Grande Pescados

Who's Gonna Drive You Home?

2012-02-14T12:20:00.001-08:00

I finally broke down and bought a car....not a new one...a pre-owned vehicle because new car prices are outrageous. Who the hell can swing the payment on a new car, even after putting money down and getting a decent interest rate? Not this guy...

So, what did I end up with? I purchased a 2006 Chevy Impala SS (that would be super sport), which is kind of a ridiculous car. I mean, the thing is a 300 hp beast of a cruiser with an all black interior and exterior and tinted rear windows. A friend of African-American persuasion told me it was a straight up brotha car, so I guess I have to start smoking menthol Kools and ordering purple drank when I hit the bars. Or not. I think it looks more like a Russian gangster mobile, myself.

Whitney Houston died. I didn't feel an ounce of anything upon hearing the news. Her music meant sweet eff all to me. In the end, she was a drunken base head and her appetite for destruction caught up to her. But who the hell didn't see this coming? She has been in a downward spiral since marrying that buffoon Bobby Brown.

Good to see the Grammys had no problem being a vehicle for the 'forget Chris Brown beat the piss out of Rihanna' movement. Seriously, Chris Brown has yet to actually own up and apologize for what he did, going so far as to name his latest sh*t album F.A.M.E. (forgiving all my enemies)...because it was his enemies that tried to hold him accountable for his cowardly and disgusting behavior, right? Someone needs to beat him with the same fury he beat Rihanna with...and all of you posting on Twitter how you'd let Chris Brown beat you because you find him attractive...kindly GFY, okay? Thanks for playing...

Coldplay sucks. I don't get their appeal at all...they are bland, banal, and Mr. Paltrow is almost as annoying as his wife. I did enjoy the Beach Boys tribute, however, and I don't even like the Beach Boys. That goofy kid from Foster The People would make a great Brian Wilson if they ever do a biopic of that loony guy. Adam Levine didn't even really bother me that much, and Maroon 5 is not a band I'd consider ever calling 'good'.

Oh, Taylor Swift...you weren't fooling me with that banjo you weren't playing and that microphone that wasn't plugged in. Yeah, you pre-recorded your vocals because last time you sang live at the Grammys it was an unmitigated disaster. I'm not sure what was going on with the Country Bear Jamboree stage set either... and please stop with the patented 'Taylor Swift Surprise Face' when you win awards and what have you. It's getting old and your humble act is now coming across as contrived...and someone saying you can't sing doesn't make them mean, it makes them honest. I'm not sure where your career is headed, but at some point your fanbase of tweens is going to grow up and leave you behind.

That's about all of the Grammys I watched before the melatonin kicked in...and that's about all I could deal with. Adele has a lovely voice and is a great talent, but her music isn't for me...so I didn't have much use for the Grammys since the show was one big Adele love fest.

Ya know who I do kind of like? Colbie Cailatt, that's who...some of her songs, and not the one that is going to be played at weddings for the next 15 years, have a Todd Rundgren vibe to them. I also like the fact that she was turned down for American Idol twice because eff American Idol, that's why. Aside from Kelly Clarkson, there hasn't been a decent AI winner or contestant. Carrie Underwood has some pipes, but like Adele she just isn't for me. I've always appreciated Kelly Clarkson's voice and her determination to do things her way, even at the expense of some of her fan base. Yeah, some of her tunes are silly, but she can wail.

Happy Valentine's Day, the ultimate no win holiday because no matter how hard you try, you will always come up short in her eyes. Peace!

No Sweat

2012-02-01T20:52:00.000-08:00

My workout goal each and every day is to burn at least 500 calories on the treadmill and/or run 3.25 miles in under 36 minutes. I can usually exceed the calorie count by at least 100, but knocking out 3.25 miles in 36 minutes can be murder on my knees, especially on days I have to ease into the pace...which is most days. That means I have to pick up the pace during the middle portion of the run to make my goal. Either way, by the end of my workout (during my lunch hour at work)I'm a complete disaster and cranking out some serious BTUs. By disaster I mean 'sweating like a stuck pig in the middle of a Georgia heat wave'. It takes me forever to cool down...even after a leisurely cool shower. I'll get back to my desk and sweat is still pouring down my bald head 20 minutes later...it's quite lovely. And charming.

Anyhoo, I pushed my run especially hard today and busted out 3.5 miles in 36 minutes and burned 786 calories in the process thanks to adding some inclines to my routine. I jumped off the treadmill, stretched some, took a quick walk outside to start cooling off, then hit the showers. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to spend as much time under cool water as I normally do as the locker room was crowded. Also, I was scheduled to interview someone about 45 minutes after I was done getting dressed, etc...plenty of time to cool off even without the lengthy shower. So, I got dressed while still pumping out more hot air than a Heat Dish and thinking I still had a big chunk of time until the interview...

When I got back to my desk, the other half of the interview team was waiting for me...our candidate was ready and waiting...I wasn't. In fact, I was sweating like Shawn Kemp during warmups after a hard night of boozin' at the UDistrict Keg...Kemp liked his Keg sized beers and plenty of them, so he was always pouring sweat after about 5 minutes of a layup drill. That was me, heading to do an interview. I was sweating through my shirt, it was running off my head...I had to try and towel off in the men's room before walking into the interview room, but it was to no avail...If no one had known better, they would have thought I was the one being put through an exceptionally grueling interview/interrogation...it was very uncomfortable, but I'm a pro and acted as if nothing was wrong...it also helped that I knew the person being interviewed, but it was still a bit awkward. I mean, my shirt was drenched, it was unsightly....

The lesson, as always, is that I'm an idiot...and don't accept interview requests that are scheduled after a work out. I may also look into one of those fat boy desk fans some chubbies keep at their desk for those days the AC just isn't working hard enough...

Stay classy!

I'm In No Mood...

2012-01-30T20:44:00.000-08:00

...to be posting, but I'm going to try this whole 500 word a day thing again. Why the sour mood, you ask? Not sure...but I think it has a lot to do with me being absolutely fed up with a lot of dumb self-centered people. The world seems to be overflowing with individuals so wrapped up in their own worlds/heads that they are oblivious to everyone and everything around them. From the asshats bringing their goddamn dogs into restaurants (and the restaurant/food establishments not having the sack to toss their asses out)to the inconsiderate cretins listening to incredibly obscene hip hop at ear splitting volume in their cars with the windows open by a playground. Human beings are absurdly stupid, and I have had enough...well, not enough to go all Michael Douglas in 'Falling Down'...but made enough to Tweet and blog about it. So, yeah...that's plenty teed off for now, right?

Not everyone is on my s-list these days, though. I'm happy to live in a nice neighborhood with awesome neighbors. So, I have that going for me...and work is pretty alright as well...sure, I have to deal with the occasional shite storm, but for the most part I'm happy...which is rare for me to be happy at work since I hate work and office politics.

And for those of you wondering why I didn't have a b-day party this year and probably won't have a Super Bowl party...I'm not sure what to tell ya. I just never got around to planning a b-day party and now the Super Bowl is rapidly approaching...maybe I'll invite some folks over...we'll see...wanna help clean up afterwards?

Snow Has Arrived

2012-01-18T08:22:00.000-08:00

Well, the weather folks were right...our wide-spread snow event showed up, late like Axl Rose, but it is here. I really wish I would have snapped a picture of the dairy section at Top Foods last night...the bread aisle as well since both were completely wiped out. A little bit of snow brings out the prepare for doom in some of us...but seriously, the milk case was almost empty, the eggs pilfered (only the high end omega-3 loaded eggs were at full capacity), and the bread aisle was in shambles. It looked like a scene straight out of a zombie or end of the world movie, stocking up for the long haul. In this case the long haul will be about 24-36 hours before the snow turns to rain and unleashes some incredibly racist urban flooding.

