in the bedroom with us.

Does it come in Black?

2007-10-02T10:00:00.000-04:00

The new phone we upgraded to a while ago got a little damp while I was learning to lay tile a few weeks ago. If you were curious, I kick ass at laying tile now. If I can just talk the wife in to laying it in our kitchen, that might rule. Anyway, so two of the keys stop working on the phone and I thought while it was still under warranty I'd go get it replaced. The girl behind the counter when we went in made sure I knew that the phone had been damp and I was lucky because if it had been any more damp she wouldn't replace it. Blah blah blah, you're too self important. Phones get damp when you lay tile and sweat through your clothes. So just to be difficult she said she had to ship me a phone because they didn't keep them in the store. Fine. It finally comes in FedEx a few days later and I'm all excited...open the box...and it's pink. Do I look like someone that would carry a pink phone? Hell no I don't. So I drive to the Verizon place, wait in line for an hour, and ask the new assface behind the counter "Does it come in Black?" The Batman Begins reference is lost on shit for brains here. His only response is "We've never carried a black phone. You ordered a pink one, and you didn't order it here." Then he just stares at me. I can see the girl that ordered the phone for me a week ago and I point to her and say "That's who ordered it. I'm not blaming anyone, but I'm not carrying a pink phone...the nine key is not that important to me." So he taps away at his computer screen and says "No. You did NOT order this phone here, we won't fix it because it's not our problem." So I stare him down for a second and say "I ordered it from her, last week. Sunday to be specific. Phone color was never specified, maybe it's my fault, maybe it's a distribution error. I don't care. I just don't want a pink phone." He hunches over a bit, taps away at his computer, then says "Oh. We did order it for you. Do you want this one?" Silence. I wait until he's uncomfortable and says "Oh...um...will silver be alright? We don't have black." I just nod my head and let him get to work on transferring the phone book over. While I'm there, I see a 400lb woman in the lobby sobbing, boo hooing, and slobbering at the front counter. You can tell the associate helping her isn't comfortable with whatever redneck drama she's brought to her table...so at this point it's a train wreck and I have to stand and watch. She's yelling at the manager, and calling her husband, and calling friends asking if they can text everyone in her phone book and blah blah blah. The manager gets tired of getting drooled on so she walks off. This behemoths phone was stolen in Wally World and she wanted a free replacement. It would seem she opted out of insurance, so the manager offered her a discount since it was an unfortunate situation. This woman would have no part of a discount and called the manager a "not very nice person" in the midst of her slobbering and drooling. So the assistant manager came out and told her if she wouldn't accept that, they just weren't going to do anything with her. Then, she grabs the land line they have, calls everyone she knows again and starts screaming at the top of her lungs "I can tell you people right now that you're not as nice as the people at the other Verizon store! Not near as nice!" Then she started crying and slobbering again and I think everyone there was watching her, including the sales people. This grown woman was literally throwing a temper tantrum. In short, her story was simple. She was sitting on a bench at Wally World, eating her double cheeseburger with an extra large diet coke, went to move her king size snickers bar off her lap, and some woman walks up, opens her purse and takes out her cell phone then walks away. She emphasized that this mysterious woman just walked away. Didn't run, didn't shove her, nothing. Opened her purse, took the phone, walked away. No one thought to ask "Um...if some woman came up and started going through your purse, why didn't you stop her?" Seriously? Why would you NOT stop someone from going through your shit? To me this makes sense, to a 400lb drama queen I'm sure we just don't understand.

Physical Therapy has been going well. I'm still really sore but what he says makes sense so I think I'm getting better and hopefully can be back on the road to being a spartan warrior again soon.

Movie Review - Children of Men

2007-09-24T15:36:00.000-04:00

We've actually been wanting to watch this one for a while but we've never sat down to do it. This weekend we were cleaning the basement and we got to a stopping point around eight or nine so we decided to watch this one with some frozen pizza. Let me tell you, every cook has their specialty...but my wife and I can make the hell out of some frozen pizza after a hard days work. So anyway, on to the movie review.

Children of Men is probably classified as a thriller of some sort, and this is one of those "the entire world has collapsed and Britain soldiers on." Apparently the person that writes these things values Britain above all else. Anyway. The world has collapsed because people can no longer reproduce. Tragedy happens as the worlds youngest person dies at 18 years. They made this out to be a huge tragedy and of course the entire world was in ruins having not seen the birth of a child in 18 years. The movie stars Clive Owen, and Julianne Moore (a Raul fav) makes a guest appearance. If you've seen the movie, you know what I mean. If you haven't, she's really only in it for a few minutes. Which is kindof depressing, because at her age she's still pretty hot. Anyway, the premise of the movie is that Julianne Moore is the leader of a rebel group and thinks everyone not being fertile is a government conspiracy. Personally I would have liked to see more of that angle in the movie, but you don't. So they have a pregnant woman that they're hiding from the government and Julianne Moore only trusts Clive Owen to get her to safety...or to The Human Project that they talk about but never go in to details on. It's not a bad movie, and I did like it, but it was missing a few things and the pregnant girl has an African accent or something, but she's hard to understand so we had to pause and back up a few times to make sure we got everything. A couple people speak a foreign language entirely and there are no subtitles so you kinda have to guess at what they say. I won't tell you how the movie ends, but it just kindof ends. It's at a place where I was hoping they would expand, or something, but they didn't. They just rolled the credits...that's it. I guess you can assume whatever you want, but for me I pay to see movies so I don't have to assume, I want them to tell me and show me all the cool shit that I was thinking about when I came to see the movie. The story is weird, and far fetched, but the movie is still good. It's a futuristic thriller I guess, but it's a dismal view of the future that no one hopes we have. If you get the chance, the movie is probably worth the rental. If you don't, it's not a life enriching movie but it's a good flic.

Tomorrow starts day one of physical therapy so I hope I'm on the road to recovery from this stupid neck injury. That's about it from us for the day. I hope everyone else had a good weekend.

Two things that are completely worthless...

2007-09-19T09:58:00.000-04:00

Well, I had to exert little to no effort on finding these two...but they've proven completely worthless to pretty much everyone.

The Rite-Aid Pharmacist - I know...they're not doctors. They should be able to answer simple questions. After my last visit to the doctor I got new meds for my neck because I'd adapted to the old ones and they weren't working. Maybe I'm addictive or something, but I can get used to the same meds after time so it's time to get something stronger. I get the prescriptions filled and as usual they say "Do you have any questions for the pharmacist about your new meds?" Actually...I did. It's allergy season again and my allergies are acting up as usual. So I ask..."I'm probably going to take some Tylenol Allergy Sinus, or some Benadryl, or a Zyrtec if I get lucky for my allergies. Is that going to react with any of these to the point that I shouldn't take them?" So the nice little pharmacy tech goes over, asks the fat ass pharmacist to put down the twinkie and answer my simple question. The pharmacist gets somewhat guarded and says "Well. Without knowing the specific doses we cannot at this time determine what adverse effects, if any, could occur. In some cases this medicine has been known to cause extreme sedation and mixing with allergy medications can sometimes increase the sedation effects." You mean they'll make me more drowsy than they normally would? I of course got a funny look and said "Okay, so I'll be sleepy but I won' t be bleeding out my eyes or have my stomach rocket across the room will I?" Very seriously they just said "An increase in sedation is the only thing we know of without knowing specific medications, doses, and the regularity of them." I know that they can't give me a detailed explanation like a doctor can, but a simple "Might make you sleepy" would have made me much happier than that load of BS. Oh well. I took my allergy meds and I'm fine. Some headaches seem to be the only side effect.

Redline - This movie is awful. Wow...just wow. It's like the creators watched Fast the the Furious and said "What if we did that with high end cars and blew all the money on cars and didn't actually have a plot?" Somehow, this seems to be the only thing that would explain this movie. That, and why does every race scene have to have the cars slamming in to each other? Seriously, if I'm ever racing someone and they so much as nudge me, I'll stop, wait on them to come back, and beat them within an inch of their life. That is not how races are won or lost. Sadly I do know a few people that when racing they would try to wreck you rather than let you win. Anyway, back to the movie. To sum up the plot shouldn't take long. Hot lead girl played by Nadia Bjorlin owns a shop where they fix high end cars. She used to race, but her Dad was killed in a car wreck on the last lap of some huge wreck. She flashes back to his car blowing up all the time. You lose any sympathy you may have had for her. She's also the lead singer in a garage band that sucks immensely. Four rich guys, one of them being Tim Matheson, another being Eddie Griffin - who I REALLY hate - get together to bet insane amounts of money on high end car races. The previous races lead up to this $100,000,000 car race in the desert. Someone of course brings in the guy that killed lead hot girls dad. Yeah...because that just happens. They of course don't speak, and she wrecks him and his car blows up. Her only response is "have a nice ride." So she's just gotten her revenge, and committed a crime and that's her response. There is a subplot but it's so corny it's not worth mentioning. This movie really had potential to showcase some high end cars, have some legitimate showdowns, and do something other than just have high end cars and hot girls with stupid dialogue. Well, it didn't. The movie was apparently low budget enough that most of the Enzo Ferrari's, Porsche's, and GT 40's still had dealer tags on them. Like the movie was low budget enough they couldn't pay $8 a piece for fake tags. Yeah...it's that bad. Almost as worthless as the pharmacist I talked to.

That's it from here for now. More movie reviews to come this week. Heroes returns on Monday!!!!

Movie Review - Georgia Rule

2007-09-12T16:40:00.000-04:00

I know what you're already thinking. YOU RENTED GEORGIA RULE??? No. My wife snuck it in on Netflix. Personally I refuse to watch anything with Hanoi Jane in it so I make it a point to take all her junk out of the Netflix Queue before it arrives but this one slipped by. Why? Because Jane Fonda is in fact a horrible person and should probably at best be rotting in a prison somewhere for the rest of her days and not enjoying the freedoms the rest of America get to enjoy. Why? Click the link.

Anyway, short of having an Anti-American Communist in the film, it also stars Felicity Huffman, and Lindsay Hohan...I mean Lohan. Probably the only real acting in the film is done by Huffman - who on an unrelated side note seems too tall to be married to William H. Macy...but I could be wrong. At any rate, I don't know that the movie is worth seeing or supporting but my wife liked it. It's not really a comedy like I thought it would be. It's more of a disturbing drama. To me, it was just kind of nothing...a story that didn't need to be told. It was Hanoi Jane Fonda being a raging bitch - no real acting chops needed for that one, Felicity Huffman being a recovering alcoholic - which she pulled off believably well, and Lindsey Lohan playing a rich, spoiled, recovering drunk and drug induced teen whore. Yeah...not exactly a stretch for her. The movie takes place in Idaho where Lohan is being dropped off at her Grandmother Georgias (Hanoi Jane) house because her mom can't handle her anymore and she thinks living with a communist...err...her grandmother will do her some good. I guess it's supposed to be a feel good movie with a happy ending where everyone learns how to overcome their differences and blah blah blah. It's a piece of cinematic shit starring a traitor and a ho-bag. Not sure how Felicity Huffman got roped in to this one, but she's a pretty good actress. For Lohan, while she did say in Maxim years ago that we'd never see her in a topless scene because that wouldn't be appropriate, I think she's changed her tune. In this particular flic she can be seen without a bra on the entire time and offering to fuck someones boyfriend stupid. Her playboy shoot and topless scenes are just a matter of time. As for Fonda, lets hope she stays off the silver screen, or certainly off my TV for years to come. Not sure how much my wife liked it, but as far as movies go, the stories weren't too bad. The acting from Felicity Huffman and Cary Elwes were both pretty good. The non-acting from Hohan and Hanoi were fitting to their real life personas, but again something that I could do without.

Still want to go see 3:10 to Yuma, but it might be a rental when all is said and done because I don't see any relief in the weekend schedules coming up.

Defining old

2007-09-12T14:53:00.000-04:00

Our neighbors down the hill are probably the definition of inconsiderate. They block the rumrunners driveway on a regular basis, their dogs bark all hours of the day and night, and every now and then their toddler escapes the house and wreaks havoc on nearby lights and lawn fixtures. Pretty much if you want neighbors, these people wouldn't make the top ten. Hell...they might not even make the top 100, but on a list of neighbors you don't want, you'd be sure to find them. Anyway, they have a son who just turned 16 apparently so they bought him a nice Pontiac Firebird. Thankfully for the rest of us they got him a V6. I don't think they told him this because he still leaves as if he were exiting the pits to save himself from going a lap down. Dario Franchitti just won the IRL championship and I think he takes more time exiting the pits than this ass hat does leaving the driveway. Normally this wouldn't bother me. And I'm sure in my younger days I left fast, or loud, or both. But normally I did it when people were awake. Usually around 5:30, shit for brains cranks his car (which is usually parked in the street not far from our bedroom window and almost blocking our driveway) revs the engine as high as it will go, then slams it in to gear with the gas still on the floor. At first I was pretty pissed about hearing the hum of a weak V6 scream by my window to wake me up...but I realized today when I left that the weather is turning colder, and cold is hard on engines. So hopefully one day during the winter this year he'll do that and the stupid thing will come apart on him. One can hope. Anyway, just before 11 the other night he came down the street at 90mph as usual, with his radio as loud as it can be, turns around in the circle and attempts a burnout. Normally burnouts don't bother me...but after 10:00 or so at night, any noise that isn't my TV or my wife talking to me really annoys me. So I step outside to see him celebrating over a single wheel burnout that's less than two feet in length. I thought about mocking form, or length, or the fact that it's just one tire that burned out...but I have a few marks on the block that speak for themselves. All done during normal business hours so as to not wake anyone up. Seeing a six foot geeky white kid celebrate over something like this annoyed me...mostly because this kid thinks he's black. So I said "Little late for a burnout, don't you think?" He looks up, makes some gesture and says "Naw Dawg...uh...I was just cleanin up da tires yo..." Yeah...he thinks he's Eminem or something. So I point at that those are better done during the daytime and he says "Sorry Dawg...guess you just don't undastand yo." At this point I had to go back in the house. This kid would have never understood that it was the middle of the night, that my rumrunning homey the firefighter has to be up at 5am to leave for work, or that he's just in general, a huge fucking tool. I walk back in the house to start watching the Daily Show and think "Oh shit...I'm old. I turned considerate of my neighbors one day...and I just yelled at one."

So there you have it...just over 200 days from being 30 and I'm slowly becoming my Dad. Ouch...I'm defining old already.

End of the Month....Whew!

2007-08-30T12:15:00.000-04:00

Well, it's been a record setting month at the bookstore. All the help I've blogged about came back again this semester and one of them is now a keyed employee. The good news is that she can watch the store for me while we try to expand to a second store this semester. That's the goal anyway but I'll keep you posted. We did get one new girl by chance this year that I was happy about. Other than calling her the wrong name a lot, things went well. I'm not sure why, but I kept calling her Susan. I finally asked what it would take to get her to change her name and she never responded.

Only a few good stories from the rush this year, and nothing too exciting. This year everyone was really big about wanting us to help them buy their books online. Some of them even went as far as to say "you're ripping me off so I need the information to buy somewhere else." I can't imagine doing that to an independent business owner, but maybe it's because I'm not as big of an asshole as I think. At any rate, this was huge this year. What was funny to me is that we take in to consideration what we sell the book for based on what they sell for online. Sometimes we can beat it, sometimes we can't touch it. Either way, we get as close as we can. A couple of the people that came in and told me I was "a huge fucking ripoff" came back because we had a better price that the people online. Nice huh? I thought so. Only one guy made me fantasize about beating him down because he yelled and cussed that we were a huge ripoff, then came back and said "well, your price is better than online, and better than the campus store, but you're still ripping me off." So very calmly I said "well sir, you don't have to worry about that because if it's that bad I won't sell the book to you," and I proceeded to put the book on the shelf. We stood and stared at each other for a minute. He was in shock, and I was picturing what it would be like to jump across the counter, kick his cain out from under him and beat him with it as he was lying on the floor all the while quoting Samuel L. Jackon from Pulp Fiction - "And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger. And you will know My name is the Lord when I lay My vengeance upon thee." He apologized and paid for the book. Realistically though, for anyone in college reading this, we're on the lower end of the spectrum and our margins are about 20 percent on average. We've got some that are 25, and some that are 12.5. Put in to perspective, most clothing stores are well over 40 percent so a ripoff we are not. Our campus store here won't do anything that they can't run a 35 percent margin on. So if we're on average 15 percent cheaper than them...how are we the ripoff? Anyway...

Our new counter girl is good help, and probably trustworthy...but man she's weird. One of the girls here was checking her MySpace page and she walked by, glanced and said "Oh...MySpace. That website almost ruined my life." Then of course we got busy so she never explained how that happened. We asked her again later, but nothing came of it. I guess it's a sore subject...but wow...why would you say that if you don't want to explain it? Shortly thereafter she told us that her and her husband were separated and had just gotten back together. She told one of the girls that they were married in April, separated in May and got back together a week before school started. She also mentioned that she's 21 and he's 36. We met him. Seems like a nice enough guy, but man does she have some weird stories to tell. She's almost worth keeping around for next semester just to find out what happened to her on MySpace.

That's about it from your friendly bookstore. Still cleaning up from the busiest month ever, but if I had to guess I'd say the bookstore is working out for us. I'll keep you up to date on our progress on a second store, but for now I'm out.

Fantasy Football and Farting Etiquette

2007-08-24T10:02:00.000-04:00

So it's been a while since the last blog. I'm sure you all figured it was that time of year for a guy that owns a bookstore and no one is holding it against me. Only a few good stories from the rush, and a couple about a new employee that none of us can decide on. More on that later, but for today something new.

One of my friends, we'll just call him Big E, asked the other night if I'd be interested in playing Fantasy Football. I don't watch the NFL much, and the New York Jets are only my favorite team because of a stupid line from a really cheesy 80's movie. So I figured, what the hell. Right? Some other friends of mine have asked me to play for years, but somehow they always screw people out of their money so I've never felt like giving them $500 to play a game they're certain to win. Big E said the buy in was $25 and I figure that means on Sundays we can send the women folk out shopping and we can drink beer and watch some football. All in all not a bad plan I think. We'll see how it works out. During our draft the other night I was picking the Auburn alum that are in pro football and Big E called (we did the draft online) and said "Jesus man! You can't pick all their alum. What if they suck?" The good news is I got Tom Brady and Eli Manning as my quarterbacks. Cool right? I guess so. Anyway, wish me luck. I stand to lose $25 or win up to $100. Either way, I'm sure it will be fun.

So todays main post is about Farting Etiquette. We all do it because we all eat Mexican, so I thought I'd help with some tips. I noticed this semester that people don't know when is a good time to bust ass on someone so lets go over some acceptable times and some unacceptable times shall we?

A grown man came in yesterday to buy a book, only to inform me he bought his online. Why he did this is a different post, but as he was talking he unleashed the fury in my lobby. He did not say a word. Just paused, lifted a leg, made sure it was all out, then went on. While the paint is peeling in my lobby he told me how he always came here second but he shopped online first. Good for you ass face. I make sure to go to Target and tell them about all the things I buy at Wal-Mart while I'm polluting their air. If you hadn't noticed, this scenario is an unacceptable time to break wind.

Another time, me and my Rum Running homeys were watching a funny video on my computer. We had one of my wifes friends over who brought her boyfriend along. We didn't like him all that much, but we were polite. While we're watching this video he comes in and starts ripping the most unholy farts on the us I've ever heard...and I lived at Boy Scout camp for two summers. He also pretends like nothing is going on, farts on us until the room has a fog about it and the rumrunners and I leave for fresh air. To this day I don't think he has a clue why we left.

So both of these situations could be considered unacceptable times to fumigate the locals, so what do you do? Well, it's simple. When nature calls you can make the most of it with three simple tricks.

1. Cough - While this might give you away if poorly timed, a good hack, sneeze or cough that's believable can cover up the worst fart. Just remember, you're the only one that can figure out the timing so it's all on you if you get busted.

2. Keep it silent - Yes, sometimes it's hard but keeping them silent but violent can sometimes work to your advantage. While on a road trip you can blame these on a skunk, a paper mill, or a sewage treatment plant. Even if you know none of these are near by, if it's vile enough people will believe you when you say "Yeah, I've driven through here before. It must be the creek, or that sewage treatment plant that's near by." This has worked for me on many occasions and if you sound confident enough and aren't a repeat offender this can keep you in the clear with your friends.

3. Point and laugh - Yeah...it's juvenile but if you must unleash the fury and the locals think at first it's a foghorn, find the person closest to you and push the blame on them. This is also a situation where you should be confident. Looking guilty while screaming "Good Lord! I thought there was a barge coming through until I saw the smoke rising from your ass!" is a good way to let everyone know you're the culprit. The best plan of attack is to take a step away from someone, scrunch your face, point and scream "Damn! Did you shit? Do you need to go check?" Not only will everyone else in the room think it's them, they will start to wonder as well.

So there you have it friends, a quick update on me and fantasy football and how to bust ass on your friends and get away with it. Use these tips wisely as they could save you some serious embarrassment.

The Smart Test

2007-07-17T09:05:00.000-04:00

So lately I've been wondering about a lot of the people that come in here at work. I have to wonder if they know they're stupid or not, because some days you just have to wonder what is going on in their little heads. Ever hear the expression "the wheel is spinning but the hamster is dead?" If the wheel was spinning, that would be a big improvement for a lot of these folks. Lucky for you, in our spare time, Mike and I developed a test. Ten questions that will help you determine if you are okay or if you're eligible for government funding because you're legally retarded.

