It Could Be A Long Three Weeks

Fair warning to all my faithful readers, (yeah, all 12 of you), beginning this afternoon, I will be taking up residence in my new apartment and even though I signed up for cable and internet service over a week ago, the installers won’t be over to hook me up until the 23rd of the month.  It’s like I just got sent back to the Stone Age.

So that not only means that I will be spending the next three weeks completely in the dark about everything that is going on in the world, but I will also be afforded very few opportunities to write.  I’ll try, whenever possible, to mooch internet access off other people in my building, but if that doesn’t work, it could be a long three weeks.

I don’t know how much writing I could get done in other places, mostly because I need to feel really comfortable when I am writing and I rarely feel comfortable when I am on a computer in public.  For example, I could go to one of the handful of computer labs on campus, but I always feel like other people are watching what I do and reading what I write when I am on public computers, so that might not work so well.

Eric, if you’re reading this, I might stop by your place a few times and cuddle up in your bed with your laptop to pound out a couple of posts.

Well, sorry to cut this short, but there is just so much I have to get done today before I go back to work.  I hope you all have a wonderfully fun and safe 4th of July weekend.  I will be spending mine in town, by myself, unpacking and putting together my apartment, so even if I did have the internet, I wouldn’t have shit to write about from this weekend anyway.

Here’s hoping that one of my new neighbors has left his/her wireless internet unprotected so I can mooch off it for the next few weeks. Cross your fingers!

One love,

10

Phase I Completed

Well phase one of my moving adventure is complete.  After roughly 10 straight hours of cleaning, packing, and loading up, I got all my worldly belongings into a moving truck, said goodbye to B-Weezy, hit the road, and hightailed it … Straight to my Mommy’s house.

Since my new apartment isn’t quite ready and won’t be until Thursday afternoon, Mommy dearest and I are sharing some quality time as I have moved into the guest bedroom for a few days.  I almost feel like I did something wrong, like I just finished up a stint in rehab and now I’ve gotta live under adult supervision for a while until I get my shit together again.  In reality though, it’s just an unfortunate set of circumstances that has sent me from sleeping comfortably on my queen size bed to sleeping restlessly on a daybed that seems to be about the size of my left thigh.

News on all other fronts is good though.  Work is good, the weather has been un-freaking-believable lately, and my golf game is finally beginning to come out of the slump I’ve been in lately.  Great, now I just jinxed myself.  That’s the thing that kills me about golf; its absolutely amazing how everything can be so good for three straight weeks, and then all come CRASHING down after one bad hole.  Although, the hole in question scarred me for the better part of my life, and has stuck with me for almost a month now.

I was playing the round of my life through the first seven holes, and when I got up onto the eighth tee box, I was like a pitcher who suddenly becomes very aware that he has a no-hitter going.  All I could think about was not screwing up.  Well, after taking a 7 on eight (a par 3), and a 6 on nine (a par 4), my whole world came crashing down.  Confidence: dead.

Ever since then I’ve been in one hell of a mental box, especially with my mid irons, and for a while there I thought my best option might have been to take two weeks off and then quit.  Well, I’m not quite ready to go that far just yet, but if I post later this month advertising a set of clubs for sale, don’t act surprised.

I went with a couple friends to Get Smart on Saturday, and despite some negative reviews from a few guys at work, I enjoyed it.  I, as a child, was a fan of the TV series that ran on Nick at Nite, so it was cool to see it modernized and updated with Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway, who by the way is IMMEDIATELY added to an amended list of my crushes.  She looks fantastic in the movie, and that alone was worth the price of the ticket.

Well, as much as I would love to sit and chat, it’s sunny and 75 degrees outside right now, and I can see no better way to spend my morning than on the golf course.

One love,

10

These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things

Okay, I know women aren’t things, but the title just came out and I decided to go with it.

After Tuesday’s man love fest of a post, I figure it’s in my best interest to even things out and restore the balance back to somewhat of a resemblance of heterosexuality on my part. So with that in mind, I could see no better time than now to give you my list of female crushes.

Now of course there are the mainstays, the Jessica Albas and Scarlett Johanssons of the world, but those are too obvious and basically a waste of time for me to type because most every straight man is on the same page. So instead, this will be a list of crushes I have on some ladies who are (for the most part) lesser known than the everyday A-list. So here are just a few, in no particular order.

Paula Creamer

Ohhh Paula. Don’t act like you don’t know that you’re hot. You know. Normally, when people talk about the hot chicks of professional golf, Natalie Gulbis gets brought up. I myself prefer Paula over Natalie. The 21 year old is not only fun to look at, she’s fun to watch on the course and even though she has just begun her young career, she is being touted as the best player on the ladies’ tour to not have won a Major yet. Good news for golf fans and perverts alike, Paula is going to be around for a long, long time.

Paula on the course

Paula on the town

Bianca Kajlich

Right now, you’re probably either saying, “Who?” or “Ahh yes.” Bianca is one of the stars of the hit CBS show The Rules of Engagement and has done a handful of B-movies over the past eight or nine years. Aside from the fact that she is completely gorgeous, Bianca has a natural beauty about her and she is one of those ladies who can probably look just as sexy in sweats as an evening gown.

Giada De Laurentiis

Alright, I’ll admit it, I watch The Food Network from time to time. I’m not ashamed of it, especially when one of the hosts looks like this. Some people get down on her for being too over the top and over excited sometimes, but that’s her job, so I don’t hold it against her. Instead of looking for the flaws, I take her for what she is: sexy, rich, a good cook, well traveled, somewhat famous, and if that weren’t enough … she’s Italian.

“What I really want in a man is a mid-20s, handsome, funny, Italian-American guy who will sleep in and golf everyday while I am shooting for my TV shows, eat my delicious cooking, and rock my world in the bedroom on command.”

Check, check, and check. Sounds like I’m her man. It’s a match made in heaven.

