Nothing else better to do than read this

The voice

2009-05-07T09:15:00.004-04:00

As I drifted to sleep last night I suddenly heard a voice that hadn't heard in 14 years. "Brian!" It screamed, it was the sound of my mother's voice as if she were calling me inside for dinner while I was playing. The tone and pitch was exact and it was shocking enough to rouse me awake for another half hour. Now, I know it was just some weird memory blip while I was entering a REM state, but the sound of my dead mother's voice felt incredibly real. After a brief moment of melancholy and missing my mother, I felt a warm secure feeling as if I was in the womb or being hugged by my mother as a child. I lay there peacefully as I finally drifted back to sleep.

I realize that some people would attribute my experience of hearing my dead mother's voice and subsequent warm and fuzzy feelings to the presence of a spirit or some sort of religious experience. Unfortunately for me, I can't make that illogical jump to such things. I will however never deny the unconditional love that most of experience with our mothers. I quite frankly don't care if it's just pure instinct or inbred for a mother to love her children with no strings attached. I can't dismiss the feeling and emotions that one gets from the purity of love that a mother has for her children.

So while this coming Sunday, Mother's Day, is largely a commercial holiday designed to sell flowers and cards, I firmly believe we should have a day to honor our mothers. While I can no longer personally thank my mother anymore I can honor and thank my wife Lynn for being just as good as mother to my children (if not, then better). My children absolutely dote on her and I can completely understand why.

Trip to the Borgata poker report

2009-04-30T12:15:00.003-04:00

For those who find my poker stories boring feel free to skip this post. This is a report I made and posted (and edited for here) for the 2+2 website.

Before I start, let me first say (so that there's no confusion) that I think that the Borgata is a great place to play poker and it is of my favorite casinos. The staff is friendly and great and I have no complaints whatsoever about the establishment itself or its employees.

The Characters:

Me- a fat guy who turns 39 the next dayy and went to go play poker yesterday to celebrate

Dave- a friend of mine who went along with him.

DB1- Douchebag number one, playing at the 100 + 20 tourney, a bit milder than the others. A man in his early 30's.

DB2- Douchebag number two, playing at a 1/2 NLHE table. A young feller with spiky hair and listening to an ipod.

DB3- Douchebag number three, playing at another 1/2 NLHE table. A guy with a foreign accent, I think it might have been French Canadian.

Supporting cast-

SGG- Sun glasses guy, almost a douchebag but mostly an insecure fish

OG1- Old guy one- an old guy in good shape who wore work out clothes. His bald head and good build made me think he looked like the Spiderman villian, The Vulture

OG2- Old guy two- wore a hat that he won for getting a royal flush (or so he told me)

OG3- Old guy three- this one had a full head of white curly hair.

BBG- Black bald guy, very nice guy who was a fish

MAW- Middle aged woman, a nice woman in her 40's who was actually a fairly solid player (altho somewhat predictable)

KMLA- Kirk Morrison look alike, a guy who resembled the poker player Kirk Morrison

8am, my wife, Lynn, got home from her night job and I left her and the kids behind as I excitedly embarked on my trip. I picked up my buddy and we drove down to the turnpike to route 76. Before getting off the blue route we listened to KYW's traffic report and heard no problems other than the usual rush hour BS (why is it always backed up at Girard, is everyone going to the zoo?!). I really should know better than to trust KYW. The traffic on 76 was about the worst I've seen in a while. By the time we got on to 76 the traffic was back up for miles due to the Penn Relays, which, of course was reported by KYW when it was too late for us.

Once we got to the bridge it was smooth sailing except for the 5, count 'em, 5 speed traps that we encountered on the AC expressway. I got lucky I wasn't pulled over as I was mostly doing 80 the whole way. The cops were out a few days early for the monthly quota I guess. We eventually made it to the Borgata just in time for the 11am tourney.

My buddy, Dave, was the one who wanted to play in the tourney and since he was the only person who could also take off a day from work to come with me so I felt obliged to play in the tourney with him. It was a $100 + 20 tourney and about 80 players played. I started off rather poorly and lost a few small pots as I watched my stack shrink to about 6500 (we started with 10K). I just couldn't hit anything and I kept getting dealt playable hands like AK and suited connectors to no avail. I also admit that my heart wasn't in the tourney, I just find them so tedious these days.

I decided that my ennui could be cured by some drinking. I asked the waitress what beers I could get and Heineken was the only free beer that wasn't swill, besides I started having fun that I could ask for a Heinie and get away without getting slapped. At my first table at the other end sat SGG. He built quite the chip stack as he was hitting some big hands and even double stacked two players at once. (hitting a flush draw of all things, they all got in on the turn) A fish with a big stack started to make me drool and I probably ended calling with some questionable hands just so I could get in a pot with him.

The first of which was when he made a min raise from UTG (under the gun, first to act preflop) and I was in the big blind with A4. He seemed only capable of min raising instead of making normal 3-4X's raises and even did as such after the flop, so i couldn't gleam any info from his small raise. It was folded to the SB who also called and I defended with my suited ace. The flop came A Q 4 rainbow and the SB checked and I fired out a bet of about 3/4 of the pot. SGG min raised and I just called. The turn was another queen and my 2 pair became counterfeited. I checked to SGG who put out only the minimum!! Based on pot odds alone I had to call, I think if he put in a pot sized bet I would have to get away from the hand. The river was a third queen which gave me a full house. I figured that it was going to be a chop but I threw in a pot sized bet anyways, if he raised me I would have called and hoped he didn't have AA or a Q. He called my bet begrudgingly and tabled his KK!! I scooped in a decent pot and my stack was healthy again.

He made some comments about how I sucked out on him but honestly, why was he in the pot after the flop? I ignored his comments and let him play in his fishy way.

Shortly after I was moved to another table and saw that they had quite a few big stacks including the guy to my right- DB1, who was the table chip leader.

I sat down and noticed DB1's huge stack and figured that he must be an aggressive player to get such a big stack that early. So my first hand I get dealt AK and I'm UTG+1 and DB1 was UTG. He puts in a raise so instead of flat calling I put in a reraise. I figure that my stack won't be effective very long with the antes and blinds climbing so fast. I was prepared to go to war against the big stack with my AK suited if need be. It gets folded around to DB1 and he reluctantly mucks. He mutters that he had pocket tens.

I immediately, say, "Really? You had me beat but it was close to a coin flip." He then gets incredibly indignant at my comment. "What?! You're an idiot. Why would you reraise me with AK or AQ?!" he continued to berate me for my "poor playing skills" (based on one hand!) for a good minute and I just ignored him. Unfortunately just 3 hands later I defended my big blind (to yet another min raise!) with A9 and flopped a set of 9's on a Q99 board. The money got in on the turn and I was all but drawing dead when the villain tables his QQ. C'est la vie I thought as I got up to go to the cash games. I overheard DB1 as I was leaving, "Stupid fish got what he deserved!" I almost stopped to say a few things but I only had 3 beers in me and thought better of it.

They opened a new table of 1/2 NLHE when I put my name in, so 9 of us all sat down to play together. I continued to order more Heinies and was starting to feel a bit looser. I debated trying to play LAG (loose aggressive style) but questioned my ability when I kept getting reraised by OG1. OG1 was a crafty old bastard (The Vulture!!) and I would have taken him on more if my spider sense was working. I did however end up winning a decent 120 pot from the guy to my right. It was probably my biggest pot of the night and it was just a matter of having 2 pair to his TPTK. Right after winning that pot my buddy came over from busting out at the tourney and sat down at another 1/2 table. He soon called me over as there was an empty seat next to him. I was actually enjoying the table I was at but, alas, friendship called and I switched tables. I was up about $75 at this point.

By this point I was inebriated enough to start my silly drunk guy routine. I am bipolar so I'm apt to say weird things by nature anyways so when I get some alcohol in me I tend to be jokey and silly. Most of the players at the table didn't seem to mind and laughed at most of my jokes. (altho to Dave's chagrin and embarrassment) I also got friendly with a lot of the staff and dealers. I recall a tall black waitress with HUGE boobs that liked to sing as she delivered drinks. I felt she was a kindred spirit and I encouraged her singing and told her that and asked if she took requests. Unfortunately, she wasn't familiar with Phish or Umphrey's McGee and she continued with her R&B singing. I also remember telling every dealer that I had that they were the best dealer in the world after every pot that I won. I didn't win any big pots or stacked anyone the whole night but I did manage to win a lot of little pots.

One strange thing that did occur was that a hand got heads up to me and Dave. The flop had two spades so I remarked in a joking way that "I should check my hand for spades." and I then peeked at my hole cards again. When I looked up I saw that the turn and river were dealt. (the board was J T 8 T J) I blurted out, "What?! What happened?!" The dealer replied that I said that "we would check it down" and I guess the dealer figured out that me and my buddy were friends and thought we would soft play each other. Dave and I looked at each other and didn't know what to do. After some debate we decided to play it from the river and since I had a Jack I threw in a small bet. My friend called with a T and I guess I lost out on a big pot due to the dealer's mistake/mishearing me. I didn't mind so much since it was my friend after all but I did politely inform the dealer that I don't soft play and don't think anyone else should.

A few hands later DB2 sat down with his head phones on so loud you could hear the music from the headphones.

Some new players joined us at this point. OG2 came to the table and he was an older gentlemen that I recognized from the tourney. He was wearing what I call a cabbie/paperboy hat. The type of hat that you see in movies in the 20's where the paperboy is yelling, "Extra, Extra!! Read all about it!" or the cab drivers that say, "Where to mac?" also where them. I actually own one myself, so I complimented him on his hat and he then went on tell me that the Borgata gave it to him when he hit a royal flush. He kind of reminded me of Studs Terkel and shortly after he came to our table I noticed he was napping.

BBG was also there and was donking it up and playing most hands. I chatted him up and he was a super nice guy. Unfortunately for me he would get lucky every time we got involved in a hand together and would take my chips and then donk them off in the next hand to another player. The dynamic of the table seemed fine and dandy at this point, we had OG2 napping, BBG was creating some action and I was Mr. Chatty Fun Guy. That was until DB2 got into a hand with BBG...

I was on the button and DB2 was in middle position and it was folded or limped around to him. He raised it to $12 and my buddy and I folded and so did the SB. BBG in BB called for $10 more and then the limpers folded. The flop came:

534

BBG checked, DB2 threw out a pot sized bet and BBG called

J on the turn

BBG checked, DB2 threw out a pot sized bet and BBG called

river was a blank (maybe a ten?)

BBG had less than the pot left but still checked, DB2 raised enough to put him all in and BBG called right away.

DB2 tabled KK, BBG tabled 62o and scooped the pot.

DB2 went quiet at first and then a moment later mumbled, "You called with that?"

BBG- "Yes I did"

DB1-"You called my preflop raise with that?!- Nice play!" He said in a sarcastic tone.

Personally I really hate this. Yes it's obvious to most of us at the table that BBG is a donk. Yes, he called with a bad hand preflop with stacks that don't warrant a call there. Yes, he got lucky and took all of your chips.

I was thinking, "BUT FOR PETE'S SAKE YOU WANT HIM TO DO THAT!! SO STFU AND LET THE FISH PLAY THAT WAY AND STOP TAPPING THE GLASS YOU ASSMUNCH!!" but didn't say it.

DB2 continued to insult BBG for the next 3-4 hands and I couldn't take it any more. But instead of confronting DB2, I turned to BBG and said, "Forget him, he's just angry you got his chips. You can play however you want, don't let him tell him you otherwise." BBG said, "Damn right! It's my money that's backing up my bets and I can put my money in whenever I damn well please."

And BBG couldn't be anymore correct there. I wish douchebags with thin skin would cut out the crap. IMO, you can't be that all great of player if you're going to criticize someone's play.

The mood of the table really deflated after that outburst. Plus, having not eaten all day and starting to feel the pinch of drinking on an empty stomach my buddy and I racked our chips, cashed out and went downstairs to the Panda for some orange flavored chicken. Stretched our legs and went back up to play some more.

At this point I had made up the money I lost in the tourney and I was maybe up an additional $15 on top of that.

With our bellies full, my buddy and I managed to get another table together right away. I sat down and was immediately big blind. it was limped to DB3, a mid thirties man who with a foreign accent. I'm bad at most accents but if I had to guess, I'd say he was French Canadian. He put in a raise and the SB, who looked sort of like a sickly Kirk Morrison called. I had 84o and then asked the dealer that since it's my birthday, could I take back my big blind until I get a better hand. The dealer immediately replied, "Look pal, this ain't Denny's!" Which I thought was a rather clever reply. A blond middle aged woman called the raise and off to the flop they went.

8 4 2

KMLA checked
MAW checked
DB3 put in a bet of about $15
MAW folded
KMLA called

turn A

KMLA bet $30
DB3 called

river was a blank (J?)

KMLA bet $40 and DB3 acted all indignant that he was bet into again (which told me he had a monster) and put in a min raise. KMLA called after a moment of thought and waited for DB3 to show his cards. DB3 then turned over an 8 and asked, "Ees deese gud enuff?" KMLA flipped over his AK and said, "Sorry, no." And then DB3 paused a moment and then flipped over his second card and said, "Oh? Well, then how 'bout dees wan?", his second card was another 8 which meant he had the third nuts.

KMLA's jaw hit the floor (as did most everyone at the table.)

"You slowed rolled me? Like that?!! Wow, you are incredibly rude!"

DB3 tried to defend himself, "What what? I just try to have a leetle fun wif you! Deese wan two game is soo boring!"

KMLA then retorted that he was playing poker long enough to know what a slow roll was and he then moved to another seat on the table away from the douche bag. I commiserated with KMLA and had it in my mind that I would slow roll the muther f'er back if I got the chance.

So after the slow roll Dave actually got heads up with DB3 and the reverse situation occurred where he had a set of fives and the douche had TPTK. (top pair top kicker) But, alas, Dave doesn't think of such things and didn't slow roll him. The table itself turned out to be VERY nitty. (playing cautiously) I've never seen such tight play at a 1/2 table before. We even had another old guy asleep at the table (OG3). As result I decided to try to play a LAG style and see if I could start running over the table.

Of course, the best intentions never seem to go as planned. It seemed that whenever I would start pushing my hands someone would wake up with a real hand and would push back. Considering how tight the table was I had to give the reraises their due and I started to bleed chips. Just my luck too as I soon got pocket Kings UTG and bet them preflop figuring my loose image would get a callers or reraisers.

nope, everyone folded

I start getting tilty from this, so next hand, I get 69 UTG+1 and raise. Of course I get 4 callers....

Flop:

8 5 2

I throw out a bet and get 2 callers including MAW

turn:

A

Now I have a flush draw on top of my gut shot- woo hoo- but I still wasn't liking the fact I had 2 callers- dummy me I check. MAW bets 1/2 pot only. OG3 folds and I call.

river was a glorious 7

Now I realize that I played this hand rather poorly from the start but I got lucky and got the best card I could as there's no way she's putting me on a straight. I throw a bet of about 3/4 of the pot and MAW calls with her AKo.

I immediately tabled my straight and at first she didn't even see the straight but conceded and politely told me "nice hand".

I was now back to even for that session and the rest of the game I couldn't create any action or get any decent hands. Dave actually busted out to DB3 when his nut flush got cooled when DB3's 2 pair made a full house on the turn. I started to feel bad that Dave was just wandering around the casino while I played trying to get a decent pot. So despite being down a bit I pulled up stakes and left. Overall a loser for the day- -$35.

We stopped at White House on the way back and I scarfed down a "Special" in the car. While no cops were on the expressway, I was amazed at how many deer I saw on the side of the road. I think I saw at least 50+ deer on the way back and it made me very twitchy as you know how they just love to jump at you and destroy your car at 70mph.

It was a fun day despite the douchebags, I just don't get some people sometimes. Nevertheless I made a few new friends at the tables and got to play poker.

Response from Scott Palmer

2009-04-29T15:16:00.003-04:00

Surprisingly, I received a reply rather quickly in regards to my recent complaint about Tom McCathy's announcing style. My email to Scott Palmer (the producer of Phillies' broadcasts) and his response are copied below. While he doesn't address my specific complaints, I am glad he took the time to say he read my letter and tried to reassure me that all would be fine. I can't say that I agree with him and I hope he took my criticism (and others since I know others sent emails yesterday) and perhaps mentioned a few things to Tom McCarthy. Once can only hope. It's not like I want the guy to be fired on the spot, I just would like to see him be more on our side.

My email to Scott and his reply:

Scott,

For starters, allow me to thank you for taking the time for reading this.  I am sure you
are a busy man.  But, I feel I must express my displeasure with the decision to use Tom
McCarthy as the television play by play announcer.  Before you dismiss my opinion as a
knee jerk reaction to Harry's passing and feeling that no one can live up to his
legendary calls, I can unequivocally say that I disliked Tom's announcing previous to
Harry's death.

I think Tom has a great deep broadcasting voice and technically does a good job with
announcing.  He would actually  make a fine national broadcaster, like for Fox or ESPN.
However, I just feel that he doesn't root for the Phillies and doesn't show enough
support for our team.  Too many times I have felt that his calls of opposing teams' home
runs or good plays are overzealous.  I don't expect him to be boring and lackadaisical
but his calls for all teams are equally excited.  He also seems to go gaga over other
teams' players like Jorge Cantu and David Wright. While they are fine players and I would
like to hear more information about them I also don't want to have their accomplishments
thrown in my face over and over again.

Please understand, I don't think the Phillies' broadcast should have super fans gushing
over every thing that they do and some objectivity needs to injected into the broadcasts.
However, I find that Tom is well... too impartial.  I want a guy in the booth that roots
for the Phillies.  I know that Harry was once a big Senators fan just like McCarthy is a
Mets fan and he also broadcasted previously for the Astros but he came to love our team
and was part of it.  I just don't think that Tom will become a fellow fan and solely
views this as a job.

What lead me to believe this is that his description of where Elijah Dukes' monster home
run last night landed was "Mike Piazza territory".  While I don't think he
would be audacious enough to try and rename Ashburn Alley after a Met (whether he hailed
from Norristown or not), he showed his rooting interest by ignoring the fact that Ryan
Howard has hit several homers there as well.  Sure, Mike Piazza is a future hall of fame
player who hit some monster shots in his time.  But, he only hit 2 homer runs in his
career at CBP and if he hit one into the alley then it just shows that it's something
that remembers instead of the monster shots that Howard had there.  His true colors
showed in that description.

I suppose I have fallen victim to hyperbole in this email.  But if you can't overreact
being a fan then when can you?  I think I will have to put my TV on mute from now on and
listen to Larry and Scott instead.  I find their broadcast much more enjoyable.



Thanks for taking my opinion in consideration.


Hi Brian,
Thanks for taking the time to write a very detailed e-mail.  I always want to know how
the fans feel.  I would reply to your criticisms by recalling how Harry used to recount
how the fans reacted to him poorly after he took over for Bill Campbell.  Hopefully fans
today will give Tom the same time they gave H. back then.  I agree that fans have every
right to be passionate about their ball club, and the people who broadcast it.  We are
lucky to have such fans here in Philly.

Sincerely,

Scott Palmer

Lump

2009-04-29T13:19:00.013-04:00

This past Sunday morning I had a freak out moment when I was in the shower. Like I do every shower I lathered up my hands and washed my balls. However, this time was different as I noticed what seemed to be a lump on my testicle. My balls had actually been a bit tender recently as well but I figured it was nothing as I tend to have sensitive gonads (more so than the usual person). Let me tell you, there's nothing like a good dose of fear and anxiety to make a depression cycle even worse. Being that it was the weekend I couldn't get an appointment right away to have them checked out so I began to brood and imagine the worst.

Rationally, I knew that if it was cancer that my chances of survival were pretty good (well over 90% according to wikipedia) , but the notion that I would likely have a ballectomy didn't sit too well with me. I spent most the day worrying and wondered about what it would like to have one ball. Would they put in a prosthetic ball? Since it was my right testicle and my penis leans towards the left, would it shift and start leaning towards the right if I didn't have a prosthetic? Would I be less aggressive and have less testosterone? Would I turn into an even bigger wuss? Would my orgasms have less intensity? Would chemo be a good way to lose weight? Would I feel a phantom ball like amputees feel a phantom leg?
I called the doctor Monday morning and made an appointment for Tuesday afternoon. The medical assistant then asked on the phone why I wanted an appointment. Despite my ability to say all sorts of inappropriate things to my friends, I found it difficult to muster up a conversational voice and tell her that I had a lump on my testicle. I think I sounded like Peter Brady during the "Time to Change" song as my weak voice cracked several times describing my condition. I started to dread going to the doctor. Not because I was afraid of bad news (which I was), but being that I was so tender in my nether regions, I wasn't looking forward to the unpleasant exam he would have to give me.

30 hours of worrying later, I eventually made it into the doc's office. It was an unually hot day for April (90 degrees) and despite all of my real fears, I actually started to be concerned that the doctor would be grossed out by my sweaty balls. What joke, right? I could be headed to a biopsy of my nuts or looking at chemotherapy and the thing I suddenly get most concerned about is if a man who sees nasty infectious growths and smelly fungal diseases on a daily basis would be offended by my slightly moist and salty scrotum. I really wish I could understand why my brain goes haywire like that when I stress out. I actually went into the men's room at the doctor's office and gave my balls a quick once over with a handful of paper towels!
In the office my usual nervous jokey self emerged. As previously blogged, when I visit the doctor I tend to use my humor as a self defense mechanism. So, once again, for your enjoyment is the paraphrased conversation that took place (after a brief description of why I was there.)

Doc: Okay then, please stand up and remove your shorts and underwear.

Me: No dinner and a movie first?

Doc: Oh, and you'd better lock that door, the aides always seem to come in while someone has their pants down.

Me: If it's the blonde then I don't mind so much. (I lock the door, walk back over to the doctor and pull down my shorts.)

Doc: Which one was it?

Me: The right one.

Doc: (grabs the left one) Just let me know if you feel tender.

Me: eeeep! there!

Doc: (grabs the right one) where was the lump?

Me: On top and towards the back-ah-ah-ah-ah ckkkkkk!!

Doc: Really sore there, huh?

Me: (still feeling pain) Nuuuhhhoo, I'm just developing a stutter.

Doc: (snaps off glove) Okay, you can put your shorts back on.

Me: Thanks, got a smoke?

Doc: Well, I have good news, you have epididymitis.

Me: Epic Diddy Midas? Sounds awful, I thought you said it was good news.

Doc: Well, good news since I am sure you were worried it was cancer. Epididymitis, It's an infection that could last 30 days or longer and is pretty tough to get rid of it.

Me: So the lump I felt is my eppah doo dad swelling?

Doc: Yes, it where your body stores your sperm until you're ready to ejaculate and then it sends it to the vas deferens. Since you've had a vasectomy and your tubes don't connect, it's where your sperm go to die.

Me: So, it's like an elephant graveyard for gametes.

Doc: (finally laughs!) Haha, yes! We'll have to get you started on some Cipro for at least a month. I also recommend that you wear a jock strap or at least wear briefs to help with the soreness, it's best if you have support to prevent your testicles from moving around too much.

Me: Am I contagious if I have sex with my wife?

Doc: No

Me: Well, then, could you write me a script for sex at least once a day? Better yet, make it oral copulation!

Doc: (laughs) I could write one, but your story would have to be at least somewhat plausible, your wife is pretty smart after all.

Me: (sigh)

Doc: You should also buy some over the counter naprosen or Alleve to help with the pain.

Me: Okay- let me get this straight- you want me to take a few pills, wear tighty whiteys up high and have plenty of sex.

Doc: Yes

Me: You sure know how to party doc, that's why I go to you.

We then had a long conversation about my recent depression cycle and while I won't share this here (yet), I have to say that my doctor is a cool guy and I'm glad I go to him. He rolls with the punches and is straight forward and takes the time to explain things to me. That about the best you can ask for in a physician. Last night I proceeded to get rather drunk, as I really needed to blow off steam from the the huge amount of stress I put on myself. Unfortunately, I am hung over today and my balls seem to ache even more than yesterday but that could be psychological as I am now aware that my ball should be sore. However, it is a big relief that I don't have the big C and I don't ever want to imagine what it would be like to lose my testicles.

An apology

2009-04-28T09:44:00.003-04:00

I just want to make a quick apology to those who read my blog regularly. Obviously, I stopped blogging for a few weeks and even before that my frequency was dwindling. To be honest it's due to a mix of writer's block, depression and being busy at work. I think I will try to force myself to write some more and maybe I can benefit from the therapeutic nature of getting my thoughts into words. I hope to have some new posts up this week, it was my 39th birthday last week and I played some poker in AC as well, so I have somethings to talk about.

Mike Piazza Terrirtory

2009-04-28T09:10:00.004-04:00

While no one the Phillies get to be their "voice" can fill the shoes of the Legendary Harry Kalas, I certainly hope they can do better than Tom McCarthy, the current TV play by play announcer. Now before you think this is a knee jerk reaction to Harry's passing, I can unequivocally say with all honesty that I disliked Tom as an announcer for the Phillies in the short time he's been here. Does he have a good deep broadcasting voice? Well yes, and for the most part he does a fine job with everything technical and can be about as good as you can expect for an announcer. That's not the problem.

What is the problem is that Tom grew up a Mets fan and went on to work for the Mets for 3 years before getting a job with the Phillies. While that in itself may be mildly annoying (even Harry was a Senators and Astros fan before the Phillies became his true love), the truth is that he lets it show all too often and he gets too excited over opposing teams' good plays and home runs. He's too, well..., impartial to be a home team baseball announcer. It's not like he's on the national stage announcing for Fox or ESPN baseball and should call all good plays equally. He's supposed to be our guy. Yes, I believe local broadcasts should have "homerism".

Worse than Chris Wheeler's gushing over Jose Reyes, Tom McCarthy gushes over opposing teams' players like Jorge Cantu and David Wright. So, listening to him going gaga over the hated Mets or Marlins is like listening to a douche bag wearing a Cowboys' jersey in a bar screaming in your ear while you're trying to watch the Eagles game. It grates on your nerves to say the least. One of the worst offenses came last night and although, I happened to miss the call (I wasn't watching yet), I did read about at Backshegoes.com. The video clip can currently been seen here.

The Washington Nats player Elijah Dukes hit a monster shot into Ashburn Alley behind center field. Playing the clip you can hear McCarthy's excitement over what a long ball it was. Granted, it was an impressive home run. But shortly after the home run, McCarthy describes the area of where it landed as Mike Piazza territory!! I can just hear Whitey rolling around in his grave as the area that was named to honor his memory was just renamed after a former New York Met.