Stay warm folks, and remember a 4x4 is not impervious to ice...you'll slide around just as much as those of us slumming it in FWD cars...

About Those 500 Words…

2012-01-16T14:08:00.001-08:00

My promise to write 500 words a day has, like so many of my other promises, been broken. I have no excuses aside from having serious balance issues between work/life/writing. Simply put – I am having a hard time getting the creative motor running.

I think part of my trouble has been a poor diet and not enough exercise. I'm rectifying the exercise issue by pumping out 3 miles a day on the treadmill during my work lunch hour…except for today when I only ran 2.67 miles because my goddamn hamstrings decided to seize up. My hamstring troubles are well-documented, and it doesn't matter if I'm hydrated, dehydrated, taking fistfuls of vitamins and supplements, stretching or not stretching, my hammies are a nightmare. My last boss, an avid runner, told me she thinks the strength between my quads and my hamstrings is way out of whack…and she is probably correct. The problem is that if I even think about doing leg curls my hamstrings go tighter than a rusty piano string. So, leg curls are out…in are deadlifts with 40 lb dumbbells. Anything over 40 lbs and my lower back gives out. I have problems, man, serious problems. The deadlifts have not paid any dividends as I am sitting gingerly sitting in my office chair, trying not to move too suddenly or I'll cramp up. It is a tortured existence…

Diet wise I have been trying…but anyone with kids can attest how hard it can be to stick to a diet plan when you have to cook different meals for finicky eaters. My kids are carbotarians – they would live on nothing but bread, water, pasta, and fruit if I let them. Hmmm, the youngest one does love bacon though…the only child to stray off the chicken nugget reservation. Anyway, trying to appease them and cook for myself and the better half is easier said than done. Those of you that are thinking, 'just make the kids eat what you cook' either do not have kids or do not mind the ear-splitting wails that come from kids that are hungry but are on a ridiculous hunger strike. We've tried to get Maddy to try different foods and it wasn't pretty. I've seen people bite into habanero peppers with more reckless abandon than Maddy trying something as exotic as mashed potatoes. She has completely dug in to her food habits…and it's not like she doesn't eat healthy as she will eat her body weight in fresh fruit if we let her…but damn it all, at some point she is going to have to try pasta with marinara sauce! Jossy takes queues from Maddy, but with the added hurdle of her possessing Wolverine's mutant sense of smell. If anything offends her olfactory then we can pretty much count on her refusing to eat until whatever she smells is removed from a 50 foot radius beginning at her nostrils. Take all of that into consideration and imagine cooking dinner and trying to avoid carbs…it's damn near impossible unless I make scrambled eggs every night, which 2 of the 3 kids like, the other thinks they smell funny and will demand pancakes. Good times…

Speaking of good times, I watched a couple of movies this weekend. The first was 'Warrior', a much better film than I anticipated, but one that ran a little long…and even running long I felt like a lot of details were glossed over, mainly the younger brother's motivation to do some of the things he did leading up to him showing up at his father's doorstep. We are shown a lot of flashbacks and newsreel footage, but his relationship with a Marine buddies wife and his contribution to her being in the state she is in are barely even alluded to. Nick Nolte was very good as the formerly abusive likkered up father, but why his relationship is strained with his older son is never explained…something happened, but we are never told what. The fight scenes were visceral and staged well, and I've watched enough MMA to know to never judge a fighter by physical appearance. The director and fight choreographer did a fantastic job of showing how a physically overmatched fighter could defeat an opponent with strategy and technique. 'Warrior' as a film gets a solid 'B' as a movie but the title gets an 'F' – the title alone almost kept me away, a co-worker recommended it after over hearing me say I liked 'Red Belt'.

The second film we watched was 'Moneyball', which is wildly overrated…and I'm really not sure why Brad Pitt is being mentioned as an Oscar contender for best actor – he simply played Brad Pitt with John Edward's Prell girl hair. Brad Pitt is incapable of playing anyone but Brad Pitt these days. He just doesn't have the acting chops he displayed in 'Seven' and 'Fight Club'. He's just Brad Pitt playing Billy Beane as himself, which is too bad as he once displayed a hint of having some range. No more! The buzz surrounding Jonah Hill as an Oscar hopeful is just as misplaced…he plays the same character he always plays, but in a Men's Werehouse suit and glasses. The film only really crackled with life when Brad Pitt shared the screen with Phillip Seymour Hoffman, quite possibly the best character actor in the business. Hoffman captures the gruff, dour, grumpy baseball manager archetype perfectly. There were too many scenes of Brad Pitt just driving around and reflecting on his life, which did serve to underline the point that even the greatest prospects flame out, but these scenes meandered too long and killed momentum. My favorite part of the movie was the song Billy Beane's recorded for him…and I must have gotten some dust in my eye or my contact was bothering me 'cause it got a little misty in the TV room during that part of the movie (look, I make no apologies for being a total sucker for movies that play on father/daughter dynamics…I have three daughters, sue me if I get a little choked up). I was hoping 'Moneyball' would move at the same clip as 'The Social Network', but like baseball it was too slow to get out of its own way…a 'C' film at best.

Currently, I'm sitting in my office and waiting for the rest of the Snowpocylpse to hit the Greater Seattle Area. We are due for more snow and then snow with damaging winds and then rain with 'urban flooding', a phrase that just kind of kills me…I think I have hit 500 words for this post though, so I've got that going for me. Stay warm!

And One More Thing…

2012-01-10T09:28:00.001-08:00

…I would like to add to my list of non-resolution resolutions: I want to get bitten by a non-service dog at a Starbucks, Lowe's, Top Foods…any place that refuses to enforce the 'No Dogs Except Service Animals' policy. For some reason, establishments have turned a blind eye to people bringing their mutts in to stores, even the places that serve food. For example, about a week ago at the Starbuck's near my office some jacknut brought his drooly bulldog into the store…next thing you know, the dog is nosing through the food cooler (the one with the yogurt, bottled water, etc…at floor level), which is just unacceptable. This wasn't a service dog, just a pet on a leash that the owner brought into the store. Dogs are dirty and gross, and don't give me that crap about their mouths being cleaner than a human mouth because that is just flat out wrong. Dog mouths contain different bacteria and germs and viruses, like strep, that can get people sick…not to mention that their snouts are used for all sorts of nasty things. Consumers shouldn't have to worry if their yogurt cup was just on the receiving end of dog snout…a snout that just greeted a golden retriever minutes before being allowed inside the store…Top Foods has been allowing more and more dogs into their stores as well, and I don't care if the owner is carrying them around. They are handling a dog and then perusing the produce and hauling their filthy beasts through the bakery and deli sections…all the while their dogs are shedding, spreading dander, and leaving germs and disease behind.

Food establishments need to put a stop to the 'my dog is as important as a person' horsesh*t right now, hence my crusade to be bitten by a non –service dog. The way I figure it, should a non-service animal that should not have been allowed inside a store bites me then the establishment is responsible for damages….and if a dog bites one of my kids at Lowe's or Top Foods, well then…that would be something. Not that I would put my girls in harms way, but I've already dealt with a German shepherd at Home Depot growling at Maddy not that long ago. Had the dog lunged for her….that would not be pretty for the dog, the dog's owner, and Home Depot.

None of the above means I am anti-dog, I'm not…what I am is anti-dog inside stores that are not PetSmart. Dogs have no business perusing the aisles of stores not designed for them, especially if that store serves food. There are health and allergy issues at stake, not to mention serious liability damages should one of these dogs bite or lunge for another shopper. These businesses need to step up and enforce their own rules before something goes sideways for them when a dog does act out…and I plan on doing my part by attempting to pet each and every dog I see in a place they shouldn't be in…if your dog bites me, so be it…that's a discussion I am willing to have with you and store management…and if your goddamn dog is the kind of dog you have to warn others about before they try and pet them, they don't belong inside the store to begin with.