Erin Andrews

Among the laundry list of hot chicks employed by ESPN as sideline and field reporters, Erin is my absolute favorite and in my opinion, the best looking. We know she’s got the looks, but she also has a stellar job, and she knows and loves sports. Sounds like a win-win-win to me.

Shana Hiatt

America’s hottest poker babe, Shana has made a name for herself by hosting a few seasons of World Poker Tour and posing in a little magazine you may have heard of called Playboy. Noteworthy is the fact that Shana was once married to porn star Tommy Gunn, so that tells you what kind of girl she might be, which is nice.

Liquor up front, poker in the rear

Nicole Scherzinger

If you’re going to be the lead singer for the Pussycat Dolls, you gotta look good because basically all you’re ever going to be singing about is sex. For Nicole, this hasn’t posed a problem. Nicole, if you’re reading this, whenever you’re ready to settle down and get with a down to Earth kinda guy, I’ll have my phone on me. Gimme a ring.

Hayden Panettiere

Okay, so maybe I’m flirting with the cut line for jail bait, but in my defense, Hayden turns 19 next month, so according to the law, I am well within my rights to ogle her. She has been in show business since she was four years old, so it’s probably just a matter of time before she becomes a total head case, so you can either love her now while she’s still normal, or you can try to meet up with her in Vegas in six years, buy her nine double-Morgan cokes, and offer her $20 to take her top off and marry you, the choice is yours. I, personally, might just do both.

“Yeah, I know I’m smoking hot now, but just wait a few years when I get a DUI, throw a mocha frappuccino at the paparazzi, get checked into rehab, and go completely bonkers. Then it’s just a matter of time before I’m in Playboy and doing crappy horror movies in which I do full frontal nudity.”

Well, I know there’s a million more of these girls that I heart, and I could sit here all weekend and put them up, but unfortunately I have to go to work. Tomorrow I start packing and moving my crap out of my current apartment and into a truck, then I get to spend two lovely nights at my Mom’s house while my new apartment is readied.

I’m more than likely going to be super busy for the next few days, so cut me some slack if I don’t write again for a while.

In the mean time, feel free to share with me your favorite crushes.

One love,

10

I Heart Men, Just Not In THAT Way

Not that there’s anything wrong with that …

In a society growing more and more comfortable with man-on-man love, I figure there’s no better time than now to tell you about some of my man crushes.

We as men all have man crushes, some more than others. I’ll save you the time and omit the athletes on my man crush list, because that would probably make this post just a bit longer than the New Testament. So instead I’ll focus on the guys who made my list for various other reasons.

Here’s a fair warning: You’re not going to agree with all of these, but I don’t give a damn. I love them nevertheless. So, here they are, in no particular order.

Bill Simmons

Simmons, aka “The Sports Guy,” is ESPN’s most popular columnist both in ESPN The Magazine and on the website. His great sports mind and hilarious wit make him a popular read for anyone who enjoys blatant sarcasm, knee slapping analogies, and overall good writing. I have a man crush on ol’ Billy boy because I envy his lifestyle. He gets to write about sports, which means he gets to go to basically any game he wants, and the tab is always picked up by ESPN. He’s in the center of the sports journalism world, but he doesn’t have to get all dolled up and go on SportsCenter every night, so if he were so inclined, at least 90% of his work could be done from home whilst wearing Bert & Ernie pajamas. Although he admits to getting a lot of work done at home, the Bert & Ernie pj’s are purely speculation on my part. I’m worried about his future involvement with ESPN.com, however. In recent years, he has been somewhat at odds with management regarding some of the things he writes, and was recently quoted as saying: “I still love writing my column and only re-signed last year because I really did believe that we had hashed out all the behind the scenes bullshit and come to some sort of agreement on creative lines, media criticism rules, the promotion of the column and everything else on ESPN.com. Within a few months, all of those things changed and certain promises were not kept. It’s as simple as that.” Seriously, if ESPN.com knew what was good for them, they would bend over backwards to keep the columnist whom I suspect brings in more traffic than any other two writers combined.

Kanye West

Yeah, I know. You probably don’t like him. I simply love the guy. In the past couple of years, whenever his name is brought up, all people relate it to are his ego and attitude. People are too busy concerning themselves with what Kanye said at an awards show rather than remembering what he has done for the hip hop game in the last seven or eight years. He was doing smaller things in the late 1990s, but since he signed on with Roc-A-Fella in 2000, he has made more hits than I have time to list. If you really want to look it over, here is his production discography. Really, it’s impressive. Aside from the fact that he has laid out more hits than Russell Crowe, the man is constantly reinventing himself and his musical style. The icing on the cake for me was seeing him at the Glow In The Dark Tour a couple of weeks ago in Minneapolis. Like I said in my post last week, that show changed everything for me musically, and I have no one but Kanye to thank.

John Mayer

Sure, Mayer may not be the manliest of men, but I’ll be damned if he isn’t many things I wouldn’t mind being; rich, handsome, intelligent, a musical powerhouse, and awfully good with the ladies. In addition to rumors that Mayer has been around the block more than a few times with girls we’ve never heard of, he has also dated a pretty impressive list of Hollywood hotties including Jennifer Love Hewitt, Jessica Simpson, and most recently, Jennifer Aniston. His latest CD “Continuum” is, in my opinion, one of the best albums of the last five years and was the third album in a row of his to achieve platinum status. He is a four-time Grammy award winner and has countless other musical achievements. I’ll say that my man crush on Mayer is borderline unhealthy, but don’t worry, I am not about to go sifting through his garbage … yet.