Don't get me wrong, Mike Piazza is a future hall of fame player and hit some big shots in his day. (and only 2 of his homers were at Citizens Bank Park) But to reference a Mets player's homerun from 5 years ago when Ryan Howard has maybe hit 4 homers or more there himself is a friggin' travesty. Excuse my hyperbole, but this baseball and overreacting is what it's all about and I can't believe that I'm going to have to possibly listen to this douche bag for many more years to come. I may have to listen to the radio only while the TV is on mute because Scott Franske is a much more enjoyable person to listen to.

The next time I'm at the park I'll have to stroll down Mike Pizza territory and get a Tony Luke's cheesesteak with mayo because that's what Tom McCarthy has done to Philadelphia. He put mayo on our cheesesteak and it doesn't belong there. It's a bastardization of everything pure and good. I suggest that if you feel the same way and have the time and inclination that you send an email to the guy in charge, Scott Palmer, and express your disconent. His email is spalmer@phillies.com . If you need help, let me know, I can be pretty good at writing cranky old guy letters of complaint.

Death pangs

2009-04-16T13:48:00.003-04:00

It was 3:40 AM last night and my bladder got full enough to stir me to wake up and get out of bed and off to the bathroom. (more frequent urination- yet another wonderful thing that aging has done to me...) On my way back I experienced what I call a "death pang". It's where the idea that I'm going to die no matter what I do suddenly surfaces to the forefront of my thoughts. Needless to say, speaking as Atheist, it scares the shit out of me as I suspect the most likely outcome is that I will succumb to nothingness and everything I've experienced and done becomes meaningless and pointless as I fade into oblivion.

I'm sure those with faith, or spirituality or religion in their lives don't quite get this way so it's a hard feeling to describe. The best thing that I do to make it pass is to conveniently forget the naked truth and try to force myself to think of other things that are much more pleasant (it's usually baseball, sex or poker, half the time I think I end up masturbating to quell my fears). I recall as a teen that my death pangs were much worse and would keep me up all night at times. It eventually came to a head in college as I had a full blown panic attack where I thought I was having a heart attack one evening (granted I was high as well) and I believed I was going to die. The thought of my impending death sent me into a huge tizzy and I actually convinced my housemate, Jeff to call an ambulance. (when I was told at the hospital I was having an anxiety attack I was truly embarrassed but the Xanax pills I got were awesome...)

These days I'm old pro when it comes to anxiety attacks. So, despite the fact that my death pang last night gave me a rapid heart beat and accelerated breathing, I did manage to calm down in less than a few minutes. In some ways dealing with my bipolar nature and separating my logical self from my emotional self enables to me get through my anxiety attacks without much effort. Keeping that narrative distance is what allows me to evaluate crises much better. I simply assure myself that I am having an anxiety attack and it will pass if I distract myself. I just popped open my laptop and visited Redtube until I eventually found myself tired enough to get back to sleep.

Simple distractions of enjoyment keeps me blissfully unaware of my own mortality for only short periods of time (and writing this blog post ceratinly doesn't help me forget!). And alas, eventually I won't even have to worry about about as death will visit me like it does everyone else. Maybe I'll be lucky and science will extend my life an extra 50 years, but some day I will die and there's no sense in worrying about it. Wish I could just believe myself....

Harry Kalas 1936-2009

2009-04-13T14:02:00.002-04:00

The Phillies will never sound the same.

I'll miss you Harry.

RIP

Time to defend the WFC

2009-04-05T10:38:00.006-04:00

The Philles get to kick off the entire major league baseball season tonight at 8pm and defend their 2008 World "Fucking" Championship starting with the Braves. (thank you Chase Utley for coining the phrase)

Most of the team is intact from last year, the main exception is Pat Burrell is gone and replaced by his 5 year older doppelganger named Raul Ibanez. We will have some prospects that will eventually make the team this year (or get traded) that I am excited about as well. Jason Donald, Lou Marson, Carlos Carrasco and John Mayberry Jr. all have a legitimate shot of making some major contributions this year as well as rookie pitcher JA Happ who made the bullpen and could also see some starting time.

The competition looks as tough as ever in the division. The Nats may not be great but they really did make some improvements over the off season like Adam Dunn and will get Steven Strasberg in the draft who is touted as the best pitching prospect since Dwight Gooden. The Braves starting pitching is very strong and will make thing tough all year. The Marlins are good young team that may emerge and take some big strides this year. Finally the hated Mets have strengthened their bullpen with K-Rod and JJ Putz and look to challenge and then choke in the stretch again.

I'm excited to say the least, I had tickets for tonight but had to sell them since Lynn had to work tonight. Even still, I'll have some brews, and enjoy myself and my big screen HD TV watching what hopes to be the begininng of a repeat world fucking championship year.

Pranks a lot part deux

2009-04-02T13:55:00.003-04:00

Yesterday, my wife's laptop showed up at my workplace. There was a decent sale that Dell was running 2 weeks ago that we couldn't pass up, so we ordered Lynn a laptop for her future employment as a teacher. I had it shipped to my warehouse at work for security reasons as I know there's always someone present during delivery hours to sign for it. Which you have to figure is much better than to just have the UPS man leave a big cardboard box on my front porch that has "DELL" in big bold letters on the side. Just a hunch, but I'm guessing that even though I'm in a good neighborhood that the computer would be more likely to disappear that way than if I were to sign for in person.

After I received the computer, I didn't give it much more thought other than the fact that wife will be excited to get her new laptop. It wasn't until I picked up the box to put into the car did I start to think of a devious plot to get my wife good on April Fool's day. The box, although larger than you'd expect for a laptop, was rather light. I know it's just a laptop but for some reason I was expecting it to be heavier due to the size of the box. As a result I initially thought for a split second it was empty. I quickly dispelled the notion but the very thought of an empty box gave me the idea to empty out the box before I gave it to Lynn with a note inside that said "April Fools!!" But on the drive home I hatched an even better plan but it would require some skill and luck in order to pull it off sucessfully.

I got home and took the box into the garage and as originally planned I emptied out the box and left the computer with its accessories in the garage. I then took the empty box and brought it inside with me. I spotted my wife doing sit ups on the floor of our living room, her placement couldn't have been more perfect for what I had planned. I announced, "Hi honey! Look what finally arrived today!" She looked up at me and saw that I was carrying the big box with "DELL" written on the side and exclaimed with a big smile, "My computer's finally here, hooray!"

Just then, I purposely tripped and landed on top of the empty box right next to where Lynn was lying down. My resulting fall and large body frame mercilessly crushed the box flat as a pancake. I really did sell the tripping part too, it was my best acting performance since my turn as Officer Krupke in West Side Story in high school. Try to imagine Chris Farley as the "Van down by the river guy" guy on SNL falling flat onto the coffee table. I think I may have missed my calling as a slap stick artist.

I immediately turned to look at Lynn and she had a huge look of shock on her face, it was truly priceless and worth the bruise I am now sporting on my chest. I let the shock sink for a few seconds and then let her off the hook when I bellowed, "April fools!!" Her look of shock and worry immediately turned to anger and she started to hit me. She knew then that I had gotten her good. It ain't easy pulling off a prank on April 1st as everyone is expecting it. I think you have to go for the quick shock factor before they can think things through.

I'm sure I added fuel to the fire by the very fact that I couldn't stop giggling and smiling about what I had done the rest of the evening. I know I can get rather annoying at times and especially so when I get smug and satisfied like that. Nonetheless, whatever pain I got from the fall or resulting ire I may experience from the wife, that look on her face is something I'll savor for quite some time.

Pranks a lot!

2009-04-01T15:02:00.003-04:00

As promised months ago, since today is April Fool's Day, I'd recount a prank I pulled on a fellow dorm mate in college.

It was the second semester of my freshman year. Two new guys had just moved into the empty room down the hall from where I roomed. Apparently, they were already good friends from high school and they requested that they room together. As most of us know now, there are two things that can ruin a good friendship- the first is living together and not then getting along. The second is when one gets a new girlfriend. At this period in their lives, Jason and Craig had to suddenly contend with both.

Jason was dating a girl named Reenie and his finally living away from his parent's house was a dream come true in the fact that he could have sex with her without fear of his parents walking in on them. Imagine his chagrin when Reenie got extremely mad and embarrassed when Craig walked in on them while she was half naked. After she stormed out of his room, Jason and Craig went into a loud screaming match in the hallway.

Jason basically argued that Craig should have to knock on the door before unlocking and entering the room. Craig rebuffed that he shouldn't have to knock on his own door and he should be able to come and go as he pleases. Their loud spat started to draw a crowd, including my attention as well. As I listened to them debate and observed Jason's face turn red I felt a twinge in the of my brain. It was telling me to do something awful as I was presented with the best set up.

Having briefly met Jason a week ago (we had walked to the local comic book shop together), I approached them and made a suggestion.

"Listen, you're both going all about this all wrong..." I sagely presented my advice, "You're both right, of course, Jason deserves privacy and Craig shouldn't have to knock on his own door every time he wants to get in. What you guys need is some sort of signal. I don't know....put something on the door knob...like...a rubber band!!"

I walked into their room and grabbed a rubber band from Craig's desk and placed it around the door knob.

"Look! See, now once Craig goes to unlock the door, he'll see the rubber band and then know to either knock if he really has to come in or go away and come back in half hour. All you have to do, Jason, is once you and Reenie go into the room to fool around is put the rubber band on the knob."

Both of them started to calm down and then immediately agreed it was a good compromise. Now, while my deed was seemingly altruistic I was actually setting Jason up. As I mentioned before, my dad was a rubber band salesman and I had in my possession a 4 foot rubber band. It was 4 feet long and about 2 inches wide and 1/4 inch thick. I believe my father sold them to be used to help seal barrel slats together during their creation but I'm not certain. I can tell you we sell something similar in my business for a completely different use. Their presence in my warehouse still reminds me of my devious prank to this day.

The next day I waited for Jason to take Reenie into his room. I left my door open so I could spot them walking past. Sure enough, at the same time as the day before, they walked hand in hand down the hall and then into Jason's room. Several minutes later I saw Jason (with his shirt off) peek his head out of the room and place the rubber band on the knob. I scurried down the hallway with my enormous rubber and pulled the old switcheroo.

Soon, (because of my telling everyone) a crowd of guys stood outside snickering and waiting to see what the reaction would be. Luckily, Craig was among the witnesses as he was visiting someone in another room. About 10 minutes later, Reenie emerged from the room (to go to the bathroom?) and saw the rubber band hitting the floor and going down the hall about 2 feet. She gave a perplexed look as guys from every room started to erupt with laughter. Realizing that she was now the center of attention for just having had sex, poor Reenie turned bright red, screamed at Jason that she was never coming back to his room and ran down the hall back towards the elevator. Jason came running out after her and was yelling what was the problem and then his peripheral vision caught the large rubber band.

His ire went immediately towards Craig, thinking that he had switched the bands out. Craig tried to send me up the river right away but I had already hid in my room with my door shut. I did have to fess up, however, in order to get my rubber band back. Jason did eventually become a friend of mine, as did Craig.

I try little pranks here and there, but none with such success as that rubber band provided for me. It was a flash of genius that hopefully someday will return.

Been a while...

2009-03-31T14:44:00.004-04:00

I haven't blogged in over a week. The longest stretch since I started blogging. I have little in the way of excuses. I have been super busy at work (what recession?) and Lynn has been using the computer a lot at home thereby blocking me from usibut I do still have time to blog if I really wanted to. I guess I just haven't been into writing or creating all that much. Call it writer's block or laziness, whatever the reason I just haven't felt myself lately. Heck, I haven't even seen The Watchmen yet and wonder if I'll even see it in the theaters at this point.

Hopefully, the nice weather will bring a change of mood and start the creative juices flowing again. In the meantime get excited about this-

Arrested Development: The Movie!!

2009-03-19T15:20:00.003-04:00

Big thanks to Chris who posted this youtube video on his blog yesterday of some fun behind the scenes antics of the new Arrested Development movie -

Those who know me well, know that I think Arrested Development was one of the best sitcoms to ever grace the network airwaves. The show was not only hilarious the first time you'd watch an episode, but there were so many jokes that you wouldn't catch the first viewing that you would notice on repeat viewings. The dialog was clever, the characters were great and the actors were perfect. Of course when you have a show this good, people will not watch it and instead watch something mindlessly stupid like According to Jim. The show only lasted 3 seasons (and the last season was short) and I'm sure the movie will not garner much box office either. But nevertheless, I recommend that if you haven't already, rent or buy the TV show DVD's and GO SEE THIS MOVIE!!

Rating the Kids shows part V- Batman: The Brave and the Bold

2009-03-19T14:37:00.006-04:00

In the 60's DC Comics had a popular comic book series titled, The Brave and the Bold. At first, the series featured heroes from the past like Robin Hood and Knights but it moved on to showcasing new superheroes. The Justice League, Teen Titans and others made their debut during this time period. Eventually the series morphed into a team-up series where a random hero would team up with one of DC's most popular characters, Batman. The series ran for a long time until the 80's and then it eventually died during the comic rebirth and popularity of The Uncanny X-men. It did eventually get a revamp and the series is up and running again. Recently, Cartoon Network took the same concept, pair Batman with another DC hero, and debuted a new animated series for kids this past fall.

Gone is the dark brooding Batman that we've recently seen in great movies like Dark Knight and just about any comic book made in the past 30 years. The animators actually chose to use the silver age costume from the 60's where the costume is actually blue and not black or dark navy blue. Batman even smiles quite regularly in the show! As much as I enjoy the rich and complex stories of Batman and his obsessive drive to stop crime due to the murder of his parents, I also very much appreciate what direction, look and feel this show took.

It is a kid's show after all, and I once devoured superheroes when I was a kid as well. I watched corny and hokey cartoons like Spiderman and his Amazing Friends show, The Superfriends and even live action shows like Wonder Woman and The Incredible Hulk. It's what ultimately drove me to read the comic books. As inane as some of the shows were, they were a joy to watch as a kid as you could fantasize that you yourself had superpowers and could save the world against super villains who lived in a huge Darth Vader head in the swamp.

This show reminds me of the superhero shows I would watch as a child, however, it took all the hokey and corny out but still kept it light, upbeat and most importantly, fun. The end result is something really good. It reminds me of the creative and innocent comics that came out of the 60's, which is why I think it was a good choice to use this format. The show usually starts with a 3 minute opening where Batman and another superhero like The Red Tornado are trapped by a villain. They make their way out of the trap in a clever or interesting manner and bring down the crooks. The show's theme then starts and a completely new story starts usually with another superhero. Most episodes are self contained and there's no long drawn out ongoing dramas or serial stories that need to be followed.

While the intended audience is 7-13 year old boys, I find myself looking to see when I could watch the show. It brings out the old fantasies and fancies that I had as a child myself. The violence is very light and the darkness of Batman is all but gone. This a truly fun show to enjoy with your son and watch.

The show isn't perfect, but I'm afraid to mention why as I know I'll be labeled as a comic book nerd. (ie. one thing that annoys me is that Aquaman is characterized as a pompous ass, which my son thinks is funny, but annoys the heck out of me since that's not the Aquaman I know and love!) But the flaws are small and only noticeable because the overall concept and execution itself is so well done. I give this show a 9 out of 10.

Party Season

2009-03-17T20:54:00.003-04:00

As spring approaches, I am reminded that soon my weekend social calendar will be filled to the brim for 3-4 months straight. We have my birthday, my son's birthday, my nephew's birthday, mother's day, Marge's day (more on this later) father's day, my wedding anniversary, throw in some Phillies games and other parties we need to attend for family and Easter and Memorial day as well. What's even more insane is that for some reason we have added a party to the mix, so now we have 2 parties in one weekend to throw.

As much as I like attending and hosting parties, there is such a thing as too much. By the time my anniversary rolls around in the beginning of May, I feel drained and stressed. (and that's only the halfway point!!) Nevertheless, this time of year is when we emerge from the bleary confines of our homes. We've been trapped too long from the cold and the dark and wish to see some happy faces, drink some grog and ale and perhaps hunt for some colored eggs.

I suppose we can't ignore tradition and the rites of spring or my mother-in-law for that matter.

Pat the Bat's class act

2009-03-14T09:29:00.005-04:00

For those of you who don't read the paper (which is most of us these days...), Now ex-Phillie, Pat Burrell, took out a full page ad. Click on the picture to read it:I'm still sore at the front office for not resigning him and since my season tickets are in left field, it will be weird seeing someone else out there every Sunday. Pat spent his own money (well he did make millions here) to take out the ad and it wasn't something he had to do. Pat's a class act and he will be missed.

Speaking of Magic Hats...

2009-03-12T13:58:00.008-04:00

Talking about Magic Hat beer reminds me of the days back in college when me and my housemates would attempt to get liquor and beer for our parties. It's not the beer that's reminding me of this story either, it's the name itself, "Magic Hat". It's a moniker that me and a few of my friends came up with for an old ivy wool cap that seemed to fool people into thinking that you were 21 or older.

Most of us at that time were only 19 or 20 years old, so obtaining any amount of beer or liquor required an older friend which wasn't always available at the time. We had heard through the grapevine that there was a liquor store owned by a Korean man in Greenbelt, MD that would sell liquor to college students without asking for ID. So, we all piled into the car and headed to the liquor store. Once there, we decided that only one of us should go in and attempt to get some cases of beer. (and we usually bought some nasty swill like Milwaukee's Best aka "The Beast" because it was like $11.25 a case or some absurdly low price.) We all agreed that Gene looked the oldest of us, but in hindsight, I think Gene had a rather boyish face. We dressed Gene as old as we thought we could make him look. After dressing him in an argyle sweater and slacks, we topped him off with an old woolen ivy cap (see above). Gene came out of the liquor store 10 minutes later with the booty and we all rejoiced. Later that night, we celebrated this wonderful miracle by getting shit-faced drunk. It was a good thing we now had some swill and cheap vodka.

Later that week, I took my roommate, Jeff, with me to the same liquor store. Feeling confident that I needed no ID to get beer, I marched into the store with no costume to make myself look older. At this point I just figured that the owner had no morals when it came to under-aged drinking and just wanted to make some money, so I thought I'd have no problem.

Think again, Brian.

The old Korean man immediately asked for some ID after I put a few cases of the "good stuff" (MGD) on the counter. I told him that I had left it in the car and would be right back. I ran out like the scared wuss that I am. When I got back to the car, Jeff decided he would take a chance and give it a try himself. The hat that Gene had worn was still in the back seat, so I told him to put it on in the hopes it would make him look older.

Even though Jeff was a year younger than me and looked it- Jeff came out with the case of MGD, it's gold label shimmered in the setting sun.

It was truly a thing of beauty.

It had also made us realize that we were in possession of a magic hat. Much like the glasses that Superman wore to become Clark Kent, the magic hat blinded people's ability to judge someone's true age. We had to use the hat wisely and not succumb to it's lure of power and not abuse its wondrous abilities. Lest you think that it was me that the Korean liquor store owner would not serve, I went into the store a week later with the hat on and had no problems.

The hat itself was actually my friend's, Gary, hat. He liked to wear strange and vintage style things like that and I think he may have worn the hat himself 3 times tops. It was just his style to do something like that. He had no problems letting us use the hat and after he left Maryland to go to Rutger's University, he left behind the hat, either because he forgot to take it or just didn't care for it too much. I grew to love the style of hat over the years, perhaps because I missed my friend. This day I still wear an ivy hat that's made of leather when I play poker. It's one of my favorite things to wear.

Eventually we all aged a few years and didn't need the magic hat. By that point we had moved out of the dorms and really didn't have any younger friends to pass the hat on to. The hat traveled with me to Pennsylvania when I dropped out of school. I even donned it a few times when the mood struck me. I eventually lost the hat in one of my moves and my wife eventually bought me a nice leather version of the same style hat.

Sometimes, I wonder if the magic hat's real magic was not that it fooled people into thinking you look older but rather that it gave you the confidence you needed to walk up and not look like you're trying to get away with something. Perhaps, it was a little of both.

Now serving

2009-03-11T15:27:00.003-04:00

They're back!!

2009-03-07T09:07:00.002-05:00

Last night...

No I wasn't there and I don't have tickets either for the upcoming Camden show (sigh). Nonetheless, it's exciting to see them back and doing Phishy things again. Apparently they dusted off a lot of old songs like Fluffhead, so I can imagine it being a great show.

Also- be sure to sign up at livephish as you can soon download the three Hampton shows for FREE. Limited time only, so sign up now!!

Rub some dirt on it

2009-03-06T13:49:00.004-05:00

As I previously mentioned, my oldest son, Jonathan, is a rather sensitive 10 year old boy. My wife and I are growing ever more concerned that he is becoming too much of a wuss, to put it bluntly. Don't get me wrong, my wife and I accept who Jonathan is and will become with all of our hearts as we love him dearly. He is a great kid and the concern comes from where both Lynn and I went through as pre-teens. We both experienced the pointed end of the stick when it came to teasing. Hell, they even called my wife "ogre" and I was, well, a nerdy wuss. I know the ogre comments still affect my wife to this day as she brings it up on occasion. I wish she could see herself through my eyes (and most likely anybody else) as she quite the opposite of being an ogre.

So, we are wary when it comes to Jonathan crying openly at such trivial matters and his inability take a little pain. You know how the old playground rules were, you'd get beaned by a ball and instead of crying they'd tell you to rub some dirt on it and get back in the game. My son, unfortunately, will go to the nurse at any sign of sniffle or some little ache that he gets. He always looks to get sympathy or some sort of band-aid or ice pack for any minor injury. I know he's only 10 but I see how even my almost 8 year old, Gabriel handles some pain and while he may try to milk some goodies out of you, he won't dwell on it like Jonathan does. Jonathan will worry about all sorts of things that may happen and get upset over things that haven't even taken place. If it hasn't happened already, Jonathan will develop a reputation of being a crybaby or wuss. I don't want him to go through the same painful childhood that we did.

Just 2 days ago I came home to him bawling loudly in the living room. He said with his lips quivering that he was on top of "T-Rex Mountain" (a snow mound where the plow sticks the snow in the parking lot behind our house) and fell and banged his knee "very, very, VERY HARD!!" (and how it must be broken!) I asked him how he made it home as it takes about 3-4 minutes to walk home and he said he walked. Right then and there I found my father channeling his parenting skills through my body and mouth and I immediately dismissed his pain and basically went cold to his crying.

"Well, if you can walk on it, it's not broken."

"Sniff, really? But it feels broken."

"Well, it would swell up if you did something serious to it. Take off your pants and I'll take a look at it."

"BUT I CAN'T, it'll hurt!!"

"Stop, yes you can, do it!"

He made a big production out of how much it hurt to take off his jeans, but I wasn't buying his crocodile tears. I took a look at his knee and saw no swelling or anything that indicated that his leg was seriously hurt. He then made another big production out of getting his pants back on and just then his mother came downstairs from her shower. He took one look at her and the water works started flowing like a broken dam.

She gave him exactly what he wanted, a big hug and some sympathy. I sometimes wonder if it would be better if I showed a little compassion. But as bad as it sounds I feel that I don't make a big deal out of it he eventually won't either. Maybe I'm wrong and if I give him some TLC he can feel better and go do his usual thing, but I doubt it as his behavior over the next day and a half was almost comical. He was fake limping around. You could tell that the limp was fake since he was doing such a bad job at it. His refusal of making his leg straight was making my wife crazy. He was more worried that it would hurt if he would straighten his leg than actually getting hurt from the crazy limp he was doing.

We sent him to school despite his protests. We also informed him the he shouldn't go to the nurse about his leg pain as we weren't going to pick him up for it. We should have known better as his weird limp caught the eye of the teacher and then Jonathan blabbed that he wasn't allowed to go to the nurse. (I'm hoping that she hasn't reported us to child services yet.) Last night I finally forced him to straighten his leg out and walk on it or else he was getting punished. He complied and claimed it hurt but you could see he was walking fine.

This morning I had confirmation that he was fine as he ran into the kitchen after I told him we had Munchins from Dunkin Donuts that his Uncle Duane gave him and his brother.

I honestly don't know what to do at this point. I might even seek professional help for some of his behaviors and moods. I want him to be happy and stop worrying so much about things that are either out of his control or might not even happen. I know I had similar issues and it hits you harder when you see your own child go through the same thing. Maybe I should just be like my father and let him work it out on his own (because I turned out so well? HA!), but my gut tells me that isn't the best thing to do.

Can you rub some dirt on your soul and get back into the game?

Happy Square Root Day!!

2009-03-03T15:35:00.003-05:00

Just a quick note to wish everyone a good and fun Square Root day. Today is 3/3/09- which, or course is one of the few times where the day and month are the same and multiply to make the year (last 2 digits- 3X3=9). The last time it happened was 2/2/04 and 1/1/01. The next time will take place in 7 years on 4/4/16. Hopefully, I'll still be blogging then.

Even more exciting is that we are prime number of days away from Pi day- which takes places on 3/14. (an approximation of Pi is 3.14) On Pi day I suggest we all run around in circles to honor the event.

Signs of aging that they didn't tell you about

2009-03-03T13:41:00.006-05:00

I'm fast approaching my 39th birthday in less than 2 months. It will be the last year of my 30's and the very thought scares the crap out of me. I just want to go back to 1992, where I can still drink and gamble but still have my youth. Nonetheless, I trudge on as if I have no other choice, well, because I don't have another choice.