Happy Tuesday!

Touch Me I'm Sick

2012-01-08T20:13:00.000-08:00

I watched 'Contagion' over the weekend, and it was a decent enough movie even when you factor in the wildly unlikable Gwyneth Paltrow. Highlight of the movie for me, and this isn't a spoiler, was watching the top of Paltrow's character's head being sawed off during an autopsy.

'Contagion', besides being one very large and effective product placement blitz for Purelle and every other hand sanitizer on the market, was only a mediocre movie. We aren't really given a chance to know or bond with any of the main characters as they just shuffle in and out of the film. Matt Damon's character is oddly immune from the virus, but nothing is ever really done with that info...he just has an incredible constitution. Jude Law plays an annoying Aussie blogger with costume store quality bad teeth and overacts every scene he is in. I was openly rooting for him to die. Kate Winslet, as usual, is solid as a CDC doctor in the field...she's one of the few characters I actually cared about, mainly because she's vested in the goings on. If the movie had perhaps focused a little more on the effect the virus had on every day life and how a society can break down it may have made more of an impact. Instead, Steven Soderberg tried to cram too much of the technical happenings into the story so a lot of details get skipped over...there's a better movie within 'Contagion' that could be made.

So, that was Friday night - Saturday was spent running errands, cleaning gutters, and eradicating moss from the roof. Unfortunately, the Moss Out I had on hand was at least 6 years old, so a lot of the granules had formed super clusters within the canister. I spent quite a bit of time bashing the canister on the roof (while holding on to the ladder for dear life) to break the clusters apart, which isn't nearly as effective as it would seem. Therefore, the Moss Out coverage on parts of the roof was as uneven as 'Contagion'.

Saturday night we invited neighbors over to watch 'Horrible Bosses', which I was prepared to loathe. Not the neighbors, but the movie...the neighbors brought a box of red wine over, so they are good people. Anyhoo...the movie. I liked it much, much more than 'Bridesmaids', a movie that received a baffling amount of good press. That doesn't mean that 'Horrible Bosses' was a great movie, it was just better than I expected as I had very low expectations. The movie worked best when it didn't stoop to crass and coarse humor to be 'shocking'. That means every single scene with Jennifer Aniston is a train wreck of vulgar talk for vulgarity's sake. I'm not one to blush easily, but I cringed a little more than once at some of the writing and lines given to Aniston...so much so I'm surprised she took the part as she most certainly doesn't need the money. The movie is briskly paced to the point where you don't really question the cockamamie reasons each plotter gives as to why they can't simply quit their jobs and find new ones. Jason Bateman is solid, and Jamie Foxx has a very good cameo that plays off some of his earlier standup work, mainly the whole dude sippin' his drink at the bar with a straw routine. 'Horrible Bosses' is by no means a classic comedy, but it worked out nicely as a $1.00 DVDExpress expenditure for the night.

More later, just wanted to get in a quick 'Teeeeeeeeboooooooooooooooooow' before retiring for the night....! Suck on that, Steelers!

2012-01-06T09:58:00.001-08:00

I don't believe in making New Year's resolutions, mainly because I never adhere to them. How many times have I posted that I need to lose some weight and get in better shape? Exactly. So, I won't be making any New Year's resolutions this year, but I will be making the following promises to myself:

1 – Write at least 500 words per day: Easier said than done as I find that my time to write becomes more limited due to work and obligations to the family. However, I can always carve out time to pound out 500 words a day on this blog. That's not a lot of writing, but enough to keep the chops up and maybe even improve. We'll see.

2 – Get in better shape: I joined the gym in the building where my office is. It's a really nice gym with treadmills that are incredibly forgiving to my creaky knees. Now I don't have any excuses to not fit in a half hour run at the very minimum four days a week.

3 – Lay off the free weights: I'll be 42 years old in a couple of weeks and the extra bulk I'm carrying around is literally killing me. Time to let go of my obsession with the bench press…but I will toot my own horn one last time – on Dec 16, 2011 I was able to get 19 reps in at 225lbs on the bench press with no assistance from the spotter. Not too shabby…but my shoulders ached for days afterwards and there really is no need for that kind of strength in everyday life. It's not like I need to shed blockers to get to the produce section at Costco, although that would make the trips there more interesting. While I wouldn't mind looking toned, I no longer need to be burly. So, no more bench presses like I'm training for the NFL combine.

4 – Write a collection of short stories: William Young and Mark Colety inspired this one as both have self-published books recently. Anyone that knows me can tell you that I've got stories…most of them centered around drunken excess, but they are amusing and entertaining…like the infamous boat party where I met The Better Half…or the unfortunate Dave Matthews Band incident…or even the brush with greatness that was my Border's meeting with ex Doobie Brother Michael McDonald. I think it is time to capture some of those for prosperities sake and self-publish them in a hooch soaked memoire. Who knows, maybe I'll even turn a buck or two in the process.

5 – Improve this blog: Readership is non-existence, mainly because I rarely write, but also because what I have written of late has been sub-par. This will work in conjunction with the first promise on this list. I can only improve as a writer if I increase my output and 'practice'.

There you have it, my road map to success in 2012…good times, great oldies…

Going Blind Doing Paperwork...

2011-12-20T20:36:00.001-08:00

...okay parents, a little help here. How in the name of all that is holy do other families handle the reams of paper sent home from school with their kids every week? We are being buried in flyers, newsletters, Scholastic book order forms, PTA propaganda pages, drawings, art projects, homework, daily work...it is getting to the point where our kitchen counters and tables are unusable due to the stacks of paper. We have tried folders, binders, trays, bins...it always gets away from us. Add in the mail, junk mail, advertisements and catalogs and things get even sportier.

We have come to grips with the notion that every single drawing the kids complete is not a precious memory that needs to be kept forever. Otherwise, we'd be talking to the producers of 'Hoarders' to help in wrangling this situation and not hammering out a blog post three people might read...but I'm hoping one of you three have stared the dead tree monster in the face and slayed it. Do we just need to be quicker in determining what stays and what goes? We've tried that as well and guess what...we wind up with piles of papers in the 'Keep' pile!

The steps I have taken amount to changing over to paperless billing, cutting down subscriptions, and taking weekly ads to the recycling bin almost immediately. That has helped stem the tide of mail, but the paper tsunami from school is unrelenting.

I'd appreciate any tips you may have when it comes to papers from school management. We are at a loss...

Teenagers Ruin Everything

2011-11-01T08:02:00.001-07:00

I'm not sure how old I was when I stopped trick or treating, I think it was around 11 or 12. All I know is that one year I just stopped going door to door asking for candy while dressed up like a Stormtrooper or what have you. I most certainly did not go trick or treating after hitting puberty, and if I tried I'm pretty sure my parents would have prevented me from doing so. In fact, I don't remember any of my friends (all three of them) hitting the streets on Halloween night trick or treating after 6^th grade. So, I guess that's why I'm always surprised, annoyed, and disgusted by the number of teenaged kids showing up at my door on Halloween…why the f*ck are these kid's parents letting them go out to trick or treat?

When my kids hit their teen years I'm going to put a stop to the trick or treating. They can dress up and go to a Halloween party at a friend's house or to the movies, but they won't be going trick or treating. That activity should be left to the pre-pubescent set.

