Doctor Kenny-o Euro Gigalo

Mrs Noisewater and I are headed to Dublin, Oslo, Bergen, and Stockholm in that order. I'm typing this blog post on my phone and just learned that the auto correct for Noisewater is nauseated. That is merely a sidebar.

I likely won't be updating until I return on the 11th. Who knows, I may be ambitious and keep my travel log on the ol' blog, but if you have been following me at all, then you know that I will do more boozing than writing.

In case this is the last you hear from me until my return, go ahead and leave a comment on another recent post and I will comment on them all when I get back.

Okay, blog buddies. Talk to you soon!

Top Secret Coaches For the Flying Fire-Breathing Shark Riding Knights

The fantasy football league that I'm in is 10% so that I can get excited about meaningless plays by random players in insignificant games and 90% to stay in touch with high school friends who all have kids and live in the suburbs.  I rarely hear from some of them, if at all, outside of the emails and message board from the league.  So that's why I do it.

Sometimes people get mad when I won't join their leagues, and I have to explain to them that I hate running the one team, so why on earth would I want to run another?  If this were a bunch of guys from the office and not my good buddies from high school, I would have bowed out a long time ago.

But today I had a stroke of genius: I will make my nephews run my team this season!  This makes perfect sense because . . .

A) During football season it's all I hear these two guys talk about, so they obviously enjoy it more than me.

B) It's a good way to text my nephews and stay in touch with them because sometimes two months or more will go by without me hearing from them.  If we win the whole thing, I'll split the money with them.  And win or lose I'll take them out to some cool arcade place out by where they live that they have been asking me to take them to.  

C) I'm 100% sure they will do a better job at it than me.

(It's finally the year for the Flying Fire-Breathing Shark Riding Knights!)

I told the two of them that they have to switch off weeks managing the team, so when Monday comes around the new manager steps in, and the previous manager can't say anything about any moves being made while he is out - he just has to wait to the following week to see what kind of team he has left after trades and add/drops have been made.  I decided this would be better than a simultaneous managing deal because that would undoubtably lead to the two of them calling each other idiots, getting each other in headlocks, and holding each other down and farting on one another.  And if I'm causing more headaches for my sister who is already working full time as a lawyer, raising three boys, and dealing with a shit-heal ex-husband, then the whole project will be a disaster in my eyes.

Another rule is they can't read the message boards with my friends in the league saying disgusting things.  Okay, so they will end up reading once I've told them not to because they will know some profane stuff will be on there, but they can't under any circumstances tell their mother about any of the jokes they've read.

Keeping it a secret is another trick all together.  There is only one person I can think of who might still check in on this blog on occasion who might come in contact with people in the league, so James Douglas Morrison (JDM), if you're reading this, please keep my Boy Genius plot top secret.

I contacted the two boys this afternoon via text, and the 16-year-old said yes right away.  The seventh grader sent a text back saying, "Sure.  Sounds fun."  Then another text moments later saying "Wait, who is this?"  It's all the more encouraging that he likes this fantasy crap so much that he agreed to do it without even knowing who it is!

This is going to be a fantastic season.  While I'm drinking a cold one on a Sunday game day, I'll be able to text the boys about our players that are kicking butt - and never sending negative stuff because as the prudent team owner, I know that would be bad for my coaches' morale.

Also, for no good tricking reason, here's a picture of Alien playing Predator in a friendly game of pool.

(Pretty sure Alien is drunk because he is drooling.  And the drool is probably acid.  Which will burn its way into the apartment below the bar.)

B-4 and After the Lesbian Proposition

I went to a Cubs game the other night with my buddy, Dangerous, and he and I went to a great little cozy bar called the Burwood Tap for a few night caps.  It was Bingo night, which sounds stupid and an activity meant for folks 40 years our senior, but in reality it was great fun.  For some reason Dangerous knew all the corny jokes to yell out.  For instance, if B-4 is called, you just have to say "and after!" And when it's time for B-9, you gotta say "or malignant!"  So stupid, but funny as hell when you're as drunk as we were.

Me thinks their sign needs a comma, but I love them nonetheless. 

But here's where things get interesting.