The obvious things that are happening to my body like male pattern baldness, gray hairs, and general aches and pains are things I expected and things that are widely known about getting old. I'm sure one day I'll require reading glasses as I become farsighted, I may lose some of my sex drive and memory and I'll wear polyester shorts with black socks and a sweater in July. I'll probably shrink to 5 ft 3 from 6ft 1 by the year 2060, should I live so long, since the spine compresses as you age. Luckily those things haven't happened yet, however, some things have started to pop up that are really bumming me out as I had no clue I was destined to have such changes by age 40. For a public service and so people can benefit from my experience (see below), here they are outlined below-

Your ears slowly spread out. My wife, Lynn, claims that this is a common fact but so far no one else I've talked to seems to know that it happens. But I've definitely noticed that my ears are catching more and more wind resistance when I walk down the street. Why I'm turning into Dumbo in my middle age is beyond me but apparently your cartilage keeps growing after your bones stop.
You get attacked by moles. No, I'm not talking about those little blind fuckers that dig up your lawn. I'm referring to what they call age spots. I knew of age spots as a kid from that horrible commercial but had no idea that you get these awful marks all over your nose and face. The sun is just awful for you. So, kids, be sure to wear of plenty of sunscreen and don't stay out in the sun too long.
You become a crank. The character of "grumpy old man" is a stalwart in the annuls of archetypes and recurring characters. They scream at the neighborhood kids to get off their lawn and they write long letters to the editor complaining how in the old days people would tip their fedoras and no one these days has any respect. (let alone fedoras) But as a teen, I always thought that these people were always that way. I thought an entire generation was full of whiners and cranks. Turns out that your brain shrinks as you get older causing you to become more cantankerous. If you don't believe I'm becoming more angry and irate in my old age, just look at my blog posts on Ebay and GE servicemen.
You always have the answers for young people and try to give advice whether they ask for it or not. I'm at the age where I feel my experience should count for something. I also find myself dispensing advice to people younger than me even if they look squeamish and like they wish to leave to go do something dangerous and impulsive. I think to myself, "If only these 20-something year old brats would listen to me, I've been through something similar before and they could make their lives a lot easier if they would heed my advice." Of course, I always forget that when I was 20-something I would think to myself, "Why is this old dude going on and on about when he was young? Can't he see that he's making a fool of himself? I really would like to get away from him and go do something impulsive and dangerous."
You have hairs pop up in the weirdest places. One look at Abe Vigoda and you know that this will happen. He is an extreme example of hair foliage gone unchecked. But I really had no idea that it would happen so quickly. I have ear hairs so long that they could be used to hem my pant leg. Perhaps, it is directly tied to male pattern baldness and every time you lose a hair on your head you gain one in your nose, ear, bicep, ass cheek or ankle. Seriously, there are some spots that you had no idea were capable of growing hair that these wiry and coarse suckers pop up.
People around you get old. Okay, so maybe this one seems obvious and I'll agree with you. But it still shocks me how old some people are when I hear their ages. Here are some examples- Uma Thurman- 39, Brent Spiner (aka Data from Star Trek)-60, Michael Jackson- 50, Madonna-50, Frank Oz-64 , Henry Winkler-63 , I remember when Christina Ricci was a child actor, now she's 29!!
You need less sleep at night but nap more during the day. I can only guess that this trend continues to get worse as you always see octogenarians walking in the mall at 7am, 2 hours before they open, but are always the first to doze off at parties. I never used to nap at all but lately on the weekends I find myself dozing off for 30 minutes or so in the middle of the day. In fact, I feel like I could use a nap now. Maybe, it's because you don't sleep as soundly at night. Always getting up to pee since your prostrate is bigger.

I'm sure there are more things I'm missing right now, but that's because my brain is shrinking and I don't recall what they are, plus, I have to leave and go pee since I have an enlarged prostrate. Aging sucks, I guess maybe people did warn me what was going to happen but I didn't listen being the young brash whipper snapper that I was. I hope you young people will take my advice and know what's coming for you.

The Fallen

2009-03-02T21:11:00.005-05:00

Here in the Northeast, we got a bit of snow last night and today. The weathermen made it sound like the rapture was on its way but, alas, only one horseman showed up. (it was Famine and he was looking pudgy if you ask me.) It was, however, enough snow to really screw things up for the day and cause me to fall on my ass not once, not twice, but three times.

Recently, I've become my brother's chauffeur since he's had his foot in an orthopedic boot. He can't drive, so that leaves me to do all of the banal errands that our company needs doing. So, on top of my already busy day (always lots of orders on Monday) I had to drive around in the snow and go banking and to the post office.

The first time I took a spill today was actually indoors. I was waiting in line at the bank and noticed my bootlace was untied. I knelt down and tied it and on my way up I actually lost traction on the bank's tiled floor with my wet boots. I banged my elbow and knee before rolling over on the ground like a upside down turtle. It's probably the least graceful moment of my life, and I've had quite a few doozies, let me tell you. Who the fuck trips while they're already halfway on the ground? Yet, somehow I found a way.

Not even 20 minutes later I get out the car and amble my way over to the post office's exterior mailbox. I guess with the limited amount of snow that we've had this winter I've lost my snow legs as I took a really big spill on a patch of ice near the mailbox. I even noticed the ice and made a point of treading carefully. I fell straight on my fat butt and a shot of pain went up from my lower back to my neck, where it still resides tonight. Now I was getting pissed.

I get back to the warehouse and work through my pain while putting the orders together. A half an hour before UPS is due to show up I notice that our back ramp hasn't been plowed like it's supposed to be. So, on an empty stomach (I had no time for lunch) and a back, neck, knee and elbow screaming in pain I grabbed our shovel and did what I had to do. Shoveling on a ramp isn't easy either and again I had to keep my balance on slippery surfaces but this time I also had to deal with an incline. I don't think I need to say much more but I will tell you that my fall was really more of a split that I'm really not capable of doing with an hour's worth of stretching. It's tough to hurt your inner thigh muscles but I found a way.

Fear not, I can still blog as my fingers and brain remained unharmed- I think. I also banged my head a few times on my brother's Bravada hatchback that wouldn't open all the way up. It takes real talent to be this clumsy and you have to have a big heart to keep injuring yourself and keep going.

Where has all the customer service gone?

2009-02-27T13:58:00.004-05:00

As I write this, my poor wife, Lynn, has experienced something most of have in this day and age of repairs- the 4 hour window that wasn't met. We had an oven that wouldn't heat up and most modern ovens aren't very easy to fix if you don't know what you're doing. Instead of a pilot light there's some sort of electronic heating ignition device and damn if I know how to replace it without blowing up the house. It's the sort of modern convenience that isn't very convenient to the end user. The GE oven is barely 5-6 years old, so we decided to call a GE repairman.

Since appliances are so cheap these days, we have to pay some guy about 1/4th of what we spent on the actual unit itself to just come out and take a look. The money meter starts ticking as soon as he arrives. I'd be willing to bet that if he had to rebuild the unit with parts that you'd spend 25 times the value of the unit on parts alone. As much as it seems a waste of money the more worrisome part is the waste of your time. Whether it's the cable guy, a delivery of a mattress, or a GE oven repairman, you always get a 4 hour window of when that person will grace you with his presence. Half the time, they don't even do that.

Anyways, Lynn makes her appointment of 8am til 12pm thinking that she could get her sleep in shortly after the repairman leaves as she needs to get about 3-4 hours of sleep in order to work her night shift at the hospital before the kids get home at 4pm. She actually gets an automated call at 10pm telling her that she's the next one to be serviced and to get any dogs out of the way. A nice feature except for the fact that no one shows up. She waits til 12:30pm and no one has shown up. Frustrated she calls the service center.

Now here is where the good companies get separated from the bad companies. Anyone can run a business and have most things go right. Make a good product or service, have that product or service do its intended job and have a satisfied customer, it's the end of story for 95% or more of transactions. But as I've learned so aptly from a beach T-shirt I saw in 1987, "Shit Happens". It's when that shit happens and how that company reacts and takes care of the shit is what makes invaluable service or products.

They could make a great customer out of us by doing the right thing and solve the problem or make Lynn happier by offering some sort of concession. But instead, just like most large corporations, the customer service fought with her. If the word sorry was used it was in regards to how Lynn felt (ie. "I'm sorry you feel this way") and not that they are sorry for making her wait all morning and not have the repairman show up on time or even call to say that he's running late. The rep couldn't even tell her when he could come or if it would be anytime soon. No concessions or discounts were offered until Lynn actually cancelled the order.

It's like when you get a new credit card and cancel the old one the old company suddenly starts offering you a much better rate than before. Well, if you could have given such a great rate before I wouldn't be looking for a new card, would I? So once the words, cancel and stop the order were used the rep changed her tune. But by that time it was too late. I can only guess that they are actually trained to stand pat with the goodies until the customer threatens to fly the coop. How awful is that?

I run a small business and when I get a customer upset that my product broke or didn't show up in time or whatever else that could go wrong, I do something to correct it right away. I don't wait until I hear the customer get so upset that they threaten to cancel their order or go to another place. While it's true that there are some irrational customers who you can never satisfy, most people want someone to listen, correct the problem and do a little something for having their time wasted or go through a bit of a pickle.

Instead most companies would rather do what they can to hold onto their nickles until the very last moment before conceding and some don't even concede at all. We as consumers seem to have less and less power when it comes to the big corporations. Customer service has reached an all time low in my opinion. I guess I sound like a cranky old man, but Ebay, GE and all of the other virtual monopolies can go fuck themselves. We need more competition and we need people to start speaking up to getting treated right.

Libras are irrational

2009-02-23T13:32:00.008-05:00

Lately, I've been finding myself arguing or debating with people on completely different levels of thinking. Far be it from to claim that I'm right in my opinions (even though I am), it's becoming apparent to me that it's incredibly futile to try and discuss rational thought when the other person is using emotion and feeling as their argument. Yet, still I find myself arguing and huffing and puffing. It becomes infuriating to watch that persons silly grin as they discuss how Taurus is a big influential sign on her life and relationships with Geminis always end badly.

Honestly, I try to understand and I can see where Karen came to the conclusion that she does better with Taurus men than Gemini men as her 3 biggest and most successful relationships were all men that are born between April 20th and May 19th and her divorce was with a man who was born a Gemini. But to me- there's no causality, it's a small sample size and she may even have selective data as she probably only includes the data where it matches up with her conclusions (and not on purpose either, a lot of us tend to have selective memories when trying to make a point).

Perhaps I should convince her to date a million men. If she wasn't married, she probably could fulfill that task or at least give it the ol' college try. (I'm kidding Karen!) And after you get a large enough collection of...ahem.."data", she could perhaps see that her chances of having a positive relationship with a Gemini is as equally likely as having one with a Taurus. Or maybe, she even could be proven right and she could nanny nanny poo poo me all she wants. And I would accept the razzing because she used a scientific way to prove her point.

But she doesn't think that way.

And it's not that thinking by emotion makes her always wrong. It probably gets her pretty far with most things as most people use their "gut" to get through life anyways. Heck, some really good poker players are "feel" players who ignore the math completely but still manage to be rather successful. There certainly is something to be said about emotive capabilities.

So why can't I accept that and move on? Why do I have to even view emotion itself as simple chemical reactions and synapses firing and nothing else?

It's not like I give my wife a Valentine's day card and write a note that says, "My endorphin levels escalate every time I am aware of your presence. My hormonal response to your sex organs is a positive experience. I have no plans of mating with other women in the foreseeable future, Brian" Instead I write, "I love you and love being around you. You have an ass that won't quit. Yours forever, Brian." So, why do I have such trouble accepting arguments from the emotional side. Why won't my line of thinking allow me to embrace spirituality?

I'd say that science is my religion but that would be a cop-out and completely untrue. I am without all faith and science is not faith as it constantly changes. Scientists abandon the latest scientific theory as soon as a better one comes along. I also feel what you would could call spirituality at times, it's just I have a voice that tells me that's it's a weird chemical reaction. I think I've somehow learned to detach myself from certain emotions in order to survive my own destructiveness and emotional carnage from my bipolar nature.

I also tend to surround myself with cynics and doubters like myself. It's also why I have become such a pompous ass about my belief system. I was constantly being reinforced as my line of thinking as being the right way of thinking. I would scoff at the religious right and view them as the enemy who was ruining my libertarian way of life with their intrusive morality laws. I started to associate the extreme kooks with your average person who had any faith whatsoever.

In other words, I became an elitist.

Then one day I watched someone else berate their own relative for having a faith based belief. He tried his best to berate that person in front of me and even looked to me for back up. While I thought that this person's belief was correct and logical, I wanted no part of his utterly disgusting display of pompous indignation and audacity. I actually defended the other person. I didn't defend their point of view but rather their right to have that point of view and their right to not take such shit from anyone for having that belief.

It's opened my eyes to a certain extent. While I still have no tolerance for the extremists and people who wish to shove their faith into the law of the land, I've come to accept people who have spirituality and faith as someone with a different take on things. I don't embrace spirituality but I do understand it better and while I may not ever understand anyone's own particular sense of bliss, I do acknowledge and respect it much better than I ever have the past 10 years.

Now all I have to do is learn how to sidestep getting into all of these debates.

Riding a wave into a wall

2009-02-19T13:47:00.002-05:00

After tipping a dealer free money, you'd think Karma would repay me back and allow my trip to Vegas end well. But, alas, I am not Earl of TV fame and such cosmic balances don't apply to my life. Once I walked away from the Let it Ride table, I figured my winnings were just shy of $2200. I knew that I shouldn't be stupid in my remaining few hours and not risk much more than $200. But my mood started to turn sour from a very frustrating ordeal in obtaining my storage crate to ship back to work, a fairly bad meal (although comped!!) and a nagging cold that started to develop. I probably shouldn't have played anything at that point and instead just go to my room, masterbate and go to bed early.

Dummy me went to the poker room back at the Bellagio. They had 1/2 again thankfully and I went up again after a quick start. Then I just sort of petered out. I kept getting hands that were excellent draws like open ended straight draws and the nut flush draws, but they always missed so I was losing money fast. Then I just got plain cooled when my set of 4's lost out to an AK flush draw that hit a final heart on the river. My intial buy in was gone. I considered rebuying as the night was somewhat still early but reconsidered when I thought about the following:

The players at the table seemed to be better in skill than previous nights although not unbeatable.
I was in a bad mood and getting sicker.
I was steaming from the suck out.
$2000 is still an excellent amount of money to go home with.

While possible that I could have rewon my buy in and more, I'm glad I walked away when I did. I think I've learned better discipline this trip and while it's very certain that I could've made better decisions along the way to maximize wins and minimize losses, I am still proud of myself for keeping the big picture in mind and not risking more than $300 and usually $200 at any one point. I kept focused most of the time I played and I identified players who were worse than me and tried to isolate them. Overall I give myself a solid B+ for the way I played in vegas.

I went back to my room and tried to get some sleep as I had a morning flight back to Philly. My cold at that point was driving me nuts as my sinuses made me feel like my head was going to cave in. Not to mention that annoying nasal drip was making my throat sweel like a balloon. I ended up with less than 4 hours of sleep. I was happy, however, with my last ride down in the "inclinators", the Luxor's elevators that go sideways and up and down at the same time since the building is pyramid shaped. The inclinators are not very fun to ride when tired, sick, drunk or stone cold sober for that matter as well.

Once back in Philly I came home to some upsetting news which I can't even repeat here (strange for me, yes, I know) so my high from the trip came to an abrupt end. I can describe the feeling as surfing a great wave and instead of gliding into shore you hit a brick wall. Perhaps next time I'll keep the money and let the dealer cry, Karma is a cruel mistress.

More Watchmen sneak peaks

2009-02-18T15:12:00.003-05:00

The Watchmen comes out in about just 2 weeks so lots of sneak peeks are coming to light, here are a few I've found. I still have mixed feelings on if the movie will be good but, damn, some of these clips are awesome.

Things start to get weird

2009-02-18T13:32:00.002-05:00

The third day in Vegas wasn't as profitable and fun as the second but I still continued my winning streak and I had a nice dinner with an old high school friend I hadn't seen in 20 years who was now living in Vegas. The show had run all day so I was feeling quite drained but I managed to get in an hour of poker before meeting Rob. The players again at the Luxor were quite bad. I only managed a small win of 50 dollars.

Dinner with Rob was very pleasant. I wasn't very close with Rob but I always remembered him to be a nice guy, I wish I had spent more time with him back than as he was a joy to spend dinner with last week. After he dropped me off, I went straight back to the poker tables and managed to win yet another "best hand" and an extra $100 when my Queens full of tens held up. The game itself was very wild compared to the night before as there was a very loose aggressive and drunk player present who was splashing chips and making raises with nine deuce off suit (and making hands!). I tightened up and waited and managed to isolate him in a hand and win a decent sized pot. Then 3 hands later he managed to suck out on me and hit his gut shot straight draw so I lost the money I had won from him. The real shame was when he got stacked by another player and left.

Nevertheless, I walked away a $300 winner for the day if you included the best hand win. That put me at $1800 for the trip. I felt great and nothing was going to bring me down- hahahahahahaha!!

Okay, so maybe I wasn't that manic, but it's hard to contain yourself when you keep winning. I was certainly having a good time and remained undaunted when some weird things started to happen the next day.

The next day I was waiting for the show to start so since I was in the Mandalay Bay casino, I decided to kill 45 minutes playing some stupid poker variant where you play against the casino. It was called Crazy 4 poker and despite not really knowing what I was doing, I still managed to win $220 playing it. While that in of itself wasn't weird, it did lead me to see another game that interested me called Let it Ride. I didn't play it that morning but I did make a note to come back and try it later.

That day at the convention, a man came up to my booth and started to give me a small amount of grief in a teasing manner. I immediately recognized as the man who made his straight when I made my full house and won the best hand promo and I took close to $200 from him on that hand. I nervously gave him lots of free samples and whatever I could grab to make him forget that I had taken his money. He was actually nice about it and I may have him as a customer some day. Even still, it's weird when take money from strangers and see them later in your professional life.

The show finally ended and I knew I had to wait a bit for them to deliver my crate. As a result, I made my way back to the casino and tried that Let It Ride that interested me. Again, without really knowing what I was doing, I actually managed to go up about $70. I was having the best dumb luck of my life this trip or so I thought...

Just then a guy walked up to the table. He was the sort of guy who had douche-bag written all over his face. He was dressed in a black suit with a white T-shirt underneath. He had lots of gold chains dangling from his neck and his black hair was slicked back with lots of mousse. I'm not one to racially profile but if I had to guess, I would have said that he was one of those young Iranian men who loved to go clubbing. What's weirder is that he was rolling his carry-on suitcase through the casino. He was just dropped off and fresh from landing at the airport. He almost walked completely by but stopped at our table and plunked a hundred dollar bill. He placed his bets and the amazing happened- he hit a royal flush and won $25,000.

First Goddammed hand of his trip and this lucky fucker wins $25,000. After the excitemet died down the dealer presented him with a full rack of $1000 chips. I was in awe. She also gave him some lesser denomination chips like $25 and $100- obviously meant to tip her. After all, these dealers work mainly for tips and dream of when they finally deal that big winner and get a nice pay day.

The guy takes out 3 $100 chips and give me one and one to the other 2 players at the table. "Thank you! That's very generous!" I quickly said and then he took his racks and left- stiffing the dealer. The dealer became visibly upset and was holding back the tears. Without much thought I then tossed her the $100 chip and said, "Thanks for the excellent service." The other 2 players followed suit and did the same thing. While tearing up she thanked us over and over again. I was just about to cash out my $120 winnings when the pit boss came over and told us that even though he normall can't do as such, he would comp us all for a free dinner for tipping the dealer like that when she got stiffed. I was proud of myself for doing the right thing.

to be continued...

In memormiam: Joyce Klaus 3/8/1944-2/17/1995

2009-02-17T14:44:00.003-05:00

Hi Mom,

It's now been 14 years since your passing and I still have trouble believing you're not here. I think the thing you would have enjoyed the most aside from your grandchildren is the fact that Duane and I get along much better than we have in the past. Well that and the Game Show Network and the reruns of The Match Game. The celebrity gossip certainly hasn't dried up either so you would've enjoyed that awful show TMZ as well. Since you passed from colon cancer, I got my first colonoscopy last year and the good news was that I was polyp free. I wish you had more warnings or an early checkup that would have given you better fight. But it's too late and I can do is learn from your mistake. I do miss you so and I think of you often.

Love,

Your son Brian

A good day

2009-02-16T13:16:00.005-05:00

The next day of my Vegas trip turned out to be a very good one. I woke up completely refreshed and excited to play some more poker. I wasn't expected to start the trade show until 3:30 that day, so I had plenty of time to try my luck at the tables. I made my way to the Belagio again and to my immediate dismay I found out that they only had a $2/$5 NL table running and no $1/$2 tables. I decided against my better judgment to take a shot with a short stack but this turned out to be lucky thing for me.

I sat down with $300 and proceded to get pocket Kings, pocket Queens, pocket Aces and pocket Jacks within the first 10 minutes. Not only did this put me up rather quickly but it also led the other players to avoid me in a lot of pots which enabled me to actually win a few pots uncontested. I was also amazed at how the level of play was no better than the play found at the lower stake games in Vegas. I guess Vegas tends to get more touristy players than AC or other places get. The horrible decisions made by most players was truly a great way to make money if you played tight and straight forward and focused. While it was true that the deck was hitting me pretty well I felt that I played my best poker in quite a while. I played for a good 3 and half hours until I realized that I needed to get some lunch and make my way over to the convention. I was up a good 400 dollars or more when I announced to the table that I was playing my last hand. I was dealt pocket nines and was on the button. The under the gun raiser made a more than usual raise which led me to believe that he had a big pocket pair like aces or kings. A bad player from middle position made the call so I decided to call as well and see if I could hit my set and maybe stack the guy. The flop truly was a great flop for me- 983 rainbow. I had top set and the original raiser was betting big into me. Ultimately, we ended up all in and I raked in a huge pot of $1500 when my trip 9's held against his pocket Kings. It was my biggest pot ever and I was walking on air during the convention.

The convention itself was also the biggest I've attended for the type of show it was. There was a lot of students which really do me no good business-wise except to get my name out but I did make a lot of decent contacts and I hope to see some business from it. Even as trade shows drain the life out of you I still managed to let my big win carry me through the 3 hour shift and I dropped into a restaurant on the way back to my hotel. It was called RM Seafood (the RM stood for Rick Moonen) and it was probably the best sushi I've ever had, the Artic Char was absolutely and incredibly delecious.

After a quick change of clothes I planned on going back to the Belagio, but saw that the Luxor actually had a 1/2 table going. I figured I'd save myself a cab ride and took a seat there. Again, with the exception of a few decent players, the level of play was rather bad and I quickly went up and was making some money. They had a special promotion where once an hour the highest valued hand (with some stipulations) would win $100. During my time spent there, I managed to get Aces full of fives and it held up as the best hand for the remaining 50 minutes. That combined with the $200 I won playing made me an $1500 winner for the day.

Up $1500 with a great meal in my belly, I slept like a baby that night. Blissfully unaware of any problems at home I had a great day where the only thing I wish for was my wife by my side to share it with.

to be continued...

What happens in Vegas gets blogged about in Vegas

2009-02-10T16:47:00.003-05:00

Considering how much I love poker, it's kind of amazing that I haven't played in Vegas in the last 5 years. The last time I was able to get here was 2003, just months before I started playing regularly. Instead, I've languished as the trade shows I have to attend are in places like Indianapolis and Nashville. I was overjoyed last year when I saw that I was finally getting to go to Vegas this February.

And here I am.

Not after a arduous trip, mind you, it's never easy. I did myself the disservice of booking a 6:15AM flight out of Philly. That meant I had to wake up at 3:30AM. Of course, I was manic the night before so I barely got 3 hours of sleep. The flight itself was okay if not for the extremely noxious and gassy passenger located some where near me. I'm not joking when I say that there was a 2 hour period where you smelled a nasty fart every 5 minutes. He or she was laying them low too, so there was no warnings, just an awful odor coming from somewhere. As a result I didn't get to nap on the plane as I desired,

Fortunately the Luxor hotel was able to check me in early and I freshened up and decided to get a bite to eat. I ate at their buffet but they were only serving breakfast and my body clock was wanting lunch. Usually I have no problems eating breakfast foods for lunch or dinner (or "Brinner" as Turk from Scrubs would call it.), but I was just in the mood for a hamburger. Not to be daunted I ate my omlete and bacon and made my way to see what the poker room at the Luxor looked like.

It was maybe 7 tables tops and only one table was playing. I hoped it was a cash game but it was the end of their sit n go from the morning. It appeared that the Luxor only runs small sit n go's as they can't seem to get enough interest in cash games. Maybe they run some in the evening. I decided being tired and not wanting to go anywhere that I would just sign up for a $32 sit n go for noon. 22 ended up playing and the level of play was mostly very bad. But the tourney helped those players as it went very fast in blinds and thatstructure allows for luck. Even still, I managed to stay alive until I finally got too short stacked and had to push with Ace Ten and lost to a person who won with K rag. It paid out to 3 so I missed the money. C'est la vie.

After setting up my booth I skipped lunch and went back to my room to nap. For whatever reasons I couldn't fall asleep and at around 6pm Vegas time I got up and headed to the Bellagio for some cash poker. The Bellagio is the nicest casino you'll find and the poker room was rather ornate. After sitting down at a 1/2 no limit Hold 'em table I noticed that my ass was literally 5 feet away from the doors to "Bobby's Room". I turned around and looked inside and saw the nice comfy chairs reserved for the highest limits. The big famous pros including Phil Ivey and Doyle Brunson will play their high stakes games when they are in town. I guess no one was around as the room was empty. Still, I felt appreciative of the history and felt a little star struck.

I managed toget up a hundred or so until I got cooled when my pocket two's hit their set on the flop of a limped pot (A82 rainbow). Me and another player got all in on the turn when a second ace filled me with a full house. I figured he had trip aces but just about the only reasonable hand that beat me (A8) was what he had. I rebought and managed to double up an hour later with pocket Kings vs. someone's two pair on a board of QT3 (I also had two pair when a the turn brought a second 3) and played cauiously until I felt really tired and went to bed only down by 20 bucks. I got about 11 hours of sleep and woke up today refreshed and ready to play some more poker.

to be continued...

The tree of insanity

2009-02-03T14:07:00.004-05:00

It's February 3rd and if any mention of holiday decorations comes up right now it's because you see a few hearts or cupids here and there, mostly stemming from advertisements for Valentine's day goodies. If you're like most people who celebrate Christmas, the decorations have long been torn down and the tree, if live, is firewood at this point and it's packed away if it was a fake tree. Any thoughts of Christmas or it's decorations is 10 months away.

That is, unless you're a crazy person like my Mother-in-law, Marge.

I'm surprised that I haven't really blogged much about my whack job of a Mother-in-law as she really is a great source of entertainment if you're not the one banging your head against the wall at her illogical nature and stubborness. I also really should point out that I have indeed grown to love the woman, warts and all. She has a good heart, can be very generous and is almost always well intentioned. That said, there's some wiring upstairs that needs to be ripped out and redone.

The weekend after the new year is when I always tear everything down. Most people are the same way, if they're a touch lazy it may take an extra weekend, but no biggie. Most of the time St. Patty's days comes to pass before my in-laws decide to pack it up. And they used to get a live tree until these past few years. I'm not sure which irked me more- the fact that they had a major fire hazard in their house or now they can keep the tree up until the 4th of July. When it was a live tree I would joke that they threw the tree away one needle at a time and I wasn't far from the truth. So now with a fake tree, they keep it up even longer (and they have), driving me ever more crazy.