1. What do you consider a good source of news?
A. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and the Colbert Report
B. CNN
C. Fox News
D. MTV

2. What type of television show do you find most entertaining?
A. Reality TV
B. Sitcoms
C. Educational Content (i.e. History/Discovery Channel)
D. Talk Shows
E. Game Shows

3. When you read the paper, do you enjoy looking at the divorce or bankruptcy section for a source of gossip?
A. Yes
B. No
C. What's a newspaper? Is that the thing that Paris Hilton is always on the cover of?

4. When reading a good book, does it involve any of the following:
A. Colors
B. Pictures
C. talking animals(we aren't talking George Orwell here)
D. No. I read to stimulate my mind.

5. Do you think you:
A. Know everything
B. Have a lot to learn
C. Are constantly learning
D. No idea here

6. Lindsey Lohan is:
A. Too Skinny
B. Too Fat
C. Just right - Crack whore is IN!
D. Who gives a fuck?
E. Damn she used to be so hot

7. The Matrix is:
A. Quite possibly the greatest movie ever made
B. Some weird science fiction movie some guy I used to date made me watch
C. Isn't it that new Toyota?
D. That movie was AWESOME...SO, LIKE, what was it about?

8. What is this?
A. I forgot
B. A Test of the emergency broadcast system
C. THIS IS SPARTAAA!
D. A test to determine if one of my brain cells is fighting the other...they do get kinda lonely.
E. Unfortunately no one can tell you what it is. You have to see it for your self.

9. Muscle Cars are:
A. Bitchin!
B. Those stupid things my boyfriend makes me go see at car shows
C. Extravagant, wasteful of gas, and bad for the environment, but a perfect place for hot girls to pose in skimpy clothes
d. All cars are for is to get you to work. Who needs an engine that big?

10. France is located where?
A. Underneath the white flag
B. Who gives a shit?
C. Oooh! That's where Paris is. I wanna go!!!
D: Probably somewhere near where all those fucking french people are.
E: Right where that awful smell of rotting cheese is coming from
F: Within marching distance of Berlin
G: No idea...but I'm sure we'll be back there soon enough

Answers -

1. A, B, and C are all acceptable answers. You get 15 points for A, 12 points for B, and 10 points for C. If you answer D, not only do you lose 15,000,000 points we hate you.

2. Everything but A earns you 15 points. If you answer A, you lose 15,000,000 points and I hate you even more.

3. B is the correct answer. A or C should literally get you beaten by a band of Czech kids demanding bubble gum. 10 points if you answer B, 10 more if you know what movie I'm referencing. A, and C lose you 15,000,000 more points

4. We'll accept D. Give yourself 15 points. Everything else is acceptable if you're under the age of 12. If you are over 12 and answered anything but D, take the total of your overall score and and subtract it from itself again.

5. If you need me to tell you the correct answer on this one, I'm actually surprised that you figured out the internet long enough to read this test.

6. Yes, she used to be hot, and now she's a crack ho. Actually knowing that people will get this wrong makes me sad. If you answer anything but D or E, you lose 50 points.

7. A. A is the only answer that is correct. The rest of them aren't even close, and if you answered D, stop taking this test now and go away. Never return again. I can't even deduct enough points to show you my disapproval.

8. Correct Answers are C&E. Give yourself 20 points a piece for getting that right. Give yourself another 10 if you know what E is talking about. Anything else loses you 20,000 points.

9. A and C will gain you 200 points each. If you answered anything else, take your score, multiply it by three, then subtract it from itself seventeen times.

10. If you answer C, you have problems. Subtract 100,000,000,000,000,000 points from your score. Everything else gains you 100 points.

Let's add up the scores shall we? If you managed anything on the plus side, you get to live. If your score was anything below zero, please contact me because I have a friend that's a social worker and we need to get you on her case load as soon as humanly possible.

!#@$*&! DOCTORS!!!

2007-07-11T16:08:00.001-04:00

I've probably posted about this before, but I have some sort of neck problem. I have since my Freshman year of college. I have no idea what it is, or why it happens. No doctor, or chiropractor has been able to tell me what causes it or how to fix it. Basically, what it happens is that something in my neck will pop. I don't have to be doing anything in particular, I just have to be alive and it pops. Then my neck goes in to these insane muscle spasms and freezes. Doesn't sound bad you say? It freezes up so tight that any movement is painful. It's been bad enough that chewing something hurts, and other times it's only bad enough that it feels like a strained muscle. It's annoying more than anything. Having to have someone drive you to work because you can't turn your head is a bit ridiculous to me, but I guess you just take it and roll. I've been to the doctor, the chiropractor, and this week I attempted a physical therapist. Our lovely insurance scheme...I mean plan...makes sure we go see a general practitioner before we go get any other treatments of any kind. I've been to this doctor (I think I blogged about firing the last one, so this is a different one) before about it and he gave me some muscle relaxers that put me in a foul mood but make pretty much everything not hurt. I get very spaced out on them sometimes, but they work. Me personally, I think there should be a better solution than pills. I'm not involved in any pharmaceutical conspiracies or what not, I just don't think any time something is wrong with you, you take a pill and get all better. There has to be a way to prevent, a way to overcome. Right? Am I the only one that thinks this way? Apparently. My doctor suggested surgery as the best fix, and offered me a double arm load of muscle relaxers again. What he really wanted I'll have no part of. He suggested cortisone shots as instantaneous relief. Call me crazy, but I think sticking a needle in a place where joints are having severe spasms is just bad news.

Anyway, so I asked this time if he'd consider some physical therapy. He said "well, that will work. The only people I've ever known that cured themselves of this type problem went to PT." Genius! Why the hell didn't someone suggest that years ago? I would have happily signed up back in college while I was on the bitchin insurance my parents had. There are two physical therapy places right near our house. One of them is good, the other one is the worst place on the face of the earth. I'm not sure what kind of kickbacks they give to doctors for their referral to this place, but it must be good. He gives me a referral to the good one because I ask him to. Guess what? The good one isn't covered under my insurance but all I have to do is get the doctor to sign off on this form and the insurance company will cover it. This ass face refuses. He has one of his nitwit receptionists call and tell me he won't sign, and won't tell me why. So I ask said stupid bitch "What's the deal?" Her response? "He said you can go where you're covered or pay out of pocket." Wow. Me going to this sorry ass physical therapist means that much to him? Really? Could it be a scam? Of course it is. Any time insurance and doctors are involved, it's likely a scam. I personally believe that there is a special place in hell for insurance companies. I bet they have a nice table next to the scientologists. I could rant and go on about insurance companies and how they're raping us, or I could tell you how I think Michael Moore's documentary might change something, but it won't. We all get to roll over and take it like a crack whores bitch. Michael Moore I guess thinks he's making a difference, but he's really just eating more hot dogs and making an ass of himself. Were he not a complete waste of valuable air, I imagine he could make a difference.

I know what you're all thinking. I probably ranted and raved, and told this doctor to shove it in his ass. Actually, I did not. I stayed cool, thanked them for the call back, and told them I would look at all my other options and go from there. Probably what I will do is call one of the local news stations and get them to investigate exactly how much of a bonus this doctor gets from referring patients to the biggest scam of a PT place in three states. But at the end of the day my neck will still frickin hurt, and I'll go back next time to the offer of a cortisone shot and horse tranquilizers and he'll go home thinking he did his job.

Week Long Review

2007-07-08T14:50:00.000-04:00

It's been over a week since my last post and I'm sure you're dying to know what's been going on. Well, not much really. But at the same time quite a bit.

First off Fourth of July was awesome. We had a bitchin pancake breakfast with the rumrunners, and shortly thereafer I left with to go see Transformers with Mike. I think every year since I can remember I went to see a flic on the fourth with Dad or with someone...except for last year...we were in Austin with my brother-in-law. In short, Transformers was a damn good flic. Well worth the price of admission, and they've already committed to two sequels. Why not? Everyone wants to see giant robots blow shit up and hot chics save the world right? Right. So, after the movie we grilled brats boiled in Guiness, and drank some rum. Then went over to my brother-in-laws new house and drank some more with our rumrunning homeys in tow. We met some of his very interesting friends and had a good time. One of his friends got way drunk and informed my hot wife that if she was single he wanted to start dating her. In his drunken stupor he asked my permission on this as well. Around 11 we came home and finished off a bottle and a half of rum. I could go in to all the details of everything that happened, but the blog would be six pages long and no one would want to read it. In short, this Fourth of July was Legen...wait for it...and I hope you're not lactose intolerant...because...here it comes...dary! I even made sure to hug a soldier and thank him for the freedoms we all enjoy.

The rest of the week harbored a computer crash at work for me that I still haven't recovered from, and of course more work. Yesterday morning we took the puppy to the vet for his 12 week check up and he's fine. Tumber is up to 16.4lbs so he's growing by about two pounds per week. So for your weekend enjoyment, here are the latest pictures taken by yours truly.

On the deck.

He can get up the stairs, but hasn't mastered the getting down part yet. So he just sits there looking pitiful until you take him back down to the yard to play.

That's it for now. The Indy Car pre-race show starts in sixteen minutes and I'm going to go catch all the action from Watkins Glen. Hope everyone else had a great weekend.

Movie Review - Black Snake Moan

2007-06-28T12:12:00.000-04:00

This came out on Tuesday, and Netflix is usually awesome enough to get us movies on the days they come out. This Tuesday wasn't any different. They delivered us the awesomeness that is Samuel L. Jackson, and the insane hotness (and incredible nakedness) that is Christina Ricci in this film. Oh yeah, Justin Timberlake is in this one too and for some reason I've never really liked him at all. In fact I think him playing a heterosexual soldier is a stretch, but that's just me. Actually, he's only in the movie for a few minutes and he plays a total bitch so maybe it's not a stretch. Anyway, basic plot outline is that Christina Ricci is a sex addict that as it turns out suffered some sexual abuse as a child and now she's banging anything that moves to cope. Her boyfriend is Justin Timberlake who is going off to war to be a sniper of some sort. I think he's gone one day and she's whoring around until her boyfriends best friend beats her and leaves her on the side of the road for dead. Samuel L. Jacksons character - Lazarus - is a God Fearing blues musician/farmer who is struggling with issues of his own. His wife left him for his brother and obviously he didn't take it well. Who would? He stumbles on Ricci and nurses her back to health, but decides he needs to cure her of her wicked ways so he chains her to a radiator in his house so she can't escape. Luckily for us, she's chained up half naked for most of the movie. Here is a screen cap for you...

At any rate, the movie is good. It's very bizarre how both of these people find their way back to living a normal life. It has the feelings of a Quentin Tarantino film, but it's not. I thought going in that it was going to be a comedy, but realistically it's not. It has it's funny moments, and of Ricci pulls off the nympho so well that you wonder if she really is a nymphomaniac. I'd have to say a role like this takes someone with some insane confidence, and you have to be able to act. She's very good, very believable, and very hot. Jackson is actually not in his typical role like Snakes on a Plane, or any Tarantino film he's done. It's out of character for him as well, but he's really good. He can even sing the blues, and come to find out they put his songs on the soundtrack.

Since the movie isn't really a comedy, what is it? It's a drama...a very very bizarre one with the message that you can find help in the strangest places, and no matter what happens to you in life someone will get you through it. Maybe their is a facing some demons message in there too...but the movie is good. I'm probably going to buy the soundtrack just because it put me in the mood for the blues...and the blues as sung by Sam Jackson can't be all bad right?

New Tumbler Photos

2007-06-27T11:11:00.001-04:00

My hot wife was at home while I was out getting meat for the barbecue this weekend and she took some new photos of the puppy. So here they are for your enjoyment.

He Loves the tall grass.

Just to make sure Mom isn't reading her magazine...because that would detract from paying attention to the puppy.

Tug-o-war with the rumrunners. This might be his favorite game.

And at the end of the day...tired.

We're actually both asleep at this point, but nobody really wants to see me sleeping do they? He's up to 11 pounds now and his feet are getting big. Pretty soon he'll be tripping over them...oh wait. He does that now.

We're the Jones'? Really?

2007-06-26T13:08:00.000-04:00

I'm sure you've all heard the phrase "keeping up with the Jones'. Ever wonder who the Jones' are? I always did, because for most of my life I've never wanted to keep up with anyone save for Arnold Schwarzenegger. I mean really...if there was ever a definition of awesomeness he has to be it. Moving on. Obviously later in life I figured out what the term meant, and of course everyone has their own Jones' they need or want to keep up with. Personally, I'm 29 years old, I'm fat, and I'm slow. If I have to try to keep up with you, you win. There is nobody's life I'd rather have than my own because I have a hot wife, kick ass friends, and in my own personal way I feel like I rule. I'm sure right now everyone is going "Bitch please! I rule too!" Yes, in everyones own way, we should all rule and all be happy people. We're not everyones Jones', nor should we be anyones.

Side step for another part of the story right quick. When I worked at my last soul sucking job, I worked with a guy we'll just call A. You can assume that to be asshole, asinine, whatever you'd like. Both fit pretty well. We were friends for the most part until we started really hanging out with him and his wife. Then it seemed like he wanted or needed to compete over everything. Didn't matter what. We got married, they were buying a house. We considered buying a house, they were remodeling a house. One day he walked around the office asking what the limits on everybody's credit cards were because he'd just scored ANOTHER credit card with a $5k limit. That wasn't his business so I just told him we didn't carry any credit cards. I probably just should have told him because he decided from then on that mine and the hot wifes parents paid all our bills. After that, in addition to the rest of his preposterous stories I started distancing myself. Then came his affair where he wanted my advice on this girl he was messing around with, and had her call me at work. Um...can you say awkward? Then him and his wife decided to work it out. So his wife, thinking that I'm his best friend would call me at work to see if he was there and if he was really doing what he said. If I had to describe my reaction to this in one word...that word would be "WHAT THE FUCK?!?!" After that conversations were limited about anything. When I left to start my own business, he did congratulate me and say he was envious. I just didn't realize his level of envy.

Fast foward to present day. I was going to work out the other morning and I saw his pile of shit sitting outside the gym. I went about my workout, thinking if he saw me he'd come by and tell me how he could do this workout twice in the time it took me to do it once, but never saw him. I left, the car was gone. So I called him at work to say hi. It had been about two years since I really spoke to him anyway, and maybe that would be nice right? WRONG! He's still a douche bag. He immediately started bragging that he'd bought a bigger house, and got a raise, and blah blah blah. Then he said something that made me think all this time he felt like he had to keep up with us. "Hey man...uh...I was in your neighborhood the other day...visiting...uh...some people we know...ya know...and...uh...did you get a new Charger?" He has NO reason to be in our neighborhood, other than to check up on us which he does. Do I think he has friends in our neighborhood? No. Not a chance. Not that we're an elitist neighborhood or anything, but when you say "Oh...I can't remember their names now" you're lying. Why? Because if we go visit someone, I know their names...or I can tell you why we were there. Not that I'm super smart, but realistically it's not that hard to do. I'm sure LittleGirl doesn't have trouble with this and I don't know that she's speaking yet. This stupid bastard comes by just to look at our house, and I wouldn't be suprised if the dumb shit looked in the windows while we were gone. I ended our conversation when he said "Yeah, we looked at one of those (chargers) but I think we want something a little nicer that gets a little better gas mileage." So I said I had to go and he said "Oh, well next time you guys are having a cookout at your house let's get together." So he knows we cook out? Hmmm...I wonder how he'd know that since he's never seen the inside of the house.

For whatever reason, we seem to be the people he needs to keep up with and the dumb shit would spend any amount of money to do it. I guess since in my own personal mirror I rule, I can't imagine envying someone to the point of stalking. Are we the only ones with this problem? Does everybody work with assholes that drive by their house to see where and how they live? To me, this is a bit odd...but what do I know?

Smoke-out 2007

2007-06-24T22:11:00.000-04:00

Well, with my rumrunning homey back in town we decided out of nowhere that this would be a good weekend so smoke, so today we spent the day in the heat smoking meat. Lots and lots of meat. I think we've got the hang of it now so we'll probably do a few more smoke days this summer. I forgot to take pictures of the food as it was on the grille, but wow did it ever turn out good.

As usual we smoked ribs. I'd been buying them up on sale and freezing them for a few weeks now so we had a total of six racks of ribs. Five baby backs and one St. Louis style rib. If you don't know the difference, in short St. Louis ribs are bigger and have more fat. Also a little more flavor, but you get the fat with it. All in all, not bad. We got done with them, and honestly I wasn't feeling ribs at all today. They were good though, and we sent everyone who attended home with their own rack of ribs. It's not that they didn't taste good, it's just that they're a lot of work to eat. They'll probably be good later this week shaved off the bone and served on a baked potato.

Anyway, we had some backups to ribs. The homeys bought a Boston Butt, and I bought an organic beef brisket. Let me tell you, NEVER buy organic beef to smoke. We had a grass fed beef brisket and I swear I've had beef jerky that was more tender than this thing. I think it's because they exercise the cows more, or just feed them grass and not oats or anything like that. I guess this guy sells good stuff, but this beef brisket sadly got thrown away. It was really inedible and damn near too tough to cut.

The homeys scored the good stuff. The Boston Butt was injected with a mix of Captain Morgans Rum, Honey, a Bobby Flay rib rub, and Coke. Good stuff. I don't know if it was the fat, or what, but this thing was tender, flavorful, and overall kicked some serious ass. It put everything else to shame...big time. It was also coated with a Bobby Flay rub and some Stickey Fingers rub courtesy of one of my brothers-in-law. This will make some awesome sandwiches later in the week, or will just generally be bitchin no matter what we do with it.

Since we've got a smoker going, I threw on some salmon, shrimp, and hot dogs for the Rumrunners for later this week. The shrimp and salmon turned out great, the hot dogs have yet to be determined.

The rumrunners brought over a healthy macaroni, and my brother in law and his fiance brought in some baked beans with rum. If you haven't noticed, Rum is almost always the main ingredient. Finish dinner off with a Margarita pie made by the hot wife, and dinner as a whole was a huge success. If you're hungry and in the area, please come by we have leftovers running out our frickin ears. Seriously...please come by.

At any rate, the day was good, and the smoking was a success. Hopefully next month we'll do another one with pictures.

Five Things...

2007-06-21T13:55:00.000-04:00

I should have thought of to say at the Vet last Saturday. Tumbler is doing fine according to his most recent check up. While sitting in the lobby, we were talking to some nice lady with a pit bull (a strangely nice pit bull) and this guy walks in and snickers and me and Tumbler. I didn't say anything since this guy is obviously a total ass face. Then he decides to speak. "I got a cat bigger than your dog you know." So he turns around a cat carrier to show a very very fat ass cat. Seeing as cats are fine, but I just don't care one way or another about them...I didn't say anything. Then his wife turns and says "Oh...that dogs so small. His feet aren't even big. I bet he'll never get any bigger than that." Then they both leave. I wasn't sure what to say to these overly suck up nitwits so I just kept it shut. Mostly because the hot wife was with me and she probably would have been embarrassed. So I came up with a list of five things I should have said for your amusement and mine.

5 - My arms are bigger than yours, my car is faster than yours, and my wife is hotter than yours. Got anything else you'd like to compare?

4 - So you over feed a cat that's how old? My dog is nine weeks old, next time we're here I'll bring some ketchup because my dog will need a snack and that cat is too frickin fat to get away.

3 - I'm sorry. Did someone point to you? No? Then shut the fuck up.

2 - Really? It seems as though you've mistaken me for someone who wants to hear your opinion. Traffic is this outside right now. How about you and the cat go play in it together?

1 - THIS IS SPARTAAAA!!! (followed by a strong kick to the chest)

Oh, if only there was a convenient black hole placed in the front of the vets office...I think that guy might have gone down it with his ugly wife and fat ass cat...but that if course is in a perfect world and not the one we live in. So I just let the guy go on about his day without saying anything. Maybe he got in the car and felt like a total dipshit. But probably not.

Movie Review - Bridge to Terabithia

2007-06-20T10:59:00.001-04:00

To be honest, I was a little iffy about seeing this movie but my hot wife really wanted to see it and I kinda wanted to see it. If you haven't noticed, we differ a lot on our movie tastes. She doesn't much care for the theaters, and I LOVE seeing movies on the big screen. Beyond that, if the movie has guns, aliens, breasts, explosions, and aliens with big exploding breasts...she's out...I'm in. But that's just how we roll. Usually when she gets excited to see a movie I'm all amped to go see it in the theaters with her. Typically I have some criteria. It cannot star Jane Fonda or Cameron Diaz. We agree on Rosie O'Donnell so as long as it meets the other two, we're good. This one I was curious about, but the book reminds me a lot of my fourth grade teacher. My fat ass no good horrid bitch fourth grade teacher Mrs. Davis. Don't worry...I didn't go to fourth grade here so I doubt anyone that reads this would know her. This woman was horrible and this was her favorite book. She was nice enough to make a group of fourth graders rub her shoulders while she read to us. We missed the last two chapters because she was busy balling her eyes out and slobering. The movie is sad...but I think you need to compose yourself if you're going to read this book to fourth graders. I don't think any of us knew what really happened, but between the slobberings most of us picked up what was happening. Since it made her cry, I didn't care. Just to give you an insight on how horrible this woman was at this small private school. She said some things in class one day about my mom that let everyone know she apparently did not like her. I of course had no idea her and my mom had ever talked. The next day they did. My mom showed up at school and said "If you ever ridicule me in front of a class like that again...I'll come down here and beat the shit out of you...pregnant or not." She was pretty nice to me after that. I know you're probably thinking my mom is a huge redneck, but she's really not. Think for a minute how you'd react if your kids fourth grade teacher made fun of you in class for no reason. Then react like I would. Okay...so it's a tad on the red side...but on we go.