At one point last night two cars pulled into our cul-de-sac, both full of kids old enough to drive and smoke because all of them reeked of cigarettes. A couple of them were drinking energy drinks, and all that stuff does is turbo charge d-bag behavior. Anyway, I watched them pull up as I was trying to relight the candles in the jack-o-lanterns, so I went back inside and closed the front door…and steeled myself for their arrival. They didn't knock on the door, they pounded on it like barbarians at the gates of Rome…home invasions are carried out with more grace and tact than the knock of these dickweeds. I opened the door, got a lung full of second hand smoke, and begrudgingly gave the punks some candy…one piece each, and not the good stuff….but the off-brand Laffy Taffy we picked up somewhere last year and a couple of boxes of Nerds. I would have liked to have given them nothing, but effing kids today will come back and vandalize your house or throw an M-80 at your front door or set your car on fire. I don't trust them to not do something stupid and I really didn't want to have to hunt these kids down afterwards like some sort of suburban Punisher.

The girls had fun though, and I'd like to thank our neighbors for the pre-Halloween party with pizza and Rolling Rock. Unfortunately, my girls are the world's most finicky eaters and don't partake of pizza…or Rolling Rock. Still, they had fun mingling with the other kids...

Only one house kind of freaked them out, the one with the strobe lights, fog machines, and every single motion activated animatronic ghoul that Spirit Halloween sold this year, including one of the demonic zombie babies sitting on the steps. Maddy didn't like the smell of the fog and claimed it stung her eyes….Jossy thought they might have a dog, and dogs to her are scarier than demonic zombies babies….Katelyn wasn't too sure about the lights…but in the end they all went to the door to get their candy.

Here's hoping everyone had a safe and fun Halloween!

Putting Away Childish Things

2011-10-21T20:57:00.001-07:00

I've been a Star Wars fan since I was 7 years old, so I've been a fan for almost 35 years. In that 35 years I managed to pick up an absolute arse load of Star Wars toys. Some of it I've lugged around since 1977, some of it is newer, but all of it (or close to all of it) has got to go.

There comes a time when it is just simply time to be done with the past. I have reached that point. Oh, part of me still believes I'm making a huge mistake selling this stuff off...why am I not saving it all for my kids to have when I shuffle off? The answer is simple - they are just a bunch of toys. Sure, some of them are carrying around the stink of nostalgia and my desperate attempts to cling to the remnants of my childhood...but at the end of the day they are just toys....plastic parts molded and painted by slave labor somewhere in China. And I'm kind of done trying to recapture whatever magic toys brought to my life when I was 7 years old.

I would be kidding if I said that Star Wars wasn't important to me though. It was. I didn't always see eye to eye with my younger brother about a lot of things. We are two very different people, but we always had Star Wars. We spent hours as kids playing with the toys, making up adventures for Luke and Han as they battled the evil galactic empire. No matter how we fought or argued we knew we could always play with our Star Wars toys and get along. It was bigger then the differences in our personalities (the main difference being he had a personality, I didn't really develop one until 1984, but that's a different story), it was something we could do together...even when he had Han gun down Vader, a bit of revisionist history on par with the ending of 'Inglorious Bastards'.

Now, I could prattle on about how I saw myself as Luke Skywalker, yearning for more with my mind on the future, the horizon....adventure, excitement...a Jedi craves not these things...and neither should a 41 year old man, at least not through toys. Like the title of this post says, I'm putting away childish things...and turning a buck or two while at it.

So, why not leave the stuff for the girls? I'll break it down for you, countdown style!

One - I have a lot of stuff. A lot. A couple of plastic tubs in the garage, a couple in the house, an entire closet and shelves filled with action figures and vehicles...I'm running out of room to store it in. Also, this stuff is a pain in the ass to lug around and I don't want them dealing with that when I'm not around to help them with it. Plus, do I want my kids looking back on my life and remembering me through toys? I don't think so. The money this stuff brings in is going to help pay for soccer camps, gymnastics, etc. I'll be using the old to help my kids create new memories for themselves.

Two - I might keep a couple of 'heirloom' pieces, but that's it. One item for each kid that I have actually kept with me since 1977. Those items have some sentimental value, but that does have a price tag...so if some collector in Wisconsin hits the 'But It Now' link then we'll be looking for a new sentimental item...like my unpaid eBay invoices. The object here is to get rid of this stuff, so even keeping a couple of pieces isn't etched in stone or molded plastic.

Three - Maddy is growing up so fast and pretty soon she is going to want her own room. The Better Half would like to keep all three girls sleeping in the same bedroom like a bunch of hillbillies until they move out. Part of me does as well since that means they will be sleeping in the infamous castle bed longer...and there's no way they have slept in that thing long enough to justify the herculean amount of effort it took to construct and paint that monstrosity. However, I'm a realist and Maddy has already been poking around about getting her own room for 6 months now...she has gone so far as to pick out paint colors and bedding from PB Teen (we'll find something similar at Target for 1/2 the price...god bless ya, Target!). The Waltons bedroom setup is only going to last a little while longer...

Four - I think it's absolutely ridiculous that I have an entire room in our house devoted to my Star Wars collection. I'll be 42 years old in January and when I think of my dad at 42 he didn't have time to be collecting toys...he was busy getting stuff done, being productive, acting like an adult. Putting 3 3/4" action figures in protective cases is hardly adult like...and I think if one of the surviving members of WWII's 'Band of Brothers' saw this room they would run me through with a bayonet after punching me in the face. They fought the Germans for this?

The decision has been made, I want this stuff outta here. I've already made a few sales on eBay and will be posting more until it's all gone...but don't bother looking for any Princess Leia stuff from me, I gave all the Leia toys to the girls (along with some Luke, Han, and Lando figures) to play with so they can make their own memories...you see, that's the trouble with the past, it gets heavy after a while...it's best to live in the moments being created all around you each and every day...for everything else, there's eBay.

NBA - The McDonald's Of Pro Sports

2011-10-11T07:00:00.000-07:00

Ask most adults if they like McDonald's and I can guarantee you that a majority will give you an emphatic 'No!' as an answer...and by majority I mean 7 out of 10. Those that answer 'yes' will qualify their response with one of the following - 'I only go there because my kids like it' or 'I really like their Sausage McMuffins, everything else sucks'. If those answering no were to be believed, then McDonald's should be on the verge of bankruptcy. That, however, is not the case - McDonald's is still the most popular restaurant chain in the world. Subway may have surpassed them with stores, but they can't match the brand equity and revenue that the Golden Arches rakes in year after year. That means one of two things - a lot of people are eating their body weight in Sausage McMuffins day in and day out or kids are making the meal decisions for damn near every family on the planet...

The actual answer is that the McDonald's question is now a litmus test. Answer yes and you are a simple minded buffoon with no regard for your own or your family's health. In fact, you and McDonald's are everything that is WRONG with America and the world and you should just DIE RIGHT NOW YOU F*CKING UNENLIGHTENED MORON!!! Think I'm kidding? Just take a random sampling of your coworkers...most are going to say they don't care for McDonald's or will give an answer with some logic twisting preamble and/or disclaimer.

What does any of the above have to do with the NBA? Well, the NBA enjoyed some of its best ratings last year and league attendance averaged over 17k fans a game, a record I believe. However, if you ask most sports enthusiasts how they feel about the NBA a majority will answer they don't watch or attend games because they hate basketball and the NBA. If someone does say they watch NBA games you will be treated to the same type of mental gymnastics that you received from those answering yes to the McDonald's question...'yeah, I watch a game every now and then, but I prefer college basketball' or 'I only watch the playoffs, the regular season is a joke' or 'I can't believe the NBA let the Sonics move to Oklahoma City, f*ck the NBA in the face with a chainsaw!' Yes, well...that last statement was an actual answer from a co-worker this morning...although I added the bit about the chainsaw because chainsaws, like bacon, make everything better. Moving along...

Although the NBA's popularity was on the rise last year, it isn't considered hip to be an NBA fan. Oh no, the hipster doofus sports league to embrace, especially here in Seattle, is the MLS. This is completely understandable as the NBA shat all over Seattle by aiding and abetting the move of the Sonics to Oklahoma City. David Stern helped orchestrate that move, and it is one that I hope backfires in his face...with a chainsaw. This move left a hole that the MLS and the Sounders have filled and they have done so brilliantly...but this doesn't explain every other major city though.