I used to have a lot of sympathy for my father-in-law, Gerry, him having to deal with Marge's pack rat nature and never wanting to throw anything away. There's stacks of newspapers in the house (she loves fire hazards?); she saved floppy discs from an old Apple II computer; the fridge is stuffed to capacity because she'll never throw away any food. She even serves expired mayonnaise if you're not vigilant about looking at the labels. I'm not lying when I say that my wife, Lynn, and I will actually go over to their house during their vacations and furtively throw things out. We once found some meat marked with dates from the mid-90's in her freezer downstairs. Marge was keeping meat that was from a cow that was alive when the Ashey twins were still on Full House! She lives with just herself and Gerry and yet she keeps buying food for a family of 5 and storing it in the basement. When armageddon comes a knockin', I know exactly which basement I'm making a break for.

And despite all of this craziness, I've lost most sympathy for Gerry. For starters, I've come to realize that he's a big enabler. He only seems to ever challenge her when company is present so he feels like he has backing. Secondly, I think he's the larger perpetrator when it comes to the tree. I think he pretends that it's Marge who wants the tree up so long, but I've sensed something different is going on, plus, he never complains about the tree behind her back like he does about everything else.

I think he's dealt with her big heapin' helpin' spoonful of loony tunes for so long that he himself has been driven into madness. He clings to that tree and the good times of Christmas for as long as he can. The more you try to pry that tree away from him, the harder his grip gets and the longer the tree stays up.

And you know what is even crazier?

I let it all bother me.

Yes, I make my little jokes to them about the tree or the stores of food and newspapers but here I sit perplexed at all the madness and I can't fathom why they are so.....so....them!! I think I complain about Lynn's Mom and dad more than she does and she's their daughter, so you'd think she'd have about 18 years more stress to bear than me. But for whatever reason, they're driving the bus to crazy town and I'm in right there with them in the front seat.

Brian the Fuck-up

2009-02-02T14:44:00.004-05:00

There's some quite off-putting when you get called a "fuck-up". It's even more depressing when it's coming from your father. I'm sure he meant to motivate me in some fashion but all it's really done is left me in a funk most of the week. I think he may be right that I'm fucked-up in the fact that I keep seeking approval from him or just plain acceptance for who I am. Something that I consciously try to do with my sons is to praise them often or hug them openly or not use negative reinforcement of bad behaviors. I'm sure I'm far from perfect in regards to that but I'm doing my best to break the cycle of a long line of cold German bastards who were brought up to be stern and not demonstrate any love because it would be considered a sign of weakness for a man to be any different.

It's not that my father is a complete asshole, because if he were, he'd be a lot easier to just write off. He's certainly saved my ass on more than a few occasions and I've probably been a disappointment in many ways when you consider the wasted potential I had before I became a college drop-out. But he gets in these cocky moods where he feels like he's better than anyone else and that's when he's extra annoying. I suppose I can attribute that to the bipolar genes we share but he likes to deny. I guess since he won't recognize his own possible mood disorder that he doesn't have sympathy for those who will.

I certainly don't want to use my disorder as a crutch and I always think that you need to take responsibility for your actions despite the causality. But I don't think my Dad knows just how hard it's been just achieving what I've accomplished in the last 12 years. I'm a homeowner, a good husband, a good father, and while I may not be the biggest go-getter when it comes to the family business I've certainly contributed quite a lot and I am a big reason for its success. Perhaps, I've been a bit despondent lately because my opinions tend to get ignored or put aside and my attitude towrds the business comes across as being lackluster. But, I will get a bit non-plussed when he calls me a fuck-up and I should take more initiative.

Yes, I do screw around a bit more than I should. It's obvious as I'm on Facebook doing puzzles or even here blogging at 3:30 in the afternoon. But I take pride in the fact of how efficiently I can get my work done. I guess I should be spending every possible moment in a frenzy trying to stir up business, so if that's the case, then I'm a big fuck-up. But you, Dad, are a fuck-up as well. Maybe not as a business and sales man, but as a supportive and caring person. Yet, I still love you and wish to have your undying appreciation and apporval despite the lack of it. I doubt either of us will change all that much but it's not that fucked-up to think differently and strive to be better.

Brian the plumber

2009-01-30T11:55:00.005-05:00

I actually have a storied history with me and fixing toilets. This past week I had a dilly of a time trying to change a toilet seat. (more on this in a moment)

It started when I was in my mid 20's and my friend Dave had a problem with his toilet running non-stop in his apartment. Both of us were somewhat new at home repair and living on our own. Despite the fact that his Dad owned a hardware store, neither of us had much of a clue as to how to fix it. We eventually figured out that the gizmo that determined when the toilet tank was full was in need of replacement. We made a quick trip to the hardware store and came back with what we thought was the appropriate part. Once the original part was out we tried to fit in the new piece but it wouldn't fit. I guess the style of toilet didn't match the part we bought.

In hindsight, it wasn't a good idea to get the hammer out. I don't think brute force and porcelain mix well. Thankfully for Dave, his ability to talk his landlord into buying a new toilet (he said it just "crumbled"!!) and having a plumber install it was much better than our first attempt at repair.

Since then I've become quite adept at toilet repair. I've even done that very same repair at least 8 times since then. (including the toilets at work) Being an experienced man in his late 30's, I had all the confidence in the world when it came to making a quick change of the toilet seat this past week. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

When will I ever learn?

For some reason, our toilet seat had developed a crack (no, I'm not talking about the crack of my ass!) on it. While I admit that it very well could have broken due to my fat ass, I will say it more likely it was the result of the children constantly slamming the seat up and down when they use the bathroom like the reckless bulls that they are. The crack was not aesethically pleasing and it tended to pinch your thigh while you sat on it. But, regardless of why the seat needed replacing, I didn't think the undertaking would be all that hard nor expensive. (it was only $9.87 at Walmart for a new seat) The actual installation of the seat took less than 2 minutes, it was the removal of the old seat that took over 2 hours.

The old seat was attached by 2 metal bolts and 2 plastic nuts. Yes, I said plastic. This choice of building materials was my undoing. The bolts had become rusty and the plastic nuts had somehow fused themselves to the bolts. Making it impossible to unscrew the nuts no matter what tool I used. My next action was to take out the bolt cutters. It was hard to get them wedged into the right position and I did manage to snip the one bolt in half (after making a small hole in the wall) but I only snipped off half the plastic bolt as it was flush with the base. That half a bolt prevented it from coming out. So, I snipped the seat of at the hinges from the top.

I think that was a big mistake.

While it enabled me to get the one bolt off, it made it harder to remove the other bolt as it took away my leverage and I wasn't able to fit the bolt cutters on that side of the toilet. I tried many tools including saws, pliers and tin snips to get this bolt out of the base. I even had the hammer out and came to my senses before I used it. I eventually came to the brilliant solution (which my wife independently came up with a similar solution at the same time) to use the glue gun.

I'm sure you're confused as to why using a glue gun worked so I'll explain. The glue gun uses heat to melt the glue in the desired surface. I thought that I took out the glue I could use the tip to melt the plastic off. 20 minutes later with the help of my wife the plastic eventually came off and we had accomplished our mission.

The moral learned here is that things aren't always as easy as they appear, either that or you'll do anything to a have comfortable place to sit while you shit.

The Whitest Kids U' Know

2009-01-26T07:34:00.003-05:00

Tomorrow night on IFC, the sketch comedy group, The Whitest Kids U' Know, starts their third season. I'm a big fan of sketch comedy and I found this show last year with my wife, Lynn, while surfing channels. Think of TWUK as a crass American and more scatological and immature version of The Kids in the Hall. Both groups have 5 male members and both often play female characters by dressing in drag. And like David Foley of KitH, Darren Trumeter of TWUK looks rather nice as a girl...

If you don't mind some gross out humor, lots of cursing (IFC doesn't censor), and penis jokes then I suggest you give this show a try. Here's a sneak peak -

Boob tube boycott at the pump

2009-01-23T14:24:00.005-05:00

I'm sure you've noticed the recent trend recently that many gas stations have been installing flat screen televisions on top of their gas pumps. My initial gut reaction to this was, "Oh goody!! Television while I pump gas! Now I won't be bored for the 4 minutes it takes to fill my tank!" But, alas, my initial enthusiasm was soon met by disappointment as I quickly realized that for every 20 seconds of news/weather or entertainment programing came 2 minutes of ads. So my 4 minutes was really 40 seconds of useful TV. Although, to be fair, one recent fill-up was a full 2 minutes 40 seconds as I would always consider any Billy Mays commercial to be useful television.

To make matters worse 1/4th of the screen on the left side are scrolling print ads. You can actually watch 2 ads at the same time! The gas stations are really trying to squeeze every last possible ad moment out of you when they know that they have a captured audience with no 30 second skip button. Personally, if I were an advertiser I would really see the value. We are drawn to the flickering light of TV like a moth to the flame. So while we are hypnotized into watching the gas pump television, we have no choice but to watch what the gas company wished to put in front of us. However, I suppose the idea hasn't caught on very well as of yet as half the ads are about advertising on their network of gas station TVs.

I guess I would be more willing to subject myself to this sort of advertising if I could see my share of the revenue being put into lowering the price per gallon. The least they could do is drop the extra 9/10th of a cent per gallon. You can't even buy a thought for less than a penny. It's the only product where we tolerate a company charging us tenths of a penny. What happens if I fill up with exactly 9 gallons of gas, does that extra tenth of a penny get rounded up or down? I'm willing to bet that they consider that a whole penny! Betcha that they don't charge that extra 9/10ths to the advertisers for their TV screens. Yet again, we the consumer are the ones getting screwed.

In the spirit of MLK Jr. day this past Monday, I say that we boycott whatever businesses that advertise on gas station televisions and that we keep boycotting until we no longer have to pay for that extra 9/10ths of of penny per gallon again!

Playing Mantis

2009-01-22T15:10:00.006-05:00

Back in 2004/05, just as Phish bid goodbye to touring and producing music (however temporary as they are touring again this summer), a group from Chicago, named Umphrey's McGee, started to get some positive notice in the jam band world. Some publications even proclaimed that they would be the next "Phish". While not exactly a fair summation, Umprhey's McGee has become one of my favorite bands to listen to and I haven't even had the chance to see them live yet, although I have heard plenty of live performances from online downloads. In my opinion, part of what makes them so good is that their studio albums are just as entertaining as their live performances. As much as I hate to admit this, you don't exactly wait with baited breath for a jam band's newest release as much as you do for the next time they roll into your town. Fortunately, Umphrey's McGee is an exception to this rule.

Umphrey's McGee's current release, Mantis, is probably the best jam band studio album I've listened to since Phish came out with Hoist back in 1994. Even more shocking is what makes this album so great is not the typical, "noodling" and infinite improved scales that is so prevalent with jam bands but the eclectic mixtures of music that they seem to blend together so well. I'm dead serious when I say that this 6 member band successfully blends similar sounds that are usually associated with Yes, Phish, Metallica, Bad Company, Steely Dan, 70's through mid-80's rock, early 80's synthesizer music, Rush, 70's Genesis, Radiohead, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Spyro Gyra, modern European dance and yes, even broadway show tunes.

Before Mantis was released in its entirety, they pre-released the song, Made to Measure. The song itself, a very catchy and upbeat tune was rather typical in many ways of the group's usual fare and it didn't really signal what else was going to be on the album. The song could easily have been on an earlier enjoyable album, Anchor Drops. Listening to the rest of the album then became quite the pleasant surprise. The best two songs in my opinion, the title track- Mantis and Cemetery Walk, happen to be the 2 longest songs on the album coming in at almost 12 and 8 minutes respectively. While I can hear you groaning- "Well, of course, a jam band has long drawn out songs- all they do is riff and improvise!" While that statement is mostly true, that isn't the case for the length of songs in this instance. Imagine songs like Golden Summers Medley from The Beatles or Paranoid Android by Radiohead, where they have several tempo, chord and melodic changes.

Case in point, Cemetery Walk starts with a sad minor chord piano tune (imagine Spinal Tap's Lick My Love Pump?) and then suddenly jumps into a late 70's rock synthesizer boosted upbeat tune that would be no stranger to an 80's movie montage. It eventually finds its way back into the piano music but this time it's joined by a gradual building of momentum of drum beats and guitars that makes it sound gothic and can give you some goosebumps. It ends in a screechy and static-y feedback before going to the next tune, Cemetery Walks II where you hear the piano tune continuing but this time it's joined by modern dance instrumentals. You could almost picture Mike Meyers in his Deiter costume proclaiming, "Now ist da time on Schprockets venn vee dance!!". As weird as all that sounds, what's weirder is how much it all really works.

The song Mantis also accomplishes has the same strange blending. Turn & Run, Spires and Red Tape are all also very good and unique songs as well. It also wouldn't surprise if any one of these songs doesn't become very popular in Umphrey's Mcgee's live performances. Although I can imagine at some points that they could extend certain solos or continue certain riffs. The album truly works better as whole than the sum of its parts. Which is a strange thing in these days of MP3 players and on demand downloads. Aside from the first track, this album has no real catchy pop tunes, so if you're the type that likes White Zinfandel and shies away from dry, full bodied, and complex red wine blends then I suggest that you don't give this album a try. But if you're bold and want to try something that really is something unique and interesting than I really recommend that you give this album a listen.

Barack to the Future

2009-01-20T13:07:00.005-05:00

Today's inauguration speech will probably be considered one of the greats. I'll leave it to history to see if it's as great as Kennedy's, Lincoln's, and FDR's inaugural addresses. Personally, I thought there were some great moments and phrases and hope that he can come through on his promises. As with any great speech, there usually exists a few phrases that one can point to as the keys to what the speaker wants us to come away with. As much as I try to keep my blog apolitical, I few compelled to discuss some of what I got out his speech today.

On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.

The first part of Obama's speech was actually rather dour. He went on with a laundry list of problems and ails of the country's current state of war, the looming depression and poor health care and educational systems. He then brought hope back in and told us that with hard work and dedication we would eventually make our country great again. What was most interesting about this part of the speech was that he promised that his administration would be different. We could count on them to do the right thing and not what is best for their political lobbies and parties. This above anything else, I think, may be the most significant promise of the speech.

Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions - who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage.

The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works - whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account - to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day - because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.

The libertarian in me is screaming at these two parts. But the pragmatic reality is that government is big and has been big since before World War II and it's probably impossible to put the genie back in the bottle now. If it is true that he is willing to end wasteful programs and foster the programs that work then I can live better knowing that. I am not for the big brother type of politics where we ask our government to help us in every facet of our society but if he can trim the fat and bolster that programs that work and are less intrusive to our business and capitalism then I will support his view. I also applaud his little dig at Cheney and Haliburton at the end of this segment. However, I will say that Cheney did do his business in the light of day and still got away with it.

As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.

We are the keepers of this legacy. Guided by these principles once more, we can meet those new threats that demand even greater effort - even greater cooperation and understanding between nations.

Amen!!

Finally after seven years of the Patriot act, illegal wire tapping, water-boarding and torture, and Guantanamo Bay and the lack of due process, someone finally is stepping up and saying no more, If we are to espouse certain ideals and freedoms, we need to live by and execute them- even in the direst of situations and fear of our safety. Not only can we live with ourselves after the threat has passed but we can hold our heads high in front of the world and be joined by allies who are inspired by these actions.

For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus - and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.

Obama walks the line of being able to flaunt his bi-racial heritage and not alienate the dominant culture very well. He did it throughout the campaign and I believe that his diverse background will be a great asset to his presidency. The ceiling is now broken and I think he will bring everyone he can with him.

Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends - hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism - these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility - a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

There is some Kennedy thrown in here for sure. It's also probably the last time a president had the guts to ask his constituency for hard work since Carter failed at asking Americans to wear sweaters. I hope we haven't become too fat, lazy and entitled to fail to meet his challenge.

Mr. President, your clock has just started now. Let's get to work and see what you can do. I hope I am not let down by your words and I hope your promises and promise are what you say they are.

Just the facts ma'am!

2009-01-19T14:13:00.004-05:00

Facebook tends to get trendy sometimes. Back when it just started getting cold people kept sending each other "snowball" fights. I still get lots of "Lil Green plants" and other such silly things that people send each other on the site. The most recent trend was to post a note and give 25 facts about yourself that people probably didn't know. You then tag your friends who you'd think would do the same thing.

In less than a week I had 5 friends tag me in their 25 facts. I felt compelled to write something but I honestly didn't think I could come up with 25 real and interesting facts about myself. Hell, one friend had the tissue of her dead unborn twin in skin of her belly! How could I possibly compare? It was at that point I did what I needed to do-

-make shit up!

Here's a copy of my 25 "facts":

1) I have a mole on my back that resembles Abraham Lincoln's profile, complete with stove top hat. I even have a hair growing out the area of Abe's chin and beard. At first, I thought I should go to the dermatologist and get it checked for skin cancer but Lincoln was probably a top 5 president and he also freed the slaves. I couldn't have the fact that I got Abraham Lincoln biopsied weighing on my conscience.

2) Once in year, on the 8th day of the 8th month (August 8th) I participate in a ritual that I call the"Eight Meats Feast". On that day I purchase, prepare and consume 8 lbs of 8 different meats. Eating 8lbs of meat is not as hard as you'd think and finding the 7th and 8th different meat is quite the challenge as I can only choose one fish. Last year I had beef, pork, chicken, lamb, shrimp, venison, ostrich and Botswanian Monkey meat.

3) I think that VHS will make a comeback someday.

4) My wife and I once decided to start a pot farm. We had it all planned out and bought all of the equipment, storage facility and drying vats. Turns out we had purchased the wrong the seeds due to a small reading error. If anyone wants any free "Mari"golds- please let me know.

5) In 1992 I saved all of my urine in jars and still have them in storage in Columbia MD.

6) I shave my head using male pattern baldness as a guide.

7) I can fit 9 and half mice into my mouth at once without harming 9 of them.

8) I write my congresswoman at least twice a day. For some reason this has attracted the attention of the secret service.

9) We told our children that a monster lived in the basement when they were young. It was a great motivator when they misbehaved.

10) I am wanted by the law in 11 different states. I am a serial mattress tag remover.

11) In the 70's as a child, my parents were in a financial bind and gave me to the CIA for experiments with drugs and weird electronic devices. I have been fortunate that the only two side effects that I've noticed so far is a third testicle and the green glowing fungus in my armpits.

12) I have informed my wife that after my death that I would like her to take my body to a taxidermist. Have me stuffed and insert a speaker with various digital recordings of me. She would then take me to places and have me say the appropriate things.

13) I am working on inventing a new sex toy for hermaphrodites. I'm calling it the "Push N' Pull".

14) In my spare time I like to go to the train yard- and beat up hobos with a crow bar.

15) For a year I impersonated being a surgeon. The surgery itself wasn't so tough to do, it was listening to patients' screams and pleas to stop that was a chore.

16) I use my dog's skin to breed bot fly larva.

17) I have the unique ability to pass gas in 5 distinct and equally horrible odors.

18) When getting change from a cashier I always ask for 2 dollar bills back. When they tell me that they don't have any I fly into a rage and leave the store without purchasing anything.

19) By my last count, I have discovered 87 legitimate uses for Vick's Vapo-Rub.

20) I like to go into shoe stores and switch the shoes around so people will buy 2 lefts or 2 rights.

21) I sometimes scream "Thar she blows!!" at the moment of climaxing.

22) I firmly believe that inappropriate laughter is the best medicine.

23) I think there is nothing wrong with using your own poop to sculpt.

24) I like to make random phone calls and start crying that "Hank died". About one in every 153 calls I get a concerned response.

25) I not very good at lying or making things up.

All by myself

2009-01-16T14:37:00.003-05:00

This blog entry is being made from my office on a Friday afternoon. There are 3 of us who work here on a regular basis and one takes Friday afternoons off while the other had to call out today. That's left me all by myself. Just me and a few phone calls and the UPS man who dropped by to pick up some packages. While loneliness isn't a great thing as a constant, it can be relaxing and a much needed break.

Mind you, I would be pissed if I had a ton of packages to ship and no one answering the phones. But as it is on a Friday afternoon where it slows down, I am able to enjoy the quiet and get some work done and screw around a little. I can even rip a few loudly and not worry about the embarrassment I needed to.

Speaking as a bipolar person, it's tough enough to work when I have 2 other people here, let alone a big office. The extra activity can be over stimulating and makes it tough to concentrate. I wonder if I have a little ADDHD mixed in my brain, it wouldn't surprise me if I did.

However nice it is to be alone with your thoughts, eventually you start to long for some sort of social interaction. Thankfully I'm married and have two kids who just love to attack me at the door with everything that they're busting to tell me. I'll have to remember to enjoy that now as I know in a few years when they are teens I'll have to twist their arms and pull their teeth to get any information out of them.

I recommend that you allow yourself some "me-time" one of these days. Get reacquainted with yourself.

Hang in there, Baby!

2009-01-15T10:40:00.005-05:00

One of the big ways to be happy in life is to enjoy your work and or the very least not to hate it. I know this because I was once a car salesman. The job itself was fine but the hours sucked and the people in management were the biggest lowlife, loser, power-hungry, assholes you could deal with. Imagine driving 40 minutes to your job and just dreading where you were headed. It drains the life out of you. I was eventually saved when I got back into the family business and I think it's a big reason as to why I'm more emotionally healthy and an overall happy person than I was as a salesman.

My poor wife, Lynn, has no such luck. She chose her profession back at the age of 18 when she decided to go to school to be a lab tech/medical technologist. She loved science and laboratories and thought it would be a great job for her. She then attended 4 years of college- 2 years at Bucks Co. Comm. Col. and 2 at Thomas Jefferson University. Then Lynn got a job right out of school at a hospital just outside Philly on the mainline. The commute was somewhat long but she decided to take the first job she could get and felt comfortable there as she knew some of the people there since she did some intern work at the hospital.

That was probably one of the biggest mistakes she's made in her life.

She never realized how much bullshit politics and bureaucracy goes on at a hospital. Her first boss she despised and she wasn't very happy with the hours of the second shift. She trudged on and eventually got a position with day shift. While a bit happier, she grew tired of the long commute and eventually discovered how much disrepect that the lab techs get from the rest of the hospital and the administration. (and the paycheck reflected this!) She tried for years in vain to get a job at one of the local pharmaceutical companies but never managed get her foot in the door. It seemed that she would have been better off as a recent grad or someone who had experience in the actual business; her hospital skills and experience seemed only valuable to other hospitals.

She eventually moved to on a closer hospital but took a night shift thinking that she'd have more time to spend with the family and less interaction with the stupid back biting among her fellow employees. She soon learned that she's spent more time trying to catch up on sleep than with her family and that the politics doesn't go away and still affects you, even if you aren't present during the day.

That's over 10 years of misery my wife has endured. I think sometimes her brain is being held together with bits of tape and glue as she trudges on every day. Finally, after some soul searching, last year she decided to become a high school science teacher. She realized that she was happiest when instructing the students that would intern at the hospitals over the years and decided that teaching was the best way to get the respect and happiness she desired in a career.

Easier said than done, of course. Changing your entire career path in your early 30's isn't the easiest task.

Lynn decided that taking online courses while still working would be the best course. The online school works out well as she can work at her own hours. But, now, she endures even less sleep as she tries to squeeze in her regular family life along with hours of school work each week and her regular night schedule.

Please don't think she does less work than your regular college student. If anything, I think she does more on average than the college student who attends classes. With online school you are forced to participate in the class discussions. You are required to post in class discussion forums and get graded on what you write. I've seen her create and write more essays and projects than I ever did in one semester's worth of 4-5 classes while she only takes one course at a time. Mind you I was only a Radio, TV and Film major but still, she really has much more than you'd ever expect an online school to have. Online schools now have earned my respect and I hope that employers know that online diplomas are no joke.

There's only so much I can do to calm my wife's stress and allay her fears and concerns over the years. I just hope Lynn realizes that she's about halfway done her schooling and she has less than 9 months until she student teaches. To most outsiders she looks fine, but I know she's coming apart at the seams and needs some support from not just me but her friends. So, if you're a personal friend please be sure to express that you have confidence in her ability.

It's just a little bit longer honey, hang in there!

Things people wrote to me in my high school yearbook. Part I

2009-01-14T18:44:00.004-05:00

Recently I found my lost high school yearbook. It was missing for close to a year and with all of these little reunions I've had recently I was really itching to look at the pictures and see what people wrote to me. It's a fun and good way to see what aspirations you had at the time, where people thought you were headed and even see where your friends and enemies were like at the time as well.

Here are some excerpts along with my commentary- (please note I am only using first names and last initials to spare google search embarrassment)

Brian, you are one of the funniest and wittiest persons I know. Good luck in college.- Joe G.

Okay, so this didn't tell us much, but my ego needs a good stroking before we get started.

Brian, well this is it!! You're a great and charming and witty guy!! I'll never forget our sexual talks!! You did great in Beauty and the Beast and a fantastic job in Jan. 16th!! Never forget me!! Call over the summer (leaves phone number)!! Love, Heather

Apparently Heather really liked to use exclamation points!! It was nice that Heather enjoyed my acting parts in the drama club, but I really was a bad actor. The fun thing here is that she knew me for always chatting about sex. I was quite the open and blunt person about it and still am. I would listen to Dr. Ruth on the radio a lot as a teen and would be quite the sex expert among my peers. (despite the lack of experience) Looking at the undertones of the message, I wonder if Heather was hoping I'd call for sex over the summer. Hmmmm....I guess I'll never know since I had a girlfriend at the time.

Brian, I think you are a creative mind. But I wish you worked harder.- Mrs. L.

Ouch! This English teacher hit the nail on the head. She was one of the few teachers that I disliked in high school but I regret feeling that way now. I think if I could back in time I wouldn't have cut her class so much and paid attention. I really could've done much better. It really is the story of my entire school career. I had so much wasted potential back then.

Brian, Bonne chance a un eleve unique! C'etait mon plaisir de t'avoir dans ma classe malegre le fait que tu n'as pas continul avec le francais!!- Mme K

Ummm...?? What?!! Is that French?! I'm embarrassed to this day that the reason that I took French was because a girl I had a crush on at the time we had to sign up for electives said that French was cool. How I wish I took something useful like Spanish.