Matt Damon

In a world full of celebs gone mad, Damon has somehow managed to remain at the forefront of the film industry all the meanwhile not going so nuts to the point of shaving his head and tongue kissing Madonna on MTV. Aside from being one of the coolest guys around, he’s a smart dude, and his filmography has quite a few flicks worth mentioning, including Good Will Hunting which he co-wrote as well as starred in, Rounders, Saving Private Ryan, Ocean’s 11-13, The Good Shepard, The Departed, the Bourne Trilogy, and many more.  B-Weezy and I have had several discussions about who we think is cooler between Damon and Brad Pitt.  Both are on the same coolness level, but Damon gets the nod because he seems more down to Earth.  Not to take anything away from Brad though, he’s definitely an honorable mention on my man crush list.

Will Smith

Where to start with this one?  I don’t know which I like him better for, his 1990s pop rap, his success on the hit show The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, or his colossal movie career.  No one in my memory bank has dominated those three facets of entertainment quite like Will has for over two decades.   In addition to his impressive career, Smith reportedly got a 34 on his ACT was was admitted to MIT, although he never attended.  Instead he just went on to a movie career which has seen seven straight $100 million films, a feat matched only by Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks.  His latest attempt to reenter the music world was one that wasn’t too impressive, but he is going to have to do a hell of a lot more than release a stinker of an album for me to stop loving the guy.  Next week when Hancock opens in theaters, I am going to make an effort to go see it as soon as I get a chance, so I’ll let you know how that goes. Until then, I am fully content watching Bad Boys II and reruns of The Fresh Prince.

Diddy

Simply put, Diddy is my boy.  He is the definition of the American dream.  He single handedly created Bad Boy Records and made it what it is today by being an astute judge of talent and character, as well as being one hell of a businessman.  Through the years, he has worked with countless Grammy award winning artists, including Notorious BIG, 112, Mariah Carey, Usher, TLC, Boyz II Men, Aretha Franklin, and more.  His most recent endeavors have seen him in the spotlight on MTV’s Making The Band where Diddy and associates travel coast to coast in search of talent to put together the next big thing in R&B.  The last two groups put together - Day26 and Danity Kane - have both done excellent in their young careers and the latter of the two has gone platinum several times with their two albums.  Diddy’s estimated net worth is creeping up on the $500 million mark, making him one of the wealthiest people in the entertainment industry today.  He continues to be the gold standard for making hits and his reputation for demanding nothing less than perfection has served him well over the years.  As if that weren’t enough, the guy just plain cracks me up.

Well there is my short list of men I have healthy man crushes on.  I’m not saying I would give up women for these guys, but I would follow them to the gates of hell in most cases.

Sorry I haven’t been writing a lot lately, but as I’ve said before, I am working a lot lately and I am sewing up some loose ends and getting ready to move, so that leaves me with almost no time to sit down and put a series of thoughts together.  On top of that, the weather here has been IMMACULATE for about a month straight, so I can’t bring myself to plop down in front of a computer when it’s 80 degrees and sunny out everyday.

When I do move next week, I might be without internet for a short while during the transition.  Don’t worry though, I’ll find a way to make it work, even if that means lugging my desktop into Starbucks and hooking everything up … You’re worth it.

One love,

10

Another Successful Big City Weekend

Well another trip to Minneapolis is in the books, and once again I had a fun weekend with JK. The main purpose of the trip was to see The Glow In The Dark Tour featuring Kanye West, Rihanna, N.E.R.D. and Lupe Fiasco. The concert was on Wednesday night, and I stayed until Saturday night, so that left a few days in between for JK and I to go and have ourselves some big city fun. And we did just that. Since there are few dull moments on trips like this, and I enjoyed writing about my last trip so much, I figured I would give you all the rundown of the weekend, starting of course with the train ride there.

Note: If at any time in this post I mention my last trip to the Twin Cities, the post about that trip can be found here.

WEDNESDAY

The ride there wasn’t much unlike the last time.  Again, the train was over two hours late, so instead of leaving at just before 1:00 AM, we left at about 3:00.  Since I had some time to sit in the train station to ponder a few things, I began looking around and noticed a somewhat troubling fact.  There is absolutely, positively zero security.  Honestly, this puzzles me since getting on an airplane post-9/11 is more uncomfortable than getting a prostate exam and a root canal simultaneously.  There are no metal detectors, no security guards, no one standing at the door with an ear piece in looking like they’re important, nothin’.  The whole time I was sitting there I couldn’t help but think that I could easily put an uzi in my bag and no one would know.  Then again, why would anyone want to hijack a train?

Also while sitting in the train station, I had one of the funnier encounters in recent history with a lady who was also waiting for the train.  She was sitting across from me, and noticed something that I overlooked when I packed my bag.  Immediately after our conversation, I put it into my BlackBerry so I wouldn’t forget it, and so I have the privilege of giving you this conversation word-for -word and in its entirety.

Lady: (Noticing I brought a pillow) “Your pillow case is inside-out.”
Me: “Oh, indeed it is.”
Lady: “What’s up with that?”
Me: (Sarcastically) “I was probably drunk when I did the laundry last time, who knows?”
Lady: (Dead serious) “I like doing the laundry drunk, it makes things a lot more fun.”
Me: “I’m happy for you.”
(Silence for at least 20 seconds)
Lady: “I’m not ALWAYS drunk when I do the laundry, ya know.”
Me: “No, no, I’m not here to judge anyone.”

Immediately after I said that, I pulled my headphones on so as to cut off the possibility for any further conversation.  I really wanted her to think that I was convinced she was a lush.  Mission: accomplished.

Once the train finally gets in, I go out to board it and the guy taking tickets says the two sentences I didn’t want to hear:  “Please get in a single file line and I will be assigning you all seats.  The train is sold out tonight so no one will have two seats to themselves.”

Shit.  The last time I rode, I was fortunate enough to get two seats to myself on both ends of the trip, and it was glorious.  This time, I got paired up with some random guy who was already asleep when I got on, and therefore was taking up his entire seat and half of mine.  I knew right away it was going to be a long ride.  I didn’t know the half of it.