I'm not sure when it happened, maybe after the lockout in 1998 or the 2001 Kings/Lakers officiating debacle, but the NBA went from the darling of the sports world to McDonald's status. Both are still popular, but no one is going to admit enjoying them as to avoid being labeled a simpleton. The dislike of the NBA runs deeper though, with elements of race and entitlement thrown into the mix. Now, I'm not one to ever play the race card, and maybe race is the wrong card to play here...we could just be witnessing a cultural paradigm shift in regards to pay and status...but I feel that there are some uncomfortable feelings surrounding young black men like Lebron James and Dwyane (can he fix the goddam spelling of his name?!?!?) Wade making so much guaranteed money and wielding so much media power. That's another discussion for another time, but it is something to consider, especially now as the lockout continues and the national U6 unemployment rate pushes up on 20%.

The NFL is America's game, no one begrudges the money NFL players make because a majority of fans know their contracts are, for the most part, not guaranteed. It is also understood that the NFL is known as Not For Long by the players, meaning they either produce on the field or they will be cut. That doesn't happen in the NBA (or MLB), so the vibe is that the NBA game suffers as the players don't have a whole lot to lose once they sign their contract. And although the NFL has been playing games overseas for decades, there has not been the push to internationalize the game the way Stern has diluted the NBA brand by trying to take it global. His pandering to Hispanic and Asian markets is embarrassing, and the league's stunt of renaming teams during Hispanic Heritage month ('Los Lakers' anyone?) last season made me want to puke all over David Stern's face...with a chainsaw. Is the NBA brand damaged goods, especially now that the lockout has wiped out the first two weeks of the season? Or does anyone even care?

I've touched on a lot of stuff here in trying to figure out how McDonald's and the NBA could be so popular yet have no one really admit to liking either one. I'm not sure what the answer is to that disparity...maybe I just know a lot of people that don't really like either one...or I know a lot of liars...what's your take?

Flogging A Dead Horse

2011-09-28T20:33:00.000-07:00

Okay, this will be my last Starbucks rant for a while. I promise, mainly because I am going to stop going there, even when the Keurig at work is broken...which is most of the time.

Oh, International District Starbucks staff...why is it so hard for you to figure out what should come naturally to you? The trains arrive at the same time each and every day give or take 5 minutes. That means at pretty much the same time every goddamn morning on every goddamn day there is going to be a goddamn rush of customers. Why do you choose these predictable and consistent rush times to send staff on break and/or to restock the one and only cream/sugar station in the store? Why don't you, oh, I don't know...make sure everything is stocked before each rush and remain fully staffed for when it is busy at the same f*cking time every morning?!?!?!? It really isn't that hard to figure out, for effs sake I put together a schedule for you in my head just sitting here...and I'm mildly retarded. Get it together, ID Starbucks!!!!

On a completely different note, I can't be trusted to make smart lunch decisions these days. I forgot to take lunch in today, so I ventured out to grab something to eat...because God forbid I miss a f*cking meal and waste away. Anycrap, the problem is that I fell off my healthy eating habit in a big way. All the weight I dropped a few weeks back has worked its way back into my life, mainly because I get sucked into eating really sh*tty food at Uwajimaya. That place blows, but it is cheap and convenient, two things that appeal to me. So, there I was this afternoon with no lunch and no motivation to go to Pike Place for a piece of fruit or Mel's for a salad. Instead, I ended up eating my body weight in rice, breaded chicken of questionable quality, and MSG laden Mongolian beef. It was a tragedy and I felt terrible afterward, so I wound up hoofing it to the waterfront to clear the crappy lunch haze from my head. And it worked, for the most part, but when I returned to work all slick with flop sweat from my walk and smelling vaguely of an Asian deep fat fryer, I was overcome with guilt and shame...shame for being so inefficient and lazy for falling into a lunch rut that is really, really bad for me. It needs to stop.

There, now I feel better for getting that off my chest...pray for me!

And Then There Were None

2011-09-27T19:01:00.000-07:00

Summer seemed to make nothing more than a brief cameo this year, fall has arrived and shoved summer out on his ass. I don't mind fall, there's quite a bit to look forward to when Autumn arrives...Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas...and I do tend to get a bit Griswold about the holidays. However, I always miss summer when it departs. I've said this before, but from a completely pragmatic point of view I only have about 22 good summers left before some sort of calamitous health event takes me down or renders me (more) physically feeble than I am now...so unless there is a stunning and economically viable breakthrough in robotics or bionics in the next 20 years or so, the summer of 2033 isn't going to be all that much fun for me.

Yes, well...that was depressing.

Sooooo, yeah...I still hate the Starbucks in the International District. The remodel makes about as much sense as Chinese sign language to me. Someone from corporate store design needs to come down and gaze upon the disaster their vision has wrought. It is pure effing chaos in that place when it is only moderately busy, when crowded it's the equivalent of a marketplace in Mogadishu (Blackhawks optional) or the Renton WalMart (minus the tire fires in the parking lot). I think the only place designed more inefficiently and staffed with less motivated employees would be the Krusty Pup or scone stands at the Puyallup Fair...goddamn, it takes less time filling out first time patient paperwork at a dental clinic than it does trying to order a corn dog at the fair. I cut the fair some slack because the booths are staffed by dipshit DECA dorks, very special people, and their parents, but Starbucks earns every atom of rage I throw their way. They should know f*cking better than to try and corral everyone into the center of the store! Ugh.

Wow, so speaking of dentists, I visited an absolute loon of a dentist a couple of weeks ago. Now, I could have looked past the greasy hair, the neonish pink shirt, and the ill fitting dress trousers...dentists can be wacky that way. What I couldn't get past was when he asked to compare wallets with me, his fumbling attempts to give me a soul brother hand shake, and his borderline inappropriate comments about my skin tone. Oh, and he told me that if I decide to have my wisdom teeth pulled I would miss about three weeks of work. Yep, three weeks. Because one of the teeth is crazy sideways. He said removing that tooth would be the equivalent of a compound break of my femur. And there would be an 80% chance the right side of my face would be numb from the nerve damage from the extraction, but hey, Sly Stallone has a numb face and everything worked out for him! If I don't get the tooth pulled then I have a 1 in a 1000 chance of getting inoperable cancer from it...then he saw the horrified look on my face and changed the odds to 1 in 10,000. So I have that going for me. Anyhoo, I won't be going back to that quack anytime soon, especially since the hygienist liked to play rough. My goodness, I had never, ever experienced pain the way I did in that dentist's chair. It was blinding at times and two of my teeth still hurt from whatever it was she did to them. I won't print the dentist's name, but if you email me I'll be more than happy to give you that info so you can avoid them at all costs.

Lastly, I have picked what appears to be the end of the corn I planted. What I have picked so far was pretty good, if not a little underdeveloped. I'm not sure if I want to plant it again next year, although the girls want me to. They really enjoyed watching it grow and picking it, along with the tomatoes and peppers. If the corn had turned out better I was prepared to plow under the entire back yard and turn it into a cornfield next year...but that didn't happen. Too bad, I was looking forward to buying a brand new combine and then having John Cougar Mellenhead write a song about me when I missed a couple of payments and the auction man came to take it away....

Begun Anew, The Rodent Wars Have

2011-09-15T13:24:00.001-07:00

The end of summer renews my hostilities with the local field mouse population. They want a warm place to make nests and spit out their vermin brood, I'd prefer they do so elsewhere or die a snappy mouse trap death or a miserable warfarin induced slow death…the choice is theirs to make, I'm a sweetheart that way.