The movie...was good. From what I remember over Mrs. Davis' drooling and slobbering it was just about word for word the book. I don't remember a lot because I try to block those days out of my mind, but this was good. If you've read the book, you know it's a sad story, but still a pretty good one. We watched it with the Rumrunners last night and I think while it was sad both of them enjoyed it. I would have to give it three and a half out of five stars. I didn't absolutely love it, but if that book was to be made in to a movie I can't say as I would picture it being a lot different than that interpretation. Definitely worth a rental, and probably would have been worth the $16 for the two of us to see it on the big screen.

I hurt my neck on Monday so workouts have been kinda slow for me ever since. The good news is the puppy has been coming to work with me, and he loves it. Training him to function inside is going fairly well. His favorite place to be though, is either right at your feet (as you're walking) or in your lap. I hope he outgrows the lap thing because having a 150lb dog in your lap can't be fun. We'll hopefully post some more pictures here soon as he is getting bigger. That's it for now...more later.

Movie Review - Fantastic Four 2

2007-06-15T16:24:00.000-04:00

I would have put Rise of the Silver Surfer in the headline, but it wouldn't fit. So...since the campus I serve is mostly closed on Fridays I had the afternoon off...which is nice in case any of you were wondering. Oh...it's nice. Very nice. Anyway, me and the Rumrunners (though without Rum) decided it would be a good idea to go see Fantastic Four today before everyone else went. I have to say, it's not a bad flic. The only real problem I have with it is that the actor playing the Silver Surfer didn't know he was being dubbed over until he saw the trailer. Given, I would be upset as well...but I guess if they dubbed Laurence Fishburn (or Morpheus) over me I could probably let that slide. So...the movie...

It picks up probably two years after the other movie left off. Jessica Alba (Sue Storm) and Mr. Fantastic (Ioan Gruffud - also Lancelot in the Clive Own King Arthur movie) have attempted to get married three times and something always interrupts. So the start is about their wedding day and of course, the Silver Surfer interrupts. If he didn't we'd have a short movie right? Right. So the movie is about them working with the government to find out what the surfer is and destroy it. It's a little corny at times, but might be just as good as the first one. I read a lot of reviews of people that hated the first movie so I'd have to say that if you didn't like that one...you might still like this one. All in all... a good flick. The only thing it's missing from the previous movie is Jessica Alba in her underwear. But...this one had a PG rating because she's trying to be a more serious actress and not sell just on sex appeal. Sorry Jessica...it's not that you can't act...it's that men are pigs. Her role in the movie oddly seems small...but she's still pretty hot...well...let's be honest. It's Jessica Alba. She's smokin! They probably tried to put a moral lesson in it somewhere but I didn't pay attention to that. I was just happy that Dodge made the Fantasticar and the line "Does it have a Hemi? Sweet!" was in the movie. But it's good, and it's wide open for the third movie as well as the Silver Surfer to have his own spinoff. Hopefully this time he'll negotiate the deal so he can have his own voice in the film instead of Morpheus...but you never know. At any rate, I give the movie three out of five stars as I enjoyed it and will likely buy the DVD. Have a good weekend at the movies everybody!

Movie Review - Primeval

2007-06-14T10:00:00.000-04:00

This is one of those that the wife didn't watch with me. Once she read the description, she was out. Personally, I thought it sounded cool. I mean, killer crocodiles and corrupt politicians in Africa? Count me in. Basically the premise of the movie is that a reporter (Dominic Purcell) has lost his credibility due to a story they don't talk about much. Enter the smokin hot Brooke Langton as a new reporter that's friends with the boss. She comes up with this great idea to catch this giant killer crocodile and bring it back to the US. This is all based on a true story and the crocs name is Gustav. Seriously, when the boss was passing out stories did he not once think "Wait a minute...I've seen this in a movie before...something about a big gorilla they captured...hmmm...didn't end well for them either." Anyway, they travel to Africa with Orlando Jones (the plucky comic relief), a guide, and a tracker that is supposed to be the crocodile hunter. They probably could have played the backgrounds of the other two guys up a little more instead it was just "oh yeah, this one time, the beast ate my wife." Then everyone just went on about what they were doing. The croc hunter (who conveniently has his own TV show) has decided he wants to capture this thing and preserve it so other people can see it. This is obviously a bad idea. Other than some bad editing and getting totally screwed out of seeing Brooke Langton in a wet white t-shirt, it's not so bad. The croc is CGI and you can only really tell in a couple of places...but seriously...it's a people eating croc that's devouring random people in Africa. Not only are the main characters faced with having to run from a man eating croc, they guards they have are run by the corrupt politician that is fueling the civil war in Africa so he can have some form of power. According to the facts at the end of the movie, the civil war and the croc were both real and the croc still lives and eats people but no one from the US has attempted to go back and get it. My two favorites lines from Orlando Jones are copied and pasted here from IMDB and are hilarious...

Steven Johnson: You know, that croc's a lot like OJ. He made a mistake when he killed that white woman.

Steven Johnson: I'm never gonna say this in front of a bunch of white people. Slavery was a good thing. Anything to get the fuck out of Africa is a good thing.

Both pretty funny, and he's good as usual. All in all I liked it. I'm glad I didn't see it in the theaters because I don't know that I would have been happy if I'd paid $8.50 to see it, but a Netflix rental isn't so bad. I give it three out of five stars. It had the potential for four, but Langton kept her clothes on through the entire thing so it only gets three.

This weekend, if all goes well I hope to wood grille some salmon so I'll let you know how that turns out. The puppy is still doing well, and I bet he'll be 10 or 12 pounds at the vet this weekend because he is getting bigger. We'll keep you posted on how that goes. As far as movies go, we've got Fantastic Four this weekend and I'm going to make an effort to see it in theaters if I can. Maybe even Sunday night take the fam out to see Oceans 13 for Fathers Day, but we'll see.

Maxim Loses Credibility

2007-06-11T10:41:00.001-04:00

I've been a Maxim reader for a few years now. Off and on through college when they had something that looked interesting, or when they had an insanely hot girl on the cover I'd pick up a copy. When I married my hot wife, she got that for me as a gift and every year I read it less and less because they suck more and more. Every year they do the Maxim Hot 100. Usually they send an add in of some sort in the magazine but as usual my mailman gets that one and I have to look online. This year I think they went over the edge and probably should have just called it "Girls assorted by number of headlines this year." Mostly because Kate Beckinsale was 21st. Even if you've never seen Underworld, you know she's hot. She does her share of girly movies as well, and I don't think you'd find anyone with a pulse that wouldn't sleep with her given the chance. Sadly, Beckinsale isn't the only travesty on this years unforgivable Hot 100. Salma Hayek, Danica Patrick, Lena Heady, and Halle Berry were all outside the top 50. The Olsen Twins were rated higher than Shakira, and Jessica Simpson. The travesty's just get worse. Not only is Cameron Diaz ON the list, she's higher than everyone mentioned above, and Keira Knightley. Seriously, so what if she's already bailed on Pirates 4. She can use a sword and oh yeah...SHE'S HOT where as Cameron Diaz reminds me of Corky from Life Goes On. Worse than that, Ashleey Simpson made the top 20 while her much hotter and more talented sister is back in the 40's somewhere. Eva Longoria ended her two year streak as number one placing just inside the top 10 in ninth place. Angelina Jolie somehow fell out of their top 10. Jessica Biel winds up in fifth place. That one I can kinda understand. Didn't think Christina Aguilera should have been fourth, but that's just me. Scarlett Johannson winds up third. Now, probably the biggest reason they lose all credibility this year is number one and number two. Runner up this year was another personal fav - Jessica Alba. Don't get me wrong, I think she deserves to be in the top five, she might even deserve to be number two. But the winner this year was Lindsay Lohan. Okay, I'm not going to say I never thought she was hot. I did. But currently she's a drug re-habbing crack whore. Do they honestly expect me to believe that in her current state she can stand in the same room with Alba? No. Sorry guys. You suck.

Speaking of losing all credibility. I've been doing Crossfit for about two months now. I LOVE it. They have forums and everyone goes on and posts weights lifted and times completed. Last week we had a workout that was 10 100 meter sprints and we were to post lows and highs to comments. Apparently this one guy was high off his gord because his low was 8.2 and his high was 9.4. Last I checked the world record was 9.79. Do you think maybe you left a number or two out of there? Same guy two days later, different workout. That days challenge was 100 pullups, 100 pushups, 100 situps, and 100 squats. Seems hard right? Don't be fooled...it is. This is a time consuming exercise. Ass face posted that he did it in 13 minutes. Really? The Olympics should be recruiting this ass hat. If he can do all that in 13 minutes and run a 100 meter sprint in eight seconds, he's in the wrong line of work. You think if I could do it I wouldn't have that documented and be on my way to the next Olympic games? If you answered no, you obviously don't know how completely shallow I am.

At any rate, things are still moving along here. Still need to go see Oceans 13 and Hostel II with Mike but it seems my weekends are still filled with projects so no movies as of late. However, we do not intend to miss anything on the list this weekend. More to come this week.

Puppy Pictures

2007-06-04T18:32:00.000-04:00

Well, they're long overdue, but here are a few pictures of the new puppy.

This is his Dad and he will probably look somewhat like this when he gets grown. I'm not wrinkling his head, he's just that wrinkly.

This is his mom, and she's supposedly one of their better looking dogs. I think she's going to be retired after this litter because she's about six years old.

This is him on our front porch by a flower pot so you can see how big he is.

And at the end of the day, he had to have a bath...and boy does he ever not like getting a bath. The breeder bathed him the day we picked him up and he didn't mint that at all. For some reason once he gets in the tub he knows it's bath time, and boy does he not like it.

That's it for now. Sorry if these uploaded a little weird. Blogger has been sucking ass on my home computer so I had to use photobucket to show the images.

Pirates and the Puppy

2007-05-29T09:25:00.001-04:00

Well, Thursday night we went and saw the midnight show of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. I should warn you if you haven't seen it that this movie is just shy of three hours long. It's a good movie, gives some closure...and of course leaves itself wide open for Pirates four. It's slow at times, there are a few scenes that could have been left out and no one would have cared. I did read later that there was one deleted scene that would have made me a lot less mad, but Disney has already said it will be on the DVD. If I told you what it was, it would ruin a lot of the movie for you so if you've seen it, e-mail me and I'll tell you. It makes the part of the movie that I found to be utterly stupid not suck. Anyway, if you liked the first two, this one is good as well. I think I still like the first one the best, but this one is good for the trilogy.

Alas, the new puppy is home! And I don't have a single picture with me at work that I can show you. We picked him up on Friday afternoon and brought him to his new home. He weighed in Saturday morning at the vets office at 4.1lbs, but they assured us he would get bigger. I have no doubt that one day he'll be a very big dog. We spent some time at the breeders house on Friday because they forgot we were coming and we waited around an hour before anyone showed up so we got some pictures of both the parents and some of the other dogs. All of them are actually really well behaved dogs so if this dog is any indicator, it will be a huge but well behaved dog. If I get a chance when I get home tonight we will post pictures of him and his family.

I hope everyone had a great weekend!

The Asshole and the Stoner

2007-05-24T12:05:00.001-04:00

Yesterday was an interesting day. It seemed normal starting out, but somehow it could never get away from the weirdness it was about to become. I had some encounters that I guess on any other day would have been unnoticed, but for yesterday they seemed to stick out.

The Asshole. I woke up early, as usual, watered the lawns, and headed to the new gym. I was getting pumped up trying to figure out how the best plan of attack was, psyching myself up to push the limits. I was amped. I stop, strap on my new set of Harbinger workout gloves, and as I'm exiting the car, this guy with dollar store sunglasses in a Neon pulls up and signals for me to roll my window down. So I do. What the hell right? There was a new song on the radio I liked that I was in to. He starts this long drawn out "I've never done this before so I don't even really know where to begin." I knew this was going to suck. Apparently this guy lives in Savannah but was stuck here in Chattanooga trying desperately to get back to Atlanta so his friends could give him money to get home. Is this important to the story? No. But I had to endure so now you must. Sob story over, this guy just asks for cash. I literally had none. I had two or three quarters in my center console and that was it. I had taken the cash out of my wallet for some reason a day or two before. I did kinda feel bad that I couldn't help the guy, but I offered him the three quarters and two dimes I had with me. No dice. He was pissed. He gritted his teeth and bit his lip, as if to say something smart ass. Then just shook his head and said "You know what? That's fine! That's just fine! So...yeah...Thanks! THANKS!" and drives off. I was honest with the guy, so he really didn't have a reason to be a total douche bag right? Furthermore, it's not my fault he didn't read anything by Steven Covey. If he had begun with the end in mind, maybe he wouldn't be stranded five hours from home. Either way, I hope he makes it home...but it really isn't my problem.

The Stoner. The hot wife had a craving for Arby's last night. And since she works so hard I try to help where I can. I stop in to Arby's to get a number 12 and a number seven. Simple enough right? I bet if you're only half reading this thinking of what an asshole this other guy was, you could still get this order right. For the Arby's stoner, this was a problem. We order, number 12 for the hot wife no tomato. I ask "Is the number seven better frilled or fried?" He thinks for a second "I don't really eat here," he says "but I think fried tastes better I guess." I make sure there is no honey mustard or anything I'm going to hate on my sandwich and then say "Oh yeah...on the number 12 we want curly fries, and a dew. With the seven I want potato cakes and sweet tea." He looks at me as if I'd said "Open the register and dump it in this bag bitch!" Clearly, we are not on the same page. So he says "Whoa man! What number seven? When did you order that?" I informed him that we had just spoken about this and I even asked him about grilled or fried. No shit. This kid looks me dead in the eyes and says "Really? What did I say?" This conversation couldn't have been 10 seconds ago and he had no clue. So I ordered a number seven and made him read the order back to me. He said hang on and never did. I had figured in my head that we'd never get what we ordered and we'd just leave. Amazingly, stoner kid nailed it. Number 12 no tomatoes, and a number seven plain. Nice...because even when they're not stoned this Arby's generally sucks.

That's it from me for now. We pick up the unnamed (Tumbler)dog tomorrow and the weekend will get busy from there. We will try to post pictures of the dog when we bring him home tomorrow night or first thing Saturday morning. If we don't, I hope everyone else has a good weekend.

Tumblers first photos

2007-05-20T18:48:00.000-04:00

Just for everyone curious, we had the breeder e-mail us a picture of the dog before we go get him this weekend. The hot wife seems to be changing her mind on the name, but Tumbler still has my vote. So, for all those that still read and are interested...here is the dog...

And for those that wanted to see the dog pen here you go...

It was actually pretty easy. Once we filled it with dirt and mulch the cage went up pretty smooth. Big thanks to the neighbors wife (haven't found a good blog nickname for her yet) for helping me shovel dirt and mulch for eight hours last weekend.

Projects in Review

2007-05-11T11:25:00.000-04:00

Since my rum running homey has been working, I've been trying to help create a man room in his basement that was masterminded by his wife. The project will be completed this weekend. I offered to help because they're my homeys, but also because I wanted to learn how to do things like drop ceilings and hanging drywall. Let me review some of these for you so you know what you're about to undertake when you start these projects.

Drywall - Easy enough to haul and hang. Cutting to length can be a pain in the ass, but it's not hard. Two people with strong arms can usually get it done pretty quickly. In about a 500 square foot room, hanging drywall took just a little over one days work. If you busted ass you could easily do that in day. Mudding and sanding drywall sucks. I can't take much credit on this part, but given the choice of doing that or dropping every piece of drywall on my foot...I'll take door number two.

Concrete Stain - The man room is in the basement and will be mostly a workout facility and a place for his fishing gear. Carpet or hardwood would probably be a bad idea for this one, so we stained the concrete. Not bad. Pretty easy work, still semi-tranparent but not bad...especially not for the use of this room. As far as ease of application goes, it's just as easy as sweeping the floor. Just make sure you can not walk on it for a couple of days to get it good and dry, and make sure you've got time for extra coats. This 500 square feet took about two gallons to look really good and stained.

Drop Ceilings - Lowe's will tell you this is easy. And they even have a video to show you that women and children can do it without much effort. This is wrong. If you have the option of installing a drop ceiling, or giving birth to a baby porcupine that is on fire...look in to the less painful second option. There is nothing easy about this. I smashed my finger with a hammer and thought I was going to wind up in the emergency room on a couple of occasions. If I'd had the strength when I got done, I would have gone to Lowe's to see the guy that sold it to us. The conversation would have consisted of "This is NOT easy! THIS IS SPARTAAA!" and follow it up with a solid kick to the chest. In short, these suck. If you ever need help with a drop ceiling, please don't call me. If it means I have to buy it for you rather than do it...I might actually do that.

Moving furniture - somehow I've always managed to be the go to guy for moving furniture. I'm not sure how I got this title. Most of the time I don't mind. I've helped Mike move a couple times. Not a big deal. I don't know if it's the super-human strength or what, but people (save for Chas and J) always call me when they move. At this point I've become a pro and could open a moving business. We helped some of our new friends move here recently and I figured out enough different ways to do this that they finally said "So...um...how many people have you moved? The people that installed this said it wouldn't come down the stairs unless we took it apart." These people lie. There is an easy way and a hard way to move shit. Don't ever plan on it being easy. Also, the first rule of moving, is never ever take stuff apart. You will inevitably lost important parts that you will need to put it back together and your end table that you liked so much will be waiting on one special screw to hold it together until you take it to Good Will. Trust me on this one.

Dog Pens - With Tumbler coming just a couple weeks out now (14 days to be exact) my brother-in-law helped me start a dog pen. Short of some dirt and mulch that needs to be added this project should be completed this weekend. Moving the railroad ties and dirt around wasn't so bad...and it looks pretty good. Then comes the moving of the dog house. This thing is heavy...really heavy. I'll be suprised if it doesn't take four of us to move it, but I'll let you know how it goes, and send pictures when all is done.

So that is whats in store for our weekend. I'm sure the wife has a shopping excursion or two in the works while I'm working on the yard and the projects, but should be a successful weekend if all goes well. I hope everyone else's weekend goes well too.

Spider-man 3

2007-05-08T11:04:00.000-04:00

Believe it or not, the hype surrounding this movie got me really uninterested. I had almost forgotten that it came out. Were it not for my lovely wife, we might have missed it. I guess I would have caught it eventually but early last week she said "Have you gotten tickets to see Spider-man 3 yet?" It dawned on me that I had not...and I loved the other two so missing this one was not an option. The reason I'm getting burned out on these is because of the actors in them. Short of James Franco, they all whine about having to be in them. Tobey especially. He whined about not wanting to do the second one because the stunts hurt his back and he didn't want to hang upside down and make out with Kirsten Dunst. Bitch. Seriously, if someone from Sony Pictures reads this, I will do Spider-man 4 for free. I'll do whatever stunts that need to be done, regardless of the risk of personal injury, and make out with whatever leading lady you throw at me. All for the bargain basement price of nothing. Just hook me up with a nutritionist and a personal trainer for a few months to make sure I do the suit justice, and I'm in. God, I hope someone from Sony Pictures reads this.

At any rate, I liked the movie pretty well. The second one was a little more action packed, and this one was a little more character driven. It felt longer than it was, which to me means they tried too hard, or something didn't come together in time and they put it out anyway...or it could just be bad editing. The venom and Sandman characters were pretty cool, but they tried to make you have sympathy for the bad guys, and of course Spider-man was struggling with his own demons so he was a bad guy at times. The dumbest part of the movie was when he was dancing down the street. He might have actually been a worse dancer than me, but maybe that's the point...since he is supposed to be a science dork. I liked it, but I'd probably give it a matinée rating instead of the $8.50 that admission was. The fight scenes, though few and far between are pretty cool, and though it's heavy with CGI, you don't really get that feel. At least I didn't. My wife doesn't like comic book movies near as much as I do, but she liked 300 and I think she liked this one. It's probably one she'd watch with me as a rental, but if I hadn't drug her to the theater she wouldn't have gone on her own. I give the movie three out of five stars...maybe three and a half with the others being an easy four stars.

Up next is Pirates...I can't wait...because the day after Pirates, we go get Tumbler. Seventeen days and counting yo!

A Short Story by Mike

2007-05-02T17:28:00.000-04:00

The following is a short story by Mike that he felt very passionate about so I told him I would be happy to publish it on my blog. And here you go...

This is the story of The stupidest creation ever.

Once upon a time, probably in Milan, there was a fashion designer. This woman of little creativity looked upon the world with the utmost disdain. For while she saw people wearing pants, that was not good enough. And while she saw people wearing shorts, that too did not satisfy her. Even the dresses and skirts could not satiate her need to improve. "Those pants," she thought, "They are too long. And those shorts, well, they are too short. What am I to do?" And then, while gazing ponderously at a pair of pants that so graciously covered a womans ankles, the most amazing idea she had ever had in her small life popped into her head. "What if I took a perfectly normal pair of pants, some that actually fit properly, and made them too short? EUREKA!"

