Hey, everyone.  I woke up from a nap today and decided I needed to write this.  Hope you enjoy it.  Oh, and to answer the questions from the last post:

1. Yup.  Golf carts are everywhere.  Locals own them, but mostly it is the tourists driving minimal distances.  I would say there were more golf carts than actual cars out there.

2. The pigs were causing too many problems and were all killed off years ago.

3. The buffalo are still there, but you have to get way inland to see them.  They were brought there to film a movie a long time ago, but the movie's budget ran out, so they just left them there, where they have grown in numbers ever since.

4. Yeah, we said that a few times.  We also learned that Marilyn Monroe lived on Catalina for a while before World War Two, Natalie Wood drowned near there, and at one time most of the island was owned by William Wrigley Jr., also the owner of the gum company and the Chicago Cubs.  As a result, the Cubs used to play their spring training games there.

Okay, anyway.  Here's that story that I just wrote that I was telling you about.  Hope you like it:

My mood was that of a sour funk as I walked through the snow past the grades school I went to as a kid, when I slipped on something and had to catch myself with my bare hand, which landed directly into an inch or two of cold snow and concrete.  But there was something in my hand too, it was plastic, horseshoe shaped, and as I looked around, there must have been ten or twelve of them.  It took a second or two for it to dawn on me that they were plastic mouthguards for football and then another few seconds before I put it together that they were there because that class of 5th and 6th graders on the football team had thrown them on the roof at the end of their season, just as I had 20-something years ago.  Dropping that mouthguard into the hot water and popping that hot plastic into your mouth, you felt like a knight preparing his sword for battle, and whipping it up on the roof at the end of a hard fought seasons was an important ceremonial right of passage.  

Our coach back then was a little off his rocker.  He had a crazed look in his eye when he would yell at you where you would not be the least bit surprised if he suddenly wrapped his hands around a scrawny 11-year-old neck.  His rants were often tangental, and looking back, I'm not even sure if he remembered what it was he was mad about by the end of one his motivational browbeatings.  He would get so flustered and outraged at our lack of discipline and athletic ability, that he would get speechless; just angry stairs, looking around at each and every one of us for what seemed like thirty minutes at a stretch, but was probably closer to one or two.  

My hand and the rest of me wasn't even cold anymore, and after all that reminiscing about mouth guards, my coach, and wearing football pads for the first time with my girdle pad slipping off my ass as I tried to keep up during wind sprints, that just like that ranting and pausing coach so long ago, I wasn't even sure what I was mad about to begin with.  

My lady and I are going to Catalina today, a small island off the coast of California.  We don't know much about it, but we have heard these things and will figure out soon which are true:

1. They don't allow cars on the island, so there are golf carts zipping in every direction.  Zips a verb, right?

2. It is overrun with wild pigs.

3. There are wild buffalo on the island too that were not native to the island; they were used in movies and have been growing in numbers ever since.

4. It's impossible to leave without having said "It's the Catalina fucking Wine Mixer!"

I was working in a not-so-good neighborhood on the West Side of Chicago today, and one of my coworkers stepped across the street to get coffee at a greasy spoon called G & N Breakfast.  The older gentleman who said he was the owner asked her nationality, she told him Irish, and he discerned that she is probably a democrat.  Sloppily shoveling his breakfast into his mouth, he then asked if she worked at the school across the street and asked how she can stand working with all those niggers.  She said that's not a word she is okay with, to which he said it should be fine to say that because they call each other that all the time.  Of course, rather than realizing or caring that he had offended his customer, he went on spouting off anti Black statements and said the N in his business' name stood for niggers and the G for some other racial slur (Roughly 70% of his business would be African American on a day-to-day basis).  She was mad, but remaining calm, she just told him that being Greek, he is only a few shades lighter than those he hates so much.  This made him really mad, and he started spitting his hash browns all over the place while he yelling God knows what as she left.

Later I told the Mexican maintenance man (who I call Amigo and he calls me Amigo) at the work site about the exchange, and he said he has known that guy for years and he's a right prick who yells at his staff and calls them idiots all the time in front of customers.  Amigo said he told the guy he would whip his ass if he ever talked to him like that.  Apparently the owner was a Chicago cop who bought the place since 1959 after getting shot in the arm.  Doesn't sound like his world view has changed much since 1959 . . .

So, if you ever want to get in a time machine and meet a real live racist from the days of the Civil Rights movement, go visit him at G & N Breakfast on the West Side of Chicago.  If you would like to bring along some fire hoses and dogs to turn the tides on him, I certainly would not object.