Anyhoo – this year I have decided to try finding where they are getting into the house and crawl space. That means donning a Tyvek suit and other protective gear plus a respirator to enter the crawl space searching for any entry points the mice may have and sealing it off. And placing a glue trap or two around it baited with D-Con. I might throw a mountain lion down there as well to scare the little bastards off.

Going into the crawl space is not my favorite thing in the world. While I don't believe the flesh eating creatures from The Descent reside down there, other things do…like maybe the hanta virus…and giant spiders…and mice. In other words, not good times.

I really wish the mice would just take a hint and take up residence somewhere else….

Don’t Let’s Start

2011-09-15T08:32:00.001-07:00

This blog has come to another screeching halt. Part of the problem has been time, as in a lack of due to raising kids and not wanting to ignore The Better Half. The other issue has been a crippling case of self-induced writer's block. I have several posts in the hopper, but I have been hesitant to pull the trigger and getting them published. Why? Well, it's because I have been afraid of offending people. Yes, you read that correctly…I don't want to offend the tender sensibilities of Facebook friends that may visit this blog from time to time…

When I started the original Grande Pescados back on WordPress, it was surprisingly successful. I developed a decent readership and would sometimes get over 1,000 hits a day. The high points of the original Grande Pescados blog was my correspondence with Dave Wakeling of The English Beat/General Public fame and my bitchy slap fight with a Counting Crows band member. Not bad for a tatty blog that I didn't do anything to advertise. The 'new' Grande Pescados is lucky to get 5 hits a day…and that's with me posting links to the site on Facebook. This has been discouraging, to say the least.

The lack of consistent readership has been a motivation killer. I can admit to that, but the main reason no one has been reading this blog is that it hasn't been very entertaining…my writing has been stifled and self-censored, making my posts boring as hell. I've been so afraid of turning people off with my opinions and sometimes abrasive style that I have become an effing drag when it comes to writing damn near anything.

I started Grande Pescados because I wanted an outlet for my thoughts and opinions and to entertain my readers with a chuckle or two. I'm never going to make everyone happy, but in trying to do so I've made no one happy…including myself. That has to change if I am going to continue this blog, which is what I plan to do.

So, thanks again for stopping by. If any of the past or future content offends or upsets you then this isn't the blog for you. If you disagree with anything I've written or want to add to it, please leave comments. And for eff's sake, people, learn how to take a joke…okay?

This Week In Rage

2011-08-23T20:32:00.000-07:00

I really, really do not understand some of the decisions that get made by corporate types. Take, for example, Starbucks and the remodel of their International District store. The person responsible for that remodel needs to be fired immediately. It is a giant steaming cup of dysfunctional social engineering with an extra shot of effing fail. Why Starbucks thought it would be good idea to consolidate the two sugar/creamer stations into one and then place that station in the same area customers wait for their drinks is beyond me. Before, there was one station near the back of the store and another near the front. That set up worked out just fine. If one was busy, you went to the other. Now, the solitary station is always goddamn busy...and usually out of something. Why? Because some boneheaded sociology major with a minor in marketing at Starbucks corporate office felt that would add to the effing Starbucks communal customer experience. Well, I f*cking hate it. It was a stupid decision and it needs to be reversed post haste! The flow of the store is all c*cked up now because customers are forced to mill around right smack in front of the barista station waiting for their drinks. You have to elbow your way to get to the sugar/cream and then dick around there for a few minutes waiting for room to open up...it sucks, especially if you are in a hurry...which brings me to my next point of rage...

Hey, f*ck face that thinks the sugar/cream station is your own personal counter space...get your cream, add your sugar, and MOVE THE F*CK ON!!!! Seriously, the next person that pulls the add a dash of half & half, stir, take a sip, add some sugar, stir, take a sip, add another splash of half & half, stir, take a sip, is going to get beaten in ways Lifetime hasn't found a way to depict yet. You've been warned.

Oh, and I've stopped tipping at Starbucks when I order drip coffee. I no longer tip for two reasons - one, the barista isn't doing anything I couldn't do for myself if I had to. Two, they leave absolutely no room for cream. At all. Ask for a venti drip with room and your cup will be as full as a venti drip with no room. I've heard some customers go so far as to order a grande drip in a venti cup, but methinks they are partaking in a variation of the ghetto latte. I don't play that game. Instead, I dump about a 1/4 cup of coffee into the trash can. It sucks to be the employee that takes the garbage out and a bag breaks that is full of discarded coffee. Maybe that unfortunate soul can pass on to the baristas pouring the drip coffee that 'with room' means with room. Until then, no tips for drip coffee...and I suppose I'll continue to get sh*tty looks from the Starbucks employees that ring me up. I'd go to Tully's, but the creepy gnome with Civil War reenactment enthusiast facial hair gives me the heebee jeebees. And Tully's coffee blows...

Yes, well....

Specialty's is another place that has been irritating me lately, mainly due to a subtle, yet noticeable, change in the vernacular of their cashiers. About a month ago the cashiers stopped asking 'for here or to go?', changing it to 'for here or take away?'. I'm not really sure why that change pisses me off so much, but it does....to the point where I make it a point to say 'to go' when answering. It's all I can do to not scream 'TO GO' in their unsuspecting faces...I suppose I'm a gentleman that way...take away my arse!

I feel much better now. Thanks for stopping by....!

Hello Kitty and Powerman

2011-08-02T10:17:00.001-07:00

Now, the title of this post isn't referring to some new manga...it's a reference to one of my previous posts, the one where I said I fixed my oven with some Hello Kitty post-it notes.

If you own a GE oven made from 1998 to present, I would become familiar with this site. 'Powerman' is the gent that has been posting this very cheap fix for the F7 error codes GE ovens are notorious for....

Slippin' And A Slidin'

2011-08-01T20:25:00.000-07:00

I bought the girls a Slip & Slide at the end of the school year. However, since this has been the sh*ttiest summer I can remember since the summer of 1993, it has sat unused in the garage. Something resembling summer finally reared its head last weekend, so we were able to break the thing out.

Now, Slip & Slides have not changed a lot over the years. Gone are the days of metal stakes to keep the thing pinned to the ground, replaced by a reservoir of water at the tail end and two plastic stakes up top. It's still a thick sheet of plastic with water squirting over it. The treachery of the blasted thing remains intact as well. Oh, I remember watching my friend Sean Ash damn near brain himself on our Slip & Slide in Montclair, CA back in 1977. He miscounted his steps on his approach run and his feet flew out from under him, flipping him onto his back and slamming his head into the turf. He was most certainly concussed...and probably never the same again...

Anyhoo, happy memories of internal head injuries and deadly cranial pressure aside, I bought a Slip & Slide for the girls...and they love it. Especially, Madelyn...she's a pro. Unfortunately, the Slip & Slide is absolute murder on the lawn. By the time the girls are finished sliding around they have worn a pretty deep groove in the grass. This is because of the amount of top soil I had to use when putting the lawn in and the poor drainage due to the cement like glacier till underneath said top soil. When I pulled the Slip & Slide up Saturday evening it looked like a meteor slammed into the lawn and dug up a trench. I was kind of expecting to see baby Superman at the end of the ruined stretch of lawn...but no such luck. There was just a puddle of muddy water. Side note - had there been a baby Superman on my lawn you bet your sweet arse I'd have him playing sports when he hit his teens and dominating! He would go pro in EVERYTHING! Baby Superman = license to print money!!!!

Uh, so yeah, where was I? Oh, the lawn...RUINED! Well, no. But it looked bad, so I had to fetch some top soil and grass seed and do some repair work. We'll see how it goes. Next time the girls want to use the Slip & Slide we'll just go the YMCA for family swim. Kidding. Although I was a little irritated that the lawn was trashed, I couldn't get too upset. The girls were crazy happy on that sheet of plastic and grass grows back...there's only a small window of time where my kids are going to be kids and I plan on letting them enjoy their childhood. I am > Joseph Jackson...