Between Mister Seat Hogger, the four girls behind me talking, and the baby a few rows up crying for literally two hours straight, sleep was a distant memory for me on that train ride.  When it was all said and done, I finally got some shuteye, but it abruptly came to an end about an hour later when I heard someone booming over the intercom of the train.

“ATTENTION ALL PASSENGERS, BREAKFAST IS NOW BEING SERVED IN THE DINING CAR.  WE HAVE FRESH FRUIT, CEREAL, OATMEAL, BAGELS, MILK, JUICE, COFFEE, AND MORE. FEEL FREE TO COME CHECK IT OUT.”

After I wiped the shit out of my pants and brought my pulse back down under 200, I checked my phone and it read: 6:05 AM.  Great.  So these people really don’t care that we didn’t board until 3:00?  What kind of sick joke was that?  At the volume that guy was speaking, I was honestly expecting an announcement about a nuclear holocaust.  Oh well, I paid it no mind and fell back asleep … Only to be woken up again every half hour with more announcements about breakfast. After the third announcement I gave up and just stayed awake for the final couple hours of the trip.

Total sleep on the train ride to Minneapolis: Between one and two hours.

Once I got in, JK picked me up and we kind of laid low for the rest of the morning.  In the afternoon, I got my first look at Grand Theft Auto IV, and let me tell you, I fully see this game consuming my life for months on end.  I am a huge fan of GTA III, Vice City, and San Andreas, and this one looks like it has outdone them all.  We spent most of the afternoon playing GTA IV, and at about 6:15 we made our way downtown to the Target Center for the concert.

I’ve been dreading this part of the post, because I have absolutely zero chance of doing that show justice with words.  The only thing I can really tell you is that it was simply the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.  I had read and heard a lot about the tour coming into the show, and my expectations couldn’t have been any higher … and that show way exceeded my expectations in every way.  Say what you want about Kanye, that tour changed the way I look at music, and that is no joke.  I’ll say this in closing: the show was so good, I didn’t even care that I paid $7.50 for a beer.  Right after the show, JK and I both agreed that if there was another show in the area within the next couple nights, we would have been in the car on the way there and bought tickets off a scalper for any cost. Yeah, it was THAT good.  Also, there must have been some kind of unadvertised short skirt contest, because I have never in my life seen so many short skirts in one place before.  JK and I were both stunned at the amount of good looking girls there, which really just added to the ambiance of the show.

The show got over just after midnight, and we both were so amped yet exhausted, it was a weird feeling.  We wanted to pace ourselves, so we resisted the temptation to go out and have a few drinks and we decided to call it a night.

THURSDAY

As I mentioned, the concert was the focal point of the trip, so after that, we really didn’t have a single thing planned for the next three days.  We went and got some lunch, and then just went back to JK’s place and relaxed.  It was raining all day, and JK has four channels of television, so we went and saw Iron Man.  Good flick, I’m gonna give it a 4 out of 5.  I like comic book movies, and the fact that this one set itself up nicely for a sequel excites me.

After the movie, we basically counted the minutes until we could go watch the Celtics-Lakers Game 4.  At game time, we went to a good sports bar for some appetizers and a couple beers.  Well a couple beers turned into a couple more, and since the Celtics starting mounting their colossal comeback around the time we were ready to leave, we decided to stick around to watch the end of the game and somehow beer just kept finding its way to our table.

About three hours and an $88 tab later (I know this number might seem small, but our appetizers were half priced and the beer was on special as well, so we put in work while we were there), we collected our belongings and hit the road.  Our waitress thought we were pretty funny since we got “unplanned drunk” and stumbled out.

Afterward, we went straight back to JK’s place and passed out, er, fell asleep.  According to JK, I was in rare form all night, letting loose a barrage of loud farts and open-mouth snoring that would make any old man proud.  Since I have no recollection of this, I can neither confirm nor deny either accusation.

We’re two nights into the trip and we are definitely two-for-two on fun times.

FRIDAY

After we both shook the cobwebs out, JK and I decided Friday would be a good day to hit the downtown area and just see what happens.  The weather was gorgeous, and we had absolutely nothing to do, so why not?  We hit up the downtown Hooters for lunch, had a couple burgers, and got fake hit on by pretty much every server in the place.  I know it’s their job and it plays into the whole Hooters persona, but the girls always seem to go way out of their way to pretend to be interested in the customers.  Nevertheless, we always seem to go there when I am in town.

After we ate, we went and played some games at the arcade (yeah, we’re dorks) and then we just started walking.  A side note on this arcade, it’s a place more geared at the 21+ crowd.  It’s two floors of wall-to-wall games, a bowling alley, and two full bars … so we’re not totally lame.  We were already in the heart of downtown, so we just decided that nothing bad could come from just wandering around and going wherever the wind takes us.  We stopped in a few different places for a beer or two … or three.  We ended up at some place that starts with an M or an R or something like that.  Anyway, we had some dinner, got half drunk, and went home.

Once we got home, we kind of just hung around for a while, and then as the night came we caught our second wind and decided to go back out.  We decided to forgo the downtown scene because we were very content to just belly up at a laid back place and roll with the punches.  Went to a placed called Major’s, which turned out to be exactly what we were looking for.  We got there, both opened tabs (bad idea) and headed over to the Golden Tee game that was calling us like we were late for a meeting.

I’m not going to get into specifics about the game we played, but let me just say this: I went out on a limb a couple times, played a couple shots I probably shouldn’t have, and lost to JK.  But that wasn’t half as funny as the guy playing Golden Tee next to us.  This guy was easily 30-35 years old, but he was the most hardcore Golden Tee person I’ve ever seen.  He had his own player card that loaded his avatar and all his scores and specs and what nots, and he was serious about the game.  To 99% of us, Golden Tee is just a fun drunk activity, but this guy was yelling and swearing at the machine, punching the screen, and acting like a six year old.  Check that, even a six year old would hold something back in front of other people.  This guy was completely unphased by the fact that there were other humans in his vicinity.  He was a show.