This legend of innovation toiled long and hard at her desk for years. "Its all a problem of length, I know it! But how long?" The solution continued to elude her. Almost to the ankles? no no no. Silliness. How about the knee? Far too short. Finally her tedious work and research paid off. "The middle of the calf! OF COURSE! GENIUS!" When her prototype was complete, she called up a close friend, the most gorgeous fashion model in all the land, to try them out. "But these aren't long enough for me? They don't fit,"she exclaimed. "Au contraire, they do. You will see the beauty of my innovation this month when I throw the grandest runway exhibition in THE WORLD!"

A month later, at the fashion expo, the young model would again try on the amazing pants, and began to realize that she liked them. the other models looked at her with disdain, and made disparaging remarks, but she simply smirked at them, explaiming that no, she did not look stupid, she looked chic, and that before long, they would all be wearing them on Sex and the City. They laughed at her blatant ignorance and shrugged her off. The poor young model wasn't sure anymore. Were they cool? Or were they quite possibly the most idiotic things to ever grace her legs? Her friend wouldn't have lied to her would she? She wouldn't have convinced her to wear them just because they were "new" would she? After some vicodin and blow, she calmed herself enough to go out on the runway. Her confidence restored, she whispered to herself, "Well, i'll just show them. I can't wait for them to see how i'm the cool hip one, on the cutting edge of fashion, and they are behind the curve." As she strutted out on the runway, shaking her hips to the cheesy german techno music, she was met with gasps. "Oh my" and "look at those pants" could be heard all over the room. The model thought to herself, "HA, I WAS RIGHT, THEY ARE COOL." As she reached the end of the runway, she stopped and waited for one of the men on the end to gaze at her in envy. "How do you like them?" she asked? "You look like a fucking retard," was met with uproarious laughter by the other men in the room. The woman, however, could not understand this response. They were baffled "What do you mean?" They all thought. "She looks fabulous." The men continued their derision while the women stared at the amazing pants. "I must have them, and I will pay anything to get them. They are different."

And this is the story of why women refuse to buy pants that fit and men continue to ridicule them for it. Fuck you and your capri pants, girls think they look cute in them. Guys know they are mistaken. No girl looks cute in them. Ever. For the sake of all that is holy, JUST. STOP. WEARING. THEM.

Monday...er Tuesday Movie Reviews

2007-05-01T11:15:00.000-04:00

Meant to do this yesterday but I forgot. Yesterday was a little busy and today looks no different. Over the weekend as usual we had time to catch a couple of movies...and they ruled.

DeJa Vu - Bitchin. I like pretty much anything Denzel is in and this movie was no different. It is one of those movies that is better as a rental so you can watch it twice. You miss stuff the first time around, and the second time around it makes more sense. In short, the movie is about an ATF agent (Denzel) trying to solve a crime that you see just after the opening credits. Val Kilmer the FBI guy gives him a chance to work with them and their unique system they have of solving crimes. There is some time travel (or bending) in this one so it's not realistic but it's pretty damn cool. I give it four out of five stars for good action, good humor, and of course Denzel. Also stars Jim Cavizel playing a villan far from his role as Jesus. Well worth a watch. I might even buy this one...it's pretty good. Just make sure you're awake and paying attention.

The Rocketeer - What? Yeah...I watched it while the wife was studying on Sunday because I hadn't seen it in a while. Good flic. Also learned that this was supposed to be Disney's attempt at an Indiana Jones type franchise. They had three scripts ready to go, but the first one tanked at the box office so the others were scrapped. A shame really. It's the perfect Disney type fantasy movie and had Jennifer Connoley in it. It has everything, hot babe, unrealistic hero, unlikely jet pack, nazi's that scream only in German, and the mad scientist guy. What more can you really want? I know...Jennifer Connoley naked...but it's a Disney movie.

The month of May is always famous for movies that kick ass. This year looks no different. We've got Spider-man 3 this weekend and Pirates the same weekend that Tumbler comes home...and the Heroes Season Finale is this month. If you're not watching Heroes, I feel for you. It really is THE BEST show on television.

Things we Don't Need...

2007-04-20T11:24:00.000-04:00

Randomly I've been thinking about things that as a society we don't have a need for. So I made a list, to see if anyone shares it with me. I got seven comments on my last blog which is a 2007 Record...might even be an all time record. So lets see if I can peak everyones interest yet again.

Mobile Pet Grooming - Can you believe this? People are too lazy to take their poodle to get groomed so they have someone come to their house? I pass a van pretty regularly on the way to work that makes 14 trips a day between Atlanta and Nashville for his mobile pet grooming. I asked him about this at a gas station one day when we were tanking up and he said business was booming and is as good as it has ever been. Seriously? Wow. People pay for this to the point that he drives close to four hours between appointments. The real kicker is, it's not just him. There are several in their fleet that travel. This is some extreme gayness.

American Express Cards - I think AmEx might be my least favorite vendor of anything. They do have good commercials now, but their fees are higher, and they're a huge pain in the ass. I would have to say that they as a card company are useless to businesses and consumers.

Reality TV - American Idol, Big Brother, Survivor, The Bachelor all of it. Useless. I hate these shows and I can't believe they're still around. I remember in college when the first Survivor came out one of my teachers said this wouldn't last long and all this reality TV crap would be over soon. Oh how I wish he was right. Unfortunately, we're stuck with it for a while.

McDonalds - This should go for all fast food, but I just picked McDonalds because everyone knows what it is. Sure, it's easy but this is probably the most unhealthy food on the planet. I think in a nation where almost everyone is battling weight problems, we don't need this. Which brings me to my next point...

Fake weight loss drugs - Realistically there are tons of these out there. Of course all of them fall back on the fact that their statements are not evalutated by the Food and Drug Administration so you can't sue. But if you read the bottle, the claims they make to get you to buy these things can easily be disproven...and they know this. There is no pill that will make you lose weight fast, and the perfect body takes more than five easy payments of 19.95.

That's all I can think of for now. I hope everyone has a good weekend.

What your Drink Says...

2007-04-16T14:26:00.001-04:00

I've actually been working on this post for a long time. Finally today I ran across it and asked Mike if he'd help me get through it because I'd hit a creative wall on it. So over the course of the afternoon, Mike and I exchanged e-mails and made you a list of what your drink says about you when you're out drinking.

Amaretto Sours – For girls this means you like the taste of Jolly Ranchers but don’t actually like to drink. Chances are you’re out to meet a guy, or your friends told you this was the thing to drink. If you're a guy drinking this, you are clearly an inexperienced drinker and don't actually know what to drink. Having this in hand out in public could lead to some intense humiliation from everyone in the bar. You'd better go ask your friends what they're drinking and order something similar. If they're all drinking amaretto sours, you might be hanging with the wrong crowd, or you could be in a gay bar. This begs the question, “Why aren’t you drinking rum or whiskey?”

Margarita – This can say a lot of things about you actually. The Margarita is one that borders on fru fru girly drink, but is somehow still semi-manly. For girls it can say that you just really want to get stupid drunk and remove all your clothes, or that you just like the taste of sweet and sour mix because as a bartender I’ve seen girls order virgin margaritas. As disgusting as that sounds, I’ve served them both frozen and on the rocks. For guys it can mean you’re enjoying some good Mexican food, or that you like something sweet and salty to cover up the taste of your liquor. For guys it’s almost mandatory to have a top shelf or a shot of tequila on the side. You should still be drinking rum or whiskey.

Vodka and Soda – Also sometimes referred to as “The Highball,” it is deliciously refreshing, particularly with a slice of lime. While a nice top-shelf is recommended, even some house vodka is perfectly acceptable with such a simple cocktail. This drink may not contain whiskey, but I suppose if it was good enough to support an entire economy for the commies, it’ll do in a pinch.

Rum and Coke (coke optional) – Nothing wrong with downing the Captain in mass quantities. Rum by itself says you’re a pirate of some sort, or you wish you were. While, not as popular as whiskey, this is just as manly of a way to get drunk as there is. Cause everyone’s more fun with a little Captain in em.

Whiskey and coke (coke again optional) – Old reliable. If you’re a guy and not a cheap drunk, whiskey in any of its forms will let people know that you’re serious about your liquor, but yet you don’t mind getting drunk and belligerent with the best of them.

Domestic Beer – While not whiskey, beer is also occasionally good. There are a variety of beers made in good ol USA, so we’ll just hit the hi-lights here.

Natural Light – Are you wearing a wife beater with that? No? Oh, you’re a college kid just drinking to get drunk because it’s cheap? Enjoy that headache in the morning.

PBR – If you have to ask what this stands for, you don’t want to know. Also good for fertilizing lawns and soaking wood chips later used for smoking ribs. This says your taste buds are numb, or see the above comments. This beer was, amusingly enough, considered tres chique in New York for a while. Walking into the new “hip place” and seeing swanky Manhatteners paying out the ass for a can of Pabst could quite possibly be the most surreal experience of my life.

Milwaukee’s Best – also known as the beast. If you have to ask why, don’t drink this beer. In fact, just don’t drink it at all.

Budweiser – The King of Beers actually tastes like ass so if you drink this, it either means you’re a hard core Dale Jr. fan, or you just like the taste of ass.

Bud Light – Tastes like water. In college I had friends that drank it because it didn’t actually taste like beer. They have all grown into the pussies we all knew they could be.

Miller Lite – the Light Beer drinker’s beer. Probably the best tasting of any light beer on the market. This shows you have taste, and can drink beer that tastes what beer is supposed to taste like. I hear it’s less filling too…but that could just be the marketing talking.

Imports – These can say a lot of things. My wife always accuses me of being a beer snob because I always try a different import and walk by most of the domestics. I’ll hi-light a few of the imports for you…

Grolsch – this likely means your taste buds were numbed at an early age. If you can make it through one of these without puking or throwing it on the lawn, my hat is off to you.

Corona – aahh Corona. Yes, it’s an acquired tasted, and yes it’s good with Mexican food. It’s good with or without a lime. If you don’t like Corona, your favorite beer is probably bud light. And odds are I hate you.

Warsteiner – a premium beer brought to you by the fine folks of Germany. They actually have a law to ensure that the only products used in their beer are barley, yeast, and hopps. That is a people dedicated to their ale. Oddly, this is one of the most highly sold and distributed beers in the US. I read that somewhere. It’s a little stouter than your standard light beer, but it’s still a good smooth beer. Since it’s rarely ever advertised, I’d have to say this means you’re not a mainstream person and can enjoy something regardless of what your friends think.

Boddingtons – if you haven’t heard of this it likely means you drink Budweiser or Bud Light. It’s an English Pub Ale and it’s very thick and very smooth. It’s probably an old persons beer, but it’s likely the beer that distinguished people drink. You know…beer snobs like me. I believe they are called “Sommaliers.”…or some shit like that.

Guinness – the true king of beers. There is nothing finer than a nice cold Guinness. You can’t see through it, and it’s a lot like drinking a loaf of bread. Not liking this beer makes you have no taste in good beer, and likely means you suck. Enjoying this beer means you have class, high social standing, and definitely means you don’t suck. I hear in Ireland it even tastes a bit like chocolate milk. If you’re really manly, add a shot of Bailey’s and Irish Whiskey and you’ve got yourself an Irish Car Bomb. You really want to impress people? Try to stand up after one or two of those.

So there you have it…the definitive guide of what may, and more importantly, what may not, be consumed at your local watering hole. Sure, you can drink some of that swill if you want, but all the women will think less of you. If you really and truly want to be the man that you think you are, you only really have one option. And that is the boiler-maker. Nothing says what a badass motherfucker you are than a shot of whiskey with a beer to chase it. I challenge anyone to find something more masculine and full of badd-assery than a Clint Eastwood western where he walks into the bar and orders whiskey. If you possess an ounce of testosterone, it is what you do. You do it because you MUST do it.

Extreme Lameness

2007-04-12T17:14:00.000-04:00

I was reading Maxim Online this week and they had a slideshow about extreme sports. Some of them, I didn't know were sports. I found these to be extremely lame (as did Maxim) and I think if I ever see someone partaking in them, I'm going to whip their ass.

Snow Biking - I'd like to say this takes a genius to figure out, but really it just takes someone that needs their ass whipped. I can't imagine why someone would want to combine biking and skiing, but what do I know?

Razor Scootering - I didn't consider this anything but extremely dumb, but kids like it I guess. I had a larger scooter when I was in elementary school, but again I wasn't as old as this guy. Also picture the towel heads near where I work ride them every day. I don't mean towel heads as derogatory in this sense...I mean they're literally getting around on motorized scooters like this one...and they're wearing turbans. Usually bright colors like orange and purple. It's like watching fruits go by. Sometimes they have their kids with them, sometimes they don't.

Extreme Walking - Homos. Seriously, you want extreme walking, go take a few laps around the mall with my mom or my grandmother. If you can make it two laps without passing out my hat is off to you. That is extreme walking. If I ever see someone on a half pipe, park bench, or sidewalk and they're doing this shit...they will most likely get their ass whipped. If they can't figure out why...I'm sure Mike will whip their ass again for good measure.

Monday Movie Reviews

2007-04-09T09:41:00.000-04:00

I know it's been a while since I've done this one, but I did get to watch a couple of movies this week so I'm a happy guy.

The Reaping - Who doesn't like a movie about biblical plagues? If you think about how many crappy movies there are out there, I can't imagine why more people haven't consulted the Bible for some good stories. Some of those I envisioned as a child were all really good stories, and could make really good screen adaptations. I know not all of them would sell tickets, but they're all good stories. Anyway, the Reaping is a story about a small town in Louisiana that calls on Hillary Swank from LSU. I actually did boo LSU when someone in the theater said Go Tigers. Anyway... This small town that tries to keep itself out of the lime light wants to keep this as quiet as possible. Enter Hillary Swank. An ordained minister that no longer believes in God because she lost her family on a mission trip to Africa or somewhere else. So her job is basically disproving what all these people think are miracles of the Lord. Enter the small town of Haven who have waters that have all turned red and undrinkable. They think it's biblical plagues, Swank thinks it's something else so she spends the movie trying to find a scientific explanation for all of them. The way they do it is pretty cool, and if it happened present day I can say that I'd see it that way. The director also liked Hillary Swanks fine ass as much as I did because there were a ton of close-ups, leg shots, you name it. I have to say she's pretty hot in this one. Her divorce must have done her some good because she seems to be at the height of her game. Good for her, I'm sure it's a long time coming. If you're in to biblical plagues, the wrath of God, and Hillary Swank in her hottest form this movie is for you. I liked it right up until the last 30 seconds or so. They tried to leave it wide open for a sequel but I think they could have done it a lot different and still made that happen. I had already envisioned what should happen and they screwed it up. Maybe that's why I didn't like it. Who knows? Either way, two thumbs up on this one.

The Moonlight Mile - Suprisingly this could be classified as a chic flic, and I like it. It stars Jake Gyllenhaal (who I'm still mad about over brokeback mountain) and Ellen Pompeo. I'll watch just about anything she's in...because she's hot. Want proof?

I rest my case. Anyway. The movie is about Jake G. and his fiances family. His fiance died three days before the movie takes place so it opens with her funeral. Jake is living with his would-be inlaws and is supposed to go in to business with his father-in-law. The wedding invitations were set to go out so he has to go to the post office to get them. Enter Ellen Pompeo. The hot single girl at the post office that owns the local bar. Did I mention she was hot? Anyway, the movie is about both of their struggles and him living with his dead girlfriends family. I can't say a lot without telling you what happens, or outlining the movie in a five page blog. It's hard enough to get people to read these days without boring them to sleep. To be a movie that is as depressing as this one sounds, and to have this many big names in it (Susan Sarandon, Dustin Hoffman, and Dabney Coleman also star) we'd never heard of it. My hot wife rented it because it had her girl from Grey's Anatomy in it. I realistically only watched it for that reason, but enjoyed it. It's a good movie for when you're sitting at home in the cold and don't feel like a comedy but don't feel like being depressed but some stupid Hugh Grant movie that eats away at your soul.

That's it for Monday. I hope everyone else had a Happy Easter, and a good weekend.

Lost and Found

2007-04-02T19:15:00.000-04:00

Well, I called the gym today and they officially canceled my membership. Considering the runaround they gave Mike and Tiffany, I was certain this would be an ongoing saga. So, with the internet down at work all day today, I worked on cleaning up the store and thinking. Not too many people today but a lot of phone calls so plenty of time to think. My homey Chris in Iowa got me thinking over the weekend about this Crossfit stuff and I've been reading their website and watching videos like who would have thought it. So I decided today would be the day I started. No more fooling around, or waiting until something else rolls around...today was it. And it was. The workout was hard...

100 Pull-ups
100 Push-ups
100 Sit-ups
100 Squats

So I cut it in half. There is no way I'd be able to get out of bed tomorrow after doing 100 of all those things in the basement (yes, strangely the house we bought came with a pullup bar), much less get up the stairs. I just finished and am drinking a protein shake with my head pounding so hard I think it might explode. I can honestly say that even at half of that it was the hardest workout I've ever done. So, hopefully in addition to all the enlightenment I bring you on this blog, I'll be able to transform before your eyes from a fat tub of shit to the fit killing machine I was in college. Here is to a good Monday friends.

Finding Motivation

2007-03-30T08:41:00.000-04:00

I had an entire finding motivation post drawn up the other day, but I canned it because today I was faced with a new obstacle. I know that part of finding the motivation to do anything is overcoming various obstacles. Some times it is easier to stay in bed than it is to go work out, or be productive, or cut grass. Watching 300 was great motivation to work out. I started reading The Book of Arnold again, finding new workouts, all new ways to get sore, and I was on a role. I was getting more done at work, making headway on lots of things, and even started changing the layout of the store a little. I even started getting more motivated about my lawn. Well, I called Scotts and a local company to see if they could make it greener and actually have more grass than weeds. I was feeling pretty pumped. So I get up early because today is trash day, gather up all the trash, make a lunch, pack a protein shake, large jug of water, and a change of clothes. I arrive at the gym after tons of traffic delays still trying to stay pumped. I've even got some vintage Prodigy in the MP3 player (no, I'm not trendy enough to have an iPod). The gym is closed. Not because I'm early mind you. They are closed down. With a note that says I can still use their facility on the other side of town. Nice. Now I have a lot to overcome. A new facility, and a contract cancellation. Seriously, as if finding motivation to not be an overweight tub of shit wasn't hard enough now I probably have to fight with these assholes about why I should be allowed to cancel or something. Since everyone still reads this blog (I'm down to two hits a day I think with one of them being me) I'll keep you all updated.

I guess that's it for now. Not much happening this weekend save for hanging some drywall at the rumrunners house. I guess I really am getting old because home improvement projects are really starting to interest me. So far a fence is up and deck plans have been drawn out. Hopefully by the end of the season I'll have almost as bitchin of a lawn as my neighbor has and a killer deck to smoke lots and lots of ribs on. So if you're in the neighborhood stop by.

Your Prius sucks...

2007-03-23T12:22:00.001-04:00

And here is why...

"Prius Outdoes Hummer in Environmental Damage
By Chris Demorro
Staff Writer

The Toyota Prius has become the flagship car for those in our society so environmentally conscious that they are willing to spend a premium to show the world how much they care. Unfortunately for them, their ultimate ‘green car’ is the source of some of the worst pollution in North America; it takes more combined energy per Prius to produce than a Hummer.
Before we delve into the seedy underworld of hybrids, you must first understand how a hybrid works. For this, we will use the most popular hybrid on the market, the Toyota Prius.

The Prius is powered by not one, but two engines: a standard 76 horsepower, 1.5-liter gas engine found in most cars today and a battery- powered engine that deals out 67 horsepower and a whooping 295ft/lbs of torque, below 2000 revolutions per minute. Essentially, the Toyota Synergy Drive system, as it is so called, propels the car from a dead stop to up to 30mph. This is where the largest percent of gas is consumed. As any physics major can tell you, it takes more energy to get an object moving than to keep it moving. The battery is recharged through the braking system, as well as when the gasoline engine takes over anywhere north of 30mph. It seems like a great energy efficient and environmentally sound car, right?

You would be right if you went by the old government EPA estimates, which netted the Prius an incredible 60 miles per gallon in the city and 51 miles per gallon on the highway. Unfortunately for Toyota, the government realized how unrealistic their EPA tests were, which consisted of highway speeds limited to 55mph and acceleration of only 3.3 mph per second. The new tests which affect all 2008 models give a much more realistic rating with highway speeds of 80mph and acceleration of 8mph per second. This has dropped the Prius’s EPA down by 25 percent to an average of 45mpg. This now puts the Toyota within spitting distance of cars like the Chevy Aveo, which costs less then half what the Prius costs.

However, if that was the only issue with the Prius, I wouldn’t be writing this article. It gets much worse.

Building a Toyota Prius causes more environmental damage than a Hummer that is on the road for three times longer than a Prius. As already noted, the Prius is partly driven by a battery which contains nickel. The nickel is mined and smelted at a plant in Sudbury, Ontario. This plant has caused so much environmental damage to the surrounding environment that NASA has used the ‘dead zone’ around the plant to test moon rovers. The area around the plant is devoid of any life for miles.

The plant is the source of all the nickel found in a Prius’ battery and Toyota purchases 1,000 tons annually. Dubbed the Superstack, the plague-factory has spread sulfur dioxide across northern Ontario, becoming every environmentalist’s nightmare.