Brian, I am glad I got to know you over the past year. You are a real nice guy. I will always remember your wacky T-shirts- especially the one with the tongue on it. Good luck in all you do- probably as rubber-band salesman. - Michelle K

Michelle was in my homeroom and speech class during senior year. We had basically ignored each other for 3 years in homeroom but public speaking class forced us to work together on many projects and my sense of humor and zany T-shirts (I was such an unabashed attention hound!) eventually won her over as a friend. I was able to cross clique lines like that frequently. I made casual friendships with the jocks and cheerleader types like Michelle because I didn't take things seriously and made them laugh. Note that Michelle was the only person in my yearbook who accurately guessed my future profession. (she remembered that I had a 5 ft rubber band that I brough to school)

Finally I'll end this part with what Mr. Odney wrote me-

Brian, I remember the first time I saw you...it was a stormy summer night...NO!!...it was at the Night of Jan. 16th auditions. Rememeber?! You said I'd get the part of the gangster because I looked like I had a broken nose. Remember that? Huh? Huh?! No really, Brian. You've wised up since then. You're a good kid Brian. Seriously, after everything that's happened I consider you to be one of my true real friends. And that means a lot. Good luck in life/work/humor/art/love/death. I hope that everything goes well for you. {snip- a bunch of catch phrases we used at the time} Be Good- Andy B

Getting back in touch with Andy has been wonderful as I always have missed his sense and take on things. His story of how we met is true and is actually not uncommon with many of my friends. I often come off as rather obnoxious at first and some people (including my wife) actually didn't like me at all at first. But I grow on people like a fungus.

That's it for now, I will revisit this later this week as I'm still astounded how people thought I was going to get my own HBO special.

I admit it, I'm a band wagoner.

2009-01-12T14:28:00.003-05:00

This past season of football was kind of unusual for me. I gave up on the Eagles halfway through the season. The definite low point and when I really wrote them off in my head was when they could only muster a tie against the hapless Cincinnati Bengals. I refused to watch them after that. I was blissfully unaware of their failings and ultimate comeback after that. The benching of McNabb, the flogging of the Cardinals, the revenge on the Giants, etc, etc. Also, the fact that I had a Phillies championship helped nurture my lack of caring.

Over the weeks, I'd hear my employee, Rocco, tell me of their little comebacks and he finally convinced me to watch them again as they were in the lead for a wild card spot. So that Sunday I sat down and watched the Eagles play the Redskins.

Yet again they shit the bed.

They played just as bad as they did when they played the Bengals, so again I swore off them for good this season. I would proudly proclaim to my friends that I didn't care that the Eagles managed to get into the playoffs when they trounced the Cowboys and got lucky with a few key losses by their competitors. I told everyone that they were most likely going to lose in the 1st round. Last week I told everyone not to get their hopes up as the Eagles couldn't possibly beat the Giants twice in one year at Giants Stadium.

Yet here they are in the NFC Championship game against the lowly Cardinals- the only team with a worse record than the Eagles and someone they slaughtered like a turkey on Thanksgiving day. Looks like an easy win and an automatic Super Bowl bid for the Eagles, yes?

NO!!

Don't fall for it!!

This is EXACTLY the type of game that the Eagles will go and pull a mind numbing choke-fest on!!

My employee, Rocco, keeps saying to send out the Super Bowl party invitations but I know better. The recent Phillies trophy has not blinded to me to what's really going and what will happen. I've lived through 38 years of Philly sports and I know that Charlie Brown never gets to kick the football despite what Lucy says or does.

And if I'm wrong?

Then I'm wrong but happy enough that the Eagles are in the Super Bowl to care that I was wrong.

HA!! Fool-proof strategy I tell you!

Reminder: It's Jammuary again!!

2009-01-12T14:25:00.002-05:00

Just like last year, if you have Comcast cable then you can access Jammuary on demand. Go to the music categiry, choose concert.tv and then Jammuary to find lots of great music. I haven't had a chance to listen to much, but I saw moe., Blues Traveler, Umphrey's McGee and Disco Biscuits listed with at least half hour concert bits.

Enjoy!

My little stinker

2009-01-06T14:32:00.003-05:00

When I say that my shit doesn't stink, I'm actually telling the truth in a fashion. As gassy as I usually am, my farts tend to be quite loud but for the most part they don't have that awful odor that goes along with the average flatulence. In other words, my bark is worse than my bite. Despite what my wife may tell you about the matter, I think that we're quite lucky that we can enjoy all of the comedic effects of hearing my farts, yet at the same time lose almost all of the noxious fumes that often follow the laughter. It's a win-win situation as far as I'm concerned.

That was true until my 10 year old son, Jonathan, started to take after his dear old dad and kicked the amount of his own emissions up a few notches. He's aggressively started his own chemical warfare campaign on our living room. The problem is that his farts are probably twice as unpleasant as the next guy's. While mine are loud and proud, his are of the silent but deadly ilk. They are really so bad that I have to wonder what's crawled up his ass and died. He's as skinny as a rail and has a normal kid diet, so I really have no idea why he has been cursed this way.

Of course he really has a knack of releasing his toxic gas in the car where there is no relief but to crack the windows in winter and hope you can hold your nose. I try my best not to deride the poor kid, he has a poor self esteem as it is. But when your senses are assaulted like that, it's hard not to react in a negative way. I know he probably winds up catching shit from his schoolmates when they catch wind of his shit. I think he can identify with Pepe LePew, the cartoon skunk who only wanted love but had an odor in the way of his quest.

I need to take him aside and teach how to deflect accusations and perhaps even master ventriloquism with his butt. Unfortunately, this requires acting ability and lying which my son is just awful at. He can't lie worth a lick, which in of itself is a good thing. It's just not good to be an honest person when he needs to blame the dog.

The simple formula for creating euphemisms for masturbation

2009-01-05T21:03:00.004-05:00

Onanism is and always has been comedy gold. There's nothing more that lends itself to embarrassment than male masturbation. The mere thought of having one's pants around their ankles while one ejaculates into a tissue is both sad and funny at the same time. The act of self pleasure is something 99% of us do and the other 1% lie about. It's no wonder that we have come up with quite a lot of colorful phrases or euphemisms for masterbation.

"Choking your chicken" "Bopping your baloney" "Waxing the tadpole" and "Polishing your knob" have all become lexicons in the slang dictionary. But how did they come into being? Even after the first hearing of these and other phrases the person knows what they are talking about. So, just what is the secret?

I think I know what it is and I think it's simpler than you think.

It's almost as simple as

(Gerund) + (noun)=masurbation

I know I just lost 30% of you with the word "Gerund", so I'll just come out and say it's a fancy word for verb ending in "-ing".

Of course there are exceptions and general recommendations that should be followed. Let's take a look at a few things-

1) The gerund should imply some sort of action is going on. Obviously certain verbs shouldn't be used as they generate a more disconcerting or unpleasant effect. For instance I wouldn't use the words "sanding" or "cutting" even though other violent gerunds work much better like "choking", "strangling", and "squeezing". While keeping in mind that the gerund needs to conjure up the image of what's happening, sometimes the best ones are the most non-sensical. Some other good gerunds that work well are "oiling", "greasing", "noodling", "walking", "basting", "hoisting" and "bronzing". Just have fun with it and remember that metaphors work well and don't always try to be so literal.

2) The noun can be almost anything. Phallic objects of course work well, as do small furry animals. Do remember to stay away from the euphemisms for female parts like "beaver", "kitty" and "tuna". The sillier the better when it comes to the noun part.

3) Do try to keep the noun somewhat tied into the gerund. Alliteration is always a good thing, being clever or using puns help even more.

Give it a try and you'll see that this is no joke. The formula works. The next time someone asks what you did over the weekend try answering them with the formula and see if they understand.

Them: What did you do last night?

You: I spent a lot of time corning my cobb.

If you see them wincing or laughing then you know I was right.

Lump on a log

2009-01-04T13:12:00.002-05:00

The past two weeks have been glorious if you just like to relax and do absolutely nothing. Hell, I didn't even feel like blogging when I had all the time in the world. My business was closed early on both "eves" and I had to only work one, plus we were also closed the Friday after each holiday. So my total commitments in the past 2 weeks?

4.5 days of work
holiday stuff like visit relatives
prepare and host a new year's eve party

Other than that, I slept a lot and I mean a lot. I would end up sitting in the easy chair watching TV and the next thing I knew was that I had napped for an hour. I think I may have missed only one day where I didn't nap. I don't think we realize how much we deprive ourselves of sleep during the regular routine of going to work.

I also had the pleasure of going to AC for a day and playing some poker with my friend, Dave. I only won a small amount but he really did well and made almost 400 bucks. I admit I had some jealousy that the cards were hitting him so well but overall I was happy for him and enjoyed myself nonetheless.

Tomorrow the party is over. Kids go back to school, I go back to work and the regular hum drum routine. It was a much needed rest and I'm not regretful that I didn't make better use of my time. I'm well rested and raring to go. Perhaps it'll be a slow start tomorrow morning but I have a new year and a renewed battery.

The Day After: The Pile of Misfit Toys

2008-12-26T12:02:00.006-05:00

If you're like me and have 2 boys or more, then the day after Christmas your house looks like it was the victim of a anti-toy jihad as it appears a bomb went off in a Toys R Us. Toys and gifts are strewn all over the place as you navigate your hung over self through the Bakugan and Pokemon on the floor in search of a place to sit. Then there's the piles of new clothes for everyone and if you've done any entertaining then there's also a mountain of dishes in the sink. The task before you is daunting but after some coffee and some stale cookies you start to clean.

Personally, I like to start with the crap that I wish to return, give to charity, re-gift or just plain throw away. There's a reason that no one wanted the Charlie-in-a-box, and it confounds me that people continue to find a way to give bad gifts. Unfortunately, the search for the gift receipt in the package often goes unfound for the worst of offenders. This unwanted pile of misfit toys and gifts can be categorized in several ways:

1) Doesn't fit gift- the simplest reason for a bad gift. I personally won't buy clothes for anyone but my kids and wife. Maybe I'll buy a T-shirt or sweatshirt as sizes can be judged more accurately but if you don't know someone's pant size or shirt collar then just don't guess at it.

2) Style is not yours gift- I'm pretty lucky that I'm fairly good at picking out clothes that my wife likes. My mother-in-law, however, is not that good at it. Plus she had the kohones to buy me underwear- like she even knows what I wear underneath what shows on the outside, kinda creepy to even think about.

3) Good intentions but poor execution gift- the most common gift that sucks is often the result of knowing just a little about someone to get them something completely lame. The thought process is like this- "Oh Brian loves to do crosswords, and look, here's a 6 foot crossword puzzle he can hang on his wall and do for days and days, I'll get him that!" Meanwhile, what they don't know is that I like the Sunday puzzle that Merle Regal makes because it's fun and clever and would have preferred a compilation book by him instead. I have no desire to hang a monstrosity of a puzzle on my wall and stand while I attempt to decipher lame clues. Crosswords are relaxing for me, I have no compulsion to complete the world's largest crossword puzzle.

4) Age inappropriate gift- I really wonder my mother-in-law thinks when she gets my 10 year old son a flash card set on telling time from a clock.

5) The whatever gift- this is a weird category as one in every 20 times you get something that you'd never thought you'd like but really enjoy. (The Foreman grill comes to mind for us) But the other 19 times is a complete and utter miss. It's a gift that either had no thought behind it whatsoever or the person just plain quit and gave you whatever he or she wanted to despite what your wishes were. I'll admit I've even done this on several occasions. Lynn and I once got a neon lighted pink flamingo statue for her sister one year. I don't think we've ever seen it displayed.

Cleaning up the day after Christmas isn't all that fun, but at least you get to play with your new stuff when it's done.

Twas the Night Before Christmas part 2

2008-12-24T09:19:00.007-05:00

And then, in a twinkling, I spied on the roof
I saw him drinking bagged wine that's ninety proof.
As I aimed my shotgun, he was turning around,
Peeing down my chimney this dirtbag made no sound.

He dressed as if homeless, from his head to his toes,
And his clothes smelled like varnish and some cheap ho's.
A bundle of Toys he had, for goodness sake!
And he looked like a robber, just opening his take.

His eyes-were they glassy! his nose- was it crusty!
His cheeks had on makeup?, his chest was quite busty!
His drooly little mouth spewed breath like gasoline,
And the bulge down in his pants was quite something obscene.

He had a crack pipe he held tight in his hand,
And twenties peeked from his pocket- at least a grand.
He had a stoned face and an enormous gut,
That shook when he cackled, he seemed he was nuts!

He was a slob and pure scum, crazy addicted old elf,
And I cried when I saw him, in spite of myself!
A twitch of his eye and nothing that was said,
Soon let me know I had to blow off his head.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his drugs,
And filled his one good vein, then asked for some hugs.
This display of kindness had fooled my good plan,
While hugging me he then took my wallet and ran!

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a holler,
And away they all flew while I shot at his collar.
But I heard him exclaim, ‘ere he drove out of sight,
"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!"

Twas the Night Before Christmas part 1

2008-12-23T19:54:00.006-05:00

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even Gabe Klaus.
The stockings were hung by the TV with care,
In hopes that some Bakugan soon would be there.

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of Pokemons danced in their heads.
And Mom downing martinis, and I drunk on beer,
Had just pickled our brains to fake some Christmas cheer.

When out of my butt there arose such a clatter,
The force from my fart had made my ass cheeks wetter.
Away to the window as fast as I could think,
Tore open the shutters and fanned out the stink.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Reminded me of stuff I found between my toes.
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a broken down sleigh, and eight abused reindeer.

With a fat-assed old driver, whose stench made me sick,
I said to myself, "Who the hell is this prick?"
More nasty than pit bulls his coursers they came,
And he grumbled, and cursed, and called them bad names!

"Now shithead! now, dumbass! now, fuckface and hose-bag!
On, ballsack! On, stupid! on, on dumdum and cunt-rag!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now get yer lazy asses movin' before I roast you all!"

He dry heaved, then coughed up and spit out some mucous,
He adjusted himself and then kicked some deer tuchus.
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of toys, and that weird drunk guy too.

The Curious Case of the Christmas Crankies

2008-12-22T21:22:00.004-05:00

If you hear "HO HO HO!!" and then feel your stomach turning, then you know you're getting the Christmas crankies. Maybe you run out of tape while wrapping the gifts and you start cursing up a storm because you have to go all the way down stairs and run back up before the kids notice what you're doing. It also possible that it started when you waited too long to put up the tree and decorate and now you have even more stupid Christmas things to do while you also still need to do your school work, get some sleep, work your job, make dinner and also fold the friggin' laundry!

Or perhaps it was the 24th time you heard a rendition of Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree and you then screamed at your spouse for forgetting the butter at the store. After all, how the fuck else are you gonna make the goddamned cookies?! It's Christmas after all and you just gotta make cookies cause everyone's expecting you to do it! It's for the kids after all!! Even though those ungrateful little brats ran out of the house to their friends as soon as they finished licking the batter off the beater. So much for having fun with the kids who are now "too old" for that kind of stuff now and they don't even want to help make a stupid batch of cookies that you could've just bought at the Acme!! Plus your mother keeps calling from the toy store and asking you the stupidest questions about what the kids want when you clearly told her about five times before. Obviously, she doesn't understand the difference between a Bakugan and Pokemon but what the fuck else you gonna tell her to get?! It's not like the kids will accept any old toy these days, they're too "sophisticated" and will whine if they don't get what they want exactly because the stupid twerps don't appreciate what their parents and grandparents do for them! Plus some imaginary magical fat guy gets all the credit anyways!! *

If that's what happened, then you definitely have a case of the Christmas crankies.

*please note that the preceding paragraph was fictionalized and although it may seem completely possible, it was , in fact, a made up story that was based in some reality and events over the past few Christmases. Brian does love his spouse but thinks that she overworks herself during the holidays (especially this year when she's also in school while working) and is trying his best to help out and doesn't care that he occasionally gets screamed at for little things and understands that she needs to blow off some steam.

Back cleavage

2008-12-20T13:44:00.006-05:00

Nothing makes you feel more young than attending a large party where you are in the top ten of youngest people there. That was the case last night as I went with my wife to her work's Christmas party. Lynn works in a hospital as a lab tech/medical technologist and at age 32 she greatly lowers the average age among her co-workers which is much closer to 55 than 30. There were lots of short haircuts on the women, dresses that would have looked fashionable 20 years ago, and salt and pepper coifs of hair and beards on the men.

The beginning of the party was somewhat adventurous as the lights were out for almost an hour, probably the result of the day's ice storms on the electrical wiring around town. Fortunately the open bar kept going and the bartender managed to dispense drinks and spirits by candlelight. I suggested that since the DJ's couldn't play their music that we murder someone and the rest of us could spend night figuring out who did it. My suggestions were met with an curious scowl as if they thought I could be serious. Instead we ended up singing a rather uninspired version of The Twelve Days of Christmas where each table took their turn singing one part of the song. Our table had "six geese-a-laying" so I got our table to stand up and stick their butts out and squat to pantomime the laying part.

Just as the song was finishing the lights came back on. While were saved from experiencing more sing-alongs I did end up seeing something that will forever be burned as a permanent image in my brain. The woman directly behind us at the next table appeared to be in her 50's and was wearing a low cut in the back dress. When I looked at her I actually did a double take as I originally thought she facing us and had her hair in her face. But she was sitting facing away from us and the reason I originally thought she was looking at us was the fact that her loose skin formed a fold straight down the middle of her shoulder blades. It looked just like your typical cleavage of a woman wearing a low neckline. Perhaps a bit flat chested, but it was clear cleavage all the same.

I furtively pointed out the back cleavage to my wife and her friend as they both laughed heartily. I referred to her as "back cleavage woman" the rest of the night as I would bring it up repeatedly as I often try squeeze out every last laugh possible on any subject. I didn't find out later until we were leaving that "back cleavage woman" was actually Lynn's boss. Had I known that, I might've squeezed some more jokes out of the situation.

Almost as horrifying, the sight of 12 post-menopausal women on the dance floor doing the twist was quite disconcerting. Even worse was when the DJ actually started to play some hip-hop at the bequest of an Iranian-American co-worker who looked like he liked to go clubbing. Watching 50-some year old women start grinding their hips and thrusting their butts back and forth was about as unappetizing as an Old Country Buffet when you have a stomach virus. I don't know if it really irked me because I know one day I might find that sexy or worse, NOT find it sexy and be doomed as a 60 year old man with mid-fifties wife.

Despite my cruel observations, it appeared they were all having a good time. Perhaps as you age your brain loses the ability to feel shame or embarrassment. It would, after all, explain alot about my father's behaviors lately.

Possum fish

2008-12-16T12:53:00.003-05:00

After having 6 goldfish die on us in less than a year, the wife and I decided to stop emulating Dr. Kevorkian and stop buying fish. That's left the sole survivor to be Fabio, the beta fish. Fabio was purchased before any of the goldfish and was kept to himself as his kind will kill goldfish. The kids have seemed to grown attached to Fabio as he is the only fish who hasn't died on them yet. Fabio is a good little fish who has long flowing fins and swims around in his tiny little bowl. He actually has learned that when Lynn holds a pellet of food near the bowl that he should go to the top to eat it.

Last week he learned a new trick that I am not too fond of.

He now knows how to play dead.

I was at the computer (probably on Facebook), when my 10 year old son Jonathan came running over in a panic. "Daddy! Fabio's not moving!!"

"Calm down, he's probably just resting," I replied to assuage his fears.

I get close to the bowl to have a look and I see Fabio laying on his side on the glass beads at the bottom. I couldn't get a good look at his gills and he didn't respond to my tapping on the glass. After a few tries at trying to get his attention, I vigorously shook the bowl. Fabio lifelessly floated with the undulating water. In my best "Alan Alda as Hawkeye serious moment" like voice I declared to my two anxious boys, "I'm sorry guys, it appears that he's dead."

The wailing began again, just as bad as the 1st time they had a fish die. It seemed nothing I said or did would calm their cries. Gabriel ran to his mother upstairs for condolences. So, Lynn came down for a look-see herself and then performed a Christmas miracle. She took a pellet of food and Fabio instantly started to swim to the top. Apparently Lynn had noticed that Fabio's gills were moving and he was in fact alive and breathing. I guess Fabio was bored or sleeping when he was lying still.

The children immediately rejoiced but then started to cry some more because, "What if we had flushed him down the toilet alive?!!"

As usual, Mommy was the hero and Daddy the bad guy. I can live with that fact, but it doesn't help when her pet is in on trying to make me look bad.

An open letter to Ebay

2008-12-15T11:00:00.004-05:00

I just got off the phone with a service representative of yours and I am left wondering why I even bothered to ask for satisfaction from your company. Despite the fact that this email is also just as futile, I will send it you just to get some things off my chest and also copy it to my blog so my loyal 17 readers can also see why monopolies are a bad thing. (and I'm a Libertarian no less!!)

I freely admit that there are many things about your policies and procedures that I dislike. (don't get me started on your current feedback policies) My expectations of being satisfied over a recent dispute I had with your company were biased as a result. However, I was hoping for a pleasant surprise and that Ebay would do the right thing. I think the fat tuba player in the marching band had a better chance of getting a date with the homecoming queen than I did of getting just compensation from you.

Allow me to explain the situation-

I partake of the option that you offer to have my monthly Ebay invoice automatically withdrawn from my Paypal account. I plan my Paypal withdraws to my bank account around your schedule of when you apply the invoice. I get invoiced on the 15th of each month and then the automatic payment is applied around the 1st of the month. I've noticed that sometimes it can be done on the 3rd or as late as the 4th, I am not picky if it gets withdrawn a few days late. But recently when my November 15th invoice had not been applied as of Friday, December 12th, I had grown concerned that something wasn't correct. Worried that I wouldn't have enough money in the Paypal account since I was withdrawing the money that day (as I do every other week), I went and used the option to pay my invoice with a one time paypal payment. I paid the entire invoice amount up to that day. The amount paid was $672.32.

This morning my brother, who handles the banking, informed me that Paypal withdrew a few hundred dollars from our bank account. Paypal only does this, of course, when a payment needs to be made and there isn't enough money in the Paypal account. I was surprised as I had made the Ebay invoice payment prior to withdrawing the money out of our Paypal account. I checked my Paypal transactions log and saw that Ebay had applied a payment of $483.12, which was the total amount that my November invoice was for.

Angry and upset, I immediately called your customer service system that is provided for us "Silver" power sellers. (I often wonder what extra services the Gold and Plantinum power sellers receive, is there an executive washroom?) After explaining the situation, the rep quickly looked into it and discovered that recently Paypal had problems and the Ebay invoices were delayed for over 10 days. Thus I accidentally double paid my invoice when I submitted payment on Friday since there was a pending invoice payment that was waiting for Paypal to apply it (unknown to me). After this discovery I made the following points:

1) I was never notified of the situation by Ebay or Paypal through email or announcements made on the home pages.
2) I am a small business and having surprise withdraws (even small ones) made from our bank account can get costly if we end up bouncing checks. The mistakes of both companies (and I know Ebay owns Paypal) could lead to a chain reaction of overdrawn amounts.
3) I wished to know if there would be compensation if I did indeed bounce a check or two (which I admit is unlikely, but possible)

The service rep informed me that a refund of the extra payment could be made to my Paypal account. I agreed that would be part of the solution but I wanted to know what would happen if I were get bounced checks and if Ebay or Paypal would compensate us. The service rep then checked with his supervisor for my request. Having waited the usual 5 minutes or longer when being placed on hold by a large corporation, the service rep came back on the phone and reiterated that he could refund the extra payment and said nothing else. I then brought up the reason why he had to scurry for a supervisor and make me wait on hold and he then told me that Ebay would not issue compensation of any sort for this inconvenience.

I the owner of a small business and when I sell a defective product or make a mistake, I work with the customers until they are satisfied. I've issued full refunds, extended discounts, sent extra supplies. All in all, I probably lose money when I'm trying to make things right. Sure, there are some customers who may act a bit unreasonable but overall I do the right thing and often I do more than what's expected. Even if I didn't feel ethically bound to do as such, I have to provide this sort of customer service because I have competitors who will provide the same sort of guarantees and service.

Ebay has the luxury of being a virtual monopoly for online auctions. Overstock and Amazon hardly make a dent in your sales. As such, you are just as bad as AT&T was in the 70's and Comcast in the 80's when it comes to customer service. A small overdraft seems inconsequential to you whereas it can really hurt a business like mine. Saying you're sorry and nothing else is not acceptable. Plus you try to squeeze every little penny out of both your sellers and buyers. You've changed your policies this past year to boost your fees while appearing to do us a favor in your emails to us.

And yes, I have no real choice to go to another site and sell my wares there as I know you are really the only game in town. So, despite my angry protestations, I will continue to list my items there. I am still your little bitch and you will continue to abuse me as I come back asking for more. I can only hope that you won't make even more mistakes like this and then offer me nothing for it. Perhaps I can dare to dream that some young computer whiz will come up with an online site that will be better than yours and make you fairly compete or become obsolete.

Small businesses that use your site are the backbone of this country and in poor economic times like these we are in grave danger. Your bread and butter is starting to turn stale and all you're trying to do is cut off the crust instead of helping us. Your greed will be your undoing.

Regards,

Brian Klaus
Vice-president, *********** Inc.

Now serving

2008-12-12T13:28:00.004-05:00

River Horse is a local brewery just across the river from New Hope. I'm getting the Oatmeal Milk Stout. It's been described to me as a an extra creamy and slightly sweet stout. This is a bit of a risk for me as I'm going purely on a recommendation. I couldn't find a picture of the label of the specific beer either as it's a limited edition. I have high hopes for this one. My wife will be the perfect judge as stouts are her favorite type of beer.

Sam Adams Winter Lager continues to be one of my all time favorite beers. Such a nice crisp taste with intense flavors and it has a great bite and finish. Perfect for the season.

Goodbye Pat

2008-12-12T11:56:00.006-05:00

I'm a bit saddened today as we have to say goodbye to one of my favorite players, Pat Burrell. The writing is on the wall as Ruben Amaro, our idiot of a GM, has just signed Raul Ibanez to a 3 year 30 million dollar deal. Why does this deal make me upset aside from losing Pat?

1) Raul is 36 and that's the age where players start to rapidly decline. There are exceptions, yes, but it's not a good gamble to give him a hefty raise from ages 36- 39. In contrast, Pat is several years younger, 32.

2) Raul is left handed. The Phillies line up is littered with lefties. The likey spot in the line up where Raul would bat is with Howard and Utley who are also left-handed. This makes it easy in the later innings for opposing teams to use left handed relievers to shut down the middle of our line up. In contrast, Pat is right handed.

3) Raul was offered arbitration by Seattle. That means since the Phillies signed him away, they have to give their 1st round draft pick to Seattle. The Phils won't have their first pick for a long time (somewhere in the 60's) since there are lots of supplemental 1st round picks and are last in the order. In contrast, Pat wouldn't have cost us any picks what so ever, plus, had we offered arbitration and he signed somewhere else, we'd have the extra pick.