Bill Burr is the funniest dude around right now.  I wish he and I were friends.  That sounds stalker-ish.  I don't mean that.  I just hope he keeps putting out funny stuff like this and calling things like he sees them.

I'm just getting over one of the worst stomach flu's of my life.  I was puking and shooting out pure liquid poops for over 24 hours straight.  It was one of those deals where you get to the toilet and can't decide which need is more "pressing."  Should I sit down for a squirt dump and run the risk of barfing on my lap, or bend over the bowl for a puke and risk blasting a dump all over myself and the tile floor?

If you're still reading, I'm going to the Big Ten basketball tournament with some friends tonight who will be drinking, and although I'm like 90% better, I have decided to not partake in "the sauce" tonight to allow myself to recover.  

I really do hate not drinking when people around me are drinking, and it got me thinking, is it a worse situation for those who don't ever want to drink or for someone who has just decided that he doesn't want to drink?  I have had those friends who come out with everyone to bars, sometimes until four in the morning, and they never drink.  How do they do it?  I try to be understanding of the fact that when people are schnockered all around me and I'm sober, I have been that bad or likely even worse.  Still, I get instantly annoyed and want to drink myself closer to where they're at so I'm not annoyed anymore.  

UPDATE: I just finished this post when I got home.  I had a beer and a half.  

I saw this article on Yahoo News entitled "10 Compliments Men Hate Getting" and thought I would see how I feel about each one.

1. "It's so sweet you want to help me clean up, but I can do it faster myself."

This all depends how lazy I'm feeling that day.  If I would rather watch a ball game or something, I might be okay with her doing it all, but most of the time I don't feel good about letter her clean while I'm chilling.  Am I offended by it?  Not at all.  I'm not that great of a cleaner.

2. "I'm amazed you were able to fix the leaky faucet." 

This wouldn't bother me at all because I would have amazed even myself.

3. "I fold the laundry this way, but thanks for trying without me asking." 

Now this one wouldn't offend me, but it sounds like something a crazy control freak might say, so watch out for this one.  

4. " You're the only person I can talk to." 

These are starting to get into crazy town territory.  If she can't talk to anyone else, it might be because she's an insufferable pain in the ass and you have to put up with her, so don't take that one as a compliment.  

5. "You're so cute!"

This one depends on the context.  Cute can be demeaning if it kind of implies stupid, but usually I'm okay with cute.  

6. "This gift isn't quite my taste, but it's the thought that counts." 

Don't be offended by that.  What do you want her to do?  Pretend she likes it?  You have to be honest with each other - in a nice way.  

7. "It's like you're my third child but I love you anyway." 

This one is hilarious.  Who wouldn't be offended by that?  Yeah, and it's like you're my mommy, so fuck off, mom.  

8. "My husband did the most romantic thing ever." 

I had to read the explanation for this one, and it said that some men will feel "whipped" if their friends hear about stuff like this or they will get mad because now they will feel they have to step up their romantic gestures with their own significant others, neither of which makes sense to me.  Got ahead and tell people nice stuff I did for you - doesn't bother me at all.

9. "I love your tummy flab!" 

Now this one might not offend me, but I would know she was lying.  

10. "You're the best I've ever had." 

The writers said that this just makes a guy think about all the others guys, and yeah, maybe so, but it makes you think about all the other guys being crappier at sex than you, so that's okay, right?  

I was drinking like an animal last night and after last call, LaFontaine and myself decided we needed to pick up an expensive big ass beer at his apartment and come back to my place to listen to "Dark Side of the Moon" because he had never listened to the whole thing in his whole life - a fact I couldn't believe.  We listened to that and like 10 other records that were strewn all over the room when I got up around 1PM this afternoon.

I had a few glasses of wine at sushi with my mom, dad, and sister, and even though I'm tired and shouldn't go out again, I just know I will.

You know that scene in "Interview With a Vampire" where Tom Cruise is all frustrated with Brad Pitt because he is sucking down pig blood and shit to avoid killing people, and Cruise says "Make no mistake, you are a killer!"  Well, substitute killer for drinker, and that's kind of how I feel at times like this.

The Iditarod is going on this week, a race in negative 100 degree temperature where you are pulled on a sled by 8 for 8 or 9 days.  Off the top of my head, I would rather do these 5 things for 8 days straight . . . 

1. Cash in an 8 day pass to the Milli Vanilli museum in Austria.

2. Be homeless in San Diego for 8 days.

3. Eat nothing but Taco Bell for 8 days without the use of toilet paper.

4. Not masturbate for 8 days (I might get on the sled and have a wank in the cold after 4 days . . .)

5. Wash Honey Boo Boo's mom's necks for 8 straight mornings.  

That's three necks by my count.