“The acid rain around Sudbury was so bad it destroyed all the plants and the soil slid down off the hillside,” said Canadian Greenpeace energy-coordinator David Martin during an interview with Mail, a British-based newspaper.

All of this would be bad enough in and of itself; however, the journey to make a hybrid doesn’t end there. The nickel produced by this disastrous plant is shipped via massive container ship to the largest nickel refinery in Europe. From there, the nickel hops over to China to produce ‘nickel foam.’ From there, it goes to Japan. Finally, the completed batteries are shipped to the United States, finalizing the around-the-world trip required to produce a single Prius battery. Are these not sounding less and less like environmentally sound cars and more like a farce?

Wait, I haven’t even got to the best part yet.

When you pool together all the combined energy it takes to drive and build a Toyota Prius, the flagship car of energy fanatics, it takes almost 50 percent more energy than a Hummer - the Prius’s arch nemesis.

Through a study by CNW Marketing called “Dust to Dust,” the total combined energy is taken from all the electrical, fuel, transportation, materials (metal, plastic, etc) and hundreds of other factors over the expected lifetime of a vehicle. The Prius costs an average of $3.25 per mile driven over a lifetime of 100,000 miles - the expected lifespan of the Hybrid.

The Hummer, on the other hand, costs a more fiscal $1.95 per mile to put on the road over an expected lifetime of 300,000 miles. That means the Hummer will last three times longer than a Prius and use less combined energy doing it.

So, if you are really an environmentalist - ditch the Prius. Instead, buy one of the most economical cars available - a Toyota Scion xB. The Scion only costs a paltry $0.48 per mile to put on the road. If you are not gay and don't want a Scion xB, a new Dodge Charger will only run you $1.97 per mile for 300,000 miles and it can almost satisfy that heavy foot that we all have.

One last fun fact for you: it takes five years to offset the premium price of a Prius. Meaning, you have to wait 60 months to save any money over a non-hybrid car because of lower gas expenses."

So, Fridays lesson: TOYOTA IS THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL AND IS TRYING TO DESTROY THE WORLD. That is all. You may now return to your regularly scheduled broadcasts.

Damn Straight I'm Scraight yo!

2007-03-22T15:35:00.000-04:00

I've been really struggling to find motivation to work out again. The 300 review that no one read was pretty good motivation in and of itself but I don't need to tell you to go see it, because obviously everyone has seen it. Anyway. I changed the store hours late this semester so I could work out in the mornings and not have to go by at night when the gym suddenly turns in to a social club. The mornings are pretty quiet, a few regulars, none of us really speak. I've noticed this week this one black girl, maybe in her early 30's has been caught dancing on the treadmill, across the floor, in front of the free weights, wherever. It's funny, but no one says anything. That is until Papa Bear...a very very large black guy was working out yesterday. Papa Bear is the first member to speak to me since the addition of my MP3 player (bought specifically so people won't talk to me) so I pull out an ear piece and say hello. Most people just knod their heads, Papa Bear speaks. Fine. He obviously trains hard so I don't have to worry about him trying to make a lasting friendship in the middle of my workout. However, speaking in the locker room is still prohibited. So I got back to it as did Papa Bear. A few minutes later the dancing queen walks over and as usual I chuckle about it and go on. Then it gets dark around me. Because Papa Bear came over to say something. I pull out the ear phone and he's pointing at Dancing Queen laughing. "Biatch gettin down ain't she?" I laugh uncontrollably. I can't believe he just said that. She stops, looks at us, and walks over. "Supwitchall?" she asks. Her and Papa Bear must have been friends because he said "I's just aksin da man whatchu be doin gettin down like a biatch up in dis place fo." She says something as she's laughing and I say "Yeah, I guess I need whatever is in your MP3 player instead of what I have." So they ask "Whut da hell you be listenin to den?" So I let them listen. It's a mix of some 50 Cent, Kenny Wayne Shepard, Disturbed, Rob Zombie, Aerosmith, DMX, and a few other various artists. They flip through a minute, give each other an approving look and go "Damn nigga. You Scraight. You aiit." Then Papa Bear goes back to working out, and Dancing Queen of course dances off. So apparently, I'm not so bad. Now if I could only find the motivation to lose a few or 50 pounds I'd be in good shape.

The coolest thing ever.

2007-03-21T10:44:00.001-04:00

I want one...

RumRunners Vs. Flay

2007-03-15T15:01:00.000-04:00

Yeah, you read that right. I watched Throwdown with Bobby Flay the other night again. He's starting to warm up to me actually as he does make some pretty good food. I noticed in all the episodes that I've seen, he NEVER wins. Okay, seriously...how in the hell does a professional chef like Flay lose to a backwoods cook? He doesn't. This is clearly punishment from the higher ups at Food Network for being an asshole, but honestly I have to side with Flay on this one. So...

VS.

I officially dared Flay to bring his bad self down to the RumRunners lair and take us on. The FireFighter and The Human Torch vs. The Lean Mean Grilling Machine. We figured if these backwoods idiots and their meatloaf can beat Flay, we'll own him. We might even go as far as to challenge him on Iron Chef, but I have a feeling that they'd call the amount of Captain that we use in our food would be an unfair advantage. Either way, the Throwdown challenge has been issued and Flay has a decision to make. Accept the RumRunners Challenge, or accept the ridicule that will surely follow.

Monday Movie Reviews

2007-03-12T10:16:00.000-04:00

Happy Monday morning friends! Actually, this particular Monday sucks because Heroes doesn't return until April 23rd. Sorry for the break, I was on Spring Break last week so I built a fence and helped all in a basement for my neighbor. I was plagued with allergies like never before, but I did manage to get a lot done. Chain link fencing, while not the most attractive fencing on the planet, is easy. It took me and my Dad with various other friends helping out about three days to get it done and we did almost 200 feet of fencing with three gates. Not bad for a couple of non-professionals right? If you're in the area and you need fencing, give me a call. I'm all over it. So, on to Mondays Movie Reviews...

The Prestige - Not bad. When it came out in theaters, my hot wife and I and the RumRunners kept trying really hard to see it. Somehow we never made it. Then we decided we'd rent it and watch it when it came out. It's been out for a month now and we finally got to watch it last night. I wasn't near as impressed as I thought I would be. It was a good movie, and I really can't tell you much about it without giving it away. I think it could have been better, but it was enjoyable to say the least. Worth a rental, but now I'm glad I didn't pay $8.50 to see it on the big screen. Christian Bale might be one of the best actors in Hollywood, if not the best. I mean, he is after all Batman. Hugh Jackman, and the smoking hot Scarlett Johansson co-star. Again, well worth a rental as it isn't bad, but not really what I was expecting.

300 -

Yes. It was everything I thought it would be and then some. Go see this one, right now. Don't even read this review, just see it. This might be the best movie ever made. As the matter of fact, I can't wait for Frank Millers special edition DVD set to be in my collection. With any luck I'll see this one three or four times in the theaters. If you don't know (I feel sorry for you) but this is loosely based on the Battle of Thermopylae. Frank Miller was inspired by the 1962 movie The 300 Spartans. Miller and Director Zack Snyder changed part of the fighting styles and apparel for the Spartans to make it look better on film and make for a better movie. So, it's not a real historical epic, but it's damn good. King Leonidas (masterfully portrayed by Gerard Butler) and Sparta's 300 best soldiers journey to the coast to fend off the Persian Empire. I won't tell you the story in case you don't know, but damn this movie is good. Full of Action and Eye Candy for everyone in a style that only Frank Miller can deliver.

Co-stars the insane hotness that is Lena Heady as Queen Gorgo, Dominic West as the bad guy that you really want to see die in a horrible way, and a plethera of other actors, all fantastic in their roles. I like this movie better than I liked the Matrix. It was that good. My hot wife was drug along for this one because I didn't think she should miss it, and even she enjoyed it as well she should have.

That's it for Mondays movie reviews. No Heroes tonight, but it's a good time to go see 300 right? Yes...go see it.

Blogger Poll Ultimate Pay Per View

2007-03-01T14:13:00.000-05:00

Well, todays blog is pretty self explanatory. My Rum Running homey and his friends were debating this so I tought I'd post a poll to help them out.

Which Superhero are you?

2007-02-28T12:45:00.000-05:00

Your results:
You are Iron Man

Iron Man		85%
The Flash		80%
Superman		65%
Spider-Man		60%
Robin		55%
Green Lantern		55%
Catwoman		55%
Supergirl		45%
Wonder Woman		40%
Hulk		40%
Batman		30%

Inventor. Businessman. Genius.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test

At long last...

2007-02-27T10:13:00.000-05:00

The Dog house is finished. This was a pretty decent sized project. The directions were made for an experienced carpenter, not someone like myself. I like wood-working projects, and I like working with my hands, but I don't know that I'm very good at them. Big thanks to the assist from Dad on the roofing and siding, and big thanks to his friend...the other member of the Cardiac Carpenter Team for the donation of the siding.

If you're interested the house is built with 2X2 frames, boxed in with plywood and insulated with inch and a half house grade insulation. It's made to be able to put five inches of cedar chips in the bottom. I had to upgrade the size of the house because the one that would fit the dog we're getting has a weight limit of 100lbs. With any luck Tumbler will weigh 150lbs when he's full grown. The roof is roofed just like a regular house complete with shingles. I'm hoping this house will last the life of three or four dogs. If the pictures don't show you, we painted it navy blue and silver, we just like those colors and that's just how we roll.

A call to the dog breeder last night told us that puppies are due on March 13th. That should put a dog at our house (if we like these) the weekend after my birthday. Whoo hoo! We're pretty excited about it. If we end up not liking those guys, he's got six other pregnant females we can chose from. But the female on this one is the color we like so we will see. At any rate, lots to get done today so everyone enjoy your Tuesday. Heroes was badass last night as per the usual and I can't wait until next week.

Monday Movie Reviews

2007-02-26T09:43:00.000-05:00

So did everyone watch the Oscars? I hope so. We did, but I think this was a sad year for critically acclaimed movies. I almost never agree with critics and still maintain that new award categories should be Best Actress in a Topless Scene, Best High Speed Car Chase, Best Explosion, and Best Action Flic. That's just me. I think considering it's competition, The Departed was a good pick for Best Picture. This Mondays Movie Reviews will be a rundown of the two other Best Picture Nominees we watched this weekend.

Babel - Not a horrible movie, but not great. To me it seemed like the writers saw Crash and said "We can do that. Only let's spread it out further." I think last night the director said it was supposed to be about how communication is lost over different cultures. To say the least he didn't really communicate that message to me. From the deaf volleyball girls in Tokyo that get messed up on Ecstacy, to the kids in Morroco firing an M70 at Jackals to protect their goats, I was lost. It really is pretty similar to Crash without the racism, and of course spread out over the globe. I wasn't as violently opposed to it as some of our friends that watched it with us were, but I wouldn't call this the best movie I've seen this year. I think X-3 should have gotten an Oscar Nod before this one did...but that goes back to me and my awards. Anyway, not sure what to tell you on this one. It's two and a half hours of your life and one naked Japanese girl (that trust me you can live without seeing) on the table with this one. I probably won't ever watch it again, but that's me.

Little Miss Sunshine - I don't know how honest my review is since I slept through part of it. Hey, it was a long day in the basement finishing the dog house, and the wine and bitchin home made Ravioli my hot wife made started to take it's toll. That and the movie wasn't very interesting. At an hour and 40 minutes it couldn't keep my attention. Not sure why, but it was slow. From Alan Arkin doing blow to the Little Miss Sunshine pageant I just wasn't in to it. For guys, watching that beauty pageant can make you feel dirty. Seeing 10 year old girls in bikini's getting spray on tan from their cracked out moms can make you sick. It did have funny moments, some where throw backs I think to Chevy Chase in National Lampoons Vacation but that's just me. Steve Carell is pretty funny, but is way out of his normal character. The movie had it's moments but one of our friends hated this one more than he hated Babel. It's not a movie I'll likely ever watch again, but it had it's moments.

Pretty busy weekend. I'm helping the RumRunners with a few home projects and I'm finally finished with the dog house. I'll hopefully get some pictures and post them tonight. Wow...I might actually blog twice this week.

What is Lent?

2007-02-22T20:46:00.000-05:00

Well, it's that time of year again. Lent. But what is Lent? What does it all mean?

My sister has recently become a youth leader at her church so she's shaping and molding young minds. I love my sister to death but I never figured that she'd be a youth leader. I always figured I would be the one that ended up in that role. Not that she's incapable of leadership, but she doesn't like kids. Maybe she's changed in recent years, but anyway. She was at a church service this week and one of the younger kids sat down at a table with her and one of the church elders and said "What is Lent?" They looked at him and the other lady asked my sister to take it. So she started explaining that Lent was different in different religions and looked at different ways, but in our religion it represents the time Jesus spent in the desert fasting, so giving up something for Lent is really supposed to be a sacrifice. She went on and told him that in college her roommate gave up Cokes and I have a friend that gives up chocolate every year. I usually give my friend a hard time because Jesus gave up food and was tempted by Satan, and he gives up chocolate and is tempted by a Snickers bar. I guess it's a sacrifice none the less. So my sister is thinking to herself what a great job she's doing explaining this to the kid and is just all kinds of tickled about it. She gets done and says "Do you have any other questions?" So he sits for a second and says "Where does the preacher keep the stuff?" Confused they both say "What stuff?" The kid looks at them very seriously and says "All the stuff that everybody gives up. Where do we keep it? What room does it go in? Who keeps the key to it? I want to see all this stuff that everyone gives up." At this point I think my sister passed the torch on this one.

At any rate, if you celebrate Lent or not, remember that in all religions it's a time of sacrifice and reflection. If you do give up something, I hope you make it through. If you don't, I hope you enjoy Lent, Easter, or whatever this time of year means to you. Have a wonderful weekend, and enjoy the Oscars. We'll see you again on Monday for an Oscar run down and the usual Monday movie reviews.

Monday Movie Reviews

2007-02-19T11:25:00.000-05:00

I keep telling myself every day that I'm going to blog about something...anything. The week comes and goes, and we're back to Monday Morning Movie Reviews. Oh well. This week...really, I'll blog more. I know both of you are dying to read my thoughts. On to todays Movie Reviews!

Marie Antoinette - Yeah, I just don't get it. My wife liked it, and since she's been hammered with school work I didn't mind watching it with her. I guess I just didn't get it. It seemed slow, repetitive, and pretty much uninteresting. I could tell you the summary but most of you probably already know her story. I guess it's true. I don't know. For guys if you want to know what Kirsten Dunst looks like naked you won't be too curious once this movie is over. No real nude scenes but she wears a lot of completely see through clothes. Certainly not worth renting the movie for. As far as filmography goes, it wasn't bad. Colors were pretty nice. I guess that is how France would have looked in 1798, but I don't know. The funniest part to me is that they were attacked at the end and of course ran...because that's what the French do. Anyway, skip this one until it comes on TV.

Ghost Rider -

Now this is my kind of movie. Nothing to think about, no horrible story lines, and hot women. It is based on a comic book that is pretty corny in and of itself, and the movie has some dialogue that you listen to and think "Wow...did they really just say that? That was pretty bad." Nicolas Cage is awesome per usual, and Eva Mendes....mmmm....

Yeah, she falls out of her clothes for most of the movie. My mother leaned over more than once to say "I'm sure they made that in her size." Yes Mom, I'm sure they did. But someone like me probably directed it and made sure he was in charge of Eva's Wardrobe....standing behind the camera yelling "CUT! More cleavage in this scene please! Eva...you're gonna have to lose another button on that shirt. I just can't see enough." Anyway, the movie is good, and worth seeing. Sam Elliott has a bit part in it and Peter Fonda plays the Devil. My mom thought it was hilarious because he was the Easy Rider. So I guess it has something for all ages. Pretty sure it just made me want a motorcycle even more. Maybe while it's still in theaters I'll go see it again but that's unlikely. At any rate, it's not X3, but it's better than Superman Returns.

That's it for now. I spent most of the weekend working on the dog house for the dog that won't arrive until May, but it's almost done. I'll have to post pictures of it because it's been quite the undertaking really. Should look good though. New Heroes tonight. Surely everyone is watching by now right?

Monday Movie Reviews

2007-02-12T10:15:00.000-05:00

In between household projects, trips to Lowe's, and of course driving the new car as much as possible, we watched a few movies this weekend. Hopefully I can spare you from watching some of them.

American Pie Presents: Band Camp - Just awful. I can't imagine who sat down and thought this crap up. Essentially Stiffler's younger brother sabotages an end of the year Band Concert and gets sent to Band Camp by The Shermanator...who has somehow become a high school guidance counselor. He decides that while he's at Band Camp he'll start making porno movies of the band geeks having sex so he can sell them as porno movies and work for his older brother. Probably wouldn't be too bad of a premise if they didn't try to go from making a soft porn movie to making a morality play. The guy who plays Stifflers brother is horribly annoying to the point that I don't know how the other actors didn't punch him in the face every time he spoke. The band camp kids are annoying and of course the camp counselors are all former Playboy Playmates. Yeah, because that is what really happens at Band Camp. I would have to say anyone that was in this movie was just desperate for a movie role and the writers were hoping that they could cash in on the success of the last three movies. Typically to do that you have to have the former stars, and Sherman was the least likeable character and one of the worst actors the world has ever seen. I would stay away from Band Camp unless you're just morbidly curious. Even still, don't go in expecting much. The movie is slow going, seems choppy, oh and did I mention it was dumb?

American Pie Presents: The Naked Mile - Actually not bad. I'm not sure why the writers of the American Pie movies decide to play only on the Stiffler family, but they do. This movie is MUCH better than band camp and you don't find yourself hating the lead characters or hating yourself for watching it. I have to say the hot wife and I laughed pretty damn hard during this one. The guys who play Stifflers cousins are pretty good and I think this movie probably would have had some success in the theaters. It's funny, Eugene Levy stars again and maintains the status as the only guy to be in all five American Pie movies. Either way, this movie is hard not to laugh your ass of at from the midget football team to the running of the naked mile. There is still that good wholesome value play on it that is again not needed, but they make it more believable here and it's more like Van Wilder than the previous movie. If you're out for a good hard laugh that you don't have to think about, this is a good one.

That's it for today. I'm trying to make my blogs shorter so more people will read them and comment on them so I'll reserve some more movie reviews for later. New Heroes starts in eight hours and if you're not watching, this is the best reason to look forward to Monday nights that there is. Enjoy the rest of your Monday!

R.I.P. Vickie Lynn Hogan

2007-02-08T16:03:00.000-05:00

Strange Thursday news huh? Sad to hear, but Anna Nicole Smith died this afternoon at a Hostpital in Florida. Cause of death hasn't been reported but this has certainly not been the best year for her and her family with her 20 year old son dying a few weeks ago, and now her newborn baby girl who doesn't really know who her Dad is has to grow up without her mom. Not much else to say really. Not that I'm a huge Anna Nicole fan, but thoughts and prayers certainly go out to her family.

Five Things...

2007-01-31T18:27:00.001-05:00

I'm bored with, tired of, and pissed at. This might become a regular thing here on the blog. There are so many but todays list is short.

1. College Students. Not really all of them, just the ones that you have to wonder who took their entrance exam so that they might go to college. Kids so stupid that when asked "What class are you in?" they smart back with "How the hell am I supposed to know that? Isn't that YOUR job buddy?" Yes, this happened, and yes it was all I could do not to punch someone in the face. The other half of this is buybacks. Kids want to sell books back that they've had since they were Freshman and they are now getting ready to graduate. Yes, editions change every 18 months, and yes it sucks for all of us when they do. Telling me that someone here told you that book would always have value isn't going to make me buy it back. It is going to make me angry...and you're not gonna like me when I'm angry.

2. That stupid Cisco commercial. I swear if someone ever sends me a video file or a V-Cast message of some kid dancing in his kitchen to a dumbass song like that one...I'm going to find you and punch you in the face. That commercial makes me so violent I could punch babies. Not Baby L of course...but it makes me pretty mad.

3. Britney Spears and K-Fed. Yes, I was among every other male that thought she was hot when she first hit the music scene. Now we're tired of her. I don't care that there might be a sex tape out there, or that K-Fed wants 50 billion dollars from her because he's a tool and his rap CD sold two copies. Don't get me wrong, if the sex tape hits the net I'll watch it because I'm sure it will be funny. However, if those two are never on my TV again you'll never hear me complain.

4. This "Tuner" movement. I know I should probably be excited that kids are in to their cars and this tuner crap is what they have available to them. Every dumbass in a Dodge Neon or Honda Accord has decided they can outrun my new car. If not on the road they decide to stop me in a parking lot to tell me that one day they're going to have a turbo kit and have 500HP. When asked "What have you got now?" The response is always a whopping 125HP and a zero to 60 time of about five minutes. I honestly don't give a shit that one day you might scrape enough money together to have five nitrous bottles, a bigger coffee can sticking out the ass end of your car, and some other part that you saw in Fast and the Furious that may or may not exist. If you can't do it right now, there is no need for you to start this conversation or rev your engine, or ask to run for pinks. I eat Seven Series BMW's for breakfast, when you can do that we'll talk. Good for you if you can beat me. I still have a new Dodge Charger. If you can't, don't be suprised if you make me angry enough to choke the life out of you and set your "tuner" car on fire.