4) Ruben jumped the gun too soon. By being the first free agent outfielder signed, we have just set the market price. Instead of being a bit more patient, we perhaps could have signed Ibanez for a smaller amount of money or if it went higher signed a better bargain or platooned players to their strengths. Ibanez's salary increased by 4.5 million over last year by signing this contract. If you're really sold on him, I honestly think we could have had him cheaper. In contrast, Pat will likely sign for the same money and length of contract.

5) Raul's defense and speed are horrible. In contrast Pat's is just as bad.

6) Raul is a slap hitter who hits for average and lots of singles and doubles. To be fair, Ibanez does get on base a lot, which is important. But his style of hitting doesn't play well at Citizen's Bank Park. Doubles and singles get suppressed while homers increase (actually making the park play neutral offensively despite what people say). I think Ibanez will hit a few more homers this year but his average will drop sharply. In contrast, Pat had a higher on base percentage, higher slugging percentage and was a slightly better overall hitter than Raul.

To sum up-

We signed an older, left handed version of Pat Burrell to a contract that's too long and too much and lost a draft pick and a player that's been great for us since 2000.

Thanks Ruben, I have a feeling you're going to be making idiotic moves like this until you get fired in 3 years. I'm just glad we won it all before you had a chance to screw it up.

Goodbye Pat, I wish you all the best and hope you have much success wherever you go. (except the Mets)

A bailout package we all can agree on

2008-12-11T13:46:00.006-05:00

Today's economy is as bad as it's ever been in my lifetime. The government's answer so far has been to grab the credit card, call the bank to increase the spending limit and then go out on a shopping spree that would make Paris Hilton blush. Despite this seemingly illogical solution, the experts on TV all tell us that will help our situation. I sure do wish that I could do something similar if I run into bad times.

"Hello, Capital One? I just got laid off, can you increase my limit to $100,000 so I can stimulate myself?"

Nevertheless, it seems like the executive of the month club has come out to beg congress for bailout money. First the banks and their bad mortgages had their hands out with their sad sack stories and next the Detroit automakers were crying poor since they can't seem to make product that people desire. The amount of money being doled out is staggering to think about. Yet, those smarty-pants TV experts are claiming it's just the beginning. I know to expect some increases in spending when a democrat gets elected for president but the man hasn't even set his foot in the White House door yet.

Times are tough all over and most of us know of someone who has either lost their job recently or themselves are experiencing a pinch. Even the Arena Football League almost closed their doors recently and retracted a team in order to stay afloat. Has it really gotten this bad? How can we continue to function as a society without Arena Football? There's a time period come the third week of February when the NFL season is over, the Flyers and Sixers are mostly out of contention and it's not time yet for spring training.

Arena Football helps fill that gap.
It completes us.
It makes us whole.

Perhaps, we can even credit the Philadelphia Soul's recent championship season as the ice breaker that led us to a Phillies' World Series trophy. They showed them how to do it as we've seemed to forget how to win as a city since since 1983. We simply cannot let Jon Bon Jovi and Ron Jaworski (the co-owners of the Soul) out in the cold after their heroic deeds.

As a child of the 80's, I say when New Jersey's second most popular rock star and the Polish Cannon needs assistance, we help them. An idea as brilliant as indoor football cannot be allowed to languish on the vine. Mom always said not to play ball in the house (OW! My nose!!), but she didn't know the joys of watching the spectacle that is Arena Football. Besides, if we're going to let our elected officials spend trillions of our great-great-grandchildren's hard earned wages then why not let them spend it on something that's at least less trivial than saving the Chevy Aveo?

It would be a mere pittance. Imagine if we all chipped in 25 cents. I've spent more on wishing wells (wishing for a World Series trophy). Arena Football needs financial assistance and we need government pork to save it. Don't let the players go back to their full-time jobs at UPS and the meat processing plant. They need the extra money as they entertain us on the stage made of carpet and plexi-glass. Bon Jovi gave us Wanted, don't you think it's time we paid him back?

Happy Anniversary

2008-12-10T13:58:00.002-05:00

Today marks one year since I began blogging.

It's a good time to look back and see what we've accomplished.

Sad to say- not much.... It's been a touch therapeutic at times but overall I haven't shattered the earth or reached thousands of people with my words.

And that's fine. It's not about the acclaim or even the affect.

It's joy of writing. I've missed it over the years. My job requires me to be business like and straight forward in what I write. So, having this release has been immensely enjoyable for me this past year. I don't think I'm some great talented writer but I enjoy writing about my life and my observations. I like hamming it up on and occasional inject some smatterings of serious thought. Since the huge majority of my readers are my friends, I haven't really held back much either. This blog has been 100% "Brian". I appreciate those who have taken the time to come by and read this and extra thanks goes to those who show their appreciation and also to those who participate in the discussion.

As far as the future of the blog-

I think I won't change much. Looking at the poll I can see that the over the top stuff plays well. To be honest that's the hardest type of post to pull off successfully as it also requires me to be in an "up" mood. But I'll certainly try to liven things up on occasion. I think I may taper the poker and Phillies posts a bit as they play to a more specific crowd. Perhaps I'll include more polls about different things for some variety.

In any case, I'll still keep this blog 100% "Brian"- thanks again for stopping by.

Elbow Room

2008-12-09T13:24:00.004-05:00

We all have our neurotic moments. Me, I can't touch cotton. I have a friend who washes his hands too often. I have another friend who has to have his upstairs and downstairs light switches all lined up correctly. Plus, I have a brother-in-law who cleans his lampshades once a week. By contrast, my wife, Lynn, seems rather normal. It's when you get her in a crowd is when her crazy gets out and about.

I guess it's a form of claustrophobia (Klaustrophobia?) as she can't stand getting lost in a sea of people and feels like she's surrounded on all sides and can't breathe. She starts to stress out and I feel sorry for whomever gets in her way. (and it's usually me!) It's why she can't enjoy herself fully at places like Disney World or a Phillies game. It was a good thing we went to Disney while it was the offseason, any more crowds to deal with than the small amounts that we had and I might have had to sedate her.

If you think that all women like to shop then you just haven't met my wife. She dislikes the mall and the grocery stores because of the other people in the store. Just this past weekend we were at Target shopping for a few X-mas decorations, new pants for my son and some other odds and ends. You could tell that the store was very crowded as the parking lot was almost full. I could hear her teeth start to grind as we pulled into the lot. Unfortunately, the Xmas section was even more crowded and it was difficult to get around. As I scanned the aisles for the wreath that my wife wanted, I noticed packs of greeting cards that we haven't purchased yet so we could mail them to our friends. I pointed them out to my wife and asked her if we should get them while we were there. She angrily replied, "WE'RE NOT HERE FOR THOSE RIGHT NOW! JUST LET'S FIND THE FUCKING WREATH!!"

Despite my awareness that she kind of loses her sanity, logic and clarity when in a crowd, I always seem to forget as I tend to react the opposite way and hyperfocus. I can zero in on what we need to do or where to go and speedily accomplish that goal. As a result, I can be terribly annoying to her. The best example is when we're leaving the Phillies game or other such event where thousands of people all head to their cars at the same time. I'm a big guy, I'm tall and I'm wide and I'm a man. As such, people tend to yeild to me when I make my way through a large group, I am the Moses of the crowd walkers. I also have a big stride and can move pretty quickly. Unfortunately for Lynn, she gets caught behind slower moving people as she's only 5' 4" and skinny to boot. Plus she doesn't walk as fast as I do. I find myself looking back 2 seconds after being by her side and she's trapped behind two old fuddy duddys who made their way in front of her.

Needless to say, I catch a lot of shit from her for not being courteous enough to wait for her. It's just that's it's almost painful for me to walk that slowly. I suppose, it's just as painful for her to drown in the swarms of concert goers or baseball fans. I think that this Christmas I might buy her a wheelchair, a blindfold and a MP3 player. That way I can just wheel her out of the crowds and allow her to sit back and relax to some music in the darkness.

Writer's block

2008-12-08T22:16:00.002-05:00

Just letting you all know I'm alive. I just have writer's block and work has been a bit busy as well.

I have ideas, I just cant seem to flesh them out. It will all spill out eventually.

The nominees are in...

2008-12-03T14:48:00.003-05:00

Well, asking for nominations for best blog post this past year was a complete bust. I guess I only have 2 regular readers. (sniff sniff)

Nevertheless, I remain undaunted as tomorrow is the 1 year anniversary and as such I have nominated the top ten posts myself. To the left of this post, I've placed a poll and you can vote for your favorite post of this past year. The writer of the winning post will receive another year of blogging.

Here are the links, so you can make an informed judgment:

Cranky Ebay Ad pt1
Cranky Ebay Ad pt2

Billy goes to Newtown Brewfest

Secret Little Moments of Emotional Wussiness

Race Walking is the Curling of the Summer Olympics

My MP3 Player is Reading My Mind

Unfiltered

It's My Blog, I'll Cry If I Want To

The Gag Reflex

Twisted Roots

When Nerds Collide

Santa is a gateway drug to atheisism

2008-12-02T21:15:00.009-05:00

We've all heard the rumors, Santa Claus is not who we all think he is and is in fact evil incarnate. All of the evidence is there-

Santa is an anagram of Satan
Claus is a homonym of claws
He wears a red suit
He is impervious to fire (goes down a chimney)
He distracts us from the real reason we have Christmas (To celebrate the birth of our lord and savior) by enticing us with sinful pleasures filled with gluttony and greed.

While the evidence does seem clear, I am taking the contrarian position and that the whole Santa story and eventual unveiling actually contributes to producing more atheists. While the fundamentalists will claim that creating atheists is evil, non-belief is actually the opposite of belief.

Think about why Santa causes us to doubt religion- You tell your children that a magical and wonderful man exists and he will, at no cost or expectation of payment other than "good" behavior (which the child learns quickly that bad behavior is forgotten if they are good for a few days before Xmas) , deliver them lots of toys and goodies. All of the TV shows and movies stress that faith and belief in his existence is a big requirement. Plus that no matter the problem or long odds that Santa faces, he always manages to somehow "save" Christmas.

Sound familiar?

God-like powers
Will do good things to those who deserve it (and people who are contrite at the last minute)
Faith is required and one should ignore others who say differently or ask for proof
He is the savior

You don't need a 12th grade AP English teacher to tell you what Santa actually represents!!

Eventually, little Bobby and Susie learn the truth about Santa and that he is actually their hard working parents. There are no little elves at the north pole but little Chinese men halfway around the world in factories assembling their toys for companies and conglomerates. You couldn't ask for better PR for Godlessness!!

The rest of the holiday magic then falls like a stack of dominoes-

Tooth Fairy? -NO- it's just bribery from your parents so you don't go walking around with your baby teeth in your pocket as it's creepy.

Easter Bunny? NO- don't be foolish Hershey, Cadbury and M&M Mars all act in collusion and came up with the story to sell more chocolate.

Halloween Ghosts? NO- Fear increases the metabolism and an intense desire for high carbs causing one to go begging at the neighbors for candy. Eventually, the chocolatiers came up with trick or treating.

New Year's baby? NO- people just tend to be horny in the spring.

Valentine's true love? NO- the biggest sham of them all as people still cling to this. Again the chocolatiers manufactured this holiday to boost sales in February, Hallmark also capitalized on it as well.

Yet after all of the magic is gone we are still expected to believe that while the whole Santa and his related kin of magical holiday creatures was all a big lie, Jesus is still real and that the biggest prize of eternal life is still coming to you?

Let's just say that I'm amazed that there aren't more atheists like me.

The BBC Reunion part 2- now in Triple Blogcast!

2008-12-01T15:34:00.003-05:00

It's not uncommon when you have reunions that when you see an old friend that you haven't in years you recall the very reason why actually lost touch with them. You've either grown apart or one of you has changed or perhaps you just came to the realization that this person always was and still is a jerk. This past weekend I felt nothing of the kind and was left wondering the morning after why I did lose touch with these people in the 1st place.

and now the awards...

The Dorian Gray award, the person most likely to have a portrait of himself as an old man- Jeff "Movie Bill", I'm not gay but if I were I'd go for Jeff- the dude is a specimen.

The Steve Martin award, the person who has a full head of hair but is completely white/gray- Andy "The Enforcer", I wish he would grow it out as he would resemble Moses.

The Jeane Dixon award, the person who most believes in astrology- TIE Karen and Adam "Dr. Death". I always knew that Karen was delusional and believed in that crap but I had no idea that Adam did as well. I guess he's been hanging around those Hollywood types too long.

The Manute Boll award, the person who is a lot taller than I remember- John "Pretty Boy". I always knew John was at least 6ft, but he was clearly taller than me and seemed to be 6' 3" and I just don't remember him being that tall.

The Pied Piper award, the person when leaving took the most people with them- Karen, now that was weird. I know it was late, but right after Karen says she had to go, the remainder of the party attendees left with her. It was as if they were all going somewhere to have an orgy and I wasn't invited.

The Iron Chef award, the person who brought the tastiest snack- this one was shocking but I thought the buffalo chicken dip that Steve made was super tasty.

The wooden leg award, the person who really could drink- Bill "Merv" His drinking didn't even make him annoying as he clearly is annoying before getting drunk.

The tape recorder award, the person who recalled the most old jokes- Josh "Mad Dog", he always did have a knack for catch phrases, I actually miss that.

Best exchange of the night (that I witnessed)-

Andy- You had a big part in 12th Night

Jeff- I had 2 lines

Andy- At least you got to fence.

There were many other funny moments but that one will always stick with me.

Reunions are great when the people are great. I'm so glad to have these people in my life again.

The BBC Reunion part I- now in Triple Blogcast!

2008-11-30T12:49:00.009-05:00

I am very proud to bring you the first report on last night's BBC reunion in the new and exciting Triple Blogcast format! Since three of the attendees including myself are bloggers, we all decided to blog about our experience at the party.

(please note, currently Im the first to blog, I will go back and edit in direct links when they appear- Jeff's is now up!)

To see Andy's take go here
Too see Jeff's take go here

The reunion was a blast and the best time I've had in quite sometime. Often, you can judge the success of a party by a few things-

1) What time the last guest leaves

2) How much food is left over

3) How much booze is left over

4) How much of a mess was left

5) How much laughter happened

So, let's take a look and assign points-

1) The last guest left technically at 9AM. My good friend, Jeff and his wife Vicki both had too much to drink and it was best that they slept over. We get 200 bonus points for the sleepovers, however, the party didn't end at 9AM- it ended at 2AM. Surprisingly, I still had 4 guests at that point if you don't include Jeff passed out on the couch and Vicki upstairs sleeping. Karen had a look at the time and declared she was leaving and then Josh, Andy and Adam all left with her. I guess the party's over when Karen leaves- something I'll have to remember in the future. 418 points for the late ending.

2) Some background before I get to this- My mother-in-law is insane and there are 2 things about her that really bother me sometimes and every now and then, my wife, Lynn, exhibits some of these traits . For starters, she's a pack rat and can't throw anything out. The other thing is that she overcooks everything and makes way too much food at events or even casual dinners. Lynn has successfully avoided overcooking her cuisine but at times I find her keeping things that are best left in the trash can and she tends to make too much food (although, not as bad as her mother). So, you'd think by now I would know better than to ask her how much corned beef I should buy for the party. 3 pounds of corned beef is way too much meat when you have lots of other things to eat. The food itself was good and we had a nice spread of everything as most everyone brought something to the party. I recall the brie, apple and chicken sandwiches my wife made were very good, the buffalo chicken dip made by Steve was very tasty and Karen's trifle (which was just a token) was also very yummy. So we'll assign -58 points for the leftovers and 248 for the yum factor.

3) Considering that A- we are all in our mid to late thirties, and B- 1/4 of the guests were non-drinkers, this is where we really excelled. We managed to kick my one keg, almost kick my second keg, almost drink an entire case of hard cider, down a few shots of Jeagermeister and vodka, and drink a few bottles that Bill brought. The libations did lubricate the laugh factor but the social interactions were fine with out it. I'm giving 587 points here.

4) The mess wasn't too bad, clean up would have been faster, had it not been for the leftovers. But, since we are all respectful people and none of us were completely toasted and puking there wasn't much mess to be found. The children's parties are usually much harder to clean up after. So I'm giving 298 points for the politeness and ease of cleaning even if there was nothing truly wild that occurred. I'm too old for that shit now, anyways.

5) To quote Karen from her facebook status, "My cheeks hurt from laughing". I agree, I was crying because I laughed so hard. Being together with my old friends was very comfortable and enjoyable. The movie that we watched again was not as bad as I remember it being and was actually very funny to watch. The sense of humor of everyone was amazing and I don't think a joke was missed. Also, It was a nice mix of reminiscing and new stories. I haven't laughed that hard with giggly glee probably since the last time we were all together. I give this one 2487 points.

Now, if i had a calculator I could add up all these points and perhaps learn something, but as I've repeatedly said in the past- I'm no scientist. All I can tell you is what a great friggin' time I had and from the feedback I've heard so far was that it was mutual and I'm so very glad that we had it.

Tomorrow, I'm finish with part 2 and delve a little bit more in the specifics and also give out some awards.

Bald, fat and old is the new funny

2008-11-29T16:08:00.004-05:00

In less than 2 hours I'll be having a small gathering of people at my house. Some of these people I will not have seen in 20 years. It was over 20 years ago that this group previously got together and made an hour and forty five minute movie on VHS tape. Please consider that this was the summer of 1988 and not today where the ability to edit and put together a movie with your friends is much easier with digital cameras and computers.

We called ourselves "The BBC", which stood for Bill Behun Comedy team. Somewhat odd is the fact that Bill Behun was not a member, nor was he someone we emulated. He was a peer of ours in the theater club that would ham it up, dress a bit pretentiously and had an ego to match. When the team was conceived that fateful day in 1987, we decided to name it after him as a joke and then have nothing to do with him. Before we knew it, we had performed sketches at the drama club parodying his life. It's not that Bill was a bad guy really, he just seemed to ask for the extra attention and being the smart asses that we were, we were perfectly willing to skewer him for it.

We had performed again at another function later that spring and then when 4/6ths of us were leaving for college, we decided to undertake that movie which took our entire summer to make. It's called The Last Temptation of Bill (an obvious title parody to the Scorcese film that was so controversial at the time) and we had cast an outside person to play the role of Bill. That person will also be in attendance tonight. As a matter of fact not only will "movie Bill" be here, but we also invited the real Bill to be here. Five out the six original members will also be here as well. Gary being the only exception. (and Dave, who filled in for Andy at the 2nd performance, cannot make it as well)

It should be fun. It will be good to be back with my old writing and performing partners, we made a good team when we weren't fighting over where to go to eat.

About that GM position...

2008-11-28T19:46:00.004-05:00

Just a few scant days after the parade for the World Champion Phillies, the front office announced that Ruben Amaro Jr. will take over as the new Phillies GM since Pat Gillick has retired. It was kind of sneaky of the Phils to do so close after the big win but it was completely expected for almost 2 years or longer that Ruben would take over. Personally, I was too happy about the championship to complain. Plus, we really should give him the benefit of the doubt and see what he does on his own. However, a poster named phdave over at Backshegoes.com (I met him at game 5 part 1 at the World Series too) put together this nice parody. It sums up the fears that many of us have.

Enjoy!

Get Stuffed

2008-11-26T11:49:00.003-05:00

Most people really enjoy Thanksgiving. They get together with family and eat too much, drink too much and watch football. What's not to like, right?

Yet I find myself uncomfortable half the time. I could go for the easy answer and blame my annoying over-chatty brother-in-law's sister, but it I would still feel uneasy with or without her being there. Although, I've gotten better over the years, family get togethers make me feel weird and out of place. As crazy cynical as this sounds- seeing genuine affection and closeness in a family situation irks me. How fucked up is that?

Growing up, my immediate family was a touch cold but we did ultimately like each other, so I can't blame my Mom and Dad for feeling this way. It was however strange once we got together with our extended family. My father's parents both died before I even turned 8 so I have scant memories of them. His youngest sister lived in Alabama so I never saw her. His older brother was very reserved and quiet and had older children that wanted nothing to do with us so going there felt cold and I was often very bored. My dad's other sister did have children our ages so it was rather enjoyable spending time there, I think it may have been the only "normal" family experience we had.

My mother's side was worse. My grandmother was mentally ill and seeing her was always uncomfortable. (just seeing the pain on my mother's face of interacting with her was all it took) My mother's Aunt Ruby who took care of my mother when she was a child was a cranky old biddy who was extremely uptight. She didn't drive, so they would always have to pick her up and bring her to our house for Thanksgiving and she would complain about this and that and how much a burden she was etc. Needless to say, she was very unpleasant to be around. My Uncle Ed wasn't so bad but he wasn't easy to identify with as he was a blue collar truck driver who just wanted to drink when he had free time. (he was never nasty, we just didn't have much in common) His kids were annoying brats.

So, excepting my one Aunt and set of cousins I never really experienced close familial interactions during the holidays. Despite knowing the best of intentions of my in-laws, I feel like an outsider when I attend events like this. Fortunately, I seem to grow more comfortable each year and I tend to have a better time. I also feel better knowing that I've ended the cycle and my kids experience a positive attitude with grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins, etc.

I suppose you could chalk up my negativity to trust issues. I also know that many other people have much worse family situations so this post isn't intended to be a "woe is me" type of post. It's just something I'm trying to work through and become a better person and family man. A little self-analysis is just like Thanksgiving after all- it can be fulfilling as long as you don't overdo it.

My Legacy

2008-11-26T09:28:00.004-05:00

True greatness is hard to come by. For starters, you have to be completely at the top. And I'm not talking about the "really good" where even 95% of us have trouble achieving. I'm talking about being the best at something. Whether it's being a genius like Edison, Mozart or Einstein, being the best baseball player like Babe Ruth or being the first man on the moon like Armstrong, being great leaves a lasting legacy. If we can't be immortal, at least being remembered leaves us some solace.

Last year a man named Joel Waul came to my company looking for assistance. (I'm not going to say my company's name as I don't wish it to be linked with my personal blog in google searches. For those who don't know- It's a family business and I am a part owner, we sell PT exercise equipment and latex products.) He had it in his head that he would create the world's largest rubber band ball. Strangely enough, he's been about the 5th person to approach us with such a quest. (I guess we're on a list?)

What was unique about Joel is that he didn't have a current ball started yet. He just had a dream, some gumption and luckily for us, some expendable cash too. My company had actually helped another man in Delaware create a previous record holder, but his record was shattered by someone who had corporate sponsorship from Staples. When Joel shared his vision with us we searched deep into our hearts and then into our inventory situation where we saw we had 5 pallets of defective bands to get rid of.

We sell a 40 inch rubber band loop that body builders use. You'd be surprised at how much tension a 40 inch rubber band loop can provide for muscle building. And since we are among only 2 companies who produce such a large rubber band, we were the perfect choice to provide Joel with the necessary materials to help him accomplish his goal. (someone remind me to post the story of the 40 inch band I had in college)

It didn't take Joel very long. I'm guessing he had alot of free time on his hands as it maybe took him 4 months to make a rubber band ball that weighed over 9,000 pounds!! Joel is now the current Guiness Book of World Record's record holder. While the onus and achievement rested squarely on Joel's shoulders, I feel that I was part of something great. For every great man there are often many people supporting him along the way.

If I can't be great, then at least I was part of greatness, not many people can say that.

Joel is selling his ball to the Ripley's Believe or Not museum, perhaps one day I can take my grandchildren there and tell them how their Pop-pop helped make it as they look upon the greatness of the ball. Until then, here is some video of Joel's ball-

Creeping up on the one year anniversary of this here blog

2008-11-24T09:45:00.003-05:00

Believe it or not but in about 10 days it will be the one year anniversary of me starting this blog.

To help celebrate, I was thinking of doing a "best of", but rather than pick my own posts I wanted you my faithful readers (all 5 of you?) to nominate the posts that you liked the most this past year and I would put it up to a vote.

So in the comments section of this post, please nominate your favorite Nothing Else Better to Do blogs!

The long awaited answer! The exciting conclusion!!

2008-11-23T08:43:00.004-05:00

Well, my ebay ad for Thomas the Tank and his cranky friends sold last Friday night. It went for $61, which is actually close to $15-20 more than the average sets (that are used) on ebay sell for.

A good result for me.

But what does this tell us?

Well, I'm no scientist but if I were, I would say that we haven't learned anything really since we don't have any true controls. But as I said, I'm no scientist thus I would like to make some unqualified conclusions anyways.

Cranky didn't sell the ad here- funny did.

Whilst the keen observer here would say something like, "Well, Brian, by your own admission, you are somewhat manic right now and as such you are feeling a sense of inflated importance and ego. So, color me skeptical that you would come to that conclusion, seeing that in your current mood you really couldn't think any different."

To you I say, "Suck it!"

I know it sold because it was funny since I received the following note in the paypal payment notification:

Your description was the best thing I have read in quite awhile Thanks for the chuckle. You are rather witty!

See? wcf2527, the ebay buyer, thinks the ad was rather witty! So save your derision and cast aside your doubts and admit that even in my most crankiest moods I still manage to remain funny.

Now, if I were a scientist, I would throw out all the results of this experiment since it clearly doesn't answer the question, "Will a cranky ad on ebay sell?" But, as I've mentioned twice already before now (why aren't you paying attention!!), I'm no scientist and I will answer the question with an emphatic "maybe"!

Finally, in order to put this most unpleasant experience behind us. (How dare you question me and not listen!) I leave you with the shipping notification I just sent this morning to wcf2527:

Well, I'm glad to see that cranky sells. Many thanks for your order and bid. I am grateful and between just us, I'm glad that you won and not that jonasiance25 guy. He really was creeping me out with his less than $61 dollar bids.

I'll ship this on Monday for you by UPS ground. My experience is that GA usually takes 3 business days for delivery from PA. That means it's likely (but not guaranteed) you'll get it on Friday since Thanksgiving isn't considered a work day even if we do have to labor over a large amount of poultry and carbohydrate filled side dishes. Even if we don't have to cook the meal, then dealing with your gassy in-laws and alcoholic cousins isn't exactly what I call a "holiday" either- but I digress.

It's also possible that I'm wrong about the delivery estimate and you could see it on Wednesday instead since UPS hires extra people for the holiday season and they could be running things more efficiently. BUT, the economy is also in the outhouse and as a result UPS may have skipped the extra hires in order to save costs and as such you may not get your package until next Monday. That doesn't even mention the fact that if they completely screw up and mix your package in with the next-day air packages and you could get as soon as this Tuesday.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I really don't want hear questions about where your package is until next Tuesday. UPS is really the least of our worries, anyways, with our generation having to face global warming, looming recession and rampant nudity among our immoral wildlife.