What about you, Seven Readers?  What might you do instead?

I got an invite from Uncle Al to go to a Replacements night over at Delilah's, a punk bar around the corner from my house, but I was in a shitty depressed mood so I just watched the Replacements documentary that they were going to be showing at the bar in the confines of my own apartment.  I was loving it, but midway through Uncle Al texted me: "Does this thing have any live footage or music from the band or is it just dorks talking about the band?"  It was just fans talking about the band, and I absolutely loved it.

I can sit around talking about music for a lot longer than most, and as it turns out, I can watch other people talk about music for a good while too.  This band meant so much to some of these people, especially those from Minnesota, and one guy pointed out that there is a Replacements song for just about any occasion, from a wedding to a funeral.

Watching this thing, I was thinking of how many bands out of the 100's on my iTunes could I actually sit down and be interviewed about for an hour, and the answer is around 5 or 6.  The band has to really mean something to you to be able to expound passionately for that long.  Even if I know that Bob Dylan and the Beatles are great, what can I say about them that hasn't already been said?  Yeah, three out of those 4 Beatles would be the best songwriter in just about any other band and blah, blah, blah, but someone certainly already pointed that out.  What matters is what that band meant to you at the time you heard them.

It would be great if at this time I wrote a sentence about each one of those 5 or 6 bands, but I'm just too tired right now, so why don't you guys do that and I'll respond with something interesting.

The Incredible Exploding Boobies

Last night I met Haircut and Oates for some buckets of beers and perhaps a few too many chilled shots of Rumplemintz at a hole in the wall bar nearby in Chicago.  The place is kind of famous for its giant boobed alcoholic bartender who gets a little too drunk while she is working, screwing up orders and saying insane stuff.  She wasn't working last night, but she did come in to hang out on her night off, something I have seen more than once before, and she was very excited to see Oates, who she views as a little brother, often giving him unsolicited romantic advice.

For some reason we got on the topic of her giant fake boobs, and she told us that she has had two accidents resulting in having to have them replaced.  The first happened when she was on a first date with a guy and she felt one of them suddenly leak, putting a damper on the date.  Literally.

The second one is the one that made me fall out laughing and just made me glad to be alive to hear wacky stuff like this.  She was leaning into a fence trying to get the perfect picture of a giraffe when she was suddenly jolted by the electric fence, exploding her tits!  After one of those mishaps, she said the owner of the bar payed for another round of boobs for her.  Two good perks to working at that bar! 

Can I help you?  Did you get a good enough look this time? (This isn't actually her, just a random Google image)

Have you ever heard of anything like this, or do you have a bartender or barfly tale you would like to share?

Snow Job

There was a G.I. Joe guy who came with a snowmobile, dressed in a white snowsuit, and his name was Snow Job.  If you're a guy around my age, you know it's true.  What the hell were they thinking?  Yes, the term can mean "an intensive effort at persuasion or deception," but you just know the parents who bought that action figure for their kids were thinking of the other definition, the one maybe mom had wished she had done instead that night so she wouldn't have had that damn kid she now has to buy war mongering toys for.  That was maybe too far . . .

I'm not sure  the military had a the "don't ask don't tell" policy back then, but can it be any gayer that his name was Figure Skater and his codename was Snow Job?  Pretty clear which way old Snow Job was leaning with his sexual preference, not that there is anything wrong with doing . . . figure skating.  

I bet he got ragged all the time by the other members of G.I. Joe, guys like Flint and Shipwreck, really any of them without fellatious names.  

Snowjobs special skills: Driving snowmobiles, winter survival, winter combat tactics, and sucking penises in the subarctic temperatures. 

Hooray! A New Gross Phrase . . .

My good friend, Big Business, and I just came up with a new fun phrase for the Urban Dictionary.  Big Business works terrible, terrible hours and raises his brother's two daughters, so I like to text back and forth with him a few times a day to make him laugh and keep him doing what he's doing.  I guess he does the same for me, come to think of it . . .

In any event, here it is:

1. The Pert (Plus) Spirt:
(n) When you squeeze the shampoo bottle right at climax to stimulate a monster load.

I damn near emptied the whole shampoo bottle with this morning's Pert Squirt! 
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Something wrong about using this pic, but whatever.  It's all wrong around here.

*It turns out there is already an urban dictionary definition for a pert squirt but it's stupid and doesn't make much sense.  All future additions should be approved by Big Business and the good Doctor . . .