Please Report To The Mainstage!

2011-07-20T19:57:00.000-07:00

This post was originally going to be about my 5 favorite summer songs, but this summer has sucked a mountain of monkey ass so I am going to pass on that topic.

Since the notorious 'Rick's' on Lake City Way was recently purchased I figured I'd write a post on the 5 songs you will always hear at the strip joint you go to for the next bachelor party you attend. I'm going to come clean, I've been to Rick's back in the day...once for a bachelor party and alcohol was involved and then a couple other times when more alcohol was involved. It's not something I'm exactly proud of, but hey, it was something to do. I mean, there were only so many times you could roll to The Romper Room to hit on and dance* (badly) with sorority girls with too many starchy foods in their diet, right? No? Let's move on....

*I once pulled my left calf muscle at The Romper Room dancing with a girl from the local Alpha Phi house to 'Love Roller Coaster'. I had to limp off the floor and then spent the rest of the night icing my calf in a booth. It wasn't one of my better performances.

Disclaimer - this post is in no way an endorsement of the stripper lifestyle, nor do I condone patronizing strip clubs...especially now that I am the father of three girls. I'm a wee bit more sensitive now. This post is for entertainment purposes only and a post I've had kicking around in my head since 2001...before I even had a blog. Please keep that in mind....thanks!

These songs aren't ranked by order of preference since 3/5 of them are horrible songs. Instead, I've ranked them by the level of, um, performance art involved by the dancer...and then viewed through the prism of the only Canadian strip joint I ever went to, Brandy's in Vancouver for my brother's bachelor party. Rick's was low rent and skeevy, Brandy's was thisclose to being a Vegas style show...or so I told myself as I shelled out $100.00 USD (back when USD meant something, I might add!) for a 'VIP Booth'. Hey, your brother only gets married once, right?

Let's boogie!

5. Cherry Pie - Warrant: There are songs that are vapid and stupid that I enjoy...Prince's 'Cream' comes to mind. Then there are songs like 'Cherry Pie' that are just idiotic. And vapid...but not in a manner that comes within striking range of enjoyable. I'll admit that I loathed Warrant, they were no talent ass clowns that appealed to an audience I didn't understand. But I'm not here to debate the relevance of Warrant. They managed to record a song that will live forever within the walls of strip clubs the world over. This song is for your just off the bus stripper with a heart o' gold. A basic plodding and bombastic hard rock tune, perfect for the gal that only has rudimentary dance/pole moves. An elementary song for a paint by numbers performance. Side note - if I saw Warrant lead singer Jani Lane at Target I would probably punch him in the throat.

4. Panama - Van Halen: I love this song. So do strippers. 'Panama' is the perfect song for the hangin' on by a thread older dancer to perform to. It's frantic and thrashes about like a marlin at the end of an electrified fishing line...but, it also has that quiet section where David Lee Roth goes into his soliloquy about making adjustments to the driver's seat in his car, giving an aging dancer needing to catch her breath. There's only so far that performance enhancing drugs (read: cocaine) will take you. Sometimes you need to take a breather.

3. You Shook Me - AC/DC: This song (and the next) are guaranteed to make white girls dance at wedding receptions. What kind of stripper does her thing to 'You Shook Me'? The kind that still has her fast ball working but doesn't want to over use it. This tune gives her perfect cover to throw junk in between giving the audience the heater...and when she does it more than makes up for the hanging curve balls and worm burners she sent bouncing in front of the plate. Confident, mature, with the moxie and experience to work the pitch count in her favor is what describes this working girl.

2. Poor Some Sugar On Me - Def Leppard: This song blows. In fact, all of 'Hysteria' blows...but 'Pour Some Sugar On Me' was scientifically created to appeal to drill team types, shy girls at wedding receptions, and strippers. So it's got that going for it. Now, your average stripper just can't saunter out to the main stage and do what she does to this song. That just isn't going to work. There are a couple of tempo/dynamic changes, so she's going to have to adjust her game accordingly. Gentlemen's Club patrons may not be into high falutin culturally relevant entertainment, but they can tell when someone's winging it. The gal we saw at Brandy's had a full blown routine worked out that involved a chair, a leopard skin rug, and Jolly Rancher candy that she tossed into the crowd (our VIP booth was too far from the action to score any Jolly Ranchers...still bummed about that). She was a pro's pro. Side note - as we were leaving the club this dancer jumped into the elevator with us. I was completely intimidated and couldn't make eye contact. My brother, however, was not and asked her for the name of the best dance club in town and if she would like to accompany us to said club. When she asked what kind of dance club we were looking for he said, 'hip hop'. She gave our party a quick look over, smirked and sighed simultaneously and replied, 'you guys aren't hip hop club material'. With that she exited the elevator, climbed into a waiting Town Car, and was whisked out of our lives and into the Vancouver night. We wound up getting into a huge argument with a cab driver and had to walk the mean Canadian streets back to our hotel...with no visits to dance clubs hip hop or otherwise.

1. Sweet Child O' Mine - Guns & Roses: This is one of the most iconic power ballads of the 1980's, even though I don't consider it a ballad. It moves at a much brisker pace than say, 'Home Sweet Home'. The fact that this song, with lyrics an ex of mine described as 'tender', was written by a misogynistic borderline sociopath like Axl Rose is somewhat ironic. Rose's history of violence towards women is well documented, yet he was still able to come across genuinely vulnerable during the first two verses of this song. Axl of course ends this tune with his trademark menacing growl, further illustrating the complicated nature of the former William Bailey's existence. Axl Rose has some serious issues. The same could be said for any stripper that chooses 'Sweet Child O' Mine' as their signature song. Coming out and shimmying around would do this song a grave injustice. This song requires a performance, a story to be told through movement...even if that story is one of fatherly neglect or something far more sinister. The tone of 'Sweet Child O' Mine' changes dramatically after the second guitar solo. Gone are Axl's plaintive vocals, replaced by the pentatonic pyrotechnics of Slash. Gone too is Axl's willingness to open up and wax poetic about the object of his affection, left is confusion...as if Axl is no longer certain as to what comes next now that he has opened up. 'Where do we go now?' is repeated over and over. And it is this phrase and the music that accompanies it transforms this song into the ultimate stripper's anthem. I believe that the last two minutes of this song were a form of primal scream therapy for Axl Rose. The closing stanza has a cathartic effect on the dancer too, giving her the opportunity to physically work out the rage and trigger the emotional fault lines that crisscross her heart and soul. Why pay a therapist when you can get paid to release the turmoil and confusion left in the wake of a dysfunctional daughter/father relationship? It's a psycho-therapy session set to a 4/4 beat, some major chords, and the cat caught in a combine vocal screechings of Axl Rose...and you get paid while doing it. This was the closing number that the headliner at Brandy's finished her set with. By the time the song was over I'm pretty sure I needed therapy. It was at that moment when it kind of dawned on me that strippers are all kind of emotionally damaged and willing to exploit (and be exploited) themselves for a few bucks or loonies. Think about that next time the bachelor party you are attending barges through the doors of a strip joint...but not so much that you forget to tip your waitresses and/or finish that bottle of Grey Goose you dropped $125 on.

Mr. Handycapable

2011-07-20T19:32:00.000-07:00

By no stretch of the imagination do I consider myself 'handy' or 'skilled' when it comes to manual labor (manual labor...wasn't he the president of Mexico in the 1930's?). In fact, I am closer to being completely inept than proficient when it comes to making most household repairs...and we are talking remedial tasks like replacing defective light switches (electricity gives me the heebee jeebees). However, over the course of the last month or so I have managed to string together a few repair successes.