Enjoy the set and I really hope that your children enjoy playing with it because if you're the one playing with the set then I've misjudged you and you're actually creepier than jonasiance25.

Happy Holidays,

Brian

The Odd Couple

2008-11-21T11:46:00.005-05:00

Hearing Christmas music all day long is actually starting to make my mood swing a bit towards the up side. I guess there are some Christmas miracles after all?

Now before you go and start thinking that I'm big softie, I'm still not looking forward to the holidays this year. The real reason for my uptick is the natural rebound that I almost always have after a period of depression or agitation. I started to feel it last night while I was playing poker and finding myself in need of social interaction after a very early exit from the tournament. (damn aces snook up on me) I ended up screwing around a lot and almost became a nuisance and affected the game with my antics. A sure sign that I'm on the manic side.

But getting back to the Christmas music (see? I can't stay focused on any one thought for too long!!)....

What is the deal with the Bing Crosby/David Bowie match up for The Little Drummer Boy song? You have Bing towards the twilight of his career (after some research, I see that Bing died a month later) and David Bowie straight from his glam rock phase! You ever wonder if Bing even knew what he signed up for. It is quite the surreal moment in time where two vastly different types of musicians came together and the result turned out to be quite pleasing. Much better than Frank Sinatra trying the same sort of thing in his final album.

Boredom in poker is often a good sign that you're playing it correctly

2008-11-20T13:26:00.002-05:00

This past weekend, my monthly poker group had its tournament of champions game. Basically, throughout the year, we throw an extra $5 on top of every buy-in. The pot gets built up fairly quickly and the points leader for the year gets 10% and then we have a tournament to play for the remainder of the pot. This year we had 7 players and 2 spots to be paid.

Since there was no rebuys or add-ons I played a very tight game. Most of the game, I folded more than usual preflop and folded to most bets postflop when I had medium strength like top pair good kicker. The end result was a fairly boring game for me. Somehow I coasted, never amassing a huge amount of chips, to the final 3. I then stole a few pots and got lucky a few times until the 2 other stacks went into a all in. The bigger stack had AJ while the smaller stack had AQ. I was cheering for the jack the whole way and was pleased to see a jack spike the river card and make for a suck out.

Since our stacks were almost even at that point we decided to chop the pot and we each got about $340. The honor of TOC winner on paper went to Tom as he had 7,000 more in chips (out of 350,000) but I didn't care in the slightest. My recent heads-up performances have been abysmal and filled with bad luck. I was more than happy to take a bigger guaranteed cut than to risk getting less to try and get $470.

Tonight, I am playing in another no rebuy or addon tourney but the blinds escalate alot quicker so I don't know if I can stay bored for as long. Perhaps my recent depression will keep me in an ennui and allow me to play better?

Jammin' to the Weather Channel

2008-11-18T13:52:00.004-05:00

Okay, I admit it.

I actually like a song that the Weather Channel plays during the local forecast.

I know saying that you like a song from the Weather Channel is like wanting to go to the airport for lunch. (that one's for you Jeff) But, it was a catchy little ditty.

I think they use a rotation of about 25 songs during the local 5 day forecast and doppler radar maps. It wouldn't surprise me if they've used the same songs since its inception in 1982. You know what type of songs I'm talking about too. Heavy on the piano, new age or light jazz, whatever you wish to call it. Imagine Spyro Gyra done by people who think that Amy Grant may be a bit too risque for the children.

About a year ago they played a song that was more upbeat and had a nice guitar twang. I've heard it about 3 times since then. Every morning for the past 2 months I put on the Weather Channel in the hopes that I get to hear the song again.

The annoying thing is that even if I do come across the the song again that deep voiced man comes on and interrupts constantly by announcing, "Your local doppler radar." or "Here's the weather in cities around the world." (I think he may be the movie-phone guy) Plus, the real dilemma is how on earth do I even figure out who created and performed the song? Is there a Weather Channel music composer who had a spunky day one time? Or do they use crappy songs that they find in the bins of musak radio stations?

With the internet these days, we don't want for much information. I'm one of those people who can't stand not knowing things but I suppose this one thing I would prefer it to remain a mystery. I need to keep alert in the mornings and if paying attention to the Weather Channel helps me do that then I can suffer in ignorance of where the music comes from.

Temper Tempest

2008-11-17T14:43:00.003-05:00

The problem with knowing you have a mood disorder is that you're often left wondering if your current mood is a result of that disorder or if it's actually related to external stimuli. (or both?) As I sit here stewing and feeling what I call the "buzz" that's in the back of my head that's making me miserable, I can't help but wonder if it's because I'm a fucked up dude or because my brother has Christmas music on from B101 in the office next to mine. Or perhaps, it's because my father/boss was in the office today in his usual rampage.

I have no doubts that my father suffers from some sort of mood disorder like I do but he refuses to acknowledge or see it (forget about treating it or medication). Many times he comes into the office and he starts ranting about what I haven't done and what needs to be done and he works himself in such a whirlwind that it's impossible to recall what the hell he said unless you had a stenographer from the early 60's following him around. As much as it's put me in an even worse mood than I already was, I can't help but recall a similar rampage I had on my children this weekend and how they can't put their toys away and how ungrateful the little brats are and yadda, yadda, yadda.

This "temper tempest" is a build up of sorts and a release of manic anger that is dumped upon the next underling or peer you encounter. Sometimes, I can catch myself and do what's best to avoid confrontation. But, hey, let's face it- sometimes confrontation finds you. I'm sure half of what my father said in his blasting was correct, but if he were to slow down, listen and not take a dump on me then maybe most of it would get resolved quickly.

Advice I need to take myself.

History repeats itself and the best thing we can do is learn from other people's mistakes if not our own. Yet the thing about rage is that the flurry of brain activity doesn't allow oneself to exactly remain in control or think rationally. Somehow I've been able to stoically detach myself from sadness but I still can't conquer my anger. Just call me Bruce Banner without the green skin and super strength. I guess it's why you don't see comic books where the hero has radioactive tears and the ability to super-emote.

Scientific study- will a cranky ad on ebay sell?

2008-11-14T15:00:00.003-05:00

I've been in a somewhat weird mood lately. Being back at work is a bit stressful as there have been some high pressure situations that I have been dealing with lately. The weather certainly isn't helping with all the rain and gloomy, cloudy days. So, when my wife reminded me that I needed to put up an Ebay ad for a bunch of Thomas the Tank Engine set and tracks to help clear up needed space I knew I could no longer put it off or else she's kick me out of the house. As a result I ended up putting a rather sardonic and almost nasty ad. The ad is scheduled to start at 9pm tonight so I'm not sure if you can read it until then. Thus, the following is the ad transcript:

Okay, so my kids are too old for this Thomas the Tank Engine stuff and I really don't want it in my house anymore. It's a big bucket of train tracks, scenery pieces, a mountain and tunnel, some bridge pieces and a bunch of trains with smiley faces on them. What you see in the picture is what you get PLUS you'll get even more than what's pictured. What can I say, I guess their mother went a bit overboard one Christmas or we told too many people that our kids liked Thomas and we ended up with all of this stuff. Perhaps I should say that our children are big fans of precious stones and metals this holiday season?

So we're clear- this set is NOT for your avid collector. It's been played with by toddlers for starters, the stuff is clean but I can't say it's in mint condition cause I know how you Thomas the Tank nerds get in a tizzy over small imperfections. Also, the tracks are mostly made by that other company that makes the compatible/rip-off knock-offs tracks, but it works- right? So who cares if it's worth anything? Let your kids play instead of spoiling them with rare and valuable collector pieces and "gotta have them" trains. They're 3-6 years for cripe's sake!!

Please don't send me an email asking me which character trains I have. The truth is that I have no clue. I found Thomas to be almost as inane and insipid as those furry magical farting creatures called, Boo-Bah. If you press me, I'll probably just make up names like "Rocco the Union Worker Tank" who won't carry any payloads until he's guaranteed overtime and a half plus 2 extra weeks of vacation or "Benny the Surly Caboose" who's been put away in storage at the station for sexual harassment of Sassy Sally the Streamline Train. (And that's when I'm in a good mood!) Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the anthropomorphism of inanimate objects as they can make apt metaphors for the ills of society. It's just that smiley, happy trains depress me. It may have to do with the fact that I believe that the railroads were the harbinger of the large corporate monopolies that rule our lives with such a heavy fist and suppress the middle class- but I digress .

There's no reserve, shipping will cost $19.95 and I will ship by UPS ground. That means no HI, AK or US Territories like Guam unless you're willing to fork some extra scratch for me to send it by US Mail. That also means you need to give me a street address and not a PO box. You'd be surprised at how many num-nuts don't read the instructions and still attempt to give me PO Boxes or ask me dumb questions like, "How much is shipping?".

Good luck with your bidding- I truly hope the highest bidder wins.

Should be interesting to see if cranky sells. We'll see by next week....

Poll Vaulting

2008-11-12T13:03:00.002-05:00

In some ways you have to feel sorry for telemarketers and pollsters. The poor schmucks are forced to read from a script and can't really stray from it. They also have to get as many calls in as possible. More calls means more contacts and more contacts means more results or sales. I question the logic of a mid-level manager making their telephone people work so fast as often the person talks so fast and with such monotone that they sound like the end of a radio commercial for an auto dealership. "Taxestagsandregistrationfeesareextra$200amonthleaseisbasedonhighercreditscoresthantheaverageperson
listeningtothissportsradiostationandrequires5thousanddollarsdownplusyourfirstbornsonifyoudonothaveasonto
tradeinthenyourspermwillbecollectedandusedtoourlikingwealsoreservetherighttogeneticallymanipulateyour
spermtocreateasuperraceofcarsalesmenandfasttalkers."

The problem, of course, is when such a person ends up getting me on the phone while I am in a slightly manic mood....

The week before we left for our trip to Florida, I received a call asking me if I had 10 minutes to answer a few questions about the upcoming election. It was my first political poll ever and I was excited to get my opinions heard on the latest national trackers. My hopes were dashed rather quickly when I realized I had a fast talker who couldn't deviate from his script. Here for your entertainment is the paraphrased conversation that we had.

Pollster: Are you a male between the ages of 26-50?

Me: yes

Pollster: Are you a permanent resident of Pennsylvania?

Me: yes

Pollster: On a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 means very likely and 1 means very unlikely, how likely are you to vote in the upcoming election on November 4th?

Me: I don't know how to answer that, I've already voted by absentee ballot.

Pollster: 10 is very likely and 1 is very unlikely

Me: Well, it's not a matter of likelihood, it's a matter of certainty at this point.

Pollster (starting to realize he's run into some trouble): Excuse me?

Me: If you want to ask me how certain I am that I've voted in the election then you can put me down down as a 9, but that's only because I don't trust the postman- he can be cranky at times.

Pollster: well, we're asking how likely it is that you'll vote in the election coming up on the 4th of November.

Me: ..and I'm informing you that I've already voted since I will be away on the 4th and sent in an absentee ballot, so it's not really about how likely it is as it's already happened. Isn't there an option for already voted?

Pollster: No, you must answer on a scale between 1 and 10, with 1 being very...

Me (interrupting him): Yes, yes, I know, but since you can't seem to deviate from the script, we'll compromise and say that I am a 10 and I am very likely to vote in the upcoming election, even though it would technically be a lie.

Pollster (breathes a sigh of relief): Next question, on a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 means very likely and 1 means very unlikely, how likely are you to vote for Barack Obama in the upcoming election on November 4th?

Me: Well, again it's not a matter of likelihood here as I've already voted for...

Pollster: CLICK

Me: Hello? Hello?

Guess, he felt he could hit his quota with someone less demanding. No wonder the polls are never very accurate.

A brief history of time spent in Orlando

2008-11-11T10:31:00.004-05:00

Funny how you go away for a week and when you come back you have a new president-elect that's the first African-American to achieve the honor. I wish I had a dime every time that's happened to me. The last time I did a travel log on a trip I took it ended up being a series of the most boring blog posts I ever seen, let alone created. But, alas, I do have some things to say. While I will spare you a 5 part post on my family vacation/business trip, I will give a somewhat brief summary of my experiences in the Magic Kingdom and trade show.

One of the most apparent things during our trip was the astounding amount of people that we saw that were wearing Phillies' championship T-shirts and hats. I actually packed a bunch of my own shirts and hats to wear whilst down there as I wished to tease the nearby Tampa Rays fans. It appeared that there were much more Phillies' fans in the parks and surrounding areas. Often, as you'd pass a fan by you'd hear them shout, "Go Phillies!!" or "Number 1!!" It was nice to see and feel some Phillies excitement despite the fact I was in another state.

The trip overall was fun with a few exceptions. The two things that really bummed me out during the trip was the fact that trade shows suck the life out of you and destroy your feet because you're standing for hours and the realization that my children are huge whiny brats. The feet pain I'm used to as I've done countless trade shows by now. The main difference this time is that I had to walk all over the theme parks after destroying my feet making them feel even worse. The whiny brat thing didn't really catch me off guard as I know that my kids can be a real pain at times, it was just dumbfounding in the fact that we were in Disney World, having boatloads of fun and they still managed to find things to complain about. (lots of things!)

My younger son, Gabriel, is a shop-a-holic and didn't want to do anything but shop in gift stores. We gave the kids $60 each and told them that they had to budget what they bought as souvenirs. As a result my older son, Jonathan, was terrified to buy anything as he would lose his budget and Gabriel, who has no foresight whatsoever, would have blown all the money in the 1st hour, had we let him. Nevertheless, we had a few a blow ups along the way but eventually found our stride and had fun at the parks.

The Tower of Terror was great as usual and the new Everest ride was great and surprising. For Disney the crowds were actually very low and I think the longest we waited for a ride was 40 minutes. Most lines were 30 minutes at the most and we used the fast pass option well. I did get to meet up with an old high school friend for an hour at the hotel pool as in a weird coincidence she was also at the same resort.

Aside from the Disney parks, we did go out and see Medieval Times for dinner one night. Although very touristy, it had a nice schmaltzy charm to it and the sword play and pretend jousts were fun to watch. Imagine the WWE with sword play and with out the managers. A funny aside was that my wife purchased a 32 dollar foo-foo drink in a HUGE margarita glass. The type of glass that you could safely house 6 goldfish and a water turtle in. We managed to get the sucker home as a carry-on item on the plane and it now sits proudly on my bar in the basement.

The trip was great but now I am at work and have too much to do and add the fact that I've put off doing it to blog about this.

I need a vacation for my vacation.

I'm going to Disney World!!

2008-10-31T12:54:00.003-04:00

As much as I would love to make a nice long descriptive post about my kick ass time at the World Series, I just have too much to do today as I'm leaving for a part business/part pleasure trip to Orlando on Monday. So, yes, the Phils won the series and I get to scream at the camera that I'm going to Disney World. That means if I don't get a chance to post this weekend , I'll most likely not be making a post until at least the 11th. But have no fear, they're be plenty to talk about then. We'll have a new president-elect, lots of fun Disney stories to tell, and I still have a few things in store for you.

WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS!!!!!!!

2008-10-30T01:05:00.007-04:00

I was there!!!

I saw it all!!!

Freeze Frame

2008-10-29T09:03:00.004-04:00

I actually received 2 emails asking why I hadn't blogged about game 5 of the World Series and it's suspension. I'll take it as a compliment when people are actually interested in what you have to write and miss it when I don't do it. To be honest I just couldn't organize my thoughts yesterday to write anything worthwhile on the subject. (I hear you laughing in the background, "..and since when has that stopped you?!")

I was stunned.

Imagine yourself in this scenario-

You're a huge Phillies fan and finally everything seems to be falling into place. They get to the World Series, go up 3-1, they have their ace pitcher on the mound for the next game and you get to go there. You get to see it all. You'll be there if they win and cheer as they jump up and down after the final out and then bring out the trophy. You'll be there with thousands of other fans just as excited as you are. Needless to say I walked around with a big stupid shit-eating grin on my face all day Monday.

You decide to go to the game early to tailgate a little bit and arrive in Lot K. You barely are able to get into the lot despite being there 3 1/2 hours before game time. It is a huge party atmosphere and everyone is ecstatic. You are with your 3 best friends and they are also excited and having a good time. You eat some hoagies, drink some beer, toss around a football in the lot and a few other freinds come up to meet you and party with you. There's a light drizzle the whole time and it's quite cold, but you couldn't care less. At 8pm you gleefully trot into the ballpark.

The park is absolutely electric, you're screaming and cheering before you even get to your seats. You're suddenly friends with 45,000 people you haven't met before. You high five complete strangers as they announce the lineups. They shoot off some fireworks during the national anthem and the Phils quickly put up 2 runs in the first inning. Cole is pitching great so you start to feel it, you're anticipating the championship.

And then the rain starts to fall harder. You pull out your poncho and keep mostly dry. Your shoes do get soaked and start to freeze in the bitter cold but you don't mind as you cheer and scream the whole game. Your friend, Mike, looks like a drowned rat and is shivering but he still finds the energy to shout things like, "Make them eat it Cole!" and "Stick it in there Shane!!" The weather even creates some horrible plays like an easy pop up that gets blown away from Rollins' glove. Puddles start to form in the infield as the grounds crew keeps running out there and putting more dirt on the base paths. The weather is the worst you've ever seen a baseball game being played in but the umps don't stop it.

The Rays manage to eke out a run to tie the game in the 6th as Cole clearly can't throw his best pitch, a change-up, since it requires a firm grip that is impossible to do in a nor' eastern storm. But still, you aren't miserable because you know the Phillies offense will come thru and win the game.

"There's no stopping us now!", you think to yourself just moments before you see the grounds crew grab the tarp and roll it out.

Bud Selig just hit the pause button.

When you have such a build up of emotion and excitement for something to happen and then your feelings have to be shelved for two days, it leaves you stunned, confused, a little angry and exhausted. It's like stopping yourself midstream while you pee - it isn't easy, it hurts and it probably isn't healthy to do it. I'm still amazed I didn't end up with blue balls after the game. At least if they lost, I still would have experienced some sort of release. I would have blamed a player or the manager and been upset until the next game, but I could have moved on. I'm not saying that I'd prefer a loss (oh God no!), I'm trying to describe what being in limbo feels like. No wonder limbo is often on the path to hell.

Neither did I want Selig to call the game and have the Phillies win it on the 5 inning rule. It's not like you want to tell your grandkids that you were there when the announced it over the PA system that the Phillies won the series. I understand the pickle that Selig was in, but he still is the commissioner and he should have started the game an hour early or suspended the game sooner.

So, here I sit, all pent up and ready again to see it all. The forecast looks clear, a bit windy and cold, but they should get the game complete. The Phils do have the advantage as they have 4 innings of at bats to the Rays' 3 innings. I still may get to see it all, but it would have just taken 52 hours to do it.

One more thing...an official retraction

2008-10-27T12:08:00.002-04:00

Back at the trade deadline I had quite a strong reaction to the Phillies trading two very good prospects for Joe Blanton. In the comments section I mentioned that I hoped I was proven wrong.

I appears after the second half of the season and this postseason that I was indeed proven wrong.

I'm sorry Pat Gillick and I'm sorry Joe Blanton. You were decent enough to get us some wins and make the playoffs (Phillies were 11-4 in games he started) and have done very well in the post season, winning all 3 games you've pitched. IF the Phillies win it all tonight or this week, then you have to love the trade, even if Cardenas becomes a Hall of Famer. The ultimate goal is the trophy on the wall, after all.

I couldn't have planned it any better, just one more game

2008-10-27T10:07:00.006-04:00

When I got my playoff ticket invoice in the mail and saw that I had game 5 of the World Series if the Phils won the NL pennant I remarked to myself that it would be cool if that game would be the clinching win for the series. 6 weeks later I am sitting in anticipation of going to the ball park where the Phillies send their best pitcher, Cole Hamels, out to the mound to win the championship clinching game of the World Series.

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG
OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG
OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG
OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG

OH MY FUCKING GOD!!

TWENTY EIGHT YEARS I'VE WAITED FOR THIS MOMENT TO HAPPEN AGAIN.

Cross your fingers folks, I just may be at the park the moment the Phils win it all!

I'm tired

2008-10-26T12:51:00.003-04:00

Didn't get to sleep until at least 2:30AM last night. I stayed up to watch the Phils' win their second World Series game in a bizarre fashion of errors and strange managerial decisions. I'm somewhat subdued as a result due to the lack of sleep. I'm hoping that this all pays off and I'm standing in section 206 of Citizen's Bank Park tomorrow night as the Phils win it all. One can hope.

Since I'm tired I thought I'd post some things that I'm tired of seeig or hearing about or experiencing lately....

Things that I'm tired of:

The umpires' horrible and game effecting calls for this series.

The "Save by Zero" advertising campaign by Toyota.

The Phillies' inability to hit with runners in scoring position so far this series.

McCain/Palin lawn signs strewn everywhere on my way to work.

Tim McCarver and Joe Buck

Lil' Green Plant gift requests on Facebook

Lazy sports journalism where the writer from an opposing city reports on how horrible the Philly fan is and how we booed Santa Claus and throw batteries.

Artificial turf and domed stadiums for baseball.

My brother telling me what big game it is tonight and then yukking it up by saying he meant Penn State or the Flyers, etc.

Seeing low gas prices but not seeing prices on other things drop like UPS rates.

Political pollsters who read from a script. (I'll go into this one later this week)

Itchy dogs that lick and bite themselves in the middle of the night.

This throbbing hangover headache I'm experiencing at this very moment.

An Utley and Hamels production

2008-10-23T14:09:00.006-04:00

In my opinion the Phils' best position player and best pitcher are 2nd baseman Chase Utley and ace pitcher Cole Hamels. Both players are making me look good as they were the big heroes last night along with bullpen stoppers, Ryan Madson and Brad Lidge. It was a nail biter of a game. The Phillies were able to get on base but just couldn't get runners in and set a record by going 0 for 13 with runners in scoring position. If not for Utley's 2 run homerun blast in the 1st inning and Ruiz's RBI grounder, there would have been no scoring for the Phillies.

Speaking of no scoring, Hamels held off the high offensive power of the Rays to just 2 runs and then Madson and Lidge came in the game and shut them down in a hurry. Hamels has become one of the elite World Series pitchers for the ages having received his 4th post season win. He will be the first starter to get 5 wins if he does it again. (Randy Johnson got 5 but one win was in relief)

Now that my summary is out of the way, let me say this-

Whew

and

YESSSSSSSSS!!!!

Winning game one while playing away and with your ace on the mound is huge- you need to win those games. It takes some pressure off of Myers, who can be a huge head case. It guarantees a split before you come back home. And it's first blood. They made a statement last night. Again, the majority of experts are picking against the Phils. Yes, the Rays are the toughest opponent yet in the post season, but to easily dismiss this team is a huge mistake in my opinion. Game 2 two is tonight, I'm feeling greedy and want another win- Let's go Phils!!

Mets fans still bitter

2008-10-22T12:27:00.002-04:00

I know this sounds like I'm making this up but I swear it's true-

So, on my lunch break I go to The Sports Authority in Warrington to get a Phillies sweatshirt to wear on Monday night since I am attending game of the World Series in person. I didn't want to get so cold and I still want to show my Phils' colors. IWhile I was there, in a manic-induced buying spree, I also decided to buy the Phillies hat with the "2008 World Seroes" patch. I've become a real big hat wearer since I've given up on having hair in the past year, so I figured it was worth buying.

On way back, I'm on Route 611 North and I get behind a Saturn sedan with the license plate "METSPHN". I think to myself that the gall that this douchebag would have to combine the "PH" with anything Mets related. So I get in the right lane and pull up next to the car with intentions of harassing him.

To my surprise, the driver was a late 50's early 60's woman that was 5 foot 1 at talelst- In other words, she was a little old lady. Not to be deterred by this discovery and to prove that I am neither an ageist nor a sexist, I went ahead with my heckling. I honked the horn a few times and took off my new hat and pointed to the WS patch. The woman immediately scowled at me and then hit the gas. She pulled ahead and then the bitchswerved into my lane, cutting me off, and flipped me the bird!!

I guess she wasn't too happy being reminded of the last two years?

Game one tonight folks!! Let's go Phillies!!!

Things that are 100% Real American

2008-10-21T14:29:00.005-04:00

I've tried my best to avoid politics in my blog but every now and then, I see or hear something that just gets my goat enough to say something. Lately, the republicans have been throwing the words "Real American" around as if it means rural, God-fearing, hunting on the weekends, and hard working blue collar, white men. In an effort to create an us against them type of attitude they've dangerously crafted an atmosphere of not-so-subtle racism and anti-intellectualism. I honestly don't know if they're just trying to fire up the base or if they honestly think that they can appeal to undecided voters with such clap-trap.

So, in a an effort to clarify what is indeed a real American, the following is a list of things that are completely 100% American.

Jazz

Movies

Blues

Rap

Comic strips and books

Square dancing

Disco

Cowboys

Rock N Roll

Peanut-butter

Mickey Mouse

Bugs Bunny

Fake Poop gags

Skateboards

Mohawks

Blue Crab

TastyKake

Coca-Cola

Democrats

Republicans

Grits

Hippies

EDIT: Baseball & Poker (sheesh, how could I forget my two favorite hobbies?)

I could go on, but my point remains the same. That's quite an eclectic list and it includes all ethnic groups and by nature all American culture is a mixture or melding of different cultures.

So, please, let's cut the crap and stop talking about "Real Americans" as if it applies to one distinct group of people. The last thing we need to do is to divide ourselves instead of what real Americans actually do best- which is work and live together while maintaining in our own diversity.

Pinch me

2008-10-21T12:17:00.002-04:00

Sexual innuendos put aside, I would like a good hard pinch to see if I'm dreaming. Tomorrow I get to watch the Phillies play in the World Series. It's been 15 years since the Phils last went to the World Series and 28 years since they won the whole enchilada. All in all, it's been 25 years since the last Philly championship in any of the 4 major sports. To say that I'm edgy, nervous, excited and elated all at the same time is somewhat of an understatement. I usually have guarded enthusiasm but now I'm willing to throw it all out there and pin my hopes on this team.

With free agency in today's sports you often don't get to see players come up through the minors and grow into stars and stay on the team for most of their careers. What's somewhat special about this team is that the Phils have quite alot of their stars come from their own system or players that that got their first real shot with them. Rollins, Utley, Howard, Hamels, Madson, Ruiz, Myers and Burrell are all guys that came up from the Phils' minor league system. Guys like Dobbs, Victorino, Coste and Werth are players who didn't do much of anything in the majors until they played with the Phils and are now integral parts of the team. This makes it more fun to root for the team as you feel more attachment to the players. Unlike the Yankees, Mets or Red Sox who overpay for their players, the Phillies have mostly grown and scouted their talent.