After Bingo, an attractive woman I hadn't said one word to walks right up to me, hands me a piece of paper with her name and her number written on it and says "I can't talk to you right now because I'm kind of on a date, but call me."  Then she walks away back to her table, and her date comes out of the bathroom.  And her date is another woman.  I watched the two of them leave shortly after that, and through the window I saw them across the street both stretching their hamstrings.  What sort of insane lesbian sex acts did they have in store for the night that required stretching out their leg muscles?  And did one of them want me to be a part of said acts?

"That's it!  Breathe on my back!  And don't ever talk to a Bingo dork again!"

I'm in a committed relationship with the greatest gal I've ever known, so I discarded her number.  Actually, that's not entirely true.  I tried to get it out of my pocket as proof to some guys at the bar that it actually happened (or prove to myself that I hadn't imagined it), but I had already lost it.  I'm the least organized person I know.

When I woke up the next day with a clear head, I had decided that it couldn't be that she was totally taken with my rugged good looks and my command of the Bingo stamper.  What was going on was one of these three scenarios:

A) She was on a date with a woman who exposed all women to be what she was growing tired of, and she decided right then and there that she needed to mix things up with a fella.  And I was nothing special but the nearest halfway decent looking man with a functional wang.

B) Her date was her girlfriend and she wanted to start a fight with her by coming on to someone that would piss her off the most: a man.  Had I taken that bait, I would be in store for an epic cat fight with me in the middle and being crushed to death between their super-strong stretched out thighs.

C) She wanted me to be part of a an epic three-way sex romp that would go all night and I would have to ice my genitals all the next day.

I have actually ruled out choice C.

Then Dangerous is taking pictures of some people he happened to know in the bar, and he says "hold on, that great big tall girl was right in the way of that shot."  And the girl got all sad about it.  Then he spent the better part of an hour consoling tall girl and trying to convince her that she is pretty.  She went on-and-on about how she has a low self concept.  I had no idea what they were talking about, so I walked over there and said "Wow, you're tall!  Do you play volleyball?  Stand up for a second and put your arms up.  You would be terrific at the middle-block position!"  I think that set Dangerous back an extra twenty minutes on his quest to make her less self conscious about her height.

We're going to need a bigger lens to make this shot work.  That or shorter trees.

So that's it.  Anyone have any thoughts about the lesbian proposition or the poor tall gal with low self-esteem?  

Remembering Tiamat

I was tired at work the other day and said to myself "Man, I am draggin' like Tiamat." Tiamat is the only dragon I could think of at the time, although Smaug is one more people would know given the popularity of "Lord of the Rings."  Still, I like to let my inner nerd shine by referencing the Dungeons & Dragons mythical beast and one of the stars of the 1980's Saturday morning cartoon series.

Also, Tiamat represents a dark day in my past when I was around 8-years-old and snuck down to the Christmas tree before my parents woke up to find that I had the toy Tiamat, the five-headed dragon!  I yelled "Tiamat!" and my sister, my partner in crime that morning, told me to keep my voice down.  All that hard work my parents went through assembling those toys and laying them out, and they didn't get to see my genuine reaction.  When we got back out of bed to open gifts as a family, I had to fake the surprise of seeing Ms. Tiamat under the tree and scream her name a second time and fain the same level of enthusiasm.  All five heads appeared to be shaking their heads in their disapproval of my treachery and disappointment in my lackluster acting performance to conceal it.

I damn near just ordered this shirt. 

I played fricking Dungeons & Dragons as a kid.  I'll admit it.  It's cool to like knights and dragons again, I suppose, with the popularity of Game of Thrones now, but all you have to do there is flip on the television and talk about it at work on Monday.  D & D was a big commitment.  But I didn't mind rolling dice, reading all the rules, getting out the graph paper, and creating a character with all his/her attributes.  I'll admit it.  And I still remember all five heads that Tiamat had, the color of dragons, their breath weapons, and the order of how strong they were from strongest to weakest.  Observe:

1. Red: Fire.
2. Blue: Lightning.
3. Green: Poison Gas.
4. Black: Acid.
5. White: Ice Blast.

Shit.  I think I mixed up a few.  My nerd powers are waning over the years.

I always wonder what the stomachs were like for those green and black dragons to be able to belch up acid and poison gas.  What must their farts smell like?  Actually, in the case of Tiamat, all five heads shared the same body, as well as the same dragon butthole.  Do you think she could turn around and blast out all five breath weapons at once out of her butt?  How many hit points of damage would that do?