5. Hillary Clinton. You know, I think it's great that she's keeping the mullet hair cut in style. I think its great that she might run for President in 2008. Honestly, either way I'm just tired of seeing her on my TV. Telling me on that America does not support it's troops (yes, she said something and I took it that way so don't try to change my mind about it) makes me angry. We all have friends and family serving over seas in some form. Did they decide to start a war so they could leave their loved ones behind? No. They're following orders. I don't care where you stand on the war in Iraq, and I especially don't care where she stands on the war in Iraq or our troops. I'm happy that our troops are our troops and that someone is defending my right to blast that Democtratic Diesel Dike on my blog. I really wish someone would shave that crazy womans head and paint it red so she would be off my TV and I wouldn't have to hear that she's trying to run for President and the opposing parties are trying to block her from running for President. I just want her catfish lips and her mullet off my TV.

That's it for now. Just ranting. Pray for our troops, have a good week.

An Ode to the Jeep of Doom

2007-01-24T23:12:00.000-05:00

Well friends, the time for the Jeep of Doom came this weekend. No, it didn't break down or die. Probably in my life it will be the most reliable car I've owned. As far as cost went I probably didn't spend $2000 on abnormal repairs over our seven year run together. This was the Jeep I got shortly after I started dating my wife, and it's service has been phenominal. Even when I was driving 40 miles a day to work it answered the call plugging away relentlessly mile after mile. Yes friends, the Jeep of Doom has no equal. However, it's no longer in active service. The Jeep now rests behind the house and will only be called upon for trips to Lowe's, Home Depot, and probably on days when we take the dog to the park, or on fun summer days when the day calls for a topless blast to work and back. I'm sure the Jeep appreciates the rest, and knows that it's better for it to live out the rest of its days as back up to the rest of the fleet. I'm sure whenever called upon the Jeep of Doom will rise to the occasion with the same joy and strength it's had for the first 10 years of it's life. Last night the wife and unleashed the freak (that's reference to an ad). Actually, I think we landed a great deal on Raul's transportation for the next six or seven years...

A 2006 Dodge Charger Daytona R/T! My rum running homey has been working as of late but I e-mailed him some pictures to see what he'd think and I get the response - "Does it have a Hemi? Bitchin." Yes, it has a Hemi and it is Bitchin. I've driven it to work three days this week and I'm averaging about 23 Miles Per Gallon which is way better than the 17/18 the Jeep got. Other creature comforts include Sirius Satellite Radio, Cruise Control, heated seats, an auxillary port for the MP3 player and a couple of other goodies. Pretty cool, and it's a lot of fun to drive. We have a neighbor that we've nicknamed Hans because well, we just have. When I say we here I am referring to us and the rumrunners. We've got a couple of good stories about Hans for later, but this morning I was leaving for work and I heard his truck crank up. His truck is kinda loud but not obnoxious or anything. When he leaves something sounded different. He drove down the street and back up and when I looked out the window Hans had pulled up to the driveway and was checking out the new Charger. If Hans and his wife Evil M weren't such snobs a trip around the block or opening it up wouldn't be out of the question, but they are so they get to stare in awe.

At any rate, this is our exciting news this week. To say the least I've been excited, thrilled, and driving to work pretty much rules now.

Fix Or Repair Daily

2007-01-19T10:22:00.000-05:00

Yeah, that seems to be the case as of late. We're not getting the Crossfire. Not because of my fantastic moral support but because the wife didn't like the plan. I guess I don't see myself driving one to work anyway, but it would have been cool for a little while.

I have to share this story mostly because I have to vent. It all started last Friday as you may have read. Saturday when we went and test drove the Crossfire we were near the Ford Dealership that "fixed" the hot wifes Crustang last time so we paid their service department a visit. I know most of you are thinking that I went in guns blazing and threatened to shove a broken Ford in their broken ass. I didn't. I just went in, told them about the problem very calm like. Then they started in "Oh, I didn't write the ticket on that one. We'll have to see it. The part is guaranteed for 12 months. What have you done to it? How many miles are on it? Are you sure you haven't done anything to it? We don't normally get the Mustangs back with that problem a second time."

A SECOND TIME??? It's like they know it's going to happen once but the second one is the shocker here. Are you kidding me? It gets better.

They make us an appointment to bring the car in Monday to get it worked on so since I'm off on Monday I get up early and bring the car in. I show up and they start this mess again "Well, I wasn't here Saturday and the guy that wrote your ticket isn't here yet. I can't do anything about it. You didn't talk to me when you came in last because I wasn't here." Shifting the blame. Bitchin. After a few minutes they notice that I had blocked off the heater core and removed the clamps so it's now puking anti-freeze all over their shop floor. This has somehow gotten their attention because now they have to clean it before anyone else can come in. Then they start the usual runaround again. "Your appointment isn't until Tuesday, but I didn't write the ticket so that is someone else's problem." Either way, the car is there and now they get to deal with it.

Last night I get a call from Gary the service writer. I've actually had several conversations with Gary this week, but this one was the best. They had excuses on why the car hadn't been fixed all week. Last night I get a message from Gary The Service Writer that says "Raul, the uh...Mustang..um...isn't fixed. They...uh...sent us the wrong part....so...uh...the...um...heater core isn't fixed yet...because...um...we have the wrong part....umm...well...that is what it is, I can't do anything about it...so...uh...hopefully tomorrow. I'll let you know." That was no lie his message word for word. It is what it is. IT IS WHAT IT IS? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

This morning Gary The Service Writer calls again. This time the Crustang is fixed. In the back of my mind I think the way they've been acting is because they know they've messed up. I think last time it was serviced instead of replacing the heater core they patched it. I called them on that this morning. "Thanks Gary, glad to know the car is fixed. Any chance I can see the old heater core? I'd like to see where it failed and why before it's discarded." Gary went nuts. It was like he'd been sleeping at his desk going through the motions and I'd just hit him with a 12 volt battery and a set of jumper cables. "Uh...ss-s-sssiir...uh you can't take that with you. We have to send that back to Ford because it was...um..defective...so th-th-the manufacturer HAS to have that back...you can't keep it, we can't keep it. No one keeps it. Ford g-gets it." I said I wasn't interested in keeping it. I wanted to see it for myself and see what the issue is. Silence. Silence so quiet I thought he'd hung up. Then he goes "Well..uh...I think uh...it was put in the bin that goes back to Ford this morning. I'll double check but if it's in the bin to be returned I can't do anything about it. You can't keep it anyway." I've yet to pick the car up but I'll keep you posted on how that goes. Yes Gary The Service Writer...that means Raul is paying you a visit today. You'd better have your best excuses ready.

After the car is back home, I'm sending Ford a letter to let them know how we feel. To me, this is a problem that the big three American manufacturers have to face. Not so much quality, or repairs but service. Any thing that is mass produced is subject to some kind of defect or problem. It's how the company handles the problem that matters. I've in my life had one of each of the three in my family. Personally I'm all Chrysler until I die. All three of these American Manufacturers have screwed us over in some way shape or form. If this had been a Toyota Camry, the service writer would have said he was sorry, fixed the car and never once tried to pass the blame. In those companies that's not acceptable. In American companies, they'd rather spend more time doing that than fixing the fucking problem. They wonder "Why have our sales dropped so much? What is the problem?" Service. The problem is service. That will probably be the end of one of the big three in our lifetime if they don't step up and fix it. Toyota is out for world domination and we're pretty much opening the door to it here. We have to fix this problem and we have to fix it fast. When I get the car today, I'm copying and pasting this exact blog and sending it to Ford Corporate. I'll let everyone know how that goes.

Stories from the Rush Part 1

2007-01-18T09:01:00.000-05:00

Cleaning up the aftermath of the Spring Semester book rush continues. This one was good, and better than last Spring. Not really better than fall, but that's to be expected. Anyway. I had to share this story with you guys because well, it's funny.

It's relatively slow with just me and cheerleader from last semester working the counter. An Arabic girl comes in to get some books and seems insanely overly flirtatious. It's not me, I guess she thinks by flirting she's going to get a discount on books. This girl literally pulled out all the stops. She was way more done up than I would have pictured an arabic (or persian I guess she could have been) to be. She's giggling, batting her eyelashes, the whole nine yards. About that time one of our regular customers walks in. We all know her because she announced one day with great detail that she wants to be a sex therapist. We've refered to her as Sex Therapy girl ever since. So she shows up and witnesses what is going on with this girl at the counter. I turn around to get a couple more books for Princess Jasmine here and she's unbuttoned the top two buttons on her shirt and her bra is now officially hanging out. She's left very little to the imagination. At this point I'm making every effort to make eye contact. The cheerleader has a look on her face like "Did that just happen?" So I give her the books and slide them down to cheerleader so she can be rung up and left. While Cheerleader is ringing her up she buttons her shirt back up. Sex Therapy girl hands me her schedule and Princess Jasmine leaves. I was thinking to myself how odd was what just happened, and did she really think it was going to work? Did she leave thinking I was gay? STG chuckles when I get back to the counter and says "So if I show my tits can I get a discount?" Princess Jasmine did not get a discount, nor any aknowledgement that her efforts were noticed. I told her as nice as it would be to get flashed 30 times a day I was not Girls Gone Wild and wasn't willing to go down that road. She gets mad and says "Well what good are tits like these if you can't use them?" Again...Eye contact only. I told her they were fine, and she could use them anywhere she liked. Just not here. Disappointed she payed and left. I'm thinking of all the things that must be running through Cheerleaders mind and what I'm going to say once they leave so there is no weirdness between me and Cheerleader. She's been pretty silent this entire time. They both leave and I pretend to do something and I hear "Bitch Please!" I turn around and say "Huh?" Cheerleader looks at me and says "I work here and don't get free books. When STG asked that I almost reached across the counter and slapped that ho. Thanks for not saying yes to that." The weirdness is now gone. Cheerleader told that story to everyone else that came in right up to the part where she said "Bitch Please!" Everyone thought it was pretty funny, and it's funny now but it was really weird, and really uncomfortable there for a minute. There are still a few more stories from the Rush to come.

This week is inventory, boxing up books, and hopefully catching up on lost sleep. If anyone was curious, the store grew 20 percent this Spring over last Spring so hopefully we're on the right track.

Ford...

2007-01-13T07:30:00.000-05:00

At least they circled the problem. I stole that from the RumRunners. When we went to the Indy Race last year I saw a hilarious anti-GM sticker and pointed it out to him. The Doctor (as he will be called) being the huge GM fan that he is fired back with that about Ford...and probably one about Mopar as well but that one stuck...because it was funny. Hilarious even. The worst part is, it's true....

Yesterday was the hot wifes birthday (and she shares it with Blue, so Happy Birthday to Blue as well) and as usual I was searching classified ads at work before it got busy. Then I found something. Not just anything a marvel of German and American Engineering...

Yeah, a 2004 Chrysler Crossfire with a price so low you have to wonder if something was wrong with it. So I furiously devised a master plan that would land this work of art in my driveway and put my hot wife behind the wheel of it. Being the huge Mopar fan that I am, I've wanted one of these since I saw it in concept. Since I'm now an old fat guy I realized that this isn't the car for me so I'd forgotten about it. It's pretty impractical. Actually, it could be the least practical car on the planet because even the Viper has a trunk. Basically this car is a Mercedes SLK Roadster with a fixed roof. Not wickedly fast or particularly brutal, but it's smooth, decent power, and handles like it's on rails. So I call the hot wife and say "Honey, how would you like a nice silver Chrysler Crossfire for your birthday?" I was met with silence. Then "So, you found a Crossfire you want huh?" The plan was to get it, me to drive it a couple months, sell off the Rustang and get a Charger SRT-8 before us and the RumRunners head to Indy again this year. Seeing that this car gets 10mpg better than the Jeep of Doom, I thought this was a fantastic plan. No one but me and my wife ever want to ride in her car anyway as it's not really capable of carrying more than two people so this one would be no different. But it would get better gas mileage, and this car is nice. Really nice. Almost seems like the perfect car for my smoking hot wife. The only thing better would be the SRT-6 Supercharged convertible...but we must be realistic. I had pitched this plan repeatedly. Then comes the bad news...

We get ready to leave for dinner and I ask "Honey, did your car overheat on the way home from work? It smells funny." Further notice shows that the heater core, which was fixed in September, has just blown again and spewed anti-freeze all over my garage. This Ford is clearly making its presence known so this is me letting it know how I feel.

If you have the option of buying a Mustang, just let me kick you in the face and save you the mental anguish you'd have after three years of owning it.

With any decision of this magnatude you have to call your best friends and ask yourself WWMD (What Would Mike Do?)? So I call the RumRunners and the Doctor says this -

Doc - "A Crossfire? Um...Gay?"
Raul - "Seriously though. They're nice cars."
Doc - "Last time I checked you're not 45 and divorced with an earring, and you're not a gay ass hairdresser so...I'm gonna stick with don't get a damn Crossfire you homo."
Raul - "Thanks for the moral support man."
Doc - "That's what I'm here for."

So I call Mike -
Raul - "So what do you think about Crossfires?"
Mike - "I think they're cool. I might like to drive one. You thinkin about getting one?"
Raul - "Sort of. I was gonna drive it to work until Summer time and then get a Charger."
Mike - "Cool. You're getting the supercharged one right?"
Raul - "No, they're a little out of our price range. This I think we can afford."
Mike - "Pussy. If you blog about this I'm going to tell all your blogger friends what a bitch you are for not getting the cool version of the car. Homo."
Raul - "Thanks Mike."
Mike - "Not sure what you're going to do about all that self loathing though."
Raul - "Self loathing?"
Mike - "Yeah, from owning a Charger. That's the ugliest piece of shit I've ever seen."

My moral support is fantastic. If they were any more encouraging I just couldn't stand it.

Spring Rushed

2007-01-10T22:12:00.000-05:00

Well, I promised I'd post more often as a New Years resolution but it looks like I'm off to a bad start. I didn't remember this semester being this busy for Spring of last year, but I guess we were still kinda new at it a year ago. This week was rough. I've been too tired to hold my eyes open for the drive home most days this week. To say the least business is good. The only thing I don't remember, and that I don't get is people arguing about tax. I don't want to sound racist, but it's mostly mexicans that do it. They'll price out their books, then you'll ring them up, and then they stand an argue about paying tax. They look at you like you're stupid and say "No man...the price on the book is this...why are you overcharging me?" Has anybody else ever gone in to someones business and told them you didn't want to pay sales tax? I know that tax is something that has to be paid, it's a fact of life. So no matter where I go, I've never thought to say "No...I'd really rather not pay tax thank you." I've never met anyone that enjoyed paying taxes, or looked forward to it. No one does, but it's a fact of life. You live, you pay taxes, you die. I've got one kid from Colombia that comes in with his dad. They stand at the counter and argue about prices, then his dad steps up, looks down on me and starts negotiating and claiming he's my best customer. His dad works at the Chic-fil-a near the store. I really hate Chic-fil-a but realistically next time I want chicken, I'm going in there and I'm going to haggle this man until he cries. They sold back a book and argued over the price and then asked for an extra $5, so I finally caved and said "Will $5 make you shut the hell up?" He agreed it would. Little did he know that because I think he's an ass I always knock $5 off his buy back price to leave him room to "negotiate" with his mad skills. This semester was no different for Igor and his Dad. So mark my words, the day will come when the blog will read "Chic-fil-a'ed" and I'll tell you how I made a $50 year old Colombian cry like a bitch when I haggled him over the price of a sandwich and waffle fries. I intend to do this to the point that it makes other people uncomfortable to be in the store. Just wait...this man will cry because I will bring the pain.

Enough about that. It seems like we made it through. Sales were good, we had a record sales day, and now we're mostly out of stuff so we might be done for the semester. We did have a good run though. My returning help was good. The cheerleader was good enough to get a raise because she proved to be worth more than what she was paid last semester. Her boyfriend was mad that he found my number in her cell phone, but realistically we're 10 years apart and if I'm going to cheat on my wife it's not going to be with an employee. It's going to be with Carmen Electra. Yes, I aim high but I married well. I did have two new hires this semester, one said it was her life long dream to work in a book store, and the other just wanted to work and I think hang out with people. I believe the new girl is a crack ho so she only worked two days. The first day her register was $20 short, the second day it was $20 over. Seem odd to anyone else? The guy is a pretty cool student. His Dad is a teacher at Dalton and he's very Anti-American. They are a Muslim family, but he was a good kid. Good worker, likes discussion. Seems like even though his Dad hates America and it's foreign policies he was raised pretty well. He won't be back next semester because he's going away to school but he was a good hire and I was happy to have him. See...I'm equal opportunity after all. I don't just hire hot young freshman cheerleaders.

That's it from the store for now, I'm about to fall asleep at the keyboard but I promise I'll have something more enjoyable to read up early next week. I do have some much more entertaining stories from the rush, but those are for a later day.

Happy New Year!

2007-01-02T07:49:00.000-05:00

Well I hope everyone had a Happy New Year and you've all made your New Years resolutions. I'm still working on mine, but one of them for sure is to blog more. I spent the break I took in December thinking of things I can post that would make for a good 2007. After watching a bunch of movie trailers in my time off I've decided that 2007's reocurring post will be Movies You Do Not Need to see in 2007. Most of them will likely be movies they shouldn't have made either, but I'll be sure to let you know what not to see in case the trailer lies to you. And as usual I'll provide you with a list of movies you NEED to see in 2007, and at some point in the near future I'll review the best of 2006 that you should have seen.

At any rate, the hot wife and I hosted our first New Years party and it was a success. We had five or six couples around the house and I thought the best idea would be to play Battle of the Sexes. For all the attending guys, I was right. The women unfortunately did not fair so well. The game is fun, there are a few cards that were actually wrong so when the right answer was given we threw the card to the side with the intent of writing these people so they'd know their mistake. Anyway, the guys won both games. The second one wasn't even a contest. The guys drew a wild card when we were just shy of half way that sent us back to the beginning and we still came back and won. Brutal I tell you. Somehow none of us ended up sleeping on the couch that night. The next game that is always a bad idea to break out is the Newlywed game. Not everyone at the party was married, including Mike and Tiffany, and they were winning for most of the game. Unfortunately Mike had a cold of some sort and had to leave so they forfeited their lead. Otherwise, they would have won...and of course all of us wondered when they left how they would have answered questions in the last round. I guess we may never know...but the speculation might actually be funnier than their answers.

That's it for now, again I hope every had a wonderful New Years Eve and I wish everyone the best for 2007. Currently I'm preparing for the Book Rush so blogs will be scarce for a week or two...but I promise I'll try.

Movie Reviews

2006-12-07T08:48:00.000-05:00

It's been a while since I've done a movie review so I've got a couple to review this morning...

We'll start with the worst one -

Miami Vice - Based on a hit 80's TV series, this is quite possibly the worst adaptation of a cancelled TV show in the history of time. I kept thinking that to be a play on the TV show it needed to use the original theme song in some form. I was even thinking if they'd gotten Moby or Fatboy Slim to do it that might be cool. Nope. No such luck. The only version you can rent is the unrated directors cut. Truthfully the movie looks like they tried to film it from too many angles and in some cases had to use home video camera's. One scene in a shootout a camera gets fake blood spatter on it and the shot is so bad that the camera guy gets up and moves to a different position. It was almost like it was filmed by Alf. Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx are terrible together. They had little interaction and no chemistry. I had read that filming was slowed because they couldn't get along. Not sure if that's true, but watching them work together you have zero doubts. Even the love story end of it isn't believable. The movie just seems like nobody wanted to do it so they put together the clips that they had where everyone was on screen and threw it on the screen. I'm so glad I didn't see this in the theater. I might have actually cussed in this review if I had. I wish there was a word stronger than awful to describe it, but that will have to do.

Van Wilder 2 - Not bad. Very cliched, very predictable, but still a little funny. I would reccomend you wait until video as it's really not a theater worthy movie. It was kind of reaching for that goofy humor like the American Pie franchise now is, but still kinda funny. Not a total loss.

Casino Royale - Third times a charm right? Absolutely. I love James Bond movies and this is the best one in a while. The last couple Pierce Brosnan ones weren't too bad, and I did like them. This was a good movie. I'm actually trying to talk Dad into going and seeing it with me again I liked it so much. Basically it's the first of Ian Flemmings books that was never really made in to a movie. It was spoofed in the 60's, and there was a TV adaptation done of it sometime before that. But this...this is how you do James Bond. Daniel Craig was perfect for the role, and Eva Green was a smoking hot Bond girl. I don't care if she is French. The only thing hotter than the Bond girls in this one are the Aston Martin's. It's no wonder they choose those...they're like sex on wheels. If I ever win the lottery, I'm getting one. I don't care if it's a vintage 67, or a brand new DB9...maybe both. Sadly in this movie the car doesn't get much screen time and in the wreck scene they destroyed three of them at $300,000 a piece...such a shame. I might even take the wrecked one just so I could say I had an Aston Martin. Mmmm...Good stuff. Anyway, back to the movie. It's where Bond begins as a Double 0 agent and it's a great way to keep the Bond franchise alive. I know they won't remake the old movies, but I hope that they make a few more of them because this was really the best movie of the summer. As far as action flics go this year, I give this one props for being on top.

That's about it for movie reviews now. December doesn't look very promising to watch many but we're hopeful.

Blogger Poll...