After we played our game, JK and I went back and bellied up, had a few more drinks, and while I was on my fourth or fifth beer, I had a revelation.  See, when we got there, we both just ordered, threw the girl our credit cards, and started a tab, so neither of us were told just how much we were paying for our drinks.  So it wasn’t until some guy came up to the bar and asked that I found out how much my beer was apparently worth.  Here was that conversation and my subsequent reaction:

Customer: “How much for a Blue Moon on tap?”
Bartender: “$7.50″
Me: “Jesus Christ!”

Oh well, I was on vacation, what the hell do I care?  So after we closed our tabs, JK and I could only hear one word: Perkins.  There was one nearby and we could see no other option than to go there and eat.  After we sat down, a couple of thirty-something guys were seated across from us.  These guys made my whole night.  At first, they kept talking about “the talent at the venue” and JK and I weren’t sure exactly what they meant, but then the pieces started coming together.  By “talent,” they meant girls.  Talent? How deliciously degrading is that?  Here sat a couple of borderline middle-aged men talking about chasing skirt like they’re 22 again.  So, JK and I, seeing ourselves in 10 years sitting across from us, strike up a convo about this and that, and they go on to tell us where they like to hunt for “talent” and where the hottest talent hangs out on the weekends.  Then this conversation between the two guys ensues:

Guy #1: “I’m getting married in August, so I need to score as much ass as possible now.”
Guy#2: “You mean guilt-free ass.”
Guy #1: “Of course.”
Guy #2: “Even though every married guy I know still cheats.”

Wow.

After Perkins, JK and I retired back to his place and got some much-needed sleep.

SATURDAY

Not a lot happened on Saturday, mostly since my train was scheduled to leave that night at 11:15, so JK and I laid low most of the day.  We went and had some lunch, watched the U.S. Open, played some GTA IV, and just hung out basically.

When it came time for me to leave, JK dropped me off at the train station, and I was greeted by a large sign that said: “TONIGHT’S TRAIN WILL BE ARRIVING AT 1:30 AM.”  Super.  So for over two hours, I sat in a crowded train station doing my best not to kill someone.  There was a family that was in my area, and their 8 year old was running around like an idiot the entire time.  I mean, I can cut the kid some slack, after all he is just a kid.  But he was carrying a map of Minnesota and running around like he just found the last golden ticket to the Wonka Chocolate Factory tour, which led to me getting a lovely papercut on my wrist as he ran by me.  Here’s a heads up to any potential Amtrak customers: they don’t have bandaids in the station.  So I wrapped some toilet paper around my wrist to stop from bleeding profusely, and sat back down.  Don’t worry, even though the kid was tromping around like a tool, his parents made up for it by not apologizing to me about the two inch gash across my wrist.

Once the train finally got in, I was again seated with a complete stranger, and again struggled to get any sleep whatsoever.  More babies crying, people constantly walking around, jackass conductor on the intercom all morning.

Total sleep on the ride home: Less than two hours.

Mark my words, I will never take that stupid train again. I don’t care if it’s cheaper than driving, it’s just not worth it.

All things considered, though, I had a blast over the weekend.  I am now back into work mode, which just isn’t cutting it for me, but I’ve got quite a span before I’ll be able to get out of town again, so I might as well just get used to it.  Now all my focus goes back to work, golf, and in a couple weeks, moving.

Sorry this post ended up being so long, but it was a good weekend and there was plenty worth mentioning. Plus, I figure I owe it to you since I haven’t written anything in a while.  I hope you all have a lovely week, and I’ll be sure to write again soon.

One love,

10

Help Is A Four-Letter Word

It’s really no secret that things in the world today are going south in more than one department.  Here in America, we’re in the middle of a very controversial war, there’s an energy crisis emerging, the environmental issues are becoming very real, and we’re on the brink of a huge economic downturn.  So it stands to reason that we have enough going on in today’s society that we shouldn’t have to swamp our minds with worries about the little things.

What little things?  Well, for example, if you were to get hit by a car while crossing the street, would you expect someone to help you?  I certainly would, and so did 78-year old Angel Torres from Hartfort, Connecticut.  Recently, a surveillance camera captured an incident that makes me sick just thinking about it.  Torres was crossing the street when two cars swerved into the wrong lane, apparently one chasing the other.  Torres evaded the first car but was immediately struck by the second, thrown into the air, and dropped on the ground like a sack of potatoes.  Neither vehicle even slowed, even though Torres almost went through the windshield of one, and dozens of people nearby ignored the whole thing completely and went about their so-called important lives.

As Torres laid there lifeless, people continued to pass him by, and even the sight of an elderly man lying still in the middle of a busy road couldn’t get someone to budge to offer assistance of any kind.

What the hell is wrong with people?  I don’t even know what to say about this because it makes me so disgusted.  Where do we even start?  A motorist crosses the center line and hits an old man, sending him tumbling over the front of the car, and he can’t even stop?  Odds are the driver who struck Torres is already in deep with the law and my assumptions lead me to believe he had something to hide, (perhaps he had a car full of drugs or the car was stolen), and that is why he kept his foot firmly on the gas and sped off without batting an eye.

Then, we move onto everyone else in the vicinity.  Nine cars drive by and a bunch of people on foot come within 20 feet of Torres’ lifeless body laying motionless in the middle of the street, and no one pays it any mind.  Everyone and their mother today has a cell phone, we’re certainly not shy about using them, yet not a single person who viewed the incident has the impulse to dial 911.  No one bothers to try get a license plate number of the vehicle that ran over the man, no one approaches him and asks if he needs help,  NO ONE DID ANYTHING.  Reports state that police eventually came upon the scene, but only because they were en route to another call in the area.

How can so many people be so indifferent to another human life?  At the very least, someone could have gone into the street to see if the man needed any help.  Upon noticing he was probably unconscious, that person then could have called 911 and stayed with the man, if for no other reason than to keep further oncoming traffic from running over a man who has already been the victim of a hit and run.