(Notice he tucks in his legs to avoid injury?  This isn't his first rocket blast fart joy ride.)

And this free association random-ass blog post has led us to . . . dragon farts.  Why not?

The other night I was at the bar and got talking to one of those guys with a curly-cue mustache.  The Rollie Fingers mustache, if you will.

"Top 10?  More like Top 1."

I asked him how long it takes him to do that in the morning, and it sounds like quite an ordeal, styling it and spraying it down and all.  And if he doesn't do anything, then it looks like a Fu Manchu.

"I may not have the curls, but can you guess where this pinky thingy goes?"

He went on to tell me that he won 2nd place in his category in a facial hair contest.  My first question was what the name of that category was (because it really should be the Rollie Fingers Category).  He said it was "Freestyle Mustache."  Oh.  I then asked how many were in his category, and he said there were only three.  I let him know that he also placed 2nd-to-last.  I was buzzed a little and speaking freely . . .

But also I just hate hipsters with stupid facial hair, piercings, and just dumb stuff like that in general.  You're not a turn of the century boxer.  You work for Whole Food, or whatever, and when you're late for work and don't have time to style your 'stache, your coworkers call you Fu Manchu Fuck Face.  And when you're primped up beautifully, they call you Old Boxing Photograph Fuck Face.

Fight?  I thought we agreed to a Mustache Contest?

Not all styles are coming back en vogue or are somehow ironically cool.  When does it stop?  Do you want to throw on a powdered wig and be all 1700's?  Probably if a true hipster saw people wearing the wigs, he would get really pissed and go back to a look from 50,000 years ago and just throw on a loin cloth and go to the bar and sip his Pabst Blue Ribbon.

So I guess the conversation with the weirdo from the bar was still in my head because yesterday I'm driving in the car, I'm a little lost and crabby, a hipster with a terrible old-timey mustache is crossing the street and I find myself yelling "Fuck that guy!"  He wasn't doing anything wrong - just crossing the street like everyone else.  I just couldn't take it any more.  I actually caught myself off guard with my sudden outburst.

Am I out of line here, or has the hipster thing worn thin with anyone else?

This has got to be the longest time I have gone without updating my blog, and I apologize.  Here are some updates . . .

Mrs. Noisewater and I finally moved out of our tiny apartment where our bedroom window faced the alley of decadence and a Chicago life of excess.  Just about every night we would hear a couple getting ready to get it on, some people doing cocaine, a fight breaking out, but usually just people being loud and drunk.  I really knew it was time to go when I saw the aftermath of what I could only assume was a hobo orgy.  This is an actual picture that I took:

Aren't you glad the bums are being safe?

So now I'm back in Lakeview, my favorite neighborhood where I lived for around 7 years before the party-alley-place.  But back then I had 4 roommates.  Now I just have one, and she's the best roommate ever.  Does it bother me that Mrs. Noisewater is more handy than me and is painting, hanging up shelves, and using power tools that I don't know how to operate?  A little.  But I'm in charge of . . . the record player.  And that's important stuff.

Our landlord is a Chicago cop part time, and despite the fact that he looks precisely like Vic Mackey from "The Shield," he is actually a really nice guy.  He doesn't want us grilling on the balcony because he doesn't want us burning the place down, so he lets us use the grill and smoker in the courtyard and even buys and replaces the propane tank for us.  Now that's a hell of a deal.

"Don't beat a confession out of me!  That was me playing Captain and Tennille on my record player last night.  And singing along."

Our downstairs neighbor is an elderly four and a half foot tall Japanese woman who has been living in the building for forty years, and when she moved in her rent was sixty bucks a month.  Very sweet woman, but a bit of a hoarder.  She has filled up the basement with years and years of useless crap.  She was telling me one day when I was doing laundry down there that sometimes she buys two of something because she forgets she already had one.  Probably because it was buried under other stuff.  Landlord Vic Mackey has given her until the 15th of this month to have all that stuff moved out of there.  She will often offer us something, and usually we say no.  But sometimes we will take something just to make her feel that some of those objects have a home.  I fill a thermos of hers up with Gatorade all the time and tried to tell her I was using it, but her English isn't very good.  I have been thinking about taking some things that she offers and just throwing it out for her - a few dumpsters away so that she doesn't see that I tossed it.  That way she's happy and I'm helping her clear the joint out, right?

Hope you're enjoying your summer as much as I am, readers!