It all started when various appliances and machines around the house became sentient and schemed to torment me. If you recall, a couple of months ago the oven started acting up, the garage door jumped the tracks and bent the railing, and various light switches around the house decided to stop working. I first tasted victory repairing the garage door with some WD-40, a rubber mallet, and a pair of vice grips (I took Walt Kowalski's advice to Thao to heart).

After taking a couple of well-deserved victory laps, I decided to tackle the oven. Our oven had been acting schizo for months, throwing various errors that hinted at a control panel issue. I called GE and was told that a tech call would cost $75 to just come out, $75 an hour, the cost of parts and tax...and maybe even a convenience charge if they didn't like how I looked. When I added it all up the repair of the oven was going to cost around $650.00. Now, I don't know about you, but spending $650.00 bucks these days just isn't something I like doing. So, I turned to YouTube, searched my error messages, and found a quick tutorial on insulating the ribbon cables inside the control panel. What happens is that the particular wall oven I have is prone to humidity and steam causing the ribbon cable to short out. To stop this the ribbon cables have to be kept apart. A couple of Hello Kitty post-it notes placed in strategic areas of the control panel solved the issue. I think Walt Kowalski would be proud, Hello Kitty post-its be damned!

I have also managed to patch a small hole in the garage floor, replace some sprinkler heads, and fix some bad PVC piping. Not too bad for a guy that back in high school put a spare tire on his bitchin' 1973 Mercury Comet inside out. Yes, tires can be put on inside out...and no, it will not spin properly.

All Summer Long

2011-06-27T20:38:00.001-07:00

Kid Rock is not a favorite of mine. When he burst onto the scene with his, um...special blend of rap and metal, I wasn't impressed. His fan base seemed to be comprised of people that thought Limp Bizkit was too highbrow. Kid Rock made music for meatheads. He's somehow managed to stick around by morphing into some kind of southern rock statesman and has been taken in by the country music establishment. Maybe they believe he gives Dierks Bentley street cred or something. I'm not sure...is there someone we can ask?

Anychiz, about 99.9% of the time I kind of wish someone would beat Kid Rock within an inch of his life with a burlap sack filled with frozen Cornish game hens. I dislike him as an 'artist' that much...but then he went and recorded 'All Summer Long', one of the best summer time songs I can remember. I don't forgive Kid Rock for the crimes against humanity he unleashed upon the world up until 'All Summer Long' came out last year (or was it the year before?), but the burlap sack used to pummel him can be lightened by a hen or two...and maybe a wing from a third. The rest stay to extract payment for 'Bawitdaba'.....

When I can conjure any sort of motivation, I'll post my 5 favorite 'Summer Songs'...maybe even before summer ends!

*Sings to self...'drinkin' whiskey out the bottle...'

1994 Camry With Oil Leak

2011-06-09T20:26:00.000-07:00

I've been chasing oil leaks in the Camry for over 2 years now. The latest leaks are coming from the rear main seal and, from what I can tell, the high pressure hose that appears to be attached to the power steering pump...this is a 6 cylinder engine and it still starts with no problems and has plenty of power. I just don't know if I should sell this thing for $1000 bucks, trade it in for half that, or sink another $1000 dollars (or more) into it to try and stop the leaks. The exterior is in okay shape, but the interior is a borderline disaster. I'm leaning towards selling it for what I can get rather than have it repaired...my big fear is that even a new rear main seal will leak given the age of the engine and the fact that it has close to 265k miles on it.

What to do, what to do?!?!?

Radio Gaga

2011-06-09T19:49:00.000-07:00

I just finished successfully mowing the lawn with the non-self propelled mower that The Better Half thought I was too feeble to shove around the yard. Yes, well. The lawn is mowed, and I was able to remain (mostly) upright afterward.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world....sales of Lady Gaga's 'Born This Way' cliff dived into the abyss last week. After selling close to 1.2 million copies during the first week of release (440k of those sales were of the Amazon.com 99 cent special variety), 'Born This Way' only moved 185k units week 2...that's an 85% decline. Does this mean the bloom is off the Gaga rose? Possibly...'Born This Way' the song was much better when it was called 'Express Yourself' and performed by Madonna. The other cuts on the album are even weaker. Take away the exploitation and pandering to her gay audience (a page out of the annoying and talentless Kathy Griffin playbook), the contrived spectacle, and her posing as a bullied outsider and all you have left is a mediocre pop singer that can't dance. She's a female version of Papa Doc/Clarence from '8 Mile', a prep school dandy going full reverse status. 'Poker Face' was a legitimately good pop song...everything since then has been crap. A performer with 10 million Twitter followers and 30 million Facebook fans that only sells 1.3 million albums should have one very nervous record label convulsing with fear.

ESPN's Bill Simmons, aka The Sports Guy, kicked off his new website yesterday. Grantland has been underwhelming so far, but it is most definitely brought to you by Subway, home of the pressed meat bits sub sandwich. Simmons used to be one of the few writers on the interwebs that would get a chuckle out of me...then he went and started working for Jimmy Kimmel and, as he himself would say, lost his fastball. His 'Book Of Basketball' was very good, but his Celtics bias was evident from page one. We'll see if Grantland reawakens Simmons the writer, or just be another outlet for his self-indulgent/congratulatory podcasts.

Go Mavs!

Good News/Bad News

2011-06-06T20:11:00.001-07:00

I finally located the missing water feature pump over the weekend. That's the good news - the dastardly pump managed to slip behind the heavy duty shelving in the garage, hoping to avoid a summer of hard labor spent pumping water through fiberglass rocks.

The bad news is that I was lead to the pump by a ghastly trail of dried rodent blood. I fight a semi-annual war with the field mice that make their way from the greenbelt to the house. Their big offensive occurs in the fall, but every spring the hantavirus carrying vermin test my perimeter defenses. The poor bastard that led me to the pump set a trap off that clamped down on it's hindquarters, and the amount of flailing that transpired must have been epic in proportion to the mouse's diminutive stature. This mouse was going to his inevitable demolition roaring like a mighty lion and thrashing like, um...some animal that thrashes when trapped. (Note - I'm not a zoologist) Anyhoo, as I was cleaning up the carnage from the lil' varmint's struggle to save his own miserable plague ridden life, I peaked behind the shelves...and there was the pump. While I feel bad that a rodent had to lose his life in order for me to stumble upon the missing pump, I am thankful all the same. That mouse's inability to set a trap off head first saved me $40.00....although I may have used close to that amount in bleach while cleaning the garage.

My electric razor is still missing, here's hoping a dead badger doesn't figure in the eventual location of that gadget.

In other news, I'm still fat and my knees are giving out at an alarming rate. I may have to stop running on the treadmill because no amount of ice and anti-inflammatory medication is mitigating the pain and discomfort. I could hardly leave my desk today, and when I did get up my first couple of steps would have made Fred Sanford look spry. I know I've b*tched and moaned about my knees before, but this is different. In the past I would drop a few elbees and run through the pain as it would eventually subside. This pain is constant though, and I know my right knee is bone on bone grinding on bone with little bits of bone and cartilage making things that much more interesting. I'm going to have to stop running...bottom line. If I'm going to be remotely mobile in my 40's then I'll have to sacrifice the treadmill time.

I didn't run tonight, but I did take the bike out for a spin. I made it up the big incline without going into cardiac arrest, so I had that going for me. Unfortunately, I was in so much oxygen debt when I finished the climb I was afraid I was going to get the bends when I eventually caught my breath. Biking didn't kill my knees the way running did, but I still iced down and stretched out. Here's hoping I can walk to the train tomorrow without wincing.

Oh, and Japan is finding plutonium over a mile away from the failed nuclear plant...and a mutant ear-less bunny was located near the plant as well...and it more than likely has an insatiable appetite for human flesh. This is how zombie apocalypse scenarios begin, my friends....