Below is the accident in its entirety.  It’s only about 45 seconds, so please watch it.  Notice how immediately after it happens, people kind of stop what they’re doing, give a look, and then continue on.  One female, who is on the left side of the screen, even walks to the curb, looks out at Torres laying still in the street, and then simply walks away.  Like I said, the whole thing really disgusts me, so I’ll let the video do the rest of the talking.

Sick huh?

In lighter news, I leave Wednesday morning for Minneapolis for the Kanye West concert and a couple of boys’ nights out with my homeboy JK.  Odds are I won’t get a chance to write again tomorrow, but I really want to do a post about the US Open before it kicks off on Thursday.  Maybe I can squeeze a little something out tomorrow night, but no promises. If I don’t get a chance to, then my next post will more than likely be a rundown of the weekend’s events.  I hope you all have a good week.

One love,

10

Pondering Life’s Big Questions

Summer is officially in full swing in my book. I know this because I am following the tell-tale signs; It has been consistently nice outside for a good three weeks now, I am working more than I should be, and I am completely without stress of any kind. The stress thing is big for me, and summers are great because 98% of my stress generally comes from school. No school = no stress. Right now, the only things I worry about are when my next tee time is and the amount of Goldfish crackers I have in the cupboard.

Speaking of food, I must have eaten something funky in the last 24 hours because I am home sick from work right now with what appeared at first to be food poisoning. Now I’m beginning to think it is a little less severe, and I’m slowly getting better with each trip to the bathroom. As lame as it might sound, I don’t like missing work, and nine out of ten times I would rather be keeping busy than sitting around waiting to poop and/or throw up.

But enough of the small talk. Today’s post stems from an e-mail I got from my Mom the other day. Usually, the forwards she sends me are immediately dismissed since they are either a warning that Hotmail is shutting down my account unless I forward the message to everyone in my address book or a letter from Bill Gates himself stating that he will personally write me a check for $50 for each person I forward a message to. But not this e-mail. This one actually made me chuckle. So, I figured this would be an easy out for a post, so I decided to do a little cut and paste action and in addition I’ll throw in my own two cents here and there. Onto the e-mail, which was entitled “WHY?”

Why do we press harder on a remote when we know the batteries are going dead? Good question. It doesn’t work, and you would think that we would have figured it out by now. After all, we’ve been sitting on our lazy asses for decades watching TV, we should know what’s going on. On a similar note, we think that beating it like it owes us money will magically recharge the batteries and restore normal functioning. We’re just delaying the inevitable, people. Go buy a couple more AA’s.

Why do banks charge a fee for “insufficient funds?” Really, they know we don’t have any money, so why are they charging us more money? It’s just another way for the poor man to get screwed over while rich people get paid to be rich. Banks love giving rich people more money just for having money. It’s like the Paris Hilton effect* only with money.

Why do people believe you when you say there are four billion stars in the sky, but when you say there is wet paint, they have to touch it to be sure? The same theory applies when someone tells you something is hot. Funny story about that. I have a friend who, when he goes to a restaurant where they bring his plate out hot, will wait for the server to warn him, then purposely touch it and yelp about it being too hot. One time he went a little overboard and touched his plate of piping hot fajitas and immediately slammed his hand into his glass of water. Funniest thing ever. People like him keep the rest of us young.

Why doesn’t glue stick to the inside of the bottle? Some things are just better left unknown.

Why do they use sterilized needles to administer the lethal injection? This one is stupid, so allow me to answer a question with a question. Why the hell would they keep a box of dirty, infected needles around?

Why doesn’t Tarzan have a beard? I guess puberty hits at different ages for everyone, but come on.

Why does Superman stop bullets with his chest but duck when the bad guy throws his gun at him? Seems to me like whoever asked that question just put the entire Superman writing staff in a mental box. Good luck explaining that one, DC Comics.

Why do kamikaze pilots wear helmets? Allow me to play devil’s advocate on this one too. In theory, it’s a funny thought, but not half as funny as a kamikaze pilot who goes up without a helmet and then bumps his head mid-flight, goes unconscious, and misses his target.

Why must the word “lisp” have an ‘S’ in it? Whoever came up with the word was just plain cruel, that’s why. In hindsight, maybe it’s like that so when someone tells you they have a lisp, you have already seen it in action and therefore no further explanation is required.

Why do people constantly return to the refrigerator in hopes that new food has materialized? Hey, a guy can dream can’t he? Also, we must meet a standardized quota of three fridge checks before feeling comfortable ordering out. I mean, if we just walked in the door and picked up the phone, it would be like we stopped trying or something.

Why do we run over a string a dozen times with the vacuum, then bend down, pick it up, examine it, and toss it back on the floor to give the vacuum another chance? Because throwing it away in the trash can would just make too much sense I guess. Same basic question applies to things we know shouldn’t be sucked up by the vacuum like pennies, nails, empty cans of Miller Lite, and dead hookers. What? Just me?

Why is it that no matter which end you try to open a plastic bag from, it’s the wrong one? Law of averages has to take over at some point with this one. I’m still waiting.

Why is it that whenever you attempt to catch something that’s falling, you always knock something else over? I might be one of the worst ever at this, and when you throw in the fact that 80% of the time I incur some sort of personal injury ranging from a stubbed toe to a bleeding open wound, I have got to be one of the most useless human beings I know.

Why is it that keeping the house at 68 degrees during winter is too cold but keeping it at 68 during summer is just fine? This one is simple: Because people NEED to complain about the weather, no matter what. It’s either too hot, too cold, too rainy, too dry, too windy, too sunny, too dark, or too humid. Then winter rolls around and people get bummed cause there is no snow. Then it snows four feet in two days and everyone complains that they want the snow to melt. I’ve always wondered, do people in places like San Diego or Hawaii complain about the weather being too perfect?