I can't say that I've been happy with the front office all of these years, but I need to give credit now before I change my mind. So, thanks Pat Gillick, Dave Montgomery, Ruben Amaro, Mike Arbuckle and even Ed Wade (who built the core of this team before getting canned). No matter what happens in the series, I haven't enjoyed baseball this much in a long time.

The Rays will be a hard team to beat, but I think the Phightin's have a real good shot to win in 6. Even better would be to win in 5 so I can personally see them win and have my car overturned in Lot K during the riots and celebrations. (meh, it's worth it, it's why we have insurance) Cross your fingers and give out a cheer- tomorrow is game one people!!

GO PHILLIES!!

It's hard to talk about the elephant in the room when the elephant is you

2008-10-20T14:42:00.005-04:00

Aside from being a skinny kid through the age of 8, I've always been overweight or had to really work at being thinner. I've had a few skinny periods where I really watched what I ate and exercised daily. Ages 16-19, 21-22, 29, 32-33, and 35 were all weight loss periods. But, alas, it seems that the skinny periods are fewer and further apart and currently I'm at my heaviest weight yet. I can blame genetics a bit as my mother's side was full with fatsos, my mother included. My father has a huge sweet tooth but stays rather fit despite that fact. Somehow my brother and I missed that luxury.

Nevertheless, I can't put the blame on my DNA in its entirety as my genes aren't what's putting big servings of high calorie food into my mouth, nor is it keeping me sedentary. In some ways, losing and keeping off weight is worse than quitting smoking. At least after a period of not smoking, you don't have to worry about maintenance, all you have to do is not smoke. While dieting, you still have to eat. You still go to restaurants and parties where there's lots of yummy treats. Plus, there's almost always something good on TV to watch or do on the internet to keep your fat ass in the chair. It would be as if I had to puff on a cigarette 4 times a day and not smoke any more than that. That would be next to impossible to do.

I don't go for the bullshit that you're always feeling hungry while on a diet because real hunger is when you get nothing to eat for hours. It's the cravings. You crave the sugars and the candy, the yummy fats and ice creams and the high carbs and salty chips. I know if you keep the treats to what they're supposed to be- treats, you would be much better off. But, I've been an all or nothing kind of guy. When I enjoy something I tend to go gung-ho, consequences be damned. It's a damn good thing that I never tried herion or coke.

There are times where I wish I had an automatic food dispenser and no other access to food. That way, the choice is taken away from me. If I wasn't allowed to make poor choices then I would be fine with whatever bland meals are chosen for me if I was hungry enough. Fuck free will! Who needs inalienable rights when you could have a smaller waist? Perhaps, I could also hire someone with an electric cow prod and they could get me going on the treadmill every day as well.

Am I that weak willed? Do I really need someone to force me to lose weight? I just don't know the answer anymore as it's obvious I haven't done much of anything about it lately. I let myself go north of 300 lbs and have to shop exclusively at big and tall stores. I'm positive that my wife finds me less attractive and my motivation to do physical things is not very high. I'm also getting older and being this heavy isn't very good for my health. Perhaps, I'm hitting some self realization now but I'm also afraid that those feelings don't always last very long when you have to put the nose to the grindstone. I probably need some external help of some sort but I can't stand groups like Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig. Am I doomed?

As helpless as this sounds, I know what needs to be done. I just need to do it.

So far, I've been very open in what I post on my blog and I don't wish to hold back now. I'm trying to convey what it's like to struggle with your weight and take some responsibility at the same time. Hopefully, I've just talked myself into being more active and eating less. Maybe my wife can show me this post when I seem to be off the wagon. I can't give up and have to keep trying. It took me at least 20 times before I finally quit smoking. Maybe it'll take 20 diets or more, but I can't give up. I need to be there for my wife and kids. They deserve it.

Just do me a favor and kick me in the ass once in a while- it's a pretty easy target to hit.

Billy goes to Newtown Brewfest

2008-10-17T13:15:00.006-04:00

As banal and unfunny the Family Circus comic strip was (and still is), as a child I always did enjoy the ones where there was a map of the neighborhood and you could follow the dotted line to see where Billy went that day and what he did. Tomorrow my wife and I got the in-laws to babysit and we are joining my friend, Nicole and her husband Rob at the Newtown Brewfest. There we will get a tasting glass and get to sample beers from 80 different breweries and microbreweries. So, in honor of Bil Keane and his comic strip maps, here is what I think might happen tomorrow (click map for larger view):

1) Excited and fresh- Brian and Lynn park their 2003 Taurus in the lot and gleefully walk towards the first set of breweries' stands, they meet Nicole and Rob and check in to get their glass.

2) With his 2oz. tasting glass, Brian stops at every booth in the first row sampling each wonderful microbrew. He takes his time and enjoys each sip and every subtle nuance of the beers. By the time he gets to the end of the first row, he feels pressure in his bladder and heads for the port-a-potties.

3) Brian's first visit to the port-a-potties goes off without a hitch and he feels much relieved.

4) With an empty bladder Brian is starting to feel good, real good. Life is wonderful and there is another row of breweries to taste. As he samples more beer he tends to get a bit randy and smacks Lynn's butt a few times as they visit more breweries. The time spent at each stand gets shorter and shorter as Brian just sticks his glass out, chugs it and moves on to the next stand.

5) Feeling hungry Brian makes his way towards the food stands and notices a band playing some music. They mostly suck, but Brian grabs Lynn's unwilling hand starts to spin around and dance. When Lynn manages to get away, Brian grabs Nicole and flings her around swing style despite it being a slow song. Eventually Brian gets tired and heads toward the food stands.

6) After eating and making obvious and inappropriate jokes about sausages, Brian's buzz starts to wear off a bit and he starts to feel nauseous and is getting a headache. He heads towards the port-a-potties in the hopes that less bladder pressure will relieve him.

7) At the port-a-potties, Brian can't stomach the sausages anymore and power pukes just barely after he manages to get inside one.

8) With an empty stomach, Brian feels renewed and starts to sample more beers. After trying the Sly Fox beers, his walk is starting to show a pronounced swagger. Sensing that he is near the end of the line he makes a mad rush of trying every beer that he can; often he sneaks a second tasting.

9) Having tried almost every brew at the fest, Brian is now shit-faced drunk. He still has small chunks of puked up sausage on his shirt and is singing silly songs and changes the lyrics to his liking and amusement. He eventually gets into a fight with his embarassed wife, Lynn and wanders away by himself. He spies the building in front of him and sees the fire escape on the side of the wall. A very terrible idea jumps to the front of his thought processeses as he stumbles his way towards the building.

10) He manages to climb up the fire escape and gets on top of the building. He is on the roof shouting, "I am the lishard king!! And I can do whatever things I wansh!!" A crowd draws near as he dancing along the roof top. Suddenly Brian sees security and makes a dash for the edge of the roof.

11) Seeing a dumpster filled with cardboard below Brian jumps off and lands below. He sprains his ankle badly and is nabbed by the waiting police officers below. He is hog tied by handcuffs and dragged to the waiting police car.

12) Carted away by the Newtown police, Brian is singing in the back of the car. He thinks of how he can't wait til next year and what new adventures can be found at the 2009 Newtown Brewfest.

Feeding all my addictions at once

2008-10-16T14:11:00.005-04:00

Last night I got to watch the Phillies win their first NL Pennant in 15 years and win some decent scratch at a poker game at the same time, not to mention I also got to drink some decent beer. The only thing missing was getting a BJ under the table. (and since Lynn reads this, I'll say that I wish it was her) Usually, I wouldn't mix everything up like that. Especially considering you need to concentrate to play poker effectively. But I was going to miss this month's tournament and was jonesing for some poker in a bad way. I am glad I went as the deck was hitting me hard in a good way most of the night.

You don't need to concentrate all that much when you flop trips 3 times in an hour, get the nut flush, recieve pocket Aces once and Kings twice. You basically put the money in the middle and hope that your hand holds up, which it did repeatedly last night. I would have been an even bigger winner had I not run into a few cooler spots towards the end. Nonetheless, I had managed to fold my way out of those spots, which is a good thing as I minimized my losses. I admit at times when I'm stuck or just break even for the night I'm more apt to call with weaker holdings out of frustration and/or boredom.

One of the funnier moments came when the host, "Lottery Larry", wasn't paying attention to the game and looked up while they were replaying Shane Victorino's grand slam in the divisional series 2 weeks ago. He pumped his fist and clapped his hand and let out a loud, "Yes! Home run!!" We all then laughied at his misunderstanding. I suppose the fact that the Phillies were in their home white uniforms and the Brewers being on the field didn't tip him off as to the fact it was a replay/flashback. Of course this led to some teasing the rest of the night. Everytime Fox would show a flashback we would scream something like, "Hey Larry! Look Dave Hollins hit a home run against Greg Maddux! Greg looks like he lost some weight!" or "Oh NO! Kirk Gibson hit a home run to win the game!!" Even when they weren't playing flashback clips we still made jokes like Del Ennis had hit a homer while he the TV went black and white.

Men are brutal, one sign of weakness and the rest of the pack will pounce.

I can haz Whirled Seriez PLZ?

2008-10-16T08:45:00.004-04:00

My day in court

2008-10-14T11:54:00.003-04:00

I've had my share of speeding tickets over the years. My lead foot is a byproduct of the "early gene" that I possess. I'm obsessed with time, thus I always feel the urge to get to where I'm going as fast as I can get there. As a result I sometimes get unlucky and fall victim to the dreaded speed trap. I got quite a few tickets while I attended college. Driving up and down 95 led me to get caught in Maryland a lot. Fortunately, I still kept my permanent residence in Pennsylvania so the points never transferred to my license. So, as long as I paid the fines, I would be okay for insurance. The two other times I got nailed for speeding locally the policeman always reduced the violation on the spot.

So, despite my proclivity for getting caught, I have yet to go to a courthouse and contest a ticket.

Until today.

Last month I was clocked at 72mph in a 55mph zone on Rte 263 on my to New Hope to see my Dad. The police officer didn't give me any breaks, so not wanting to get any points against my license (and have my insurance go up) I went to court to contest the ticket. The building itself was much smaller than I imagined. It was a township courthouse and not the county, so it was rather small by comparison. I got my name on the list and waited for my officer to arrive.

and waited...

and waited...

I went up to the secretary (or whatever she was, a clerk?) and informed her that it was 20 minutes past the assigned court time. At first I thought I lucked out as I always thought that if the officer doesn't show, you get off. But to my dismay another officer called my name and said he would represent my officer and asked if I would like to plea bargain before the hearing. Being inexperienced in the ways of traffic court, I figured that I should plea bargain rather take my chances that a substitute officer was prosecuting me in court would lead to a complete dropping of the charges. My old car sales experience did lead me to smell some blood in the water after he dropped the points off immediately, so I asked to have some of the fine reduced. He agreed and five minutes later I found myself in the court room and it was just like it looks on TV.

There was the judge's bench in front and a witness stand to the right of the bench. The officer told me to sit at the defendant's table (by myself- no lawyer!! Gasp!) as he sat at the prosecutor's table. The Judge then walked in and everyone stood up, I barely got a chance to straighten my knees before she informed us to sit down. She took a gander at the sheet and said, "Mr. Klaus, it appears that you are pleading guilty to a 5mph over the speed limit infraction." (which was the plea agreement) She paused as I realized that I was supposed to say yes, my nervousness got the better of me and I wasn't quite sure if I was supposed to admit guilt in court- 5th amendment rights and all that...

She had me come up to the bench and I changed my plea and signed a paper. She informed me that I would receive a refund for part of the fine, which I already paid in full, in the mail. I then asked if that was "it" and she replied yes. I answered, "So, you have no interest in what I was doing the night of January the 16th?"

"Not really, Mr. Klaus, save it for the county."

I see why Matlock and others think they can get the defendant to confess, I was willing to do just that and I was innocent.

3 Down

2008-10-14T07:49:00.003-04:00

Bring out your dead

2008-10-12T17:53:00.003-04:00

There must be something weird I am doing for this to happen. But in the last two post season appearances the Phillies have made I've been witness to the aftermath of a serious accident.

Last year when the Phils played in game 1 against the Rockies (which they lost), I drove down to see the game with my wife. We were complaining about traffic on route 309 South the whole way down as it was really slow and I was getting worried because I didn't want to be late for the 1st playoff game in 14 years. We felt horrible about complaining because we eventually came upon a construction worker on the side of the road who had a sheet pulled over him. I have no idea if he had a heart attack or was the victim of an accident. Didn't really matter, as dead is dead.

This past Friday my friend Jeff and I were giddy with glee as we left our seats. The Phils had just won game 2 of the series against the Dodgers. But our mood soured quickly as we ventured out to the stairwell from section 419 to see a lifeless body laying on the concrete on the concourse of the 300 level. We overheard that just seconds before the poor guy had fallen over the railing that overhung the stairs and from about row 9. Just from eyeballing it, I'd say it was at least a 30 to 35 foor drop. The man had already had scores of people trying to help so I said to Jeff that it would be best to just get out of the way and not stand around and gape.

It wasn't until hours later I learned from a fellow poster at Backshegoes.com (who I sold the seats next to me and Jeff to) that when he came upon the scene that the man was moving his fingers and had a brace on him as they were putting him on the stretcher. Now, it's comforting to know the guy is alive, but he could be majorly fucked up. It seriously freaked me and Jeff out as we were somewhat silent on the car ride back, especially considering the Phillies just won a huge game.

Had he died from the fall it would have been the 4th fresh dead body I have seen. (I'm not counting funerals) The first was my mother after she gave up the ghost on a gloomy February morning while I was showering. My brother came downstairs to find her dead as we had her home for hospice care for her terminal cancer. My father, broter and I all sat on the couch and looked at her in shock even though we knew that this moment was coming any day.

The next dead guy I saw was at the Trevose train station. I was parked waiting for my girlfriend and future wife to come home from Jefferson university. I was doing a puzzle and heard the conductor screaming at the top of his lungs, "Aw FUCK FUCK FUCK!!!" I looked up and saw a man laying on the tracks behind the SEPTA train. Lynn had found out the next day from other commuters that the man was from New York and was in Philly on business. He was taking the Septa train from Philly to Trenton and catching NJ Transit from there. He had fallen asleep and misheard the announcement of the Trevose stop for Trenton. Once he was off the train he realized his mistake and jumped back on the train without his briefcase. He jumped off again for the briefcase but had fallen under the train and was crushed to death.

I don't really care to see another dead body. Despite the fact that a dead body can't do anything to me, it is a harsh reminder of our mortality. I'd rather blissfully ignore that cold, hard reality as much as I can. It may, however, be more important to remember that for no reason, like that guy who fell asleep on a train, that stupid shit can happen at any time, no matter how careful you are.

Ooops, is this another Carpe Diem post?

I like being the underdog even though we're the better team

2008-10-09T09:31:00.003-04:00

If you were to listen to the national media, you'd start thinking that the Phils aren't the favorites against the Dodgers. They cite that the Dodgers are much better since getting Manny. They hype up the hot finish that the Dodgers had. They bring up the daunting pitching staff as well. Well, all of those statements are true and that's why most "experts" seem to be picking the Dodgers.

But hold on a second...

For some reason they are overlooking a few facts about the Phillies.

As The Good Phight points out, the Phillies...

1) Have a better record than the Dodgers since they got Manny.
2) Finished the season much stronger.
3) Have an even hotter hitter in Ryan Howard
4) And their pitching is actually BETTER on the road than the Dodgers (as the Dodgers have an extreme pitcher favoring park)

Aside from Rob Neyer, who even refers to the Good Phight article, the Phillies just don't seem to be getting any respect nationally. Which is fine by me. The national press is lazy and usually gets it wrong. They run with hype instead of taking the time to look at reality.

I know that the Dodgers won't be push overs and the Phils most certainly could lose as it's just a best of 7 game series. (luck plays a bigger factor in short term results- the poker player in me knows this) But, don't worry about the big bad Dodgers, the Phils are a better team right now and have a better chance to win this.

We get the best of both worlds, we get to be the inspiring underdogs and the favorites at the same time. So when we win, we'll be the hyped team in the World Series.

Don't cry over spoiled milk.

2008-10-08T10:10:00.005-04:00

One of the things about being married for over 10 years and being together for 14 years total is that you tend to get annoyed by stupid shit that your spouse does without fail. I know for a fact that I am guilty of my own transgressions so please don't think that I think I am without sin. My concept of what is "on time" bugs the crap out of Lynn as I get antsy if we aren't 15 minutes early to everything. I leave my dirty socks in the living room at the end of the night and I'm lazy when it comes to emptying the ice cube trays and refilling them. Lynn's quirk is that she always forgets to put dairy products back into the fridge.

Perhaps she forgets to put other things back into the fridge and I tend to only notice the butter, margarine, creamer, milk, cheese and sour cream more often since it is more apt to spoil after being out of the fridge. Perhaps, she's being passive aggressive and knows that it annoys me and she does it on purpose. I am of the theory that the dairy turns invisible to her eyes only after it is used. It could be the only logical explanation.

Don't think I'm joking about this. It may not turn physically invisible, but it could be a mental block for her. The occurrence of her leaving the dairy out has increased exponentially in the past 2 years. After dinner, it is my job to clean up since she does the majority of the cooking. At that point, I'll see the half and half or heavy cream sitting out on the counter that she used to make the chowder. Or it could be the margarine that she used to grease the pan that's sitting out and it's turned all soft. The worst is when she uses dairy for her own use and I am not there to clean it up. Sometimes, I'll venture into the kitchen for a snack and see that the cream cheese has been out for 3 hours.

Little annoyances like this are just that, little. But when your mood turns sour as the milk in my house and you get into a snit with the wife, the gauntlet is thrown down and you start to jab each other with insensitive comments about their stupid habits. "Well, at least I'm not poisoning our children with moldy cheese!" is a reply I might've used during a recent argument. All of the little annoyances you ignore over the years tend to fester inside and build up and get thrown into that hum dilly of an argument you have about 3 times a year. Then you and your spouse tend to do your best to correct the behavior for about a month until you slip back into old habits again.

At least the government sets price controls on dairy so if the milk does spoil we aren't losing much money. Again, I stress that this is no big deal. It's just funny that we can get so upset over stupid shit like this. It shows that the quality of our life is pretty good that dirty socks and warm butter is enough to throw you for a loop. It's the relative nature of things and it's a sign that things are pretty good if the worst to be upset over is spoiled milk.

O' Gary! Where art thou?

2008-10-07T19:07:00.007-04:00

I've reconnected with quite a few old friends in the last 2 years. There's only a few friends left that I'd like to know what they're up to and hear from again. Of those people, I have no idea where to find any of them. They haven't left any internet footprints as far as I can tell. No Facebook, no linkedin, no myspace, etc. Well, all except one.

My old friend Gary I have found. Thanks to a few educated guesses and some internet research, I know where he lives and works. I have sent him 2 emails. Our mutual friend, Andy, has also called and left a detailed message with his assistant. Another mutual friend, Adam, has spoken to his father and told him we are trying to contact him. I even sent him a gift via UPS with a hand written note with all sorts of personal touches. I know he is in possession of the package as UPS tracking shows he received it today.

If I don't hear from him by Friday, I can only assume that he wants nothing to do with us. While I will respect that wish, I will feel somewhat insulted and depressed at the same time. Gary was a great guy and had the best sense of humor. I was friends with him in high school and for one year in college as he also attended the University of Maryland before transferring to Rutgers. (If I recall correctly he attended Maryland because I jokingly said to him when I was a freshman there and he was a senior in high school, "If you apply, you'll get in.")

Gary was a rebel in the truest sense of the word. He didn't give a shit about authority and would mock it openly. While he wasn't a trouble maker, he would drive his parents crazy with his long jewfro locks of hair that covered his eyes and his winter coat that he would wear all year long. I would refer to that coat as his garbageman coat (and still do). That coat was an ugly olive green with a fake polyester shit-brown fur trim on the hood. The lining was neon orange and he would never zip it up and was constantly pulling at it to keep it on his shoulders.

Gary was part of the comedy team I founded during my senior year at high school that we called The BBC (Bill Behun Comedy Team). His nickname for the team was "hatchet man". The running joke was that Gary was always last to join us in our endeavors and unfortunately life is imitating art 20 years later. (which would be fine if he does finally join us for the reunion in November) Gary added his take on the absurdity of establishment during our short but productive run with The BBC.

Gary managed to attract some unusually quirky people to his clique of friends. I think it was because he didn't judge them for their strangeness as he probably felt like an outsider himself. I don't mean that he was a nerd, because he wasn't the classic pocket protector kind of guy (although, he was extremely smart). He was that awkward, tall and gangly kid who listened to punk music but wasn't scary and was instead quite approachable. He was arty without the pretension. He would love to just hang out and talk and joke around.

Somewhere, somehow and some time in the last 20 years he stopped making fun of the establishment and became one of them as he's now a personal injury lawyer. Maybe that's why he hasn't responded. Maybe he remembers what he was like and what he stood for and feels like he can't go back.

So Gary- if you ever read this, we still love you and we are still your friends. I would like to know what you have done for the past 18 years and tell you all about my family and what my life is like now. I would like to reconnect.

It's been too long, man.

Around the world in 80 minutes

2008-10-06T15:15:00.004-04:00

My Oktoberfest party was a lot of fun. Lots of beer and sausage were consumed as the German tradition dictates. The pumpkin ale was somewhat disappointing. The beer itself wasn't that bad, but I thought it would taste, well...more pumpkiny. It had a nutmeg smell but no real spicy taste nor any real pumpkin flavoring. The Sam Adams Octoberfest was great as always and the Long Trail was some really good stuff. My friend Nicole brought some Magic Hat as well so there was enough beer to get me intoxicated to say the least.

The sausage was also great, especially the veal sausage. We got it from Illg's meats and it was mind blowingly good. I did purchase way too much strudel so I had to push it on people as they were leaving. With all of those elements and add the fact that my name is Klaus, the party was certainly very German. However, as the party started to wind down to a small handful of people, for some strange reason we experienced more of an Asian flavor.

My friend, Karen, doesn't eat red meat so I can only assume she getting hungry considering we didn't offer much in the way of vegetarian or poultry. She was asking me during a conversation (and I was already quite drunk at this point) where I get my Sushi from. I informed her of Eastern Dragon, the Chinese/Japanese place down the road from us and how their Volcano roll is amazing. Lynn even added her 2 cents and recommended the New Ware Roll. Before you know it, we were ordering delivery of 3 plates of sushi. (Crazy tuna to round out the trio)

As we waited for the delivery, I began to straighten up the place a bit. I found out later that Karen was leading my wife, Karen's friend, and my wife's co-worker in different yoga poses. It later led to us devouring the sushi in no time and eventually everyone was playing Wii tennis and bowling. Thus, we added some Indian and Japanese culture to the party to make it an Eurasian experience.

If you couldn't make it this year then hopefully we'll see you next year. Unless, of course, we both die in a horrible plane crash. In which case- hold an Oktoberfest party in our honor.

Now serving at Oktoberfest

2008-10-04T09:35:00.008-04:00

My wife and I had a fun fall party last year and we've decided to do it again this year. It will most likely become an annual event. Although, as my father gleefully points out our error, Oktoberfest in Germany is actually held in September. Thus, this year we are having it closer to the beginning of the month for more authenticity. Nevertheless, most of my friends are Jewish and they have no clue anyways. We'll be serving plenty of sausages (aka "traif") and I will have lots of beer available-

In bottles, I have a fall variety pack of Long Trail beers. Long Trail is an excellent brewery located in Vermont. The variety pack includes: Long Trail Ale, Traditional IPA, Blackberry Wheat (I'm looking forward to trying that one), and their Harvest beer. We'll also have some leftover Sam Adams Cherry Wheat beer.

Harvest beer is probably the same thing as the Octoberfest beers you see all over the place now. A nice rich lager with caramel flavors and a spicy aftertaste. Which brings us to what's on tap...

I have 2 sixthles on tap. The first is a must for this time of year and is one of my all time favorite beers, Sam Adams Octoberfest. This year's brew is especially nice and goes down easy.
I also have taken a step on the wild side and decided to go crazy, I have a kegful of Jack's Pumpkin Spice Ale. Hopefully, it goes over well tonight or else I might be stuck drinking pumpkin pie for a month.

I almost got a keg of the new Budweiser American Ale. They had some to sample at the beer store yesterday and I was really surprised as to how good it was. If you get a chance to get some in a bar, I recommend it. Of all the big breweries, I think Bud and Michelob does the best job of making mass produced beer. I'll still always prefer microbreweries, but their small inroads into the profits of the big breweries has caused them to start making some decent stuff. Competition is always a good thing.

For those who couldn't make it to the party this year, I say, "Too bad, you're going to miss a good time and hopefully we'll see you next year!". For those of you who I will see tonight, I say, "PARTY!! WOOOOOOOO!!!! GO PHILS!!!"

See C.C., si? No

2008-10-02T14:48:00.004-04:00

Had a great time at the game yesterday despite some nasty weather and getting rained on for a few innings. Cole Hamels lived up to his website and pitched just about as good as you can pitch. It may have been the best Phillies' pitching performance in a playoff game including some great ones pitched by Carlton and Schilling. There wasn't much offense aside from a nice 3 run inning that was somewhat lucky (a few dropped balls by the Brewers). Plus it was a gut wrenching 9th inning to watch as Lidge was unusually unstable, although, he did manage to strike out the side. No matter how the outcome was reached, I was a happy man as it was the 1st playoff win by the Phightins since 1993.

Today, we get see which Brett Myers shows up. Brett had an awful first half that led him to a stint in the minor leagues for a few starts. When he came back he pitched better than ever and then had a few shaky games in his last two starts. I'm also nervous due to the fact that C.C. Sabbathia is starting for the Brewers. C.C. has been dominating since being traded from the Indians and was the main reason that the Brewers reached the post season despite their best efforts to fall short of the flailing Mets. The good news is that C.C. has pitched 4 times in the last 12 days. Not a good thing for a staters in today's baseball. Hopefully the Phils can make him throw alot of pitches and get their way to the soft buillpen that the Brewers sport.

Due to a mix up when I was purchasing playoff tix (I got an extra set of game 5 tix instead of getting a set for game 2) I am not attending this game. The bright side is that there's a chance that the game will be over by the time the Vice-presidential debate starts at 9pm. And I do love a good train wreck.

Here's hoping for win #2!

GO PHILIES!