2006-11-29T14:11:00.000-05:00

So if I haven't run everyone off with my Christmas rantings, I've got a question for all those still around. The Jeep of Doom is approaching it's end, and pretty fast. Currently the wife and I are deciding between all other things that we have going on this holiday season what to do. Our options are no different than anyone else's but I figure I can always turn to my blogger friends for some helpful advice. So here we go.

The options are simple.

Option One - The Jeep of doom can get a new engine and I can drive it for three to five more years. It's paid for so provided nothing else happens to it over the course of three to five more years that seems like a decent investment. But, what if something else happens this time next year that's a major fix? Then what?

Option Two - Upgrade. A new set of wheels for Raul might just be in order. We had hoped to wait until Summer to make a change, but I have a feeling it's going to hit here in the next few weeks and we won't have a choice once I get to make the "I'm stuck on the side of the road" call. So option Two A is to keep the Jeep, leave it on the back burner and have it as a spare. Fix it next year or something after we've put money aside for it. Have a spare summer vehicle that Tumbler will enjoy riding in, and Raul gets......a new Dodge Charger SRT-8. Why get the top of the line? Well, if I'm going to have this car for seven years like I did this one, I want it to handle well, and be really fast. When Dad had his heart attack I was 50 miles away in a Jeep that really didn't like running 90mph. Making a trip to get to Dad or to any family member in my current Jeep is going to take time. Given, you can pass people on shoulders and in the grass but the Jeep is far from being a vehicle to get you somewhere in a hurry. But the Charger would have four doors so it's way more practical than anything we have now. It would either be black, red, or silver. Did I mention fast? Yeah, a 6.1L Hemi with 425HP is a nice place to start. Lots of creature comforts, and a very comfortable ride.

Option Two B. Can the current Jeep. Either sell it for what we can get out of it, or give it to my cousin who turns 16 in January and let him put an engine in it. It might be a good starter car for him, and since he lives in Florida he'd probably enjoy it. What 16 year old kid wouldn't enjoy one? Yes, that is generous but I don't think the wife will let me do that. But I think it would be nice. Mostly because he probably won't ever have a car that nice. But it would make a good starter car for him I think. Anyway, option two b would be all of that plus....

A fully upgraded Jeep built specifically for Raul. A 2007 Four door Wrangler with enough back seat room to ride to Florida in comfortably, and a 5.7 Hemi powerplant. Can come with up to 37 inch tires, still has plenty of creature comforts (did I mention it's got a Hemi?) and room for Tumbler to hop in the back when he arrives. Pretty much it's a full out modified Jeep with nothing really left to do...well, I'm sure the engine could use a blower to double it's horsepower but that would have to come later. It would also be an automatic, not particularly fast but probably wouldn't protest interstate speeds like the current Jeep does.

Anyway, those are the two options. Option three I think I've taken off the table. I was going to buy a cheap car for a couple thousand just to drive to and from work but the cheap cars I want have somehow appreciated in value to the point that I'd be better off buying a new car.

Okay, blogger friends...lets have some feedback here. Which would you choose? As far as money goes they're close enough in price that it doesn't matter all that much. The Jeep would be new, the Charger would be used. So let's have it.

Bob gets the message

2006-11-28T13:52:00.000-05:00

Apparently I wasn't the only one that was irate with Jihadist Bob Kearns. This story hit the AP today. It would seem that Bob and the rest of the now unfired committee have decided that a wreath shaped like a peace sign is an okay thing at Christmas. Imagine that Bob. Also, Bob and the other committee members of their terrorist regime in their neighborhood in Denver had their numbers changed to unlisted numbers yesterday afternoon. I have to admit I thought about giving Jihad Bob a call but decided against it. I can only hope someone read this blog and he was greeted this morning by a huge steaming stinking pile of dog shit that covered his entire driveway. Or maybe this was Bob's plan all along, get the attention of the public in their little neighborhood, raise a huge fuss, then say it's only a misunderstanding and she can keep her wreath. Obviously she wasn't waiting on your permission Bob. Amazingly Bob the Terrorist won't do interviews with the Associated Press. Could it be that America now views him as a symbol of satan? Or could it be that his reign of terror over their subdivision has ended? Ahh...Bob if only you knew the anger that is going to get taken out on the homeowners association president in mom and dad's neighborhood because of you. Perhaps you two should start a support group for middle aged assholes with too much time on their hands? At any rate, Bob the Terrorist is currently no longer a threat in Denver so I apologize if I've offended anyone in my rantings the last couple of days.

Merry Christmas Bob

2006-11-27T15:50:00.000-05:00

Okay, I may have mentioned before that my parents had some trouble with their home owners association and I still make it a point to drive by the association presidents house while in their neighborhood and either drive through his yard or call him an asshole if he's outside. Special Tiffany was nice enough to forward me this article today...

Just in case they pull the link down, a lady put a wreath in the shape of a peace sign on her door and they considered it a symbol of satan and told her she'd be fined $25 a day if she didn't take it down. So the fines would cost her about $1000 but she was leaving it. Good for her. This woman is a former association president in the current neighborhood so she doesn't see the problem. Apparently no one else does either because after the committee decided it was okay, the asshat president Bob Kearns fired them. Way to go Bob. I hope you rot in hell right next to Jack Black. So tell me, does this look like a satanic symbol to anyone else?

I didn't think so. I think homeowners associations take themselves way too seriously and believe they have way too much control over what you actually do to and around your home. These homeowners associations should take note. The real problem is that they get some form of power and think they can "fix" everything they don't like. I would have to say Bob Kearns is a Jihad terrorist and must be treated as such. His house should be vandalized every night with notes left the next morning that say "Clean this shit up before you go to work or we're fining you $25,000 an hour. Clocks ticking asshole. In the time it took you to read this note you're already in the hole $7500." Then, as he's outside cleaning it up - because mind you he wouldn't be able to get out of the driveway to go to work before he did - I'd make sure some unruly kids were driving by and throwing more stuff in his yard. I guarantee you two or three days of hard core vandalization to these peoples homes and they'll change their tune about symbols of satan. I don't think we have a homeowners association in our neighborhood, that was part of the appeal really, but if we did...let them tell me that one of my wifes wreathes is a symbol of satan. They'd have a pink house with zombified gnomes that would be converted to a haven for drug rehabbing sex offenders on their hands. Oh, and Hakmid the terrorist across the street from us, would have a class A lawn compared to what I'd keep.

Rise up and be recognized Bob Kearns. You're the Asshat of the Month for December. If someone does something to top you, I'll be shocked. Merry Fucking Christmas Bob...I have to wonder...is Santa considered a symbol of Satan in your neighborhood too? I mean, you could rearrange the letters...it could be a subliminal message you know. All these years of giving and Santa is really a tool of the devil. What about Nativity scenes? Is Jesus an okay fit for your terrorist regime governing your neighborhood? Are those politically correct? Should we hang "Happy Winter Festival" signs instead? Are those too offensive for you Bob? Bob, do you even see the irony here? You're fighting and fining during Christmas over a FUCKING PEACE SIGN! Somehow you missed the message Bob. I hope you enjoyed your 15 minutes of lame...err...fame as you were hoping for. Nice job, take your war on Peace on Earth and Goodwill towards men somewhere else...asshat.

Thanksgiving Success

2006-11-23T23:53:00.000-05:00

I'm sure you're all wondering when I'm going to post about Thanksgiving. To say the least it went well. Wednesday was the mad dash cleaning of the entire house, top to bottom. The good news is my garage is clean for now and so is the rest of the house. My grandparents hadn't seen our house yet and they seemed to like it pretty well. It was kinda odd though, they just kinda came and left. Not much else happened. The turkey was done about two hours before it was supposed to be so it sat in the oven on warm most of the day. I did manage to not set myself on fire and turn the grille in to a giant afterburner of doom on my back porch so that's a bonus. We did three kinds of turkey, and it was all smoked. Not sure why, but I enjoy smoking stuff it would seem. I'm all over it these days. We did one 10 pound turkey injected with Captain Morgans Rum. Then we did one Turkey breast injected with Captain Morgan's Tattoo (good shit too), both were rubbed with Sticky Fingers Rib Rub and olive oil on the outside. The third and final turkey was a Bobby Flay original. Yes...you read that right...a Bobby Flay recipe. Which can only mean one thing....

Flay and I have reconciled. It would seem he didn't enjoy the last post where I called him an asshole so we watched him on TV yesterday morning and his turkey breast recipe didn't look so bad...so we tried it and it rocked. Further review showed that someone submitted that recipe to Mr. Flay, as most of his recipes are not his...that can only mean one thing...

Yeah, he can cook, and most of his recipes aren't so bad...but he's still a dick. I guess we didn't stay reconciled for long huh? Oh well.

At any rate, Thanksgiving was good. Both families seemed to enjoy the meal and my mother-in-law came over early to help cook and even cleaned up afterwards. The only thing I have left to do is hang out and play the rumrunners X-box tomorrow while the wife is out shopping. Hopefully that will last all day, but we'll see. We bought Enter the Matrix at a game place the other day for $5. I played it a little while today and it seems kinda gay, but we'll see. It's been a while since I played any kind of video games but I'll make up for that tomorrow.

Happy Thanksgiving to all our friends and readers. I'm thankful that you take time to read my blog whenver I get time to post and that you can all take time to laugh and the insanely stupid things I do, and I'm thankful to have you all as my friends.

Signs of Impending Doom

2006-11-20T09:01:00.000-05:00

I know I know...it's Thanksgiving and me and anyone reading this blog is thankful to be able to read this, and dont' get me wrong...I'm thankful that you're reading. I'll be way more thankful once this week is over. Let me tell you why...

The wife and I decided this year maybe we'd have Thanksgiving at our house. Every year, like most married couples with two sets of inlaws in town we do two meals with two different families and it's the one day of the year where I put on at least 1o pounds. Yes, that is different than most other days. I'm actually losing weight thank you. I've lost a whopping seven pounds. I know, you can't believe how much I rule either. Back to the matter at hand. We've informed both of our inlaws that we'd be having dinner at our house this year and informed them what time to come. Amazingly we were met with very little opposition. We had some on her side that decided it would be too crowded and aren't coming. This could be the most interesting Thanksgiving in family history. For the last 18 years my family and I have invited my grandparents up for Thanksgiving, Christmas, whatever. They live about three hours away...in Auburn...who I should mention beat Alabama for the fifth straight year...They never show up. They usually wait until the day before to tell us that we never let them know for sure, or they have other plans. Truth be told my Grandmother doesn't do a damn thing that isn't her idea. She's worse about it than anyone else I know. So, since some of my hot wifes relatives didn't show, I said "Hey honey, why don't we call my grandparents? They won't come but they'll probably appreciate the invite." She agreed, it would be nice and she too was confident they wouldn't come. So I called. Without any form of hesitation at all, they're coming. I say again, after an 18 year drought THEY'RE FRICKIN COMING!!!! I called Mom and told her. My mother was in shock for a second and said "Are you shitting me?" No...I was not. Dad in the background had already begun his week long string of obscenities because he knew they'd be cleaning the house from top to bottom. Mom knew of course that I was inviting them. She also knew that the one constant in this universe is that they don't ever come up when we invite them. They did come up for graduation, so it's not like we never see them. We just can't get them to come for dinner....ever. So how do I know impending doom is coming? Not hard.

I knew with them coming I had to get the yard clean, and of course the house and the garage clean. They've never seen our house before and my grandmother will open every closet in our house to see how clean it is. Every one. So the frantic cleaning and yard work began on Sunday morning. Oddly I woke up and my knee was killing me. So I hobbled around a bit, made some breakfast and thought it would get better. It got worse. It became inconsistent and I couldn't trust it. I have been running a lot but I hadn't run in two days at least. This was pain, and a lot of it. I looked at the yard thinking when I saw it, it may not be that bad. I was wrong. It was somehow worse so I knew I'd have to suck it up and get it done. At least I have a riding mower, and the section that I push mow wouldn't be to bad...right? Yeah...on went the knee brace. It didn't help, but things were going well. The front yard was almost done, the bag was full and I go to empty it. I come back from the bottom of the back yard, and the lawnmower was gone. What the fuck? Seriously, it was right by the front porch when I left. Had Gone in 60 Seconds Lawn Equipment just hit my front yard? Was I going to be left with just a bag? For a second I thought about how much I really did like that lawnmower. Then I noticed something. The neighbors (not the rumrunners, the ones actually next door to us) have a visitor in town and he has a Jeep parked in front of the house. Under the Jeep is my lawnmower. Damnit. So I walk down thinking "not only do I have to buy a new lawnmower I have to buy this guy a new Jeep bumper." Seeing as Jeeps are just about bullet proof when lawn equipment is concerned it was fine. The lawnmower is not. I meant to post a picture, but somehow I figured it would be less funny if you saw it. I'm not sure how, but I forgot to take the picture so we're going with it. I think the lawnmower is done. I'm going to take it to Sears this week to see what they can do, if anything. I imagine the guys there will get a good laugh, but it's pretty bad. The wheels aren't pointed upright anymore and the plastic cover on the engine is pretty well FUBAR. Also the cord won't pull, I'm hoping it's just because of the cover, but we'll see. I might end up with a shiny new lawnmower. But that's not all. I decided this would be the best time to get the riding mower out. It wasn't. I almost flipped it twice and took out several small trees at the edge of the back yard. When changing the bag for some reason the brake let go and the riding mower took off across the back yard. So here is a guy with his knee in lots of pain chasing a riding lawnmower. I'm sure it was really funny to watch, but it sucked. Why is my lawn equipment in such protest? This sucks! So the lawn is done, the knee is still in pain but I might actually go to the doctors office. I don't know. I might just drink a lot of rum this week.

The RumRunners are gone so unfortunately they won't be around to witness all the things that could potentially go wrong with me smoking a turkey on Thursday morning. If we don't get a chance to update again, please send us happy thoughts, and I hope everyone else has a less eventful but very happy Thanksgiving.

The Verdict Is....

2006-11-15T12:57:00.000-05:00

We're getting a dog. Yes, we're getting a Bullmastiff. I think we've even decided on a name. This decision comes after visiting breeders, and reading tons of stuff on the internet. Good Lord I've been reading. We visited two breeders, one close, one not so close. The first one was good. His dogs were well tempered, well behaved, very friendly, and as playful as a 145lb dog can be. Actually, you can see him...

The collar in the picture he has since out grown so he currently doesn't sport one. He's a wicked fast dog, but because of his size he's a little clumsy. Think of him as the Arnold of dogs. We had heard about the amount of drool these guys can produce. It was insane the stuff we heard about keeping drool towels on you at all times and making sure any house guests have drool towels because everyone near the dog needs them. These dogs didn't drool a bit. So problem solved there. The mom we didn't get to play with much because he was too worried she'd run off. But we did get to meet her...

She's pretty. We hope our dog is that color. Speaking of color, you can get these beasts in red, fawn, or brindle. The brindle is kinda like a black camo almost. I like it, but the wife hates it. So we're hoping for a red or fawn. I think brindle is unlikely in this litter so we're in the clear there.

Now on to the name. We're 99 percent sure it's going to be...Tumbler. That's the name we both agree on. Part of me still hopes that the wife has a change of heart and says "Hammer isn't such a bad name. Let's go with that." But I'm not holding my breath on that one. I know you're all thinking "Since you and your neighbors drink so much rum, why not name it Morgan?" Simple. The dog in the first picture is a descendant of Captain Morgan the show dog. Just about every male from that litter was named Morgan. It's a cool name, and would have great meaning, but it's a little overplayed.

The other breeder just made us both sad. This old lady had four types of dogs in a series of kennels on her property behind her husbands shop. English Matiffs, Bloodhounds, Bassetthounds, and Bullmastiffs. Something about this place just seemed wrong. The lady was nice, but she was too honest with us. She had a puppy in the most recent litter that only weighed three quarters of a pound at birth when the rest of them weighed four pounds. The runt got ran over when her husband drove up to the kennel to see her. No one saw it. Red Flag number one. Number two is that they were seven weeks old and had round worms that she couldn't get cured. Yeah, Red Flag Two. They had another puppy out of a previous litter that had some sort of disease. Picture a six week old puppy with a football sized mass in her stomach. Not a miniature football mind you, a full out NFL regulation football. Yeah. Red Flag number three and we were out. Nice people, don't get me wrong...they just didn't have healthy dogs. I can't see bringing a dog home that may not enjoy a full quality of life.

Anyway, that's all from your favorite bookstore today. The dog should arrive in February so the preparation begins now. We've picked out a dog house that will likely involve rum, a rumrunner, and power tools. It's a do it yourselfer. I know the instructions don't call for it, but Rum is always a necessity when dealing with directions and power tools.

Voting and Dog Names

2006-11-07T10:50:00.000-05:00

So it's voting day in TN. Know what that means? Tomorrow when I watch my TV shows I don't have to see every single commercial telling me that the other candidate is evil. THEY'RE BOTH EVIL! Anyway, exercise your right to vote. Vote for the candidate that made you laugh the most or had the best commercials because no one knows what they really stand for. Enough about that.

So the wife and I have talked about getting a dog. A BIG dog. Actually the decision came quickly. We've talked on and off about getting a dog for a while since most of our friends have them, and we both like dogs. I had to go to a store in the mall the other day. They might not appreciate being mentioned on the blog, but lets just say the name rhymes with Radio Snack. In the mall there is a pet store. One where I would never buy a pet from because they just seem cruel. Anyway, there was a dog in there I didn't recognize but looked somewhat unique. It was a Bullmastiff. If you've never heard of them, they look like this full grown...

Yeah, a big dog. I think they're around 27 inches tall at the shoulders and can weigh up to 130lbs. Originally they were bred to keep poachers off of private land in England. They're big and forceful but won't maul the attackers. They're 60 percent English Mastiff and 40 percent Bulldog. Either way, I like them. Bad habits and all. So we've been trying to figure out a name. I've come up with a lot, and Hemi is already taken by a dog at my parents house. So, anybody got any suggestions? My personal favorite was Hammer, but the wife and neighbors quickly told me I was gay and I was vetoed. Under further consideration are the following - Achilles (a Raul Fav), Porter, Flash, Argus, Thor, Morgan (as in the rum), Indy (after the movie and my now favorite racing series), Lucius, Wedge, Hero (another Raul Fav), and my hot wife likes Mufasa, Simba, Merlin, Sway, Tumbler, Atley, Brinley, Castillo, Barton, and Jameson. I would choose something like Neo, or Sway but I think Neo sounds too much like NO, and Sway might sound like Stay to a dog so they might just be confused. Morpheus would sound dumb calling for him in the back yard. Among the taken names are Strider and Loki (thanks to the rumrunners), and my personal favorite Hemi. I don't know. It's a big topic of discussion in the house currently and we're still undecided on the dog thing. So, blogger friends...if you've got any good manly dog names please throw them our way.

Back in the Gym

2006-11-03T10:25:00.000-05:00

Over the last few months I've been trying to make a habit of getting back in to the gym. I've got a hurt shoulder so I haven't been able to do much in a while, but I've been able to observe and came up with a new list of rules for working out at a gym.

1. Attire - Seriously, I don't know what mirror most of you people look in but you've got to get serious about your clothing. If it takes you more than five or six seconds to put on, it's likely too tight and no one wants to see you in it. Myself included. I might not be the most stylish person in the gym but trust me you prefer that I be fully covered and for most of you, I prefer the same. As a rule of thumb, if it looks small on the model or the hangar, it will be small on you.

2. The Counter Ho - yes, the girl at the counter is supposed to be pretty. No she's not going to sleep with you. Not because you're not Mike and likely a total tool (because if you're hitting on her and we're having this conversation you are clearly not Mike and are a tool), but because it's kinda her job to make you want to sign up. My counter is not much different here at work. Sure, we discriminate and hire young women with naval piercings that are often referred to as hot chics, but it's a marketing scheme. Do you think you'd really sign a contract with an ugly chic or an overweight fat guy running the counter? Not likely. So seriously, leave her alone. Say hi when you scan your card at the door and move on. I don't care if her thong is sticking out or her shirt is low and open enough that you can see her bra matches her thong. There is no mix of words you can put together to get her number that some ass clown hasn't already tried and you're just standing in front of the scanner so I can't get in and it's really really annoying. She's there for new sign ups, once you're a member conversations with the counter ho should be limited. Very limited. As the matter of fact, when you get out of the car, start saying to yourself "She's not going to sleep with me, she's not going to sleep with me." Say that until you've scanned your card and made it to the locker room and you'll both be happier people.

3. The Locker Room - this is a touchy subject for me. If ever I'm forced in to a gym locker room I try to make the experience as quick and painless as possible. You change, you leave. Posing in the mirror naked is something you should try at home because honestly, I don't know any one that is wondering what you look like naked. We're guys, we already know. Make locker rooms co-ed and you can pose away. Walking up to me to say hi while you're completely naked is unacceptable. I especially don't want to watch you towel off after your shower. You can seriously do that somewhere else and my feelings won' t be hurt at all.

This should be a given, but cell phones should also be kept to a minimum while in this area. As the matter of fact, I would recommend while you're in the car saying "She's not going to sleep with me" that you leave the phone there. You are after all at the gym to work out, your social and work life should be put on hold and forgotten about while you're there. Otherwise you're just going through the motions and it's not doing you any good.