There were a couple more that were absolutely obtuse, and therefore did not quite make the cut for this post. I mean come on, I have standards.

One love,

10
*Noting the fact that Paris Hilton and people like her are famous for being famous and that no one can link anything they’ve done to anything worthwhile.

Missing The Good Old Days

You know what sucks?  Daytime television.  Now that it’s summer, I have a decent portion of time between about 10:00 am and 5:00 pm in which I have almost zero responsibility.  On most days, I get out to the golf course, but on days like today when it’s raining and crummy out, I usually toss a load of laundry in and watch some TV.

One thing that I can say with absolute certainty is that there is next to nothing worth watching during the early afternoon.  I hate soaps, there is usually nothing but SportsCenter reruns on ESPN, and most programming is targeted for children and senior citizens since everyone else is at work.  So, what I used to watch in the summer was a heavy dose of good old fashioned cartoons.  Call me a loser if you want, but I love cartoons.  The good ones though, not this new garbage that kids are exposed to.

I love stuff like Tom & Jerry and Looney Tunes, which were staples when I was a kid.  Even though they were made 50 years ago, those old Warner Bros. cartoons are genuinely funny.  Sure, most of them were inherently the same in theme, but that was alright.  I was strangely comfortable watching Wile E. Coyote chase after the Roadrunner day after day only to fail every single time.  Same went for Tom chasing Jerry all day as well as Bugs and Daffy trying to convince Elmer Fudd it was either duck season or “wabbit” season.

Now cartoons have to have a message and instead of watching Yosemite Sam fire off a few rounds from his revolvers, kids are watching some jackass named Bob the Builder put up drywall.  Is that what kids should be idolizing - being a construction worker?  I guess that’s the message: Kids, you can be whatever you want, even a manual laborer! Apparently the old cartoons just weren’t politically correct and portrayed images deemed inappropriate for children.  I’m sorry, but if you feel like you need to shield your six year old from Foghorn Leghorn and Porky Pig, then we have deeper problems that I could spin into a completely different post.

Maybe it’s me, but I miss Sylvester and Tweety, but instead I have Spongebob Squarepants and Dora the Explorer.  That’s just not cutting it for me.  Not only has Nickelodeon gone soft on us, but the Cartoon Network, which was my last venue to see those old toons on, has dumped them in lieu of cartoons about robots and chickens.

I yearn for what I recognize because not only are these new cartoons weird, but they are completely incomprehensible.  I’m almost 25 years old and I consider myself to be an intelligent person, but I tried watching one of these new age jobbies and I was completely lost the whole way through.  Thank God it’s almost college football season again, because Saturday mornings are getting to be too much to bear.  It’s a good thing I have DVR and a collection of over 300 DVDs or I would go nuts.

Well, I hope you all have a good weekend.  If the weather cooperates, this might be the weekend I start my garage sale hunting for things I am going to need for my new apartment.  At one time or another, I’ve thought of at least 20 major things, only I haven’t had the genius thought to write them down, so I am going to go in search of the basics (i.e. kitchen table, furniture, perhaps a grill) and see where it takes me.

See you in June!

One love,

10

I Love Pie

Sorry, couldn’t think of a better title. This post has nothing to do about pie whatsoever. Forgive me.

Anyway …

Happy Tuesday. Have a good weekend? Good, good. Mine was alright, even though it was a bit exhausting, especially Friday and Saturday. As I mentioned in my last post, I had an all-nighter to pull between my job and my other obligations. Everything went well, but I was incredibly exhausted when I got home from work Saturday morning. By the time I finally got home, I looked like Chris Legh, that triathlete who collapsed at the Ironman Competition in 1997. (If you’re not familiar with what I am talking about, see video below at about the 20 second mark).

After being up for 31 straight hours, and working for about 16 of them, I crashed at 9:30 AM and didn’t arise until about 5:30 PM. The only reason I woke up then was because I had to be back at work by 6:00. Oh well, I survived, despite dozing off a few times while driving home from work in the morning. Now that is some scary stuff. I was driving in the right lane, and when I woke up, I was half in the ditch on the left side of the road. Thank God for rumble strips or I would be writing this from intensive care.

With that busy weekend looming over me, I lost track of a few things that I wanted to get done. I have a few loads of laundry that are begging to be done, and I paid a bill late for probably only the second time in about 8 years. I really hate the feeling of paying a bill late because I have this paranoid vision of a group of stuffy guys with turkey necks in business suits passing my bill around a big oak table and scoffing at it.

“Wholly unacceptable! This is an outrage!”
“What a deadbeat!”
“Blahhhhh! Gobble gobble gobble!”

In truth, I paid the bill online the day it was due, but apparently it takes three days to process so bada bing, bada boom … late fee. Maybe I’m wrong, but I think that’s crap. Oh well, not a thing I can do about it, so I won’t piss and moan about it. I guess I just figure that with modern technology as good as it is, I should be able to pay a bill online the day it’s due and not incur a penalty.

My next three weeks are going to be pretty plain and boring, and full of nothing but work for the most part. But in a few weeks, I make my way down to Minneapolis for my weekend hanging with JK and relaxing. Then shortly after that it will be time for me to move (more on that in a minute). In between then and now, I am hell bent on getting out and having some kind of fun at least a couple times. If I don’t, then I foresee myself becoming the equivalent of a crazy bag lady or some other kind of loner/cast away, seeing as how the most exciting part of my weekend was the marathon of Law & Order: SVU on USA. Well, I guess it was a tie between that and the grocery shopping I did.

I absolutely LOVE grocery shopping for multiple reasons. First is the fact that it signifies that I can finally eat something other than peanut butter sandwiches. I generally stock up big when I go and then let the food run down to nothing before I shop again. A second reason I love it is for the people watching, which is almost as good as it gets sometimes. But the reason I love grocery shopping the most is for the time when I return home with all my newly purchased food and I have to try to figure out what I want to eat first. Nine out of ten times, I have a mini smorgasboard in which I have a little bit of a few different things that I bought. Like today, I had some salad, a granola bar, and a turkey sandwich. Maybe I’m a big loser about this, but I really love having food in the house. Even more, I love having milk and juice in the house, because I get sick of water fairly quick and I can go through two gallons of milk in an average week.

In apartment news, as you may or may not know, I found a place that suits me well and I laid out a deposit for it last week and was given July 3rd as my move-in date. The only problem with that is the fact that I have to be out of my current apartment on June 30th, so there is a two day period where I am in a sort of apartment purgatory. I asked if I could stay a couple extra days in my current place, but the unit has been rented out and there will be people moving in immediately after I get out. This leaves me with one option, and one option only. I called up my Mom today and we had this exchange:

Me: “Hey Mom, can I move back home?”
Mom: “WHAT?! You can NOT be serious. Why?”
Me: “Well, it will just be for two days, but I’m glad I know where you stand on that issue now.”

I love freaking my Mom out like that. We have a fantastic relationship so we are constantly doing little things like that to one another. Anyway, she has a friend who owns a trailer, and I have been granted permission to use it so I can avoid hauling everything in and out of my Mom’s house for just a two day stint. Instead I will just lock everything I own inside the trailer, and hope no one gets ambitious enough to steal every worldly possession I own. Cross your fingers!

One more random topic before I sign off. I purchased Usher’s new CD “Here I Stand” today, and for all of you fans of Usher, this album is an absolute must. I might be a little quick on the trigger here, but I am ready to call this the album of the year. Un-freakin-believable.

That’s all I’ve got for today. To all of you out there who love your Daddy, remember that Father’s Day is just about two weeks away, so get your gift ideas straight. Father’s Day is harder than Mother’s Day because moms are generally satisfied with all the standard female gifts like flowers, chocolate, a card, or any variation of the three. Men are a little more tricky, but a naked lady calendar and a case of high-end beer will probably do the job for most.

One love,

10

I’m Running Out Of Ideas

I have nothing to write about.  Nothing.  Nada.  Zip.  Zilch.  Goose egg.  This is one serious case of writer’s block that I’m in.  If only my life were more interesting …

As it stands, I suppose I could tell you how things are going for me and let you in on what’s new with my life, simple as it is.

Work is continuing to be great.  Now that school is over, I am working a lot of overtime.  Five days a week I work double shifts at Fed Ex, on the sixth, I work my morning shift at Fed Ex and I spend my afternoon and evening bartending for Ladies’ League at my golf course, which is a blast.  On the seventh day, I rest.  It gets a little exhausting but the paychecks make it all worthwhile.

This weekend is going to be a real testament to my manhood.  Friday morning, I work my usual shift from 5-9 AM after which I will be sticking around for another hour or so for a training class I have to take.  Then I go back for the evening shift from 6-10 PM.  After that, it’s straight home to shower and change, because starting at 11:00, I am dealing blackjack at the post-graduation party for my old high school.  It’s a tradition I’ve done each year since I graduated and it is one hell of a fun night.  Basically all the seniors get fake money to play games and gamble with in order to get as much fake money as possible, then at the end of the night there is an auction with some really cool stuff up for grabs.  This whole ordeal will last until about 4:00 in the morning, at which time I will throw some water in my face, eat a five pound bag of sugar, and go back to work at Fed Ex at 4:40 until about 9:30.

Over/under on the number of times I need to slap myself in the face to stay awake during my shift: 43

I’ll probably get home just before 10:00 and I’ll probably be asleep within 32 seconds of walking in the door.  I have nothing to do until I go back to work at 6:00, so I imagine that I’ll sleep almost the whole time.

Enough about work though.  In another corner of my life, I put down a deposit on a new apartment today.  I went about two weeks ago and took a look at it and basically fell in love with the place.  As much as I am excited about living alone and getting into a new place, I am going to miss living with B-Weezy like crazy.  Let’s face it, I love the kid.  When he moved in with me two years ago, he was like a lump of clay.  Since then, I have molded him and turned him into the man he is today.  Alright maybe I’m tooting my own horn a little too hard there.  But we’ve learned a lot from each other and it’s been the time of my life.

My new apartment will be vacant on June 30th, and the maintenance guys need a few days to make sure everything is in good working order, so my move-in date is July 3rd, which is a Thursday.  So, if there are any of you who don’t have anything to do over the July 4th weekend, you’re more than welcome to help me move.  I mean, it’s not like there is anything special about that weekend anyway.  I imagine most people will just be sitting around at home watching reruns of House or something.

Yes, I am being sarcastic.  I am screwed and it looks like I’ll be moving all by my lonesome.  Oh well, I’ve done it more than once before, and it’s not a big deal … it just takes forever.

For now, I am basically counting the days until I saddle up and go back down to Minneapolis to visit JK and attend the Kanye West concert.  Everything I’ve heard about the show has been incredible, and even Diddy himself said the show he went to changed his life.  That doesn’t come until June 11th, but time has been flying, and that’s only a few weeks away now.   You had best believe I will have a lengthy post about that weekend as I did last time I went down to the big city.  There is never a shortage on good stories that come from a guys’ weekend.

Speaking of JK, he was getting on me last week because he wants me to write something deep and controversial on this blog, but when I pressed him for an idea, he curled up in the fetal position and backed down hard.  So, if you’ve got any ideas for something deep and pressing, let me know.  Forewarning, I will not write about the war or abortion, and I’ve already written about gay rights.  So, something else please.

Well folks, it’s bedtime for this guy.  I hope you all have an excellent weekend.  I will definitely not have any time to write again until Sunday at the earliest, so if you’re looking for something to pass the time, try different combinations of setup for a Mr. Potato Head doll.

One love,

10