4. Socializing - I know you probably join a particular gym because your friends joined, but you should keep your yapping time to an absolute minimum. Talking to people you don't know should also be limited to "Are you using this? Okay thanks." You can knod when passing someone on the way to or from the water fountain, but trust me normal people don't go to the gym to make new friends. They have other settings for that. I think they're called bars. Or MySpace.

If you must open your mouth and explain what kind of exercise you're doing the words "I don't want to get too big" should NEVER be spoken. Putting on size is not as easy as you think and you're not going to look like the roid user across the room if you do your curls with 15 pounds intead of 10. Trust me on this. He might be on roids, but it didn't come easily to him either. Size is a combination of discipline, hard work, and lots of time spent with the iron. If you have no desire to gain muscle, buy a nordic trac and stay your dumb ass at home. If you're a man and you say you don't want to get too big you should be permanently banned from any fitness center in a three state radius. Also, if you speak these words while doing clean and jerks with five pound plates on your bar, I'm going to hit you...in the head with a 45 pound plate. When you wake up three days later you're going to be a better person because you won't likely ever return to the gym. Another thing that will likely get you punched in the face by mentioning is "Spot Fat Reduction." This is a fairy tale. It does not exist. Period.

5. MP3 Players - These are a great new device to drown out the tools hitting on the counter ho, and the crappy music that is always played at gyms. Someone with an MP3 player on typically isn't someone who likes to be disturbed. So, questions such as "What are you listening to?" and "Where did you get that?" are inappropriate and totally unacceptable. I bought mine specifically so you wouldn't speak to me and so I'd have my own music. I really don't want to hear that you could never figure out how to work one, or that you like it because it's blue. I bought it because it was cheap, and held more than enough songs to get me through a workout. The music you put in them is entirely up to you. Singing along with the music choice is also not an acceptable practice. If you hear comments such as "I'm recording this so I can play it back for you later and you'll know what a douche bag you sound like," I'm not kidding and neither is anyone else around me. Just remember, MP3 players are not topics of discussion, they're discussion deterrants.

6. Working out - I know it's an amazing concept but that's why gyms were invented. People go, work out, feel better, go home. The really hard core guys typically spend most of their day thinking about what muscle group they're working and some work it for hours. If for some reason you thought that reading a paper was an acceptable practice, you are in the wrong place. They have places for that too...called coffee houses. You do not go to the gym to read the paper. If you're reading the paper between your sets of bench, or on the preacher curl machine, you're just taking up space and you need to leave. The same goes for magazines. Some people can do it while on a treadmill and my hat is off to you if that's the case, but don't come to lift weights with a newspaper or magazine in hand. If it's that good or that important, don't come to the gym. Read your shit and come in some other time when you're less distracted.

Cell phones are another big no no. I think I've taken my cell phone in to the gym two times in the 10 years I've been attending one and both times I had good reason. It is completely unacceptable to try to complete your workout while talking on one. If you can workout and not get short of breath to where the person you're talking to doesn't know you're working out, you're again in the wrong place. No, they did not make wireless headsets so you don't have to switch hands.

Also, while working out you'll find a variety of different machines and weights and racks for arms, legs, back, chest, and anything else you can work. You should really use these machines as they were intended. Doing curls on the squat rack makes you look dumb. Do squats on the squat rack or use one of the 17 other arm machines you have at your disposal.

As far as what programs you follow, there are tons of websites and fitness magazines out there with pointers. My personal favorite is the Arnold Scwarzenegger body building dictionary. It's by far got the best information from anything I've ever bought. And come on...it's Arnold...the very definition of awesomeness. You should also never question someone else's form or routine. Unless of course you see them using a chest press macine to work their legs on. Even then, it's really up to them. As Henry Rollins wrote in The Iron, The Iron will teach you many lessons. There are days when I couldn't lift a fork because I tried to lift too much. Just remember, the Iron can be a great teacher and a good friend to you but you have to show it the respect it deserves. Doing otherwise will put you on the strict cardio program that I am currently on. As a side note, working out with your wife or significant other is prohibited. It's great that you guys both joined, you can even ride together. Working out together doesn't benefit either one of you.

7. Diet & Supplementation - If you so choose to take supplements of whatever kind, this should not be public knowledge. Walking up to a stranger at the water fountain and saying "Hey man, I'm on DynaBall, you want some?" Odds are you aren't really on any form of steroid other than prednizone. For those that don't know it's a catabolic roid used to reduce swelling, anabolic roids are what the really big guys use. Judging by your size, someone is either giving you aspirin or shooting 30w motor oil in your arm. Either way, unless you look like Arnold in his prime anything you ingest to make gains in size and strength should only be shared with your friends. And if you follow the other rules you won't be talking about this at the gym anyway.

Dieting is a given. Do you think Arnold looked like he did just because he shot up with roids? Do you think Bill Phillips is one of the healthiest men in America because he has no will power? No. Ask any athlete, fitness model or otherwise and they'll tell you that diet is part of it. If you think you can do it without dieting, look at yourself in a year and if you look different I will eat the computer I'm typing this on. Chances are this computer will be fine and you'll look exactly the same. Don't believe me? Where were you this time last year? Exactly. Put down the nachos and twinkies and make an effort to eat a little healthier. One day you'll thank me.

"Hybrid" diets are also dumb. You follow a diet plan, or a lifestyle change as Bill Phillips calls it, and that's it. Don't take part of this diet, part of this diet, and a few desserts and think it's going to work. If you do, my bet on eating this computer is still good, but notice this computer is not trembling even a little bit because it knows it's safe. If you want my advice, go buy a copy of Mr. Phillips Eating For Life cookbook. Most of that stuff is good, good for you, and his plan is not hard to follow. If you don't believe me, follow his diet advice. He is after all the modern day Arnold. Not quite the new version of awesomeness, but damn close.

8. Women - If you're a guy you've probably noticed the counter ho, her equally hot friends, and random other women around the gym. Believe it or not, women like to be in shape too. They are not however at this gym for you to stare at them or for you to tell your friends you want to bang shit out of them. Sure, they're hot, but you must refer back to the second rule. She's not going to sleep with you and no mix of words is going to change that for you. If you feel the need to mock fat chics, please let me kick you in the groin. Overweight men and women at a gym are making an effort so mocking them is out of the question. If you see them sitting at the gym eating ice cream and twinkies while their friends work out, by all means ridicule them. Also if you see fat people staring at the in shape crowd saying "I could do that," or "I could look like that if I tried," make a bet with them. Your money is safe. Then proceed to mock them until they cry.

As a note to women, if you come to a gym fishing for compliments, or spend more time fixing your hair and make-up than you do actually working out all bets are off. If some roid user starts grabbing his crotch and pointing at you (yes, sadly I've seen that) and saying things you never wanted to know someone thought about you, it's your own fault. Sure, you look pretty. But you'd look pretty not taking up space and iron that someone else could be using too.

9. ILS - better known as Imaginary Lat Syndrome. This really doesn't impress anyone. If you run in to people because you've flared your arms out trying to pretend your lats are that big, I hate you. Don't be suprised if I take my earphones out to mock you. I tried ignoring this syndrome for a while but lately it's been bad. If I can honestly say that my lats are bigger than yours and I'm in better shape than you...you suck. Last time I was lifting weights I got ran in to by a fat tub of shit with ILS. He made it a point to run in to me and the guy nearest to me (also wearing headphones) so I made it a point to mock him. Saying things like "Do you have an armpit fungus that's making you flare your arms out like that or is this some sort of shoulder exercise?" will make someones arms return to their normal position so fast it's funny to watch. I know, I could have been nicer to the guy but you don't make it a point to run in to two people who are working out so you can look at yourself in the mirror when there is a wide open space of mirrors. If you're less impressive looking than I am, you really don't need to be posing. You need to be wearing as much clothing as possible and working out as hard as you can.

10. Spotting - I do unfortunately workout alone now so occassionally I have to ask for a spot. I have no problem with you doing the same. I do have a problem with you asking me for a spot, then explaining how this is your last set, and it's heavy. Chances are when I was in college I lifted just as much if not more. That's why I have shoulder problems. Telling me that 225 is hard and I should keep working at it is going to get a 225lb barbell dropped on your chest. Remember that I'm there to keep something heavy from collapsing your chest. This should be quick and simple. I live by the phrase "Study Long, Study Wrong." This of course does not apply to school work. Just here. If you have to think about pressing 225 (or any weight for that matter) for more than five or six seconds, it's too heavy and you've already talked yourself out of it. A spotter for all intents and purposes is an emergency brake. It's good to have, but only needed when something really bad is about to happen. I've dropped bars on my chest and had eyes turn bloodshot red from the force that instantly falls on you, and it hurts. It hurts bad, and hurts for days. It was nice at the time when people said "What happened to your eyes?" to say "I dropped a barbell on my chest that was 365lbs." Yes, it really did hurt that bad, but I had a spotter to pull it off of me. In short, ask for a spot. I might even encourage if you don't lecture me about something stupid, but you don't want to piss me off because I will surely leave that on your chest for long enough to make sure it hurts. You can even be nice and offer. Mike and I offered a guy a spot once when we worked out together and he said "Na...you guys just keep at it. One day you might be able to get these 90's up like I can and I'll spot you." Out of pure spite, Mike and I did the 110's and didn't spot each other. For those not at the gym, that's individual dumbells per hand. He left...as he should have.

11. Leaving - should be just that. You get done you leave. Do not stop to hit on the counter ho again on your way out. Chances are the other 50,000 people that don't adhere to these simple guidlines have already annoyed her. Do not take this as an opportunity to try again. If you've gotten a good workout in, chances are you don't smell that great. When approaching the counter, grab your keys, knod to her if she looks at you first, and leave. I know...you can still see her thong sticking out, but it's not an invitation. Just leave. You're not Mike and she's still not going to sleep with you. Don't walk around three or four times to tell people you're leaving. You're just interrupting their progress. Just leave, no one cares if you're done and you have somewhere to be. If it's that important, go be there and don't ask the counter ho to go with you because she's working and likely won't meet up with you later. If she says yes it's to make you leave. So please, by all means leave.

I know my rules are harsh, but I think they're plenty fair. Following these will make the gym a much more productive and much more happy place. Failure to adhere to these rules will make you a less likeable and less tolerable person...and nobody wants that right?

Over a year, and still they fight

2006-10-25T13:48:00.000-04:00

As most of you know I've been at the helm of this bookstore for well over a year now. I may have blogged before about the problems we have with the campus store and in general what total assholes they are when it comes to the sharing of information and working with us. They would honestly rather their students withdraw from the class than buy the book from us. I know this because they've told us that's the case. Why they're like this I may never know. Anyway, we had a meeting with them again this semester as we do every semester to tell them we know what they're doing and they need to stop. This semester was a little different because we told them this was our last meeting and from now on we'd be going straight to the state attorney general. I've had conversations with this man before and basically he's informed me that what they're doing is wrong, and if we take them to court they will lose because he's the one that has to defend them. We informed the powers that be in our last meeting this would happen. Apparently they thought I was bluffing because we had the same problems arise once again this week. So I sent an e-mail to my contact there on campus that read something to the effect of "What part of this act is against the law did you miss in our last meeting? Perhaps a month isn't long enough for you to relay the message to the bookstore. As promised (and my attorney was copied on this one) this offense is being taken to the next level." So I called the attorney general, told him the course of the last month or so and what we'd been doing to prevent it and about our last meeting. I even e-mailed him a copy of the meeting agenda we'd made for him and he said he would call the school and take care of it. Somehow I thought at our last meeting that I'd had his attention but apparently not. I know it doesn't sound like much, but when the state attorney general has to call you because you're willfully violating federal laws it just can't be good news. If you were curious, yes, off campus bookstores are protected from misinformation under federal laws. This asshole has been steeling time from me by making me research this kind of thing for over a year now, and now this same ass clown is taking up time on my blog. Hopefully the phone call from the AG did not go well for him and he'll decide that he is an asshole and take his own life. Well...maybe that's a bit harsh. Maybe he'll just quit being an incompetant ass hat in areas that concern me.

Not much else happening these days. Just gearing up for next semester and as usual trying to find new and exciting ways to generate revenue for the store. By the way, should anyone have any ideas they'd like to throw at me, I'm as usual wide open for suggestions. Hopefully in the next few weeks we'll be smoking again and I've invited Bobby Flay to see if he wants to have a throw down with the rum runners and our mad cooking skills. Could be interesting.

The Great Smokeout of 2006

2006-10-10T12:10:00.000-04:00

This has been in the works for a while. I've had a Brinkmann Smoker/Grill combo for a little over a year and had yet to smoke anything. When the rumrunners moved in across the street we started talking about grilling and smoking and things like that. We decided one day this summer we'd have a great smokeout with ribs, chicken, and whatever else would fit on the grill. Summer came and went, and fall was around but we were still determined as all hell to smoke some shit before it got too cold. Last weekend ribs were on sale at the BiLo here in town so I bought them out, and called C to say "Hey man, the great smokeout is Saturday. Ribs are on sale." The response was a simple "Bitchin. I'll tell the wife." The plan was to buy whatever looked good at the BiLo, then go check out this new butcher in town. This new butcher was highly recommended so we headed that way. The shop was huge on the outside, and it's complete with a bakery. Not sure why, but it's there. Inside there was a lot of vacant space, but plenty of meat. The butcher is an old hippy looking guy, but his selection was pretty good. We made the mistake of asking his advice on what to smoke. He pointed to the beef and said beef would be good, then we asked what one of his cuts was. His response started with "Have you ever broke beef before?" Clearly we had not. If we knew how to break beef or carve up cows, would we be at the frickin butcher? No. I think not. After explaining the anatomy of a cow and somehow not answering the question of "What is a Tri-Tip?" he went in to "I was a paramedic Fireman for 27 years you know..." Roughly 30 minutes of our lives now gone, the word Tri-Tip is mentioned again. Somehow we went away from that and in to him having AOL. If you're wondering, a tri-tip is kind of like a roast, but it's also kind of like brisket. We had to draw our own conclusion on buying it, so we did. Here we are thinking we're close to done and he goes "My God guys...I gotta go to the office," and runs off. He comes back a few minutes later and says "Sorry guys, when the good Lord tells you to go-" I'll spare you the rest. It wasn't something either of us wanted to hear. Then, the fattest dude I've seen in recent years comes over breathing heavy like Darth Vader from walking across the floor and tells us to buy a couple pounds of bacon to smoke because he fries up at least a pound every day. We didn't take his advice, but from looking at him he wasn't lying.

So we started early Saturday morning...actually we were supposed to start early Saturday but we ended up starting right around 11 by the time we both woke up. The prepping of meat started, which was an insanely messy process. The ribs were rubbed twice over with Sticky Fingers Rib Rub, as was our new tri-tip roast. The roast was injected with Rum for extra flavor. I'm not sure if it worked or not, but we put about three shots of rum in to it anyway. The chips are supposed to soak - smoking chips that is - in water for at least a half hour before they go on the fire. I read something online that said you could soak them in something else for more flavor so we chose beer. Our original choice was rum, but that would have been expensive. While Pabst did win a blue ribbon once upon a time, it's cheap and gave everything a great flavor. Then came the fire. The fire is a story I probably shouldn't tell you, but it's funny all on it's own. My wife asked why I'd blog something like this, but somehow I don't think the great smokeout of 2006 will be remembered for anything else. The coals were loaded in to the firebox as any person that wants to smoke would do. After the coals were loaded and lit, they burned for a minute and we closed the lid and started preparing to bring the meat to the grille. One more check to the fire showed the fire was out...completely out. So I thought. So I hit it with some lighter fluid and tell C to stand back. With the handy aim-n-flame I attempt to light the charcoal again. Getting the lighter near the grill made an explosion of fire that came out the side, the top, the smokestack, and I think even underneath. What did I do wrong? I didn't open the top again so all the oxygen had to come from the same place I was standing. Yes, I got burned. Nothing serious, but the flash took a chunk of hair out of my extremely hairy arms, most of it off my hands, a little trim of the bangs, and my eyelashes. Yes, somehow I burned my eyelashes almost completely off and can still see. The hair that got burned is still breaking off even today and just generally looks funny. My wife made it a point to stand in front of me and shake her head in disapproval for at least an hour. It might have been less than that because I finally sent her across the street to see M. The jokes for the rest of the day (and even yesterday) somehow managed to come back to me and the fire. You might have had to be there for that to be funny, but I can assure you if you're not amused, C laughed hard enough for everyone that wasn't there. Laugh all you want, but the fire was lit and we didn't have a problem with it for the rest of the day.

At any rate, the food (and fire) was a success. The ribs might have been a little overdone, but the turkey (made for sandwiches) rocked, and the tri-tip roast was awesome. Maybe because it was the furthest from the fire, but wow it was good. Our friend E came over as well, but he doesn't eat ribs so I smoked him some hot dogs. Amazingly, smoked hot dogs don't taste bad at all. If you're in the area and you want to take part in the next great smokeout, shoot me an e-mail and we'll let you know. We can pretty much guarantee a good time, and great food.

Tech Support

2006-09-29T09:58:00.000-04:00

As you guys know part of what I used to do was support at my last job. Dare I call it tech support but we had to answer questions of that nature sometimes. What fits what, will this work, things like that. We had canned responses for most of them that we were required to say...and we ever never allowed to say "this is company policy" even though it was. I answered a lot of e-mails as that was my primary job. So from time to time I'd e-mail another similar company with a question that we get just to see what they'd say, or they responded and if it was any better or worse than what I did. Keep in mind I answered 90 e-mails a day during the busy season. That's a lot of e-mails to look up stuff for and make a genuine response. I didn't believe in copied and pasted responses or just saying something to make them go away. If they had taken time to send us an e-mail, they were considering us over other brands so that was our chance to give them the needed information to buy from us. Some times there were ones I had to call because the management that monitored my e-mail didn't want some of that stuff in writing. I thought that was dumb, but what I did was considered to be only slightly above janitorial work in the minds of the management. The Internet was not a useful resource and was typically a waste of time. Anyway...I'm going off on a tangent.

Recently my Dad has been spending his retirement years helping a friend build a car much like mine. Well, this guy did some things differently and a company now makes a fuel injection for these 30 year old beasts. This particular company is known for extremely bad tech support. I've e-mailed them before my last job and during with a few legitimate questions and they were absolutely worthless. I could have just as easily asked a class of second graders and gotten a better response than what these ass clowns call tech support. So, they have this shiney new fuel injection that costs about $3500 once all is said and done. Not only did he wait over a year from the time he ordered one to receive it, it now doesn't work. The car cranks and runs, and drives but not very well. It has some flat spots where the car doesn't pull...at all. The car has been this way for a year and the company knows it because he's called and called and called...and you get the idea. As bad as this car is running he's still driving it to shows because he likes the reaction people give when they see this $3500 fuel injection kit on a 30 year old car. These people also get to see it smoke like a diesel because it's running like crap. So I e-mailed said company and said I saw this car at a show in Huntsville and the problems it was having with their equipment and wanted to know what it was. They of course denied that their products had any problems and didn't know who I was referring to. So I e-mailed them his name. Suddenly they changed their tone. Then they admitted that HE had some problems getting it tuned and it was likely his fault, and then went as far as to say the product is not broken, the customer is broken. Even Mike will tell you that indeed this customer is a dumbass, but in this case the company is at fault. They've now sent out hundreds of these units with the same problem, and now they've found that 70 percent of them are defective. Are they recalling them? No. They're making customers wait for the promise of new parts, or making up other excuses. They've now decided that all his problems are in the engine and he needs to disassemble the engine to make sure it's put together properly. What they should really do is either fix what they've sent him, no excuses, or refund his money because what they've sent is $3500 worth of junk.

I realize that not many of you are care enthusiasts but I thought I could rant a little about tech support and how worthless product support has become lately. I'm not sure why companies don't take responsibility for products that they sell being crap, but they don't. Kinda makes you scared to buy any big ticket items like that doesn't it?

WMCD's

2006-09-29T09:44:00.000-04:00

So the day of reckoning is coming for the Motorola V60. Sunday we'll probably make a trip out to get new phones and if all goes well Monday or Tuesday will lead to the mass destruction of the current phone. The neighbor works out of town and just happens to drive by a large fireworks stand. Last weekend I sent him a text that read "Don't forget to pick up WMCD's on your way home for a trial run." The response was a simple "OK." What are WMCD's? Weapons of Mass Cell Phone Destruction. In this case C's weapon of choice was an M150. They're not bad...once you take all the sound deading and destruction dampening cases off of it, they seem like they might just do the trick.

In other news the hard top is on the Jeep but I haven't given in and started wearing jeans yet. That day will come soon I know, but for now I still enjoy wearing shorts and t-shirts.

I actually had something of purpose to blog about today but I forgot what it was. Now you're just stuck with the ramblings of a rummed out bookstore owner. Ahh rum. I hope this weekend is full of it, but we will see. Looks to be busy again as I'm helping some friends move, doing a car show with my Dad and cousins on Saturday, and Sunday I was hoping to put the new radio in the Jeep but that looks unlikely at this point. College football is out for the weekend because Auburn beat South Carolina last night. Barely, and certainly nothing to brag about, but it's a win and keeps us undefeated for now. Could be a long season. We'll see.

That's it from the bookstore for now. Have a good weekend!

Who would win in a fight. Maximus from Gladiator or William Wallace from Braveheart?
	Maximus Decimus Meridius
	William Wallace

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Who would win the RumRunners Challenge?
	Bobby Flay
	The RumRunners

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